Bounty Board

Happy Tuesday! Joe Erskine, baseball afficionado and Private Division producer, is BACK! The regular season is coming to an end and the Cardinals are out of the race. Joey's Mets on the other hand, are making a push for what could be a really fun post-season. We do eventually get around to talking games: some Cult of the Lamb, some College Football, some Space Marine 2. APOLOGIES for the wonky aud...

Happy Wednesday! I lied! We have another episode in our Lamplighter's League series of interviews. This time Caleb sits down and talks to Sean Rohani the actor responsible for the voice of none other than Lateef, the Gentleman Djinn. Sean and Caleb kinda talk about everything. From acting and video games to Persian food and dad jokes. Come hang with a couple of guys who love food and Ewan McGregor...

Happy Monday! This is it! The final episode of our Harebrained Schemes, Lamplighter's League interviews. Today we wrap it all up with Creative Director and Studio Lead Chris Rogers! Chris is Career developer who knows what it means to step into roles because the studio needs it. Caleb and Chris talk about picking up responsibilities in indie projects, leaning into more leadership roles and what ma...

Happy Friday! Another new episode of Bounty Board is here! Third in our series of interviews with the team at Harebrained Schemes, we have Senior Director of Operations Brian Poel (pool). Caleb and Brian dig into his winding path to the role he is in now, how it has changed in the last six moths, what it looks like to oversee a game's production cycle with your eye on the money, and then we wrap u...

Happy Wednesday! Come check out another new episode of Bounty Board. Next in our series of interviews with the team at Harebrained Schemes, we have Senior AI Programmer and all-around badass, Allie McNulty. Caleb and Allie chat about good boss design, what it was like to build the AI for Lamplighter's League, working with teams you love, and the gap in understanding existing between developers and...

Happy Monday! It's been a crazy month for games and were only to the 10th! Keep the good times rolling with a new episode of Bounty Board. This is the first in a series of interviews with the team at Harebrained Schemes, developers of the Shadowrun Trilogy, Battletech, and last year's Lamplighter's League. Join Caleb on this episode as he sits to chat with Connor Fogarty. Connor is the actor who p...

Happy Monday! Start your week off with some good podcast audio! This Episode of Bounty Board sees the return of Joe Erskine, Lead Publishing Producer over at Private Division. Joe makes it back for his third recording just in time to talk about the impending MLB season, the enduring success of MLB The Show, devs reusing assets and animations in games. We also talk about the magic of Dune and its s...

Happy Friday! Enjoy the last day of the workweek with Caleb and returning guest Jon Everist. Jon composed the score for last year's Lamplighter's League by Harebrained Schemes, a pulpy, noir-infused mix of Indiana Jones and XCOM. Come hang while Caleb asks about the jazz influence on the score, what it is like composing music for games and they're unique complexities, and together they dig into co...

Episode three of the "On Playing With" miniseries is focused on playing video games with kids, and for Caleb it is specifically about playing games with his oldest kid, Charlee. The two of them have played games before, but in the last few months Charlee took ownership of her first game, taking the time to learn how to play it and beat it herself, and it caught dad off guard a bit. Come listen as...

On episode two of the "On Playing With" series I focus in on my family's long running family game night. But not before digging into some of the history that brought us to being capable of having family game nights. There is overlap in some ways between this conversation and the last episode. Including how, sometimes, I am just glad to log off after a long night of walking the mom's through a new...

Here it is. The first episode of my "On Playing With" series. This episode is focused, as the title suggests, on the ever-evolving social structure of playing games with my group of friends, how that group changes (for good and bad), how the games constantly change, and how balance is a dish best served carefully. There are good times and bad times bundled up in this experience. And it's an experi...

Well. Here we go! It's 2024. And while that is, on its own, a wild statement, it is a true one. With the new year I wanted to push forward in several different ways for NerdyBits and myself. So, I am starting a new mini podcast series titled "On Playing With" starting tomorrow. The series will focus on the dynamics of playing games with different groups of people in my life, how those dynamics shi...

We did it! We survived until another Mission Impossible movie came out! Are we going to make it until the next one? It really does feel like there is no end to the Ethan Hunt escapades and you know what, I don't mind! Come listen to Caleb's thoughts on this globetrotting, death-defying, acrobatic, action-packed thrill ride. You can listen to us below, or on iTunes , Stitcher , Spotify , and Google...

Indiana Jones is back! IS it good? Is it weird? Is it the end? Find the answer to all of those questions here. TL:DR Action movies are silly fun and this is one of those movies. Harrison Ford looks like he's having a blast, the surrounding cast do a tremendous job, it's written well and, you know what, it feels like Indiana Jones. What more could you ask for!? You can listen to us below, or on iTu...

So this is a weird one! I'm switching up the way I do movie reviews! I find it so much more gratifying and have received far more feedback spending a few weeks on a piece, ruminating, than when I slap together a 1300 word movie review the day after. It all just ends up feeling like hunting for the best tagline rather than the best thought. So, in the interest of enjoying watching movies in a criti...

What is good, friends!? It has been a minute! Lots of life changes and a move and a new baby on the way and all sorts of stuff just kept rolling in. But I’m back! And hopefully without a ton more interruption! Join me this week as I connect and reset the clock with Zara Varin, a wonderful human I met with my grandmother in 2019 at Halo: Outpost Discovery. We haven’t spoken to each other in real ti...

Happy Friday everyone! Joe is back! It has been a few months, and Joe Erskine, Producer at Private Division, has returned to Bounty Board, making him our first returning guest! Join us as we bemoan the end of baseball season, talk about the games we have been getting into, and take a lengthy detour into why people should feel less inclined to share their shitty opinions. We also get moderately exc...

Happy Tuesday everyone! When Caleb sets out to write a review on a game, it rarely takes him months. Well…5 months after completing Citizen Sleeper, a slick and meaningful TTRPG inspired game by solo developer Gareth Damian Martin (Jump Over the Age), Caleb finished his piece on the game and then had the opportunity to talk to Gareth about what he calls his favorite game of all time. Gareth and Ca...

Happy Friday everyone! Last week I got the chance to sit and talk with Tomas Sala, creator of the Falcon dogfighting game Falconeer. Tomas has been making games for more than two decades, in some fashion, and is now working on a follow up to Falconeer called Falconeer: Bulwark. Together we dive into what it is like becoming familiar with a universe you created, building games in that space, and of...

Happy Friday everyone! I had the opportunity to sit down with Joe Erskine this week. Joe is a Producer at Privat Division and formerly worked at V1 Interactive (Disintegration) and Vicarious Visions (Diablo 4), and we sat down to talk everything from games, to pizza, to sushi, to baseball. A traveling man, Joe is from Kansas originally but has lived on both coasts, currently calling New York home....

Happy Monday everyone! On this episode of Bounty Board Caleb got the chance to talk to Videogame and Film Composer Jon Everist (Battletech, Shadowrun, Disintegration). Together they talk about creating music, how the tools for creation have evolved in the last ten years, and the merit of putting yourself in a box so you come up with unique solutions. Also, of course, they talk about food, and Jon...

Happy Monday everyone! The NerdyBits Show is on a bit of a hiatus as Ryan is in the process of moving AND having a baby (don't worry, we confronted him about this). So, to give you all something to listen to, Caleb sat down and recorded a solo episode last week. It's been a long 10 years since Caleb started this website and started writing about videogames seriously. There have been victories and...

Happy Tuesday everyone! A few weeks ago I had the honor of having the third and final co-host of The Habibi's Podcast, Fawzi Mesmar, on Bounty Board! Fawzi is currently the Vice President of Editorial at Ubisoft but has been a consummate globe trotter up to this point, working at studios from Australia to Japan to Germany! Together Fawzi and I talk about a sampler platter of topics, from teaching...

Happy Friday folks! A few years ago Caleb stumbled across the trailer for a little indie title called FAR: Lone Sails. He was immediately smitten by the games muted color palette, striking vistas, and phenomenal score. Little did he know that he would find an experience that would help him put context to the grief of losing his grandfather. FAR: Lone Sails helped me deeply. Fast forward almost thr...

Happy Friday folks! I had the absolute honor to sit and chat with Osama Dorias, Senior Game Designer at Warner Bros. Interactive on Gotham Knights, co-host of The Habibis podcast, and overall just delightful human being. Osama had mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago that he wasn't sure how he was going to pick his favorite game of 2021, so I offered to have him on so we could work through it. And...