13 years ago
XBLAFancast Special – Orcs Must Die! interview
Orcs have been a problem throughout the universe for all eternity. Well. Maybe not, but they still have to die! And so they will in Robot Entertainment’s action tower defense strategy game Orcs Must Die! Justin Korthoff, Community Manager at Robot Ent, joins myself and John Laster to discuss the game’s origin, some details about Robot Ent, and of course the awesome points of the game.
Justin goes over the bit of time following Ensemble Studios’ collapse all the way up through the beginning of Orcs Must Die!, and how small the game started at first. On top of that is the birth of a lot of the game mechanics, how three traps turned into over 20, and how the crossbow and various other elements of the game were balanced to ensure that each of the game’s levels played differently. This podcast is full of great insight into the processes regarding this game’s development and the result of those design strategies.
Venture forth and listen!
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastOMDInterview.mp3[/podcast]
13 years ago
XBLAFancast – Skulls of the Shogun Interview Special
Upcoming turn based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun is being developed by a core team of three gentlemen at Haunted Temple. We were lucky enough to talk with the founder and design director Jake Kazdal (the guy in the dev diary). Fresh from his showing of the game at Fantastic Arcade, Jake was kind enough to venture into the netherworld and sort out some of the details, or rather, pretty much all of the details on Skulls of the Shogun.
Of the massive plethora of topics discussed, up first was mechanics. While the game may look shallow at first, we can guarantee you the tactics go far deeper than one might imagine, without being all that complicated. Spirit walls, eating skulls and haunting structures are just some of the finer mechanics in Skulls of the Shogun. Jake goes on to discuss art direction and story, telling of his time spent in Japan and the myriad of influences that period of his life has had on the development of Skulls of the Shogun.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/HauntedTemple_InterviewSpecial.mp3[/podcast]
13 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 31
After a week off due to scheduling crazyness we’re back, although it’s just myself and Todd. We hit some of the news from the last couple of weeks before the usual what we’ve been playing. Including the few XBLA related things I played during my time at Eurogamer Expo.
Please subscribe, comment, review the podcast on iTunes and tell your friends! We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp31.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 30
It’s a four man show this week as Damon Fillman and John Drawdy join myself and Perry. It’s a longer than usual episode too, we also ran into some technical issues so apologies if there are any audio oddities.
In this episode we discuss why it matters that Crysis isn’t coming to XBLA, or rather whether there needs to be more distinction on the different parts of the marketplace. We also hit on the Indie Game Summer Uprising as well as the recent public argument between Team Meat and Zen Studios.
We talk about last weeks releases, most of which we tried out or in my case reviewed. Then we round things out with this weeks twitter topic, which was provided by @Talus.
Please subscribe, comment, review the podcast on iTunes and tell your friends! We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp30.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 29 – Forgetting how to talk
It’s a madcap episode this week, in which everyone on the show forgets how to speak English at least once. I’m once again joined by Perry and Todd jumps on to talk some Crimson Alliance. In case you were wondering, he rather likes it as you can read in his review.
We quickly run through the news, as there isn’t too much worth talking about and then there’s even less to talk about game wise as we haven’t played too much of the recent releases. Thankfully Todd saves us with Crimson Alliance talk and we slip in a little (slightly related) iOS game discussion.
Please subscribe, comment, review and spread word about the podcast. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp29.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 28
With John and Andrew both stepping down from the podcast for a while it’s left to me to take the hosting reigns. I’m joined by Perry Jackson and John Carson, who were good enough to record this particularly episode twice after we had some technical difficulties (surprise).
There was quite a bit of news out of PAX last week, from game announcements to title updates so we spend a while talking about some of them.
Sadly Street Fighter III is the only release from last week any of us spent much time with, but Perry and John spent a lot of time with it. They share their thoughts and John gives a little preview of his review which should be on the site soon. Since we had some time to kill we take a detour to some retail game discussion with the recently released Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Please subscribe, comment, review and spread word about the podcast. We appreciate it! Check us out on twitter (@XBLAFans) where you can win codes for games, give us feedback or just ask a question.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp28.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
Interview with Choplifter HD’s Senior Game Designer, Jairo Silva
We got a chance to talk with Jairo Silva, Senior Game Designer on inXile Entertainment’s upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title, Choplifter HD. The game’s premise is simple, there are people out there that need rescuing and you’ve got to be the one to rescue them. The majority of the game therefore consists of managing your helicopter’s fuel and damage while either dodging or eliminating threats and of course touching down to pick up stranded civilians from a variety of perilous situations.
Jairo details much of Choplifter HD‘s finer points for those who aren’t entirely sure what’s going on from the gameplay. Beyond that as with every indie developer we at XBLAFans always like to talk about what it’s like on the inside, so listen in and find out some of what the team has done in working with the original designer of Choplifter to make this version a more modern, fleshed out game- the game Dan Gorlin wanted to make years ago.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/ToddChoplifterHDInterview.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 27
Once again technical difficulties have conspired to make this show late but we powered through and bring you this late but still pretty good podcast.
John is stepping down from the podcast for a while so this week Andrews steps up to the hosting chair, joined by myself and Todd. We hit some news first off, including an unexpected rant about fighting games and some bemoaning of Fruit Ninja DLC.
We sadly lose Todd for the what we’ve been playing section, his internet didn’t want you guys to hear about the games he’d been playing, but myself and Andrew talk about a whole bunch of stuff. Including this weeks release of Crazy Machines Elements which Andrew thoroughly enjoyed.
Andrew shares the news of his new job as a member of Xbox Support on twitter, as a result he won’t be on the show for a while. So tune in next week for a totally on time edition of the show hosted by myself with some new voices for you to listen to.
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp27.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 26
Feels like it’s been a while since we’ve spent quite a bit of time on news, but we did! Yay us. Or rather, yay you, because you get to enjoy the tagential and more than a few times irate banter that John L, Andrew and I share on this episode as we discuss the Xbox 360’s superiority and how Xbox Live Arcade still has some popular genres and mechanics left untouched.
We also discuss the mysterious absence of Dungeon Defenders and the mysterious still-in-the-works of Sonic 4: Episode 2. Beyond that, with Counter Strike and Gotham City Imposters representing the first person shooter genre on the XBLA, we wonder if either will work out.
After the news Andrew and John go on and on about how great Toy Soldiers: Cold War is and I nod all the way through. I tell a whimsical From Dust story which may be just slightly spoilery if you haven’t finished the game yet. It’s more of a gameplay spoiler than a story spoiler, though arguably the two are pretty close in that game. Regardless, to top it all off we have a wonderful Twitter topic which gets us angry at games (again), but will we want to punch babies this episode? Find out!
[podcast]https://xblafans.com/xblafancast/XBLAFancastEp26.mp3[/podcast]
14 years ago
XBLAFancast Episode 25
It’s another slow news week and we’re also down one John Laster. Thankfully Todd fills the void and brings with him a ton of games to talk about. Myself and Andrew have a few to talk about to, so what could have been a fairly short and empty show is packed full of XBLA game discussion. So, get listening!