Spacefarers, Shredders, and In-Home Lasers, with Chris Hanney

Everybody's Talking at Once

ETAO PODCAST, EPISODE 159.

Chris Hanney is probably best known for his work on Space Pirate Trainer—and particularly on its multiplayer modes, from the Tetris-Galaga–Max Payne melange of VERSUS to the ambitious, tennis-court-scale hide-and-seek-’em-up of ARENA. Here’s a project that walks right up to the edges of what has so far been possible in VR, and then finds ways to walk right past them.

In this interview, Chris talks about the past, present, and (in his view, extremely exciting) future of VR. Along the way we discuss the technology’s many strange tributaries. For the first time in recorded history, two bearded white dudes talk on a podcast.

Space Pirate Trainer DX is out now on Quest.
Shredders is out now on Steam, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass.
You can also follow Chris on Twitter, whatever that currently is.

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• This review contains some really useful descriptions of what Space Pirate ARENA even is on a nuts-and-bolts, logistical level.

• The Bigscreen Beyond really does look like swim goggles when compared to the Quest 2 (though not quite so much when compared to, say, swim goggles, if we’re honest).

• Here’s the Twitterthreadization of Chris’ GDC 2023 talk about Steam forums and reviews.

• And here’s our episode with Anton Hand.
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“All The People Say (Season 5)” by Carpe Demon.
“Seventy-Four” from Nowhere, Now Here (music from the video game Shredders) by Jennifur.

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Logo by Aaron Perry-Zucker, using Icons by by Llisole, Dávid Gladiš, Atif Arshad, Daniel Nochta, Mike Rowe, Jakub Čaja, Raji Purcell and IconsGhost from the Noun Project.

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