The Clockwork Game Design Podcast

It has been an amazing ten years! Thank you to everyone who listened! This is a short episode where I just talk a little bit about where I’m at, and why I’m deciding to end the Clockwork Game Design Podcast. Thank you to all of the amazing guests – DOZENS of them – over the years who provided their amazing insights and thoughts on a huge variety of topics. I feel like we really contributed something to the archives of game design history and I’m really proud of that. I might be back with another podcast or video series at some point. But right now I’m mostly excited about making games. Thanks so much for listening all these years and thank you for supporting my Patreon, which (for now) is entirely devoted to making games and running our amazing Discord community. See you soon!

Hi all! Today I have a fascinating conversation with the brilliant Austin Anderson, who is I think the last of the guests that I’ll have on the show from the Alt-F4 conference (along with Dr. Rachel Kowert and Kathleen Morrissey). In this conversation we talk about a bunch of AAA games, such as Detroit Become Human the Last of Us and others, along with some of the ways in which these games get credit for being progressive while simultaneously protecting the neoliberal status quo. By the way, lots of The Last Of Us spoilers in this episode, so please be warned that the second half of the conversation goes into that territory. Thanks for listening. As always, you can support this podcast by visiting www.patreon.com/keithburgun and becoming a patron!

Hi everyone! I come to you with another great conversation, with another super cool person that I met at the Alt-F4: Rebooting Community After Gamergate conference: Kathleen Morrissey. Kathleen is working on a PhD in computational media over at Worchester Polytechnic Institute, she’s done all kinds of awesome academic stuff on the subjects of games, media studies, critical theory analysis and a lot more. She’s also a game designer who has created what I would almost call an “anti escape room” over at WPI called Memoirscape. We met and immediately started having interesting conversations about Final Fantasy. This was a longer (maybe the longest in Clockwork Game Design Podcast history? Someone fact-check me) conversation that touched on a wide range of topics, ranging from a conversation about consensual play, the lasting role of GamerGate, and of course… Final Fantasy. Thanks for listening! (Oh, and yeah, we have a new intro song. The old one was just a little too in your face for me so I just threw this one together real quick.) You can support this show by supporting me over at my Patreon, which is available right here.

Hi all! today I have a wide ranging conversation with Dr. Rachel Kowert, a researcher who studies the effects of games and also discusses a wide range of other pop culture topics, through her youtube channel Psychgeist. She’s written and contributed to a lot of books (including a Psychgeist series, spoken at numerous events including the United Nations and the United States Congress. I saw her talk at the Alt F4: Rebooting Community After Gamergate conference which was extremely impressive, and we quickly got into talking Final Fantasy between talks. We get into a bunch of topics here, such as dark patterns, games in communities, Final Fantasy games, and a lot more. I hope you enjoy the conversation! As always, you can support this podcast over at my Patreon.

Hi all! The Clockwork Game Design Podcast has re-taken-over its own podcast space from the Bannet Bulletin for a week, to share with you this exciting conversation I just had with my old pal Ryan Rigney. His first published game, Fast Fast Laser Laser, is actually a game that I did all of the artwork for, which was actually really fun. But these days he’s known for his comms and marketing work, heading up these departments for huge games like League of Legends, Apex Legend, PUBG, and Omega Strikers. His current company, Odyssey Interactive, is now in the process of deciding if they want to make Byte Breakers or not! All game devs need to check out his blog over at pushtotalk.gg. Thanks for listening. Up next: more Bannet Bulletins, and at least one more cool interview that’s already lined up.

Above is an early screenshot of our combat system in the prototype for Free Tiya Bannet, which is coming along smoothly. The incredible UI art was just freshly finished by our artist, Wizbane, and oh my god I love it! Anyway, today I’m talking about our Impulse System, which is the core of the FF13-inspired combat system in Free Tiya Bannet. Talking about why it is the way it is, how it works, and some stuff about action economy in RPGs. I also talk a bunch about a game I’m playing (and loving) right now: Bravely Default, for 3DS. It’s like Final Fantasy V with Haste cast onto its jobs system. Specifically, I talk about random encounters, and the tendency to want to speed up or automate these battle systems and what that means. Thanks for listening. If you think Free Tiya Bannet is cool and you want to support its production, please visit www.patreon.com/keithburgun and sign up to become a patron! Catch you next time!

Hey all. Today I wanted to talk about the SKILL GRID for my upcoming RPG, and talk about how it interacts with playable characters. I also give an update on some of the games I’m playing. Enjoy! The FFX “Sphere Grid”, an inspiration for our Skill Grid Don’t forget: you can support my work by going to www.patreon.com/keithburgun and becoming a patron!  

Hello all and welcome to the first episode of the Bannet Bulletin! It’s still the Clockwork Game Design Podcast feed, but for awhile I’m going to do a series of shorter podcast episodes that talk about what is going on and what I’m thinking about with the RPG I’m making. This episode is an overview – what is this new game? What’s important? When can you actually play it? In future episodes, we’ll do deep dives into other aspects of the game. If you enjoy the episode, let me know – it will encourage me to take the time to make more! And as always, you can support this show and the creation of my games over at my Patreon page.

Hey all! Today I have a new episode where I’m going to be talking about two things. First, I’m going to report on a bunch of RPGs that I’ve been playing or trying out, and give my takes. I say more about each game on the podcast, so make sure to check that out. Here are some quick bullet points, though! What I’ve been playing SCARLET NEXUS – Extremely polished, simple but fun combat. Kind of “adolescent anime” feeling story, a little silly and a little too fantastical in its basic universe for me, but seems well written. Overly smoothed out, like most modern big production videogames. Bad level design. TALES OF BERSERIA – GREAT opening, compelling main character and good plot gravity. Sadly, also a way overly complicated combat system and overall it has “modern videogame over-smoothed-ness”. IN STARS AND TIME – Very cool game that I recommend you go check out. Great art, great music, good writing. It’s this and Octopath Traveler 2 I’m most excited to play next. Combat system miiiight be a little too simple, I don’t know. Turn based (I think it’s made with RPG maker but they do a good job of not making it feel like it). OCTOPATH TRAVELER 2 – This is probably my favorite of all of the games I’ve been playing, but, I am a little bleh about the way it tells its story. Doing 8 “90 minute character intro chapters” in a row sounds terrible. Introduce characters in a more natural way, please! Cool combat system, good art, good music – overall, good stuff. And it’s actually turn based, whaaaaaat! DONE WITH BALDURS GATE 3 – You know all about Baldur’s Gate 3. Listen to the podcast to hear me say more about it. The TL;DR is that honestly this game’s biggest flaw is the D&D license. Still one of the best RPGs of the last decade, though. FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS – Too depressing and cynical and 90s edgelord for me. Also I appreciate Obsidian’s attempt to Un-Bethesda the Bethesda Game, but the damage was too deep. KINGDOM HEARTS – As much hate as it seems to get, it sort of seems like videogames all turned into Kingdom Hearts over the 20 years I wasn’t watching. Surprisingly fun combat, but forced crappy minigames and why on earth would I want Cloud to talk to Mickey Mouse??? FINAL FANTASY XVI – After playing a bunch more Kingdomheartslikes and getting more used to that, I’ve gotta say, this is a very well made Kingdomheartslike. Still needs more color and sensitivity. Probably just needs to be way more overtly gay. Next up on the docket are Trails in Cold Steel 1, Demon’s Roots and Suikoden 2.   Some bad qualities in RPGs Recently, I wrote about the three most important qualities in an RPG. Today, I’d like to talk about some of the worst things in RPGs, and I’m specifically going to be talking about JRPG-style RPGs here, more than western-style RPGs, since that’s what I’ve been playing… a TON of, for the past few years. Let’s get into the list. A bad narrative setup. Anything with “evil race has come to the land”. Demons, orcs, whatever, is all bad, because these are all stand in for “people”. There is a way you can do it where it comes off as more of a “force of nature”, almost like a huge storm or something, which is an improvement. I do understand that these games are about killing things, and so you need things to kill. But it’s important to be thoughtful about what you’re putting front and center, and what you’re saying. Trails in the Sky – You’re a cop working through the ranks of royalty. Can you use enhanced interrogation techniques on enough poor people to rise through the ranks while defending the monarchy? Anything where you’re the Chosen One. Being the Chosen One really undermines everything a lot. It turns my great feats into something sort of ordinary, and makes the world a lot more flat and dull. For me personally, I would put silent protagonist in this category. I think if you’re going to make it through 40+ hours, you need there to be a central emotional thing that you’re heading toward. You need to care about reaching the ENDING, a satisfying conclusion. A problem I have in a lot of Dragon Quest games for example, is that it sort of feels like you’re going from mini-story to mini-story and I guess at some point the stories just end. Whereas if you compare that to something like Final Fantasy 13, there is a pretty central thing that’s being headed toward the entire time. Follow-up: A good narrative setup that you promptly forget all about for the next 20 hours, like in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Forced Minigames. Minigames are an important thing to have in an RPG: they can break things up, they can open new routes for worldbuilding and character building, and they can contribute to the worldishness of the game. However, when you force them, they can become extremely annoying – they just aren’t what the player signed up for, and they tend to be a lot less polished and fun than the main game. I didn’t sign up for “crappy starfox”, so don’t make me do it every time I want to switch worlds in Kingdom Hearts! Bad Pacing. I was going to write “too long”, but there is no correct length for an RPG. They almost all feel too long, because they aren’t paced well for the length that they are. It feels to me like most JRPGs – including every Final Fantasy game I’ve played – has enough “stuff” for a game about half the length that it is. Bad FIGHT pacing. Basically, players don’t want to fight the same fight over and over again. In the strategy game realm, you solve this by having enough complexity. But with RPGs, you generally want the gameplay to be really smooth, so you can’t have them be too complex turn to turn. This means that there needs to be literally new THINGS appearing – new abilities for the player to use, new characters, new items, new monsters, and so on, at a rate that will mean that the player isn’t fighting the same fights over and over. Again: the last two bullet points can be expressed also as: “the game is too long”. Every RPG I’ve ever played felt too long, and the above two reasons are why. Too “balanced”. Strategy games can’t really be too balanced, but RPGs easily can, and most that come out these days, are. You want the balance in RPGs, to be spiky, and have a “naturalistic” quality to them. Obviously you need some amount of balance – you generally want the progression to be smooth and the player to be able to beat the challenges they face, but not overwhelm the challenges so badly that it feels boring. But then, you also want the player to suddenly find a really powerful weapon sometimes. Or you want there to be a boss that’s quite hard and takes 10 tries to beat sometimes. You want to get a character who is too weak added to your party sometimes, and a character that is too strong. These are all important to create an interesting texture and a world that feels more like a world and less like a universal studios ride. Feels like Software. Video games are made out of software, of course, but the magic spell that artists, musicians, storytellers, game designers and programmers do together is they use their skills carefully to make the thing feel like something other than software, something more than software. Like it’s a magical, precious little artifact. This is important, because a critically important element in an RPG is that the player feels like the creators really had something important to say, that they really cared. Like it’s a piece of art. I think Final Fantasy is generally pretty good at this, and PC RPGs tend to be a bit worse at it. One of the challenges that RPG maker games tend to have is that between the default fonts, generic UI and free assets that tend to be used, it can really feel like just some piece of software, and that’s devastating for a players’ ability to get emotionally invested. That’s about it for today. Hope you enjoyed this article/podcast combo! If you did, please consider supporting my work over at patreon.com/keithburgun.

Hi all! Today I have a nice podcast episode, all about RPGs and RPG design! I feel like I have a lot to say here, and I do dare say that I am slowly, slowly pursuing becoming some kind of crazy expert on the topic, so hopefully there’s some interesting stuff in here to think about. I’m also starting pre-pre-production on my very own RPG finally (!!), so a lot of this is very non-theoretical for me. I also talk a bit about Trails in the Sky: First Chapter which I’ve been playing a bunch on and off over the past month or so, as well as a bunch of other games. Finally, I answer a bunch of questions from people on the Discord. Please let me know what you think below in the comments! Thanks for listening. Related stuff: definitely check out my piece on the 3 most important qualities in an RPG! And of course my Final Fantasy episode. You can support this show – as well as my upcoming RPG! – by becoming a Patron on patreon.com/keithburgun. Thanks again!

Hey all! This is kind of a “bonus episode” of sorts, only 30 minutes long. Here’s some of the topics covered: A bit of navel gazing about my own theory and approach to games and how it has changed A short essay I wrote about “speaking the language” and how building off of existing designs means a higher floor and a higher ceiling Some stuff about 4X games and scope. Will 4X games ever do anything about this? Maybe Against the Storm will provide some answers. Thanks for listening, and as always, this show has no ads and the only way it’s funded is through Patreon, so consider donating if you like the content!

Hi all! It’s been awhile since the last episode. This year I got married and went on my honeymoon, so things have been kind of crazy. But now, they’re sort of going back to normal. Over the last six months, I guess partially because I was doing a bit of traveling, but also partially because I got a Retroid handheld and a Steam Deck (both of which are phenomenal, game-changers for game-playing, for me at least), I’ve been on this crazy Final Fantasy kick. Growing up I had played (and beaten) I, IV, VI and VII, a couple times each, but I had really fallen off over the years, so I had a lot of catching up to do. One friend of mine also told me that Final Fantasy XIII-3 was really good, so I started off endeavoring to beat all three Final Fantasy XIII games (which I now have – mostly). From there I’ve now beaten V, and IX, played a bunch of XII and XV, and I’m currently playing through X and VIII simultaneously. Bouncing all over the map chronologically speaking has been interesting – I feel like I’m getting a weirdly horizontal view of the series by doing this – playing V and XIII-2 at the same time, for example, gives me a really interesting view of how the series progressed. I eventually plan to beat them all! Anyway… it’s kind of insane to try and talk about all of the final fantasy games in one podcast episode, but… here’s what I’ve got. Let me know what you think! As always, you can support the show at www.patreon.com/keithburgun. The two songs in this episode: the opening one is from FF13-2, written by Naoshi Mizuta, the game’s fight song, and the closing one is from FF11, Memoro de la Stono, which I believe is one of the few songs on the incredible 11 OST written by Nobuo Uematsu. Thanks for listening!  

Today Brett Lowey and I discuss DRAGON BRIDGE, my two player bumping card game. It’s a weird game for me, in a bunch of ways. For one thing, it was my first published tabletop game. But also, I produced it in a ridiculously short amount of time. That makes it even more… strange and interesting, how fun it is. Recently, Dragon Bridge has gotten a second chance at life via its superb BoardGameArena adaptation (by the way, it just went into Beta, so you can play it now yourself – let’s go!!!), and many of us in the KBGames community have been playing a bunch, and it has been a blast. It’s wild how well the game has held up. The discussion about this game of course leads Brett and I into a bunch of other conversations about playfulness and optimal ways to go about a game design process. I hope you enjoy the episode! ALSO! You can now sign up to get an alert when the Spellstorm Kickstarter goes live! Sign up here!

Today I bring you one of the world’s more renowned strategy videogame designers – the designer of Civilization IV, one of the most beloved in the series (probably my favorite one still), and the founder of Mohawk Games, who created Offworld Trading Company, and most recently, Old World. Old World has been out for awhile on EGS, and is coming to Steam this Thursday. I definitely recommend it – certainly for all Civ fans, but also for anyone who can appreciate watching a talented designer evolve a project. In this case, that project is the 4X project, one that I do have some strong critiques for, but I can’t deny I’ve enjoyed for thousands and thousands of hours in my life; and which I also can’t deny is a super-important and influential design pattern in videogames. Please enjoy this conversation, and then go check out Old World if you haven’t already. And if you enjoy the conversation, consider becoming a Patron! By the way, while I have you here: Dragon Bridge is coming to BoardGameArena! Alpha launches this Friday. Stay tuned to my Twitter, Discord or Twitch streams to catch our all day stream on Friday, from 12-6PM EST. Note: Brett is out for this episode, as he’s been toiling away on the Dragon Bridge BGA module, but he’ll be back for the future episodes! Stay tuned!  

Good ol’ CoolCop. Wow, things certainly have changed a lot since 2004, huh? Brett and I took a journey into the strange Reiner Knizia card game, Blue Moon. It’s… a challenging game, that’s for sure. Enjoy the episode!

Hello everyone! Welcome to our third episode of STRATEGY CAN BE FUN. Today, Brett Lowey and I discuss the Cole Wehrle game, Pax Pamir. I think this is maybe the first game where Brett and I’s positions on the game have diverged somewhat, although perhaps we have also pulled each other’s opinions together somewhat as well. We talk about many aspects of the game’s design: the abstraction, the theme, the axes of victory, the closed economy, and many more. It’s looking like next up will be Reiner Knizia’s Blue Moon. Let us know if you have ideas for the show going forward. And also, please support the show on Patreon!

Hello all! Thanks so much for checking out the second episode of our new podcast, STRATEGY CAN BE FUN? It’s up sooner than expected — when you have a new show, I think it’s good to get a few episodes out quickly if you can. Today Brett Lowey and I are so excited to present you with a conversation about David Sirlin‘s latest tabletop game: Puzzle Strike II. For those who don’t know, I’m a massive fan of Sirlin’s work, and have been for over a decade. From his very cool card games like Yomi and Codex (my all-time favorite, possibly my favorite game ever, is the original Puzzle Strike), to his probably-the-best-Street-Fighter-Like Fantasy Strike, David Sirlin is a very accomplished designer. Sirlin is a game designer’s game designer, I think. His games are WEIRD, they’re deep, they have high skill ceilings, and they’re original – and Puzzle Strike II is no exception. It’s possibly the Sirliniest of all of his games to date, and while we have a few critiques, I’m super excited to get my copy. If it’s still up when you’re reading this, consider supporting the Kickstarter! And if you enjoy the show, consider becoming a Patron! NOTE: You can now listen to these podcasts on the Patreon page! Next month we’ll be covering (probably) Pax Pamir, so stay tuned!

Surprise! New podcast! Introducing STRATEGY CAN BE FUN?, a new podcast with myself and Brett Lowey. Brett is a game designer and developer, creator behind BrainGoodGames, frequent guest on the Clockwork Game Design Podcast, and all-around awesome guy. We’ve decided to come up with a new show that we do as a collaborate project, one where we discuss a new game IN DEPTH each month, focusing on our shared values of strategy game design: playfulness, depth, complexity, elegance, hidden information and all of that good stuff. I’m really excited about it! The first-ever episode is about the hit boardgame, THROUGH THE AGES. I don’t actually own the physical game, but we’ve been playing a bunch of matches on BoardGameArena, and way more matches on the (very phenomenal) app. We have a lot to say about the show, and Brett also introduces what he calls his “four horsemen of work” in strategy game design (I’ve added some links to related articles I’ve written on these topics): Calculation/counting Uncapped lookahead Memorization Information overload I really hope you enjoy the show. And if you do, consider supporting it at www.patreon.com/keithburgun. Next month’s game is probably going to be David Sirlin’s Puzzle Strike II, so stay tuned!        

Hello all! I have a special episode for you today, wherein we have a great big discussion on MAGIC: THE GATHERING – something I haven’t really dived into too deeply before on the show. For most of my life I was very, very skeptical of these games – I still think, for good reason. But I think there was also a lot of good stuff that I really have been missing out on, and I’m actually pretty excited to dive into MTGA recently. To chat with me about these games is Ryan Bowles and Eli Priest, a couple of cool guys I know who have spent decades playing Magic very seriously. They also have been engaged with me over at the Discord on game design discussions for years, and they’ve both done some game development. That means we kinda “speak each other’s language” well enough to have a productive conversation! I also wanted to take this opportunity to mention that I will be making a CCG of my own – one that is customizable, but not collectible (no rares/random booster pack type shenanigans). I’ll have more news on that soon, but if you want to be the first to get the details on it, make sure to become a Patron!

Hello everyone and welcome to the 91st episode of the CLOCKWORK GAME DESIGN PODCAST! Today’s guest is Dan Felder, a game designer who has worked at several studios, including EA, Blizzard, and Abrakam Games, where he worked on the popular CCG, Faeria. He also has written a bunch of game design articles on game balance, tabletop game design, and free-to-play games – which was really the topic that made me want to have him on most of all. We had a good conversation; I was sort of expecting it to be more of a debate, and perhaps it should have been, but I think Dan is a good bit more confident in his positions on these things than I am, and I’m also not *exactly* sure what precisely we disagree about. That all said, he’s definitely someone I’d like to have on again at some point to talk about this more, once I’ve made my own thoughts a bit more concrete. Enjoy! And if you do, if you value this kind of podcast, please consider becoming a Patron at patreon.com/keithburgun and show your support! Thanks so much, and see you next time.