Tag Archives: gone home

Herpes & Super Virgin Book Club

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Welcome back. Now that Halloween is officially over Shawn and Earl take some time out to get real. How real? SUPER FUCKING REAL! Our hosts get into herpes, feminism and gamergate. It’s not all serious though as our intrepid two-fer also talks upcoming JRPG Persona 5, Nintendo and and sex (but not really sex). Please join us for another exciting episode of ALL KINDS OF PHILLER-but who knows, it may be our last.
Spoilers…it’s not.
Let it begin…the show now!

What we’ve been checking out:
Shawn: Nightbreed, Halloween Loot Crate, disappointment
Earl: Homeland season 4, and Brooklyn 9-9 season 2

Audio notes: (1hr. 19min. runtime)
0:05:25 – Persona 4 talk, headphones & iPods, real-life social links, and “phoning a friend”
0:19:00 – Herpes!, girls we had crushes on in high school, and what happened to Gamer Earl?
0:28:00 – Earl’s favourite game genre, game times, Super Virgin Book Club, and bad analogies
0:38:45 – Contra, the Hatred game, Gamergate, and wanting different kings of games
0:49:55 – Stanley Parable v. Gone Home, Bastion & Transistor, and voices
1:01:25 – Spending a lot of money on games, The Evil Within, and PS4 games
1:09:55 – What’s everyone checking out?

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Storytelling, Ghosts, & Pop Culture Wormholes

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AKOP-storywormholes

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On this episode, Earl and Shawn hang out with Keith McNally before he ships out for the Maritimes! They fall down the pop culture rabbit hole of ’80s TV shows, cancelled series, movie novelizations, and Keith was up to in ye olden days of the internet. They also get into storytelling, how it works in video games, branching storylines, and rag on Bioshock Infinite a lot. And along the way, Keith reveals his wrestling magazine knowledge, Shawn wants to start a Josie and the Pussycats tumblr, and Earl invokes the vengeful spirit of Roger Ebert.

Guest:
Keith McNally (@keithmcnally) – Host of The Vinyl Countdown

What we’ve been checking out:
Keith: High Maintenance (Webseries)
Shawn: Summer Games Done Quick (Speedrun videos)
Earl: Rectify (TV)

Audio notes: (1hr. 16min. runtime)
0:00:50 – Introducing Keith, olden days of the internet, Roger Ebert, and movie novelizations
0:09:50 – Firefly, cancelled shows, Quantum Leap, Sliders, The A-Team, and TV finales
0:18:35 – Books on games, Worlds of Power, working at a comic book shop, travelling, and stories in games
0:29:00 – Mass Effect, GTA, multiple endings, branching stories, and voices in Stanley Parable & Gone Home
0:41:05 – Bioshock series, travelling through space and time, comparing to The Last of Us, and Ghost of the Year
0:54:25 – Kentucky Route Zero, David Cage & Heavy Rain, playing hard games, and indie games
1:09:55 – What’s everyone checking out?

Theme: Coconut Robot2 (James Pants) / CC BY 3.0
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Gone Home

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This episode, we go through Gone Home! We invite over Brent Peckham again and newcomer Susan King to talk about the critically-acclaimed indie game, unravel its narrative and themes, compare it to Bioshock and The Stanley Parable, and the possibilities of storytelling in video games. And of course we inevitably get off track by pitching terrible ideas for sequels. So grab your cassette player (or whatever you folks have in 2013) and press play! (Full spoilers for this episode.)

Guests:
Brent Peckham
Susan King

Supplementary notes:
Gone Home Trailer

Audio notes: (58min. runtime)
02:50 – Recommending the game, and its price tag
07:30 – Sam’s story, and exploring the secondary storylines
13:55 – Uncle’s story, the dad’s story, and being a writer
19:00 – Family, trauma, and sexuality
24:05 – The mom’s storyline
29:05 – Building tension, subverting expectations, and game length
35:55 – Comparing to Bioshock and The Stanley Parable, and the potential of games
41:05 – The Fullbright Company, exploration, and narrative
46:10 – Structure, game elements, and pitching ideas for future games
50:35 – Comparing to Resident Evil, music and sound design, and player agency
54:45 – Experience watching other people play games

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