Unconsoleable

Driving down the road to our Notch House

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Genuine fan of the show and our ESN fearless leader, Moisés Chiullan, stops by and talks about his gaming credentials (or lack thereof :-)) and we try not to shame him too hard about not being a real filthy casual.

We also run down the newsworthy events of the past week and then proceed to rant about the latest assholery perpetuated against casual gamers. Female casual gamers to be exact. Are you ready to be outraged? 

Remember to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, and email us if you want to know where to send Jessica's birthday present ;-)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Steve Lubitz
• Destiny
• Sling Kong (iOS & Android)
• Joel McDonald
• Prune (iOS only for now)
• Sling Kong FB post
• Framed (iOS only for now)
• Framed tweet about sales and Android launch
• Hearthstone is making $20 million per month
• Nintendo employee fired
• Nintendo says nice things about mobile
• Final Fantasy: Record Keeper (iOS & Android)
• Final Fantasy: All the Bravest (iOS & Android)
• Nintendo concept phone
• One take on Casual Connect
• Chris Furniss' comic
• Popcap
• Stephen Amell's abs
• Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure
• Karina Longworth's podcast

If you heard Episode 42, you might recall that we said some things about iOS gaming site Touch Arcade that were a bit harsh and unkind. 

While we stand by a lot of what we said, we believe that we unfairly mischaracterized the site in a number of ways as well.

We hold ourselves to a high standard here at Unconsoleable so we wanted to correct the record, so to speak. We hope our listeners and of course the editors and writers at Touch Arcade will forgive our hastiness. Mobile Game Avengers should stay allies.

Jessica's recording environment

Hellooooo there, dear listeners! That echo you hear is coming from inside Jessica's empty house as she prepares to leave it soon for New York (the state, not the city). The transition is bittersweet, but we are both in much better spirits this week so yay!

Last week we talked about clones and copycats and we now relay our friend Matt Hall's thoughts on this, since Crossy Road has predictably been copied a ton.

We also ponder the suggestion that big companies can do better than indies at the cloning game, whether indie success depends on luck, some possibly dubious advice for indie devs, the latest announced crop of celebrity games and much more!

Please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, and email us if you too enjoy dancing in your car to Shake It Off ;-P

Stuff we mentioned:

• City of Heroes
• Zoonuts
• Shareef Jackson
• Pac-Man 256
• The Crossing Dead (iOS & Android) 
• Jurassic Hopper (iOS & Android)
• Ball King (iOS & Android)
• Mountain Goat Mountain (iOS & Android)
• Down the Mountain (iOS & Android)
• Folly Road (iOS & Android)
• Carter Dotson thinks Zynga is squeezing out indies
• Making indie games in 2015 
• Bree Newsome
• Kotaku in Action 
• Maddy Myers
• The Mary Sue
• There are no lucky indie game developers
• Jake Sones
• Pair Solitaire (iOS only)
• Domino Drop (iOS only)
• New celeb games are coming
• Mashable's hilarious wish list for celeb games
• Tale of Tales
• Kim Kardashian: Hollywood (iOS & Android)
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Mr. Umbrella (iOS only)
• Sling Kong (iOS & Android)
• Halfbrick
• Jetpack Joyride (iOS & Android)
• Fruit Ninja (iOS & Android)
• Protostar
• Prettygreat

Whac-a-mole

As you'll find out, the title of this episode is a bit on the sarcastic side. Jessica is having a rough time packing up her life in Atlanta and Anna is dealing with the hot and humid Chicago summer with her difficult-to-entertain preschooler.

But we do our best for you and solider on to talk about Bethesda being gun shy about more mobile games, what we think of clones and copycat games, whether indies are charging more for games because of eeeevil free mobile games and how you might not be able to slack off at work anymore as easily as you once did!

This is the week to MAKE OUR DAY and rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter (and actually tweet at us), and email us to give feedback, ask questions, or offer Jessica a job in her soon-to-be new home in Schenectady, NY.

Stuff we mentioned:

• Our new bestie, Jake
• Zombie Match Defense
• Jake's funny tweets
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Hearthstone (iOS & Android)
• Bethesda not planning on more mobile games
• Fallout Shelter (iOS only for now)
• itch.io
• Monument Valley (iOS & Android)
• Crossy Road (iOS & Android)
• Asher Vollmer shares results of taking Threes free
• Megan Fox
• Ketchapp
• Our Lifeline episode
• Amazon games
• Dave & Busters mobile game
• Big Buck Hunter
• Golden Tee
• Prune dev tweets about awful clone
• Prune (iOS only for now)
• Down the Mountain (iOS only for now, Android in the future)
• The Long Siege (iOS only for now)
• Rami's tweet about game ideas in 15 seconds
• Are indies charging more?
• Hot Tin Roof
• Solitaire sort of won't be free anymore
• Piloteer (iOS & Android)
• EVE Online

Photo credit: By sa_ku_ra / sakura (Source: Flickr image.) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Mega Mensch tee shirt: inspired by Steve, designed by Karyl

Our Gaming Yoda and good friend Steve Lubitz is back in the Unconsoleable clubhouse to throw down some wisdom and, as it turns out, exact a long-overdue apology from your two hosts.

Should Apple get into publishing their own games? (spoiler alert: NO) Will anyone ever get mobile gaming to be compelling on a TV? Who is mobile gaming on a TV even for? All these questions and more are answered in this episode.

Want to be awesome? It's so easy! Just rate and review us on iTunes and follow us on Twitter. You can also send us an email if you have comments or questions about the show or have a real boat to give to Jessica so she can stop building virtual ones :-)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Massholes
• Thunder From Down Under
• Hearthstone (iOS & Android)
• Moises' tweet about our show
• Anna's Mobcrush channel
• Yeti Pie stream
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• The Long Siege (coming soon to Android) 
• Prune
• Should Apple make games?
• Mac App Store is a second class citizen
• Kingdom Hearts
• Fallout Shelter (coming soon to Android)
• Mortal Kombat X (iOS & Android)
• Sample Hearthstone commercial
• Bar Rescue
• Twenty (iOS & Android)
• Comcast offers a new service for games
• Ouya
• The Happening
• Alphabear (iOS & Android)
• Spry Fox
• Fairytale
• A Dark Room (iOS & Android)
• This War of Mine
• Steve's blog, Multiball

Zombie Match Defense is as fun as it is adorable, trust us

This week we welcome another awesome indie developer (and Unconsoleable fan :-)) to the show!

Jake Sones has worked for some big names like Sony and Blizzard, but the lure of mobile was too strong. He struck out on his own and is now developing Zombie Match Defense which is due out this fall.

Don't let the name fool you. This match 3 game is destined for greatness and you can find out for yourself by signing up to be a tester (just scroll down to the bottom of the site).

So please enjoy, dear listeners, and don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us as many underwear model photos as you like. Really, don't hold back ;-)

Stuff we mentioned:

• The OTHER Jake Sones
• Our Jake :)
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Bejeweled Blitz (iOS & Android)
• Popcap
• Plants vs. Zombies (iOS & Android)
• The DaVinci Code
• Revolution 60
• App.net
• Hearthstone (iOS & Android)
• Mobcrush
• Anna's Mobcrush channel
• Blizzard
• Everquest
• Champions of Norrath
• Insomniac Games
• Diablo
• Nubs' Adventure (iOS & Android)
• Pocket Gamer Connects
• IndieCade
• Yeti Pie 

I know, dear listeners, we're really on a roll with these episode titles, right? Again, this is still mostly safe for children unless you're not comfortable with them hearing about the big V :-)

This week we welcome back to the show our friend, Matt Hall, one of the creators of smash hit Crossy Road.

Matt is now slightly more famous than the last time we spoke, but he loves us (and we him) so he made room for us in his busy schedule to talk about going to E3, WWDC, his current projects, what the future holds and what American delicacy he recently tried at Disney World :-)

Matt also gave us our first exclusive! You can hear something on this episode that no one else has heard. We were thrilled that Matt shared it with us and hope you'll be excited too!

Don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, or send us an email if you want to rant or rave about the show or recommend more filthy games to Jessica ;-) 

Stuff we talked about:

• Matt's previous appearances on our show
• The Notch house
• Pac-Man game
• What does QA mean?
• Korean update of Crossy Road
• Starcraft
• 3 Sprockets
• Namco
• Morpheus
• The Getaway
• Valve's VR thingie
• Oculus Rift
• First person Crossy Road video
• Todd Howard
• Jumpysaur
• Skylanders
• A Yoshi's Wooly World amiibo
• Pokemon Shuffle
• Asher Vollmer (he was on our show too)
• Vlambeer
• Metamorphabet
• Breath of Light (iOS & Android)
• Luxuria Superbia (iOS & Android)
• Fight Club
• Mighty Games
• 1942
• Andy Sum
• Down the Mountain
• Skiing Yeti Mountain (iOS & Android)
• Alto's Adventure

Kids, this is a LaserDisc player

Yes, dear listeners, you read that title right. And this is still mostly safe for children, we swear, though you might have some explaining to do if they're old enough to understand certain terms ;-) 

Besides porn on extremely old, outdated types of media, we talked about Touch Arcade's Patreon (spoiler alert: we are not fans), Bethesda's "surprise" hit Fallout Shelter, Nintendo's pronouncements on how their mobile games will be monetized and much, much more!

Don't forget to tweet at us with the hashtag #bringbackJoe or #nomoreJoe to let us know what you thought of our awesome guest editor on Episode 41, Joe Macirowski.

Please also rate and review us on iTunes, check out #Annareviews and #Jessicareviews on Twitter, and email us if you have a porn collection you're dying to confess to someone about. On second thought, maybe don't. But email us about anything else you want to tell us :-)

Stuff we talked about:

• Our #1 fan, Jared
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• The Hunt for Red October
• LaserDiscs
• Submit a FANTRO!
• Pay It Forward
• Love Story
• Totally Uncool - The Funeral
• Maddie Messer's episode
• Fresh Out of Tokens
• Shareef Jackson
• Drawn to Kill
• Pocket Gamer podcast
• Mortal Kombat X (iOS & Android)
• Hitman GO (iOS & Android)
• Hitman Sniper (iOS & Android)
• Nintendo says it will do F2P differently
• Pocket Gamer op-ed
• Limbo (iOS & Android)
• The Last Door (iOS & Android)
• Her Story
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• 10,000 (iOS & Android)
• Zombie Match Defense
• Nubs' Adventure (iOS & Android)
• Infinity Blade
• Odd Bot Out (iOS & Android)
• MOBAs
• Vainglory

Jenna Hoffstein's debut game is a super fun tower defense puzzler that teaches kids math.

Please support App Camp for Girls! We're posting this week's episode early because there is little time left to donate to their campaign and we want you . Contribute NOW and do your part to ensure a bright future for women in technology.

We welcome awesome indie game developer Jenna Hoffstein to the show to talk about her game, The Counting Kingdom, how being an indie isn't always all sunshine and rainbows and much more.

Thanks again to our wonderful friend Joe for editing this week's episode! You're the best.

Pleeeaaaase rate and review us on iTunes. 

Where in the world are Anna and Jessica? Follow the show on Twitter or email us if you want to go on Jessica's next Disney vacation and won't take no for an answer! ;) 

Stuff we talked about:

• Jumpysaur
• Lunasaurs
• The Counting Kingdom (iOS & Android)
• Inside Out
• Carmen Sandiego
• Treasure Mountain
• PAX
• Boston FIG
• Tale of Tales goes under
• Tale of Tales' games
• No Man's Sky
• Mike Bithell
• Our episode w/Megan Fox
• Hot Tin Roof
• Daniel Cook article
• Bitcoin
• Speedrunners
• Unity
• Eclair Android OS
• Ida's Red Dream now free for all
• Monument Valley (iOS, Android, Windows Phone)

Jessica's midlife-crisis-mobile 

Unconsoleable has hit middle age with our 40th episode and we are celebrating by getting a totally inappropriate, shiny, new sports car!

Sadly, that's not really true. Instead we talk about the important news mobile gamies need to know that came out of WWDC and E3, and why negative portrayals of gaming and other societal ills shouldn't be swept under the rug just because they make us uncomfortable. Think that's a bummer and don't want to hear about it? TOO BAD.

Please don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, record a fantro, or email us if you need advice on how to talk to racist friends or relatives (or, you know, something about the show or games too :-)) 

Stuff we talked about:

• Douglas on Twitter
• Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me
• Our Lifeline episode
• Touch Arcade
• Pocket Gamer
• Polygon
• @millsustwo
• Matt Hall on Twitter
• Carmen Sanediego theme
• Apple Design Award winners
• Crossy Road (iOS & Android)
• Shadowmatic 
• Does Not Commute (iOS & Android)
• Vainglory
• MOBAs
• Metamorphabet
• Windosill
• This War of Mine
• That Dragon Cancer
• What WWDC means for games
• One of the happy California cows commercials
• Fallout Shelter
• Mobile gaming news from E3
• Spawn On Me
• Cool indie games at E3
• ESPN piece by a black woman gamer
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Hearthstone (iOS & Android)