Podd: Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Sega Consoles

25 november 2024 | min

Nice Thinking: "Iterative Game Jam"

21 november 2024 | min

Puzzle Systems (with Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari)

15 november 2024 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Soapbox Derby OF TIME"

7 november 2024 | min

Tutorialization with Puzzles (with Luke Spierewka)

1 november 2024 | min

"Please go vote." Runtime Asset Management; Double Jump vs. Dash

24 oktober 2024 | min

Combat Design (with Timothy Staton-Davis)

17 oktober 2024 | min

“That’s way too many pawns.” Communicating Difficulty; Remixed Play Modes

11 oktober 2024 | min

"Numbers go up." Scoring 101; Turning off the Gamedev Brain

3 oktober 2024 | min

Optimization (with Jarryd Huntley)

26 september 2024 | min

"It's hard how my mind works." Audio Middleware; Psychic Distance

19 september 2024 | min

Nice Thinking: "Player Personas"

12 september 2024 | min

In this episode the boys are back in Minneapolis, but they are still thinking about their time with Ellen in Duluth, or Roboluth ;) s

So they are using this episode to talk about instructions, again, but this time though the lens of the different types of "user personas" who will be reading it.

Instructions

What is Roboston?

Roboston is a tabletop game that the the Nice Games Club came up with during an podcast Game Jam Episode. For anyone new to the podcast, we recommend starting two episodes back (at 362), for some background on the game. For those of you who wish for a full memory restoration, here is the full episode list:

The original Nice Game Jam where Roboston was concieved

Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020)

A follow up episode 197 continues the devlopment because they were so excited about Roboston

Roboston! (part 2)

The club worked on the game over winter break in 2020-21, episode 207 summarizes what they worked on.

"It’s March tomorrow."

We again visited Roboston over our 2023-24 winter break, and talk about in in episode 337

"The Roboston Sessions"

Mark and Steven visit Ellen in Duluth where they play a bunch of Roboston

"Apply your context, thusly."

Rulebook is

More than a script for “the teach”

Verbal and visual (and, increasingly, multimedia)

Define your Players

Steve Bromley

Game User Research

Define your Players

User persona is the UX term, Player persona is used in games

Things to add to the FAQs

Does the value affected by the repeater also get multiplied if you’re adding a part?

Does the value for a new part always have to come from the torso?

Can you send the robot without having arms/legs/heads?

How many dice should I try to go for in this check?

Player Personas

1. Roboston new players

Box inventory list

Anatomical diagram of a robot

Game setup diagram (game as a whole, what’s in your hand)

Reference cards (player actions, game phases, etc.)

2. Roboston experienced players

Table of contents

Stats for nerds

Index (?)

FAQ section

3. Inexperienced tabletop game players

Invitation to play, sense of fun

Build trust with the player as the rulebook progresses

4. Experienced tabletop game players

Resource, reference

Allow them to get right to the core, fast

The Duluth Basement Session

6 september 2024 | min

"Apply your context, thusly." Instructions; Cynicism

29 augusti 2024 | min

"The lensing effect of the window." Theming vs. Aesthetics; Parries

22 augusti 2024 | min

Accessibility (with Dave McKee)

15 augusti 2024 | min

"Imagine it's running on a potato." Targeting Multiple Platforms; Spirit Island Spirits

9 augusti 2024 | min

Physics 101 (with Scott Lembcke)

1 augusti 2024 | min

"Gentlemen, is this where the fisticuffs occur?" Familiarity; Pacing Mechanics

25 juli 2024 | min

Nice Games Jam: "The Bike Boom"

18 juli 2024 | min

"Ellen's going to be so mad!" Creative Direction; Time Management

12 juli 2024 | min

The Intersection of Puzzle and Story (with Ron Gilbert)

5 juli 2024 | min

"The super-powerful beam or whatever." Code Libraries; Game Overs

27 juni 2024 | min

Game Production (with Ryan Adams)

20 juni 2024 | min

"One thing cannot hold all the passion I have." Pivoting; Working on Multiple Projects

13 juni 2024 | min

Creative Process & Workflow for Music (with Kobe Anthony (aka MEMODEMO))

7 juni 2024 | min

Nice Thinking: "Dialogue Through Goals"

29 maj 2024 | min

Your game has a message... did you write it?

23 maj 2024 | min

"A slow meat computer" King Making; Thinky Bits (Off-Screen Gameplay)

16 maj 2024 | min

Work Cultures (with Chris Bergman)

10 maj 2024 | min

"Everything is everything." South by Southwest 2024; Player Friction

2 maj 2024 | min

GameMaker (with Seth Fulkerson)

25 april 2024 | min

Visual Worldbuilding (with Laura Onderwater)

19 april 2024 | min

GDC 2024 Special (Part 3) (with Alyssa Walles and Audi Sorlie)

11 april 2024 | min

GDC 2024 Special (Part 2)

4 april 2024 | min

GDC 2024 Special (Part 1)

28 mars 2024 | min

"Things just happen, somewhere." Partnering Up; Control Flow

22 mars 2024 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Eddies"

12 mars 2024 | min

The clubhouse is caffeinated and ready to jam, game jam that is.

The clubhouse is giving a prompt where air movement is the main mechanism of action and they create a physical game for a tabletop (in the style of 'Hungry Hungry Hippos'). The notoriously unpredictable 'Eddies' of air movement gives this game it's name. The main challenge for the team - a more sanitary air blower mechanism than drinking straws: a tiny bellows, small whoopie cushions, slide whistles, or party noisemakers?

Prompt

"Create a game where the main mechanics are fans and or leaf blowers."

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

2 - 8

Materials

Blowing mechanisms - one per player (drinking straw in playtest)

A bunch of small peices of junk

A container for the small peices of junk

Playing feild (box, 8 sided)

Rule Card Deck

Setup

This is a game about some young teenagers who find some leaf blowers in their (octagonal) cul-du-sac and make a game with them.

Each player will select a side of the playing field (the box) as their home territory. The goal of the game is to have the least amount of junk (points-wise) fall off of your side of the field.

Rule Cards:

Separate the Rule cards into the three categories: Puff Variants, Point Variants, and Zone Variants. Shuffle the cards from each category, and pull three of each category to start each of the three rounds.Cards rule examples
- Puff: Each player has 3 puffs per turn
- Point: Each black item is worth +1 point, all other items are worth -1 point
- Zone: The windy end of your blowing mechanism may not be placed within zones 1+2 of the playing field
Shuffle the remaining rules cards from three categories together.
From the combined deck, deal 4 cards to each player.
The player may look at their hand of cards

Place Junk (perform at the start of each round):

Gather some junk and place it in a container. Typically dice and pieces from other games will make up the majority of the junk, but this may also be dodads from your junk drawer like golf pencils, nails and screws, magnets etc.
At the beginning of each round a different player will grab a handful of junk from the container and place it in the center of the 8-sided playing area.The junk placer may not arrange the junk when placing it down. Any junk that falls off of the playing field will be returned to the container of junk.

Rules

After the junk is placed the rule for each category is revealed, by flipping over the top rule card from each of the three piles: Puff, Point, and Zone. The displayed rules are now in effect.

The player who placed the junk will go first.

Each player turn has three phases:

1. The play may put a rule card from their hand into play by stacking it on top of the exsisting rule for the category which it belongs to (puff, point, or zone). That rule is now in effect and the rule that was covered up is no longer in effect.

2. The player uses their "leaf blower" to puff the objects in on the playing field the number of times indicated by the Puff rule. They must follow any Zone rules in effect.

3. The player's turn is scored according to the rule cards in effect. The player draws back up to 4 cards in their hand.

The round ends when each player has had 5 turns.

New junk is placed in the center of the playing field, new rule cards are revealed and the next round starts.

The object of the game is to have the least scoring junk blown off your edge of the playing field. Highest scoring player (usually player closest to 0 wins), as most junk is worth negative points.

"The Roboston Sessions"

7 mars 2024 | min

Getting Things Going (with Rick Stemm) [Nice Replay]

29 februari 2024 | min

"Metroid is very serious." Secrets & Easter Eggs; Player Trust [Nice Replay]

22 februari 2024 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Pothole Run" [Nice Replay]

15 februari 2024 | min

#301

Pothole Run

Nice Games Jam

2023.04.21

According to Minnesota Public Radio, it's hot girl sinkhole spring. In other words, we have an insane number of potholes right now in the Twin Cities, and since we can't do anything other than wait for the hardworking folks of road repair to fix them, we made a game about the whole situation. Andy and Beth Korth join for this special Nice Games Jam!

GLOM preorder through Miniature Market

GLOM preorder through GameNerdz

✨hot girl sinkhole spring✨

-

Minnesota Public Radio

Uptown washout leaves 8-foot-deep sinkhole in Minneapolis intersection

-

Tim Nelson and Kerem Yücel

,

Minnesota Public Radio

The Korths are back! They were first on episode #002

Steam Greenlight

Episode #102 with Beth & Andy

Code Comment: "Verdant Skies"

Episode #204 with Beth & Andy

Families in Games

Episode #132 with Beth

Narrative Design

A terrifying sinkhole in the middle of a city street, presumably revealed by a school bus driving over it. The front tire of the school bus is stuck in the sinkhole.

An example of the pothole + sinkhole situation we're dealing with this spring.

A deep sinkhole in the middle of a city street. The sinkhole has been circled by safety cones and caution tape.

Another view of the school bus sinkhole.

Prompt

Ellen gave us a prompt: "Create a game about patching potholes that Gabe would have fun playing"

Game type

Tabletop game

Materials

Marbles

Play-Doh or alternative squishyness

A very complicated custom game board

Road tiles of various sizes and configurations

Setup

Set up the custom game board
Distribute marbles to all players
Distribute Play-Doh to all players
Distribute road / terrain tiles to all players
Determine who will be the first player per the rules below

Rules

In a nutshell, the game challenges players to roll marbles down a hill. The hill is made of road tiles, but some of the tiles are pitted with potholes. Players can use Playdoh to patch potholes in the road so the marbles will make it to the finish.

The board is a grid laid over a raised pyramid where players put down terrain. Everything starts in the center (city hall); that’s where you put the marbles so they roll down the hill. Each quadrant is a side of the pyramid, there’s some method of tiling for the player to put pieces down to determine how the marbles will travel in that area.

Turn order

Play starts with the player who most recently hit a pothole with their car or their bike. In case of a tie (as might happen if multiple players were in a car together), the younger player goes first.
Play then proceeds clockwise.

Players can take 3 actions on their turn. You can do the same action more than once. The actions are:

Rotate the board
Place or swap a tile
Patch a pothole
Drop a marble

Tiles

Each tile is worth 1, 2 or 3 victory points when marbles pass through. The rougher the tile, the more victory points it's worth.
Players also get a bit of Play-Doh to fill up potholes in the terrain.
Players have 5 tiles in their hand at any given time; as an action, they can play one, then draw back up to 5 tiles.

Rotating the board

Rotating the board happens towards the left (counterclockwise), the opposite of play order, which goes to the right (clockwise). Each rotation turns the board 90 degrees.

Scoring & dropping marbles

If a marble reaches the bottom of the hill in front of you, you get the victory points that it acquired from each tile it moved through on its journey from the top of the hill to the bottom.
You ONLY get the victory points if the marble reaches the bottom of the hill. If you drop a marble as an action, and the marble gets stuck on the way, you don't get any points from the tiles it passed through.

Winning the game

Play proceeds in 12 rounds. Each player gets one turn per round.
Play ends when the turn counter reaches zero (game starts at the start of winter, ends at the start of the next winter)
Whoever has acquired the most victory points by the end of the "year" is the winner of Pothole Run

Fun stuff to think about for the future

We have to create an extractor to get the playdoh out.
Cooperative play mode? Roles for each player? Someone who’s better at filling potholes, someone who can put more marbles down, etc. Maybe two teams?

"One size bigger and red." CSS; Skill Trees [Nice Replay]

8 februari 2024 | min

"Shiny rocks get me every time." Branding & Iconography; The Ethics of Engagement [Nice Replay]

1 februari 2024 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Cat Time" [Nice Replay]

25 januari 2024 | min

#321

Cat Time

Nice Games Jam

2023.09.07

It's been a while but your nice hosts come up with a game in roughly an hour, this one for the cat owners out there! After a fairly long meta, we get into the mind of a cat and design a competitive game for them to play.

Toronto International Film Festival

Renew an adult passport

-

USA.gov

Bloor–Yonge station

-

Wikipedia

Prompt

Create a game my mother can (and wants to) play with her cats, with the supply list below. Bonus points if this can be played a single cat or multiple cats at the same time, for optimum usefulness in listener households with single cats

Game type

Design document

Player count

2

Materials

At least two cats

A cat toy shaped like a die with a treat inside

List of activities the die points to

Setup

Pick an end date for when the game stops (can be arbitrary).

Rules

Give the cats the cat toy shaped like a die, they will roll the die and leave it eventually, and this determines the next activity for the human to set up. Once the die decides what the next activity is, the human sets it up based on a chart. Once the task is completed and cats are awarded points, repeat the die roll and do the next activity until the end date (since remember, you're on Cat Time so the amount of activities you do depends on your cats). The winner is the cat with the most points by the end!

Examples of tasks (there would be at least 20):

Cat task: One cat at a time for this challenge. Put something on top of the cat’s head and start the stopwatch. Whichever cat keeps the object on their head the longest gets X points.
Cat task: Make a loud meowing sound. Whichever cat looks at you first gets X points.
Human task: Award the cat who has been the best sport X points.
Cat task: Hold both cats in your hands. Whichever cat jumps off first LOSES. Winner gets X points.
Cat task: Place a ring of non-breakable objects (probably cat toys) around the edge of a table so that the tabletop is fully circled by objects. Place both cats, the task ends when both cats are off the table. Each cat gets a number of points equal to a multiplier of the number of objects that were knocked off the table.
Cat task: Put the same number of treats in each hand. Call both cats over for them to snack from your hands. Whichever cat finishes their treats first is the winner and gets X points.
Human task: Pick the cat that you feel the most sorry for and award them X points.
Human task: Pick the cat that currently looks the sleepiest and sit them out for the next challenge.

Much Ado About Unity (with Freya Holmér) [Nice Replay]

18 januari 2024 | min

"Today’s the day that I screw things up." Pre-production; Idle Games [Nice Replay]

11 januari 2024 | min

The Logistics of Moving On (with Zach Barth) [Nice Replay]

4 januari 2024 | min

Cheating (omnibus edition)

28 december 2023 | min

Nicest of 2023

21 december 2023 | min

The clubhouse continues the annual tradition of reviewing the past year. But first they need to talk about Doctor Who and new Minnesota state flag. Ellen makes her first programming joke, and Dale learns to add comments from the editing booth.

Finally, everyone shares which games they have been playing the bees out of in 2023.

But, wait... there's more: your nice hosts also talk about what they are anticipating for 2024.

Doctor Who
Donna Noble is the best companion
-
Wikipedia
Cucumber, a miniseries by Russell T Davies
-
Wikipedia
It's a Sin, a miniseries by Russell T Davies
Minnesota State Flag
The new Minnesota state flag
-
Briana Bierschbach
,
Star Tribune

0:10:30

Our accomplishments

Mark's Accomplishments:

Glom
Dogpile!
IGDA Twin Cities Calendar full of events
IGDA Twin Cities's Playtest Event
Maintenance of Noble Engine
Major Accomplishments in Dreamsettler
- including securing a big third party developer for a minigame

Stephen's Accomplishments:

Glom
Future Club got funding to produce a vertical slice of a game
Working on Future Club projects and pitching them (to a celebrity!)
Survived a snake basement

Ellen's Accomplishments:

Glom
TWO custom game projects that Ellen is not allowed to talk about
Noodle Training Arcade
Serious Play Conference
Got a road bike
Moved to Duluth

Your nice hosts talked about thier work as a tabletop development team in:

The Nice Board Game Industrial Complex, a Nice Games Club Skunkworks Project

Mark gave a short presentation at the IGDATC holiday party about all the work that the group did in 2023.

Ellen talks about her experience at the serious play conference in:

Serious Play Conference Special

Mark talked about Noble Engine in:

"So, you made a game engine?"

0:29:11

Nicest of 2023

Ellen's Nicest:

Baldur's Gate III
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
NY Times Games App Magic the Gathering
Rival Stars Horse Racing
Games from the Studio 'Afterburn'

Mark's Nicest:

Super Mario Wonder
Super Nintendo World
Star Trek: Resurgence
Zachtronics Solitaire Collection
Puzzmo

Mark's Honorable Mentions:

Spider Man 2
Tears of the Kingdom
Star Trek: Infinite

Stephen's Nicest:

Spirit Island
Forspoken
Deceive, Inc.

Stephen's Honorable Mentions:

Tears of the Kingdom's Ascend ability
Baldur's Gate III

Mark mentioned what he usually calls "Super Mario Theme Park," which we talk about more in:

GDC 2023 Special

We interviewed Zach of Zachtronic's Solitaire collection in Episode 293

The Logistics of Moving On

Puzzmo is now publicly available!

1:01:08

Most Anticpated of 2024

Ellen's picks:

Hellblade II: Henua's Saga
Ultros
Hyper Light Breaker
Little Kitty, Big City
Dustborn
Concord

Mark's picks:

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake
Princess Peach: Showtime!
More Playdate games!

Stephen's picks:

Dragon's Dogma 2

1:16:13

2024 Gamedev Resolutions

Ellen's Resolutions:

Make stuff
Make stuff in Godot Engine
Make a portfolio
Do less work, make more stuff
Unpack some boxes

Mark's Resolutions

Get Dreamsettler out
Set up future for Noble Robot office
Set up console SDK environments again for DS and others (Metro Nexus, porting work).

Stephen's Resolutions

Look into game engines other than Unity

Creative Career Paths (with Will Bredbeck)

15 december 2023 | min

Nice Games Jam: "The Loft"

8 december 2023 | min

This week, the clubhouse becomes the birdhouse; we're talking pigeons! Dale created a prompt inspired by Ellen's activities as a child and she bombards your nice hosts with a TON of pigeon facts! We somehow designed a game out of it!

As a note, Ellen's was still recording remotely but the first 5 minutes she was recording on the wrong mic! We corrected it after those 5 minutes.

Breeds of Pigeons across the Globe.
-
Layne Gardner
,
The American Pigeon Museum and Library
Racing Pigeon Training 25 mile
-
Hoosier Outdoors
,
YouTube
Racing Pigeons VS. Falcon (Pt.1) - "One Wing"
-
@Pigeonmaniacom
,
YouTube
Amazing video of a hawk chasing a homing pigeon
-
Their own world
,
YouTube
A Rare Appreciation of the New York Pigeon
-
Alexandra Wolfe
,
The Wall Street Journal
Ellen's pictures of pigeons she posted in the Miro board

Prompt

Create a game where you breed and raise pigeons

Game type

Design document

Setup

None yet! It's a game design doc.

Rules

Control a group of pigeons
- Real time strategy racing game
- Manage each bird by going to each bird, checking statuses and causing communication so pigeons can help each other get to the goal
- Players can give stats bonuses to each individual bird
- You as the player don’t know where the pigeons are going, you have to figure out where the pigeons’ goal is
- Can be multiplayer
- Swapping between each pigeon gives you information about that pigeons’ status
- Players have a very vague idea of where to go at the start
- When a predator appears, the player needs to outsmart the predator to escape and keep racing
  - Then the player is off course and needs to find their way back
- Some races can be longer, where you need to find a place to rest for the night and have enough food
Game loop
- You get a random selection of pigeons
- Compete in a race
  - Start in a random place on the map
  - Pigeons know where they need to go but the player does not
  - Players need to deduce where the pigeons are going and make sure to lead all of them in the right direction
  - Players control each pigeon individually, moving a pigeon will influence the other pigeons but will not move fully in that direction. Players need to guide each pigeon to their goal as a group, but control them individually.
  - Control of pigeons is in third-person perspective, players need to jump between pigeons to see the whole view of the flock
  - There are areas on the map that the player will know about that can have more risk involved (like areas where predators will often be)
  - There can be some collectables around that the player can pick up with birds to get bonuses (more points? movespeed?)
- When you complete the race, you can remove a pigeon from the racing group and add a new pigeon from a set of 3 randomly generated pigeons

"Am I making a joke?" Debug Functionality; Polish

30 november 2023 | min

Scoping for Your Project (with John Donkin and Rob Donkin)

23 november 2023 | min

Game-based Learning (with Jennifer Javornik)

16 november 2023 | min

Serious Play Conference Special

11 november 2023 | min

Megagames (with Trenton Greyoak)

2 november 2023 | min

"Smarter, more evolved." Polymorphism; Save Scumming

27 oktober 2023 | min

Horror Games 201 (with multiple guests)

19 oktober 2023 | min

"The opposing metric of jank." Composition over Inheritance; Elegance

12 oktober 2023 | min

Horror Games 101 (with multiple guests)

7 oktober 2023 | min

"Sweet, sweet Toronto sounds." Completionism; Educating Intuition

28 september 2023 | min

Much Ado About Unity (with Freya Holmér)

23 september 2023 | min

Working on a Bigger Team (with Julia Keren-Detar)

14 september 2023 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Cat Time"

7 september 2023 | min

It's been a while but your nice hosts come up with a game in roughly an hour, this one for the cat owners out there! After a fairly long meta, we get into the mind of a cat and design a competitive game for them to play.

Prompt

Create a game my mother can (and wants to) play with her cats, with the supply list below. Bonus points if this can be played a single cat or multiple cats at the same time, for optimum usefulness in listener households with single cats

Game type

Design document

Player count

2

Materials

At least two cats

A cat toy shaped like a die with a treat inside

List of activities the die points to

Setup

Pick an end date for when the game stops (can be arbitrary).

Rules

Give the cats the cat toy shaped like a die, they will roll the die and leave it eventually, and this determines the next activity for the human to set up. Once the die decides what the next activity is, the human sets it up based on a chart. Once the task is completed and cats are awarded points, repeat the die roll and do the next activity until the end date (since remember, you're on Cat Time so the amount of activities you do depends on your cats). The winner is the cat with the most points by the end!

Examples of tasks (there would be at least 20):

Cat task: One cat at a time for this challenge. Put something on top of the cat’s head and start the stopwatch. Whichever cat keeps the object on their head the longest gets X points.
Cat task: Make a loud meowing sound. Whichever cat looks at you first gets X points.
Human task: Award the cat who has been the best sport X points.
Cat task: Hold both cats in your hands. Whichever cat jumps off first LOSES. Winner gets X points.
Cat task: Place a ring of non-breakable objects (probably cat toys) around the edge of a table so that the tabletop is fully circled by objects. Place both cats, the task ends when both cats are off the table. Each cat gets a number of points equal to a multiplier of the number of objects that were knocked off the table.
Cat task: Put the same number of treats in each hand. Call both cats over for them to snack from your hands. Whichever cat finishes their treats first is the winner and gets X points.
Human task: Pick the cat that you feel the most sorry for and award them X points.
Human task: Pick the cat that currently looks the sleepiest and sit them out for the next challenge.

"Stephen, explain this." Grind; Emphasizing Uniqueness

2 september 2023 | min

Getting Things Going (with Rick Stemm)

24 augusti 2023 | min

"Sad or fascinating?" Cheating, Part 3; Putting the Real World in Games

17 augusti 2023 | min

Leadership (with Frani Esquenazi)

10 augusti 2023 | min

Cheating, Part 2

4 augusti 2023 | min

Writing for Games (with Anna C Webster)

28 juli 2023 | min

"Salt, in everything?" Player Motivations; Copying Others

20 juli 2023 | min

Postmortem: "An Outcry" (with Quinn K)

13 juli 2023 | min

"Ask your friends." Finding Help; Companion Characters

8 juli 2023 | min

The State of "Dogpile!"

29 juni 2023 | min

"What's a little grand larceny?" Licensing; Cheating, Part 1

21 juni 2023 | min

Nice Thinking: "The Nice Board Game Industrial Complex, a Nice Games Club Skunkworks Project"

15 juni 2023 | min

After Mark's time with COVID, the first day he was free to go outside, the area was covered with the smoke of distant wildfires. Another bout of smoke has rolled in to the Twin Cities just in time for the release of this episode.

The club spends this Nice Thinking episode talking about the making of Glom, and discussing their feelings about pitching and publishing board games. They discover that Mark and Stephen dread pitching, but Ellen thinks it can be fun (it's her superpower).

This section is about Dale, who edited this episode.

I did write most of the Glom cards, but that was really playing to my superpower of brainstorming lots of ideas, very quickly. The club mentioned

...that I have a full time job - TRUE
...that I have to deal with the club's crap - TRUE
...cats - TRUE - I volunteer at a cat shelter

For 'Dogpile!' the game - I thought up 100 dog names - EASY
and I have been thinking up ~20 cat names a week (my superpower right?)

Finally, they share the story of how Mark no longer edits every episode, and that's how Dale got to title this episode and add a section of episode notes about cats.

GLOM
Glom launched on June 14th, 2023. It is available for purchase now!
Our official Glom hompage.
This section is about cats.
It’s kitten season and the cat shelters are full - please consider adopting a cat (or other animal, but you should really consider a cat or two).
The city of Minneapolis Animal Care and Control has been waving cat adoption fees on select days.
Minneapolis Pet Adoption
If you choose a cat from Feline Rescue in Saint Paul, the name might have been suggested by Dale. Don't worry, you can promptly change their name to that of your favorite video game character.
Feline Rescue
Check out these two: Phobos and Deimos, named after the two moons of Mars (or Mario and Luigi if you prefer), they are available at the time of publication
Deimos and Phobos, the moon brothers are available for adoption via this link

0:04:40

Nice Thinking about our future in Board Games

The game GLOM

Episode 210 is the NiceGames Jam that created

Glom

For the record, the third deck that was renamed goal, was originally called “Scoring System Deck.”

We talked about pitching the game with Peter Yang in episode 231

Pitching Tabletop Games

We're excited about 'Dogpile!'

'Dogpile!' was a game Jam from episode 272

Dogpile!

And we did a followup in episode 275

Dogpile! (part 2)

0:46:06

Nice Thinking about NiceGameJam Games with Potential

Mark's List of 5 Games

1. From episode 272,

Dogpile!

2. From episode 275,

Palace of Versailles

3. From episode 192, recorded live,

Roboston! (parts 1 and 2)

4. From episode 157,

Reravel: A Backwards Storytelling Game

They also mention these GameJam Games:

6. From episode 134,

Rules

7. From episode 143

Ants of Destiny: Morsels of the Queen

Nice Thinking about traveling to conferences

Origins is June 21-25 2023 in Columbus OH

GenCon is August 3-6 in Indianapolis, IN

"You've probably seen them in Zelda." Lessons from Tears of the Kingdom; Fall Damage

11 juni 2023 | min

Unreal Engine for Indies (with Zack Gilbertson)

1 juni 2023 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Chaos Canyon"

25 maj 2023 | min

Max Kunze, Nice Games Club Guest Booker, takes over for Mark while he's still sick this week on another Nice Games Jam! Mark actually created the prompt for this episode, and your nice hosts find a way to inject many explosions into this board game made from it that you can try out yourself using the rules below!

The playtest session we alluded to in the episode is on Patreon! If you want to hear how we playtested it over Miro, check it out there!

Prompt

Create a game where risk is extremely attractive and the consequences of failure are disastrous.

Game type

Card game

Player count

2 - 4

Materials

25 cubes

42 cards

1 Chaos Cube (six-sided die)

Setup

Set the 25 cubes in the center of the table so everyone can reach it. This is the stockpile.
Deal out 3 cards to each player, hidden from the other players.
First player is the person who was most recently in a car.

Rules

On your turn, choose a card to play and follow its instructions.
Types of cards:
- Excursion: draw 1, 2, or 3 cubes from the Gas Stockpile bag
  - You have the option of rolling the Chaos Cube
- Casting Curses: Have another player roll the risk dice
- Bad Weather: Skip the next player’s turn
- Raid: Steal a gas cube from another player’s cache
  - You have the option of rolling the Chaos Cube
- Foresight: See what cards another player has
- Theft: Steal a random card from another player
If the card allows you to roll the Chaos Cube, you can choose to roll it to increase your rewards. But there's a risk that you will both burn the cubes in your own collection and in the stockpile!
At the end of your turn, draw back up to 3 cards.
Play continues like this with each player playing one card until there are no more cubes remaining in the stockpile. The player with the most cubes in their own collection at the game's end wins!

Future changes

We want way more excursion cards
We want to have a way for players to steal from each other
More cubes!
MAYBE: Casting Curses doesn’t grant the possibility of granting +1 cube to the recipient of the curse
Add Sabotage back in: Remove X cubes from the Stockpile bag (1, 2, or 3 is noted on the card). You can remove a larger number by rolling the Chaos Cube, but that also carries the risk of blowing up your cache!

Wandering into Game Development (with Jamaal Sawyer-Dymski and Greg Borreson)

18 maj 2023 | min

"Play thrice, and make thrice." Stephen's "Rule of Threes"; The Psychology of Animation

15 maj 2023 | min

The Taxonomy of Horse Games (with Alice Ruppert)

4 maj 2023 | min

"I love it when you kinda agree." Endings; Lusory Attitude

27 april 2023 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Pothole Run"

21 april 2023 | min

According to Minnesota Public Radio, it's hot girl sinkhole spring. In other words, we have an insane number of potholes right now in the Twin Cities, and since we can't do anything other than wait for the hardworking folks of road repair to fix them, we made a game about the whole situation. Andy and Beth Korth join for this special Nice Games Jam!

GLOM preorder through Miniature Market
GLOM preorder through GameNerdz
✨hot girl sinkhole spring✨
-
Minnesota Public Radio
Uptown washout leaves 8-foot-deep sinkhole in Minneapolis intersection
-
Tim Nelson and Kerem Yücel
,
Minnesota Public Radio
The Korths are back! They were first on episode #002
Steam Greenlight
Episode #102 with Beth & Andy
Code Comment: "Verdant Skies"
Episode #204 with Beth & Andy
Families in Games
Episode #132 with Beth
Narrative Design
An example of the pothole + sinkhole situation we're dealing with this spring.
Another view of the school bus sinkhole.

Prompt

Ellen gave us a prompt: "Create a game about patching potholes that Gabe would have fun playing"

Game type

Tabletop game

Materials

Marbles

Play-Doh or alternative squishyness

A very complicated custom game board

Road tiles of various sizes and configurations

Setup

Set up the custom game board
Distribute marbles to all players
Distribute Play-Doh to all players
Distribute road / terrain tiles to all players
Determine who will be the first player per the rules below

Rules

In a nutshell, the game challenges players to roll marbles down a hill. The hill is made of road tiles, but some of the tiles are pitted with potholes. Players can use Playdoh to patch potholes in the road so the marbles will make it to the finish.

The board is a grid laid over a raised pyramid where players put down terrain. Everything starts in the center (city hall); that’s where you put the marbles so they roll down the hill. Each quadrant is a side of the pyramid, there’s some method of tiling for the player to put pieces down to determine how the marbles will travel in that area.

Turn order

Play starts with the player who most recently hit a pothole with their car or their bike. In case of a tie (as might happen if multiple players were in a car together), the younger player goes first.
Play then proceeds clockwise.

Players can take 3 actions on their turn. You can do the same action more than once. The actions are:

Rotate the board
Place or swap a tile
Patch a pothole
Drop a marble

Tiles

Each tile is worth 1, 2 or 3 victory points when marbles pass through. The rougher the tile, the more victory points it's worth.
Players also get a bit of Play-Doh to fill up potholes in the terrain.
Players have 5 tiles in their hand at any given time; as an action, they can play one, then draw back up to 5 tiles.

Rotating the board

Rotating the board happens towards the left (counterclockwise), the opposite of play order, which goes to the right (clockwise). Each rotation turns the board 90 degrees.

Scoring & dropping marbles

If a marble reaches the bottom of the hill in front of you, you get the victory points that it acquired from each tile it moved through on its journey from the top of the hill to the bottom.
You ONLY get the victory points if the marble reaches the bottom of the hill. If you drop a marble as an action, and the marble gets stuck on the way, you don't get any points from the tiles it passed through.

Winning the game

Play proceeds in 12 rounds. Each player gets one turn per round.
Play ends when the turn counter reaches zero (game starts at the start of winter, ends at the start of the next winter)
Whoever has acquired the most victory points by the end of the "year" is the winner of Pothole Run

Fun stuff to think about for the future

We have to create an extractor to get the playdoh out.
Cooperative play mode? Roles for each player? Someone who’s better at filling potholes, someone who can put more marbles down, etc. Maybe two teams?

"One size bigger and red." CSS; Skill Trees

13 april 2023 | min

Tiny Horrors (with Rosalie Vile)

6 april 2023 | min

GDC 2023 Special

1 april 2023 | min

Postmortem: "C.A.R.L." (with Andrew Kenady)

23 mars 2023 | min

"Metroid is very serious." Secrets & Easter Eggs; Player Trust

16 mars 2023 | min

Nice Thinking: "Pizza Land"

10 mars 2023 | min

"Layers and layers of hair." Visual Composition; Minigames

2 mars 2023 | min

The Logistics of Moving On (with Zach Barth)

23 februari 2023 | min

Nicest of 2022

17 februari 2023 | min

"Leveling out the table."

9 februari 2023 | min

"Insert interesting car here." Verisimilitude; Indie Game Credits [Nice Replay]

2 februari 2023 | min

Nice Thinking: "Neurodiversity in Gamedev (with Adam Clewes-Boyne)" [Nice Replay]

26 januari 2023 | min

"Maximum Whooo!" Learning to Use Tools; Co-Op Games [Nice Replay]

19 januari 2023 | min

The State of VR in 2022 (with Andrew Eiche) [Nice Replay]

12 januari 2023 | min

Nice Games Jam: "StorySlide (with Osama Dorias)" [Nice Replay]

6 januari 2023 | min

#281

StorySlide (with Osama Dorias)

Nice Games Jam

2022.10.06

Game designer Osama Dorias returns to the clubhouse to help design a game that can be played remotely, and provides some (much needed?) structure to the Nice Games Jam process. Stephen is obsessed with Bananas, Ellen contemplates her mystery banana gift, and Mark realizes some of these concepts might be too complicated for small children.

Osama previously joined us for episode 211:

Building Blocks of Design

This isn't the first time we'd had a guest join us for a Nice Games Jam:

Blame the Cat! (with Monica Fan)

Osama on Twitter

Osama's podcast is "The Habibis"

Playtest Materials

The slides we created for this episode's playtest.

The Noun Project

Prompt

"Design a game that can be played remotely with (Osama's) children (and ideally is still fun for adults)"

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

3-6

Materials

Electronic system for sharing slides (such as Google Slides)

A voice connection with remote players

A set of slides or icons/drawings/clipart to create the set of slides

A system for privately messaging players

Setup

Create a set of slides (12) with icons, drawings, photos, or clip-art, if not using a pre-made slide deck. Each slide should contain 3 items. Pick a Game Master (usually one of the adults playing the game).
The Game Master comes up with one group objective with two parts:
- A protagonist/hero.
- A conflict for the protagonist.
The Game Master comes up with one secret objective for each player:
- Each secret objective should start with the phrase “The hero should...”
- Ideally these will be randomly assigned.

Rules

Player order goes to the left and does not change
The game ends when you run out of slides
Each slide should be a simple phrase or sentence

Gameplay

Play starts with the Game Master describing the first slide, starting with the phrase “Once upon a time..”
Play continues to the player on the Game Master’s left and the slide progresses.
This player chooses one of the three pictures on the slide to incorporate into the story with a phrase or sentence.
Play continues to the left with a new slide. And continues around the circle, with each player getting a new slide (the Game Master may now sit out of the storytelling), until there are no more slides left.
The Game Master may provide an epilogue (and explain what an epilogue is to the children playing the game) as desired.
- Note: Defining 'Epilogue' will not be out of character for this game, as in this episode's run-through Mark would have had to explain to kids: headbanging, Ska, life in 1998, mosh-pits, micro-cassettes, and a reference to 'Spaceballs.'
At the end of the story, players try to guess each others individual objectives.

Visual Coding (with Alina Matson) [Nice Replay]

29 december 2022 | min

Designing like a Dungeon Master (with Katrina Ostrander and Jon Kiehne) [Nice Replay]

22 december 2022 | min

"No referees?!" Curling; Off-Ramps [Nice Replay]

16 december 2022 | min

Characterization in Pet Management Games (with Sarah Yu and Beth)

8 december 2022 | min

"You lost all your dragons." Save Data; Interdisciplinary Communication

1 december 2022 | min

"Time is just a search bar away."

26 november 2022 | min

Fusing Genres (with Millie Walker)

17 november 2022 | min

"I realize you were making a more point thing?" Cameras; Bug Tracking and Triage

10 november 2022 | min

Nice Thinking: "Revisiting Rhythm Rumble"

3 november 2022 | min

"Shiny rocks get me every time." Branding & Iconography; The Ethics of Engagement

28 oktober 2022 | min

Physical Releases for Indies (with Ryan Brown)

20 oktober 2022 | min

"Today’s the day that I screw things up." Pre-production; Idle Games

13 oktober 2022 | min

Nice Games Jam: "StorySlide (with Osama Dorias)"

6 oktober 2022 | min

Game designer Osama Dorias returns to the clubhouse to help design a game that can be played remotely, and provides some (much needed?) structure to the Nice Games Jam process. Stephen is obsessed with Bananas, Ellen contemplates her mystery banana gift, and Mark realizes some of these concepts might be too complicated for small children.

Osama previously joined us for episode 211:
Building Blocks of Design
This isn't the first time we'd had a guest join us for a Nice Games Jam:
Blame the Cat! (with Monica Fan)
Osama on Twitter
Osama's podcast is "The Habibis"
Playtest Materials
The slides we created for this episode's playtest.
The Noun Project

Prompt

"Design a game that can be played remotely with (Osama's) children (and ideally is still fun for adults)"

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

3-6

Materials

Electronic system for sharing slides (such as Google Slides)

A voice connection with remote players

A set of slides or icons/drawings/clipart to create the set of slides

A system for privately messaging players

Setup

Create a set of slides (12) with icons, drawings, photos, or clip-art, if not using a pre-made slide deck. Each slide should contain 3 items. Pick a Game Master (usually one of the adults playing the game).
The Game Master comes up with one group objective with two parts:
- A protagonist/hero.
- A conflict for the protagonist.
The Game Master comes up with one secret objective for each player:
- Each secret objective should start with the phrase “The hero should...”
- Ideally these will be randomly assigned.

Rules

Player order goes to the left and does not change
The game ends when you run out of slides
Each slide should be a simple phrase or sentence

Gameplay

Play starts with the Game Master describing the first slide, starting with the phrase “Once upon a time..”
Play continues to the player on the Game Master’s left and the slide progresses.
This player chooses one of the three pictures on the slide to incorporate into the story with a phrase or sentence.
Play continues to the left with a new slide. And continues around the circle, with each player getting a new slide (the Game Master may now sit out of the storytelling), until there are no more slides left.
The Game Master may provide an epilogue (and explain what an epilogue is to the children playing the game) as desired.
- Note: Defining 'Epilogue' will not be out of character for this game, as in this episode's run-through Mark would have had to explain to kids: headbanging, Ska, life in 1998, mosh-pits, micro-cassettes, and a reference to 'Spaceballs.'
At the end of the story, players try to guess each others individual objectives.

"Two bits of goop." Keeping a Game Design Journal; Bringing Other Media into Games

30 september 2022 | min

Designing a Spiritual Successor (with Dmitry Samartsev, aka Special Bread)

22 september 2022 | min

"Insert interesting car here." Verisimilitude; Indie Game Credits

15 september 2022 | min

Postmortem: "Scrapeboard" (with Frank DeMarco and Blake Andrews)

9 september 2022 | min

"Always be the banker." Broken games; Support Systems

1 september 2022 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Dogpile! (part 2)"

25 augusti 2022 | min

It's our second climb into the scruff as your nice hosts continue development on "Dogpile!" We've updated the rules and did a lot of work toward defining the properties of a full prototype deck, consisting of 100, or 150... or maybe 250 unique cards? However many it ends up being, we're looking forward to part 3!

Prompt

Keep working on "Dogpile!"

Game type

Card game

Player count

2-4

Setup

Shuffle a standard 52-card deck.
Deal 5 cards to each player.
Set the remaining cards aside; this is the draft deck
For the first round, assign the "player one" indicator to the person who most recently played with a dog.

Terms

Turn: One player's action.
Round: Once around the table (each player takes an action).
Draft Deck: The pile of dog cards you draw from each round.
Dogpile: This is where the dogs that you're able to recruit into your pack will end up.
Pack Leader: The card drawn from the Draft Deck once per Round.
Player One: The first player to lay their cards face-down next to the Pack Leader card in each round. The First Player status is indicated with a First Player token that rotates clockwise at the start of each round.
Strays: The discard pile.

Rules

Objective: Get as many dogs into the Dogpile as possible!

How to play

Draw a card from the draft deck and place it face-up in the center of the table. This is the Pack Leader card.
Without talking about what’s in their hands or what cards they’re playing, all players select and number of cards from their hand to lay face-down around the Pack Leader. Each player lays their cards face-down in clockwise order, starting with the First Player.
- Players can lay down any number of cards up to the full complement of their hand.
- If a player decides to not lay down any cards (skipping their turn, essentially), then skip to Step 3 below. Remaining players’ turns are forfeit.
After all players have put their selected cards face-down, all players reveal their cards at the same time.
Once all cards are revealed, determine whether the group of dogs (the Pack) will join the Dogpile or become Strays. For the pack to join the Dogpile, every revealed card on the table (players’ face-up cards and the Pack Leader card) must be physically "connect" to form a single unbroken shape, consisting entirely of legal connections. As of the recording of episode 275, cards can be connected by number or suit.
- Cards connected horizontally must be 1 number different (up or down) from the connected card. (Numerical values are 1-13 where Ace = 1 and King = 13).
- Cards connected vertically must be of the same suit.
- Cards cannot connect diagonally, and if two cards are physically touching, they must legally connect.
- The two Jokers are "wild" in that they can adopt any suit or number, but like a Scrabble tile, all cards connected to a Joker must connect based on a single, newly adopted value.
Clear the table by placing the group of dogs in the Dogpile, in the Strays. Optionally, the pack of Strays may be tossed randomly about the room. Then, begin the next round.
At the start of each subsequent round, players refresh their hands up to 5 with newly-drawn cards, and the Player One token is passed clockwise.

Continue steps 1-6 above until the timer rings. How many dogs did you get in your Dogpile?

"I’m not coding your game, y’all figure that out." GameMaker for Unity Devs; Inspiration from Behavioral Economics

17 augusti 2022 | min

The State of VR in 2022 (with Andrew Eiche)

11 augusti 2022 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Dogpile!"

6 augusti 2022 | min

It’s Ellen’s 100th episode as a Nice Games Club host! And there’s no better way to celebrate a big day than with a Nice Games Jam. Dale gave us a prompt and you’ll never guess the theme. Can your Nice Hosts come up with a playable prototype in “ruffly” an hour? Enjoy live edits, goofs, special cubes, and piles of dogs taken to the logical extreme!

Ellen's first episode as a permanent host.
"Click here for fleet operations."
"Ameritrash"
-
Board Game Geek
Texas Hold'em Poker
-
Bicycle
Can Dogs See Color?
-
American Kennel Club

Prompt

Create a game that could be subtitled "The 100 Dog Days of Calendar Math."

Game type

Card game

Player count

2+

Materials

Two standard 52-card decks

Setup

First, some additional prompt information.

The objective is to get your dog pack to exactly 100 members (no more, no less) in 100 units of time. You decide how many dogs you start with, how you add or lose members, and what a "time unit" is. Because this is the special for Ellen, bonus points if the game has a dog or multiple dogs in it.

Now, on to the setup:

Shuffle both decks of playing cards together
Deal X cards to each player
Set the remaining cards aside; this is the draft deck
For the first round, assign the "Pack Leader" indicator to the person who most recently played with a dog

Terms

Turn: One player's action
Round: Once around the table (each player takes an action)
Draft Deck: The pile of dog cards you draw from each round
Dogpile: This is where the dogs that you're able to recruit into your pack will end up
Pack Leader: An outdated term we're using to describe the First Player in each round
First Player: The first player to lay their cards face-down next to the Pack Leader card in each round. The First Player status is indicated with a First Player token that rotates clockwise at the start of each round.
Strays: The discard pile.

Rules

Objective: Get 100 dogs in 100 units of time!

How to play

Draw a card from the draft deck and place it face-up in the center of the table. This is the Pack Leader card.
Without talking about what’s in their hands or what cards they’re playing, all players select cards to lay face-down around the Pack Leader. Each player lays their cards face-down in clockwise order, starting with the First Player.
1. Players can lay down any number of cards up to the full complement of their hand.
2. If a player decides to not lay down any cards (skipping their turn, essentially), then skip to Step 3 below. Remaining players’ turns are forfeit.
After all players have put their selected cards face-down, all players reveal their face-down cards at the same time.
Once all cards are revealed, determine whether the group of dogs join the Dogpile or if they become Strays. To join the Dogpile, the cards on the table, which include all players’ face-up cards and the Pack Leader, must not breach any compatibility constraints. As of the episode 272 recording, these constraints include:
1. The cards taken together as a whole must form an uninterrupted sequence of numbers.
Clear the table by placing the group of dogs in the Dogpile or in the Strays. Then, begin the next round.
At the start of each subsequent round, players refresh their hands with newly-drawn cards. Draw until your hand reaches X cards.

Continue steps 1-6 above until the timer rings. Did you get 100 dogs in your Dogpile? If so, you win!

Nice Thinking: "Neurodiversity in Gamedev (with Adam Clewes-Boyne)"

28 juli 2022 | min

"Killed the flightmaster, killed the griffin..." Maintaining an Open-Source Project; Should we design for Killers?

21 juli 2022 | min

Level and Interaction Design (with Nina Marotta)

14 juli 2022 | min

"No referees?!" Curling; Off-Ramps

7 juli 2022 | min

Gamedev in Peru (with Daniela Gamarra)

1 juli 2022 | min

"That’s not a friendship!" Parasocial Relationships; Narrative Pacing

23 juni 2022 | min

Nice Thinking: "A Local Indies Tournament"

16 juni 2022 | min

Teaching Gamedev to Young People, Again! (with Chris Totten)

9 juni 2022 | min

Teaching Gamedev to Young People (with Truman Simpson)

3 juni 2022 | min

"Start fresh, in a certain way." Diagramming Gameplay Loops; Art Direction

27 maj 2022 | min

Machine Learning (with Anna-Lena Pontet and Luzia Hüttenmoser)

19 maj 2022 | min

Postmortem: "LxJamathon" (with Mark Hamilton and Ellen Burns-Johnson)

12 maj 2022 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Blame the Cat! (with Monica Fan)"

6 maj 2022 | min

Game designer Monica Fan joins us this week for a Nice Games Jam that is extra-mischievous and extra-cute. There's drama amongst the roommates, and we're pretty sure the cat's to blame. But can we prove it? Can your Nice Hosts (and Nice Guest) make a playable prototype by the end of the episode? How many times will Stephen say "meow" before the outro rolls? So many questions!

Prompt

From Dale this time: "Design a game where you discover clues and have to solve a mundane mystery. Bonus points if there is a cat in it. EXTRA bonus point if it's the cat who did it!"

Game type

Card game

Player count

4

Materials

Standard deck of playing cards

Coins or tokens to indicate the accumulation of blame

OPTIONAL: A real cat to sit in the middle of the game table

Setup

Sort the deck by suit.
1. Pull out the Aces and Jokers and set them aside. You'll use the Aces in a minute, but not the Jokers.
2. Remove six random cards from three of the suits (Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds) and set those aside for the game.
3. Shuffle the remaining cards into a deck and pull a random card from the deck. Don't look at it! This is the card that determines Who Really Did The Thing. Set it aside and don't peek until the end of the game.
4. Set the rest of the deck aside for a moment.
Deal the Aces randomly to determine which players get each suit. Whoever gets the Ace of Hearts is the Cat.
1. Once roles are determined, you can ignore the Ace cards, but it's useful for players to hold onto them as a reminder of what suit they have.
Deal each Human player two cards face-down. Deal the Cat player four cards face-down. Players can look at their cards but should not show their hands to the other players.
Place the deck of remaining cards face-down in the center of the table. This is the draw pile.
Place a pile of Blame tokens somewhere on the table so people can grab them (or throw them) as needed.

Rules

GOAL: Pin the blame on someone else! Once a player has accumulated 3 Blame tokens, they are GUILTY and the game ends.

Go around the table clockwise, taking turns. Each player can take one action on their turn; it's a fast-moving game of blame!

Player Actions

Cat-only actions:

Take a card from a human; the Cat chooses which card to take (without looking at the human's hand)
Give a card to a human
Make an accusation by playing three cards of the same suit (the Cat must play three cards to make an accusation)
Cat must meow when making a play…or maybe through the whole game?
The Cat cannot draw cards from the deck

Human-only actions:

Draw from the deck
Trade with each other; the player who initiated the trade is the one who selects which card to take from the other player’s hand (without looking at their hand)
Play a pair (it's easier for humans to make accusations)

Making an accusation:

A Human plays a pair of cards from the same suit, or the Cat plays three cards from the same suit. This is the Accusation.
The player whose Ace matches the suit from the Accusation receives a Blame token.
The first person to accumulate three Blame tokens is considered GUILTY, and this ends the game.

Winning the game:

Technically, you win if you don't end up as the guilty party, but there's more to it!
Reveal the hidden card that you set aside during setup. The whole group wins if the right person got the blame. Yay!
The Cat can feel extra good if they were the real culprit, but one of the Humans was found GUILTY.
The Humans can feel extra good if one of them was the real culprit, but the Cat was found GUILTY. Congrats; you can all continue to live harmoniously as roommates.

Strategies

Hold onto the cards that are evidence against you.
Play cards that are evidence against others.
The Cat, who has the most cards, is likely to know who the guilty party is.

Postmortem: "Infernax" (with Hunter Bond and Mike Ducarme)

29 april 2022 | min

GDC 2022 Special (Part 2)

21 april 2022 | min

Work Weeks (with August Brown)

15 april 2022 | min

Nice Thinking: "Games With Your Dogs"

7 april 2022 | min

GDC 2022 Special (Part 1)

31 mars 2022 | min

"Source code is viewable." Building Assets and Plugins; Ink Engine

24 mars 2022 | min

Visual Coding (with Alina Matson)

18 mars 2022 | min

“Done enough.” Milestone Builds; Wikis and Guides

10 mars 2022 | min

Game Dev London does Nice Games Jam

3 mars 2022 | min

"I got all the moons." Games You Get for Free; Joy vs. Fun

26 februari 2022 | min

"Additional things and stuff."

17 februari 2022 | min

Nice Thinking: "Sledgehammer Bride" [Nice Replay]

10 februari 2022 | min

Building Blocks of Design (with Osama Dorias) [Nice Replay]

3 februari 2022 | min

Nice Thinking: "The New Clubhouse" [Nice Replay]

27 januari 2022 | min

"To whom it may concern." Ethical Consumption; Grind [Nice Replay]

20 januari 2022 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Glom" [Nice Replay]

13 januari 2022 | min

#210

Glom

Nice Games Jam

2021.03.31

This week your nice hosts have a rowdy game jam. Dale gave us a prompt: Create a matching game with a puzzle element. The puzzle must be "what matches first" and bonus points if there's cats.

The goal of every Nice Games Jam is for the team to come up with a playable game by the end of the episode. Did Stephen, Mark, and Ellen make it happen, or did they end up with a pile of nonsense? Well, maybe a bit of both.

The "dot game" that Ellen referenced is called Dots & Boxes

-

Wikipedia

A three-sided die similar to the one that Eric, Ellen's partner, owns.

Here's a place you can buy your own three-sided die

-

Nvenom8 Designs on ShapeWays Marketplace

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

Any

Materials

Paper, pencil or pen

Setup

Each player should have:

Paper (or someplace to compose sentences)
Something to write with (typing on a screen is fine)
Some way of indicating points passed to other players (chips, coins, etc.) -- in the rules below, these will be referred to as "chips"

The game requires three decks. As of this airing, each deck has three cards:

Prompts deck
- "Nice to meet you."
- "Where is the bathroom?"
- "Can I pet your cat?"
Constraints deck
- No letter Es (this is incredibly difficult)
- Exactly 4 words
- Only single-syllable words
Scoring deck
- Most words
- Most letters
- Longest word in the sentence

Rules

The goal of the game is to acquire the most points out of all the players.

Players acquire points by writing sentences that adhere to the Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring card drawn for each round.

Setup

Shuffle all three decks.
Distribute chips evenly amongst all players.

Starting a Round

Draw a single card from each deck. Place all three face-down on the table.
Set the timer for the desired duration: 1 minute, 2 minutes (default) or 3 minutes.
Flip all three cards face-up and start the timer.
All players then attempt to compose a sentence that meets the criteria of all three cards (Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring) within the time limit.

Share Your Sentences

Each player speaks their sentence aloud. (If you're playing online, you can also enter your sentence into the text chat.) The sequence in which players share their sentences doesn't matter—just be nice about it.

Round Scoring

Players can’t use any of the words in the phrase on the Prompt card. There’s a penalty (-1 point) for each word used. Exception: You can use the same spelling of a word if it’s another type of word (noun vs. verb)
- Alternate rule for extra challenge and silliness: Remove the exception to the above rule.
The player whose sentence meets the conditions on that round's Scoring card wins 3 points.
Players pass one of their chips to the person who had, in the player's opinion, the coolest sentence. This is a subjective judgment and has nothing to do with the rules.
- Each chip received counts as 1 point for the receiving player.

Disputes

During Round Scoring, any player can raise an argument about how the rules apply to another player's sentence. If you bring an argument, you have to propose a resolution, and people will vote on the proposal. (For example, you can propose a change to someone's point total that round, or suggest a change to a person's sentence to bring it within the rules.) If the vote passes, the solution goes through.

Continue Play and End the Game

For each subsequent round of play, draw a new set of cards. Play and score according to the above rules.

The game ends when all Prompt cards have been used. Shuffle Constraints and Scoring cards back into their respective decks as needed.

The player with the most points wins!

“My face is over here.” Special In-Person Special [Nice Replay]

6 januari 2022 | min

Therapeutic Games (with Adam Davis) [Nice Replay]

30 december 2021 | min

#219

Therapeutic Games

Interview

2021.06.03

🎉 🎂 🎉 It's Ellen's birthday! 🎉 🎂 🎉

Wish her a happy one via the show's feedback form (seriously, that's what she asked for): nicegames.club/feedback.

Can games be used for therapeutic purposes? Absolutely! In this episode we talk with Adam Davis, therapeutic Game Master, and a co-founder and executive director of Game to Grow, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The organization is focused on "the use of games of all kinds for therapeutic, educational, and community growth."

Adam shares his experiences from over a decade in therapeutic play—how Game to Grow began, how he thinks about games as part of therapeutic experiences, and how he once managed SEVEN tabletop RPG campaigns simultaneously. We hope you enjoy our inspiring conversation with this really cool guy!

Photo of a large helping of cheesy nachos in a bowl styled like an upside-down baseball helmet.

Helmet nachos! Source: Target Field Eats on Twitter https://twitter.com/tfeats/status/1039672499892576256

Therapeutic Games

Game Design

Tabletop

Game to Grow blog

Critical Core on Kickstarter

Drama Therapy

-

North American Drama Therapy Association

Wheelhouse Workshop

Individualized Education Plan (IEP)

-

Understood.com

Collaboration vs. cooperation: What's the difference?

-

The Ripple Team

,

Ripple Intranet

Game to Grow Keynote at the 2018 Washington Therapy Conference

-

Adam Davis

No Thank You, Evil: The Award-Winning Game of Make-believe for Creative Kids an…

Adam Davis

Guest

Adam D. Davis, MA Ed, earned his Master’s degree in Education with a focus in drama therapy from Antioch University Seattle, and is a recognized member of the North American Drama Therapy Association.

Adam is a contributing author to three publications: Integrating Geek Culture into Therapeutic Practice; Game Play, 3rd Edition; and The Walking Dead Psychology.

In addition to his work with Game to Grow, Adam developed the CoRe Gaming program at the Atlantic Street Center utilizing video games to teach Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills, served as an educator at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, and taught fourth-grade literacy for Seattle Public Schools.

External link

Game to Grow website

Game to Grow on Twitter

"They wouldn't fully respawn." Fingeance Postmortem [Nice Replay]

23 december 2021 | min

Nicest of 2021

17 december 2021 | min

Designing like a Dungeon Master (with Katrina Ostrander and Jon Kiehne)

10 december 2021 | min

"Gamedev is jazz." Player Count; Hidden Information

3 december 2021 | min

"Maximum Whooo!" Learning to Use Tools; Co-Op Games

25 november 2021 | min

“The different beams I can do.” Power-ups; Franchises

18 november 2021 | min

Early Access (with Sami Sati and Erick Sati)

11 november 2021 | min

"..." Debugging; Silent Protagonists

5 november 2021 | min

Nice Thinking: "Sledgehammer Bride"

28 oktober 2021 | min

"Oh is that Rugrats?" Relaxing Games; Commitment

22 oktober 2021 | min

"Just-In-Time Compiler." Deluxe Editions; Illusions of Choice

15 oktober 2021 | min

"The drama of the reveal." Prototypes; Game Shows

9 oktober 2021 | min

"Forged by that experience." Frustration; Meetings

1 oktober 2021 | min

"Godot! God-ot? Godot." Learning a Game Engine; Guns

24 september 2021 | min

Nice Thinking: "The New Clubhouse"

16 september 2021 | min

Star Trek games (from Enterprising Individuals)

10 september 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Ƈɧɇᵴʂ 2⁴ (Live at 2D Con 2021)"

2 september 2021 | min

Pitching Tabletop Games (with Peter Yang)

26 augusti 2021 | min

Designing for VR (with Dana Ware)

19 augusti 2021 | min

"The random bobblehead." Bonus Content; Giving Talks

12 augusti 2021 | min

Nice Thinking: "Giblet the Trash Can"

5 augusti 2021 | min

GDC 2021 Special

29 juli 2021 | min

"The Corrupt Goo." Gamepads; Nature in Games

23 juli 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Palace of Versailles"

15 juli 2021 | min

"To whom it may concern." Ethical Consumption; Grind

10 juli 2021 | min

"So, you made a game engine?"

1 juli 2021 | min

Co-op Studios (with Reese Valentine and Mackenzie Denker)

24 juni 2021 | min

"The anitidote to hype." Storytelling; Exploits

19 juni 2021 | min

“My face is over here.” Special In-Person Special

10 juni 2021 | min

Therapeutic Games (with Adam Davis)

3 juni 2021 | min

"Kids like cubes these days." Novelty; Intuition

27 maj 2021 | min

Open Source Software (with Mark Mandel)

20 maj 2021 | min

Gameful UX (with Allan Rust)

14 maj 2021 | min

"They wouldn't fully respawn." Fingeance Postmortem

6 maj 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Evil Games Jam: Casino Go Fish"

30 april 2021 | min

Sound the alarm, it's the second half of Evil Games Club's latest nefarious reign over the clubhouse! This time, Adia, Dylan and Dale take their misdeeds to new heights with an "Evil Games Jam." Can they invent a playable game and test it in a single episode? What maddening mechanics will be unleashed from these malevolent minds? Take shelter under your headphones and listen if you dare!

Prompt

Create a game you might find in a casino, where the house always wins.

Game type

Card game

Player count

3

Materials

Standard deck of 52 playing cards

Setup

In this game, the Patrons and the Dealer oppose each other. In the spirit of the prompt, the idea is that the Dealer needs to win against the Patrons, but keep them interested enough to keep playing.

The Dealer wants to win against the Patrons.
The Patrons will work with each other to make more matches than the Dealer—while having fun!

Setting up the game:

Decide who will be The Dealer.
The Dealer shuffles the deck and deals each player 5 cards, face down.
The Dealer deals themselves 5 cards, face down.
Play starts with the person to the Dealer's left and proceeds clockwise.

Rules

GOAL

Patrons want to create more sets of matching 4 cards than the Dealer before the deck runs out. A set = 4 cards of the same number.

Heads up! Here are some important notes:

The Dealer's rules are slightly different than the Players' rules. The differences are noted below in line with the regular rules.
The discard pool is not the same thing as the discard pile. A discard pool is created during each round and then merged into the discard pile at the start of the Dealer's turn each round.

PLAYER TURNS

On each player's turn, they will take the following steps in order:

Draw cards
Switch cards
Discard

(Dealer only) Before you draw cards, move the cards in the discard pool from that round into the discard pile.

1: DRAW CARDS

On their turn, each player takes one of the following actions:

Draw up to 2 cards from the deck and place it face up in front of them
Draw up to 2 cards from the discard pool and place it face up in front of them
(Dealer only) If the player is the Dealer, they can pick up to 2 cards from any of the Patrons' hands and put them face up on the table OR put them directly into their hand

2: SWITCH CARDS

The player may then swap cards from their hand for cards they just drew, maintaining a hand of 5 cards. Patrons can only switch "like for like"—cards of the same color or number. Examples:

Swap the Queen of Spades for the Five of Clubs
Swap the Four of Diamonds for the Four of Spades

The Dealer doesn't have to follow the "like for like" rule. They can switch whatever cards they want. Unfair? Yep! That's the point.

3: DISCARD

The player should now have 5 cards in their hand and 2 cards leftover—either ones that were switched out, or ones that were drawn and not switched. The player must do one of the following before the end of their turn:

Discard the leftover 2 cards into the discard pool.
(Dealer only) Hand the leftover 2 cards to the Patron from which you drew your cards in step 1 of this turn.

MAKING A SET

A set is created when a single player holds 4 cards of the same number in their hand. When a player creates a set, they place all four cards on the table, then draws back up to a 5 card hand.

PLAYING TO WIN

Players take turns, clockwise, until the deck is expended. If the Dealer has made the most 4-card sets by the end of the game, the Dealer wins. If the Patrons have more 4-card sets than the Dealer, the Patrons win!

SHARING INFORMATION

Patrons can share information about their hands with each other by placing their hands face-up on the table. If you do this, know that the Dealer will get to see what's in your hand, too!

That's all the rules that we're allowed to talk about. If you try out the game, let us know what you think!

Evil Games Club 6!

22 april 2021 | min

"Brainy. Not academic." Ellen's PC Build - The Journey Begins; Press Reset by Jason Schreier

15 april 2021 | min

Building Blocks of Design (with Osama Dorias)

8 april 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Glom"

31 mars 2021 | min

This week your nice hosts have a rowdy game jam. Dale gave us a prompt: Create a matching game with a puzzle element. The puzzle must be "what matches first" and bonus points if there's cats.

The goal of every Nice Games Jam is for the team to come up with a playable game by the end of the episode. Did Stephen, Mark, and Ellen make it happen, or did they end up with a pile of nonsense? Well, maybe a bit of both.

The "dot game" that Ellen referenced is called Dots & Boxes
-
Wikipedia
A three-sided die similar to the one that Eric, Ellen's partner, owns.
Here's a place you can buy your own three-sided die
-
Nvenom8 Designs on ShapeWays Marketplace

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

Any

Materials

Paper, pencil or pen

Setup

Each player should have:

Paper (or someplace to compose sentences)
Something to write with (typing on a screen is fine)
Some way of indicating points passed to other players (chips, coins, etc.) -- in the rules below, these will be referred to as "chips"

The game requires three decks. As of this airing, each deck has three cards:

Prompts deck
- "Nice to meet you."
- "Where is the bathroom?"
- "Can I pet your cat?"
Constraints deck
- No letter Es (this is incredibly difficult)
- Exactly 4 words
- Only single-syllable words
Scoring deck
- Most words
- Most letters
- Longest word in the sentence

Rules

The goal of the game is to acquire the most points out of all the players.

Players acquire points by writing sentences that adhere to the Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring card drawn for each round.

Setup

Shuffle all three decks.
Distribute chips evenly amongst all players.

Starting a Round

Draw a single card from each deck. Place all three face-down on the table.
Set the timer for the desired duration: 1 minute, 2 minutes (default) or 3 minutes.
Flip all three cards face-up and start the timer.
All players then attempt to compose a sentence that meets the criteria of all three cards (Prompt, Constraint, and Scoring) within the time limit.

Share Your Sentences

Each player speaks their sentence aloud. (If you're playing online, you can also enter your sentence into the text chat.) The sequence in which players share their sentences doesn't matter—just be nice about it.

Round Scoring

Players can’t use any of the words in the phrase on the Prompt card. There’s a penalty (-1 point) for each word used. Exception: You can use the same spelling of a word if it’s another type of word (noun vs. verb)
- Alternate rule for extra challenge and silliness: Remove the exception to the above rule.
The player whose sentence meets the conditions on that round's Scoring card wins 3 points.
Players pass one of their chips to the person who had, in the player's opinion, the coolest sentence. This is a subjective judgment and has nothing to do with the rules.
- Each chip received counts as 1 point for the receiving player.

Disputes

During Round Scoring, any player can raise an argument about how the rules apply to another player's sentence. If you bring an argument, you have to propose a resolution, and people will vote on the proposal. (For example, you can propose a change to someone's point total that round, or suggest a change to a person's sentence to bring it within the rules.) If the vote passes, the solution goes through.

Continue Play and End the Game

For each subsequent round of play, draw a new set of cards. Play and score according to the above rules.

The game ends when all Prompt cards have been used. Shuffle Constraints and Scoring cards back into their respective decks as needed.

The player with the most points wins!

"Go pound a Monster." Your Internal Battery; Finding Your Artistic Voice

25 mars 2021 | min

"All of this mess that I'm throwing at you." Fonts; Jank

18 mars 2021 | min

"It’s March tomorrow."

11 mars 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020)" [Nice Replay]

3 mars 2021 | min

"Empty the bucket." Burnout; Asynchronous and Asymmetric Gameplay [Nice Replay]

24 februari 2021 | min

"Stephen, his arms wide!" Redundancy; Arcades [Nice Replay]

17 februari 2021 | min

Gamedev in the Philippines (with Ryan Sumo) [Nice Replay]

10 februari 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Dark Star" [Nice Replay]

3 februari 2021 | min

#180

Dark Star

Nice Games Jam

2020.06.30

No, your nice hosts aren't pitching an adaptation of the 1974 film of the same name, but returning guest host Sarah Seember Huisken counts it as an inspiration for the solo-play tabletop RPG we workshopped in this episode. Immerse yourself a galaxy of corporate factions, fluid allegiances, and space pirates!

Scum and Villainy

The 5 best solo board games

-

Rafael Cordero

,

PC Gamer

Prompt

Workshop existing solo-play TTRPG concept.

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

1 -?

Materials

Player dossier (player character/ship sheet, notes)

Dice (how many? which type? we didn't figure that out!)

Module booklet (includes blank pages for journaling/recordkeeping)

Setup

Sarah's draft ship systems sheet:

A draft of a player ship stat chart. Life Support, AI Systems, Signal Strength, and Ship Power are each shown with a bar that has

Rules

Each adventure module is an "assignment," which consists of a multi-page booklet.

Page 1 - Summary: Provides the “goal” for the player as defined by “quest-giver.”
Page 2 - Assignment parameters:
- Player reward (and possible advance payment)
- Assignment type (Cargo, Escort, Espionage, Assassination, etc.)
- Constraints (time budget, stealth requirement, equipment restrictions, etc)
- Supplies (mission-specific resources such as maps, documentation, etc)
- Risks and Opportunities: These are facts about the assignment's setting and characters that will impact the player differently depending on their alignment, ship condition, and other stats.
Pages 3+ - Story Acts
- Generally, each act should fit on one booklet page, providing all the narrative and mechanical information required to play though it. Acts may have alternate versions, each with its own page.
- Act I: A introduction/setup to the story, giving the player hints they can use to make preparations for the assignment. The player can spend actions in this act to tune their ship / Equip thier character / recruit NPC pals/crew, etc. Story events may include NPC conversations, skill checks, or other light gameplay. This act may be wholly different depending on which "class" the player is aligned with.
- Act II: A conflict or mechanical gameplay sequence, usually related to ship functions. Examples include ship battles, navigational challenges, serious malfunctions, etc.
  - The outcome of the sequence changes the narrative ending of this act, expanding or limiting the player's options. The outcome of this act will also frequently alter ship stats, player inventory, etc.
- Act IIIa, Act IIIb (c, d?): The player character must make a choice in the narrative, which determines which scene will end the story. The outcome of Act II may inform or limit this choice. Each scene plays differently, one might be a daring escape, while the other might be a diplomatic resolution.
Final Page - "To Be Continued In...": A list of other modules/assignments for the player to choose from in order to continue their character's story. Options may be limited depending on the version of Act III selected, the player's stats, Act II outcomes, class alignment, or other factors.

Example Assignment: “The Asset”

Summary: Email from corporation: “Take this large crate from planet Kittytail to planet Puppydog in time for the big corporate gala. Don't be late, and don't look in the crate!"
Parameters
- Reward: Standard rate, no advance!
- Assignment type: Cargo
- Constraints
  Time limit: Must reach destination without taking too many actions.
  NDA: can't run with other players or NPCs, can't stop for supplies.
- Supplies
  “Papers” needed to pass planetary customs.
  Fuel stipend (whatever you don’t use, you can keep)
- Risks: Planet Puppydog is not friendly to scruffy types. Certain player stats might cause issues/delays at customs.
- Opportunities: Access to future assignments on planet Puppydog (only available to “good dogs”).
Act I: "Pick up the cargo"
- Learn a bit, experience some glitches, spend/waste some time
- Some random events, die roll checks
Act II: "Oh no, it's pirates!"
- Battle type: targeted attack, pirates intend to board your ship, not destroy it
- Pirates attack random(?) stat, over a certain number of turns (5?). Player can react with actions, depending on stats and prep actions. Actions spend the player's time budget.
  - Can attack, evade, etc.
  - Can call for help, but if your comm stat is low, your general distress call might violate your NDA.
- On battle failure (some stat threshold): Pirates board your ship
  - Player can choose to hide, reveal, or protect cargo, costing actions.
  - If pirates discover the cargo, they open the box!
  - If they are fended off, player can get curious, and open the box!
  - The cargo: “It’s clearly important…” but you don’t have any idea. It’s some kind of mysterious artifact maybe?
Act III-A: "Deliver the cargo"
- Did you arrive on time? No? Corp docks your pay
- Gotta get though customs. Conversation/diplomacy mechanic. Audited for inspection? If you don’t have a lot of time, you can make risky moves to speed things along.
- Once you get though, you deliver the cargo to secret folks in bio-suits. Oooo, mystery vibes that will pay off in a future module, no doubt!
- Story ends at the gala! Enjoy a cocktail at the expense of the corp!
Act III-B: "Steal the cargo!"
- Escape the system with the mysterious cargo! Stealth check!
- Get caught? It's time for a second battle!
- Make it out of the system? Story ends with a tease: what is this thing and what do I do with it?
- Get caught by the corp? Go to corporate jail. Do not pass GO.
Possible "To Be Continued" modules:
- Check out the Puppydog job board!
- Investigate the artifact by following your mysterious client to a hidden lab on planet Puppydog.
- Escape with the artifact and take it to this crackpot scientist you met once.
- Corporate jail break!

Mental Health (with Alanna Linayre) [Nice Replay]

27 januari 2021 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Anarchitects!" [Nice Replay]

20 januari 2021 | min

"I will not threaten you with a noogie." Serious Play Conference 2020; Working with Family [Nice Replay]

13 januari 2021 | min

Agile Development (with Eric Johnson) [Nice Replay]

6 januari 2021 | min

"Kapow?" Fun in Games; Porting Your Game [Nice Replay]

31 december 2020 | min

Nicest of 2020

26 december 2020 | min

"Mindworm husbandry." 4X Games; Actionable Gamification by Yu-kai Chou

16 december 2020 | min

Families in Games (with Beth Korth and Andy Korth)

10 december 2020 | min

Tips for Designing Games for Learning

1 december 2020 | min

Business Speak (with Tiffany Otto)

25 november 2020 | min

"Not like Beauty and the Beast." Fail States; Worldbuilding

19 november 2020 | min

200th Episode Special: Bonus Content

13 november 2020 | min

"A Spark Plug." 200th Episode Special

12 november 2020 | min

"Random hilarious nonsense." Games for Young Children; Comedy in Games

5 november 2020 | min

Gamedev in Kenya)

31 oktober 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Roboston! (part 2)"

23 oktober 2020 | min

Game Audio Tools and Workflows (with Chel Wong)

15 oktober 2020 | min

"Human, play Dom-jot?" Games in Other Media; Online Play

7 oktober 2020 | min

Impostor Syndrome (with Heather Gartner)

2 oktober 2020 | min

Media Influences (with Xalavier Nelson Jr.)

23 september 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020)"

18 september 2020 | min

"Claps in the chat." Online Events; Documentation

10 september 2020 | min

Programming VR Games (with Jonathan Jennings)

2 september 2020 | min

Last-minute promo: We're LIVE tonight on Twitch!

29 augusti 2020 | min

Evil Games Club 5!

25 augusti 2020 | min

Indiedev During the Pandemic (with Glen Henry)

21 augusti 2020 | min

"A way to farm notions." Prototyping; Design Pillars

11 augusti 2020 | min

Mental Health (with Alanna Linayre)

6 augusti 2020 | min

"Empty the bucket." Burnout; Asynchronous and Asymmetric Gameplay

28 juli 2020 | min

Community Development (with Christine Marten)

24 juli 2020 | min

Level Editors (with Charles McGregor)

14 juli 2020 | min

"I will not threaten you with a noogie." Serious Play Conference 2020; Working with Family

10 juli 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Dark Star"

1 juli 2020 | min

No, your nice hosts aren't pitching an adaptation of the 1974 film of the same name, but returning guest host Sarah Seember Huisken counts it as an inspiration for the solo-play tabletop RPG we workshopped in this episode. Immerse yourself a galaxy of corporate factions, fluid allegiances, and space pirates!

Prompt

Workshop existing solo-play TTRPG concept.

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

1 -?

Materials

Player dossier (player character/ship sheet, notes)

Dice (how many? which type? we didn't figure that out!)

Module booklet (includes blank pages for journaling/recordkeeping)

Setup

Sarah's draft ship systems sheet:

Rules

Each adventure module is an "assignment," which consists of a multi-page booklet.

Page 1 - Summary: Provides the “goal” for the player as defined by “quest-giver.”
Page 2 - Assignment parameters:
- Player reward (and possible advance payment)
- Assignment type (Cargo, Escort, Espionage, Assassination, etc.)
- Constraints (time budget, stealth requirement, equipment restrictions, etc)
- Supplies (mission-specific resources such as maps, documentation, etc)
- Risks and Opportunities: These are facts about the assignment's setting and characters that will impact the player differently depending on their alignment, ship condition, and other stats.
Pages 3+ - Story Acts
- Generally, each act should fit on one booklet page, providing all the narrative and mechanical information required to play though it. Acts may have alternate versions, each with its own page.
- Act I: A introduction/setup to the story, giving the player hints they can use to make preparations for the assignment. The player can spend actions in this act to tune their ship / Equip thier character / recruit NPC pals/crew, etc. Story events may include NPC conversations, skill checks, or other light gameplay. This act may be wholly different depending on which "class" the player is aligned with.
- Act II: A conflict or mechanical gameplay sequence, usually related to ship functions. Examples include ship battles, navigational challenges, serious malfunctions, etc.
  - The outcome of the sequence changes the narrative ending of this act, expanding or limiting the player's options. The outcome of this act will also frequently alter ship stats, player inventory, etc.
- Act IIIa, Act IIIb (c, d?): The player character must make a choice in the narrative, which determines which scene will end the story. The outcome of Act II may inform or limit this choice. Each scene plays differently, one might be a daring escape, while the other might be a diplomatic resolution.
Final Page - "To Be Continued In...": A list of other modules/assignments for the player to choose from in order to continue their character's story. Options may be limited depending on the version of Act III selected, the player's stats, Act II outcomes, class alignment, or other factors.

Example Assignment: “The Asset”

Summary: Email from corporation: “Take this large crate from planet Kittytail to planet Puppydog in time for the big corporate gala. Don't be late, and don't look in the crate!"
Parameters
- Reward: Standard rate, no advance!
- Assignment type: Cargo
- Constraints
  Time limit: Must reach destination without taking too many actions.
  NDA: can't run with other players or NPCs, can't stop for supplies.
- Supplies
  “Papers” needed to pass planetary customs.
  Fuel stipend (whatever you don’t use, you can keep)
- Risks: Planet Puppydog is not friendly to scruffy types. Certain player stats might cause issues/delays at customs.
- Opportunities: Access to future assignments on planet Puppydog (only available to “good dogs”).
Act I: "Pick up the cargo"
- Learn a bit, experience some glitches, spend/waste some time
- Some random events, die roll checks
Act II: "Oh no, it's pirates!"
- Battle type: targeted attack, pirates intend to board your ship, not destroy it
- Pirates attack random(?) stat, over a certain number of turns (5?). Player can react with actions, depending on stats and prep actions. Actions spend the player's time budget.
  - Can attack, evade, etc.
  - Can call for help, but if your comm stat is low, your general distress call might violate your NDA.
- On battle failure (some stat threshold): Pirates board your ship
  - Player can choose to hide, reveal, or protect cargo, costing actions.
  - If pirates discover the cargo, they open the box!
  - If they are fended off, player can get curious, and open the box!
  - The cargo: “It’s clearly important…” but you don’t have any idea. It’s some kind of mysterious artifact maybe?
Act III-A: "Deliver the cargo"
- Did you arrive on time? No? Corp docks your pay
- Gotta get though customs. Conversation/diplomacy mechanic. Audited for inspection? If you don’t have a lot of time, you can make risky moves to speed things along.
- Once you get though, you deliver the cargo to secret folks in bio-suits. Oooo, mystery vibes that will pay off in a future module, no doubt!
- Story ends at the gala! Enjoy a cocktail at the expense of the corp!
Act III-B: "Steal the cargo!"
- Escape the system with the mysterious cargo! Stealth check!
- Get caught? It's time for a second battle!
- Make it out of the system? Story ends with a tease: what is this thing and what do I do with it?
- Get caught by the corp? Go to corporate jail. Do not pass GO.
Possible "To Be Continued" modules:
- Check out the Puppydog job board!
- Investigate the artifact by following your mysterious client to a hidden lab on planet Puppydog.
- Escape with the artifact and take it to this crackpot scientist you met once.
- Corporate jail break!

"I’m ashamed, but also so proud." NDAs; Replayability

26 juni 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Anarchitects!"

16 juni 2020 | min

"A place where people live." Animation; Establishing a Sense of Place

12 juni 2020 | min

"How Quality Is It?" Leadership; Pricing

4 juni 2020 | min

Gamedev in the Philippines (with Ryan Sumo)

26 maj 2020 | min

"Kapow?" Fun in Games; Porting Your Game

19 maj 2020 | min

"Balance all those prices." Economies; Ergonomics

13 maj 2020 | min

Building Substance (with Sébastien Deguy and Jérémie Noguer)

5 maj 2020 | min

"Click here for fleet operations." Nice Games Bulletin

30 april 2020 | min

"Martha, Martha, Martha!" Ending Projects; Starting Projects

21 april 2020 | min

"Stephen, his arms wide!" Redundancy; Arcades

14 april 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "5-4-7-3"

10 april 2020 | min

This week, your nice hosts put together a design document for a co-op game of corporate espionage. Martha wants to crawl through vents, Mark wants low stakes moral choices, and Stephen wants everyone to yell at everyone.

On Wednesday this week, Mark presented a in-depth postmortem on the production of Widget Satchel for the April IGDATC monthly community meeting, held remotely on Twitch. You can "attend" the meeting ex post facto on the IGDATC Twitch channel!

Prompt

"How about an asymmetrical couch co-op game? Maybe it's meant to be played with a younger sibling, or maybe it's a teaching tool."

Game type

Design document

Player count

2

Rules

Premise

Two players, who are a team of freelance infiltrators.
- One player is out in the field doing their thing (1st-person perspective).
- One player is a hacker at home base, providing assistance to the field player (in VR).
Spy theme, corporate espionage.
Field player observes the scene, gathering information for the hacker so they can do the hacking.
Field player does some deduction, but they are playing an action game, while the hacker player is playing a puzzle game..
Hacker is doing their hax from a kind of holographic computer interface (Minority Report-esque perhaps). They do not see what the field player sees directly, but have many resources at their disposal (camera feeds, scanning tech, etc)
Hacker manages resources and allocates mechanical abilities to the field player based on mission requirements and moment-to-moment events.
Game is a series of missions, Hitman-style, selected in any order. Each mission contributes to a larger narrative of rival companies/factions.

Pre-Mission

Players see information about future missions, the team chooses the next mission, but the hacker player literally picks it, opening up potential conflict between players.

Throughout the campaign, various moral choices can crop up. The team can choose their missions based on which client they support, or they can chose to become double agents, thwarting their client's goals.

Example Mission

Infiltrate a restaurant that actually is a complicated science lab to steal a secret recipe.

First task: sneak past into the entrance of the lab:
- Hacker player needs to manipulate orders and customers so that few people see the field player.
- Field player observing the state of play in the restaurant and doing the actions.
Second task: get past a bunch of lasers.
- Hacker player can take out some lasers and protect the field player using shields.
- Field player gets past the lasers through first-person platforming actions.
Third task: get the recipe.
- Field player is sneaking past guards or other security obstacles.
- Hacker player is opening vault with the recipe and doing stealth gadget things.
- Getting to the recipe, do you steal the recipe or copy the recipe down?
  - Do you want to simply defeat opponents, or destroy them?
  - As with mission selection, one player (the field player in this case) literally makes the call, but the game encourages the team to choose their course of action together.
Last task, get out of restaurant
- Option for field player: could sneak through vents, or take the same way out, or run past guards in a mad dash to escape.
In the case of a "stealth fail state," hacker player must hacking frantically to resolve the situation quickly (i.e.: convincing the guards it was a false alarm, disabling the lights to give the field player time to hide, etc), while field player is explicitly avoiding conflict.

"The new normal." Working From Home; Games to Play While Social Distancing

2 april 2020 | min

"Please cheat, I don't care." Unlocks; Case Study (Mutazione & Later Alligator)

25 mars 2020 | min

"GDC" 2020 Special

25 mars 2020 | min

"When in doubt, call it Gan Ainm." Naming Things; Rhythm Games

18 mars 2020 | min

"If you're feeling saucy..." Day-One Patches; Crunch

10 mars 2020 | min

"GDC Auxli- Aux- Alternative!" Nice Games Bulletin

3 mars 2020 | min

"We are making progress toward that, then."

19 februari 2020 | min

We're back! This week, your nice hosts talk about what they did over their winter break, from taking up residence in a new clubhouse, to developing a new logo and website, and more! But in the end, everything is still nice.

Highlights of this extra-long special episode:

Martha proposes a Nice Games Club IDE color theme...
...Dale joins the show to point out that making a logo for a podcast is harder than making a logo for a game...
...and after all the redesign work, Stephen makes a late pitch to rename the show "Hot Takes Games Club."

Plus, the entire clubhouse goes back and forth making promises (setting expectations) on the new website. It's an iterative process, people!

What We Did On Our Winter Break (2020)

Nice Games Club Logo Development

Here's a Nice Game Club "Bug" concept that was rejected

Logo Option #1: Stars

Logo Option #2: Git Tree

Logo Option #3: Coding Brackets

Stephen and the Fingeance team talk about their love of "choice #3" in one of our "Code Comment" episodes:

Code Comment: "Fingeance"

Iteration on Logo #3 (brackets)

Logo in multiple color contexts, including the "Valentine" theme

Two concept images showing the new Nice Games Club logotype on a stylized video game cartridge.

Variations on the "logo on a cartridge" concept

We made our new site using Drupal, a VERY open source web development tool.

December 2019

IGDATC's monthly meetings

Dale talked about developing Reravel, which was first developed during a Nice Games Jam episode:

Reravel: A Backwards Storytelling Game

January 2020

Protospiel

Hyperdot, a game by Stephen's brother Charles McGregor was released this month on January 31st. It is available on Xbox, Steam, itch.io and Windows PC. You can buy it now.

Global Game Jam 2020

The Global Game Jam 2019 keynote (aka: the best keynote ever) starts at 04:00

The Global Game Jam 2020 keynote

We mentioned Rachel, the head of GLITCH's Discord, who we have had on a previous episode:

Games Education

Mark worked with Scott Lembke for GGJ 2020. We interviewed Scott on a previous GGJ episode:

"Steal this episode."

Mark's logo for his team's GGJ 2020, with character art by teammate Kissi

Kissi worked on a few games during the jam!

A picture from the game jam game Super City Mayor.

Screenshot from "Super City Mayor," Mark's GGJ game

You can play Dale and Beth's GGJ game, "Corporate Espionage" right in your brow…

February 2020

Mark and Dale saw David Byrne's American Utopia!

American Utopia on Broadway

American Utopia: Full Cast Album

Spotify

New York Transit Museum

In a very old subway car at the NY Transit Museum

Dale in a very old subway car at the transit museum

Dale in a moderately old subway car at the transit museum

NYU Games Center has playtest events every Thursday

Nice Games Jam: "Buttons and Triggers and Sticks, Oh My!" [Nice Replay]

11 februari 2020 | min

#149

Buttons and Triggers and Sticks, Oh My!

Nice Games Jam

2019.09.25

This week's episode is sponsored by Codecks, the project management tool for game developers, by game developers! Sign up for free at http://codecks.io/nicegamesclub to let them know we sent you!

It's another Nice Games Jam! This time, our boyfriend Dylan sent in a particularly interesting challenge, asking your nice hosts to design a game where the player's load-out impacts the game's controls.

After an aborted attempt to make it into a game consisting of physical props, we came up with a very strange concept for a video game where you equip and battle a bunch of different controllers as if they were Pokémon or something!

Prompt

Design a game where the player's load-out impacts the game's controls.

Game type

Paper prototype

Player count

2-4

Materials

A controller of your choosing

Pieces to "slot" to your controller's buttons

Setup

"Buttons and Triggers and Sticks, Oh My!" (Prototype)

In this game, you control a "battlebot" vehicle that you configure using equipment and weapons that are auctioned off between players before the match. The twist is that your bot is a vehicle shaped like the actual controller you play the game with, and its capabilities are determined by the physical configuration of the input elements. Want a different bot, you gotta plug in a different controller!

Controllers

Each controller, from a knock-off Xbox 360 controller to a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con, has a list of "inventory slots" which line up with the physical controller's buttons and input elements. Items placed in these slots are "attached" to the in-game representation of the controller.

Each controller also has general properties such as hull strength and overall weight, and controllers with special properties like rumble, motion controls, or expansion ports would have additional in-game potential. Additionally, wired controllers would have different properties than wireless controllers, etc.

Equipment

Each piece of equipment has the following characteristics:

Type
- Movement
- Engines
- Ranged weapons
- Melee weapons
- Traps/environment
- Shields
- Bonus/special items
Stats: depends on type. Engines would have speed/power stats and weapons would have damage stats, for example.
Input compatibility: Which set of buttons, sticks, and/or triggers can this equipment be attached to? For example, the Z button on a Saturn controller is a face button, but it's a trigger on a Nintendo 64 controller. A machine gun might be placed on a trigger, or it could be placed on an analog stick and work as a turret! Maybe certain items can only be placed on controllers that have a "Select" button, etc.

Rules

Auction

Players configure their loudouts from stratch before every match, at the same time, using an auction system. Pieces of equipment comes up for auction one-by-one.

First, players are given vague information about the next item up for bid, and may pre-bid for it, gambling that it will be something useful to them.

If no player pre-bids for the item, it is fully revealed and players bid normally for it. Certain items will be incompatible for certain controllers, but a player may wish to bid on it anyway to deny it to another player (maybe they can then "melt down" the unwanted piece of equipment for some other resource).

This process continues either until all players are out of resources, or all the items (some subset of the total items in the game) have been put up for auction.

Resources could be limited, meaning that high-bidding contests would result in weaker players and more tactical, less chaotic matches (since all equipment would be expensive). Alternately, resources could be plentiful, providing players with lots of options, and any left over resources could be used to power and/or upgrade equipment, providing some motivation not to overspend for equipment.

Gameplay

Battles would be essentially multiplayer deathmatchs, where each player operates the equipment they've equipped to thier vehicle by using the input element they've assigned it to.

Battles would be heavily focused on targeting other players various equipment, in order to disable or destroy them.

Play could work using a 3rd person "Mario Kart/Twisted Metal battle mode" style of skill-based play, or perhaps it could use a Fallout VATS style targeting system where players would need to assign targets in real-time but would only need to hit the other player (letting an RNG system determine how successful the hit was)

The game might include other genre staples like item pickups (energy, ammo, etc).

Campaign/Progression?

Outside of regular matches, perhaps players could run campaigns where the results of each match would provide winnings that they can later use to upgrade their vehicle or purchase new equipment.

"It's Black History Month, y'all!" Audio Basics; Representation in Games [Nice Replay]

4 februari 2020 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Ants of Destiny: Morsels of the Queen" [Nice Replay]

28 januari 2020 | min

#143

Ants of Destiny: Morsels of the Queen

Nice Games Jam

2019.08.13

This week in the clubhouse, Stephen is still away in New York.

Ellen is back to help out with a Nice Games Jam! Our prompt: create a JRPG-inspired game in under an hour. But like any good JRPG, it took twice as long to complete as expected...

Ellen's handwritten notes are worth a look! (PDF)
And here's the Wikipedia page for Weevil, which Ellen wanted you to see.

Prompt

What would the Nice Games Club take on a JRPG be? Do that

Game type

Paper prototype

Player count

2

Setup

A two-person pen-and-paper RPG. One player portrays the party of ants, and the other player controls all enemies and narrates the story as the GM.

The Story

Your queen is dying, and for unknown reasons (foreshadowing!) your colony is running out of resources. You, a young worker ant, and your party of misfits must set out from your home to collect the extra food and supplies needed to save your colony, battling foes and overcoming challenges along the way!

Rules

The Party

Worker Ant (Player protagonist)
Bite (attack): 2
Carry (inventory): 5
Exo (armor): +0
Ability: "Defend" - Once per encounter, secretly choose (and write down) a party member. The next attack against that character will automatically fail. This remains in effect until an enemy attacks the selected player, or the player uses their ability.

Soldier Ant
Bite (attack): 3
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +2
Ability: "Command" - Once per encounter, use this ability to grant an automatic success on a party member's next attack.

Flying Ant
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 3
Exo (armor): -1
Ability: "Fly" - Once per encounter, choose an attack target, then exit play for this round. This character cannot be attacked by a non-flying enemy until they return at the start of the next round, when the attack is executed (as long as the target is currently in play).

Weevil (in disguise)
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +4
Ability: "Push" - Once per encounter, you can select an enemy to remove from play until the end of the round. This enemy cannot attack or be attacked.

All party members have 10 hit points (HP).

Party stats
Move: 4

Overworld
The GM prepares a map on a 20x20 grid, with multiple paths, each ending with a resource. This map is kept hidden the player. The player has their own map, which starts out blank. The GM draws new information on this map as the player uncovers it.

Each path on the map has the following information/stats:

Sense threshold (the number the player must roll above to detect its existence)
The shape and length of the path on the map.
The "peril value" representing the number added to random encounter checks (1-3).
The type of resource at the end of the path (food, item, etc. During our playthough, we only used food).
The amount/value of the resource at the end of the path (food: 1-3)

Paths don't all have to start from the origin point of the party. Some can begin in the middle of another paths, but the party can only discover a path if they are within sensing range of the beginning (how near is that? Um, we didn't figure that out).

Overworld turn sequence

Sense check: Player rolls 1d10. This value is compared against the "sense threshold" of each path which is within sensing range of the party. All paths whose sense threshold is equal to or below the value of the roll is "discovered" by the player. For each path whose sensing threshold is below the value of the roll, the player rolls another 1d10. The higher the roll result, the more information is revealed about it (1-3 no info, 4-7 some info, 9-10 all info). The exact information revealed is up to the GMs discretion. Paths which are revealed as a result of the initial roll being equal to the sensing threshold are discovered but no extra roll is made and no information is revealed.
Move: Player chooses a path and advances along it equal to the number of spaces of the party's "move" stat.
Random encounter check: The GM rolls 1d10. The "peril value" of the current path is added to the roll. The value is checked against an encounter table. This table (which, oops, we didn't create) would have more dangerous encounters the larger the number is, while the low range of numbers (say 1-4) would have no encounter at all.

Sense points
During the episode, we discussed letting the player "bank" sense points. For example, a player rolls a 9 on a sense check, but only chooses to use 6 and save the other 3. The GM then treats it as if the player rolled of 6, and the player now has 3 points to add as a modifier to future rolls.

Enemy Encounters
At the start of each round of battle, the player and the GM roll 1d10 for initiative. The higher roll goes first.

Each character has one action per round. Initiative passes between the player and the GM and the round is over when all characters and enemies have taken an action.

Actions

Attack: This is an opposed roll. The attacking character rolls 1d10. The defending character rolls 1d10, plus its Exo modifier. In the case of a successful attack, the defending character loses HP equal to attacker's attack stat. If the roll (including modifiers) is a tie, both players roll again with no modifiers to determine the result.

Ability: The character may use their ability instead of attacking.

After the player's party defeats certain opponents, its body can be converted into resources, which use up the "carry" stats of various party members, distributed as the player sees fit.

Obtaining resources
Once the party reaches the end of a path, the GM rolls 1d10 (in secret) to determine the state of the resources in this area. We develop a table for this during the episode, but it might go something like:

1 - 2: All resources are immediately available to collect.
3 - 5: Resources are trapped, players must attack or dismantle a barrier of some kind. The Exo value of the barrier is equal to this roll and the barrier's HP value is equal to a second 1d10 roll by the GM.
6 - 9: Resources are hidden, with this value being the threshold value the player must roll above in order to discover them one by one.
10: Resources are completely inaccessible.

If resources are trapped or hidden, the player can roll 1d10 to find them or attack the barrier to release them. After each attempt, an encounter check is made, so players will have to make calculated risks.

Once the player collects all resources, or declines further attempts to collect them, the party returns to the home colony, unloads thier resources, heals all their HP, and starts again on a new path.

Once the player brings 30 pieces of food (or some other metric of resources) back to the colony, the colony is saved! ...OR SO IT SEEMS!!

The Big Twist!

This is a JRPG-inspired game, so now it's time to turn the tables, expand the world to a preposterous scale, and raise the stakes as high (or higher) than makes any sense.

What the story twist is will be determined using a die roll from the GM.

1 - 3: An Evil Weevil Infiltration
It turns out the weevil in your party isn't the only "ant imposter" in your colony! Via a tearful confession, your weevil friend reveals that they have had a change of heart and must tell you the truth... your queen, and much of the high guard who protects the colony, have been replaced by EVIL WEEVILS in disguise! No wonder resources have been limited: The weevils have been stealing them! It's now up to you and your party to stop the them and win back your homeland!

4 - 6: Nearby Colony Has Incredibly Advanced Technology
A huge rumble shakes the ground. Suddenly, a fleet of dragonflies descends at the edge of the colony, dispensing super-soldier ants from a neighboring colony, who have somehow obtained unimaginably powerful technology. No wonder resources have been limited: the neighboring colony has developed... industry, evaporating water reserves and contaminating local food supplies! It's now up to you and your party to shut down their terrible war machine and bring peace back to the colony!

7 - 9: The Truman Show Ending
Wait, what's that? A violent shake disrupts the ground below, the walls around, and the ceilings above you! It's as if the entire colony has been knocked around and then dropped from a great height. Well, that's exactly what happened! It turns out, you've all been living in a large, artificial ant farm! No wonder resources have been limited: the human who is supposed to feed and take take of you has neglected their duties. It's now up to you and your party to rescue the members of your colony from this disaster, and find a way to break free of the plastic shell that represents your entire reality!

10: Roll again!

Developer/Publisher Relations (with August Brown) [Nice Replay]

21 januari 2020 | min

"Steal this episode." Writing for Games; Intellectual Property and the Public Domain [Nice Replay]

14 januari 2020 | min

Nostalgia and the Lo-fi Aesthetic (with Marina Kittaka) [Nice Replay]

7 januari 2020 | min

"100 times nice." 100th Episode Special [Nice Replay]

31 december 2019 | min

"Somebody's first episode." Language of Games; Sequels [Nice Replay]

24 december 2019 | min

Nicest of 2019

17 december 2019 | min

Evil Games Club 4!

10 december 2019 | min

"Calendar math!" Calendar Math (Production Schedules); Calendar Math (Real Time in Games)

3 december 2019 | min

"Space ferrets lift off!" Widget Satchel Special

29 november 2019 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Reravel: A Backwards Storytelling Game"

19 november 2019 | min

This week, our boyfriend Dylan gave your nice hosts a prompt to create "a narrative game where the story is told backwards." This one is a slow burn, but it really cooks by the end!

With Stephen still away, Dale LaCroix (she of Evil Games Club and your nice social media manager) re-enters in the clubhouse to help create this week's game.

But Dale didn't just join your nice hosts for this week's jam. She also took the resulting game and made improvements once the recording stopped! Not only that, but she's going to keep working on it. It will be at Glitch's December Play/Test event if you want to play the latest version!

Our original rules are presented below, and Dale's "first revised edition" is presented below that...

Prompt

Make "a narrative game where the story is told backwards."

Game type

Tabletop game

Player count

2-4

Materials

END CARDS: 7 possible endings to your story

SETTING CARDS: Places the story could take place

PLOT CARDS: Events that might take place in your story

MAIN DECK: This is made up of several different types of cards:

Character Cards - Describes the occupation or description of people who will be in your story

Noun Cards - Describes items that will be in your story

Editor Notes - Special instructions from your editor, this might include directions such as this next scene takes place in a different setting, or that someone in your story is not who you think they are.

Setup

Deal the following:

One ‘Setting’ card. Deal face up and place it on top of the Setting deck.
Three 'Main Deck' Cards. Deal face up. These will be the Goal Cards; if there are any Editor Note cards, place these at the bottom of the main deck and re-deal so that there are three total Main Deck cards representing the Goal Cards.
One ‘The End’ card. Deal face up and place this on top of the Setting deck.
Four ‘Plot’ Cards. Deal face down. One will be revealed each round during rounds 2-5.

Rules

ORIGINAL Rules

STEP ONE: Start with the END Scenario

We randomly selected by rolling a six-sided die, for the six END SCENARIOS:

Death
Getting off a plane
A big hug / reunion
The end of a wedding
Getting on a plane
Falling off a cliff

Also pick a character card from the deck - draw and discard until you get one - or roll a 20 sided die and table in step 2

STEP TWO: Each Player picks a “card” and adds a detail about the card information that they picked.

The FIRST ROUND will be picked from a separate pile of END SCENARIO DETAILS:

Wine stain
Explosion
Sight bruise to the upper arm
Knife
Spilled Milk
Bloody nose
Broken Sunglasses
Frostbite
Somebody is wearing sweatpants
An orange

To mimic a card draw this use the following table:

(Roll a 6-sided die, then a 20-sided die)

A participant
1. Shopkeeper
2. Cleric
3. Magician
4. Bride
5. Captain
6. Peasant/Passenger/Guest
7. Bartender
8. Detective
9. Chef
10. Child
11. (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10)
A setting
1. Forest
2. Mall/ Market
3. Tavern
4. School
5. Meadow
6. Ship
7. Bridge
8. Office
9. Home
10. Castle
11. (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10)
An action or event
1. Robbery
2. Fight
3. Crash
4. Bees!
5. Heart Attack
6. Lunchtime
7. Childish Insult
8. Ankle Sprain
9. Caught in Traffic
10. Overslept or Fall Asleep
11. (for 11-20, duplicate 1-10)
An item
1. Pen
2. Cable
3. Knife
4. Oven
5. Communication Device (Letter, Phone)
6. Mushroom
7. Boot
8. Cat
9. Book
10. Sock
11. Flute
12. Arrow
13. (for 13 - 20, more cats, I guess?)
ROLL AGAIN
A participant (use list from 1)

STEP THREE: Together the group makes up a story about how each item goes together in this scene to lead up to the established story

STEP FOUR: Repeat for each previous “scene”. Each Scene will take place at some earlier point in time, it may be minutes, hours, days or months earlier. You decide what fits your story best.

STEP FIVE: The fifth round is your inciting incident, the event that kicked off your story.

SCORING: We haven’t figured this out, we discussed awarding points based on if random events happened during the story, such as:

Scoring Events:

Bloody Nose
Weather Event
Somebody Tripped
Somebody got dumped
Somebody cries
The Devil shows up
Someone left to go to the bathroom
There was kissing

Or awarding points with a judge or game master….

UPDATED Rules by Dale

"Re-ravel: A backwards storytelling game" (working title)

Introduction

Have you ever heard the phrase, a camel is a horse designed by a committee? It’s a proverb about the faults of having too many designers in a room, causing a final poor design. The goal to this game is to write a story with your friends, but to protect against the story trailing off, like so many comedy sketches, your editor came up with the perfect ending, start with the ending! And it turns out there are only so many endings in human playbook.

Each Game is made out of 5 Rounds or Acts, each moving backward in time.

Three cards from the main deck are selected as goal cards. These can be used in your story at any time. Using each card is worth 1 million points for the team. If an editor note card selected as a goal card, this should be discarded to the bottom of the main deck.

The last round, representing the first part of your story, will be the inciting incident.

Goal

Create a coherent story while using each of the three elements from the goal cards with your writing committee

Round 1: The End Round

Each Player draws a card. For this round only, if you get a Editor’s note, redraw

One at a time. each player reveals their card, and creates one detail or fact about the item or character that they drew, and places the card near the ‘End Card.’ This fact should not relate to anything already placed on the board. The order of players does not matter

Examples:

Character Card - the Cleric - the cleric has a fancy hat
Item Card - Wine Stain - the wine stain is on somebody’s white shirt
Item Card - An Orange - The orange is part of basket of fake fruit

Together the players craft a scene in which all the elements are used, and results in the ending within the setting. At any time the players may pull in the elements on the goal cards

Rounds 2-4: The Middle Rounds

Each Player draws a card.
Each player reveals their card
Adds a detail about their card (as in round one) unless it is a ‘Editor’s Note’ Card
Places the card near the next face down Plot Card
If a Editor’s Note Card is drawn, follow the directions on the card.
When all the elements of the story, the Plot Card is then revealed.

The players then craft the scene. They must use all the elements that were revealed this round. They may use any elements that were revealed in the previous round (i.e. later in the story). They may use any of the elements from the goal cards at any time. The scene should connect and make story-scene with the other scenes that have been crafted.

Round 5: The Final Round, i.e. the beginning of the Story

Each Player draws a card.
Each player reveals their card
Adds a detail about their card (as in round one) unless it is a ‘Editor’s Note’ Card
Places the card near the next face down Plot Card
If a Editor’s Note Card is drawn, follow the directions on the card - Unless it is a Epilogue card or other card that places this out of order - please redraw
When all the elements of the story, the Plot Card is then revealed.

The players craft the first scene. They must use all the elements that were revealed this round. They may use any elements that were revealed in the previous round (ie later in the story). They may use any elements of the goal cards at any time. The scene should connect and make story-scene with the other scenes that have been crafted AND this should somehow start the story (the inciting incident) - How does this plot point kick off the rest of the story.

END of GAME:

Optional: Retell the story in the forwards direction

Award your Committee the following points:

1 million points for each goal element used in the story
100 points if your story made any sense.
500 bonus points if you had a really difficult element you had to fit into your story.

"All your maps are belong to us." Localization; Navigation; Dale’s Additional Travel Tips

12 november 2019 | min

Agile Development (with Eric Johnson)

5 november 2019 | min

"Abstracted to the point of silliness." Finding Fidelity; Taking Feedback

29 oktober 2019 | min

"She also cheats a lot." Multi-Generational Gaming; Noble Failures

22 oktober 2019 | min

"Casper the Not-So-Friendly Goose." Nice Games Bulletin

15 oktober 2019 | min

"I don't always want to do that." Holistic Game Design; Work/Life Balance

8 oktober 2019 | min

Board Game Design (with David R. Megarry)

1 oktober 2019 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Buttons and Triggers and Sticks, Oh My!"

25 september 2019 | min

It's another Nice Games Jam! This time, our boyfriend Dylan sent in a particularly interesting challenge, asking your nice hosts to design a game where the player's load-out impacts the game's controls.

After an aborted attempt to make it into a game consisting of physical props, we came up with a very strange concept for a video game where you equip and battle a bunch of different controllers as if they were Pokémon or something!

Prompt

Design a game where the player's load-out impacts the game's controls.

Game type

Paper prototype

Player count

2-4

Materials

A controller of your choosing

Pieces to "slot" to your controller's buttons

Setup

"Buttons and Triggers and Sticks, Oh My!" (Prototype)

In this game, you control a "battlebot" vehicle that you configure using equipment and weapons that are auctioned off between players before the match. The twist is that your bot is a vehicle shaped like the actual controller you play the game with, and its capabilities are determined by the physical configuration of the input elements. Want a different bot, you gotta plug in a different controller!

Controllers

Each controller, from a knock-off Xbox 360 controller to a Nintendo Switch Joy-Con, has a list of "inventory slots" which line up with the physical controller's buttons and input elements. Items placed in these slots are "attached" to the in-game representation of the controller.

Each controller also has general properties such as hull strength and overall weight, and controllers with special properties like rumble, motion controls, or expansion ports would have additional in-game potential. Additionally, wired controllers would have different properties than wireless controllers, etc.

Equipment

Each piece of equipment has the following characteristics:

Type
- Movement
- Engines
- Ranged weapons
- Melee weapons
- Traps/environment
- Shields
- Bonus/special items
Stats: depends on type. Engines would have speed/power stats and weapons would have damage stats, for example.
Input compatibility: Which set of buttons, sticks, and/or triggers can this equipment be attached to? For example, the Z button on a Saturn controller is a face button, but it's a trigger on a Nintendo 64 controller. A machine gun might be placed on a trigger, or it could be placed on an analog stick and work as a turret! Maybe certain items can only be placed on controllers that have a "Select" button, etc.

Rules

Auction

Players configure their loudouts from stratch before every match, at the same time, using an auction system. Pieces of equipment comes up for auction one-by-one.

First, players are given vague information about the next item up for bid, and may pre-bid for it, gambling that it will be something useful to them.

If no player pre-bids for the item, it is fully revealed and players bid normally for it. Certain items will be incompatible for certain controllers, but a player may wish to bid on it anyway to deny it to another player (maybe they can then "melt down" the unwanted piece of equipment for some other resource).

This process continues either until all players are out of resources, or all the items (some subset of the total items in the game) have been put up for auction.

Resources could be limited, meaning that high-bidding contests would result in weaker players and more tactical, less chaotic matches (since all equipment would be expensive). Alternately, resources could be plentiful, providing players with lots of options, and any left over resources could be used to power and/or upgrade equipment, providing some motivation not to overspend for equipment.

Gameplay

Battles would be essentially multiplayer deathmatchs, where each player operates the equipment they've equipped to thier vehicle by using the input element they've assigned it to.

Battles would be heavily focused on targeting other players various equipment, in order to disable or destroy them.

Play could work using a 3rd person "Mario Kart/Twisted Metal battle mode" style of skill-based play, or perhaps it could use a Fallout VATS style targeting system where players would need to assign targets in real-time but would only need to hit the other player (letting an RNG system determine how successful the hit was)

The game might include other genre staples like item pickups (energy, ammo, etc).

Campaign/Progression?

Outside of regular matches, perhaps players could run campaigns where the results of each match would provide winnings that they can later use to upgrade their vehicle or purchase new equipment.

"Intentionally random." XOXO Festival; Randomization

17 september 2019 | min

"In situ." Rumble; Making Games for Spaces

10 september 2019 | min

"There's loot in your DNA!" Nice Games Bulletin

3 september 2019 | min

User Interfaces (with Jajeev Nithiananda)

29 augusti 2019 | min

"Explosions!" Power Fantasies; Game Trailers

20 augusti 2019 | min

Nice Games Jam: "Ants of Destiny: Morsels of the Queen"

13 augusti 2019 | min

Ellen is back to help out with a Nice Games Jam! Our prompt: create a JRPG-inspired game in under an hour. But like any good JRPG, it took twice as long to complete as expected...

Ellen's handwritten notes are worth a look! (PDF)
And here's the Wikipedia page for Weevil, which Ellen wanted you to see.

Prompt

What would the Nice Games Club take on a JRPG be? Do that

Game type

Paper prototype

Player count

2

Setup

A two-person pen-and-paper RPG. One player portrays the party of ants, and the other player controls all enemies and narrates the story as the GM.

The Story

Your queen is dying, and for unknown reasons (foreshadowing!) your colony is running out of resources. You, a young worker ant, and your party of misfits must set out from your home to collect the extra food and supplies needed to save your colony, battling foes and overcoming challenges along the way!

Rules

The Party

Worker Ant (Player protagonist)
Bite (attack): 2
Carry (inventory): 5
Exo (armor): +0
Ability: "Defend" - Once per encounter, secretly choose (and write down) a party member. The next attack against that character will automatically fail. This remains in effect until an enemy attacks the selected player, or the player uses their ability.

Soldier Ant
Bite (attack): 3
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +2
Ability: "Command" - Once per encounter, use this ability to grant an automatic success on a party member's next attack.

Flying Ant
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 3
Exo (armor): -1
Ability: "Fly" - Once per encounter, choose an attack target, then exit play for this round. This character cannot be attacked by a non-flying enemy until they return at the start of the next round, when the attack is executed (as long as the target is currently in play).

Weevil (in disguise)
Bite (attack): 1
Carry (inventory): 4
Exo (armor): +4
Ability: "Push" - Once per encounter, you can select an enemy to remove from play until the end of the round. This enemy cannot attack or be attacked.

All party members have 10 hit points (HP).

Party stats
Move: 4

Overworld
The GM prepares a map on a 20x20 grid, with multiple paths, each ending with a resource. This map is kept hidden the player. The player has their own map, which starts out blank. The GM draws new information on this map as the player uncovers it.

Each path on the map has the following information/stats:

Sense threshold (the number the player must roll above to detect its existence)
The shape and length of the path on the map.
The "peril value" representing the number added to random encounter checks (1-3).
The type of resource at the end of the path (food, item, etc. During our playthough, we only used food).
The amount/value of the resource at the end of the path (food: 1-3)

Paths don't all have to start from the origin point of the party. Some can begin in the middle of another paths, but the party can only discover a path if they are within sensing range of the beginning (how near is that? Um, we didn't figure that out).

Overworld turn sequence

Sense check: Player rolls 1d10. This value is compared against the "sense threshold" of each path which is within sensing range of the party. All paths whose sense threshold is equal to or below the value of the roll is "discovered" by the player. For each path whose sensing threshold is below the value of the roll, the player rolls another 1d10. The higher the roll result, the more information is revealed about it (1-3 no info, 4-7 some info, 9-10 all info). The exact information revealed is up to the GMs discretion. Paths which are revealed as a result of the initial roll being equal to the sensing threshold are discovered but no extra roll is made and no information is revealed.
Move: Player chooses a path and advances along it equal to the number of spaces of the party's "move" stat.
Random encounter check: The GM rolls 1d10. The "peril value" of the current path is added to the roll. The value is checked against an encounter table. This table (which, oops, we didn't create) would have more dangerous encounters the larger the number is, while the low range of numbers (say 1-4) would have no encounter at all.