This week, Aaron chats with Jonathan Rucker, or just “Rucker,” as he’s known at work. Rucker is a Senior Game Engine Programmer who has worked on a ridiculous number of games, building tools and fixing bugs, doing some of the least glamorous stuff in game development and enjoying it anyway. This week’s show is more…

This week, Aaron chats with Manuela Malasaña, a graphics programmer, tech artist, indie game developer, and hobbyist opera singer. Yes, I do keep finding guests with unusual hobbies! You’ve seen Manuela’s work in games like Darkest Dungeon 2 and I Am Your Beast, where she helps indie game developers implement their games’ distinct art direction…

This week, Aaron chats with Kyle Holmquist. Kyle is a generalist game designer, writer, developer, and narrative designer with a ridiculous variety of experience writing and designing for indie, mobile, and AAA games. He is also a hobbyist blacksmith and volunteers teaching blacksmithing in his spare time! 00:00 Intro 01:02 What Makes A Good Narrative…

This week, Aaron chats with Don Bellenger, founder of the indie game studio The Beauty Cult. We spoke about games as subversive art, Don’s experience working at a high-flying company at the height of Facebook games, and the Oakland nonprofit Gameheads, which teaches game development to underserved youth. 00:00 Intro 01:26 Subverting Hard By Drinking…

This week, Aaron chats with Benjamin Lindsay, game designer with experience mostly in multiplayer action live service. Benjamin worked for Riot Games on League of Legends and in one of their illustrious R&D studios, then for a startup called Sprocket Games. In this episode, we talk about some of the most topical issues that have…

This week, Aaron chats with Sahil Bajaj, a narrative designer and game writer. Sahil has worked on the Blackwood Charter Escape Room with Sweet Baby Inc and with Veritable Joy on ValiDate: Struggling Singles in Your Area, as well as making his own Twine games for kids, and a bunch of other stuff still under…

This week, Aaron interviews legendary pixel artist Christina-Antoinette Neofotistou AKA castpixel. Christina has been in the industry for 20 years as an artist, illustrator, art director, and more. In this episode we talk about her experience growing up on obscure PC games in Greece in the 1980’s, developing an individual style, aphantasia, demakes, having the…

This week, Aaron interviews Kay Purcell.  Kay (she/they) is a community manager, marketing expert, project manager, and Jack-of-all-trades with experience at DeviantArt, Red Bull, Avalanche Studios Group, and games journalism. Kay is also a charity streamer, event organizer, and professional dungeon master! This is Make Games, Drink Coffee, a podcast featuring conversations with game developers…