Double Fine’s Greg Rice is joined by Louis Castle, co-founder of Westwood Studios, for a full play-through of the beloved 1994 platformer "The Lion King." Louis tells the story of how, with a small team and a tight schedule, Westwood developed the spiritual successor to the 16-bit classic "Aladdin" at a time when action platformers were still king and the Disney Renaissance was in full swing.
Programmer on Costume Quest 2 and Mother superfan Ben Burbank shows off selected scenes from the entire trilogy and explains the complicated history of this beloved cult series. Featuring a mix of Japanese and English releases, fan translations, and imported hardware, Ben takes us on a journey through the bizarre cultural mashups and heartfelt story that define Mother. In the first chapter of this three part episode, Ben presents Mother, the Famicom RPG that spawned the cult classic series. Never released in the US yet still translated internally by Nintendo, the build was eventually leaked out into the wild. Part 2 brings us Mother 2, or Earthbound, as it is known in the West. Building on and improving nearly all aspects of the original, this release saw a limited run in the US that was perhaps cursed by it's oversized packaging and strange marketing campaign. The trilogy ends with Mother 3, a title which began development for the N64 DD unit before being switched over the the Game Boy Advance due to technical issues. Still unreleased in the US, a translation was created by the Starmen.net community to help fans in the US finally experience this emotional end to the series.
Massive Chalice producer Anthony Vaughn and artist Geoff Soulis take a trip to the legendary game dungeon of Backbone Entertainment head Mike Mika to play the unreleased Gauntlet DS. The plug was pulled on Gauntlet DS shortly before its release after unfortunate events caused the title to be bumped from one publisher to another. Hear the untold story of how this labor of love never saw the light of day. In true Gauntlet fashion, Mike, Anthony, and Geoff tackle the campaign in multiplayer wireless. Much of the game is explored up to the first boss fight, showing off the "greedy co-op" gameplay hooks that made Gauntlet a hit. Mike, Anthony, and Geoff try out the new (at the time) multiplayer deathmatch mode. Backbone created a bunch of unique arenas just for deathmatch, with modes like free for all, team play, and capture the flag. This closing episode also includes the final thoughts on the games development .
Hack N Slash creator Brandon Dillon and producer Matt Hansen get to the roots of Brandon’s inspiration by cracking open the NES classic The Legend of Zelda, literally. After taking apart the cartridge, de-soldering and dumping the rom, and booting the game up in an emulator, Brandon sets about altering the running memory of the game to cheat his way through and unlock some unexpected secrets about how the game was developed. Part 1 features Brandon explaining his personal history with the game along with some of the motivations behind it's development. Part 2 features Brandon and Matt taking apart the Zelda cart to get to the sweet, sweet rom inside. In Part 3, Brandon and Matt prepare to play the Zelda rom in the best way possible- by disassembling an NES controller and re-wiring it to work as a PC USB controller. In Part 4, Brandon alters the running memory of the rom in real time, causing some interesting changes to happen in the game. IPS file from Brandon: UEFUQ0gAQG4AGZgRCgwUJRclHBUKHBEpJAsOJAsbCh8OLCUAbQwAAXIAqWoAJRgY FCQiGB4kFRgXECQkJCSkZA4XGB4QESgkFBINLCwsJCQkJOQAqxcAMxgRJBEOIiQk JBIkDxgeFw0kCiQMGBgVJB0bEgoXEBUOJB0YGCkkFRgfDiQiGB4oJBwSHAGlCgAY IhgeGyQcEhwdDhskIw4VDQokIAoXHRwkAaU2AAAACSQBpVAAGB0YJBkVCiIkERIN DiQXJBwODhQkEhckJAGllgALHREOJA8YGw4cHSwBpaEAAAANJAGl3AAYEh0qHCQN ChcQDhsYHhwsJAobDiQiGB4kAaYiABgLGwofDiQOFxgeEBEkHRgkEBgkDxIXDSQB pmgABBEOGy4Bpm0AAAATJAGmkgAAAAQkAaauAAAAGCQBptkAAAAJJAGm9AAAABgk Aac6AAAAESQBp2oAAAAEJAGnggAUEQ4bJBESDRIXECQcGRgdJBIcJCQBp6UAAAAH JAGnygASGRsOHR0iJBAYGA0sLCwkJCQkRU9G
Doom history enthusiast and Spacebase creator JP LeBreton joins id Software co-founder John Romero as the two play though the first episode of Doom, “Knee Deep in the Dead,” in its entirety. John Romero’s run through each level turns up fresh and encyclopedic insight into how this genre-defining title was designed and set the stage for first-person action games for years to come. This first part introduces us to JP and his long history with Doom before taking a trip to John Romero's house to kick off the marathon play session.
In the season finale of DEVS PLAY, speedrunner Stephen "SMK" Kiazyk sits down with Tim Schafer and members of the Psychonauts development team to demonstrate how certain bugs and glitches can be exploited to skip entire sections of the game.
Season 2 of Devs Play kicks off with a visit from Ted Price of Insomniac Games, playing the classic Playstation platformer Spyro the Dragon.
Season 2 of Devs Play continues with a visit from Ted Price of Insomniac Games, playing the classic Playstation action game Ratchet & Clank.
As we look back at the history of 3D platforming games, this next entry stands as a point of evolution with influence still felt today. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" was a near perfect realization of action and platforming combined with a revolutionary time control mechanic. Double Fine's Greg Rice is joined by game director Patrice Désilets to talk about how it came to be.
Our time with Patrice continues with a jump forward to Assassin's Creed II. Building on the technological achievement of the first game, Patrice and his team shaped AC2 with new elements that would become foundational for the continuation of the franchise.
Tim Schafer is joined by Alex Evans, Siobhan Reddy, and Kareem Ettouney of Media Molecule to play the game he wishes he made, Little Big Planet.
Rex Crowle of Media Molecule is joined by Double Fine's Tim Schafer, Lee Petty, and James Spafford for a play session of Tearaway, a modern platformer with a unique look that left a huge impression on the Double Fine team.
Tim is joined by Jason Rubin, co-founder of Naughty Dog, to talk about the early days of the Playstation and the difficulty behind creating one of the most successful game characters ever.
Did you know Jason Rubin, co-founder of Naughty Dog, did all the particle effects work for Jak and Daxter? He shares this info and more with Double Fine's Tim Schafer in a tell-all interview that will leave you stunned.
Tim Schafer is joined by Michel Ancel, creator of the Rayman franchise for a look back at the first 3D installment in the series, Rayman 2. Michel recounts the development process with stories of the N64 and the difficulty of working in early 3D spaces.
We close out Devs Play season 2 with a look back at Michel Ancel's masterpiece "Beyond Good & Evil". Michel is joined by Tim Schafer and Greg Rice as they play through the opening moments of this rich, open world adventure that subverted expectations and remains conceptually fresh in today's market.
For the 27th anniversary of the seminal platformer masterpiece Super Mario 64 we've restored a "lost" entry in the Devs Play series originally recorded back in 2015 as part of the Psychonauts 2 announcement celebrations. This episode features Tim Schafer speaking with Giles Goddard, an industry pioneer in explorations of early 3D tech known best for 1080° Snowboarding, Star Fox, and the astounding X on the Game Boy.
In this special bonus episode of Devs Play, JP LeBreton walks John Romero through a demake of the Bioshock level "Arcadia" made in the Doom 2 engine.
Step into the castle, if you dare! Double Fine's senior gameplay programmer Anna Kipnis is joined by legendary designer Koji Igarashi for a playthrough of the genre classic "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night".
In this special installment of the Devs Play series we turn from the TV to the tabletop to explore the asymmetrical area control game of inter-dimensional horror, Cthulhu Wars, with special guest Sandy Petersen.
It’s a special day, a day of freaking out and trying to acquire a shiny new SNES classic. What better day then to publish this special SNES themed episode of Devs Play - our web series in which we play classic games with their creators, and talk about how they were made. This episode features Dylan Cuthbert of Q-Games (Pixel Junk Eden, The Tomorrow Children) chatting with us about Star Fox, for which he was the lead programmer. In this 50 minute episode we talk about the origins of the game, the challenges of making it, Nintendo design philosophies, the story of the lost vinyl soundtrack, Star Fox 2, and Miyamoto’s smoking habits.
Our Office Manager, Monica, takes the reigns of this episode, calling on knowledge from her former life as a student of ancient history to guide us through the game. Joining her is Maxime Durand, Ubisoft’s Production Coordinator and Historical Researcher who is responsible for the historical accuracy of the series, along with Monica’s friend and former colleague Bethany Simpson Ph.D, a lecturer at UCLA who together with Monica helped to excavate Karanis, a site that is featured in the game.