For years now, I’ve been a frequent guest on various video game podcasts, especially Three Moves Ahead and The Game Design Roundtable. I’ve always enjoy the format and have now decided to start one of my own. Thus, I’d like to announce the Designer Notes podcast, in which I sit down with noted game designers to discuss why we make games.
The folks at Idle Thumbs offered to host the podcast, which greatly helped getting this new endeavor started. My first guest is Rob Pardo, formerly the Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard. We had such a long discussion that I had to break it into two parts, and the first half ranges from his first gaming memories through StarCraft, Brood War, and Warcraft 3. I’ll be posting the second half in early December. Future guests include Frank Lantz, Henrik Fåhraeus, Jon Shafer, Daniel Cook, Brad Muir, Brian Reynolds, Chelsea Howe, and Daniel Benmergui.
EDIT: The second half is now available.
Great first episode, it was really interesting to hear the behind the scene of the balancing, of some of my favorite games.
I enjoyed the first episode very much. It was very interesting to know some of Blizzard’s work and while I’m not a big fan of Starcraft or World of Warcraft I totally respect Pardo’s work and totally get where he’s coming from. Now I understand why his games tend to be more competitive and offensive in nature, and while I certainly can appreciate that to some extent I prefer a more defensive, leisurely-paced, turn-based experience.
Keep up the good work Soren. Hope to see many more podcasts like these in the near future. Often, if possible 🙂