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How is it April? The episodes have been so long lately it feels like it should be more than two months since the hiatus ended. As a countermeasure, the Nice Hosts have another set of roundtable topics to break up your week and retune the time dilation. Stephen tries hard not to talk about fighting games, Lydia ponders the nature of instructions, and everyone talks a lot more about Mario than they thought they would.  0:01:41 Characterization Through Mechanics We talked about characterization in Smash on a previous episode. "I’m intrigued by big door." Lewis Chessmen Wikipedia 0:29:24 Tutorials vs. Instructions The "tutorial" Lydia encountered at work that inspired this topic.

All of your regular hosts finally make it into the clubhouse again to present to you a roundtable! After a fairly lengthy meta (it's been a long time y'all, but all interesting stuff!), we expose elements of 3D lighting and discuss an internet meme that's maybe relevant for game development. No Kings Protests Erin Macdonald YouTube Channel  -  Erin Macdonald ,  YouTube GURPS Prime Directive Core Rulebook  -  Steve Jackson Games 0:26.12 3D Lighting We previously had Mark's friend and colleague Mike on to workshop Ladder Game. Ladder Game Universal Render Pipeline documentation Unity SG Series Part 1: A Brief (and Incomplete) History of Baked Lighting Representa… MJP The Danger Zone Reflectors: Your Secret Weapon for Amazing Portrait Photography Oded Wagenstein Digital Photography School 0:58.43 Menus vs Parkour menus and parkour imGhostKitty Reddit Save Room - Organization Puzzle Fractal Projects Steam

WARNING: This episode is even longer than last week's! Settle into the back half of GDC 2026 with tales from your nice hosts about interesting talks, the "new" Festival Hall, what it feels like to be up for multiple major industry awards, running into people you know for the first time, and flying home to a impending snowstorm. In this Patreon-exclusive video, Lydia thought to mark her first GDC by capturing her first impressions of the conference's Festival Hall. Sign up at any level for instant access or, if you're not ready to enter a financial relationship with the program, you can purchase it à la carte! 0:02:44 GDC 2026 - (Dale's) Monday/Tuesday Weaponized Play: How Extremist Networks are Targeting Children in Online Games Katia Potapov, Rita Fabi, Jang Kim, Jessa Mellea Game Developer Conference Page to Booth: Table-Reading and Performance Recording Live Demo Alexa Ray Corriea, Sam Maggs, Ben Starr, Jennifer Hale, Khris Brown, Amanda Rose Smith Game Developer Conference 0:09:34 GDC 2026 - Wednesday Rules of the Game 2026: Revealing Techniques from Resourceful Designers Game Developer Conference Improv Games for Game Developers Rez Graham Game Developer Conference Decolonizing Play and the Rise of African Game Development (2013-2026) Eyram Tawia Game Developer Conference Serious Games Roundtable Matthew Lee, Kathleen Yin Game Developer Conference 'SILENT HILL f': The Challenges of Creating a Melee-Only Horror Game Al Yang Game Developer Conference Test Like the Top Studios: Actionable Player Insights in 60 Minutes Heather De Bernardi Game Developer Conference The IGF 2026 Winners Are An Exceptional Selection Of Indie Games You’re Going T… John Walker Kotaku Trump administration's "cruel and unnecessary" acts called out by Titanium Cour… Mark Warren Rock Paper Shotgun 0:56:54 GDC 2026 - Thursday Building a Critically Acclaimed Licensed Game in 18 Months Amanda Farough Game Developer Conference Xbox Gaming for Everyone Community Networking Lounge Returns to GDC 2026 MIcrosoft Nobody Reads Anything: How Narrative Can Communicate So Other Disciplines Actua… Mark Slutsky, Laura Michet, Kevin Snow Game Developer Conference Veterans Q&A for New Writers and Narrative Designers Game Developer Conference Gaming the System: Creating Your Own Path to a Narrative Design Career Zoe Calamar, Luca Azenaro-Acero Game Developer Conference Worst.Game.Ever. Fixing Diabetes Management with a Video Game Sam Glassenberg Game Developer Conference 1:33:03 GDC 2026 - Friday Digital Folklore: Crafting Playable Memory Through Photogrammetry and Animation… Verda Munir Game Developer Conference San Francisco Railway Museum & Gift Shop The Dialogue Design Panel: A Role with a Million Names Charles Pateman, Kareem Shuman, Monet Gardiner, Heather Plunkard-Serge Game Developer Conference Top 10 Ways to Get Your Game Ready For Success Shawn Alexander Allen Game Developer Conference Live Sky Sound Bath and Meditation thatgamecompany Instagram Essential Debugging Skills for Every Developer Rez Graham Game Developer Conference Experimental Games Showcase Game Developer Conference Experimental Games Showcase Demos Game Developer Conference

This year's GDC Special is a big one. So big that this episode is over 2 hours long... and it's only part 1 (but your nice hosts don't know that yet)! 0:15:49 GDC 2026 - Monday GDC Encounters: Speed Networking Day 1 Game Developer Conference The Tension: Designing for Discomfort in 'Wanderstop' Steven Margolin Game Developer Conference The Black Designers' Dilemma "Carl Varnado, Jabari Ali, Jarory DeJesus, Evan Narcisse" Game Developer Conference The Games Industry Social (aka: GIG IRL) Media Indie Exchange (aka: The MIX) Dogpile Toot Games Game Funding: Lessons from Outersloth "Victoria Tran, Forest Willard" Game Developer Conference Outersloth reveals its game funding agreement with developers Alex Forbes-Calvin GamesIndustry.biz From Beautiful to Playable: Texture Compression Secrets Every Game Artist Shoul… Jad Deeb Game Developer Conference Four Artists Use Substance 3D to Texture 'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33' "Alan Reynaud, Mathieu Costat" Game Developer Conference GDC 101 "Sam Warnke, Natalie Sam" Game Developer Conference From Reliable to Respected: Breaking Free of the Good Job Trap Cecile Hemery Game Developer Conference Establishing the Standards and Practices of Game Preservation "Garrett Fredley, Andrew Borman" Game Developer Conference Fresh Grad to Art Director: My Journey at 'Love and Deepspace' Xianzi Feng Game Developer Conference Cutscene Pipeline in 'Love and Deepspace' "Xianyu Wang, Ji Zhang" Game Developer Conference 1:06:09 GDC 2026 - Tuesday Game Education Roundtable Day 1 Game Developer Conference Praise the Architect and Pass the Ammunition: Health & Damage in 'The Outer Wor… Game Developer Conference 'Civilization VII': Impactful UI Sound Design at Scale Kadet Kuhne Game Developer Conference Why We Still Believe: A Conversation with Amir Satvat Amir Satvat Game Developer Conference Always Supporting (the) Games Community Amir Satvat 3rd Annual Game Developer's Concert Austin Wintory Game Developer Conference Technical Artists Roundtable (20th Year)!!! Day 1 Jeff Hanna Game Developer Conference The Modular and Expressive World Art of 'Keeper' Nick Maksim Game Developer Conference Local Game Community Organizers Forum Marlena Abraham, Michael Lee, Daniel Lin, Laia Bee Game Developer Conference Tiny Con Society of Play Black in Gaming So Your Game Got Cancelled: Navigating Personal Development and Career Outcomes Mark LaCroix Game Developer Conference Since we recorded this episode, a major South Korean gaming website wrote up a very detailed recap of Mark's roundtable. [English Machine Translation] MAR10 Day returns with festivities for fans of all ages in honor of the Super M… Nintendo Why Good Games Fail: The Startup Audit Every Studio Needs Lucien Parsons Game Developer Conference 'despelote': Capturing the Feeling of 2001 Quito, Ecuador Julian Cordero Game Developer Conference

In this Episode, Ian once again joins the clubhouse as Dale and Mark are off on a nerdy vacation. Lydia wrestles with the term "cozy," and Stephen does some self exploration to determine why so-called cozy games make him more stressed out. Then, he creates a whole topic just to talk about the fast travel system in Dragon’s Dogma 2. Stephen pitched Sledgehammer Bride to Melanated Games Kitchen. Melanated Game Kitchen The clubhouse hosted a Nice Thinking episode about Sledgehammer bride back in episode 240 Nice Thinking: "Sledgehammer Bride" Lydia and Ian went to Con of the North Con of the North Lydia and Ian are playing Blippo+ Mark was a developer on the PC version of Blippo+ which is a 2026 IGF award finalist. Blippo+ 0:09:15 Cozy Games 0:38:26 Fast Travel Dragon's Dogma 2

Watch out, Clubhouse! Evil Games Club is out of the air vents and back in orbit to interrupt your regularly scheduled Nice Programming. Five years in the vacuum of space haven't dulled their ne're-do-well nature one bit. In fact, they just intercepted a game jam prompt from one of the Nice Hosts. Will Dale, Ian, and Sam prove once and for all that Evil trumps Nice? Well, duh, of course they do!  >:) The last appearance of the Evil Hosts. Evil Games Jam: Casino Go Fish Junction Jam Interest Form Mewgenics  -  Steam Axios Twin Cities, the folks who are cataloguing the Twin Cities' store cats  -  Audrey Kennedy Prompt Make a game about what actually happens when "the Cat Distribution System is at work." Matchmaking can be a secondary mechanic, but it should not be the focus. Game type Design document Player count 1 Setup Rules Notes: Working title: Cat CommsWhat is the goal?Cats on a journey through an environment to find ownersDifferent cats have different movement behaviorsTorties need to meet twiceOrange ones ignore herder but follow foodBlack cats are shySingle player - one person “herding” multiple catsHerding through an urban environmentPeople (NPCs) have routes and different behaviorsGrandma moves slowJogger moves fastPeople going back and forth - work, library, grocery store, homeMechanicsOne-time use itemsFood for bait (burger, canned sardines from grocery store)Fire truck to block streetDogsMore cats than people, some people may want more than one cat“End of level” time runs out or cats just kinda leave?More cats than peopleCats get more chaotic/mischievous How to herd?Real-time movement, but you can select a cat to tell it its next move, but it keeps moving after thatMap is a small town, each level introduces new cat typesIterationsRagdoll cat - doesn’t move muchPeople who can’t be trackedBonus points for people getting their perfect catNo upgrades to your skills, just adding more challengesMatchmaking is secondaryAny cat could match with any person, but they have a perfect match somewhereDogs are a no cat zoneGrocery store could match with a cat (bodega cat)

While Mark is off on a Star Trek cruise, the rest of your nice hosts invite Lydia's husband Ian Peters to discuss tabletop games, specifically RPGs! We've split this supersized episode and topic into three different acts for your listening pleasure. 0:01:58 Holistic Connection of Theme and Mechanic Blades in the Dark Evil Hat Productions GURPS: Generic Universal RolePlaying System Steve Jackson Games Thirsty Sword Lesbians Evil Hat Productions Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies Thorny Games 0:33:41 Dice Call of Cthulhu RPG Chaosium Inc. Does a crit always mean success? Molaschi Reddit Dread the RPG The Impossible Dream Kids on Bikes Hunters Entertainment 1:00:28 Flexibility Lydia had talked about tabletop mechanics in her Untitled Memory Mechanic Nice Thinking episode Untitled Memory Mechanic Citizen Sleeper Jump Over The Age Steam

Your nice hosts had an eventful time off from new episodes, but now they're back! So yeah, this is a long one... What The Show Did on Winter Break (2025-26) Boot the Dispute - a thing that solves your problems! YouTube Art & Fear Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking David Bayles and Ted Orland Lydia's Website Glom Nice Games Club What Each of Us Did On Winter Break (2025-26) IDGATC Global Game Jam 2026 Global Game Jam The first recorded character exploration of Henle, Lydia's D&D character, written over a year before the campaign started. Lydia finally started acting on the feedback the Nice Hosts gave on the memory mechanic she developed for D&D 5e Untitled Memory Mechanic Webinar | Whose Game Is It Anyway? Live Learning Game Design Improv YouTube Junction Jam interest form Star Trek: The Cruise Blippo+ The 50 best games of 2025 Polygon The 12 Best Video Games Of 2025 Kotaku The best games of 2025 AV Club The 25 Best Games Of 2025, Ranked Inverse The Besties game of the year 2025 is... The Besties Baby Steps leads 28th annual IGF Awards nominations Chris Kerr Game Developer The New York Game Awards 2026 Winners Have Been Revealed! Philip Watson CGMagazine

#417 Reinventing GDC Interview 2025.11.27 After the discussion, DeLoura turned the tables on your nice hosts and asked a question of his own. It didn't fit into the episode, but we saved it and put it up as a Patreon exclusive bonus segment! Mark DeLoura's decades-long career in games includes roles ranging from Nintendo engineer to White House senior advisor. A longtime and passionate developer advocate, this year he's been tapped to help reinvent the industry's largest annual gathering, GDC. DeLoura outlines the changes coming to this year's conference, defines what "festival" means in the context of GDC, and previews the ambitious goals for its future. But your nice hosts also raise concerns about the elimination of the lowest-priced passes, the accessibility of new programming, and the critical issue of attendee safety now that more official GDC events serve alcohol. Whether you have or are planning to attend GDC, are one of its critics, or just want to know more about how the industry creates and manages its community, this episode is a must-listen. Your nice hosts will be at GDC 2026, March 9th - 13th, 2026 in San Francisco. Look for our annual GDC special episode(s) then. Mark DeLoura on Bluesky Mark DeLoura on LinkedIn HITLab - Human Interface Technology Lab  -  University of Washington Game Programming Gems  -  Mark DeLoura Dr. Miguel Luengo-Oroz (MalariaSpot) - Online game & crowdsourcing & malaria  -  The International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases ,  YouTube About FoldIt Video games owe a lot to President Obama's administration  -  Brian Crecente ,  Polygon Mark DeLoura also co-hosts a podcast! His weekly gaming news/discussion show, Boss Rush, is available on YouTube! After the discussion, DeLoura turned the tables on your nice hosts and asked a few questions of his own. It didn't fit into the episode, but we saved it and put it up as a Patreon exclusive bonus segment! Reinventing GDC The annual Game Developers Conference is changing  -  Michael McWhertor ,  Polygon Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity  -  Wikipedia Black Hat - Upcoming Events GDC Passes & Pricing  -  Game Developer Conference Seattle Indies SLICE Calling partners for GDC 2026!  -  Game Developer Games Industry Gathering Female Game Devs Open Up About Harassment And Drink Spiking At GDC  -  Ahmad Hassan ,  RespawnFirst Amir Satvat's Games Jobs Resources

#393 "I’m intrigued by big door." Roundtable 2025.06.12 Mark rushes through the introduction to talk about his two rush projects, one of which, Blippo+, was announced on Sunday during the PC Gaming Show! You'll hear more about that next week, but until then, Lydia talks about feeling seen in Anime, Stephen laments that his filmmaking class has not only ruined movies for him, but also music, and Dale does a good job editing out Lydia’s coughs. Blippo+, coming to PC and Switch this fall! You Need To See FMV Cable TV Simulator Blippo+  -  Wesley LeBlanc ,  Game Informer Emotional Effects of Music Stephen McGregor Audio A New Foe Has Appeared! Lydia Symchych Misc.

#381 Dinosaurs of North Dakota Nice Games Jam 2025.03.13 The clubhouse gets Cretaceous this week; your nice hosts have been challenged to create a game about dinosaurs and their feeding habits. Prompt Make a game about the feeding habits of dinosaurs or of paleontologists, bonus points if all the dinosaurs are from the same era. Game type Design document Player count 1 Rules Cretaceous periodFlowering plants evolved hereEarly mammals here tooVelociraptors too!Different sized dinosaursName: Dinosaurs of North DakotaPlay as big (T-rex), small (dog-sized) and medium (triceratops)Survive a day as each of these creaturesOrder of playMedium first (herbivore)Big next (T-rex)Small last (scavenger)Then Paleontologist discovers (eats chicken with a PLASTIC fork)Where you die determines how preserved the bones are during the paleontology phaseIf you want more preserved bones you have to choose to not live as long (due to how the preservation works)GameplayPlay as the different creatures, the player chooses when that phase of the game endsCan also end after a certain time playedThen you swap to a new creature and play as them, choosing when to endWhen you get back to a creature, time has passed and things are different in the world (partly due to player influence from other creatures)Player knocking down trees might be knocked down in future scenes, eating a lot of plants may make the area sparse in the futureKeep playing as the different creature until enough time has passedAfterwards, play as a paleontologist and rediscover what you’ve doneRecord what you’ve done with the knowledge the paleontologist has (and not the player), so it won’t actually be accurate to the player’s playthroughBased on what the player’s done, it can affect what things the paleontologist will be able to say about the state of things after

#405 Fishing Minigame Collection Nice Thinking 2025.09.04 Stephen Business is back! And he’s attempting to make a meme into a reality. The clubhouse attempts to answer these (and other) questions: How many fishing minigames is too many fishing minigames?Is it okay to shoot fish with lasers?Who are those teenagers with emo hair in the Bentley?Should Stephen make something on the Playdate?Why do people go fishing?Does anyone actually like fishing? You can wishlist 'Blippo+' on Steam!  -  Steam Fishing Stephen McGregor Gaming Lydia kicked of this topic with a comment an episode, maybe this one? Revisiting Your Games Fishing Minigame Meme  -  Reddit Lydia learned about noodling from this youtube channel  -  Bon Appetit ,  YouTube Feeding time at a Fish Hatchery is bonkers!  -  YouTube Lydia's nice list of games with fishing minigames Tales of Arise Pokemon Animal Crossing Stardew Valley Legend of Zelda (many) Skyrim Kirby The Forgotten Land Verdant Skies Spiritfarer Red Dead Redemption 2 Final Fantasy (many) Sonic Frontiers Far Cry 5 Hades

#396 3D Workflows for Indie Devs Interview 2025.07.03 We welcome Freya Holmér back into the clubhouse to talk about 3D game development for independent game developers. We get into the specifics of the tools available for devs and why they work and don't work for different teams, but it's mostly an excuse to talk about Freya's new 3D modeling software. Half-Edge  -  Freya Holmér Shapes  -  Freya Holmér ,  Unity Asset Store Shader Forge  -  Freya Holmér ,  GitHub 3D Workflows for Indie Devs Game Design Tools UI / UX Valve Hammer Editor  -  Valve Developer Community PicoCAD  -  Johan Peitz ,  itch.io TrenchBroom  -  GitHub Crocotile 3D What’s the difference between OBJ and FBX? And when to you what  -  Reddit

#391 "The things that create the geometry." Roundtable 2025.05.29 Your nice hosts all secured a Switch 2 pre-order... from a certain point of view. Then, Stephen examines the body, Mark attempts a vocabulary, and Lydia has recommendations. Chants of Sennaar  -  Wikipedia Nintendo Switch 2 preorders were a total mess — at first  -  Jay Peters ,  The Verge Missed out on a Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order? GameStop and Best Buy will have mo…  -  Demi Williams ,  TechRadar What Happened With Future Club 0:22:17 Stephen McGregor IRL Production Part-Time Hero Campaign Ending  -  Future Club ,  Kickstarter Design Surface Area 0:48:57 Mark LaCroix Game Design Rubber duck debugging  -  Wikipedia

#384 Time Traveler Estate Sale Nice Games Jam 2025.04.10 Roles reverse as Dale joins Stephen and Lydia for a Nice Game Jam prompted by Mark. The results are an antiques-fueled jaunt through time, and an unexpected win for Stephen. Costcodle  -  Zak Kermitz ,  Costcodle Timeline Inventions  -  Zygomatic ,  Zygomatic Hypodermic Needles  -  Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine ,  Maximum Fun Prompt "Come up with a game where the winner is the player who gets (or gets closest to) a certain amount of points, but that amount changes from round to round. Hard mode variant: the players don’t always know what the amount is." Game type Tabletop game Player count 2-8 Materials Set of item cards from various years 10 chips for each player Set of years/events Timer Setup Place 8 item cards on the table easily accessible for all players. Pick a random year/event. Set timer for 1 minute. Rules Start the timer to start the roundWhile the timer runs, players place chips on items to bid on themWhen the timer runs out, the player with the most chips on an item gets that item. In a tie, no one gets an item and it gets added to the pool during the next roundItems that are earned get their times revealed, player closest to the chosen year/event winsPlay repeats for three rounds, player with the most round wins wins the game