Everybody's Talking At Once

Drew Messinger-Michaels
  • 5.0 (6)
  • ARTS

A longform interview podcast where we talk about everything, by talking about games. We gather insights and stories from game developers, designers, composers, writers, artists, directors, producers, and everyone else who makes games what they are.

  1. 12/16/2025

    Something That Sticks With You, with Matthew Seiji Burns

    Process is Matthew Seiji Burns' first novel, in some ways following directly from his work on Eliza (and the under-appreciated rest of his narratives for the Zachtronics/Coincidence catalog) but in other ways, exploring weird new territory in the realms of unreliable narration, meditations on technology, and reflections on/of Seattle. You can get Process via Tune & Fairweather, or at your local independent bookshop, with or without the help of Bookshop.org. And you can find lots more of Matthew's work on his website. ——— • Here's Matthew's episode of Origin Story about Eliza. • The header image is from this launch trailer for Process. • The digital edition of Process, to be totally clear, comes with both a more-or-less text-only ebook file and a PDF with digital versions of all the graphical and typographical skullduggery from the physical edition. • As I say in the outro, Matthew did bring me and Sam Kulchin in on the the soundtrack to Kaizen: A Factory Story. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Nobody's Business If I Do" by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins, performed by Bob Geddins' Cavaliers. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

    1h 10m

  2. 05/12/2025

    Who Could Want Gameplay? with Alexander Clair Tseu Martin (a.k.a. droqen)

    ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 184. The one and only droqen puzzle-platforms on over to discuss his latest game The End of Gameplay, and how it responds to the stubbornly present, all-too-alive gameplay in his game Starseed Pilgrim. This requires a provisional definition of gameplay. Whether the conversation’s other tributaries are required or not is a question … Continue reading "Who Could Want Gameplay? with Alexander Clair Tseu Martin (a.k.a. droqen)"

  3. 01/28/2025

    The Utility of Contrarianism, with Barney Oram

    ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 183. Barney Oram gets into different patterns of sound design, in all sorts of different roles and at all sorts of different scales—plus his love of film in general and Billy Wilder in particular, the durable ethos that “if it sounds good, it is good,” and his extensive experience recording loud sounds … Continue reading "The Utility of Contrarianism, with Barney Oram"

  4. 01/06/2025

    If We Can’t Do This, Then What Are We Doing? with Rasheed Abueideh and Rami Ismail

    ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 182. Rasheed Abueideh and Rami Ismail talk about Dreams on a Pillow. We talk about how the game combines layered, poetic audiovisuals and gameplay with history and folklore in order to create an account of the Nakba “that is so true to what happened that it is borderline-illegal to say it.” You … Continue reading "If We Can’t Do This, Then What Are We Doing? with Rasheed Abueideh and Rami Ismail"

  5. 04/16/2024

    This Nightmare Will Never End! Hell Yeag! with Lilith Walther

    ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 181. Lilith Walther aetherboosts her way on over to talk about Nightmare Kart, its previously life as Bloodborne KART, its demake predecessor Bloodborne PSX, and the relationship between retro aesthetics, open development practices, and a general attitude of… YOLO? Nightmare Kart will be out for free on May 31.You can see more … Continue reading "This Nightmare Will Never End! Hell Yeag! with Lilith Walther"

  6. 04/02/2024

    Dragon's Dogma II, Chaos, and Dogs

    Dragon's Dogma II is full of inventive, quirky flourishes, meaningful frictions, and... shameless micro-transactions that capitalize on those exact quirks and frictions. We can, of course, get meaning and joy out of art that comes to us compromised. Which is good news, since most art, if not all art, comes to us compromised. But the details matter. So let's dig into the details, and along the way let's talk about monetization, opera, high art, low art, and how Dragon's Dogma II is like a D&D campaign where all of the other players are dogs. This episode contains discussions of death, dying, and mourning. ——— • Dia Lacina has written a bit about Dragon's Dogma II, and a bit about Dark Arisen. • Podcasters helping podcasters, here's a good summary of the weird relationship of dogs to Octavia Butler's work. • Here's Alexis Ong's piece about pawns. • And here's Dan Olson's video about Fortnite. • You can hear the Met's Saturday Matinee Broadcasts on lots of still-extant terrestrial radio stations and their websites. My mom and I usually go with KUSC. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. Messa da Requiem by Guiseppe Verdi, performed by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, conducted by Yannick N?zet-S?guin, featuring Leah Hawkins, Karen Cargill, Matthew Polenzani, and Dmitry Belosselskiy. Recorded September 27, 2023. Broadcast March 30, 2024. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

    42 min

  7. 03/19/2024

    Helldivers II and Making Art about Fascism without Making Fascist Art

    Helldivers II is a wildly popular co-op shooter. It's also extremely funny. It's also very much about fascism, both in the sense that its satirical lens is aimed at fascist tendencies in moribund democracies, and in the sense that its core pleasures are... sort of fascist? The music makes you feel like a hero as you do your space violence on behalf of Super Earth, and let's be honest, the capes are rather dashing. Here's a game that wants to have its cake and eat it too, and we're inclined to say it pulls it off. So let's dig into how it's doing what it's doing, and the slipperiness of making art about fascism that isn't useful to fascists. ——— • The clip about Super Earth is from this Helldivers II ad. The in-game propaganda and advertising are fairly consistent in tone, and so far, in terms of world-building as well. • If you'd like to keep entirely Joel mysterious in your mind, then we can respect that—but if you'd like to know more (to coin a phrase), then Aftermath has you covered (kind of). • Here's my piece on moon, and one where I talked more about "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" in contrast to "Springtime for Hitler." • Here's Umberto Eco's essay on "Ur-Fascism" and Ruben Ferdinand and Elliot Trinidad's essay on Attack on Titan (a classic pairing). • We use bits of Lindsay Ellis' video on Mel Brooks, F.D Signifier's video about Hajime Isayama's New York Times interview, and Mark Brown's recent video on Spec Ops: The Line. • We don't think there's anywhere to (legally) hear the full Starship Troopers commentary other than the physical releases of the film, unfortunately. • The Freud quote is from The Ego and the Id, and the Truffaut quote is from this interview. • The intrusive thought at the end is from this clip. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Guren no Yumiya" by Linked Horizon, from the first season of Attack on Titan. "My Heart Leaps Up" from Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman. The extraction and victory music from Helldivers II. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

    42 min

  8. 03/05/2024

    Palworld: A Ludic Reading and a Luddite Reading

    While the show was taking a break, Drew started putting together some essays on the growing list of recent recent surprise hits—games that, for whatever reason, have been doing vastly better than their developers or publishers had expected. 2024 does, so far, seem to have a sort of serial monogamy to it, with the Sauron's Eye of game-liker attention focusing intensely on one thing before moving on to the next, abruptly and fickly, with equally frightening fervor. So at the risk of being eternally behind the viral content curve (as though we've ever feared that around here), we're going to take a little time to think through the breakout successes of this year, starting with Palworld. We'll also be talking about Last Epoch and Helldivers II (which got so popular that they ceased to function) in future installments. ——— • I mention the episode of Experience Points about Palworld, in the context of positing a possible public domain Pikachu. • Jack Saint's video brought the fan design issue to my attention, and also got me thinking about which pal designs work better than which other ones. (Those would be the more original, less chimeric pals). • Here's that much-discussed Hbomberguy video about YouTube plagiarism. • And here's OpenAI telling the UK's Parliament that they would have no business model if they had to respect anyone else's intellectual property rights. • Astra Taylor pointed out that full automation is still an aspiration and a threat, a pipe dream and a nightmare, rather than a reality, when she coined the terms "fauxtomation." I learned about this concept from Brian Merchant's thoroughly excellent Neo-Luddite book about the original Luddites, and about what we can learn from them, Blood in the Machine. ——— "All The People Say (Season 5)" by Carpe Demon. "Pal of My Lonesome Hours" by Abe Lyman and Walter Hirsch, performed by Abe Lyman and His California Orchestra. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

    26 min
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5
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6 Ratings

About

A longform interview podcast where we talk about everything, by talking about games. We gather insights and stories from game developers, designers, composers, writers, artists, directors, producers, and everyone else who makes games what they are.

Information

  • Creator
    Drew Messinger-Michaels
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2025
  • Episodes
    185
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Everybody's Talking At Once is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.
  • Show Website
    Everybody's Talking At Once