Talking Simulator

In the final episode of this five-part mini-series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Marie explains how she came to host one of the Now Play This at Home events in Animal Crossing, and describes some of the other cultural events she’s seen take place in this game and others in the series.

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In episode four of this five-part mini-series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Jordan and Pip discuss the run up to Bunny Day and its much-maligned proliferation of eggs. Since this episode was recorded, Nintendo has reduced the rate at which eggs appear, but people are still annoyed, especially in the Northern Hemisphere where the event coincides with cherry blossom season. The big question, of course, is: would we be this frustrated with the fortnight of changes to the game if we weren’t in the midst of a pandemic?

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In the third episode of this five-part mini series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, V tells Jordan what delights and frustrates them about the online multiplayer aspects of the game, and the online community around it.

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In the second episode of this five-part mini series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Jordan and Chella discuss how well the game introduces his systems to players. With millions playing New Horizons and sharing their progress on social media, what is it like for those players who are taking things more slowly and learning as they go?

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While preparing for Series 2 in the midst of a pandemic, we’ve made this bonus mini-series about a game that has arrived at an opportune moment for millions of isolated and anxious people worldwide: Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

In this first episode, Jordan and Kat discuss the notion of min-maxing and the discomfort that comes when the process of optimisation involves the consumption of natural resources. And, since Kat is a researcher of archives, they pose the question: why do we collect things?

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Miraculously, this episode about the investigative full-motion video game Telling Lies has absolutely no spoilers. Instead, the game’s sole programmer Lizi Attwood explains how she developed the virtual desktop with which the player interacts, what it was like to work on a game that – by its FMV nature – basically had no content for a large part of development, and how the changing reflection of the player character seen in the background of the screen at all times actually works.

Jordan also frets that she’s playing the game wrong.

This episode marks the end of the first series of Talking Simulator. The podcast will be back with a second series, so make sure to Tweet your ideas for excellent potential guests to @talkingsimpod.

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The Guardian’s video games editor Keza MacDonald is about to have a baby, at which point she will have – as she puts it – “a bunch of kids”. She joined Jordan to talk about life as a parent who plays and works in video games, and about how parents are represented in the games themselves. Why don’t kids’ games feature parental characters? Why did we suddenly get an influx of dads? And where are all the mums?

For more chat from the perspective of parents who play games, make sure to check out Keza’s new podcast Spawnpoint.

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The umbrella of “games” contains many categories, and one that Jordan knows very little about is esports. Luckily, esports host Frankie Ward – who you may know as the woman who appeared in a shark costume when she presented the PC Gaming Show at E3 2019 – took the time to explain why she loves esports so much, and to answer questions like:

Why have publishers failed to create brand new esports?

How do these digital sports compare to the more traditional physical ones?

And how does the industry make its money?

(Once you’ve listened to this episode, you may also like to check out Cecilia D'Anastasio’s investigation for Kotaku on whether esports is a bubble ready to burst.)

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In this episode: another time loop game. In Elsinore, you play as Ophelia trying to change the events of the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet, which have been condensed down to a four-day loop. Every time Ophelia dies or fails to avert disaster, the loop resets. Since all Ophelia keeps between loops is any knowledge gained, the game is all about choosing what to say to whom and when.

Jordan invited Elsinore’s writer and team lead Katie Chironis on to ask more about the process of building this clever social simulation as a side project over the course of seven years, and to find out whether she thinks Shakespeare would approve.

This episode contains one or two minor spoilers for Elsinore, but nothing that would ruin the experience of playing the game.

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Outer Wilds is an open-world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop, which has proven so popular that people are already calling it a potential Game of the Year for 2019. But it’s not flawless. Or, at least: not every player has enjoyed every minute of the game. Jordan invited her friend and colleague Maggie Tan onto the podcast to talk about how very physical frustrations can affect the enjoyment of a game that’s all about the acquisition of knowledge.

This episode contains spoilers for Outer Wilds, and one spoiler for Oxenfree. Outer Wilds is a game best experienced with as little prior knowledge as possible, so if you haven’t played it and think you might like to, maybe save this episode for later.

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