My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

My guest today is G. T. Karber, the innovative crime writer and creator of the Murdle series of puzzle books. The son of a judge and a civil rights attorney, he studied mathematics and English literature at the University of Arkansas, then took a Masters at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. It was while he was working on a project in a coffee shop that he scribbled down a crime-themed puzzle on a napkin for a friend. He later put the puzzle online, then added another. Two weeks later his now agent wrote to him offering to help turn the puzzles into a compendium. In the UK, Murdle became the bestselling book of Christmas 2023, outselling The Guinness World Records. Murdle: The School of Mystery, the fourth entry to the series, launched in October.   Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billy Basso is an American creator of video games. Born in Chicago, he studied film, then earned his masters in Computer Science at DePaul University. After a stint working as a video editor, he moved into game development, first making educational games for schools in Chicago, and later at NetherRealm Studios, where he worked on smartphone versions of Mortal Kombat and Injustice. In May this year, my guest published Animal Well, a game which he started to work on in his spare time in 2017. For the game, my guest created a bespoke engine, designed all of the art and animations, and composed the music. In it, players explore a dense and magical labyrinth at the bottom of a water well. Released to widespread acclaim, Edge magazine described it as “a beautifully constructed, wonderfully characterful adventure… that marks the blossoming of a major talent.” Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your correspondence and answers your questions. Which ten games have been picked in the first 100 episodes more than any others? What are the best Christmas-themed video games? What are the best video game sound effects of all time? Who are the video game industry's true founding fathers (or mothers)? And a special teaser for Simon's next book project. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan Mechner is an American author, game designer, graphic novelist and screenwriter. While a student at Yale University he designed and programmed the martial arts game Karateka. To create the animations in the game he pioneered a rotoscoping process to capture Super 8 film footage of his friends and family members. My guest further developed this technique for his next game. Prince of Persia became a best-seller, then a series, then, in 2010, a film  produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, and Ben Kingsley, for which my guest also wrote the screenplay. In 2017, he moved to Montpellier, France where he has authored several graphic novels, including, most recently, an autobiographical work titled, Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andy Macnamars is the former editor-in-chief of Game Informer. He joined the bi-monthly magazine for its launch in 1991 as an editorial assistant. Within eighteen months he had been promoted to editor’s seat, which he the occupied for 25 years, growing the magazine’s readership from around 60,000 subscribers to, at its height, eight million, making it one of the most widely read publications anywhere. In 2020 he left Game Informer following a round of layoffs and joined Electronic Arts, where he is currently the Head of Integrated Comms for Battlefield. Earlier this year GameStop closed Game Informer. My guest tweeted at the time: ‘As someone who was there at issue one and spent most of their life fighting and scratching and clawing for GI, it breaks my heart to see it end.” Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Corrine and John are the director and creative director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Corinne Busche majored in digital animation at the University of Utah. In 2006 she joined the studio now known as EA Saltlake, working through the ranks to become a Design Director for The Sims series.John Epler studied English language and literature at the University of Alberta. After graduating, he was selling televisions when he applied to be a tester at Bioware. At the studio he began working as a writer and director of cinematics.Now, the pair have come together to lead development on the latest entry to the beloved Dragon Age RPG series, which launched at the end of October. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the American voice-actor and activist Sarah Elmaleh. As a student at Wesleyan University she performed in a variety of theatrical productions and radio plays, spending a portion of her studies at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. After graduating she moved to Brooklyn, New York, and was working as a stage actor when she fell in with the city's game development scene, and decided to commit her life to the art form. She moved to Los Angeles and began voicing characters in blockbuster games such as Fortnite, Halo Infinite, Gears of War 5, as well as critically acclaimed indie titles such as Afterparty, Pyre, and Gone Home. During this time, she began working as a liaison between game developers and the actor’s union, SAG-AFTRA. Today, she sits as chair of the union’s Interactive Media unit, working to secure workplace measures that are common elsewhere in Hollywood. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the founder and director of ZeniMax Online Studio, Matt Firor. After studying history at George Washington University, he co-founded the developer Interesting Systems Inc., where he created a MUD-style text adventure titled Darkness Falls. In 1995 he co-founded Mythic Entertainment, where he produced pioneering online games such as Godzilla Online, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, and, in 2001, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot and its first two expansions. This experience then led my guest to found ZeniMax Online Studio in 2007 and start building the MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online. It launched in 2014, and, ten years later, my guest continues to lead development. According to the company’s latest figures, since its launch The Elder Scrolls Online has generated more than $2 billion in revenue. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is a French film director and pioneer in the world of digital imaging. Born in Paris, he studied architecture and medicine at university before joining the film industry. He co-founded Duran Duboi, a postproduction house that created visual effects for music videos by artists including Prince, Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, and Boy George.As a VFX pioneer, he formed a close collaboration with the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom he worked on the feature films “Delicatessen”, “City of Lost Children”, and “Alien: Resurrection”. In 2001 my guest made his directorial debut with “Vidocq”, which holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s first all-HD movie, released ahead of 'Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones’.Two years later, he directed “Catwoman” starring Halle Berry in the lead role. Since then, my guest has produced more than a dozen films and, in 2019, co-founded the VR company 6th Sense VR, which specialises in culture and well-being.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Hannah Nicklin, a British writer and narrative designer for video games. After studying Drama at Loughborough University, and Playwriting at the University of Birmingham, she returned to Loughborough for a doctorate in interactive design as anti-capitalist practice.After several years working as a poet, theatre-maker, and academic, in 2019 she moved into games full time: writing, narrative designing and co-producing Mutazione, the most nominated game in the 2020 IGF awards. That same year she became studio lead of Die Gute Fabrik, an independent game studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark.There she led and creative directed Saltsea Chronicles, one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2023. After the studio was forced to close down, my guest joined the team at the Netflix-owned studio Night School, where she currently works as a narrative designer and writer on a yet-to-be-announced title. LINKSCasual Games for ProtestersHannah on Bluesky Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the award-winning humourist, writer, and presenter Danny Wallace. Born in Dundee, Scotland, he published his first professional video game review at the age of thirteen while conducting work experience for Sega Power, a magazine that subsequently offered him a job. At 22, after graduating from The University of Westminster, he became a BBC comedy producer at, working on hit series such as Dead Ringers and The Mighty Boosh. In 2003 he published Join Me, a book about how he accidentally started a cult. His next book, Yes Man charted a six-month-long experiment in which he said “yes” to everything. It later became a blockbuster film starring Jim Carrey in the lead role. A regular guest on radio and television panel shows, he has remained deeply involved in video games too, providing the narration for the hit indie game Thomas Was Alone, and writing and starring in several Assassin’s Creed game, work for which received an outstanding achievement award from the Writer’s Guild of America. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Nainita Desai, the British composer for film, television and video games. Born and raised in London by her Indian parents, she earned a degree in mathematics, then studied sound design at the National Film and Television School. She started her career as a sound designer on the films Little Buddha, Lessons of Darkness and Death Machine, before branching into composition for television, including, among hundreds of others, the Oscar-nominated For Sama, the hit Netflix series American Murder and the BBC drama series Unprecedented. In 2022 she won the Emmy for ‘Outstanding Music Composition’ for her work on The Reason I Jump, a film that explores the experiences of non-speaking autistic people around the world. More recently she has entered the world of video games, composing the scores for Telling Lies, Immortality, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and, most recently, Tales of Kenzera: Zau for which she has been nominated for a World Soundtrack Award.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the American video game designer and programmer Eugene Jarvis. Born in California, he studied computer science at Berkeley, where, in the basement of the physics laboratory, he played the early video game Spacewar. After graduating he worked for Hewlitt Packard, but quit after three days to join Atari, where he began programming for some of the first computerised pinball machines. In the late seventies he joined Williams where he and a colleague came up with the idea for a side-scrolling arcade game set on an alien planet. Defender became a hit in the arcades; the game has grossed more than $1.5 billion since 1981. More hitsfollowed: Robotron 2084 –– the first twin-stick shooter -- Smash TV and Cruis’n USA. In 2008, my guest was named DePaul University's first Game Designer in Residence. He remains the only game-maker to have one of his creations featured on a U.S. postage stamp.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the German filmmaker Uwe Boll. Born in Wermelskirchen he decided he wanted to direct films at the age of ten, after seeing Marlon Brando star in Mutiny on the Bounty. It wasn’t until he was in his mid-thirties, however, that he directed his first major motion picture, Blackwoods, a psychological thriller that a critic for the New York Times described as ‘smart and diabolical’.It was, however, his adaptations of video games for which he made his name. House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, Far Cry and Postal were just some of the games he adapted to film. Not all of them lost money, but most were derided by reviewers.My guest did not shy away from engaging his harshest critics, however. In 2006 he challenged five of them to a boxing match. Ten years later he announced his retirement from filmmaking. Nevertheless, since then he has announced several new projects, including First Shift, a police drama set in the New York, that released in the summer.Links:Boll Films Official WebsiteGame Over, Uwe Boll -- Vanity Fair. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the American video game artist and designer, Derek Yu. Born in Pasadena, California in the early eighties, he started mapping out games on graph paper when he was still a child. After graduating college with a degree in computer science, he moved to San Francisco to work as a freelance illustrator. In 2007 he developed a satirical run-and-gun freeware game titled “I’m O.K – A Murder Simulator”, a response to a challenge set down by the notorious critic of video games, (and previous guest of the show) Jack Thompson. He then formed a studio with one of his ‘I'm OK’ collaborators and together they released Aquaria, a critically lauded side-scroller. That game’s success enabled my guest to make Spelunky, one of the most popular and influential roguelike platformers yet made. Spelunky sold more than a million copies, won numerous awards, and begat an equally well-regarded sequel. Now, four years on, my guest is about to release UFO 50, a collection of games that combine an 8-bit aesthetic with pioneering design.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin reads out listeners' correspondence and answers your questions.Hear Simon discuss the recent, headline-making episode with former PlayStation President Chris Deering, listener responses to the controversy, as well as discussion of what term we should use to describe the genre formerly known as 'Metroidvania', Maddy Thorson's grey label platforms, and much, much more.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is an American businessman and the former and first president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Chris Deering. Raised in Boston, Massachusetts to immigrant parents, my guest had a strict upbringing. Despite the disadvantages he faced, he graduated with distinction with a degree in computer science at Boston College, then studied marketing at Harvard Business School. He first worked for the razor-manufacturer Gillette, rising to the rank of head of worldwide shaving, then joined Atari, then Columbia Pictures. In 1995 he became president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, responsible for launching the company’s first console, the PlayStation, remaining at the company until 2005. “They were,” he once told me, “the best ten years of my life.”  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Eliot Higgins, a British citizen journalist and founder of Bellingcat, a website that specialises in open-source intelligence. In 2012, while unemployed, he became involved in online discussions about the conflict in Syria, where few journalists were able to operate. Despite having little prior interest in the region, he began to study videos of the conflict, and started a blog on which he analysed geodata and weaponry. This work exposed atrocities and helped establish an evidence base for crimes allegedly committed by the Syrian government. In 2013 Stuart Hughes, a BBC News producer told the New Yorker: “he’s probably broken more stories than most journalists do in a career.” In the decade since, however, Bellingcat has broken dozens more, investigating the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, and exposing the true identities of the Russian spies who the British government claims poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018. Throughout all of this, my guest has remained a keen player of video games –– despite quitting World of Warcraft for fear his marriage might not survive his addiction. And he says that being part of these online communities has been instrumental in honing his talents.  Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special episode, Simon is joined by comedian Glenn Moore to discuss the subject of July's My Perfect Console 'Game Club', The Messenger.Throughout July 2024, Glenn and Simon, along with many of you, the listeners, played through the 2018 platformer The Messenger, a game chosen by Abu Salim during his episode of My Perfect Console.Glenn and Simon discuss their experiences with the game, with input from you the listeners. They also talk about how Glenn managed to break his Nintendo Switch, the popular game series that neither of us have clicked with, and which video game-themed subject Glenn should pick for his forthcoming appearance on Celebrity Mastermind...If you would like to listen to the full back catalogue of Game Club episodes head to www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole and become a supporter. Your monthly subscription –– about the cost of a magazine –– helps to fund the podcast, and comes with a range of supporter-only benefits. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Maddy Thorson, a Canadian writer and designer for video games. At the age of 14, she obtained a copy of GameMaker, software on which she learned to make simple games. After studying computer science at Grande Prairie Regional College in Alberta, she moved to Vancouver and there rented a house in which she and her friends began working on a multiplayer combat game featuring four archers. TowerFall Ascension, became a huge hit.The following year, my guest took part in a game jam and co-created a game based on her experiences bouldering. That experiment grew into Celeste, which cast players as Madeline, a young woman suffering from anxiety and depression who aims to climb a mountain. En route, she meets manifestations of her self-doubt, which try to halt her progress.A commercial version of Celeste launched in 2018 and became a smash hit. It won Best Independent Game at the Game Awards and in 2022 was ranked fourteenth in a USA Today list of the best games ever made. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.