Famous, Video games, Casting a Pod Zombie-style (Episode 0)

[pabosher]

So, in order to satisfy our needs to hear their voices, and maybe to tell people about a game they're making, Sean 'Famous' Vanaman and Jake 'Video games' Rodkin have recorded a podcast detailing the development of their upcoming game based on 'The Walking Dead'.

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[Hermie]

Why should I listen to this? Do you have any proof that these so called developers have any internet radio skills?

[Jake]

  Hermie said:

Why should I listen to this? Do you have any proof that these so called developers have any internet radio skills?

This recording shows absolutely no proof of skills, but you are encouraged to listen anyway.

[pabosher]

  Jake said:

This recording shows absolutely no proof of skills, but you are encouraged to listen anyway.

Hey, I liked it! There are a couple of things I would suggest, mind:

I do think the show needs a third voice. Not that I don't like the dynamic of a one-on-one conversation, but it feels like it just needs an extra dimension.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the off-topic stuff. On the one hand, I really like it because it reminds me of olde thumbs, but on the other, I'm not sure if it's really suitable for a podcast where people solely want to find out about TWD? Perhaps there could be some better way to structure it where you might say "Oh, today we made a model of this dude" and then you can go off on a tangent like that, but it didn't ever really seem to have a base for any of that stuff? At least, not until the end, where even though you began to talk about SMS, it still felt connected because it had that question as a base.

I hope you got what I was saying; please make more!!

[Sean]

That's great feedback -- we're definitely going to tool away on the format. We want to keep it free-flowing but will have to structure it a little better. We've been gathering a bunch of Q&A stuff from the forums so we might just do a full-on mailbag some episodes. One thing I've been thinking about is bringing in a member of the team for a 20 minute chat about their job, TWD how they got into the business, etc and then launching into the QA. We'll see. Learned a lot doing the first one.

[pabosher]

  Vanaman said:

That's great feedback -- we're definitely going to tool away on the format. We want to keep it free-flowing but will have to structure it a little better. We've been gathering a bunch of Q&A stuff from the forums so we might just do a full-on mailbag some episodes. One thing I've been thinking about is bringing in a member of the team for a 20 minute chat about their job, TWD how they got into the business, etc and then launching into the QA. We'll see. Learned a lot doing the first one.

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. If you were to keep the third chair rolling, that could be a cool idea - finding out a little bit about them (something I keep crying out for the games industry to do more of - talking about normal developer dudes) and then finding out their job specifically on TWD, and their affiliation with the series.

I wouldn't even say that, when you ask about their job on TWD, they would even need to bust bargoes to be truthful. Instead of saying "Oh, I'm the guy who draws the nosehairs on Johnny Zombie's nose" and receiving 10,000,000,000 emails saying "OH SHIT JOHNNY ZOMBIE'S IN IT?" but saying like "I'm Dave, I'm an artist and I do all of the smaller, more intricate stuff. Earlier today actually, I was drawing nosehairs onto some characters."

As far as a structure goes, I'd suggest keeping the mail stuff toward the end of the cast, as you have done already, and try to keep a rough structure of something like:

Introduction of guest/theme

discussion about design aspect

reader mail from us the readers

Doing podcasts isn't easy - once you've done one yourself, you begin to appreciate how hard it is to edit and keep everything on track, ending up with a show that is both fun to make and easy to listen to! Obviously idle thumbs was one of the better shows ever created (and I say that because I believe it), but I can imagine that, with just the two of you doing this, it can be a daunting task.

ps: when you come to the uk to promote this video game i will totally be a guest

[toblix]

Good cast, guys! One thing, though: please adjust the sound compression on your podcast. It sounds echoey.

I think the idea of having a third person in there is a good one, but please don't completely stop being just the two of you. The witty and uninhibited nerd feedback loop is priceless, and needs to be recorded for posterity.

Also, is the game officially The Walking Dead: The Comic: The Game, or is it The Television Show: The Game?

[pabosher]

  toblix said:

Good cast, guys! One thing, though: please adjust the sound compression on your podcast. It sounds echoey.

I think the idea of having a third person in there is a good one, but please don't completely stop being just the two of you. The witty and uninhibited nerd feedback loop is priceless, and needs to be recorded for posterity.

Also, is the game officially The Walking Dead: The Comic: The Game, or is it The Television Show: The Game?

I think it's The Walking Dead: The Game. At least, that's the way it sounded from their discussions.

[Sean]

Can't really say what it "officially" is. We've licensed the rights to the comic book.

As for echoey: it was recorded on a lark in my kitchen, as Jake pointed out in the post on the TTG forums. We'll do it proper if we keep doin 'em.

[toblix]

  Vanaman said:

Can't really say what it "officially" is. We've licensed the rights to the comic book.

Isn't it the comic book: the game, then? Whatever it is, I'm glad it's not tied up in whatever happens with the show. The comic book is fantastic.

  Vanaman said:

As for echoey: it was recorded on a lark in my kitchen, as Jake pointed out in the post on the TTG forums. We'll do it proper if we keep doin 'em.

Oh, sorry, didn't catch that. I'd still listen to them with your kitchen acoustics, but good sound (like the Thumbs casts had, for example) is always super pleasing.

[miffy495]

Is this on iTunes or anything? If so, what do I find it as? I tried both "Telltale games" and "The Walking Dead" to no avail. I'd love to listen to this on my ipod, as I don't really have the patience to sit at my laptop for the duration of a full podcast.

[Jake]

  toblix said:

Isn't it the comic book: the game, then? Whatever it is, I'm glad it's not tied up in whatever happens with the show. The comic book is fantastic.

Its closer to the comic book the game, yeah. The Walking Dead the universe is centered around the comic. If the comic is the hub, the TV show is a spoke off of that hub, and the game is its own other unique spoke.

If you take this image and imagine a third axis coming off that zombie in the middle being "the game," thats probably the most accurate way to look at it.

That said, specifically: comic continuity is the blueprint, not show continuity.

  miffy495 said:

Is this on iTunes or anything? If so, what do I find it as? I tried both "Telltale games" and "The Walking Dead" to no avail. I'd love to listen to this on my ipod, as I don't really have the patience to sit at my laptop for the duration of a full podcast.

Its not on itunes yet, though you can drag the file into itunes and put it on your ipod. If we do more I'll formalize that sort of thing.

[jennoa]

It was really great to hear you guys again. As a trial run I'd say it went fairly well. I like the idea of brining in people to talk about their jobs within the company and various teams. I also think that a postmortem on past games released by Tell-Tale could be interesting.

[Jake]

im1iNq02Kz0

[pabosher]

Hahaha wtf is that. Is that how you feel when your hear people say nice things about the pod?

[Sombre]

When are you gonna talk about QWOP and grenades rolling down hills:tup:

[Jake]

  SpeedyDesiato said:

Hahaha wtf is that. Is that how you feel when your hear people say nice things about the pod?

Hahaha no it's "Mario Sunshine is sweet!"

[pabosher]

  Jake said:

Hahaha no it's "Mario Sunshine is sweet!"

Oh man, how did I not get that?!

Also, I agree -- I loved Sunshine, and think it's a simply phenomenal game.

[mikemariano]

Yay! Even though I'm not at all on the Walking Dead wavelength, it's always a pleasure to hear from you two.

And I think I posted this in another thread, but I only played Super Mario Sunshine for the first time recently and thought those "retro" levels were horrible. I can't even stand to hear that a cappella Mario theme because I associate it with instant death.

Part of the problem is I played Sunshine after Galaxy, and Galaxy fixed so many of the camera angle problems and avoided the 2-D jumps in 3-D space problems that are everywhere in those Sunshine levels.

The other part of the problem is that I suck at Mario.

[miffy495]

  Jake said:

Its not on itunes yet, though you can drag the file into itunes and put it on your ipod. If we do more I'll formalize that sort of thing.

Bummer. My only internet connection is wifi on my laptop at work, and I refuse to install itunes to anything other than my desktop on principle (I don't want to install safari or any other apple software, and they'll be constantly prompting me with that bullshit from the second I install itunes). I download all my podcast directly to my ipod through the same wifi connection. I guess I'll just listen to this on on my browser and hope for an itunes feed at a later date.

EDIT: Also, for the record, Mario Sunshine kicks all kinds of ass.

[Sully907]

That jet pack looks like the most fun thing I've ever seen. I know what I'm ever doing if I win the lottery for 99,500 USD

[dium]

Oh man, I love Pandemic.

Also, I'm really glad that almost all the thumbs are part of some sort of pod thing now. I enjoyed this episode a lot.

(You guys can totally say "seg". Go ahead.)

[Thompson]

Awesome podcast, do more!

There are 2 Pandemic flash games, but they're kind of opposite to what you might expect. You are the disease. Here's the second one.

[miffy495]

That was really good. I loved the way that you actually managed to avoid talking about The Walking Dead most of the time, as I have never read the books and was more interested in just hearing you guys be funny. Pandemic is one of my favorite games, especially with the expansion that adds in the mutating purple virus. That thing will fuck up a game fast. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. There is also an optional "Bio-terrorist" role for one player to antagonize everyone else with by releasing new strains in various cities. Trying to track down that player and keep them in custody while also stopping the outbreaks becomes a really intense game. Never played as the bio-terrorist myself, but have played 4 or 5 games where one was present and it totally changes the dynamic.

[Forbin]

I was fully expecting a Kasavin after that Robert name drop.