Old games, considered like working designs.
Dev Game Club revisits older games with the eye of people who know how games are made. Episodes move from moment-to-moment play notes into design intent, hardware constraints, game history, and the friction that still matters now.
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Dev Game Club is a patient, craft-minded show about older games and why their decisions still echo. It is less interested in ranking classics than in replaying them closely. Episodes often begin with a specific scene, system, or annoyance, then widen into a discussion of what the designers may have been trying to solve. That gives the show a lived-in feel. The Majora's Mask run is typical: the conversation keeps returning to masks, time loops, save systems, notebook conveniences, routing pressure, and the way a strange visual choice can make a Nintendo game feel uneasy. The show notices the nightmare texture of a Deku transformation. It also notices when a bottle quest turns from clever scheduling into something demoralizing. Dungeon Keeper brings out a different side of the same method. Mining, gold veins, heroes digging in from the other side, focus-based audio, and Bullfrog's god-game lineage all become part of the argument. A simple digression into Minecraft is not random; it helps clarify how much of the game is about claiming underground space. The hosts are comfortable chasing side examples. Baldur's Gate 3 becomes a way to talk about feeling protected by saves. Breath of the Wild becomes a way to talk about Zelda's willingness to break form. Dwarf Fortress and Hitman slip in as current-play reference points. The show also carries its own history, including anniversary reflections, trivia about long series, listener emails, and a community-run Discord. Bonus interviews, including one with Erik Wolpaw, sit alongside the regular game-club structure. The default mood is thoughtful, conversational, and mildly dry. It can be funny, but the jokes usually ride beside the analysis rather than replacing it. For players who like design criticism with production intuition, Dev Game Club offers the pleasure of hearing old games reconsidered slowly and concretely.
Made for: For players, designers, and games-history listeners who enjoy slow, specific analysis of classic titles. It especially suits people who like hearing mechanics, production context, and player experience discussed together.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating retro games as craft problems as much as cultural artifacts. Its best moments come when a small play detail turns into a broader conversation about design intent, constraints, and friction.
Join hosts and industry veterans Brett Douville and Tim Longo as they discuss older titles and the impact they had on the games industry, as well as any lessons that could be taken away even today. Play along!
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Veteran developers make classic game mechanics legible through close play, practical comparisons, and candid discussion of friction, failure, and design trade-offs.
Dev Game Club treats familiar games as design problems still worth arguing through. Brett Duvall and Tim Longo pair close accounts of their own play with practical questions about why a mechanic works, where it frustrates, and how later games approached the same problem.
Seven eggs, one bottle, one clock: Brett Douville and Tim Longo know why you're annoyed.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Mining, minimap cues, and focus-based audio make Dungeon Keeper's underground design feel alive.
Dungeon Keeper gives Dev Game Club a clean villain's-eye route into Bullfrog's God-game lineage, with the episode settling on how much of the game's character comes from being underground.
A strange Majora's Mask scene leads into a grounded discussion of crashes, save systems, and a notebook that keeps progress alive.
Majora's Mask has an odd gravity here, where eerie images sit beside the practical strain of living the same day again. The discussion stays with the circular waterfall basin, the imprisoned spirit, and the giants in the fog, whose whale-like call gives the moment a strange…
A close read of how Majora's Mask turns timed tasks into character texture and player punishment.
Majora's Mask comes through as a game that turns urgency into character drama, then lets that same pressure harden into irritation. Brett Duvall and Tim Longo trace a line from the Goron who wants one last meal to a later Zora beat about doing one final thing, using those…
Zelda design history, hardware change, and messy canon in one developer-led pass.
Dev Game Club uses Zelda to get at a clean design question: what changes when new hardware gives a long-running series more room to move? Brett Duvall and Tim Longo link Ocarina of Time with Breath of the Wild, following the way a familiar structure can endure for years before…
A relaxed 10th-anniversary quiz turns release-day lore and long-running series into a warm look back.
Dev Game Club's 10th-anniversary episode makes the show's own history the subject, as Brett Duvall and Tim Longo look back on shifting release days before easing into trivia from earlier series.
A bonus interview finds lasting roguelike tension in the simple dread of trying the wrong potion.
Dev Game Club's bonus interview format returns to the design gamble that gives Rogue so much of its charge: a potion or scroll might save a run, ruin it, or leave the player wiser only after the damage is done.
A moving train sharpens a thoughtful discussion of timing, failure, and how game worlds respond to the player.
The Last Express comes through as a game built around pressure: the train keeps moving, people keep their schedules, and a missed moment can close off success.
Three comedians riff on new releases and revisit terrible old games on Get Played Remastered.
Giant Bomb's weekly panel on new releases, industry news, and Game of the Year debates.
Rob Zacny and Patrick interview indie game developers and unpack the industry's rough patches.
Game Informer's editors review new releases and debrief hands-on previews from events like Summer Game Fest.
Panel and interview deep dives on video game history, from Shiny Entertainment to Sonic hacks.
Brett Duvill and Tim Longo interview Erik Wolpaw about his work on Portal and game writing.
Two veteran game developers reflect on their 2025 interviews and lessons learned in a year-in-review episode.
Dev Game Club hosts Brett Douville and Tim Longo introduce a new interview format focusing on a person's career through classic games.
Hosts Brett Douville and Tim Longo continue their discussion of The Last Express, a 1997 adventure game set on the Orient Express on the eve of World War I.
Dev Game Club opens on Dungeon Keeper Gold, the 1997 Bullfrog game on Steam and GOG, and Brett Duvill and Tim Longo keep returning to its Populous lineage.
["Brett Duvall says his Majora's Mask run crashed again on the GameCube version after he had already replayed a large stretch of the game.", "He and Tim Longo use that loss to talk about why crashes erase player progress, damage morale, and block players from seeing the content.", "Most of the episode then turns to the Goron dungeon, where hidden keys, the boss key at the top, and multiple staircases make the route hard to reconstruct.", "They finish by unpacking the notebook, timed NPC schedules, and the alien ranch quest, then contrast Majora's Mask with Ocarina of Time and other games like Metroid Prime and Baldur's Gate 3."]
Brett Duvall and Tim Longo spend this Majora's Mask discussion on the game's masks, notebook, and three-day reset loop.
Brett Duvall and Tim Longo discuss the unsettling transformation sequence in Majora's Mask when Link puts on the Deku mask.
Two veteran game developers discuss the creepy scene with the happy mask salesman in Majora's Mask and its animation choices.
Brett Duvall and Tim Longo place Majora's Mask in 2000, then compare its roughly 14-month development to Ocarina of Time's much longer cycle.
Dev Game Club’s 10th-anniversary episode uses 91 series and 99 main games to test what Brett Duvall and Tim Longo have become as players.
Brett Duvill and Tim Longo interview Erik Wolpaw about his work on Portal and game development.
An interview with William Pugh about his work on The Stanley Parable and his background in Half-Life 2 modding.
An interview with Sean Vesce and Zack Norman about the development of the classic game Interstate '76.