I’ve never been a guest star on a podcast before, but the creative minds behind Worldbuild with Us Rob and Chris invited me to talk about genre for their fourteen episode, “Creating Wonder with BDOs.”
While I do love fantasy, my specialty is science fiction, so for this episode I suggested introducing the “big dumb object” trope from science fiction into the podcast’s experimental fantasy setting, The Land of a Thousand Gods. The results were truly impressive, and I had a blast:
The most essential element of the fantasy story is the classic struggle between “good” and “evil,” yet we have relegated these terms to mere modalities.
The real appeal of Transistor, however, isn’t in the novel game play or the beautiful, cell-shaded backdrops; it’s in the game’s powerful ability to immerse you in a narrative that unfolds as you play it.
Like a compelling read or a moving piece of music, a roleplaying game has the potential to inspire moments of genuine emotional resonance you can only understand if you’ve experienced a moving piece of music or a compelling read.
