Dragon’s Dogma II is full of inventive, quirky flourishes, meaningful frictions, and… shameless micro-transactions that capitalize on those exact quirks and frictions. We can, of course, get meaning and joy out of art that comes to us compromised. Which is good news, since most art, if not all art, comes to us compromised. But the details matter.

So let’s dig into the details, and along the way let’s talk about monetization, opera, high art, low art, and how Dragon’s Dogma II is like a D&D campaign where all of the other players are dogs.

This episode contains discussions of death, dying, and mourning.
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• Dia Lacina has written a bit about Dragon’s Dogma II, and a bit about Dark Arisen.

• Podcasters helping podcasters, here’s a good summary of the weird relationship of dogs to Octavia Butler’s work.

• Here’s Alexis Ong’s piece about pawns.

• And here’s Dan Olson’s video about Fortnite.

• You can hear the Met’s Saturday Matinee Broadcasts on lots of still-extant terrestrial radio stations and their websites. My mom and I usually go with KUSC.

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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
Messa da Requiem by Guiseppe Verdi, performed by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, featuring Leah Hawkins, Karen Cargill, Matthew Polenzani, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. Recorded September 27, 2023. Broadcast March 30, 2024.

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Helldivers II is a wildly popular co-op shooter. It’s also extremely funny. It’s also very much about fascism, both in the sense that its satirical lens is aimed at fascist tendencies in moribund democracies, and in the sense that its core pleasures are… sort of fascist?

The music makes you feel like a hero as you do your space violence on behalf of Super Earth, and let’s be honest, the capes are rather dashing. Here’s a game that wants to have its cake and eat it too, and we’re inclined to say it pulls it off. So let’s dig into how it’s doing what it’s doing, and the slipperiness of making art about fascism that isn’t useful to fascists.

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• The clip about Super Earth is from this Helldivers II ad. The in-game propaganda and advertising are fairly consistent in tone, and so far, in terms of world-building as well.

• If you’d like to keep entirely Joel mysterious in your mind, then we can respect that—but if you’d like to know more (to coin a phrase), then Aftermath has you covered (kind of).

• Here’s my piece on moon, and one where I talked more about “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in contrast to “Springtime for Hitler.”

• Here’s Umberto Eco’s essay on “Ur-Fascism” and Ruben Ferdinand and Elliⓞt’s essay on Attack on Titan (a classic pairing).

• We use bits of Lindsay Ellis’ video on Mel Brooks, F.D Signifier’s video about Hajime Isayama’s New York Times interview, and Mark Brown’s recent video on Spec Ops: The Line.

• We don’t think there’s anywhere to (legally) hear the full Starship Troopers commentary other than the physical releases of the film, unfortunately.

• The Freud quote is from The Ego and the Id, and the Truffaut quote is from this interview.

• The intrusive thought at the end is from this clip.

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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Guren no Yumiya” by Linked Horizon, from the first season of Attack on Titan.
“My Heart Leaps Up” from Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman.
The extraction and victory music from Helldivers II.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Anita Tung wends her way to us to talk about The Last Clockwinder, one of those VR games that really and truly could only be done in VR. (For another example, see our recent episode with Chris Hanney). On this week’s show, we discuss the interdisciplinary joys of small teams, the aesthetics (and technical challenges) of clutter, and the persistent magics of VR.

CONTENT WARNING for discussions of death and grieving from 41:10 to 46:54.

The Last Clockwinder is out now on Steam, Quest, and PSVR2.
You can see what positions Pontoco has available on their jobs page.
You can also find lots of Anita’s work on her website, and follow her on Twitter and Mastodon.

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• Here’s our conversation with Joel Corelitz.

• Gathering Sky really is lovely, and it commits to the peculiarities of touch interfaces in about the same way that The Last Clockwinder commits to the peculiarities of VR.

• Here’s Matthew Blair’s GDC talk about The Last Clockwinder, as well as John Austin’s.

• We’ve known about the role of seawater in Roman concrete since 2017 or so.

• We’ll also link this fairly recent piece about Roger Morash and Shard.

• For more on studio sustainability, we’d recommend our episodes with Megan Fox, Glen Henry, Anya Combs, and William Pugh.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Gardeners: Bomb Berry Laboratory” from The Last Clockwinder OST by Joel Corelitz.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Esther Alter started out making games like Neocolonialism and No Pineapple Left Behind, which she now describes as “anti-fun.” But her newest game PRO?EMON is unashemedly fun, in addition to being a thoughtful experiment in how far we can push procedural generation, and in what human-machine collaborations can looks like.

Here Esther talks about PRO?EMON in terms of its inspirations, its tech, and how it fits into her broader artistic practice?which spans tabletop RPGs, non-game technical experiments and tools, and short-form fiction (much of it profoundly and unmistakably Jewish).

PRO?EMON: You Must Catch Them is out now on Itch.io and Steam.
You can follow Esther on Twitter, and find a whole bunch of her work on her website.

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• The secondary antagonists who want to liberate Pok?mon (those jerks) are Team Plasma from Pok?mon Black and White (on the DS).

• It’s true enough that you wouldn’t have read about MissingNo. in Nintendo Power at the time?though a year later, the hundredth issue did cover the Minus World in Super Mario Bros (a glitch that was then about a decade old).

• Here’s Esther’s talk about the life and death and slippery definiton of the indie game.

• Here’s the collectable card game version of Pro?emon.

• And here are Other Covenants and “Cultureship.”
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?All The People Say (Season 5)? by Carpe Demon.
Some (genuinely procedural!) music from PRO?EMON: You Must Catch Them by Esther Alter.

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.

Trevor Gureckis is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and an increasingly prominent voice in horror scoring—most recently, in the remake of DEAD SPACE, a project that aims to flesh out an already quite fleshy (in more ways than one) sort of narrative. Here Trevor talks about the intriguing weirdness of remakes, the joys of making plot and backstory elements visceral, and how he makes music sound otherworldly (again, in multiple senses of the word).

DEAD SPACE is out now on Steam, Epic, The EA App, Xbox Series X|S, and Playstation 5. Physical Collector’s Editions are available at Limited Run Games.
You can also follow Trevor on Twitter, and find a whole bunch of Trevor’s work on his website.

———

• Here’s the episode of Right on Cue where Trevor talks about his time working for Philip Glass.

• The Crowded Room is due out on AppleTV+ sometime this year.
———

“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Make Us Whole” by Trevor Gureckis, from the score to DEAD SPACE.
“Seracs” from CORTÉ by Trevor Gureckis.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Garry Schyman isekais his way back to the show to forspeak about his work on FORSPOKEN—which is out today—as well as his other recent scores for Torn and Metamorphosis. (If you want to hear about his work on the BioShock trilogy and the Middle-earth duology, we’d direct you to Garry’s previous appearance). Here we talk about the utility of tropes, the evocative power of tonality, and the unique pleasures of emotionally engaging blockbuster spectacles.

FORSPOKEN is out now for PC via Steam, Epic, and Xbox.com, and for Playstation 5.
You can learn more about Garry’s rather large body of work on his website.

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• Viola d’amore is a rad instrument indeed, with an awfully evocative sound to it.

• Here’s a bit more from Garry and Mikolai on the Metamorphosis score.

• When Drew refers to music “theory,” do always hear it in scare quotes. To say that “all theory comes from Bach” is obviously wrong on its face, but just as obviously right if you understand “music theory” as a synonym for the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians.

• Relevant videosmith Adam Neely would, by the way, probably refer to the triadic, sometimes jazz-adjacent dissonances we’re discussing as “spicy” intonation.

• As per Wikipedia, “the game’s writing team includes Gary Whitta, Amy Hennig, Allison Rymer, and Todd Stashwick.”

• To be emphatically, pedantically clear, “nobody knows nothin” is a guiding principle for art, and even a wryly humble aphorism about reality generally—but when it comes to climate change, we actually know sort of a lot. “Nobody knows nothin” is about being suspicious of professed authority and received wisdom, but it shouldn’t curdle into spitefully ignoring genuine expertise.

• Here’s the story of how a cancelled DLC for Final Fantasy XV became Project Athia, which eventually got retitled as (you guessed it) FORSPOKEN.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Junoon (Junoon World 1)” by Garry Schyman, from the score to FORSPOKEN.
Le Sacre du printemps, I. “Adoration de la Terre,” by Igor Stravinsky, performed by the Walther Straram Concerts Orchestra, conducted by Igor Stravinsky.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Before we dive into this year’s interviews, we thought we’d take stock of last year’s, as has become tradition here on the ‘cast—connect a few dots, and provide a sort of a digest for anyone who’s missed some (or all!) of our 2022 episodes, and for first-time listeners.

So join us once again as Drew plays some clips from the shows we’ve done this year, some lovely bits of music from the games we’ve talked about, and some scratchy old 78s besides.

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• “All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
• Some music from the Neko Ghost, Jump! OST by Alec Weesner.
• “Apartment (Vodka Mix)” from the HoloVista Original Soundtrack by Mariode.
• “Mid Morning” by Oscar Brittain, from the Kardboard Kings OST.
• “Tea Time” by George Schwartz, performed by the Ray Linn Orchestra.
• “You Are a Memory” by Message to Bears.
• “Assault on Valor” the Questlike: Pocket OST by by Chase Bethea.
• “Pulse of Sephonie Island” from the Sephonie Original Soundtrack by Melos Han-Tani.
• “C’est la Chanson sur La Mémory Zone (en Français)” by Alina Johann, Titouan Millet, and William Pugh, from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe OST by Tom Schley (a.k.a. Silkersoft).
• “Found” from the forthcoming Cook Serve Forever OST by Jonathan Greer.
• “SEALED ENVELOPE” from the Purgatory Dungeoneer OST by rj lake.
• “Mountain Time” (ft. Sarah Hubbard) from the EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER: BOUND BY ASH OST by Josie Brechner.
• “Escape Gladiator” from the Escape Academy OST by Doseone.
• The Sawayama Solitaire BGM, from the Last Call BBS OST by Matthew Seiiji Burns.
• “Auntie Chandra’s Theme” from the Thirsty Suitors OST by Ramsey Kharroubi.
• “Zugspitz Station” from the Rollerdrome OST by ELECTRIC DRAGON.
• Some music from the Moustachevania OST (as it currently exists) by Aaron Nemoyten.
• “Get Thee Behind Me” from Talking Union by The Almanac Singers.
• “Crystal Paradise” by Joseph Sussman, performed by The Stardusters with Phil Napoleon and His Orchestra.
• “Fairy Dance” performed by Teddy Edwards, Robert “Iggie” Shevak, Roy Porter, Hampton Hawkes, and Herb Harper, supervised by Morrie Rapoport.
• “I Wish You Joy” from the This Way Madness Lies OST by Joshua Queen.
• “Meat Hunter” by Joe Kataldo, from the Hot Dogs, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades OST.
• “The Lack of Color Out of Space” from the Shadows Over Loathing OGST by Ryan Ike.
• “Talking Boogie” by Cliff Stone, performed by Tex Williams and His Western Caravan.

Header image from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe.

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Another year, and another ‘cast in which to review said year. For (somehow!) the first time ever, Drew, Lucio, Franny, and L are all together to talk about what they’ve played, what they haven’t, and what they’re planning on playing—that last category covering both stuff that’s currently in their to-read piles, and stuff that’ll be out next year and beyond. (Soon, Tears of the Kingdom).

SPOILERS for the ending of the first rebooted God of War from 25:22 to 26:28.
Some structure-level SPOILERS for Pentiment from 50:33 to 52:18.

———
• The header image is from Pentiment. (Drew really likes Pentiment, if that wasn’t clear).

• Potion Craft is not yet on Switch, nor is it on Playstation, but it’s coming to both.

• Here are some details on the $520,000,000 Epic will have to pay for their various evil monetization shit (our verbiage, not the Federal Trade Commission’s).

• Here’s Drew’s piece of about Dad of Boy, and Mark Brown’s video about Dadrök.

• L talked a bunch about Arceus in our first Quarterly of 2022.

• Here’s Josh Sawyer’s thread about all the folks who worked on Pentiment.

• Drew threw some money at a Digital Eclipse investment campaign earlier this year—and the day after we recorded this episode, Digital Eclipse revealed that Atari 50 was the first game they’d developed using the money from that campaign. Drew’s praise for the game was sincere, but we did want to go ahead and be transparent, this being the golden age of shilling and all.

• Additional to-reads for Drew include NORCO, Citizen Sleeper, Tinykin, Chained Echoes, Steelrising, 古剑奇谭三, Heavenly Bodies, and Butterfly Soup 2. Because we’re continuing to do the quarterlies, we can give these the attention they deserve when the time is right.

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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“People Are Talking” by James Sheppard and William Miller, performed by The Heartbeats with Al Browne’s Orchestra.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Aaron Nemoyten stops by to talk about his work on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Heroes of Dragon Age, which gives us a chance to talk about live ops and monetization—two topics that are core to how players experience games, but that only semi-seldomly get talked about as game design. We then dive into his newer, smaller, more experimental games.

Also Brazil, MDK, and naturally, DOOM.

You can see a while bunch of Aaron’s work on his website.
You can also follow Aaron on Twitter.

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• City Wave (probably more properly called City Pop) rules. “Plastic Love” is probably the one that YouTube most famously surfaced to people algorithmically. Personally, Drew is partial to “Someday.” That bassline! Mariya Takeuchi and Tatsuro Yamashita are sort of the first couple of of the genre. And like a lot of people, Drew likely wouldn’t have known much about any of the above if not for algorithmic curation.

• Sandwiches of History is also on YouTube, for us olds. Roll for Sandwich, not so much.

• The Art of Game Design (also known as The Book of Lenses) is a foundational text to the way game design is currently taught in academia, and one that’s weirdly unknown outside of it.

• Here’s Aaron’s talk on game design, and his essay on Mafia Wars and Team Fortress 2.

• And here are his postmortems on Heroes of Dragon Age, and on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Oh, and let’s not forget his Doom 2 level (or for that matter his Portal 2 levels).

• Since we talked, Aaron did release Idle Overlord, and also published a bunch more write-ups, including on Superhero City, Starbeard, that one Madagascar game, and the unreleased Dungeon Keeper Social.

• The Action Button review of DOOM clocks in at three hours, thirty minutes, and twenty-two seconds, for the record. (Svelte, by what turned out to be Action Button standards).

• Why did Drew say As You Like It? He clearly should have said Hamlet: Citizen Kane didn’t get to be Citizen Kane by trying to be the Hamlet of movies.

• The eternal problem of shiny new tech making games less flexible, less open, and perhaps even less uniquely games—that came up in a wonderfully weird way in the recent episode of The Video Games History Hour about Toonstruck and Siliwood.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
Some music from the Moustachevania OST (as it currently exists) by Aaron Nemoyten.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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Last time Anisa Sanusi was on the show, she talked about the Limit Break mentorship program, and her thoughtful, wide-ranging UI/UX work on Planet Coaster and Elite Dangerous. Now she’s back to talk about her work on Rollerdrome, how it dovetails with her own newfound love of skating, and how she collaborated with the rest of the team to convey loads of timely information to the player without giving the game too gamey an aesthetic.

You can get Rollerdrome on Steam and PlayStation.
You can learn more about Limit Break on their Twitter, their Instagram, and their website.
And you can follow Anisa on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

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• We cite our sources around here, so here’s where I got that pull quote.

• “The Dice Punks go Meatpunk!” is here, and everywhere else you want podcasts to be.

• Here’s Anisa’s episode of What Else Do You Do? wherein she talks about her skate crew and their specializations and such.

• Neo Cab is another game with a comic-booky visual style, albeit one with some more shading, and therefore distinct from Rollerdrome or Sable.

• Here’s that joyful video of Anisa watching the Rollerdrome reveal.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Zugspitz Station” and “Kara’s Theme” from the Rollerdrome OST by ELECTRIC DRAGON.

We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Spotify, PocketCasts, and just about everywhere else. You can also subscribe using good old-fashioned RSS.

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