Hey, Good Game explores the stories behind your favorite brainy games. Each week, we interview game creators and dig into what it takes to build a successful indie game, how to monetize, and how to get traction.
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How to Build and Launch Successful Web Games Using AI
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Daniel Tait is a prolific indie game developer who has created several popular puzzle games, including Mathler, CrossWordle, and Somplete. Despite not considering himself a professional programmer, Daniel has a knack for quickly building and launching games that capture players' attention. In this episode, we explore Daniel's journey from tinkering…
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One Game a Week: Two Years of Non-Stop Creation
33:21
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Gabe Cornish is a game creator with over 40 published games on itch.io and a decade of experience in the game industry. He's worked on hit mobile titles like Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery at Jam City and more recently at Paradox Interactive. Gabe is passionate about making game development more accessible and sustainable for creators. In this epis…
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Bootstrapping Chess.com Into 10 million Daily Players
52:04
52:04
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Eric Albaest, co-founder and CEO of Chess.com, joins the podcast to discuss how he's revolutionized the world of online chess. With 5-10 million daily players and nearly $100 million in annual revenue, Chess.com has become the go-to platform for chess enthusiasts worldwide. Eric shares his journey from e-commerce to building a chess empire, startin…
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Building Word Games Without Frameworks With Cassidy Williams
47:13
47:13
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Cassidy Williams is a prolific content creator, developer advocate, and builder. Aaron Kardell and Joseph Rueter discuss Jumblie—a word game inspired by a coding challenge—and Cassidy's previous games. Cassidy shares her journey, the influence of her time in Spain, SEO, her love for board games like Agricola and Civ 6, and her stint as a mascot at …
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How to Build a Successful Art Career by Embracing Creative Selfishness
54:47
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Peter Mohrbacher, creator of Angelarium, emphasizes the importance of creating art for yourself rather than trying to please others or meet market expectations. He argues that the best art comes from a place of "creative selfishness" - following your own obsessions and interests without worrying about external validation. This approach has allowed …
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How to Create a Viral Puzzle Game From Scratch
1:08:26
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Greg Karber is the creator of the hit murder mystery puzzle game Murdle. Greg shares the fascinating journey of Murdle's creation, from a simple puzzle made for a friend to a bestselling book series and popular daily online game. We dive into Greg's influences, how he monetizes Murdle, and the balance between game mechanics and storytelling. Check …
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How to Design Board Games That People Love
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Cole Medeiros' career in game design is driven by passion and authenticity. He started creating games as a child (GUBS in fourth grade) and has successfully transitioned this early interest into a professional career. His approach emphasizes the importance of genuine enthusiasm for the project, close collaboration with partners (as seen in his work…
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How to Design Obsessive Games by Breaking the Rules
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Zach Gage might be one of the most innovative game designers you've never heard of. He's the creator of Good Sudoku, Really Bad Chess, and 30+ other games that reimagine classic puzzles for the digital age. Now he's taking on the New York Times with Puzzmo.com We spent an hour exploring his creative process and the future of puzzle games. Check out…
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How FreeCell Snuck Its Way Into Millions of PCs
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Episode 29: Jim Horne is the creator of Microsoft FreeCell and xwordinfo.com. Jim shares his journey from early programming to joining Microsoft in 1988, where he secretly added FreeCell to Windows. His passion for crosswords led to writing for the New York Times and developing xwordinfo.com. Jim discusses his time at Microsoft, including sharing a…
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Say Yes to Creativity: Tracy Fullerton's 10-Year Project
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Episode 28: Tracy Fullerton is a pioneering game designer, educator, and USC Games Program Director emeritus. The conversation covers Tracy's extensive career in game design, her creation of the game 'Walden,' and her unique approach to blending philosophy with gameplay. Tracy opens up about the decade-long development of 'Walden,' the challenges a…
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Episode 27: Blake Harris is the acclaimed author of "Console Wars" and "The History of the Future." Blake shares his journey from a struggling screenwriter to a successful author, diving into the intense rivalry between Sega and Nintendo that defined a generation of gaming. He reveals insights into the internal conflicts at Sega that contributed to…
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Building Games at the NY Times: Interview With Jeff Petriello
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Episode 26: Jeff Petriello, a game producer at the New York Times and a game design educator at NYU Game Center, shares his unique journey from producing movies to producing games played by millions of people. Go behind the scenes at the New York Times, learn what it's like to shepherd hits like Wordle, and create games from scratch like Strands. W…
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Will He Reply? The Wordle Game That Got Away
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Right before the New York Times announced they acquired Wordle in the low-mid seven figures, Aaron attempted to buy Wordle, and wordle.com. Listen to Aaron's story on why he started building games, and how that led to his attempt to purchase the popular daily word game that took the world by storm. How close did he get? Listen and find out! -- (00:…
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Episode 24: In this episode, explores the journey of Mark and Jeff Rogers, creators of Canuckle and Canoku games, inspired by Wordle. It delves into their background, game development process, hiatus, renewal with added features, community engagement strategies, collaborations with other game creators and notable organizations, partnerships for spo…
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Episode 23: In this episode, we dive deep into the creative process behind the game WordPeaks with its creator, Devin Spikowski. Discover the inspirations, design decisions, and the unique journey from concept to a game enjoyed by thousands. Check out Devin's Games and Resources: https://vegeta897.github.io/word-peaks/ https://twitter.com/vegeta897…
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The Beauty of Games With Frank Lantz
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Episode 22: This conversation features a deep and insightful discussion with Frank Lantz, the director of the New York University Game Center and an award-winning game designer. Throughout the interview, Lantz explores the intricate relationship between games, culture, and education, highlighting how games can serve as a potent medium for both arti…
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Sell or Scale? The Strategic Sale of Semantle
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Episode 21: David Turner created Semantle.com, a unique word-guessing game focusing on semantic relationships. Turner shares insights on his journey from ideation to acquisition, his creative process, and upcoming projects like a graphical adventure game. We also chat about game design challenges, user testing, creativity in game development, and e…
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Shaping Words with Grant Warman: The Story of Polygonle
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Episode 20: Grant Warman, the creator of Polygonle and Quadragonal word games, discussing the game mechanics, user feedback, collaboration with other games, and plans for future projects. Check out Grant's games and links: https://polygonle.com/ https://quadragonle.com/ https://www.reddit.com/r/polygonle/ https://discord.gg/ https://www.facebook.co…
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Waffle: How this game reached 500k daily players
1:08:58
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Episode 19: James Robinson runs the ever-popular game, Wafflegame.net. In his first-ever podcast, he shares the history of Waffle, where it is headed, and how it has reached 500,000 daily players. James discusses the game's design, user feedback, and the human-centric approach to game creation. Themes include his accidental success, and the future …
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“It's either Minesweeper or smoking, I can't write if I have to give up both.”
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Episode 18: Today's episode join me and lets explore the fascinating journey of Minesweeper through an interview with Damien Moore, the visionary behind MinesweeperGame.com. Delve into the origins of Minesweeper, the celebrities who played this game, its evolution, strategic gameplay, online community, and the intricate mathematics that define this…
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GDC Unplugged: Our First Trip to the Game Developer Conference
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Hey, Good Game podcast hosts Nate Kadlac and Aaron Kardell attend the GDC conference in San Francisco for the first time. They share their experiences at the event, interactions with different booths, and their plans for potential future participation. Check out Hey GG's games and links: https://www.hey.gg/ https://lilsnack.co/ https://poki.com/ ht…
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From Crosswords to Squeezy: Jeff Chen's Creative Adventure
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Episode 16: Today's episode features an interview with Jeff Chen, the creator of the new game Squeezy, discussing his journey in creating the game, his experience in puzzle making and writing, including the challenges and successes. Jeff also shares his writing experience and the upcoming puzzle book collaboration with Stuart Gibbs. He emphasizes t…
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Episode 15: In today's episode features an interview with Jeff Widderich, the president of Syndicated Puzzles, who discusses his background, experience on Dragon's Den, game creation, the challenges faced in the puzzle industry, and the future of game design. Widderich shares insights on the importance of spatial thinking, the necessity for new and…
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Nerdle: The Math Game Bill Gates Loves to Play
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Today we're excited to sit down with Richard Mann, the CEO and founder of Nerdle, a math game similar to Wordle. Richard discusses the development of Nerdle, the challenges of creating math games that are fun for kids, the game's advertising model, the launch of a new game called 2D Nerdle, and the importance of user feedback. We also dive into how…
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BONUS: How To Earn a Living From Your Game, How Game Creators are Using AI, and more
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We're back with Joseph, Nate, and Aaron! They discuss the past 12 episodes of the podcasts, what stood out from our conversations, how game creators earn a living from their games, and the differences between creators. The conversation ends with reflections on the progress of their business, Hey Good Game, and its growth strategy in buying and buil…
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Lil Snack is a new daily game platform created by Eric Berman and Travis Chen. They talk about their approach to creating a new game every day with the desire to be an app recommended by friends in text messages. They credit AI for their ability to be nimble, noting that the technology helps with the middle part of their creative process such as re…
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Kings, Pawns, and Coders: Turning Passion into Chessworld.net
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Our recent chat with the creators of ChessWorld pushes the edges on what you might know about correspondence-style Chess as a game. Tryfon (aka Kingscrusher) and his brother Nick share how maintaining ChessWorld allows them to pursue a passion for playing chess while also earning a living. They talk about how Tryfon’s enjoyment of chess guided the …
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The Future of Puzzle Creation with Krazydad
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Join us as we delve into Jim Bumgardner's fascinating odyssey within the realms of coding and brainteasers. We explore his profound insights on the convergence of computers, music, and puzzle creation, alongside his clever utilization of Foursquare's capabilities which paved the way for his brainchild—the acclaimed puzzle hub—KrazyDad. Our chat als…
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Racing Through Rabbit Holes in The Wiki Game
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45:04
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The Wiki Game is a fun, web-based game that connects two random Wikipedia article links. Alex shares his journey of how he started out, using concepts like six degrees of separation to create a game involving Wikipedia articles, and how it has steadily grown over the years to around 60,000 - 80,000 unique users a month. Despite challenges like hack…
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Modernizing a Classic Puzzle With Sven's SudokuPad
48:09
48:09
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In this episode, hosts Aaron Kardell and Joseph Rueter of the 'Hey, Good Game' podcast sit down with game developer Sven Neumann. They discuss the creation and development of Sven's SudokuPad, used by Cracking the Cryptic, his early interest in technology and gaming, as well as his vision for the platform's future. Neumann also discusses the consid…
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How Abe Train's First Game Globle Went Global
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You’d be surprised how a well-established corporate worker like Abe Train started creating games for a living! From big-name companies like Tesla, General Motors and Hello Fresh, to creating his own brand and entering a niche that he loves, Abe has a great story to share behind his success. This is how a corporate worker traded his stable life to v…
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Bridging the Word Gap: How Woogles is Revolutionizing Scrabble
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Unlock the secrets of Scrabble with Woogles creators César Del Solar and Jesse Day, who join us to discuss the power of two-letter words and parallel plays that can transform your word game skills. As we chat with these Scrabble aficionados, we uncover not only their journeys into the world of competitive Scrabble but also how their diverse backgro…
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Behind the Success of KenKen: An Interview with Robert Fuhrer
1:17:40
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Robert Fuhrer explores his years-long journey in the toy and game industry in this interview. He reminisces about the many experiences that shaped his career from early exposure to the toy industry, his first creation, his various partnerships and ventures and how he ended up being the owner of the popular puzzle game, KenKen. His journey reflects …
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Horror, Puzzles, and Pragmatism: The Improbable Journey of CineNerdle
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Step into the shadowy corridors of game development with our esteemed guest, Nilanth Yogadasan, the creative genius behind the eerie yet addictive games, CineNerdle and CineNerdle 2. His games reach over 30,000 daily players, and over 15 million games played. Our conversation takes a deep dive into Nilanth's inspiration, drawing heavily from his pa…
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From Rubik's Cube Champion to Game Development: Toby Mao's Journey
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Are you ready to step into the intriguing world of game development, entrepreneurship, and the pursuit of excellence? Let me welcome you to a captivating conversation with Toby Mao, the driving force behind 18XX Games and a Rubik's Cube record holder. His diverse journey weaves through the set of Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith, creating 18XX …
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Turning $30 Into $25,000 a Month with Online Solitaire
53:29
53:29
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Get ready to unlock the mysteries of game development and indie hacking as we entertain an inspiring chat with Holger Sindbæk, the enterprising mind behind Online-Solitaire.com and WorldOfCardGames.com. Gain a new perspective from Holger's inspiring journey from designer to developer, and how he transformed his passion project into a significant in…
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The World of Casual Games: A Discussion with the Hey, Good Game Team
27:00
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What do games mean to you? As kids, games have had a large impact on our lives. Now as adults, join our inaugural and nostalgia-fueled episode as we, your hosts Joseph, Aaron, and Nate, explore the significance of childhood games and how they shaped us. We also discuss how games have played a significant role in our entrepreneurial journeys. In thi…
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