Episode 13: Women Who Game

Back to our regular schedule! In this episode, we had a loadddd of technical issues which meant that we lost a bit of discussion, sadly (my poor old laptop couldn’t cope with a browser window being open while recording. Let’s just say old laptop has now gone to the “backup machine” pile now 🙁 but I have a shiny new laptop, so that’s nice!)

We were responding in this episode to the online discussions about women who game, and particularly this tweet, which was by a friend of mine, about women who play D&D. (The original tweet that Evelyn was retweeting was about how no women play D&D!)

The discussion we lost in the technicals was about ArenaNet, and how we like to give them money, but we don’t really want to any more because they basically not only fired a female employee for pushing back against mansplaining, but a male colleague who supported her. And we didn’t like that much. So that’s basically the bits you missed.

We are also launching a Patreon! You can see it here: https://www.patreon.com/notjustagame 

We’ll be making more noise about it as we get back into recording more frequently. If you like what you hear though, please consider dropping us a dollar a show! It’ll help pay for our producer and more gear so we can record remotely while we are both travelling.

(PS featured image is my old retired laptop and some prep I was doing for a D&D game one time!)

Episode 12: PAX East 2018 BRAAAAAAAINS! Archaeology and Philosophy of Zombies in Games followup

Grrrr arrrrrghhh! We have risen from the (summertime busy-ness) dead and feasted on brains responded to all of your questions from our PAX East panel on our video!

Our plans for this podcast are growing as well – we now plan to do recordings more frequently, have actually put a standing two hour block of podcast recording time into our diaries, and have enlisted some editorial/production support as well. So we are taking this rather seriously now! Stay tuned – we hope to launch a patreon in the coming weeks to help cover the costs of running the podcast.

Video and slides of our PAX East talk

Episode 11 – PAX East Pokémon Go followup

You may have seen our talk at PAX East on the Ethics of Pokémon Go – either live or via the YouTube video available at: https://www.notjustagame.eu/2018/05/07/video-interlude-pax-east-2018-ethics-of-pokemon-go/

In this episode we follow up with some of the questions we didn’t get to in the talk – it’s a bit longer than our usual episodes, and we’ll go back to normal after the second of these on zombies and brains, following up the other talk we did on archaeology and philosophy of zombies in video games!

 

Episode 10 – Zombies!

Tyr and I are off to PAX East again, this time we will be talking about zombies (and Pokémon Go!)!

We were so excited we  invited some special guests to come play Left 4 Dead 2 with us (yes, they are our very patient and lovely husbands, Martin and Ray). Listen in to some of the shenanigans we got up to, and some thoughts about zombies, realism, decay, and why zombie games are so popular!

We have never played this game before and we are not very good at FPSes, so enjoy our attempts to TPK too!

Our talk on zombies at PAX East is on at 4:30-5:30PM on Saturday: BRAAAAAIIIIINS: Archaeology and Philosophy of Zombies in Games

Our talk on Pokémon Go! is on Friday 5:00-6:00PM: Ethics of Pokémon Go!

Music excerpts in this episode are from the Left 4 Dead 2 soundtrack – we use them for academic purposes!

Games mentioned:

  • Left 4 Dead 2
  • Last of Us
  • Half Life (2)

Many thanks to Ray and Martin for putting up with me axing them in the back.

Episode 9: Old Skool Gaming

Happy New Year!

We take this episode to look back at some old skool gaming. What were our first computers, consoles, and games? Do you remember any of these games? What are your first gaming memories? Caution: spoilers for Return to Zork.

This one took a while to edit due to some technical difficulties, sorry!

Systems mentioned:

  • IBM PC 286
  • Atari
  • BBC Microbee
  • Apple II
  • PlayStation 2
  • Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Pentium 90

Games mentioned (some downloadable for free!):

  • Castle Adventure
  • Adventure
  • Nethack/roguelikes
  • Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (with the Almanac and Book of Facts)
  • Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing
  • Alpine Tram Ride
  • Granny’s Garden
  • Prince of Persia (which you can now get the source code of from github!)
  • Prince of Persia Sands of Time
  • Monkey Island
  • Might and Magic II
  • Heroes of Might and Magic
  • Doom
  • Myst
  • Simon the Sorcerer
  • King’s Quest VI
  • Call of Duty
  • Elder Scrolls Online
  • Space Invaders
  • Legend of Kyrandia III: Malcolm’s Revenge
  • Zork
  • Return to Zork
  • Super Mario Bros
  • Star Wars Rebel Assault
  • Descent

Not Just A Game Episode 8: Things We Like

This week we talk about things we like! (Though “Halloween around the corner” implies this was recorded before Halloween… which is true. I’ve been very busy. Sorry! Also the voice levels aren’t great this episode. Sorry!)

We’re so used to being critical that we think it’s important that we also talk about nice things and things we like in games.

We talk costumes, avatars, hair cuts, Conchita Wurst, doing all of the tutorials, getting embarrassed in front of NPCs, working together in big social worlds, emergent community codes of conduct within games, societal beginnings, octopuses, stories that surprise us, and more!

Games mentioned:

  • Final Fantasy XI/XIV
  • Elder Scrolls Online
  • Guild Wars 2
  • an unnamed game where female dwarves can have beards
  • Elite: Dangerous
  • Everquest 2
  • Octodad: Dadliest Catch
  • Spec Ops: The Line
  • and more that I’ve forgotten…

Not Just A Game Episode 7: Board Games (and Missed Opportunities)

Today we are branching out from the video games for an episode, because we were playing a game the other day and it made us a little cranky. So this episode we will talk about some of our favourite board games and how they make us a little cranky sometimes.

Some images we talk about in the video are of the cards from Ascension:

The Landtalker card in particular reminded Tyr of Mayan profile portraits, the one that sprang to mind (that people might have seen) was a rendering of Pacal of Palenque (image by A. Skromnitsky, from Wikipedia).

     

Games mentioned:

  • Ascension
  • Doom (the boardgame)
  • Shadows Over Camelot
  • Overwatch (briefly)

Not Just A Game Episode 6: Farming in Stardew Valley!

This week we head to the country in a farm-filled episode on Stardew Valley! How do real farming practices relate to the version you see in video games? We chat about worming cows, getting muddy, and hiding from the sunshine in this end-of-summer episode.

Not Just a Game Episode 5: Relaunch – Pit People!

This week I relaunch the podcast and introduce the new co-host of the show, Dr. Tyr Fothergill! She has graciously agreed to sit and chat with me every couple of weeks about games and stuff!

This week we are talking about Pit People, how it’s OK to be critical of stuff that you like, colonialism in games, and what we’ve been playing recently.

We’ll be experimenting with the best way to record this so please let me know how it sounds.

Not Just A Game Episode 4: Political Games with David Stark

In this episode I talk political games with David Stark, an indie game developer who recently created Martian Immigration Nightmare. You may recall this game from my previous post asking for what games are out there that follow this political trend – in fact it’s the game that prompted my post!

We talk about politics, the response to politics from high profile tech people, political games, how games can help people understand political (and institutional) nightmares, and whether it’s okay for a game to depict punching Nazis.

Thanks so much to David for coming on (and his patience in my tardiness for uploading it!).

Games mentioned: