John Wick (2014) and Genre Emulation with Sam Roberts

John Wick (2014) and Genre Emulation with Sam Roberts

From Dice Exploder by Sam Dunnewold

May 12, 2026 · 1h 5m · Season 12 · Episode 8

About this episode

The episode discusses the influence of the movie John Wick on game mechanics and the concept of genre emulation in indie RPGs.

Transcripts available at diceexploder.com My new game Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is still on Kickstarter! Check it out today. In honor of BABH, this month on Dice Exploder I'm covering mechanics from other games that inspired it. In keeping with this show's increasingly loose definition of "mechanic," today I'm joined by Sam Roberts (Escape from Dino Island) to tackle one of this game's greatest influences: the 2014 Keanu Reeves movie John Wick. The first half of this ep is basically a movie podcast. We go deep on what makes John Wick tick (in brief: the first 30 minutes). But the back half we get into the extremely popular concept within indie rpgs of genre emulation: making games that evoke another piece of media or genre of media. What makes genre emulation work? What do we think most people get wrong when they attempt to do it? And is it even a worthy goal? Further Reading Back Band-Aids & Bullet Holes on Kickstarter now ! John Wick (2014) Escape from Dino Island by Sam Roberts and Sam Tung Socials Sam Roberts on Bluesky Sam Dunnewold on Bluesky and itch The Dice Exploder blog is at diceexploder.com Join the Dice Exploder Discord to talk about the show! Credits Our logo…

People in this episode

Host: Sam Dunnewold

Guest: Sam Roberts

Topics covered

  • genre emulation
  • John Wick
  • indie RPGs
  • game mechanics
  • media influence

Keywords

  • John Wick
  • Band-Aids & Bullet Holes
  • genre emulation
  • indie RPGs
  • game mechanics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Kickstarter, Dice Exploder, Bluesky, itch, Discord

Products: Band-Aids & Bullet Holes

Books & works: John Wick, Escape from Dino Island

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