In studio: Razor, Lee May and Sean Mccarthy.
This week we chat with Rebecca Cheers and Kaitlyn Plyley, writer and director of TITS OR GTFO , a play about navigating geek culture as a woman. We talk about the themes that the performance touches upon as well as some of the stories surrounding the show’s conception. Lee reviews Broken Age Part 2 (PC).
Aired 6 May 2015.
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Alanah went to EB Expo and returns to talk about some unreleased games including The Order: 1886, Mortal Kombat X, Evolve, Far Cry 4, Until Dawn and Assassin’s Creed Rogue.
Jody reviews Halloween-themed adventure game Costume Quest 2.
Aired 15 October 2014.
Platform: PC
Developer: Double Fine
Website: www.costumequest2.com
Australian rating: PG
Halloween in Australia is weird. I’ve only had kids come to my door in costume twice, but people love to complain about how this American holiday has invaded our calendar. White Australians complaining about cultural imperialism is odd, right? Kind of tone deaf and crass? Christmas isn’t any more Australian, and we mainly use Halloween as an excuse for adults to dress up and get drunk anyway, like we do every other holiday.
The Costume Quest games are an insight into why Halloween is such a big deal for Americans, letting you play a gang of kids dressed up in dodgy outfits – a robotic suit made of cardboard boxes, a superhero costume that’s just a blanket cape and a pair of underpants on the outside – who are given free rein to roam the suburbs and pretend to be heroes and monsters while eating all the sugar. Those suburbs, by the way, are being invaded by aliens under the cover of Halloween and only you can stop them. Adults won’t believe that big green weirdo is a Grubbin from the planet Repugia and not just someone in a better costume than you, and anyway, you don’t need adults to stop them when you have The Power Of Imagination.
In studio: Alanah Pearce, Lee, Jody Macgregor & Razor
Alanah and Razor talk Destiny (360/XBONE/PS3/PS4).
We discuss the Mojang/Microsoft buyout.
Jody reviews Hack ‘N’ Slash (PC)
Aired 17 September 2014
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Developer: Double Fine
Website: www.hacknslashthegame.com
Australian rating: Unrated
In the Legend Of Zelda games Link spends a lot of time doing the fantasy equivalent of mowing the lawn. He’s constantly swiping at tall grass with his sword while shouting “Hah!” because that grass contains the hearts he needs to replenish his health bar, because video games. In Hack ‘n’ Slash you walk up to a bush, shout “Hah!” and stick your sword in it, but then things get weird. Your sword ends not with a blade but a USB connector and the bush has a matching plug, and when you join the two a text box pops up with a set of variables in it. One of them says “ON_FIRE false”, and you can exchange that “false” for a “true”. As soon as you do the bush bursts into flames with a FWOOSH. Only then do the hearts appear.
Hack ‘n’ Slash is about the other definition of the word hack.
Meg and Anthony of Screwtape Studios join us live in the studio to talk about Verby, a social word game for iOS and Android. The pair share their experience creating the game and provide some great advice for aspiring developers.
Lee reviews Broken Age: Part 1 (PC/Mac), a retro adventure game from Tim Schafer & Double Fine.
Aired 29 January 2014
In studio: Razor, Jody, Lee & Candi.