My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Game Pass

Nina Freeman is an American independent video game writer and designer. While a student at Pace University in New York, she was drawn to the work of Frank O’Hara and other poets of the New York School, who documented their lives through witty, confessional verse. She began to explore ways in which she could employ a similar tone, not in poetry, but in video games.
Her 2014 game “how do you Do It?,” puts the player in the role of an awkward tween who is desperately trying to figure out how sex works while playing with dolls. The game established a tone and themes that my guest explored in her subsequent work, most famously Cibele, an adventure video game about a romance developed through an online multiplayer game.
Her memoir-like approach has proven influential. The video game designer Francesca Carletto-Leon recently told the New York Times: “Her work has been hugely inspirational to me and important to the larger industry.”
USEFUL LINKS
Nina's Instagram: @Persocomnina
Nina's Itch.io page: Size Zero
Increpare's Slave of God
Diego Garcia's website
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My guest today is the British actor Abubakar Salim. Born in Hertfordshire to a family of first-generation Kenyan immigrants, he joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of sixteen, then won a scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
He made his professional stage debut in 2010 playing Osric in Prince of Denmark at the National Theatre. After securing minor roles in shows such as 24 and Black Mirror, he played major characters in Sky One’s series Jamestown, HBO’s Raised by Wolves, and in Ridley Scott’s 2023 motion picture film Napoleon.
My guest has also starred in several video games, including Assassin's Creed Origins, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Games Award. A keen player of video games, in 2020 he founded Surgent Studios, which recently released its debut title, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a game which explores grief through the lens of Bantu mythology.
Twitter: @Abzybabzy
Photo: Michael Schwartz for Tatler.
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My guest today is the American writer and game designer Chet Faliszek. In the nineties he and his friend Erik Wolpaw founded the website Old Man Murray. The satirical online publication poked fun at video gaming’s sacred cows and established a tone that is still prevalent across the internet today.
After catching the attention of Half-Life creator Gabe Newell, the pair joined the video game developer Valve. There my guest contributed to the writing on Half Life 2 Episodes 1 and 2, co-wrote Portal, then led development of Left 4 Dead and its sequel.
In 2017 he left Valve, eventually founding his own studio Stray Bombay. The company's first game, The Anacrusis, is a brightly coloured and joke-filled cooperative first-person shooter set aboard a stranded spaceship.
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Friend of the podcast Glenn Moore joins Simon for a special bonus episode to discuss April's book-club-game, Stephen's Sausage Roll edition.
This previously supporter-only episode gives a taste of the bonus monthly episode My Perfect Console supporters receive through Patreon.
Throughout April 2024, Glenn and Simon, together with many of the My Perfect Console listeners, played through the strategy game Stephen's Sausage Roll, a game chosen by the neuroscientist and writer Patrick House.
Listen to Glenn and Simon discuss their experiences playing the game –– with bonus thoughts on Inscryption, Killer Frequency, the New York Times' game offerings, and much more!
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My guest today is the American novelist and short story writer, Veronica Roth. Born in New York and raised in Illinois, she studied creative writing at Northwestern University. While a student, she wrote Divergent, a dystopian science fiction novel set in a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago.
The book sold to a publisher even before she graduated, and the film rights a few months later. Two sequels followed, creating a trilogy that has now sold more than 35 million copies worldwide. More books followed including, in 2020, her first adult novel, Chosen Ones.
Now, in her forthcoming book, When Among Crows, my guest returns to Chicago, in a story that combines Slavic folklore and the city’s underworld.
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In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin reads out listeners' correspondence, answers questions, and offers at least one clue about a forthcoming special guest.
Hear about the genius game that Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi never made, the latest on film director Steven Spielberg's adaptation of 'A Game of Birds and Wolves', and whether or not video game journalists face discrimination from the wider journalism industry...
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