Austin Lancaster 🎮✍

@despelote.game @panic.com

DESPELOTE Interview: Developers Julián Cordero and Ian Berman on courting chaos to bring Ecuador to life. "The less instructions we gave, the better performances we got from people"

I had a chat with Julián Cordero and Ian Berman to discuss the creative methods behind DESPELOTE -one of the most remarkable games of recent memory. Here's the full transcript, alongside my essay about its unique, freeform spoken dialogue.

A call for video game neorealism

The game was inspired by @radiatoryang.bsky.social's "A call for neoliberalism":

www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2018/04/a-ca...

I also praise @ghaoyuxin.bsky.social's "playable documentary" Out For Delivery, which still feels so fresh as a video game for including the lives of regular people:

In the article I talk of my love for System Shock's "bad" voice acting, performed mostly by the dev team:

Special Delivery: Acting Styles in Video Games In the first entry of our new column about the thresholds of the cinematic and the virtual, Austin Lancaster explores the fruitfully uncanny depths of video game performances.

Introducing 'Screen Play,' a new column examining the thresholds of the cinematic and the virtual.

In this first entry, Austin Lancaster explores the world of video game performance, looking at uncanny 'failures' & the desire for meaningful idiosyncrasy.

tinyurl.com/45t5uzht

Special Delivery: Acting Styles in Video Games In the first entry of our new column about the thresholds of the cinematic and the virtual, Austin Lancaster explores the fruitfully uncanny depths of video game performances.

I'll be writing a new column for Rough Cut, looking at resonances between video games and film.

The first article looks at Oblivion's buggy NPCs, non-actor performances, System Shock, Façade, Hitman, Out for Delivery and other related topics. tinyurl.com/45t5uzht

STRAFTAT is suchcatnip...

Teruo Ishii's Horrors of Malformed Men (1969) still haunts me...

Northern Journey's one-of-a-kind artstyle is one of the most beautiful ever devised?

snubs to STRAFTAT, Mask Quest... I guess none of these devs wanted to pay the $75 entry fee?

Popeye!! he needs me he needs me he needs me he needs me

my exact thoughts this morning...

Be assured: the best map of the video game landscape is not the official map.

And in terms of the book's ideas?

Any good critical reportage you recommend reading?

saw a smell-o-rama screening of this at ACMI and it really ties the experience together...

@radiatoryang.bsky.social Hey Robert, have you played STRAFTAT? Been wishing for some mod-literate writing on the game but haven't been able any...

Got this near the top of my wishlist! Love to be intrigued by screengrabs I can't decipher...

Sounds interesting. Can you explain the title?

Dale and Dawson has something going for it: an Among Us-like set in a staitionery company's office. "Slackers" have to try to watch cat videos and sabotage the office without getting caught...
store.steampowered.com/app/2920570/...

The movie to watch is Teryama's Fruits of Passion

This Nosferatu is no Klaus Kinski

Genuinely the most exciting thing to hear about a game:

Not hostile, just trusting. A subtle, beautifully strange game.

Save 18% on My Summer Car on Steam My Summer Car is the ultimate car owning, building, fixing, tuning, maintenance AND permadeath life survival simulator. You start the game with hundreds of loose parts and assemble both car and engine...

The most beautifully strange video game experiment in authenticity turns v1.0 today.

Full of the simplest, most moving moments: trundling down a dirt road, wondering what's going on with a boat speeding across a lake. Not hostile, just trusting.

store.steampowered.com/app/516750/M...

JIGGLY ZONE JIGGLY ZONE by Sylvie and Hubol

Full piece:
thatsnot.fun/jiggly-zone/