Jim, Brian, and Tom are gamers with roots in engineering, software development and the liberal arts (yes this is possible). Their focus is on general concepts, trends and challenges in gaming rather than the latest news or gaming gossip.
They record their discussions around games every two or three weeks. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or their RSS Feed.
Jim Fingal is an author and software developer. He's an avid gamer whose preferred platform is Xbox, and an avid reader whose preferred platform is paperback. He is not good at favorites, but is a fan of indie games and non-military-FPSs. His favorite writer of all time is David Foster Wallace.
Jim is interested in computer games as an expressive medium, especially those that explore novel narrative or ludic themes. The game designers and theorists he is currently most interested in are Jason Rohrer, Jonathan Blow, Chris Hecker, Ian Bogost, Edmund McMillen and Anna Anthropy (some content NSFW).
He unironically shed a few tears at the end of Passage, and can't wait to play Antichamber for real.
Brian Fife has spent most of his career working in the consumer electronics industry. The first game he remembers playing was Parsec on the Ti-99. He is highly vulnerable to rogue-like and rogue-like-like games.
Brian is fascinated by games that incorporate interesting systems, even if they aren't that much fun and often collapse under their own complexity. He also is interested in exploring the qualities that make a game "classic" and (re)playable over a long period of time.
Tom Westberg is an electrical engineer who (like many) spends most of his time these days writing software. Raised on the plains of Iowa, he fell in love with games the moment he saw his first nickel pinball machine at a skating rink. Tom worked at General Computer in the '80s and helped release several arcade and console titles, including Food Fight and the 7800 game console for Atari. His favorite game of all time is Robotron 2084.
Tom enjoys playing and collecting pinball machines. His philosophy is that computer games should be fun, period -- something that his co-hosts sometimes lose sight of.
We welcome your feedback, and hope you enjoy listening.
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