The podcast that took a critical look at the craft of making games. Developers Allen Pike and Nigel Brooke dug in to a new topic each episode with an interesting guest.

Up Up Down Down finished in 2016, but you can check out Allen's other shows Fun Fact and It Shipped That Way.


27. A Tiny Game That You Can Play Forever

Asher Vollmer, creator of Threes and Close Castles, joins us to talk puzzle games. We discuss the process of designing developing Threes, and what goes in to making a great little puzzle game. We then talk about the whimsical minimalism that works so well in indie games, and how to bring them to life. We talk about difficulty, complexity, and how to tune games. We touch on the effects of free to play on puzzle games, and how it makes us feel weird. Afterwards, we talk Wii U games, Divinity: Original Sin, trying to get our RPG fix, and Manwiches.

Download (1:14:26) • Oct 03, 2014