Pretentious Game Ideas
63 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 10 ratingsThe monthly game design podcast that you haven't been waiting for! Join us as we discuss, explore, and get out of our depths in a new game design topic every episode.
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Episodes
Co-op Games
November 11, 2016 16:59 - 1 hour - 94.2 MBIt's well known that co-op makes just about every game more fun. But how do you design a game that takes good advantage of its co-op, and how do you avoid some of its common pitfalls?
Adapting an Existing IP (Matthew Moore)
October 10, 2016 20:24 - 1 hour - 84.1 MBWe're joined by designer extraordinaire Matthew Moore as we discuss the delights and dilemmas of designing a game for an existing book, movie, comic, or other piece of intellectual property. Plus, we try our hands at some creating some bad adaptations of our own!
Reading List
September 20, 2016 04:57 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBWe're trying something different this month, as we each share one game that we think is valuable for every designer to play and learn from. Call it a reading list. Except you play things instead of reading them. Playing list sounds real weird, though.
Donkey Space
August 15, 2016 16:21 - 50 minutes - 69.9 MBWhat is Donkey Space, how can designing with it in mind help you create richer competitive games, and will we work out how to coherently explain it before the end of the episode? You'll have to listen to find out!
Engineering Social
July 15, 2016 19:46 - 57 minutes - 79.3 MBWe delve into the ways that social dynamics can help or hinder your game and how you can use your mechanics to enable and incentivize good social experiences.
Sets of Content (Gavin Verhey)
June 14, 2016 05:53 - 1 hour - 111 MBWe're joined by Magic's own Gavin Verhey as we discuss analyzing your game's mechanics and building content to make the best use of your entire design space.
Randomization
May 08, 2016 04:33 - 1 hour - 87.9 MBThe gang discusses randomization in games, what makes it compelling, and how you can utilize it in ways that don't feel arbitrary to your players.
Player-Driven Narrative (Katie Chironis)
April 20, 2016 07:07 - 1 hour - 92.2 MBThe gang is joined by special guest Katie Chironis to discuss player-driven narrative in games. Branching, opt-in, emergent, procedural... we've got 'em all! Plus, is the entire canon of video game narratives inherently misguided?
Teaching Your Game
March 04, 2016 06:50 - 58 minutes - 82.2 MBThe gang digs into how to make a good tutorial, the problem with rulebooks, and how learning can be the most fun part of your game.
Power Progression
February 10, 2016 17:26 - 54 minutes - 75.7 MBThe gang discusses the ways in which designers can enable players to grow their abilities over the course of a game. Also, Ryan proposes a universe in which Wildstar dethrones World of Warcraft, and we all love Downwell.
Drawback Mechanics
January 09, 2016 23:48 - 49 minutes - 34 MBThis month the gang discusses drawback mechanics, where an otherwise large bonus is offset by a complementary negative effect. Also, it's eight years later, and we still haven't forgiven Smash Bros Brawl.
Quick Time Events
January 08, 2016 03:13 - 1 hour - 50.5 MBIt's the first episode we're willing to assign a positive number to! This time the gang dissects Quick Time Events, the cutscene-interrupting bane of players everywhere. But are there more to these simple button press challenges than meets the eye?
Episode 0 - Waiting in Games
January 08, 2016 03:08 - 1 hour - 50.4 MBWe're joined for our debut episode by Ryan Anderson and Rob Giusti as we discuss games that use real-time waiting mechanics to excite, entrance, and occasionally infuriate.