Checkpoints

My guest on today's show is Gita Jackson, a Chicago based writer and critic and one of the hosts of the Match 3 Podcast. You may have read some of her work on Giantbomb or Polygon or Twitter or Paste. She is smart and funny and her gaming history is absolutely nothing like mine which makes for a terrific guest and a perfect example of why I started this show. From early games of NBA JAM with her brother to her current obsession with Dwarf Fortress we chart Gita's life in games. There's the gothic melodrama of Final Fantasy X, the visceral thrill of Skyrim & Saints Row, the life affirming experience of The World Ends with You and the rediscovery of games through the lens of academia. There are many tangents but boy do we cover a lot of games including: NBA JAM, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Skyrim, Saints Row, GTA, LA Noire, Ico, Rez, Crusader Kings 2, Dwarf Fortress, Watchdogs, Game Dev Story, We Know the Devil and Life Line. XOXO

Steven Bailey is stupid clever. He has a PHD in mathematics, he's likely written some of the best videogame writing you've ever read, and now as a videogame analyst he's charting the future of the industry. From unbelievable stories of arcade nirvana in the Welsh valleys through to mapping the future of the industry via writing for teletext, living in hospitals and the life altering properties of Guardian Heroes. This is one of the most insightful and candid conversations I've had on the show so far. Steven has confessions from his time as a videogame journalist, fond memories of friendships forged in multiplayer Secret of Mana, frustration at the Witness and delight at selling Mr C off Hollyoaks a Dreamcast. Tidy!

Greg Rice is the VP of Business Development for Double Fine, and was the producer of the Double Fine Adventure and Broken Age. Greg Rice also has a minor in dance. I was first exposed to Greg through the Double Fine Adventure, the excellent documentary by 2 Player Productions about the development of Broken Age. Games are such huge collaborative projects that it's rare to get such an insight into the people behind the scenes and the many hands that go into making a game. Greg seemed the perfect example of somebody who contributes so much to the development of a game, but whose hand may go unseen in the final product. I was delighted to talk to him. We talk about learning to read with Zelda, playing GTA as a tourist, why the Dreamcast is the greatest console, his experience playing VR Rez in the vibration suit and his unlikely journey to Double Fine via Opera Singing, Musical Theatre & training to be a doctor (!?) Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa. Games discussed: Super Mario Bros. Goldeneye, Rez, Guitar Hero, Proteus, Psychonauts, Destiny, 140 and The Lion King.

Today's guest is Kerry Turner. Kerry makes games under the banner of The Rabbit Club, is a freelance unity developer and founded Make,Play,Code - a course designed to encourage more women to make games. We talk about videogames as places to visit, rediscovering a love of coding, solo LARPing, why snow in games is amazing, revisiting that game that you could never beat and the videogame equivalent of guitar feedback. Some of the games we talk about include - Granny's Garden, The Sims, Fable, Cities Skylines, Sweatshop, Final Fantasy, Rodland and the Secret of Monkey Island.

Our first guest for 2016 is Adam 'Atomic' Saltsman. Adam is perhaps best known for creating the genre defining endless runner, Canabalt, as well as creating the Flixel design tool and founding the game studio Finji alongside his wife Rebekah. We talk the Super Mario Bros. piano grip, playing in punk bands, how Street Fighter changed his life, the creation of Canabalt, working with Keita Takahashi and the importance of degaussing. Also discussed: Symphony of the Night, Katamari Damacy, Sonic the Hedgehog, Journey to Silius, Sumotori Dreams and Castlevania - Symphony of the Night and Adam's current project Overland.

My guest on today's show is David Farrell, lecturer in videogame design at Glasgow Caledonian University. We recorded this live at the university and discuss the amazing set up that they have and the fun toys they can use to understand how people play games. There is some serious 'What is a game?' chat so be prepared, and we delve into David's videogame history, from tape trading on the spectrum to time management in The Witcher 3. David also talks about his job, and how teaching games and teasing apart how they work can be just as much fun as playing them.

My guest on today's show is Brendon Chung. Founder of Blendo games and creator of Gravity Bone, Atom Zombie Smasher, Thirty Flights of Loving and the upcoming Quadrilateral Cowboy. Many of Brendon's games have been built using the mod tools from games like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, so the games that Brendon creates and the games that have shaped his life intertwine in fascinating way. Things like Doom, Quake, and Thief are both videogame milestones in his life but also their mod tools form the backbone of the games he makes. We talk about kind uncles, pulling things apart to see how they work, environmental story telling in Doom, making movies about a golf club wielding hitman, being so good at Quake multiplayer that you can echo locate players through the pick ups they collect and how you would really act if you were your character in Fallout 4.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Gamecity I recorded a special edition of the show live from the festival. This is different to the usual show where I have one guest and talk about the games that shaped them. In this episode, the checkpoint is a single year, and my panel of guests talk about their life and the games they played at that exact point. Since this was the tenth anniversary of Gamecity, we decided on the year 2005. Myself, creator of Killbox Malath Abbas, host of One Life Left and creator of Chime Ste Curran, and the founder of Gamecity, Iain Simons, ruminate on the impact of that year. This show was recorded live from the National Videogame Arcade at Gamecity on the 29th of October. I was thrilled to do this, I hope you enjoy the show. Josh who was running the desk at the event did an incredible job with the recording, so huge thanks to him, to everyone at Gamecity, to my brilliant guests, and of course, to you.

Today's guest is Richard Lemarchand. A game designer with an enviable CV including Jak X, Soul Reaver and the Uncharted series, Richard is now an associate professor at the University of Southern California where he lectures on the videogame programme. We talk about that transition from AAA development to teaching, how his mum was responsible for getting him his start, the similarities between magic and design, and how sometimes being bad at games can help you be a better designer. Along the way we cover Sonic the Hedgehog, F15 Strike Eagle, Electroplankton, Hurt Me Plenty, Syndicate and Portal. This is a triumph.

Episode 20: Today's guest is Chris Crawford, an iconic figure in the history of videogames, not least because he was the founder of the Game Developer's Conference, which started as a small meeting of developers in his living room in August 1987. Chris is not one to do things by half, and despite his rich pedigree and his influential writing, he left the videogame industry in 1992 in a blaze of glory with his now famous Dragon Speech. He left to make games about people rather than things. 23 years later he continues this quest, with Siboot being the most recent example. We talk about his beginnings in game design, about working at Atari during the videogame crash, how he's currently building a tank (!), what prompted him to make the Dragon Speech, abut how he perceives stories as algorithms and how maths is the key to the future of our civilisation. We touch on Pacman, Balance of Power, Gossip, Civilisation and Papers Please. Dream well.