Imaginary Worlds

Scarlet Hollow is a successful indie video game – and that’s no small feat. It’s been a long journey, and the game is made almost entirely by two people: Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias of Black Tabby Games. Along the way, they even took a break to make another hit game called Slay the Princess. I talk with Abby and Tony about how animating Abby’s drawings allowed them to build a game where the players have seemingly endless choices and romance options in a Southern Gothic town under threat from supernatural forces. After a three-year wait, chapter five of Scarlet Hollow is finally being released in February.  
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Darby McDevitt is a narrative director and writer at Ubisoft . He’s worked on multiple games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which spans time periods from Ancient Greece to Victorian England. But what does it mean to be a writer on a massive video game where your character is mostly running, climbing, jumping and fighting? The key to his work lies in historical research, but he is sometimes torn between what would actually happen and what pop culture has trained us to expect from different eras of history. We also discuss his new novel, The Halter, which imagines a future where virtual reality is so realistic and addictive that people abandon their real lives and have to be tracked down. This is the first episode in a multi-part series on video games.
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In my annual audio drama, I interview several folklore figures who are synonymous with the holiday season outside America -- but they’ve been overshadowed by the cultural juggernaut of Santa Claus. So they’re on a tour to reintroduce themselves. While I went into this press junket with the best of intensions, some of my interviews went off the rails. It turns out when a supernatural being has been around for centuries, their personal history can get complicated. Featuring André Refig, Vili-Oskari Körkkö, Begonya Ferrer, Teresa Mastrobuono, and Bill Lobley.

There will be no episode of Imaginary Worlds on December 31st. The show will return on January 14th. Happy Holidays, everyone!

This episode is sponsored by MiracleMade and Uncommon Goods

Get 15% off your order at uncommongoods.com/imaginary.

Go to TryMiracle.com/IMAGINARY to save over 40%, and when
you use promo code IMAGINARY, you’ll get an extra 20% off plus a free 3-piece
towel set.

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When I was growing up, Bigfoot appeared regularly on the
covers of supermarket tabloids, so I assumed he was a joke. But I’ve discovered that he’s part of a larger and even stranger world of cryptids – creatures that people believe are real but haven’t been scientifically verified. Cryptids are having a cultural moment, and they’re a vital part of folklore. Native Alaskan storyteller James Dommek Jr. discusses his podcast Alaska Is The Center of The Universe and his audiobook Midnight Son. James has been collecting tribal stories about cryptids because he sees them as cultural treasures that need to be preserved. I also talk with J.W. Ocker, author of The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters, about why so many small towns in the U.S. are embracing their local cryptids as a last ditch effort to revitalize their economies.

This episode is sponsored by MiracleMade and Uncommon Goods

 Get 15% off your order at uncommongoods.com/imaginary.

 Go to TryMiracle.com/IMAGINARY to save over 40%, and when
you use promo code IMAGINARY, you’ll get an extra 20% off plus a free 3-piece towel set.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As longtime listeners know, I worked in the animation industry before switching careers and going into broadcasting. Today’s episode features a trio of conversations that trace the history of animation in my lifetime, and my life in animation. The interviews come from Between Imaginary Worlds, a chat show that’s available exclusively to listeners who pledge $5 a month or more on Patreon.

Act I: I bond with comic book and children’s book author Judd Winick over the creepy world of 1970s children’s TV – which scared us as kids but makes us oddly nostalgic today.

Act II: My friend Caleb Meurer and I reminisce about his experience working with the original crew of SpongeBob at Nickelodeon, and how the creator of SpongeBob indirectly told me I was in the wrong field.  

Act III: Aidan Sugano and Denis-Jose Francois talk about the heartfelt effort it took for the animation studio DNEG to make the film Nimona after Disney dropped the project. 

This week’s episode is sponsored by The Perfect Jean and Uncommon Goods.

Get 15% off your order with the code IMAGINARY15 at theperfectjean.nyc 

Get 15% off your order at uncommongoods.com/imaginary.

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