Nice Games Club - a gamedev podcast!

Attention Sega nerds! This Nice Bonus episode is for you!
During our episode on 90's consoles Mark found out there were so many obscure Sega accessories that they couldn't fit in the episode and deserved their very own spotlight. Please enjoy this Nice Bonus short episode all about them!
Sega Consoles

In this episode, Mark touts the virtues of commenting, Stephen dreads the topic, and Lydia wishes she could talk about marginalia.
Code Comment

The Critical Eye Part 2

This is part 2 to The Critical Eye in Episode 416
"I saw a Beatle."

Brian Crick is in the clubhouse to talk about how he intertwines narrative and puzzles in his game Tinselfly. We talk about character motivation, player buy-in, and where you even start with a project like this. And if you also are late to playing Myst, you'll learn you are not alone. Just... don't bring Mark the red pages...
Narrative-Driven Puzzles

Game Design
Narrative

Tinselfly
 - 
Steam

Gorogoa
 - 
Steam

The Longest Journey
 - 
Steam

Stephen is still away so Ian Peters uses that as an excuse to talk about rocks and how that relates to storytelling. Also in this episode, Mark is preparing for an exciting trip and Lydia is hype about trains for a good reason.
Junction Jam

gamescom

0:15:35
Geology In Games

Nicolas Steno
Wikipedia

The potential for using video games to teach geoscience: learning about the geo…
Edward G. McGowan and Lewis J. Alcott
European Geosciences Union

0:36:00
Shipping Updates

This week, Ian emerges from the clubhouse vents to fill-in for Stephen as Dale gives us a bare minimum prompt with maximum implications.
Prompt
"Make a game called 'Triage Simulator'"

Game type
Design document

Player count
1

Rules
Triage - the verb 
Learn about the consequences of your actions later 
Papers Please-like interface  
Situation/Scenario 
Buckets to sort in - limited space within the bucket 

Every level is a different situation 
Level 1 - Hospital 
Level 2 - Pizza Day at the Elementary School 
Level 3 - Water Station at a Marathon 
Level 4 - Planning a Foot Route as a Courier 
Level 5 - Anubis is back from vacation and he’s backlogged 
???
Level 7 - In the pizza store making the pizza for the elementary school 

A system-based puzzle - Scheduling and ordering 
Information you don’t have  
How many more of each type are coming in? 

Information that lets you anticipate incoming situations 
Events happening in the background that mean something going to come in at some point 

You get the case 
Outside context as a bulletin on the side that is in natural language and would have some influence on the level that the player doesn’t know yet 
Time constraint known (5min, 90s) 

The Puzzle 
Sorting - the simplest system possible of how much resources go where  
Highest Priority
Pretty Important
Mid-tier
Low Priority
Meh

Cannot rank within the bucket (eg. cannot say there is a highest priority of highest priority items) 
Put in buckets or stamp it with a stamp 
Each item gets ranked on certain variables which then designate which tier it should be assigned  
No right answer - aiming for highest efficiency 

Walkthrough a level - Sandwich lunch orders  
BIG TRIAGE MACHINE that gets plonked onto a desk  
Area of the broader context of what’s happening (updated throughout the shift time) 
Deck of cards with variables for that level (eg. Order for 3, the order, how much it cost, extra paid to rush, for or to go) 
Timing element - different form per level  
Punches into the card to annotate the cards (with unique shaped punches Urgency
Impact
Severity
Scale
Consequence
Exceptional (YES/NO)

Feed the punch card into a different part of the machine which crunches the punch numbers and gives a recommendation that the player can then either follow or ignore 
Want to be able to punch as much as you want into one card 
If punch 2, will average the numbers out 
Or always read the lowest number? 
What if more than 2 punches? The machine is snarky at you? 

Put the card into 1-5 slots in the contraption that then stamps the thing and keeps it in its own mail slot as the final verdict (can’t get it back) with counters of how many went through each slot.  
Someone picks up the tickets periodically and gives vague body language feedback on the ticket 

Accessibility features:
Pause while reading 
Time scale adjustments 0.75x, 0.5x, 0.25x