Interviews

Welcome to the first episode of State of Play.

This show is a new voice in the gaming journalism world. Our interviews are long-form, personal, and in-depth. You should check it out, as I don't think there's much like it on the web right now.

Our first interview is with Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany, creators of the iconic Flow, Flower, and (the upcoming) Journey. In it, we discuss their company, their philosophies, and their first game, Cloud. If you like what you see, stay tuned: upcoming interviews will include Jonathan Blow and David Jaffe.

I am so super-excited to launch this show, as it's been a real labor of love.

So, let me guess... You haven't played Rochard yet. In fact, there's probably a pretty good chance you haven't even heard of it—and that's a damned shame, since it's one of the best download-only titles I've played all year. I gave it an absolutely glowing review, but a game like this deserves more. So, in my pursuit of fighting the good fight, I'd like to present this brief interview I was fortunate enough to have with the Lead Level Designer of Rochard, Samuli Viikinen.

At PAX Prime 2011, one of the smaller indie-sized games that caught my eye was a strange, almost unclassifiable project called The Splatters, about shooting colored blobs around small arenas and exploding them at every opportunity. It was a blast to play even if it's a bit difficult to describe, and I'm quite pleased to share a brief interview with one of the developers, Niv Fisher of SpikySnail Games.

The last time I was at my local comic shop, a new collection titled "Axe Cop" caught my eye. I didn't know anything about it, but the person at the counter explained the interesting story behind its creation. That hooked me. As luck would have it, one half of the comic's creative team caught wind of some positive comments I made about the book on Twitter. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, artist/co-creator Ethan Nicolle was graciously granting me this interview.

In case you weren't aware, the developers on Microsoft's Indie Games channel are in the middle of an Uprising. Sick and tired of being drowned out by a flood of cash-in crapware, the people who take game-making seriously have banded together to release a slew of high-quality titles. One of the initial games available was the superb Epic Dungeon from Eyehook Games. Mike Muir, the man behind the magic, was gracious enough to take time out of his schedule to answer a few questions about his project.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is highly likely to be my 2010 game of the year, and is the proud recipient of only the second perfect 10 that I have given out. Jens Nilsson, one of the developers at Frictional Games, was kind enough to answer a few of my questions about Amnesia and the future of Frictional.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Uber Entertainment, the creators of Monday Night Combat, back in August before the game released. Now that some time has passed and the team has just released a major title update and some DLC, it seemed like the time was right to check back in and get the lowdown.

Whether you're a fan or not, the fact is that Deadly Premonition has made quite a splash, and eliciting such a response doesn't happen with just any title. Clearly, the director is onto something here, and the goal is to find out what. So, without further ado, here are twelve questions with SWERY 65.

I was one of those kids who, when all of the other kids were out playing tag and ring-around-the-rosie, I was on my IBM compatible Windows 3.1 machine programming QBasic games because I enjoyed it. I started learning programming when I was 6 and it didn't take long for 6-year-old me to stump my dad (the computer engineer) so I was self-taught from an early age. My first program was "Hello World" but everything I wrote since then has been a game. I've always been attracted to making video games for some reason. I spent a lot of time when I was younger making MUDs and building mods for Quake, Half-Life and Source. One of the bigger projects I worked on was "The Specialists", a Half-Life mod that was pretty popular back in its day.

While Section 8 didn't make a huge splash, those who actually give it a try found that it offered several interesting new twists, especially in regard to multiplayer. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Section 8 offered the best multiplayer experience I had that year. After having such a surprisingly great time with the original title, I was quite excited to hear that a sequel is on the way. Wanting to know more, I got the chance to ask TimeGate Studios' design director Brett Norton a few questions about the next entry in the Section 8 saga, subtitled Prejudice.