Pixel Pizza

Step into the macabre, poetic world of the hand-sculpted adventure game The Midnight Walk with its co-directors, Klaus Lyngeled and Olov Redmalm! Klaus speaks on his decades of experience in the industry with Shiny Entertainment and Zoink, and how he came to meet and bond with Klaus over their shared sensibilities in making games like Lost in Random. The duo share their character-first creation pr...

Join us this week for an in-depth chat with Animation Lead at Fair Play Labs, Ariana Bolaños Guevara! She's directed animated projects for a variety of studios, and is now working on the upcoming SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed. Ariana gets vulnerable about her childhood and how it defined her as a creative. She also gets into the process of animating fighting game characters and communicating acros...

Draw your sword and prepare for an exhilarating repartee with Concept Artist & Art Director Julien Fenoglio! We discuss the many hats he wore on the production of the indie hit swashbuckler En Garde! Julien also shares stories from his experience translating, researching world mythologies, and other wisdom from ten years in the industry. With music from (T-T)b! LINKS: 📸 Julien's Instagram...

Swipe right on this week's episode to hear from writer on the hotly anticipated dating sim Date Everything, Jay Choi! Jay tells us about his background in writing for animation and film, finding his way into the industry by being a "LEGO drug dealer", and making wholesome romantic storylines. Music from Epshirey! LINKS: 🌐 Jay's Website: Jayperior.com ☁️ Jay's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jay...

It's been a while since the last compilation episode, but here we are again with a little taste of the past year of Pixel Pizza. Hear some stories you might have missed about making connections, making mistakes, and making concepts into reality! If you like what you hear, please go back and listen to the full episodes these are taken from! With new chiptune music from Panther Cat Animal 🐆 Dev...

Hey hey! We're back with a talk with composer & community manager Kimi Arquines. Kimi talks about how her work as a social worker informed both her music making process and how she brings people together as part of the AAPI in Gaming group, Amir Satvat's Games Community, and her job at Intel Gaming. She’s also composing for an upcoming indie game by Guava Pixel Studios ( guavapixelstud...

Pizza à la mode? More likely than you think 🍕🍦 This week we've got the co-founders of à la mode games, C.B. & Tom Bedford, on to discuss their horror story of love and self-acceptance, Sorry We're Closed. We get into how the two of them met over Phantasy Star Online, the challenges of designing a game with two worlds, and debate the merits of cold pizza. Featuring music from the game...

For our 157th show (yes, really 🤯), we are joined by game composer & narrative designer Hassan DuRant! Hassan talks about his narrative work on games like WarGroove 2, making themes and trailer music for Ooblets, plus his past as a science journalist. Music from Minus World! LINKS: ☁️ Hassan's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/mrhassansan.bsky.social 💿 Minus World: https://minusworld.ban...

Have you heard? Game Informer is BACK! Here to explain it all is Executive Editor Brian Shea. Brian and I discuss his start in music journalism and the risks he took to put himself out there in writing about games. Lots of talk about cooking and Pittsburgh too! Plus, some chiptune rock from Kade Kalka 🤘 LINKS: 📰 Game Informer: https://gameinformer.com/ ☁️ Brian's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profil...

Enter the Spooky Doorway (Studio) and meet its co-owner & narrative designer, Dave McCabe! Dave tells us about his background in filmmaking and tabletop games, and how he and his writing team flesh out characters for their mystery games: The Darkside Detective franchise and the upcoming Séance of Blake Manor. Chiptune music from Flleeppyy! LINKS: ☁️ Spooky Doorway BlueSky: https://bsky.app/pro...

We're going beyond the average podcast experience with this week's guests, Beyond the Board devs Guilherme Gama and Bruno Mascarenhas ♟️ Their game is. The three of us discuss roombas, design sketches, and nonlinear puzzle design. Music from MoGesus! LINKS: 📸 Beyond the Board IG: @beyond__the__board 🎮 Beyond the Board Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2794160/Beyond_The_Board/ 💿...

Get ready to get cryptic with a look into the works of narrative designer Jonas Tarestad! He's collaborated with award-winning Swedish game studio Simogo on games including Year Walk, Device 6, and last year's Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. We discuss engaging players outside of the game, the thin line between the player and the character, and pizza on a farm. Music from Luke Carlin! LINKS: ☁...

This week we sit down with Brazilian 2D animator & 3D artist Juli Ivy! In her 10+ year career in the industry, Juli has worked on lavishly animated games including Skullgirls, Indivisible, and Dawn of the Monsters. We get into graphic design, accessibility in games, and giant robots 🤖 Music from chiptune artist Domesticatrix! ☁️ Juli's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/fyscuit.cafe 🌐 Jul...

Wake up and listen up 🗣️ for this week's show with singer/songwriter/game developer Devin Santi. He's been deep in development on his debut game, the surreal 3D platformer Mr. Sleepy Man. Devin tells us about the illusion of game feel, processing your emotions through art, and the balance between comedy and horror. With chiptune music from Post_voron! LINKS: 🐦 Devin's Twitter: @Devin_Santi 📺 Dev...

This episode originally aired on February 10, 2023. I can't believe it's been two years since this great chat with Fallen Aces co-creator Trey Powell! In the time since then the game has been released into Early Access on Steam and garnered over 5,000 positive reviews! If you've been enjoying the game and want to know more about Trey, now's the perfect time. Music from Computrhead!...

This week we welcome Canadian power couple Annie Macmillan and Lukas Steinman to the show! They run the studio Max Inferno, best known for their cozy puzzle game A Little to the Left. We discuss the process of translating everyday puzzles into game levels, expanding a game jam project into a full release, and using your website to tell a story. Music from John "Joy" Tay! LINKS: 🔥 Max In...

Whether you're sober or...not so much, treat yourself to a pizza and a chat with COO/Executive Producer at Squanch Games, Matty Studivan! Matty has produced for projects like Dance Central and God of War: Ragnarok, but most recently has been part of the team at Squanch Games developing sci-fi/comedy games like Trover Saves the Universe and High On Life. We talk about the importance of understa...

Change of plans this week! Doing something I've wanted to try for some time, ranking my top 50 favorite games of all time. Strap in because this is a long one. (My voice can hardly handle it by the end 🤣) Whether it's RPGs, shooters, platformers, or roguelikes, you'll find it on this list. Hope you enjoy and see you next week with another interview! Chiptune artist of the week is Sushi-Nator 🍣 L...

Joining us this week on the show is filmmaker and game director Adam Butcher! You might know him best from his viral YouTube horror videos like Crow 64 and Internet Story, but Adam has been making a strong foray into game development with his team at Triangle Wave. Their first major project, Stretchmancer, is a zany and inventive puzzle game inspired by 90's Saturday morning cartoons. Tune in...

This week on Pixel Pizza, we step into the mind of Creative Director at Sunset Visitor, Remy Siu! Remy and his team recently released the acclaimed sci-fi narrative adventure game 1000xResist. We dive deep into Remy's background in live performance production, what the average day of a creative director looks like, and the voice direction process. Music from 380bitworks~ Pizzeria of the Week:...

After a tumultuous start to the new year, we are BACK cooking more Pixel Pizza! 🔥 To start off this season, we are joined by two level designers from Strange Scaffold-- Kevin Ribeiro and Jim Brown. Together they've worked on the critically acclaimed, high-octane shooters El Paso, Elsewhere and I Am Your Beast. Kevin & Jim tell us about using verbs as a guide for level design, creating a J...

For our final show of 2024, we've got a super prolific guest in the sound design world! Akash Thakkar has brought his talents to hit games like Hyper Light Drifter, Destiny, and The Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. On top of that, he hosts the Sound Business podcast, gives industry talks at conferences around the world, and creates YouTube tutorials on sound design skills. We cover his work across...

Joining us this week is our first-ever guest in the localization field, Mai Namba! Mai's got decades of experience in translating and localizing some of the most renowned Japanese RPGs including Persona 2-5, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and Metaphor: ReFantazio. Most recently they've brought their talents to NIS America. Our wide-ranging conversation covers the evolution of game localization with new te...

This week we welcome animation director Chris Burns of Exit 73 Studios to the show! Chris's career started with animated TV shows at networks like Adult Swim and Comedy Central, and his own game-inspired pilots eventually led him to pursuing game dev proper. His studio's first project, the dungeon crawler #BLUD, is a love letter to 90's animation and top-down action games like The Legend of Zelda....

On tap for this week's show is a talk with Washington-based developer Alice Bottino! Alice's gamedev career has taken her to studios like Xbox and Harebrained Schemes, and to the indie space with her current project, the ethereal rhythm game Hyperbeat. We chat about making games out of spite, the similarities between game development and skateboarding, and the importance of a strong aesthetic vibe...