Everybody's Talking At Once

Game Workers Unite is at the forefront of the effort to unionize the games industry—and according to Emma Kinema, the best way to do that is to treat it as an industry, organized under a single union rather than broken up by role or discipline. Why is that the way to go? How could the change improve game development, not to mention games themselves?

Emma is one of the most recognizable and convincing voices for the movement, and here she talks us through the conditions under which games get made, the history of labor and markets, and how we can use lessons from the latter to make the former better and more democratic.

The Game Workers Unite and CODA-CWA websites both have lots more information.

• Here's a piece about Game Workers Unite making common cause with the Communications Workers of America.

• Do check out the Game Workers Unite episode of the Humans Who Make Games podcast, as well as Emma's episode of Your Geeky Gal Pal.

• You can find out more about the workings of co-op game studios—including Motion Twin, Pixel Pushers Union 512, Talespinners, Spek Work, Wild Blue Studios, The Glory Society, TESA, Black Flag, Make Big Things, and La Poule Noire—on the Game Workers Unite website.

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Neo Cab is the debut game from Chance Agency, about the last human rideshare cabbie in an aggressively automated, vertically integrated, near-future California city. In this episode, Vincent Perea discusses the game's visuals (a masterclass in scale, scope, and focus), and Paula Rogers discusses the game's writing process (which, by design, more closely resembled a TV writers' room than a traditional game pipeline). More than that, both talk about how Neo Cab's various elements are inextricably linked, the challenges of character-focused narratives—and of extensive branching—and the fertile grounds of richly simulating characters' emotions.

Stay human, friends. And also: RISE!

You can get Neo Cab on Steam, Switch, and Apple Arcade.

• Here's a RockPaperShotgun piece about Neo Cab and nowpunk.

• And here's my favorite video on the challenges of dialogue animation.

• That documentary about the Ovarian Psychos will be on PBS this March.

• Here's an introduction to the cause of Claudia Mitchell.

• And here's Paula's "Anatomy of a Character" post.

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David Galindo's exacting, deadpan-absurdist Cook, Serve, Delicious! series is officially a trilogy, with Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! taking the at-the-margins dystopian elements from 2 (or 2!! actually) and running with them, full-tilt into a tale of human-robot partnership and combat-ready foodtrucks. In this episode, David talks about the difficulties of balancing difficulty, the importance of a healthy, sustainable working process, and making sequels fresh and exciting (both for players and for him and his team).

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! will be in Early Access on Steam and GOG on January 29.

• Do check out David's writing on Gamasutra if you want some (sometimes painfully) honest thoughts on the realities of being an independent developer, and some insights into what his process looked like before he made it healthier.

• DOOM Eternal is, at time of posting, still scheduled for March, unlike Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy VII and Cyberpunk.

• Here's Sara G's estimable Twitter feed.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

In this episode, we take stock of what we played this year, what we didn't get to, and what we're looking forward to playing next (just like we did last year).

Our lists here aren't comprehensive, because wow there are a lot of games worth playing, but we do try to highlight some of our favorites, and especially some of the games that we think deserve more attention and love than they've gotten.

Come join us as we look back, forward, and all around, and propose some totally hypothetical games we'd love to see. (I'm looking in your direction, Untitled Goose MMO).

• If you're able to contribute a little money to help out with the wildfires in Australia, then please consider donating to rural firefighters, indigenous recovery efforts, and/or wildlife relief.

• Media Molecule was the developer we couldn't think of, they of LittleBigPlanet games, and Dreams. Some of those folks are now working on Knights and Bikes.

• Here's the Game Maker's Toolkit Year in Accessibility.

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Phoebe Watson joined the team at DragonBear Studios for the expressed purpose of making sure that the indigenous cultural elements in Chaos Tavern are meaningful and on-point—and that's meant everything from discussing aesthetics with the rest of the team, to shaping culturally syncretic (yet specific) lore, to soliciting the opinions of elders (and therefore having to explain to said elders what video games even are these days, and why they matter, and why they have the potential to matter in even more ways).

It's an unusual role, but a necessary one for the sort of game that DragonBear is trying to make. In this episode, Phoebe walks us through her day-to-day, rhapsodizes her foundational love for Skyrim, and talks about the drive to make unreal places and stories richer and truer.

You can follow Phoebe, as well as DragonBear Studios, on Twitter.

• Solidarity is that game about unionizing a potion factory.

• Here's another interview that Phoebe did since we spoke.

• Here's an article on games that feature indigenous culture (including Never Alone) in which she gets quoted.

• And here's a talk she did last summer on the importance (and the challenges) of putting indigenous culture in games.

• Phoebe mentions that her specific indigenous cultural group is the Yarrer Gunditj clan of the Maar Nation. I'm typing that out here in case you (like me) weren't sure how to spell those names when she said them.

• Last but not least, here's a little background on on the Wurundjeri people, with whom Phoebe also works a great deal.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

Another dose of Zach Barth, this time focused on MOLEK-SYNTEZ, a Zachtronics game that plays a bit like Opus Magnum but was made more in the spirit of TIS-100—which is to say quickly, with extreme focus, and driven by Zach's primordial need to make games, games forever, games all the time. (Also, like TIS-100 before it, it's presented in purest, starkest black and white, to the confusion of some and the delight of me).

We talk about the thematic connections between drug-making and game development, the slippery-as-hell nature of defining success, and the complexities of creating a Zachtronics game that's closer than ever to real science (though as Zach says, "it's still pretty fake").

You can get MOLEK-SYNTEZ on Steam, GOG, and Itch.

• I thought about linking to Antifragile, but honestly Zach's summary probably has you covered. If you really want more, watch this weird ramble.

• My crack about Fortnite was definitely influenced by/ripped off from this Dan Olson video (which was also recently referenced in this Oliver Thorn video).

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

If you only know the arcade version Killer Queen by reputation, then you might assume Killer Queen Black is simply a home port of the same game?but in fact is Black another game entirely, albeit one that carries over many core mechanics from what is now officially called Killer Queen Arcade, and one taking place in the same surreal universe. It's not a port, nor is it really a sequel, nor it it exactly an adaptation. It's a thoughtfully designed oddball offshoot, meant to give longtime players something new and, perhaps even moreso, to bring new players into the bumble-fold.

Among cs wallace's responsibilities for Killer Queen Black was fashioning the game's tutorial?not a trivial task for a game (or now, a series) famed for social learning and multithreaded team strategy. Here he talks about his goals when crafting that (pretty darn punchy) tutorial, the overall philosophy behind Black, and a whole lot of inside baseball Killer Queen arcana.

You can get Killer Queen Black on Steam and Switch, you can get 3 Nights in Chicago on Itch, and you can find find Killer Queen Arcade all over these United States of ours.

• Death By Audio has undergone a lot of changes, produced a lot of offshoots, and left one hell of a mark.

• Wonderville and Babycastles are indeed both on WithFriends (which, as I say in the intro, is more like Patreon for than Kickstarter).

• Charles Pratt's talk at this most recent Bumble Bash has yet to surface online, but his mathy analysis of Bumble Bash as an institution is ripe for the reading.

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Joe Russ is deeply invested in narrative, and also in animation—so it makes all the sense in the world that he would co-create something like Jenny LeClue, a lovingly and distinctively animated, meta-meta-narrative detective adventure. (And yes, I do mean that it's in large part a narrative about narratives about narratives).

In today's episode, Joe sits down to discuss the intent behind the hame, the strangeness of videogame genre designations, and the cultural expectations for what a game (and specifically a whole-ass game as distinct from an episodic one) is, even.

Also, The Door Problem.

You can get Jenny LeClue on Steam, GOG, and Apple Arcade.

• There actually only six years between Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, but there were more like thirty-four years between The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments, so that's definitely what I was thinking of.

• Get Out was made for 4.5 million bucks, and it made about 255.5 million worldwide, says the main site that tracks that sort of thing.

• Here's that interview with Ben Tillett.

• Here's a piece on the personality system humming beneath your decisions in Jenny LeClue.

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kalin is the co-founder of Funktronic Labs, best known for their ambitious VR fare, from the consummately simulated garden-'em-up Fujii to the real-ass-RTS-but-in-VR Cosmic Trip. Here he stops by to talk about Wave Break, which began its life as a VR Wave Race-alike and gradually morphed into Tony Hawk on jet skis, by aesthetic way of Miami Vice.

We talk about how the game has changed over its unconventional, semi-public alpha, how Funktronic's team juggles their multiple projects, and how Kalin's previous work on the PixelJunk series (and on MMOs prior to that) informs his approach to development.

The Wave Break alpha is currently on Steam, but only by way of the game's Discord server.

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We cross paths with Max Krieger and talk CROSSNIQ+ and the so-called, much-lately-in-vogue Y2K aesthetic. Come for the discussion of how aesthetics and attitudes toward technology are inextricable from history and politics, stay for a spirited endorsement of the indie game development scene in Cleveland (and of Cleveland in general).

Let's Cross! Aim for THE TOP!

You can get CROSSNIQ+ on Steam, Itch, and Switch.

• The Y2K Aesthetic Institute Twitter account is indeed a solid follow.

• Here are the "Scream" video and the "Blue" video.

• Yes, yes, The Designer's Republic.

• Here's some hackery coverage of the Alexa-baffling white noise blob

• Here's Train, should you want to try it out, as well as Max's writeup thereof.

• Do check out The Cleveland Game Developers, game developers in and around Cleveland!

• Ingenuity, too!

• And here's that blessed and accursed Cheesecake Factory thread.

Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.