Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return to our series on Homeworld with an interview with special guest Alex Garden, who co-founded Relic and directed the title. We talk about the inception of the idea to the implementation difficulties and much more. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:52    Interview
1:03:49 Break
1:04:24 Outro Comments

Issues covered: the history of our guest, distributing pirated games, the cold intro, testing games, dropping out of high school, selling the company and working for some years, fixing someone else's bugs, the crystal sphere, "Spaghetti Ball," the lightning bolt, focusing on the loss, pulling together the team, a 50000-line demo, starting with multiplayer to demo, demoing for gods, "this has changed how I'll make games," not knowing how to tell stories in space, creating a reference for the ships, believing you can overcome the difficulties, finding your home and knowing you were in the right, the gravity of the situation and losing people, every life being precious, you are not the target audience, making the story and the gameplay the same, lack of dynamic range, one revolution multiple evolution, changing the licensor, ships with fantastic shapes and colors, the main ship and why it has that design, ship scale on LODs, a frequency domain audio engine, doing a lot procedurally, clock radios, joining the rebellion, what sticks with you today, trusting your vision, expectations smashed, the new game gods, trying to make designers rock stars, knowing your collaborators.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Madden (franchise), Triple Play, The Divide, PlayStation, Impossible Creatures, Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Nexon, Xbox Live, Zune, Zynga, US Robotics, Distinctive Software, Chris Taylor, Don Mattrick, Omar Sharif On Bridge, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Sega Genesis, Beavis and Butthead, Conceptual Interface Devices, Luke Moloney, Radical Entertainment, Electronic Arts, NASA/JPL, Ptolemy, Battlestar Galactica, Jon Mavor, Greg McMartin, Scott Lynch, Sierra, Valve, Erin Daly, Rob Cunningham, Aaron Kambeitz, Jane Jensen, Rob Lowe, Roberta and Ken Williams, Peter Molyneux, Black & White, Wing Commander, Chris Roberts, Star Citizen, The Breakfast Club, Blizzard, Starcraft, Republic Commando, Games Workshop, Blur Entertainment, Chris Foss, Peter Elson, Monkey Island, Shane Alfreds, Deus Ex, Warren Spector, Harvey Smith, Tim Cain, Fallout, Ion Storm, Ken Levine, Cliff Bleszinski, Killcreek (Stevie Case), John Romero, Hal Barwood, Wil Wright, Tim Schafer, Larry Holland, Gabe Newell, American McGee, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
???

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our miniseries on rotoscoped games with part two of The Last Express. We talk about the sweep of history, playing parallel, ending in Vienna and other topics before turning to takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To Vienna (Tim), Somewhere after Strasbourg (Brett)

Issues covered: different puzzle formats and it still working, not knowing what to do with the bug, diverting to The Murder on the Orient Express plot, putting a spin on the old plots, Tim has a favorite tea, political violence in games, world history on the march, the tension of violence in political discourse, the legendary cities it passes through, avoiding caricature for the most part, the melting pot, strong writing and performances, naturalism and theatrics, countries shifting, passing through empires, playing parallel versions of the story, trying the wrong rooms, the medical issue of the older Russian, the importance of time, games that are watertight, the appearance of simulation, adjusting the state machine, wondering whether the game knows what you know, the dog and having to get it into place, a consistent character, committing to a different sort of game and the downstream consequences, comparing with more abstract games, adding constraints, pulling in things from other media, making a big leap forward in realism and groundedness, the talent for keyframing grounded animation, getting metrics and level design constraints from the animation, deeper and different storytelling, teasing an interview, Gogo and Umaro and tuning your player experience.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: MYST, Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, CSI, Peter Ustinov, Kenneth Branagh, Sherlock Holmes, Scream, Wes Anderson, The Darjeeling Limited, Far Cry (series), Sierra, LucasArts, Anton Chekhov, Karateka, Deadline, The Witness, The 7th Guest, Prince of Persia, Firewatch, The Walking Dead, Jake Gyllenhaal, Source Code, Rian Johnson, David Bowie, Duncan Jones, Edge of Tomorrow, Michelle Monaghan, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray, Deathloop, Prey: Mooncrash, Day of the Tentacle, Vienna Waits for You, A Death in Venice, Another World, Super Mario (series), Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Fire and Ice, Eric Chahi, Jordan Mechner, Ray Harryhausen, Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Phantasmagoria, Police Quest, Grim Fandango, Akira Toriyama, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Dragonball Z, Ashmann86, Em, Final Fantasy VI, Rage, Bethesda Game Studios, Kingdom Hearts III, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
An Interview!

Note:
The Murder on the Orient Express adaptation from 1974 did not feature Peter Ustinov, who took up the role of Poirot in 1978. The 1974 film starred Albert Finney. We regret the error.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com