Meredith Gran (she/her) is a comics artist and game designer, best known for her webcomic, Octopus Pie and the adventure game Perfect Tides. She sat down with me to talk about her experience coming to games from a comics background, how Perfect Tides’ mechanics where influenced by teenage naivety, and why the 00s are such a rich period for coming of age stories. Finally, we wrap up with a teaser for the upcoming sequel, Perfect Tides: Station to Station.
Read MoreFor the first Kritiqal Care bonus episode, returning guests Colin (he/they) of melessthanthree and Kevin Wong (they/them) join me to discuss their recently released action RPG, Death of a Wish. We discuss where the idea for a sequel came from, its themes emerging from contemporary anxieties and apathy, balancing thematic resonance with difficulty, and planning a coordinated marketing push for an effective team of two.
Read MoreCecile Richard (they/them) is a graphic designer, writer, and game developer known for their playful Bitsy projects and hypertext fiction. They joined me to discuss cyclical stories, the risk/reward of collaborating with close friends, and how cool underground tunnels are. We also take a moment to proselytize about editors, and I learn about a new, extremely fake sounding sport.
Read MoreDavid Su (he/him) is a musician, audio programmer, and game designer who explores interactive music and performance art. He took some time off from his ballooning schedule to discuss how he got interested in making games from an audio background, the challenges and rewards of centering your game around sound, and the playful earnestness of a cloned sheep’s lament. Later, we wander into a video store.
Read MoreIt’s New Year’s Eve, which means 2023 has come and gone, bringing in closing our annual end of the year show. As is tradition, I reached out to past guests of the show to ask what their most impactful gaming memory was from the last 12 months. The responses were as insightful, touching, and playful as ever, running the gamut from industry events, personal milestones, and games that captured people’s imaginations.
Read MoreDomino Club is a pseudo-anonymous internet collective that makes weird, horny, and genre perverting videogames. In this episode I’m joined by Domino Club card carrying members Emma (she/her), Nat (she/they), and Rose (she/her) to chat about the group’s origins, its unconventional approach to anthology projects, and how all these games are secretly just for them.
Read MoreSam Machell (he/him) is half of indie game studio Sand Gardeners, known for provocative and unconventional games like Dark Kitchen, Memphis, Bubbleland, and Brownie Cove Cancelled. We chat about the studio’s origins as a webcomic collaboration, designing hostile environments, and the tragedy and possibility of unarchivable games. Later, Sam gives a brief eulogy for the Wii U, sadly taken from us too soon.
Read MoreLili Zone (she/they) is the experimental game designer behind works like Crypt World (2013) and Crypt Underworld (2023). She took some time to chat with me about Crypt World’s origins, the nearly decade long development of Underworld, and what she has planned for the future now the crypts are behind her. We also dig into the evolving conception of indie games, the “small games matter” PR amnesia cycle, and gaming’s ongoing embarrassment and adoration for Great Men™.
Read MoreAutumn Rain (she/they/it) is a prolific game developer whose work explores religious trauma, non-linear exploration, and getting lost in a maze of rats. We discuss games as miserable piles of secrets, the importance of indie dev communities, and why it’s actually fine and good to troll gamers.
Read MoreLily Valeen (she/they) is a game designer, writer, and artist who recently released BOSSGAME: The Final Boss is My Heart, a mobile action game about lesbian devil hunters. She joined me on the show to dive into BOSSGAME's development, the frustrating preconceptions around mobile games, and writing queer romance. Later on, we encourage you to befriend your cool mutuals.
Read MoreKate Barrett (she/her) is a game developer and comic artist best known for her playful, irreverent, and frequently copyright infringing design philosophy. She joined me this episode to retrace her curiosity-turned-obsession with Earnest Cline’s novel, evangelize her suitably unorthodox commitment to Blitz3D, and discuss the freedom that comes with embracing Glorious Trainwrecks.
Read MoreKenzie Shores (she/her) is a game developer and artist best known for the pornographic visual novel, Hardcoded. Nearing the game’s full release, Kenzie joined me to chat about Hardcoded’s origins, the challenge of monetizing porn, and why it really sucks to work on the same game for seven years.
Read MoreThe year has come and gone in a Sonic hued blur, and as is now tradition, I reached out to prior Kritiqal Care guests to ask what their favorite gaming and/or gaming-adjacent memory was in 2022. The responses were truly incredible, spanning great games, communities, moments of personal growth, and surprising opportunities. This continues to be my favorite episode of the year, and I’m so glad to get to share it with you. Happy new year!
Read MoreDave Hoffman (they/them) is the creator of Mixolumia, an arcade puzzle game combining contextual soundtracks with diamond-based combos. They came on the show to dig into the spontaneous origins of the game, how it continued to evolve and incorporate player creations, and the difficulty of marketing puzzle games in a streamer attention economy.
Read MoreCosmo D (he/him) is a game developer and musician whose work explores urban life, the creator economy, and giant pizza demanding buildings. Hot off the release of Betrayal At Club Low (2022), Cosmo D sat down with me to detail his dramatic pivot out of music into games, finding a medium that inspires you to keep growing, and chasing his space trucker sim white whale.
Read MoreMax Miller (they/them) is a composer, writer, and game designer. As part of new studio Pitter-Patter, they released Commonplace (2022), an ordinary adventure game about working in an office. For this episode, Max spent some time talking about the game’s experimental development, how they approached writing the soundtrack, and a desire to make games that push against consumption driven mechanics.
Read MoreWayward Strand (Ghost Pattern, 2022) is an upcoming adventure game which follows Casey - a teenager and aspiring journalist - as she explores a hospital airship floating above the Australian country-side. Two of its developers, Goldie Bartlett (she/her) and Jason Bakker (he/him), joined me on this episode to dive into the game's origins, how the continuous in-game clock allows for new forms of storytelling, and how collaborating with indigenous and mental health advocacy groups helped the team tell richer, more honest characters.
Read MoreAdam Le Doux (he/him) is a game and software developer best known for creating the tiny game engine, Bitsy. Just shy of Bitsy’s six-year birthday, Adam came on the show to talk about Bitsy’s unassuming origins and surprising evolution as part of the tiny games scene. Later, we discuss how Bitsy’s form sets in in opposition to conventional, capital driven games and software, the importance of the engine’s community, and how to preserve these games against the forces of tech oligarchies.
Read MoreSpiders (they/them) are an alt game dev specializing in queer, grimy, anti-tech industry experiments. In this episode, we chat about their upcoming anthology game, The Museum of Radically Obsolete Futures, the tension between wanting to make shit that’s cool vs shit that sells, and how vital communities like The Queer Games Bundle are to the weird game scene.
Read MoreIn collaboration with utopian collective Trust, designer Son La Pham (he/him) and developer Francis Tseng (he/they) created Half Earth Socialism (2022), a browser game companion to Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass’s book of the same name. As part of the game’s launch, Son La and Francis joined me on the show to discuss how the collaboration began, the challenge of building a global planning simulator as a browser game, and the importance of going beyond raw calculations to allow players to become emotionally invested.
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