The Secret Lives of Games

Latest Episodes:

70: Embracing Your Scars with Hannah Nicklin (Mutazione) May 21, 2021

Show notes

Die Gute Fabrik's Studio Lead Hannah Nicklin joins us to discuss her writing and narrative design work on their sublime mutant soap opera, Mutazione. We discuss working with time and an ensemble cast to create a story with "multiple middles," embracing the scars of a lengthy development cycle, and the best bikes in video games.

Show notes:

Hannah Nicklin

Die Gute Fabrik

Mutazione

Into the Depths: The Music of Mutazione - Part 1

Divised theater

Grey's Anatomy

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Narrative Design Sliding Doors

Multiple Middles & Mutazione

Kentucky Route Zero

Critical Response

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

N+1 a bike/game zine

Sokpop's Digital Bird Playground

69: Building a Better Bridge with Ben Wilson May 07, 2021

Show notes

We sit down with Creative Producer Ben Wilson to discuss the thrilling cooperative trick-taking game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, and how the game builds on and subverts precedents like Spades and Bridge.

Show notes:

Ben Wilson

Wizard Jam

Spelunky Dare Challenge Bot

Trick-taking games

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

The Crew - A Card Game for Everyone

The Perfect Game of Hanabi

Ha Ha Ha! game

Codenames

#remoteplay: Playing in a Pandemic, Part 2

Into the Depths: Kentucky Route Zero - Part 6 Apr 30, 2021

Show notes

In the final installment of our Kentucky Route Zero miniseries, we sit down with two of its creators - Jake Elliott and Ben Babbitt - to discuss the origins of their collaboration, drawing from influences beyond games, and the process of working on such a long-term project.

Show notes:

A House in California

KRZ Kickstarter

Pillars and Tongues

Dog and Bone are Friends

Magic Matrix Mixer Mountain

Sidequest

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

Jorge Luis Borges

Balloon Diaspora

68: Bravely Replacing Randomness with Gloam Collective (Bravery Network Online) Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

Gloam Collective's Min-Taylor Bai-Woo and Damian Sommer join us to chat about their thrilling new turn-based fighter Bravery Network Online. We discuss the design of its Pokémon-inspired battles, the clever ways in which they replaced randomness, and making friends in the post-post-apocalypse.

Show notes:

Gloam Collective

Min-Taylor Bai-Woo

Damian Sommer

Bravery Network Online

Good BNO example match w/ commentary

BNO first tournment playlist

Daigo Umehara

Star Wars: Destiny

Magic: The Gathering - Commander

Final Fantasy Tactics

Into the Depths: Kentucky Route Zero - Part 5 Apr 16, 2021

Show notes

In the fifth installment of our Kentucky Route Zero miniseries, we broadcast our thoughts on the Un Pueblo De Nada interlude, before prowling our way through Act V and our closing thoughts on the game.

Show notes:

Alice Munro - Dear Life

Clara Rockmore - The Art of the Theramin

Clara Rockmore - The Swan

Brian Rotman: Signifying Nothing - The Semiotics of Zero

Bob Moog

WEVP-TV transmedia videos

Sandin Analog Image Processor

Our Town

Jenny Odell - How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

How to unlock the bonus interlude

Noah Caldwell-Gervais - Notes From Along Kentucky Route Zero

Robert Frost - The Death of a Hired Man

Orthographic projection

Projective Geometry

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Can't Tell Me Nothing with Zach Galifianakis HQ

Walt Whitman - Song of Myself, Verse 52

Nabokov and spirals

Jon Cates

Metal Gear Solid 3, I Love You With All My Heart

Jordan Youngblood "Is Metal Gear's Rectum a Digital Grave?: Queer Trauma and Failure in the Metal Gear Solid Series." Panel on Queer Failure. Queerness and Games Conference. University of Berkeley. 24-26 October 2013

67: Finding the Right Words with Dyala Kattan-Wright (Signs of the Sojourner) Apr 09, 2021

Show notes

Echodog Games' Dyala Kattan-Wright joins us to discuss their wildly unique and wonderful narrative card game Signs of the Sojourner. We chat about the process of developing the game's innovative dialogue system, its surprising effects on player experience, and why sometimes you just can't go home again.

Show notes:

Eggplant Patreon

Dyala Kattan-Wright

Echodog Games

Signs of the Sojourner

Slay the Spire

Ascension: A Case Study in Deckbuilding Games

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Signs of the Sojourner Original Soundtrack

Into the Depths: Kentucky Route Zero - Part 4 Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

In the fourth installment of our Kentucky Route Zero miniseries, we dial in our thoughts on the Here and There Along the Echo interlude, before bringing our insight to bear on the brittle facts of Act IV.

With guest co-hosts Stephanie Boluk, Patrick LeMieux, and Sarah Elmaleh!

Show notes:

Limits and Demonstrations Little Berlin installation

Sarah's Part 3 Twitter thread

Karl Marx, Capital Vol. III

Karl Marx, The Fragment on Machines

Museum of Jurassic Technology

Lee Tusman

Richard Lemarchand, Attention Not Immersion

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (Will Oldham), I See a Darkness

Kelly Reichardt, Old Joy

Martin Deny, Exotica

Audiogames.net

Kenji Eno, Real Sound: Kaze No Regret

Sound of Metal

Nomadland

Gabriel A. Radvansky et al., Walking Through Doorways Causes Forgetting

Andre Bazin, Ontology of the Photographic Image

Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny

66: In-Flight Entertainment with Hosni Auji (Airplane Mode) Mar 26, 2021

Show notes

A special episode originally created in partnership with AMC Games for the in-flight entertainment of Airplane Mode, a very literal flight simulator. We chat with its creator Hosni Auji about the challenges and benefits of simulating the mundane, our strangely poignant experiences with the game, and our personal flight etiquette.

Show notes:

NYU Game Center Incubator

Gone Home

The Twilight Zone - Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

BLAH airlines

Captain Bennet Foddy

Into the Depths: Kentucky Route Zero - Part 3 Mar 20, 2021

Show notes

In the third installment of our Kentucky Route Zero miniseries, we take a seat for The Entertainment interlude, before exploring the physical manifestation of debt in Act III. With recurring guest co-hosts Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux, and bonus guest Sarah Elmaleh!

Show notes:

Giving Games a Voice with Sarah Elmaleh

Resonance game

The Consolidated Power Company

The Entertainment paperback

Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh The Last of Us

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Julee Cruise, Rockin' Back Inside My Heart on Twin Peaks

Colossal Cave Adventure

Junebug, Too Late to Love You

Vannevar Bush, As We May Think

Steve Russell et al., Space War!

Joseph Weizenbaum, Eliza/Doctor

Eliza Douglas Engelbart, The Mother All Demos Ted Nelson, Computer Lib/Dream Machines Roberta and Ken Williams, Mystery House

David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years

IF titles: the next generation of generation

65: Making History with Summoning Salt Mar 12, 2021

Show notes

Game historian and documentarian Summoning Salt joins us to discuss the world of speedrunning, the process behind his deep-dive videos that unpack its most exciting moments, and the ineffable magic that makes some classic games so beautifully broken.

Show notes:

Summoning Salt

Home - We're Finally Landing

Breaking World Records with Kinnijup and ix

The Quest for 1 Million Subscribers

Games Done Quick

SS's speedrun.com records

The Quest to Beat Matt Turk

The History of Wii Sports Resort Golf World Records

Jon Bois

Tim Rogers' Action Button

Summoning Salt Patreon