Pursuing Pixels

112: There‘s a Reason Books Have Covers

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  We've got a whole bunch of video game goodness to gab about this week—and we're even semi-timely for a change, haha—so let's get right into it...
We kick things off with Goodboy Galaxy, a *brand new* metroidvania coming to the Game Boy Advance, cartridge and all!  We hang around on the classic Nintendo handheld for a little while longer, as Randall recently polished off Metroid Fusion, now he's finding more & more time to play games again, post-graduation!! :D
From there, Kevin & John get to take yet another stab at virtual reality, this time finally getting to see what Half-Life: Alyx is all about over at our buddy Mikee's place...
Finally, John closes things out with a duo of photography games, first sharing some more thoughts on New Pokémon Snap after it has received a free update or two, followed by a glowing endorsement for Umurangi Generation—a 'current-apocalyptic' first-person adventure off the beaten path!
 
Timestamps:
Goodboy Galaxy  -  00:01:26
Metroid Fusion  -  00:09:56
Half-Life: Alyx + VR  -  00:28:34
New Pokémon Snap  -  00:38:12
Umurangi Generation  -  00:44:12
 
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Episode Number Interview Edition — w/ Matt Glanville

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, we are once again joined by the one-and-only Matt Glanville!  We've raved about pretty much all of Matt's games on the podcast in the past, and it is truly an honor to have him on the show again, this time for a more in-depth discussion about his own work!
We chat about everything from the quick & punchy arcade action of Matt's first three indie games, to his upcoming turn-based tactical sports game, Dungeon Deathball...
And we certainly don't stop there!  Half-Life 2, virtual reality, marketing your own games, financial uncertainty, and so on...
 
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111: You‘re Really Close to a Bullet

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, we are fortunate enough to be joined by yet another indie game developer, Matt Glanville!  We've raved about pretty much all of Matt's games on the podcast in the past, and it is truly an honor to have him on the show to talk about some video games—and he'll be on again next week for a more in-depth discussion about his work!
In the meantime, Matt & Kevin have both been playing some SNKRX and admiring its deep, but simple design—and have a strikingly similar experience with the game.  And while we're on the topic of shmups, Matt also fired up Alien Death Mob after we mentioned it a few weeks ago on the podcast...he's getting his butt kicked too!
From there, we talk about a couple of incredibly charming, and deceptively tricky, retro-inspired platformers—Miles & Kilo, which we've raved about on the podcast before, and Mekabolt, which is the first game Kevin has actually 'beat' in quite some time!
Speaking of things we've discussed on the podcast before, Matt is sinking his teeth into the Picross S Series that John has sang the praises of many times before.  He's also been getting some casual gaming in with a little one of his own, and getting some mileage out of some cute & playful Nintendo Switch demos with his son!
Finally, we wrap things up with Snakebird Primer after bringing up the game's far more difficult successor a few weeks back on the podcast, as Kevin & Matt seemingly had the same experience with the original game.
 
Timestamps:
SNKRX -  00:04:38
Alien Death Mob  -  00:10:57
Miles & Kilo  -  00:16:14
Mekabolt  -  00:22:05
Picross S Series  -  00:25:29
Yoshi's Crafted World & Captain Toad  -  00:34:25
Snakebird Primer  -  00:37:48
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Save it for the ‘cast! — Issue #6

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels, and welcome back to another edition of 'Save it for the 'cast!'
After a bit of a hiatus, Randall was back on the podcast last week for the first time in a few months—he's done with school for good now, so it's nothing but video games from here on out... :)
All kidding aside, it was great catching up with Randall last week—so much so that we ended up chatting for 2+ hours before we started rolling, including a whole bunch of video game goodies that we're bringing to you this week!
Before we get to that, Kevin gives a quick shoutout to our pal HIS, who is not only responsible for our incredible new artwork, but also spent some time getting his ass whooped in Samurai Gunn 2 this past weekend—which is shaping up to be one of the most promising fighting games in recent memory!
Kevin is also absolutely HOOKED on Kingdom: Two Crowns again, after finally digging into the Dead Lands DLC, a seemingly *random* crossover with the Bloodstained series?  Whatever the reason for its existence, we'll take any excuse to play some more Kingdom! :D
 
Timestamps:
Samurai Gunn 2 -  00:01:06
Kingdom: Two Crowns  -  00:04:08
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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110: Mike Wazowski in Jelly Bean Form

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  Randall is back on the podcast this week after knocking out the remainder of his chaotic school schedule—he and Kevin don’t miss a beat, so let’s talk about some video games!
Kevin kicks things off with a couple of games that he was playing with his little cousins while back home in Michigan for his Brother’s wedding recently—along with the obligatory Mario Golf: Super Rush rant.
After that, Randall & Kevin dig into Toodee and Topdee, which has been one of our most anticipated upcoming indie games for quite some time now—and now that it’s here, we can safely say there was VERY good reason for us to be so excited!  An expertly balanced blend of precision and puzzle, with the added polish and charm that truly sets this one apart as a future indie ‘classic.’  Speaking of games that take a genre and apply a small wrinkle or twist, Kevin and Randall also check out some Voidrun from Benjamin Soulé (the other half of PUNKCAKE Délicieux with Rémy Devaux, who we recently chatted with on the podcast).
Finally, Randall wraps things up by kickstarting the process on his resolution game from this past year’s Holiday Episode and finally polishing off Ori and the Blind Forest, in preparation for the game’s sequel, Will of the Wisps.  Ori tends to come up every now and again when we get on the topic of metroidvanias, and Randall reminds us why this gorgeous adventure is so memorable!
 
Timestamps:
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 -  00:05:55
Mario Golf: Super Rush  -  00:08:20
Disney TSUM TSUM Festival  -  00:13:54
Toodee and Topdee  -  00:25:05
Voidrun  -  00:34:16
Ori and the Blind Forest  -  00:42:25
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Episode Number Interview Edition - w/ dev_dwarf

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, we’re joined again by game developer extraordinaire, dev_dwarf, to chat with him about his work—which we’ve raved about many times before on the podcast...even when he wasn’t here! :D
We’ve been huge fans of everything that Dwarf has been doing ever since we first got our hands on Lianthus, a mysterious action adventure released alongside his Noisy Bug partner, Lewmoth—who was actually our first ever guest interview on the podcast!  We chat about everything from dev_dwarf’s current & future projects, collaborating with others, coding mechanical ‘playgrounds’ for other people’s games, game jams…….
Needless to say, we could chat with Dwarf for days, and we’re super grateful to him for spending a couple of weeks chatting indie games with us, both behind-the-scenes and otherwise!
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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109: Weird Clay Homunculus Horrible Creature

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, Kevin is the only ‘Pixel’ in the building—but our pal (and incredibly talented game developer) dev_dwarf was gracious enough to spend some time chatting indie games with us before we dug into a deeper discussion/interview with him about his games & process, which will be out next week!
We’re obviously big fans of what the folks over at PUNKCAKE Délicieux are doing, after being in love with their first game, Antecrypt, and having a lovely chat with Rémy Devaux on the podcast a few weeks back—and their second monthly game, Metavaxx, is continuing the trend of awesomeness, blending the strategy of Minesweeper with the frantic action of an arcade shmup!  It even led to a few ‘Morkalb teaches Minesweeper’ sessions over in our Discord lately, which was a ton of fun! :D
dev_dwarf had the opportunity to check out the demo for PRODUCER (2021) from indie dev prodigy, Stuffed Wombat, which is shaping up to be quite the ‘one-of-a-kind’ experience—we also gave Gutwhale, and a couple of Wombat’s other games some love, as well!  After that, Dwarf tells Kevin (and the rest of us) why we absolutely need to check out the Hylics games, a delightfully bizarre series of RPGs that flaunts an impressive & unique claymation art style.
Before we wrap things up, Kevin rants a little bit more about his disappointment in Mario Golf: Super Rush, before cleansing the palette with Part Time UFO, a lesser-known first-party game on Nintendo Switch (and mobile) from HAL Laboratory. 
 
Timestamps:
Antecrypt  -  00:02:52
Metavaxx  -  00:04:07
↳  Minesweeper  -  00:05:05
PRODUCER (2021)  -  00:12:52
↳  Gutwhale  -  00:15:52
↳  qomp  -  00:21:54
Hylics 1 & 2  -  00:23:45
Mario Golf: Super Rush  -  00:34:44
Part Time UFO  -  00:37:54
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Save it for the ‘cast! — Issue #5

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels, and welcome back to another edition of 'Save it for the 'cast!'
Before we get the video game chit chat going this week, Kevin gives some quick updates on a few new things we've got going on...
First things first, it's been an absolute pleasure having the guests we've had on the show recently, and we're looking forward to bringing you more conversations with some of our favorite developers—not only for interviews, but to geek out about indie & retro games with them, as well!  The next two on deck: our pals dev_dwarf & Matt Glanville.
We also officially announce The PP Potpourri Club—a 'book club' consisting of five hand-selected 'name your price' (aka: free) indie games each week—which we will be releasing as a series of collections on our itchio page!
Lastly, we're going to be foregoing the previously mentioned Patreon from a few weeks back in favor of keeping everything all in one place over on our Ko-fi page—and now that they have announced membership tiers for all members, we will be rolling out a few *cool* perks really, really soon! :D
 
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108: Dopey Version of Mii

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  We’re back at it again this week, kicking things off with one of Kevin’s most anticipated releases on Nintendo Switch this year, Mario Golf: Super Rush.  Unfortunately, it’s a pretty big time bust in his opinion...but there is always hope for things getting smoothed out in future updates—at the very least, it’ll definitely be nice to see some new courses!
Kevin’s also been playing some Snakebird lately, which has left him scratching his head after clearing only a handful of levels.  After that, John finally takes a deeper dive into some games from one of our favorite indie developers out there, Kultisti, and we chat about a couple of their more recent releases!  We also touch upon Lonely People Potion Shop once again, which was their offering to the Care Package Bundle, put together by our pal, JUSTCAMH.
 
Timestamps:
Mario Golf: Super Rush  -  00:01:35
Snakebird  -  00:16:20
More awesome games from Kultisti  -  00:22:37
↳  Cats n Wires  -  00:23:36
↳  Cog Owl  -  00:28:04
↳  Lonely People Potion Shop  -  00:30:44
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Episode Number Interview Edition - w/ Megan Carnes

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, our friend (and also a game designer & composer) Megan Carnes joins us once again, this time to chat a little more about her work!
We dig into all sorts of different topics with Megan this time around, including a dive into her first game, inter-view, her musical background and influences, the logistics of balancing life and work as a freelancing artist & independent game designer, and much more…
We’re looking forward to having some more guests on the show in the future and already have a couple more of our favorite game designers lined up for future episodes—can’t wait to start bringing y’all some more ‘behind-the-scenes’ discussions on the week’s when we aren’t releasing one of our core, numbered episodes.
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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107: Little Baby Tutorial Stages

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  For this episode, we are joined by game designer & composer (and our friend), Megan Carnes!  She’s sitting down with us this week to chat some video games, per usual, and will be joining us again next week to chat some more about her work…
But before that, John is still on his Warhammer 40,000 kick, as he’s now made his way over from the tabletop to the PC, as he explores the vast waters of Dawn of War - Dark Crusade.  He’s also doing a pretty darn good job of piquing our interest when it comes to the Warhammer franchise.
From there, Megan tells us a little about Cozy Grove, which has really captured her attention as of late and keeps her coming back for daily 20-30 minute, bite-sized play sessions—and we also get a little into Animal Crossing & Stardew Valley, which it’s nearly impossible not to draw comparisons between.
Finally, we wrap things up with a handful of awesome games from the recent itchio Bundle for Palestinan Aid, which featured a whole slew of awesome indie games to add to our never-ending backlogs!?!  But, if you’re looking for some arcade and/or puzzle action, we’ve got ya covered...
 
Timestamps:
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - The Dark Crusade  -  00:01:45
Pikmin 3  -  00:06:23
Cozy Grove  -  00:09:00
Stardew Valley  -  00:11:28
Itch.io Bundle for Palestinian Aid  -  00:15:08
↳  Mixolumia  -  00:15:46
↳  Alien Death Mob  -  00:19:38
↳  Death Drives a Bus  -  00:21:17
↳  ART SQOOL  -  00:23:24
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Episode Number Interview Edition - w/ Rémy Devaux of PUNKCAKE Délicieux

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, we're joined by Rémy Devaux, who is 50% of newly-formed indie dev duo, PUNKCAKE Délicieux, alongside veteran game designer Benjamin Soulé.  They're going to be releasing a new game every month on their itchio page...or you can snag all of their games at a discounted price via Patreon subscription—and the games will eventually be coming to Steam, as well!
Kevin and Rémy talk about all sorts of video game shenanigans, including the previous works of the PUNKCAKE team on the PICO-8 fantasy console, Rémy's work on his custom SUGAR game engine, and all sorts of other fun stuff—including their very first game as a duo, Antecrypt.
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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106: Unlocked the Ability to Unlock

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  Kevin and John are keeping the video game train rolling this week, although John’s dipping his toes into a little tabletop action, as well…
But before we get to that, John is still spending loads of time with Monster Hunter: Rise and itching to sync up with some pals for an online multiplayer session—we’ll definitely have to check back in (again) once he does some cooperative monster hunting!  Kevin also gives a shout out to Ynglet, the latest game from indie game ‘legend’ Nifflas, before we dig deeper into what’s been consuming the majority of our time this week.
We gab quite a bit about the brilliantly designed (and absolutely gorgeous) Iris and the Giant, a lovely deckbuilding puzzle-strategy roguelite that Kevin has been having an extremely difficult time putting down, ever since picking it up!  And John has been spending a bunch of free time preparing his army for battle in Warhammer 40,000—everything from researching the many different factions to painting the figurines!
Finally, we wrap up with a discussion about Paper Mario: Sticker Star, which Kevin has been playing a good deal of, lately.  We’re both incredibly mixed on this game, for a multitude of different reasons, as it does so many things right, while missing the mark in more than a few ways...will Kevin see this one through to the end? 
 
Timestamps:
Monster Hunter: Rise  -  00:01:48
Ynglet  -  00:04:02
Iris and the Giant  -  00:08:46
Warhammer 40,000 (tabletop)  -  00:16:42
Paper Mario: Sticker Star  -  00:25:41
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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Save it for the ‘cast! — Issue #4

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels, and welcome back to another edition of 'Save it for the 'cast!'
Before we dig into the usual video gaming nonsense this week, Kevin kicks things off with the usual indie spotlight segment, including a whole bunch of retro & arcade influenced indie games that are true love letters to the games of yesteryear, while also innovating and bringing a little something fresh to the table!  
After that, John & Randall join in on the conversation as we go down a bit of a Game Boy Color rabbit hole, and go off the rails a little bit when it comes to taking care of ourselves as we start to get old(er), and how we all probably need to shave pretty darn soon! 
We also announced the launch of our new Ko-fi page, and an update about the Patreon, that is just about ready to go! :D
 
Timestamps:
Leaving the Tree  -  00:00:31
Antecrypt  -  00:02:08
Daisy Dangerous  -  00:03:43
Annalynn  -  00:04:57
*Our new Ko-fi page*  -  00:06:08
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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105: This is Gonna Turn Into Planet Earth

Welcome back to Pursuing Pixels.  This week, we’re talking about a bunch of stuff we’ve been playing on Nintendo Switch lately, before getting into a nostalgia-fueled discussion at the end of the episode.  Let’s get started!
John kicks things off with his thoughts on the latest first-party release from Nintendo, New Pokémon Snap—who would’ve thought we’d see the day where this game would exist!?!  He’s been really enjoying the relaxing ride so far, and we’re looking forward to hearing more about John’s expeditions in the future.
Kevin’s been bouncing around between a few different games on the Switch lately, with The Wonderful 101: Remastered  being where he’s been spending the bulk of his time—it’s definitely a little rough around the edges at times, but when this game shines, it really shines!  When he’s not taking down robo-baddies in style, he’s blowing ‘em away in a couple of awesome arcade shoot ‘em ups, Void Gore & Hell is Other Demons.
Finally, we wrap things up with a little Bomberman chat, spending most of our time raving about the fantastic iterations of the franchise on the TurboGrafx-16, Bomberman ‘93 & ‘94, along with some underrated gems on the Game Boy Advance & Nintendo 64.
 
Timestamps:
New Pokémon Snap  -  00:03:45
The Wonderful 101: Remastered  -  00:18:27
Void Gore  -  00:27:03
Hell is Other Demons  -  00:29:20
Bomberman is da bomb!  -  00:31:57
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen!  If you'd like to find us elsewhere on the internet, you can find us at:
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