The Killscreen Podcast

Jamin Warren
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Jamin Warren founded Killscreen as well as Gameplayarts, an organization dedicated to the education and practice of game-based arts and culture. He has produced events such as the Versions conference for VR arts and creativity, in partnership with NEW INC. Warren also programmed the first Tribeca Games Festival, the groundbreaking Arcade at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Kill Screen Festival, which Mashable called "the TED of videogames." Additionally, he has served as an advisor for the Museum of Modern Art's design department, acted as cluster chair for the Gaming category for the Webbys, and hosted Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios.

  1. FEB 19

    What If A Love Eternal's Story Doesn't Explain Itself?

    Toby Alden is a game designer and DJ based in Los Angeles. Their platformer Love Eternal — released today — is an eight-year collaboration with their brother Sam that grew from an earlier, near-unbeatable freeware game called Love. In this conversation, Toby talks about making music and games in parallel, the surprising amount of work a single animation frame can do, why they let the story operate on dream logic, and what it feels like to hand a creative problem to someone you trust completely. (00:00) - Does the Story Have to Connect to the Mechanics? (01:55) - Cave Story, Solo Dev, and the Free-to-Play Asterisk (05:54) - DJing, Ambient Music, and Scoring Love Eternal with Emily Glass (15:17) - From Brutal Freeware to Family Drama: Building Love Eternal (22:58) - Making a Game With Your Brother for Eight Years (24:16) - Division of Labor and Improvising Scenes Together (25:21) - Why the Jump Feels Right: Animation, Physics, and Dream Logic (36:21) - Level Design by Instinct, Portland to LA, and Closing Hosted by Jamin Warren. Music by Nick Sylvester.Subscribe to Killscreen for unlimited access to Jamin's writing and the archive at killscreen.com, member-exclusive newsletters and events. I love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to info@killscreen.com  Please consider supporting independent media! ★ Support this podcast ★

    42 min

  2. FEB 13

    He Fed a Classic Anthropology Text To Make An AI Game. Here's What Happened.

    In 1922, Bronislaw Malinowski’s Argonauts of the Western Pacific changed anthropology forever, introducing the world to "thick description" and the rigors of deep fieldwork. A century later, researcher Michael Hoffman is bringing that text into the future. In this episode, Jamin Warren sits down with Hoffman—a computer scientist and anthropologist at one of Germany’s premier supercomputing centers—to discuss his creation of the "Anthrogame." By feeding classic ethnographic texts into Large Language Models, Hoffman has built a playable Dungeon Master version of Trobriand society, where players navigate the complex social and economic rituals of the South Pacific. We explore the intersection of worldbuilding and fieldwork, the frustration of academic reach, and whether AI can turn dense monographs into "appetizers" that make us more curious about the real world. Is anthropology the original worldbuilding discipline? And why haven't game designers tapped into the "thick description" of real cultures? Host: Jamin Warren Guest: Michael Hoffman (Leibniz-Rechenzentrum) (00:00) - Introduction: The Decline of Reading (00:27) - Anthropology and AI: A New Frontier (01:27) - Michael Hoffman's Journey (02:40) - The Intersection of Anthropology and Game Design (28:57) - Cultural Representation in Pedagogy (29:33) - Malinowski and the Argonauts of the Western Pacific (34:47) - Developing an AI-Powered Text Adventure Game (46:22) - Challenges and Future of AI in Anthropology Hosted by Jamin Warren. Music by Nick Sylvester.Subscribe to Killscreen for unlimited access to Jamin's writing and the archive at killscreen.com, member-exclusive newsletters and events. I love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to info@killscreen.com  Please consider supporting independent media! ★ Support this podcast ★

    58 min

  3. FEB 5

    Doors That Don't Open: Simon Flesser on Constraint, Preservation, and Northern European Melancholy

    Swedish studio Simogo spent their first five years making seven games—Year Walk, Device 6, Sailor's Dream—then two games over the next decade. Their new Legacy Collection preserves that early mobile work by recreating the iPhone itself inside modern platforms, complete with virtual gestures and motion controls. Simon Flesser talks about the decade-long conversation that led to preservation, the difference between remasters and ports, why doors that don't open are more interesting than the rooms behind them, and the specific Northern European melancholy that Americans mistake for horror. We discuss production constraints as creative fuel, the challenge of staying relevant across decades of game-making, and why no one would start a five-year project if they knew it would take five years. (00:00) - Introduction to Digital Preservation (00:33) - Samo's Legacy Collection and Preservation Challenges (05:25) - The Philosophy Behind Remasters and Ports (14:52) - Reflections on Time and Creative Evolution (28:09) - Production-Driven Game Development (29:16) - Architectural Influence in Game Design (35:08) - Intertextuality and Media Inspiration (44:23) - Creative Community and Future Plans ★ Support this podcast ★

    53 min
  4. Why This Game About the Haitian Revolution Has No Bullets

    JAN 28

    Why This Game About the Haitian Revolution Has No Bullets

    There's already a game about the Haitian Revolution. It's part of Assassin's Creed. You sneak around, you stab people, you "free the slaves"—and the game gives you an achievement notification. Dom Rabrun thinks that's b******t. The Haitian-American painter and game designer is building Vèvè-Punk: Mind Singer, a game about the Haitian Revolution that refuses to let you pick up a weapon. Instead, you navigate Saint-Domingue's 16 racial classifications through dialogue trees, where saying the wrong thing to the wrong person can get you killed. Your protagonist isn't a soldier—she's a telepath and a singer. A free woman of color with zero strength, zero dexterity, and everything on the line. Dom's work sits at the intersection of Haitian Vodou symbolism, Basquiat's visual language, and the kind of thoughtful, conversation-driven game design you'd find in Disco Elysium. He's part of a generation of artists who grew up with games, studied painting, then realized that interactivity might be the best way to tell certain stories. But there's no lineage for what he's doing. Black filmmakers have Oscar Micheaux, Charles Burnett, Ava DuVernay. Black game designers? They're writing that history right now. In this conversation, we discuss why physical violence is the laziest choice in games, what it means to hold a controller and "control" someone, and how Basquiat's painting Glenn taught him to think about right-clicking on reality. We also tackle the deeper question: when you're making a game about historical trauma, about enslavement, about revolution—how do you do that without replicating the very dehumanization you're trying to critique? About Dom Rabrun: Dom's work merges technology, storytelling, and music into a cohesive creative system. Guided by his first-generation Haitian-American heritage, conservative Christian upbringing, and 15 years of experience in IT, he's developed a philosophy called "Vèvè-Punk," blending Haitian Vodou symbolism with futuristic Afro-Caribbean themes. In 2020, his video piece Dr. LaSalle, The Spider Queen, and Me earned first prize in a juried exhibition at the Phillips Collection. He was a 2022 fellow with Black Public Media, which is now executive producing his forthcoming video game. He lives and works in Hyattsville, Maryland. Killscreen treats games and interactive media as cultural artifacts worthy of the same analytical rigor as film, literature, and art. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Links: Dom Rabrun site and YouTube Read the full article. If you like what you're listening to, please consider becoming a member. ★ Support this podcast ★

    47 min
  5. Spending the Big Bucks

    JAN 23

    Spending the Big Bucks

    Big Buck Hunter made a quarter billion dollars by perfecting one thing: the tactile pleasure of pulling a trigger. This arcade shooter stripped hunting down to its essential tension—the moment before you fire, when your heart jumps and your hand trembles—then packaged it for drunk people in Brooklyn bars. We read Jason Fagone's 2010 profile of the game's creator George Petro, who understood that the gun itself had to be an object of desire, calibrated like an iPhone for immediate satisfaction. The piece examines how Buck Hunter became morally complex without trying to be: a game that presents animals as innocent, majestic creatures, then asks you to shoot them anyway while chatting with friends over beer. It's the gap between the act and the environment that creates its under-the-skin power. Fagone traces how an arcade game designed by non-hunters became the most lucrative shooter ever made, not through narrative sophistication but through understanding something older and weirder about human psychology. The sensation of shooting in Buck Hunter feels less like a video game and more like telling someone you love a lie—a tiny thrill followed by mostly subconscious regret, justified and moved past. Originally published in Kill Screen Issue #1, Spring 2010. Get a physical copy if you are so inspired! Music by Shiden Beats Music from Pixabay Sound Effect by Universfield from PixabaySound Effect by freesound_community from PixabaySound Effect by freesound_community from Pixabay ★ Support this podcast ★

    15 min
  6. The Dog, The War, & The Souls You Can't Save

    JAN 8

    The Dog, The War, & The Souls You Can't Save

    War games let you be a hero. Alan Kwan's games make you helpless. In this conversation, we explore Scent—a 20-minute experience where you play a dog witnessing an unnamed war. No shooting. No saving. Just survival, souls, and the anxiety of watching violence you can't stop. Kwan spent seven years developing Scent with no budget, transforming it from a sci-fi project about his father losing vision into a meditation on human brutality from an animal's perspective. The result premiered at Tribeca Festival 2025 and earned an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica. But Scent is just the latest in a practice that's been questioning gaming's assumptions for over a decade. His previous game The Hallway sits in Hong Kong's M+ Museum permanent collection. Forgetter won multiple awards at international game festivals. His work has been exhibited everywhere from Ars Electronica to the Nam June Paik Art Museum. What we discuss: Growing up in Hong Kong game arcades without actually playing—just watching couples sit in racing games, viewing virtual Tokyo sunsets like they were on datesWhy he moved from filmmaking to experimental games and what cinema taught him about interactive storytellingThe design philosophy of "witness without power"—rejecting superhuman abilities and open worlds for fragile bodies and limited controlHow he creates psychological immersion through grass sounds and spatial audio instead of haptics and high-tech solutionsWorking on rails: why Scent is structured like a long cinematic take where you follow the dog's back through horrorThe philosophy of keeping violence off-screen—learning from Zone of Interest and the power of implied brutalityWhy he calls it an "interactive cinematic experience" more than a game, and what his Steam-native students think about that distinctionTeaching international students at SAIC who come from different gaming cultures—China's lack of console culture versus Western expectationsThe strange ethics of trigger boxes: if you don't start the game, the war won't happenHis interest in cloud streaming to remove Scent from Steam's expectations and make it browser-accessibleWhy short cinematic games should exist as a format—rejecting the assumption that meaningful experiences require 25+ hours Alan Kwan is an artist working at the intersection of cinema and videogames. Originally from Hong Kong, he holds an MFA from MIT and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His experimental games and VR installations have been exhibited internationally and collected by major institutions including M+ Museum. His latest work, Scent, premiered at Tribeca Festival 2025. Mentioned in this episode: Scent (2025) - available at [link]Forgetter (2021) with Allison YangThe Hallway (M+ Museum collection)Bad Trip (2011-12) - his first lifelogging game projectZone of Interest (film)Prix Ars ElectronicaTribeca FestivalSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC)Links: Alan's work: https://www.kwanalan.com/Killscreen newsletter: killscreen.com ★ Support this podcast ★

    28 min

  7. 12/16/2025

    Why should we treat video games as archaeological sites?

    What happens when you apply the "steely, assertive mind" of a professional archaeologist to the shifting digital landscapes of video games? In this episode, we sit down with Florence Smith Nicholls to discuss her transition from excavating Bronze Age Greece to conducting the first formal archaeological survey of Elden Ring. We explore the concept of inside-out research —diving deep into the "innards" of a game's server to map player traces—and discuss why the ephemeral nature of digital play requires a new movement called anticipatory archaeology. Key Discussion Points From Fieldwork to Digital Spaces: Florence describes her journey from working on London construction sites as a heritage consultant to discovering the "archaeogaming" community on the Internet.The Elden Ring Survey: A deep dive into Florence’s "laborious" process of mapping the Church of Elleh using the player’s foot as a unit of measurement.Deciphering Player Traces: How bloodstains and messages left by "people who play videogames"  serve as digital artifacts of human activity and server algorithms.Generative Archaeology Games: An exploration of procedural generation and games like Blue Prince and Outer Wilds that encourage players to role-play as interpreters of material culture.The Ethics of Recording: Why we must treat the "assemblage of play" (the player, hardware, and software) as a significant cultural form  before it disappears into the ether. Mentioned in this Episode Elden Ring (FromSoftware)Nothing Beside Remains (Florence Smith Nicholls)Blue Prince (Dogubomb)Curse of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)The Assemblage of Play by T.L. TaylorNotable Quotes "I’m fascinated by how players can come up with emergent storytelling... mapping the digital landscape is a way to understand why these experiences were so important to us."Music by Nick Sylvester. Hosted by Jamin Warren. Please consider subscribing for more on the future of games, play, and culture. ★ Support this podcast ★

    50 min
  8. Silicon Valley in a Sand Trap with Sam Ghantous

    08/08/2025

    Silicon Valley in a Sand Trap with Sam Ghantous

    The same silica that powers your GPU fills the sand traps at Augusta National. Artist Sam Ghantous joins us to discuss "your golf course made my GPU," his three-channel video installation that traces the geological origins of our digital obsessions. Ghantous admits he's afraid of hardware. Despite this—or because of it—he's spent the past year confronting the physical reality behind our screens. Using Unity and Unreal Engine not to make games but to interrogate them, he reveals how ultra-pure silica mined in North Carolina becomes both microchips and golf course sand. The work forces us to reckon with what he calls the "big sludge of media" that surrounds us—accessible on one hand, black-boxed on the other. We discuss his childhood moving between Oman, the Middle East, and North America, and how this itinerant experience shaped his understanding of sand's perpetual movement. He describes printing UV images onto silicon wafers—the raw material of microchips—creating what he calls "portals" framed by rings of sand scanned in his studio. Behind the cleared dust, ethereal reimaginings of Botticelli paintings emerge. The conversation toggles between pleasure and guilt, much like the two voices in his video work—a synthetic childlike inquisitor and the artist's own voice. We talk about Chinese sand dredgers "editing the map" at planetary scale, golfers trapped in bunkers, and future projects where "Hello World" might take millions of years to print in deep time computing. "I'm not standing on some moral high ground," Ghantous tells us. "I'm struggling with the temptations, both for new things and for fascinating things, but also trying not to look at my phone more." Currently teaching at ETH Zürich, Ghantous hints at future works: games affecting one another across distances, sculptures bringing earthliness and computation together, seeking new languages for the consequences of our actions on other parts of the planet. This episode was hosted by Jamin Warren, founder of Killscreen. Music by Nick Sylvester.Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at info@killscreen.com. Killscreen is an arts and culture organization committed to advancing the practice of interdisciplinary play. Founded in 2010, we seek to drive the intersection of design, culture, and impact through cross-disciplinary collaboration to show the world why play matters. We want to break down the barriers that have traditionally segregated play and games from other creative disciplines and foster a diverse community of creators with ambassadorial relationships to the world around us. Sign up for our newsletter. ★ Support this podcast ★

    26 min
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About

Jamin Warren founded Killscreen as well as Gameplayarts, an organization dedicated to the education and practice of game-based arts and culture. He has produced events such as the Versions conference for VR arts and creativity, in partnership with NEW INC. Warren also programmed the first Tribeca Games Festival, the groundbreaking Arcade at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Kill Screen Festival, which Mashable called "the TED of videogames." Additionally, he has served as an advisor for the Museum of Modern Art's design department, acted as cluster chair for the Gaming category for the Webbys, and hosted Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios.

Information

  • Creator
    Jamin Warren
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 The Killscreen Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Killscreen Podcast