Total Playtime

Total Playtime
  • 5.0 (12)
  • VIDEO GAMES
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Total Playtime is a podcast about videogames, mostly, hosted by games industry veterans Alice Bell, Nate Crowley and Jon Hicks. Join them for discussion of the latest and most interesting PC and indie games, grumbles about the state of games media, and impromptu quizzes dredged from the unknowable depths of Nate's brain. Public episodes are released every two weeks, and if you support us on Patreon you'll get weekly episodes. Send us questions, ideas and feedback at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, and follow us on BlueSky if you like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 7H AGO

    Episode 31: Stoatal Playtime; Our DLSS 5 Is ON

    This week we bring you an accidentally AI-themed extravaganza, as Krafton lost their Unknown Worlds/Subnautica 2 lawsuit for the funniest reason possible: they asked ChatGPT what to do. But just before that, Nvidia unveiled their new Super Sampling and its more like Super SLOP, am I right? Many came out to mock the TikTok-beauty-filterfication of Grace from Resi Requiem. And just before that, Jeff Kaplan, formerly Jeff from the Overwatch team (he's always the Queen from the Overwatch team of our hearts) dealt with some residual C-suit trauma by going on a podcast. Not this one, though. Maybe one day. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art, Alix Attenborough for our editing, and God Ribbon for our music. Do not email me about Disco Elysium at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool. Links! ARC Raiders is replacing some of the genAI, and Digital Foundry saw Nvidia's DLSS5 and thought it was great, but everyone else made fun of it. Nvidia's CEO says we're all wrong; Kotaku asked a bunch of devs and they all hate it too. The Subnautica 2 lawsuit got weird (apparently it's coming out in May now, a decision Brendy describes as 'SUSPICIOUSLY fast'), Jeff Kaplan had a bad time. Games! Nate clamped his own mouth shut rather than talk about AoEII again, but Brendy has been playing Slay The Spire 2, and Alice has been playing Esoteric Ebb! They wrote about them on a website. Alice also got to play the demo for the upcoming Darkside Detective game, Backside of the Moon. She was very excited. Recommendations! 1997 Australian comedy The Castle, Death Rider by Rhuairidh James, and commissioning an independent artist (specifically, this one) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr

  2. MAR 5

    Episode 30: The Phil Spencer Xbox Explosion

    It’s a quiet one this week, as Alice is away doing mysterious things and Nate is away on a secret mission which you’ll have to hear about in two weeks’ time. It thus falls to Jonty and Brendy to ruminate on Xbox without Phil Spencer, games journalism without humans, and deciding which Pokémon starter would be the best restaurant starter.  You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting app of choice: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Submit your Pokémon recipes at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool. Links! Phil Spencer left Xbox, along with Sarah Bond. Everybody except Brendy regards him as a lovely bloke who knew a lot about games. The new boss is a creation of pure business and maybe that’s for the best. Metacritic pulled the Videogamer’s Resi Requiem review for being written by AI after nearly all the staff were laid off. Clint Hocking has left Ubisoft again. We would only eat one of the new Pokémon starters.  Games! The tooth-cleaning game Jonty couldn't remember was Shark Dentist. Brendy loves Airframe Ultra; you may also consider Star Wars: Galactic Racer and Deathgrip. The other games we played were The Ratline, Beyond Words, Word Play and Resident Evil Requiem. Marathon is out today so you can find out yourself if Jonty’s just really bad at it. Recommendations! Werner Herzog’s Instagram and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 1m

  3. FEB 19

    Episode 29: Extremely Online Beef People

    This week it's a conspiracy theory special, as Alice develops increasingly outlandish theories about the forces and decisions that shape the games industry, the pharmaceutical industy and the world, and Jonty and Brendy try and talk her down. Plus, layoffs again, pondering the ideological opposite of Rivers Cuomo, why the AI era is dumb and stupid, and a truly inspired Alien: Isolation mod idea. You can download the podcast right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen (join them here!) and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Submit to the Sausage Mailbag at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool. Links! AI is eating all the RAM. Component shortages are coming for routers. If you want to read 10,000 words about OpenAI being a scam then Ed Z has you covered. Rob Fahey on how consoles left families behind. Lots of Highguard devs got laid off. Do not post on X. Some industry lessons from the Highguard launch, one of which is that the world can change a lot over the course of a game's development. There are some wildly disparate voice actors in Mewgenics and Edmund McMillen swears that's intentional. He also went on Post Games. Games! Mewgenics. Super Meat Boy. Relooted. South of Midnight. Recommendations! Glen Baxter. This game engine is from the 90s. Columbo is on Channel 5 in the UK and a number of episodes are up on YouTube.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 8m

  4. FEB 5

    Episode 28: Bugpunk

    It was claimed that Sydney Sweeney was excited about the Split Fiction movie, and that’s an excuse for Alice to be absolutely livid about the Split Fiction game, so please strap in for ten uninterrupted minutes of her choking on her own bile. After that, we manage to find time to discuss the nature of Morrowind, people choosing not to go to GDC, Highguard’s doomed pact with Geoff Keighley, the most Alan Partridge thing Alice has ever said, and more. You can download the podcast right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. Share your recommendations of games and shrimp at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Make the most of our partnership by viewing Jank.cool and perhaps joining the Discord. Links! Syd is not actually hype about the Split Fiction script. Bruce Nesmith reckons Morrowind doesn’t hold up. Nate never visited the Crab Palace. Lots of people said they’re skipping GDC this year but the organisers say it’s fine. Highguard’s debut went badly which the dev considers “risky in hindsight”, although they’re trying hard and the 5v5 mode is now permanent. Please enjoy MerritK’s post in the Jank newsletter, and the rest of Jank.cool come to that. Iron Lung is in cinemas now. Brendy reviewed TR49.  Games! Split Fiction. The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. Highguard is free. Everything Is Crab. TR49.  Recommendations! Moldovan Rara Neagra, Shitstorm by Fernando Sdrigotti, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Andycruns on BlueSky. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 4m

  5. FEB 3

    FREE TO ALL: Text Adventure: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell

    This episode was previously exclusive to our Patreon backers, but we're making it available to everybody to show what you're missing behind the paywall. You can get access to more Text Adventure plus a year of other subscriber episodes, at patreon.com/TotalPlaytimePodcast. Text Adventure is our videogame book club, in which we and a guest read a videogame novelisation and try very hard to like it. In this episode we are joined by Johnny Chiodini to read Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, which turns out to be story about a neocon Alan Partridge who's totally devoid of emotional intelligence and incredibly bad at stealth. Which is quite close to how we played Splinter Cell but not, we suspect, the outcome they were aiming for for. Music by God Ribbon, art by Marsh Davies and our entire existence care of our Patreon backers. Please consider joining them and enabling us to continue our quest to find a games book that isn't absolutely terrible. Games! You can still buy the first Splinter Cell game, but the remake is out soon(ish) Links This is the book most of us read and this is the one Nate read. Recommendations! Going to the charity shops in the most fancy area available to you, London Centric's snail farmer mafioso article, thermal instant cameras, and the Realms Unknown podcast which has featured our own Nate! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 34m

  6. JAN 22

    Episode 27: The Legendary Milk Egg

    It's a heady intersection of belief systems this week, as we combine Alice's insomniac enthusiasm for weird Instagram crystal sales with Nate's rigorous interrogation of Tim Cain's Types Of Quests. Plus: a horny dog, a nightmarish Pikachu, the Roman god of webinars and Games Anubis joins our increasingly incoherent pantheon. You can listen to the episode right here, or find it in your podcasting apps: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Nate's Quiz will be coming to Patreon next month, but in the meantime we have many other fine episodes to which you get full access by subscribing at patreon.com/totalplaytimepodcast. Thanks to all our current Patreons for making the podcast happen, and to Marsh Davies for our art and God Ribbon for our music. You can suggest quest types and your means of death at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Links! Tim Cain's 9 types of Quest. The moderately nightmarish Lego Pikachu is yours for £179.99. Various people will sell you bootleg plans for Lego Metal Gear Rex and probably also the Horizon Zero Dawn Tallneck because Lego long since sold out. Facepunch offered to buy New World after it was given 12 months to live. Games! Assassin's Creed Origins and New World, but only if you bought it already. Recommendations! The Holdovers, Tokyo These Days and The Long Walk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 4m

  7. JAN 8

    Episode 26: New Year's Resolutions

    It's 2026, and Alice's dog is still being a dick so she had to leave Jonty, Nate and Brendan to share their gaming New Year's Resolutions, only for the wheels to come off immediately because Nate won't commit to playing new games and Brendan won't commit to resolutions as a concept. We were nevertheless able to muster some recommendations along important discussion of the Eurovision of games, becoming The Balls Guy and the unsettling experience of joining an ARC Raiders suicide cult. You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Music by God Ribbon, art by Marsh Davies and our entire existence care of our Patreon supporters, without whom this show would not exist. Consider joining them at https://www.patreon.com/c/TotalPlaytimePodcast. Share your comments and additional New Year's Resolutions for Alice to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Links! People are convincing themselves that Half-Life 3 is coming. The plan for Subnautica 2 is mostly litigation. Games! ARC Raiders. Mon Bazou. Totally Legit Wheeler Seller. Let's Build A Zoo. Ark Nova. Crusader Kings 3: Roads to Power. Nivalis. Streets of Fortuna. Recommendations! but the games were good. Get yourself a snake plant, and schedule an input day but don't give Nate any credit for it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min

  8. 12/25/2025

    Episode 25: The Awards Awards

    Merry Christmas, sausages one and all, and please enjoy our seasonal gift of grumbling about a Geoff Keighley event. All four of us, plus Anthony Hopkins, took time out from Christmas shopping/wrapping/disorganisation to judge the best of the year-end awards season, and also debate movie series that Alice should binge-watch in her act of seasonal self-harm. Plus: the least-qualified discussion of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on any gaming podcast this year, Lenny Kravitz as recession indicator, Rolf the Dog smoking a joint with Joe Rogan and finally building The Interat. Correction: Alice mistakenly credited Rage 2 to Ubisoft when it was of course Bethesda and Jonty was too polite to point this out UNTIL NOW. You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps. iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067 Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime Music by God Ribbon, art by Marsh Davies and our entire existence care of our Patreon supporters, who remain the most special sausages even in the face of stiff seasonal competition. Thanks again for making all of this happen. You can send us comments, feedback and suggestions for terrible movie franchises to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com. Games! Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic, Ace Combat 8, Bradley the Badger, Control: Resonant, Tomb Raider: Catalyst, Sunset Overdrive, Order of the Sinking Star, Ontos, Total Warhammer 40k, Stupid Never Dies, Gang of Dragon. Links! The interminable appearance of the Street Fighter Cast. Here is a music journalist getting mad at "gaming 'journalists' and other slack-jawed, brainless zombies" for disrespecting Andrew WK's E3 performance. Damion Schubert pointed out that Game Awards pricing is actually pretty good by contemporary marketing standards. Casey Hudson and Jason Schreier disagreed on when Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic will come out. The Divinity trailer was gross AF. The internet was entirely normal about the Divinity statue. The first trailer for Baldur's Gate 3 was also a bit much. Alan Hazelden on being part of a Jonathan Blow game. Some people got hype, and then disappointed, by Half-Life 3 again. Anthony Jeselnik's Top 10 books of 2025. Recommendations! The Sycamore Gap Mystery and The Salt Path Scandal (here's the Observer exposé), A Passion for Passion, the Inside of You podcast, The Three Body Problem.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 7m
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5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Total Playtime is a podcast about videogames, mostly, hosted by games industry veterans Alice Bell, Nate Crowley and Jon Hicks. Join them for discussion of the latest and most interesting PC and indie games, grumbles about the state of games media, and impromptu quizzes dredged from the unknowable depths of Nate's brain. Public episodes are released every two weeks, and if you support us on Patreon you'll get weekly episodes. Send us questions, ideas and feedback at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, and follow us on BlueSky if you like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Total Playtime
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Total Playtime
  • Show Website
    Total Playtime

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