Episode 133: Inside SteamWorld and Chip Tanaka's Django
Conversations with the men responsible for two of 2017's finest retro-inspired creations.
A bit of a double-header for you this week: Two different interviews with two different people who produced some of the finest retro-facing games-related content of 2017.
First, Brjann Brjann Sigurgeirsson of Image & Form walks us through the history of the SteamWorld series, the origins of developer Image & Form, and the inspirations behind last year's brilliant exploratory platform adventure SteamWorld Dig 2. (I'm something of a fan.) Interestingly, our conversation will call to mind some of our other discussions over the past year, such as our CD-ROM episode and the recent Micro HyperCard chat. Everything's interconnected, it turns out.
Secondly, I look at Hirokazu "Chip" Tanaka's first-ever solo album release, Django. I posted about the album here on the site along with an interview with Tanaka, and he was kind enough to allow me to include an excerpt of that conversation in the show. The sound quality on that conversation isn't the best — it was a three-way international Skype call, after all — but it's a rare opportunity to have someone of Tanaka's stature on a show like this. I hope you'll give us a pass on the audio quality in this once case… and I'll work on making certain that future remote interviews sound better.
It's a bit of a shorter episode than I usually produce, but you know… holidays. Next week we'll be back to normal.
MP3, 37.2 MB | 1:20:27
Direct download | Retronauts on iTunes | Retronauts at PodcastOne
Episode description: Jeremy takes to Skype this week for conversations with the men behind two of last year's best retro-inspired projects: Brjann Sigurgeirsson of Image & Form (Steamworld Dig 2), and legendary Metroid/EarthBound composer Hirokazu "Chip" Tanaka (Django).
Big thanks to Hiroko Minamoto of 8-4 Ltd. for coordinating and interpreting the interview with Mr. Tanaka!
