This week, Bioshock: The Collection hit store shelves, gathering almost a decade's worth of BioShock games and DLC onto one disc for the first time. To commemorate its release, (and the loads of BioShock nostalgia that came with it), we invited former Irrational Games lead level designer Bill Gardner to play the first hour with us on our new Twitch Channel.

Thanks to the addition of several game design clubs and classrooms joining us via Twitch chat, the experience wound up not just being a great look back at BioShock's development, but also an instructive tutorial on iterative level design. As we entered Rapture for the first time (again), Gardner took a few moments to explain everything from the game's first introduction to combat to how he and his colleagues introduced players to concepts like Plasmids, "the one-two punch," and more.

It's worth a watch for aspiring game developers, especially if you want to hear Gardner explain one of his key level design philosophies---introducing players to an obstacle before guiding them to a path towards the solution.

Be sure to subscribe to our new Twitch channel to get notified about new broadcasts every Friday at 3PM EST, and to watch last week's show where we interviewed the developers of Valley.