Playdate Pop Up Podcast

Whoa what happened to the last month and a half.* Anyway. Outside of games, me and Bela have been:

Reading: Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Familiar Vol. 5: Redwood by Mark Z Danielewski, & Crash Override by Zöe Quinn (the shit that went down the day of the reading)

Watching: The Craft, Battlestar Galactica, Cube

Oh, and in case you missed Ben’s present to the internet on his birthday: I apologize in advance

For the game discussion, we again didn’t curate anything. In lieu of the usual segment, we ended up talking about:

We also brought up a bunch of articles and podcast discussions (well, Ben mostly did). Here’s some links to them:

*Ben’s brain wasn’t being particularly cooperative

No guests or curated games list this time around, so Bela & Ben just get together to talk about what they’ve been playing, and what they’ve been up to. We accidentally hit on a theme of talking about how games like Age of Empires III, StarCraft, and Limbo tell their stories, though. Ben also goes on a mildly conspiratorial rant about the real meaning of 1998 in games.

Outside of games, Bela has been listening to Stuff You Missed in History Class and reading Barefoot Gen. Ben shouts out specific episodes of Waypoint Radio and Beyond the Filter – www.centrism.nfl for the former, and The World of Twin Peaks with Joel Bocko from the latter.

Let us know what you think by leaving a rating on iTunes, subscribing to the show, or following us on Twitter or Facebook. And send us an email at playdategs[at]gmail with any questions or comments.

No new episode this biweekly period! Sorry everyone. Audio is just Ben letting y’all know that (and maybe sneaking in a couple of quick non-games recommendations)

This episode, Ben is joined by Adam Longhurst and Veronica Dolginko to talk about Veronica’s movie site Back Row Cinema and a new play she’s co-authored and associate produced called The People vs. Donald Trump (showing at The London Theatre – New Cross from September 19-24). We cover pluviophilia, the Theatre, Ingrid Goes West, King of the Hill hot takes on ice, having hobbies, and more.

Before that, Ben and Bela talk about three games that Ben chose. The games discussed are:

Luminous Corridor 0 by Loren Schmidt & Katie Rose Pipkin

Let us know what you think at playdategs [at] gmail, or on Twitter @PlaydateGS or facebook.com/playdategs. We’re also available on iTunes and Podbean.

Note: The audio quality on the interview portion is a bit uneven. If occasional snacking sounds or volume disparities bug you a lot, you might want to skip it! It’s a fun time if you don’t mind that too much, though.

Gamejolt is a marketplace that aims to connect independent developers with gamers. The co-founders David (@TheyTookCROS) and Yaprak (@maskofthoro) join us to talk about the work it takes to make that happen, how they make sure people’s games get highlighted, and more.

Outside of games, David and Yaprak have been hitting up some breweries in Denver, Bela’s been at his grandparents for a pool party, and Ben loves Kesha’s new singles (especially “Praying”). We also hit on tackling grandpas, getting to the point, saisons vs szechuan, learning Turkish in secret, and more.

David and Yaprak also curated some games for us for that they’re going to be showcasing at their party at PAX West. If you’re in the area on September 1st, you can register to attend it here.

The games discussed this episode are:

Get in touch with us on Twitter @PlaydateGS, on Facebook, or through email at playdategs[at]gmail[dot]com. You can also subscribe through the RSS feed on this website or on iTunes or Podbean, or by searching ‘Playdate Podcast’ on your app of choice. Feel free to give us a rating/review on iTunes especially if you enjoy the show!

Rapper, podcaster, anarchist organizer, and all-around comrade Sole (@mcsole) joins us to talk about games. Ben chose three games that he thought Sole would find interesting. We cover those, then talk about what we’ve all been up to in games. Sole not being a games person, we figured that made the most sense.

Bela has been playing Overwatch and has a Doomfist Hot Take; Ben highly recommends the demo for Mafia III and likes Pixel Dungeon quite a bit; and Sole has been failing his poor Rimworld inhabitants and taking out scrubs in Titanfall 2. We also talk about Sole’s garden, his podcast The Solecast, and Channel Zero Network, an anarchist and anti-authoritarian podcast network that he’s involved with creating.

The games curated for this episode:

Hit us up at @PlaydateGS, on Facebook, or send us any questions or comments at playdategs[at]gmail

Quick note: The audio quality on this isn’t the best. Ben’s end has some train noises and some echo-y acoustics, and Bela’s has some persistent clicks. I did my best to mitigate those problems. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

This time around, Bela and Ben get together to talk about Evo. Ben picked three games that were at The MIX at Evo this year for us to play. Ben talks about Smash and Tekken, and we reminisce a bit about being at last year’s event with Bela’s game. Then we get into the selections.

After that, we talk about what we’ve been up to outside of games. Bela just finished a smaller Playdate event! He talks about being at Nonplussed Fest with some Playdate 2017 developers, and watching some of the films that were showing. He specifically mentions Atlantic City Character Study by Ben+Bill and Vivian & Veronica: Cheetah by imagesbykelsy.

Ben’s been reading a lot, but mostly we talk about his recent trip to The Castro Theatre. There’s some discussion of when he went to see Cibo Matto New Scene back in 2015 (and Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet), and then we get into the double feature he saw recently. Modern Times (starring Charlie Chaplin) and Metropolis by Fritz Lang, specifically. He even mentions the post he made on his blog, if you want to read it: Charlie Chaplin & Anti-Comedy.

The games discussed this episode are:

Brendan Vance (@4xisblack) joins us to talk about some (un)licensed games, his work with Heart Projector, and experiences with dentists.

The games we discuss this time include:

Dante Douglas (@videodante) joins us to talk about a selection of games that he curated for our show. Outside of games, we’ve been up to Xena: Warrior Princess (Season Three), the Bug Fair, and finding bike paths and writing poems. We talk about the games, then get into an in-depth interview with Dante. Subjects include the conferences he organized while a part of University of Oregon, getting sappy about videogames, feeling accepted and changed by community, and more.

The games discussed this episode include:

You can also check out Dante’s games on his itch.io page, which has a favorites list that includes these games and many more. In the interview we discuss his A Game-Poem / In Which DEPRESSION / The Psychological Condition, / Is Presented Ludically, / In the Form of / A VIDEOGAME, and DIVINER.

Hi all! Unfortunately we don’t have an episode for you this time around. In the meantime, why not check out some of the interviews we did with fifteen of the folks we had at Playdate this year? You can find them all right here.

Now that Playdate’s over and Ben’s in the process of moving around for a little bit, we just didn’t have time to get together a full episode. We’ll be back in 2 weeks with the next one, we promise. And we also promise it’ll be real good.

Choosing any one of those interviews is impossible, but if you want a good jumping off point to dig into them, Ben has a few suggestions:

Each of these are good starting points; like we’ve said before, there isn’t one among the whole batch that we don’t think is valuable and interesting in its own right. We’ll see you all again in two weeks!