Electron Dance
7Feb/1210

Who Is Richard Hofmeier?

Richard Hofmeier

It's no secret that I love Cart Life, having already dubbed it "game of 2011" and breaking down why it succeeds, mechanic by mechanic. I even begged Adam Smith of RPS to take a look at it. He called the police because I wouldn't leave his bathroom, but he still posted about it anyway.

But an important question remains: Who is Richard Hofmeier?

I wanted to find out, figuring Electron Dance readers might be interested too, so I utilised modern games journalism techniques such as phone hacking and the hiring of private investigators.

The result is an Electron Dance podcast: one hour of conversation with the man himself. As an added bonus, it is low on Cart Life spoilers, so no excuses! I will warn you, though, I consume food at a critical juncture.

This Is Richard Hofmeier

This is what you can expect to hear.

00:50 "I'm just a regular fella."

07:00 "Zynga's right down the street."

12:00 "A lot of that stuff is made in opposition to the false compliments of mini-games in mainstream titles."

17:00 "Tarn is a rare genius."

20:00 "We uploaded the ZIP file, popped the champagne and ran to the airport."

30:00 "And it was a real struggle to inform him how misinformed he'd been."

35:00 "...they're also accelerating the entropic decay of their memories of the game."

42:00 "It's not really your discovery, it's the developer telling you you've accomplished something."

47:00 "I'd watch very carefully how they dealt with waiters and waitresses, cashiers and street vendors."

56:00 "It's like a knock-knock joke that's told over a ninety-minute period."

Download the podcast MP3 (35MB) or play it right here in your browser:

References

This Is Also Richard Hofmeier

Posted by HM

Filed under: Rock Paper Shotgunned, Talk Talk Talk Leave a comment
Comments (10) Trackbacks (2)
  1. HM
    February 8th, 2012 - 00:35

    After uploading this, I spent an hour on Cart Life and got Richard to give me a tip. So consider the podcast out-of-date already.

  2. AlexP
    February 8th, 2012 - 05:52

    What a wonderful interview!

    Thank you for this. It really made my day!

  3. gnome
    February 8th, 2012 - 06:49

    Excellent work! Thank you both!

  4. HM
    February 8th, 2012 - 10:30

    My pleasure! The inner workings of The Hofmeier Mind make for an engrossing podcast.

  5. gnome
    February 8th, 2012 - 10:31

    And some lovely references including the ever-brilliant Andrew Plotkin…

  6. Jonas
    February 8th, 2012 - 12:34

    A lovely interview. I can certainly relate to a lot of Richard’s ideas. (Something he mentioned which I totally get but that is only rarely talked about is how knowing too much about a game ahead of time can take something away from the experience, and how difficult that makes it to market a game. I recently had that problem with Arcadia.)

  7. Adam
    February 9th, 2012 - 10:24

    A great interview, not just about games, but about anyone who toils to create. Much to relate to in here for most people I imagen. Id love to hear more developers talking about creating processe people go through, rather than there actual games….but thats just me.

  8. HM
    February 9th, 2012 - 12:38

    Thanks all for your encouraging words. More likely to try this again down the line. I think an interview podcast is a little more immediate that a structured conversation over chat or email. (Less inclined to do a Matt Chat-style video interview though! Make-up costs money.)

  9. adam
    February 10th, 2012 - 01:01

    “I think an interview podcast is a little more immediate that a structured conversation over chat or email”

    Having done skype interviews in the past I can say there is 100% more awkward small talk involved in this.


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