Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Lydia, Stephen, and Mark
  • 4.7 (41)
  • VIDEO GAMES
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

The podcast where nice gamedevs talk gaming and game development. Nice!

  1. 5D AGO

    Nice Games Jam: "Dinosaurs of North Dakota" [Nice Replay]

    #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

  2. FEB 5

    Nice Thinking: "Fishing Minigame Collection" [Nice Replay]

    #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

  3. JAN 29

    3D Workflows for Indie Devs (with Freya Holmér) [Nice Replay]

    #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

  4. JAN 22

    "The things that create the geometry." What Happened With Future Club; Design Surface Area [Nice Replay]

    #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

  5. JAN 15

    Nice Games Jam: "Time Traveler Estate Sale" [Nice Replay]

    #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

  6. JAN 8

    Video Game IP Law (with Haley MacLeon) [Nice Replay]

    #388 Video Game IP Law Interview 2025.05.08 Your nice hosts get a crash course on video game IP law from lawyer and MinnMax cohort, Haley MacLeon. We learn about incorporating, publishing agreements, the difference between a lot of commonly used terms like "copyright", and the joys of contract templates.  MinnMax  -  MinnMax Game Informer Revival  -  Game Informer Video Game IP Law Marketing Misc. Production The $10 Million Lawsuit That Hinges On An Oxford Comma  -  Anna King ,  NPR Video Game Publishing Agreement Market Report 2025  -  Kellen Voyer & Haley MacLean ,  Voyer Law Corporation

  7. JAN 1

    "Half trash compactor, half empty." Composting; Overdesigning [Nice Replay]

    #399 "Half trash compactor, half empty." Roundtable 2025.07.24 Ellen's back for a serendipitously in-sync pair of metacognition-rich roundtable topics. In this episode, Lydia shares a chapter from one of her favorite books and tries to explain ganache while Stephen laments how easy it is to duct tape on features instead of solving problems. Together they discover four brains are better than one when it comes to figuring out how to get out of your head.  Composting 0:09:56 Lydia Symchych Misc. Writing Down the Bones  -  Natalie Goldberg Bonbon  -  Wikipedia The Croissant Express diner mentioned in the book, formerly located on the corner of the Uptown Theater building. Overdesigning 0:36:00 Stephen McGregor Game Design Mural Miro via. "Writing at Night: Lewis Carroll, John Milton, and Me" by Mike Mason. https://www.mikemasonbooks.com/writing-at-night-lewis-carroll-john-milton-and-me/

  8. 12/25/2025

    Digital Escape Rooms (with Lydia Symchych) [Nice Replay]

    #375 Digital Escape Rooms Interview 2024.11.28 All of your hosts are together in the Clubhouse for a special interview! Lydia Symchych is an impact game designer who has been working with Ellen over the last year. Today, she shares her experience of making an escape room that needed to be rendered in both "physical" and and digital environments. Also, sound effects and pillows. In the USA, November 28th is Thanksgiving Day, and November 29th is National Native American Heritage Day. Happy holidays, if you're in the USA—and if you're not, we hope you have something to be thankful for. 💖 Digital Escape Rooms Game Design Articulate Storyline 360 HyperCard  -  Wikipedia Exhibit Design  -  Wikipedia Escape Room Races with the Lads  -  Northernlion ,  YouTube Escaping a Room of Terrors  -  GameGrumps ,  YouTube

See All (478)

4.7
out of 5
41 Ratings

About

The podcast where nice gamedevs talk gaming and game development. Nice!

Information

You Might Also Like