Space Game Junkie Podcast

Welcome to this week’s installment of the Space Game Junkie podcast. This week, Jim and I sit down with the designer of Starship Corporation, David Murent, to discuss his cool looking spaceship design and crew management game. While we had fun doing the podcast, we ran into two problems that were entirely my fault. First, in Open Broadcaster Software, my microphone was disabled and I forgot to re-enable it, meaning the video below has no audio from me, only David and Jim. The second problem was deeper than the first, as I spent so much time focusing on playing the game in front of my I forgot to actually, you know, interview the guest and help run the podcast (thanks to those folks who pointed this out to me as well). I could try to blame this on the early hour we recorded (6 AM my time), but I don’t think that’s it. While Jim and I love doing the videos for these, we’re discussing how to do them better so I can focus less on the game and more on actually recording the podcast. This is something I’ll be working on, and I hope y’all will be patient with me as I strive to improve. While we’re including the video below, please no that it might be tough to follow what’s going on. Despite all this, I had a really fun time playing this very early version of the game, and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Thanks for listening and watching.

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I sit down with Sasu Kemppainen, game designer at Team Jolly Roger to talk about their planetary artillery game, Interplanetary. After kindly providing Jim and I with Steam codes, we played through a multiplayer session of the game while discussing its history and its future. It’s a fun podcast because there’s a lot of trash talk, and it’s a fun game because it’s both relaxing and tense. ;) As always, we hope you enjoy the show and invite you to leave your comments below or contact us directly at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening!

On this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast, Jim and I don’t have a guest (which was my fault this time), so we talk about the latest happenings in the news, including the recent X Rebirth patch, Distant Worlds: Universe coming to Steam and a whole lot more. It’s a fun conversation…well, it was for us at least. ;) As always, we hope you enjoy the show and invite your comments and questions both below and at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening. :)

Hey folks, welcome to episode 59 of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! Wow, almost sixty of these things, can you believe it? ;) This week, Jim and I sit down with Chris Stockman, owner of Bit Planet Games. Chris and his crew are working on a re-release/re-imagining of SOL: Exodus under the new name Exodus of SOL. It’s a very vibrant discussion about the game itself, the nature of the gaming industry, and of course we veer off topic a bit, but it’s all in good fun. :) Now, while we also did a video for this podcast via Twitch.tv, we had some technical difficulties with Skype, so after maybe 25 minutes, you can pretty much only hear me on the video. We’re looking into making sure that doesn’t happen again, but because of this, I’m not going to embed the video below. You can watch it here if you want to try to sync up the audio, however. Thanks for listening (and watching if you’re brave), and enjoy the show. :)

Hey folks, welcome to the first podcast this year celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Freespace 2, still the best space combat sim around (yeah, I said it). In this installment, Jim and I talk to Fabian “The E” Woltermann, currently elected leader of the Freespace Source Code Project (whose home is at Hard Light Productions). In this lengthy installment, we discuss the history of the project, some of the more high-profile mods and total conversions of the game such as the Blue Planet mods or the Diaspora total conversion based on Battlestar Galactica. While we discuss the game and its mods, I played them on Twitch.tv as well, which might explain my random outbursts if you’re just listening to the audio. ;) As always, thanks for listening, and contact us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com or in the comments below if you have any comments or questions. Also, after the cut will be some helpful links and some videos showing off the beauty of the source code project. Enjoy! In the show, we discuss the Freespace Open Installer, which is a Java application that downloads all of the mods and files you need to get the Source Code Project’s enhancements up and running. If you’ve never played Freespace 2 before, we suggest you play through that first so as not to be spoiled by other mods that continue the story, such as Blue Planet featured above. Once you’ve finished the game, you can also head over to Battuta’s Guide to Finding Your First (Or Next!) Campaign to see a list of the best of the best in campaigns, and there are several. If you have any questions about getting anything to run, please say so in the comments and we’ll try our best to help you, or head to Hard Light for more help if you feel you need it. If you want more evidence as to the beauty of this game, check out these videos as well. :) Enjoy!

Welcome to this episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! In this episode, Jim and I have neither topic nor guest, so we just go off on a random tirade of gaming, looking at some of the recent releases such as The Last Federation, Eterium and others, and just basically catch up with what we’ve been playing. It’s a pretty laid back show, so we hope you all enjoy it. As always, you can hit us up with comments, questions or suggestions by going to the comments section or contacting us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com! Thanks for listening, and as an aside, thanks to everyone who voted for us on iTunes! We got enough votes to have a five star rating! YAY! Love you guys! :)

Hello folks, and welcome to this week’s Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week, Jim and I sit down with the developer of the fun, open worldy space game Space Salvager, Sam Albon, to talk about his game, developing on XNA, the British school system and a lot more. We did this at 6 AM my time, so I’m a bit…woozy, I guess is the best term, so I apologize for not being as on point as I could’ve been. ;) Regardless, it was a really fun discussion covering what is a really fun game that you should all play. ;) As always, we welcome your comments below as well as your emails at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening, and enjoy! :)

Hey folks, welcome to this week’s episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast. This week, Jim and I sit down with John Brewer, developer of the hard sci-fi 4X game Slower than Light, which is currently going through a Kickstarter campaign. As the name might suggest, in this universe, light is indeed the speed limit, and there are no cheats like wormholes or jumpgates or any of that nonsense. This makes the game take on a whole new flavor from other 4X games I’ve played, a much…creepier…flavor. ;) The conversation is really fun, and we also talk about the trials and tribulations of Kickstarter as well. :) As always we invite your comments below, or welcome you to email us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Also, the video below has a few more minutes of us chatting, if you prefer going that route. Enjoy! :)

Hey folks, welcome to this latest episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! Now, this week we did something a bit different. Rather than talk to a game developer, as is our usual, we brought on author John Hemry. Under the pen name Jack Campbell, he has written an entire series of books called the Lost Fleet series (the first being Dauntless), which in the beginning focuses on a fleet of starships trying to make it home along a long slog through enemy territory. Jim and I have both read these books (I more than him), and we were FASCINATED by the unique way space combat is handled in the series. Basically, since light is a limitation/speed limit when in combat, the amount of time it takes light to travel affects everything you do, from when you see something to when you react to something. It’s really amazing stuff, so Jim and I were thrilled to talk to John about his military background and how that helped him come up with the concepts of movement and combat in the books. We had some technical difficulties, and I apologize for not talking much as I was fighting a cough the whole time, but thankfully Jim picked up the slack. We hope you enjoy it. :) As always, we look forward to your comments below, and invite you to email us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com if you have any further comments or suggestions for future shows. Thanks for listening! P.S. Since the stream had some serious audio issues, I’ve decided not to include it here, but it’s on YouTube if you REALLY wanna check it out. ;)

Hey folks, welcome to the latest episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week, Jim and I take a look back at the games we’ve covered on the podcast and basically ask, “Where are they now?”. In some cases, the games we’ve looked at have come a long way, but in some cases, sadly not so much. Join us as Jim and I take a look back and see how these games are doing… As always, we welcome your comments below and your letters at hail@spacegamejunkie.com! Thanks for listening/watching, and enjoy! :) Episode #53 Show Notes: These are the episodes/games we discussed this week in order of episode, and the links point to the most recent news/info. * Episode #03: Rogue System (YouTube) * Episode #04: Chris. Freaking. Roberts. * Episode #05: Escaping Titan * Episode #10: Infinite Space 3 * Episode #13: Dominium * Episode #14: Rodina * Episode #15: Ring Runner * Episode #17: Void Destroyer * Episode #18: Galactose * Episode #21: Distant Worlds * Episode #23: Eterium (Desura) * Episode #25: Star Ruler 2 * Episode #27: Wings of Saint Nezaire * Episode #29: Star Villains and Space Heroes * Episode #30: Enemy Starfighter * Episode #32: PULSAR: Lost Colony * Episode #34: Mandate * Episode #35: SkyJacker * Episode #38: The Last Federation * Episode #41: Galactic Civilizations III * Episode #42: Star Quest 2

Welcome, folks, to this week’s podcast. This time Jim and I are trying something new. Using the IRC and Twitch channels, we’re gonna start doing these things live (you can tune in here, by the by) and this first run through has us talking to Douglas Triggs of Lensflare Games about his MacOS/iOS tactical space combat game, Tactical Space Command (which now has a lite version to try out too). TSC is akin to the old Harpoon games where you’re basically the admiral in the CIC center commanding your ships from afar, and it’s a pretty great game. Douglas also made for a pretty entertaining guest, so this plus the IRC interaction made for an interesting experiment which we hope you enjoy. As always, we invite your comments below as well as your letters at hail@spacegamejunkie.com, which we will always read on the air. Thanks for listening/watching, and enjoy the show. :)

A little while back, I got an email from the developer of Ascent – The Space Game, James Hicks, telling me about his game. I love when I get emails like this because I can’t track down all the space games myself, you know? ;) So after playing the Unity-based browser space sim (and don’t let that fool ya, it’s a totally awesome game), I contacted James and asked him to come on the podcast to tell us more about his game. This game, to me, is totally reminiscent of Frontier: Elite II, and that is a very, very good thing. Therefore please join Jim and I as we talk to James about his game, Australia, game development and a bunch more. :) As always, if you have questions or comments on this show, leave ’em in the comments below. You can also email us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com if you’d like to ask us questions or leave comments that we’ll likely read on the show itself. ;) Thanks for listening folks, and enjoy! :)

So as of this week guys, Jim and I have been doing this show for a whole year. While we’ve missed a week here and there for various reasons, we’ve done this thing almost weekly for an entire year, so not only are we hitting our anniversary, but also our fiftieth show, so double milestone! :) In this episode, Jim and I look back at how the show has gone, some things we (okay, I) can be doing better, talk about a bunch of fun, randomy stuff, and then answer your emails. It was a really fun time! :) As always, if you have questions or comments, you can leave them in the comments below, or write us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com and we’ll read your email on the show. :) Thanks for listening folks, and have an awesome day! Episode #50 Important Links:

Hey folks, welcome to this week’s episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast! This week Jim and I sit down with Lead Programmer Andrew Hume and Lead Designer Richard Clifford of MinMax Games to talk about their recently announced piece of amazingness, Space Pirates and Zombies 2. It’s a lengthy podcast that I actually prepared for this time, so we ask a lot of questions and get a LOT of great info in return. :) If you’d like to get in touch with us, leave a comment below or email us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. We hope to start getting enough emails to read ’em on the show regularly. ;) Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoy the show. :) Episode #49 Show Notes: Links: * MinMax Games * Radical Entertainment * Space Empires and Zombies * Space Empires and Zombies 2

Hey folks, welcome to the latest episode of the Space Game Junkie Podcast. I apologize for getting this up so late, as Jim sent it to me days ago, but I had the busiest weekend ever, so I didn’t really have time to put it up until now. I also don’t have time to do the detailed show notes this week either (I might have to pair those down in general since they take an awful long time sometimes). :( On a happier note, Jim and I talk about a lot of awesome stuff, like news, games we’re playing and immersion in video games, based on our own experiences plus those you — our awesome readers — shared with us. It made for a great discussion, and we hope you enjoy it. :) As always, you can leave comments below, or contact us at hail@spacegamejunkie.com if you’d like to contact us directly. Also, while I’m thinking of it, we’re thinking of doing some kind of write-in show, so hey, write us with questions you have and we’ll answer ’em on a future show. ;) Thanks for listening, as always folks! :) Quick Show Notes Miscellany * Robbaz Skyrim Playlist