Culture chat: why writers love video games, with Naomi Alderman

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, in a first for our Friday chat show, we take on a video game! Two avid gamers join us to discuss What Remains of Edith Finch: novelist Naomi Alderman and FT political columnist Stephen Bush. The game follows the title character as she returns to her childhood home to discover what happened to her family. And it’s considered a model for what storytelling games can do. Naomi is the author of bestselling novels The Power and The Future, and a game designer herself. So does Edith Finch hold up? And what can games teach those of us creating in other mediums?

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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and email at [email protected].

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Naomi Alderman is the author of novels including The Power (2016) and The Future (2023). You can find her games, including Zombies, Run! and Doctor Who: Borrowed Time, here.

– A recent FT magazine piece, ‘Are video games coming for the novel?’ by Imogen West-Knights: https://on.ft.com/4e8qIkk

– Stephen Bush on why UK politicians should value video game designers: https://on.ft.com/4e1rGPc

– Naomi is on X @NaomiAllthenews and Stephen Bush is @stephenkb. Stephen also writes the FT’s daily Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up here for witty, insightful UK election coverage

– For those who are looking to get into games, Stephen and Naomi recommend Disco Elysium (2019), Flower (2009) and Citizen Sleeper (2022).

– Naomi recommends Leech by Hiron Ennes

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Life and Art from FD Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos and this is our Friday chat show.
0:07.1	Today we are talking for the first time about a video game. We've chosen the game What Remains of Edith Finch,
0:13.1	which was released in 2017 by Giant Sparrow and is considered a modern indie classic.
0:19.1	The game is a walkthrough that follows a character named Edith Finch, who has been given
0:23.3	a key to her Gothic childhood home by her mother.
0:26.3	Her family, the Finch family, all died too young.
0:29.3	They're presumed to be cursed and are nicknamed the unluckiest family in America.
0:33.7	After every death or disappearance, their bedrooms were locked up and kept preserved inside the house, so Edith is back to find out what happened to them.
0:41.8	Maybe we believed so much in a family curse.
0:45.0	We made it real.
0:46.8	It's been seven years since this game has been released, and it's still looked at as a model for what storytelling games can do.
0:53.1	So we're excited to talk about that, and also what all games can do that other forms of
0:57.1	storytelling can't.
0:58.6	So let's get into it.
0:59.5	I'm here in New York.
1:00.6	I have two very special guests with me today, both in London.
1:04.2	We have our friend and the FTs award-winning UK political columnist, Stephen Bush.
1:09.3	Stephen writes the excellent newsletter Inside Politics and is a lover of games. Welcome, Stephen.K. political columnist Stephen Bush. Stephen writes the excellent newsletter Inside Politics and is a
1:12.3	lover of games. Welcome, Stephen. Thanks so much for having me on again. So good to have you here.
1:18.2	We also have the novelist and storyteller Naomi Alderman with us. You may know Naomi's novel,
1:23.4	The Power, about what would happen if women developed the power to hurt and kill people with their
1:27.9	fingertips. Her most recent novel is The Future about saving the world from evil tech giants,
	...

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