I wanted to bring Connor Rush onto the show to talk about teaching himself how to program in Java as an 11 year old and how he jumpstarted the development of his very own video game studio Fyre Games.
Continue reading “Ep. 30 — Fyre Games”
Ep. 29 – BrolyLegs
BrolyLegs is a grand master Street Fighter pro player that is known for playing differently than most.
Ep. 28 – Vanilla World of Warcraft with John Staats
Blizzard turned the page back in history this summer with the release of Classic World of Warcraft in lieu of a traditional expansion and John Staats, the first 3D level designer at Blizzard, recently published The World of Warcraft Diary. Continue reading “Ep. 28 – Vanilla World of Warcraft with John Staats”
Ep. 27 — Cris Tales and Dreams Uncorporated/SYCK
E3 was jam packed this year and I was starstruck the whole week I attended. In my journeys, I had the pleasure of meeting Carlos Rocha, the founder of Dreams Uncoporated and SYCK games.
Continue reading “Ep. 27 — Cris Tales and Dreams Uncorporated/SYCK”
Ep. 26 — Ed Annunziata & Ecco the Dolphin
Ed Annunziata joined me on the latest episode of the show to discuss the Sega Genesis classic Ecco the Dolphin as well as discuss Space War Area, which launched earlier this year on the Nintendo Switch.
We delve into his love of programming that kickstarted his career, starting with Pyramid Run in 1984. He has stuck with the same team since Ecco, modernizing the development approach that has stuck with them for the last three decades.
You can follow Ed on Twitter @edannunziata and follow him on YouTube.
Here is a trailer for his most recent game Space War Arena:
“Overworld” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Ep. 25 —Dwarf Fortress: Toady One returns
Tarn Adams joins me on the show (again!) to talk about the launch of Dwarf Fortress coming soon to Steam and itch.io.
Continue reading “Ep. 25 —Dwarf Fortress: Toady One returns”
Episode 24 — From EA Sports to Anthem
Gracie Arenas Strittmatter currently serves as the technical art director over BioWare’s latest IP, Anthem.
She joins me to talk about how she was able to turn her love for art and computer science into a career, and how she found herself at a crossroads as she was finishing up her master’s program: feature films or games?
Episode 23 — Rachel [Seltzer] Quirico
Rachel Quirico, also known online as Seltzer, is an esports host and interviewer for games like Pokémon GO, Overwatch, Hearthstone, CSGO, Starcraft, Street Fighter, and others.
Episode 22 — DaHanG
Tim Fogarty has been competing in various first person shooters for more than a decade, most recently sweeping a first place finish at DreamHack Winter 2018 playing Quake Champions Team Death Match with his teammate Shane Hendrixson, who goes by rapha.
Episode 21 — Game Informer with Andrew Reiner
Andrew Reiner has been driving public opinion about games for more than 25 years now and I was incredibly excited for the chance to bring him onto KakeBytes to learn more about him.
Continue reading “Episode 21 — Game Informer with Andrew Reiner”
Episode 20 — Gaming + Therapy
Dr. Mick is a couples & family therapist and streamer, hosting [Game] Sessions with a Therapist nightly at 11:30 CST.
Episode 19 — League of Legends NA LCS, World Championships
The next guest on the show is Chris Hopper, the head of Esports for North America at Riot Games.
Continue reading “Episode 19 — League of Legends NA LCS, World Championships”
Episode 18 — From FIFA to Final Fantasy
The next guest on the show has had quite the journey in his game development career — literally.
Gus Martin hails from Brazil, but he started his career with EA Canada and has been working in Japan for the last four and a half years with Square Enix and currently with Capcom.
KakeBytes + Extra Life Gaming 2018
It’s almost that time of year!
I’ll be taking part in this year’s Extra Life Gaming marathon and I’ll be going live for 24 hours beginning at 8 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2018.
Be sure to follow me on Twitch @kakebytes to get a notification when I go live!
I’m smashed my goal last year and I hope that you guys will help me do this same in just a few weeks. You can read more at extra-life.org.
Episode 17 — GoldenEye 007, TimeSplitters
David Doak seems to be most recognizable by a cameo he made in the first game he ever worked on — GoldenEye 007.
Continue reading “Episode 17 — GoldenEye 007, TimeSplitters”
SXSW Gaming + KakeBytes
Calling all… everyone?
I have the opportunity to take the stage at SXSW in 2019 to moderate a panel on the worldbuilding in Anthem. You know, the Anthem. The one that is in development by BioWare and will be published by EA.
The catch is that the panels are selected by the will of the people.
To vote for the Anthem panel, all you need to do is register an account with SXSW and then visit our panel picker page and upvote our proposal!
I’m incredibly honored to have the opportunity to work with the technical art team to present a retrospective on what the world building process for BioWare’s team was like.
The description of the panel per the proposal:
The savage world of Anthem is volatile, lush, expansive, and full of unexpected characters. Bringing these aspects to life presented a wealth of challenging problems for BioWare’s technical artists, who bridge art and technology through areas such as performance, shaders, and artist tools. This retrospective panel will highlight some of the team’s work, alongside reflections on innovation, distributed collaboration/coordination, and the successes and challenges of creating a new IP for the world to enjoy.
Thank you!
Episode 16 — Dwarf Fortress
Tarn Adams joins me on the newest episode of KakeBytes to regale us with the tale of Slaves to Armok: God of Blood Chapter II: Dwarf Fortress and how it came to be.
Episode 15 — The Long and Twisted Tail of Nibbler
Tim McVey joins me to talk about how he became the first billion point player in gaming and how his achievement won him more fame than could have been expected for a teenager from Ottumwa, Iowa.
His journey has been documented by the documentary Man VS Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler, which is available to watch on Netflix.
In today’s episode, Tim shares how a single quarter changed his life.
Continue reading “Episode 15 — The Long and Twisted Tail of Nibbler”
Episode 14 — FATAL1TY
If you would have asked me a few years ago when eSports became “a thing,” I would have likely said the beginnings were somewhere in the avenue mid to late 2000’s.
This is clearly wrong, but this has more to do with my own personal limited exposure to eSports which was around that time. I learned somewhere down the road that I was wrong and that the emergence of eSports not only came from the first person shooter genre, but that it had happened much earlier than I thought.
I discussed eSports with Cameron Irvine, the commissioner of the Simulated Football League, who highlighted the journey of breaking into eSports with wholly unique idea and the struggles and successes that he has had in growing the franchise.
This week, I bring you Johnathan Wendel. His given name may not ring a bell, but his gaming handle might: FATAL1TY.
Episode 13 — REEF
Billy Joe Cain is back at it again. And this time, it is the finale.
BJC was the first interview I conducted for the show and it was dynamic because he had a lot of personal experiences to share with me throughout his long relationship with games.
Episode 12 — Neversoft, Infinity Ward
This week’s guest is Simon Ko, an artist who has done concept art for the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises.
Originally a concept artist specializing in vehicle design, Simon got picked up to do work with Neversoft on a little known franchise called Guitar Hero. This work with Neversoft merged into a career with Infinity Ward working on the Call of Duty franchises.
Episode 11 — King of (the long) Kon
Twin Galaxies has officially dropped the ban hammer on a second prominent world record holding champion: Billy Mitchell.
The scrutiny against Mitchell’s scores came on the heels of the ban against Todd Rogers, after a member of the Donkey Kong forums posted evidence that Mitchell may have used MAME, an emulator, to achieve scores he claims were won on an original arcade cabinet. A few weeks later, Apollo Legend dropped some evidence of his own.
If you’ve caught all of the episodes of the show, you’re acquainted with Scott. He’s been a guest so many times because his perspective is vast. He joins me today to talk about Billy Mitchell and his time working with Twin Galaxies in addition to the ways those experiences still impact his life today and what the real takeaway from the ban is.
Episode 10 — The Simulation Football League (SFL)
What is the Simulation Football League you ask? It’s a football league that YOU could play in. You, as in the universal you. And with me today to school us on the game is the Commissioner of the League himself: Cameron Irvine.
The SFL currently boasts 18 teams spread out across North America and the UK, with more than 200 players, coaches, owners, and broadcasters around the world that work and play to stream two seasons every year.
Continue reading “Episode 10 — The Simulation Football League (SFL)”
Episode 9 — What do Madden and Medici have in common?
The answer to that question is this weeks guest: André Thomas.
André is the CEO of Triseum who has quite the resume to back up his history working in games. He has spent more than 20 years in CGI production, working on films such as Men in Black and Independence Day, in addition to being appointed head of graphics over the EA Sports football franchise that includes Madden, NCAA, and more.
Continue reading “Episode 9 — What do Madden and Medici have in common?”
Episode 8 — Do video games cause violence?
ICYMI: Members of the video game industry met with President Trump and some other congressional voices to talk about video game’s potential for causing violence in American society. The agenda included a little montage of cherry picked scenes depicting humans killing other humans. Watch the video for yourself, courtesy of the White House:
With these claims circulating the news and social media come calls for heavier regulations and even bans on violent content (please tell me you read the list of games he would ban, PLEASE). Something that is often missing from the narrative is an actual counter-argument.
Continue reading “Episode 8 — Do video games cause violence?”
Episode 2 — The Texas Video Game Championships
Okay, so this episode went online almost a week ago as evidenced by the handy-dandy RSS feed on the sidebar, BUT life has been crazy so I’m finally ready to share the show notes for Episode 2 — The Texas Video Game Championships.
In the newest episode of the show, I sit down to talk to Billy Joe Cain about… everything. Today’s show is the first part of our long interview, and I chose to break it up because Billy has an extensive history with the video game industry that began long before his time as a game developer.
Continue reading “Episode 2 — The Texas Video Game Championships”
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