At around 4:30pm GMT today several Game Maker users decided to get together to record a Game Maker podcast named GMTalk (all the other names were taken, you know GMcast, GMlive, GMindie). This evening Andrew McCluskey, Jack Brockley, James Garner and myself took a look at FlashPunk, the entries in the GameJolt rogue-themed game making competition, game maker games on consoles and more. We also discussed YoYo Games’ Instant Play plugin, GMIndie Magazine (sorry! Please take it in jest), how you can win Game Maker 8 pro and piracy of Game Maker.
Switchy-ear version: [audio:http://gamemakerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/GMTalk_2010_01_24.mp3] Direct Link (34MB)
Mono version: [audio:http://gamemakerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/GMTalk_2010_01_24_mono.mp3] Direct Link (34MB)
Show links below ‘more’ link.
Show Links
FlashPunk Actionscript 3.0 Library
Falling Blocks
Jet Pod FP
RKF at Kongregate
Original Game Maker RKF
Zack Banack game screenshot
GameJolt contest
Flood the Chamber
Village Looter (Construct, GMB article on Construct)
DSGameMaker
DSGameMaker topic at YoYo Games forum
Our most recent handheld update
Official announcement about lack of Instant Play support for Firefox 3.6
GMIndie Issue 4
GMIndie Issue 5
Favicon/Twitter avatar competiton
Music: Tom Murphy
@Jack Brockley
+1
@Frederick
Use whichever browser you wish. We don’t care.
Maybe…
@Frederick I’m confused as to why you keep saying Chrome can’t do much, as with the new Extensions it can do pretty much anything Firefox can. And if there’s anything it can’t, then an extension will be made to include it very quickly. Chrome manages all this without the repeated, relentless crashes I mentioned in the GMC topic, and oh look, Caniac just backed me up on that.
So maybe the bullshit should be cut down a little.
@GMArcade I’m American, and I don’t find them hard to understand…
@Philip You know how to record Skype calls in Mono, don’t you? And yes, Google Chrome isn’t a very good browser. There is little it can do.
@GMArcade I also found them a bit difficult to understand at times, however, when I listened to the mono version, it helped a lot!
@Frederick
Google Chrome is just fine and I would appreciate it if you would stop criticizing it. I have almost nothing against FF, and its better then IE. However, like others before me, when I had it, it crashed on a VERY regular basis, even when I had no extensions at all running. ON TOP OF IT ALL. I also had chrome installed and Chrome no longer worked. A few weeks later I found out that FF was actually BLOCKING Chrome from functioning properly. That was the FINAL straw. I am done with Mozilla UFN. (until further notice)
Back on topic
Great Job guys!
I cannot begin to describe how much I love Studio Game Maker Podcasts. (when I don’t have to edit or help with them :P)
Many people keep comparing this to GMLive and praising the lack of “pauses” but they do not realize that it is because we are live that we do have occasional pauses. On a recorded podcast, it is very easy to cut out the pauses.
Anyways, Great Job.
-Caniac
edit: Forgot to say, the GMIndie mention was Hilarious.
I used the inbuilt Mic on my Macbook Pro, and I am delighted at the quality that I still got. If there is a next time, the quality will be much improved.
The file size of the MP3 may be reduced significantly by reducing the bitrate.
Lol, I’m American, so sometimes you guys are really hard to understand. XD
I am confused by the comments people have made about the ‘suckiness’ of Chrome here and at the GMC. We didn’t talk it up at all, we simply mentioned that there was no YoYo Games Instant Play plugin for the browser and the not really relevant fact that NAL had switched to it.
@NAL Philip likes this.
@GMArcade GM-Vat??? The only Instant Play other than YoYo Games mentioned by name was GameJolts although that was just one example of a site using a Java launcher.
@scoz I did wonder if the accents would cause a problem. As Sam has said above it should be possible to reduce the file size considerably and if we do this again I will make sure this is done. The same can be said for the “anything else?” those could be edited out. I did wonder about leaving the GMIndie piece in and I will accept that perhaps I made the wrong judgement call.
I actually found the GMIndie mention pretty amusing…but anyway, overall very good, definitely the most interesting radio-styled GM show I’ve listened to. Length was perfect, and loved the lack of irritating pauses. The audio wasn’t perfectly consistent from left to right as mentioned, but I got used to it 😀
Would listen again.
-Tv
Liked it a lot. It was, for the most part, easy to listen to, the content was mostly enjoyable because you stuck to opinion rather than time sensitive “news”, and I though that the length was just right; I find the longer podcasts seem to drag on a bit. I thought the “characters” of the show were well defined, and I find that’s an area that most GM podcasts struggle with. Some other podcasts tend to have presenters that are uninteresting because they are too similar, both in the sense of opinions and how they sound. This is going to sound weird, but I reckon the eclectic European accents help separate the presenters. That said, I think Jack Brockley and James Garner seemed to blend together a tad much, but I suspect that will fall away as they have more differences of opinion.
I would like to see more, though I hope audio quality can be increased a bit more, or file size can be reduced. I’d also like to see a better way of linking pieces, other than Phil saying “anything else?” The spontaneity helped the podcast, but I just found that phrase threw the quality down a peg. Also, I thought it was pretty poor taste to rip on GMIndie for a few minutes but *shrugs* that kind of thing just gets on my nerves.
Hope there’s more!
GMArcade is now going to be iPlayIndie soon, and the new “Instant Play” we’re developing is going to be pretty sweet. Did GMA get mentioned? I heard “GM-Vat” and was curious as that was supposed to be a mention of GMA when you were talking about IP. Just curious lol.
Nice podcast.
@TailWare I never knew that, and I’m using Chrome. Where do you activate that and do you need to purchase a USB device?
@TailWare I love how, in one sentence, you pretty much confirmed that a] you know some prostitutes, and b] you know how much they suck…
Is tail-wear the abrasive feeling you get once the deed is done?
Sorry, but Chrome sucks more than any prostitute I know
Very strange. I didn’t replace the original file just uploaded a new one which I only posted in the comments.
Thanks for your feedback. To be honest I was just happy to get it out but if we do another one in the future I will look into these suggestions.
@Philip Gamble That’s because the file that you’ve got on the direct link is mono as well. I should have double checked him; Brad was either wrong or someone has already replaced the original with a mono version. Either way though, it’s still a 320 kbps stream. By exporting with a variable bitrate of about 80-120 kbps you can reduce the size by about 42%
@TailWare
Your dad? 😛
Single channel version at http://gamemakerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/GMTalk_2010_01_24_mono.mp3 but the size is still the same.??
@Mattthew_H We did not know how much usable material we would get out of the recording and I am actually quite pleased with the amount we got. We weren’t aiming for a GMLive length show.
@Sam Whited If we do more we will probably set something up like that.
Doesn’t matter to me; it’s just better all around for most people. Unless you’re doing a music podcast stereo sound isn’t really beneficial (it just makes the file bigger).
I already converted it to mono. I can upload that for you if you want O_O
Sounds great; I’d love to see this get its own feed (separate from the GMB one) with good metadata and a nice graphic (So I can actually find it in my list of podcasts).
I agree with Brad though; mixing could be a major problem for people wanting to listen on a PMP (especially if their right earbud is broken…)
Plus, you can save a lot of size (and download time) merging it all to a single VBR channel.
It’s alright.
Really enjoyed doing this. Had a good laugh. 😀
Very well put together, too, Phil. 😉
@Brad Before the show when I had a quick practise I decided that I would fix the voices going back and fourth (and did). When I listened to the final show I thought it sounded okay though. I would appreciate more feedback on this as it is possible to change.
Kind of annoying how the stereo audio had the voices going back and forth between speakers (especially with headphones).
Otherwise, this was an awesome podcast. I especially liked how there weren’t a bunch of pauses and awkward moments like GMLive.
Will there be more of these? 🙂
I really liked it, my only criticism would be it’s length. Of course I understand that you all don’t have 2 hours free time for something like that, or could even be bothered, but I’d certainly like a longer podcast.
Very Interesting & funny. 😛
I have to admit that GMIndie does have a very long way to go, especially with organisation. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
I was actually pretty surprised that Phil pronounced my last name properly.
(Excellent Phil! 😉 )
I was thinking about doing something like this, but now that you’ve taken Jack, I don’t see that happening anymore. haha