Checkpoints
166 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 21 ratingsThis is a show about videogames, The people who play them and the people who make them. Each week, a guest on the show talks about the games that have shaped their life in one way or another. Games that have inspired them, games that forged connections with others and games that have soothed wounds. Checkpoints!
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Episodes
Rebroadcast - Episode 79 - Harrison G. Pink
February 17, 2020 01:43 - 1 hour - 74.7 MBMy guest today is Harrison G. Pink, a world designer who currently works on Mafia 3 at Hangar 13 and has previously worked on the Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands at Telltale. We talk about growing up in Bermuda, solving Kings Quest puzzles while playing in the sea, how shareware trading and PC helped him through boarding school, how Myst changed his life and why The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker seemed like a game made just for him. We also hit on the storytelling potential of ga...
Rebroadcast - Episode 78 - Robert Yang
February 10, 2020 10:42 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBMy guest today is Robert Yang, a game developer and a teacher at the NYU Game Center. Robert's games are most known for their explorations and interpretations of gay sex, from spanking in Hurt Me Plenty to dick pics in Cobra Club, and we talk on what compelled him to focus in on these themes, and how something as seemingly juvenile as a dick pic simulator is actually a scathing critique of our surveillance culture. We talk about his bad first impressions of video games, how Final Fantasy cha...
Rebroadcast - Episode 77 - Ghost Town Games AKA Phil Duncan & Oli DeVine
February 03, 2020 01:36 - 1 hour - 60.2 MBMy guests today are the creators of the incredible local multiplayer game Overcooked, Phil Duncan and Oli Devine AKA Ghost Town Games. We talk about both of their early experiences with home computers and the divergent interests they inspired in them, why Sonic was so fun to draw, why Tails is the worst, the thrill of local multiplayer, the best version of Tony Hawks and how you're never ready to start a studio so why not just do it now? "Anyone can cook but only the fearless can be great."...
Rebroadcast - Episode 76 - Patrick Klepek
January 27, 2020 06:36 - 1 hour - 53.2 MBMy guest today is the senior reporter for Waypoint, Patrick Klepek. We talk about how we can't quit Weezer despite their best efforts, how he pitched a Playstation to his little brother to ensure they got it as a shared christmas gift, his incredibly young start in video games and the lack of romance that defined his early video game journalism career. We also hit on his speakeasy style Halo 2 multiplayer set up in college, his mammoth battle of wits with Dan Rykert during the Mario Maker M...
Rebroadcast - Episode 75 - Ken Levine
January 20, 2020 18:34 - 1 hour - 64.4 MBMy guest today is Ken Levine, creative director and co-founder of Irrational and now Ghost Story Games, and the creative force behind some of the most iconic titles in video game history including System Shock 2, Thief and the Bioshock Series. We talk about the physical thrill of early mechanical games, his bad news bears-esque teenage deliquency - bumming smokes and playing arcades - his bumpy path into video game design via Hollywood and how the theatre prepared him for running a video gam...
Rebroadcast - Episode 74 - Will Luton
January 13, 2020 01:32 - 1 hour - 65.5 MBMy guest today is Will Luton, the product manager for Angry Birds 2 by Rovio and author of the book Free to Play or how to make money by giving away your games. Unsurprisingly we talk a whole bunch about free to play, we lament on the passing of the Dreamcast, we talk about Will's Magic the Gathering training regiment and his passion for playing and restoring old pinball machines. In an expansive and meandering chat we also manage to get into Alex Kidd speedruns, the merits of the Super Mar...
Rebroadcast - Episode 73 - David McCarthy
January 06, 2020 01:31 - 1 hour - 60.8 MBMy guest today is David McCarthy who you'll probably recognise from the radio. He has worn many hats in the video game industry, from staff writer at Edge, to Rockstar Games and ultimtely to Japan, where he's worked for a number of video game companies over the past 6 or 7 years. There's a bunch of serious video game chat including the allure of Sonic, why Halo was so important, the majesty of Bangai O, the underappreciated brilliance of Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball and how the lat...
Rebroadcast - Episode 72 - Mare Sheppard & Raigan Burns
December 30, 2019 01:31 - 1 hour - 85.2 MBMy guests today are Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns, the founders of Metanet Software and the creators of N++. We talk about the promise of early programming, the impact of Sonic the Hedgehog, how they met and bonded over freeware games, the design lessons of Wip3out, an NHL 2001 tournament that has spanned over a decade, why a broad education is perfect for video games and, in perhaps the most controversial statement on the show thus far, how Crash Team Racing is better than Mario Kart. As ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 71 - Michael Brough
December 23, 2019 01:30 - 1 hour - 49.9 MBMy guest today is Michael Brough, the singular designer of a whole bunch of truly brilliant video games including 868-Hack, Imbroglio and Corrypt. We talk about how it feels playing New Zealand story as a kid in New Zealand, how quickly he fell in love with exploring computers through command lines, the exotic promise of video game shops, his experimental StarCraft mods, what keeps him making games, and how sometimes you can have too much faith in shareware. "Hold Z to feel emotions." PATR...
Rebroadcast - Episode 70 - Is this the real Frog Fractions 2? No it's Jim Crawford.
December 16, 2019 11:30 - 1 hour - 82.6 MBToday's guest is Jim Crawford, creator of Frog Fractions 1 and Frog Fractions 2 and co-host of the video games hot dog podcast. We talk about his very early love of programming, why he would tell his young self to just rip people off better, how Frog Fractions was born out of insecurity and the key to funny video games. We also talk about World of Warcraft may have got him fired, working in the early PC demo scene, tracker music, reading Dungeons and Dragons rule books for fun, the ahead o...
Rebroadcast - Episode 69 - Rob Dubbin
December 09, 2019 13:03 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBMy guest today is Rob Dubbin. Rob spent over a decade working with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report and The Late Show, but has always had a strong love for games and game development. We talk about childhood hurricanes, Computer Camp, the thrill of learning ZZT, why he is always revisiting Star Control 2, his Samurai Gunn skills, a brief dalliance with hacking and how a chance encounter with an old friend reignited his love for making videogames. "Okay, if you guys are really us, what ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 68 - Nina Freeman
December 02, 2019 23:02 - 1 hour - 48.2 MBMy guest on today's episode is the wonderful Nina Freeman. Currently working on Tacoma at The Fullbright Company, Nina's previous games include Cibele and the IGF and Indiecade finalist How Do You Do It? We talk her life long love of Final Fantasy X-2, the absurdity of playing Sims with no context, how cities make scenes, the Fullbright videogame mixtape, how to quit Final Fantasy Online for real this time and why videogames (mostly) suck at sex. "You have to use your hands? That's like a b...
Rebroadcast - Episode 67 - Rich Vreeland AKA Disasterpeace
November 25, 2019 01:02 - 1 hour - 71.7 MBMy guest today is Rich Vreeland AKA Disasterpeace, the sound artist and composer for games including Fez, Reigns, Mini Metro, Hyper Light Drifter and the movie It Follows. As you can imagine there is a lot of music nerd chat, from esoteric composition techniques to how to define the Chiptune genre. In a broad and meandering chat we also hit on his evergreen love of Ice Hockey games, how he was exposed to Zelda in utero, how much he was inspired by Cave Story and his unlikely early musical st...
Rebroadcast - Episode 66 - Susan Arendt
November 19, 2019 23:01 - 1 hour - 50.9 MBMy guest today is Susan Arendt, the executive editor of Gamesradar+, co-founder of TakeThis and a veteran vidoegame journlaist and editor. We talk about mastering Maze Craze on the VCS, why Psychonauts is a flawed masterpiece, how she worked two jobs to fund her love of videogames, why the puns in Dragon Quest are the best, the impact of Phantasy Star Online and why playing Missile Command with her dad is such an important memory. "Rise and shine, guardian!" PATREON! - patreon.com/checkpo...
Rebroadcast - Episode 65 - Aleks Krotoski
November 11, 2019 01:14 - 1 hour - 48 MBHappy New Year! My first guest of 2017 is the wonderful Aleks Krotoski. Best known to many as one of the presenters of the late 90s videogame show Bits, Aleks is also a renowned broadcaster, academic and journalist in the fields of psychology and technology, and currently hosts Digital Human on BBC Radio 4. We join Aleks on a stroll through LA and talk about playing Frogger in a laundromat, the unique appeal of Glasgow, working on Bits, Hot Coffee, Virtual Reality, the correct way to play S...
Rebroadcast - Episode 64 - Zach Gage
November 04, 2019 01:14 - 1 hour - 67.6 MBClosing out the year and completing my quartet of guests who made some of my favourite games of 2016, my guest today is the creator of Really Bad Chess, Zach Gage. Zach is self described conceptual artist who explores systems. He has an incredible breadth of work but including board games, visual arts, installations and of course videogames like Spelltower, Tharsis and the wonderful Lose/Lose - a space invaders clone that wipes a random file on your computer every time you kill an alien. W...
Rebroadcast - Episode 63 - Alex Preston
October 28, 2019 01:13 - 1 hour - 53.5 MBMy interviews with devs of some of my favourite games of 2016 continues this week as I welcome the creator of Hyper Light Drifter and co-founder of Heart Machine, Alex Preston. We talk about the creation of Hyper Light Drifter, the global community of Indie Game Developers, why you have to be a crazy person to make videogames and how a VHS tape about the making of Donkey Kong Country changed his life. We also hit on his deep love of Zelda and Super Metroid, the magic of Phantasy Star Onlin...
Rebroadcast - Episode 62 - Jonathan Burroughs
October 21, 2019 12:12 - 71.4 MBContinuing the December theme of speaking with devs who made some of my favourite games of 2016, I'm joined this week by Jonathan Burroughs, one of the creators of Virgina and co-founder of Variable State. The team have recently been nominated for Writer's Guild of Great Britain award for the writing in the game too, so huge congratulations to them for that. In addition to his almost accidental career path - which took him from QA on Burnout 3 to starting his own game company via Battlefield...
Rebroadcast - Episode 61 - AP Thomson
October 07, 2019 12:35 - 1 hour - 79 MBMy guest today is AP Thomson, creator of Beglitched, the recently released iOS puzzler Swap Sword and many, many more. (My personal favourite is Tony Hawks Pro Dater.) He also teaches game design at NYU and has a masters degree from MIT. No big deal. We talk through the strange fear videogames instilled in him as a kid, and how Kirby's Block Ball helped him through to the other side. Why Cave Story made him want to be a game designer and how Pokemon will likely be here forever. We hit on h...
Rebroadcast - Episode 60 - Mr. Biffo
September 30, 2019 12:33 - 1 hour - 54.6 MBMy guest today is Paul Rose aka Mr. Biffo. A hugely influential videogame writer during his run at Digitiser, a teletext service on Channel 4, Paul is also a novelist, screenwriter, and has just successfully kickstarted Found Footage. an online sketch show. We meander through Biffo's life in games, from the Binatone Thundercolt to PSVR, via late night Alex Kidd sessions, the amazing single player of Titanfall 2, the forgotten classic Unirally and the impossible excitement of Star Wars Dark F...
Rebroadcast - Episode 59 - Edmund McMillen
September 23, 2019 00:20 - 1 hour - 75.7 MBMy guest today is Edmund McMillen, the creator of Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, Gish and many, many more. He was also one of the developers profiled in the excellent Indie Game The Movie. We talk about a lot of videogames as we meander through Edmund's life in games. A deep love of early Nintendo, the hilarity of Katamari and Conkers Bad Fur Day, the genius of Overwatch, the wonders of Shareware, and the urban legend generator that is Mortal Kombat 2. We also talk about his career ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 58 - Alexander O. Smith
September 16, 2019 00:19 - 2 hours - 92.8 MBMy guest today is Alexander O. Smith, a veteran translator who has worked on an incredible array of video games including Vagrant Story, Phoenix Wright, Vanquish and one of the greatest games ever made, Final Fantasy 12. Being a huge fan of the game, I ask a lot of questions about Final Fantasy 12 and Alex gives a lot of great answers, (like how important Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic was to the crew of the Rabanastre.) We talk a lot about where his love of language first arose, and the art ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 57 - Tim Constant
September 09, 2019 21:19 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBMy guest today is Tim Constant, founder of Panic Barn and creator of the Tiki Taka Soccer series of video games. Me and Tim chat about his rich history and love of games, including an obsession with Champ Manager, a homemade Out Run cabinet and the struggles of being the only gamer in the village. We also talk about the struggles of maintaining and independent studio, how a live quiz game he worked on almost took down Channel 5, and that time he had to choose between his Everquest guild or h...
Rebroadcast - Episode 56 - Tom Bramwell
September 02, 2019 00:21 - 1 hour - 78.5 MBMy guest today is Tom Bramwell, former editor of Eurogamer, former Head of Writing at Riot Games and all around good guy. We talk about Tom's ridiculously early start in videogame journalism fuelled by a passion for videogame magazines, his deep love of FIFA and how Destiny has provided some of his finest gaming memories. In a relaxed and meandering chat, we also touch on a love of collecting, the life lessons of The West Wing, playing Rock Band in the penthouse of a Vegas casino, why he nev...
Rebroadcast - Episode 55 - JP LeBreton
August 26, 2019 11:20 - 1 hour - 83.9 MBMy guest today is JP LeBreton. Having worked on a variety of games including Bioshock 1 & 2 and The Cave for Irrational Games and Double Fine respectively, JP has since gone solo and is currently working on Autobiographical Architecture as well as various other small projects. We meander through the games that shaped JP's life. As well as a life long fascination and love of Doom, we hit on the mystery and promise of his first experience with a Commodore 64, how places in videogames can be as...
Rebroadcast - Episode 54 - Simon Byron
August 19, 2019 00:13 - 1 hour - 83.3 MBMy guest today is Simon Byron, formerly a videogame journalist and PR person, now a co-host of videogame radio show One Life Left, Publishing Director at Curve Digital and creator of hit mobile games Bang Man and Up Down Left Right. He is also the reigning Sensible Soccer World Champion. We talk about growing up around arcades in Bournemouth, how anarchic early video game journalism was, the highs and lows of video game PR - from playing in front of thousands at the Isle of Wight festival to...
Rebroadcast - Episode 53 - Rami Ismail
August 12, 2019 00:12 - 1 hour - 89 MBMy guest today is Rami Ismail, a Dutch/Egyptian video game developer, creator of presskit() and one half of one of the most prolific and successful independent video game studios of the past few years, Vlambeer. We talk about his very early fascination with how games worked and pulling apart code in QBasic, why the Polystation was a blessing in disguise, questionable tactics in Starsiege: Tribes, why he enjoys giving talks so much, the runway train that is Vlambeer and the mystery of it's...
Rebroadcast - Episode 52 - Ori Takemura
August 05, 2019 00:12 - 1 hour - 73.2 MBMy guest today is Ori Takemura. Originally from Russia, Ori is an award winning UX and product designer, a video game designer and the founder of qixen-p design. This is perhaps the most international episode yet. I spoke to Ori about growing up in Russia, winning design awards in Germany, being inspired by Japan and living in Singapore. This is a hell of a chat. We talk about growing up with games in Russia (the 16 bit console wars were televised!), what it's like playing Command & Conquer ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 51 - Alexis Kennedy
July 29, 2019 17:11 - 1 hour - 59.4 MBMy guest today is Alexis Kennedy, the founder of Failbetter Games, creator of Fallen London, creative director of Sunless Sea, and as of just a few days ago, the first ever guest writer for BioWare. We talk about how his love of narrative games was awakened playing Colossal Cave on the mainframe at the Oxford University Atmospheric Physics department, the wonder of table top gaming and how Dungeons & Dragons can become a full time job, whether or not the lore in Dark Souls was made up on the...
Rebroadcast - Episode 50 - Bennett Foddy
July 22, 2019 00:10 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBMy guest today is Bennett Foddy, the creator of QWOP, GIRP and Multibowl and a professor at the NYU Game Center. We talk about Bennett's extraordinary journey to game design via philosophy, ring tone advertisements and a brief stint as the bassist for the band Cut Copy. We talk about a whole heap of different games, and get into why Australia is a country of pirates, why philosophers don't play videogames, why he values breadth over depth and why the remix should be a new form of game design...
Rebroadcast - Episode 49 - Steve McNeil
July 15, 2019 16:10 - 1 hour - 64.6 MBMy guest today is Steve McNeil, one of the creators and team captains of Go 8 Bit, a videogame comedy show that started life as a fringe experiment and has now been turned into a real life TV show! It starts tonight in the UK at 10pm on Dave. We talk through Steve's life in games, from Pong on the Adnan Grandstand through to the very latest in virtual reality. We touch on his love for the early British videogame pioneers like Jeff Minter and the Oliver Twins, university sessions of Brian Lar...
Rebroadcast - Episode 48 - Tony Coles
July 08, 2019 09:30 - 2 hours - 92 MBMy guest today is Tony Coles, a freelance videogame writer and former videogame PR. The length of the episode gives you some idea of how passionate and excited Tony is by videogames. This episode runs on the rocket fuel of enthusiasm and nostalgia. We talk about Tony's first experience of Space Invaders on a German Military Base and how that continued to be the defining game of his youth, early video game hacks involving shoot em up simulators and Maria Whittaker, some horror stories of pla...
Rebroadcast - Episode 47 - Ellie Gibson
July 01, 2019 09:29 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBMy guest today is Ellie Gibson, one half of the Scummy Mummies Podcast/comedy team, an award winning videogame journalist and coming to TVs near you as the videogame expert in Dara O'Briain's Go 8 Bit. We talk about the dual impact of Jet Set Willy and Band Aid's Feed The World, the bizarre interview process for her first gaming job, an unforgettable press trip for the videogame Black which involved James Bond's stunt double and a ring of fire, why it really should be about ethics in Viet...
Rebroadcast - Episode 46 - Jo Twist
June 25, 2019 09:29 - 1 hour - 51.8 MBMy guest today is Dr. Jo Twist OBE. As the CEO of UKIE, the games trade body, Jo works tirelessly to ensure that the UK is a place where videogame developers can thrive. We talk about moving from Hong Kong to Scotland, how she was prescribed her first videogame by an optician, the ubiquity and charm of Game & Watch, the wonders of online communities, her work with Special Effect and why vidoegames can create such powerful social connections. Other Buggers Efforts.
Rebroadcast - Episode 45 - Chris Remo
June 17, 2019 00:54 - 1 hour - 69.5 MBMy guest today is Chris Remo. Chris is designer and a composer at the videogame studio Campo Santo and the producer and host of Idle Thumbs. After spending a number of years as a videogame journalist Chris moved into development, working on games like Gone Home, The Cave, Thirty Flights of Loving and most recently, Firewatch. We talk early obsessions with Civilization, first discovering Star Wars via the PC X-Wing games, college dorm Starcraft battles, playing through the videogame canon in ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 44 - Chris Totten
June 12, 2019 21:53 - 1 hour - 55.1 MBMy guest today is Chris Totten. An author, architect, founder of the Smithsonian Art Museum Indie Arcade and the Game Artist in Residence at American University. Some CV right? We talk about the relationship between architecture and level design, why Super Mario 3 was such a life changing game, the ubiquity of Madden, how single player games can be communal and a unique teaching experience which replicated the mechanics of Pokemon. "Be a Charizard." iTunes HERE - SUBSCRIBE / RATE / REVIEW ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 43 - Eskil Steenberg
June 03, 2019 00:43 - 1 hour - 82.3 MBMy guest today is Eskil Steenburg. A high school dropout who was hired as a researcher at an academic institute just a few years later. His game, Love, is a bold, imaginative and unlike almost any other game out there. This is a long old episode but Eskil has a lot to talk about including what a game actually is and how he's attempting to re-engineer the internet. It's a big episode. We talk about how Zelda was the first game that truly impacted him. How him and his friends used to sneak int...
Rebroadcast - Episode 42 - Dan Croucher
May 27, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 77.9 MBMy guest today is Dan Croucher, a videogame producer currently working on [redacted]. Dan started in QA many years ago with Babel, and has gone on to produce games for large developers like Relentless as well as in the indie trenches on Scram Kitty for Dakko Dakko. We talk about what a videogame producer actually does, creating videogame fanzines, the psychology of nostalgia, how box art used to be so much better than the game and how a trip around the world made him love videogames more th...
Rebroadcast - Episode 41 - Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy
May 20, 2019 00:41 - 1 hour - 77.5 MBMy guests today are Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy, the directors and producers of the newly released videogame documentary Man vs. Snake. We talk about their videogame history of course, starting with Sears Pong machines and New York Bodegas and up to virtual reality with some side stories into Top Cat style arcade hacking their worst rage quits. We talk a lot about the movie too, from it's inception during a high score battle in the editing suite of Battlerstar Galactica through the recent w...
Rebroadcast - Episode 40 - Chris Suellentrop
May 13, 2019 08:40 - 108 MBMy guest today is Chris Suellentrop. Chris is writer on national affairs & digital culture and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Kotaku, Slate and Wired. Chris has been involved in political writing since 2000, but over the past few years he has become more and more focussed on videogames. He also hosts the excellent podcast Shall We Play a Game? which was recently featured on NPR. We talk about how the Atari crash afforded Chris a rich library of games as a kid, if...
Rebroadcast - Episode 39 - John Davison
May 06, 2019 00:27 - 1 hour - 102 MBMy guest today is John Davison. John is currently the general manager of Glixel, a new gaming website by the publisher of Rolling Stone, but is perhaps best known to most as the VP of 1up and one of the original hosts of 1up Yours. We talk through John's inrcedible career in the games press, from his early work in the UK games press on PC Player and PC Zone, the cover disk wars of the mid nineties, becoming an editor aged just 21, his move to America, the impact of 1up Yours and what inspire...
Rebroadcast - Episode 38 - Adriel Wallick
April 29, 2019 00:27 - 1 hour - 104 MBMy guest today is Adriel Wallick a programmer, developer and creator of the Train Jam, an annual game jam that, unsurprisingly, takes place on a train as it travels across the US toward GDC. We talk about juggling work and creativity, living in the Netherlands, making a game a week for a whole year, the origins of Train Jam, transitioning from working on satellites to the videogame industry and why 1997 was such a vintage year. We hit on a ton of games too, the endless exploration of Castl...
Rebroadcast - Episode 37 - Marc Flury
April 22, 2019 00:26 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBToday's guest on the show is Marc Flury. Marc worked at Harmonix before leaving to form his own company, Drool. Alongside his partner and Lightning Bolt alum Brian Gibson, they've spent the last few years working on the upcoming rhythm violence game, THUMPER. The all caps are mine, but entirely necessary. As an American who now lives in Seoul, Marc has a unique perspective on the game dev scene in the country, and the type of games people love to make and play. Spoilers: it's not just Sta...
Rebroadcast - Episode 36 - Shailesh Prabhu
April 15, 2019 09:26 - 1 hour - 71.2 MBToday's guest on the show is Shailesh Prabhu, creative director of Yellow Monkey Studios and owner of one of the finest beards I know of. We talk about the videogame scene in India, the Nintendo Samurai (!), how the credits sequence at the start of Day of the Tentacle completely shifted how he understood games, and the agony and ecstasy that comes with starting your own videogame studio. We also hit on the joys of rhythm games, how having limited access to lots of games can make you an abs...
Rebroadcast - Episode 35 - Jeff Green
April 08, 2019 00:43 - 1 hour - 106 MBMy guest today is Jeff Green. Jeff has spent a the past few years working for Popcap and EA, but is perhaps best known for his long tenure on GFW/CGW magazine, and as the host of GFW Radio, one of the very first videogame podcasts and certainly one of my favourites. He is also the nicest guy, and an excellent guest. We talk about Jeff's delinquent youth in a pinball gang, how to balance marriage and Hearthstone, bonding with his daughter in WoW, how awful it is to have to write about modems ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 34 - William Pugh
April 01, 2019 00:41 - 1 hour - 77.4 MBMy guest on today's show is William Pugh, one of the co-creators of the Stanley Parable and now director of a new studio, Crows Crows Crows. William is really young and that's totally fine because games have been a huge part of his life since literally the moment he was born. He is very funny and very charming and this was a lot of fun to record. We talk gaming as performance, why SNAPs never got the recognition it deserved, making VR games with Justin Roiland, the weirdly sexual characters...
Rebroadcast - Episode 33 - Keith Stuart
March 25, 2019 09:41 - 1 hour - 87.3 MBMy guest on today's show is the games editor for the Guardian, Keith Stuart. One of the recurring themes of Keith's life in games is family. From his earliest memories of he and his dad as co-conspirators in the notion that a home computer would be 'good for homework', through to his own life as a father, and how he and his son's relationship has been completely transformed by Minecraft. A story which is soon to be fictionalised in his book, A Boy Made of Blocks. Keith's life in games is a he...
Rebroadcast - Episode 32 - Mel Croucher
March 18, 2019 01:31 - 1 hour - 75.5 MBMel Croucher is a living legend. You may not have heard of him and might be thinking, 'Declan, that's a bit strong.' and I'd say, 'Listen to the episode first.' Mel started the first ever videogame company in the UK, Automata. They made games as statements, from profane jabs at the royalty to psychedelic drinking games starring the Pi-man. This all culminated in 1984 with the release of his most ambitious game yet, Devs Ex Machina. It was vastly ahead of it's time. This wasvideogame as conc...
Rebroadcast - Episode 31 - Shahid Ahmad
March 11, 2019 01:30 - 1 hour - 97.8 MBMy guest on today's show is Shahid Ahmad. For many people, Shahid is best known as the Playstation Indie Champion. He was part of a team that changed the landscape at Sony, and made Playstation a home for indie developers, developing the rich ecosystem we see today. But before that, Shahid had already had a rich and varied history with videogames. Starting as a bedroom coder in his teenage years, Shahid has gone on to work in almost every facet of the industry - development, production, publ...
Rebroadcast - Episode 30 - John Robertson
March 04, 2019 01:30 - 1 hour - 118 MBToday's guest is Jon Robertson. John is a stand up comedian, the host of Videogame Nation on Challenge TV and the creator of the world's only live-action videogame, The Dark Room. We talk about his introduction to Nazi Germany via Wolfenstein 3D and an eccentric grandfather, why all Australians prounce SEGA incorrectly,why Deadlock is the greatest turn based strategy ever made and how brutalising Buff Bagwell in WCW/NWO Revenge bonded him with a friend for life. We also hear some harrowing ...