Posted 2/03/2024

The full KO Koala team convenes to award their best games of 2023!

• Which studio member had the most niche games on their list?

• Which game made the team the most emotional?

• Did Anthony even play any new games this year??

• all this and more on this episode of Koalatea Time!

Posted 6/22/2022

Dr. Chase Meusel, Senior Researcher at Netflix Games, joins Anthony & Skylar in this week’s dynamite episode of Koalatea Time! Join us as we discuss:

• Chase’s journey from Iowa State, to Xbox, to Netflix

• Getting to work on XCloud & with Double Fine

• Why Chase left Xbox to join Netflix Games

• What Netflix Games is up to

• Chase’s favorite board game

And much much more!

Posted 4/19/2022

Is Elden Ring the best game ever made?

What was the key contributor to its success?

Why is its UX so ass??

Join the entire K.O. Koala squad as they discuss these topics and more, including:

* Their builds

* Their combat and enemy design review

* The story

* The open world (did it make things better??)

* Their overall Elden Ring scores

Posted 11/5/2021

Bats & brains & biases, oh my! The brilliant Xbox UR Chieftess Dr. Jessie Thomas joins us in this cognitively enhancing episode of Koalatea Time!

Join us as we discuss:

• How Jessie used puppets to make Halo MCC better

• The Ms. Frizzle of Xbox

• The science behind your brain's bad habits

• and much much more!

Posted 10/12/2021

The Senior Director of Research for Xbox & Xbox Game Studios, Dr. Randy Pagulayan joins Anthony & Skylar to discuss his epic career and fascinating insights in this legendary episode of Koalatea Time!

Join us as we discuss:

• Randy's journey at Xbox (including how he turned down the initial job offer!)

• The accountability game devs have to the equity and fulfillment of magical experience

• How his team help Xbox studios balance creative vision against data insights

• What career Randy would choose to pursue if he had to start over

• And much more!

Posted 10/12/2021

Acclaimed game audio designer, and head of indie studio Groove Box Games, Eduardo Ortiz Frau joins Anthony & Skylar in this banger of a Koalatea Time episode!

Join us as we discuss:

• Eduardo's epic indie game career, including his work on Afterparty, The Stanley Parable, Everything, and more!

• How to network in the games industry as an indie dev

• Making sounds you'll hear thousands of times

• And much much more!

Posted 9/14/2021

With decades of extremely impressive experience leading and working with UX teams across the game dev industry, Dr. Celia Hodent is nothing short of amazing! She's not only an expert on all things cognitive science, but she's extremely personable and funny!

In this episode of Koalatea Time bramoala and ChipSkylark discuss a variety of UX and gaming related topics with Celia, including:

• How indie studios can implement a UX process (even with limited resources)

• The UX maturity of AAA game studios

• Improving ethical conduct in the gaming industry

• How painful it was to work on Star Wars 1313 just to have it cancelled

• AND SO MUCH MORE!

Posted 3/17/2021

Amazing athlete, even better person.

This week bramoala and ChipSkylark have the pleasure of welcoming NFL linebacker Josh Martin to Koalatea Time to discuss the rise of esports, how games can help make the world a better place, amazing foods around the world, and how hard it is to tackle extremely fast and strong human beings.

Josh shares some of his favorite gaming memories, including absolutely owning in Halo CE on his favorite map (Prisoner), ditching class to play COD MW 2, and Super Nintendo goodness!