Everybody's Talking At Once

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 181.

Lilith Walther aetherboosts her way on over to talk about Nightmare Kart, its previously life as Bloodborne KART, its demake predecessor Bloodborne PSX, and the relationship between retro aesthetics, open development practices, and a general attitude of… YOLO?

Nightmare Kart will be out for free on May 31.
You can see more of Lilith’s work, including Bloodborne PSX, on Itch.io.
You can also follow Lilith (or rather, Bunlith?) on Twitter, and see her stream on Twitch.
She’s also got a Patreon, a Ko-Fi, and a Discord.
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• Here’s...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 180.

Dragon’s Dogma II is full of inventive, quirky flourishes, meaningful frictions, and… shameless micro-transactions that capitalize on those exact quirks and frictions. We can, of course, get meaning and joy out of art that comes us compromised. Which is good news, since most art, if not all art, comes to us compromised. But the details matter.

So let’s dig into the details, and along the way let’s talk about monetization, opera, high art, low art, and how Dragon’s Dogma II is like a D&D campaign where all of the oth...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 179.

Helldivers II is a wildly popular co-op shooter. It’s also extremely funny. It’s also very much about fascism, both in the sense that its satirical lens is aimed at fascist tendencies in moribund democracies, and in the sense that its core pleasures are… sort of fascist?

The music makes you feel like a hero as you do your space violence on behalf of Super Earth, and let’s be honest, the capes are rather dashing. Here’s a game that wants to have its cake and eat it too, and we’re incl...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 178.

While the show was taking a break, Drew started putting together some essays on the growing list of recent recent surprise hits—games that, for whatever reason, have been doing vastly better than their developers or publishers had expected. 2024 does, so far, seem to have a sort of serial monogamy to it, with the Sauron’s Eye of game-liker attention focusing intensely on one thing before moving on to the next, abruptly and fickly, with equally frightening fervor.

So at the risk of being eternally behind the viral content curve (as though we’v...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 177.

Lucio and Drew talk about some of the games they’ve enjoyed gaming at this year, from KarmaZoo, Pizza Tower, Wobbly Life, and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, to Remnant II, Spider-Man 2, Street Fighter 6, Jedi: Survivor, Wo Long, and Tears of the Kingdom.

Speaking of, spoilers for Remnant II from 40:53 to 44:21.
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• We’ve talked before about playing games, including but not limited to Destiny 2, wrong.

• Guilty Gear -STRIVE- does not, at time, of publishing, have a simplified input option for supers.

• Here once again the Bartle taxon...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 176.

Glen Henry and Chase Bethea drop achor awhile and talk about Sunken Stones, why pirates mean freedom, and why the Golden Age of Piracy was a lot more Caribbean than Pirates of the Caribbean would have you believe. Also, inevitably, One Piece.

You can play the Sunken Stones demo on Itch.io, and wishlist the full game on Steam.
You can find Chase’s work on his own website, as well as on Spotify and Bandcamp.
And you can find Glen’s work on the Spritewrench website.
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• Here’s Glen’s previ...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 175.

Ezra Szanton painstakingly platforms his way over to talk about To The Flame, the first in his new studio’s forthcoming kinda-trilogy of horror games. He also talks about how to effective horror, what makes a game interesting to watch as well as play, and some of the potentially-actually-pretty-intereting applications for so-called AI.

You can find Ezra’s games on his Itch.io page.
You can also follow Ezra on Cohost, Mastadon, Twitter, and Bluesky.
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• Ezra’s Guide to Magic and Otherwise Significant Objects has Ezra’s name on it in part becau...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 174.

Eric Peterson hops on over to talk about the joys of hobbyist game development, the things that need to change in professional game development (even when compared to other parts of tech), and the cultural importance of drawing little guys.

You can play JOUNCER PX (as it’s called now) on itch.io.
You can find a bunch of Eric’s work on his Linktree, and specifically on his Itch.io.
You can also follow Eric on Twitter.
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• Here’s our conversation with Jerry Belich about, among other things, Alt.ct...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 173.

Ryan Canuel of Petricore stops by for a mostly-not-especially-spooky conversation about augmented reality, what bootstrapping actually means, and—alright, some stuff about horror movies right at the end there.

You can get the Mythic Realms demo in Quest App Lab.
You can wishlist AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Remastered and play its demo on Steam, where you can also play Operation DogFight for free.
And you can find a whole bunch of Petricore Games’ work on their website.

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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
The music from the Mind the A...

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 172.

Jerry Belich talks about his wild work in the Alt.ctrl milieu, his boundary-redefining escape rooms (for lack of a better term), and his digital game work, from Recommendation Dog and Reel Steal on the Playdate, to High on Life and High on Knife.

High on Knife is out now on Steam, Epic, Xbox, and Playstation.
You can find Jerry’s work on this pretty comprehensive page of his website.
A Masterpiece in Disarray is available wherever you get books.
You can also follow Jerry on Bluesky.
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• Here are o...