What do rollercoasters, songs, fancy meals, and summer blockbusters all have in common? They are designed to take us for a ride. Whether emotionally or physically, each moment is engineered to be just what the audience needs at just the right time. The creators in these mediums are able to

A Tale of Proving out Passion! In this week’s episode, we have the honor of speaking with our very own Zack Schneider about his career and growth as a game developer. We go into how his initial passion for playing games provided the spark to pursue a career in game

Hello, Debuggers. In today’s episode, we continue our series about design patterns with one of the most polemic design patterns of all, Singleton. We explain when you might want to use a Singleton, we go over the definition of this design pattern, we talk about two very common definitions, and

From Tomb Raider to Ninja Turtles, this pair of Game Designers have been through it all. In this week’s episode we sit down with Benjamin Gross and Joshua Herbert about their roles as Content Designers in the game industry. We discuss the basics behind content design but also take a

Mistakes. We all make them, especially as developers. The good news is that we can all learn from each other and try to avoid them in the future. This week we discuss a really interesting article by Tomas Macek entitled, The 10 Most Common Mistakes That Unity Developers Make. This

“Whatchu working on?!” In this week’s episode, the gentlemen of The Debug Log discuss their progress on their respective games. Eduardo drops a few more hints on THE new VR game he has been working on. Zack and Andrew outline some of the work and challenges that were encountered during

In today’s episode we talk about design patterns in game development, specifically, the State pattern. This is going to be an episode mostly oriented to developers, but it is an important part of our effort to bring good programming practices to other devs. We explain the basics of what a

Before the thousands of players, before the money, before the press conferences, even the biggest games had to start with one simple thing; the pitch. Whether it’s to investors or collaborators, fans or the press,  pitching your game is something you will be doing constantly as a developer. Not only is

Tired of getting your PM’s mixed up? Not sure what goes into product management? Eager to impress your friends and co-workers with some key, trivia-ready information about what a product manager does? If you answered, ‘Yes’ to any of the above questions, then this episode is for you! In this

In this episode, I have to pleasure to talk to John Cheng, the head of Unity Analytics. We go over the different parts of Unity Analytics and its features to show you all the power that you have in your hands if you use Unity. Finishing a game is not

You lookin’ gooooood! In today’s episode we are covering the topic of visual effects in a conversation with our friend Dan Moran. Dan runs the Youtube channel Makin’ Stuff Look Good and works with Obinna and I at Sprockets as a Graphics Engineer. He is very knowledgeable when it comes

It’s time to stretch our academic muscles! On today’s episode, we revisit a topic we’ve discussed previously, UI. This time we look at it through the lens of User Experience Design. Instead of listing Unity libraries and various technical solutions, we try to take a more formal design approach to the

They’re back! In this week’s episode, we welcome back our friends of the podcast, Will Dal Porto and Greg Anderson to talk about what makes a game a classic! We lay out some criteria on how we gauge a game (or franchise) to claim ‘classic status.’ In addition to laying

“I am a tiny potato. And I believe in you. You can do the thing.” In this week’s episode, we have the privilege of chatting with our friend and community management adept, Janine Dong, about her experiences and growth as a Community Manager. She was an absolute pleasure to interview

Creating original ideas for games might be a difficult process for some people and an easy ride for others. In any case, polishing that original idea takes time and discipline. That is why today we go over how we come up with new ideas for our games and how we

Welcome to our 2nd annual Holiday Special where we discuss some of the biggest games and stories of the past year. We also get a chance to revisit our game dev resolutions for 2016. Before all that, we kick off the episode with a nice positive discussion about why we

What is better than one episode about the dark underbelly of software development? Two episodes about the dark underbelly of software development! That’s right ladies and gents. It’s that time again! Put the kids to bed, grab a bottle of wine or your favorite brew, and sit back and enjoy

With all the merriment of the holiday season going on around here at TDL, we thought it appropriate (and of true ‘Troll’ fashion) to go on a series of rants about the uglier side of game development. Today’s episode is Part One of what is slated to be a two-part

Game Development has many roles: Gameplay Developer, Systems Developer, Level Designer, Character Artist, Sound Designer, Game Designer, and many more. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about the role of a Systems Developer. To do so, I have the pleasure of talking with Dayle Flowers, lead developer on

It’s that time of year folks, that’s right, it’s time for Unite 2016! This year, Obinna, Eduardo, and I had the chance to fly out to Los Angeles and attend the event. We’ve been the past couple of years and had a lot of fun, but this year we decided to

In this episode, we had the pleasure to talk to Ker-Chunk Games’ Co-founder and CEO Molly Proffit. She shares what motivated her to create a company that focuses on making games that empower women as players. We also discuss what the game industry can do to hire and retain more

Free • lance Origin: Early 19th century (denoting a mercenary): originally as two words. There is honestly no substantive reason as to why I just gave you the etymology of ‘freelance,’ however Andrew thought you would enjoy it… so, there it is. Awkwardness aside, in this week’s show we talk

This weekend was AWESOME. I had the pleasure to go to SIEGE (Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo) for the first time. For those of you who don’t know what SIEGE is, let me give you an overview. It is a game development conference like GDC and Unite, but it

Have you ever wanted to create hundreds of levels without the hassle of handcrafting them? Then this episode on Procedural Generation is for you. In this episode we talk about the pros and cons of using a procedural system and some best ` practices for creating a procedural generation system.

We had the pleasure of snagging an interview with fellow TDLers, Elisabeth Heed and Stephen McCallum, from across the pond in Glasgow, Scotland. In this episode we talk about how the freemium game model, which is rapidly monopolizing the various app stores, can be seen as having very negative effects

“The Art of Game Design, a Book of Lenses” is a must read book for every game developer. That is why, we wanted to bring Jesse Schell, author of this amazing book, to the show to celebrate our episode number 50. To be honest, we could make a one-hour episode

Is your app too big to install over the air? Need a dynamic content delivery system? Then streaming assets are for you! Yes friends streaming assets are a very useful tool in modern game content management. This week the gang and I explore what streaming assets are, how to build

Community is the secret sauce to any successful game. Knowing this, bigger companies often hire a community manager whose full-time job it is to build that community, running from social networks to message boards, engaging players and keeping everyone not only interested in the game at hand, but also in the future of

Finishing your first game is certainly a tough task, but with determination and hard work you can do it. In this episode, we go through my journey in the development process of “The Hangman,” which it’s released in Google Play. Today, we cover all those small design decisions that can

Ever wonder how to get your enemies to find their way to you, or how to get a companion to run behind you? Then this is the episode for you. In this episode The Debug Crew discusses Pathfinding and the pros and cons of different methods commonly used. From out-of-the-box