When I interviewed the legendary game designer Chris Crawford for episode 30, on his famous Dragon Speech, I asked him if he'd have pursued this dragon had he known he'd still be chasing it three decades later. He admitted that he probably would have not. He'd have instead put his energy into making more simulations, teaching people to think in a way that he only recently realised is rare.

He calls it process-intensive thinking, and here, in this excerpt from our interview, he explains what that means, why he thinks it's rare, and how he believes it will eventually reshape our society.
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Tags: chris crawford

What about the games that never make it to market? Do they have stories worth telling, or lessons worth learning? These are the ghosts of games that never were.

With help from The Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi, The Strong Museum of Play's Andrew Borman, Games That Weren't author/curator Frank Gasking, Tomb Raider superfan Ash Kaprielov, and a couple of old developer interviews, I round out season four by looking at the life and death (and afterlife) of Half-Life for Mac, Desert Bus, Citizens, and Core Design's Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary Edition — along with the strange fascination we have with games that didn't get published.

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Tags: cancelled games, unreleased games, games that weren't, frank cifaldi, frank gasking, andrew borman, gavin rummery, rebecca heineman, ash Kaprielov, tomb raider, strong museum of play, video game history foundation, game preservation, half-life, desert bus

If you've listened to episode 30 of the show, even if you weren't previously aware of his work, you'll know what a brilliant orator Chris Crawford is. The Dragon Speech, that famous moment where he charged out of the games industry — by literally charging out of the room — was arguably his magnum opus. And it was only possible thanks to Chris's mastery of the spoken word.

Here he describes his approach to public speaking and gives tips on how everyone can give better speeches.
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Tags: chris crawford, speaking

It was "the greatest speech he ever gave in his life", and it marked a turning point in his pursuit of his dream, but it had the note of a eulogy. This is the story of how — and why — the legendary designer Chris Crawford left the games industry in an opening-day lecture at the 1993 Game Developers Conference, an event that he had founded just six years prior.

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Tags: chris crawford, balance of power, balance of the planet, gdc, games as art, interactive storytelling

Utopia and Intellivision World Series Baseball designer Don Daglow, one of the original five game programmers in Mattel's Intellivision group, describes his years spent at the company dodging forklifts, dumpster diving, listening to toys being smashed, and sharing a space with the rest of the electronics division.
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Tags: intellivision, don daglow, mattel

On the rise and, um...fade out(?) of Chris Sawyer, the genius creator of bestselling, critically-acclaimed simulation games Transport Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon — who made a career out of working at the cutting-edge, in bare metal assembly code that he wrote and optimised (and optimised again) on his own.

Until the cutting-edge left him behind.

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Tags: chris sawyer, transport tycoon, rollercoaster tycoon, simulation, game design, programming

Former Links, PGA Championship Golf, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour lead Vance Cook explains how and why his team(s) created new ways to swing a virtual golf club — beginning with the C-shaped gauge in Links and leading into "TrueSwing" on Front Page Sports Golf and PGA Championship, and then ending with the motion-controller (Wiimote) swing in Tiger Woods Wii.

Also listen for insights into the difference between sports games that aim for simulation versus those that aim for the "emotional experience".
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Tags: vance cook, links, golf, sports games, game design

In 1990, in a bid to move ahead of their rivals, Access Software reinvented virtual golf. Their game Links set the template for golf games over the next decade, with a technological tour de force, and along the way it dominated bestselling PC games charts month after month, year after year. Until suddenly it didn't.

This is the story of Links and the huge shadow it cast over its genre.
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Tags: access software, links, golf, sports games, kevin homer, vance cook

I go inside Australia's only permanent video game console museum and find that what makes it special is more than just the size of its collection — or the fact that it exists.


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Tags: the nostalgia box, museum, covid-19, australia, perth