Best Jam Dev Podcasts (2026)

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Starting an Indie Studio, Getting a Publisher, and Shipping the RPG Indie Hit Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson with Jeff Linville, Ritual Studios 48:56

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2M ago48:56

48:56

In this episode, Jeff Linville — co-founder of Ritual Studios — returns to Game Dev Advice to talk about the journey behind his band-inspired RPG Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson. From starting a studio with college friends to launching worldwide with French publisher Playdigious, Jeff shares the hard-won lessons of taking the leap into full-time ind…

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From Disney’s “Where’s My Water?” to Solo Indie Dev Success: How Creativity and Persistence Built a Game Career, with Tim “Walaber” FitzRandolph 1:21:34

5M ago1:21:34

1:21:34

In this episode, we dive deep into Tim’s creative journey behind Disney’s hit mobile game Where’s My Water? and what it really takes to break into and succeed in the game industry. From starting out in QA testing to leading creative teams at Disney, and later becoming a successful solo indie developer, Tim’s conversation is packed with insights, st…

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038 — Extensions of Me 11:16

6M ago11:16

11:16

The OpenGraphs browser extensions are live! Well, at least some/most of them!! I share the latest updates on what I am working on for https://www.opengraphs.com, along with some browser extension inconsistencies. You can find the OpenGraph Browser Extensions here: Chrome - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/opengraphs/kiifpjdcadbbbhoocoobahko…

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037 — No Waves 13:20

6M ago13:20

13:20

Or, you can watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iU2PMrYUNIQ After attempting and failing to get an episode out the last couple of weeks, I am happy to say that I finally recorded one, and I am getting it out early this week. A lot of stuff has happened over the last 2.5 weeks, so here’s a quick run down, along with links: Optimizations wer…

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Laughs, Games & Career Turns: Mike Drucker’s Path from SNL, Nintendo to Tonight Show and New Memoir 1:01:45

7M ago1:01:45

1:01:45

In this episode of Game Dev Advice, writer and comedian Mike Drucker shares his journey across the worlds of television, video games, and comedy. Starting as an assistant and researcher at Saturday Night Live, Mike moved into game localization at Nintendo—where he even played basketball with Reggie Fils-Aimé—before joining The Tonight Show Starring…

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036 — Pedal to the Metal 13:24

7M ago13:24

13:24

Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rLRNnlzIOQM I connected with Vercel this past week to discuss how I could both optimize and try to control the costs that https://www.starterpacks.net was accumulating. I did walk away with some techniques that I will try on the next site I launch on Vercel where I need to try to maintain a consistent bi…

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035 — $800 Gorilla in the Room 10:20

7M ago10:20

10:20

Unfortunately I missed my milestone of getting an early release of https://www.skylounge.social deployed during Release Day. But, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It’s kind of hard to run when it feels like you have a knife in your stomach and you don’t know how to stop the bleeding. I dig into what attempts I made to optimize the NextJS App for htt…

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034 — Who’s ready to Jam!? 8:34

8M ago8:34

8:34

A quick update on this glorious hump day, just in time before I head out to the Atlanta PHP meetup (https://phpxatl.com). Tomorrow, May 21st at 11:30am EDT I’ll be chatting with Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com) about his recent launch of Instrumental Components (https://instrumental.dev). Join us in the stream and if you have any questions for …

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033 — Just Oil the Chair 5:31

8M ago5:31

5:31

I listened to a podcast episode back on January 30, 2025, and there are 3 little words that have been bouncing around in the back of my head ever since whenever I turn on the mic to stream or record, "oil your chair". The podcast episode was from Justin Jackson (https://justinjackson.ca) and Jeremy Enns (https://jeremyenns.com) on their Podcasting …

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032 — Streaming Developments: Breaking ground on skylounge.social 12:53

8M ago12:53

12:53

Some quick updates on the status of https://www.starterpacks.net and announcing the new project that I am working on! Since the last update, the crawlers have been crawling—HEAVILY—accessing the site over 24M 👀 times. Needless to say, my Vercel bill is going to be a little higher this month, but 🤞 it will be worth it. Since the last update where th…

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Stuart Maine on 28 Years in Game Development: Starting a Studio, Building Great Teams, Career Advice & Lessons for Aspiring Devs & His New Books 50:23

8M ago50:23

50:23

In this interview, veteran game designer Stuart Maine shares his 28-year journey in the gaming industry, detailing his humble beginnings in a cyber café to becoming a senior designer at Two Desperados, a mobile games company in Serbia. Stuart recounts his early days at Bullfrog and his time at renowned companies like Acclaim and Blitz, working on n…

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031 — Appeasing the SEO Gods 10:19

9M ago10:19

10:19

You can also watch the video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/ENFM-pQK5iM A quick update about some recent updates I pushed out on https://www.starterpacks.net. In the last episode, I announced the addition of the Quick Starter Pack Editor to the site. Since then, I have rolled out a few tweaks to make it nicer, like preventing duplicate entries t…

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030 — New Starter Packs Features 12:14

9M ago12:14

12:14

After a few weeks away I am back with some fresh updates that have been deployed to Starter Packs (https://www.starterpacks.net). The first—and best feature, imho—is the Quick Starter Pack Editor. This feature makes it easy to add people to your existing Bluesky Starter Packs in as little as 3 clicks (maybe more if you want to add them to multiple …

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029 — Wrestling with SaaS Pricing: Building Value to Justify Prices 12:22

10M ago12:22

12:22

Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WNmupzrWcAA What goes into setting and justifying your SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing? I had the goal of getting subscription plans setup for https://www.starterpacks.net before a queued job I had running to backfill data that I needed to support those plans was done processing. I ultimately did ge…

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Building a Successful Indie Studio with No Industry Experience, Betting on Steam, Game Jams, Finishing Crashlands 2, Recording 500+ Podcasts, Stacking the Dice, and Storefront Featuring—Adam Coster, CEO ... 1:19:45

11M ago1:19:45

1:19:45

In this episode, Adam Coster, CEO of Butterscotch Shenanigans, shares his unique journey of joining and growing the indie studio with his brothers Sam and Seth. Adam discusses their beginnings in 2012, the steep challenges they faced, and how a personal family crisis redefined their mission to bring joy through games. He then shares insights into t…

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028 — Racing the Queues 15:06

11M ago15:06

15:06

The queues are up and running on Starter Packs and I have roughly 2 days before they are done, so my goal is to get all the pricing and subscriptions integrated into the site before they are done. I also dig into some background on getting the queues working in the NestJS app, and how I had to tune them to get them running efficiently—and fast! Wat…

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Navigating Game Industry Challenges, Job Hunting After a Layoff, the Rise of Consulting Firms, Celebrity Stories, and Starting a New Company—Adam Boyes, Founder of Vivrato 1:01:25

11M ago1:01:25

1:01:25

In this episode, industry veteran Adam Boyes discusses the complexities of the video games industry, from the challenges of sustaining AAA games to navigating market dynamics and the impact of large-scale layoffs. He shares insights from his journey founding Vivrato and highlights the importance of innovation and thoughtful leadership. The conversa…

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027 — Overcoming Obstacles 12:07

12M ago12:07

12:07

While I was working on some updates for Starter Packs, I ran into an authentication bug that I wanted to fix. As I was working through the bug, and deploying the updates, all of a sudden my feature branch on Vercel stopped loading pages properly, but not all pages. In this episode, I dig into facing and overcoming obstacles that get in the way of m…

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026 — Starter Packs Updates 16:06

12M ago16:06

16:06

After last week’s Jam Session with Brian Casel, I was on the fence on which project I wanted to commit to in 2025. After that conversation, and a little reflection, I realized that I wanted to see Starter Packs through to the original vision for the project. Also, the amount of effort to get it there—I think—will be less than I had originally thoug…

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Melon Cast - #5: Team Melon Revival 1:40:09

1y ago1:40:09

1:40:09

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝟮 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀!In this episode we talk about what we have been doing, what games we have worked on the last 2 years.We are joined by: Pxl Dev @PxlDev Danqzq @danqzq BigMemerMan1 @BigMemerMan1 Ommtdh Wolfenrahd @Wolfenrahd ⏩ Cottage Ville steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/23...⏩ Toilet Zone 2 steam page:…

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025 — Welcome to 2025 11:38

1y ago11:38

11:38

Welcome to 2025! I have been kind of having mixed emotions going into the new year, doing a lot of reflecting and projecting what I want to achieve this year. Definitely feeling mostly excited, but also a bit nervous. I get into creating my new LLC, Commune Software (https://commune.software), looking forward to the live stream today with Mubs (htt…

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Starting a Studio, Thriving Post-Layoff, Working at Epic Games, the Rise of UGC, Hiring Is Broken, Street Fighter: The Movie, Empathy, and Building Games for Fortnite with CEO Alan Noon of Drill Creative ... 52:02

1y ago52:02

52:02

In this episode, I caught up with Alan Noon, founder and CEO of Drill Creative, Inc., to discuss his journey from decades in the game industry to launching his own studio. Alan shared how his work on UEFN at Epic Games, including shipping Deserted Domination and the big GDC reveal, plus his desire to return to hands-on game creation. After a layoff…

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024 — Perfecting My Reflecting 13:05

1y ago13:05

13:05

Tis’ the season for introspection, self reflection, and projections for what the New Year will hold. Today I share some background into my process of reflecting and projecting on the things I need to get done, along with some ideas on how I plan on expanding and refining that process. If you have a process you use to help yourself get better I woul…

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023 — Hacking the Starter Packs 14:36

1y ago14:36

14:36

So, what do you do when you start to run into walls, or slow downs, on the project you’re working on? I feel like I am at, or approaching one of those slow downs, and am trying to get ahead of it. Since my last update when I announced Starter Packs, I have been busy continuing to build the logged out experience of the site. Focusing on gathering as…

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Working at Valve, Finding Mentors, Reinventing Yourself, Collecting Pinball, Grit, Nolan Bushnell, Working Under Pressure, Silicon Valley, The Enthusiasm Advantage, and Ham Radio with CEO Jeri Ellsworth ... 2:03:32

1y ago2:03:32

2:03:32

Summary: Jeri Ellsworth shares her journey from childhood fascination with technology to becoming the CEO of Tilt Five. She describes her early interest in science and computers, fueled by her father's gift of a Commodore 64. Jeri recounts her experiences in racing, learning fabrication skills, and self-promotion to fund her racing career. Transiti…

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022 — Just Getting Starter’d 17:22

1y ago17:22

17:22

Wow, it’s been over a month since my last episode. That’s not due to me being too lazy, if anything just the opposite. I have been thrashing around on projects, but I would like to introduce you to my latest project that is piggy backing on the mass migration to Bluesky. Just after the election, it seemed like the draw for a new platform that was a…

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021 — Reserving Fuel 11:48

1y ago11:48

11:48

How do you apply and reserve your fuel for the things you are working? That’s what I am wrestling with today. Typically, I reserve these early morning sessions for my personal stuff, so I can take advantage of the fresh tank of brain juice to pull from. I feel like with personal projects there’s always more critical thinking and personal hesitation…

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020 — Keeping Momentum 14:28

1+ y ago14:28

14:28

A quick, long one about trying to maintain momentum as challenges and inconsistencies present themselves. To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm. Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recomm…

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Starting a Studio, Don’t Give Up, Self Publishing, Being a CEO, and the Gold Rush ‘90s with Brad Hendricks of Blind Squirrel Entertainment 1:05:27

1+ y ago1:05:27

1:05:27

In this episode, I speak with Brad Hendricks, CEO and Founder of Blind Squirrel Entertainment. Brad talks about his path from working with new game technologies to starting his own company after his previous job at Gamebryo ended. He shares how he and his team landed their first project with 2K Games, kickstarting their game development journey bef…

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019 — Announcing, Jam Sessions: Public Edition 5:26

1+ y ago5:26

5:26

Since today is International Podcast Day, I figured it was only fitting to try to get an episode out today. Thankfully I have something very topical to announce today as well, a new podcast! Last week I streamed and posted the first episode of, Jam Sessions: Public Edition, or just, Jam Sessions. A few episodes back I had announced Jam Sessions: Pr…

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018 — Building Spiral Staircases 6:45

1+ y ago6:45

6:45

During my run this morning I was thinking about all the different projects I have up in the air, and how some of those can help to provide a foundation, or utility, to the other projects that I am working on, but at the same time can feel like a waste of time to work on in the moment. Then, out of no where, I started to think about the construction…

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017 — Flow like water 11:16

1+ y ago11:16

11:16

Giving into the flow. I feel like I have been getting frustrated with myself for not fully focusing on a single project. After all, that's the only way to build a successful product. Right? RIGHT??? So, I have succumb to my fleeting thoughts and ideas to go where the water is taking me and not wasting time, nor energy, trying to fight the temptatio…

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Navigating a Layoff, Importance of Networking, Working at PlayStation, Resumes and Portfolios, Mental Health, The Rise of Indies, Building a Brand, and Accepting Change with Alex Gombos 1:02:23

1+ y ago1:02:23

1:02:23

In this episode, I speak with Alex Gombos, a seasoned talent acquisition manager who shares her insights and career journey in the gaming industry. Most recently, she supported the game development studios at PlayStation. Alex highlights the importance of networking, building an online presence, and being proactive in pursuing career goals, whether…

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016 — No, FOMO. Just, LOSE. 6:56

1+ y ago6:56

6:56

With all the conferences happening over the past couple of months, it has really got me thinking about the lack of socializing I have had since moving down to Atlanta. I wouldn't necessarily say it’s a fear of missing out (FOMO), but more a lack of social interaction, or engagement to make the acronym better, LOSE. For 2025, I am trying to create s…

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015 — Fixed It! 16:08

1+ y ago16:08

16:08

I did it! I was able to fix LinkCards and stabilize the service. And, to my surprise, it actually looked like some of the traffic was actually legitimate open graph images being generated. Once I was able to stabilize the servers, and finally access the dashboard I noticed that my site pkgstats.com has almost 2 million images generated for it, so I…

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014 — Jam Sessions: Private Edition on ripple.fm 6:14

1+ y ago6:14

6:14

I just wanted to give a quick update on a new, private podcast that I am starting on ripple.fm. The show is called Jam Session: Private Edition, and it’s going to be a place to put some recorded discussions that are possibly too private for your traditional public podcast that gets blasted out to all the podcast places. The idea for the show is a b…

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013 — Maintenance Modes 11:56

1+ y ago11:56

11:56

Trying to keep the spirits high in this otherwise kind of low week, littered with some Summer sickness and a lot of client work. As much as I had hoped to work some more on Transmits, I ended up getting wrapped up in a lot of client work, along with some maintenance work to clean up some spillage from last weeks publishing of the Transmits Podcast.…

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012 — Transmits Is Getting a Pod 10:33

1+ y ago10:33

10:33

As I have been working on building Transmits, I started reading Rob Walling’s (@robwalling) book, Start Small, Stay Small. I was originally reading his latest book, The SaaS Playbook, but like he suggests in there, if your business is not at a certain monthly recurring revenue (MRR) you might be better off going back and reading his first book, so …

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011 — Transmits Goes Mobile 10:05

1+ y ago10:05

10:05

After recording the last episode via Transmits, I mentioned that I needed to test recording on playback on mobile, specifically Mobile Safari (since I am an iPhone user), and Chrome on Android. My goal for Transmits is that I can launch the initial version as a progressive web app (PWA), so it’s crucial for it to work when added to the home screen …

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010 — Recording from Transmits 9:09

1+ y ago9:09

9:09

A milestone has been reached! This is the first episode to be recorded in Transmits!! Obviously, these are early days (the official second recording made in the app was this episode), but recordings are being captured via the web app and stored locally via the File System API in the OPFS (Origin private file system). The goal is to get this early v…

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Starting a Game Company, Underserved Developers, New Opportunities, Finding a Publisher, Industry Sustainability, Networking, Navigating Change, MDEV, Being Authentic, and Skee-Ball with Ben Kvalo of Midwest ... 1:01:17

1+ y ago1:01:17

1:01:17

In this episode, I speak with Ben Kvalo, the Founder and CEO of Midwest Games. Discover how Midwest Games focuses on supporting underserved developers in overlooked regions, aiming for a more sustainable industry, and learn about the upcoming MDEV conference. Ben shares his journey into the game industry, starting with his transition from radio to …

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009 — Introducing, Transmits 12:53

1+ y ago12:53

12:53

I have finally settled on the project that I will be documenting on this podcast. I would like to introduce you to, Transmits. transmits.io is domain I have been sitting on for the past 4 years. When I had originally registered it I was working on a React Native prototype of an app that I was exploring, which was essentially an iOS Voice Memos app …

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008 — A Focus on Interest 8:20

1+ y ago8:20

8:20

Just a quick one on a mindset that I have been trying to apply to the things that I have been working on, or committing to, in 2024. The concept revolves around two requirements to meet when committing to a project/client/etc. Those two requirements are, the project either has to be interesting, whether that is interesting to work on, an interestin…

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Creating ANIMAL WELL, Building a Game Engine, Finding Opportunities, Indie Games, Dunkey, Going to DePaul, Having Patience, Publisher BIGMODE, Disdain for Midjourney Assets and Crow Country with Billy ... 1:32:55

1+ y ago1:32:55

1:32:55

In this episode, I spoke with Billy Basso, the sole developer behind the hit indie game ANIMAL WELL. Discover how he began working on the game as an after-work hobby 7 years ago, and his vision for creating a lush, 2D Metroidvania experience where players explore underground caves, solve puzzles, and encounter creatures with minimal guidance. Billy…

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007 — Context is King 12:05

1+ y ago12:05

12:05

Reflecting on Laravel vs. React debate that went down a few weeks back, got me thinking about Context. Context switching. The context that influences the decisions we make. Really, just about context in general. My focus has been to try to minimize the amount of context switching that I am doing, which is already difficult while managing multiple c…

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006 — Embracing the Thrash 12:02

1+ y ago12:02

12:02

The struggle is real-ish. In this episode I get into the tension I have been feeling as I am in my -1 to 0 phase, trying to figure out which project/product I want to place my energy towards (first), and some of the technical stuff I plan on incorporating in the projects I am planning on taking on. Some of those core technology areas include: Event…

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005 — Pressing Publish 12:54

1+ y ago12:54

12:54

In this episode I reflect on officially hitting publish on this podcast. The steps that lead up to the release, along with all the excitement and anxiety that builds up before pressing that button. From creating the cover art, to settling on the format—or lack there of—to writing descriptions, and deciding whether or not to pay the extra $5/month t…

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004 — Building allplay.fm 11:38

1+ y ago11:38

11:38

In this episode I dig into why I decided to build a custom site for this podcast vs. using one of the templated sites that TransistorFM offers. Part of it is based on some of my ideas about utilizing platforms to push traffic back to sites that you own. The other part of it was I just had an idea of what I wanted the site to look like, and how I wa…

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003 — No Edits 6:49

1+ y ago6:49

6:49

tl;dr I am not going to be editing these episodes, so please bare with me. Although, if you want me to reflect on it a bit more, there’s a reason for making the active choice to not edit these episodes. Part of that decision is based on efficiency, as I work through these episodes I am trying to take all the ideas swirling around in my head and plu…

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002 — Style and Error 11:57

1+ y ago11:57

11:57

CSS and component libraries, where to begin? Over the years I have used a bunch of different flavors including, css-modules, styled-components, CSS + Sass and a few other things. But, over the last 3 years or so, I have been primarily using ChakraUI, which is a component library that offers a really nice way to setup your theme—based on styled-syst…