Or: Why I listen to people talk about playing games instead of actually playing games.
Mostly.
I’m an artist, right? Right. I draw using my computer pretty much all the time. It’s what I do. Drawing (or ‘digital painting’ or ‘pixeling’ or whatever it is) doesn’t particularly engage the part of my brain that involves language unless I’m actually doing higher-level design. A lot of it is just painting away at something or pushing a lot of pixels. Oftentimes it’s not supremely engaging stuff like drawing lots and lots of bricks or painting lots and lots of clouds – all good and necessary things, yes, but the mind tends to wander. So I listen to stuff. Music works oftentimes, and the emotional content of the music often finds its way in to my art. Other times I want to listen to something I can think about, something relevant to what I’d like to be doing: game design.
I listen to internet audio shows about games. For some reason Apple has convinced us that these audio shows are to be called podcasts, and just as I eventually gave in to using the word “blog”, so too shall I adopt use of the word “podcast”.
These are the podcasts to which I continue to listen, with some of my thoughts.
Three Moves Ahead by Troy Goodfellow (of Flash of Steel, a site I recommend for strategy gamers) with one or more of Tom Chick (of Quarter to Three and GameShark), Bruce Geryk, Julian Murdoch (from Gamers with Jobs), and Rob Zacny
The shows are low-key and honest, almost always excellent, and the commentators are intelligent, well-spoken, funny, and clearly experienced critics. I can’t recommend it enough to anyone interested in strategy games.
I’d love to have a future Gaslamp game featured on there if we end up doing something with strategy; I can dream, right?
Quarter To Three Games Podcast by the aforementioned Tom Chick with various guests from the Quarter to Three forums
In this show Tom Chick talks to a sort of “regular gamer” from his site’s forums in an interview format first about their job, life, and/or interesting life experiences, then about a game they’ve chosen to discuss. I appreciate the down-to-earth tone Tom Chick uses, and the shows often spend a lot of time talking about random things aside from the game being discussed. It may be a bit unfocused, but I appreciate the slice-of-life range of topics.
(There’s also a Quarter To Three movie podcast which is hilarious and insightful. I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in movies.)
Gamers With Jobs Conference Call with Shawn Andrich, Julian Murdoch, and uh, some other guys I don’t remember…
This is basically a “have a bunch of guys sit around and bullshit about games for a while” sort of podcast, though they do have actual subjects of discussion and guests sometimes, even Real Game Designers. Tends to go on for a while, but it gives a good sort of “state of games” impression about a lot of things I’d never find the time (or motivation) to play myself.
Jumping the Shark, “the official podcast of GameShark.com”
This is mostly a “sit around and bullshit about games”, albeit from the perspective of a pack of game journalists, with a discussion topic per-show following a what-games-are-you-playing segment. Provides insight into the world of video games journalism (which the participants don’t, I think, promote any illusions about), but mostly it’s a “state of games” show to me.
The Brainy Gamer Podcast by Michael Abbott
It’s not updated often, but as the title suggests, the show is intelligent and has some good interviews/discussions with experienced game designers talking seriously about the subject.
Game Design Advance Podcast by Charles Pratt
New York indie game design; Content full and utterly academic. Having taken some philosophy courses and going to art school means I can totally take anything this podcast dishes, but it’s probably not for everyone.
Experience Points Podcast by Jorge Albor and Scott Juster
Sometimes I’m a bit torn on this one, but I keep listening to it. They don’t necessarily get too deep into discussion and seem to have less to say than more experienced critics and writers (I believe they’re just a touch younger than myself, even), and they tend to talk about more mainstream console games than my tastes run, but it is important for me to find out what such games are all about and they deliver with admirable regularity. They’re earnest in approaching mainstream games with a mind for actual discussion, so I appreciate what they try to get out of it. I think they’re getting better as they go along and get used to the medium.
Aside from these I make forays into other genres; For a while I listened to a huge backlog of short science-fiction stories read in audio form in a podcast called Escape Pod, which I believe has a fantasy and horror equivalent, and a number of tabletop RPG design podcasts (eg. Master Plan, Open Design Podcast) which, though fascinating for a different take on game design, I burned through pretty quickly.
Still, I run out of things to listen to.
Do you have any good game podcasts to recommend?
