Everybody's Talking At Once

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 164. Ichiro Lambe has been making games since the days of MUDs and Palm Pilots, and here he talks to Drew about what’s new—from the possibilities of so-called AI (as exciting as they are fraught) to his strategic deck-builder of ramshackle autobattles, Million Monster Militia. You can wishlist Million Monster Militia, along … Continue reading "Monsters and ‘Merica, LLMs and Luddites, with Ichiro Lambe"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 163. Andrew anthologizes on by to talk about Indiepocalypse, as well as the alleged indiepocolypse. We talk about genre, curation, how to bring people together without Community-Building (capital C, capital B), and how to publish games without acting like a publisher. You can buy or subscribe to Indiepocalypse on Itch.io and Patreon.You … Continue reading "The Thing Nobody’s Talking About, with Andrew"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 162. Sarah and Colin Northway land on our own little art-loving exoplanet to wax philosophical about The Museum of Other Realities, I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, and Fantastic Contraption (as well as the spiritual successor to the latter, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom). PRETTY BIG SPOILERS for I Was … Continue reading "I Was a Teenage VR Museum, with Sarah Northway and Colin Northway"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 161. Tanya X. Short descends to our dunj to talk about her ten years as the Captain of Kitfox Games. We talk about about long-term studio survival, what so-called AI really is, and making systems-driven games with heart—as well as the necessity of a tea-witch in all functional partnerships. You can find … Continue reading "There’s Heart in the Art and the Boat Is Afloat, with Tanya X. Short"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 160. Anita Tung wends her way to us to talk about The Last Clockwinder, one of those VR games that really and truly could only be done in VR. (For another example, see our recent episode with Chris Hanney). On this week’s show, we discuss the interdisciplinary joys of small teams, the … Continue reading "A Cozy Kind of Clutter, with Anita Tung"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 159. Chris Hanney is probably best known for his work on Space Pirate Trainer—and particularly on its multiplayer modes, from the Tetris-Galaga–Max Payne melange of VERSUS to the ambitious, tennis-court-scale hide-and-seek-’em-up of ARENA. Here’s a project that walks right up to the edges of what has so far been possible in VR, … Continue reading "Spacefarers, Shredders, and In-Home Lasers, with Chris Hanney"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 158. Paul Chamberlain originally wanted to be a hacker—which led him to work as a “technologist” (ooh) at the Signals Intelligence Agency and the Australian Federal Police, which led him to work in computer security and “information warfare” (ooh again) at Google, which led him to work on anti-cheat software for League … Continue reading "Hackers and Big Robots, with Paul Chamberlain"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 157. Anya Combs joins our crowd (of guests) to talk about her work at Backerkit (and previously at Kickstarter and Nickelodeon), her saxophoning for the Funkrust Brass Band (among a fair many other bands), her love of tabletop, and her blood-feud with meeting culture. Backerkit’s new crowdfunding section is live, as so … Continue reading "More Sleepier Goblins, Fewer Shorter Meetings, with Anya Combs"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 156. A fair few of the kids who played Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s are now parents with kids old enough to play Dungeons & Dragons. At the same time, and beyond that: Tabletop Role Playing Games, which were once firmly esoteric and counter-cultural pursuits (not to mention the target of … Continue reading "Adventures & Ampersands, with Irwin Chen, Nathan Dummitt, & Ed Chung"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 155. Esther Alter started out making games like Neocolonialism and No Pineapple Left Behind, which she now describes as “anti-fun.” But her newest game PROĆEMON is unashemedly fun, in addition to being a thoughtful experiment in how far we can push procedural generation, and in what human-machine collaborations can looks like. Here … Continue reading "This Game Beyond the Game, with Esther Alter"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 154. Trevor Gureckis is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and an increasingly prominent voice in horror scoring—most recently, in the remake of DEAD SPACE, a project that aims to flesh out an already quite fleshy (in more ways than one) sort of narrative. Here Trevor talks about the intriguing weirdness of remakes, the joys … Continue reading "Remake Us Whole, with Trevor Gureckis"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 153. Garry Schyman isekais his way back to the show to forspeak about his work on FORSPOKEN—which is out today—as well as his other recent scores for Torn and Metamorphosis. (If you want to hear about his work on the BioShock trilogy and the Middle-earth duology, we’d direct you to Garry’s previous … Continue reading "On Tropes and Triads, with Garry Schyman"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 152. Before we dive into this year’s interviews, we thought we’d take stock of last year’s, as has become tradition here on the ‘cast—connect a few dots, and provide a sort of a digest for anyone who’s missed some (or all!) of our 2022 episodes, and for first-time listeners. So join us … Continue reading "What We Heard and What We Learned in 2022"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 151. Another year, and another ‘cast in which to review said year. For (somehow!) the first time ever, Drew, Lucio, Franny, and L are all together to talk about what they’ve played, what they haven’t, and what they’re planning on playing—that last category covering both stuff that’s currently in their to-read piles, … Continue reading "What We Played (and What We Didn’t) in 2022: ETAO Quarterly, Vol. 4"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 149. It would be quite the understatement to say that things have changed in VR in the six years Anton Hand has been working on Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades. Companies have entered and exited. Platforms have risen and fallen. Things have gotten vastly stupider in various ways—but all while VR … Continue reading "Trust, Rust, Tech, and Meat, with Anton Hand"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 148. Robert Boyd takes our stage to talk about This Way Madness Lies, his studio’s new “Shakespeare-themed magical girl JRPG” (a thing that there ought to be more of). The game isn’t exactly faithful to its source material—but then, Shakespeare was never all that faithful to his, either. Frankly, we’ll take enthusiasm … Continue reading "Shakespearean Shōjo and Wholesome Horror, with Robert Boyd"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 147. Johnny Liu schools us on the history of Chinese RPGs in general, and the long-running, massively impactful 仙劍奇俠傳 series in particular. It’s been called Sword & Fairy in the West (when it isn’t being called Chinese Paladin), but that title doesn’t fully capture what these games have to offer—and that simple … Continue reading "The Past and Present of Sword & Fairy, with Johnny Liu"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 146. Drew, Lucio, and L check in on what they’ve been playing these past few months. Splatoon 3 naturally comes up, as does Drew’s continuing project to catch up on Final Fantasy XIV. Meanwhile, L has been messing around with her new Steam Deck, so prepare to hear about Rune Factory, about … Continue reading "The ETAO Quarterly, Vol. 3"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 145. Aidan Moher is probably best known for his long-running, Hugo-winning blog A Dribble of Ink and its spiritual successor Astrolabe, or else for his short-form fiction, which prods at the boundaries of various sci-fi and fantasy subgenres. Today, he releases his first non-fiction book, FIGHT, MAGIC, ITEMS: The History of Final … Continue reading "Root and Branch, with Aidan Moher"

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 144. Jessica Gonzalez stops by to talk about the labor of making games—and specifically, the vitally important, structurally maligned discipline of Quality Assurance—in the context of her work with ABetterABK, Game Workers Unite, and CODE-CWA. Building on our previous conversation with Emma Kinema here on the show, we discuss where game development … Continue reading "Democracy at Work, with Jessica Gonzalez"