Space Game Junkie Podcast

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I talk to folks at Fugitive Games — including Ben Jones (Development Director), Roy Orr (Creative Director) and Alden Filion (Art Director) — about their upcoming space action adventure sim, Into the Stars. This was a wacky podcast because I was super tired and also had some technical difficulties getting the game’s trailer to repeat as we talked on the Twitch stream, so I’m trying to be on it, but I was likely not. ;) Ben, Roy and Alden were awesome though, and we learned a lot about the game. :) As always, we invite you to hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com or in the comments below if you have a suggestion topic or guest. A note about the video, finally. Somehow I didn’t start the stream the other night when the show started, so it’s missing the first 10-15 minutes I think, and for that I apologize. Regardless, thank you for listening/watching, and we hope you enjoy the show! :)    

Welcome to this latest episode of the Space Game Junkie podcast my friends! This week, Jim and I sit down with Chris Parsons, creator of the fascinating-looking open-space RPG combat and trading game, Sol Trader, which is also in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign. While the gameplay in this early version is still lacking a few things, as is to be expected, some facets of the game — such as character generation — are downright FASCINATING. Chris has been developing games a while, so we talk about this game, Kickstarter, game development and more, and it made for a great talk. :) Special thanks to Chris for getting up at the ungodly local time of 4 AM to talk to us. Usually it’s the other way around, so I appreciate it. ;) As always, we hope you enjoy the show, and if the game looks appealing to ya, I implore ya to through some coin Chris’ way. ;) The game seriously looks like it’ll be awesome, so the campaign deserves to succeed, I think. :) Thanks for listening/watching!

Welcome, my friends, to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week, Jim and I sit down with Daniel DiCicco to talk about his StarDrive series of games, such as what happened with the first game and the upcoming sequel, StarDrive 2. I play the game on the video while Jim does most of the talking this week (mostly because I was not only a bit out of it, but REALLY enjoying the game as well). We had a very long talk about the game, game development, press stuff and more, and it made for a great chat! :) A reminder that we brought Dan onto the show due to a bunch of folks asking for him to come on, so if you have someone you’d like to hear us talk to, hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening, and as always, we hope you enjoy the show!

Welcome to the first Space Game Junkie Podcast of 2015 my friends! Since we both took some time off during the holidays, in this podcast Jim and I shoot the sh#t as it were, catching up on stuff, talking about stuff we’ve been playing and looking forward to and so on. It was a fun talk, so I hope it makes a fun show for y’all. ;) Next week we’ll be talking StarDrive 2 with its developer, Daniel DiCicco! As always, if you have a suggestion for a guest or topic, please hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening!

Quite Note: This podcast was recorded on 12/23/14, but in the chaos surrounding the Christmas holiday I…forgot to upload it entirely. SO SORRY ABOUT THAT, and now that all the sales are done it seems silly to upload it so late, but we have to be consistent, so here it is for your enjoyment. Thanks for listening! Welcome to this holiday edition of the Space Game Junkie Podcast. In this episode, Jim and I talk deals, as the Steam sale is going strong and we have wallets that are ON FIRE with money wanting to be spent. Jim also plays some Star Trek Online while we talk. It’s a fun episode, we hope. ;) We hope you’re having a lovely holiday season, and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks when we return with new shows for the new year. Happy holidays!

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast. Why is this episode a little late? Because we were playing Elite: Dangerous! ;) This amazing game finally hit release this past Tuesday, and we couldn’t be more excited. Joining Jim and I for something of an online launch party are (in no particular order) are Ben, Matt, Wojciech, Carl, Kyle and Hunter for a little silliness and a lot of fun. There’s not much in the way of formal grouping in the game yet, so we did the best we could to meet up in the game and have some shenanigans. :) This might be one to watch on video more than audio this time, as a lot of us are reacting to what’s on-screen, but hopefully we have enough conversation going that audio folks can get some fun out of it. ;) Next week, with the Steam sale underway, we’ll talk about the joy and pain of sales, the best deals we can find, and more. Thanks for listening folks, and have a great weekend! PS. Lookit, bonus pre-show video if you want! ;)

Welcome, folks, to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I try to wash out the bad taste in our mouths left by Star Trek: Bridge Commander by talking about other games that focus on capital ships! Most of them good ones, too! ;) We spend a lot of time gushing about the amazing Star Trek: Klingon Academy (which we recently got running for the first time in years thanks to fan patches) along with the Independence War games and much more. It’s a fun, if random, discussion because we’re both exhausted and experiencing difficulties with our Internet connections, so we were a bit unfocused. ;) That said, it was a fun discussion on cap ship games, and now that we have KA working, stay tuned because we hope to do a full show dedicated to that amazing spectacle of a game (it seriously is that good folks). As always, we thank you for listening, and as always, we invite you to hit us up in the comments or at hail@spacegamejunkie.com if you have a guest or topic you’d like us to cover. Enjoy the show folks, and we’ll see you next week for our Elite: Dangerous launch party! YAY!

Welcome to this special impromptu edition of the Space Game Junkie Podcast!! In this special episode, Jim and I sit down with some folks who worked directly on the best game of all time (yeah, I said it), Freespace 2! Joining us are Adam Pletcher  (Lead Game Designer on Freespace 2, currently Studio Architect for Technical Art at Volition), Mike Kulas (Executive Producer on Freespace 2, Founder of Volition, Co-founder of Parallax Software), Dave Baranec (Lead Programmer on Freespace 2, currently Studio Architect for Core Systems at Volition) and Jason Scott (Designer and Writer on Freespace 2, currently Studio Design Director at Volition). To say I was nervous and trying NOT to fanboy all over these rock stars of the genre is something of an understatement. ;) That said, it was a damned fun show, and really informative as well. Y’all need to definitely tune in if you have any passing interest at all in either Freespace 2 or space gaming in general. If you weren’t able to join in the fun on Twitch, don’t fret. Apparently more folks from the original team wanna come on and do follow up episodes! OMGOMG I’m still on something of a bit of a high after all this, I kid you not, and knowing that it could happen AGAIN? Well…it’s just a bit overwhelming. That said, I truly hope you enjoy the show, and thank you for listening.  

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week, Jim and I dive into a topic we’ve honestly been kinda trying to avoid: Star Trek: Bridge Commander. Being the last space sim made by Totally Games (who made little things like X-Wing and TIE Fighter before this), there were a lot of expectations put on this title when it came out. We find that time doesn’t lessen the sting of those expectations, and ultimately find what ends up being an A for effort, but an overall barely passing grade for a space sim, if that. It just sounds so much more compelling on paper than it actually is in practice. I therefore invite you to join us as we basically eviscerate the game bit by bit. ;) We hope you enjoy the show, and also a note on the video. I had to use Nvidia Shadowplay to stream this, since my usual program, Open Broadcaster Software, wouldn’t work with it. When the game crashed, Shadowplay stopped streaming, resulting in a four-part video. I apologize for that, but there’s nothing that can be done about it, really. :/ I hope you still enjoy the video, and thank you for either listening or watching. :)

Welcome, my friends, to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast (also happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Americans! ;)! This week, Jim and I talk about a few things, such as a small glut of space games hitting Steam, the (at the time upcoming, currently ongoing) Steam Fall sale, and our main topic of the week, space game tropes! Tropes like: Why are pirates always like a biker gang? Why do they call big fighters, “bombers”? How come YOU always have to be in charge of the damned wing? That sort of thing. It made for a fun conversation, I’d like to think. ;) If you choose to watch the video, I choose a game from one of the sources of the tropiest of tropiest tropes, Star Wars. ;) Through emulation I got my PS2 copy of Jedi Starfighter working on my PC, so rather than stare at a bland image, you can watch something as well. ;) As always, if you have a suggestion for a guest or topic, hit us up in the comments or ping us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com, and join us next week when we talk about Jim’s favorite capital ship simulator, Star Trek: Bridge Commander! ;) Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy the show!

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week, Jim and I sit down with George Hultgren of Reason Generator Inc. to talk about their currently Kickstarting game, Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls. This is their second Kickstarter campaign this year, and this time they’ve tightened their focus into a sleek, procedurally generated single player experience that promises to offer quite lot of gameplay. Mixing elements of FTL, Star Control, Sentinel Worlds 1: Future Magic and other games, WTF: ZF allows you to not only pilot ships, but build and command space stations, board other ships, mine asteroids from WITHIN them and more. It’s a very neat experience to know that you can build a base, then build a ship, run around in both, and then board another ship for another little adventure. It also made for a fun podcast, as not only was I getting into trouble on the video, but George was debugging and patching the game AS HE WATCHED ME PLAY IT. That’s a first, let me tells ya. As always, we thank you for watching and/or listening, and encourage you to let us know if you’d like us to bring on a guest or talk about a topic. You can hit us up in the comments or by emailing us directly at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks again, and enjoy the show! :)

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I sit down with gaming legends Erich Schaefer and Travis Baldree — who worked on awesome games such as Diablo and Diablo 2, Fate and Torchlight — of Double Damage Games about their upcoming space action adventure combat capital ship masterpiece, Rebel Galaxy. I say “masterpiece” because GOD DAMN, even at this early stage, this game is just fantastic, and you can hear us gushing about the graphics, the usability, the combat and so much more. I mean, I don’t wanna jinx it or anything, but again, god damn! ;) It’s a damned fun conversation, and we hope you think so too! :) As always, if you have a request for a topic or guest for the show, please hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show! :) Edit: The above video has had its audio rebalanced so our voices are a bit more distinct. If you’d still like to check out the original video, you can do so here.

Hey folks, welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This time Jim and I talk to legendary indie developer Cliff Harris of Positech games about his space games, Gratuitous Space Battles and its upcoming sequel, Gratuitous Space Battles 2. It was really fun podcast as we discuss not only the development of these fantastic space games, but indie games in general, the rigors of game development, and much more. It’s a lively and fun show, to be sure. :) As always, if you have a guest or topic you would like us to cover, please feel free to say so in the comments below, or contact us directly at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy the show! :)

The title works best if you sing it to the classic Starship song. ;) Welcome to the Space Game Junkie Podcast my friends! This week, Jim and I sit down with partners and cousins Zachary Beaudoin and Eric Fagnan, Producer and Creative Lead respectfully on an upcoming multiplayer open space action combat adventure game thingy called Beyond Sol. We talk to them about their time at Bioware, their long-time love of games, Beyond Sol itself and how this game has come together in just three months. Seriously, this is a damned fun game and it’s only three months old, I kid you not. It’s a pretty fun podcast, all told. :) As always, if you have a comment or a guest/topic to suggest, leave them in the comments below or hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening/watching, and enjoy! :)

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I sit down with designer Joseph Young about his upcoming economic-based space 4X game, Apollo4X, which will be coming soon to GamersGate and is soliciting votes on Steam Greenlight. ;) Apollo4X is different than your typical 4X in that it’s far more macro and economically focused than the general Master of Orion clones out there. For example, there’s no research, no scouting and so on. What there ARE are interesting decisions and choices you have to make each turn, which results in something that’s quite different and in many ways truly unique. We had a great time listening to Joe talk about his game because he’s so dang passionate about it, and it ultimately made for an excellent podcast, or so I’d like to think. ;) As always, if you have a guest or topic you would like us to cover, please feel free to hit us up in the comments or directly at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening/watching, and enjoy the show! :)