ABOUT THIS PODCAST 🔗
The psychology of game design, one itch.io game at a time. I play indie games I actually like and explain why they're fun. I'm a psychologist and a game designer, so I also point out what you can use in your own games. Episodes are about 10 minutes.
zivanovic.substack.com
zivanovic.substack.com
Update frequency:
every 10 days
Average audio length:
10 minutes
English
United States
30 episodes
since Feb. 18, 2025
episodic
LATEST EPISODE 🔗
Idle Breakout by Kodiqi is an idle version of the classic breakout. It’s a fun game although there isn’t much to learn, which goes a little against Raph Koster’s theory of fun. Still, I spent a considerable amount of time playing even after “mastering” all there is to the game (circa 30 minutes).
T…
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PREVIOUS EPISODES 🔗
Nethack is one of the defining roguelikes. I talk a bit about what it is really about from a subjective experience and compare it a bit to Hades, one the current roguelike poster-children.
One of the differences, which I think is very important, is how they represent progress between runs: Nethack…
Doki Doki Literature Club by Team Salvato is perhaps the most famous visual novel dating sim game out there because there’s a big twist. I liked both the dating sim AND the twist!
The dating aspect is operationalized as poem-writing, where you have to show that you understand the girl you want to g…
Dice of Dusk by Kultisti is a puzzle roguelike game. It has random generated puzzles, progression, and builds! It also has a timer to create pressure, and one thing I forgot to mention in the episode is that this has another amazing side effect: “easy” levels become challenging in that you are try…
Star Realms has player life; Ascension has a victory point pool. Both games have the core mechanic of buying cards from the center row to build your deck in a play session. However, they feel completely different. Yesterday, I talked about how that decision for the victory condition changed mechani…
Star Realms by White Wizard Games is a deckbuilding game just like Ascension. However, unlike Ascension, Star Realms is a confrontational game, where the goal is to deplete the other player’s authority. This results in some huge mechanical and emotional differences for the same core mechanic. In th…
Draftula by Jose Pacio is a tile-placing and drafting game. It’s a very fun game that made me realize why drafting has become a widely adopted progression mechanic for games.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit …
Ascension by Stoneblade Entertainment is one of the seminal deckbuilding games. I’ve played it a lot recently and in this episode I talk about why I like the honor point pool and how I think it allows for adjustable challenge. I also briefly talk about why I think this game can easily become “a dai…
Amalgamate by sunil. is a submission for the 2026 7DRL game jam. It combines a grid-based matching game with random loot generation and upgrades. There’s a small tutorial, but it intentionally holds back some key information, which became a magic moment for me when I figured it out. This realizatio…
Yellow Game About Falling Things by Evgenii Petrov is an abstract puzzly roguelike. Throughout the experience, it has zero words and zero numbers, but I still understood the gameplay and goal very quickly. Would it have been better if it had all the usual competence supporting stuff like tutorials,…
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ivan Zivanovic, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.
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