My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

Latest Episodes:

Tarn Adams, creator of Dwarf Fortress. Feb 14, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the American co-creator of one of the longest-running and most popular independent games yet made. In high school he and his older brother Zach designed adventure games based on fantasy and science fiction stories they invented together. He taught himself computer programming and received fifteen offers to enrol in PhD math programs.

At Stanford University, he and his brother continued work on a procedural adventure game called Dwarf Fortress, in which players guide successive generations of dwarves to build and maintain a settlement.

He quit university to work on the game full-time; in 2011 the New York Times described an early version as “perhaps the most complex video game ever made”. Dwarf Fortress became his life’s work, with a vast and committed cult following, but it remained a work in progress until December 2022, when a commercial version finally released, and promptly sold half a million copies.

Play the console:

Thank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dara Ó Briain, comedian. Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is a stand-up comedian, television presenter and Irish national treasure. He studied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at University College, Dublin, where during a debate, he cracked a joke, made the audience laugh, and forever doomed himself to chasing that high.

Since then, he has toured the world as a comic, as well as becoming a prolific television host: he has chaired Mock the Week, Have I Got New For You, Blockbusters, Robot Wars, Stargazing Live, and the video game-themed quiz show, Go 8Bit. A lifelong video game player, he regularly hosts the game BAFTAs, and performs games-related routines in his stand-up.

Play the console:

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ashly Burch, actor (Mythic Quest, The Last of Us, Horizon). Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

[Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of addiction to prescription pain medication and fatal overdose.]

My guest today is an American writer and performer who stars in Apple TV’s Mythic Quest series, and who has, in recent years, voiced some of video gaming’s best-loved characters. She grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and rose to prominence via the web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’, in which she starred alongside her brother, Anthony.

Since then she has become a prolific voice actor for cartoons and video games; her roles include Mel from The Last of Us series, Aloy from the Horizon games, and Chloe Price from Life Is Strange.

Play the console:

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Josh Wardle, creator of Wordle. Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is a software engineer who, in 2021, released a word game that soon became a global obsession. He grew up in a Welsh farming village, attended the Royal Holloway University, then moved to North America to study for a Masters. In 2011, after graduating, he joined the staff of the website Reddit, where he began to design experimental games such as The Button, Place and, in his spare time, a game called Wordle.

Several years later he returned to the Wordle prototype, which he finished and uploaded to his personal website in October 2021. Within a month the game had 90 players. Within two, it had 300,000. A week after that, it was being played by two million people, and had caught the attention of the New York Times, which in January 2022, acquired the game for a seven-figure sum.

Play the console:

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trailer Jan 16, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to My Perfect Console with author, New Yorker journalist and The Observer's video game critic, Simon Parkin.

Each week a guest picks the five video games they would like to immortalise on their very own fictional games console.

Trailer episode featuring clips from forthcoming episodes with Josh Wardle, the creator of Wordle, and Charles Cecil MBE, co-founder of Revolution Software, creator of the Broken Sword video game series.

Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.