Ken Gagne | PolygamerPolygamer - A Podcast of Equality & Diversity in Gaming & Video Games

Polygamer #92: Bobbi A Sand of Transcenders Media

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Bobbi Augustine Sand is the game designer and author of Knife Sisters, a visual novel published by Transcenders Media. In Knife Sisters, players assume the role of Leo, a non-binary twenty-something exploring BDSM relationships and the occult. Players navigate this black-and-white world by choosing who to spend time with, what kink to explore, and how to respond to new situations, all while safely negotiating power exchange and communicating consent.

Bobbi and I start this interview by reviewing the basics, such as what BDSM, edgeplay, and polyamory are, where gamers can learn more about these subcultures, and how people interested in kink can find each other. We discuss the different sexual cultures of Bobbi’s native Sweden versus my own in the United States, how the game’s adult content made it difficult to market internationally, and the resulting challenges for its Kickstarter. And, of course, we talk about Knife Sisters: the different ways Leo and Mo express consent; whether Naomi would’ve chosen to be childfree; how Dagger’s rituals fit into the theme of power exchange; and what exactly Kylo Zen is.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:39 — 26.8MB) | Embed

Polygamer #91: Alicia Caillier of Harmonix Music Systems

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Alicia Caillier is a product manager at Harmonix Music Systems, developer of music-rhythm video games such as Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Amplitude, and Frequency. Their most recent release is Dance Central for Oculus, the first virtual-reality entry in the long-running Dance Central series. For the first time, players can go online and explore a virtual dance club, learning moves from the game’s pros and tearing up the dance floor with other players.

In this podcast, Alicia and I talk about how a master’s degree in music business led to an internship at Harmonix, kicking off an unimaginable career in an industry she never expected. What is "music business", and how did it prepare her to work in video games? How did studying in Valencia inform her global perspective? What does a product manager do, and how do they help ensure a game is the right balance of difficulty and accessibility? What opportunities did Dance Central’s transition to virtual reality create, and what does it mean to create an inclusive virtual space? And just how good is DJ Pineapple at DropMix? All this and more in this week’s Polygamer!

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:41 — 28.2MB) | Embed

Polygamer #90: Athena Z Peters of Adventure Pub

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Athena Z Peters is the founder and co-owner of Adventure Pub, a gaming gastropub located in the suburbs of Boston in Arlington, Massachusetts. Friends, families, and strangers can order from a full food and drink menu, borrow from a library of 400 board games, card games, and role-playing games, and even reserve event space for their Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Whether you’re looking to try a game before you buy, discover something new, revisit a favorite classic, or enjoy a good meal, Adventure Pub will accommodate all these tastes.

Prior to Adventure Pub opening its doors in December 2018, Peters worked in the video games industry, most recently as an executive producer at Turbine, where she managed such projects as Lord of the Rings Online and Batman: Underworld. In this interview, I ask Peters what prompted the career change from digital games to physical; what’s behind the emerging trend of gaming cafés; whether the popularity of Game of Thrones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has driven players to board games; what rare or unusual games visitors might find in the pub’s library; whether she might open an indie game studio next; and how she juggles all this with her performance group, Incantrix Productions.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:37 — 29.5MB) | Embed

Polygamer #89: Twitch variety streamer SlyTQ

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Ken Gagne

TQ is a Twitch variety streamer and Take This Ambassador. Her channel frequently hosts charity streams in support mental health, children’s hospitals, and other non-profits close to her heart. This advocacy recently extended to PAX East, where TQ appeared on the panel “Avoiding Burnout in Creative Professions“, speaking from her experience working 60+ hours a week to maintain her channel and audience. In all her work, she focuses on how our differences as people make us better as a whole, rather than something we should have separate us.

In this podcast, we talk about how to launch a streaming career; separating one’s success and failures from one’s self-worth; using Patreon and Discord to build a community; the offline work that goes into maintaining a Twitch subscriber base; maintaining a healthy work/life harmony; avoiding creative burnout; how emotional support animals are different from service dogs; and the games she keeps to herself and won’t stream.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:12:46 — 34.2MB) | Embed

Polygamer #88: The Art of Craft at PAX East 2019

Posted on April 10, 2019 by Ken Gagne

The tenth annual PAX East was held last month, and I was honored to host two panels of brilliant speakers. One, “The Return of Couch Play”, can be seen and heard on the IndieSider podcast. The other was “The Art of Craft: Inspiring Game Creations”, featured on this week’s Polygamer podcast.

Video games are art — and art imitates video games. The characters, colors, and aesthetics of our favorite digital worlds have spawned an industry of apparel and crafts that keep us warm and add a flair of the fantastic to ourselves and our homes. We’ll hear from amateur, hobbyist, and professional artists and creators about the inspirations and tools they use to create, enjoy, and sell their custom clothes, jewelry, furniture, paintings, and more.

Featuring:

Ken Gagne [Digital Content Developer, Gamebits]
Johanna Shaw [Jill-of-All-Crafts, Shaw Asylum]
Chris Gonzalez [Owner & Designer, Dapper Pixel]
Adri [Storyteller, genericgeekgirl]
Roberto Hoyos [Co-host, That Thing You Made]

Watch the video above, or stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive.

Full disclosure: I backed Roberto Hoyos’ “Iconic Pillow Collection” Kickstarter.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:48 — 28.2MB) | Embed

Polygamer #87: Tifa Robles and The Explorers of Azullucent

Posted on March 6, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Tifa Robles is the author of The Explorers of Azullucent, a young-adult fantasy novel currently on Kickstarter. Over 16 years in the making, this book features a trio of diverse female protagonists on an epic adventure of discovery. Tifa is no stranger to writing, being a regular contributor to the board game website Tabletop-Test. Her love for gaming continues as co-host GenCon’s TableTakes show and as founder and former organizer of the Lady Planeswalker Society, a community for introducing players to Magic: The Gathering.

In this episode, Tifa and I reunite after three years since her last appearance on Polygamer. We chat about how her book has evolved over almost two decades; the advantages of going the crowdfunding, self-published route; who she turned to for help with peer reviews, art design, and crowdfunding; how a degree in creative writing informs her non-fiction writing; how a minor in biological anthropology can be essential to developing empathy; the challenges and tricks to being a writer with dyslexia; and how she juggles it all with being a mom.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05:34 — 30.9MB) | Embed

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