Beyond Solitaire

Beyond Solitaire is an interview show for people who suspect games are doing more than passing the time. Its conversations treat digital games, tabletop games, RPGs, and design classrooms as places where history, culture, and craft become visible. The format is straightforward: Liz Davidson brings on a guest, sets up the topic clearly, and follows the thread into the deeper implications of play. The result is accessible, but not shallow. Esther Wright’s episode on Rockstar Games turns Grand Theft Auto and American satire into a discussion of branding, British origins, transnational companies, and the strange durability of outsider mythology inside a leading company. Brooks Barber’s episode on Hawk & Dove shifts the focus to publishing. It asks what kinds of games deserve to exist, what a new company can stand for, and how a game can be emotionally difficult without becoming mechanically punishing. Hannah Fair’s conversation about Playing with the Anthropocene opens another lane. Climate change, Pacific Island theming, and board game authorship become questions of reference points, respect, and who gets to design with whose history. That kind of attention is central to the show. Beyond Solitaire does not flatten games into either entertainment or lessons. It lets them be systems, objects, businesses, classrooms, and cultural texts at once. The academic guests speak in real disciplinary language, but the interviews keep returning to concrete games and design choices. There is also a maker-facing side, especially when episodes touch on submissions, publishing, personal design journeys, and teaching game design. Eric Zimmerman’s appearance points toward the still-developing pathways into game design education and practice. The show works best for listeners who enjoy careful distinctions. It is warm, curious, and often precise. It gives games the benefit of serious attention, then asks whether their themes, assumptions, and structures can hold up under that attention.