#VerticalSlice Podcast

In which I chat with Loot Crate’s VP of Product Marketing and Communications, Erik Reynolds! If you’re anything like me, which you undoubtedly are, then you’ve most likely heard of Loot Crate and even their more selective crates like the “Star Trek” and horror ones. But, if you’re still like me, then Loot Crate’s recent Loot Play program is news to you. What caught my eye about it is its hybrid model of Loot Crate’s monthly selection feature coupled with curated, downloadable games. Well, Reynolds and I talked about that, what attracted him to Loot Crate, his gaming history, and even got into the subject of gamer entitlement. Not too much. Just a little.

In this spooktacular Halloween Special, I haunt the interwebs with the great Ian Strandberg of Verbal Processing and the possibly even greater Grant Goodine of the Digital Roadmap Podcast. After my tragic attempt at Karloffing up the joint, we dive into spooky games we’ve played recently (for me, the fantastic “Kathy Rain“), as well as upcoming All Hallows’ Eve plans. Mine, of course, include the wonderful, interactive horror play “Delusion.” Strandberg, Goodine, and I then chatted at length on other spooky stuff from being able to see the buried-body areas in cemeteries to the far more terrifying Cthulhu Mythos. Thanks for listening and happy Halloween!

In which MrLlamaSC and I dig into all kinds of Diablo II goodness! I discovered MLSC in a GDQ video. As I revealed to him, my discovery of speedruns in general is pretty recent. I’d been watching the Marios and Zeldas speedran, but just so happened to catch the title of his, and was blown away by the fact that one could speedrun D2. MLSC gave me the down low on what it takes to speedrun in general, with D2 specifically, how much practice he’s put in to be one of the world’s champions. We even talked about his crazy-soothing voice!

In which I chat with Critical Depth Games’ Richard Cook, who is braving the rotoscope (is that the name of the technique?) waters to bring us the greatest fighting game since the original “Mortal Kombat,” the Kickstarting “Super Combat Fighter.” Not only did we chat Cook’s love of fighting games, and rotoscoped (what’s the damn technique called??) fighting games, and his love of filmmaking, and how Kansas is so much cheaper than LA (I can attest), but we also got into how the hell he managed to go after and get THE Ernie Reyes, Jr. to be in the game!

TECHNICAL WARNING: This episode suffered many audio drop-outs maybe due to Discord, maybe due to not Discord. Your patience is appreciated.

In which I chat with Retrotainment‘s Tim Hartman! Hartman and Retrotainment are doing something I didn’t even know previous to finding them existed–producing cartridge games for the NES! Oh, sure, 8-bit- and 16-bit-style games are all the rage in the indie dev world now, but Retrotainment has taken that to a whole other level by not only producing the physical cartridges, but also intentionally constraining themselves to the programmatic limitations of the NES. So none of that 16 trillion color palette bullcrap! No, no. Retrotainment’s “Haunted Halloween ’86” is the real deal!

In which I chat with Trans Seven Studio’s transmedia producer Karen Snyder. Snyder’s doing among the more interesting innovations I’ve ever heard of in gaming. One, she created the first interactive romance novel, that’s also an FMV game. Two, and this particularly grabbed me, she’s putting together a game jam whose results will be healthcare-related games. As in games that are designed to aid in healthcare. You can check everything out here, here, and here.

In which I chat with MobCrush’s Head of Creator Network Phil Ranta! Ranta’s world is somewhat alien to me as it involves talent and company (or “brand” as the kids say) relations. So we talked about how Ranta got into that, what an average day of chatting with studio heads and talent is like, what it’s like seeing kids he hired go on to become big, digital talent agents, his favorite RPGs (can you believe he hasn’t played “Diablo III“???), and how he would handle the sticky situation of a creator aligning with anime porn who then wants to sell Coke.

In which I chat with Nintendo World Report‘s director John Rairdin, or as I call him, Johnny Rare (as in RareWare), in this crazy-long extendo episode that completely sucked JR’s evening away. In it, we chat NWR’s history, how Rairdin got involved, what daily NWR life is like, their many E3 adventures, and of course, the brilliance of Nintendo. Oh, yes, we service the Big N like overly paid Vegas hookers on our last night before retirement! But we also get into controversy, such as Rairdin’s opinion that the “Uncharted” games aren’t quite as great as you remember, but how “Doom (’16)” really is!

In which I chat with Paul Nurminen, VP of Product Development at Intellivision Entertainment. Turns out Nurminen and I had a ton in common what with both of our entries into video games being the Intellivision, both having wives who are less into gaming than we are, both have gaming podcasts, and both have dreams of home arcades (which he’s already succeeded in creating, but which I still dream about). We also talked about the competitive console space, how maybe some companies should stay, some should take a breather, and there’s probably a bit or two in their involving hot gypsies.

In which I perform a rambling monologue on a comparison between level design in “Doom ’16,” “Metroid Prime,” and even a little on theme park Halloween attraction mazes (even though they’re not really, usually maze-like). Get ready because there’s lots of me-style rambling. Lots and lots of it. With plenty of “ums,” “ahs,” and “uhs,” sprinkled throughout. Not to mention the tangents. Oh, the tangents! I even reference past episodes with voice actor and comic Piotr Michael, like this one and this one. Thanks to all for a wonderful season four! The first of season five is already in the can!