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How Game Dev Has Changed (ft. Tim Schafer) | Dev Heads Podcast
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This week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by industry icon, Tim Schafer, to discuss how game development has changed through the decades.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
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Guest Introduction: Tim Shafer
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to DevHeads, the podcast focused on the ins, outs and goings on of game development with host experience ranging from indie double to triple A. I'm Jay, and I'm joined by my wonderful co-host Tina. Hello, how's it going? And Mikey. Hello. And today we have a very special guest, which we're all very excited for, Mr. Tim Shafer. Hello, thanks for having me. You're welcome, dude. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. We I think we'll get the we'll get the kind of praise out of the way. I think we're all extreme fans of your previous work. Praise out of the way.
Impact of Brutal Legend and Launch Memories
00:01:10
Speaker
Well, one one of my favorite games of all time is ah Brutal Legends. And I'm I'm a huge fan of that game. It was a big marker on like ah because I'm just about to turn 30. So when I was a teenager, it was a big influence.
00:01:25
Speaker
ah Yeah. Sorry to all sorry to age your room. um But it was a big influence on how I, you know, viewed games as a medium and how they could be formed and, you know, the blending of genres and stuff like that. So first of all, thanks for that. How old were you when you ah when you played it? I can't remember the exact age. When did that come out, Tim? thousand nine yeah yeah thirteen two thousand and nineteen and I met at a Brutal Legend press event at the Supper Club. Remember that?
00:01:58
Speaker
Yep. And then I remember you were, um, you invited me to the launch party for Brutal Legends. like the Not the Comic Con Gwar one or the one oh and at Bimbo's in San Francisco. I went to Gwar and I also went to Bimbo's. At Bimbo's, I remember you said no cell phones and we all had to, uh, not had to, but we, we karaoke'd and I performed on stage and sang for the first time, which I'm not good at at all, but that was amazing. but What was your karaoke song? I don't even remember. I think, uh, I don't remember. Do you have footage of that anywhere? I don't. I did Living After Midnight, Judas Priest. I do remember that. Because afterwards, my wife said, you sound like Kermit the Frog when you sing. That's my heavy metal fantasy. and That's me performing at ah yeah at the lunch party. I have a photo right there. Oh, there's you playing Costume Quest when I worked that one up. ah You invited us over.
00:02:50
Speaker
And I think this is a, what's that party game on Connect? I forgot. Happy have Action Theater. Best game ever made. Yeah,
Career Challenges and Industry Dynamics
00:02:59
Speaker
no, it was fun. um Yes, I wanted to lay the foundation a little bit and let people know how great you are, like truly kind.
00:03:12
Speaker
When I joined the game industry in 2007, I think I was at CoA for a little bit, and then I joined EGM and went up ah shortly after, but um my entire career has been a I've always had the president of having to prove to people that I played games and that I knew about games and that I really wanted to belong and participate in the creation of games or even discussing them. And when I met you, Tim, you're still to this day one of the only people that never treated me in any weird way and treated me like I was already an equal.
00:03:50
Speaker
That meant so much to me. That's awesome. I think I was scared because of how hardcore you were with all your shooters. go go i don't play shooters no was really cool um I also have a video of ah Lily um when I did a video with her for IG and I think we have a clip of it that we want to show. yeah good you She's 16 now and she wants to take driver's lessons. Oh my God. Wow. i like She was three years old. Bless her. playing, uh, yep. Yep. She's a good actor. She's a good actor. I was just watching that too. I'm going to make you cry. Wow. The age of your daughter as well. Like this, this podcast is just like, let's see how much we can age each other. In the end, I'm going to win the, I'm going to win the agent contest.
00:04:39
Speaker
all i guess making that video works yeah that's a trick That's the biggest trick in the games industry is how to not ah age too quickly. It can take a lot, it can aid you prematurely, the game industry. I actually kind of have a to segue off that. I have a question. I was speaking to a friend of mine who works at Riot briefly before this, because I put out a tweet saying, you know, um you were going to be on and get to chat with you and how excited I was. And um we were discussing like time in the industry and how to a lot of people who are or juniors or just like getting into the industry.
00:05:16
Speaker
people who have been in it for 30 plus years, it's kind of intimidating because you know they they have such this this depth of experience um and have shipped so many games. um Like Tina explained, is that something that you you try to be mindful of when you speak to people who are getting into the industry for the first time? And I always feel intimidated in reverse because I'm always, you know, I remember my, I'm always worried that my head will be stuck in the past or that I, you know, when I want to give advice to people just coming out of school and like, i I don't know what the world's like for you. Cause for me, it was like, it was like this. It was like, you know, you could, you know, make your own indie game really easily or it's maybe some of these things are still true. In fact, there's more engines and stuff that people can use. Maybe that's more true, but I'm always worried about giving a bad advice that was based on like when I got into the industry and like there are late forties, you know,
00:06:04
Speaker
Which was, that's a joke, you guys. It wasn't the late 40s. We're not in the 40s, right? That's probably when you did get it. I do do more and more like worry about being current and being up on things because i'm it's still part of me is just like, you know when games imprint on you at a certain age, that kind of certain ages will always be cool to you and certain games will always be special to you. and um I don't want to be just making those games over and over again, but it's part of me like right over here. I have this collection of like Atari 2600 games and they still like speak to me in this weird way that if I tried to, you know, they may, may not to someone younger. So I try to be mindful of that of like not turning into a dinosaur. Yeah. I, my last video that I did was effectively on that. I did an entire thing of how beyond good and evil. I don't know if you've played that game. Um, yeah. changed my life and and ah how it informed like what, if we go back, it informed of basically where I am today. um And it's crazy how like those experiences can imprint. But then if you give them beyond good evil to someone today, they might not have that same kind of that same kind of experience. And that's okay. um You said something really interesting at the beginning.
00:07:15
Speaker
there, which was back when you started, it was a little bit easier in a way to make indie
Evolution of Indie Game Development
00:07:21
Speaker
projects. What was that like back then? How does that differ to now? We're talking about the late 80s, early 90s, right? I got started in 89, so I got hired at LucasArts right out of college. Actually, Besides the early earliest games where like people were making games and shipping them in Ziploc baggies, and that was very indie. But um I'm thinking more like ah the first explosion of like Xbox Live Arcade and stuff. I'm not saying it was easier to make an indie game there, but it was there were fewer games out and you could get a lot of attention. and
00:07:56
Speaker
um And there still are like, you know, big hits like that in the indie world. But it seems like one of the reasons we started Day of the Devs was just because it seems like it's so hard for games to like stand up and and be noticed in the huge crowd of games that are released all the time. So just there are a lot of things that are added with that. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, and it's great that there's so many games to play and everybody can find their own unique games and so many sub genres and specialties. But um it is, you know, it's maybe harder to just um get automatically noticed. You just have to work harder at it. Well, it's about who you know too right and like the marketing behind you um It's almost not fair to a lot of the triple-a studios have like 200 million budgets to say hey look at us and look at our game um well ah I wanted to say that ah when it When I want to go back to when I met you um I was at a crossroads in my life I remember interviewing with you. I don't know if you remember and ah Yes, and ah
00:08:55
Speaker
I was so silly because you were like, here who's this? And you held up a ah figure of Manny. I was like, I don't know. but timeer years um but out you test Who do you think this is? Yeah, that's Manny. I got his name wrong. um But no, you're very kind. um But it was like, work with you or work with ah Infinity Ward at the time. um And it was a really, really, really hard choice. and i I'm I can say that I'm glad that I did Infinity Ward only for the fact that I met my husband and I have my kids now but in terms of like creative happy yeah I think gravity um I think that we'll find is like a really cool place. um Working on a franchise where
00:09:43
Speaker
There's already set expectations and sort of like a religious ah you know egg you know ah culture around what they want out of it. that's You don't have the flexibility to be as creative, whereas at your studio, you know you don't always necessarily stick to an artistic theme. um You encourage your team to participate in the Fortnite Amnesia stuff because of two weeks to implement them. Yeah, watch that video. It was really wild. It's cool to see. um
Public Exposure of Game Development
00:10:16
Speaker
You let your fans into the game and development space in a unique way where other studios really haven't yet. um Has there been any sort of, um I guess, any changes to your culture because of that or, you know, any um
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I did i yeah i mean i think um part of that was just wanting to pull back the curtain and expose game development because um it was always very mysterious to me when I was young. There's no idea. and never you know Old Atari games never put the designer's name on the box. you know like Everything was always hidden. it was like They're made by these factories, mysterious you know Willy Wonka factories. And so just showing how um And that's why it took me so long to start a company in a way. A lot of people were saying you should start a company, but I was like, I don't even know the first thing about that. And just showing that it's like regular people do. It is hard, but regular people, people that are not smarter than you, people who might be dumber than you are doing it all the time. So we just wanted to show that.
00:11:17
Speaker
it's um It's I don't know if it's changed our culture. I mean, people, some people get more camera aware you know because you have the documentary crew going. Some people ignore the camera. Some people like can't ignore them and and and play to them. But um I think there's been effects like we're doing. The first documentary is right during, you know, gamergate. And we got a lot of just like hot. fire hose of just um the internet blowing in our face every day. I think, you know, burn some people out. They're like, I can't face the raw internet anymore. I need to be protected from this. And so we that doesn't have an effect um on us. But in general, I think it's also as we've been doing it so long that it's attracted people to the studio who saw one of those documentaries and you just wanted to be part of that. You know, something they their ideas might be able to bubble up to the top, you know.
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah, ah that makes sense. What does playing to the camera look like?
00:12:13
Speaker
Some people in the office always turn towards the camera like they're on the office. yeah Do a Jim Albert face. I'm one of those people that taught me how to help it. When we would do it three times in one meeting, come on, you can't do that. They're very quiet and they're very unobtrusive, but they're always there in meetings and so you can kind of um ignore them. But certain things make you aware that when you say something is really inappropriate or something that might get you sued, you're like, They won't use that. I don't know the many teams that did it. I remember watching the planets side to dev streams that actually streamed like a meeting. And then I think they stopped because it was probably too difficult for them made them uncomfortable or something. It feels like it would be such a presence in the room.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, it was harder on Broken Age because we ah released that as that the game was being developed. So we we released the document they they made the documentary as we went. And so in some ways it kind of you know committed then to certain storylines in the doc, but also committed us to certain decisions. It was harder to um show as we were going like people were always touchy about showing things like cutting stuff like we cut a whole level here or something like that the fans would be like oh i want to play that level so it's really hard and usually yeah when you release the game no one knows what you cut for you know for for good reasons you know and then no one misses what they don't see most of the time uh but uh in that talk the people saw everything and so we were like oh this game's too big we should cut some stuff but Oh, but we already showed them everything. And like, you know, so it was, that was a little, that was a little weird. So on the second one for a second, for a second Odyssey, we just, they shot the whole thing and didn't release it until it's over. And then they dropped it all at once, you know, so that you could, they could know what the story was when they were editing, you know, they could, they could tell yeah the story from beginning to end in a more cohesive way too. It must've been a sort of relief of pressure in the studio, right? Knowing that whatever was going to be seen was going to be after the fact rather than
00:14:06
Speaker
and process yeah expectation right that's that's such a dangerous thing to meddle with i i always think back to um weirdly the hobbit the the hobbit trilogy by peter jackson and how because we were now in the age of you know videos and stuff like that when they were making the hobbit they did those mini series of the development of the hobbit and they dropped them before the movies were out and in a way i think that's quite dangerous because people who are hyper obsessed like our biggest fans will create what they think the game or the movie or the piece of media will be from that information and sometimes it can be more outlandish and better than what you know we're actually gonna develop right because it's their ideal thing in their head and it can lead to a lot of like ah like weird resentment so releasing it after a fact it becomes
00:14:59
Speaker
this is just documentation on what we did to get where we are rather than here's what you could expect, right? And if you watch the Psych Odyssey, it's um is quite a roller coaster because some really bad things happen in the middle of development. And for a long time, it didn't look like the game was going to be good. And so if we'd released that before the game came, I think people would be like, oh, geez. like And we never would have gotten like signed, like with the point where we our publisher disappeared and we had to like get re-signed even if that doc was out in the game and looked like we were releasing episodes where it was like in this terrible state. We probably would have ended the game and never would have gotten re-signed. So it was, it's weird to watch the documentary now because it seems that the game is so troubled and such. And I feel like the game came out really well and we're all really happy with it and got nominated for things. and
00:15:42
Speaker
um So it's weird to know that when you're watching the doc going like, how did they pull out of this? Sometimes I'm watching it and you're like, wait, how did we pull out of that? Because it looks like it's crashing and burning. But all those who have made games, no games are often not very fun until they are. That's a very vulnerable experience. And I think people are starting to understand that now. um Because you know when you're you're sharing your personal opinion or ah you know thought about what could make something fun, which is very hard to nail down, there's no easy way to answer let's you know what fun is. um Emotions fly. And I guess being in production for as long as I have, um you know trying to get the best out of people and help them navigate their emotion um is something that I like to do, in addition to you know watching the game thrive from beginning to end.
The Role of Empathy in Game Development
00:16:30
Speaker
Yeah. And it's all about like empathy, whether it's in within the team or with players, because even on the team, when I was reviewing like the early levels on brutal legend, I was like, Oh, this level is not fun. And there's some really obvious things broken. I don't understand what these designers were thinking. And then I would meet with the designers and they're like, Oh, we're waiting for this tech on this. And this thing is, it's waiting for this. And we can't do this until that. And I totally understood why the level was in that state. And I was like, Oh, I'm so glad I didn't go off on some critique of this level without Now I have this information, I realize what they're going through and they, they, they have the same, they do know how to make games and they have the same sense of what I do, but they just are stuck on certain things. And it's in some ways the documentary, like, it's like, can we get players to have the same empathy to be like, cause a lot of times when you're reviewing any sort of work, you're like.
00:17:12
Speaker
you um you think everything was a choice. Like, oh, they chose to do this. They chose to do this. And it's like, no, they chose to fix like 98% of the stuff. And you're just saying, why didn't why did they choose not to fix this other 3%? It's like, you're lucky that they had time to fix 97% of the game. yeah it's So it's like a miracle that any game gets done. So not everything was a choice. A lot of it was just like how they dealt with a diversity. I think the good news is, is the best it's ever been and it's probably only going to get better. The empathy, the transparency. Like we can all remember when they were writing, uh, they were writing in published magazines, like the people who made this game should be shot and like crazy shit like that. Yeah. That's what happened. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I won't say the person or the game. But it was a movie tie in game, somebody that I worked with, and they had to crunch and it was insane. Like it was terrible because Tim can speak more to it. But like that seemed to be fairly common back then. This was like late 90s, early 2000s. And yeah, one of the reviewers wrote something like that. Like these people should be these people should be shot. These people should not death threat stuff that was earnest, but just really disrespectful stuff. And that happened. People wrote that stuff about developers who were just trying to ship the damn thing. Yeah.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah. i'm like I'm glad to hear that you all think it's getting better. Oh, a hundred percent. I've dedicated like my career to educating as many people as I can on that kind of philosophy and understanding that games in the nicest way, every game project you have ever seen is barely being held together with string. And, you know, in the best kind of ways and like. It's very difficult to make games. It's extremely difficult. And so many creative minds are working together to make this thing work. And like you said, all games are a miracle. um So it's just about, you know, like you guys did wonderfully um with your little documentaries. this It's just educating players on the craft of this art form, right? And the humanity, just, you know. Yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
with people, i like which is yeah kind of what this this podcast is about, getting people on just to talk about you know their experiences, making games and stuff like that. And what's interesting with you, Tim, is because you've been in the industry for so long, you've seen the industry change over the time um that you've been in it. How do you think it's changed since when you began to where you are now? What are some of the the most drastic changes you've seen? Yeah. I mean, it's weird because I've only had two jobs, really. So I double find it in LucasArts. So yeah um for me, the thing I feel the most like every day is just a relationship to the audience. The relationship to fans is just so much more high bandwidth now. And just so they're like, they're involved. They know about their the transparency, like we talked about, but also they you get their reaction, watching streamers and everything is so different than
00:20:01
Speaker
when we very first started, it was like video games were just thrown over this wall and you get them and you'd be like, Super Mario Brothers, some how how did some magician make this thing? Like, how did this, I don't know, this is amazing. And so, um and then making games, you would do, we would do game like data tentacle and then like wait for three months for like a computer gaming world to write a review of it. And as like, like knowing whether you've done a good job or not was mostly like the people in the office, what did they say? How they liked it, you know, the sales or, you know, like, um And now it's like before a game comes out, like the moment we ship a game, we can instantly watch someone live streaming and talking about it. And that just feels so. Anyway, so that's one of the biggest things. There's also so much depth in sub genres now and established genres that it's it's like, uh, instead of just like, what could this game be like? You know, like the difference between like asteroids and missile command, if you think about the early days, like was so like, well, just trying something new to hold the control scheme, whatever. And now it's like, oh, you're doing a mobile there like this. They have to have this set of features, and people expect this. So it's like, okay, I'm not stepping in that at all. There are all these really deep genres, like shooters and stuff, where there's so many years of experience, both in dev and players, that it's a little intimidating to try and make something that a lot of people have done before. Those are two examples. And I feel like we're talking about crunch mode.
Improving Developer Quality of Life and Crunch Culture
00:21:21
Speaker
There's a lot more sense, a lot more feelings about
00:21:24
Speaker
the quality of life of people in game development, like it used to be pretty, you're you know, game developers are treated as like pretty expendable resources. And I feel like game developers are kind of like, well, how can we make this more sustainable so we don't burn out on and yeah the industry and all that? So um that's one of the more positive changes. What's the ah longest you've had a crunch on a game? Well, um, I think the last worst one was Psychonauts 1. It was 2005. We are were just were just like, oh, we lost our publisher, and we're going to die. We got to make a demo for E3, and then we got to get it re-signed, and now we got to ship it. So was everything felt like this like existential thing. And I think Crunch Mode, you know a lot of times, you only think it's something that a company does like for business reasons or something. But a lot of times, it's like a stress it's a way of dealing with stress when you just don't know if your game is going to be good. You know the ship date's coming. you like
00:22:15
Speaker
everything goes into it just because that's the only way you feel you can't go home and relax. Cause you're like, I should be working the game right now. You know, there's just, there's that kind of, you know, the only different reasons why, um, comes from my place in session sometimes, right? Like it's, it's but not a wholly a business thing. It can just be like, you're so passionate about the project you're working on. You want it to be as good as possible. So a lot of devs unfortunately naturally fall into crunch. as a result of their passion and wanting it to be the best it can be. Well, they come together and it's like, that yeah even an indie dev working all by themselves will crunch themselves with no manager. and person And then you have business people who do say like, okay, we got to ship on this thing because we have a marketing commitment. We've already paid for advertising. You can't change the date. You can't lower the quality of it. You can't get any more money from us. So you can just turn down the quality of life of all your staff. let's the only logic will move and so
00:23:05
Speaker
That does come from on high and then from individuals is like I love this game so much I want to be the best or maybe just career-wise like this is my shot I'm gonna make this I can't make this my one chance to have a game out there and I gotta make it good and and then you have a few other forces that you know like um just different people who want who in some ways There's a lot of things that lead towards crunch happening. you know It doesn't come from one direction. It comes from like multiple directions, and that's why it's so hard to fight, and that's why we fight it to this day. like it's still We still have people you know ah you know on Psychons2 who worked too hard, but I think the idea of crunch mode seems so... Yeah, something you would never tolerate. I mean, like, it's crunch mode. Those are really been in the industry for a long time. it Like, people worked at, you know, Lucas arts and telltale and all these companies would be like, someone would come to the office to be like, well, we're working nights and weekends for the next six months, you know, or years, yeah like seven days a week. ah You know, we'll do your laundry for you or something like would be, you know, something generous. There'd be these things where you're just like, it was like a lock-in, like you're locked in the office. And I i don't know if that's still happening in studios, like we wouldn't do that, you know, that but um but there's still this this sense, there's still like, it creeps up on you. Like it's still, it's this knob that you have to guard because it's so tempting. It's like, oh, there is a knob that we could turn to make the game a little better, you know? So, yeah. It's an interesting point you make about
00:24:30
Speaker
the indulging your human anxiety portion where it's just like, well, I'm going to keep crunching because I don't want to not, I don't want to deal with the stress and the anxiety of not working on the game and wondering if that because I didn't put in that extra time. That's why the game's going to fail. And my career is going to go to shit, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of crunches. Yeah. Just indulging your, your anxiety about the success of yourself in the project. And theoretically, if you feel like it may be a producer or if the person running the project can be like, look, really figure out how much work there is to do and how much time you have left. and They can prove it to you that like it's doable in the time, which it usually is not. But like look, we only have to do this much weak work this week, and then we're on track to to shipping. Then you can maybe go home and be like, it's okay. It's okay. the case can you but
00:25:12
Speaker
you know Yeah, son that's ideally how it works. That's you know, but because otherwise, you're just like, I don't know if the a lot of us just don't know if our games are going to be good, because they're not good right now. You're playing them, you're like, this isn't fun. And we're shipping on what date? Oh, my God, I better be at the office. Like, that's the hard, that's hard mindset to get out of. Like finishing your homework assignment for college to graduate. You're like, you got to get it done um on a ah Let's see, on Apex Legends, I was ah one of three producers and I produced like 75 devs. And they didn't want to work in a way where they scheduled out a lot of their features on the design side, right? They're like, we're free flowing. So I always had to work backwards, right? When they said, here's what we want and they pitched it.
00:25:59
Speaker
I needed to figure out from beginning to end how long it would take, including ah you know localization, getting VO hired, doing the marketing, and yeah, all of that. um And I would give them a date to designers like saying, this is where you need to hand off to everyone else. And that's how we operated for Apex to get our dates hit, um which is really chaotic and fun. But yeah. I like how that worked out. I don't know, did it? I don't know. Yeah, but what was crazy is for crunch, what I think some of the designers I closely worked with realized is if they crunch, everyone else crunches. It's not just like, I'm going to stay tonight and work an extra 10 or eight hours.
00:26:47
Speaker
like You're impacting everyone else down the chain and you need to be on board with it too. i'm and Those were discussions that we needed to have. and i you know that I think they're absolutely necessary. Is that because of like a social element or because of a like a technical element? Or is it both? because yeah so One group is crunching and creating a bunch of content that needs to be polished or finished by other people. That's one way that crunching can get passed down. and The other one is that social pressure. like yeah yeah It used to be like that was this notion of like employment in general. Is it your boss's car? Is it the first in the parking lot and the last to leave? If they're still there, I better be there. When we were you know first starting, like how are we going to get rid of Crunch? like after like One of them was especially after a lot of us had kids. I think it's this thing that like Crunch Mode is so much easier when you're 20 years old and there's you know you not really a lot at your house to go home to anyway. like yeah
00:27:38
Speaker
Well, I could go home and eat Chinese food and um watch TV by myself, or I could be at this company with all these fun people and work late tonight. like that' It's a lot easier when you're... that But then when you have a family and stuff, it's like you feel terrible or um even just ah you know you in a relationship. like any sort um so As as I started, I'm leaving at five. like the you just The kid makes it really clear. like You have to go home. so it's like I'm leaving at five and I'm going to walk down the hallway and let everyone see that I'm leaving like just because I'm running the studio. and if's like If I'm like showing everybody that I'm leaving and I'm feel like, you know, it's really cool to stay late, then, uh, then that's something you can do to help, you know, just kind of model that behavior. Like I'm leaving. I have a life. This is one of the things that, uh, and the work that I do now, I'll tell leaders, I'll talk to leaders because I think they have an unrealistic expectation where they say, no, we'll just tell people not to crunch and we'll work really late for them. It'll be fine. And I have to explain. No, it won't work like that. They will be afraid, especially if you have a lot of indie developers who want to do, they don't know what the expectations are. They don't know the standards because they won't take your word for it when you say the standard is we're going to work late. You're okay where the leads don't do it. They'll do it anyway. So you have to leave. Like you have to set limits and you have to be the example.
00:28:53
Speaker
And they just did a test, or that's the way to become a lead is it to be willing to work late. And it's bad for the leads. like That's the hardest thing on second house two is the leads because they would pick up any work that someone else dropped. Someone on their team dropped, but they're still responsible for that section of the game. So they're like, I'll just do it. and I'll do it at night. Because they're often really experienced. They can do stuff fast. you have The sense that you can do an infinite amount of work in an hour. So they're like, I'll just i'll take care of it. you know And that's that's hard. Because you realize you are sending a message to... Every time you say, like I'll finish that tonight, you're sending this message to the rest of the team. seed by example. Yeah. There's a subtext to all of it. And it's sometimes it's bad subtext that you didn't want, but it's there. Yeah. And that extra work that you crunched to get done is going to impact all the other teams in some way. Um, I like to ask the audio teams if they're happy or if they need help, because if they're not happy, then nobody's happy. Cause that's very, I bet they love that you do that. Cause audio to me is like, there's a lot of unsung. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:50
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah As a sound designer, I'm very appreciative of that. It is often um commonly forgotten, I'm sure, not by by you guys. But um I remember doing some um some commission work ah for for a small ah indie project years ago, and they hired me on to do it. And ah you know I went in with my usual questions of, hey, so but what kind of do you want from the music? Because I was doing their sound effects and their music. It's like, what do you want? What kind of feeling do you want? um Can I see some concept art? Can I do this? And they were like, their legit response was, oh, it doesn't matter. It sounds no one's going to care. Oh, Jay. And that was their like initial response to me saying, let let me help you. Let me care. like I already care. I want to continue caring. Let's do it. And they were like, it doesn't matter. Sound doesn't matter. And um I obviously quit that project extremely fast. That's like a cartoon of a bad place to live.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. um And lo and behold, that game didn't end up getting ah getting released. Who'd have thought? um But it is strange that they do get um left at the wayside. But like speaking to like indie, which is kind of where I am currently. It's interesting because you're saying that crunch kind of trickles down. Well, with indie, we're kind of in a weird space where on the the main project I'm working on right now, I am the level designer, sound designer, composer. um I'm a 3D artist. i like I do texturing.
00:31:18
Speaker
Um, so if I get really passionate and make too much of one thing, I then have to, I'm creating more work for myself and it's just this
Managing Feature Creep and Project Balance
00:31:27
Speaker
endless loop of just like, you have to be like, so I'd be interesting to hear from your guys perspective. Um, how difficult it is to manage feature creep in that kind of space. Because as an indie, you really have to manage it because you are just compounding everything onto yourself. If you add a new feature, it's just like you have to do everything. does Is that the same for for your spaces?
00:31:51
Speaker
I like to say, and this is just my experience, you kind of got to be Batman about it. Batman, ah at least by some interpretation. Yeah. Well, he can't kill people because he doesn't want to go down that path as he tells the Red Hood or whenever it is. ah he It's a slippery slope. So you have to set like a hard limit and trust your producers and trust production and trust your leaders. And when you say, okay. hey help but you can you take tell people that's another development legend hard knock him out you yeah you could pun them real hard to the examation point over their head you gonna give them brain damage Let's be real a lot of those people are dead a lot of those guys back to jail I Batman and killed for sure Against huge, right? But no, like basically you set a limit and you say, no, look, like, listen, we, uh, this is what the game is going to ship and we got to ship it in six months. Now, obviously like we can delay it. We could push it. But once you set that limit of these are the features and you stick to it and you just have to be, it you have to be like Batman. That's, I think one of the effective ways at least, so because once you set those rules, then, uh,
00:32:56
Speaker
Now people can focus. It's so easy in the double A space and for modders and indie people, I think too, especially modders, they get distracted by the new fun thing. So you just have to set a hard limit. Oh man. When you say six months left my like heart races, cause that's way too late. for the phrase here own That's a double A thing. I don't know that. I remember conversations like, yeah, the six months. I think it depends on the amount of content we're talking about here. So like if i on Apex, if someone had a new idea or wanted to do a feature, um I made sure to grab one person from every department involved in the room. So we all were signed up and aware of what was happening. So I let them decide. I mean, I i didn't have I didn't mean it like that. um like i let They all decided, based on what we all knew, right the shared content context, um if they wanted a crunch or not. In some cases, they said yes, because it made the game better. um And it made Crunch less chaotic and painful. like I think with um Crunch I experienced it at the beginning of my dev career,
00:34:05
Speaker
The team is so big, like over four or 500 people working on one game. You don't know when that crunch is going to end. And that just makes it so nerve wracking. You're like, I'm doing seven days a week for months on end. When is it going to stop? Is it helping anything is, you know, uh, and I think the morale is like a big. a big thing to help ah manage. so I mean, like I see devs you know that that are up for like you know working a little bit longer if and makes it makes a better our product, but you know give them the power to decide that.
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think autonomy is a bit more of the things, not the crunch. You're just evaluating how crunch feels. It feels a lot different if you have autonomy in it and it feels different if you love the project, but it feels different if you're participating in the success of the project. Are you getting a bonus? I don't know. A lot of things none of them make them like okay, but they definitely affect how you feel about it a little bit. but i that What you're talking about is really hard because i and my team would be like, don't talk to this guy about it. He doesn't know that he's the I'm always a problem because I'm always like, you know what this game means like the day before we ship? Because like my two places where I'm most active, I feel like are at the beginning of the project with the blank page, like coming up with new stuff is like where I'm really excited and happy and like coming up with making up stuff.
00:35:19
Speaker
And then it's really hard to see the project in the middle sometimes because it's like it's not fun and you but have a plan and you kind of think it's going to work and you just have a lot of work to do. But then ah in you know the last third of it or the last quarter of it is when you so I start to see the most of like, OK, I see the game now and I see the difference between the great game and the game that it is right now. like It's really clear to me now. what needs to get done and that's right when people are shutting down and and getting in the shit mode you know and i'm like okay but i see now what this needs you know so it's really those are really tough conversations and it's really just because you know our team fights for
00:35:53
Speaker
Everyone kind of represents their their point of view and you you have like a certain number of coins you can spend in that area. Like, okay, I got to figure out which one of these things I actually care the most about and which ones I can let slide. And some of these are, it's about context switching as a creative person because you have different modes for creativity. You have like the blue sky mode and you have this more. artistic mode where you're getting into skills and you have this more judgy mode and then you have this just as you know, the mode where you argue you fight for things, you know, like and being able to switch out of that kind of like
00:36:24
Speaker
If you're just alone in the flow, if you're doing a painting, assuming you could paint, I can't paint, but you're painting, I think you're just like, you're not really counting every brush stroke. You're just kind of like, what does this painting need? And if someone was talking to you, you'd be like, hey, wrap up. You'd be like, get out of my face. I'm busy. But if you could just step back and be like, oh, we haven't paid the rent. We need to get out of this office. If you can step out of that mode and see sometimes what your producer is mentioning to you, you're like, oh, Like then you can go say, Oh, I don't really need to lay that there's enough paint. ah like yeah but it is It is like a mental state that you need to be able to switch between to understand how to reprioritize for different modes of development. Biggest double fine right now. How many? We're about 70. Would you consider yourself double A? I know we've always been in that very, and like there are always articles like this.
00:37:18
Speaker
base you know because we were There to be a a you know ton of studios in the early 2000s that were like you know not huge and not not tiny, but we acted like an indie
Creative Freedom in AAA vs Indie Projects
00:37:28
Speaker
studio. but We were like 60 people. We made Brutal Legend. Brutal Legend was like the most triple-A kind of thing. We had a big team. We had a big budget. We had 107 licensed pieces of music. We had you know Jack Black in it and everything like that. so um We tried to then when we started making smaller games still have them, you know, look like the AAA games that were, you know, we had the fidelity. We tried to have the fidelity of like, I can't believe that. But, you know, I see, I'm one of those people who gets a game that has like a season pass and all these huge, like, it's like a lifestyle. And I'm like, I really just like to play something that has like a, I don't need a game to be that big for you, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:12
Speaker
Um, so you, it you know, you did mention doing India, double AAA. Is there a space that you've preferred to work in? hey Well, we did try like, you know, we were just trying everything and, you know, we were doing mobile games for a while. We had really tiny mobile games, you know, and ah really big games. And um I mean, I like, you know, making a game like Psychonauts 2 was like a great way to tell a story of a certain size to have a certain impact and get a certain amount of attention. You know, that has a lot of advantages. um and doing But doing some of our smaller games like Stacking, you know, or Costume Quest, if you look at those games, they get to like try things that are um
00:38:52
Speaker
You know, maybe more experimental or maybe that's that's the size that idea wants to be, you know, and so ah There's really I think it's more about the size. That's the size game That's right for the idea, you know, cuz I think every not every idea, you know last for 40 hours Oh, there's stacking happening right there people screaming stacking dolls I have one of those on point props to Eric for always bring up these videos. Thank you, Eric. He's not just rolling B roll. He's he's Eric's a wizard. He's B roll. He's the wizard of Oz behind all of our faces where the curtain is going to get peeled back, you know, saying, Oh, oh, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, here's a way the industry has changed since you've joined your title. When you first joined was a, did you guys see?
00:39:37
Speaker
yes i sure agree and oh my god that surprised me and is out cal people people who can't see it he's the cookie monster i I'm being spoofed your title was scum lit, which is really weird. That sounds so degrading. Yeah, that's how they introduced you to LucasArts. Hey, scumlets. Oh my God. Wow. I started as a scumlet. That's what I tell. That was our language and we wrote Monkey Island and stuff and it was scum and they were like, well, the project creators are calling these movie directors and then they'll hire all these little assistants to like wire up the scenes and stuff like that. Sure. They'll be scumlets.
00:40:20
Speaker
and We make sure they're spelled L is scum L E T E like a droplet. No, it's not like French or anything like that. Yeah. But I mean, we loved it. I mean, it was like we were like, yeah, we're the scumlets. yeah So what's that on your resume? No, it was assistant designer slash programmer. I had that experience today. So at second wind, because we own the company, ah my job title is design minor because my show's design, design delve, and it's got a mining aesthetic, it's a whole thing. So my job title is design minor, and I'm filling out my immigration forms to move over to America.
00:41:01
Speaker
And they were like, what is your job title for this job? And I'm like, design minor. And I'm like, do I have to put a paragraph explaining this or are they going to call me up and say, what is this when you put the most acceptable thing for, for customs? yeah to yeah director now The only person who can do this and that's why I'm in the country just fit that into the title Yeah, yeah definitely. Yeah, we'll see how well that goes but um there's an air where everyones Everyone's business card had like monkey or ninja after whatever title was they're just like awesome Do you still have your ah business cards ah In a drawer somewhere. I'm always like people hand me a business card
00:41:47
Speaker
Oh, what am I doing with this piece of paper? What do I throw this away in my hotel room later? Take a picture and then respectfully accept it and then later throw it out. Yeah. know how how has the How have you seen the publishing space change? Because I know you've quite famously had ah issues with with publishers in the past. like How has that kind of whole system changed while you've been in the industry? Well, from what I hear, like we used to always be chasing these publishing contracts, and it seemed to be harder and harder to get. like The deals were very onerous. We signed second out, so it was like publishers would take your IP, they would not pay you any of the royalties until they'd paid themselves back like three or four times what they'd invested.
00:42:28
Speaker
And, um, and we we're like, okay, that's all the deals you could get. And then as we, one of the reasons we started making smaller games, cause we always held onto our IP for a second on some pretty legends and where they didn't seem possible anymore. So I'm like, none of the deals are like letting you keep your IP. So we had smaller games. If you ask for less money, you can get a better deal. Obviously, I mean, as far as keeping your rights. Um, but, and sometimes when I'm giving advice to, to young Indies now, I'll be like, now you get that contract, make sure that they do this and this and this. And then and people are like, you, that happened to you? That doesn't happen anymore. like A lot of the deals they talk about, like their um they like I think it was it takes two or something. Anyway, there's some some deals where i like I couldn't believe the deal they got. so I don't know if deals were getting better or if they stayed better or that was just a phase, but it seems like ah publishing deals got more favorable. What do you all think? You've been out in it more recently than I have.
00:43:20
Speaker
I don't know what they were like before, to be honest, because I owe i wasn't part of the publishing side before. and They still think your IP? Not necessarily, but they in the contract that I've experienced recently, they wanted the rights to potentially buy the IP before anybody else. um And then there was one publisher that said, we'll fund you, but we have the right to fire anyone on your team.
00:43:52
Speaker
great seriously that's a I've never seen that one. That's an interesting one. It's also like when the money gets paid, like that was always a big deal. Because some somebody deals you get first money. you get like As soon as the money comes in, you get like 20% of that and until it gets paid back and then it switches to like 80% or something. and So I don't know what the current indie conference is like. We recently had Ocarium. I was just going to say, I think it got better because any development became all the more feasible, right? There's a good tool sets, there's good engines. And so publishers had to say, okay, well, people can actually make games without us. So our deals need to get better. That's my theory at least. I also think public perception and like the the day and age we're in, in the internet is a huge factor. We recently had um Tim Bender, the um
00:44:42
Speaker
the who runs Hooded Horse is a publishing house that does more RTS style games. um And what he was saying is that, you know, they're not just going for profit, they're trying to create a space for specific genres, because there are so many different publishers out there um trying to aim at specific audiences. If they kind of fuck over horrifically a dev team, which is the people that the the fans care about, That is gonna could potentially be a huge media storm and could mean you're they're not gonna get deals with any other teams and stuff like that. So I think it's in the publishers.
00:45:17
Speaker
to their benefit to make good deals for the devs so then they can work harmoniously rather than like against each other. I think we're moving towards that. It's not seen everywhere, but I think we're starting to see some of it. and Just indie devs are more talking to each other and and sharing their stories more too to like be like, yeah you can't actually give us this horrible deal because we'll talk about it. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, especially in the age of social media, right? If a publisher acts in a way that's unfavorable, yeah the gamers will not tolerate it. but i'm sure they don bad eggs up yeah Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. But i so knowing that unless it's a massive triple, like triple A massive publisher,
00:46:01
Speaker
If you get one bad, like press run of people just saying they did this terrible thing, it could destroy your public perception and just destroy you. It's rare, but it happens, you know, to hold on to your IP, everybody and get fresh money. Yes. What's interesting is.
Industry Changes and Unpredictability
00:46:21
Speaker
Oh, sorry, Tina. Go ahead. What's interesting is with all the layoffs and stuff that happen are happening now and just the way the industry is changing, but whether the speculation is, oh, it's just a cycle or oh it might be fundamentally changing, all the stuff that we're talking about could change very easily. And that's what's always been interesting about working in game devi and just for the past 10 plus years is just how it shifts every single year. Yeah.
00:46:46
Speaker
Sam, you have the unique and ah rare experience in our industry of working you know a leading um a company like yours, but also pitching games internally and to publishers. Do you have a preference? Do you prefer pitching an idea to your coworkers? I assume yes, but you know when you pitch to publishers, what's the biggest difference? um In any audience, there's always this this question of trust. you know like Hopefully, you know you pitching to people within the company, there's there's some trust that they know you and they know what you can do. They'll be like, well, he'll figure this part out. If there's more separation, someone doesn't know you that well. or that there's just ah it's um
00:47:31
Speaker
The biggest problem with with pitching often is just you you you know your game so well. You don't know how to explain it to somebody else, and you talk for a while, and they're like, what is the game? what yeah Just really on a basic level, don't understand what your game is. And so um remembering to start from zero and explain. i And mostly just with all pitches, it's just about letting your enthusiasm show. Just like, why are you excited about making this game? because Sometimes I have this like nervous way of talking. where i get When I'm getting nervous in the pitch, I'll just lock down to the facts and i'll just my mouth will get tighter. and and Sometimes people are like, are you excited about this game? Because I don't sound excited about it because I'm so nervous. but just you know There's a reason you came up with this game idea. and so like Just letting that show while you're talking about it, whether you're talking internally or externally is the same, but I don't like pitching. Being on the road pitching at public shows is always just
00:48:21
Speaker
the part The hard part of it when you're an indie studio is that your whole studio is on the line usually unless you have a big bank account with a lot of savings from some hit game that you made. you know you're You're there, you're aware of when your bank runs out and you're like, okay, we got to get this signed by September and it's July. And you're like, we've been through five pitches. We got three more tomorrow. Like that kind of weighing on give gives you this manic. Like, did you like it? What did you think of that pitch? Oh my God, we'll do. And they're like, yeah, we like it, but we think the main character should be a chicken. You're like, got it. You got it. Chicken. That's
00:48:54
Speaker
ah being in That mindset is not not very fun. how now Has that ever impacted like how and what you pitch? like Have you ever had a game that to you personally and to your team, you feel that is super interesting, you know is going to touch on new things that you as a team haven't done before? But you know publishers aren't going to bite. So like you have to do something else. Has that ever happened? Have you ever taken something that hasn't? we don't you know Not in advance. like We don't say, I know what they'll like and I'm going to add this to this game. It's often like there are these trends of what and different publishers are going through and they just had this manifest. like Every game has to be multiplayer or every game has to have a co-op or every game has to be live service. And you're pitching them and they're like, that's great. Now, can we make that a live service? And you're just kind of like,
00:49:39
Speaker
try to sound open to it. you know It's a single player narrative game that we could add some skins to. the like you A lot of it is just trying to say that what you're pitching is what they want. cause a lot of ah lot No matter who you're talking to, they have a plan. They've already got their plan for like the year. They see the holes in their launch window. They're like, Oh, we need something to come out in this quarter on this year. You're like, yeah, yeah, we could, we could hit that. It's that kind of stuff of just kind of like having to like trying to nudge maybe a little bit one direction over to fit that thing that they're looking for. And yeah, um eventually you find that publisher who does want what you're pitching, you know, but you know, you can't really like change you there. I mean, like at first pitched, um,
00:50:20
Speaker
but I was pitching Brutal Legend. People were like, Oh, this is so great. This is really creative. Could it be country western music? Like I seriously got like, does it have be heavy metal? And it wasn't so much specific country, but like, couldn't it just be like all music, like pop music, you have a rap fashion and like, like, Oh, this is this is the worst, this is the worst nightmare. And like, That is mental All music so every every genre has a faction. Yeah, every genre has a faction and stuff. See he likes it. He's already he's like, oh, yeah Just think about like you could make that game but then you'd have like Taylor Swift faction fighting the
00:51:02
Speaker
i'm sure the opposite of it it must be my own kanye wests yeah yeah west faction i I didn't know if I was going to have the chance to raise this, but it's a question that I've had since I was a kid on brutal legends, which is one of my favorite games. You see how he got that in there? yeah yeah okay Keep going. um and it
00:51:26
Speaker
The question is, what was the decision behind the ah RTS mode and like adding that like second element of the game? like Because I'm really interested in like how that came about, because I think a lot of other studios would have just stuck to one kind of gameplay thread, but you branched out into a whole load of different ones. like How did that come about? Yeah. I mean, that's what's interesting is how you describe that and and marketing and expectations. like We talked about it because that wasn't added on. That was the core of the game. but The core idea, like the earliest idea was playing the very first Warcraft, you know me playing RTS or playing Herzog's Vi on the Sega Genesis, which was like a console RTS. yeah And I was like, oh, RTS is really interesting. I love having those little minions that I can send off on thing, make them do my bidding over here and over on the map and spread out around the map. And I really liked that.
00:52:12
Speaker
And then I had this idea for just a story about a roadie who goes back in time and and can fix everything and be like Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's court. And then they went together to be this game like, Oh my God, I can have all my hot rods and dragsters and like cool heavy metal stuff and an RTS. I can make this RTS. So we started making this um um RTS. It was started as a multiplayer game for the first year. It had no dialogue, had no anything. It was just actions and squad controls and RTS stuff. And then the original publisher was like, People are going to, it's going to take a while to learn how to do this. You need to really like a single player campaign to like tutorialize all these elements. and so we yeah just a single player campaign So we add a single player campaign and then we're like, you know, we should, you know, who's this character? Like we've been basing, I'm kind of like Danzig and Jack Black a little bit. Like who, maybe we should just try and then it's like, why don't you get Jack Black? And like, like it started to grow and the single player campaign grew and grew and grew to the point where like,
00:53:04
Speaker
And people were like, that's the game. And this thing that we, the core and the inspiration and everything that started for us, people don't even, you know, and then the marketing didn't want to talk about that either. Because they were like, RTS doesn't sell anywhere except for Germany. You're never going to mention RTS. The first publisher was like, don't even, if they ask you if it's an RTS, say no. I remember that a G4 asked you about it, right? We had our second publisher, EA, they were just like, we're going to not emphasize that. But we did have like a multiplayer event in San Francisco, like I don't know where we actually had people play it and Morgan Webb was there and she's like,
00:53:38
Speaker
And this is an rts are you are you saying that enough cuz the people might be upset if they. like um So that's the thing is like it it was not the part that was added it was the original heart of the game and then we have the single player game to it. um And it's always like ah interesting it's really interesting lesson cuz we talk about. um Often I was talking about giving advice about compromise and how to compromise. I'm like, well, you should really just be in touch with what the core of your idea is and then know what you're willing to compromise on and what you're not. And like you were saying, by setting a limit like Batman, like, okay, I'm not, I'm going to compromise anything I was getting, but I won't compromise heavy metal. As long as I don't give up on heavy metal. But also it was like, what started as an RTS, I won't give that up. And you always wonder like,
00:54:25
Speaker
Or do you like recognize what the game is and be like, OK, people are really responding to the single player thing with
Insights on Brutal Legend's Development
00:54:31
Speaker
Jack in it. And like, should they should you just cut all that stuff? And and I feel like this is like an unsolved lesson in my mind, because that that would have felt weird to to like yeah get rid of the part of the game that I loved and cared about. So I think that's a tricky thing to figure out for people is like what to compromise and what not to compromise on. they can't i think I'm here to say there is no answer to that. That's just something that I think everyone will struggle with on every project they do. Yeah. That's true. The production trick now is say, oh, we'll release this as DLC.
00:55:03
Speaker
Yeah. guy Um, I was okay with not talking about the RTS stuff. And that was my, my mistake was that I, I went along with that because of this, uh, naz game, uh, act razor, your play act razor. I think it's SNES, I think pretty sure. But you're playing the side scroller, just 2D side scroller hacking and slashing. And then you come out of this level and all of a sudden you're in this map of the town, they're like, now plant some crops. And you plant these crops to get resources to go back into the next side scrolling level. And everyone was like, oh my God, there's a SimCity game in the middle of the side scrolling thing. But everyone was like, we're all so excited that the game just switched on us and became this whole different genre. I was like, yeah, people like being surprised. But I was like,
00:55:46
Speaker
not Not really everybody likes being surprised nowadays. That's what I had in Beyond Good and Evil. like It was one of the things that blew my mind when I was younger was the fact that it it went from being and you know a third-person action game into a racer, into a photography espionage game. It completely opened my eyes to the diversity of games because as a kid I feel a lot of people tend to latch onto one genre and one kind of identity in games um and Beyond Good and Evil and Brutal Legends were games that opened my mind to being like games can be more than just you know slashing things and running around and stuff like that and um yeah it's really interesting to hear that the
00:56:31
Speaker
what my assumptions were on the development is the complete opposite. It's really fascinating. Should have had a documentary about it. I watched it. There was a little actuator on the screen a while back. That was really cool. Yeah, and I like that you dropped Herzog's Vibe, by the way. That was technically the first RTS, right? I think so. Because it predated Dune 2. I think that was maybe before. That came after Dune 2, I think, came afterward, didn't it? Yeah, because they had had, um I think, Warcraft on N64, but you controlled a cursor with your thumbstick. And I was like, Herzog's Vibe is like your avatar. There's no cursor. You just had a giant robot that would fly around the battlefield and then land and be like a transformer. And that was kind of crucial. They had Warcraft on N64.
00:57:16
Speaker
I thought that was star craft. That's what I meant star craft. Sorry. starcraft and sixty four had occurre it was And that game was interested. They, they actually up the amount that you could grab, amount of units you could use from 12 to 18. I remember as a kid, I remember going to the PC version and being like, wait, I can't grab all my guys. It was interesting limitation. Yeah. Anyway, ah look at and look how fast that is. There's star, cut eric's super fast. does very wizard Are there any genres that you would consider? working on that you haven't yet that you're curious about? I feel like I want to say I'm open to anything, but I feel like I would there's something I would never do just because it's so deep. Are you like shooters? Like, like, oh, God, I would never. I mean, I don't play a lot of them, but also it's like there's so much, you know, depth to the fan base and the dev knowledge on that. It's like, no, I think that's because people got that covered. But I love all I mean, I love all kinds of genres. I love do like when I played a lot of Animal Crossing during Covid. I'll be like, oh, be fun to write all the dialogue for characters.
00:58:13
Speaker
Yeah, like having a town like that some sort of some sort of town that's alive I think would be fun, you know caretaking and stuff like that um See what other genres are there? but You know, I'm I really feel like it's just you we've always tried to be not locked down to a genre a double fine It's been mostly about what inspires us, you know and what ideas we have and what ideas you're trying to do something new with genres, which is always a challenge like Bird of Legend. It was like, not really. It was weird. It was weird for an RTS. It was trying. It was different. And it was, you know, it was avatar based. And anyway, on console too. Speaking of something new, Tina had a very unique idea. Just before this, this pod started, Tina was like, how about considering Tim is like the king of pitches?
00:59:01
Speaker
How about me, Tina and Mikey, on the spot, come up with and pitch a picture game to Tim and see what he's talking about.
Interactive Game Pitch Exercise
00:59:12
Speaker
I came up with a general, I guess, i pitch idea and Mike and Jay have not heard what it is yet. So we're going to improv this. So if you look if you look at the screen, okay, you see a tiny little gentleman laying on the floor. yeah in a leash. um so this and That looks fun already. So this i make it around the game my idea is ah you're a kid on a leash, right? You're kind of tied to your fate, but you want to explore. You want to journey off and do some amazing things. Let your imagination run wild. do You want to play. Um, but your parent has you tied down. So, um, yeah, you have a babysitter come and the parents say, okay, you can go on a walk with him.
01:00:03
Speaker
the dog they put on your leash. The babysitter is going to be on her cell phone so she doesn't care. something This is like a side scrolling platformer of some sort where the um the babysitter is just sort of like an NPC that follows you around and you're controlling where you go and stuff and she's just not paying attention to you. um So Mike, what kind of a core loop could you come up with for this kind of game? having a little troll, I could see the meta progression first. So I think I have to actually start from the top. Naturally, if you're limited in your movement, then as you level up or as you get better at the game, as you play through and earn whatever you earn from doing the core loop, which I'm still thinking about your leash gets longer, right? You go to new regions, you go to a new babysitter's house, and then you can explore all around the babysitter's house.
01:00:48
Speaker
So that's a really natural ah way to have like a good fatui. We're like, here's my small zone. ah My leash isn't long. And then gradually, as you keep going, you're going to expand your leash. I think we need to have some sort of magic and whimsy to what why your leash expands because this is you're playing as a child. And I want to I think you want to be in the mind of that child and the the expansion ah going further. You know, like no, no parent would just like buy a longer leash and let them go. So I think there needs to be a magical element to it for that reason. Interesting. There are two is a great idea. Obviously, first, first thought, it was a great idea. Um, I was immediately thinking about your like collecting string. I was like, you're able to collect things that are leash-like and add them to your leash yourself when the babies are not looking and lengthen your own string and get farther and farther away from her.
01:01:35
Speaker
So pretty soon the base is at a different level altogether and you're just pulling this string around with you, but you have to go back and to the same location. If you want to get places to like backtrack to like follow your leash, get it around the long way. It could be different colors as well. Like the the string you're adding could be different materials so that the progression visually, you have this like collage of different strings. That's like bedsheets and Doctor Who's scarves. Do you guys play Katamari Dimashii? Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what I'm envisioning now in the core loop is like you're slowly, maybe you're getting a little bigger, not just on the meta progression side, but but maybe you are expanding a little bit and getting further and further and trying so back along the la and we're like fast through all the way down level There's Katamari right there. Jay, what kind of a setting? Oh, So from that first image, my I had a couple of immediate thoughts. I really like Mikey's initial idea. um I think that could work. um But my immediate focus watching that wasn't the child, it was the parent.
01:02:40
Speaker
Oh, okay. And how you were dragging the child around, that is like the children around that are tantruming. And it's your job to basically navigate through an environment, avoiding hazards or things they want to stop the kids throwing a tantrum. So you're the parent on a platforming. You're a parent. That was like my initial thought. But then I was like, actually playing as the kid and, you know, getting away from the babysitter. I love the idea of that mechanically acting kind of like a roguelike where each run is effectively you being pulled back. So your your leash gets pulled back and each run you try and get further and further um making your leash longer and you know engaging with different mechanics, different areas, different hazards um until you eventually escape.
01:03:28
Speaker
I have something. Hold on. What if the way that you get to new regions in this in this world map or whatever is you're working your way up, maybe you could tie into the roguelite stuff you're saying by like pissing off the babysitter. Like, so to move from one region to the next, you have to have your parents move you to a new babysitter in the neighborhood so you can explore around that house. The babysitter fired. Yeah. Get her fired. maybe herself you have to worry yourself As a child, show that the baby said it was a confident. Child can't be harmed, but I think it would be great to progress, even if the lease just got longer, to more and more hazardous locations. like You start off at a mall, but then you go to like Six Flags, and then you're in a sound mill, and then you're in something like a race factory. You're just getting in the worst places for a kid to be, you know, like a den of wolves. I don't know.
01:04:14
Speaker
Just eventually find your way to where your parents are. Like they're having dinner at like some fancy restaurant and your job is to get there and get the babysitter fired. Yeah. All the way around the world and somehow come to the back of the babysitter and then you tie the leash around itself and then it's an Ouroboros type situation. Yeah. I wrote physics. That was another thing that I think. Yeah, that's the mechanic. You know, physics is the first thing you get cut in any game. Like, uh, these are hard. It's one of the things, uh, chained together, which is a kind of quite a popular game at the moment, multiplayer. You're chained to a person, you have to scale this infinite, you know, not infinite, but I'm really tall spire of unity assets, store assets. And.
01:04:59
Speaker
sometimes the chain you have physically reacts to the world and you have to wrap it around objects to slide down them and you have to, you know, it gets caught on certain objects and you have to really think about it. Yeah. but um Most of the time they go through everything and then sometimes it does like inconsistency in my opinion is like the bane of any kind of design. If it works one way with one thing, it should work like that for everything because it always like brings you out and it's super inconsistent.
01:05:31
Speaker
Um, so it would be super difficult, but I think if the entire system of the game was built around ropes, um, like maybe that's how you open doors. You have to jump the rope over the door handle and then twice to wrap it around. And then when you walk away from it, it turns the handle and opens it. Oh, that is a game play. Potentially, you could do it in a way that is pseudo physics-y. It's implying that it is, but it's not really. It's just systems driven. But yeah, it's complex. Like Tim said, usually those things are the first to get cut because they are messy as fuck. And the main thing is you don't want to ever tug on the leash because then she'll become aware of you and pull you back. And one of the collectibles can be apps for her phone. Like you said, new Candy Crush type games to her phone. She gets more distracted. She gets more swift album drops. She's more like, you know, enraptured by her phone. The tugging is a fantastic idea that time because
01:06:33
Speaker
you can have it so like say you're on the first map there is only a specific distance you can get away from the babysitter before the leash becomes taught and gets tugged so you have to you are in a constraint of there is something there is a collectible there is more string in this area because i can't get away and that means like the you potentially wrapping the the lead around objects could decrease the amount of play you have distance wise. Like you have to go back and unwrap yourself and move around. Um, yeah, that being like your failure state of if you get, if you tug, you're done. Sounds a bit weird, but I think that could be fantastic.
01:07:19
Speaker
All right, Tina, come on. I don't know if Tim's vibing with this. I don't know the electric game idea. That's the name of the game. Tugging you done. Tugging done. ah and done um tug is i just I just wrote down a couple names, Jay. Kidbound, Unleashed, but tugging you done might be the one.
01:07:44
Speaker
yeah save no no okay well you're rich tena this already i just attempt witnessed you getting rich in front of us but this is yeah a big turn run for you i just I just need to borrow your team to make this happen. I promise there won't be any crunch. yeah you know and this is word way to the steamroller yeah yeah
01:08:08
Speaker
Oh no! The leashes of the steamroller. No! We'll fade to black. It'll be fine. We'll fade to black. yeah Just crunching sounds. All right. That's the audio for you right there. Thank you, Jay. Okay, so because I know I want to be mindful of time because I know we've got some meetings to get to and such. We do have a couple of donations that have come in um and we're just going to go through them. And if there's any questions, just quickly answer them. Let me quickly go to that. Oh my God. There's more. There is a question. So how what do you rate the pitch? One through 10. What's that? was instantly bought in really Yeah. I mean, that's a very compelling mechanic. I mean, I wouldn't want to be the perfect
01:08:49
Speaker
But if you had, if you, if you were like, that's the thing missing from it. You're like, we got the guy from some game that has a lot of rope in it. I can get the engineer that did grapple for Titanfall on Apex. Yeah. yeah like you did That's our unfair advantage. We got it. Then I think it's money on the table right there. That's just, that's a huge site. go look Look out guys. You're gonna be seeing what would do we call it? Tuck tug tug tug tugging done I said kid bound or unleashed there's a homely family I am strapped there like my family's camping in Canada and I'm two years old and they're sitting at a picnic table and I am pulling at the end of this harness and I cuz I've been chained to the table with like a little kid harness and like And it's more common see now, but I know I saw this from movie in the 70s. I was a some bass like oh my god I was like an animal you guys had me on a harness
01:09:47
Speaker
I didn't know that you were tied to the picnic table and I'm We could use that video when we make our pitch presentation. There we go. This game comes from my childhood. There you go. Unleashed. I love Unleashed as a title as well, I think. Is it taking it? It might be taken. If you call it Unch, you can get the Van Halen song off. Oh my God. Now it's turning into a metal project. I'm talking down. Toddlers and heavy metal just music go very well together. Wandering Todds. There you go.
01:10:21
Speaker
ah Right. I'm going to get some of these don't know because we've got a few of them. Um,
Localization Challenges in Gaming
01:10:26
Speaker
and a few of them are questions. So we'll give them a go. So the first one is $5 from, ah, the Robert Frost goof and subsequent achievement. I don't think I've ever laughed harder in a video game. people love Robert Frost. What can I say? That was so fun to, um, I mean, not for, I just, the list of, um, names that got translated to in other countries. Cause like other, he's an American poet. So like in France and everywhere, they're like, no one knows who Robert Frost is here. So it it became all these names. that I don't recognize like captain. There's some captain in France. It's just like what each country thought that balloon looked like was really fun list. It's amazing. Translations is just a fascinating part of game dev that isn't spoken about enough. Yeah. Yeah. Localization is crazy.
01:11:09
Speaker
yeah One of the the first things my my game dev teacher um when I was studying was going on about when we were doing UI design, he was like, you got to think about localization. And I was like, what do you mean? So it's a whole kettle of fish. <unk> games have a job oh yeah Especially when it's like a pun or comedic, right? It has to land in a different language, you know? that Yeah, yeah yeah do you think just about changing words and meaning, but it's about the culture. And ah like in Monkey Island, we had this insult sword fighting, and there was a line about like,
01:11:40
Speaker
uh you fight like a janitor it was like an insult you fight like a janitor because you're waving your sword around like a feather duster and our french translator was in the office uh lucasarts and she's like i don't know how to translate this line it's like oh he's saying like you're you're waving your sword around like you're waving a mop or something and janitor and she goes no that's not the thing like well don't you have like what's the word for janitor and french she's like no that's not the thing it's not an insult because in france we honor labor and i was like oh i'm just i can't insult someone by calling them a janitor and i was like well that's not what we meant like um So I was like, wow, it's amazing there's more to it. oh hear out of the culture Speaking a culture of culture, strategy games have to keep in mind things like ah how do we refer it to China? How do we refer it to Taiwan? That's a big one there. Or do we not? And most publishers will
Humor and Fan Interactions
01:12:29
Speaker
say you don't.
01:12:30
Speaker
But there's a space on the earth. And when you like zoom out into the map, what do you call that space? Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. It's a whole hell of a fish. I'm, you know what? I'm going to do a video on that localization. It's happening. I'll help. Cause I had some crazy stories. um ah We need more reasons to all collaborate with each other. So let's, let's do it, Tina. Yeah. Right. So John, you're done with having done. Yeah. Unchained colon, tug and dud. Oh, there you go. Put a colon in there, now I can help. We're making this now. it's so This makes me so happy. I'm going to start prototyping this in Unreal tonight.
01:13:10
Speaker
I'll produce it. John Titor, I'm sorry if I pronounced your name wrong. Welcome to Tip Jar. Ishmu gives 20 quid. Thanks so much, boss. And says, oh my God, it's Tim Schafer. You've provided me with so much joy over the course of my life. I just want to say thanks. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. That's nice. Humja Ninja with $5. Thank you so much. And he says, you've got everyone full, Mr. Shafer, but I'm on to you. I know you're Jack Black in disguise. Thanks for all of the the joys. Your secret is safe with me. He can play me in the made for TV movie. Yeah, that he would never do made for TV. Yeah, he's he's surpassed he' surpassed that now, isn't he? He's a big boy.
01:13:55
Speaker
left row Yeah. Jewel row with five euros. Thank you. And so some money for Tim of legend and second wind. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I get a cut of that. That's great. so yeah da i'll venway you that ra in a my pockete You'll get four ninety nine and we'll get the, the one cent. Right. Dark jacket with a five dollars says thanks for the great conversation. As always team question, Tim, what is your favorite genre that you would not want to make a game in? Gosh, I don't know if there's a genre I love. I would and not want to make.
01:14:31
Speaker
I mean, I like it. I don't know if I've answered that because I was like saying, I, I i don't really play a lot. you know i So you're coming out a bit, Tim. You said you normally play a lot of. Did my, can you hear me now? Yeah. I mean, all the genres I play, I think I would love to make, you know, like I wish there were like, we're talking about beyond good and evil. And one of the reasons I made second thoughts too, was kind of like, I just wish there are more games like this. You know, I want to play this, like, I'll put this into the world, put second thoughts in the world, and maybe someone will give me a game back that I can play. Cause like those kind of narrative type games where you're in a, in a world and it's like, there's some platforming, but there's also a lot of characters and all that stuff. Like I just want tons of games like that character based.
01:15:11
Speaker
And also like, you know, bright and colorful and stylized art stuff. So that's not my dream projects. That doesn't answer your question at all. But if
Puzzle Game Design Complexity
01:15:18
Speaker
I think of a genre I wouldn't want to make that I actually like to play, I'll tell you. I don't know. I don't know. Like I like, I think I like a lot of puzzle games, um like ah Patrick's pair box and, uh, uh, Can you play that one? Am I saying it right? Patrick's pair box? I don't know that one. No, I don't know that one either. um I love puzzle games and like the old n NES game that you can play on Switch called Fire and Ice where you're pushing these little just block pusher puzzles and stuff. But I don't think I have the skills to make a block pusher puzzle. I'll say that. Puzzles. There you go. Puzzles are a beast. Closest thing. I could probably do it. You get some good designers. You can do it. Look at that. Look how fast. Way to go, Eric. Yeah. Oh, I remember this level. Oh, God. You do.
01:16:04
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I take this. Reminds me of, um, Barbara is you a little bit. It does. That's what my daughter said. This feels like Bob is you, but it's, it's a recursive, um, block pusher where you go in and out of, of yourself. Like could you go into cubes and become the map and that is the cubes and you go in the cubes. Oh, dang. Super cool. It really twists your mind around a trend end what's going on. Oh, I'm, I think that I'm going to play that. It seems unsolvable. Cause like that's too, con like the first time I saw a trailer for portal, I was like, I'm never going to be able to keep these portals straight in my head. And then as you like develop in the game, you're like, I'm a portal management. That's what this game is. Pacing is
Amnesia Fortnight and Team Morale
01:16:46
Speaker
so important with puzzle design. It's super, super important.
01:16:50
Speaker
All right, we've got a couple more. So from Phil, my Myosup gives 50 knock. I'm terrible with currencies. You guys know what a knock is? And OK, look at it up. It looks probably Scandinavian. um Phil's probably said this to me. And we've grown. Hey, Phil, got it i got it for the bill. Thank you so much. We've gained of time being so long um as it is and visions change. Does this cause ah discontent with within the team when things change? Well, the length of dev time is the effect on morale for sure. Cause it used to be, I remember finishing monkey Island and being like, Oh, I never want to think about pirates again. And that was like nine months or something. that dev cycle It's like, um, that's one of the reasons that we started amnesia fortnight, which is our game jam in the middle of brutal legend. Cause it was our first like five year game.
01:17:38
Speaker
And I was like, the team is going to, I love heavy metal, but I don't know if everyone on the team likes to be in this world for so long. We just surrounded by demons and heavy metal. And so let's just take the two week break and just like do some silly games to lighten everything up. But it it is something you gotta, um, you know, I would love to get back to like, like, like the game in two years, really but they seem like, uh, being complicated, modern triple A games are hard to make in that amount of time. And they only get more complicated. Yeah. All right. We've got pie or PL pie with $5. Thank you so much. I've been stuck in a cave for 20 years and I just got out. Release fight psychonauts, Tim, you coward. I have my Xbox. Where's the game? Wait, second. That's one. Yeah. He's been in the cave or they've been in the caves. twenty years dude They're still waiting for psychonauts.
01:18:29
Speaker
What do we do? Do we just give them the game? I think they want you to give Psychonauts the Skyrim treatment just on every platform. I'll just keep releasing it. I'm perpetuity. Yeah, I'm into it. Get it everywhere. On cave systems.
01:18:45
Speaker
They run on rocks. Projecting from a campfire onto the walls of a cave. This is hugely always a no. But can you speak to what you're currently working on? And feel free to say no. Uh, we're doing new stuff. We haven't announced anything, but we're going to multiple games and it's home oh yeah all new. Hell yeah. So lots to look forward to. Oh, I was just about to wrap up, but we've got one more donation from Yeetmizer. $5. Thanks
Secret Projects and Family Perspectives
01:19:13
Speaker
so much. Psychonauts 2 is my game of the generation. Thank you so much for your work. and There's a one more before that. I was there. Did I, did it not show up in the thing? Oh, it's El Cheshire.
01:19:26
Speaker
L. Cheshire is the wonderful artist who does all the background work in my videos. um As many people know, my show is animated. Wonderful, wonderful artist. L. Cheshire says, hi, Jay. Don't, oh, don't read the rest of this if it's too unprofessional. Could you ask Tim if we could take a selfie? Eric, can you do the thing? If he says yes, how do we take this off? Okay. I, I'll check. I has drawn themselves and would like to overlay their drawing inside. So it looks like we've taken a selfie. If you're down for that, we just need to, do we have your permission to virtually align you with a character? Even though I haven't seen Elle gesture, I might be incredibly offensive for a second and we'll put him up.
01:20:12
Speaker
Oh, OK. Oh, so that's my hand. Wait, that's amazing. I wish I could. I can do things. I hope just let him do the magic. Yeah, like Eric let eric did the stuff. But I want to. Oh, it's left. Give him a kiss. Well, that's getting really. Well, I'm all like nestled in his beard. No way. hold How do I put my hand? now No, no, no. Make him hover hand. You know how people used to hover hand? the gdc eric We a wide in that grip.
01:20:49
Speaker
No, it's good. Amazing. Oh my God. Amazing. Am I looking the right way? He gave me a quick pat. Amazing. I hope that that works for you. You can take a screenshot of some of that stuff. I have a last question for you, Tim. So I have two kids under two, which is insane. Um, but when your daughter was watching your career and you know, seeing your fans approach you and praise you. Did she think that was cool? Does she think your job is cool? I think so when like her friends, like recently she had her birthday party. We let her bring her friends to the office and use the big screen and watch a movie. And her friends saw the office was really cool. And I could see she's going like, Oh,
01:21:34
Speaker
Oh, my dad's not embarrassing. That's great. OK, good. OK. That's cool. That helps, you know. the um But she's always she's always liked games. We've always played games together. um She's at least started all my games, you know, she had. And ah if we're walking down the street and someone talks to me, they're usually lovely, like everyone who comes up is like super nice and stuff. So I think she sees that as a positive. That's a positive thing for sure. But she used to talk about being a game designer, but now she talks about being an actor. Oh, right on. Maybe we should come back to her. Yeah. If she makes her way to LA, I'll hang out and tell her I'll buy her a dinner. Wow. Hey, there's a strange lady in LA who wants to buy you dinner. We met before. We met before, but you don't remember. We met before when you were a child. I've seen you from a distance many a time.
01:22:25
Speaker
So just before we wrap up, we've got one more lovely, uh, donation from Dowel Dodger Esquire 999. Thank you. And it says from Jombly Wombly, who's another one of our fantastic viewers says, Tim, grim Fandango is one of my greatest of all times. Manny is one of the best characters ever. Your games made me a better person. Thank you so much. oh We got from limited edition, limited Iran. w That's great. All right, he's activated. He's like, okay, I'm done with this podcast. Ready to go. We're off. So, uh, yeah, we, I can't see any more donations coming in. Sometimes they trickle, but I, we've got a bit of a hard out guys. So if I'm doing my ending spiel and you donate, I'll i'll read it and we'll post it in the discord. but Tim, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure.
01:23:14
Speaker
to hear about your journey and your experience in the industry, and to kind of hear about, you know, your thoughts on our tugging game, which is definitely going to get made. Don't call it that. I can't call it that. That's a working title. That's the dev title. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Nice to meet you, Ludo. Ludo, come say hello. Come say hello. Oh, two kids. Oh, look at that hair. Ludo's awesome. Watch how docile I get. Ludo is the most docile creature in the world. She just loves sitting like this. Because I played with her like this as a baby. I was not joking to him when I said most of my audience on my show are here for her, then little animated her rather than me. They love her. And I love her. But you're going to say goodbye
Conclusion and Viewer Support
01:23:58
Speaker
to Tim? Say goodbye. I want to show you my kids real quick. I got a few of my kids from this morning. She's competing with the cute dog. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:10
Speaker
They have great hair. It's like, yeah, she's almost turning ginger now. It's pretty great. She has curly hair. Look at the smile on the equal one. Yeah. And you're wearing the same shirt. Yes, that's from this morning. That's off and I'll look at a picture of Lillian 16 years ago and I'm wearing the same shirt. Times different for adults. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Great talking to you. Really good meeting you Tim. Nice to meet you. Tell your team we said hi and good luck with your new IP. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. To all our viewers, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for all of your donations. And if you would like to support the show further, please check out our Patreon where you can support shows like this and all of the other wonderful curated content you can see here on Second Wind. So from all of us, thank you so much guys. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.