The WORST episodes of Extra Credits
Every episode of Extra Credits ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Extra Credits!
Join James Portnow, Daniel Floyd and Allison Theus each week as they take a deeper look at games; how they are made, what they mean and how we can make them better.
#1 - Gestalt - The Parts and the Whole
Season 2018 - Episode 24 - Aired 8/15/2018
Gestalt design principles--how we understand groups of objects as a whole unit via symmetry, proximity, closure, and more--is a powerful tool in game design to quickly and effectively communicate visual information to the player.
#2 - The Content Conundrum - Why So Many Games Feel Generic
Season 2018 - Episode 16 - Aired 6/20/2018
Procedurally generated content seems like a really appealing route for a lot of indie developers--it's what AAA game studios are doing, and it seems to protect game balance! But often times it's worth the extra effort to craft a few handmade pieces, even at the risk of "breaking" the game.
#3 - College E-Sports - Road to Glory?
Season 2018 - Episode 17 - Aired 6/27/2018
E-sports scholarships are becoming slowly more commonplace, but they have inherited some of the bad qualities of other college sports, as well as unique issues like the usually short lifespans of video games themselves. Should you pursue an esports career?
#4 - The Three Pillars of Game Writing - Plot, Character, Lore
Season 2018 - Episode 18 - Aired 7/4/2018
Let's examine the elements that make up "game writing." Plot, characters, and lore all have to be balanced depending on the type of game you're making--knowing what to cut from your story bible is just as important as knowing what to keep.
#5 - The Price of Randomness - Balancing RNG
Season 2018 - Episode 19 - Aired 7/11/2018
Let's compare the RNG design in Hearthstone and Slay the Spire and figure out how we can design RNG for strategic difficulty without veering into completely frustrating players.
#6 - Ma, The Space Between - Uncluttered Game Design
Season 2018 - Episode 20 - Aired 7/18/2018
Today we're talking about a Japanese word "ma" and how it applies to game design. Incorporating rest, space, and emptiness can make the rest of the gameplay, action, and narrative stand out.
#7 - Game Therapy - How Can Games Improve Mental Health?
Season 2018 - Episode 21 - Aired 7/25/2018
Games can help us heal, emotionally as well as physically. We need to do more research on their positive impacts and how we can maximize the emotional value of commercial games, not just on the harmful effects of gaming disorders.
#8 - Don't Just Hire Your Fans - Creating a Good Design Team
Season 2018 - Episode 22 - Aired 8/1/2018
Having 500+ hours logged on a particular game or franchise shouldn't be a job requirement to work on that particular game or franchise--in fact, by working with folks who aren't already "super-fans" of your game, you'll end up making better creative design decisions.
#9 - Steam: What Sells - What Steam's Player Numbers Tell Us About Game Genres
Season 2018 - Episode 23 - Aired 8/8/2018
We can learn a lot from Steam's player numbers about why certain games, like PUBG and Paladins, continue to be popular on Steam, as well as why niche driving simulators are doing better than adventure games.
#10 - Games You Might Not Have Tried #14 - Mechs, Monsters and More!
Season 2018 - Episode 15 - Aired 6/13/2018
These games are definitely perfect...ly suited to expanding your game design knowledge, even if they have some flaws here and there. It's another edition of "extra" game reviews: Games You Might Not Have Tried!
#11 - How Games Challenge Us - Empathy and Intuition in Puzzle Design
Season 2018 - Episode 25 - Aired 8/22/2018
How can we use empathy, intuition, and other types of design vectors to create interesting gameplay besides the most popular mechanics--which are based in reflex and logic challenges?
#12 - Games You Might Not Have Tried #15 - September 2018 Edition
Season 2018 - Episode 26 - Aired 9/12/2018
Check out some new games to play this month! Here's the list of the games in this video, accompanied by a link to the PC versions on the Humble Store if available (if you do decide to make a purchase through any of the Humble links, you'll be informed that a small percentage will go back to supporting Extra Credits, i.e. paying our artists!). * Yoku's Island Express (NOTE: if you own a Switch, we recommend getting the Switch version instead, as the controls and portability are very delightful) https://www.humblebundle.com/store/yo... * Legendary Gary: https://store.steampowered.com/app/68... * 20XX: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/20... * Cultist Simulator: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/cu... * Wars Across the World: https://store.steampowered.com/app/34... * Prey - Mooncrash DLC: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/pr... * The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit: https://store.steampowered.com/app/84... * Omen Exitio: Plague: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/om... * Cardinal Cross: https://store.steampowered.com/app/81... * The Painscreek Killings: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/th... History of Virtual Reality, part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIyz... brought to you thanks to Oculus Rift: http://bit.ly/2vJIFRZ
#13 - The Joy of Losing - Learning to Have Fun Playing Games
Season 2018 - Episode 27 - Aired 9/19/2018
The design of multiplayer games means that, in most cases, half the playerbase is losing games at any given time. However, that shouldn't mean that half the playerbase is miserable or is unable to have fun. You can still have fun learning how to be a better team leader and practicing mechanical skills--which is important for combatting toxicity in multiplayer games.
#14 - The Metaphor is Meaning - "Show, Don't Tell" in Game Design
Season 2018 - Episode 28 - Aired 9/26/2018
Every developer should be taking full advantage of the visual and interactive mechanics in games to deliver extra layers of meaning without having to do all game storytelling through text. And players can enhance the depth of their gaming experiences by paying attention to possible metaphors that exist!
#15 - World of Warcraft Epidemiology - The Corrupted Blood Plague (And Why It Matters)
Season 2018 - Episode 29 - Aired 10/3/2018
Let's look at how, in 2005, World of Warcraft accidentally provided a virtual simulation of a pandemic that academics have been studying in papers since.
#16 - Aspirational Play - Adding a Sense of Wonder to Game Design
Season 2018 - Episode 30 - Aired 10/10/2018
From internet drama stories of Crusader Kings 2 to the secret rooms in Enter the Gungeon, there is value in designing really cool gameplay and story experiences that not all of your players will necessarily get to experience (at least, not immediately). Stoke imagination and wonder by including exciting details that players can enjoy experiencing, even if only vicariously through shared transmedia knowledge.
#17 - The New Player Experience - Hooks, Tutorials, Rewards
Season 2018 - Episode 31 - Aired 10/17/2018
A good new player experience consists of three pieces: the hook, the tutorial, and the reward. Spider-Man (2018) is an example that gets this right, by giving players an amazing experience right off the bat and not waiting until the second act.
#18 - Achieving Vicarity - Creating Livable Fiction
Season 2018 - Episode 32 - Aired 10/24/2018
Guest writer Evan Hill (a level designer from Naughty Dog) talks about creating surprises--expectation gaps--in your game, and why adhering to a "lifelike" experience isn't the same as preserving the player's sense of immersion.
#19 - NieR: Automata - Sacrifice and the Meaning of Kindness
Season 2018 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/19/2018
Many video games offer you the chance to make “good” or “bad” choices, but often times these choices lack weight; you as a player aren’t emotionally attached to the circumstances, the causes, or the outcomes. Nier: Automata, however, lets players truly empathize with others in a crucial end-game choice.
#20 - Losing Player Trust - The Data Dilemma
Season 2017 - Episode 44 - Aired 12/6/2017
Companies rely on metrics to tell them how players respond to a game, which can mean that short-term bumps (like revenue gained by adding microtransactions) disguises real player unhappiness with a game's quality and a publisher's integrity over time.
#21 - DayZ - Tragedy of the Commons: The Game
Season 2017 - Episode 45 - Aired 12/12/2017
When resources are limited, self-interest works against itself. We see that in games like DayZ, where players could team up to fight a common threat, but the fear that someone will backstab you leads everyone to assume the worst and therefore behave as enemies.
#22 - Hidden Game Mechanics: Design for the Human Psyche
Season 2017 - Episode 46 - Aired 12/20/2017
Sometimes games trick us into having a more engaging experience by simulating near-death escapes and gently massaging the odds to be kind to us. These hidden game mechanics play into the expectations of our human psyche to give us the results we expect.
#23 - So You Want To Be in QA - The Test Chamber
Season 2018 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/17/2018
Quality Assurance, or QA, does not mean you sit around playing games all day. At least, not for fun. But if you have patience, love experimentation, and find the right team, it can be an extremely rewarding job.
#24 - Games Should Not Cost $60 Anymore - Inflation, Microtransactions, and Publishing
Season 2018 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/24/2018
You would think that paying $60 for a game would be enough, but so many games these days ask for money with DLC, microtransactions, and yes, lootboxes. There's a reason for that.
#25 - Why Do Games Cost So Much To Make? - AAA Game Budgets
Season 2018 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/31/2018
Let's talk numbers: marketing, office space, dev tool licenses, voice actors, and more that goes into the average AAA game budget. Why do some games never turn a profit while others seem to magically make it work on the cheapest budget possible?