My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

My guest today is an award-winning writer and narrative designer for video games. As a child she split her time between Bangalore, London, and Saudi Arabia before settling in the UK to study English Literature at University. After a stint commissioning games for the BBC , she wrote the script for 2014’s BAFTA-nominated narrative adventure game, 80 Days , then contributed to the hit indie titles Su...

My guest today is the American designer of two of the most highly regarded experimental games yet made. He grew up in Virginia, where his interest in hobbyist robotics led him to study mechanical engineering at Virginia State University. At that time he started designing mods for Quake , which eventually led to a job at Naughty Dog where he worked on the first two games in the Uncharted series. In...

My guest today is the former Director of Communications for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe . After graduating from the University of Exeter , he joined Dennis Publishing where he worked as deputy editor of Your Sinclair , before becoming the games correspondent for News International’s Today newspaper. In 1992 he left journalism for the world of PR, assuming the role of Head of European PR for...

My guest today is a stand-up comedian, writer, radio host and podcaster. Born in South Africa, his family then moved to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. He studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic languages at Cambridge University , where he became vice-president of the Footlights comedy society. In 2014 The Guardian newspaper described his debut show at the Edinburgh Festival as marking the “dawn o...

My guest today is a is a Canadian American actor for video games, television and film. Born in Labrador in Canada, she soon moved to Alabama in the United States, where, as a teenager, she began working as a commercial voice over artist for radio. After graduating from Alabama School of Fine Arts, she took on voice roles to fund her dream of becoming a musician. Soon, however, the acting took over...

My guest today is an award-winning creator and writer of comic books. Born into a Staffordshire working-class family, he was a student of Applied Biology at Bath University when he started contributing to the prominent computer games magazine Amiga Power . Upon graduation, my guest joined the staff of PC Gamer , then left the magazine to go freelance in 2003. The following year he published a high...

My guest today is a British-Ghanaian writer and advocate for inclusion and diversity in the video game industry. Having graduated from the University of Westminster with a degree in creative writing with English literature, she founded Melanin Gamers , a support community for people of colour who play video games, or who want to join the game industry but feel unsure that there is a place for them...

My guest today is a Canadian video game designer and director. After graduating from the University of British Columbia with an MFA in creative writing, he joined Ubisoft Montreal where he co-wrote the script for Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell . In 2005 he directed a sequel to that game, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory , and three years later released the oppressive and acclaimed sandbox shooter, Far Cry...

My guest today is an English video game designer and programmer. In 1984 he designed The Entrepreneur , a simulation game about running a start-up company. When it sold just two copies, however, my guest left the world of video games and began exporting cans of baked beans to the Middle East. When the computer manufacturer Commodore mistook this venture for a software company with a similar name,...

My guest today is a game designer and Founding Chair of New York University’s Game Center . An influential writer, speaker, and thinker on video games he has taught generations of emerging young designers. The New York Times once described him as the “reigning genius of the mysteries of games.” My guest’s experience is not merely academic, however: in 2005 he co-founded area/code , the studio whic...

My guest today is Digital Curator for Contemporary Collections at The British Library . After graduating from Aberystwyth University with a degree in Library Studies and Art History, my guest was awarded an MA in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester . Then, having worked as curator of maps at the National Library of Scotland , my guest joined the British library, and began to devise creat...

My guest today is a game director who has pioneered new forms of nonlinear storytelling that blend film and games. After twelve-year stint at the British development studio Climax, where he directed Silent Hill: Shattered Memories , he began work on an independent project,  Her Story . In the game, partly inspired by Sharon Stone’s audition tapes for the film Basic Instinct , you sift through...

My guest today is editor-in-chief of Time Out London . After graduating from SOAS University with a degree in religion and the history of art, he moved to China for a few years, then struck out as a freelance writer contributing to, among other publications, The Times , the Observer , Heat magazine and the New Statesman . In 2012 he assumed the role of features editor at the men’s magazine FHM , o...

My guest today is multi-award-winning stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. Born in Edgware London, to a Punjabi Sikh family, he was in his mid-twenties when he first tried stand-up. Five years later he became the first British act to perform at the Caribbean Comedy Festival in Trinidad. Since then he has been a guest panellist on 8 out of 10 Cats , performed twice at Live at the Apollo , and is o...

My guest today is an American food critic and voice actor. Born in Chicago in the late seventies, he began performing in public as a young child after he joined the chorus for a production of the opera Carmen , appearing alongside the tenor Plácido Domingo. He began voicing commercials at the age of seven, before moving to California hoping to take on character roles. There he joked with a friend...

My guest today is a writer and narrative designer for independent and blockbuster video games. Born in London she studied English Literature at Kingston University, then completed her postgrad in journalism. She worked as a freelance writer, contributing to the Guardian and the BBC , often covering in games and the lack of representation of people of colour within the industry. In 2014 she took a...

My guest today is an English programmer, game-maker and President of the Kyoto-based video game studio Q-Games . Born in London, he dropped out of school at the age of 17 to join Argonaut Games where, among other titles, he worked on the Game Boy space combat title, X . The project so impressed Nintendo , that the company invited my guest to Japan, where he contributed to StarFox , a now legendary...

My guest today is an English comedian, actor and one of the most prolific joke writers in the UK. He first made a room laugh as a young child at his aunt’s wedding, when, during the ceremonial speeches, the other guests overheard him speaking to his mother. While a student at the University of Sheffield he again became an accidental stand-up when, at the last minute, he filled in for the compere a...

My guest today is a French Moroccan political journalist and author based in London. She grew up in Nantes on the west coast of France, then moved to the UK in 2009 to study journalism at the University of Westminster. After graduating, she freelanced for several broadsheets, then joined the Evening Standard as a political diarist. In 2016 she became the media and politics correspondent for BuzzFe...

My guest today is a writer, producer and director of plays, films and videogames. In 1997 he left Belgium to study theatre at NYU in New York. While a student my guest began freelancing as a video game journalist contributing to Next Gen , Official Dreamcast Magazine and Famitsu in Japan. He then joined Treyarch to work on the video game adaptation of Steven Spielberg's MINORITY REPORT , a project...

My guest today is creative director and writer of some of the most memorable and influential independent games of recent years, including Bastion , Pyre , Transistor and, most recently, the smash hit Hades , which topped many of 2021’s best games of the year lists. In the nineties he co-founded Arcadia , a website dedicated to films and video games, which led to an internship at Gamespot , one of...

My guest today is an award-winning author, journalist and writer for film, television, and video games. After graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in English literature, he travelled to Uzbekistan as a volunteer for the Peace Corps. He then returned to New York where he worked as author and editor, reporting on the Iraq war for Harper's Magazine and contributing literary critici...

My guest today is Sooz Kempner, an English actress, pianist, singer and award-winning stand-up comedian. Born into a showbiz dynasty – the family dog appeared in an advertisment for Nissan, and their cat, Boris, played Jonesy in Aliens – she moved to Ayia Napa to work as a Christina Aguilera tribute act. After she returned to England she began a post-graduate course at Royal College of Music , per...

My guest today is Kelsey Lewin, co-director of the Video Game History Foundation , the non-profit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games. In 2017, after graduating college, my guest helped curate an Atari-themed pop-up exhibition at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Two years later Game Informer enlisted her as a volunteer to digitize the magazine’s entire arch...

My guest today is Danny Pudi, an American comedian and actor, who played the role of Abed Nadir in the long-running American sitcom Community . Born in Chicago, Illinois to a Polish mother and an Indian father, he studied communication and theatre at Marquette University in Milwaukee having won the inaugural Chris Farley Scholarship – an award that led him to perform improv comedy alongside Dave C...