PlayWell Podcast

Matt Nava was Art Director on Journey and Flower. Safe to say he knows how to make a completely unique play experience. His next mystery to conquer is Abzu, an unmatched underwater discovery. Here are his thoughts on the process.

Eric Barone made Stardew Valley by himself. It was hard, but he nailed it. Here's how he did it.

This week, we're posting the second Games Debate Club held last week in Brooklyn. The motion to be debated is "Local Multiplayer is the Purest form of Multiplayer Gaming". Bring all your opinions, they're welcome here!

We talk with Soren Johnson from Mohawk Games (Offworld Trading Company) about building a competitive RTS without military combat, keeping vision through early access and how they managed to pull off one of the most polished strategy games out there. Also check out this perfectly supplemental postmortem by Soren on Offworld's Early Access Campaign. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/274240/Postmortem_Offworld_Trading_Companys_Early_Access_campaign.php

We sit down with Dinosaur Polo Club and talk about making a hit right out the gate, the IGF and managing the nuances of even the simplest game design challenges.

We sit down and chat with Gabriel Smetzer, a motion designer and interactive storyteller, about making his first game Flewn and how the story turned out so wonderful.

Nick Popovich from Monomi Park gives us some tips on how they perfected the basic fun in Slime Rancher early on to make the game addictive from the start.

We talk with the brilliant team behind N++ about their dedication to mechanics, design, and their uncanny ability to look forward with a reverence to the past.

We talk to Corey Pollock about taking on the industry of sharing gameplay with Leet. Check out his work at www.leetapp.co & www.hashtaggaming.co.

2015, where the industry is, and where it's going for 2016.

Henry Smith of Sleeping Beast Games talks about how his dreams, the need for a business card, and his love for board games turned into Space Team.

Mitch Gitelman from Harebrained Schemes talks to us about the life of Shadowrun, building for a dedicated fan base, and how to align community with your development constraints.

Zach is an artist and game maker and he's happy to let you see it all. In this episode we talk about his art and why he's good at making games in genres he doesn't even like.

We chat with Adam Koebel, designer of table top RPG Dungeon World, about the advantages of emergent story telling, GMing on twitch and his dedication to making games inviting to everyone.

How do game makers use discouragement, fear, obstacles and ambiguity to engage players? We have ideas!

We talk to Nina Freeman from Star Maid Games and Fulbright about weaving her own personal story into her newest game, Cibele.

We talk with Simon Bennett about how they made OlliOlli and how they navigated the highs and lows successfully.

Robin Rath from Bloxels talks about how his team has made a beautifully simple tool for using physical objects to make digital games.

In which we chat with Nick Wozniak from Yacht Club Games, makers of Shovel Knight, and learn how to get a studio up and running, the virtues and drawbacks of Kickstarter, and why in the end, Execution is all that really matters.

Jotun is the brilliant new title by Thunder Lotus games. Not only is the game arresting to the senses, but it's a great success story of getting a game launch right the first time. The PlayWell Podcast is a series of intimate conversations with game makers about their craft, process, ups and downs in game creation. w: playwell.co / t: @playwellco