The Examined Game

Send us Fan Mail This is Part 2 of my two part interview with Obsidian's Josh Sawyer. The first episode can be found here:  WATCH HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HDXqBgMxy0&t=1448s LISTEN HERE: https://www.theexaminedgame.com/from-icewind-dale-to-fallout-new-vegas-josh-sawyer-obsidian-part-1/ In today's episode we dive into Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The Examined Game I am talking with the writer, developer and designer of The Drifter, one of my absolute favourite point and click adventure games of the last few years. I am in a constant pursuit of a great point and click adventure to scratch an itch that's been bothering me since childhood, after being exposed to the classic LucasArts (Sam & Max, Day of the T...

Send us Fan Mail Today on The Examined Game, I’m joined by Josh Sawyer (Joshua Sawyer) Studio Design Director at Obsidian Entertainment. Josh is an industry veteran whose credits include Icewind Dale, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, The Outer Worlds, Pentiment, and many more. So what do you talk about with someone who has worked on so many beloved RPGs? We discuss how games c...

Send us Fan Mail write me at steven@theexaminedgame.com and let me know what you think! What does it feel like to land your dream job working on the follow-up to a game that blew your mind? This is exactly what happened to Jonathan Zimmerman when he landed a writing gig on Life Is Strange: Before The Storm . What followed was a near-decade-long relationship with this beloved franchise, alongside h...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode of The Examined Game I talk with co-founder of Inkle Studios (80 Days, TR-49, Heaven’s Vault, Overboard, A Highland Song, Expelled, Sorcery) Joseph Humfrey. This interview is a counterpart to my chat with Jon Ingold, the other co-founder of Inkle. I talked with Joseph about what it takes to make a video game company sustainable in this day and age, and their app...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode of The Examined Game, I am talking with the creator of Outer Wilds, Alex Beachum. We get into the weeds of how the original prototype of the game came about back when Alex was studying game design, his approach to development, including the idea of "emotional prototyping", which helped build the bedrock that would become one of the most loved game...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking with Francisco Gonzalez as we go in depth on the genre of video game that I have been playing longer than any other in my life: point and click adventure games. I have been a fan of Francisco's games ever since I stumbled upon Lamplight City. I then had the pleasure of playing back retrospectively through his earlier work, which includes A Golden Wake and...

Send us Fan Mail Today I get to talk with Amandine MarestHair & Technical Character artist Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We cover all things hair related in video games. Amandine's work in Clair Obscure is incredible and it was such a pleasure to deep dive into just how much she and the team thought about the hair in this game and how it represented the personalities of its characters. We...

Send us Fan Mail In today's episode of The Examined Game I speak with co-founder of Inkle Studios, Jon Ingold. I am a huge fan of the work both he and Joseph Humfrey have done under Inkle Studios. Beyond finding new ways to iterate on the adventure game genre, they’ve also done an incredible job of creating mobile-friendly games, giving audiences who might otherwise never play a game like 80...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I speak with Scott Miller, founder of Apogee Entertainment (Commander Keen, Duke Nukem) and 3D Realms (Max Payne, Prey). Scott helped pioneer the shareware model of game distribution in the late 80s and early 90s, releasing large chunks of games for free online long before Steam existed, and asking players to mail in cheques or call directly to order the full versi...

Send us Fan Mail Today I’m talking with Clint Hocking, Creative Director of Far Cry 2 and Watch Dogs: Legion. Clint has had a long and varied career in the video game industry, working on the original Splinter Cell games, as well as roles at Ubisoft, Valve, LucasArts, and Amazon Game Studios. This ended up being one of the most dense and thought-provoking conversations I’ve had the privilege of re...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode, I speak with Ben Fisher, Head of Design on Atomfall and Sniper Elite: Resistance. Ben is a key creative figure at Rebellion, and we take a deep dive into the philosophy and design process behind Atomfall’s open-world RPG structure.  We talk about the steps that Atomfall had to go through to teach players how to engage with the world they were entering from the...

Send us Fan Mail Today I sit down with Kelsey Beachum, writer of Outer Wilds, for a deeply honest conversation about the creative process, including what it was like collaborating with her brother Alex Beachum on one of the most loved indie games of the past decade. Kelsey clearly poured so much of herself into the writing for Outer Wilds. I actually had no idea just how personal this game was for...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode I speak with game developer Nina Freeman about mistakes, reflection, and the role personal experience can play in game design. Nina is known for her autobiographical approach to games, incorporating real moments from her own life into projects like Cibele, as well as her work on Tacoma and, more recently, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage.  We talk about her early...

Send us Fan Mail The Examined Game #5 In today’s episode I speak with Chris Wade, creator of Big Hops. Big Hops immediately caught my attention as a platformer. While most modern platformers still build on the foundations laid down in the 1990s, Big Hops takes inspiration from emergent gameplay systems found in games like Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Arkane Studio&ap...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode I speak with Mario R. Kroll, founder of UberStrategist . Mario has spent more than 30 years working across PR, publishing and marketing in the video game industry, helping studios figure out how to get their games noticed in an increasingly crowded market. This was a candid conversation about visibility, marketing, networking and the realities of trying to launc...

Send us Fan Mail The Examined Game #4 In this episode of The Examined Game I speak with Erik Wolpaw on writing for video games.  Erik is best known for his work on Portal, Portal 2, the Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, as well as his time at Valve  and Double Fine Productions working on Psychonauts. We talk about environmental storytelling, just how difficult it is to make ga...

Send us Fan Mail The Examined Game #3 Julia Minamata is the solo developer of The Crimson Diamond, a love letter to the classic Sierra On-Line parser adventures. I adored playing The Crimson Diamond and wanted to talk with Julia about the power of play in video games and why classic adventure games still resonate so strongly with players today. We discuss Julia’s inspiration for the game and the i...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode I speak with Larry Kuperman, Vice President of Business Development at Nightdive Studios. Larry retired not long after this interview, so I was pleased to chat with such an industry veteran. Nightdive have made a well-deserved name for themselves with their remakes and remasters of classic games including System Shock, System Shock 2, Blade Runner, Star Wars: Da...

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with co-lead game designer on the original Uncharted trilogy, Richard Lemarchand, to talk about the creative process Naughty Dog took when making Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and how Naughty Dog approached pacing, cinematic gameplay and level design. Richard talks about working alongside Amy Hennig, Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann on the original Uncharted trilogy, and h...