DGC Ep 244: Ocarina of Time Bonus Interview with Lani Lum

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we explore Ocarina of Time a bit more through an interview with industry Executive Producer Lani Lum. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
0:48 Interview
1:07:25 Break
1:07:54 Feedback

Issues covered: nerd markings, "why are you studying anthropology?", drawing the short straw, transferring into production, unsung heroes, "this is a game about a girl?", video games being marketed towards boys, still waiting on a female protagonist, making programming a male job, art becoming specific with graphical power, a female arm for CounterStrike, opening doors, a less linear feeling game, the comfort of early childhood encounters, a game you can trust, room for so much debate, rolling onto Hyrule Field and the model, revelatory moments, struggling with camera control, overcoming the feeling of size, introducing the game to a new generation, listening to the music in your life, the difficulty of looking back, "I don't think I'll ever play a more perfect game," the sense of discovery, context-sensitive controls (and a modern version), "games will never be the same after this," two kinds of people: those who care about the timeline and normal people, the possibility Link turns into a skeleton, Brett the Heartless, Tim the teary-eyed, using the Triforce to hop the line, innocence and lack of cynicism, asking yourself the right questions, being honest with what we're doing, using influence rather than control, mapping the pieces of the triforce to game development, the perspective of the Triforce in different games, Tim swayed by passion, the complexity and expectations of Flight Simulator, Flight Simulator in VR, shipping while working from home during a pandemic with a nine hour time difference, the importance of representation and the mishandling, family focus, transferring into your adult self as wish fulfillment, the timing of recording and recent events, the cautionary tale of becoming an adult, motion capture and Ocarina, inverse kinematics in games, skipping the game play, we've gotten away from feeling we have to force people to play a particular way, if the game is claiming to be good at a thing it should be compelling enough that people want to play it, free-to-play and intrinsic interest, the value proposition, games in school.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Turok, Threewave Software, Aion, NCSoft, Microsoft, 343 Studios, Halo (series), Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Counterstrike, Republic Commando, NES, The Karate Kid, Indiana Jones, Gamecube, Harry Potter, Breath of the Wild, N64, Minecraft, Koji Kondo, Roblox, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart Double Dash, Kingdom Hearts, Shigeru Miyamoto, Starfighter (series), TIE Fighter, Super Metroid, Wii, Nintendo Switch, Dungeons and Dragons, mysterydip, Drew, Freaky Friday, big, 18 Again, Jennifer Garner, Elizabeth McGovern, Elizabeth Perkins, Moon, Duncan Jones, Kevin Spacey, Michael Justice, Tomb Raider, Majora's Mask, Shadow of the Colossus, League of Legends, Sam, Math Munchers, Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Lemonade Stand, Robot Wars, Manhole, Ken and Roberta Williams, Wizard and the Princess, Mystery House, Rogue, Sierra, Hitman, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Another Interview!

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