Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a series on 1985's Ultima IV. After talking about the recent Defeating Games for Charity, we set the game in its time, talk about our encounters in the past with the series, and then dive into the manuals and the start of the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
The first couple of hours and the manuals 
Issues covered: Defeating Games for Charity, the first pancake, our experiences with this series, an opaque franchise, mainlining a game, opacity being part of the point, performance characteristics of the PCs of the time, the importance of the manuals, entering the world as yourself, using the manual to reinforce the role-play, not requiring graphics, priming the player, describing the geography of different areas, imposing importance on a handful of pixels, the quest of the game, sublimating the quest of the game, a less traditional RPG experience, after reading the manual, the deep questions/dilemmas, tournament structure, choosing your most important virtue, getting the bard, series characters who can join your party, reflecting your beliefs, getting different dilemmas, the Venn diagram of virtues, the Tinker profession, symmetry in design, Buddhism and the Eightfold Path, countering the cultural zeitgeist, the Avatar and Hinduism, a deity's manifestation on Earth, finding your way into swamps, both hosts being poisoned and dying, death and rebirth, being unable to recruit early.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dwarf Fortress, BioStats, KyleAndError13, Silksong, GreyFiery, Hollow Knight, Untitled Goose Game, Kaeon, Hitman, N0isses, Hades, Phil Salvador, MYST, RobotSpacer, Shadowgate, Unpacking, Kendrama, CalamityNolan, Splatoon 2, Typing of the Dead, Dark Souls 2, Nitro, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, LostLake, Minecraft, Super Mario Bros Shuffler, Devil May Cry, MegaMan X, Belmont, NES, Atari 2600, Ultima Underworld, A Bard's Tale, Eye of the Beholder, Magic: The Gathering, LucasArts, Super Mario 64, Space Harrier, Gauntlet, Ghosts n' Goblins, Gradius, Super Mario Bros, Tetris, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, Spy vs Spy (series), Oregon Trail, King's Quest II, The Goonies, Gremlins, A View to a Kill, Rambo, Temple of Doom, The Empire Strikes Back, SEGA Master System, Sonic (series), Wizardry, Apple ][, Commodore 64, Civilization III, The Sims, Bill Roper, Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Reed Knight, Pool of Radiance, Dungeons & Dragons, Warren Spector, Ultima Adventures, Outcast, Fallout, Wasteland, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Harley Baldwin, Richard Garriott, the Ramayana, Ed Fries, Benimanjaro, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 
Note:
Because Ultima IV has very little music to speak of, I will be substituting music from later in the series in the openings to these episodes
TTDS:
06:25
Next time: More Ultima IV
Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
[email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Pikmin. We talk about building back from loss, a rough ending, and compact level design, amongst other things. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Finished the Game (B) or Played a bit more (T)
Issues covered: the charity stream, how many parts do you need, maybe less necessary ship parts, coming back from a bad day, combat and losing units, strategies to build up your armies, fighting the slog and demoralization, the tyranny of the day timer, stats at the end of the game, having a day to rebuild, a mismatch of tone and play, figuring out how the conversion flowers worked, an economical game with economical levels, playing against enemy ecologies, small footprint with lots of overlay, a daily bombing task, a player type that interacts poorly with the game, not handling the vertical well, the first iteration, thinking about the unit types in other RTSes, the final level and its environmental challenges, the final boss and changing the rules, dev team size, genre conventions and inspirations, drawing inspiration from elsewhere, make the final boss easier, context and tone working together with gameplay, catching up with a review.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: CalamityNolan, BioStats, KyleAndError13, Silksong, LostLake86, Minecraft, N0isses, Hades, Brad Smith, Teenage Blob, Pilgrims, Kaeon, Untitled Goose Game, MegaMan X, Dwarf Fortress, Phil Salvador, Myst, Cyan, Splatoon 2, Project Octavia, Super Mario 64, Starcraft, Ensemble Studios, Halo Wars, Halo, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Ogre Battle 64, Breath of the Wild, Benimanjaro, Hitman, Spelunky, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 
Next time:
Defeating Games for Charity Links:
Donate! 
Follow on Bluesky
Defeating Games YT 
Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube 
Discord 
[email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our series on Pikmin. We talk about returning to the game after a break, the macro structure and persistence of the levels, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Several more hours
Issues covered: Defeating Games for Charity, relearning the controls, figuring out what you were trying to accomplish, naming buttons, persistent units and worlds, exploratory sandboxes, reinforcing replay, Nintendo creating something new, things that are hard to classify into genres, the order of operations, plate-spinning and de-stressing, gameplay paradigms, not knowing when you have the right tools, the ticking timers, limited knowledge to find, the puzzly boss, learning how well you can recover, gentle fail states, not telling you everything you might want to know, the un-Nintendo timers, day/night cycles, hitting enemies out of the air, loss aversion, Olimar salting the wounds, leading plant people, delightful music, finding where you can review our podcast, settings in games, trying to preserve an experience, console hardware revs, different forms of remake, ideal versions of settings, not opening up the settings, prerendered cutscenes, motivated choices due to hardware, remembering your audience. 
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Video Game History Foundation, Dwarf Fortress, Project Octavia, Hollow Knight, KyleAndError, Unreal, Homeworld, Starcraft, Warcraft, Splatoon, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, Incredible Machine, WarioWare, UFO 50, Metroid, Majora's Mask, Outer Wilds, Apocalypse Now, Hajime Wakai, Benimanjaro, mysterydip, Silent Hill 2, Rogue, Resident Evil, Halo, Saber Interactive, Hitman, Final Fantasy (series), PS1, Chrono Trigger, Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft, Tomb Raider, Quake, Minecraft, Ed Fries, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
Finish Pikmin!
Links!
Defeating Games for Charity
Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
YouTube 
Discord 
[email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we recap 2025 through our interviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
It's all about our takeaways -- I'm going to let the clips speak for themselves and remove the usual stuff from here. In the past year, we interviewed eight people across seven episodes: Sean Vesce and Zack Norman, Karla Zimonja, William Pugh, Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek, Kim Swift, and a new type of interview with Ed Fries.
Next time:
Back to Pikmin!
Links:
Defeating Games for Charity
Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
Discord 
[email protected]

We are off for one more weeke, so we are again reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview Carlos from the Discord, an independent graphic novelist and publisher and former AAA game developer.
Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp 
Discord 
[email protected]