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
- Kotaku on Cart Life, RPS on Cart Life
- Pork Magazine with Dwarf Fortress Interview
- Aftonbladet Review of Cart Life: Original and Translation
- Logan, the lost playable character of Cart Life
- The Jackyard
- You Only Live Once
- The Cat That Got The Milk
- Blood of the Ortolan
- Our Brasher Imposter
- AGS Bake Sale
- RPS coverage of Liberal Crime Squad
This Is Also Richard Hofmeier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEo8hpUraTw
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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 So consider the podcast out-of-date already.
What a wonderful interview!
Thank you for this. It really made my day!
Excellent work! Thank you both!
My pleasure! The inner workings of The Hofmeier Mind make for an engrossing podcast.
And some lovely references including the ever-brilliant Andrew Plotkin…
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.)
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.
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.)
“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.
For any Dwarf Fortress-ophiles, Richard has just posted the original audio of his interview with Tarn & Zach over on his site.