Everybody's Talking At Once

ETAO Podcast, Episode 83. Nikita Mikros and Josh DeBonis created the original field game Killer Queen, before adapting it into the venerable indie arcade esport institution that it is today. They were a bit less involved in the home game adaptation, Killer Queen Black, since to them, Killer Queen was a fundamentally face-to-face experience, communitarian … Continue reading "Arcade Games in Isolation, with Nikita Mikros and Josh DeBonis"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 82. Treachery in Beatdown City is a beat-’em-up/turn-based RPG mashup that combines a vast array of Shawn Alexander Allen’s preoccupations, from a shifting and in some ways radicalizing political consciousness, to questions of hybrid identity, to frustrations with an ever-gentrifying New York. It’s a game about the world going strange, and about … Continue reading "When It’s Right to Fight, with Shawn Alexander Allen"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 81. Tijmen Tio is one quarter of the game dev collective/boyband Sokpop, who’ve been putting out a game every two weeks since 2018. It’s a way of working that requires a great deal of trust among the developers, and between them and their audience—which makes it unique, and beautiful, and especially worth … Continue reading "In Sokpop We Trust, with Tijmen Tio"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 80. Olof Karlsson autoruns on over to talk about Wunderling, the puzzle-platformer where you’re a not-a-goomba with some ambition (or maybe just some especially good-bad luck). We talk about the finer points of movement code (and the oft-subliminal nature of gamefeel), the art of building on what you like in other games … Continue reading "What a Wunderlingful World, with Olof Karlsson"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 79. Arvi Teikari is here to talk about Baba Is You, as well as Environmental Station Alpha, its forthcoming sequel, and the bonny pile of other gamic delights that he’s made and is making. Along the way we also talk about the function of criticism and reviews, the ever-befuddling burlesque of spoiler … Continue reading "Arvi Is Talk, with Arvi Teikari"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 78. Adriel Wallick has been running Train Jam, a game-make-a-thon on a train traveling from Chicago to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, since 2014. The event has produced a truly staggering number of weird and wonderful creations, and just as importantly, it’s been creatively and socially reinvigorating foe a whole … Continue reading "Getting Back on Track, with Adriel Wallick"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 77. William Chyr’s long-in-the-works puzzle-exploration art installation of a game, Manifold Garden, has been out in the world for a few months now—which means it’s the perfect time to talk through how the game came to be, how it changed over the past seven years, and how it fits into the tradition … Continue reading "Relatively Manifold, with William Chyr"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 76. Game Workers Unite is at the forefront of the effort to unionize the games industry—and according to Emma Kinema, the best way to do that is to treat it as an industry, organized under a single union rather than broken up by role or discipline. Why is that the way to … Continue reading "That Real Genuine Connection, with Emma Kinema"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 75. Neo Cab is the debut game from Chance Agency, about the last human rideshare cabbie in an aggressively automated, vertically integrated, near-future California city. In this episode, Vincent Perea discusses the game’s visuals (a masterclass in scale, scope, and focus), and Paula Rogers discusses the game’s writing process (which, by design, … Continue reading "Emotional Survival, with Paula Rogers and Vincent Perea"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 74. David Galindo’s exacting, deadpan-absurdist Cook, Serve, Delicious! series is officially a trilogy, with Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! taking the at-the-margins dystopian elements from 2 (or 2!! actually) and running with them, full-tilt into a tale of human-robot partnership and combat-ready foodtrucks. In this episode, David talks about the difficulties of balancing … Continue reading "Delicious to the (Mad) Max, with David Galindo"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 73. In this episode, we take stock of what we played this year, what we didn’t get to, and what we’re looking forward to playing next (just like we did last year). Our lists here aren’t comprehensive, because wow there are a lot of games worth playing, but we do try to … Continue reading "What We Played and ‘Casted (and What We Didn’t) in 2019"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 72. Phoebe Watson joined the team at DragonBear Studios for the expressed purpose of making sure that the indigenous cultural elements in Chaos Tavern are meaningful and on-point—and that’s meant everything from discussing aesthetics with the rest of the team, to shaping culturally syncretic (yet specific) lore, to soliciting the opinions of … Continue reading "Making Beautiful Places, with Phoebe Watson"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 71. Another dose of Zach Barth, this time focused on MOLEK-SYNTEZ, a Zachtronics game that plays a bit like Opus Magnum but was made more in the spirit of TIS-100—which is to say quickly, with extreme focus, and driven by Zach’s primordial need to make games, games forever, games all the time. … Continue reading "Hyper-Focused Antifragile Games as Drugs as Puzzles, with Zach Barth"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 70. If you only know the arcade version Killer Queen by reputation, then you might assume Killer Queen Black is simply a home port of the same game—but in fact is Black another game entirely, albeit one that carries over many core mechanics from what is now officially called Killer Queen Arcade, … Continue reading "The Black Queen’s Tutorial, with cs wallace"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 69. Joe Russ is deeply invested in narrative, and also in animation—so it makes all the sense in the world that he would co-create something like Jenny LeClue, a lovingly and distinctively animated, meta-meta-narrative detective adventure. (And yes, I do mean that it’s in large part a narrative about narratives about narratives). … Continue reading "Making Mysteries More Mysterious, with Joe Russ"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 68. kalin is the co-founder of Funktronic Labs, best known for their ambitious VR fare, from the consummately simulated garden-’em-up Fujii to the real-ass-RTS-but-in-VR Cosmic Trip. Here he stops by to talk about Wave Break, which began its life as a VR Wave Race-alike and gradually morphed into Tony Hawk on jet … Continue reading "Skating on Water and Swimming in Menus, with kalin"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 67. We cross paths with Max Krieger and talk CROSSNIQ+ and the so-called, much-lately-in-vogue Y2K aesthetic. Come for the discussion of how aesthetics and attitudes toward technology are inextricable from history and politics, stay for a spirited endorsement of the indie game development scene in Cleveland (and of Cleveland in general). Let’s … Continue reading "Where the Die Had Not Yet Been Cast, with Max Krieger"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 66. Sam Rosenthal shuffles on over to talk about Where Cards Fall, a reflective, touch-native narrative puzzle game almost a decade in the making—as well as his previous work on the fiercely and rightly beloved What Remains of Edith Finch. Along the way, Sam talks about how Apple Arcade could offer new … Continue reading "Everything That Could Possibly Be More Complicated, with Sam Rosenthal"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 65. Ricky Haggett takes stock of his work on Wilmot’s Warehouse, Hohokum, Loot Rascals, Frobisher Says, Tenya Wanya Teens, and his other odd, wondrous work. We talk about the primacy of collaboration in his games, the importance of making game development rewarding (practically and financially as well as creatively), the “repetitive stress … Continue reading "Just a Big Old Mess, with Ricky Haggett"

ETAO Podcast, Episode 64. Matthew Seiji Burns is responsible for some of the best and least-discussed narratives and soundtracks in games, namely those in the beloved-for-other-reasons Zachtronics works Infinifactory, TIS-100, SHENZHEN I/O, and Opus Magnum—not to mention the generally under-discussed Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, his Twine work, and his past-life AAA work on … Continue reading "When You’re in It, with Matthew Seiji Burns"