Ian (Design Director at E-Line Media and has worked on Gamestar Mechanic, Gamestar Mechanic Jr, and Never Alone) and Anna (Senior Gameplay Programmer at Double Fine and has worked on such games as Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, Broken Age, and Headlander, and was the lead on Dear Leader during Amnesia Fortnight 2014) join us to discuss falling into the industry, the benefits of an education that doesn't just focus on programming/computer science, the work involved with implementing dialogue, planning for localization, Never Alone's development, cultural expression in games, dialogue systems, why text to speech isn't the future (for now), the costs of voiced dynamic dialogue, authored vs simulationist vs player-centric approaches to story in games, and a couple of other rad topics!


Our Guests on the Internet


Ian's Twitter.


Anna's Twitter.


Stuff We Talked About


Never Alone


Amnesia Fortnight 2014


Dialogue Systems in Double Fine Games


Molyjam: How Twitter Jokes Can Save Video Games


Making the World of Firewatch


Netrunner


Crusader Kings 2


Dwarf Fortress' Creator on How He's 42% Towards Simulating Existence


Practice 2015: Anna Kipnis


The Novelist by Kent Hudson


7 Grand Steps


Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini


Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges


Viriconium by M. John Harrison


The Yawhg by Emily Carroll & Damian Sommer


Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

Twitter Mentions