Ready to up your game? Season 2 of The Game Design Zen Podcast

Did you see? Game Design Zen is now on YouTube!!! Starting with Ep 18.

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I needed to up my game. Unity gave me the tech. From dev tools, to UI, to cross platform - the technology was rarely the limiting factor. Which was great. It also meant, that tech was not an excuse. When my products failed, it was on me. I spent years trying, failing, and improving - and I share those lessons in the Game Design Zen podcast (GDZ).

In season 1 of GDZ, we discussed fundamentals like flow, simplicity, and building your first game. This season, we're going further with topics like starting a business, interviewing, and how to get things done. And we're kicking it off with a battle royale between Brett Victor and Jonathan Blow.

Kick off your 2016 by leveling up to zen. And soon, something completely different (shhhh... spoilers)!

iTunes Link ---- Web Link ---- Youtube

Gigi

PS - Thanks for your support, comments, and reviews. The perfect motivation!

Season 2:
Ep16 - Season 2 - Battle Royale - Jonathan Blow vs Brett Victor
Ep17 - Three Things You Need To Know
Ep18 - Becoming Indie - On Starting A Business
Ep19 - Breaking My Own Rule! On Steam, Greenlight, and Overcoming Fear
Ep20 - How Do You Do It? Three Tips For Getting Things Done
Ep21 - To Purple Cow or Not To Purple Cow? That Is the Question

 

I am shamefully behind on my GDZ. I no longer have a long commute to work, so my listening time has been eliminated! Are the episodes yet structured in such a way that I can absorb their wisdom passively whilst sleeping?

But for real, I'm very grateful you're continuing to produce these.

 

Osmosis? Need to work on that. Fortunately, there's lots of diff topics, they can be listened to in any order, and they're always there. Enjoy when you can .

Gigi

 

Haha what exactly defines a Season Gigi? Did you end Season 1 on a cliffhanger? "Tune in next time to hear Gigiwoo say... "

Good to see you keeping up on this though, super great stuff.

 

Zen moment took me by surprise in episode one. I was totally expecting a discussion of how building systems can sometimes be the best way to optimise developer time.

If you only use something once then the simplest tech possible is the best. But if you do the same thing day in and day out, building an automated system will save significant developer time.

 

I really liked #16, got to catch up on #15 still. Just wanted to say I'm looking forward to the new season .

 

Mind if I get personal? I've put out tons of products. And even so, when I take on something new, I'm very sensitive about it. I suppose, my ego is pretty fragile. In Ep 16 I worked hard to weave the stories together. Teasing the content along, making lots of call backs, and bringing it all together. It's my favorite episode so far! Thank you for the kinds words.

Gigi

 

I need breaks to keep Gigi from becoming 'work'. Fifteen just seemed like a good number . And it gave me time to put together 4 more episodes with no stress. It's part of my super-secret plan to consistently release 1 episode a week, for 15 weeks.

Pinky - "What are we doing today Brain?"
Brain - "Same thing we always do. Take over the world!!!!"
Mwuahahahahahahaahah

Gigi

PS - Thanks for the kind words!

 

Gotta love the Pinky and The Brain reference... heheh

 

It's Gigi and Martin,
Yes, Gigi and Martin,
One's a designer,
The other writes pain.*

It's hard and grueling work,
Making episodes that work.
It's Gigi...
It's Gigi and Mar-tin tin tin tin
Tin tin tin tin
Tin!

Dum-dum-dum Dum-Dum...Dum.

I had to finish it, it was bothering my OCD not to. Please, carry on.

*: Lyrics are hard. Don't judge me.

 

@Asvarduil - water, spewing from my nose! Laughing out loud!

 

Can I ask a favor? With over 200 active subscribers, and 500+ downloads for some of my episodes, I still only have 5 reviews in iTunes. I wish Apple didn't make it so hard - you have to in iTunes, on your PC or Mac. And one of those folks must've hated me, cause they left a 1-star.

Gigi

 

ITunes is one of those "avoid at all cost" programs for me. I won't install that on my PC. I tried my iPod touch, opened iTunes found the podcast, but I couldn't download or rate it, because it insisted that I need a podcast app for that. That app though is only available for an iOS version that I can not install on the iPod because it is too old. Welcome to the land of planned obsolescence. I had to dig up my old MacBook and gave you a 5 star review. Hope it helps. I'm not sure if it will even be shown in the US, since I'm located in Germany, and I doubt that it actually cares in which language I wrote.

Don't worry about the 1-star. It might be someone who was looking for a pure Zen podcast and didn't read any of the descriptions.

 

I'm using the apple podcast app. I can't actually find the rate button.

 

It's not in the podcast app. As crazy as this sounds, you MUST use the full iTunes on your PC or Mac. It's their world, we just live in it.

Gigi

 

Okay. Added it to my to do list.

 

Likewise, review will be up later today. I'm also telling anyone I come across that's interested in any sort of game design to give them a try.

If you you are still taking suggestions, I've also been listening to the guys from Geek Nights lately & they have good insight at different things e.g. The online match up systems for games like rocket league, strategy in games etc. if you are considering guest interviews I'd really be interested in just hearing the 3 of you discussing game design, sort of like I'm in the booth next to you guys at the pub & I'm eavesdropping.

Edit: I've found the board game design forum (www.bgdf.com) interesting. I'm not sure how you feel about branching out a bit but maybe there could be something useful for people if you talk to/about board game design & how paper prototyping & board/card games are sort of similar at the early stages of any game development?

EditEdit: & if the paper prototype is enjoyable & playable it could be another product to allow cross marketing & an extra income stream

 

Season 2 is about upping my game. I wanted to come back swinging, with strong content, fresh ideas, and hopefully, a steady release date of one per week (*crossing fingers*). So, Game Design Zen is back - Episode 17 is live! And, personally, I think it's my best yet!

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017 - Three Things You Need To Know

What must you know? At a recent game challenge, I met Matt Trobbiani the creator of HackNet. I got to know him and thought it’d be fun to invite him on as a guest. To ensure that Game Design Zen stays zen, I recorded this for him. It’s three things we should all know.

Gigi

 

What do you think of my first video podcast? In addition to audio, Ep 18 is also on Youtube! Inspired by Kenzai.

18 - Becoming Indie - On Starting A Business

For Audio, see my sig.
Gigi

 

Love it! Great episode, great new format! Can't promise I'll always watch 100% of the video but I like having it up on the second screen an looking over every now and then.

If you want me to take a shot at helping you improve the sound mastering pipeline for the audio, just send me a private message. The offer still stands.


Edit: @Gigiwoo did you know that there is a brand of chocolate, which is pretty popular in Germany, that actually uses a purple cow to advertise?

Is this brand well known in other countries as well?

 

I'm still an audio only guy for this. Your pod casts have become my normal car trip distraction.

The audio quality on this episode seems to have dropped slightly? (May be just me). I'm assuming that's an artefact of the video recording process.

 

I haven't seen it for ages but we had the purple cow here in Australia for a while (it was years ago though).

 

Try, improve, and repeat! I made a few mistakes with my first video, both with the audio quality and with the video. I learned some new filters and techniques. It's much stronger in the second one, which will come out next weekend.

PS - This episode should have been out last weekend, except I was in Salt Lake City, and I left my USB drive, at home!!!!! Try, improve, repeat. Indeed.

Gigi

 

Overcoming Fear! This week's topic. Also available on Youtube!

Ep19 - Breaking My Own Rule! On Steam, Greenlight, and Overcoming Fear

Gigi

 

I've listened to Ep 16, 18 and 19 now and I think it's been quite interesting. Here are some thoughts:
Ep. 16:
A very good episode, I did go and watch/listened to some parts of Brett Victor's "Inventing on principle" and it was really intriguing. And your comparison to Jonathan Blow's lecture was quite fascinating.
I was thinking at first that it would be really cool if things like that could be animated, but then I realised that in a way some of it is kind of already possible to do in unity. Maybe not in the same sense as real time coding, but more in the way of real time animation(the record animation feature in unity). And a lot of things that he showed with editing in the script was changing a variable's value (though not all the time) and that could be accomplished in unity aswell. Although it could possibly be a bit performance heavy to have so many public variables?
In any case I think that you made some valid points about it aswell and it's not always easy to design "on the fly".

Ep 18 and 19:
I really like that you've made youtube videos of it aswell. Even though I usually just listen to it with the video in the background, it's nice to be able to check in every once in a while.
I noticed some nyance changes in Ep. 19 from time to time, which might be due to camera or lighting?
However, it didn't distract me to much since I was mostly listening.

I hope you keep working on it and that you keep wanting to improve.

 

Still really enjoying listening to this. And don't forget us audio only guys. Listening to the audio of the intro was exactly the same today as it was on episode one.

And the dings between sections. Are they needed? The volume is disproportionate to the rest of the pod cast, they come across quite grating.

The content is great. Did you end up releasing by Valintines day?

 

I did not end up releasing by Valentine's day. That decision was overcome by the fact that I did not consider how long/hard it would be to get my product Greenlit. So, I've taken a few good steps - made a video, got new art, and got the product into the Greenlight pipeline. And, now I wait. It could be months, or maybe even never.

And thanks for sharing the tips on the audio. I continue to learn how to make this better, particularly the audio. I did find one setting which will make a huge difference, though, it was too late for Ep 20, which will come out tomorrow.

Try, improve, repeat .
Gigi

Ps - @Lime_x - I appreciate the thought you put into your feedback. It really helps. Thanks!

 

Years ago, my boss asked, “How do you get all that stuff done?” Then, last week, my friend asked a similar question. And I realized, I didn’t have an answer. So I thought about it – podcasts, an indie business, and a family, on top of a full-time job. This episode is the answer – three tips for getting things done.

Ep 20 - How Do You Do It? Three Tips for Getting Things Done (Also On Youtube)

Gigi

 

I really liked the audio in Ep 19, and sadly Ep 20 sounded worse to me. I'm 80% sure that in Ep 20 somehow the audio got recorded from the webcam instead of the microphone. If that isn't the setting you are talking about, please double check where the audio source is actually recorded from.

I don't have a strong opinion on the lighting, as long as I can see you talking and the audio is in sync I'm not complaining. I kind of preferred the colors at this moment:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. https://youtu.be/olZq9r7VD5A?t=817
3.  
4. // Does anyone know a better way how I can keep the link to a certain time intact, without the auto-embedding ruining it?
5.  

I'm guessing that was when your screensaver was on. But if you like to have the screen on for some reason that's totaly fine with me.


Technicalities aside, I'm really liking your podcast and it has become an important catalyst to drive my own introspective thoughts! I've been thinking about the purple cow thing ever since that episode and I'll probably keep thinking about it for a while before I reach a conclusion of what it means for me personally, if I ever get there.

Ep 20 is very relevant to me because I've been recently asking myself how you get all these things done! My conclusion was, that you always stress that what you do is "create products" and what I do is "work on projects". These terms might mean different things for different people, but I felt that thinking more in terms of products will help me be more focused on getting them done and making them for a purpose. So now my todo lists have products instead of projects. I see what you are getting at with the "quality" of work thing. I wonder if this might be better phrased as "factor of actual product contribution" that is attached to a certain kind of work. Sometimes that may be a high factor (e.g. recording podcast) sometimes it will be unknown within a somewhat predictable margin (e.g. implementing "systems" for use in your product) and sometimes it will be unknown with a high variance (e.g. research that could lead to your next great product, or... to nothing).

Regarding the other things you talk about I seem to have a big problem, because I'm doing almost the polar opposite of what you recommend. I don't have any good working habbits (if I ever pick up a habbit it's usually a bad one). I have that constant lowlevel agitation of "I should be doing x, y and z", I rarely have any deadlines, often even for contract work. And if I was able to make a reasonable guess for how long something takes me to do, it's already too boring for me as a private project/product. I'm strongly drawn towards stuff ich don't have enough experience in, to make deadline commitments. I don't have proper downtime between projects, because freelance contract projects take me anywhere between 2 months and 2 years and always several of those overlap and the actual finish line is invisible to me. I'll hand of the (supposedly) finished product and 8/10 times that wasn't the last time I hear from it, and something unforseen will come up and I'll have to get back to it. So it no longer feels like finishing if I think I'm done. It's always "wait and see" for me and then never does anyone come along and tell me "it's finished now".

And the ideas fairy comes visiting me quite often, but I'm not able to just willingly put a thought away. I do write them down, but it doesn't remove the thought from my mind, it just keeps floating in there and distracts me from everything else that's on my mind. And that's where I always get the feeling with all these getting-things-done concepts (I read the book with the same title many years ago) that it just doesn't work for me and I can't figure out how to make them work.

 

Martin - I really loved the thoughts you put into your post. I read it multiple times, letting my brain just wander.

I'm still working on the audio. There was a setting, 'RightSound' I had turned on for some of the episodes. I didn't find that till after 20. The audio for Ep 21 is much better. Try, improve, repeat .

What are you doing in my head? I'd been thinking a lot about Purple Cows, which inspired me for Ep 21 - "To Purple Cow or Not to Purple Cow? That Is the Question". Maybe it'll help.

@Martin_H - Loved your thoughts on products, projects, and quality.

I've struggle with habits too. Like, when I moved out of my itsy bitsy closet, into the family room, I ended up being around the family a lot more when I was working. I enjoyed being with them, and it also led to the development of really bad habits. It was much harder to separate, "I'm working" from "I'm chatting". My focus went way down. And, then eventually, we re-jiggered one of hte rooms, to give me an office, and that's when my wife gave me a suggestion, "The best time to create/change a habit is when something in the environment changes". So, on moving in, I setup entirely new habits. For the first month, I didn't play any games in there, I was very careful about my activities, and that led to the opportunity to create podcasts.

My habits change with my environment. Like, driving home across the bridge - if I take a different route, that habit becomes irrelevant. Maybe, you could find a way to change your environment, and then, introduce some specific habits at the same time.

The dreaded "Good Idea Fairy". The curse is real, particularly for creative people. Sometimes, we need them, sometimes, it makes everything better, and sometimes, just gets in the way. Writing 'em down has helped me, you might need some other habit.

Gigi

PS - Your post meant a lot to me! Thank you for the inspiration.

 

I blame dental hygiene. All those out of work tooth fairies were retasked. Now we just need another societal change so we can get some idea filter fairies.

 

So he asked, “Are you still a fan of the Purple Cow?” Game dev students were asking the same question, from Virginia to Detroit. It’s a simple question, without a simple answer. This episode gets zen on Purple Cows and Originality, via three of my heroes: Will Wright, Jonathan Blow, and Ira Glass.

Ep 21 - To Purple Cow or Not To Purple Cow? That Is the Question

Available as Audio Podcast and Youtube Video.

Curtiss

 

The getting things done episode was pretty awesome. Today I've completed an outstanding task for my employer, ran several succesful missions in KSP, played board games with the kids, shot a bunch of stuff on Halo, and still had time to check in on the forums.

I'm not willing to call this yet, but if I can keep up the focus and deadlines and calling things done, then that episode may have been a life changer.

 

So far that didn't work for me. The two biggest changes I had were moving to another city (half a year ago), and renting an office (~3 years ago, lasted roughly 1 1/2 years afair) in a design agency where I could work in my own little room with a big sliding glass door towards the main room, where 2-4 other people were working. Both didn't do anything longterm in changing my work habits. I'll keep trying, improving, repeating.

Everything ok on your end? I was wondering when the new podcast comes out. I hope you didn't get discouraged by the lack of feedback on the last episode. I'm watching these pretty much as soon as you release them, and then ponder on the questions they raise for a week or more. The link you posted here seems to be broken, at least it doesn't work for me and I had to manually seek out the video. That might explain a drop in views or shift from youtube to itunes that you may or may not have noticed.

Chris Crawford proposed something like that long ago (Might not be the exact quote from the book, but it is close enough.):

 

@Martin_H - Which link is broken? I tried all the ones I could see - they looked okay. I'll fix it as soon as I can find it. And I love that quote!

And, thank you for noticing that I skipped a week (I mean it). I set out to record one several times, only to realize I did not have the mental capacity left to get it done. There's an issue dominating my thoughts atm. And, when I solve it, it'll probably add a couple additional topics to my list. And, of course, exploding kittens and The Witness are still tops on the list.

PS - Thank you so much for posting. I hope that they are worthwhile, and yet, I can't always tell - cause I'm too close. It means a ton to get direct feedback, especially the good kind. My wife says it's the one way I'm high maintenance .

Gigi

PSS - If you're searching for new material this week, consider reading, "Flow Space".

 

When I quote the last one to EP 21 it gives me this BB code, so I guess that one is wrong:

Code (csharp):

1. [URL='http://So he asked, “Are you still a fan of the Purple Cow?” Game dev students were asking the same question, from Virginia to Detroit. It’s a simple question, without a simple answer. Let’s get zen on Purple Cows and Originality, via three of my heroes: Will Wright, Jonathan Blow, and Ira Glass.']Ep 21 - To Purple Cow or Not To Purple Cow? That Is the Question[/URL]

I've put Flow Space on my reading list, but I need to finish that ebook on my personality type first. I'm about halfway through. Lot's of interesting stuff in it, I'll probably give it a recommendation.

Keep up the great work, I'm looking forward to the next episode!

@BoredMormon: still going strong on the getting things done side?

 

I'm not sure if that'd be awesome, or incredibly scary...

 

Hmm, I just tried the ep21 link as well & nothing happens. I held down then selected open in new tab but it just opened a blank tab.

I'm trying to get organised. I found a great link while researching board games & I think it will also be useful for my digital games as well. The idea is when you are testing the game, reviewing feedback, thinking of changing stuff to make some component work better etc that you check this to make sure that you are still aiming for the core you wanted & not heading towards another game entirely.
Game outline
I'm also trying to set aside a core part of Thursday's for doing my own games, afternoons for doing our board game, & all the rest for class work. So far so good, fingers crossed

 

@Gigiwoo , the podcasts are definitely worthwhile. I find I end up listening to them 3-4 times because something you say gets me thinking about my stuff & I miss bits, so instead of rewinding I just finish, absorb what I caught, then go back again another day when those thoughts have settled down.

 

Fixed. I was looking back at the very first post. Thanks for the catch.
Gigi

 

@Gigiwoo

So, I had a bit of a scan through the podcasts. They are ultimatley better than the subject matter they reference, the main issue with a lot of these books and diagrams pertains to what they are, which are a bunch of words and diagrams. In context they're either plainly obvious, or even worse don't actually provoke thought in a meaningful lasting way. Working for a few large games developers, we had to go through some of this material as part of "stat" training and being honest nobody really listened.

It was just a mandatory duty people got through to make sure they're "checked off the list". Why? Because when you're employed as a games developer working on large projects, most of it is actually irrelevant to your job role. Not that I was a games designer, but I spent enough time in meeting rooms with them. Whilst we needed game design "philosophy" and opinion, ultimatley what they did was much more technical in scope.

Games designers (also sometimes referred to as architects) obviously don't do key stroke level work and started out with two basic premises. What are we trying to achieve? How long is it going to take us?

So they'd go back and forth with coders / artists / technical authorities / managers (uhh!) / project managers (Uhhhhhh!) / story writers and audio developers. About what the scope entailed, some of it was about "flow" and "balance", but the GD's would talk about how we'd implement for e.g. AI in such a way to achieve "flow and balance"..

So I think that's what's lacking slightly, implementation (not key stroke, from a design and architecture position). Whilst I'm talking about bigger projects, I actually believe this is more pertinant in Indie games than AAA titles. Because making the wrong design decision can be more costly than a AAA who can throw money at a wall until we're back on track.

So stuff like the pro's / cons of level based design as opposed to terrain based. Camera positioning and it's offset, for e.g. if you have a top down camera far less to deal with performance wise than a frustrum reaching out across the distance. Common pitfalls of certain types of games, what commitment / resources you'll need to approach certain scenario's? What happens when / if you commit to a certain type of game design choice what is the overall impact to the project?

I know this is a simple example although a good example (I hope), what if all the dialogue in a game is text based? From a game design position, is this still an acceptable thing in todays market? If I decided to use facial animations and voice actors, as the game progresses what overall impact will it make on the game?

It's just one example of many, like good design shouldn't include throwaway mechanics at Indie level but it has to be varied enough to keep focus. So what are you going to do which balances time vs. project scope?

Surmising and from a lot of threads going around on this forum, I honestly don't believe many know what they're getting into. Or the impact of a game design decision long term in a technical sense.. We had GD's on larger projects to make sure this didn't happen..

Well it of course did happen, but that's a different subject all together.

P.S keep it up, loving it!..

 

"Where's Gigi?!" In Jan, my full-time gig was in danger, so I began looking. I stumbled across Mobilityware. My first thought was, "Solitaire?! Really?" and then I dug deeper. They have amazing revenue, a high-energy growing culture, and with 200M downloads, they have the 2nd most downloaded title ever released on iOS! So, I pursued them, landed the job, and moved out to Irvine, CA to start a new phase of my career. And, as you know, I rarely go half-way - in for a penny, in for a pound. So, all my spare cycles have gone to moving, learning CA, and fully immersing myself in everything they do - which is a lot, since they have numerous other titles in the works.

Simply said, it's the best company I have ever worked for. And, as Tech Director for their Solitaire suite, I'm at the heart of the studio. I love my job, and we're hiring! If you might enjoy working together, in the 14th best city in America, on a title that touches 10M people every day, then check this out, and drop me a line.

Gigi

PS - I've gotten lots of pings to keep going with GDZ. It's extremely motivating and still, I don't work well when something is a burden. So, I make no promises about GDZ. When I have spare cycles, if the muse hits, then I'll be back. Until then, I'll be Trying, Improving, and Repeating!

 

Congrats @Gigiwoo! I'm happy for you. Getting a great job at a great company is such an important part of life. Really impacts basically our whole life. Best of success in your new life!

 

well done & congrats. Would it help GDZ if we somehow found a way to message your wife asking her to bring it up while you are out cycling? That seems to be where it all begins

 

Yes, yes it would! And, she'll love that story.
Gigi

 

@Gigiwoo - Congrats on the new job! Take your time with the GDZ episodes. I'd rather listen to something insightful, of quality, than something put out "just because it needs to be put out."

 

Hmm, my internet stalker skills might not be up to the task. But I can give it a go. Gigi is pretty open about his identity.

Just teasing, welcome back. In the absence of GDZ I managed to get addicted to other podcasts. But I'll always be here as an avid fan of the muse strikes again.