A series of talks and interviews about various aspects of video game design and development from a developer's perspective.

Games from a developer's perspective

An introduction to a portion of Vernacular Games' staff and their gaming influences.

Podcast 01: Enter Vernacular Core

Examining concepts and ideas with regards to the nature of Challenge in video games and how to make them enriching.

Podcast 02: Hard Vs. Challenging

Vernacular Games' third podcast, an examination of storytelling methods in video games. 

Podcast 03: Discussing Story in Games

An examination of the concept of balance in video games with an emphasis on balance of environment and concepts relating to PvP (player vs. player) and PvE (player vs. enemy) play environments

Podcast 04: Balance. An Examination

An interview with the team at Warding Circle on the development of their current project Mysteries of the Yokai. 
Check out the link below to find out more information:
http://www.mysteriesoftheyokai.com/

Check out their Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/warding-circle/mysteries-of-the-yokai-an-rpg-inspired-by-japanese?ref=nav_search

Podcast 05: The Mysteries of the Yokai

An examination of Boss Design in games with a focus on the purpose of Bosses and what makes them good or bad when it comes to implementation.


Podcast 06: Boss Design

We look back at the development process for our first game Highway to the Moon. In this portion we talk about the situation that predicated its creation.

Podcast 07: Highway to the Moon Pt.1

Part 2 of the Highway to the Moon set. Here we talk about some of what went into building our own engine from scratch and the pros and cons that came with doing so.

Podcast 08: Highway to the Moon Pt.2

A continuation of the Highway to the Moon podcast set. In this portion, we talk about the design of our tools for making HTTM and their impact on the game development process.

Podcast 09: Highway to the Moon Pt.3

Part four of our talk about the development of Vernacular Games' first title, Highway to the Moon. Here we discuss elements of the game's core design and our reasoning behind many of the design decisions we made. 

Podcast 10 : Highway to the Moon Pt. 4

The last part in our five part series discussing the development of our first game, Highway to the Moon.  Here we talk about the challenges of design each of the levels in the game and wrap up with some of the lessons we learned over the course of development.

Podcast 11: Highway to the Moon Pt. 5

For this podcast, we take a moment to create and define our lexicon for analyzing games and their interactions with players. 

Podcast 12: Vernacular's Vernacular

Part one of an examination of the concept of failure handling in video games. In this portion, we briefly define each of the three methods that we've observed, and then dig into the Reset style and its implications on gameplay.

Podcast 13 :: Reset, Reload, Resume : Reset Style

Join us as we continue our examination of gross player failure handling, this time exploring the concepts involved in the Reload style. 

Podcast 14 :: Reset, Reload, Resume: Reload Style

The last part of our examination of gross player failure handling methods. Here we examine the resume style of gross player failure handling, and give some closing remarks on gross player failure handling methods overall.

Podcast 15 :: Reset, Reload, Resume: Resume Style

An examination of the concept of failure handling and how we approach it in real life, with a focus on education systems at large and how video games effect one's personal approach to failure handling.

Podcast 16 :: Failure Handling in Real Life and Video Games

For this cast, we're digging into the concept of Inspiration and our theories on how one can attempt to draw it out of themselves and the world around them. 

Podcast 17 :: Instigating Inspiration

An examination of how the amount of interesting items in an environment affect the overall interest of an environment and the relationship of that affect to the overall size of said environment.

Podcast 18 :: World Density vs. World Size

In this cast, we go over the concepts of visceral and cerebral engagement when it comes to video games (dipping frequently into cinema) and the implications of managing the ratios of these engagement styles in games. Note that we use the terms Emotional and Visceral interchangeably in this cast.

Podcast 19 :: Visceral and Cerebral Engagement

An examination of the concept of just what a video game is, and the implications of its definition as a "composite experience". We use many examples and coin a lot of terms in this one.

Podcast 20 :: Games as a Composite Experience

An indie game development group with a focus on making unique content that pushes the medium forward creatively and makes opportunities for others to create content within said medium.