My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

A special episode with the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year award, as voted by the listeners to the show.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Simon Parkin is Glenn Moore, a comedian known for his wit and insights into gaming culture. They dive into their top five video games of 2024, sparking debates on personal favorites and the impact of awards on indie titles. The conversation shifts to innovative narratives in games, showcasing unique storytelling and immersive mechanics. Glenn shares humorous anecdotes from his gaming experiences while reminiscing about classic titles. They also critique gameplay styles in recent RPGs, blending personal insights with industry trends.

My guest today is G. T. Karber, the innovative crime writer and creator of the Murdle series of puzzle books. The son of a judge and a civil rights attorney, he studied mathematics and English literature at the University of Arkansas, then took a Masters at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. It was while he was working on a project in a coffee shop that he scribbled down a crime-themed puzzle on a napkin for a friend. He later put the puzzle online, then added another. Two weeks later his now agent wrote to him offering to help turn the puzzles into a compendium. In the UK, Murdle became the bestselling book of Christmas 2023, outselling The Guinness World Records. Murdle: The School of Mystery, the fourth entry to the series, launched in October.  Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billy Basso is an American creator of video games. Born in Chicago, he studied film, then earned his masters in Computer Science at DePaul University. After a stint working as a video editor, he moved into game development, first making educational games for schools in Chicago, and later at NetherRealm Studios, where he worked on smartphone versions of Mortal Kombat and Injustice. In May this year, my guest published Animal Well, a game which he started to work on in his spare time in 2017. For the game, my guest created a bespoke engine, designed all of the art and animations, and composed the music. In it, players explore a dense and magical labyrinth at the bottom of a water well. Released to widespread acclaim, Edge magazine described it as “a beautifully constructed, wonderfully characterful adventure… that marks the blossoming of a major talent.”Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your correspondence and answers your questions. Which ten games have been picked in the first 100 episodes more than any others? What are the best Christmas-themed video games? What are the best video game sound effects of all time? Who are the video game industry's true founding fathers (or mothers)? And a special teaser for Simon's next book project.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan Mechner is an American author, game designer, graphic novelist and screenwriter. While a student at Yale University he designed and programmed the martial arts game Karateka. To create the animations in the game he pioneered a rotoscoping process to capture Super 8 film footage of his friends and family members. My guest further developed this technique for his next game. Prince of Persia became a best-seller, then a series, then, in 2010, a film  produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, and Ben Kingsley, for which my guest also wrote the screenplay. In 2017, he moved to Montpellier, France where he has authored several graphic novels, including, most recently, an autobiographical work titled, Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andy Macnamars is the former editor-in-chief of Game Informer. He joined the bi-monthly magazine for its launch in 1991 as an editorial assistant. Within eighteen months he had been promoted to editor’s seat, which he the occupied for 25 years, growing the magazine’s readership from around 60,000 subscribers to, at its height, eight million, making it one of the most widely read publications anywhere. In 2020 he left Game Informer following a round of layoffs and joined Electronic Arts, where he is currently the Head of Integrated Comms for Battlefield. Earlier this year GameStop closed Game Informer. My guest tweeted at the time: ‘As someone who was there at issue one and spent most of their life fighting and scratching and clawing for GI, it breaks my heart to see it end.”Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Corrine and John are the director and creative director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Corinne Busche majored in digital animation at the University of Utah. In 2006 she joined the studio now known as EA Saltlake, working through the ranks to become a Design Director for The Sims series.John Epler studied English language and literature at the University of Alberta. After graduating, he was selling televisions when he applied to be a tester at Bioware. At the studio he began working as a writer and director of cinematics.Now, the pair have come together to lead development on the latest entry to the beloved Dragon Age RPG series, which launched at the end of October.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the American voice-actor and activist Sarah Elmaleh. As a student at Wesleyan University she performed in a variety of theatrical productions and radio plays, spending a portion of her studies at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. After graduating she moved to Brooklyn, New York, and was working as a stage actor when she fell in with the city's game development scene, and decided to commit her life to the art form. She moved to Los Angeles and began voicing characters in blockbuster games such as Fortnite, Halo Infinite, Gears of War 5, as well as critically acclaimed indie titles such as Afterparty, Pyre, and Gone Home. During this time, she began working as a liaison between game developers and the actor’s union, SAG-AFTRA. Today, she sits as chair of the union’s Interactive Media unit, working to secure workplace measures that are common elsewhere in Hollywood.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the founder and director of ZeniMax Online Studio, Matt Firor. After studying history at George Washington University, he co-founded the developer Interesting Systems Inc., where he created a MUD-style text adventure titled Darkness Falls. In 1995 he co-founded Mythic Entertainment, where he produced pioneering online games such as Godzilla Online, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, and, in 2001, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot and its first two expansions. This experience then led my guest to found ZeniMax Online Studio in 2007 and start building the MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online. It launched in 2014, and, ten years later, my guest continues to lead development. According to the company’s latest figures, since its launch The Elder Scrolls Online has generated more than $2 billion in revenue.Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.