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Episode 08: Harry Shang Lun Lee (Sokobond)
229 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Harry Shang Lun Lee, one of the developers behind Draknek's first major commercial release Sokobond. Topics include the development of Sokobond, how Harry and Alan met, what Harry's been up to since then, and being comfortable with failure and personal growth.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Introductions
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Dragneck and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Saren, the producer at Dragneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazilden, the head dragneck at Dragneck and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey there.
Guest Introduction: Harry Shon-Lun Lee
00:00:36
Speaker
Today, we're joined by Harry Shon-Lun Lee, who you may know from their work on Sokoband. How are you doing today?
Harry's Life Journey and Career Shift
00:00:44
Speaker
Hey, Soren, doing really well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Of course. So you worked with Alan on Sokoband many, many, many years ago at this point, and have been doing a lot of really interesting stuff lately. So do you want to sort of Tell us in our audience what kinds of things are you doing? What got you into games? What's going on?
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I mean, I can give the condensed version of my life. I was born in a log cabin. I was not born in a log cabin. I was born in Melbourne, moved to Indonesia and ah grew up in and that weird zone where you're rich in a very poor country and you see all the wealth disparity very visually. And I was i was pretty young at the time.
00:01:32
Speaker
Then move back to Australia. And I think I mentioned that because it definitely informed the things I was interested in exploring, like understanding what is money and why can't we just give it to people. And then when I graduated high school, I sort of thought I wanted to be a doctor. So I studied medicine for three years. And during that time I started making games because I didn't want to study and I had undiagnosed ADHD.
00:01:54
Speaker
So I made a puzzle game called Impass, which ah was made in Flash, which is an RIP Flash, and just put it out on the website on Congregate, I think. And the internet played it and really enjoyed it. And I saw a lot of comments on Reddit or on the game itself that were speaking to the fact that the creator of this is evil or, oh, I hate whoever made this.
00:02:19
Speaker
in a kind of really emotionally gratifying way. And that's when I realized I was a sadist. And ah the best way to make people suffer is to make them think. So then after ah dropping out of medicine three years later, I went and studied commerce for a little bit, and became a university lecturer teaching game design and philosophy, and then did an MBA and became a management consultant.
00:02:46
Speaker
And along the way did a lot of different adventures, so making and interactive art. I was really interested in play and the body and ah systems, including systems that are really messing our society or systems that are out of whack ah in our society.
Exploring Art and Societal Systems through Puzzles
00:03:00
Speaker
So everything from our failing democracies or the climate emergency and thinking how we might use play as a way to figure out how we can play better with each other.
00:03:09
Speaker
So I think that puzzles became, I guess, ah an insight into how minds work. And then a lot of the other explorations, particularly in my artistic practice, is once we know how our minds work and can have a bit of that metacognition,
00:03:26
Speaker
how do we think about how our minds work together as a society and and that's kind of the through line of my practice. ah So yeah since releasing Sokubond I've worked on a few other video games, I've also made um escape rooms, board games, also worked on a lot of different non-games projects like doing strategy refresh for transgender Victoria or working on a project around farmer managed natural regeneration in Niger and thinking about how to regrow forests really, really quickly. And I'm really grateful to have been able to work on lots and lots of different projects in different domains. Part of the difficulty then is when asked, what do you do and what are you up to? The answer is usually
00:04:06
Speaker
eight different things that don't relate to each other. And so at the end of the day, I described myself as an anti-disciplinary artist, somebody who's, ah I don't think that disciplines really
Anti-disciplinary Art and Collaborations
00:04:18
Speaker
exist. I think that they're a convenient frame or or a set of jargons, but actually that's just an artifice on top of a much deeper reality that's quite twisted and we can't directly touch. So that's what I do.
00:04:33
Speaker
No, I love that. It's a good and healthy way to think about it while also getting to engage in a lot of passions. um How did you and Alan meet? We met in a line at GDC. So GDC is the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. And I think it was the first year that I went. Is that right, Alan? I think it was the first year for both of us, yeah. Incredible. It was 2012. This is over 12 years ago now. Can you believe that? I am so old.
00:05:04
Speaker
And at the time, i I remember meeting all of these different people and kind of like not really being aware of who anyone was. And so having no sense of idolism or fangirlism that I think I then developed through meeting all these really, really cool people in what at the time it seemed like, I guess, a pretty tight-knit indie game scene that I think that that ecosystem fragmented as as time passed in in a really good and healthy way.
00:05:32
Speaker
But yeah, we were in a line for some sort of talk. Maybe it was for Indie Game the Movie? Unclear. I think, like I'd forgotten the line part of this, but like when you said it was like, oh, was that the line for Indie Game the Movie? So I think it may have been.
00:05:46
Speaker
which I feel like is a perfect encapsulation of that era as well, right? Like the the the great men of history kind of indie games history of here's, what was it? Indie game, the movie's about Braid, Fez, and not funny. Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy, exactly. It's like heralded as this is what indie games are, which is really funny,
Creative Process and Existential Reflections
00:06:08
Speaker
right? because like I then the next year gave a talk about curiarchy and how actually the way that games culture was super monocultural led to the reinforcement of existing biases and just lending more power to the dominant hegemony. And here you have like three white men being interviewed for the movie. Anyway, so we're in the line and I think Alan and I had gotten talking about um Zach Barth's game, Space Chem, and is that right?
00:06:37
Speaker
Am I imagining things correctly? I i don't remember if we... well Memory is a fickle thing. Memory is so fickle. So I, in my head, like we might've talked about space chem, but we didn't start talking about space chem and like thinking about making a game until like the end of the week. Like I think we started talking about circuit bond on the Friday and we must've met on like the Tuesday or the Wednesday. um And so I think, I think we were hanging out during the week and I think you'd you'd played my game, the only notable game I'd made at the time. These were both parts of mine. fine yeah
00:07:15
Speaker
Um, and I played impasse and Midas, but I think you only told me that you made those games on the Friday and I'd just be hanging out with you like without knowing which is just funny. Um, and then on the Friday, there was some people doing a game jam and we'd be hanging out and we're like, Oh yeah, this is cool. Let's, let's make a game together. And we went to a Chinese restaurant and started sketching out ideas. ideas and That's where I think you you brought up space chem or the idea of making some kind of chemistry based puzzle game. this This sounds very familiar and I'm willing to trust that it is what happened. I mean, it's so scary, you know, talking about this because it will bring it into reality, whatever we say, right?
00:08:00
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Whatever we say is canon. It is true. Actually, I know that this is a sentence I have said about the birth of Suckbond, but I have no direct memory of it. But like, I've definitely said that it was born out of you being in the middle of doing, I think you hadn't yet quit your, um, your med school. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And I was having existential crises.
00:08:23
Speaker
and And you expressed those existential crises by making a game about chemistry, which is obviously something you have to study to be a doctor. um For no apparent reason, because no doctor knows anything about chemistry, really. yeah you You just need to be able to to blag it and sound smart. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take a step back on that one. Are we legally allowed to publish this? Doctors don't know shit. No doctors are listening to this.
00:08:52
Speaker
yeah The only doctor I respect is PhDs in history.
Chemistry and Banter between Creators
00:08:56
Speaker
Sure. I, okay. That's, sorry, Sarayan, sorry. Yes. Try and get back on track.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, herding cats. Okay, I will mention that one of the reasons I was so attracted to you, it sounds like I'm hitting on you, one of the reasons that I found you so attractive, nope, one of the reasons that I love to hang out with you at GDC, and that you're really hot, is that ah you were really kind and playful. And I love the combination of those two facets. And I think it's something that I've seen you work through you and and ah over the many years um you're very community minded you're somebody who really loves the medium of puzzle games in particular but i think just like games and games communities and yeah and in the place there's a playfulness to it.
00:09:45
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, that's that's interesting because at the time, I feel like I was still very early to games communities. Like I knew some people from the UK scene and I was like meeting a bunch more people at GDC, but I was still kind of a newcomer to everything. And so I think it's possible to be like very passionate about community in a way that like 10 plus years on, it's like, I'm still passionate about community, but in such a different way.
Community Growth and Passion Reflection
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, how has that evolved for you from you know being that outsider ah individual not really being connected yet to the network and then now where you're, I guess, a leader and then a thought leader in the space?
00:10:25
Speaker
um I mean, it's weird like because you've you've seen so many so many communities be born and grow and then shrink and die. It really makes you yeah feel feel old or feel like, oh God, what's going on? That's that's maybe the the negative way of looking at it. but um Sure is. Thanks, Alan. What I love about Alan is ah relentless positivity. you know yeah He's always, he is always very hesitant to confirm things internally, like this is just him. But there's an optimism to that, right? That um Rebecca Solnit writes about hope and a radical hope as something where you're not actually determined about the outcome.
00:11:15
Speaker
So we don't know that we are definitely going to experience total collapse due to climate change. And we don't know that we are going to get through it entirely. Because to know either of those things would be like not rooted in hope, it's that's just configuration. But to actually say this the outcome is uncertain. ah that That's actually quite beautiful and human and and allows us to do things to change that outcome. And I think that's where I place you, Alan.
00:11:43
Speaker
And also to be a bit more optimistic, I feel like even if there's things hanging over you and scary stuff like climate change, if you are able to have a good life and like have a good community and have a meaningful life, however you define that, then I think that's something special. Even if in the fullness of time, we're all just dust. Oh my goodness. how How do you define it? how how What's your meaningful life look like?
00:12:12
Speaker
Oh gosh, I mean, I, this is a bit of a tangent, but like you, ah like you were introducing your career rights at the start of the podcast or your practice. And I feel like you like think about what you do and what you've worked on. And like you have this kind of thesis of like, oh, this is, I'm i'm an artist and I've done all these different things, but I have this through line.
00:12:36
Speaker
And for me like I kind of don't really have that I just I just made puzzle games like I just I just really like puzzle games and I've just done that one thing over and over again and like you say you look you don't to believe disciplines exist in and in some ways I feel like I'm kind of the the antithesis of that. I've just kind of doubled down on one thing. It's so good. Like arch nemesis. Yeah. I mean, I turn to lovers. I couldn't, I couldn't think of a better nemesis slash lover, honestly.
00:13:07
Speaker
ah um Yeah, I mean, sorry, the the thing you just said around like, you know, you've really deep dived dove into puzzle games as as the discipline or is the the thing that you're interested in um and become a master of that craft. I think that's really lovely and reminds me of that quote from Wittgenstein, like how small a thought it takes to fill a whole life. Do you think that you could keep going your whole life in this domain?
00:13:34
Speaker
I mean, hopefully I have a long way to go. um Like, cause it feels like, like at this point it feels like I don't really know how to do anything else other than puzzle game related stuff. Whoa, whoa, whoa. But also, you I've only been doing that for like,
00:13:52
Speaker
15 years max. And at the start of that 15 year period, I wasn't even focusing on public games. I was just like making public games among other things. Yeah. And so that's like less than half my life. And like, that's a fraction of hopefully my entire lifespan. So I don't like right now, I can't see myself doing anything else. But hopefully, like if I if I live to like 90, like maybe this just feel like a blip. Who knows? That's a lovely thought.
00:14:22
Speaker
And actually, there's something interesting about that. You said at the start you didn't just focus on puzzle games, and then you've kind of more and more pushed into this niche. But I do remember your your total oeuvre contains a lot of really crass silly games.
00:14:38
Speaker
um I mean, I haven't made anything crass in so long. I mean, well, not that you've published, at least. I don't know what you do in your spare time. But you've made Shitsnake and Shitsnake 2. You've made um like a game about holding a cereal box as if though it were a baby. Is that you?
00:14:56
Speaker
That was me, yeah. yeah right that that one That one was me and V, at V21. That's kind of some of the the very playful side you you described when when we first met, that I feel like doubling down on puzzle games has led me to like...
00:15:13
Speaker
Like that part of me is still there, but I don't so much feel like I have so much of an outlook for it anymore. um I wonder if this is something that is common amongst a certain, I was going to say breed, which is totally the wrong word, um you know, species of game designer.
00:15:31
Speaker
Uh, because, you know, in Kripari, um, Steven Lavelle, like also I feel fits this bill of making really ah thoughtful, and intricate puzzle games and then just making like a game where you have to find your own asshole and fuck it.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I feel like he's, I mean, he's so prolific. Like he could stop making games and he would still have made like five lifetimes worth of games. um But I feel like he has, I don't know, like it's not a value judgment, but I think he's done a very good job of like following his passions and like making just like weird stuff and making um just whatever he feels drawn to in the moment.
00:16:12
Speaker
where I have kind of like, I mean, I said double down, but I've like, I've i've chased the passion of like being really good at doing something. And like, yeah, maybe maybe I could have doubled down on like making like weird, stupid jokes. And I just didn't go down that road. But it feels like once I'm on that pathway of like expertise and just like, oh yeah, I'm going to get really good at this thing.
00:16:40
Speaker
doing other things feels like it's not a waste of time, but it's just like ah it's it's it's it's easy to just stick to that path rather than leave it. Yeah, this this resonates really strongly to me. And I think I'm interested even more abstractly about this idea of path and narratives of success. And when you lean into something, you get rewarded for it in this world, which I think is also contributing a little bit to its polarization.
00:17:06
Speaker
And you know like it's difficult to be someone who with lots and lots of different interests as a result. right But also because the world tells you that there is a particular path of success, and this is how you're supposed to follow it. And even when you go off that path, you're presented with all these sub paths of success. And they're usually bound up in systems like capitalism. right It's like, oh, if you have more money, then you are successful. If you have more cultural capital, then you're successful. Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's it's really hard to resist that pathway. But I think you've done, like you've always, ah the entire time I've known you, you've been very good at like seeing that pull and like deliberately going in the opposite direction. So like, what's your approach to this? Like, how why do you think you've been so good at not following that path?
00:17:56
Speaker
um I think it's because I am really good at failing. I think that quite genuinely, and here I reference a little bit like The Queer Art of Failure, which is a book that explores this very topic, this idea that when you fail, either because you didn't follow that main path or because you weren't even on it to begin with right because of some aspect of you and the way that you are set up against society,
00:18:20
Speaker
You failed in one sense but that failure can bring a real sense of freedom of expression and it can really open up like well now anything is possible so you get to decide. Which is scary and it can feel ungrounded in some senses right when you have a lack of that tradition or benchmark but on the other hand afford so much in the way of like.
00:18:41
Speaker
I guess the sense of like constructing what you want to make and the metaphor that I think of is is little garden where we have lots of different species of plants and cultivars and you can grow any plant anywhere in the world right if you're out in the desert you can still have a beautiful lush green garden you just need to write build the right structure for that like the greenhouse out in the desert.
00:19:04
Speaker
It will take a lot more work to do that. So different plants in your garden will flourish in different conditions and depending on what how much energy and effort and resources you pour into different structures that support different types of growth. I mentioned this metaphor because I think when thinking about the question like, oh, how how do I look at that pathway? I think it's like, well,
00:19:23
Speaker
It's almost like I want to grow the parts of me that don't normally flourish under standard conditions. I'm really interested in the weird parts of me that only grow when you know when when put in this very specific scenario, and then I place myself in those scenarios. The challenge then is balancing the garden, right? It means that like all my weird, beautiful, exotic plants are thriving, but then maybe some of my standard plants, like being able to do taxes, are are dying.
00:19:51
Speaker
ah Well, we wouldn't know anything about that. Who needs to do taxes? Don't worry. um If anyone's listening, we've done our taxes. Yep. I have to do my company taxes by the end of the month. Beautiful. Enjoy thoroughly.
00:20:08
Speaker
As you were talking earlier about Draknek as a team and then Alan as a creator sort of balancing elegant puzzle games and crass joke games, I think back to Alan, do you remember when we were maybe two months before Bonfire Peak shipped and I was giving you the bad news about the age rating?
00:20:31
Speaker
i like I remember that we were hoping for a low age rating and we were like, oh no, now it's going to be a higher one. But I don't remember anything about the details or how I reacted. Tell the story. So the the way that you get age ratings for consoles right now for indie games is a form is that strips out nuance.
00:20:55
Speaker
And so it'll ask something like so for Bonfire Peaks, you play as a it's a voxel world. ah It is you play as a humanoid character who is picking up boxes of belongings and burning them. And there's there's traps, including like Indiana Jones style spike traps. And when you fall in the traps, a few red pixels of blood come out of you. ah And so that is, again, for a form that is not used to nuance, that is a humanoid character close up on the screen that you control dying as a result of player actions with blood coming out.
00:21:40
Speaker
That's an M. That's a 17 plus. And so I told Alan, we made a couple changes. We got it down to a T, a 13 plus. But I asked him, were you ever expecting to have an M rated game on your hands and publish it or like a Peggy 18? And Alan's answer was just not like this.
00:22:05
Speaker
Alan in his head just like reminiscing like, oh, if only shit snake yeah chip snake would would not be an M, right? HD. Would it not? Shit snake would probably... I don't actually know because... Does it matter if it's human shit? Because it's not in shit snake. It's snake shit. No.
00:22:26
Speaker
in So, by all accounts, everything about it would get you a T, except for maybe putting that in the name of the game. I think you would just need to rename the game. I don't know if store... Oh, sure. Like the game isn't not the problem. It's in this swearing that's the problem. Yeah, because... Because specifically, ah the list the names of games like the front of the storefront is visible before any agegating. The store page is the thing that's agegated, which is why like, Call of Duty key art can't have someone firing a gun.
00:23:06
Speaker
That's so funny. Because all the storefront name game names and content like key art in theory needs to be ah acceptable for anyone except age rating. a There's a loophole where age rating agencies haven't figured out what the word hentai means. on the Nintendo Switch. And many, of many dozens of developers have tried to take advantage of this with AI generated art of sliding tile puzzles. That's with the word hentai in the name of the game for like $5 and the eat this switchy shop is just a nightmare. Wow, I did not know that. Have you played any of them? No, God, no, I try not to support AI art, but
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find the ah the connoisseurs versions that he's hand drawn. Oh, I don't want to go there, but I imagine that their URL hence.ai does exist.
00:24:04
Speaker
Oh yeah. Thank you for that. You're right, that probably does exist. This podcast is sponsored by Insta AI. Do not go there. Do not go there. I want to go there. We might be about to remove this whole tangent from the episode in the edit.
00:24:21
Speaker
da If you if you're listening to this at home and you're hearing any part of this, congratulations on us on Alan successfully persuading me not to cut this tangent. Oh, my god we can just leave the URL. That makes it much worse. let's Figure it out. um So what was Alan like when you were working with him on his first commercial game?
00:24:48
Speaker
Oh, Alan was... The first thing that came to my head was Alan was very British. But that doesn't say very well. No, he sure is. He is so British. He's very British. But just saying that because you're American. And? Yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
I think that there is something to this. Alan is from Coventry, I think. Is that right? I was studying in Coventry. Where are you from? like I grew up in Guildford, which is near London.
00:25:23
Speaker
I wasn't going to guess Guilford, so you I'm glad that we didn't make any guesses. Most people not from the UK would not know where Guilford is, or that it's a place. so um Yeah, I don't know where Guilford is, or that it was a place, so thank you. There's Gotham Game Studios there. Minion molecule is base there, I think. And Lionhead was base there. Shout out to your local game studios. Oh, they're dead? Lionhead, yes. That was the developer that made the Fable games.
00:25:52
Speaker
Oh, did they make black and white? Is that them? Same team, different name, but yes. Yeah, OK, OK. When I was a kid, that was one of the few computer games that I played. And I remember being really fascinated by the idea that you could love a creature and then slap it, which upon reflection sounds like I was experiencing childhood trauma, but really wasn't. Truly the dichotomy of man.
00:26:19
Speaker
yeah
00:26:21
Speaker
it was It was just so like, oh gosh, like you could you can do that in this game. And that was what attracted me. That speaks volumes to me. yeah Anyway, ah what was Alan like? Alan was, um I think, like very upbeat. I remember being really impressed by the yes ending that occurred in the development of the game, but also a real keen eye for what belonged versus didn't belong.
00:26:48
Speaker
So I think this is common to all the games that you make and and the games that you want to help make is this idea of elegance. And that might be around like what kind of dynamics emerge from a particularly small or sparse set of mechanics and what can you elicit emotionally out of that? um What different feelings of levels can you create in a system?
00:27:09
Speaker
And I think a lot of that is first playing with the system so that you learn what it's trying to say or its characteristics and you get to know this creature quite well. And then there's this task of, okay, well then in exploring it and delighting in what it's teaching you, how do you best teach that to others? I think that you were at that time really engaging in that process thoughtfully.
00:27:35
Speaker
And then the yes ending came about because, you know, we would propose a thing and throw it around and it never felt like a shutdown of no, that's not right for the game. It was always, ah oh, yeah, let's find out if this works for the game. um So it's very an openness to the development.
00:27:50
Speaker
um As development continued and and development of the game, we thought would take, you know, I don't know, a couple of days. I mean, yeah, we we started it as a jam game. So but you're going to start it at 6pm and you're going to be done by midnight. ah And by midnight it became clear that we had finished the game and that was Sokobond and was a huge success. Great job, us. And then we we shipped it on Steam a year and a half earlier than we we did and we were all millionaires.
00:28:18
Speaker
and So what actually happened was it then took two years for us to make Sokobond. And in that period, I, having really the attention span of a thing that has very little attention, what? I just could not, for the life of me, sit down and focus on the parts of finishing a game that require you to do a bit of drudge work.
00:28:43
Speaker
And so the other part that I remember about Alan is Alan's graciousness at the fact that like I was a pretty shit collaborator at that end point of that process because Alan would be like, Hey, have you made the new levels? Have you like updated the chemistry facts? And also remember like maybe we need a dark theme and I'd be like, Oh yeah, I I've put aside some time tonight to do it and I'll check in with you tomorrow. And then like two weeks would pass. And then Alan would very kindly send an email being like, Hey, what's up?
00:29:08
Speaker
I think I could be very understanding of that because I've been that person I can still be that person today and you know sometimes sometimes that's how it is and like there's no way I could have made that game without you at the start and like even throughout like even though at points you aren't reliable like it's still so much easier to make a game.
00:29:30
Speaker
As a a team, even if the other person is just like somebody you're talking to and like saying, hey, I was thinking about this. I was thinking about that. I don't think I could have finished this game if you just dropped off the face of the earth. um oh yeah I needed you to be there to hold me accountable. Even if you weren't actually going to hold me accountable, I just needed to to feel accountable.
00:29:52
Speaker
e and Which I think also speaks to your integrity of like being accountable to others, which is a wonderful trait that I've been trying to develop more of.
00:30:05
Speaker
But for real, think like the past few years of my life, I've been really drilling down with this idea of, you know I've mentioned I had an undiagnosed ADHD at the time, I've since had it diagnosed, and now we're really drilling into process of game making and making in general. you know um At the start of that process of diagnosis, I was pretty bratty and was like, you know I remember distinctly telling my psychiatrist,
00:30:29
Speaker
Oh, ADHD is just the name that we give to a topology of different minds that are harder to extract value from because they work in ways that you know may not be as typical as what other people's brains or what the norm works as.
00:30:46
Speaker
But it's not a pathology. It's not you know a real problem. And I think there's part of me that still believes that that that is a very valid perspective of neurodiversity and neuroatypicality. But what I think became more clear was like actually it wasn't just about how value could be extracted. It was also about how is this affecting my relationships with people? How is this impacting my energy and how much energy I have for different projects and whether I can do the things that I love doing And so more and more i realized i was really i guess like wanting some of the skills that i didn't seem to have or like i was finding it hard to cross certain rivers and other people made it seem so easy and it was starting to feel very emotional like how come it's so hard to cross these particular rivers.
00:31:28
Speaker
So identifying that I was very motivated by excitement and passion in the moment and then not particularly good at finishing things led down a multi-year path of figuring out how can I achieve what I want to achieve and how do I think about discipline not as some sort of like fighting against yourself but in the sense of like knowing what I actually want and aligning my actions to that true desire so that I can be the self that I want to be. Sounds very spiritual and abstract but like Yeah, I think that actually started with Sokobond because Sokobond was kind of the first big collaboration project of my life. So thank you, Alan.
00:32:03
Speaker
Oh, wow. That's a, I never would have expected you to say something like that. Cause from my perspective, like, yeah, sure you made Sokobans, but like you've done so much else and so much else unrelated that I, I can't really see Sokobans as a starting point for it. It's just like, oh, this is one of many things you've done. Like you're, you're, you're just multidisciplinary. You'll just do whatever you like. That's interesting. Like, do do you feel like it just showed you, oh, like things can get finished. Is is that part of it?
00:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, definitely when I look upon my work, See Mighty and Despair, I think about Zokobondas as one of the things that I really am proud of. You know, i I play it occasionally, or at least pull it up on my computer or phone, and and if you haven't yet played it, you should definitely download it. Give us money.
00:32:51
Speaker
um And I play through the levels and go like oh yeah this is this is a game that I can see the parts of it that I designed or contributed to I can see the parts that are distinctly Alan and I can also see the large swaths that are just like our minds melted together it really does feel like we made a baby where you can see like this is my nose and that's your ears and then the rest of this is kind of sort of DNA podgepodge.
00:33:14
Speaker
And I'm just, I'm so proud of it. I was like, this is, this is a game that whatever flaws it has, it doesn't matter because it's ours. And, um, that's not true of every baby I've made. There were several babies that I felt really, uh, you know, this is where the metaphor gets really dark and, and shouldn't continue probably. Careful.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's uh, let's veer away from the baby thing. Let's take a yeah, just like we talk about kill your darlings and as ah As a creative process of like being critical of your work But I think what I also want to develop is pride without ego and I think I have that with Sokobond Yeah, I mean, I think being proud of the things that I've worked on is a real through line to my game making career. And like on on one level, I know that like not everyone has that and like not as everyone has had the ability to work on games that like end up being like being that. But like I don't I don't think I could still be making games without that. And maybe that's the answer to like, when will I when will I stop making puzzle games? It's when I don't
00:34:17
Speaker
get that sense of like, oh man, i like we really made something worthwhile here. um And maybe if I stop getting that in dolphin rush, I will have to move on. But as as long as I am still getting that. Don't be sad if that's stopped. Yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
How much of that do you think is tied into the response that a game gets? And I ask this because you also have like a discord of thinky puzzle lovers and you know that Sokobond was really well received and then watching someone play the game for me is it's like a beautiful, wonderful experience.
00:34:51
Speaker
i mean I think it being received well is and is very important to me. um like I don't know what it would be like if i I released something that I thought was good and then like a community or like my peers or or people I respected. were like No actually this one it's not just mediocre this is just bad like I like I've not I've not had that but like so i do I do think it's important that like yeah like people people validate it and go yes this this good thing but I think it's like in a general conception of
00:35:25
Speaker
games considered to be good, there's a like parallel thing of like, oh, and it was also like financially successful. And like, Suckaland was financially successful, but I don't think that that is why I feel good about it. I feel pride from it.
00:35:42
Speaker
Like, I think it could have been even more financially successful if we'd actually got it onto Steam the moment we got through Greenlight and it could probably possibly have made us 10 times more money. But I don't think I would feel, yeah, like, hey, you you might have not been available as much as you wanted to be during the development of that game. But I really fucked up after we shipped it. Like, tell me more. I don't know the side of the story. Maybe, maybe I never really felt a doubt for you. um This is tragic.
00:36:13
Speaker
ah but yeah we We shipped the game August 2013, which was about a year and a half after we started working on it. um We shipped it on the humble game store.
00:36:28
Speaker
And I think that that was the only place you could buy it. Actually, the the game still didn't even exist. There was no website. I think there's like the humble widget. So you'd put it on your website and there was the humble payment infrastructure. um But like, yeah, the concept of like, oh, here's you go to humblegames.com and you you buy stuff from that. like That wasn't how it was. It was just like a piece of HTML you put on your website that lets people buy the game and humble would host it.
00:36:58
Speaker
um And so that was August 2013. We probably got approved for green light, maybe like two to four months after that. But similar to how it took 10 years for the mobile version to come out, I just procrastinated getting the game on Steam. Oh, wow. So it wasn't until July 2014, almost a year later, that we actually shipped on Steam and The difference between December 2013 and July 2014 like it doesn't sound like a lot but like during that time steam like was very much in the process of opening the floodgates and.
00:37:43
Speaker
I mean, also similarly, if we'd released Sokobond on mobile in 2013, 2014, that would have been my game would have been great. like like cause for For the later games I made, A Good Snowman is Hard to Build and Cosmic Express, those games actually did better on mobile than they did on PC, partly because Steam was getting more and more crowded, but partly because it was a really, really good time to be releasing premium mobile games.
00:38:08
Speaker
And so if we'd released soccer bombs even earlier that game could have been great that but like I did not have the. Ability like I like also probably a diagnosed ADHD like I I could not make myself do the drug work of.
00:38:26
Speaker
doing the 2% of work to finish up that mobile port. um And it was hanging over my head for so long. It was hanging over for my head for so long that eventually it just dropped off the bottom of my to-do list. And I'm like, well, in theory, I should be feeling guilty about that. But like, nah, whatever. It's done. what ah Old news. um I'm sure a lot of people can relate. I definitely can. Yeah. I mean, that's fascinating. I don't think I was privy to that.
00:38:54
Speaker
i don't I don't know if like that six month delay would have meant that the game actually did ten times better on Steam, but like there's that question mark of like, oh, but what if?
00:39:07
Speaker
And then, you know, it's interesting, right, because so coupon was, as you say, financially successful. Um, I've never actually looked at like the sales widget and found out how much money or or how how many units it sold. I'm judging purely on the fact that every so often I still get a little email that pops up saying like track neck, we'll send you money via wise transfer, which is so lovely and has, I don't know whether I've mentioned this to you, but like literally saved my ass so many times.
00:39:34
Speaker
that like I was scrounging for money and trying to figure out how I was going to pay for rent of my escape room or pay um the team that had like just reached the end of our runway. And then a little bit of like $1,000 would come through and literally be the difference between me not eating and eating.
00:39:52
Speaker
That's amazing. So yeah, I mean, this this game was transformative in in my life and um really enabled me to do a lot of things just because of the the like low but and significant amount of security that are provided unexpectedly through its long tail.
00:40:09
Speaker
And I feel like, you know, similarly for you, I can sort of see Sokoban does the start of a trajectory that I observe whereby you make games that are financially successful and then you use that money in ways that both like support that ecosystem of games that you're making, but also a larger ecosystem of puzzle game lovers and, and people that you want to champion, including marginalized voices. Um, this is a segue into the grant program and and all the cool stuff that you're doing there.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, um, that very much is like feeling like I got lucky, um, being able to do this and be profitable. Like if I was like, if we were making sucker bonds now, there's no way it happens the same way. Like the, the, the infrastructure is is so different. Like, like suck one now, like we release it and like five people play it and that's that.
00:41:00
Speaker
And it feels like, oh, but like i i can I can try and like like pass it on. I can like try and build something that does support people making these games, that does um try and uplift the people who aren't representative of the people who who make these games, who actually have them be successful.
00:41:21
Speaker
And part of it was just seeing other examples of people making that infrastructure and be like oh wow that's cool and then maybe that stuff will like stop happening. Well if that's not gonna happen then I guess I should do something similar. And yeah just seeing something worthwhile and going well okay yeah that's worthwhile so that should happen.
00:41:41
Speaker
Um, and I mean, I feel, I feel very lucky that I do you have the resources and the flexibility and the ongoing income that I can do that. And I'm not just scrounging paycheck to paycheck that I can just go, okay, well, we've got enough buffer in the company that I could do the silly thing that is not in the interest of keeping dragneck going, but like it's going to contribute to the world in some way.
00:42:07
Speaker
I think it's really commendable, and I do specifically want to call it out as commendable because you know I know that you don't do it for accolade or for praise, but I would like to see more of that and ah those values being expressed by people who also were lucky. you know in It's such a wonderful thing to see people um use the power they have responsibly. Yes. That's the end of the thought. I hope you keep that gap in.
00:42:37
Speaker
Maybe, maybe. um Yeah, I mean, as well I've been here, it's been really awesome that the limit to what Draknek goes out and does in the industry or the space or just in terms of projects is The limits are not a lack of ideas or not a lack of eagerness to give back. It is usually a lack of bandwidth. And so, ah because Trackneck is a three-person team now, it's myself, it's Alan, and it's our studio manager, Mari. And yeah, we run cerebral puzzle showcase every year where we work
00:43:29
Speaker
and put on a Steam event full of other people's games, also try to feature games that are launching into it, including by smaller creators. We have the New Voices Plus grant. ah We've started publishing other people's games, including Sokoban Express, the sequel to your game. Oh, yeah. Which is wild. Yeah. What was what was that like ah to see that happen, like when you first heard it was going to happen?
00:43:56
Speaker
um It was surreal. i mean For someone to have you know been inspired by your game in any dimension is always like a beautiful feeling and one that you hope you know when you create anything in the world.
00:44:12
Speaker
um yeah I think creating is the process of like putting your ah part of yourself into the thing. And then when people experience it, they are in dialogue with you. At least that's that's particularly true in my opinion with like puzzle games with designed um levels. Because you're trying to you're trying to say something through its design. It's like root setting and bouldering. right it's like it's it's You're speaking through the wall. You're speaking through the level.
00:44:36
Speaker
And then for someone to be inspired and be also thinking about systems and puzzles and then like do their own, I mean, it's it's a ah what's a word for when you have a mashup, right? It's like it's a mashup of Alan's Game Cosmic Express and Sokobond and then with really, I think, beautiful results. um It feels like an act of magic and generosity for this person to have actually reached out and said like, hey, I made this thing and And then for the response to be like, oh, could we publish it as the actual sequel? So yeah, it it genuinely felt magical. um Like the universe delivered this beautiful package of things. And it reminds me that um contrary to the myth of the individual genius, I really do think that games, arts, humanity at large operates in these communities of practice and scenes.
00:45:30
Speaker
that we inspire each other and are part of that energy and momentum that leads to even more beautiful things occurring because not just of our capacity but propensity to constantly be infecting each other with meaning and purpose. There's this ah word which I'm going to butcher, it's like horizon for schmeltung.
00:45:50
Speaker
this like melding of horizons, that idea that all the things that I can see and all the things that you can see, when we meet and share ideas, whether it's through conversation or through art or through any kind of being human exchange, um we just push each other's horizons and fuse them just a little bit and find a type of agreement. And that can be through the synthesis of our our values or ideas. And Circle Bond Express feels like an embodiment of that idea, of that concept. so So yeah, um incredible work. Yeah, that project was a real joy. And also Alan was so giddy when he discovered the game that led into Sokoban Express that Jose had made ah Subatomic Wire.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't played Shell Atomic Wire, but I am very impressed by Jose and and the the whole team um who made Sokobond Express, so I'm sure I would also enjoy it. It's also having very hard. It's got all the the building blocks um that would show you, like, oh, yeah. Like, I can see why Alan would see this and go, like, oh, this is this is so cool. um And like, also the other DNA, like, there's Sokobond, there's Cosmic Express, but it's also very space-chemie, which is interesting, because that was such a cool part of the DNA for Sokobond in the first place.
00:47:08
Speaker
to the point where we actually, in our initial prototypes, called it ChemSpace. Yes, I'd forgotten that. and It's all in Ouroboros. It's so good. yeah We took up on what was originally called ChemSpace, and we actually got Zach to play test it. And Zach has a quote in the original trailer, um which is highlighted. And this quote is like, this game makes me want to stab myself, which is the highest praise I could possibly imagine Zach Barth giving a puzzle game.
00:47:34
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's a... Like you said, Sokobont Express is a hard game, but I would say so Sokobont. It's true. Sokobont! Yeah, I think in terms of, I mean, difficulty is such a um difficult topic, right? To to sort of be like, what makes a game difficult? but i think the The big thing that changes between Sokobond and Sokobond Express by adding in the pathfinding is that you're doing, and this is something that,
00:48:07
Speaker
ah listeners will have heard before because I believe the episode with Jose is scheduled to come out before this, but for your benefit. ah the The thing that was iterated on the most is as you are building out the molecule and creating your path, you are having to construct this mental model of what is going to happen, what is going to be the chain of effects and both plan ahead and predict the reactions ahead of time and a lot of work, I think. So that Sokoban Express took somewhere in the ballpark of three years. And the first year- That's two Sokobans.
00:48:50
Speaker
Yes, like for about half of that, a lot of the focus was on, you know, level design mechanics, balance, et cetera, and almost literally half the dev time. Probably the biggest top line conversation was how do we improve playability? how Like what quality of life things like how do we offload some of the mental cycles of Showing you the mental box like the the in game model molecule that you're going to be building and maneuvering around because in the very very first build that you could see this you go back and play subatomic wire.
00:49:34
Speaker
there it's it like It doesn't show you the ghost molecule as you're building it, for example, as you're drawing the path. like it's all like When you hit a wall, that's just because you didn't like predict that in your head, and now you go back without information, and you try it again, and you go, and you go back, and you can still design very great puzzles. like Almost every single puzzle in Sokobot Express could be built in subatomic wire.
00:50:00
Speaker
But Sokoban Express, by trying to become extremely playable and approachable because it is inherently adding that extra layer on top of Sokoban, and like what a Sokoban level can be hard with.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that speaks to something around like how our games or anything made where you know game design, and at least my definition of it is like a series of choices that you make around how to highlight a particular experience first for a player, for someone who plays.
00:50:34
Speaker
and And so much of that is in the finicky small detail of like, oh, can you make a person have a better time if you also showed them the outline of what they're about to make so that they don't have to strain quite as hard versus a different type of game which would have a different aesthetic or a different purpose to it if you were like, no, you got to visualize everything, ha ha.
00:51:00
Speaker
But that's not the game that you set out to make, no? um It just leads to different games. Yeah, and like a lot of direct next games both developed and published don't constantly show you that level of like advanced preview.
00:51:17
Speaker
But also most of them, you're doing step-by-step inputs. You don't need to keep so much in your head at the same time because you can just do a move and see it and then respond to it. And then you can undo quickly. yeah But Sokoband Express is so much more about building a very complex plan.
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so like the end of that plan and the start of that plan are intimately connected. It's like, it's like a hexapod a in story of your life, which became the movie arrival.
00:51:49
Speaker
There's a very ah deep hole of a reference maybe, but you know, it's fine. But yes, no, that's a that's it's it's, you know, it's all part of the design. And for a game like Sokoban Express, that is a lot more abstract. It definitely helps to ah show those extra visuals and everything. Brilliant.
00:52:15
Speaker
I think we're about to wrap it up. Is there anything else that you wanted to touch on before we let you go? Um, I feel like I should probably mention the stuff that I'm working on briefly. just yeah to say Like, um, you, we've touched on like a bunch of stuff, but we haven't dug into what you've worked on as much.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's I took a little step out of games for a while. And I do think there's a larger conversation to be had around the way that games communities have evolved um since COVID. um Not that COVID is over, but like since lockdowns in the major, I guess, 2020. What was experienced worldwide to differently, but in also some ways commonly, um where many places were in lockdown. And here in Narm, ah Melbourne, Australia, there's um definitely the sense of a collective trauma of people in 2020 being locked in what was the longest lockdown in the world, and or what eventually became the longest.
00:53:16
Speaker
And you can see it in the games communities right there like what used to be vibrant physical spaces including experimental spaces like bar SK. um Which was a trash media playable arts bar that people really congregated around.
00:53:32
Speaker
um or all-day breakfast, which was a few ah years earlier. It's like ah a co-working space for marginalized game makers and creators. um Those spaces really disappeared um over that year. And then so and you know with Twitter then becoming X, game spaces online also started having to find new homes. um And those homes became a little bit more opaque. It's harder maybe to to join them if you're not part of the Discord, if you're not part of the conversations.
00:54:01
Speaker
So I mentioned this because i I guess so much of my practice in games was informed by those communities and feeling like those communities inspired me and then those communities disappeared and I felt like I had to really take a lot of energy away from games as a practice. um But I was still making things like playable experiences and art um at the same time.
00:54:24
Speaker
ah Recently, I've been coming back into games, quad games, and video games. And i by the time this podcast ah is out, I've released a a word game called Tidy Words, where you tidy up some letters that have fallen out of words. um And I think there's such an unexplored space in word games that I'm really excited to dive into and see if I can, again, create that experience and highlight that experience for players. so particularly players who love language in the way that I do, which is um the fact that it has this dual, highly mathematical aspect and highly cultural aspect, and they're inseparable. They're they're really intertwined with each other. So you can analyze and think about what makes a word a word from a phonetic or a morphological perspective.
00:55:10
Speaker
you know, analyzing the lexemes and how they put together. And you can also just see it as like, oh, this is how we think and express ourselves. And the limit of our language is the limit of our reality and, you know, the strong or superior hypothesis. and and And games are a way to maybe like push at some of those edges. So that's why I'm excited about tidy words and word games in general. Yeah, you should go and play it out now. Really setting myself a time limit here.
00:55:37
Speaker
don't Don't make promises you can't keep. It's true. I should not make promises I can't keep, but it's out now. Wait, when is this going to be released? Oh, you've probably got early 2025. Oh, no. It's been out and it's a huge success. You've heard of it. Everyone's played tidy words.
00:55:54
Speaker
It's a new world. And is is is that such just you? Is that you and a small team? like um That is me, ah Jack Nolan, and Cecile Richard. And um the three of us, based in Narm, are making this game with the ah kind auspices of Screen Australia, who gave us a grant to make the game. I totally missed that you got funding to make a game. Yeah. I mean, I didn't tell anyone, because where would I tell people that information?
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, but i i like I occasionally look at like, oh, Screen Australia has funded new games. um I do not and did not see, ah I assume it's Play Reactive. Play Reactive, yeah. Didn't see Play Reactive's name. we We got funded a little while back for, ah it's not actually for tidy words, we got funded for boss words, which I think you've played a version of.
00:56:48
Speaker
ah long enough ago that I recognize the name but have no memory of the gameplay. Totally, totally fine. it It's just asked this really simple question, which is, most word games ask you to find a subset of a particular set of letters. yeah That is a word. um And Bosswords asks, what if you were asked to find the superset? So can you think of a word that contains in any order q, k, h?
00:57:15
Speaker
And so this game, Tidy Words, is like an evolution of of what started as that game. Yeah, we started off with this idea of, OK, well, like what happens if you take just the general principles of of a lot of different word games and then start to twist them in different ways? um And we found really fertile ground there. It's like there's so many word games that could exist that don't, that are really elegant and feel different enough from what exists. So, um Earthquake, by the way.
00:57:42
Speaker
um And this idea of how many games there are yet to be made that are that feel elegant and feel like they were a pure form of something that someone has not yet brought to life but exists in the collective unconscious. I felt that way around Stickets, which was my 2013, I want to say, release um for mobile.
00:58:05
Speaker
you know And Kotaku wrote about it as the game that forgot Tetris exists. And that made me really happy, right? It's like a game without a reference class or a game that felt really pure. And that's what I'm hoping, I think, boss words or tidy words to do the same for word games, which is like, oh, it's actually like a new class of word games that feels like it should always have existed. um So yeah, to to go from boss words to tidy words was a process of like, let's make 20 different word games with that same question of what's what happens when.
00:58:34
Speaker
And in some ways that sounds like the the thing you were describing to me about like the process of making soccer bonds, where like you're like, oh, this this game could be like this, or it could be this, it could be this, and you're just trying a bunch of things and like saying, oh, what's interesting? Yeah, totally. Yeah, exactly. It's this playful mode that I think both of us have of you want to listen to the thing you're making and let it be the thing that it wants to be. And there's a little bit of push and pull as you push against it and what it wants to be. And then it feels like you circle around it. Really, we we're we're meant to be trying to wrap up. but like Oh, sorry. how No, no, it's fine. I'm i'm i'm indulging in it. but like
00:59:11
Speaker
what Like, how do you choose how did how did you choose that this with the version of the game that Tidyworth wanted to be rather than any of the other 20 other things it could have been? Yeah, I mean, I think um the old me would have chosen based on what excited me the most. And the me of now chose based on, I mean, as as boring as it is, but like at a two by two of ease and commercial viability.
00:59:39
Speaker
Some of these things are going to be um easier to make and versus harder to make. And some of these ideas are going to be more marketable or more easy to pick up and less easy to pick up. Or maybe the like the market for that particular thing is higher or greater. And it's not a framework I would have used beforehand.
00:59:56
Speaker
But I feel a real responsibility now to be making things that also are financially sustainable much more than in the past um because I'm working in larger teams and working with people and I want to be able to support them in their livelihoods as well.
01:00:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's that's funny because that's it's ah it's a very unsexy answer of like, like, it's not like, oh, it's following my passion. It's just like, oh, yeah, no, I and made the simpler version because it was the simpler version and least likely to go out of control. Like sometimes that's just the right way of making things.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And constraint is creativity, right? like yeah yeah like can like if if you If you choose that path, then the likelihood that you actually finish something is so much higher. Exactly, exactly. And and if anyone is listening who really loves puzzle games and is maybe like on the cusp of making a game or they're halfway making a game, um then the piece of advice I would leave you with is like choose the path that makes things easier and not harder, um particularly if it's your first few games.
01:00:58
Speaker
That's not to say that you can't do it the other way, but that, you know, more often than not, I wish I had chosen the easier path. And so I'm trying to bring that wisdom with me. And you're also working on an escape room. Yeah, I've got an escape room out. Is that going to be playable by the time the podcast comes out or is it a limited run?
01:01:15
Speaker
No, it's um it it'll still be up and running. So um I have an escape room in Richmond, um which was previously called Kuo Young. And you can check it out at Earthrise.1. It's a sci-fi immersive adventure. And what I was really interested in when making it is, can you make an escape room that feels like everything is a world that actually exists? So there's no non-diegetic puzzles, right? All the puzzles actually make sense inside of the narrative, inside of the world that we've created.
01:01:43
Speaker
it feels lived in. There's lots of focus on environmental storytelling. um It's a narrative that is important and you make moral choices. And hopefully the puzzles are also really fun and an excuse for you and your friends to feel smart and and have a moment of breakthrough and and all the good things that we love about puzzles.
01:02:05
Speaker
And making an escape room has been a very ah joyful experience, but a learning experience as well. Because unlike the digital realm, making things with your hands, um there's no control zed. There's no way to you know undo the hole that you've just drilled in the middle of your wall, except patching it up, which takes time and effort. So we had to be much more, or not much more thoughtful, but that we had to think in a different way when creating this room.
01:02:33
Speaker
Oh, and also there's laws and regulations around like fire safety and the level of contrast necessary between architraves and the doorway. Learned a lot making escape rooms. And in the last project, I thought I would just plug very quickly because it is something that I really believe in and um and and want people to be thinking about. I'm working with the Center for Rebuilding, which is run by two amazing indigenous women, Jen Ray, who is Meti Nation, and ah Claire G. Coleman, who is Nungar, kind of like Western Australia.
01:03:03
Speaker
And the center for reworlding focuses on this question of like what are we going to do as we either like experience more environmental ah climate disasters um or i have to adapt so that we don't get impacted negatively by said disasters? And what are the skills that are on the cusp of being lost? How do we ensure that those skills don't get lost? How do we practice the values that are going to lead to survival rather than collapse?
01:03:31
Speaker
Um, and have a really strong stance, right? That like actually the reason that we are in this mess is because we're not practicing the right values. We don't, um, practice the values of generosity or of kindness when we have a mode of extraction and of exhaustion. Um, and, and I certainly have felt a type of like anxiety and exhaustion and fatalism when it comes to fighting climate change.
01:03:56
Speaker
um But Jen and Claire have, I think, through the power of speculative fiction and through the power of of um First Nations principles and and data sovereignty and things like that, really like brought me to this place where I think, oh, what we need now is determination. What we need now is just like people to be acting in whatever capacity they can. Everyone will have a different role, but we're all part of it.
01:04:18
Speaker
And so the project we're working on, Billia, which is the Nungar word for river or also naval, is a way to connect artists and projects and organizations who are tackling the climate emergency through their work and help them share resources cross sector and cross discipline so that there's less reinvention of the wheel. you know There's so many resources out there. We're actually abundant with the answers and we just need to organize a bit better.
01:04:44
Speaker
So that's what I'm working on with them. You can check that out ah eventually at billia dot.link or billia dot.net.au if we eventually choose a URL. And is that a is that a local focused thing or is it something that people from all around the world can get value from interacting with with this community?
01:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, it it starts small and local, so we're really focusing on um thinking about our Australian networks, but by the nature of it being networks and people working internationally, I think it's going to grow, hopefully, internationally. But um in terms of value, definitely anyone can go and check it out because the idea is that we'll have the resources on there that will benefit everyone. So, you know, here's this paper, here's this um creative equity toolkit that actually I think the British Council helped produce.
01:05:34
Speaker
um Here's an inclusion rider. Here's ah you know a statement on um decarbonizing your sector. All of these resources exist, but where do you find them? on one of those two yeah urls e at viia alan seran thank you so much for having me on this podcast it's been ah true pleasure and so lovely to meet youurrene and to reconnect with alan it feels like such a adventure that we've been on right like over ten years ago making socoup bond what a dream
01:06:05
Speaker
And then now I'm still having this real sense of a friendship and on one of collaboration that was a lifelong those one, two URLs, TBD. that feels really generous and giving, and I just love you so much. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's been really great to catch up. We should do this more often. Nah. Yeah, yeah, we should. You've ruined all the flirting you were setting up in the first half. I am really good at flirting.
01:06:34
Speaker
that's That's all. I'm really good at it. yeah oh So, anywhere else that people could find you online? Yes, you can check out my work at hellothisismywebsite.com. Incredible URL. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think you can also get there by hellothisismy.website, if you don't like dot .com. um And then you can find me on some form of internet social media, potentially, at leeshanglen, L-E-E-S-H-A-N-G-L-U-N. Awesome.
01:07:10
Speaker
Well, thank you very much again for hanging out. ah It's been a real pleasure. And thank you for listening to the Dragneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at coolnoise.bandcamp dot.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam Degrantis. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.