Roundabout: Creative Chaos

AJ Porfirio and Evan Derrick of Van Ryder Games join Tammy Coron and Tim Mitra to talk about what it takes to build an independent board game company. AJ started with a solo zombie game he designed in his living room. Evan came aboard a few years later. Together, they built Van Ryder Games into the publisher behind Final Girl, the first solo-only title to crack the BoardGameGeek Top 100.AJ is the founder and president of Van Ryder Games, designer of Hostage Negotiator, and co-designer of Final Girl. Evan is the creative director and vice president, designer of Detective: City of Angels, and the other half of the Final Girl co-design. On this episode, they get into how the mechanics of Hostage Negotiator became the foundation for Final Girl's solo board game design, why the modular double-sided feature film box came close to breaking the company before it became its defining signature, what it meant for a solo-only game to reach the BoardGameGeek Top 100, how fifteen years of Kickstarter board game campaigns changed how AJ and Evan think about tiers and stretch goals, and what Era Two of Final Girl will and won't change for people who own the game.They also talk about manufacturing in China, the current tariff situation for hobby board games, and what running a board game business looks like beyond the design work.Mentioned in this episode:Van Ryder GamesVan Ryder Games DiscordFinal GirlHostage NegotiatorDark Moon - published version of Evan's BSG Express Friday - solo board game by Friedemann Friese, 2011Search Engine podcast, episode on making a product in AmericaPower Publishing - AJ's YouTube series on board game publishingFollow AJ Porfirio and Evan Derrick:Van Ryder GamesVan Ryder Games DiscordListen wherever you get podcasts.

Matt Parkin — 3D artist, game developer, and creator of The Polygon Pilgrimage — joins Tammy and Tim to talk about building games solo, shipping his first commercial title, and what it actually takes to go from a whiteboard idea to something playable on Steam.Matt has been running The Polygon Pilgrimage, a weekly tutorial series on YouTube, for over a decade. The channel covers 3D modeling, texturing, and game art using tools such as Blender, Substance Painter, Unity, and more, and has grown to over 10,000 subscribers. He also streams 3D modeling live on Twitch and has been featured by 80.lv for his tutorials on Substance Designer and Unity. Outside the tutorials, he works as a senior programmer for the Air Force, runs his own design LLC, and has spent 25-plus years in 3D art.In this episode, Matt talks through his background — drawing since age three, picking up 3DS Max in high school, earning a bachelor's degree in multimedia arts and animation, and teaching himself four programming languages along the way. He walks through the making of 1325 Maple Lane, a parody horror game about the terrors of home ownership, now on Steam. He also gets into his philosophy on using asset packs versus building from scratch, why he left Unreal Engine for Unity, how he manages color in his work as someone with achromatopsia, his approach to teaching beginners (start with the smallest complete circle you can make), and a Twitch-integrated game project currently in development. The after-show covers AI in 3D art pipelines, optimizing geometry for game performance, the importance of building the bottoms of the feet, and the games that helped shape his career.Mentioned in this episode:1325 Maple Lane on SteamPaws & Play StudiosThe Polygon PilgrimageUnitySubstance 3D PaintertldrawDisney's 12 principles of animationBrickTownBust quickplayFollow Matt Parkin:TikTokDiscordTwitch

Herbert Wolverson has written three books on Rust and spent years teaching the language to engineers, chip designers, and conference audiences. He also co-maintains LibreQoS, an open-source networking tool that recently helped make school internet usable in Malawi for the first time.Herbert began programming at age six on a BBC Micro, detoured through law school, and returned to coding about a decade ago via Rust. His books — Hands-on Rust, Advanced Hands-on Rust, and Rust Brain Teasers — span beginner to advanced topics, all taught through game development, a method he’s favored since teaching himself C to build multiplayer dungeon games.In this episode, Herbert discusses why senior programmers are increasingly becoming AI prompt engineers, what that means for the next generation of developers, and how he approaches teaching a language in the age of AI. He also talks about LibreQoS, its impact in Malawi, and his ongoing project to map radio-frequency propagation for rural internet access.Mentioned in this episode:- Herbert's 86-chapter Rust roguelike tutorial- Hands-on Rust- Advanced Hands-on Rust- Rust Brain Teasers- Bracket Lib — Herbert's Rust game engine- Bevy game engine- LibreQoS- FQ Codel — the packet-shaping algorithm at the heart of LibreQoS- NLNET Foundation — funds open source internet infrastructure work, including LibreQoS- RustConf- JetBrains Rust toolsFollow Herbert:- X: https://x.com/herberticus- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/herberticus.bsky.social