Game Data

Digital boardgames are a strange beast. By pure number alone, most exist as adaptations of their physical counterparts, published as a mod for Tabletop Simulator or on one of the online boardgame portals like Board Game Arena, Rally the Troops, Screentop, Tabletopia, etc.Popular physical games will sometimes get their own standalone adaptations (Gloomhaven, Dune: Imperium, Root, Wingspan, etc.), but these are generally quite rare, in part due to the high cost associated with their production and the ambiguous able to forecast revenue against that (physical fans may just play the physical game). Fan-created standalone digital adaptations fill in the market gaps here where there is digital “will” but no delivered “way”, with games like the One Piece TCG simulator app or the War of the Ring client.Most rare of all though are digital games that “play” like physical boardgames but have no actual physical counterpart. These games, at best, embrace the affordances of videogames to enhance and expand on the “sense” of playing something that could plausibly be physical, but don’t directly owe some indexical truth back to a physical source. Armello is by far the most notable here, but besides that there are surprisingly few others (Antihero is another).As a fan of games like Armello (and boardgames more broadly), it’s something I wish was explored more. The design space that circles around both structured, rule-based play and the “limitless” potential of videogames is, I think, more fertile territory for moving games “forward” rather than micro-iterating on progression trees in “first person shooters” or “character action adventure” games.This is to say that, when I got the first glimpse of Nic Tringali’s The Banished Vault, I was well primed to receive its many gifts. As the full vision of The Banished Vault came into focus over the years, every new detail prompted in me a reflexive “Hell Yeah”.Gothic, Grimdark Sci-fi? Hell Yeah.Harsh, D&D 2E Black and White Illustrations? Hell Yeah.An all consuming void of nothingness? Hell yeah.Worker placement mechanics? Hell Yeah.Rougelike-y Survival Mechanics? Hell Yeah.The list (and “Hell Yeahs”) goes on.Tringali’s game also holds a special place in my heart beyond my own affinity for it. Development on The Banished Vault roughly started, and ran parallel to, the development of my own weirdo strategy game Cantata.From across the void of the internet, seeing someone else on the path, attempting something equally strange made the whole endeavor feel less lonely. No matter what happened, we had each other, stellar bodies locked in orbit amongst the cloud of overlapping steam tags.I met Nic in person for the first time this past year at GDC, and immediately gave them a big hug. It felt appropriate — two fellow travelers come together after a long journey apart.Talking with Nic for Game Data felt like a bit of a retrospective for both The Banished Vault and Cantata, both of us sharing what got us through the projects, talking through the details and similarities/differences.It’s a conversation I’m happy to bring you all, and hope you enjoy hearing Nic and I talk about all the intricacies of building strategy games trying to do things that are both new (digital boardgames!) and old (boardgames!) at the same time. Enjoy! Get full access to Game Data at www.gamedatapodcast.com/subscribe

Jon Perry is one of my favorite game designers working today. He’s also that rare breed that has found critical and commercial success in both digital and physical games.The latter best represents his output from the past few years, with spectacular releases like the push-your-luck dice game Spots and the 1v1 “lane battler” card game Air, Land, and Sea (a personal favorite of mine) that, though he denies that it "stole" anything from him, was clearly a major inspiration for the mega-hit Marvel Snap.Other games like Time Barons (designed in conjunction with Derek Yu), arriving near the advent of modern tabletop hobby gaming, seemed to anticipate a lot of its larger motions before they had become fully absorbed and disseminated into what “modern design” means.All this to say, Jon Perry gets design. He knows how to make games that sing.So it’s exciting to see him once again flexing his muscle in the digital sphere (and unsurprisingly crushing it) as he and a group of other prominent indie game developers came together to put out the now audacious (and commercial hit!) game UFO50.UFO 50 is a collection of 50 single and multiplayer games that span a variety of genres, from platformers and shoot 'em ups to puzzle games, roguelites, and RPGs. Our goal is to combine a familiar 8-bit aesthetic with new ideas and modern game design.The previously-stated pedigree of the game is quite large, with the major contributors coming from the people behind Spelunky, Catacomb Kids, Downwell, as well as Perry himself (credited on nearly 20(!) of the 50 games).UFO50, nearly 8 years in the making, is a herculean effort of herculean effort. Making a single game is hard. Making 50 seems near impossible. Add on top of that multiple creators and designers and self-imposed limitations to keep with the whole spirit of the project, and you’ve got quite the task on hand.So for UFO50 to not only have delivered, but for it to deliver and be, by all accounts, VERY GOOD, is incredible.Which is why I wanted to sit down and talk with Jon on Game Data to figure out how they got it done. Enjoy! Get full access to Game Data at www.gamedatapodcast.com/subscribe

Arnold Rauers of Tinytouchtales joins Kyle to talk about his recently released card-drafting mobile game Geo Gods. Kyle and Arnold talk about the legacy of Tinytouchtales, tutorial scripting, data binding, and how Arnold's process around technical design has evolved over time.Geo Gods on the App Store:https://apps.apple.com/us/app/geo-gods/id1618193651Geo Gods Design Deep Dive Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVC-jHd3leo Get full access to Game Data at www.gamedatapodcast.com/subscribe

Welcome to Game Data, a podcast that dives into the behind-the-scenes technical details of video games. Get full access to Game Data at www.gamedatapodcast.com/subscribe