The Gamemaker Podcast - Now Live- Episode 12 Out Now

M

mysticjim

Guest
As The Gamemaker Podcast is now fully live the forum mods have suggested I pop a quick link at the top of the first post to let you find it quickly.

Please feel free to read the rest of the thread below, but if you're just looking for the podcast itself then visit;

https://thegamemakerpodcast.blogspot.co.uk/

----------------------------------------------------------
Hello all

I recently alluded in this forum thread;

https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?threads/gamemaker-podcasts.16698/#post-134685

That I was considering starting a podcast related to Gamermaker. Well, I do believe I'm going to give it a go. :)

I have a rough idea of what I'd like to do - essentially I think, aside from the Gamemaker Studio software itself, that the greatest aspect of Gamermaker is the strength of it's community and it's willingness to share ideas and help others. It's that that I'd really like to focus on with the podcast. I'd like to do this by interviewing key individuals who have helped make Gamemaker Studio and it's community what it is, but also people who have realised their game creating ambitions using the software.

I'm coming at this as someone who has been using Gamemaker for a relatively short time, I've not got anything near to a published game - or in reality, anywhere near to having a finished game under my belt. I'm hoping that meeting people who have will help further push me towards my goals, but at the same time sharing the wisdom and guidance of these people with others. I'm not pitching it as a 'technical' podcast - more a resource for sharing the individual stories, to provide motivation and inspiration, both for people just starting out with Gamemaker and more experienced users looking for their next steps. I'd also want it to serve as a showcase for what people are achieving with Gamemaker right now and what might be possible going forward.

At the moment I'm currently working getting a basic webpage set up and hosting for the audio. I've done a few podcasts before so this is just formality for me really, but over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be reaching out to a few people who I'd love to interview and will post on here for any contributions, suggestions or assistance directly from the community.

So that's where I am with it. Expect things to start moving quickly very shortly, but for now, I'd love to hear any feedback from anyone on here.

Many thanks

Jim
 
Last edited by a moderator:

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I moved this here from Community, since there's no content yet. Once you get things organized and have a podcast with GMC or GameMaker interest, we can always move it back. In the meantime, you can post your website when it's ready.

My only suggestions regarding interviews is to avoid YYG employees. They won't really be able to say anything about company plans. Same for GMC staff, who get enough attention already. But there are plenty of regular GMC members who are quietly making indie games -- some with a fair amount of success. Those are people IMO who deserve some exposure and recognition.
 
S

StuffandThings85

Guest
I'd definitely listen to this. I used to be all about podcasts, but haven't really listened to any in a while. I'd like to start listening to more on my work commute.
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Morning people

Firsly, big thanks to @chance - thought I'd incurred the wrath of the admins when my post got initially removed, but can understand the position and very grateful that you've re-instated the post here and thanks for your advice/input. I completely agree - while I am looking to showcase people who have made a critical and commercial success of developing games with Gamemaker, it's not just about focusing on the outliers blazing a trail, but as you said, the people making their own way, finishing their first games and still growing and exploring as developers.

@Shawn Basnett - indeed, we'll all have room to pity ourselves! :) And @StuffandThings85 - I'll try and make it as informative and fun as I possibly can!

Anyway, in terms of getting content together, I'm going to need a bit of input. I have reached out to a couple of key people that ideally I'd like to interview for the first couple of episodes, but I'm going to need more. I'd humbly like to throw this out to the community - while this isn't a definitive criteria for what I'm looking for, if anyone falls into any of the following and would like to be on the show then I'd love to hear from you;

1) Experienced/Established Gamemaker developers

Have you maybe published 10+ games, or are you in a position to say you're making a living from development with Gamemaker, or perhaps you've had a bit of a lightening strike hit with a game you've made in Gamemaker?

2) The Consistent Developer

Have you finished/possibly published a few games, which in my opinion is a great achievement - but you're looking to get to the next level and are willing to discuss your ambitions and designs for the future.

Also, you might simply like producing games for the fun of it - again, if you're finishing games but it's more of a labour of love, hobby, personal challenge type thing.

3) The slightly less experienced developer

Have you just finished or published your first full game, or having already done that, are about to launch your next one?

Of course, there are lots of other scenarios, I'd like to talk to people who've marketed their games using an innovative strategy, who've had success within a niche, reached an audience by an innovative means, have created created critically acclaimed tutorials or have contributed to the Gamemaker community in a way that others might find interesting/inspiring.

So, please PM me if you think you have a story that would be beneficial to others.

Just few practical things;

These interviews are sharing experiences, knowledge, guidance, advice - about what to do, and and if applicable, what not to do - learning from past mistakes is important as well.

This isn't an invitation for gratuitous self promotion, neither for you or myself. For sure, the show will probably have a niche audience within the community, and there will be an opportunity to talk about your games and that will potentially bring them to the attention of new people who otherwise might not have heard of them, but the core idea behind the show is provide useful information to other developers and to hopefully reach new, prospective developers to the Gamemaker platform - a bit like the myself a couple of years back when I was looking around at the right game development engine to suit my needs.

Finally, any interviews I do are going to be conducted via Skype, purely because I have a decent audio setup for recording using it at my end. Any potential interviewee will either need Skype set up on their computer and at least a basic audio setup - so a simple headset with mic is perfectly fine. I have interviewed people on Skype via their mobile phone before and although the sound quality wasn't quite as good, it still worked, so that's viable too. And be aware that I'm based in the UK, so some degree of flexibility with regard to time differences may be required if you want to be interviewed and you're based outside the UK.

Right, that's plenty enough waffling. I'll update this post in due course when I've got the next significant bit of news, which will hopefully be a bit later this coming week.

Best of luck to all, and hope to hear from some of you very soon :)
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello people. Apologies for the self-bumping of this thread but I thought I'd give a quick and important update to those keeping an eye on it to bring you up to speed with how things are going.

So, most significantly, I've done my first interview and I'm really pleased with how it went :) Got another tomorrow and hopefully another this coming Saturday. Those will give me the basis for the bulk of first three episodes.

The website is pretty much done - it's a very basic affair thrown together in Blogger I'm afraid cos I sure as hell ain't no web developer - but it will do all the things I need it to right now. I'm holding fire on buying a domain name for it just yet. I'm going to test out the concept first before I throw any money at it, but if the first few episodes work out well then I will invest in one.

I've set up the audio feed for subscribing to the podcast. RSS feeds are dead easy but a proper itunes feed will take a bit longer as Itunes is an enormous pain in the backside - at launch there will be a direct link to a feed that you can use to download episodes via Itunes, and the proper feed that Itunes users can subscribe to will go live hopefully within a couple weeks. In any case, for those who don't use podcatchers or Itunes, each episode will be streamable and downloadable as an MP3 direct from the website.

I've written some music that will serve as the opening and closing theme for each episode, but I have to knock together some incidental music for linking between different sections of the show.

So, it's coming together. I'm working towards a launch date of Friday 7th April for the inaugural episode and I'm on target so far. I'm still not sure about the frequency of episodes. Being realistic I think fortnightly is probably best, to balance against my work and childcare commitments, although if I can get enough interviews in the bag in a relatively short period of time then I might be able to schedule it weekly.

Finally, the title. Right - it's not that inspiring but being as there are no other dedicated Gamemaker Podcasts, I'm simply going with 'The Gamemaker Podcast.' It seems to cover all the bases :)

Anyways, will get back to my preparations for the launch. Expect a lot more information over the coming fortnight.

Laters people

Jim
 
W

Widget

Guest
Might want to keep in mind that it's GameMaker, not Gamemaker. Just so you get the branding right.

Also, I would be keen to be interviewed, but Skype? You've never heard of Discord?
 
Looking forward to hearing what you've made! - and seeing whether you can get any traction.

One piece of opinion/advice; I wouldn't get too excited about getting out lots quickly. I personally think a good quality content rich podcast once a month would be better, for two reasons.

One - people have limited time, and having one once a month keeps it fresh and not too much to keep listening to.

Two - It's important that the quality is good. If you can fill podcasts on a fortnightly or even weekly basis with quality content I'll be mega impressed. Realistically I'd be concerned that you'll end up with filler or inconsequential info at that pace. And this will result in people being bored and switching off.

But this is just my thoughts! So feel free to ignore :) Either way I'm looking forward to episode one!
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello people.

Got some news - further down the page - but first I'll address the above posts - for which I'm very grateful for such constructive feedback, thank you :)

So,

@Widget - the software is branded GameMaker with capital M, but the podcast is called The Gamemaker Podcast. Yes, it is exclusively about the aforementioned bit of software, but I'm not being paid by Yoyo Games, I don't really want to ape their branding, and we all know what the podcast is about, regardless of a bit of creative punctuation :)

And yes, I really want to drop Skype - and funnily enough, in episode two you will discover the true depth of my ignorance of Discord. So, I now know what it is, and it's being investigated as I search for alternatives to using and recording Skype calls, which has seriously turned into a bit of a pain in the ass just recently. Again, more info in episode 2...

And of course, would love to interview you. I'll drop you message once the first episode is all done and launched and we'll sort something out :)

@Michael Bateman - many thanks for your insight, much appreciated. I agree pretty much with everything you've said. 'Traction' for what is, lets face it, a niche podcast, very subjective. I used to do a small podcast about Forumla 1 Motor racing. It's audience ranged from a high water mark of about 100 downloads for a single episode, down to 6 for the debut episode! There are a lot GameMaker Studio users, but only a percentage of them will like podcasts, and only a further subdivision will find probably find mine to their tastes. Of course, someone really popular might tweet about it to the rooftops and bolster the figures, or something. You never really know til you chuck it out there. And it will evolve over time and hopefully find it's audience.

With regards to the release schedule for new episodes. I have the first episode completed, the bulk of the second one done, and will have the third one sorted this coming weekend. I'd like to keep early momentum by getting those out in fairly quick succession. My personal favourite podcasts are weekly - but you're totally correct that it's hard to maintain quality when the turnaround for a new episode is short. Getting the first three sorted in advance gives me a bit of a buffer, and thereafter I think fortnightly is probably possible, but ultimately it might have to be monthly. But that actually is quite a time to wait for new episode. It wouldn't be ideal, but a lot depends on my schedule and my ability to find interesting people to interview. But I totally agree, no-one wants to hear a load of filler just because it's being produced really quickly.

@TacoBell_Lord - it will be consistent, there will be coverage - but it's not going to be a technical show going into extreme tutorial detail. Certainly the interviews, which will make up the bulk part of the show, will be more about the developers individual journey. I'm hoping it will more motivate and inspire, and that there will be something positive in all of their stories, regardless of a persons technical expertise, that the listener can take take from them.

@Genetix - funny you should mention it;

Okay, here is the link to the very humble website that will serve as the home to the podcast;

https://thegamemakerpodcast.blogspot.co.uk/

See the opening post for a few more details.

Right, that now seems like a gigantic anticlimax after such a long forum post!!!!! :)
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Since you completed your site and have GM/GMC-related content now, I'll move this back to the Community forum.

You should edit your first post and add links to the episodes (at the top). That way, new visitors to this topic can quickly see your content without needing to view each post.
 
Last edited:

rIKmAN

Member
And ladies and gentlemen, the first episode is now live!

https://thegamemakerpodcast.blogspot.co.uk/
Congrats, I listen to podcasts while working on my own stuff so I'm gonna give it a listen now :)

First impressions from clicking the link:
The website looks horrible (imo) - way too much bright green! (sorry!)

EDIT:
OK just finished listening to it, pretty good for a 1st episode and I'll be giving future eps a listen! :)

@Seabass (The Human) came across pretty well during the interview and it was interesting listening to what he had to say.
The whole thing flowed along pretty smoothly and the production is also quite good - everything was crisp and clear

A couple of feedback suggestions I'd give from ep1:

1) Reduce the length of the intro music. There is no need for it to be nearly a minute long.

2) I know this will improve with experience, but try not to say things such as "fair enough", "right ok" etc in response to your guest, as it's not conducive to flowing / continued conversation.
Those are almost conversation enders and create an small awkward silence with little room to continue along that conversation branch (imo).

As I said I know it's episode 1 and you are learning as you go, so please don't take the above suggestions personally, as overall I'd give it a solid 7/10!
Great start, enjoyed listening to it and looking forward to the next episodes! :)
 
Last edited:
M

mysticjim

Guest
Congrats, I listen to podcasts while working on my own stuff so I'm gonna give it a listen now :)

First impressions from clicking the link:
The website looks horrible (imo) - way too much bright green! (sorry!)

EDIT:
OK just finished listening to it, pretty good for a 1st episode and I'll be giving future eps a listen! :)

@Seabass (The Human) came across pretty well during the interview and it was interesting listening to what he had to say.
The whole thing flowed along pretty smoothly and the production is also quite good - everything was crisp and clear

A couple of feedback suggestions I'd give from ep1:

1) Reduce the length of the intro music. There is no need for it to be nearly a minute long.

2) I know this will improve with experience, but try not to say things such as "fair enough", "right ok" etc in response to your guest, as it's not conducive to flowing / continued conversation.
Those are almost conversation enders and create an small awkward silence with little room to continue along that conversation branch (imo).

As I said I know it's episode 1 and you are learning as you go, so please don't take the above suggestions personally, as overall I'd give it a solid 7/10!
Great start, enjoyed listening to it and looking forward to the next episodes! :)
Aww, cheers for giving it a listen @rIKmAN

To address your feedback

1) The music throughout the podcast will occasionally shift around, I probably will do a shorter opening theme, but I'm working on new cheesy linking music at the moment! There will be generally more music and brief sound links to break up some of the more obvious cuts, I didn't quite get chance to finish them all in time for the edit of this one.

2) My interview delivery style will get a bit slicker the more I do - there's a lot of things that factor into it. I'm used to presenting shows, but I also work a lot on the telephone at the moment, which is a slightly different form of conversation and I find I sometimes slip into that - that's where a lot of those little 'bridging phrases' come from. One other thing I've also noticed, I'm obviously primarily used to conversing with people face to face in the part of the world I live in, the local regional dialect is natural to me - and it takes a bit of adjusting to properly tune into the phrasing and vocal mannerisms of someone from further afield. That will get easier over time. :)

Anyways, cheers again for giving it a listen, I'm really pleased that the overall vibe was positive.

And the website - you can never have enough green, mate. I leave that open to interpretation... ;)
 

rIKmAN

Member
Aww, cheers for giving it a listen @rIKmAN
No worries mate, and the whole vibe was positive, they were just a couple of suggestions - podcasting is much harder than it seems and you did really well.

Yeah I meant the intro music, was too long for my personal taste, but I'm all for catchy jingles and short interludes etc
And the website - you can never have enough green, mate. I leave that open to interpretation... ;)
Completely agree, but I'm not used to it being luminous! ;)
 

Genetix

Member
Listening to the first episode now, so far enjoying it and the quality quite a bit! I'll provide more specific feedback soon - Congrats!
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I enjoyed your first podcast. It's a good start. Interesting to hear Sebastian discuss his background and how that led to his recent Steam success. Nice to see an everyday GMC member have some success outside the insular world of the GMC forum. Too many past GM podcasts seem to parade the same people in front of the mic, and rehash issues we're all tired of hearing about. So Sebastian (@Seabass (The Human) ) was a good choice for an interview.

That said, the 1.5 hour podcast was too long IMO. I feel the interview itself would have fit better into (say) 30-40 minute format. The second half of your podcast felt a bit like a rehash of the interview, your thoughts about management genres, and some discussion of other games. With some additional content and organization, those topics would make a separate podcast.

Also, the website could use work. (I realize it isn't finished yet, so not a big deal. ) When the page loads, there's no obvious podcast link. I scrolled around looking for it... then realized I had to click the "Read more..." link to see the podcast stream link. Since your site is all about podcasts, I'd recommend having the links visible immediately, when the page loads.

As for the color design... I won't comment on that now. I have an appointment with my eye doctor to fix the after-image burned onto my retina.

Finally, this topic. This will be your GMC podcast topic, so get in the habit of updating the title to reflect each new podcast. And put the podcast (and website) links in the first post. (PM me if you need help with editing.)
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
I enjoyed your first podcast. It's a good start. Interesting to hear Sebastian discuss his background and how that led to his recent Steam success. Nice to see an everyday GMC member have some success outside the insular world of the GMC forum. Too many past GM podcasts seem to parade the same people in front of the mic, and rehash issues we're all tired of hearing about. So Sebastian (@Seabass (The Human) ) was a good choice for an interview.

That said, the 1.5 hour podcast was too long IMO. I feel the interview itself would have fit better into (say) 30-40 minute format. The second half of your podcast felt a bit like a rehash of the interview, your thoughts about management genres, and some discussion of other games. With some additional content and organization, those topics would make a separate podcast.

Also, the website could use work. (I realize it isn't finished yet, so not a big deal. ) When the page loads, there's no obvious podcast link. I scrolled around looking for it... then realized I had to click the "Read more..." link to see the podcast stream link. Since your site is all about podcasts, I'd recommend having the links visible immediately, when the page loads.

As for the color design... I won't comment on that now. I have an appointment with my eye doctor to fix the after-image burned onto my retina.

Finally, this topic. This will be your GMC podcast topic, so get in the habit of updating the title to reflect each new podcast. And put the podcast (and website) links in the first post. (PM me if you need help with editing.)
Thanks @chance for listening and being supportive - have edited the title and top post.

I will be aiming to tighten the format a little, it was a bit loose being the first episode. The interview is obviously the main guts of the show, and going forward there won't need to be such a big preamble now that's all sorted in the first episode, so unless I happen to do a monster interview I don't expect the shows to come near 1.30 in future.

I do want to profile new games each episode, but as I'm not actually reviewing them as such I think I can keep that a lot tighter from now on, I can't see me building enough material to stretch to a 2nd podcast - but I won't rule it out. It does depend on what things people like and want to hear more off.

As for the website, I'm used to Blogger blogs and know that's how they work - I've always used that preview format in the past to avoid the latest post dominating the screen when you hit the homepage, but I agree with the current layout that might cause some people issues - I'll leave the whole posts visible from now on. It just means people have to scroll further to find previous episodes. However - I'm a big podcast listener, I myself use a podcatcher app to get all my favourite shows direct to my mobile which negates ever usually going near the website affiliated with the podcast. This may be useful regarding the colour-scheme of the site!

On that topic - if it's not only simulating the look of an old green CRT monitor, but the actual physical effects of looking at an old green CRT monitor as well then I'm considering that a double achievement! Maybe not a great achievement, but an achievement none the less! Seriously, I'll talk about the website a bit in following episodes, it's quite amusing but if it's causing people real distress then I'll try and tone it done a smidge :)

Just out of interest - you mentioned that it was positive avoiding some cliche's that previous GameMaker themed podcasts had fallen into. Can you elaborate a bit? And I'm obviously in danger - rather than interviewing the usual suspects, but of being guilty of repeating the questions I ask the guests. Obviously some things are important - I'm trying to get a unique angle for each guest and draw out their story, so there's always a bit of repetition, but I'd be interested in know what people are interested in me asking them about. So far I've focused on how they got started with game developemnt and specifically GameMaker, their approach to design and concepts of games, lessons learnt, marketing and future steps. But if I'm missing a trick anywhere, let me know.

Cheers again for all your help :)
 
Finally finished listening to it this morning - ended up listening in three chunks.

I enjoyed it! Will definitely tune into the next one. Well done!

My constructive feedback is similar to others, but I'll repeat as then you can get an idea for patterns in the feedback...
1. Intro music a bit long.
2. Loved the interview, but it did feel like you killed the flow of the conversation a few times with response words. It's an art form, but try to respond with something that guides the interviewee into opening up more, rather than ending the topic.
3. You mentioned further up the thread about ideas for questions to ask; I'd have liked it if you'd explored how Seabass started working with someone from Greece, and how they decided to make that game in particular. I think you could have also explored the pros and cons of working in a team more - I think Seabass alluded to there being some issues between them, as well as moments where you have to compromise; I personally would have been interested to hear these stories.
4. Liked the game covering section, but I think it could have been more succinct. It felt like you ended up waffling a bit in this section, without adding any new information as you repeated yourself.
5. Agree with others, think the website is a bit... messy. I don't think it has to be fancy at all, I'm personally in favour of simple websites, but I do think it's very hard to look at in its current format.

As I say, great job and looking forward to the next one. My feedback is based purely on opinion from listening to podcasts/youtube shows; I'm definitely not an expert so feel free to ignore! Well done and thanks for making it! Looking forward to ep 2!
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello

@Michael Bateman - very many thanks for your feedback, you make some good points - totally agree, on listening back to the interview there were probably a few more things I should have gotten @Seabass (The Human) to have elaborated on - I'm very much still getting a handle on dynamic interviewing. I try and get the interviews to follow a logical ark - not tightly scripted otherwise it would come across as too contrived but I'm looking to present the whole thing in a fairly linear way. But guests will always come out with things that lead off in other places. It's a fine balance between ensuring that it stays coherent but doesn't miss the odd side story that might contain some real gems of information and insight. I'm learning, but I'm still finding it hard if I go too far off the strand.

@chamaeleon - very many thanks for your kind words, appreciate the support :)
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
Just listened to Episode 2. I enjoyed it. And it seemed more focused than the first podcast. So nice job. Fortunately, I donned my welder's mask before accessing your site. ;)

At the start of the show, you mentioned a couple of GMC games and their associated crowd-sourcing campaigns. That was a nice plug. And I agree the subject of crowd-funding in game making would make an interesting topic for a future podcast. Not just advertising particular games, but discussing the process itself. It's a frequent topic in the GMC Game Design forum (mostly by beginners who really shouldn't be considering it).

Enjoyed the interview with Shawn and his partner. Not the most engrossing discussion, but it was interesting to hear what led them into game making. It might be fun to reconnect with some of your guests in a year or so, to see what they've accomplished.
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
ello

@Geoff Jones - cheers dude - trying my best! :)

@rIKmAN - thanks mate, yes - damn Skype is horrible! In episode 1 I was lucky enough to have @Seabass (The Human) - record the audio from his end and the audio quality was far better than what I recorded. Sadly, can't really ask all of my quests to do that. Working on finding a better Skype recorder.

@chance - Nice one mate, glad the welder's mask is getting some action! :) Have got a future interview booked in with a developer who successfully crowdfunded a game, so expect a big discussion on that in the near future. Tightening the show up quite a lot, so yes - it's a lot more focused.
 

obscene

Member
If nobody has said this already, disable auto-play. I'm scrolling down looking for episode one and this music is playing in the background. I click episode one hoping it will stop and then suddenly I realize I'm listening to 2 podcasts at the same time. Scrolled way back up and realized episode 3 was autoplaying.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Decent episode, although I agree with @obscene that you should disable autoplay - I'm sure it didn't autoplay the first time I used the website so this seems to be a recent change.
Also the player is half cutoff for me so I can only see half of the play button, stop button, volume etc - my suggestion would be to make the website simple and clear, it's a bit of a mess at the moment in terms of layout, colour scheme, the autoplay etc.

The interview audio seemed a little worse this week than before, almost like you were listening to the audio through speakers while recording it, creating a sort of audio feedback loop - but it may just have been Skype or the interviewee being underwater. ;)

Have you thought about trying out some different software to conduct the interviews through?
Even just to test out the varying quality and settings available to get the best results.

I like how frequent you are with the episodes, and enjoy listening to the GM related content as there isn't really anything else out there for it.
Your interviewing is also getting better with each one, so keep it up!

Overall not bad, but as with anything there is definitely room for improvement - looking forward to Ep4! :)
 
Last edited:
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello

Yes, don't know what happened to the player. I usually copy and paste the same code to generate it, must have missed something in the copy this time because it's really screwed - it also seemed to have triggered the autoplay! Will go back in and re-paste it and see if that improves it.

(edit - fixed it! :) )

Sorry about the audio on the interview. You'll note from episode two and three, my side of the audio isn't so band, it's the software I'm using to record call - it's doing horrible things to the incoming audio - as you say, it sounds like the incoming audio is being doubled up somewhere. I'm certainly not monitoring the call on speakers, and the software I use didn't used to do this - my previous podcast was set up exactly the same and the incoming audio didn't have that problem. Either Skype have changed something, or some software that I use, probably recording/DAW software has changed a Windows audio setting somewhere, but can't for the life me find it. I've checked literally everywhere that I know to check. And I don't get such bad quality listening to the audio live at the time of the interview.

It's worth noting that Jay himself has got a laptop with a noisy fan, which accounted for a lot of the hiss on the recording. In fairness to him, he did record his side of the audio and sent that to me, but very weirdly, I couldn't get it to sync up. I lined up the audio at the start of the interview perfectly, but then checked 15 minutes further in and it had drifted. On of our audio signals had a fractional increase or decrease is speed, probably only some fraction of a millisecond either side, but it was progressive, so over time it moved gradually out of sync and made everything sound worse, so I couldn't use it. Don't know what caused that, I hadn't applied any plugins to either audio channel at that stage so who knows.

Overall, many thanks again for the positive/constructive feedback. Glad you're liking it.

With regard to the schedule, I was fortunate enough to get the first three interviews done in very quick succession, and it coincided with the Easter break so I had quite a lot of time for editing, so getting three weekly episodes out was feasible. Alas, I certainly for episode 4 I very much doubt I'm going to have that finished for this Friday, my latest guest was absolutely brilliant and fascinating to talk to, had a massive background in games development and the scope of our conversation went well beyond just GameMaker -but my goodness me, could he talk! I've got a mammoth editing task for that one, I've got to edit two hours of talking down to something a bit more manageable and keep it coherent. I've edited the first fifteen minutes worth of audio that will make it into the show, and that took me nearly two hours alone! It's going to be a marathon job, but it will be a great show, hopefully the best yet.

I've got another interview lined up this week as well, so what with prepping for that and editing episode 4, I think I might have to move to a fortnightly schedule for the foreseeable. It's a shame because weekly episodes definitely build momentum and make it less likely that people will forget about you, but it was a situation that I foresaw from the beginning. The great news is that I'm finding lots of varied people to interview - got at least one other potentially lined up for what will be episode 6 already, and I feel the show is getting tighter overall. Certainly not planning on stopping at any point soon, it's great fun to make.

And it's given me the motivational kick I needed to actually start working on a new game myself. Might talk about that in the next episode.

Jim
 
Last edited by a moderator:
G

gamedev4life

Guest
not sure if youre looking for game makers to interview and or take indie game dev with, but if so id like to! see my sig for my game im working on
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello everyone

Really big thanks for the continued positive and really constructive feedback on the show :)

not sure if youre looking for game makers to interview and or take indie game dev with, but if so id like to! see my sig for my game im working on
Most certainly am :) If you PM me a few details, maybe some links to any completed or soon to be completed games - ideas for any specific themes to do with GMS or game dev in general that you fancy talking about, and let me know roughly whereabouts in the world you're based (so I can work out any time differences) and I'll try and fit you in somewhere :)

Got a slight backlog of both interviews to do and completed interviews to edit, but I'm just chuffed people are keen to be on the show!

Listening through episode 3 now! Good stuff. :) My favorite podcast now.
Cheers dude, just, 'keepin' it real!' :)
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Quick update - almost done with epic edit of interview for episode 4,( thank you @Tim !!!!) However, it has to be said, it's going to be a really good one, very in-depth, essential listening :) Barring an apocalyptic disaster - that will be live this Friday, 5th May.

Interview for episode 5 is already in the can, big thanks to @LM_anthony - all being well that will be live 19th May.

Still looking for some female developers to interview - just so the show isn't quite so testosterone-heavy - and also looking to interview anyone who has successfully implemented a network multiplayer game, but welcome interview requests from anyone with a finished game (or games) or a very soon to be released project. Keep 'em coming!

PM me or Email me via the website (see signature)

cheers

Jim
 
W

Widget

Guest
What's happening with the interviewees' audio quality? Is that on their end or a network problem?

Edit: (Just read an earlier post)

Have you tried Audacity to record audio?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
I'm getting behind with my comments here... I'm just now listening to Episode 3, so I'll comment on that first. Then I'll listen to the current episode (4) later on.

Good interview. As others said, the audio quality on Jay's end was poor. But I had no difficulty understanding the conversation. It was interesting to hear how losing his original design job led him to something better -- or at least with that potential. His mobile game hasn't done too badly. Or very well. But it's early, so I wish him well with it.

Seems like he's on the right track with collaborations and team building. Going in the right direction, and it sounds like he has plenty of ideas and enthusiasm. Anyway, it was an interesting interview overall.

I do have one suggestion about the podcast website -- namely, arrange for links to open in a new tab by default so the podcast isn't interrupted. I think many listeners would enjoy viewing the interviewee's website, links, images, etc. as they listen. Unfortunately, even viewing his banner animation caused the podcast to stall and restart. And clicking on the interviewee's website link took me away from the podcast site altogether. So new tabs by default would be preferable (even though users can always specify that feature themselves).

Eventually, I just downloaded the mp3 version so I could listen while I browsed the various links to Jay's website, without accidentally leaving the podcast.
 
Last edited:
M

mysticjim

Guest
Hello all, thanks again for the feedback :)

@Widget - you'll be pleased to know that I have gotten hold of some software that records the Skype calls at much higher quality. It's a bit of software that I had before and used religiously for my previous podcast before the developer forced an update that made the free and previously unlimited version become very limited indeed - like, you could only record 10 minute stretches at a time-limited! I got shot of it in favour the next best alternative I could find, which was the one I've used for episodes 1-4. It used to be fine - I did half a dozen episodes of my previous podcast with it without any issues - and then I suspect Skype updated something their end because it sounds - well, you can hear how bad it sounds! I was looking for an alternative and was overjoyed to find that the original bit of software had been made unlimited again - obviously the developers felt a backlash I guess? I tested it out for the interview for what will be episode 5 and it is so much better. I feel awful for the guests and the listeners for the audio quality for the episodes to date, but I promise, you'll notice the positive difference in episode 5. :)

I do use Audacity for my linking voiceovers and for editing the finished episodes together - it's a solid audio program, but without some clever routing and a better audio interface than I have right now, it can't be used to record a two way conversation on Skype, it only records the audio at my end, otherwise I would use it for sure.

@chance - Many thanks for sticking with it and really value your insight. I completely agree about the links, that's totally something I can fix. I hadn't considered it as I get all of the podcasts I listen via an audio feed direct to my phone. I've been adding links with the default settings in Blogger, and sure enough - it opens them in the active window. I will be shortly trawl back through the episodes and change that and will make sure that is the way going forward. Very many thanks for raising it :) Am really surprised how many people choose to listen to the podcast via the stream, but evidently that's the route a lot of people prefer so it makes perfect sense to improve their experience.

I'm really pleased you enjoyed @JayR 's interview, he's a great guy, and he was a bit nervous about how he'd sound recorded, whether people would have trouble understanding him with his accent, etc. In the end I thought he did great, and any issues were principally down to the aforementioned recording issues rather than anything to do with him. I don't think Frankrit alone will allow him to move into game dev full time, and evidently Jay needs to get a full marketing strategy in place, having brought a fully functional product to market I'm confident he'll build on that going forward.
 

chamaeleon

Member
Another great episode. :) It's been really fun listening to what motivates people, and their general experiences, so far. You're doing great moving the conversation forward in the interviews, and your guests have been very good at talking about their experience and growth in game development. Have no significant suggestions for improvements. If this was Reddit I'd give you gold and my upvote. :)
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
@chamaeleon - aww, cheers :) Glad you're liking the show so far. Like I said in the first episode - the podcast isn't about the technical, there are far more qualified people than myself who can talk about that. It's about the people, where they've come from, what they're doing, why they're doing it and what they hope to do going forward. I'm really enjoying having the opportunity to chat to them and finding out a little about what makes them tick :)
 
R

Richard Mountain

Guest
Just finished listening to the 4th podcast, great work!
 
M

mysticjim

Guest
Thanks for having us on the podcast! Had a great time!
Superb dude, glad you enjoyed it and best of luck pushing Lil Tanks! :)

Another good program. :) Thank you for your hard work getting audio quality improved! Keep it up. :)
Thanks mate, glad it's a noticeable improvement, the poor sound quality was killing me, very happy it's a bit better now.
 
Top