Unconsoleable

Lightin' up some dangling corpses, no big

It is with great sorrow that we must tell you, dear listeners, that one of your hosts has become a console gamer. Well... maybe not exactly, but the evidence is fairly strong!

Yes, your very own Jessica Dennis has played a console game on more than one occasion and streamed it on Twitch to boot. What game has caused her to go over to the Dark Side? How did she do? All will be revealed on this episode!

We also try to figure out if a recent game’s controls are bad and should feel bad, look forward to what 2016 will have to offer mobile gamers and much, much more.

Please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you have some stuff for Jessica to burn ;-)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Jessica's 1st Tomb Raider stream
• Jessica's 2nd stream
• Jessica’s Twitch channel
• Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Elgato
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Shooty Skies (iOS & Android)
• Our GOTY episode
• Lifeline: Silent Night (iOS & Android)
• Choices (iOS only for now)
• Undertale
• Power Hover (iOS only for now)
• Land Sliders (iOS & Android)
• Oddrok
• Luke Muscat's impending GDC talk
• A Dark Room (iOS & Android)
• A Noble Circle (iOS only)
• Ori and the Blind Forest
• Washing dudes in the shower game
• Best indie mobile games of 2015
• Best 2015 mobile games you didn't play
• Mashable lumps games in with apps
• Mashable's top 10 mobile games of 2015
• Developers look forward to 2016
• Barry from Fireproof
• The Room 3 (iOS only for now)
• Some anticipated games in 2016
• Out There (iOS & Android)
• The Witness
• Jonathan Blow
• Braid
• Duke Nukem
• Crossy Road arcade machine
• Material podcast
• Yasmine and Russell's episode
• Jessica on the Star Wars Electric Shadow
• Jessica on Less Than or Equal
• Listen for info about #SpawnforGood on Spawn on Me (coming soon!)

Are you ready for... our first ever game of the year episode??!!!

Yeah, we’re just a little bit excited :D

After an amazing year of some absolutely incredible games, we made a list of 35 that we feel are the best of what mobile had to offer us. And from them we picked our Game of the Year, as well as some other winners in special categories we came up with.

Remember that as the title suggests, this is totally subjective. If these aren't your picks for the best mobile games of 2015, that's cool. But it doesn't make us wrong either ;-)

Please, please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you’ve played YMBAB more than Jessica, because you might well be a unicorn! ;)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Norton Critical Editions
• Touch Arcade's GOTY post
• Our Most Addictive Winner: Land Sliders (iOS & Android)
• Matt Ditton's very bleeped episode
• Prettygreat
• Our Most Pretty Winner: Lumino City (iOS & Steam)
• Please Don't Touch Anything (iOS & Android)
• Our Most Weird Winner: Burger (iOS & Android)
• Our Most Innovative Winner: Framed (iOS & Android)
• Our Most Funny Winner: Bertram Fiddle (iOS & Android)
• Bertram Fiddle Kickstarter funded
• Our Worst Game Winner: Dictator (iOS & Android)
• Colin Lane on Twitter
• Our friend Brian on Twitter
• Our friend Joe on Twitter
• Our Collusion GOTY Winner: Drawn to Kill (iPad only)
• Our Apple TV episode
• Our Best Apple TV Game Winner: Yeti Pie (iOS only)
• Our Best Apple Watch Game Winner: Lifeline (iOS & Android)
• Yeti in Crossy Road
• Jessica’s Personal GOTY: Til Morning’s Light (iOS only)
• Anna’s Personal GOTY: Shooty Skies (iOS & Android)
• Unconsoleable’s 2015 GOTY: The Room 3 (iOS only for now)

Moist

Note: We will record our GOTY (game of the year) episode on December 25! Please send us or tweet us your nominations and personal stories of mobile games you’ve loved this year. 

On this episode we actually talk about what we’re playing! For more than three rushed minutes! And we’re going to keep doing it early in the episode every time we don’t have guests. Novel idea, huh? :)

We also have lots of plushie news to tell you about and even a few things that aren’t about stuffed toy chickens! For instance, has F2P won as the only sensible monetization strategy on mobile? What the heck is COPPA? And whose butt did that sweaty money come from? You’ll learn all this and much more.

Please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you want to send us on an-expense paid trip to Australia ;)

• Elf on a Shelf
• Mensch on a Bench
• Anna guested on this podcast
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Neko Atsume (iOS & Android)
• Conductor Whiskers
• Billy the Kitten
• Sling Kong (iOS & Android)
• Totes the Goat (iOS only for now)
• Unity’s alleged image problems
• Grayout (iOS only)
• Blackbar (iOS only)
• Neven Mrgan
• Dashy Crashy (iOS only for now)
• Dumpling Design
• Land Sliders (iOS & Android)
• Power Hover (iOS only for now)
• RETRY (iOS & Android)
• Swing Copters 2 (iOS & Android)
• Til Morning's Light (iOS only)
• Alto's Adventure (iOS only for now)
• Cloud Chasers (iOS & Android)
• Crossy Road plushies have arrived
• Threes plush pillow
• Threes for free in the browser
• FTC settles w/COPPA violators
• Jones on Fire
• Zoonuts (iOS only)
• Games Top People of 2015
• Matt schools Notch
• Masi Oka
• GaymerX Australia
• The discussion in mobile is over, F2P has won
• Randy's episode
• Zombie Match Defense (iOS only for now)
• Megan Fox on Twitter
• Square Enix knows how to make mobile games

You can take your gratitude and...

NOTE: We will record our GOTY (game of the year) episode on December 25! Please send us or tweet us your nominations and personal stories of mobile games you’ve loved this year.

As we near the end of 2015, we’ll be talking a lot about various top lists of games. On this episode we go over some highlights of Apple’s annual top charts of most downloaded games and apps as well as the picks the App Store editors make. Did we agree or disagree with their picks? You’ll have to listen to find out :)

But before that, we fawn over quite possibly our most special and meaningful iTunes review ever, written by our bestie and wonderful human being, Matt Hall. Once more with feeling, we love you, Matt <3

You too can be wonderful and rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you think we’re entirely wrong about turtles :)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Is Tanzania a country?
• Alto's Adventure (iOS only)
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Shooty Skies (iOS & Android)
• Luca Redwood's tweet
• Dogs reunited with soldiers sample video
• Steve (our Gaming Yoda)
• Hearthstone (iOS & Android)
• What is Infinite Arena?
• Sling Kong holiday update
• Land Sliders holiday characters (including the dreidel)
• Land Sliders is on Android!
• Some of Apple's top apps & games lists
• Lara Croft GO (iOS & Android)
• Rules (iOS only)
• Lifeline (iOS & Android)
• Lifeline 2 (iOS & Android)
• Lifeline: Silent Night (iOS only for now)
• Rayman Adventure (iOS & Android)
• Trivia Crack (iOS & Android)

Matt Hall really is a sharp-dressed man

Help us settle the question of last week’s episode and vote for your favorite Aussie Matt on Twitter using the hashtag #MattWars :-D

While we ponder that important question, we cross our arms and declare that games don't have to be hard and certainly shouldn’t be made so for the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, is Jessica having a hard time with the newly updated You Must Build A Boat? You'll need to listen to find out.

We also revel in the accolades that some awesome mobile games are receiving (again), but sigh at some bad behavior by those types of mobile gamers; the ones who don't want to pay for games. All this plus exciting news and much, much more!

Remember to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you have a Tesla you’d like to give us or at least give us a ride in one ;)

Stuff we mentioned:

• Tesla Motors
• Boon Cotter
• Prettygreat
• You Must Build a Boat (iOS & Android)
• Lara Croft GO (iOS & Android)
• Lara Croft GO wins at Game Awards
• Square Enix Montreal's tweets
• IGN review of Lara Croft GO
• IGN video; mobile is for babies
• Smash Hit (iOS & Android)
• TIME's GOTY list
• TIME's Best Looking Games
• Prune (iOS & Android)
• Joel McDonald
• Her Story (iOS & Steam)
• Last year's TIME list
• Downwell (iOS & Steam)
• Alto's Adventure (iOS only)
• Lumino City (iOS & Steam)
• Google ads that let you demo apps
• Material podcast
• Choices: And the Sun Went Out (iOS only for now)
• Neko Atsume (iOS & Android)
• The Room 3 (iOS only for now)
• Tiltagon (iOS & Android)
• Totes the Goat (iOS only for now)
• Traffic Rush 2 (iOS only for now)
• Prettygreat are working on game #2!
• New game coming from Snowman and The Game Band
• GaymerX
• Anna's panel at GaymerX
• Australian GaymerX

Matt Ditton, International Man of Mystery. Australian Game Dev of Mystery. Same difference.

This being the episode with our third Aussie Matt (Matt Ditton, to be precise), you know we had to ask the question. But what's the answer? You'll have to listen to find out!

Other than wondering why there are so many Matts in Australia, we also talked about super serious gaming topics like the Men of Gamedev calendar. No, really, there was actual talk about games and mobile as a gaming platform, we promise!

We recorded this episode on Thanksgiving so we want to say we are very thankful for all of you, our listeners. If you're thankful for us, please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you want to help plan the Aussie Men of Gamedev Pageant ;-p

Stuff we mentioned:

Ok., games can be sold. Or can they? We tried to figure that out and much, much more when we talked to Tigerstyle's Randy Smith.

Tigerstyle made some of the iconic, early games when mobile gaming was still young. But their latest game hasn't done well and we talked about the realities (and brutalities?) of the App Store and how it influences what games get made and what games succeed.

Remember to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter, and email us if you too are pro-socialism :-)

Stuff we mentioned:

This episode is a departure from our usual happy-go-lucky ways, but we think it was fitting and important. We hope you'll agree.

We talked with the fabulous Kiva Bay about her game 12 Hours, homelessness, and much, much more. So the discussion was weighty and we couldn’t feel more strongly about it.

Please rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and email us if you want ideas for how to help the homeless (but we'll just refer you to Kiva).

Stuff we mentioned:

• 12 Hours was greenlit on Steam

• 1 in 5 trans people will be homeless

• Caelyn Sandel

• Twine

• Mental health issues among the homeless

• Defensive architecture

• This War of Mine (iOS & Steam)

• Sheltertech

• Portland Loos

• The criminalization of poverty

• Kiva’s comic on being a homeless gamer

• Article about being a low-income gamer

• Gawker blog by a woman in poverty

• The Pongo Fund

Yet another special guest joins us this week, perhaps the most special guest of all! It's our beloved friend, Joe Macirowski, creator of Yeti Pie and eventually (we hope) other games we will all be able to play on the toilet :D

For now, we discuss Joe's experiences developing for the AppleTV, Jessica's experiences gaming on it, what early reviews have said, where we hope the Apple TV will go as a gaming platform and much, much more.

So sit back, relax, and toss a pizza to your friendly, neighborhood yeti, because he's hungry!

Don't forget to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter (follow Anna & Jessica too), and email us if you've got something that we need to collude on :) 

Stuff we mentioned:

• Ruffled Feathers
• Anna's version of collusion
• Jessica's collusion revision
• New Apple TV
• Ars Technica article on AppleTV
• Polygon's article
• Canabalt (iOS only)
• SpriteKit
• Unity blog post
• Lumino City (iOS, MAS and Steam)
• Slide To Play Apple TV app lists
• Zillow
• Mac World piece
• Daniel Jakult's app rejected
• The Room 3 (iOS only for now)
• Shooty Skies lands on Android
• Bertram Fiddle hits goal!
• Bertram Fiddle (iOS & Steam)
• GDC
• WWDC
• Me millionth dollar GIF 
• Activision buys King
• Current Xbox One deals
• Limbo (iOS & Android)
• Til Morning's Light (iOS only)
• Breath of Light (iOS & Android) 
• Recommend us in Overcast

On this episode, we are super thrilled to welcome back our awesome and talented friend, Shareef Jackson.

Shareef is our Nintendo guru, or is it ninja? We figure that out and much, much more, like what the heck is Miitomo going to be and why is it Nintendo's first mobile game? Would Nintendo ever develop for the Apple TV? Is Shareef really a Yoshi?!!! All these and other pressing questions will be answered!

Please remember to rate and review us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter (and follow Shareef too!) and email us if you have some adorable Nintendo character plushies you'd like to send us ;-)

DONATE NOW to Shareef's Extra Life team. All proceeds go to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

Stuff we mentioned:

• Yeti Pie (iOS only)
• Unstealthiest ninja t-shirt
• Heroes
• Piloteer (iOS & Steam)
• Alto's Adventure on Apple TV
• Yeti Pie developer, Joe, on Twitter
• Nintendo announces Miitomo
• Tomodachi Life
• Splatoon
• Gamasutra analysis of Nintendo news
• Blue Ocean strategy
• Live blog of Nintendo's announcement
• Animal Crossing
• Kim Kardashian's game (iOS & Android)
• Interview w/Pac-Man creator
• Yoshi's Woolly World
• Twine
• Minecraft
• Ken Wong's Polygon op-ed
• Rami Ismail's talk: You Don't Stand a Chance
• Destiny
• Twilight