The making of a horror video game doc
March 25, 2025This is something new. Not necessarily a replacement of my typically written column, but a stab at trying my hand at another podcast as well.
While I’m probably best known as a writer, I’ve actually done quite a bit of work in the realm of podcasts dating all of the way back to Kotaku.
Back in those early heady days, before the big podcast boom, I experimented with a number of crazy concepts for audio and video podcasts.
Working with Adam Barenblat (now of Nintendo) and the wonderful (now sadly gone) Michael Fahey, we tried our hand at a sort of MST3K approach to games and trailers complete with silhouetted puppets. We did interviews where the developer had to play the game with us as we interviewed them, and I did my best to beat them at their own game. We had another where people debated each other, scoring points with salient points … or headshots. Stephen Totilo and I ran a weekly interview show with live call-ins. We even had our own Christmas Special. (Sadly, most, if not all, of these are now vanished.)
More recently, I teamed up with the wonderful Susan Arendt for a show about horror movies called Long Legged Beasties. I also helped create a 50-plus episode run for the LEGO Group called Bits N’ Bricks, exploring its history in video games. And another for Tencent about its games is called This is Level Infinite.
The point is that I like to talk, I like to interview folks, and sometimes, I record all of that and put it online. So, I thought I’d give it a try with my substack, and here we are.
To kick things off, I invited Richard Moss to chat about a neat new project he’s involved in called TerrorBytes: The Evolution of Horror Gaming. After watching two episodes of the doc, I was fascinated enough with it to want to talk to Moss about how it came about and some of the stories it explores.
After you have a listen, please take a minute to drop a comment to let me know what you think. Should I keep doing these? Who should I chat with next? Was it too long? Too short? Too boring?
Thanks!
ps. Here’s a link to my horror movie spreadsheet.
