Trent Kusters chats with Tarn Adams and Zach Adams, brothers who together created Dwarf Fortress. This is part 1 of a 2 part extended interview where they discuss the 20 year journey in creating the aforementioned title including the early inspirations that led them to learn programming; the games they developed before Dwarf Fortress; crucial creative and community milestones; working together with Kitfox Games on the updated version for Steam; and their favorite stories from their ever...

Austin Wintory chats with Aurélien Piters (Audio Director) and Maxime Touchon (Sound Designer). Together they discuss developing the audio design behind Asobo Studio's A Plague Tale: Requiem including their influences; the process of casting the actors; what they learned from the previous entries; working together with composer Olivier Deriviere and the music team in creating the right mood; and what it takes to create the unsettling sound of a mischief of rats.  Listen to the full episode...

Min Kim from Bonfire Studios chats with Jeonghee "JJ" Jin, the CEO of Pearl Abyss America. Together they discuss how Korea's unique culture and environment has helped shape it's games industry; how Korean game companies are growing and evolving based on years of global expansion; and building experiencing for an ever growing global audience.  Listen to the full episode here or watch this episode on our Youtube channel. The Game Maker's Notebook is sponsored by Xsolla. To learn more, go...

Austin Wintory chats with composer Stephanie Economou, who recently won the first ever Grammy for video game music for her work on Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök. Together they discuss her career in film and television; the differences between composing for traditional media versus games; the learning curve that comes with game development; and how Ubisoft allowed her to experiment with black metal and folk music on Dawn of Ragnarök's soundtrack. Listen to the full episode...

God of War Ragnarök and many other great titles from 2022 are nominated at the 26th Annual #DICEAwards! Tune in to see the winners in every category on February 23rd at 8pm PT on IGN Ted Price chats with Eric Williams, the game director behind Santa Monica Studio's smash hit, God of War Ragnarök. Together they discuss being handed the mantle to a storied franchise; his leadership philosophy in guiding the team towards shared goals; the first steps they took when developing a such a highly...

Trent Kusters chats with Scott Chen of the Taiwanese independent studio Sigono. Together they discuss the early influences that led him to Carnegie Mellon where he met his Sigono Co-Founder, Brian Lee; their earlier titles and the lessons learned in narrative and scope that led to the Opus series; and the challenges and opportunities of the Taiwanese development scene. Listen to the full episode here or watch this episode on our Youtube channel. The Game Maker's Notebook is sponsored by...

Austin Wintory chats with composer and Emmy winner Nainita Desai. Together they discuss her early life in music and musical heroes; the process and challenges of composing for games versus television or film; her recent work with Sam Barlow on IMMORTALITY and Telling Lies; and the touchstones they developed for creating music for such unique games. Watch this episode on our Youtube channel. The Game Maker's Notebook is sponsored by Xsolla. To learn more, go to xsolla.pro/AOIAAS.

The audio version of this interview is entirely in Japanese. To watch the subtitled version, please visit our Youtube channel. Shuhei Yoshida chats with YOKO TARO, Yosuke Saito, and Keiichi Okabe about their work in the NieR series. Together they discuss the early development of the NieR series and its connections to the Drakengard series; the early development of NieR: Automata and critical decisions regarding the gameplay, story, and music; deciding to release a new version of NieR:...

Trent Kusters chats with Ben Brode, Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer at Second Dinner whose debut title MARVEL SNAP has been recently nominated for multiple D.I.C.E. Awards. Together they discuss his early inspirations in board games; his career at Blizzard Entertainment and work on Hearthstone; the road that led him to start his own studio and landing the MARVEL license for their first game; and key decisions they made with MARVEL SNAP to keep players engaged.  Watch this episode...

Trent Kusters and tinyBuild CEO Alex Nichiporchik revisit Alex's presentation from D.I.C.E. Barcelona 2022 where he discussed "Development Under Siege," the efforts tinyBuild went through to evacuate their development staff leading up to and during the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. tinyBuild had over 180 developers across both Ukraine and Russia, and Alex details the mass mobilization efforts they undertook to get their employees to safety and the challenges they faced along the...

Trent Kusters chats with Josh Sawyer, the Game Director behind Obsidian Entertainment's Pentiment. Together they discuss his long career in game development from his start at legendary studio Black Isle to his current work on projects like Fallout: New Vegas and the Pillars of Eternity series; how he successfully pitched a narrative-focused 16th-century murder mystery; how a small team created an experience full of historical detail and references; and how to have fun with fonts. Watch...

Trent Kusters chats with Mike Salyh and Wyatt Bushnell, Co-Founders of Coin Crew Games. Together they discuss their debut title, Escape Academy; how both of their game development journies began; developing for location-based games and the lessons learned from the arcade; and transferring the real-life escape room experience into a video game while also building a unifying narrative. Listen to the full episode here or watch this episode on our Youtube channel. This episode is sponsored by...

Austin Wintory chats with the composer duo collectively known as The Flight, Joe Henson and Alexis Smith. Together they discuss their journey into game development; what led them to becoming a composing duo; the advantages of working together and relying on each others strengths; and their recent work in titles like Horizon Forbidden West and Gotham Knights. Listen to the full episode here or watch on our YouTube Channel

Trent Kusters chats with Massive Monster's Julian Wilton. Together they discuss developing the smash indie hit Cult of the Lamb; Julian's early work on Newgrounds; how local government funding kickstarted the establishment of Massive Monster; how the pitching process with Devolver manifested; and developing a title from the ground up with marketing at the forefront.  Watch this episode on our Youtube channel.

Austin Wintory chats with 2 of the creators behind the Monkey Island series, Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman on their return to the series. In addition, together they explore their journey into game development; developing the Monkey Island series at LucasArts; the creative choices they made throughout the series; balancing the old and new in Return to Monkey Island; and tackling controversial endings.  Listen to this full episode now or watch this episode on our Youtube channel.

Ted Price chats with PlayStation London Studio Co-Studio Heads, Tara Saunders and Stuart Whyte. Together they discuss studio culture including the values the studio created to guide them; their approach to supporting team well-being; and what their studio is doing to embrace diversity both inside and outside the studio. Listen to the full episode here or watch the full episode on our Youtube channel. This episode is sponsored by FusionAuth. For more information, go to FusionAuth.io/game.

Trent Kusters chats with Game Director at Half Mermaid, Sam Barlow. Together they discuss how his career began; his early studio work and getting to work on the Silent Hill franchise; his decision to go indie; his experiences that led to his first indie project; the intricacies of creating games that require a full film crew; and looking at his newest title Immortality through the lenses of both Her Story and Telling Lies.  Listen to the episode here or watch the full episode on our YouTube.

We're on a break from new content this week, but check out one of our past episodes with recent GMN host, Chris Charla of [email protected]! Originally released in Nov 11, 2019, Chris Charla joins Ted Price at the past D.I.C.E. Dubrovnik conference. Chris discusses his journey from journalism to game development, his work overseeing Xbox’s independent projects, challenges facing independent developers, opportunities available for independents in today’s development environment, and his thoughts on...

Chris Charla chats with Chelsea Blasko and Adam Boyes while at D.I.C.E. Barcelona. Fresh off their discussion on the D.I.C.E. stage, they discuss what being Co-CEOs of Iron Galaxy means; their history with Iron Galaxy and what led to their current roles; how their respective strengths compliment each other; working together with founder Dave Lang to make key studio decisions; the predatory nature of treating a workplace as a "family"; and their company values focused on improving employee...

Ted Price chats with Ilari Kuittinen, Studio Head & Co-founder of Housemarque. Together they discuss the ups and downs of Housmarque's 30 year history in game development; growth, how their company philosophy has evolved over the years leading up to their latest release, Returnal; company culture, and managing a work/life balance; and Ilari's strategic advice for new companies starting out in games today.  Listen to the full episode here or watch this episode on our Youtube channel. ...

Ted Price chats with Christian Linke and Alex Yee, two of the creative leads and executive producers of the Emmy award winning Netflix series, Arcane. Together they discuss what it was like creating a wildly popular and critically successful TV show based on one of the most popular video game IPs in the world; the ups and downs of the initial pitch process and early production; what they learned going from games to linear media; their advice for anyone who wants to take their game IP and...

Trent Kusters chats with Raphaël Colantonio, the President and Creative Director of WolfEye Studios, who recently developed Weird West. Previously, Raphaël was also one of the Co-Founders of Arkane Studios. Together they discuss how Raphaël got his start working at Electronic Arts; founding Arkane Studios and working on their early projects like Arx Fatalis; deciding to leave Arkane after 18 years and beginning anew with WolfEye Studios; how they approach accessibility and challenge in an...

Ted Price chats with Guerrilla's Mathijs de Jonge. Mathijs is the Game Director for both the Horizon series and Killzone series. Together they discuss building a sequel to a highly successful first entry in a new series; balancing fresh new features with existing ones that were crucial to fans of the first title; and Guerrilla's approach to building a massive and ambitious title like Horizon Forbidden West.  Listen to the full episode here or watch this episode on our Youtube channel.

Trent Kusters chats with Polyarc's Chris Alderson (Art Director, Co-Founder) and Josh Stiksma (Design Director). Together they discuss founding Polyarc and deciding to develop for VR; developing the first Moss and first announcing at E3; how the early feedback shaped the overall design of the series; the art and design choices they made to help the player connect with Quill, the game's protagonist; and finding the balance between VR experiences and traditional gameplay when designing Moss'...