Talking Simulator

Compare and contrast the previous episode on E3 with this one on Feral Vector, an annual festival of games and play that takes place in an old church up a hill in a Yorkshire town called Hebden Bridge. Chella Ramanan, a games writer and one of the founders of POC in Play, explains why this left-field festival is so important to her and to the UK games scene.

Chella also wrote about Feral Vector for gameindustry.com

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Laura Dale has been following E3 for 15 years, first personally and then professionally. She tells us how it has changed in that time, whether it still has anything to offer, and what E3 2019 says about the current state of video games.

Very few actual games are discussed.

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Heaven’s Vault is an “archeological science fiction adventure game” from Inkle. In the game, you – as archeologist Aliya – sail the Nebula from moon to moon, exploring ruins and meeting people and, most importantly, translating an ancient language called… Ancient. Philippa Warr wrote a glowing review of Heaven’s Vault for PC Gamer, so Jordan invited her on the podcast to explain more about why she loved it so much.

While this episode is almost entirely about the translation puzzles, no actual solutions are discussed beyond those you might discover within the first few minutes of play.

You can watch Jon Ingold’s talk “Designing a Lost Language for Heaven’s Vault” on YouTube.

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Astrologaster (2019) is “a story-driven astrological comedy game set in Shakespeare’s London”, a genre that must surely soon be as popular as the battle royale. It was developed by a whole team of people for independent developer Nyamyam, and designed and directed by Jennifer Schneidereit. But Jordan wanted to talk to its narrative designer and writer Katharine Neil, to find out how she managed to squeeze history, astrology, and comedy into a game.

Content warning: this episode contains mention of miscarriage. There are no major spoilers for the story of Astrologaster, but there are some for events that took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

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After attending the 2019 BAFTA Games Awards, Jordan wanted to talk about how video games are tackled by this venerable British institution. Kat Brewster, a PhD student who a) is not British, and b) has not played any of the winning games, was the perfect guest.

This episode contains minor spoilers for the beginning of God of War, the beginning of Life is Strange 2, and the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC Bloodline.

In a previous version of this episode we misattributed the creation of Queers in Love at the End of the World. The game was developed by Anna Anthropy.

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