Episodes
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Community management with Victoria Tran
Victoria Tran is the community director at Innersloth, creators of the incredibly popular Among Us, and she has also worked on games like Unpacking, Boyfriend Dungeon, and Pupperazzi. For this deep dive into what it's like to manage communities of video game players, Victoria tells Jordan what...
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If Found... with Liadh Young
The wonderful If Found... is a game you play by erasing the sketch-filled pages of a young Irish woman's diary. So Jordan wanted to talk to its artist, Liadh Young, about the process of creating gorgeous illustrations that were made to be erased. Links: We Know the Devil The Catamites Hourly…
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Wytchwood with Zoe Delahunty-Light
Eurogamer video producer Zoe Delahunty-Light asked Jordan if she could come on the podcast to talk about a recent indie game she "absolutely devoured": Wytchwood. Their conversation ended up covering the pros and cons of repetition in games, how it feels to play as an older female character, and…
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No Longer Home with Hana Lee
Hana Lee co-developed the semi-autobiographical game No Longer Home with their partner Cel Davison (with help from others on the music and code) over the course of six years. In this episode, Hana tells Jordan what it was like to recreate their home and represent their relationship in a game, and...
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Crème de la Crème with Hannah Powell-Smith
In Crème de la Crème you can be gay, straight, or pansexual; asexual and/or aromantic; monogamous or polyamorous; female, male, or nonbinary. You can choose the genders of other characters, and then befriend them, romance them, or even get engaged. You can use your time at the exclusive finishing...
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A Monster's Expedition with Philippa Warr
Draknek is known for their excellent puzzle games like Sokobond, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build, and Cosmic Express. A Monster's Expedition (Through Puzzling Exhibitions) continues that legacy but also adds narrative. You play as an adorable monster navigating a museum of humanity curated by...
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Murder by Numbers with Liz Wright
Murder by Numbers is a joyful mix of genres: a visual novel with Phoenix Wright style witness interrogation interspersed with nonogram puzzle-solving, in a camp 1990s setting. To get a sense of how a game like that gets made, Jordan spoke to its lead programmer Liz Wright, who explains how she...
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Romance in games with Sarah Wendell
Sarah Wendell is the co-founder of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, a website for readers of romance fiction, and host of their podcast Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. When she's not reading, she loves to play video games, so Jordan invited her on the show to talk about how games approach her area of...
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Unpacking with Wren Brier
Jordan knew she would love Unpacking, but it turned out to be one of her favourite games of the year so far. In this episode, she interviews its creative director Wren Brier about how this gentle puzzle game about unpacking moving boxes uses that popular concept of 'environmental storytelling' to...
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Mental illness as a plot twist with Katherine Cross
After playing yet another indie game that used something that looked a lot like mental illness for its plot twist, Jordan wrote an article for Waypoint criticising the trope, which quoted a similarly critical review of the game Draugen by writer Katherine Cross. For this first episode of Season 3...
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Majora's Mask with Shay Thompson
As the 35th anniversary of the Zelda franchise prompts rankings and discussion of which game was best, Breath of the Wild seems to top everyone’s lists. But not Shay Thompson’s. In this final episode of series 2 of Talking Simulator, she tells Jordan what she loves about a very different kind of...
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Using play for everyday activism with mattie brice
mattie brice is an activist, critic, designer, and currently Visiting Assistant Arts Professor at New York University’s Game Center. In this episode, she and Jordan discuss the effectiveness of so-called educational games and games for change, and mattie shares her ideas for how we can use play…
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The future of narrative design with Leigh Alexander
Writer and narrative designer Leigh Alexander, known for her work on games like Neo Cab and Reigns: Her Majesty, talks through some of her thoughts on the current state of narrative design in games and its potential for the future. How can narrative designers meet a younger audience where they...
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Storytelling with Kim Belair
Kim Belair is a writer and narrative designer who has worked on a wide range of games, from big franchises like the recent Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to smaller, more unique titles like Neo Cab and Goodbye Volcano High. She talks Jordan…
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I Am Dead with Catherine Johnson
I Am Dead is a charming puzzle adventure game from the creators of Hohokum and Wilmot’s Warehouse, in which you play as a ghost finding other ghosts by exploring an island, unlocking the memories of its colourful characters, and using supernatural powers to peer through objects and find mementos...
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African game development with Sithe Ncube
The African continent has historically been underrepresented in the global game development scene, but game developers living there want to change that. Sithe Ncube, who is Zambian and currently studying Computer Science in South Africa, spends much of her spare time working with various...
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The Sims 4 with Danielle (EbonixSims)
The Sims is one of the most popular series of games in the world, in part because it caters to many players who are underrepresented elsewhere. But players like Danielle have long been dissatisfied with the way this series represents Black people, with fewer options for skin tones and hair styles...
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Young game designers with Elizabeth Orji-Smith
In 2019, Elizabeth Orji-Smith was one of the winners of that year’s BAFTA Young Game Designers competition for their game concept Creatively Bankrupt, an action RPG that uses heists to explore topics like unionisation in creative industries. In this episode, they tell Jordan where they got the…
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Fictional games with Brittney Morris
Brittney Morris is a writer of novels and video games. Her debut novel Slay (2019) is about a fictional online multiplayer game of the same name, designed by a teenager called Kiera as a secret safe space for her and other Black players. In the novel, Kiera faces a crisis when the rest of the…
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Before I Forget with Chella Ramanan
For this first episode of series 2, Jordan invites her good friend Chella Ramanan to talk about her new game Before I Forget, which tells the story of a woman with dementia. They discuss the main characters—Indian cosmologist Sunita and her pianist husband Dylan—and how Chella wrote mental…
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons (cultural events) with Marie Foulston
In the final episode of this five-part mini-series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Marie explains how she came to host one of the Now Play This at Home events in Animal Crossing, and describes some of the other cultural events she’s seen take place in this game and others in the series.
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Bunny Day) with Pip Warr
In episode four of this five-part mini-series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Jordan and Pip discuss the run up to Bunny Day and its much-maligned proliferation of eggs. Since this episode was recorded, Nintendo has reduced the rate at which eggs appear, but people are still annoyed,...
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons (multiplayer) with V Buckenham
In the third episode of this five-part mini series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, V tells Jordan what delights and frustrates them about the online multiplayer aspects of the game, and the online community around it.
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons (learning) with Chella Ramanan
In the second episode of this five-part mini series all about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Jordan and Chella discuss how well the game introduces his systems to players. With millions playing New Horizons and sharing their progress on social media, what is it like for those players who are…
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Animal Crossing: New Horizons (min-maxing) with Kat Brewster
While preparing for Series 2 in the midst of a pandemic, we’ve made this bonus mini-series about a game that has arrived at an opportune moment for millions of isolated and anxious people worldwide: Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In this first episode, Jordan and Kat discuss the notion of...
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Telling Lies with Lizi Attwood
Miraculously, this episode about the investigative full-motion video game Telling Lies has absolutely no spoilers. Instead, the game’s sole programmer Lizi Attwood explains how she developed the virtual desktop with which the player interacts, what it was like to work on a game that – by its FMV...
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Parenthood with Keza MacDonald
The Guardian’s video games editor Keza MacDonald is about to have a baby, at which point she will have – as she puts it – “a bunch of kids”. She joined Jordan to talk about life as a parent who plays and works in video games, and about how parents are represented in the games themselves. Why…
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Esports with Frankie Ward
The umbrella of “games” contains many categories, and one that Jordan knows very little about is esports. Luckily, esports host Frankie Ward – who you may know as the woman who appeared in a shark costume when she presented the PC Gaming Show at E3 2019 – took the time to explain why she loves...
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Elsinore with Katie Chironis
In this episode: another time loop game. In Elsinore, you play as Ophelia trying to change the events of the Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet, which have been condensed down to a four-day loop. Every time Ophelia dies or fails to avert disaster, the loop resets. Since all Ophelia keeps between loops…
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Outer Wilds with Maggie Tan
Outer Wilds is an open-world mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop, which has proven so popular that people are already calling it a potential Game of the Year for 2019. But it’s not flawless. Or, at least: not every player has enjoyed every minute of the game. Jordan…
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Feral Vector with Chella Ramanan
Compare and contrast the previous episode on E3 with this one on Feral Vector, an annual festival of games and play that takes place in an old church up a hill in a Yorkshire town called Hebden Bridge. Chella Ramanan, a games writer and one of the founders of POC in Play, explains why this...
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E3 2019 with Laura Dale
Laura Dale has been following E3 for 15 years, first personally and then professionally. She tells us how it has changed in that time, whether it still has anything to offer, and what E3 2019 says about the current state of video games. Very few actual games are discussed.
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Heaven's Vault with Philippa Warr
Heaven’s Vault is an “archeological science fiction adventure game” from Inkle. In the game, you – as archeologist Aliya – sail the Nebula from moon to moon, exploring ruins and meeting people and, most importantly, translating an ancient language called… Ancient. Philippa Warr wrote a glowing...
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Astrologaster with Katharine Neil
Astrologaster (2019) is “a story-driven astrological comedy game set in Shakespeare’s London”, a genre that must surely soon be as popular as the battle royale. It was developed by a whole team of people for independent developer Nyamyam, and designed and directed by Jennifer Schneidereit. But...
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Award-worthiness with Kat Brewster
After attending the 2019 BAFTA Games Awards, Jordan wanted to talk about how video games are tackled by this venerable British institution. Kat Brewster, a PhD student who a) is not British, and b) has not played any of the winning games, was the perfect guest. This episode contains minor…
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About this show
Jordan Erica Webber talks about video games with interesting people who play them. Each episode is a short one-on-one conversation about a specific game or a relevant topic.
Hosted by
Jordan Erica Webber
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