The Talk Show With John Gruber

Zach Gage joins the show to talk about game design and creativity, including his new game Knotwords.

Transcript.

• Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.
• Memberful: Monetize your passion with membership. Start your free trial today.
• Kolide: Endpoint Security for teams that Slack. Try Kolide for free today; no credit card required.

• Knotwords.
• Zach Gage’s portfolio website, with a full list of games.
• Really Bad Chess, which is actually, of course, really good.
• SynthPod, Zach’s first iPhone app.
• HyperStudio — a classic developer tool like HyperCard, but with color support.
• Apple’s original “Cocoa” — Stagecast Creator/KidSim.
• Zach Lieberman’s OpenFrameworks project from 2010.
• Lights Off — the first native iPhone game, nearly a year before the App Store. (I mistakenly called it “Lights Out” during the show.)
• CandyBar — Mac utility for customizing icons, including, back in the day, the icons for the system itself.
• Threes, a great puzzle game of iOS from 2014. (App Store link.)
• 2048, a free Threes knockoff.
• Texas Instruments TI-83 Graphing Calculator, and games written for it.
• PICO-8 fantasy console.
• Playdate Pulp, and Bitsy, Pulp’s inspiration.
• Sol LeWitt, conceptual artist.

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.