Crafting a Modern Dystopia with Backbone's Narrative Designer Alex Korabelnikova

Pixel Therapy Pod

We got tea to spill this week! Turns out Troy Leavitt, the lead developer of Hogwarts Legacy (an upcoming open-world Harry Potter RPG), is a far-right conspiracy theorist with the YouTube receipts to prove it. And this is on top of JK Rowling already outing herself as a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), which makes things complicated for her queer and trans fans to contend with. Yikes! Meanwhile, Pokemon turns 25 this year with some exciting announcements for Nintendo fans. Spencer and Jamie break it down for you with some of our own hot takes and muse on the complexities of engaging with popular media when you're a member of one or more marginalized groups.

Then we're joined by the whip-smart and incisively funny Alex Korabelnikova, a narrative designer and co-founder of EggNut, a fully decentralized indie game studio. Their upcoming game Backbone, a Noir roleplaying adventure about a raccoon detective in a dystopian Vancouver, absolutely CANNOT be missed. We get into Disco Elysium, Planescape Torment, and what it means to be a person. Nbd!

Check out Backbone on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/865610/Backbone/

Follow Alex on Twitter: https://twitter.com/almightyplate

Side Quest

Donate to the Sisters Center, a Moscow-based non-governmental, non-profit helping survivors of sexual violence: sisters-help.ru/donation_eng.html

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