Claim OwnershipBrain Arcade
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Unlock the secrets of game design with Brain Arcade! Join Creative Director Chris Cross, a 30+ year industry veteran, as he dives into his insights on building engaging games and mastering the art of communicating with your audience. Looking for deeper knowledge that you can actually apply? Chris and his diverse guests from various professions examine theories and uncover fresh perspectives to validate or debunk Chris' experiential knowledge. Get ready to learn, challenge ideas, and elevate your brain.
29 Episodes
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Stephan Bugaj (Pixar, Telltale, Genvid) joins me to explore the real reasons games succeed and why traditional marketing no longer cuts it. We dig into the saturation of the games market, the myth of “build it and they will come,” and how authentic communities are replacing ad campaigns. We also look at discoverability from a dev’s perspective, how to find your audience and why word of mouth still matters.
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Chris chats with Producer and previous VP of Production, Arthur von Nagel (Ubisoft, Genvid, Telltale), about how small teams build community-driven hits like Vampire Survivors, Balatro, and Cult of the Lamb. They dig into fandom, identity, and why marketing isn't what it used to be.
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Chris sits down with longtime friend, animator and filmmaker Joe Ksander, to trace his path from dorms of UCLA to EA’s Medal of Honor and from Hollywood VFX into making films. They talk about crunch culture, learning animation on the job, and how they shaped each other's storytelling skills. Joe and Chris have a heartfelt chat on perseverance, media production, and 30+ years of friendship through games.
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Emmy-nominated comedy writer, Author, and Comedian Mike Drucker (Nintendo, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Tonight Show) joins Brain Arcade to talk about punching up the comedy for everything from games to TV and film. He brings his years of experience and success to shed light on the difference between comedy games vs. comedy in games and why not every character should have the same punchlines. Plus, he talks favorite funny games, formative titles, and how video games helped shape his comedy taste.
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We're taking a break this week and wanted to say THANK YOU for joining us on this podcast journey!
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Producer Janyl Lambee Tanoy shares insights on building strong partnerships with external development teams covering trust, documentation, communication styles, and how to set clear expectations across studios. A must-listen for anyone optimizing cross-team collaboration in game dev.
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Indie veteran Joe Mirabello (Terrible Posture Games) joins Brain Arcade to unpack how indie studios can survive these challenging times and how their new game "Battle Train" got made with spanning scrappy prototyping and a smart publishing partnerships. We dig into avoiding the “hamster wheel” deals, surviving today’s discoverability crunch, and lessons from scaling a studio without losing their heart. Joe talks through some practical, candid advice for anyone shipping games in 2025.
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Producer, Writer, Director Steve Hoffmann (The Toys That Made Us, Miami Ink) joins Brain Arcade to unpack what game development and rock bands have in common — and why so many studios lose their magic. We talk about the rise of indie teams, nostalgia-fueled arcades, broken business models and the future of creative freedom, this episode is a candid look at the soul of game making in 2025.
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Today we answer your questions and we had a great question come from Plexicraft! Narrative expert, Martin Montgomery, returns to Brain Arcade to dig into how player choices shape narrative. From Chrono Trigger’s hidden consequences to Telltale’s “everyone will remember that” prompts, we explore the pros and cons of explicit feedback vs. subtle systems and what it means for player agency.
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Sound Designer & Creative Director Jonathan Ontiveros (Know Buddy Games) joins Brain Arcade to explore how sound design can craft fear, tension, and immersion in games. We dig into the psychology of sound, silence, and sonic misdirection to shed light on how indie teams can use these tools to shape unforgettable player experiences.
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David Siddock and Chris Cross sit down this week to talk about their shared love for MMOs (especially WoW), why those memories stick, why they quit MMOs, and how we can use this information to focus on building a player-first game in the future. David talks about his person project and some innovative ideas that he's building in to create a game that he would be excited to play.
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Wills from Avalanche joins us to explore how blockchain can potentially empower small teams to build trust-first, community-driven games. We dig into ownership, transparency, and why the future of game development is all about creators and players building together.
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Chris talks about some big changes, he is stepping away from his full-time job and into something new. In this special episode, we flip the mic to talk about the shift, why the current industry isn't built to support sustainable indie dev, and what it would take to change that. From mentorship gaps to missing ecosystems, Chris shares the lessons he’s learned, the problems he wants to help solve, and the long game behind his next chapter.
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Ken from Tashi.gg is back with us again diving deeper into his goal of creating forever games. We talk about sustainable server solutions for live games and how smaller teams can benefit from these options.
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Art Director Jason Priest joins Brain Arcade to talk about his time working on titles like Spider-Man and Medal of Honor, worldbuilding, illusion, and what indie teams can learn from AAA game environments. From visual tricks to modular design, we explore how to create immersive spaces that feel real without needing blockbuster budgets.
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Mission Designer Tatiana Funk joins us this week to talk about her time on the live game Nightingale at Studio Monsoon. Game designing in a live game environment where mechanics evolve, players are constantly breaking things, and a new feature can change everything. We talk about designing around chaos, embracing player ingenuity, and how constraints can breed innovation.
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Producer Jessica Woodard (Terrible Posture Games) joins Brain Arcade to talk about how seemingly unrelated experiences like theater, parenting, and WoW guild raids can lead to powerful contributions in game development especially for small indie teams where everyone wears multiple hats. We explore how small studios benefit when team members are given space to grow and why embracing nontraditional backgrounds can lead to better, more empathetic games.
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UX makes or breaks your game, even if players don't know it. Good UX designers know their work is about designing the entire player journey. In this episode, Chris Cross talks with veteran UX designer Ed Moore about what makes good UX invisible, how friction shapes engagement, and why indie devs need to master the balance between challenge and clarity. Essential listening for anyone making games with intention.
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In this episode of Brain Arcade, we dive into the psychology of nostalgia with Stubbs, founder and proprietor of Retro Handhelds, a news organization and community born during the isolated lull of 2020 to connect people to a simpler time. Retro games can really feel like time machines transporting us back to where you were, who you were with, and how it felt when you played them first. In this episode, we explore why handheld emulation is booming, how game nostalgia builds, and why old games still have something new to teach modern devs.
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Neopets is a wildly successful kids game, it taught people how to code, had a thriving economy, and people still love the game today. What made the game so popular and what is the secret sauce to creating engaging kids content? We talk to Natalie Odien, game designer and current Design Director with over 15 years of experience, about her time on Neopets and how making games for kids is different (or not) from her work on titles like DC Heroes United. Natalie sheds some light on the difference between designing “for kids” vs. designing “family-friendly” content and how respecting young players creates lifelong fans.
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