Unlimited Hyperbole

When you're talking about a theme such as 'The One That Got Away' then it's easy to get stuck thinking on the small scale - cancelled games and personal losses. But what about the bigger picture - what about the larger ideas which have escaped us all? Mike Cook is the researcher responsible for creating ANGELINA, the game-making AI. In this episode he talks about games research as a commonly ignored side of games development and explains why it's a problem that developers don't interact with researchers more often. In doing so he reveals the future that might have got away from the games industry and how gamers may have been cheated out of their ambition..

These days, publishers and journalists love to talk about how big a business games are. Just a single big title can bring in billions of pounds and keep thousands of employed, for example, while even indie developers can succeed admirably. The less talked-about side effect of all this though is that when games do fail, they fail hard. Our guest this episode knows this all too well. In addition to working on the usual spate of cancelled games, Nicoll Hunt also worked on one of the biggest gaming flops ever, APB. Now, Nicoll discusses what that collapse looked like from the inside and why Realtime Worlds went out of business.

There's a temptation when you ask someone about a cancelled game to delve into the details of the idea itself. What was the game like and is there any way I can play it? This episode isn't about that. Instead, Introversion's Mark Morris talks openly about Introversion's only cancelled game - the futuristic heist simulator called Subversion. Rather than delving into the potential mechanics of the game and the hit that might have been, Mark walks us through the story of Subversion's inception, collapse and eventual rebirth on a personal level.

They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat and, likewise, I say there’s more than one way things can get away from people too. They can slip away slowly and quietly, for example, or they can be taken in a sudden tragedy - and this episode covers a bit of both. This week journalist David Brown talks about the closure of PC Zone Magazine. Once home to the likes of Charlie Brooker, Jon Blyth and Will Porter, PC Zone was a bastion of irreverence that was edged out by the realities of print publishing. As the last writer left on the team, David talks about the final days and how they shaped his opinion of journalism as a whole.

One constant in the games industry is that any one success necessitates a sequel. It was true for Zork in the 1980s and it’s true for Dishonored now too; the law of the franchise. Professor Brian Moriarty has bucked this law throughout his entire career however, leaving titles such as Loom, Wishbringer and Trinity as standalone hits rather than sprawling series. He's also worked on a staggering number of unreleased or cancelled games, including unseen Indiana Jones and Star Wars games. In this episode, Brian discusses why he left those titles and the industry behind.

It's not unusual for fans of any medium to have favourites, but in gaming we sometimes seem to take that idea a little bit further than most and can end up defining ourselves by our views on particular games or ideas. In this way, games can sometimes end up defining our own characters as we label ourselves based on the games we love and loathe. Darren Delay is many things - an independent developer, a student, a programmer - but just as important as these labels is that he's a fan of platform games too. Characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog have ended up having a huge impact on how he approaches all sorts of games, he says. In the final episode of our third season we talk to Darren about Sonic, his love of mechanics over narrative and why God of War tells a better story than Braid.

'Matters of Character' is a theme we've been trying not to interpret too narrowly. Games can be defined as much by their lack of characters, after all - and it was in deciding to explore that that we spoke to Devine Lu Linvega, environment artist on the characterless music game FRACT OSC. In talking to Devine though, we learned he's actually bit of a character himself; a polymath who's often better known as the musician Aliceffekt and a game developer who'd really rather not work on games at all. We spoke to Devine about his thoughts on the games industry, his plans for the future and the unusual range of projects he's worked on - including the language he designed and his background as a musician.

There are certain characters who loom large over the industry and are uniquely able to reveal how the medium has changed over the years. Duke Nukem is arguably the foremost of them all, having gone from being an unknown, silent hero to a first popular, then ostracised character known across the world. In order to understand how Duke's changed over the years and where the line falls between personality and reality, we talk to Jon St. Jon, who's been providing Duke's voice since 1995 and who knows Duke better than anyone. We discuss how Duke's legacy has defined Jon's career for better and worse and what Jon thinks of Duke's more controversial quips.

Games are a multi-disciplinary artform. They aren't just limited to using words, music or pictures to tell their tales, but can use broader devices too; emergence, artificial intelligence and environments. These, as much as anything else, help inform the character of a game. Of these tools, it's the environments we play in which most concerns Rob Briscoe. He's worked as an environment designer on projects such as Mirror's Edge and Dear Esther and in this episode of Unlimited Hyperbole he discusses what his role entails, the aspects which characterise his wider style and the pressures that environment designers are often under. Most amazingly at all, he also provides the first hints of what his next project might be, years before it may otherwise come to light...

As Season Three of Unlimited Hyperbole is focused on matters of character in videogames, talking to a writer such as James Swallow only makes sense; in addition to being a New York Times bestseller James has also worked on games such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Killzone 2 and Fable: The Journey. In this first episode for Season Three James talks about the process of writing for a game, how Eidos Montreal built a convincing cast for Deus Ex: Human Revolution and how writers are able to contribute to far more than just the character dialogue.

As the Writer and Narrative Designer behind titles such as horror classic Penumbra, FTL and the recently announced The Swapper, you'd expect Tom Jubert to emphasise the importance of writing in scary games. In fact though, that couldn't be further from the truth. In the last episode of Season Two, Tom explains why he thinks interactivity and plausible environments add so much more than a few lines of dialogue, while also explaining what narrative design is and why games such as To The Moon misunderstand what it means to be a game. Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each with a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’ve been talking about “Fear Itself” – to find out what we'll be talking about next season, check www.joemartinwords.com

Ever since he started first getting into PC games, my good friend Joe Percy has continually returned to the work of Irrational Games, meaning he's uniquely able to chart his attitudes to fear in reaction to the Shock series - from the unmanageably frightening System Shock 2 to the relatively relaxing BioShock 2. Right in the middle of this pattern is the original BioShock, which for Joe hit a sweet spot between fear and challenge - but still wasn't without problem. This episode looks back at both what BioShock did right and wrong, as well as the parallels between it and its predecessor. Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each with a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’re talking about “Fear Itself” – but for more information about the podcast itself, check www.joemartinwords.com

PC Gamer's Chris Thursten is a man fascinated by horror, having played nearly every scary game you can imagine and writing a dissertation on HP Lovecraft for his English Degree at Oxford University. So, it's a little surprising to hear him start this episode by admitting Sonic The Hedgehog 2 terrified him as a child. How could ever anyone be scared of that green-grassed, blue-skied classic? In sharing scare stories from titles such as BioShock, Team Fortress 2 and Home Alone, Chris explains why he believes the root of anxiety lies in our inability to control situations, the societal role of horror and why he's been fascinated by fear for so long. Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each with a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’re talking about “Fear Itself” – but for more information about the podcast itself, check the website: www.joemartinwords.com

When you're talking about fear in games then it's easy to get focused on specific topics, such as survival horror, but to do so is to ignore the wider context that fear has. If you're going to examine the topic properly then it isn't just a conversation about the fear we uncover within games, but also the fears we bring to the games we play. That's something games journalist and arachnaphobe Richard Cobbett know all about. In this week's episode Richard talks about why spiders are used as default enemies in some genres, the methods he uses to overcome come his fear and why spiders are scary in some games but not others. Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each with a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’re talking about “Fear Itself” – but for more information about the podcast or to download bonus materials, check http://joemartinwords.com/2012/07/16/unlimited-hyperbole-7/

When discussing fear in games, it's almost impossible to ignore the shadow cast by The Shalebridge Cradle, the infamously chilling mission from 2004's Thief: Deadly Shadows. So, what better way to start Season Two than by talking to RPS co-founder and comics writer Kieron Gillen to tackle that topic directly? Discussing Shalebridge with Unlimited Hyperbole, Kieron talks about how Deadly Shadows evolved throughout development, the inspiration behind the level's approach to fear and the best thing he's ever accomplished as a games journalist. Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each with a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’re talking about “Fear Itself”.