Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast‪!‬ Ellen, Stephen, and Mark

It's back to basics this week as we welcome Osama Dorias, lead game designer on the upcoming Gotham Knights at WB Games Montréal, to talk about his multi-year journey of making games with his kids, and what it taught him about his craft. It might be our cutest episode yet!



Osama, along with Fawzi Mesmar, and Rami Ismail, recently launched their own very nice gamedev podcast, The Habibis!













Building Blocks of Design



Art
Game Design
IRL
Tabletop
Tools








The Game Crafter
















A selection of cards from "Ali and Mimi's Card Game"





























Osama's son trying to look professional while presenting "City Game I Love This."
















Osama's daughter beaming with pride at her creation, "05Q7654321 0."
















Osama's kids' first video game.














Osama Dorias



Guest







Osama works at WB Games Montréal, where he is the lead game designer on Gotham Knights. He is a co-founder of the Montreal Independent Game Awards, a professor at Dawson College, and a co-host of The Habibis podcast.

He loves hugs and poutine.




External link

Osama on Twitter
Gotham Knights
Montreal Independent Game Awards
The Habibis

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 C

This week, your nice hosts look within themselves. Mark is afraid of falling off the tree, Stephen does the teeter-tottering he has to do, and Ellen doesn't struggle with this.




Markey, Colleagues Reintroduce Bipartisan Bill to Make Daylight Saving Time Per…





Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery





Animal Restaurant





Learn Lua in 15 Minutes - Tyler Neylon





Hungarian Notation











Your Internal Battery


0:24:56


Ellen Burns-Johnson



Gaming
IRL








Gamer Motivation Profile





Your nice hosts talked about thier Gamer Motiviation Profiles in:

"Will you be the best with me?"





Evil Games Club also tackled thier Gamer Motivations Profiles in thier first outing:

Evil Games Club!






5 Signs That You May Be an Ambivert - Rena Goldman, Healthline






Nemesis Jam - CannibalInteractive, itch.io













Finding Your Artistic Voice


0:48:12


Stephen McGregor



Game Design
IRL

A regular nice roundtable! In the first part this week's episode, Mark leads an examination of how fonts can support gameplay, worldbuilding, and immersion. In the second half, Stephen makes us think—really think—about the benefits of "janky" gameplay. Mark shares some font history facts, Stephen starts his manifesto, and Ellen takes on the case.




Mark's new keyboard





Chel Wong's charity album





Press Reset (new gamedev book) - Jason Schreier





Where to Start with Vlad Taltos (the book series that Ellen mentioned) - Stephen Brust, Tor Books











Fonts


0:09:37


Mark LaCroix



Misc.








History and Evolution of Typography - Konstantin Kirilov; Nikolay Petroussenko, Font Fabric






The history of fonts - Prepressure






Popular Standards - International Organization for Standardization






Mini Metro






Destiny






Night in the Woods






VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action













Jank


0:39:52


Stephen McGregor



Game Design








Balan Wonderworld is a strange game of furry musicality - Michael McWhertor, Polygon






Balan Wonderland gameplay video  - Kinda Funny Gamescast, YouTube






Bullet Witch on Steam






Goat Simulator






Human Fall Flat on Steam






L.O.V.E.R.S in a Dangerous Spacetime






INSIDE






Overcooked

After a slightly longer than usual hiatus, your nice hosts (along with your nice guest host Dale LaCroix) return to the virtual clubhouse for the first new episode of 2021 to talk about what we did on our winter break!

PLUS: Mark is a tax robot, Stephen hopes he’s not fired, and Ellen loves being right.



Closed Hands, the interactive fiction game (directed by Dan Hett) that Mark worked on over the last few months, was released this week!







Clsoed Hands at Twin Cities Playtest (January 2021)





Show Your Work! - Austin Kleon





Working Out Loud - Seth Godin











What We Did On Our Winter Break (2021)



Mark LaCroix
Stephen McGregor
Dale LaCroix
Ellen Burns-Johnson



Game Design
IRL
Meta







If you missed it, last week we re-ran our Roboston episodes:

Roboston! (parts 1 and 2)






Roboston: Game Rules






Roboston: Development Session Notes






Your nice hosts' hiatus "Working Agreement"














We brought Roboston to Twin Cities Playtest in January...














...and again in February.

This Nice Replay is a two-parter!






Part one:

Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020)




Part two:

Roboston! (part 2)
















#192

Roboston! (Live at 2D Con 2020)



Nice Games Jam
Live
Video


2020.09.17





Your nice hosts recorded a live Nice Games Jam episode at 2D Con 2020! You can listen to the edited audio of the recording here!



















You can find the video of the live recording right here!








Prompt
Create a game where you are working together to construct a robot, but each player has a secret task they are trying to get the robot to complete along the way.



Game type
Tabletop game



Player count
3-8



Materials

1 Deck of Robot Parts


1 Deck of Player Roles


1 Deck of Objectives


1 Die






Setup
Deal out an even number of Robot Parts to each player, and one Player Role. Then draw the first card in the Objectives deck for the team's objective.





Rules

Each player has a Player Role, this is their victory condition.

Example roles:

Warmonger: have more offensive value than any other value AND complete the objective
Scientist: have more intelligence value than any other value AND complete the objective
Saboteur: cause robot to fail the objective




On each turn, each player places a Robot Part of any type face down.

There are limits to how many of each type of Robot Part will fit on a robot (in the episode we went with one body part, one processor and four limbs)


Each part is simultaneously revealed once everyone has chosen their card. If each part can be placed with no conflict, start the next turn.

If their are some parts in conflict, roll a die to determine who's Robot Part is used.


Continue until there are no more available parts to place on the robot. Whoever has completed their victory condition wins!