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Declan Dineen

Writer | Magician | Host of Checkpoints

  • Writing
  • Checkpoints
  • About Me
  • Magic
  • Non-Fiction
  • #meetandtweet
  • Blog
  • Contact

Episode 84 - Omar Cornut

My guest today is Omar Cornut, founder of Lizardcube and creator of the recent, and excellent, remake of Wonder Boy : The Dragon's Trap.

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Monday 05.22.17
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Episode 83 - Dominique Ferland AKA Dom2D

My guest today is Dominique Ferland AKA Dom2D an illustrator and game designer who most recently designed the excellent Finthook for Tribute Games.

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Monday 05.15.17
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Episode 82 - Margaret Robertson

My guest today is Margaret Roberston, former editor of Edge magazine, now game director at PlayDots and industry liaison for the New York Game Centre.

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Monday 05.08.17
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Episode 81 - Hannah Nicklin

My guest today is Hannah Nicklin an award winning game designer, writer, academic, theatre maker, bike rider and talk giver. As the myriad of adjectives suggest, she's a brilliant guest.

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Monday 05.01.17
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Episode 80 - Siobhan Reddy

My guest today is the studio director and co founder of Media Molecule,  Siobhan Reddy. We talk about the founding of the studio, the development of Little Big Planet and their upcoming title Dreams.

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Monday 04.24.17
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Episode 79 - Harrison G. Pink

My guest today is Harrison G. Pink, a world designer who currently works on Mafia 3 at Hangar 13and has previously worked on the Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands at Telltale.

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Monday 04.17.17
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Episode 78 - Robert Yang

My guest today is Robert Yang, a game developer and a teacher at the NYU Game Center. Robert's games are most known for their explorations and interpretations of gay sex, from spanking in Hurt Me Plenty to dick pics in Cobra Club, and we talk on what compelled him to focus in on these themes, and how something as seemingly juvenile as a dick pic simulator is actually a scathing critique of our surveillance culture.

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Monday 04.10.17
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Comments: 1
 

Episode 77 - Ghost Town Games AKA Phil Duncan & Oli DeVine

My guests today are the creators of the incredible local multiplayer game Overcooked, Phil Duncan and Oli Devine AKA Ghost Town Games.

We talk about both of their early experiences with home computers and the divergent interests they inspired in them, why Sonic was so fun to draw, why Tails is the worst, the thrill of local multiplayer, the best version of Tony Hawks and how you're never ready to start a studio so why not just do it now?

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Monday 04.03.17
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Episode 76 - Patrick Klepek

My guest today is the senior reporter for Waypoint, Patrick Klepek. We talk about how we can't quit Weezer despite their best efforts, how he pitched a Playstation to his little brother to ensure they got it as a shared christmas gift, his incredibly young start in video games and the lack of romance that defined his early video game journalism career. 

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Monday 03.27.17
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Episode 75 - Ken Levine

My guest today is Ken Levine, creative director and co-founder of Irrational and now Ghost Story Games, and the creative force behind some of the most iconic titles in video game history including System Shock 2, Thief and the Bioshock Series.

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Monday 03.20.17
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Comments: 3
 

Episode 74 - Will Luton

My guest today is Will Luton, the product manager for Angry Birds 2 by Rovio and author of the book Free to Play or how to make money by giving away your games.

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Monday 03.13.17
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Episode 73 - David McCarthy

My guest today is David McCarthy who you'll probably recognise from the radio. He has worn many hats in the video game industry, from staff writer at Edge, to Rockstar Games and ultimtely to Japan, where he's worked for a number of video game companies over the past 6 or 7 years.

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Monday 03.06.17
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AUTOSAVE (5) - Do you want to be a game dev?

This is a show about videogames, the people who play them and the people who make them. Each episode, a guest on the show talks about the games that have shaped their life in one way or another. Games that have inspired them, games that forged connections with others & games that have soothed wounds. Checkpoints!

Checking for autosave...

It's GDC week so I thought it appropriate to release a special episode of the show where I talk to people who are taking their first steps into video game development. An international panel of guests talk about what drew them to game development in the first place, how they are learning their skills, and all the glory and tragedy making a video game can entail. I've put detailed links to everyone on the show below, so check them out and play their video games.

Kate Gray - Awkward Dating Simulator

Jacob Hartmann - Sodagirl

Thomas Cashman - Bard to the Future

Cheri Skivinton - Selfie Nation

Michael Wells - Proxy - Ultimate Hacker

Kyle Kukshtel - Isotactics

Tuuka Stefanson - Tormentor X Punisher

Jasper Trenfield - Will it fit?

"Do you wanna be a GAME DEV."

PATREON - patreon.com/checkpoints

iTunes HERE -  SUBSCRIBE / RATE / REVIEW

RSS HERE

Twitter - twitter.com/CheckpointsShow

Cover design: Craig Stevenson - http://onedinosaurandhisballoon.blogspot.co.uk

Music: Samuel Baker - http://soundcloud.com/furoshiki

Monday 02.27.17
Posted by declan dineen
 

Episode 72 - Mare Sheppard & Raigan Burns

My guests today are Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns, the founders of Metanet Software and the creators of N++.

We talk about the promise of early programming, the impact of Sonic the Hedgehog, how they met and bonded over freeware games, the design lessons of Wip3out, an NHL 2001 tournament that has spanned over a decade, why a broad education is perfect for video games and, in perhaps the most controversial statement on the show thus far, how Crash Team Racing is better than Mario Kart.

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Monday 02.20.17
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Episode 71 - Michael Brough

My guest today is Michael Brough, the singular designer of a whole bunch of truly brilliant video games including 868-Hack, Imbroglio and Corrypt.

We talk about how it feels playing New Zealand story as a kid in New Zealand, how quickly he fell in love with exploring computers through command lines, the exotic promise of video game shops, his experimental StarCraft mods, what keeps him making games, and how sometimes you can have too much faith in shareware.

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Monday 02.13.17
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Episode 70 - Is this the real Frog Fractions 2? No it's Jim Crawford.

Today's guest is Jim Crawford, creator of Frog Fractions 1 and Frog Fractions 2 and co-host of the video games hot dog podcast. 

We talk about his very early love of programming, why he would tell his young self to just rip people off better, how Frog Fractions was born out of insecurity and the key to funny video games.

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Monday 02.06.17
Posted by declan dineen
Comments: 1
 

Episode 69 - Rob Dubbin

My guest today is Rob Dubbin. Rob spent over a decade working with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report and The Late Show, but has always had a strong love for games and game development.

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Monday 01.30.17
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Episode 68 - Nina Freeman

This is a show about videogames, the people who play them and the people who make them. Each episode, a guest on the show talks about the games that have shaped their life in one way or another. Games that have inspired them, games that forged connections with others & games that have soothed wounds. Checkpoints!

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Sunday 01.22.17
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Episode 67 - Rich Vreeland AKA Disasterpeace

My guest today is Rich Vreeland AKA Disasterpeace, the sound artist and composer for games including Fez, Reigns, Mini Metro, Hyper Light Drifter and the movie It Follows.

As you can imagine there is a lot of music nerd chat, from esoteric composition techniques to how to define the Chiptune genre. In a broad and meandering chat we also hit on his evergreen love of Ice Hockey games, how he was exposed to Zelda in utero, how much he was inspired by Cave Story and his unlikely early musical steps creating entrance music for electronic wrestlers.

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Monday 01.16.17
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Episode 66 - Susan Arendt

My guest today is Susan Arendt, the executive editor of Gamesradar+, co-founder of TakeThis and a veteran vidoegame journlaist and editor.

We talk about mastering Maze Craze on the VCS, why Psychonauts is a flawed masterpiece, how she worked two jobs to fund her love of videogames, why the puns in Dragon Quest are the best, the impact of Phantasy Star Online and why playing Missile Command with her dad is such an important memory.

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Monday 01.09.17
Posted by declan dineen
 
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