In part two of our conversation with Nic Tringali, we go deeper into their development process. Design and prototyping, testing, setting victory conditions, and the delightful old-school addition to the game: the manual. 00:00:00 – Theme – how did the look come together? Concept of cathedrals stretching through time. 00:04:20 – Worldbuilding, problems with history…
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Nic Tringali is a game designer for Bithell Games. Their recent release The Banished Vault (published by Bithell Games’ Lunar Division) is a gothic space-faring exploration and survival game, released on July 25th to very positive reviews. We talk with Nic about their early gaming inspirations, before getting into the gameplay mechanics of The Banished…
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We interview Josh Sawyer, director of Pentiment. We focus on various aspects of the production of Pentiment: avoiding burnout, drawing from meticulously-researched historical material, dealing with religion (both as a nexus of temporal power and a daily spiritual presence in peoples lives), as well as covering gameplay and narrative aspects.
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Tim and Joel return after a hiatus for the first episode of 2023. We talk about the future direction of the podcast – which, now that Tim’s own game development projects are picking up steam – will involve a more design-focussed approach to looking at games. With this in mind, we go into the differences…
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Part two of our conversation goes deeper into the mechanics, narrative and design of Hardspace: Shipbreaker, from its genesis as the winner of an internal company game jam, to early access on Steam, to its full release last year. Elliot talks about wanting to explore the idea of “dangerous labor”, to immerse the player in…
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Elliot Hudson is the game director for Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and was a senior designer for Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. In part one of our two-part conversation, he talks about his beginnings in gaming, from sketching Mario Bros 2 levels out on paper, to making flash games while studying film, to switching to studying game design…
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There’s no one quite like Rami Ismail: game developer, pilot, industry ambassador, consultant. Any one of these could be a full career and somehow Rami does them all. Formerly one half of hit indie studio Vlambeer, he has used his success to advocate for change in the industry for the last decade, traveling the world…
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“Imagine you’re writing a book and occasionally, when someone turns the page, all the letters fall off the page.” Tim and Joel interview Stephen Danton, who developed the excellent Unto the End with his wife Sara. Stephen talks about his career, and the range of experience he brought to bear in the making of his…
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Tim and Joel look again at Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic, a game whose complexity allows for a more nuanced set of mechanics which make it a more “honest” city-building experience, as opposed to the sanitized colonialist and capitalist assumptions of many recent offerings in the genre. Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic Sim City 2000…
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Tim and Joel look at the delightful Unto the End, an action-adventure game made by the small team at 2 Ton Studios. It is a masterclass in minimalist game design – art, sound, narrative and gameplay mechanics. We give particular attention to the combat mechanics – which are some of the best we’ve encountered in…
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