Podcast appearances and mentions of Anna Anthropy

Dirk and Kathryn Hymes meet this episode to talk with Anna Anthropy, digital and tabletop designer known for her prolific work with non-traditional themes. They discuss Anna's career in game design, and her path into becoming an educator. Topics include why violence is an attractive game element, dealing with releasing art and it no longer being one's own, one page games, and the absence of sex as a theme or topic.

Hi, everybody! This week, Spencer returns to the fold of Microsoft after a long hiatus (like, since the Xbox 360 in 2005!) and joins the rest of you gamers in the future with a brand-new Game Pass-installed Xbox Series S! Spencer and Jamie return to the island of Tsushima with the new Ghost Director's Cut (thank you Sucker Punch), and Jamie takes us on a tour of the short and bittersweet Necrobarista! Then, we're joined by Anna Anthropy, video game and role-playing game designer, interactive fiction author, and the mind behind Rise of the Video Game Zinester: part manifesto, part critical essay, part DIY handbook encouraging "Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You" to get out there and make some games! Anna has been thinking about, talking about, and making games for many years, and we were stoked to share this space with her to chat about fostering the next generation of game makers and democratizing game development. Check out Anna's games and projects: https://w.itch.io/ Side Quest THE ASTRAEA LESBIAN FOUNDATION FOR JUSTICE is the only philanthropic organization working exclusively to advance LGBTQI human rights around the globe. We support brilliant and brave grantee partners in the U.S and internationally who challenge oppression and seed change. We work for racial, economic, social, and gender justice, because we all deserve to live our lives freely, without fear, and with dignity. Your support for Astraea's Collective Care Response enables LBTQI- and people of color-led grassroots movements to boldly confront the impacts of COVID-19 across the globe now and for the long haul while building interconnected ecosystems of support and resilience.  https://www.astraeafoundation.org/donate-collective-care-response/  About Pixel Therapy New episodes drop every other Tuesday. Learn more at pixeltherapypod.com or follow us on social media @pixeltherapypod. We're proud members of the But Why Tho? Podcast Network: visit ButWhyThoPodcast.com for everything pop culture in an inclusive geek community! If you like what you hear, please take a moment to rate us, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts (or your listening app of choice) & subscribe! Want more? Unlock monthly bonus episodes for $2/mo and help us save up for streaming equipment at patreon.com/pixeltherapypod ! Support this podcast

Sommerferien er over os! Mens I nyder det forhåbentligt gode vejr, kan I høre lidt om de to værters baggrund med computerspil. De har hver udvalgt fem forskellige spil, der har betydet noget for dem og for spilindustrien i den tid, de har været involveret i den. Det er der kommet to hyggelige episoder med en rejse igennem industri og liv ud af. I august er vi tilbage on-topic med episoder blandt andet om rekruttering i spilbranchen og engine-teknologier I denne episode har Mikkel Lodahl udvalgt følgende fem spil: - Lykkehjulet af Circuit Design A/S (Jørgen Vinther, 1991) - Ducktales – The Quest for Gold (David Mullich, 1990) - Dragon Age: Origins af BioWare (Dan Tudge, Mark Darrah, David Gaider, 2009) - Dys4ia af Anna Anthropy (2012) - Super Mario Maker 2 af Nintendo (Yosuke Oshino, 2019)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we add a bonus interview to our series on Final Fantasy VI. We are joined by Sebastian Deken, whose new book explores especially the music in the game. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Podcast breakdown: 0:51 Interview 1:05:21 Break 1:06:03 Outro Issues covered: not being able to talk about video game music, researching live performances of video game music, pitching Boss Fight Books, playing a friend's copy of Final Fantasy, racking up Blockbuster fines from pushing the rental, knowing that you're a musician from early on, studying to be an opera singer, having punishing stage fright for performance, getting into the Columbia MFA program, getting a great thesis advisor, the influence of prog rock on FF6's soundtrack, "the steampunk of music," Celtic music as an influence, the other influences you hear, having the Chocobos take you out of the game, the transitions from overworld to Zozo, knowing what to expect from a game vs not, needing a quilt of a game to quilt the music, planet-hopping, doing a lot of work through the music, having to find a way to talk about music through analogy, showing a few examples visually, the subtlety of Relm's musical number, sassy Relm, getting the whole story about Shadow and Relm through multiple playthroughs, the opera scene and "how is it possible," not making any sense to get the airship this way, the game as an opera with a three act structure, reflecting back what's happening in the game, opera as a strange confluence of factors, transcendant beauty that stays with you, opera as its own answer, needing to hear something as an 8x8 square, maintaining the illusion, matches of fidelity, the viewpoint on opera, not being meant to see people up close in opera. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: biostats, Brett White, Boss Fight Books, NES, StarTropics, Dragon Quest, Matt Shafeek, Gabe Durham, GameCube, Kirk Hamilton, Strong Songs, St Louis Symphony, Upright Citizen's Brigade, Margo Jefferson, Michael Jackson, Koichi Sugiyama, Nomuo Uematsu, Mario (series), Nine Inch Nails, Ennio Morricone, Indiana Jones, Baldur's Gate, JRR Tolkien, Ultima, Skyrim, Elder Scrolls (series), Forgotten Realms, Super Mario RPG, Ryan Thompson, Cosi fan tutte, La traviata, Otello, Puccini, Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Flute, Kenneth Branagh, Hamlet, Spelunky, Derek Yu, ZZT, Anna Anthropy, Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima, Dragon Quest Builders, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. Next time: Takeaways and feedback Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub DevGameClub@gmail.com

Today on Never Was A Gamer, we played WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgames, and we have mega stuff to say about it! Join us for a fun conversation about working at Nintendo, games as the opposite of art, going into a hyperfocus trance, and Anna Anthropy's incredible Dys4ia (2012). It's a good one!Timecodes:   3.45  What is WarioWare, Inc?   5.45  What is Wario, actually?   13.05  How did this game happen?   BREAK   21.30  Playing the game.   36.00  Wario's (mostly) cool friends.   BREAK55.46  Then, there's Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia.   1.04.00  What, if anything, is WarioWare about?   1.07.55  Final thoughts. 

Episode Notes In this episode of Many Realms, game designer Anna Anthropy joins us for a play of Grant Howitt's Honey Heist Hack: I'm A Lover, Not A Fighter. Our heroes have only one chance to rescue a captive from the masked ball, and they'll need to use their wits and wiles in equal measure to swashbuckle their way to success. Transcript: http://bit.ly/2XtQtW8 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealmscast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealmscast Website: https://therealmscast.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ManyRealms Music Many Realms Theme by Nik October (http://softonline.me) Blue Waltz by Kadir Demir Funny Robbery by Kadir Demir A Gentle Light by Will Van De Commert Witches Brew by CK Martin Pizzicato Waltz by Kadir Demir Pizzi Waltz by Kair Demir Away by Ian Post Joking Together by Michele Nobler

This episode we’re discussing Visual Novels! We talk about what visual novels are, whether they count as books, reading novels we’re much too young for, being unable to suspend our disbelief, watching videos at 2x speed, monetization, watching vs playing, linear vs divergent stories, and more! Plus, this episode is like 75% tangents! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Things We Read (Played?) This Month Bury Me, My Love Dungeons & Lesbians Stream with Matthew and RJ Serre - “A visual novel about a girl and an alien drinking tea and falling in love!” Stream with Matthew and Meghan Speed Dating for Ghosts Order a Pizza: A Visual Novel Stream with Matthew and hosts of Finish It! Podcast All the streams on YouTube! Our Twitch channel Matthews list of (more) Visual Novels he enjoyed playing A Mortician's  Tale - “a story-driven death positive video game where you play as a mortician tasked with running a funeral home.” Arcade Spirits - “a romantic visual novel that follows an alternative timeline where the 1983 video game crash never occurred.” Don’t Take It Personally, I Just Don’t Like You: The Camping Trip - “a lo-fi relationship dramedy about camping illegally on government property in the chill of early autumn, having public anxiety attacks in crowded shopping malls, the people we choose to be with, and what we do when they don't choose us back.” The Night Fisherman - “A short tale of inhumanity in the English channel." The Outcast Lovers - “Driving home late one night you encounter a refugee in distress.” (Sequel to The Night Fisherman.) Us Lovely Corpses - “a short surreal-horror-romance visual novel about helping a friend.” Watch Me Jump - “a digital story of scandal and betrayal, played out in four quarters.” Mission: It's Complicated - “a visual novel about getting superheroes to fall in love, and the shenanigans that happen along the way.” Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator - “a game where you play as a Dad and your goal is to meet and romance other hot Dads.” Other Media We Mentioned Choose Your Own Adventure (Wikipedia) Doki Doki Literature Club! (Wikipedia) Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess (Wikipedia) Tusks: The Orc Dating Sim Orcs that RJ drew! More orc(cupation)s that RJ drew Radical Dreamers (Wikipedia) Butterfly Soup - “A visual novel about gay asian girls playing baseball and falling in love.” 2064: Read Only Memories (Wikipedia) Now Kiss! YouTube Playlist of visual novel streams by Kathleen de Vere Finish It! Podcast Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form by Anna Anthropy  Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death by Caitlin Doughty Ask a Mortician Signs of the Sojourner - “a narrative card game about relationships and connecting with people.” Links, Articles, and Things Bingo Sheets for podcast Visual novel (Wikipedia) Gamebook (Wikipedia) Text-based game (Wikipedia) Interactive fiction (Wikipedia) Point-and-click adventure games (Wikipedia) Twine (software) (Wikipedia) Pandemic (board game) (Wikipedia) RJ’s itch.io page Pricing Hobby Games: An argument for pricing your small independent games. How One Gameplay Decision Changed Diablo Forever Why So Few Violent Games? Visual Novel Maker Says It Will Replace Its Striking Writers Visual Novel Writers Win Pay Raise After 21 Day Strike Visual Novels (TV Tropes) 5 Visual Novels (and 1 amazing resource) by People of Colour Blerdy Otome: this episode’s list would not be possible without Blerdy Otome, who reviews otome games, visual novels, and related media! Check out the Blerdy Tribe page of her website for tons of Black game developers, artists, podcasters, and other folks to follow! ValiDate: a forthcoming romantic visual novel about 12 adults in Jercy City navigating new relationships and the harsh realities that come alongside them. Features an array of character art by artists of color and a narrative developed by an all people of color writing team. One Thousand and One Days: an LGBTQ+ fantasy otome based on the mythology of ancient Persia and Islamic lore. Pairs: a romantic sci-fi visual novel featuring two superheroic couples and four perspectives to see their stories from. Us Lovely Corpses: a short surreal-horror-romance visual novel about helping a friend. Matthew’s stream of this game can be found here (check the content warning in the video description). Order a Pizza: play as a divorced dad trying to order the perfect pizza. Matthew’s stream of this game can be found here. Suggest new genres or titles! Fill out the form to suggest a genre or title! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, September 15th we’ll be giving an update on media we’ve been consuming that’s not for the podcast! Then on Tuesday, October 15th we’ll be reading Comedic/Humourous Novels!

Emma and Gil invite award-winning game designer, teacher, and not-scholar Sharang Biswas to the show to discuss verbs in games. What actions do we actually perform when we play a game, what actions do they represent, and how does that impact the game experience? You can find Sharang on Twitter or on the web. Here is his itch.io store. CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains references to sex and sexuality. Show Notes 2h31m: Sharang teaches at The International Center of Photography (Bard College), and at Fordham University. 3m05s: We had Dr. Mary Flanagan on the show for Ludology 226 - Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo 3m26s: Playcrafting is an organization that holds game design events, mainly for digital games, in New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. 5m04s: Anna Anthropy is an influential game designer, and current designer-in-residence at DePaul College in Chicago. 5m15s: Ian Bogost's Persuasive Games. 10m08s: Android: Netrunner 11m33s: We discussed ludonarrative dissonance, especially in board games, in Ludology 190 - Diabolus in Ludica. 12m05s: The uselessness of 1:1 scale maps came up in our conversation with Volko Ruhnke for Ludology 178 - COIN-Operated. 12m29s: If you haven't heard us discuss at length what a "game" is, check out Ludology 151 - High Definition. 12m35s: More information about the word autotelic, which is extremely useful when discussing games and play. 13m35s: Frank Lanz is a game designer and director of the NYU Game Center. 16m35s: Great Western Trail, Food Chain Magnate 17m10s: Ryan and Geoff discussed the magic circle with game designer and professor Eric Zimmerman in Ludology 79 - The Magic Circle. 17m29s: You can find more about Honey & Hot Wax, edited by Sharang and Lucian Kahn, here. 18m25s: The phrase "turtles all the way down" is one of Gil's favorites. 20m54s: Hungry Hungry Hippos, Mouse Trap, Pretty Pretty Princess, Electronic Dream Phone 21m30s: MegaCity Oceania 21m54s: Mountains of Madness 23m10s: Pandemic Legacy: Season One 24m11s: Sharang's game with Max Seidman, Mad Science Foundation 26m35s: The RPG Sign. 28m10s: More information about the larp Sarabande. 29m42s: Geoff and Gil discussed "soft incentives" in Ludology 185 - Soft Boiled. 30m38s: Jiangshi, an RPG about Chinese immigrants juggling running a haunted restaurant, by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim. We had Banana on the show a few weeks ago, for Ludology 228 - The Roles We Play. 31m10s: Some of the discussion about "Press F To Pay Respects" in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. 31m31s: Untitled Goose Game 35m53s: Sharang compares Chaos in the Old World to Assault of the Giants. Chaos was designed by the incomparable Eric Lang, who we had on the show for Ludology 175 - Auld Lang Design. 37m13s: Sagrada 38m19s: DC Comics Deck-Building Game 40m00s: John Cage's 4'33", which instructs the performer to play no notes for the duration of the piece. 40m27s: Positive examples of ludonarrative dissonance: Typing of the Dead, Unspeakable Words 40m58s: Brenda Romero's well-known art game Train. 41m16s: Sharang's game Feast, inspired by Felix Gonzalez-Torres' original art piece Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). 41m45s: The RPG With Great Power…  42m31s: Team Fun's interview with Sharang, featuring the phrase "Jump, Decapitate, Kill." 43m44s: Journalist, larp designer, and game writer Lizzie Stark. 45m00s: The 2001 video game Black & White. 45m17s: French literary critic Roland Barthes proposed the idea of the Death of the Author in a 1967 essay, suggesting that critics don't need to understand an author to contextualize their work. 45m24s: The Effing Foundation for Sex Positivity. 47m16s: Thumb Wars (or thumb wrestling) 51m45s: The games A Guide to Casting Phantoms In The Revolution, and Can You Hear Me?  52m34s: Sharang's game Several Miles from Heaven. 53m36s: The Jenga-implementing RPGs Dread and Star Crossed, and the apocalyptic RPG Ten Candles. 54m45s: Metatopia is a game designer convention based in the northeastern US that specializes in tests of board games, TTRPG, and larp. 56m41s: Sharang's solo food-based RPG Verdure. 57m52s: We had Jenn Sandercock on in Ludology 210 - The Way to a Gamer's Heart to discuss her edible games.  58m41s: The 200-word RPG Stardust. 1h00m00s: The bizarre Hellcouch (taking the idea of the "couch co-op to the next level), amd Mattie Brice's empathy machine. 1h00m45s: Marina Abramović's seminal performance art piece Rhythm 0, in which she allowed visitors to do whatever they wanted to her body for 6 hours. Visitors were gentle at first, but became more cruel as the piece went on, several times aiming a loaded gun in her head. The most powerful part of the performance emerged at the end; once the 6 hours ended, Abramović stood up and approached the audience, who promptly left, unable to face her as a person who had regained her bodily autonomy. 1h06m08s: Alex Roberts' Pop! is part of Sharang's project Honey and Hot Wax, co-edited by Lucian Kahn. 1h06m37s: Emma's degree is in Product Design. 1h08m45s: Sharang has written a couple of articles for Killscreen. 1h10m38s: Wingspan. We had the pleasure of chatting with designer Elizabeth Hargrave for Ludology 203 - Winging It. 1h12m15s: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a horrifying tragedy in which 146 sweatshop workers in New York City were killed by a fire. The workers were locked into their working space, so they could not exit on foot; many leapt to their deaths. The fire resulted in legislation that improved factory safety standards and strengthened union powers.  1h14m42s: Clio Yun-Su Davis' RPG Pass the Sugar Please was run by theater company Intramersive. 1h16m44s: Sharang is referencing Kat Jones' game Glitzy Nails. 1h17m43s: The RPG Flatpack 1h19m34s: The productivity games Habitica, SuperBetter, Chore Wars, and Zombies Run. 1h20m58s: Sharang's game A Shroud for the Seneschal.

This week guest host Anna Anthropy joins us to discuss an unexpected HD remaster of a beloved but obscure Japan-only GameCube game! The Mr. Driller series burned brightly but briefly from 1999 through the early...

This time on Many Realms, we're playing ALL MY EXES ARE IN MECHSUITS, a mech anime LARP created by Anna Anthropy. Mysterious planets will be uncovered. Giant robots will do battle in underground caves. Will capes billow dramatically in the wind? Only one way to find out. Transcript: http://bit.ly/34MoGBq Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealmscast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealmscast Website: https://therealmscast.com/ Music: Memories by Stanley Gurvich Paralyzed in Paradise by Divine Attraction Again and Of Last Strength by Repina As We Go by Luminar

Today I talked to Dan Cook about competitive games, social games, and our objectives behind making games in the first place. This was one of my favorite conversations with one of my favorite game design theorists out there. His blog, Lost Garden, was literally THE blog (along with maybe some stuff from Anna Anthropy) that … DanC on the reasons for making games Read More »

After attending the 2019 BAFTA Games Awards, Jordan wanted to talk about how video games are tackled by this venerable British institution. Kat Brewster, a PhD student who a) is not British, and b) has not played any of the winning games, was the perfect guest.This episode contains minor spoilers for the beginning of God of War, the beginning of Life is Strange 2, and the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey DLC Bloodline.In a previous version of this episode we misattributed the creation of Queers in Love at the End of the World. The game was developed by Anna Anthropy.

Our hosts watch Season 2 Episode 8, Brain Invaders with special guest Anna Anthropy! They discuss the fascism of the Republic and ask the question “Is this the gayest Clone Wars episode?” Onto this week's adventures in Clone Wars!

Content Warning: discussions on dysphoria, dysmorphia, anorexia, depressionThis week, Robert and Alva have an extended discussion on their own experiences with gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and the general horror and malaise of existence, before exploring a trio of excellent games that explore these themes: Sundae Month’s Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy, and Anna Anthropy’s dys4ia.We also have a related conversation on the now-outdated Cyberpunk 2077 transphobic tweet debacle (since the recording of this podcast, CDPR’s social media manager has been outed as a proper bigot chud), and the trans character Rosetta seen in the Valkyria Chronicles 4 demo.We Play: Food Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei Dx2, Dead Cells.

The organization Games for Change is hard to describe as being just one thing: they throw a Festival that happens every year in NYC, and that's been the backbone of the organization, but around that has grown a really important community of artists and activists, educators, computer scientists, developers, funders, and game studios who believe deeply in the power of games for improving the human experience. Sometimes that's about empathy for other humans, sometimes it's about zooming in on something remarkable, sometimes it's about simply tapping the playfulness in all of us. When I think of Games for Change - some might call them Serious Games - I think of titles like Dys4ia, a flashgame by the legendary Anna Anthropy - quoting from Wikipedia, "to recount her experiences of gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy". There are hundreds of titles, and many would argue that the boundaries between "serious games" and others is really about your game design practice, more than genre. They can be blurry, when you put them up against Educational Games, or even virtual environments where the outcomes aren't purely a play for revenue.I've been really lucky to be a part of this organization's evolution as a participant at the festival, as a partner to their student game design challenge in my role at Mouse, and as a member of the community that gains so much from the vision they put forward 15 years ago. I feel like an Anniversary gift is in order, and while I didn't send chocolates to founders - Ben Stokes, Barry Joseph, Suzanne Seggerman - it felt like the next best thing to spend some time with G4C President, Susanna Pollack, and give you a chance to hear from two winners at this year's festival.3 Conversations, 15 years of Games for Change - enjoy.Notes from this episode:Games For Change: http://www.gamesforchange.org/Attentat 1942: http://attentat1942.com/Attentat 1942 Gameplay: https://youtu.be/kLct7kVW1sMCharles University: https://cuni.cz/About Assassins Creed, Origins for Education: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/arts/assassins-creed-origins-education.htmlSTEAM: https://store.steampowered.com/Technology Student Association: http://www.tsaweb.org/Play Garrett at Chameleon School: http://tsabms.bsd.k12.pa.us/VideoGameDesign/Team903/2018 G4C Student Challenge Winners: http://www.gamesforchange.org/studentchallenge/awards-2018-student-challenge/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The RPG Academy wasn’t too far off when they called her “Crazy Rhode Island.” Perhaps a few fries short of a happy meal, Dani loves XP, gaming of all sorts, beer, metal and cats. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! https://cyphercast.net/ https://twitter.com/ImperialScum https://www.twitch.tv/returntogreyhawk http://tobaspod.blubrry.net/ Since 1999, Naomi Clark has been designing, writing, and producing games for all sorts of audiences and platforms. She worked for several years at LEGO, where she led the creation of games like Junkbot and World Builder as well as building systems like LEGO Digital Designer. Later, she joined the NYC game studio Gamelab, designing and producing downloadable games like Egg vs Chicken and Miss Management. She's spoken and written about games as well, from reviews for the blog Feministe to a textbook (A Game Design Vocabulary) co-authored with Anna Anthropy. Along the way she was also a founding member of the collective that runs the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (srlp.org). Naomi's first game as a professional designer was Sissyfight 2000, one of the first multiplayer games on the web. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign with members of the original team, Sissyfight was updated and released in 2013 as an open source game. Naomi is now a freelance game designer in New York City as well as a professor at the NYU Game Center, where she teaches game design, player research, and tabletop RPGs. Consentacle is her first creator-owned commercial card game. https://twitter.com/metasynthie/ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/990619951/consentacle-a-card-game-of-human-alien-intimacy Monica is a freelance writer and game designer for the Onyx Path Publishing. She's worked on a variety of World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness and has done significant mechanical and design work for Trinity Continuum, Scion Second Edition, Aeon, and Exalted Third Edition. She's also the cohost and producer of the gaming podcast, Bonus Experience. https://twitter.com/zenithsun https://bonusexpcast.wordpress.com/ http://theonyxpath.com/ Monica's Game Playlists: Stars Without Number https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3CpGXhe1cdkoNCnXj5K9YoLr2FdfddNi&disable_polymer=true Through the Breach https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3CpGXhe1cdmwLqFabK_ugYcyIgI9pLv2 Blades in the Dark https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3CpGXhe1cdnxWTIk8V4dFJMSEMynSlUq&disable_polymer=true http://www.mu-podcast.com/ https://www.birdscoffeecompany.com/coffees/legends-of-tabletop-legendary-brew Use Code Legends10 to get 10% off your order

Dr. Carr and I continue our discussion on women in Mass Media and Pop Culture. This portion we disseminate the current slate of television, as well as share our experience playing video games as female avatars. Take some time to play Dys4ia, Anna Anthropy's FREE online game about gender transition. https://jayisgames.com/games/dys4ia/

Built to Play sacrifices the news for another day! We're talking to our guests about Phoenix Wright, ZZT, and the future of E3. If you played something Japanese in the 2000s, chances are Alexander O. Smith translated it. Alex has translated everything from the Final Fantasy series, the novel All You Need is Kill, and the Dr. Slump manga. But here at Built to Play, there's really only one game in his long portfolio that matters: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. The game is a visual novel from Capcom and stars Phoenix Wright, a down on his luck lawyer living in Los Angeles, who has to solve all of his cases in only three days. It's a charming and often funny game that relies on its stellar translation, which is far from literal. Download Here. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher Radio.  While the translation stays true to the tone and the overall plot, the dialogue can be completely different. And it kind of has to be. The names are Japanese puns and the dialogue is filled with references to Japanese society. The punchlines often don't make a lick of sense in English. So Alex had a lot of room to write his own jokes, and play with the characters.  Though by changing so much, you often run into issues down the line. Gyakuten Saiban, the japanese name of the series, is set in Tokyo, which causes the brunt of the inconsistencies. A hamburger shop mentioned in the early games has to reappear as a noodle stand later on. That's a small issue, but consider that the designers recently decided that the newest game would star Phoenix's direct ancestor, a samurai living in late 19th century Japan.  **You can hear more from Alexander O. Smith's translation process, the definition of a perfect localization and how Phoenix Wright was almost Roger Wright,  less than a minute into the episode. ** Back in good old North America, we talked to the author of the new book in the Boss Fight Series, ZZT. Anna Anthropy tells us about the history of an internet community and its diversity.  1991's ZZT is a weird game to talk about. It's an adventure game built from ANSI characters, all numbers, letters and symbols. It had a limited color palette, and even more limited story. But that's not that part of ZZT people remember the most. ZZT attracted a large community because it came with a level editor and a simple programming language that let you make your own games out of the ZZT engine. These games would then be shared online on message boards and forums, and covered a wide variety of genres and topics. People continue to make ZZT games to this day, and the most recent copy  of ZZT was ordered from its creator, Tim Sweeney, back in 2013. Anna Anthropy writes about that community and how it inspired her own growth as a designer and a writer. She met people who had the same concerns as her, and just like her, were trans. She says it's like a predecessor to the feminist-minded Twine community, which encourages everyone of every creed to make games.  But ZZT attracted all sorts of people, from teenagers trying to discover their own identity to trolls who attacked other creators. So talking about people who make ZZT game can get a little complicated.  Anna Anthropy tells us all about the history of ZZT, why it matters, and reasons why you should check out ZZT games today starting at 17:00. By the way, Anna gave us a couple recommendations that didn't make it into the episode, but here's a few: Ned the Knight, Kudzu, and Eli's House. For more, she has a whole list of great ZZT games to play onher website. You can pick up her book at Boss Fight Series page.  Last month, no one could stop talking about E3, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Many have questioned whether E3 is lessening in importance, or if its actually bad for the industry as a whole.  We've had 20 Electronic Entertainment Expos since its start, and whether they've been in Las Vegas, Santa Monica or Los Angeles, it's almost always been one of the most anticipated game-related events of the year. But its relevance seems to be changing as the years go by. Most publishers had nothing concrete to announce at E3. Electronic Arts barely had games to show beyond the concept level. The two big press conferences, Sony's and Microsoft's, were milquetoast, especially as they announced the big new games of two years from now. Meanwhile Nintendo didn't have a press conference. They broadcasted Robot Chicken jokes and two new franchises over the internet.  So to check its value, we checked in with Daniel Kaszor, the editor of the Post Arcade at one of Canada's largest newspapers, the National Post. According to him, E3 probably won't be going anywhere, but with fewer big budget games coming out each year, the demographics are shifting. E3 isn't even the biggest show of its kind anymore. That would be Gamescom in Germany, where the public days attract hundreds of thousands. The E3 of five years from now might look very different from how we know it today. Daniel tells us about the Post Arcade's coverage of E3, and whether E3 is even all that beneficial to big publications starting 32:40. You can find the Post Arcade here. We also ran a short rerun of our interview with Nadine Lessio and Kara Stone from the Vector Game Arts Festival back in March. The game they talked about, Sext Adventure, is now out and available to everyone who wants to try it. What did we think about it: "As part of the Feb Fatale game jam, a 48-hour race to finish a game, they created a text adventure based on sexy phone texts. You contact an anonymous android who attempts to satisfy humans sexually, but instead lapses into existential depression. Our sex-positive reporter, Daniel Rosen, dug deep into the jam game, and discussed with Stone and Lessio society's intimate relationship with technology, the eventual disharmony routed in cyborg theory and dildos."  The tomfoolery starts around 44:40.   This week's music comes from the Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney soundtrack and the Free Music Archive. From the former, we used the song, "Pressing Pursuit -  Cornered Witness." From the Free Music Archive, we used "As Colorful as Ever" by Broke for Free, "Blue" by Podington Bear, "Hallon" by Christian Bjoerklund. **Special thanks to Josh Rosenberg who played Phoenix Wright, and Alexander O Smith who said Objection that one time. Capcom please don't sue us.  ** **As always, this weeks episode was produced and edited by Arman Aghbali and written by Daniel Rosen. **

The mappers take a journey to a world where anthropomorphic animals live alongside humans and a journey begins to acquire a number of magical orbs. No, it’s not Dragon Ball, it’s Beyond Good & Evil! In between all the stealth and shutterbugging, Em decides to take a single joke as far beyond its breaking point as they can, while Jackson tries their best to detangle the good and evil of game beginnings and how they relate to the games as a whole. Deep down, they mostly just look towards the future, and reflect on past mistakes. It’s a learning opportunity for us all in this very special* episode.*episode not that special, reallyFeel free to subscribe on iTunes, or you can download the episode directly HERE.Games and Topics This MonthBeyond Good & EvilVideo game openings both good and evilZZT by Anna Anthropy, which is great but not really good or … you get the point.Plz Diversify Your Panel Note from Matt: at the time of recording this was a very newly minted idea, and many of the things we discussed have since been addressed directly by the people running the site. It’s even more endorsable than it was, and definitely worth your eyeballs on it.Next Month’s Game Club GamesHeavy RainBeyond: Two SoulsMusic in this EpisodeBlown Away by Kevin McLeodPropaganda by Christophe HéralMass Effect Main Theme by Jack WallShine by Magnus BirgerssonNuclear by Mike Oldfield

Matt and Jason talk about state of games journalism, and the challenge that those who write about videogames face when addressing a mainstream audience. Download MP3 (1 hour, 16 minutes) | Subscribe via iTunes | Subscribe via RSS Your browser does not support this audio format. Stuff mentioned in this episode: BioShock Infinite: an intelligent, violent videogame?, a critique by Daniel Golding for the Australian Broadcasting Company’s website. Betteridge’s law of headlines, according to Wikipedia. Jason’s 2010 essay The Silver Age, and Kotaku’s headline-altered reprint of it Seth Schiesel’s New York Times review of Red Dead Redemption Personal Video Games, a radio interview by On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone of Anna Anthropy, Sebastian Janisz and Michael Molinari about some of their work.

Recorded on February 20th, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Examples of sex and violence in video games are often trotted out as the root cause of many of society’s ills. Stepping away from the drama, are video games materially different than, say, movies? Brian laments the fact that we don’t have many interesting examples of love and romance in video games. Jim’s been playing available interpretations as they are released, and Tom optimistically reminds us that we’re still in early days as far as the medium is concerned. Referenced items: Thoughts About App Store Curation, Video Games and the Human Condition, Fifty Shades of Grey, Postal, Manhunt, Call of Duty, Top 10 Movies, Top 10 Games, Just Dance 4, NBA Jam, Madden NFL, Lego Batman, Call of Duty, Halo, Grantland - Spec Ops the Line, Sexposition, Mass Effect, Grantland - Mass Effect Three, Fable, Skyrim, Catherine, Karateka, Spec Ops the Line, Natural Born Killers, Bioshock, Doom, Cut the Rope, FarmVille, Infinity Blade, Mortal Kombat, Death Race, Peggle, Angry Birds, Minecraft, Clear Vision Two, Skinner Box, No Violence Please, We’re Gamers, Rethinking Mass Murder, Gears of War, Killzone, Mirror’s Edge, Heat, Kill Bill, Let The Right One In, Portal, Dating Sim, Leisure Suit Larry, Scenes From a Marriage, Heavy Rain, The Witcher, God of War, Duke Nukem, The Player, The Mummy, G.I. Joe, Girls Gone Wild, Two and a Half Men, Anna Anthropy, Proteus, Dear Esther, Thirty Flights of Loving.

Holmes speaks with indie game designer and 'Rise of the Videogame Zinesters' author, Anna Anthropy.

Wherein our hosts explore the push for more people to make video games, to tell stories through the medium, and share their unique voices through games. They discuss Anna Anthropy’s book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters, game making software that anyone can use, trends in the gaming industry, and of course, Diablo 3. Theme music by Latché Swing.