Podcast

Episode 109: The Rise of Live Games
From patches and updates to seasonal content and daily challenges, the ubiquity of live games has grown exponentially in the internet age. What started as an easy way to fix a released game, has grown into 50GB day-one patches and years of expanded content. While the promise of an ever-changing

Episode 108: Epic vs. Apple
Clash of the Titans! Not only is it an objectively great 80’s movie, it is also what you could call the current climate between Apple and Epic. Platforms are a tricky business. You need developers making software for your platform to make money, but you also need the developers to

Episode 107: Black Lives Matter
Pandemics go beyond just disease and viruses. They have the capacity to sneak into the core of our being, society, and yes — our game industry. The pandemic of racial inequality is at the forefront of the discussion today, which comes at the heels of the latest surge of the Black

Episode 106: Under Quarantine
It’s not very often that one is aware they are living through history as it happens. 2020 will always remembered as the year we all went into quarantine. Covid-19 has swept across and countries and cultures, changing our lives in ways we could not have imagined just a few months ago. In this

Episode 105: Let’s Talk Tech Art
Like the complexities of for loops, switch statements, and allocating memory? Or, do you fancy getting the pixels to look just right on screen? Can’t choose?! Well, lucky you, this episode and interview with Technical Artists Andrea Bobick and Razvan Luta is tailor made for you! In this episode we

Episode 104: Designing for VR & AR Games
In this week’s episode, we talk to Mira Marquez and Kenneth Woodruff about designing for VR and AR applications! Our guests join Ryan and Obinna to talk design for this new medium. The group jumps into discussions that dive into the challenges associated with designing for VR/AR as well as

Episode 103: Gaming Horizons
New year, next gen! In this week’s episode Obinna, Andrew, and Ryan discuss the future of gaming in the next year. As some of you may already know there are some big changes coming for the industry next year. The big players have their next generation hardware ready to go

Episode 102: Developing Games for the Cloud
Everyone has been talking about the cloud… so, we figured we should too! In this week’s episode, we bring in another former Sprocketeer and backend server engineer, Tyler Ohlsen to talk about his experience when developing for the cloud and some of the tools, services, and concepts needed to begin

Episode 101: The Road to Better Concurrency
The party doesn’t stop at 100! We’re keeping the train moving right along with another fresh episode In this week’s episode, we bring in former Sprocketeer and backend server engineer, Matt Bolt to talk about a series of blog posts that he recently posted. In The Road to Better Concurrency,

Episode 100: 100th Episode Retrospective
We finally did it! After 4 very short years, we managed to reach 100 episodes of The Debug Log. In this episode, we are joined by a very special person, none other than our lost co-host Eduardo Castillo Fernandez! Together, the 5 of us discuss some of our favorite experiences

Episode 99: The Darkside of Development: Company Closures II
What is better than three episodes about the dark underbelly of software development? FOUR episodes about the dark underbelly of software development!! That’s right depressed ladies and gents. It’s that time YET AGAIN! Put grandma and grandpappy to bed, grab a box of tissues, a tub of ice cream, a

Episode 98: The Darkside of Development: Company Closures I
What is better than two episodes about the dark underbelly of software development? Three episodes about the dark underbelly of software development! That’s right ladies and gents. It’s that time AGAIN! Put the dogs in their kennels, grab a keg of your favorite brew, and sit back and enjoy part

Episode 97: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature!
As a game dev, you probably deal with bugs and glitches on a day-to-day basis. Today we are talking about the best kind of bugs, bugs that end up being happy accidents. The history of game development is full of stories of legendary glitches that became profound features, not only

Episode 96: Holiday Special 2018
Welcome to our 4th annual Holiday Special where we discuss some of the biggest games and stories of the past year. Thank you for sticking with us for another year and stayed tuned for more episodes and content in the months to come. Happy Holidays everybody, be safe, and have a happy 2019!

Episode 95: Unite 2018 Wrap Up
Unite 2018 Los Angeles! In this episode we discuss the many happenings at the annual Unity convention Unite. There was a lot to see at this years conference. Some of the highlights include the Entity Component System, nested prefabs, the Visual Effects Tool, FPS sample, Mega City, and many more.

Episode 94: Rapid-Fire Roundup
This week we are back with another “Rapid-Fire Roundup” episode. Catching up on a lot of the stories of the past few months, we tackle everything from Microsoft’s interesting new Game Pass offerings to updates on the eternal Unity vs Unreal war. All that and more on this episode of The

Episode 93: Evolution of Game Networking
Another walk down gamedev memory lane with Ryan and the gang! This week on the show we discuss the evolution of networking in games. We cover the growth of the play spaces for multiplayer games such as university networks to linked computers and on to the Internet. We also talk

Episode 92: Optimizing Your Game for Performance with Lisa Hicks & Dan Moran
Double the flavor, double the fun! We’ve got a pair of Sprocketeers, in Dan Moran and Lisa Hicks, joining us today to talk about methodologies, tools, and techniques used to help optimize games for performance. We take a fairly high-level view of optimization techniques, which makes the discussions in this

Episode 91: Is Your Game Worth It?
We all know making games is hard, but what do you when a project lingers on forever unfinished? Are you working on your grand masterpiece? Will you look back one day and feel proud that every doubt you had, every project delay, every catastrophe was all part of the journey

Episode 90: World Building with Geoffrey Nahashon
It’s Interview Time! (to be read in Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers voice) In this week’s episode we sit down with industry vet, Geoffrey Nahashon to talk about his experience as a Lead Artist and his approach to building game worlds. He offers up a lot of solid advice and is

Episode 89: Unity 2018 Beta
Oh. My. God. Becky. First. It’s Zack’s Birthday. Second. Unity 2018 Beta is out and ready for all you eager developers out there to get your hands on it! In this week’s episode Obinna and Ryan cozy-up and discuss Unity Technologies’ latest beta release of Unity 2018, which is jam-packed

Episode 88: The Next Big Thing
“Patience is a virtue. “ So, that quote has nothing to do with this topic, but it seems like a cool thing to start the episode summary with! That said, in this week’s episode Zack, Ryan, Andrew (Happy belated Birthday), and Obinna sit down to discuss “The Next Big Thing.”

Episode 87: Game Dev Tricks
Happy New Year! It’s time to kick off 2018 with a feast of an episode. We start with a very fun conversation about all the interesting tricks game devs employ to improve the player experience of their games. We have to admit some of the tricks seem to be just clever

Episode 86: Rapid-Fire Roundup
OMG, we’re back again! Brothers, sisters, everybody read! It’s time for another edition of “Rapid-Fire Roundup”. This week we discuss the intense fallout caused by the inclusion of things like Loot Boxes in newer PC and console titles, Ryan airs his many grievances in spectacular fashion, EA shakeups, and the

Episode 85: The Downsides of Developer Transparency
There has always been an air of mystery surrounding the game development process. In the past, this was mainly due to the archaic processes involved and the massive amounts of specialized knowledge required to dip a toe into that world. Fast-forward to now, what has changed? Well, the tools are a

Episode 84: Game Design Breakdown – PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS
It seems like every year, one game comes along and dominates the conversation, whether for its excellent execution, superb gameplay, or its originality of ideas. For awhile we thought that game for 2017 would be the triumphant return of the Zelda franchise in Breath of the Wild, but a well-known

Episode 83: Marketing Your Game on a Low Budget
Making a good game is not enough to make a profit from it. That is why we decided to talk about Marketing in this episode. With such overcrowded market and players with smaller attention spans, it is extremely important to know how to market your game. Of course, we are

Episode 82: Let’s Talk Security: Data Storage
In this week’s episode we discuss game data security, but specifically try to target how developers should think about and approach security as it relates to their game’s data. This episode is one of a possible* three-part series about security within game development. The Debug Log crew, sans Andrew, also

Episode 81: Personal Programming Methodologies
After a brief month of summer vacation, we are back in action. This week we are talking about Personal Programming Methodologies. Basically, different methods and thought processes that you can employ to break your projects into manageable pieces. We start with a brief exploration into the most popular schools of thought in

Episode 80: Rapid-Fire Roundup
Back at last! It’s time for another edition of “Rapid-Fire Roundup”. This week we break down the colossal new version release from Unity, resist the temptation of a cheaper Oculus, assess the fallout from the Fallout 4 ad campaign, and get our minds blown by the amount of money in Esports