The Debug Log

They’re back! In this week’s episode, we welcome back our friends of the podcast, Will Dal Porto and Greg Anderson to talk about what makes a game a classic! We lay out some criteria on how we gauge a game (or franchise) to claim ‘classic status.’ In addition to laying out our Classic Criteria, we also review some retro — and not so retro — games of yesteryear. In the review, we highlight how these games have either maintained or failed to maintain classic status...

“I am a tiny potato. And I believe in you. You can do the thing.” In this week’s episode, we have the privilege of chatting with our friend and community management adept, Janine Dong, about her experiences and growth as a Community Manager. She was an absolute pleasure to interview and discuss the ever-changing, and often frenzied world of community management...

Creating original ideas for games might be a difficult process for some people and an easy ride for others. In any case, polishing that original idea takes time and discipline. That is why today we go over how we come up with new ideas for our games and how we develop them. We mention some established techniques that will be extremely helpful in this process; for example Brainstorming, MindMapping, and SCAMPER...

Welcome to our 2nd annual Holiday Special where we discuss some of the biggest games and stories of the past year. We also get a chance to revisit our game dev resolutions for 2016. Before all that, we kick off the episode with a nice positive discussion about why we choose to make games. We've spent the last two episodes highlighting the darkest sides of game development...

What is better than one episode about the dark underbelly of software development? Two episodes about the dark underbelly of software development! That’s right ladies and gents. It’s that time again! Put the kids to bed, grab a bottle of wine or your favorite brew, and sit back and enjoy part two of The Darkside of Development. In this episode, Andrew and Obinna discuss company culture and competition and how they both play out in the game industry...

With all the merriment of the holiday season going on around here at TDL, we thought it appropriate (and of true ‘Troll’ fashion) to go on a series of rants about the uglier side of game development. Today’s episode is Part One of what is slated to be a two-part series, where we highlight and discuss aspects of game development that really grind our gears! Things that you don’t hear in interviews, or aren’t written in job descriptions, or in a sweet sizzler reel of your favorite game...

Game Development has many roles: Gameplay Developer, Systems Developer, Level Designer, Character Artist, Sound Designer, Game Designer, and many more. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the role of a Systems Developer. To do so, I have the pleasure of talking with Dayle Flowers, lead developer on Paladins at Hi-Rez Studios. Before becoming a lead developer, Dayle had several years of experience as a Systems Developer...

It's that time of year folks, that's right, it's time for Unite 2016! This year, Obinna, Eduardo, and I had the chance to fly out to Los Angeles and attend the event. We've been the past couple of years and had a lot of fun, but this year we decided to try something different. We grabbed a camera, a mic, and descended on Unite with the intention of talking to as many people as possible...

In this episode, we had the pleasure to talk to Ker-Chunk Games’ Co-founder and CEO Molly Proffit. She shares what motivated her to create a company that focuses on making games that empower women as players. We also discuss what the game industry can do to hire and retain more female devs. Thanks for tuning in this week and we hope you enjoy the show! Feel free to send any emails with comments, questions, and concerns, to: thedebuglog@gmail.com

Free • lance - Origin: Early 19th century (denoting a mercenary): originally as two words. There is honestly no substantive reason as to why I just gave you the etymology of ‘freelance,’ however Andrew thought you would enjoy it… so, there it is. Awkwardness aside, in this week’s show we talk about and try to address some of the more common issues and questions developers start to ask themselves as they look into freelancing within the game industry...