PODCAST · games
Game Breaking Feature
by Game Breaking Feature
Each episode we discuss and explore popular video game mechanics and take your comments and questions
Episodes
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Episode 54: Exposition
Special Guest: Meagan Byrne is the founder of Achimostawinan Games and Digital Interactive Coordinator with ImagineNATIVE. She gives us the backstory on Exposition in Games. Can games tell stories in their own unique way? How can mechanics drive exposition? And: what’s that audio tape over there?...
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Episode 53: Escort Missions
Special Guest: Mike Bithell is the Director of John Wick Hex and in this episode he guides us through designing escort missions in games. What makes escort missions bearable? Are there games that get away with it more than others and what if I was the escort mission all along? Send your feedback…
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Episode 52: RNG
Special Guest: Jeff Larkin is a VFX Artist at Gunfire Games, the studio behind Remnant: From the Ashes. He spontaneously rolls his way into a discussion about random number generation in games. Why do we use so much RNG in game design? How fair to the player is RNG? What does randomness mean and…
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Episode 51: Dialogue Options
Special Guest: Nina Freeman is a designer behind games like Cibele and Tacoma and she chose to talk with us about her philosophies on Dialogue Options in games. What sense of agency does this give the player? What are our expectations of consequences from our choices and how long before we start...
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Episode 50: Climbing & Parkour
Special Guest: Xalavier Nelson Jr. is an IGF-nominated developer here to run with the topic of climbing and free-running in games. Is this mechanic a product of popular culture or is it here to stay forever? How does this dynamic traversal affect game design? And has Mario, in fact, been doing...
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Episode 49: Minor Issues 2
Steve and Jarrod tackle issues with some of video games’ minor mechanics such as, Ladders: How do they work? Metroidvania: Guess who’s back and Closets: What lives in yours? We also discuss the state of the show and exciting new possibilities for Gbfeature moving forward. Send your feedback to...
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Episode 48: Detective Vision
Special Guest: Carolyn Petit is the Managing Editor at Feminist Frequency and on this episode we’re on the case of Detective Vision in games. Why have we seen so many recent games use this mechanic? Does it change the way a player perceives the world that they’re in? And how many episodes in a…
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Episode 47: Crafting
Special Guest: Chandana Ekanayake is the creative director with Outerloop Games, the team behind the VR game Falcon Age. He soars his way over a discussion about Crafting systems in games. How does crafting tie into the rest of a game’s mechanics, what does it mean to create in order to destroy…
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Episode 46: Cutscenes
Special Guest: Daanish Syed is a developer at NetherRealm Studios and host of the podcast Someone Should Make This. He stops for a quick interlude on the subject of Cutscenes in games. What makes narrative delivery in games unique to other art forms? Are cutscenes the most effective way of…
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Episode 45: Karma & Morality
Special Guest: Doc Burford is a game developer on Paratopic and is the author of the blog, Stomp. We discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of Karma and Morality systems in games. Why do we see these systems so often in games? What does a karma meter actually represent and what emotions is […]
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Episode 44: Adaptations
Special Guest: Juan Vaca is a narrative designer with Endless Entertainment and a Latinx in Gaming co-founder and we’re talking about video games that are adapted from other IPs. How do video game licenses work? Who truly gets to keep the rights and what are some of the creative implications of...
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Episode 43: Health & Hit Points
Special Guest: Amanda Farough is the managing Editor at GameDaily.biz and she makes a house call for a regular check up to discuss health and HP mechanics in games. What does HP represent? How has healing changed over time and what is the meaning of life? We solve all of these problems while...
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Episode 42: Tutorials
Special Guest: Will Lewis is the Co-Founder of Rose City Games and lead community organizer of the Portland Indie Game Squad. He holds our hand through a discussion about different approaches to onboarding in game design. When is tutorialization a resounding success? What makes for a bad…
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Episode 41: Side Quests 2
***Producer’s Note: We had some technical issues on Steve’s mic that gets worse over time. You may hear some clicking and popping towards the end that we were unable to get out. The problem has been fixed for future episodes. We apologize for the inconvenience.*** Returning Guests: Kim Belair &…
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Episode 40: Quality Assurance
Returning Guest: Matthew Burnside certifies our discussion on how the QA process works for video games. Why do we have so many Day 1 patches these days? Is the QA team considered developers? How many hours does it take to ship a game? He helps us answer all those questions and more on this week’s...
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Episode 39: Dailies and Weeklies
Special Guest: Dr. Anthony Bean (aka The Video Game Doc) is a clinical psychologist and author. He makes a house call to walk us through daily and weekly quest design in video games. Do those quests deliver effective or meaningful expereinces? And; what’s the psychology of adding daily quests to...
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Episode 38: Emotes
Returning Guest: Kahlief Adams from Spawn on Me dances his way into a discussion about emotes in video games. What are the origins of emotes in games? How have emotes worked their way into game mechanics? Who owns the IP of an emote? How to floss dance? Send your feedback to [email protected]...
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Episode 37: Educational Games
Special Guest: Elaine Gómez is a game designer at E-Line Media and content developer for Make Room. She schools us on the topic of Educational video games. What’s more effective: A game where you learn through mechanics or a game that identifies itsellf as an “educational game” from the start?…
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VOTE!
November 6th is election day in the United States. Please let your voice be heard. Voting is a gift and a responsibility that we all share. Check out www.vote.org for information about same day registration and a locator for your polling place. Good luck and godspeed, America.
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Episode 36: Puzzles
Special Guest: Osama Dorias is the senior game designer at Warner Bros. He stopped by to piece together how puzzles mesh with the rest of the game. What defines something as puzzle game? How has the internet changed the nature of puzzle design? How can we get the license to Clue and who can…
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Episode 35: Open Worlds
Special Guest: Tristan Moore is the co-founder and lead designer at Broken Widow Studios. He accepted a sidequest from a message board and ended up walking us through Open World game design and theory. We’re back after our short hiatus to ask: What are some of our first open world game…
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Bonus Episode: Aging Games
Steve and Jarrod take a moment to discuss how Aging Games are holding up with a modern context. Is it important to play games in their day? Does Half-Life 2 hold up? Does games-as-a-service mean the doom of a huge portion of gaming history? Send your feedback to [email protected] or reach out...
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Sorry, We’re AFK
Sorry! We’re AFK this week but we still have a bunch of Narcosis codes to giveaway. While you’re on the edge of your seat waiting for us to return, go back and check out Epsisode 34: Romance with Victoria Tran. That episode contains instructions on how to get your free code for Steam, XBOX or […]
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Episode 34: Romance
Special Guest: Victoria Tran is a community developer at KitFox Games and currently working on Boyfriend Dungeon where you get to date your weapons. She helps guide us through the lovestruck world of Romance in video games. How do you fit human relationships into an algorithm? How does Romance in...
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Episode 33: Community Feedback
Special Guest: Dany Peña, founder of Gamertag Radio, throws in his two cents about how Community Feedback is considered in the game development process. How do we interpret an influx of opinion and implement it in an actionable manner? How do we get developers to support their employees? Send…
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Episode 32: Tension
Special Guest: Caleb Grace, the Lead Designer on The Lord of the Rings LCG, joins us for a non-stop thrill ride through our attempts to define tension as a mechanic in video game design. What types of things do designers use to create tension? Is tension a prerequisite to qualify something as a...
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Episode 31: Silent Protagonists
Special Guest: Jeff Mattas was a regular on the Weekend Confirmed Podcast and now he’s a freelance writer and voice actor for video games. He leads us through a not so silent debate on the decision to make your lead character a Silent Protagonist and what makes that a successful design choice.…
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Episode 30: Lore
Special Guest: Ari MacGillivray is the former writer at Ubisoft for games like Assassins Creed, Far Cry and For Honor and she joins us to fill in the gaps between our knowledge and understanding of how Lore in video games is presented. Do certain types of games lend themselves to storytelling...
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Episode 29: Leveling Up
Returning Guest: Tanya Depass of the Spawn on Me Podcast and founder of I Need Diverse Games chimes in on her thoughts about leveling and progression systems in video games. How have RPG elements creeped into every game in existence? Why is progression important? And what the hell exactly is the...
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Episode 28: Shops
Special Guest: David Amador, developer on Quest of Dungeons and founder of Upfall Studios, opens his wares to us to take a look behind the scenes on designing shops and vendors in video games. What games include unhelpful or poor examples of shops? How have shops changed over time? Do shops…
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Episode 27: Seasonal Events
Special Guest: Cicero Holmes, host of the Spawn on Me podcast, stops by for a limited time to talk about video games that put on seasonal events. What games make good use of seasonal events? Do seasonal events favor a Christian audience? Do you suffer from FOMO? Do we all secretly want to be…
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Episode 26: Linear Narrative
Special Guest: Kim Belair, former scriptwriter at Ubisoft & the co-host of The Sexiest Podcast, introduces us to the world of linear narrative design in video games. In what ways does presenting a linear narrative positively impact a game? What games use linear narrative in interesting and unique...
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Episode 25: Children
Special Guest: AJ Glasser joins us to talk about Children in video games. She’s a former journalist at GamePro magazine, Kotaku and other outlets and she’s currently the senior business developer at Unity. What games stick out in your mind for their depiction of children? How is that handled?…
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Bonus Episode: GDC 2018
Steve and Jarrod document their first GDC adventure Send your feedback, questions and comments to [email protected] or reach out on Twitter @Gbfeature
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Episode 24: Character Customization
Special Guest: Abby Russell, Associate Producer at Giant Bomb, pops in to chat about Character Customization in video games. Does the ability to customize the appearance of your character affect how you play a game? What methods do games use to provide options for character customization? Is...
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Episode 23: Silhouettes
Special Guest: Will Smith (former Editor and Founder of Tested.com & CEO of FOO VR) scopes out the podcast and talks with us about Silhouettes in character design. Which games use character silhouettes effectively and what kind of information do they communicate? Are they important for all games?...
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Episode 22: Flight
Special Guest: Drew Scanlon, Creator/Producer of Cloth Map and former Giant Bomb Senior Video Producer, flies on by to talk about Flight in video games; everything from Mario to XPlane. How does flight in video games affect us outside of games? What games utilize the introduction of flight well?...
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Episode 21: Radars and Compasses
Special Guest: Jarryd Huntley, the lead designer on Art Club Challenge and an organizer with the Cleveland Game Developers community, found his way to our podcast to talk about Radars and Compasses and how they can be used effectively in game design. Are they overused by developers as a crutch to...
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Episode 20: Endings
Special Guest: Kevin Chen, founder of Nuclear Fishin’ and the writer/director on the game Four Horsemen, ends up with us chatting about how to End a game. What defines the end of a game? What is the point of having an ending to a game? How many endings are too many endings? Are video games […]
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Episode 19: Empowerment
Special Guest: Jenny Scheurle, game design lead at Opaque Space joins us from the near future to discuss how empowerment is an important aspect of game design. How does empowerment connect to player engagement? Does power fantasy circumvent the need for deep emotional engagement? How does...
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Episode 18: Accessibility
Special Guest: Shareef Jackson, host of Spawn on Me podcast, pops in to discuss why considering accessibility is important to the early stages of game design. Are there barriers that prevent players from being able to play video games? What are the advantages and disadvantages of implementing...
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Episode 17: Representation in the Protagonist Role
Special Guest: Tanya DePass, from the Spawn on Me podcast & I Need Diverse Games, stops by for a discussion on representation of diverse peoples throughout video games. How do we define representation in the protagonist role? How does fair and diverse representation affect us as gamers? Why is…
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Bonus Episode: Return to Corey Pavlich
Returning Guest: Corey Pavlich — We reunite with PHD Candidiate & video game researcher, Corey Pavlich. He’s in the middle of a study of how violent video games affect women. Do violent games raise aggression in players? Is violence in FPS games treated differently than violence in other things?...
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Episode 16: Stealth Mechanics
Special Guest: Kahlief Adams — Owner and Host of the Spawn on Me podcast sneaks on in to chat about Stealth Mechanics and Stealth games. What was the true origin of stealth as a video game mechanic? How do you define a “stealth game” and can stealth games exist in a multiplayer market? If we…
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Episode 15: Survival Horror
Special Guest: Andrea Rene — host of the What’s Good Games podcast & a regular on Kinda Funny Games Daily — joins us to talk about the Survival Horror genre. How has survival horror changed over time? Is survival horror possible in a multiplayer setting? What lessons can other genres learn from...
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Episode 14: Minor Issues
We’ve made it far enough into this series to have our first bottle episode! Steve and Jarrod take some time out to speedrun through some minor annoyances that come up in game design, pepper in some discussion on the state of the podcast and talk about our content creation process. Send your...
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Episode 13: Digital Media
Special Guest: Alex Fogleman, Quality Engineer for the PSN storefront renders his opinions on digital software versus physical media. If brick and mortar stores can’t keep up, why should we continue to prop them up? Send your feedback to [email protected] or reach out @Gbfeature on Twitter....
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Episode 12: Peripherals
Special Guest: Aldrin Cornejo, American Dad Design Supervisor and host of the Aldrintendo Power Podcast, plugs into Game Breaking Feature for some thoughts on the best and worst accessories to accompany our favorite video game systems throughout the years. What is the earliest game you remember...
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Episode 11: Loot Boxes
Special Guest: Jamie Madigan, doctor of psychology, host of the Psychology of Video Games podcast and author of the book “Getting Gamers”, opens up a discussion on efficacy of Loot Boxes in video games. Are loot boxes ethical? Do they have the potential to sway a game’s design? Are they immersion...
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Episode 10: Game Balance
Special Guest: Ryan Kablik, aka Mr. Aquaman, swims by to chat about balancing games. How does the “Meta” affect the ability to balance a game? Is the player a component in the discussion of balance? Do you have to be an Olympic gymnast to navigate these waters? Send your feedback to...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Each episode we discuss and explore popular video game mechanics and take your comments and questions
HOSTED BY
Game Breaking Feature
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Game Breaking Feature have?
Game Breaking Feature currently has 59 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Game Breaking Feature about?
Each episode we discuss and explore popular video game mechanics and take your comments and questions
How often does Game Breaking Feature release new episodes?
Game Breaking Feature has 59 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Game Breaking Feature?
You can listen to Game Breaking Feature on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Game Breaking Feature?
Game Breaking Feature is created and hosted by Game Breaking Feature.
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