Katharine Neil's guest appearances

Katharine Neil

GameDev Loadout | A Game Developer Podcast

Talking Simulator

Something Old Something New

Victoria Tran

Michael Sweet

Jay Powell

Richard Rouse

Kelly Wallick

Garry Schyman

Jason Canam

Richard Ludlow

Chris Remo

Jay Britton

Sarah Wendell

Brandon Smith

Liz Wright

Ben Britton

Jeff Howard

OwlTail

Astrologaster (2019) is “a story-driven astrological comedy game set in Shakespeare’s London”, a genre that must surely soon be as popular as the battle royale. It was developed by a whole team of people for independent developer Nyamyam, and designed and directed by Jennifer Schneidereit. But Jordan wanted to talk to its narrative designer and writer Katharine Neil, to find out how she managed to squeeze history, astrology, and comedy into a game.Content warning: this episode contains mention of miscarriage. There are no major spoilers for the story of Astrologaster, but there are some for events that took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

<a href="https://www.astrologaster.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Astrologaster</a> (2019) is “a story-driven astrological comedy game set in Shakespeare’s London”, a genre that must surely soon be as popular as the battle royale. It was developed by a whole team of people for independent developer Nyamyam, and designed and directed by <a href="https://twitter.com/nyyjen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jennifer Schneidereit</a>. But Jordan wanted to talk to its narrative designer and writer <a href="https://twitter.com/haikus_by_KN" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Katharine Neil</a>, to find out how she managed to squeeze history, astrology, and comedy into a game.Content warning: this episode contains mention of miscarriage. There are no major spoilers for the story of Astrologaster, but there are some for events that took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.

Astrologaster with Katharine Neil

We discuss the importance of being comfortable, why crunch needs to be avoided, and how her old office was full of holes. Katharine Neil has 19 plus years of experience in the game industry working on a variety of genres including racing games, third-person shooters, management sims, and more. She blogs and speaks at GDC. Currently, she is the narrative designer for Nyam Nyam Games currently working on a project called Astrologaster. Items Mentioned: Katharine TwitterKatharine EmailKatharine GDC Talk  Game Design ToolsKatharine Gamasutra Blog  How We Design Games Now and WhyGame Website AstrologasterCompany Website NyamNyamGamesMark Brown  Game Maker’s ToolkitBook  The Art of Game Design by Jesse SchellPomodoro TechniqueGDC Vault

We discuss the importance of being comfortable, why crunch needs to be avoided, and how her old office was full of holes. Katharine Neil has 19 plus years of experience in the game industry working on a variety of genres including racing games, third-person shooters, management sims, and more. She blogs and speaks at GDC. Currently, she is the narrative designer for Nyam Nyam Games currently working on a project called Astrologaster. Items Mentioned: Katharine <a href="https://twitter.com/haikus_by_kn?lang=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>Katharine <a href="http://katharine.neil@gmail.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Email</a>Katharine GDC Talk <a href="https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024644/Game-Design-Tools-For-When" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Game Design Tools</a>Katharine Gamasutra Blog <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KatharineNeil/20161214/287515/How_we_design_games_now_and_why.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> How We Design Games Now and Why</a>Game Website <a href="https://www.astrologaster.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Astrologaster</a>Company Website <a href="http://nyamyam.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NyamNyamGames</a>Mark Brown <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqJ-Xo29CKyLTjn6z2XwYAw?&amp;ab_channel=MarkBrown" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Game Maker’s Toolkit</a>Book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-Book-Lenses/dp/0123694965" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pomodoro Technique</a><a href="https://www.gdcvault.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GDC Vault</a>

90: Seek Comfortability to Increase Productivity with Katharine Neil 

This is the second episode of Something Old Something New, a new podcast from Hannah Nicklin. Using the old western wedding rhyme as a formal construct off which to hang a conversation with interesting folk she knows from the realms of games, performance, criticism, writing, and the spaces in between these things. In each episode Hannah will invite the interviewee to talk about cultural phenomena/artefacts of interest/important to them: Something Old (that has been with them for a while); Something New (recently discovered); Something Borrowed (stolen or recommended to them); Something YOU are working on (what are they making right now?).In this second episode Hannah chats with game developer Katharine Neil in a cafe during the AMAZE International Independent Videogames Festival in Berlin. (Apologies in advance for the wildly varying sound quality)Katharine describes herself as a games industry ‘hack’ - dismissing the term ‘veteran’ which she reckons should be used by "people who have achieved more recognisable success". Katharine started working in games sometime around 1998, NZ born, she grew up in Australia, and is currently living/struggling as a game dev freelancer in Paris.  A background in music led her to work as an audio engineer, and gradually she became more about making and designing games than just the audio. As well as working for large game studios on things like “racing and pony games”, she’s pursued her own radical games projects, including Escape From Woomera (2004) - which used a half-life mod to depict an escape attempt from the Woomera internment camp; and co-founding the FreePlay Games Festival, one of the first festivals to attempt to discuss videogames as culture. Katharine’s deadpan delivery of her account of her work underplays her affect on the landscape of games, although the impact of her most famous work isn’t uncomplicated, so perhaps it’s hard to tell the story of her practice. Good job there’s a whole 40 minute podcast to get into that. Thanks to Hannah's Patreon backers for supporting the ongoing making of the podcast, plus zines and articles about games. If you'd like to join their merry band of folk, donate monthly (from $1) at patreon.com/hannahnicklin@hannahnicklin @haikus_by_KNMusic by the peerless Daniel J Harvey of internet misanthrope extraordinaires Olympians. @onwardolympians on Twitter. Buy their music at olympians.bandcamp.com/

This is the second episode of Something Old Something New, a new podcast from Hannah Nicklin. Using the old western wedding rhyme as a formal construct off which to hang a conversation with interesting folk she knows from the realms of games, performance, criticism, writing, and the spaces in between these things. In each episode Hannah will invite the interviewee to talk about cultural phenomena/artefacts of interest/important to them: Something Old (that has been with them for a while); Something New (recently discovered); Something Borrowed (stolen or recommended to them); Something YOU are working on (what are they making right now?). In this second episode Hannah chats with game developer Katharine Neil in a cafe during the AMAZE International Independent Videogames Festival in Berlin. (Apologies in advance for the wildly varying sound quality) Katharine describes herself as a games industry ‘hack’ - dismissing the term ‘veteran’ which she reckons should be used by "people who have achieved more recognisable success". Katharine started working in games sometime around 1998, NZ born, she grew up in Australia, and is currently living/struggling as a game dev freelancer in Paris. A background in music led her to work as an audio engineer, and gradually she became more about making and designing games than just the audio. As well as working for large game studios on things like “racing and pony games”, she’s pursued her own radical games projects, including Escape From Woomera (2004) - which used a half-life mod to depict an escape attempt from the Woomera internment camp; and co-founding the FreePlay Games Festival, one of the first festivals to attempt to discuss videogames as culture. Katharine’s deadpan delivery of her account of her work underplays her affect on the landscape of games, although the impact of her most famous work isn’t uncomplicated, so perhaps it’s hard to tell the story of her practice. Good job there’s a whole 40 minute podcast to get into that. Thanks to Hannah's Patreon backers for supporting the ongoing making of the podcast, plus zines and articles about games. If you'd like to join their merry band of folk, donate monthly (from $1) at <a href="http://patreon.com/hannahnicklin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">patreon.com/hannahnicklin</a> @hannahnicklin  @haikus_by_KN Music by the peerless Daniel J Harvey of internet misanthrope extraordinaires Olympians. @onwardolympians on Twitter. Buy their music at <a href="http://olympians.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">olympians.bandcamp.com/</a>

SOSN E02 - Katharine Neil - Satire, Marxism, and Stolen IPads