The Secret Lives of Games – Details, episodes & analysis
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The Secret Lives of Games
The Secret Lives of Games
Frequency: 1 episode/10d. Total Eps: 275
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See all- https://www.iam8bit.com
323 shares
- https://groups.google.com/forum/#
190 shares
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See allScore global : 58%
Publication history
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149: Making A Meal Of It with Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson (Consume Me)
vendredi 7 novembre 2025 • Duration 01:38:22
Rob, Sarah, and Doug chat with Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson about Consume Me, an award-winning autobiographical resource-management RPG about the pressure cooker of young adulthood. We discuss the game's ten-year development cycle, balancing dynamic difficulty in a game about overachievement, the complex dynamics of mining your own story, and more!
Heads up: This episode includes discussion of disordered eating and religious upbringing.
Audio edited by Dylan Shumway.
Mentioned in this episode:
Consume Me
https://hexecutable.itch.io/consume-me
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2359120/Consume_Me/
Prototyping Personal Experience – Jenny's talk at A MAZE 2017
https://youtu.be/iQ-PaGTr-iI?si=RIAWQMFZfMWCVCsN
Papers Please by Lucas Pope
https://papersplea.se/
Nina Freeman's games on itch.io
https://starmaidgames.itch.io/
Triad by Anna Anthropy
https://w.itch.io/triad
Reigns by Nerial
https://www.reignsgame.com/reigns
Long Live the Queen by Hanako Games
https://hanakogames.itch.io/long-live-the-queen
Perfect Tides by Meredith Gran
https://granulac.itch.io/perfect-tides
Look Back (movie)
https://www.amazon.com/Look-Back-Kiyotaka-Oshiyama/dp/B0DH5DMSRW
Look Back (manga)
https://www.viz.com/look-back
Jenny's TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@q_dork
AP's Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bad_tetris/
148: Carving Out Some Time with Adam Robinson-Yu (Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival)
vendredi 24 octobre 2025 • Duration 01:28:29
Laura, Rob, and Sarah chat with Adam Robinson-Yu about The Annual Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival, a communal and virtual festival experience hosted every ~October for the last six years. We discuss the logistics of running a seasonal multiplayer game, encouraging emergent interactions through limited tools, highlighting pumpkin artistry, expressing embodiment in digital space, building secrets over time, and more!
NOTE: If you want to avoid spoilers of this year's additions to the game, skip the section from 1:12:40 to 1:22:00!
Audio edited by Dylan Shumway
Discussed in this episode:
Ghost Town Pumpkin Festival
https://adamgryu.itch.io/pumpkin-carver
Laura E. Hall's 31 Days of Halloween newsletter
https://buttondown.com/31daysofhalloween
Adam's Itch
https://adamgryu.itch.io/
Adam's Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/adamgryu.bsky.social
EP: A Year of UFO 50 - Combatants
vendredi 8 août 2025 • Duration 02:14:09
We're joined by Alfredo Barraza (Riot Games), Stephanie Boluk (UC Davis), and Patrick LeMieux (UC Davis) to discuss Combatants, the 46th game in the UFO 50 collection.
"The evil Red Ants have taken your land! Fight Back and defend your queen!"
Next week: Quibble Race
Audio edited by Dylan Shumway.
Discussed in this episode:
Starcraft: Remastered
https://starcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/
Pikmin 1+2 Bundle
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/pikmin-1-plus-2-bundle-switch/
Little King's Story
https://store.steampowered.com/app/390310/Little_Kings_Story/
Tinykin
https://www.tinykingame.com/
Patapon
https://www.bandainamcoent.com/games/patapon-1-plus-2-replay
Tooth & Tail
https://www.toothandtailgame.com/
The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia by Bernard Suits
https://broadviewpress.com/product/the-grasshopper-third-edition/#tab-description
Manifesto: The 21st Century Will Be Defined By Games by Eric Zimmerman
https://kotaku.com/manifesto-the-21st-century-will-be-defined-by-games-1275355204
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change The World by Jane McGonigal
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/reality-is-broken-jane-mcgonigal/1100817884?ean=9780143120612
Game Studies Study Buddies 51 – Suits – The Grasshopper
https://rangedtouch.com/2022/09/29/51-suits-the-grasshopper/
EP: A Year of UFO 50 - Mini & Max
https://eggplant.show/ep-a-year-of-ufo-50-mini-max
Gio on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/gwishin.bsky.social
124: Thinking Inside the Box with Patrick Traynor (Patrick's Parabox)
Episode 124
samedi 7 octobre 2023 • Duration 01:03:38
We're joined by Patrick Traynor, creator of Patrick's Parabox, a mind-bending recursive puzzle game about boxes within boxes. We discuss following your gut to what a game wants to be, being part of the puzzle design community, and our core philosophies behind puzzle design.
Show Notes:
Patrick's Parabox Patrick Traynor Linelith I Wanna Be the Guy Fangames Sokosoko Sokoban Stephen's Sausage Roll Singles - Rebecca Sugar Patrick's Parabox OST Osmos Puzzle Level Idea Strategies The Witness Tyler Glaiel - Make and release lots of small games before making a big one Jonathan Blow - Truth in Game Design123: (Rerun) Maximizing Minimalism with Disc Room
Episode 123
vendredi 25 août 2023 • Duration 01:39:58
We're taking a small summer break, so please enjoy one of our favorite episodes from 2020 with a new introduction from Doug!
The ENTIRE all-star Disc Room team - Kitty Calis, JW Nijman, Doseone, and Terri Vellmann - stop by for a rowdy disc-ussion on their new arcade sci-fi avoid-em-up. We chat about making the Margherita pizza of games, nailing the details to make a simple concept sing, and making the most of team collaborations.
Show notes:
122: Finding Decency in Reality with Gilles De Coster (De Mol)
Episode 122
vendredi 11 août 2023 • Duration 02:27:55
We're honored to be joined by Gilles De Coster, host of our favorite Belgian reality TV game show - De Mol - to talk about the process, inspirations, and execution of the sublime game design behind its thrilling, subversive challenges. We spend the first hour giving all the context you'll need to follow along, before diving into the interview. This is a special one for us, check it out!
Show Notes:
De Mol (SPOILERS)
The Mole (inferior American version)
121: Developing Your Taste with Abhi (Venba)
Episode 121
vendredi 28 juillet 2023 • Duration 01:05:33
We're joined by Abhi to discuss Venba - Visai Games' short narrative cooking game about family, love, and loss. We discuss uniting narrative and gameplay, making a very personal game in a commercial industry, and creating a cooking experience with its own distinct flavor.
Show Notes:
Alpha Something - Venba soundtrack
Abhi's picks:
Favorite cooking videos:
Layered Biriyani
Kerala Style Fried Chicken
Chicken Ghee roast
Great Tamil movies to get started with:
Merku Thodarchi Malai
Kaaka Muttai
Kaithi
A playlist of songs that inspired Venba's soundtrack
120: Making a Case for Intuition with Andrejs Kļaviņš (The Case of the Golden Idol)
Episode 120
vendredi 14 juillet 2023 • Duration 01:29:19
We're joined by Color Gray Games' Andrejs Kļaviņš to discuss their deeply rewarding detective game The Case of the Golden Idol. We discuss building on the game's cross-media inspirations, finding the 'aha!' moments in playtesting, and trusting yourself to trust your players.
Show Notes:
119: Collaborating in Character with Ashly Burch and Guerrilla Games (Horizon)
Episode 119
vendredi 30 juin 2023 • Duration 01:28:39
We're joined by actor Ashly Burch and Guerilla Games' Ben McCaw and Jochen Willemsen to deconstruct their deeply collaborative work on the Horizon game franchise - building the character of Aloy, the role of performance capture, and carving out nuance and evolution in a blockbuster series.
Show Notes:
118: Exploring Your Curiosity with Rita Orlov (PostCurious)
Episode 118
vendredi 16 juin 2023 • Duration 01:12:59
We're joined by Rita Orlov to discuss her PostCurious catalog of captivating narrative tabletop puzzle games, including her journey from physical and fine art into games, why designers love bouldering, and trusting players to summit her puzzles.
Show Notes:
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