So check it: over the past couple weeks, I've been interviewing Greg Kasavin (yes, that Greg Kasavin) about Bastion for Bytejacker, the indie / downloadable games site I write for, and the interview just went up today. It's totally awesome and you should totally read it by clicking here: 

http://www.bytejacker.com/blog/interview-greg-kasavin-supergiant-games-bastion

You guys are teaming up with Giant Bomb to do a series of unconventional dev diaries called “Building the Bastion.” How did this idea come about, and what makes them special?

The idea came about from brainstorming shortly before Bastion was announced. We agreed that there’s this very interesting side of game development that’s very closely guarded by developers and publicists, that there’s still all this mystery around what it truly takes to make a game, about the trials and tribulations and the fighting and the late nights that go into it. I feel like the best you can do is to read a postmortem on Gamasutra, but postmortems are written with the benefit of hindsight so you don’t get to see people going through the process. At Supergiant we decided we didn’t really have much to hide, that our creative process is pure enough and that we’re hard-working enough that we wouldn’t be embarrassed if people knew how we worked; and likewise that our content is original enough or draws from broad enough sources that we have no fear of giving away too much from a competitive standpoint. Like, there’s no one mechanic that we’re worried some other game is going to implement before we do or anything like that. We decided we wouldn’t go into all the details of the business side since that’s personal and private, and we’re not going to spoil the game’s story prematurely, but apart from those boundaries anything goes.

It helped that Giant Bomb and Supergiant Games have some common ground as independent companies that split off from much larger ones, plus I have a long history with Jeff and the team from our days at GameSpot so we have a lot of built-in rapport. All told, we thought it could make for interesting and entertaining content for people. Rather than just show people our process, we want a big part of it to be a dialogue, so people will have a chance to tell us how we’re doing or ask questions every step of the way. It would be fantastic if through our story helped some people get their start making games of their own.

Sounds awesome! When can we expect to see these?

We should have a next look at the game on Giant Bomb in October I think. Now that people have seen how the game is looking at the moment, I really want to show some of the early prototypes so people can start to get a sense of how these types of projects evolve over time.

Whoa, nice job man! I'll be sure to check it out.

Awesome!  I can't wait for the dev diaries!  :)

I just read that in Greg Kasavin's voice. Awesome though. Waiting in patience for the dev diaries :)

Always enjoy Greg Kasavin.

I wish you'd asked Greg a bit more about this. For example, the possibility that Giantbomb might ultimately give Bastion a bad review? That would be kinda awkward, wouldn't it? Or, on the flipside... this situation might lead to Giantbomb having no choice but to give a favorable review, since they've been posting all these dev diaries about it.

When can we start making those Kasavin-Stalin memes?

Greg K is my hero. 

" I wish you'd asked Greg a bit more about this. For example, the possibility that Giantbomb might ultimately give Bastion a bad review? That would be kinda awkward, wouldn't it? Or, on the flipside... this situation might lead to Giantbomb having no choice but to give a favorable review, since they've been posting all these dev diaries about it. "

" Always enjoy Greg Kasavin. "

It can be. That's sort of how you weed out which people you can actually be friends with and which ones are just acting nice in the hopes of getting a favorable review.

The weird part is hearing your friends go from talking very optimistically about their current project to talking mad shit about it once the reviews have all hit... whether the reviews are positive or not. I imagine they must get to a point where all they can see are the flaws or something.
 
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"I wish you'd asked Greg a bit more about this. For example, the possibility that Giantbomb might ultimately give Bastion a bad review? That would be kinda awkward, wouldn't it? Or, on the flipside... this situation might lead to Giantbomb having no choice but to give a favorable review, since they've been posting all these dev diaries about it. "

Greg Kasavin was one of the worst reviewers ever, and now he's going to be one of the worst game designers ever.

What I like about how Kasavin speaks is that he focuses on the recognition of design philosophy rather than assigning value judgements.  Game criticism, unlike criticism of other art forms, began almost immediately as a method of comparing and adjudicating scores to game quality.  Everyone and their dog seems capable to be a games reviewer, because the craft by and large is spent judging the existence of quality rather than the nature of it.
 
Reading what Kasavin says about an emphasis on frames and fluid animation over immediate reaction is telling.  He never places a qualitative value on the design, merely states it as a design philosophy, the implementation of which is key.  Meanwhile, every reviewer on earth will comment that a game feels either sticky or loose, and their subjective opinion about the design concept, and not place enough emphasis on why it's there.