Shows
When Does It Get Fun?#18 - Balancing Puzzle Games, Learning Game Dev Tools, and Large Projects (With LanaLux)In today's episode of When Does It Get Fun, SoBad and Nirvana talk to LanaLux, creator of Don't Notice Me, a reverse escape room puzzle game where you're the one breaking in.
She is currently working on an apocalyptic city survival game called STRAIN, which you can catch her live streaming the entire development of on Twitch.
We discuss logging your development process, transitioning from developing smaller games to a large-scale project, and the importance of learning the tools of your trade.
2024-03-291h 40When Does It Get Fun?#17 - Comfy Games, Building Your First Game, and Fishing (With ashleypox)In today's episode of When Does It Get Fun, SoBad and Nirvana talk to ashleypox, creator of Tulip and Ooohh, Big Stretch!!! (with SoBad). Topics include comfy games, the difficulties of learning to make your first game, and ashley tells a fishing mini-game horror story about Twilight Princess.
2024-03-161h 43When Does It Get Fun?#16 - Friction in Tears of the Kingdom, Dark Souls, and DoomIn today's episode of When Does It Get Fun, SoBad and Nirvana discuss frictional elements in video games, such as damaging floors in Doom, weapon durability in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, and Miyazaki's poisonous swamp fetish.
2024-02-151h 35When Does It Get Fun?#15 - Artificial Difficulty & Players Ruining Their Own Gaming ExperienceSoBad and Nirvana tackle the term 'artificial difficulty' and whether it is a useful term for game devs, as well as adjustable difficulty in games like Skyrim and whether players will often spoil their own experience with these systems.
2024-01-201h 38When Does It Get Fun?#14 - Online Coop Games, Horror Comedy & Dota 2 vs Pokemon UniteSoBad and Nirvana discuss the fine balance games like Lethal Company and Phasmophobia have between horror and comedy, as well as the stories they create by doing it.
They also have a lot to say about Dota 2, Pokemon Unite, and innovation in the MOBA genre.
2023-12-232h 04When Does It Get Fun?#13 - Skill Floors and Ceilings, Complexity in Strategy Games, and YouTube Marketing (With Jonas Tyroller)This week SoBad and Nirvana talk to Jonas Tyroller, developer of Islanders, Will You Snail? and Thronefall. We discuss how the simplified strategy systems of Thronefall make it slightly at odds with its genre, how being a working game dev is worth aspiring to, and the positives and negatives of YouTube marketing for game developers.
2023-12-071h 42When Does It Get Fun?#12 - Difficulty Settings, Gatekeeping Content Behind Challenges, and Dark SoulsListen to the full episode to hear Sobad make a bold statement about Dark Souls after I force him to talk about it again and our discussions about difficulty settings in game design and gatekeeping content and other difficulties behind challenges.
2023-11-281h 26When Does It Get Fun?#11 - FPS Doc, Sports Sims, and Realistic Graphics (With Richard Moss)Today on the podcast, SoBad and Nirvana talk to Richard Moss, co-creator of FPS: First Person Shooter - The Definitive FPS Documentary. We discuss his collaborator David L. Craddock's encyclopaedic knowledge of FPS games, the trials and tribulations of creating a 4-hour long documentary loaded with game dev interviews, and Richard's love for sports simulation games like Pro Evolution Soccer.
2023-11-101h 51When Does It Get Fun?#10 - Inspiration and The Dangers of Early Feedback (With Hempuli)SoBad and Nirvana are joined this week by Hempuli, the creator of Baba is You, Environmental Station Alpha, and a whole host of other fun puzzle games. We talk about the dangers of receiving early feedback when developing a game, where inspiration comes from for creative pursuits, and losing interest in your own genre.
2023-10-242h 53When Does It Get Fun?#9 - Bad Video Game Writing, Morpheus, and Zero EscapeNirvana and SoBad discuss the many tropes of bad video game writing, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games, how Morpheus gets around being 'exposition man', and Dark Souls for the 50th time.
2023-10-161h 39When Does It Get Fun?#8 - Video Game Trailers and The God of War KidSoBad and Nirvana discuss how annoying Atreus is in God of War, how
annoying the talking head is in God of War, and hentai games get brought up at one point (definitely SoBad's doing).
2023-09-171h 24When Does It Get Fun?#7 - Nostalgia and Making Things for Yourself (With MtPain27)SoBad and Nirvana talk to the eloquent Doom wad review master, MtPain27 about how nostalgia affects our views of video games and film and SoBad tries to quantify art (he's crunchin' numbers again).
2023-08-222h 03When Does It Get Fun?#6 - Making Your Dream Game, Modding, and Dev Tools (With MegaBlast)On today's episode Nirvana and SoBad have MegaBlast in the studio to
discuss his game design journey. Mega talks about scaling back
expectations as development has continued, modding Warcraft, Starcraft
2, and Doom, and he ends the episode with an insightful quote.
2023-08-101h 42When Does It Get Fun?#5 - Final Fantasy XIV, Woody Allen, and AntzIn this episode, Nirvana talks SoBad's ear off about MMOs as retaliation
for that episode about the Star Wars game and then we talk about one of
the hot button issues of the day - Woody Allen's role in Antz.
2023-07-212h 11When Does It Get Fun?#4 - Puzzle Games and Player Expectations (With Portponky)Nirvana and SoBad are joined by the wonderful Portponky, creator of
Recursed and the torturous Ponky Doom. We discuss the process of
creating puzzle games, the thrill of messing with player expectations,
and the psychology of secrets.
2023-07-121h 32When Does It Get Fun?#3 - Star Wars Jedi: SurvivorIn this episode of the podcast Sobad gets really mad about some dumb Star Wars game; Nirvana also says things sometimes.
2023-07-041h 55When Does It Get Fun?#2 - Ogre Battle and Tears of the KingdomIn the second episode of When Does It Get Fun, Nirvana talks about Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen for the Super Nintendo and everyone skips to the part when the Tears of the Kingdom discussion happens. SoBad makes the mistake of bringing up Overwatch 2...
2023-06-302h 21When Does It Get Fun?#1 - Doom 3 and GraphicsIn the first episode of the podcast, SoBad and Nirvana discuss Doom 3, graphics vs gameplay, and SoBad's inability to understand graphics at all (ask him).
2023-06-192h 32