Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we recap 2024 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 Michel Ancel, Alex Garden, Sam Lake, Jordan Mechner, and Tony Rowe, and every interview was fun to listen to again. Terrific slate. We're so lucky. It's humbling. Next time: Either Minecraft or a mail bag Links: Defeating Games for Charity Note: Tony Rowe's whitepaper was not yet on the Internet as of this recording; we'll keep an eye out and share it when we discover its publication. Twitch: timlongojr Discord [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Minecraft, with this special Christmas edition. We talk a little about seeds and sharing them, carpeting your friend's base, stories of ongoing Minecrafting, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours of Minecraft Issues covered: wall-to-wall carpeting, Defeating Games for Charity, Minecraft gear, motion capture, finding Tim's base, stairs being my hallmark, the importance of community, a potato generator, farming spaces and pens, not being deep on the tech tree, building being an important part, learning about sheep and their needs, grass propagation, sudden appearance of grass, emergent properties and experimentation, getting quickly to the nether, leaning on villagers, building up the spawn point, monster generation, XP as currency, upgrading villagers, a system to get quickly to villages, a very deep hole, climbing out of a big hole, getting connected to the world, blockiness contributing to readability, replayable/pseudo-randomness, selecting a seed, determinism, a multiverse of deterministic universes, a shareable number that you can replicate, difficulty progression in other games, getting same-y, going to the end, investing yourself, asking why?, making and letting go, spreading out to other games, Deathgaze and other end-game FF6 discussion. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Phil Salvador, BioStats, Mega 64, Mark Garcia, LostLake86, MysteryDip and progeny, Lord of the Rings (obliquely), Valheim, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Indiana Jones (obliquely), Minesweeper, Bridge, Starfighter, Spelunky, Skyrim, Soren Johnson, Civilization, No Man's Sky, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Corbin Bernsen, Pacific Drive, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. Next time: End of year review! Links: Defeating Games for Charity Twitch: timlongojr Discord https://t.co/h7jnG9J9lz [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2009's Minecraft. We talk about it birthing the survival genre, and a bit about what that means on several levels, drive into player motivation, and talk a little bit about how our play has gone. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few more hours Issues covered: announcement about servers, the importance of iteration and innovation in game development, implementing on the basis of what you need, layering with survival in play, exploratory game-making and seeing where choices take you, not knowing the opportunities for things, spatial exploration and buildable exploration, not knowing what to do with all this copper, adding things to challenge your assumptions, setting up traps, having to do a lot of stuff to get to the nether, having a hard time sustaining an open game, digging towards a mountain, finding an abandoned mine, a minimal story that doesn't quite scratch the narrative itch, spawning a genre which explores the other gameplay spaces, loving the Viking stuff, seeking efficiency and layout goals, finding things as you dig down, the many sites of Brett D, figuring out your layout, building building building digging digging digging. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: LostLake86, David Brevik, Artimage, Breath of the Wild, Annihilation, Enshrouded, Return to Moria, Lord of the Rings, Valheim, Dragon Quest Builders, The Sims, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: More Minecraft! Twitch: timlongojr Discord [email protected]

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 2009's Minecraft. We talk about the early access history of the title, the impact on the industry, and then dive into some initial thoughts on our first few hours. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: A few hours Issues covered: Brett kills Tim, an announcement about opening world, an announcement about Defeating Games for Charity, the Minecraft Timeline, the beginning of Early Access, starting with creative mode, adding core concepts later, viral success, cellular automata, emergence in a user-created space, free-to-play vs early access, hunger, huge success, a smart purchase, a rough start, undirected and unexplained, the key to the experience, building a game with a community, the crafting table and drawing little items, sanding edges off, crafting blocks with blocks, connecting to your humanity, how long you can go without stuff, building up a city, the survival test and launching a genre, holding everything in your hand, the sense of exploration, player types, sanding away friction, space for sequels, dealing with the Internet, the rise of the day one patch, boundaries and generations, a dangerous model, triaging bugs for day one, right-sizing the game. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioStats, Calamity Nolan, Phil Salvador, Video Game History Foundation, Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Demons's Souls, Brutal Legend, League of Legends, Infamous, Assassin's Creed II, Dragon Age: Origins, Left 4 Dead 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Bayonetta, Plants vs Zombies, Red Faction: Guerilla, Artimage, Steam, Dwarf Fortress, MUD, Everquest, Far Cry 2, Clint Hocking, Valheim, Microsoft, Mojang, Bethesda Game Studios/Zenimax, id Software, Machine Games, Tango Gameworks, Discord, Phil Spencer, Halo, The Three Stooges, Picross, Black Hawk Down, Delta Force, Dragon Quest Builders, Spelunky, WoW Classic, Blizzard, mysterydip, Ubisoft, Sony, Horizon (series), Nintendo, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  Next time: More Minecraft! Twitch: timlongojr Discord [email protected]