Page Break with Brian McClellan

My guest this week is game developer Aaryn Flynn! Aaryn is the CEO of Inflexion Games, whose first title, Nightingale, will hit early release on Steam sometime this year. Aaryn spent much of his career at Bioware, where he worked his way up from tools programmer to Studio General Manager. He had his hands in a number of massive titles including the Mass Effect series, the Baldur’s Gate series, the Dragon Age series, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.Aaryn and I get deep into the weeds on development of Nightingale, including game mechanics, the importance of nailing a certain vibe for the player, and the challenges and complexity of creating a new game from scratch. We cover Aaryn’s career at Bioware, and we talk about the use of early release for small developers and how any creative endeavor has to balance the business and creative sides in order to succeed. Enjoy my conversation with Aaryn Flynn!Check out Nightingale on Steam or their social media.Find Brian McClellan at his website, on Twitter and Instagram, or find his books on Amazon, direct from his bookstore, or wherever books are sold!Don't forget to support the show on Patreon, or pick up some swag on Redbubble.

My guest this week is author Django Wexler. Django is probably best known to my fans as a fellow progenitor of the current flintlock fantasy subgenre with his Shadow Campaigns series. He’s written the young adult Forbidden Library series and the Wells of Sorcery. Django’s newest book, Emperor of Ruin, number three in the Burningblade and Silvereye series, came out just last week and is available for purchase now! Django and his wife Casey also have writing craft discussions over on their Patreon.Django and I chat about our near-simultaneous start in flintlock fantasy and why we think the little subgenre took off when it did. We discuss Django’s education and pre-writing career, his work on very early artificial intelligence, and of course speculate on the exciting and sometimes scary state of AI today.Check out Django's newest book, Emperor of Ruin, follow him on Twitter, or check his website.Find Brian McClellan at his website, on Twitter and Instagram, or find his books on Amazon, direct from his bookstore, or wherever books are sold!Don't forget to support the show on Patreon, or pick up some swag on Redbubble.

My guest this week is author Max Gladstone! Max is best known to fantasy readers for his wonderful Craft Sequence. He’s written extensive serialized fiction with the Book Burners and the Witch Who Came in from the Cold, and has a huge backlist of short fiction published on Tor.com and in various magazines and collections. He’s also the co-author of This is How You Lose the Time War, a multi-award-winning novella.Max and I chat about the state of publishing a decade ago and how his unique approach to a fantasy series managed to sneak into a chaotic and changing industry. We take a long dive into rereading old sword and sorcery authors, the problems we find within them as educated adults, and the qualities we still love. Finally, we talk about the creative implications of showing off early drafts of a work-in-progress. Enjoy my conversation with Max Gladstone!Find Max on his website, Twitter, or pick up his books.Find Brian McClellan at his website, on Twitter and Instagram, or find his books on Amazon, direct from his bookstore, or wherever books are sold!Don't forget to support the show on Patreon, or pick up some swag on Redbubble.