#205 - Benson Russell Interview On Naughty Dog, The Last Of Us, Uncharted, Neil Druckmann, Scope..

About this episode

Benson Russell discusses his experiences at Naughty Dog and shares insights on game development.

Benson Russell was a former designer at Naughty Dog on The Uncharted Trilogy and The Last Of Us.He has now started his own consulting firm to help game developers navigate a lot of the pitfalls in game development. #uncharted #thelastofus #naughtydog WEBSITE FOR CONSULTING https://www.unhandledexceptions.io/ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro 00:32 - The Most Important Aspect Of Design/Player Fantasy 02:50 - Why Games Take So Long To Make/North Star You Need For Development 05:45 - Why Naughty Dog Games Are So Well Made/Story Is Their North Star 08:18 - Games Shouldn’t Take So Long To Develop/Wandering 13:30 - Scope Neglect/The Doomsday Clock 16:00 - Why Intergalactic Crunch Happened/Naughty Dog Treats Internal Deadlines Like External Deadlines 18:23 - Bureauacracy/How Games Differ From Other Creative Outlets 23:13 - Naughty Dog’s Work Structure 26:20 - Planning/Core Mechanics 27:00 - Flexible Working Hours At Naughty Dog/Crunch At Naughty Dog 29:00 - Why Benson Left Naughty Dog 32:45 - Benson Was P!ssed Off With Naughty Dog Deleting His Work On Last Of Us Part 1 46:01 - Working With Evans Wells & Neil Druckmann 47:00 - Clashing With Neil Druckmann 50:14 - Working With Amy Hennig 51:20…

People in this episode

Host: Kiwi

Guest: Benson Russell

Topics covered

• game design
• Naughty Dog
• The Last Of Us
• Uncharted
• game development challenges
• consulting for game developers

Keywords

• Naughty Dog
• The Last Of Us
• Uncharted
• game development
• Benson Russell
• Neil Druckmann
• game design
• consulting

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Naughty Dog

Books & works: The Last Of Us, Uncharted Trilogy

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