Episode 065: Barbaliens

An Episode posted by Graham Smith on October 24, 2014

Tom F, Chris and Graham gather to drink glasses of fine dry sherry, but also to discuss some fine dry videogames. Tom travels Kentucky Route Zero and builds a Defense Grid 2, while Chris goes Civilization: Beyond Earth. Graham just drinks.

Also discussed: why Unity’s new CEO is a Hypnotoad; the Return of the Obra Dinn; the beauty of At The Gates; what music to listen to while you play games; what we’d like to procedurally generate; the oddities and odds of humans and loot systems; why Devil May Cry fans are still wrong about DmC; and what gird your loins means.

John Ritticello, former head of EA, is now the CEO of Unity. We struggled to remember which things he was responsible for while at Electronic Arts, but this Idle Thumbs ballad will explain. As was this.
There are three episodes of Kentucky Route Zero released so far, though there will be five when it’s done.
The new game from Lucas Pope, the creator of Papers Please, is called The Return of the Obra Dinn. There’s now a demo of an early version of the game. Here’s the devlog about lighting, a follow-up and one of many updates about the hand.
Defense Grid 2 is out! Not as of two years ago, to Graham’s surprise. Tom has played the game more since recording, and it does tell you how much damage a tower has done if you click on it. It’s not super useful however because obviously the first one you placed has always done the most damage. It needs to tell you damage-divided-by-time.
Civization: Beyond Earth is out today! Maybe it will get interesting later?
Jon Shafer, designer of Civilization 5, is now working on At The Gates. Its new watercolour art style is lovely. If you don’t have time for the video, just look at this picture.
Music that goes with videogames? We like lots of things, including Carpenter Brut, Number Girl, the Kiliminjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and the one that goes with everything, Taylor Swift.