We wish Alex a happy birthday this week with a celebratory car towing and a PAX story time, including plane movies, convention security measures, Metal Wolf’s chaos, the tale of The Quiet Man, and Riot’s culture of sexism.
We express disappointment in We Happy Few, excitement for Untitled Goose Game, and Switch it up with added talk about some good ol’ ROMs before Nintendo pulls them all from the digital shelves.
Games include Untitled Goose Game, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!, Metal Wolf Chaos XD, Samurai Gunn 2, Kids, Knights and Bikes, Wilmot’s Warehouse, King of the Hat, God of War, We Happy Few, Okami HD, Darksiders III, Mechs vs. Minions, Enter the Gungeon, Dead Cells, Super Mario Odyssey, Kero Blaster, Mother 3, The Urbz: Sims in the City, and Destiny 2.
On a very special episode, Dylan reconvenes his Train Jam team from this past spring. Joining him are Keaton White, managing director for Abyssal Arts; Matt Gambell, founder of Skatanic Studios; and Craig Barnes, freelance composer.
We start the episode as we always do, with a transatlantic weather check. We then move on to to discuss everyone’s current projects:
Keaton’s team is currently releasing their first game, City of the Shroud, an episodic strategy game with fighting game-style combat. Matt talks about his success with his first game: RPG Tycoon, while currently pitching his second game, Living the Deal. Craig discusses his most recent project for which he’s composed music: Nano Golf and Streets of Rogue.
We round out the episode talking about our experiences working on our Train Jam game, Track Trek, our time at GDC, and more!
At the Cat Theatre, Dylan Ilvento, Kahlief Adams, Austin Walker, and Felix Kramer convene the first ever Hidden Gems of PAX West. We talk about pizza mechs, dancing reapers, and a whole lotta golf – follow along with the panel slides.
From the panel description:
“Whether it’s your first PAX or your fifteenth PAX, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by just how much the show has to offer. Let us help you out by pointing you in the direction of everything cool, new, and unexpected. Using our collective knowledge of game development and game criticism, we’ll share and discuss some of the biggest surprises on the show floor that you won’t want to miss.”
Games include Zarvot, Pizza Titan Ultra, What the Golf?, The World Next Door, Thousand Threads, Darq, UFO 50, Wattam, Black Future ‘88, Fork Parker’s Crunch Out, Felix the Reaper, Star Renegades, and Solace State.
Join us as we welcome to the show experience designers Ruthie Edwards and – for the first time ever – Nelson Johnson!
We discuss the ageless Ash Ketchum, Ruthie’s New York City summer full of game fests – from Practice to PlayNYC, and what a Waluigi game could look like.
Next episode: Hidden Gems returns for PAX West! Join Dylan Ilvento, Kahlief Adams, Felix Kramer, and Austin Walker as they showcase everything cool and unexpected at the show!
Games include Zen Pinball 3D, Detective Pikachu, Pokémon Quest, Dead Cells, Mafia III, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Killer Queen Black, Flight Simulator, Chef Umami, Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker, Cities: Skylines, Mario Party, WarioWare Gold, Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!, Potatoman Seeks the Troof, Domestic Dog, and Dig Dog.
Johnnemann Nordhagen, founder of Dim Bulb Games and creator of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, joins the show. Having recently displayed his game at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Arcade, we discuss the honor of being showcased as a piece of American art and the uniqueness of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, including its vignette storytelling style.
We also talk about Johnnemann’s popular postmortem for the game, leading to a greater discussion about the importance of creating postmortems to help your peers, setting up proper expectations about the success of your game, and Johnnemann choosing to move from San Francisco to Santa Fe due to the Bay Area’s rising cost of living and loss of character over the decades.
Lastly, we converse about the importance of independent and experimental games in pushing the medium forward.
Games include Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
This week, the gang is joined by local comics creator Brian Clevinger – of 8-Bit Theater and Atomic Robo fame! He joins us to talk Epic’s backpay, making ghosts, and the NEXT No Man’s Sky. Ludum Dare 42 is also upon us, so we discuss our plans for the upcoming game jam as well as our favorite past themes.
We also chat about what independent game devs and independent comics creators can learn from one another, the state of games Kickstarter versus comics Kickstarter, and the Atomic Robo tabletop RPG.
Games include Part Time UFO, Titanfall 2, Vampyr, No Man’s Sky, God of War, Just Cause 3, and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
We’re proud to announce that our PAX panel series, Hidden Gems, will make its return at PAX West! This will be the first time our panel will be at the proverbial prime PAX, and we’re excited to see what offerings the expo has in store for us in its hometown of Seattle.
If you’re unfamiliar with Hidden Gems, this is how it works: we scour the show floor, looking for unique and undiscovered games and experiences to highlight and discuss for you, the PAX attendee. If you’d like to hear our previous Hidden Gems panels, you can check out our recordings from PAX East 2017, PAX South 2018, and PAX East 2018.
So if you plan on being at PAX West, please join Ward co-founder Dylan Ilvento, Polytron producer Felix Kramer, Spawn On Me host Kahlief Adams, and Waypoint editor-in-chief Austin Walker on Friday, August 31st, at 5:00 pm in the Cat Theatre as we explore our hidden gems of PAX West.
Join Dylan and Anya Combs, senior outreach for games at Kickstarter, as we live commentate the World Cup finals.
Anya dispels Kickstarter myths, shares how to build a community when running a Kickstarter, even when you’re unfunded.
We also share con experiences, food spots in the Bay Area, Anya’s sax side hustle, and more.
And don’t forget: Wardcast has been nominated as one of the Best Local Podcasts of Richmond, Virginia. Join us in expressing your support for the show by voting us the absolute Best Podcast! Click this link to cast your ballot by August 5th – we’re under the Entertainment category!
Riding our segues into oblivion, we switch between talking about BTUs, people hogging DDR machines, advanced gungeoneering, and light gun games of all shapes and sizes.
Ancient food mascots are coming back in force, and we find out what games everyone feels the strongest about so far this year.
In more serious news, Wardcast has been nominated as one of the Best Local Podcasts of Richmond, Virginia. Join us in expressing your support for the show by voting us the absolute Best Podcast! Click this link to cast your ballot – we’re under the Entertainment category!
Games include The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, Yo! Noid II: Enter the Void, Trials Fusion, Enter the Gungeon, Spider Ponds, Butterfly Soup, Splatoon 2, Tetris, Mario Bros., Battletoads, Killer Instinct, NFL Blitz 2000, Time Crisis III, Frogger, Galak-Z: Variant S, Caves of Qud, and Overwhelm.
This week, Dylan is joined by Phil Tibitoski, CEO of Young Horses, developers of Octodad and Octodad: Dadliest Catch.
Phil joins us a week before giving a talk at the game dev program at his alma mater, DePaul University, about his experiences in helping build Young Horses. We talk about the proper advice to give to aspiring developer for their post-graduation life and providing context for how Young Horses achieved success.
For those wishing to go into independent development, we discuss creating proper expectations, indie dev’s pros and cons, transitioning from a student project to a business, and learning from others, such as Microsoft and Rochester Institute of Technology’s analysis of Gamasutra postmortems.
