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Hi everybody! And welcome to the first episode of TONE CONTROL!

 

Tone Control is a bi-monthly podcast where I talk to notable game developers about their careers and how they make games. It's an in-depth talk about everything from how they got into the industry to how they manage the minutiae of characterization. I think that establishing & maintaining a cohesive tone in a video game is super hard, and also one of the most important things about making a game, so that's my jumping off point for these conversations.

 

To ease into the whole deal, for the first episode I sat down with our friends Jake & Sean to talk about how they ended up making The Walking Dead, their experience creating Lee & Clementine, and how that's taken them to their new venture, Campo Santo.

 

I've already recorded a bunch more episodes! But since interview subjects are kind of a limited resource, I'm queuing them up and we'll be releasing a new ep of Tone Control twice a month, on the 1st and 15th, until some point in the quasi-distant future.

 

UPCOMING EPS!

 

Oct. 15 2013: Jake Rodkin & Sean Vanaman. RELEASED!

Nov. 1 2013: Neil Druckmann, Creative Director of The Last of Us

Nov. 15 2013: Craig Hubbard, Writer & Designer of No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R.

Dec. 1 2013: Cl??? H??????

Dec. 15 2013: ??????

Jan. 1 2014: ??????

 

Alright! Enjoy the convo with Jake & Sean, and look forward to more TONE CONTROL to come!

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Establishing & maintaining a cohesive tone in a video game is super hard, and also one of the most important things about making a game, so that's my jumping off point for these conversations.

That's an awesome choice; looking for forward to all of these interviews (Hubbard & H????? in particular)!

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Clint Hocking

HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED SOMETHING SOMETHING

This is so cool! Campo Santo Origins

Thank you, this is much needed wanted and appreciated. fills that irrational interviews shaped hole very nicely.

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Thanks for listening, everybody! Yeah, I have more episodes recorded (but not edited yet...) past Ep 5, and hope to record with more cool people as I travel around in the coming months. It's cool getting to talk about the nitty gritty with folks that have made such cool stuff! It is a little bit inside baseball/actor's studio/whatever, but hopefully still interesting.

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Thanks for listening, everybody! Yeah, I have more episodes recorded (but not edited yet...) past Ep 5, and hope to record with more cool people as I travel around in the coming months. It's cool getting to talk about the nitty gritty with folks that have made such cool stuff! It is a little bit inside baseball/actor's studio/whatever, but hopefully still interesting.

 

As someone who knows nothing about programming and has never worked in the industry, I still got a lot out of this. I think people actually tend to learn more from things that are slightly over their head than things that speak directly to them. Even if you only understand 75% of what's said, that 75% is often more valuable than 100% of something that aims lower.

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Thanks for listening, everybody! Yeah, I have more episodes recorded (but not edited yet...) past Ep 5, and hope to record with more cool people as I travel around in the coming months. It's cool getting to talk about the nitty gritty with folks that have made such cool stuff! It is a little bit inside baseball/actor's studio/whatever, but hopefully still interesting.

 

People always talk about these great GDC talks from people like Will Wright, Soren Johnson, etc. and I think it's great if more of those types of conversations (whether it is big game ideas or more nitty-gritty business stuff) are happening all the time.

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Cool thing! 

 

Also, I'm now all nostalgic about No One Lives Forever...

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Awesome news. Thanks Steve!

Forgive me if this isn't the right place to ask, but will there be an interview with a representative from The Phaedrus Group?

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Awesome news. Thanks Steve!

Forgive me if this isn't the right place to ask, but will there be an interview with a representative from The Phaedrus Group?

 

I am the representative of the Phaedrus Group.

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Please, please, please don't have a given voice in only one year. Maybe I'm just weird but it's like torture to me, will have to listen to this on speakers.

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I'm excited about this and will listen as soon as I get home.

 

Suggestions for other guests:

 

Jon Shafer

Kim Swift

Jenova Chen

Greg Kasavin

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Please, please, please don't have a given voice in only one year. Maybe I'm just weird but it's like torture to me, will have to listen to this on speakers.

 

You mean how it's in stereo? Yeah we record it from a single binaural mic, so it's like that. I guess you could download the MP3 and convert it to mono?

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You mean how it's in stereo? Yeah we record it from a single binaural mic, so it's like that. I guess you could download the MP3 and convert it to mono?

 

Just don't pan it all the way, I think he's saying. 75/25 is usually a good way for two people to talk on two different channels.

 

I haven't listened to this, but I'm excited to. My podcast schedule is too empty with DOTA Today and The Idle Book Club on (semi-)hiatus.

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I don't think Steve controls the pan. I think it's just how it comes in iff the handheld mic.

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