TheXboxHub interviews

Grindstone is a bloody fantastic (in all senses) puzzle game, where you take the role of Jorj, a dungeon raider and grindstone gatherer, as he chains together similarly coloured ‘creeps’. We had to hold in all that gushing praise, for a moment, when we were offered the chance to interview Dan Vader, director of Grindstone at Capybara Games. Nobody likes a suck-up.

You might have noticed that Medieval Dynasty has just arrived for Xbox One players. We took it as an opportunity to tap up Render Cube to see if they fancied sitting round our campfire for a chat about bringing their game to an older generation of consoles. We ate a spit-roasted pig with an apple in the mouth, obviously.

It was obvious that the arrival of Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly would be of interest. We reached out to the team at Toge Productions in hope of finding out more in advance of release of the sequel. Junki, their lead writer and narrative designer was more than happy to chat.

It’s been a banner year for survival horror. One company who is rather happy about this is Camel 101. Their next game is Beneath, which dunks you in the Atlantic Ocean and expects you to survive against Eldritch horrors. We settled down for a chat with Ricardo Cesteiro, the co-founder of Camel 101, so that we could discuss their upcoming chiller.

If it's pinball you like, it's Zen Studios who are able to get you excited. We wanted to find out more about how the Pinball Pass subscription service came into play, as well as discovering the process behind the creation of Pinball FX as a whole. Zen Studios were more than happy to chat things over

There are many Super Hero games available in the gaming scene, but one of the most intriguing of recent times has been that of DC's Just League Cosmic Chaos. It's a game that we loved, but we wanted to know more and so grabbed the team at PHL Collective for a chat.

DigixArt could have done anything with their second game in the series, but they were as eager as we were to return to the world they created. It left us with so many questions. Luckily, DigixArt offered up Yoan Fanise, creative director, to satisfy our curiosity surrounding Road 96: Mile 0. 

Stray Souls is the debut game from an independent studio built up of industry veterans, but it’s so self-assured that Jukai Studio feel like they’ve been around for yonks. We wondered whether it was the product of some pact with a devil, so chatted to the game director, Artur Laczkowski to find out.

What we do have positive feelings about is Peppa Pig: World Adventures and My Friend Peppa Pig, both released by Petoons Studio and published by Outright Games. We’re eager to find out about the sorcery that makes it possible, so we donned some wellies and jumped into a muddy puddle with lead producer David Moral to ask some questions. 

You haven’t hit someone with a sword like you will in Stolen Realm. But how did the ragdolling come about? It’s clearly the one question we wanted to ask Jason Jolley who helped to realise Stolen Realm. But we had to surround it with other questions so that we didn’t seem like madmen.

If you’ve played a karting game on the Xbox, there is a very good chance that Alex De Nittis (and 3DClouds) designed it. 3DClouds and Outright Games have added Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart to that list, and we took the opportunity to green shell Alex De Nittis long enough to chat.

Back on the Xbox 360, we had our asses handed to us repeatedly by the Zeno Clash series. That opportunity has arrived, some ten years after Zeno Clash 2 with the upcoming release of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. But we had questions: why so long? Why now? And would we get killed repeatedly again?

Having played Ten Dates, we were clearly still in the dating mood, as we took the opportunity to speed-date two of its creative forces: Paul Raschid, the writer-director of Ten Dates, and Charlie Maher, who plays Ryan in the game.

Treachery in Beatdown City has gathered a hell of a following, having been featured in publications from LA Times to Paste, so the mash-up clearly works. It raises so many questions, in fact, that we jumped from the top-rope to tackle creator Shawn Alexander Allen and ask him a few questions. 

We had the chance to sit down and find out more, throwing some questions at Chris Kohler of Digital Eclipse - they behind the development of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration - hoping to understand more as to what was needed in order to make this Atari anniversary such a celebration.