The Man Behind Conan’s Sword
Conan the Barbarian is generally thought of as a muscle-bound brute who fights his way through a made-up ancient world. But the character actually has a deep, rich history. I talk with experts Rusty B...
21 Feb 201931min
The Power of the Makeover Mage
In some video games, you can choose which character you want to play, and you can customize the look of those characters. For many transgender players, that option played a significant role in their l...
7 Feb 201929min
Designing Morality in Role-Playing Video Games
One of the unique aspects of video games is that you can control the characters. But game developers are often torn between wanting to give the players as much freedom as possible, and wanting to guid...
24 Jan 201931min
Flipping the Narrative on Greek Myths
Madeline Miller received critical acclaim for her novels The Song of Achilles and Circe – which reimagine The Iliad and The Odyssey told from the perspective of minor characters in the original texts ...
10 Jan 201932min
A Visit by Three Ghosts
In a special stocking stuffer of an episode, Stephanie Billman and I discuss why A Christmas Carol set the template for SF stories to come -- from Back to the Future to X=Men. Plus, we have a special ...
24 Dec 201826min
Board Games Go Indie
We all grow up playing board games and card games, and now those games are growing up as well. I check out BostonFIG (festival of independent games), where a new generation of indie board game designe...
13 Dec 201829min
How I Won the Larp
In my 2017 episode Winning the Larp, I looked at the history of larps (live action role plays) and how the larping experience is deeply personal for each of the players. But I hadn’t done any larps my...
29 Nov 201842min
Movie Poster Artists Uncap Their Creativity
Long ago, before we found out about new movies from tweets about teaser trailers that advertised full-length trailers – the first glimpse of a new movie would be the poster. Movie posters used to be h...
15 Nov 201830min
