This week, Dylan is joined by RVA Game Jams co-conspirator Alex Damrath and fellow PAX East attendee and friend of the show Kenny Kim to talk about everything that happened at E3.

We’re excited about:

• Filling out our 1099s in Anthem
• Minecraft in 4K
• Drinking the water from our Xbox One X’s vapor chamber
• Trying to pronounce Strange Brigade
• Super “Lucky” Palmer’s Tale
• Terry Crews’ Crackdown 3
• The Legend of Zelda: Death of the Wild DLC

Games include Overwatch, Killing Floor 2, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Black Desert Online, Tokyo 42, Arms, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Poochy and Yoshi’s Wooly World demo, and Disney Crossy Road.

This week, Dylan and Mason are joined by Josiah Renaudin, former freelance games writer for outlets such as GameSpot, IGN, VideoGamer, and Paste and current member of game studio Tangentlemen; host of The 1099 Podcast; and son of Townville, Pennsylvania.

The gents talk a little about the lead up to E3, Josiah’s long list of revered guests he’s had on his podcast, destroying PS4 controllers, and their invention: the Cheeto Glove.

Games include Prey, The Surge, Dead Cells, Arms Global Testpunch, and MLB The Show 17.

Through the course of time, episode numbers fade in and out of memory. 67, 86, 87, 398. Continuity is meaningless, there is only the now.

Sam and Will introduce Dylan to the colliding worlds of cars and anime, and we discuss Ian Bogost’s article, “Video Games Are Better Without Stories.”

The guys also develop their own open source résumé file format, and we have a big discussion about the announcement of Steam Direct’s fee.

Games include NieR: Automata and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Alex Damrath, founder of Braindeer Games, joins us once again to talk about a proverbial bounty of topics, including being a Interactive Design and Game Development student at the Savannah College of Art and Design as well as the response to his Ludum Dare 38 game, Miskro.

With the announcement of Far Cry 5, we discuss the differences in design philosophies between Far Cry 2, 3, and 4, and since the new sequel claims to tell a politically-relevant, thought-provoking, and emotionally-engaging story, we use the game to discuss narrative’s place in AAA, how subject matter research can only bring you so far in crafting a story, moving beyond superficiality in your game, and sacrificing some gameplay to prevent ludonarrative dissonance.

We also talk about Dylan finally getting the chance to play PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Paul McCartney starring in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and the fast-paced world of Ethereum trading.

Games include Tabletop Simluator, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Overwatch, Strafe, Risk: Global Domination, RunGunJumpGun, Timebomb, Gunbrick, Disney Crossy Road, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Dylan is accompanied by Wardcast stalwarts Dan and Mason for a talk with Shawn Patton, Senior Designer at Schell Games, currently working on VR game I Expect You to Die.

Shawn comes from more than 13 years of experience in game development at Schell Games, and he talks to us about a myriad of topics: working at Schell, the new frontier of VR development, being a graduate from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, interning at Walt Disney Imagineering, prototyping games via “brownboxing,” helping Dylan with the chance to close a chapter on a childhood MMO he never got the chance to play, and more.

If you’re curious about learning more about the development of I Expect You to Die, we also highly recommend Shawn and Jesse Schell’s VRDC talk on the game from the 2016 Game Developers Conference.

Games include I Expect You to Die, Superhot VR, EVE: Valkyrie, and Eagle Flight.

Dylan and Will come together to talk about Will’s game from Ludum Dare 38, Paisley Princess, which received write-ups on Waypoint and Kotaku.

Will also brings to bear board game preferences, Galan Montgomery and Isoteric Games’ recently released Timebomb, whether or not he should play a Telltale game, and the subtle differences between Zone of the Enders and Rise of the Triad. Meanwhile, Dylan takes Winnie the Pooh to the batting cage and considers playing the Phantom Dust re-release.

We also discuss Project Rap Rabbit’s kickstarter and Tim Colwill’s op-ed on Polygon, “Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming.”

Games include Risk: Global Domination; Egg, Inc.; Timebomb; Disney Crossy Road; The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild; Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Derby; the PaRappa the Rapper Remastered demo; and I Expect You to Die.

We’re back with more RVA Game Jammers! Dylan and Sam are joined by members Tyler Rhodes and Kirk Musngi.

The four all talk about the games they made for Ludum Dare 38’s theme of “Small Worlds.” Sam’s rail shooter Monolith, Tyler’s simulation game Intertidal Snail Breeder Deluxe, Dylan’s shoot ‘em up Bantam!, and Kirk’s web game prototype about traversing the continental United States using craigslist listings.

We also showcase all the other game jam entries that we liked as well as Instant Replay Live’s Let’s Play of all the Ludum Dare submissions by RVA Game Jammers.

The discussion encapsulates other topics such as the debacle over the Horizon: Zero Dawn frustum culling gif, Tyler exhibiting at Hampton Roads Maker Faire, and Winnie the Pooh Home Run Derby.

Games include Little Lands, Afterbirth, Plonat Atek, Vixa, Planet Heist, Rashlander, iii, Tribal Tension, Rocket League, Mirror’s Edge, Far Cry 4, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Pokémon Go, Magic: The Gathering, Brick Block, Disney Crossy Road, Puyo Puyo Tetris, and the Prey demo.

This week, Dylan is joined by Ruthie Edwards. Together, they talk about grad school, Ruthie’s experience with Breath of the Wild, and a Ward Games’ traffic ticket issued by the United Kingdom.

We also discuss what Call of Duty: WWII is and what we’d like it to be, the cancellation of the NES Classic Edition and other Nintendo hardware plans, inaccurate Polygon articles, and another chapter in the “Lucky” Palmer Luckey saga.

Games include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Grand Theft Auto Online, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Disney Crossy Road, and Overwatch.

We’ve rebranded! The Ward Podcast will henceforth be known as the Wardcast. Be sure to tune your Internet dials to Wardcast from your preferred podcast app.

We discover the five states of matter in the Metal Gear universe: solid, liquid, solidus, acid, and rising. Sam explores philosophy in Everything while we talk about comparing games to one another as well as the guilt of not finishing games.

Will returns home to Dark Souls, now attempting to do a New Game 7-plus run. Momin returns in back-to-back episodes to dazzle us with his Raiden impression and talk about some of the hottest new Japanese titles, Persona 5’s streaming restrictions, and his MGS Vee theory. Dylan talks about PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the terrifying world of Twitch streaming.

We also talk about the art of web design and domain registration, with Momin’s acquisition of indie.haus and Sam’s new landing page for Remote Games. And Ludum Dare 38 is right around the corner, so we discuss our ideas and goals for the game jam.

Games include Everything, Rain World, The Witness, Dark Souls, NieR: Automata, Persona 5, and Crossy Road.

We bring aboard a proverbial roundtable of guests this week.

We’re joined by Justin Mitchell from Loreweaver Creativeworks, on the eve of launching the Kickstarter for his 16-bit tactical RPG, War of Velana; Alex Damrath of Braindeer Games, working on his multiplayer FPS, Playground; and, returning to the Ward Podcast, Momin Khan, co-founder of Root 76 and co-creator of Clash Cup Turbo.

All three guests join Dylan to discuss their quibbles and enjoyments of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Additional discussion includes Justin’s brilliant stallion, Horse #2; a holy trinity of Goombas; and popular games that didn’t quite jive with you.

Last but not least, many of us from the RVA Game Jams crew will be showcasing our wares at Pixelfest this upcoming weekend, April 7th through the 9th. We’ll see you there!

Games include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, NieR: Automata, Overwatch, Titanfall 2, Earthbound, Grand Theft Auto V, and Google Maps Ms. Pac-Man.