Unconsoleable

After 137 wonderful episodes, we bid you, our faithful listeners, the very fondest of farewells. We've arrived at the metaphorical fork in the road, and we don't even care what a dreadful cliché that is. We hope you've had as much fun, learned as much, and generally had as good a time as we have with Unconsoleable. Remember, aloha means goodbye, but it also means hello love: so to you, our listeners, aloha!

They make charming games, have an adorable dog, work side by side while staying happily married, and did we mention the cute dog? Who are these fabulous guests? Why, it's Brooke and David Condolora of indie game studio Brain & Brain, of course. We chatted with the dynamic duo about how they got started in games, struck out on their own, and possibly invented the quiet adventure genre in the process. We also dug into a recent op-ed about narrative in games that has been making the rounds lately, and Brooke and David weighed in.

Practice makes perfect, and massive congratulations are in order for Jessica. Why? You'll find out right at the top of the episode. As is often the case, the App Store is experiencing a bit of a drought right now, but good stuff is coming. In the meantime, we experience the crap and the mediocre stuff and tell you all about it :-) Meanwhile, Facebook continues to believe it'll be a force in games, but we're not so sure, and neither are the devs we spoke to. And in something of a reversal, we have developers being crappy instead of gamers. It might all be ok, though, with a little in-game retail therapy headed our way soon, but could we try not being crappy too? Nintendo, that also means you :-/

His games drive us nuts, but we can't help loving them anyway. So after much trash talk, we welcome puzzle master extraordinaire (and Unconsoleable listener!) Alan Hazelden to the show. Alan tells us a bit about what he did before making devilishly challenging puzzle games, how he goes about designing and testing his games, which developers he looks up to, and even his favorite pizza toppings :-)

Jessica is a big puddle of feels after playing the long-awaited conclusion to our 2016 Game of the Year and is charmed by an as-yet-unreleased charming game from the charming folks at Mighty Games. We conclude that quick-play games might not be as special as the games that truly win our hearts, but are still pretty awesome. Anna is left wanting more after playing a horror-themed puzzle game that has just arrived on iOS from Steam, but the real rage is directed at a mobile-first game that has an awful control scheme, rendering it virtually unplayable. Luckily, a silly but fun game with impeccable controls comes to the rescue! We roll our eyes pretty hard at the best mobile game BAFTA winner, as we do for most winners in the mobile category of various games awards. We wish awards would go more often to games that are truly the best rather than those that are the best known. Meanwhile, should games display the battery indicator? What’s a fun new way to get hints in a new adventure game? How long c

We just love when people discover mobile games all of a sudden and pretend that they all sucked up until that moment! Did we say love? We meant the opposite. But first, Thimbleweed Park is out and we hope you’re as excited as we are! Toilet paper options! Helpful to-do lists! And more! Neither of us has finished the game, and we’ll eventually have members of the team on the show, so stay tuned. In the meantime, Jessica and Anna both play the sequel to a pretty puzzle game. The results vary, but we definitely agree it's gorgeous. Jessica spends some time in the beautiful world of another game, while Anna definitely hasn’t got the hang of a new card-based strategy game just yet. And is it good, annoying, or both when games get so popular that they spawn merchandise, movies, and yes, apparently even game shows? Is anyone more excited about the new Room game than Jessica? Are your favorite iOS games going to stop working? Listen now to find out.

Why has Jessica been eating her ship’s crewmates? Could a card-based strategy game have struck her fancy, even though she usually shuns the genre? What new heights has her horsey game obsession reached? And what awesome new toy does she have to add to her collection? All these questions and more will be answered! Meanwhile, Anna is all in on puzzle games lately, but wonders whether she should be allowed to play them at all. An old nemesis of a game is tackled again and somewhat defeated, but is there any pleasure in the victory? Maybe we’d both rather be shifting letters instead in the latest offering from a favorite dev. Of course there’s always sighing at Nintendo to be done, and we continue that long and sad tradition here. But hey, Kickstarter has done something interesting! Finally, we ponder a story about Jewish game developers in these troubled times.

Jessica and Anna are back with a vengeance from PAX East and GDC respectively, and we have a lot to talk about. We played some new games on our journeys of course, but the best part about any conference is the people! Jessica’s love affair with horsey games has taken a bizarre turn, thanks to a new friend from PAX East. It’s weird, it’s unsettling, and it might have some problematic elements! What is this mystery game? You’ll need to listen to find out. Anna might have a new favorite developer after GDC (and he certainly knows how to entice Jessica to play his game) but is this the beginning of a beautiful friendship or the dawn of a frustrating, rage-inducing future? (Spoiler alert: it’s both :-)) A big change has also come to the games area of the App Store and we think it rocks. And is Jessica more powerful and influential than she realizes? All signs point to yes!

With Anna recovering from GDC and Jessica away at PAX East, we decided to take you on another trip down memory lane, to our first real episode. We'll be back with new content next week, but meanwhile we hope you enjoy another blast from the past!

Failure in a Box With Anna away at GDC and Jessica ramping up the travel anxiety prior to PAX East, we decided to take a little break and re-release our very first episode, Failure in a Box. Hey look, it's the inaugural episode of Unconsoleable!Learn more about your co-hosts, Anna and Jessica, our decidedly unimpressive gaming histories, why the heck we are doing this podcast, and why we game the way we do.Stuff we talked about:App.net IsometricBrianna WuRevolution 60Evan Passero, designer extraordinaire Totally UncoolSpawn on MeCivilizationArticle on kids not being able to pass Level 1 on Super Mario Brothers – Hmm, this doesn't look like a link. Turns out, this story was a hoax and all the sites that wrote about it have taken it down. That being the case, it's still quite possible we suck at games more than little kids!Whac a Mole - Duh, of course there

This week we punched some Nazis, won some horse races, went golfing, hopping and mashing, and found adorable hidden things in an adorable, charming new game. We also catch up on Unity’s 2016 mobile games report, wonder if Pokémon GO really expanded the mobile game player base, yell at Nintendo as per usual, and much, much more!

Both Jessica and Anna struggled to properly control a few games this week, because hey, apparently this mobile gaming gig is hard work! Luckily, a wonderful new game has come out to make us forget about all that. And if it's a day that ends in Y, someone has said something dumb about Nintendo—and we did record this on a Friday, sooo…. Something that's way worse than dumb, though, is the PewDiePie fiasco. We "salute" Felix for finding several ways to be horrible, rather than being content with just one! And this incident calls to mind another horrible person who has recently risen to dubious prominence after winning a Madden e-sports event. Let's not reward horrible people, ok gaming industry? This isn't hard.

We kick off this week with Jessica scolding our guest from last week’s show. Yes, you read that right. But it all has something to do with games, we swear! Other than scolding people and solving mysteries, Jessica tries a game on the advice of a listener and finds it super hard, yet she somehow can’t stop playing it. What madness is this? Meanwhile, a game based loosely on a beloved Twitter account is very average, but hey, at least it’s free. Anna tries to be a hardcore mobile gamer and shuns a game that seems too easy, but isn’t drawn in by one that’s much more challenging. Where oh where is the happy medium? Add to that a badly monetized, cheesy visual novel from Ubisoft, and it has been a somewhat odd gaming week.   Turning to the news, we wonder if we should be annoyed with Nintendo (answer: usually yes, but possibly not in this case), squee about Tim Cook’s visit to ustwo, and mull over the big news from Steam this week. A big change is coming, but will it help or hurt indie developers and

After inserting himself into our 100th episode despite never having been a guest, the mighty Ben Britten finally joins us on the actual show. Ben may not have an Aussie accent, but he does have an Academy Award and, in our opinion, a great life story all around. We talk to Ben about how he got into games, making the shift from premium to free-to-play, Mighty Games’ newest (and most charming? :-)) arrival and much more!

American politics continues to be a trash fire, but hey, at least we've got games! Jessica’s love affair with that horsey game continues, but she tears herself away for a bit to try some other games. She even gets to engage in her favorite activity in one of them: snooping! Anna is somewhat enamored with a new endless runner, but is super sad about her inability to play another game that's really great — unless you’re the type to get lost. Also, cute critters have come on the scene and we may want to take a ride in their spaceship. But that's not all! There's some potentially game-changing news for App Store devs, exciting adventure games coming this year, a Neko Atsume movie (!!!!!) and a study about female gamers that we think misses the mark.

Our newly inaugurated president scares us to death, but we are here for the games. They help us cope and we hope they work that way for you too. Anna finds solace in a silly Japanese cult game while Jessica continues to self-medicate with hefty doses of Pocket Card Jockey. We also talk about a perennial favorite topic: what Apple can do to move mobile gaming forward. The iPhone recently turned 10, so someone saw fit to ask a bunch of dudes this question. But you know you'd rather hear our thoughts, right? :) Finally, it turns out Steam and mobile gaming share many of the same problems matching players to games. A recent article delves into this and so do we!

Listeners know we have strong political beliefs, and of course strong beliefs about games. But toilet paper? It turns out Jessica is fairly indifferent, but Anna isn't, and an upcoming game has her and others in a bit of a tizzy. Speaking of toilets, as we are often wont to do, we chuckle at a developer who has realized that people play their game on the toilet. of course we knew it all along, and all joking aside, there are some good lessons there about understanding your players. All this plus some of our reactions to the Nintendo Switch news, what we are playing (Pugs! Cat horses! Chickens!), and much more.

We’ve talked about playing games in the bathroom, but what about controlling a game with a part of one’s anatomy? Yes, these are brave and wild times in which this will soon be possible  for those who backed a certain IndieGoGo campaign. Besides vaginas, this episode sees us dive into the 2017 gaming season with some featured games we didn’t hate! In fact, we liked pretty much everything we played this week, even though we just used our hands to do it (how boring!). We also talk about some wacky news, like Iran freaking out about Clash of Clans (and not because it has $100 IAPs!), predictably underwhelming mobile category award nominees, and more.

It's our SECOND ANNUAL (hey, that's totally a big deal!) GAME OF THE YEAR EPISODE!!! We are using all CAPS in case you can't tell how excited we are. Because we're excited! 2016 may not have been a good year for politics, but it was a pretty decent year for mobile games, as it turns out. So on this episode we celebrate the many games that we loved and cherished. We’ve got categories like prettiest, most innovative, most addictive, weirdest, and many more!

Jessica and Anna are both played a new train game featuring a woman who explains stuff: a common occurrence in mobile games. Now, women know things, but Anna isn't sure about all these advisory women in mobile games. Why are they there? Is it for the right reasons or the wrong ones? Something we’re more sure of is that Nintendo’s eShop is awful. Nevertheless, Jessica managed to play a game on her 3DS that she actually liked! And of course, Super Mario Run is out and people have Opinions. About the price, about the monetization, about the gameplay, and more. We dive into some of these takes on Nintendo’s first real mobile game, and of course provide our own as the advisory women that we are :-)