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Soren Johnson

Designer Notes 7: Brad Muir

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In this episode, Soren interviews Brad Muir, who is a designer/programmer at Double Fine. He was a programmer on Psychonauts, the lead designer of Brutal Legend, and the project leader on Iron Brigade. Brad is currently leading the development of Massive Chalice, a tactical strategy game now available on Steam Early Access. They discuss trying to make peace with narrative-based games, why consoles (and not tablets) are the future of Lords Managements, what it's like pitching ideas to publishers, and why Brad worked at Raven for 89 days.

 

Games Discussed: Spec Ops: The Line, The Walking Dead, Crusader Kings 2, Hunt the Wumpus, The Legend of Zelda, Brutal Legend, Alter Echo, Psychonauts, XCOM, Massive Chalice, Trenched/Iron Brigade

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/brad-muir

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Brad Muir never played The Walking Dead! Next time he is on DOTA Today is gonna be so awkward hahaha.

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This is currently my second favorite gaming podcast. I really like it.

 

But this episode... I had to stop listening after seven minutes, fearing for my hypothetical life.

 

 

...I should probably explain that:

About two minutes into the interview I thought of that drinking game where people take a sip of beer whenever someone says a certain word.

 

The word in question: "Like".

 

I had a cup of water near me so I thought it would be funny to take a sip of it instead.

It quickly became clear that I had to stop what I was doing to dedicate myself to the task of picking it up and taking the sip, sometimes taking another sip before I had time to put down the cup.

 

So yea, hypothetically speaking, were I to have continued and were it really beer, I would probably have died of alcohol poisoning from listening to this episode.

 

Thanks Soren and Brad.

 

P.S.: Is it weird that I re-read this post before posting it in the voice of Chris Remo? ... Probably.

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haha, who was the main offender? Me or Brad? (I've always thought my problem was too many "um's" and "you know's"...)

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Regarding the conversation at the beginning of the episode: have either you, Soren, or Brad actually played Depression Quest? Given the centrality of Zoe Quinn and DQ to GamerGate's "concerns," it's worth having an understanding of that game in any discussion of that "movement." Also, it's extremely relevant to any discussion about  "narrative games" versus "mechanical games" since it marries its mechanics to its narrative and message about as well as any game I've ever seen.

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I have not played Depression Question. Seems like I've heard mixed thing about it, but I'll take your opinion as a vote in favor. And hey, it's free! Obviously a sinister plot to ruin real games everywhere...

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It also only takes a couple of hours to complete. So worth it. One of the strongest emotional reactions I've ever had to any creative work.

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I love the Podcast so far, I just discovered it and I'm loving it so far.  When Brad started talking about having just got a real job and "having extra income" it hit me close cause i just graduated with a degree in CS and just narrowly missed a job that would of left me in the same position. I'm vary passionate about video games and I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying to create a career and listening to these podcast while working my lowly home depot late night stocking shelves job has been the motivation i need to keep going and develop myself with personal projects so i can get a good coding job, maybe one day switch into making video games. 

 

Thank you for doing these podcast, they are like work out music for my career.

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On 5/12/2015 at 9:59 PM, tberton said:

It also only takes a couple of hours to complete. So worth it. One of the strongest emotional reactions I've ever had to any creative work.

It's up there with the spoon explanation for methods to really drive home the way that things like depression just straight up make things impossible.

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On 10/26/2017 at 6:45 PM, MCplattipus said:

I love the Podcast so far, I just discovered it and I'm loving it so far.  When Brad started talking about having just got a real job and "having extra income" it hit me close cause i just graduated with a degree in CS and just narrowly missed a job that would of left me in the same position. I'm vary passionate about video games and I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying to create a career and listening to these podcast while working my lowly home depot late night stocking shelves job has been the motivation i need to keep going and develop myself with personal projects so i can get a good coding job, maybe one day switch into making video games. 

 

Thank you for doing these podcast, they are like work out music for my career.

 

Thanks for the kind words... and good luck!

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