Seria Ludo

In part two of our conversation with Nic Tringali, we go deeper into their development process. Design and prototyping, testing, setting victory conditions, and the delightful old-school addition to the game: the manual.

00:00:00 - Theme - how did the look come together? Concept of cathedrals stretching through time.

00:04:20 - Worldbuilding, problems with history

00:07:00 - Dramatic play, victory conditions. Surviving to tell a story, rather than survival as an inherently interesting goal.

00:17:40 - Development: transitioning from John Wick: Hex and Arcsmith, managing stress.

00:26:17 - Design and prototyping, planning features, play testing, development timeline

00:41:10 - The manual: The Banished Vault has an accompanying manual in the old style, the kind that used to ship with every game. What was the thinking behind this?

00:51:48 - Where to find Nic

Nic Tringali - The Banished Vault

Nic Tringali is a game designer for Bithell Games. Their recent release The Banished Vault (published by Bithell Games’ Lunar Division) is a gothic space-faring exploration and survival game, released on July 25th to very positive reviews. We talk with Nic about their early gaming inspirations, before getting into the gameplay mechanics of The Banished Vault.



00:00:00 - Introduction - Life post-launch, how did you get into games
00:04:00 - Influential early games - Morrowind, Stuntman
00:09:20 - Board games and their cross-pollenation with video games
00:14:57 - Complexity and planning in The Banished Vault: space mechanics
00:32:21 - Complexity budget: how did Nic decide which choices were interesting for the player, and where to put the complexity?
00:37:30 - What kind of player did they have in mind?
00:39:40 - The aesthetics of The Banished Vault: art and sound
00:47:01 - Where to find Nic

Josh Sawyer of Obsidian Entertainment has one of the more robust CVs in game design: Iceland Dale 1 and 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 and most recently, the highly-praised historical role-playing game Pentiment.

We focus on various aspects of the production of Pentiment: avoiding burnout, drawing from meticulously-researched historical material, dealing with religion (both as a nexus of temporal power and a daily spiritual presence in peoples lives), as well as covering gameplay and narrative aspects.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:00 - Life post-Pentiment, comparison with the aftermath of Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire

00:04:20 - Managing production stress and preventing burnout, for individuals and for teams

00:06:50 - Balancing personal vision, and the requirements of publishers. For their next project, team morale will be the number one priority.

00:08:30 - Allowing team members to play to their strengths.

00:11:30 - Dealing with history and religion as opposed to fantasy worlds. Engaging with "microhistory" as opposed to top-down, ruler-first historiography; examining the daily lives of the people of an era.

00:16:56 - The difference between taking inspiration from history and literature, as opposed to games that draw primarily on other games.

00:21:26 - Religion in Pentiment: "I consider myself an atheist but, like, who cares." The personal nature of characters’ engagements with God, the Devil, spirituality, and the church as a political entity.

00:31:41 - The politics of power in Pentiment

00:43:02 - Gameplay and narrative consequences in Pentiment - major (plot-altering) and minor (aesthetic, dramatic, personal)

00:50:50 - Contrasting this kind of design in Pentiment with consequences in the final act of Deadfire

00:51:50 - Dramatic immersion in Pentiment: keeping the dramatic intimacy through rituals and role-playing mini-games.

Tim and Joel return after a hiatus for the first episode of 2023. We talk about the future direction of the podcast - which, now that Tim’s own game development projects are picking up steam - will involve a more design-focussed approach to looking at games.

With this in mind, we go into the differences between three games: The Wolf Among Us (2013), Disco Elysium (2019) and Pentiment (2022). All these games have strong narratives and great writing, but the latter two incorporate these elements into gameplay in a way that Wolf doesn’t.

Tim goes into his adventures in solo game development, making a working orbital model in C++.

00:00 Intro to new season

01:50 Games purely as entertainment vs Games criticism bearing the weight of other media

00:04:48 What have we been playing?

00:06:00 Steam Deck for traveling and multiplayer

00:10:40 The Wolf Among Us

00:18:14 Disco Elysium on Steam Deck

00:21:09 Which games have affected you?

00:26:39 Venue

00:30:00 Pentiment / Disco Elysium

01:14:03 Godot game dev: C++ and orbital mechanics

01:24:53 GPT-4 and the benefits of AI for the lone dev

01:35:25 Kerbal Space Program and the challenge of making complex problems fun for the user

01:42:27 Narrative elements express themselves out of the mechanics that are happening

01:48:22 Socials

Part two of our conversation goes deeper into the mechanics, narrative and design of Hardspace: Shipbreaker, from its genesis as the winner of an internal company game jam, to early access on Steam, to its full release last year.

Elliot talks about wanting to explore the idea of “dangerous labor”, to immerse the player in a blue collar experience, to “honor the work” - the skill, the camaraderie, the consequences and the tensions between workers and bosses.

Elliot Hudson is the game director for Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and was a senior designer for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. In part one of our two-part conversation, he talks about his beginnings in gaming, from sketching Mario Bros 2 levels out on paper, to making flash games while studying film, to switching to studying game design full time, and finally getting a job at Blackbird - first as a programmer and later as a designer.

He talks about the his journey with Blackbird from working on the canceled project Hardware, to Deserts of Kharak, Blackbird’s entry into the much beloved Homeworld Series, and finally to the conceptually and narratively unique Hardspace: Shipbreaker - one of our favorite games of 2022.

There’s no one quite like Rami Ismail: game developer, pilot, industry ambassador, consultant. Any one of these could be a full career and somehow Rami does them all. Formerly one half of hit indie studio Vlambeer, he has used his success to advocate for change in the industry for the last decade, traveling the world with a focus on advancing game development in countries where the gaming industry doesn’t have the same foothold.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about his experiences with these communities and the specific challenges they face - cultural, economic, linguistic - and the wealth of story and experience that goes unheeded as a result. We also talk about game engines, changes in the industry, and (inevitably) the problems of late-stage capitalism.

“Imagine you’re writing a book and occasionally, when someone turns the page, all the letters fall off the page.”

Tim and Joel interview Stephen Danton, who developed the excellent Unto the End with his wife Sara.

Stephen talks about his career, and the range of experience he brought to bear in the making of his first big game. We cover various aspects of video game development.

• Unto the End
• Dark Souls
• Guacamelee
• Stray
• Dead Cells
• Mark of the Ninja
• Another World
• Flashback
• Below
• Rainworld
• Highfleet
• Thief
• God of War
• Miasmata
• Death Stranding
• Somerville

Tim and Joel look again at Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, a game whose complexity allows for a more nuanced set of mechanics which make it a more “honest” city-building experience, as opposed to the sanitized colonialist and capitalist assumptions of many recent offerings in the genre.

• Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic
• Sim City 2000
• Cities: Skylines
• Anno 1800
• Factorio

Tim and Joel look at the delightful Unto the End, an action-adventure game made by the small team at 2 Ton Studios. It is a masterclass in minimalist game design - art, sound, narrative and gameplay mechanics.

We give particular attention to the combat mechanics - which are some of the best we've encountered in any game - scrappy and tactical, consistently challenging. We look at why the challenges here are so much more compelling to us than the popular Dark Souls series - which has been much lauded for its combat mechanics.

Games mentioned:

• Unto the End
• Dark Souls
• Sekiro
• Chivalry 2
• Assassin’s Creed
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• Lonely Mountains: Downhill
• Nidhogg

Having played some “deck-builder” games, Tim and Joel break down the mechanics and aesthetics of card games. We look primarily at Inscryption and Fights in Tight Spaces, and go on to discuss UI and combat strategy mechanics.

Games mentioned:

• Inscryption
• Fights in tight places
• Banner Saga
• Into the Breach
• Nantucket
• Battle Brothers

Tim and Joel take apart Hardspace: Shipbreaker, space-junking game with an anti-capitalist spirit. We examine the ways in which narrative is subtly threaded through gameplay.

Games mentioned:

• Hardspace: Shipbreaker
• Norco
• Dead Space

Tim gives his first impressions of the trailblazing Steam Deck - which brings PC computing power to the handheld gaming experience. Having sampled several games on the platform, he has settled on Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic (aka Soviet Concrete Simulator). What differentiates it from other city-builders?

• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Witcher 3
• Battletech
• Rimworld
• Cleopatra
• Pharaoh
• Cities Skylines
• Tropico 5
• Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic
• Hardspace: Shipbreaker
• Dyson sphere Program
• Satisfactory
• Factorio

In part two of our look at Norco we expand on some of the first episode’s observations, discussing specific plot points.

Mentioned:

Musée des Beaux Arts (poem) - WH Auden

Norco is a real achievement in video game storytelling - beautifully written and scored. It is a game we will both remember for a long time.

In this episode we talk (spoiler-free) about the game and its relationship to the cyberpunk genre. Next week we go into greater depth, with spoilers.

Games mentioned:

• Norco
• Monkey Island
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Deus Ex
• Disco Elysium
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Cloudpunk
• Shadowrun
• Beneath/Beyond a Steel Sky

Following last week’s music episode, this week we talk with our guests Phil Tucker and Damian Gibson about our more personal experiences with music in video games, from childlike glee to more complicated adult emotions. 

We discuss some of the earlier music-producing technologies, composition techniques, and memorable examples from the best of the medium.

Games mentioned:

• Donkey Kong Country
• Digger 
• Mario
• Red Dead Redemption
• Halo
• Doom
• Lemmings
• Zelda
• Spy vs Spy
• Goldeneye
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
• Hellcats over the Pacific
• Homeworld
• Curse of Monkey Island
• Norco
• FTL
• Beatles Rock Band
• The Long Dark
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Nantucket
• Deathloop
• GTA 5
• American Truck Simulator

A very special episode this week: friends of the show Phil Tucker and Damian Gibson - Joel’s former radio-show co-hosts - join us to talk about music in games. Damian is the host of the podcasts WrestleWolf and Agents of Narrative. Phil - who made the music for the pod - was a touring musician for 10 years, and now works as a composer.

In the first of two podcasts, we talk about the function of music in games, and indulge in some reminiscing.

Games mentioned:

• Hypnospace outlaw
• Mario
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• FTL
• Crypt of the Necrodancer
• Night in the Woods
• Yakuza
• The Artful Escape
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• EVE Online

Tim’s been reading Alexis Kennedy, which springboards this week’s titular discussion. Many games are enjoyable at the time of playing - which games are we glad to have played once we’ve put them down? And why?

Games mentioned:

• Fallen London
• Sunken Sea
• Cultist Simulator
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Assassin’s Creed
• Far Cry
• Sagebrush
• Paratopic
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Norco
• Curse of Monkey Island
• Pillars of Eternity
• Baldur’s Gate
• Disco Elysium
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Beyond Good and Evil
• Splinter Cell
• Sea of Thieves
• Kerbal Space Program
• Microsoft Flight Simulator

We wanted to wait until we finished Norco before we talked about it, but it made such an impression that we have to talk about it here. But the bulk of the episode concerns the recent title Weird West, the extent to which it did and didn’t live up to our (admittedly unrealistic) expectations, and what its success might mean for the immersive sim.

Games Mentioned:

• Norco
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Weird West
• Dishonored
• Prey
• Hitman
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Cyperpunk 2077
• Wasteland 3
• Desperados 3

Inspired by Tim’s adventures in Microsoft Flight Simulator, we talk about gameplay mechanisms which make simulations compelling: the dramatic loop of player agency, planning, mission choice, the minutiae of the mechanical gameplay, and the way these elements cohere. We juxtapose this with games like far Cry 5 - whose gameplay, while satisfying in isolation, doesn’t build to anything, and doesn’t feel tied to it’s particular gameplay universe.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Truck Simulator
• Train Simulator
• Elite dangerous
• Space Engineers
• Valheim
• Far Cry 5
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Highfleet