Furidashi Game Design Academy

Oct 22 2024 138 ep. 29 mins 19
Furidashi Game Design Academy Podcast artwork

Lauryn and Nicholas discuss gaming, ”gamers,” and game design from practical and academic perspectives.

  Leisure  Education
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123. Delicious in Dungeon Crawl | S5E1

Oct 22 2024 52 mins  
Welcome to Season 5, where we'll be focusing on game and media aesthetics! We wanted to started things off with a game/anime crossover in the form of Delicious in Dungeon. In this episode, we discuss how media narratives can reflect game narratives and aesthetics, as well as how to envision a narrative structure that enhances characterization. Substack: https://gamedesigndiscourse.

Where We're Headed in Season 5

Sep 26 2024 5 mins  
Just a brief check-in during our hiatus month to give you a taste of what we'll be talking about in the coming year.

122. Novelty and Innovation | S4E11

Aug 14 2024 50 mins  
In this episode, we consider how to make your game stand out from the others, the importance of a clear hook or appeal to the player, as well as how to translate the sense of innovation you might find more easily in solo projects back into larger, collaborative efforts. Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-mem

121. Playtesting | S4E10

Jul 17 2024 50 mins  
In this episode we delve into the subject of playtesting: how to choose the right playtesters for your game as well as learning how to go after the criticism you need, not necessarily what you want to hear. We talk about the qualitative differences between testing for smaller indie and mass market games, as well as how you develop a community of people around your design who, hopef

120. Friction in Video Games | S4E9

Jun 19 2024 57 mins  
This month we tackle the concept of friction in game design, how it's not necessarily the same thing as challenge or difficulty, and why it's important for making even the tiny little things you do in a game an engaging experience. Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories Substack: https://gamedesigndisco

119. The Human Toll of Gamedev | S4E8

May 14 2024 50 mins  
This month we stop talking around the fact that the games industry is imploding and tackle it head on. We address the collective psychic damage we all seem to be suffering as a result, as well as how not to despair in dark times. In the end, we need to protect the creative parts of ourselves from those who only want to profit from our talents at any cost. Download the Sympathetic M

118. The Mechanics of Pleasure | S4E7

Apr 09 2024 47 mins  
In this episode, we discuss the sensuous side of gamedev, the upsides and downsides of "friction," and how to better understand what your player wants to be doing, so as to craft a better suited gameplay experience for them. Download the Sympathetic Memories demo for free on our Itch.io site: https://furidashipod.itch.io/sympathetic-memories Substack: https://gamedesigndiscourse.su

117. Working in Teams, Working Alone | S4E6

Mar 12 2024 52 mins  
In this episode we deconstruct the concept of auteur theory and show how even when a game's production has a strong creative direction, often that means getting people to buy into that vision and contributing to it rather than having their work dictated to them. We talk about the documentary Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds and how it reveals the ways in which solodev and team devel

116. From Inspiration to Game Design | S4E5

Feb 13 2024 55 mins  
In this episode Lauryn and Nicholas tackle how game designers translate their own interests and influences into tangible elements in their own games. Working from Nicholas' ongoing work on Sympathetic Memories, we first examine the way historical and literary influences work their way in. Then, we round out the episode by exploring how solo work of this kind can inform the way insp

115. Subjectivity in Narration | S4E4

Jan 08 2024 47 mins  
In this episode we talk about the uses of first and second person narration in games, not only in terms of basic storytelling but also how they work their way into systems like objectives and quest logs. We explore the philosophical underpinnings of first person perspective and try to show how games can actually meaningfully collapse what we typically think of as subjective and obj