Matt Chat Podcast: Interview with Kevin Saunders

Download: mattchat_kevin_podcast

This is the audio from my interview with Kevin Saunders, Obsidian and inXile veteran. Topics include Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, Alpha Protocol, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera and many other prominent RPGs that Kevin’s been part of over his long career.

Actual Table of Contents for Vintage Games 2.0

Yikes and yowsers! I noticed (after the fact, of course) that the table of contents I displayed for my book Vintage Games 2.0 in my latest video is, in fact, INCORRECT. Here’s the actual list of games covered:

  1. Spacewar!
  2. PONG
  3. Space Invaders
  4. Zork
  5. MUD
  6. Rogue
  7. Maze War
  8. Pac-Man
  9. Donkey Kong
  10. Pole Position
  11. Pitfall!
  12. Flight Simulator
  13. Elite
  14. Pinball Construction Set
  15. King’s Quest
  16. Wizardry
  17. Ultima
  18. Super Mario Bros.
  19. The Legend of Zelda
  20. Final Fantasy
  21. Tetris
  22. Street Fighter II
  23. SimCity
  24. Civilization
  25. Pool of Radiance
  26. Wasteland
  27. Dungeon Master
  28. Myst
  29. Doom
  30. John Madden Football
  31. Sonic the Hedgehog
  32. The Sims
  33. Diablo
  34. Starcraft
  35. Pokemon
  36. Ultima Online
  37. Super Mario 64
  38. Tomb Raider
  39. Final Fantasy VII
  40. Metal Gear Solid
  41. Ocarina of Time
  42. Dance Dance Revolution
  43. Grand Theft Auto III
  44. Halo
  45. Call of Duty
  46. Half-Life 2
  47. World of Warcraft
  48. WIi Sports
  49. Angry Birds
  50. Minecraft

 

Transcription of Anthony and Nicola Caulfield Interview

 

Matt Chat 308-311
Caulfied Interview Transcript

Matt: All right folks I am here today with Anthony and Nicola Caulfield the husband and wife team behind the documentary From Bedrooms To Billions. Which I happen to have a copy of right here. Really nice cover on this. Now this covers the British side of the video game industry. Throughout I’d say the eight bit, before and up to the I guess everything up to the sixteen bit era?

Anthony: It actually goes all the way through to the present day. It speeds up a little bit through the sixteen bit era. There’s a reason for that.

Nicola: The film would have been about ten hours long.

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Alexey Pajitnov Interview Transcript

Hi, all, thanks to my Patreon supporters, I’m able to post the following transcript to you free of charge. If you read this transcript with the great Alexey Pajitnov, please consider supporting my effort to preserve videogame history by visiting my Patreon page. I only ask $1 per episode.

Watch the interviews below; transcript follows.

Matt: Hi, folks, I’m here today with none other than Alexey Pajitnov. He is a computer engineer and game designer. He created one of the best-loved video games of all time, namely Tetris.

Alexey: I am fine.

Matt: Before we start diving into the history of Tetris and all that stuff, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you have been up to lately and what your plans are for the near future?

Alexey: I am a little bit of all dollerated for game industry so I can say that I am rather a bit tired over it, but I am still working perhaps small projects and that I might have a small team working for and of my partner, which was fun when we worked together. We do several games for apps store, they are there.

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Vintage Games 2.0 Update

Time to celebrate!

Hi, all! I just heard back from Sean, my editor at Focal Press. The manuscript has been received, and I’ll soon be assigned a production editor to get us to the finish line. I really think you guys and gals will LOVE this thing. I dug deep to find the stories, quotes, and context that will really suck you in.

Some of my favorite parts:

  • Shigeru Miyamoto’s development of Donkey Kong. What will you use the fire button for, Miyamoto? Fire button–what fire button???
  • Will Wright and Sid Meier’s struggle to get anyone to believe in their “stupid” ideas for SimCity and Civilization. Who in their right mind would want to play such boring games?
  • An anxiety-ridden Iwatani hiding out in a movie theater to see if any of the couples filing out would notice his bizarre arcade game–Pac-Man!
  • Grand Theft Auto was boring and full of glitches. But wait–one of them turned out to be its greatest feature!
  • A smug journalist told Sega’s Nilsen, “The Super Nintendo has 32,768 colors. Your Genesis only has 512. What are you going to do?” Nilsen pointed at a screen behind him, where Sonic the Hedgehog was playing. “That.”

I wish the book was out already! I can’t wait to see what you all think about it. For those wanting signed copies, keep in touch. I’ll keep you posted on publication dates and such.

 

 

 

Kickstarting Free Software

I meant to respond in more depth to a part of my last segment with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, but a cold and a massive time crunch (plus an unstoppable Civ 5 binge) kept me from appending to the video. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a blog post, so I’ll just sketch out my response here instead.

First, a bit of history. As some long-time followers know, I used to be something of a cheerleader for the free software movement, doing cover features for Free Software Magazine and writing articles on it for Armchair Arcade. At the time, I was convinced that GNU/Linux was the future I wanted to fight for, and that anything other than 100% free software was unethical. To put it short, I had drunk the Kool-Aid.

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