In a special epilogue episode the tables are turned as I sit down with Violet Berlin and she interviews me about the games that shaped my own life. We talk about blind runs of Alex Kidd, Tony Hawks Pro Skater as teenage therapy, why death wouldn't stand a chance against my Science Genius Girl, why I always skip the cutscenes, how far I was willing to go to get a Gamecube and why DDR is still one of the greatest games ever made. We also of course talk about Checkpoints, how my own...

Consoles don’t really brag about bit ratings anymore. Growing up with games, the leaps between generations felt profound From 8 Bit to 16 Bit, to 32, to Nintendo 64! It was exciting. The last consoles to even mention it in their marketing were the Dreamcast and the Playstation 2. They were the 128 bit consoles. They were the end of an era. The same is true for Checkpoints. Episode 128 is the final episode. This isn't bad news. There will be a special Epilogue episode coming in a week or two...

My guest today Julian 'Jaz' Rignall. A formative character in my life in games during his role as the editor for magazines like Mean Machines and CVG, Julian is the first guest I've spoken to on checkpoints that I did drawings of as a child. As well as reminiscing about the UK magazine scene of the eighties and nineties, we talk about growing up in Aberystwyth and the arcade scene that forged his love of games, his time winning the 1983 computer game championship at Club Xenon in London,...

My guest today is Chris Bell, a game designer with a remarkable CV that includes thatgamecompany's Journey and the upcoming Sky, What Remains of Edith Finch, Way and 12 Minutes. As well as being an incredible designer Chris is also filled with stories. We talk growing up in Boston playing games in the Pala, that time he kicked a TV off the wall emulating the Power Rangers, joining a Jewish Fraternity in University (the token Catholic) and giving video game presentations to his fraternity...

Today I'm joined by Gabby DaRienzo and we have an incredibly lively and upbeat chat about death and video games. Gabby is the co-founder of Laundry Bear games. creator of the wonderful Mortician's Tale, and also the host of the Play Dead podcast where she speaks with fellow developers about death in video games. We each chat quite openly about our own experiences of loss and the intoxicating cocktail of emotions that can throw up, including the loss of her mum during the development of the...

My guest today is Johnnemann Nordhagen - the creator of the incredible Where the Water Tastes Like Wine - and he has some wonderful stories to share. We talk spelling games in Colarado on an Apple IIe, learning to program in DOS, losing years in Discworld MUDs, how soothing Burnout Paradise can be and the genius of Kentucky Route Zero. We also hit on the highs and lows of making games in the 21st century, the bold step of leaving QA to found Fullbright and make Gone Home with Steve Gaynor...

My guest today is Ian Bogost, an award winning game designer and author of several books including Persuasive Games and Play Anything. He's also a contributing editor to the Atlantic magazine, the professor of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech and an incredibly engaging and articulate podcast guest. We talk about how geek culture has become canonised, the importance of external influences in the early history of video games, how aspects of the grimy arcade experience of the 80s are being...

My guests today are Ben Myres and Cukia ‘Sugar' Kimani, co-founders of South African based game studio Nyamakop, creators of the inventive 'Clay Doh' platformer Semblance. They are also excellent, inspiring company with an infectious passion for video games. We talk about their diverse paths to game development, from childhood where Ben assumed videogames had been around forever and was taught gamemaker in primary school (!) and Sugar's knock off Dreamcast bought from a roadside stall in...

My guest today is one of my favourite streamers of one of my favourite games, Dane McCappin AKA Dane Hearthstone. I first noticed Dane when his incredibly inventive and creative Hearthstone decks became a regular on highlight reels like Trolden. and I've become a big fan of his videos. His laconic and relaxed style of streaming has gained him a dedicated fanbase, not the least of which is Blizzard who recently invited him to LA to cast for the Hearthstone Wild Open 2018. We talk about the...

My guest today is Iranian video game developer Mahdi Bahrami. Annoyingly young, Mahdi already has an incredible game under his belt with the release of Engare in 2017. A unique puzzle game inspired by Islamic art which also comes with a creation mode that reminds me of soothing afternoons of my youth spent making endless patterns with a spirograph. We talk about the video game scene in Iran, how his puzzle game enthusiast mother is still a tough critic, his dad teaching him to program, moving...

My guest today is Dr Mark Johnson. Mark is a man of many talents, he's currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta where he mainly focuses on the intersection of money and games, particularly in relation to eSports and pro streamers. He's also the co-host of Roguelike Radio, creator of the game Ultima Ratio Regum, a former bullet hell world champion and a former professional poker player. As that breif intro suggests, Mark is not someone...

I'm very excited to welcome Richard Garriott to the show. Sometimes known as Lord British, Richard is a video game trailblazer. As the creator of Ultima he helped forge a new genre in games, and with Ultima Online invented a whole new one. His latest, Shroud of the Avatar, was released just a few weeks ago and continues this storied tradition.  As one of the only second generation astronauts in the world, he's also travelled into space. We talk about luck and timing,  how his interests and...

Last month I recorded a special episode of Checkpoints live from the All Your Base festival in Nottingham. One of my guests was Paul Kilduff-Taylor who I ended up hanging about with a bunch over the weekend and we had a lovely time so I asked him back for a full episode. Wholesome af. Paul is one of the co-founders of mode7 games - creators of Frozen Synapse and the upcoming Forzen Synapse 2 - and while music is his specialty, he has a hand in all aspects of design. In a wonderfully...

One of my favourite parts of doing this show is discovering the ways people played games in countries all around the world, In this special episode of the show I speak with a listener and linguistics lecturer Andrej Bjelaković about growing up with games in Belgrade, Serbia.   Part of the former Yugoslavia, Serbia has had a tumultuos half century. During Milosevic's reign in the 1990s, the country was sanctioned by the UN meaning imports like video games would not be allowed through by any...

My guest today is Zach Barth, founder of Zachtronics and creator of some of the best video games ever made, including Spacechem, Infinifactory and their latest, Opus Magnum. We talk about the surprising amount of instinct and chance that goes into designing a Zachtronics game, his love of play sets and miniatures but oddly his hatred of board games, the influence of the TV series How it's Made?, why Solitaire is such a great chicken soup game, the unique struggles of making educational...

My guest today is James Ryan who - as part of his PhD at US Santa Cruz - has been working on some of the coolest and most exciting projects I’ve seen in years, and this chat made me incredibly excited about the future of games and could potentially change the future of writing. This is largely due to his Talk of the Town framework, which simulates 500 years of history in a small American town, and is the engine behind the award winning theatre piece / text adventure / procedural story telling...

My guest today is Sarah Elmahleh. Sarah is an actor and voice over artist and has worked on a whole bunch of videogames including Gone Home, For Honor, Call of Duty, Pyre, Galak-Z and Final Fantasy 15. She was also the lead in the recent - and excellent - BBC Radio play Game Over written by Emily Short. (This is only available until the 29th of January so click the link and listen now!) We talk about how games were a forbidden fruit for a chunk of her childhood, and how getting a PC changed...

My guest on today's episode is Devine Lu Linvega. How to begin describing Devine. In videogame terms he has created some wonderful games like Hivesaires, Donsol or the Proteus remix Purgateus. He currently lives with his girlfriend on a sail boat, where they run their floating studio 100rabbits. This interview was conducted while they docked in New Zealand. He is also a musician and a photographer and a visual artist and a developer and he created a new language. In an incredibly broad and...

My guest on today's episode is Jim Rossignol. Jim spent many years working at PC Gamer, founded Rock, Paper, Shotgun and has since set up his own video game studio, Big Robot, and made the games Sir, You Are Being Hunted and The Signal from Tölva. We talk his early memories of Amstrad CPC and Amiga gaming, why philosophy is important, how S.T.A.L.K.E.R represents the open world we were promised, the genesis and risks of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, whether or not he misses video game journalism,...

My guest today is Lisy Kane. Lisy is a speaker, curator and videogame producer currently at League of Geeks. She's also the co founder of Girl Geek Academy and the only Austrailian on this year's Forbes 30 Under 30. We talk Commander Keen on paternal laptops, playing Driver by the rules, a fierce love of demo discs, finding friends in Age of Empires, why my quick fire questions remind her of a high school band and how deals get done in DOTA 2. "It was the last hero left and I never played...

My guest today is Erica Lahaie, a designer, illustrator and concept artist based out of Montreal. I'm a particular fan of the incredible work on Shrouded Isle but all of her art is amazing. Also she has the best URLs. We go deep on our mutual love of the Tony Hawks Pro Skater series, talk about the mythical PS2 modem and her SOCOM 2 adventures, how she got her first break posting in the Giant Bomb forums and why we both think that rhythm action is probably the best video game genre. "Gleam...

My guest today is Clint 'halfcoordinated' Lexa. Clint is a beloved and incredible speed runner and a common highlight of GamesDoneQuick. Despite being born with a condition known as hemiparesis which limits the use of one side of his body, Clint has become a beloved and incredible speedrunner, with his one handed runs of intense action games like Vanquish and Nier being among the highlights of GamesDoneQuick these past few years. His experience in overcoming accessibility issues has also led...

My guest today is Jennifer Scheurle, the game design lead at Opaque Space currently working in collaboration with NASA on the VR game Earthlight. The team recently won studio of the year and game of the year at the Austrailian Game Developer Awards. We talk about how cool it is to work with NASA, her childhood playing games in Germany and why PCs rule, how a particularly harrowing experience with a bear in the original Tomb Raider turned her off games for years, how she might need an...

My guest today is that rarest of unicorns, a video game designer who moonlights as a drag queen. Richard Franke first got into games through his comic book art, and after spending many years working on a variety of titles - most notably the Burnout series - he left to found Magic Notion and create Kitty Powers Matchmaker, whose titular character is based on Richard's own drag queen persona. We talk about his older brother passing on video game wisdom, his fear of 3D Monster Maze, recreating...