Ian (Design Director at E-Line Media and has worked on Gamestar Mechanic, Gamestar Mechanic Jr, and Never Alone) and Anna (Senior Gameplay Programmer at Double Fine and has worked on such games as Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, Broken Age, and Headlander, and was the lead on Dear Leader during Amnesia Fortnight 2014) join us to discuss falling into the industry, the benefits of an education that doesn't just focus on programming/computer science, the work involved with implementing dialogue, planning for localization, Never Alone's development, cultural expression in games, dialogue systems, why text to speech isn't the future (for now), the costs of voiced dynamic dialogue, authored vs simulationist vs player-centric approaches to story in games, and a couple of other rad topics!

Our Guests on the Internet

Ian's Twitter.

Anna's Twitter.

Stuff We Talked About

Never Alone

Amnesia Fortnight 2014

Dialogue Systems in Double Fine Games

Molyjam: How Twitter Jokes Can Save Video Games

Making the World of Firewatch

Netrunner

Crusader Kings 2

Dwarf Fortress' Creator on How He's 42% Towards Simulating Existence

Practice 2015: Anna Kipnis

The Novelist by Kent Hudson

7 Grand Steps

Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

Viriconium by M. John Harrison

The Yawhg by Emily Carroll & Damian Sommer

Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.