Famicom Dojo Video Game Podcast

Added Content is not something you find much in video games any more. Long gone are the days of Infocom's "feelies", but great text adventure classics like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had some of the most creative in the business.

Vinnk and Sean followup on the "DLC podcast" promise by adding episode content from listener requests! Guest panelist Sindra joins Sean to review the Silent Hill movie, while Vinnk reminisces about the days of hint lines, program books, and peril-sensitive sunglasses.

Pants are not required for this episode, but our show notes are! Play some text adventure classics, and find out what Larry's Scratch-n-Sniff smells really mean, and listen to Vinnk and

Sindra bond over the Silent Hill games in our website-exclusive audio bonus at FamicomDojo.TV: https://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/51

Leave us a voicemail at 608-492-1923, or share your thoughts on Twitter (@FamicomDojo), Facebook (https://facebook.com/famicomdojo), or our Famicom Dojo YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/famicomdojo).

"RPG" theme song by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net

This episode is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo web series. Get Season 1 on DVD today: https://famicomdojo.tv/store/fdojos1.php

Sometimes the show runs a little long, or goes completely off-topic. That's when we create an audio bonus, exclusively for the website! When we first started the podcast, we fully intended to create such extra content to help drive traffic back to the website since there was no other way to listen to it. But, as it turns out, people just don't find that enticing! So, despite the desire to keep things "exclusive", we want to share these audio bonuses with you in a way that most listeners will actually be able to hear it. They're just so good!

Sean and Vinnk comb the three year history of the Famicom Dojo Podcast for its best extras, and put them into this one episode: Vinnk unveils the hidden secret behind the unlicensed developer Color Dreams, Sindra and Vinnk bond over their love of Silent Hill, Sean gives a brief history of Superman films, and also explains how he got started making videos... before he was old enough to shave.

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.

Does anyone of the generation who grew up with video games have an excuse to not understand how much (or rather, how little) video games affect people? So many buy Rated M games for their kids, completely ignoring the rating altogether. Which begs the question: just who are these ratings for?

Vinnk and Sean go over a completely non-linear history of video game ratings, how Night Trap for Sega CD helped start the ratings firestorm, and they have evolved more into advertisements than effective parental warnings.

Details about the podcast, links to related articles, and supplemental audio/video are available at FamicomDojo.TV: https://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/88

Leave us a voicemail at 608-492-1923, or share your thoughts on Twitter (@FamicomDojo), Facebook (https://facebook.com/famicomdojo), or our Famicom Dojo YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/famicomdojo).

"Famicom Thrash" opening theme and "RPG" end theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net

This episode is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo web series. Get Season 1 on DVD today: https://famicomdojo.tv/store/fdojos1.php

In the ever-shifting landscape of video game development, there are major players and the scrappy underdogs. Kickstarter has given smaller studios a bigger voice, but back in the day before the Internet was a thing, which companies set themselves apart? And which ones have fallen apart since?

Sean and Vinnk talk about their favorite publishers and developers of today, the classics of yesteryear,

and ponder whatever the heck happened to them. Some evolved, some, disbanded, and some should be put out of their misery. Did your favorites make the list?

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.

Before EA, official sports titles were more spread out, and used in all kind of ways. Games like NBA Jam are hard to come by these days (barring updates to NBA Jam). Before annual installments of Year of the Same Game, you had crazy sports game ideas that were one and done. These weren't simulators, like we have today, but imaginitive riffs on the sports to make up for any technical proficiency that hardware of the time may have had. And that's what makes them Rad Sports Games.

Vinnk and Sean talk about their favorite titles, including the aforementioned NBA Jam, Punch Out, Bases Loaded (and a bunch of other weird

baseball games), and even Scotti Pippen's Slam City! If you've never played it before, why... it sure is something else. Will we ever see their like again? Aside from EA picking up the IP for NBA Jam from Midway, that is...

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.

Sometimes a game gets a second life on a new platform or console, typically with upgraded graphics, additional sound effects and/or voices,

and additional Internet-enabled features only a Millennial could love. Sometimes a familiar name is slapped onto an entirely new game that

seeks to upend the status quo for the franchise and provide a clean slate -- usually with a new developer, and sometimes a new publisher --

to begin totally anew.

Sean and Vinnk compare video game remakes to reboots, decide which games deserved them, and which actually got them, and which ones they ended up playing and liking anyway.

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.

Phil Bond on the subject of f2p gaming: "When you make a game where paying any money whatsoever feels like cheating, that has to be a mistake -- right?" Or, as Vinnk puts it, you can pay to play more, or pay to play less. Sometimes both in the same game. Just don't say that Nintendo should follow this model, or... we'll say something not nice, or something.

Vinnk and Sean trade stories of their particular Free-2-Play addictions (Puzzles and Dragons, and Candy Crush, respectively), and their guilt over never paying any money for these games, leaving it to "whales" to support the entire system. And Vinnk may have inadvertently made his daughter into a gold farmer.

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.

live from MAGFest 2012 in Washington, D.C.

It seems like it's getting harder to play video games all the time: an especially embarrassing realization when you've

gone halfway across the country to attend the tenth annual Music and Gaming Festival aka "MAGFest".

Sean is joined by guest panelists

Justin "JewWario" Carmichael

(JewWario),

Brenna "Sindra" Wilkes

(@TastesLikeSin),

and Powet.TV founder Zac Shipley

(@ZacShipley)

discuss the potentials and pitfalls of the Wii U, the events of the first day of MAGFest 2012,

ruminate on the seeming necessity of the waiver policy in light of ninja refrigerator attacks,

and the importance of personal hygiene -- even if in Pikachu form.

Also, Vinnk (unable to attend due to living on the other side of the planet) regales is with his version of a fun convention!

Details about the podcast, links to related articles, and supplemental audio/video are available at FamicomDojo.TV: https://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/34

Leave us a voicemail at 608-492-1923, or share your thoughts on Twitter (@FamicomDojo), Facebook (https://facebook.com/famicomdojo), or our Famicom Dojo YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/famicomdojo).

"RPG" theme song by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net

This episode is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo web series. Get Season 1 on DVD today: https://famicomdojo.tv/store/fdojos1.php

No podcast this week. It doesn't feel right.

We don't know that this feels right either, but it helped us, so we hope it helps you too. The world is a worse place without him.

His last video, with Jonathan Mann:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRKyCnC6nlw

And an earnest message to anyone who had the same thoughts that he did:

You are not stupid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tN60yFjO-g

We can't say anymore than we've already said. We miss you, Justin. And we love you.

Spearheading the revival of adventure games,

Broken Age Act 1 was released last week on Steam for the Kickstarter backers (and press reviewers). A decision to black out reviews until later in January was reversed only a couple of days after the game came out. Broken Age is just that good. Even though we haven't finished it (as of recording this episode), we wholeheartedly agree that it will become an instant classic.

Sean and Vinnk talk about what killed the adventure game for our generation, revel in its revival thanks to companies like TellTale and Doublefine, and crowdsourcing for an explosion of indie games on websites like Kickstarter. We can't agree on just what an adventure game is, exactly, but that's part of the fun, right?

"Famicom Thrash" and "RPG" theme songs by the Imari Tones: http://imaritones.net.

This podcast is brought to you by the Famicom Dojo Video Series. Train Your Game at https://youtube.com/famicomdojo.