Solon has left the site, but he has bestowed on us one final batch of goodies to leave his mark. Last PAX, Solon and Franny went around and interviewed a ton of developers about their games, and those interviews are now ready to be seen! We’ve uploaded them on YouTube, and they will be posted here for posterity as well.
At the end of a long, hectic day at PAX West 2023, Nikita Putilin of Owlcat Games completely wipes out a swarm of Necrons with an incredibly sick strategy. It’s hard to put this game down after seeing an insane fully kitted out Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader gameplay session. Solon might be on the job messing around, but the team at Owlcat assuredly are not.
The creator of Nour: Play With Your Food, TJ Hughes, talks in depth with us about the creation of this long-loved and well-loved culinary classic. How do you know when your creation is really done? How do you build soundscapes for the simply sublime? What food is your favorite? All this and more are answered on the PAX 2023 Showcase Floor in our extended preview of Nour.
Kenneth Engelsen is a tour guide to Phil and Kaja Foglio to take us to the biggest castle they’ve got to jump around in their new 3D platforming game: Girl Genius! The long-running webcomic is now going game! Solon asks the creators about how they’ve managed to adapt their precious work into video game form and what it is like to see and accept your art transformed so radically.
This Prinny is full of secrets, dood! Nick Odmark and Gina Kilcup took time out of their busy PAX West 2023 schedule to talk with us in depth about the multi-faceted many-armed approach that NIS America has in representing their labrynthian catalog of games like Disgaea and CRYMACHINA. It takes a village to keep up with NIS, but Solon figures if he stacks enough of the NIS America crew on top of eachother, they’ll get the job done!
Solon feels absolutely liberated in being able to represent Gamesline on the PAX Showfloor, speaking with Jacob Lewis from Play On Worlds to fully demystify this not-at-all-bizarre mashup! We got to leave PAX and go to The MIX next door to talk about how this game came to be and what it feels like inflicting it upon unsuspecting audiences. Does Tiny Tim die to give Scrooge a sick Red Hot Kick? What do the streets of 19th-century London and the Christmas spirit have to do with Igavania design?
Angelika Kaldus shows the Gamesline crew how The Invincible builds its existential threat out of subtlety within this upcoming space-survival adventure, a video game adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s hard sci-fi novel of the same name.
Playism is known for their huge catalog of niche titles from all over the Asian region—setting their path with the debut of the likes of games like Ib and La-Mulana, to now channeling efforts into an even more expansive library, through the release of thrilling sequels to cult hits like Fight Crab and Samurai Bringer—they are often exciting, high quality, and really representative of how game design bridges the east and west. Solon looks to complicate how they keep up on such a constant track of success within this interview.
Pepper Grinder is bound to be a Devolver Digital hit that Solon was most excited about, so he used his street gaming cred to quickly grab designer Riv Hester and composer Xeecee out of nowhere to ask them about speed, motion, gorgeous arcs, and all the musical beats there within!
So much has changed in a year’s time, but David and Morgan of Smol Games are back at PAX West 2023 with a massive overhaul of Hyde’s Haunt & Seek! Our previous interview with them went really in depth and this one is no different. We find out all the things that are on this young development team’s mind as they build out an unassumingly simple horror game with wildly complex, multiplayer scale.
We speak with Matthew White in this interview to find out how one of PAX’s major games publishers approaches curating their growing library of diverse and interesting games! What’s new coming from the publisher? Known for publishing titles like Calico and StarCrossed, do the politics around soft and wholesome labels create limitations when it comes to finding games and audiences?
The newest Boomer Shooter macho man joins us alongside director and audio fiend Casen Wiegman to talk about animation techniques, working as a team, and what it’s like building towards a genre they love so much.
Get out the cameras, cuz we’re cryptid hunting, homies! Adlan and the DARK SCIENCE team take Gamesline to the streets in this interview discussing on how to re-imagine and and re-interpret of folklore and how to make friends.
What if you took a heavy load of inspiration from Kingdom Hearts and a heavy dose of every weird, lucid dream you have ever had? We stir the Lead Developer of The Dreamer Must Die, Hunter Ahlquist, away from his heavy slumber to wake us up with a thorough description of how his amnesiac first-person RPG-Shooter hybrid came to be!
Joel of Zenmai is here to direct the traffic of the gorgeous roguelike delving game [HELLTRENCH]. Solon has caught Joel at The MIX seemingly on the cusp of greatness. In a very short amount of time we make some real distance diving deep into hell. (The game looks real legit and it’s still in such an early stage that anybody could literally come by during this interview and sweep the whole team right up?)
Gamesline had an opportunity at PAX West 2023 to talk with Kevin Adams, the development director and engineer who was in charge of porting LISA (as well as Doki Doki Literature Club!) to consoles. Solon goes in the depths he was allowed to talk with Adams about how challenging this porting process went for such a bizarre, but well-loved post-apocalyptic game.
Don’t Panic! It’s Just Panic’s co-founder Cabel Sasser and Solon at PAX West 2023 chatting in this interview about the weirdest console developer origin story? How do you get from helping with Firewatch to making an entire digital storefront in just a few years?? How does a publisher driven by playful whimsy find their games??? Can Lucas Pope be a CONSOLE KILLER on the Playdate????????
Was the Philips CD-I truly that inspiring? Seth Fulkerson and Solon come together at PAX to discuss the making of Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore, how to modernize a classic while staying true to form, and good ‘ol YouTube Poops!
Solon and Colin Horgan are taking it all off at The MIX to finally talk in depth at length about Death of a Wish, removing “Lucah”, how inspiration strikes, and what rage means in making games. It’s been full circle from one of Gamesline’s earliest beats in reviewing Luca: Born of a Dream! We cover years of experience and Solon didn’t cut a single bit out.
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