This week we are very excited to chat with video game designer Sam Barlow! He's a writer and game designer who worked on Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories before going the indie route and releasing the award-winning and absolutely stunning games Her Story, Telling Lies and his latest game, the BAFTA Games-winning Immortality. We discuss how he went about creating these nonlinear story-focused mystery games, his love of genre, the research he did into found footage films and academic texts on police work and so much more. We also talk about working with acclaimed screenwriters Allan Scott (Don't Look Now) and Barry Gifford (Lost Highway) on Immortality and how they go about creating those "a ha!" moments in his games.
Then we dig into the very weird French Star Wars-esqe animated movie Time Masters, Les Maîtres du temps/The Masters of Time (1982). Faceless angels, existential dread, children in danger, duplicitous princes, giant hornets and psychic aliens...this movie has everything. And Sam's story of existential dread seeing this as a kid was amazing.
Immortality is available on Windows, Xbox (and Gamepass), Android, iOS and MacOS. If you have a Netflix subscription, you can also play the game through them. It's highly recommended.
You can follow Sam on Twitter. And for more info on his games, check out his video game production company Half Mermaid Productions.
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