Choices and Games and Stories, with Juan Vaca

Everybody's Talking At Once

ETAO Podcast, Episode 60.

http://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/etao.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/etao-podcast-60-juan-vaca-1.mp3
Juan Vaca chooses to adventure with us—into his work at Telltale Games, at Endless Entertainment, and now at the burgeoning interactive team at Netflix. We talk about Juan’s approach to narrative, the oft-ignored importance of theme, and his longstanding interest in using existing characters and worlds to tell original stories. We also talk about Juan’s life as a veteran, the emptiness of “supporting the troops” without offering any, um, support, and the reality of the military as both a very large, very close family and an ice-cold bureaucracy.

And we talk about Juan’s work at Latinx in Gaming. Oh, and his rather good jug band.

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• If you’re looking to hear the tale of Telltale’s shuttering, then as I say in the intro, you won’t find it here—but this NoClip documentary has you oh-so-covered.

• Molly Ringwald’s excellent essay was framed around The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink as much as Sixteen Candles. Recommended reading, albeit with trigger warnings aplenty.

• Here’s Juan being interviewed by another veteran.

• And here’s the interview wherein Juan recounts the good, the bad, and the institutionally broken of his time in the Marine Corps.

• Few would argue that Southland Tales is the best movie, but it might well be the most movie.

• The 2019 Latinx in Gaming roundtable at GDC doesn’t seem to be public, (and that IndieCade panel about imposter syndrome doesn’t seem to live online anywhere either, sad to say), but here’s another recent Latinx in Gaming roundtable, in podcast form.

• Behold Jim Kweskin!
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“All The People Say (Season 3)” by Holly Hyperion.
“Washington at Valley Forge” by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, performed by Rivertown Skifflers.

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