Toca Boca’s Amanda Rösler joins us to discuss making great games for kids. We talk about why Toca Boca’s apps are more like toys than they are games, games for kids on the App Store, the pitfalls of making games for kids, and tea parties. Later, we talk about co-op games we’re looking forward to playing. Toca Boca Toca Town The Kids section of the App Store The Úll Conference Oregon Trail Dead Space 3 The Luigi Death Stare Splatoon Super Hot...
iMore’s Peter Cohen joins us to discuss morality in video games, and what it means to play dictators, serial killers, and just plain jerks. We determine whether or not this makes us bad people, and whether or not it’s going to traumatize our kids. Finally, we discuss the futility of going to E3. BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic The Modern Warfare 2 Fastest Speed Run Ever Skyrim’s evil missions Being a demon in The Darkness Trying to be good in Deus Ex: Human Revolution Tropico , everybody’s...
Justin Voss of Low Earth Orbit joins us to talk stealth games. We discuss the origin of stealth games, instant failure, and the joy of finding alternative ways to complete a mission. Then, we rag on Metal Gear Solid and salivate over E3 announcements. The original Thief Eavesdropping in Assassin’s Creed Splinter Cell Outposts in Far Cry 3 Deus Ex: Human Revolution Metal Gear Solid 3’s River of Sorrow and The End Polygon’s Best of E3 Alien: Isolation Preview Bungie’s Destiny on previous-gen and c...
Scott Stevenson of Low Earth Orbit joins us to talk open world games. We discuss side quests, railroading, and trying to tell a story when the player can ruin everything. As usual, we end with a diversion into games we’re excited about, and some peculiar Kickstarters. Thief Hey cousin! Let’s go bowling! Thank goodness everything is back to normal! Infamous Second Son Polygon’s Spider-Man 2 Review Red Dead Redemption Nathan Drake Radical’s Prototype Fez’ $40,000 bug fix Fuel ReRoll, the Kickstart...
Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland joins us to discuss the great failures in game consoles. We talk about our favourite doomed consoles, the story of Sega’s downfall, and Nintendo’s journey through the desert with the Wii U. The Apple Pippin TurboGrafx-16 Console prices adjusted for inflation The heinously bad Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties Steven Frank’s Dragon’s Lair story Virtual Boy The Sega Saturn The Sega Dreamcast Nintendo lowering the bar for the Wii U and missing anyway Paying to Win Soul Calibur Sha...
Developer and humourist Curtis Lassam joins us to discuss humour in games. We discuss comically hard games, sandboxes as a vehicle for comedy, what makes it hard to write a funny game, and a goat. Octodad QWOP Enviro-Bear 2000 The Worms series Dwarf Fortress Boatmurdered Team Fortress’ “Meet The Team” shorts Steamclock Software Cave Johnson’s dialogue from Portal 2 The dialogue in Duke Nukem Forever Goat Simulator Trailer “Xbox Sign Out” trolling Spelunky Super Time Force review on Polygon...
Neven Mrgan , designer of wonderful apps and games, joins us to discuss retro games. We discuss his upcoming game Space Age, the challenges of pixel art, and Neven’s previous games The Incident and Blackbar. Space Age The Incident Scaling Pixel Art from Microsoft Research Gus Mueller’s excellent Acorn Shaun Inman’s letter M Sword and Sworcery Retro Game Crunch Monkey Island in CryEngine The rights to No One Lives Forever Firewatch Paradox Factor Blackbar Hitman GO...
Myke Hurley , world-renowned podcaster, joins us to discuss portable consoles, the future of the PS Vita, and the iPhone as a portable game console. Directional , Myke’s gaming podcast with Federico Viticci OlliOlli for PS Vita Indie games on the PS Vita MOGA Power Ace Game Controller for iOS VGChartz , purveyor of worldwide console sales numbers One Song, 7.5 Writers by I Fight Dragons Eirik Suhrke’s wonderful video game music Hitman GO David Smith on how to improve the App Store...
Grace “GTZ” of Fat, Ugly, or Slutty joins us to discuss jerks on Xbox Live, getting people to play nice together, and hellbanning. Fat, Ugly, or Slutty League of Legends and the fine art of Jungling Grace’s panels at PAX 2013 and earlier about positively shaping player behaviour Riot Games’ experiments with Restricted Chat Mode and toxic behaviour The lessons Journey teaches us Guild Wars 2 staff respond to Redditors as to why their account was banned Castro , the nicest podcast app Smart Match ...
Angelina Fabbro of Mozilla joins us to discuss games on the web, why the hell people are still using C++, and business models for web-based games. After that, we jump in to games we’re playing on the iPad, what’s wrong with MMOs, and how Pokémon will never die. Mozilla’s GDC 2014 announcements Unreal 4’s pricing drop to $19 per month The Unity 3d Engine The Mozilla Manifesto asm.js , the low-level subset of JavaScript LLJS Cookie Clicker Monster Madness in WebGL WebGL on iOS devices The death of...
Monument Valley’s Ken Wong joins us to discuss games as art, Monument Valley, and the business of crafting meaningful games. Monument Valley Video games can never be art by Roger Ebert Journey Gone Home and why you should play it instead of Dear Esther Threes , the tiny puzzle that grows on you Numberwang 2048 Numberwang Passage Sword and Sworcery Ken’s last game, HackyCat Windosill The arduous process of making Threes The design of Zendo Antichamber...
Scott Stevenson of Low Earth Orbit joins us to discuss game reviews, game-breaking bugs, and what’s wrong with Lara Croft getting impaled. IGN’s Assassin’s Creed 3 Review A few hundred of Skyrim’s bugs Double Fine’s Hack and Slash The VanCocoa meetup Polygon’s Dragon’s Crown review Polygon’s review policy Tomb Raider, Torture Porn, and Looking For an Audience That Exists by Jeff Vogel Fat Princess inFamous for PS4 Old Man Murray’s Time to Crate Review System Send us feedback on the show...
Gaslamp Games’ David Baumgart joins us to discuss Clockwork Empires, simulations, and pickled fungi. Rock Paper Shotgun’s wonderful preview of Clockwork Empires Dwarf Fortress Stories Creature training in Black & White Engineering Faith , the ill-fated religion simulator Cube Drone Low Earth Orbit episode 34 on Spacebase DF-9 PC Gamer’s gameplay footage of Clockwork Empires Duke Nukem lawsuit Michael Abrash’s talk on what’s next in VR An excruciatingly detailed fungus pickling simulator...
Tyson Kallberg joins us to discuss why games are getting easier, what makes us want to ragequit, and death by checkpoint. Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels Deus Ex: Human Revolutions’s outsourced boss battles The Team Fortress 2 Deathcam You Will Die Instantly! , the episode of Hypercritical that we accidentally nearly quote, then later refer to Ikaruga Rage Quit Eve Online: The Most Thrilling Boring Game Please take a minute and rate the show on iTunes...
Guy English and Nigel tell tales of the hacks that make games work, from fast inverse square root to assembly shenanigans. Allen tries to keep things understandable for non-programmers, and fails spectacularly. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 Fast Inverse Square Root The End of the World of Minecraft The VanCocoa meetup...
Patrick Gibson joins us to discuss games that are too long, side quests, tearing up, and flapping. Tomb Raider 2013 Ben Franklin’s Almanac Pages The Top Free to Play Monetization Tricks Maverick Bird Patrick’s Flappy Bird high score Squarespace , the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website....
Parveen Kaler joins us to discuss sequels, plastic guitars, and the unfair advantage of being Batman. Guitar Hero’s 20 games in 5 years Top Rated Games of 2013 Top Rated Films of 2013 Steamclock Software...
Matt Kump joins us to discuss In App Purchase, what horrible things it’s done to the games we love, and what we can learn from Party Poker. Glitch Clash of Clans in the shower Matt’s upcoming iOS game Party Monster...
