Brain Arcade
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.
Episodes
September 9, 2025 • 45 mins
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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September 2, 2025 • 47 mins
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 practi...
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August 28, 2025 • 50 mins
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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August 26, 2025 • 48 mins
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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August 12, 2025 • 48 mins
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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August 5, 2025 • 48 mins
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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July 26, 2025 • 49 mins
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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July 22, 2025 • 51 mins
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 ch...
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July 15, 2025 • 52 mins
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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July 8, 2025 • 47 mins
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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July 1, 2025 • 45 mins
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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June 24, 2025 • 46 mins
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, mor...
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June 17, 2025 • 47 mins
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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June 10, 2025 • 46 mins
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 emula...
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June 3, 2025 • 40 mins
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 lik...
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May 27, 2025 • 49 mins
We kick back with Layla Mamedova—Cinematic Pipeline Manager, deep thinker, and proud purveyor of Uncle Energy—for a candid chat about the psychology of group dynamics, how to make teams that thrive, and her experience moving from an Artist to Production role.
We unpack the very real physical toll of burnout and how creative teams can either lift each other up—or collapse under the weight of misaligned goals and corporate pressures...
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May 20, 2025 • 46 mins
Is gaming actually bad for you!? Liam is back today to talk to us about Dopamine and how it's not really what you probably think it is. We talk through what Dopamine really is, how our brains are effected by games, and whether or not that effect is actually bad.
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May 13, 2025 • 49 mins
We are huge fans of Ken Anderson from Tashi.gg and their support for the indie revolution! Ken has created some amazing solutions so that indie game studios can build smooth live games that can compete with big live ops titles. We talk about what makes games like Roblox, League, and Call of Duty feel 'smooth' and how FPS isn't the solution to everything.
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May 6, 2025 • 46 mins
How do we create engaging interactive stories that compliment and heighten gameplay experiences? We talk to Martin Montgomery, Emmy Award-Winning Creative Director, Writer, and Consultant about his industry secrets and philosophies by studying some well known games. Martin has worked on titles like Legends of Runeterra, DC Heroes United, Silent Hill: Ascension, and Telltale's The Walking Dead
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April 29, 2025 • 42 mins
Ayla Derrick, founder of Cave Bear Games, found viral success with the launch of her volunteer indie studio. Celebrating the early access launch for their game Plantasia, we chat about the psychology behind idle games and why we love them.
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