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#5 | Making a Sequel That Divided Fans — Chris Bourassa and Tyler Sigman on Darkest Dungeon II
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In this episode, game developers Chris Bourassa and Tyler Sigman talk about expanding Red Hook Studios after finding success, the challenge of following up the original Darkest Dungeon, and why they chose to reinvent the series with the more run-based, road trip structure of Darkest Dungeon II.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to the Game Dev 101 podcast. I'm your host, Glenn, and today i am joined by the co-founders of Red Hook Studios and the creators of the Darkest Dungeon franchise, Chris Barasa and Tyler Sigmund.
Darkest Dungeon 2 Development
00:00:12
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining me today, Chris and Tyler. now Thanks for having us. Now we all talk at the same time. yeah um Now, I've covered the development of the original Darkest Dungeon on my channel already, so today I'd like to talk about Darkest Dungeon 2 and how it was made. um But before we get into that, I'd like to put the transition from the original to the sequel in the proper context, as well as your individual roles at the company.
Roles & Responsibilities at Red Hook Studios
00:00:40
Speaker
um Chris, your role in the credits of both games is listed as a director and Tyler, you're listed as a designer. But what exactly does that entail on a day to day basis for you both?
00:00:53
Speaker
When you have a small ah company, even a mid-sized company, and you are like Tyler and I, and you're very involved in making the actual like the craft of making the game, um the titles kind of become absurd. um We both do a lot of different jobs. um And historically, you know when the company started, we we did every job. um So it's been a slow like you know delegation from there.
00:01:18
Speaker
um But it's kind of funny to to read the credits because it doesn't really really tell the story of what's happening in the studio day-to- day to day. and also I think what you said there is – not usually how it's we
Partnership Dynamics
00:01:34
Speaker
presented. I mean, you know, we'll often use the title co-founders, but we co-managed the studio half since the beginning, but we've never, i don't know, we've we've never been much for the president or CEO type titles when, especially when you start out with a company of two people, it seems a little silly. ah
00:01:51
Speaker
But Chris is, ah you know, i I'll sing some of Chris's praises, like in addition to us kind of like co co-managing the company, like Chris is the art director, he's the creative director,
00:02:02
Speaker
narrative director. um And then um I'm not nearly so multi versatile. I'm the design director. um So I kind of focus ah on the game design. But the reality is there's so much um there's so much that we share together. um But there are some things that, you know, there is no sharing. I cannot draw. Thank God Chris can, you know, that that sort of thing. But
00:02:26
Speaker
Okay. And, um, Chris on other podcasts and interviews, um, you have called Tyler, your work wife and vice versa. Um, when the of you, uh, when the two of you started working together, what made that creative partnership like really click?
00:02:46
Speaker
Um, I think the work wife thing is kind of funny because it's like almost painfully, uh, true in a way. Like, um, I've been married to my actual wife for like over 20 years and um there's a lot of analogs. so you know ah Tyler and I met and there was good chemistry and we had shared interests and um you know we we went out and did some activities together and found that we got along and then our life goals and priorities aligned. And then the first thing we did when we started Red Hook was like basically sign a prenup ah about like, You know, how the ownership and structure of the company was going to work at a really high level. And that was actually a really, i i always recommend um people who are entering into business partnerships to do that like day zero when there is no value in the company and you've created nothing, right?
00:03:37
Speaker
um Because there's nothing to be precious about or or be sensitive in your ego about. Yeah. So, you know, and we've gone through phases in our, in our like work marriage, you know, like for like really, really close. And then, you know, everything is a little bit more elastic when we get into production, Tyler's kind of doing his thing, I'm doing my thing.
00:03:56
Speaker
But it kind of ebbs in and flows. So I think it's like, it's embarrassingly accurate.
00:04:04
Speaker
And Tyler, how how do you look at the, at the partnership? Yeah, you know, it's funny because we've used that quip before, this sort of work marriage, and um it does describe functionally how things work, you know, because ah you have a relationship, um you do a lot of great things together and get to share these really high moments together, but you also have conflict um and sometimes disagreements.
00:04:33
Speaker
But similar to, I guess, like a marriage, you know, when you have a disagreement, the last option that you want to look at is like splitting up, you know? um So what that forces you to do is like really work through a lot of things, you know, like if you just start dating someone or whatever um and you're not that invested and then you run into problems who right away, you're like, well, that's not a good
Scaling the Studio
00:04:56
Speaker
idea. I'm out. um But, you know, when you've started this company together um and then gone on to have some success together, um you know, it's kind of like you you really,
00:05:07
Speaker
you really have to roll with the changes and you have to kind of keep your relationship up and we you know we've talked about it on other interviews i guess but we have date nights where you know we'll actually go out and have a nice dinner together and um oh my god the more we talk about it invariably invariably we'll end up talking about a lot of work but there's a difference between kind of having sometimes conversations in the middle of a work day while your 30 employees are roaming around And then doing it at you know over dinner and a glass of wine together, um it really does make a difference. And I think that's – so those are where some of the parallels are. But um one thing I kind of wanted to say is like aside from the functionality of how things work is –
00:05:49
Speaker
um you know the the The other piece of that analogy is that um having a good marriage is really great, you know having a good partner. And I think we we both hopefully feel pretty lucky um that you know we we became business partners and that we're we're still business partners after 13 years of running Red Hook. So um you know there's there's a lot of joy in that aside from just the, you know i guess, the day-to-day of like, how do you manage it?
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Okay. um Now I'd like to talk about Darkest Dungeons, the original, the success of it, um because I'm wondering, like, what did that success change inside Red Hook that players probably couldn't see from the outside?
00:06:37
Speaker
m I think, um not to talk around the question, but like when we started Darkest Dungeon 2, we sat down, just Tyler and I, and we're like, we don't want to make the same game again. We know we could, but neither one of us had any interest in just literally trying to paint by numbers the the exact same structure. you know it didn't It didn't feel like an adventure. it didn't feel like creatively you know exciting.
00:07:01
Speaker
um to us in in that way. um we made the so I made the assumption mistakenly ah that the second game would be easier Because you know we had some notoriety, we had some money in the bank, and we could afford to bring on people to help, and it wouldn't be like a big, huge, like impossible laundry list of tasks.
00:07:25
Speaker
What changed that I don't think people see is that as the company grows, the the logistics and support structures around the effort of making the video game also have to grow and they have to surge. Like you can get by with almost nothing with five people in terms of IT, t infrastructure, HR, like you don't need any of those things. You're just five guys in a clubhouse trying to bank so bang out something cool.
00:07:51
Speaker
When you go, okay, we're going to grow to like 25. Well, now you're hiring people who, you know, fair for them, but they're not true believers. They're not, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound kind of people. These are, you know, extremely talented, passionate game developers who are looking for a job and we are offering them a job.
00:08:08
Speaker
So suddenly the expectation and the relationship ah slowly begins to change. It's not an overnight thing. And i think it was about halfway halfway through DD2 when I realized this is much harder than DD1 because of all of the extra ah scaffolding that has to be built around a company to facilitate its growth. The upside is we're capable um of developing um more scope, um more like a higher ah ceiling of of quality. And and and you know like you can see the jump from from one to two. and I love one hand drawn stuff. It was a dream come true to do that.
00:08:50
Speaker
But like we really tried to elevate just even the presentation on on to to like an astronomical degree so that the the staff enables you to kind of dream a little bit bigger, but it requires maintenance, you know, running ah a bigger operation. And I think that I totally just speaking for myself, I didn't see that, ah you know, when we first sat down and said, let's make something different. Let's try this. Let's, you know, add some people. I didn't process what that would mean in terms of all the jobs I don't want to do.
00:09:17
Speaker
um I want to make video games. I don't actually want to like, resolve workplace differences, navigate you know time off calendars, track sick days. like I don't want to do any of those things. um and And that stuff does wax a little bit.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, all those things become real and and kind of I mentioned earlier that Chris and I co-managed, but we kind of do different things like Chris um does a bit more of kind of the team, um the team leadership and the in-person stuff and kind of the I want to say soft, the soft skills side. And then traditionally I was, you know, kind of doing. more coordination with lawyers, accountants, like operations and stuff like that. And and the thing is, is both of those kind of areas increase dramatically when you grow a little bit. And and it's funny because we we didn't grow a ton, but proportionally we grew. You know, like DD1 was made by, call it five to 10 people, um you know, and then DD2 was made with kind of a peak team size of around 25. And, you know, we've always been pretty...
00:10:22
Speaker
conscious of not wanting to grow for growth's sake. We grew because there was a game we wanted to make that required more people, you know, going from 2D to 3D. You just need more people. You need more artists. You need um and you know it It took us a while. Even though we were um you know kind of one thing is even though we were really successful and we had plenty of money in the bank, we were really cautious about overhiring. One of the areas that I think we probably could have gotten ourselves help sooner in was in management. and We've since now gotten a little bit more help there. We have someone who's helping us with day-to-day operations. We have other people that are kind of doing. and It's kind of weird to look back and go, how did
00:11:01
Speaker
we do this before. Like how did the two of us, in addition to making the game, you know, with the help of the rest of the team, do all the company management? Because now that we've delegated certain things that we don't want to do, um it's almost inconceivable to think of taking those things back in addition to the normal workload that we have.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. And ah you're also not working with a publisher. So that's, yeah you're doing all the communication yourself, I imagine. And that's even more work. ah Yeah, you're right. it's When I think back to DD1, I actually don't know how we did all of that.
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Challenges and Mental Health
00:11:40
Speaker
But we did. And it's it's better. i would say we're at our best incarnation of the company in terms of like efficacy and ability to develop. We're probably in the best balanced spot we've ever been in. um you know There's no substituting like the DD1 early days in the sense of like wonderment and discovery and and all of that. that that came along with with making that game. um but But two was really hard to make for for that reason because we were in this like liminal space between being a a clubhouse and being a company in in a weird way. were always a company on paper. The taxes, everything was paid. and no one needs to worry about that. um
00:12:17
Speaker
But like just psychologically, we were sort of like – kind of like we'd left our childhood behind, but we weren't like adults yet. Like DD2 is kind of like an an adolescent phase, I feel like maybe is a way of looking at it. Yeah, that's interesting.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. um I'm wondering when ah the original Darkest Dungeon was done and like all the DLC was finished, was there a period afterwards where you had to recover like creatively or emotionally? Because yeah, it sounds like it was a lot of work.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, we well, there's kind of it's funny. I don't know. Either of us can talk on this. But yeah, it was it was very draining, but really exciting at the same time. um And I think.
00:13:08
Speaker
when you're run when you're running a company, et cetera, it's hard to find that time. um chris Chris never really took that time. um i took a small amount of time um because you know I don't even know if it was so much being drained by DD, but I just had a couple of personal events that happened in short order. Like very very like six weeks after DD1 came out, my father passed away.
00:13:32
Speaker
ah kind of unexpectedly. And then, um you know, we were in early access for a while and then we were started doing DLCs and then somewhere in there, my brother passed away.
00:13:43
Speaker
And so there was a point for me where I kind of just had to go to Chris and say, hey, like, I'm just you know, i'm I'm running on fumes here. um And so i kind of like tailed back for about two or three months. I worked only like maybe a quarter of the time. And that was really helpful ah for me at the time. But it was, you know, I'm sure there was burnout from from the work, too. But it felt like that plus the personal stuff is what was challenging. um I think, Chris, Chris, I don't know. You seemed like you were still pretty on adrenaline at the time, maybe. um
00:14:20
Speaker
You know, and and so Chris Chris really still kept going, but I think he kind of hit his wall later, maybe.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think I hit mine. Yeah, the like the mid or 60% of the way through DD2. was like, this is too much. um But I couldn't take a break then because we're in 60% of the way through making of the game. So I didn't i didn't time time my my meltdown properly.
00:14:47
Speaker
But, you know, sometimes there's just a price to be paid for for trying shit and and pushing yourself, right? It's not comfortable. if it was comfortable and easy, then, you know, everyone would, would do it. So I, I tend to like romanticize, uh, picking yourself up and and doing hard work. Um, maybe a little too much, but, uh,
00:15:09
Speaker
I probably should have taken a break before we started. But you know, you you mentioned something, Glenn, about us doing the communication, and and maybe I can tie that together here, which is we've always really enjoyed being the mouthpieces of our own product. Not just Chris and I personally, but I mean, meaning that we we try to control the marketing of our own game. We we publish our own game, I guess, to your point.
00:15:31
Speaker
And that has so many great parts about it. we We feel like we know the game better than, you know... um an agency would or whatever. But it does come with the cost of like you're right there, like reading. I mean, we still read.
00:15:44
Speaker
We read our subreddit religiously. There's many times that I crack my knuckles and want to write a response to something and then remember that there's nothing to be gained from you know responding in a certain way. And then there's, of course, many times that you read something and it really makes your day. But I do think that the um it's a challenge in this day and age because of how close you are to the community.
00:16:07
Speaker
Sometimes that's great. And sometimes it's not great because, um, you can't get, you know, you can't maintain a healthy separation. And, and that does take its toll on that, that other stuff we were saying on kind of the burnout, you know, when you're, when you're having a ah ah tired day or just not feeling great or whatever, and then you read some post just flaming the entire existence of the game, you know, you're just some, sometimes you can laugh it off and sometimes it, it hits, you know, and, and, uh,
00:16:34
Speaker
So it's it's tough to manage that. you You know, like if you were Ridley Scott making your next movie, you don't want to be sitting there thinking of like, I hope people will like this camera angle. I hope people will like how we're framing the shot. I hope people know you got to just actually trust in the creative process and and try to do your best work and not worry about exactly how the audience will perceive that moment, you know, and.
00:16:58
Speaker
So I think Chris and I both try to do that. You know, we read a lot. where We're in touch with a lot, but we also purposefully create some separation where we can um to be like, you know, yep, I see some people don't like that, but we wanted to do
Creative Vision for Darkest Dungeon 2
00:17:12
Speaker
it that way. So that's the way it is, you know.
00:17:15
Speaker
ah Before you started um making Darkest Dungeon 2, I'm wondering, was there ever, um like, was creating a new IP ever on the table? Or did you always know that the sequel was going to be the next big project?
00:17:31
Speaker
I think we both agreed that um there was there was, I guess, two vectors, but I want to be clear that one of them was much more important to both of us, which was we were still passionate and and creatively like engaged. you know to Time off, notwithstanding, ah you know the the stresses of running a company, notwithstanding, we really believed and were excited by our our IP and our and our universe. um There is also the very real um business consideration of you know, we we have a name that, you know, some people would recognize when we when we bring something new to market. So like, it's very hard to create a new IP. It's very hard to get that IP in front of people. And then it's almost ah a total crapshoot as to whether or not they even respond to the thing that you made. So having ticked all three of those boxes, um you know, there's a strong case to be made for like continuing to make Darkest Dungeon. But
00:18:23
Speaker
that's one of the reasons why we changed up the formula so much um on two is because look, we, we love this space. We just don't want to do the same work again. all right But there was never really a discussion like, Hey, let's, I don't know. Well, let's make a, like any other kind of game that isn't darkest dungeon. I think for a little while we had talked about doing like a sci-fi kind of version of it. And we had this idea for like, instead of a stage coach, you were kind of like a tank crew.
00:18:50
Speaker
Um, But and then I was like, oh, yeah, and we could reinterpret all these characters to be like sci fi versions of themselves. Then I'm like, or why? like Maybe they're just really cool as they are. um And then we felt like we had a lot to say about our about our cast of heroes and thought it would be really exciting to make the heroes the focus for for the sequel ah instead of the ah the enemy bosses and stuff. So, um no, it was it was always going to be Darkest Dungeon.
00:19:18
Speaker
Was it? Yeah, I'm trying remember. I feel like we've we've had discussions where we were interested in the idea of creating a second IP, but nothing was really, i don't know, nothing was burning inside of us. At least my recollection is kind of like, we're like, yeah, yeah, we should do that. That would be cool too.
00:19:33
Speaker
um But we just were excited about doing more with DD and it was a genuine excitement, which is ah a mandatory thing for Chris and I, because even though there was a commercial advantage, say to...
00:19:47
Speaker
you know, or perceived one to making a sequel. We had to be excited about it. And and that's exactly what happened. The idea of a journey like I i can just talk for myself, like what really got me excited about DD2 was kind of two things. The idea of a journey of getting out of the Hamlet and actually going, seeing more of the world.
00:20:08
Speaker
And then also um the characters, I think, like the characters were already really interesting, but the actual lore of the characters was something that, you know, we never really covered in DD1. And then, and then Chris, you know, made these one sheet comics that we kind of started releasing, maybe even while DD1, you know, I forget who when those started, but,
00:20:31
Speaker
that was really fun to to like see the backstory of the characters it in a one page comic. And so then we put it together we said, well, what if like that became part of two where we actually play out their backstories? So between the idea of a journey and then getting more time with the characters, you know, because DD one kind of teaches you the characters are expendable and um almost meaningless, you know, like whatever, just throw another highwayman at the at the you know, at the enemies. And if he dies, he dies. Um, of course you get attached to them too, but my point being, it it sort of pushes you towards almost not caring. Whereas too, I feel like we were taking a totally different approach, which is no, each, each hero matters and they're flawed and and they're, ah you know, they these horrific, tragic stories, but that's who you have to save the world. And that just sounded really exciting to me. And so, um,
00:21:22
Speaker
That made me like excited about spending few more years making Darkest Dungeon stuff when we had already just spent a few years making Darkest Dungeon stuff. Yeah, okay.
00:21:33
Speaker
um Before yeah we go deeper into the development of Darkest Dungeon 2, I'd like to use the divided reaction of the player pace of the player base as a starting point.
00:21:44
Speaker
um To me at least, it seemed like there was a real like split opinion where there were players who loved that it had become a more traditional run-based roguelike experience. ah Plenty of people even preferred that over the original, like myself included.
00:21:58
Speaker
um However, other players seemed frustrated precisely because it moved away from what they loved about the first game. When you look back at that reaction now, how do you interpret that divide?
00:22:11
Speaker
Did it feel like a sign that the game was misunderstood or more like the unavoidable consequence of making a sequel that deliberately took a different direction? ah Yeah, I mean, we've spent a lot of time ah talking about this very thing. I wouldn't even say when we look back, like you can just look on the Reddit today and there's still people arguing about why DD2 sucks or why they like it better than one.
00:22:37
Speaker
Our initial, all I can talk about is what we thought, okay? Like, because you don't have like perfect information. So in the in the moment, we're like, look, why would we make a game whose sole existence is built to eclipse the game people already like. Why would we set out to make a sequel that tries to do better in every category than the original game and basically make our original release obsolete? Like that seems insane. So let's think of a way of
00:23:09
Speaker
taking things that we think are cool and packaging them up and creating an analogous type of a game, but one that can sit beside its older brother and and just offer a different experience or a different view into the into the IP slightly.
00:23:24
Speaker
um That was sort of where we started from. And we're like high-fiving liberal, liberal amounts of high-fives because we're like, we've cracked the code. you know This way, no one has to pick a favorite. So fast forward like five, six, seven years and um yeah people are still arguing about which one's their favorite. So we were, we were I guess, wrong in in how we oriented ourselves initially.
00:23:47
Speaker
um I think there's a couple things that are at play. um When we launched Darkest Dungeon 1, there were zero expectations. And it was a polished game that did a few things that were quite fresh, I think, at the time. And there was a lull in the release calendar. And there was a prevailing opinion that early access as a mechanism for delivering games was kind of dead because there had been a couple of high-profile failures.
00:24:11
Speaker
And we started showing up, you know... every six, eight weeks with a branded kind of cool patch release update. We were having fun making it. I think that that kind of came through and it engendered a lot of goodwill.
00:24:23
Speaker
um When we released two, our mistaken assumptions were, okay, we're going to release you know another game. It's going to be rough. The same way DD1 was rough, it's going to have a similar amount of scope. the same way you know you know We had some... like We graphed out they're roughly equivalent in terms of their content.
00:24:42
Speaker
um But the tolerance... for early access or the understanding, the colloquial understanding of what early access was, I believe had changed in the intervening years to being like an expectation that it's actually just kind of like live service. So if you're not coming out extremely polished with a roadmap and then hitting that roadmap, like the the ground had kind of changed a little
Design Philosophy & Innovation Risks
00:25:03
Speaker
bit. And so DD2 was just as underbaked as DD1 when it kind of came straight out of the oven. Some people responded to that.
00:25:11
Speaker
Some people were very attached to certain features of the game Darkest Dungeon um as opposed to the universe and responded that way. They're like, I like an XCOM like Darkest Dungeon just happens to be my favorite XCOM like as opposed to like I like, you know, the the the tone, the mood, the setting, the characters, that kind of thing.
00:25:33
Speaker
um So i I guess in the end of the day, I believe it's just a natural consequence of sequeling. There's expectations. People are bringing what they loved most about the first one and then looking at the second one through that lens. And the longer the second one has existed, ah we've seen sort of a a general like shift in our in the population of our of our like fan groups, you know Discord or or Reddit, for example. um to to being a little bit more equal in terms of what people prefer. But two had an uphill slog for sure.
00:26:08
Speaker
And part of that might be that... a I don't know. We've read all the critiques. It's like, uh, there's too many systems. It's too hard to grok. the The runs are too long. The runs are too short. And I think it's just tough when you get in the weeds. The stagecoach.
00:26:22
Speaker
The stagecoach. I was the huge, I'm the stagecoach guy. I'm like, if it's a road trip, it's going to be in a stagecoach and we got to be behind the stagecoach. So you see the horizon and blah, blah, blah. So like I accept a full stagecoach responsibility. Um,
00:26:37
Speaker
I think people think it's a game where you have to hit the the blocks, but then, you know, whatever. i it was meant to be an analogous to walking through a hallway. Walking in a dungeon. I'm like, well, you walk the same amount of time in the dungeon. Anyway, it doesn't really matter what we thought because what happened is is what happened.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I think there are things that that that players didn't like or expectations that they carried over from the first one um that prevented some people from maybe seeing the game as just what it is, which is a game. And it has it offers a different experience. And I think what I've seen is that when people engage with it from that perspective, i they find a lot of the fun DD2.
00:27:16
Speaker
um But it's not good. DD1 was not a game for everybody. We said that probably 100,000 times when we were making it. And DD2 is not a game for everybody. But I would rather make a game that I want to make than try to chase and unite all fan expectations into a single creation, because I think that's an impossible task. And I think what you'll get at the end of it is something that doesn't even make sense conceptually.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, mean, we took, you know, Glenn, your question was interesting because The second part, I think you said is real, where like we did depart from the exact formula of DD1 and and I don't know, you look back to DD1, it was a risky game to make. you know Like when we were first pitching it to people, we're like, okay, okay, okay, it's an RPG, it's a dungeon crawler, but it's about the psychological stress of your adventures. And you know a lot of people are like, oh, okay. And then you say, so imagine they get back, they're all stressed out, you can send them to the bar to drink, you can send them to church to pray, then people start perking up, whatever. But it's a weird concept, right? so And we took a lot of risks with it. And so our development style is like, there's some amount of risk built in. And I guess like, like yeah, I admit also, i did not think that changing the formula was that big a risk because you know we're keeping the combat.
00:28:37
Speaker
which in fact we improved the combat. And I think even most DD two detractors would admit that the combat is, is generally superior. um But, you know, I was like, no, no, it's the same. You have the same heroes. um You're having the same combat. race Yes. Instead of the hallways, you know, it's, it's a node map because intentionally we were, um we were creating ah a roguelite, a true roguelite, you know, a run based roguelite. And the interesting thing there is i actually thought, um,
00:29:08
Speaker
we would appeal to a lot more people, perhaps not that, not that our goal is just like in large audience, but you want your game to be successful. But, you know, DD one had some kind of pretty strong,
00:29:20
Speaker
I want to say flaws, you know which is all, of course, in the eye of like what you want. But there was a lot of grind. um i I felt like I encountered many people anecdotally that like, oh, I've heard about the game. I've wanted to try it. But I hear it's just it's so hard and it also requires so much time.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so we were kind of excited about um recrafting around kind of a run based loop because It just sounded cool. Like, hey, you know, you put this party together and you go as far as you can until you die. That's such a, you know, that's such a great loop in general for, you know, for a lot of games. And then pairing it with this road trip motif and being able to get equipment for the coach and then, you know, all these things. And so we were we were pretty jazzed. And I...
00:30:03
Speaker
And I think just maybe we all have our blind spots, but I did not realize how divisive it would be to change up the formula. But I don't know if we knew that. Neither of us wanted to make DD 1.5. That's what kind of everyone refers to. The people that really are unhappy with DD 2 often, they want DD 1.5. They want, you know, it's another Hamlet or a bigger Hamlet or a different, you know, Hamlet. I don't know. Or the Hamlet, but remastered, you know, which is like, OK, well, Chris drew everything in game one. And I think it's awesome. And it still is awesome. And it still holds up again to his point. Why would we want to just redo that? But, you know, the point is you do take risks in development. And I think.
00:30:46
Speaker
It's been hard, definitely for us, um because we put even more work into DD2 than DD1. It was a longer development cycle. we've um you know i think i don't know like I think maybe bits of DD2 were a bit more underbaked at early access launch than DD1, but not not because we realized it, we we put the same amount of work effort in, but, you know, but we really quickly, like we ended up spending 18 months in early access on DD ah two, whereas DD one, we were 11 months. So we took the time needed to like hit all the things that we felt needed to be, you know, improved. um And that was, um,
00:31:25
Speaker
That was purely because of how much we care about the game. Like like we had we were only on the Epic Game Store at the time, and it would have been very good financially for us to get to Steam as fast as possible.
00:31:37
Speaker
um But we didn't. We took the time that we felt the game needed to make to to really make it in our eyes a 1.0 before we came to Steam, and that's exactly what we did. So, um but yeah, it's been a journey. Like it's been an arduous trip. Darks Dungeon 1 was like really a lot of hard work and really intense, but DD2 has been a longer and in some ways tougher problems to solve.
00:32:01
Speaker
um Yeah. For all the reasons I guess that we've hit, but, um but I would say this though, ah if we could go back, and be sitting down knowing everything that we know, i would just be like, okay, how do we make this stagecoach thing work even better?
00:32:19
Speaker
Like, how do we make the road trip thing work even better? I wouldn't be like, wow, that whole thing was misguided or, you know, anything like that. I would not be, i would not go back and go, you know what, we should just, we should just do DDU 1.5.
00:32:31
Speaker
point five Like that's not, that's never really entered my mind. I'm really, I'm really proud of DDU actually. Yeah, it's it's actually a we truly believe it's a good game and not just because we made it. we We're deeply familiar with our own you know missteps in any game that we made, including games before Darkest Dungeon. um and Chris mentioned it, but it's been really interesting to see the sentiment. Like, yeah, there's posts every week saying like, is D which one is better? Or I've heard bad things about D2. Is it and there's a lot of people who prefer it. And that's really been wonderful to see, too, because um I think the bummer for us is just like, oh, man, we tried to deliver two games in the same universe that kind of.
00:33:17
Speaker
do you know have a different lens into the world can't you like them both or do we have to kind of like don the don this or you know hold the battle standard of of of one and tear down the other and you know not that everybody's doing that but there are there are people out there who seem to exist solely to jump in in the conversations and talk about what they hate but yeah it's been it's been a it's been hard When I saw darkest dungeon two, for the first time, I was excited because it was so different when I'm playing a game. The main thing I'm looking for is experience, experiencing something that I've never experienced before, like playing something I've never played before. So I always think it's more interesting when, when a sequel pivots to, to something else, something new.
00:34:07
Speaker
Um, cause like you said, like. You don't want to just make a better darkest dungeon because that would eclipse the original and then you have no reason to play the original anymore.
00:34:19
Speaker
So yeah, like I thought it was far more interesting what you did with darkest dungeon too. And like I said, I also prefer ah more traditional rogue like experiences. So yeah, to me that was perfect.
00:34:33
Speaker
It kind of shows that one game game can't be everything. And we we often muse about kind of just like in a world where DD1 didn't exist, if we had dropped DD2, like would it have gotten a fairer shake?
00:34:47
Speaker
This is not us like, you know, um i don't know, crying foul. It's just more like I think the... you know, it's our own fault, right? we made We made a good first game and people like, yeah, yeah, yeah, more of that. um But I think we felt we were giving more of that. And just some people feel like, oh, no, no, I meant specifically the hallways or whatever it is. or um and And that's not to, i want to be clear. We love DD1. It's, I think it's a really cool loop. I think the whole um coming back, you know, that sort of XCOM like structure, but specifically with kind of more,
00:35:21
Speaker
more stuff like you come back to town and this guy's an alcoholic and this one is like a zealot like this. That was a really neat loop. And um it's not like I think the DD to loop is superior. I think they're just different. And it was fun to make two different games.
00:35:36
Speaker
yeah Yeah, as hard as it was, ah there's a lot of like really exceptional moments and great work that went into 2. And I think studio-wise, it represents so a lot of high watermarks for us. like Even just the bosses, like the Leviathan, like you know you see the giant hand and then the head bursts out of the water. like the The final boss on 2 is just like orders of magnitude crazier than...
00:36:01
Speaker
than anything we did we did in one so there's like there were like a lot of high points around I feel like we're sort of creating this impression that like it was a slog and we were unhappy um because we kind of started there uh but I was trying to be candid about that stuff because making games is not easy so I want to be like open about like the the challenges but like don't for a second anyone who who hears this shouldn't think for a second there wasn't like you know, protracted periods of like exuberance and excitement and, you know, on the team and um everyone trying to one up each other to make the work better and better and better and ah big aha moments. Like, you know, it it was just um it was very difficult in different ways because of the studio growth, which is zero of where we we started the whole conversation.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah but like the side of the growth is we got to bring in all these people and we've done a really good job of hiring talented people. And we do, you know, we try to turn them loose as much as we can. I mean, we we we hold a pretty iron hand in terms of the direction. But once it's brought down to like, here, this is what we need. We need this thing. um people shine and it's been really cool, like I think, to see, yeah, the the the quality of the work. you know it's like we And we have gotten to iterate on DD1. The trinkets in DD2 are like way more interesting because we have the experience of having made these trinkets in DD1 and then there's new systems in DD2. And I feel like, so for example, you know, bringing, you know, the the designers that are working on that got to do really cool stuff. The artists that are like doing everything from the environments to the, the in battle stuff. Like it was great to have a bigger team full of really talented people to do these amazing things. And I think some of those high moments, like Chris is saying, I mean,
00:37:46
Speaker
I still love the the shrine, of like the backstory combats. I know some of them are real gimmicky and some of them are like, but narratively, I just think they're really cool. Like it's so fun to like the first Plague Doctor one where you're like arguing with your professor in class using the DD turn-based combat system. Like, I don't know. There's there's a lot of things I think we're still quite proud of. And one of the things I'm proud of is the areas that we did find were lacking or were like not as polished You know, we we we gutted whole systems if we had to or revised them or whatever. And I think that was some of our finest work to be like, okay, we got to look at this with our own objective eyes and say, that part is not working. That's not good enough. What can we do to improve that? And, you know, I think there was more of that in DD2.
00:38:33
Speaker
But that's something I, like I said, I think we... um take pride in that hard work because it's easy to just go, i don't know, I'm just going to forget about it. you know But I think every every flaw that we saw, we tried to address. you know and And the game's in, yeah, I think the game's in great shape. We're still making stuff for it. So like you know we put out the whole free stuff, which you know I'm sure you'll probably get to. But like you know we did Kingdoms mode. We did other stuff because we wanted to. know So much.
Franchise Identity & Gameplay Evolution
00:39:04
Speaker
We're terrible businessmen.
00:39:06
Speaker
yeah this ah to To talk more about the excitement of making the sequel, what was the original spark for it? Like, was it a meeting, a conversation, something you saw online?
00:39:21
Speaker
um Because I'm wondering just to how how you got to something so different, I guess. um i mean I mean, I mentioned it earlier, but it really was just Tyler and I sitting down and and going like, i don't want to make the same game again. We can't do that.
00:39:35
Speaker
um Yeah, I know. Our combat's really good, though. You know, really love our characters. Yeah, I know. And then I can't remember where it came from, but just the idea of a road trip, having taken a road trip with children, I'm like...
00:39:48
Speaker
definitely got excited about, uh, instead of staying in one spot for sequel, wouldn't it make sense to upend it, like to, to go on a journey. Right. And then I can't remember exactly, you know, who said what and when, but out of that discussion between the two of us, this idea of, um,
00:40:06
Speaker
Going on on a like having a a vital destination and and trying to endure the journey there. And then this sort of twist of like, yeah, you could be driving and then they're bickering and fighting and this sort of trope of like, you know, um I'll turn this car around. Yeah.
00:40:22
Speaker
We saw just furious actually furious Fury. Fury was a big one. That's right. Yeah. The tank movie with Brad Pitt. um that I want to say that was like 2015-ish or 16. So we were we were already making DD1 at that point. But I think it came back to us later because it was – you know like Like in the same way, like certain certain movies and other media inspired DD1, you know, we've talked about aliens or Band of Brothers or whatever. um I think Fury ended up planting a seed. I'm not saying it was fully responsible, but it was kind of an interesting concept of like these four or five people in in a tank together um are at each other's throats, but also have to function together and ultimately have this like...
00:41:06
Speaker
you know, quote, noble quest that they have to achieve. And that seemed really in line with Darkest Dungeon, right? Because Darkest Dungeon has always been about flawed characters.
00:41:16
Speaker
And we're like, oh man, put them in a road trip together. you know, and it's kind of same thing. Like, do you you don't want to just drop this that you're two of the people are arguing. Well, you still need them because that guy, you know, does this role and this person does this role. And so that creates a lot of interesting narrative ground in this, in the same way that I think coming back from a dungeon and, you know, blowing off steam in town creates all these interesting story hooks. um Being stuck in a stagecoach together um sounded, sounded like some really fertile ground for, know,
00:41:49
Speaker
kind of narrative like emergent narrative. Yeah. And when you were expanding like the the road trip idea, what still felt essential from the first game and had to survive in the sequel?
00:42:07
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, Tyler mentioned combat. We felt like that was vital. um Things like quirks and stress, ah you know, imperfections in your heroes as ah as a theme or, you know, however it's mechanically expressed. But for us, it's it's quirks and stress. um that That's absolutely vital.
00:42:24
Speaker
um the art style, the tone, that's vital. um We challenged ourselves to to think about, OK, like what what is a Darkest Dungeon kart racing game? What's a Darkest Dungeon city builder? Like just to help weed out what is the IP and what is the video game? um Like what does it mean to be in the Darkest Dungeon world agnostic of a particular um game structure?
00:42:51
Speaker
ah so So things like, yeah, that i that i just mentioned were were really important. um Builds. being able to tweak and tinker with your hero and and synergies, which are kind of the mirror image of like the the stress and the the chirping at each other is like on the other side, how do we empower players to to get in and pair items or trinkets um with with quirks, with skill selection in interesting ways that kind of make them feel really smart and and get them ahead of the power curve, at least temporarily. um And I think the final ingredient that's really important is um
00:43:29
Speaker
Playing with player agency is is a vital part of what I think makes a Darkest Dungeon game. You have to you have to have to make permanent, like um lasting decisions with imperfect information. So you had to do that in DD1, you have to do it in DD2. I can't imagine it being a Darkest Dungeon game without some amount of, I got to play the hand I'm dealt, and I know that you know life sometimes has other plans. That's kind of essential to like the world that we've created, and we try to express that not only like tonally, but, but mechanically as well.
00:44:02
Speaker
And we're both big poker fans, ah Tyler, probably even more so than me. And so that, that sort of like intelligent gambling kind of philosophy, like I can learn the odds, I can stack them in my favor. I can make intelligent plays, but I have to be ready to pivot because sometimes even the intelligent play goes south. Right. I love that. um kind of being on the edge. And it's a lot like running a company. You don't know, is your release window going to get screwed? Is there going to be some scandal in the community? Is one of your key staff members going to have like something happen in their lives that that takes them out of the, out of the roster for a little while?
00:44:37
Speaker
Um, These things can just happen on on a dime and and we'll actually joke like what's this week's curve ball? um where Where is it coming from? you know, it's rare we get through a week without something unexpected happening and they're not always disasters. Sometimes they're they're they're lucky bounces, but yeah,
00:44:55
Speaker
The idea that you know leadership to some extent, which is what we've challenged you to do in both DD1 and DD2, is a lot about preparation. It's a lot about thinking on your feet when things don't go according to the plan you prepared for.
00:45:12
Speaker
Um, how did the, the run-based structure like change the way you thought about tension? Cause in the original, there's always this tense atmosphere because someone from your roster that you've built, that you've been building up for hours and hours might die in the next expedition, but in the more traditional roguelike experience, dying is very much part of the process.
00:45:35
Speaker
Um, so that's kind of why I'm asking that. Yeah, it's interesting. you know One part of the debate when you see kind of people talking about why they prefer d d one or does come down to personal preference in this area, which is that um for some people,
00:45:53
Speaker
You know, that attachment you form with your level five or six hero in DD1, you know, you've had them through many missions and they finally die is a really exciting part of the game. And for some people, it turns them off. Obviously, we intended that to be a thing in DD1. But DD2, you know, we thought, oh, well, this...
00:46:10
Speaker
There's still lots of reasons to care. You're making end in the kind of roguelite loop, you know, you're making progress. So your time's not wasted. But we did take a risk with, um you know, the runs are a bit longer, like, you know, a lot of traditional roguelites.
00:46:24
Speaker
The runs can vary. i want to say modern roguelites. They can vary like between like. you know 20, 30 minutes to, I mean, sure, some of the action ones could be 10 minutes or whatever, but um to like maybe an hour at the top. But in a run through a full length um area like a full length confession. So like kind of confessions two through five, you know, it can take two hours. It can take even three hours if you're a slow player.
00:46:51
Speaker
So we felt like that was still enough to matter, you know, like, but we also didn't want you to feel like your time was wasted. When you do die, you get stuff for it. You get more upgrades and the, you know, but, um,
00:47:03
Speaker
But I think that is another area that like really works well for some people. And for some people it's it's weird because the the runs take a while, but that was it was kind of intentional. You know, we felt like it's a journey, it's a road trip. You you don't want to feel like we just had a 20 minute road trip. You know, like it it needs to feel a little bit more weighty, you know, that you um you persevered through this region, you reached the end just in time, everyone was almost dead, you heal, you go through another you limp into the next end like we wanted it to feel a bit arduous um and so but i will say we specifically thought oh for this game you know it's okay if if it doesn't have quite the stakes all the time that dd1 had because that can be pretty exhausting to play and we um we ultimately want people to play the games and have fun and um
00:47:53
Speaker
you know So you you just it was just a different recipe. Like the one stew was flavored with this ingredient and this stew is flavored with this. But you know we felt like there were still um there were still costs to failure and that's definitely part of Darkest Dungeon.
00:48:07
Speaker
I think one thing that was really interesting to me um that we thought would be sort of – immediately understood or taken at face value by the players was that um the inn is the break point. The inn is analogous to the town and in DD1 really, and in terms of how it impacts your characters. That's where you do your stress treatment, your recovery and all those things. So whether or not you're dragging a character into a box or you're dragging a box onto a character, it essentially serves the same function. And so when people are like, you know, the runs are too long, in my mind, I'm like, well, a DD1 run is, let's call it 15, 20 minutes. um A region in DD2, you know, once you're reasonably versed with the game, you know, 20, 25 minutes, um that's the break point. Like you're you're you're back home. And it's it's kind of one of the reasons why the ins, you know, are...
00:49:02
Speaker
are so are peppered along that way. Is there meant to be this kind of familiar resting point where, you know, if you're if you're done playing, you can you can check out at the end. Like, it's it's great. um But that didn't, people felt like they weren't complete, right? Like, that that a run was really only complete if you if you beat the boss, um you know, in in that sense. or Or rather, it just didn't translate as one-to-one as I sort of thought it might, which was interesting. But... um When you um replaced the long-term campaigns with individual expeditions individual run-based expeditions, what was the hardest design problem you had to solve?
00:49:47
Speaker
a
00:49:52
Speaker
Boy, there's a lot of them, but... and we Weirdly, this is the opposite to the question you asked. One thing I like is um in dv one trinket design was really challenging because basically if you design too good of a trinket, they can just keep that and use that trinket for every quest till the end of time.
00:50:12
Speaker
And it ended up kind of putting a lot of pressure in the design space to like not be too crazy. um Whereas DD2, because you only get that trinket for that run, you know and you have to find it again for the next run, um I really thought that was cool because I could go to my trinket designer and go, hey, like get wild, get crazy, get weird. um You know, because I think one of the funnest parts about roguelites is like that being able to get a wombo combo, you know, being being able to find something really cool or like, you know, um
00:50:46
Speaker
or two things or three things that stack together that basically are OP. Um, but again, you have to find them, you have to put them together and you can't rely on, you know, that. So I don't know that, that first thing came to mind, which I recognize is not the question you ask, but it was, it's an example of kind of how the design space does differ between the two. um yeah, I think hard parts, like, I guess, Hmm.
00:51:11
Speaker
I want to think about that a little more, but, um, you know There's a shared sense of story in the first one, right? Because you build up your relationship with these heroes. You know, that's the hero that you know helped me beat Wilbur and the swine. you know Oh, this is the the hero that like survived this unlikely thing. And then that affects you know that you build your own story. um Whereas you know here, obviously, the stories are more like individually self-contained. And so um I guess design-wise, it's like you still...
00:51:42
Speaker
You still have to figure out reasons for people to care about each individual run. don't know. I mean, that yeah, there was plenty of challenges. i guess i guess not not one in particular is popping to mind at the moment, but ah I'll think about it for a second. That's okay. That's fine.
00:52:02
Speaker
um Earlier you um talked about the combat and how it's a vital part of the Darkest Dungeon and how you improved it for Darkest Dungeon 2. Yeah. um Were there parts of Darkest Dungeon 1's combat that were sacred and then parts that you wanted to maybe get rid of? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, the sacred part was the rank positioning and the idea that, well, obviously the... um at least from, yeah, from making DD two, the turn-based aspect we felt was still really strong, the rank-based positioning and the skills, you know, the, the core skill system where you're like, you need to be in ranks three or four and you can only hit rank one. Like, it's just such a cool, fun thing.
00:52:47
Speaker
Um, those were, those were sacred. Um, but the, uh, One thing that was not sacred... What's that? Some hero identity stuff was kind of sacred. Like, you're not going to bounty hunter who doesn't do the pull move. You're not going to have a hellion that doesn't have, you know, barbaric yop. So, like, some, like, ah core skills were, like, vital to preserve them at heroes. Sorry, Tyler.
00:53:11
Speaker
No, no, that's good. um But the the fun, like a really fun part of being able to, you know, because when we started making two, I mean, we could have just kept all the combat rules exactly as is. But, you know, I personally went through an exercise. I said, well, what would I change? what can You know, if if nothing, you know, anything's on the table, what would I change? That's where we quickly figured, OK, well, no, this part is still good. This is good. But a lot of, you know, some of the stat based stuff, I felt like,
00:53:39
Speaker
had had done well for DD1 but had eventually presented some challenges. So for example, accuracy is one I talk about a lot. In DD1, accuracy was was a stat and it was intentional because you know you miss sometimes. ah that was just you know I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons. You roll the 20-sided die, you miss sometimes. it was just ingrained. Like I didn't even really think of a scenario where you don't actually miss. um But what happened with DD one is like people really, you know, they really dislike missing kind of the joke about XCOM, you know, where you have like 95% accuracy, you miss your shot, you feel like you got cheated, even though that there is a one in 20 chance, you know? um
00:54:20
Speaker
But, you know, like yeah and then when you get to something like, Like the the leper, he was always envisioned as this hard hitting character that has a low accuracy. um So I think in DD1, I want to say his accuracy started out somewhere around like two thirds, you know, so he'd miss a lot, ah maybe even less. I can't remember.
00:54:37
Speaker
um But he hits really hard. And from kind of a math standpoint, it's it's a cool problem. You have a character that hits all the time, but does small damage or a character that hits half the time and does big damage. I like that that's like a thing that even though on paper, maybe they're equivalent damage over five rounds is the same. How they distribute their damage is so different. um So anyway, what happened over the course of DD1 is gradually we tuned excel ah accuracy up and up and up to where kind of the version of the game now is most accuracies are pretty high. Like you miss rarely.
00:55:08
Speaker
And people really hate missing. um So with DD2, I was like, you know, that's not a satisfying part of the game. And I had been, you know, um I'm not a collectible card game maniac, but, you know, I can appreciate the really cool design of a lot of CCGs. You know, you look at something like Hearthstone or even going back to Magic, right?
00:55:28
Speaker
You attack with your creature, it hits. um What I like about, say, something like those games, you know, like Hearthstone is... um All the mechanics are really clear, like, oh, death rattle, this happens when he dies. ah Taunt, you have to attack that person, right? There's not a lot of chance. It's not like taunt 70% of the time he needs attacked first. um So with DD2, I kind of was like, how do I take some of those learnings and tighten up?
00:55:54
Speaker
You know, DD is always going to have some RNG. That's a part of... what we like. But hitting is an example, I guess, to tie the story up. um Accuracy went away. You know what? All heroes hit unless the enemy has dodge or unless you're blinded. And I thought that was like that was a more successful way of like expressing that sort of tactical space is like, we can still have a leper who misses a lot.
00:56:19
Speaker
because some of his skills blind himself. And that means, and you can look and say, oh shoot, I know he has a chance of missing this next hit. Is there, you know, can I apply something to him? Can I put the milk soaked rags on his eyes or whatever? And and so we tried to just um tighten up And that's what gave birth to the what's known as the token system, which is just like, instead of having to look at the character sheet and be like, okay, there's a 32% chance of this happening, you just see the token, oh, he's he's blinded, that's a 50-50. And we tried to keep all the numbers pretty coarse.
00:56:54
Speaker
Sorry for the long-winded version of that. That's fine. um Is that also how like the token system came about? Like your your um knowledge from trading card games and were you maybe inspired by that?
00:57:09
Speaker
Yeah, definitely inspired. Like I'm not even a, I don't even play them that much. But I but i sample them and I can appreciate um the mechanics. And so yes, it was, I liked that for the player to visually see and understand exactly what can transpire. And then we were, know, Chris and I had to work together to arrive at something that visually was okay. And I think both of us were happy with that change because again, rather than so look at like,
00:57:39
Speaker
a bunch of stats. I mean, there still are some stats in the game, but the tokens were meant to be a visual representation of, you know, mechanics that you understand. And I played a ton of board games, so it also felt very board game. Yeah. um Yeah. And I think that was the trick the trick that you pulled off really nicely, Tyler, with that whole system was that,
00:57:58
Speaker
We improved are communication without sacrificing like tactical depth. So instead of mousing over like a buff icon and seeing like a tool tip that's like 11 lines long and then saying thinking to yourself like, okay, how do I put all this together?
00:58:13
Speaker
we We did a lot of that work for you. we made things chunkier or you know Tyler did in this case um but without kind of um shrinking the the tactical play space the strategic range of options actually in a lot of cases I think even enhance them um because there's an answer to every problem so your leper skill blinds you do you have this item should you use this item now or should you wait for it later could you use another hero skill to de-blind him so that you can You know, all of these things kind of open up, whereas before, if it was just a roll of the dice and a whiff, um there isn't really much player-based kind of decision-making that can
Artistic Transition to 3D
00:58:51
Speaker
happen. So I think it was a really strong and well-executed change.
00:58:57
Speaker
um I'd like to talk a bit more about the art direction as well and the move to three d um Chris, you mentioned earlier um you wanted to do more with the art style now that you had a bigger budget.
00:59:10
Speaker
Um, but, um, darkest dungeon had such a recognizable to the style, um, and you were already making changes to the core gameplay. So I am like wondering why you decided to move from 2d to 3d and maybe alienate players, not just from a gameplay perspective, but also from a visual perspective.
00:59:34
Speaker
Hmm. Um, Well, number one, I think we nailed it. I don't think anybody was actually alienated, although I recognize that was a risk. um I think ah when you go through the sort of three and a half years process of illustrating 95% of everything that shows up on screen, um your appetite to do that again for another five years is greatly diminished.
01:00:07
Speaker
i I'm very, like, i had help from ah ah Brooks, who's a tremendous, who learned to d animation to animate, um DD1, and we had some some really amazing contractors who helped with you know some some trinket sketches and and some supporting art, and we brought a Trudy Castle on late in in the DD1 sort of cycle to do the town event images and things like that. So there were other artistic contributors, is my point, but the vast preponderance of the art in DD1 is all me, and I'm very proud of it.
01:00:43
Speaker
ah It's probably like my... It'll probably be the greatest thing I ever do from like ah like a single authorship standpoint. Like, look at all this work I did. I don't know that I'll come over the top with like, you know, DD3 is four times as big and I fired everyone and I did it all myself. I don't think that's going happen. um So, you know, coming into DD2, I'm like, I don't I don't know that i want to draw everything in an entire game all over again, starting from zero. I don't think that we can sell people the same sprites a second time. That's kind of gross.
01:01:16
Speaker
um So how many different ways can I draw the highwayman's pose like when he does point blank shot, you know, like I can redraw it just for the sake of saying. it's a new game, but, um, this is very, very taxing. And the same way we didn't want to make the same game again, i didn't necessarily want the same job on that game again. yeah Um, plus, and, and more interestingly, I think, um,
01:01:41
Speaker
I crave ah growth and and maturation and and aspiration. And these are not just words for me. Like, could we do it in three d That's so much more exciting. Having done the first game and hand drawn it,
01:01:58
Speaker
I know that I could do it again if I if i wanted to really. But the question, the fascinating thing becomes, what could we accomplish if these were 3D models? Could we even sell the art style? um How much crazier could the VFX be? The animations alone, like think of the possibilities. So it was really kind of an aspirational move made to delight people, you know, not again to like not say, hey, hey, D1 sucks. I think a lot of the artwork in that game, you know, I think I'm a little bit of a better illustrator at this point, having made that stuff. But like looking back, I'm like, no, it holds up. It's kind of timeless in a way. And and I love that.
01:02:38
Speaker
um but what if, you know, it's kind of just exciting. So for me, that was a great, a great, um, and kind of wonderful part of making a DD two. Uh, we brought on a really talented character, um, modeler that I'd worked with at a previous company and Kevin Freitas and, uh, together with, uh, with him and Trudy, we went through a bunch of,
01:03:01
Speaker
proportional things. We tried bringing the sort of like chibi or like larger head proportions into 3D. It looked terrible. And then I'm like, well, you know, all the marketing art I did for DD1 had more action figure kind of X-Men proportions. Why don't we try that?
01:03:14
Speaker
All that whole process of working through how to manifest the art style in 3D was like extremely exciting from like ah just a pure development nerd kind of standpoint. And it felt like we were kind of like artists on the on the case, you know running an investigation down.
01:03:30
Speaker
And ah ultimately, I think it it pays the bills. like we were able to do so much more. We can change, you know, their, their weapons so we can have like kind of cool cosmetics and themed stuff that way. um The anticipatory animations that Yusuf built, ah he's our animation director so that you can like get a wind up before the shot creates so much more personality in the heroes. And then the visual effects alone ah done mostly by ah Tom Francis or our VFX artists and
01:04:03
Speaker
just are over the top. like We just could not do that type of thing in the in the same framework. um So for me, the risk of alienating a group of people was actually just a challenge. Like, how do we not alienate a group of people? How do we do this really, really, really well? And I think, you know, as soon as we released our first trailer, the the Glimmer of Hope trailer, and we showed all the 3D models, I hand painted all those models. Like, it's not like I'm not involved. um So all the ink work on those models is done by the same guy who drew the characters the first time out.
01:04:39
Speaker
um Everybody like really loved that that view of what they look like. And I think it was a really successful marriage of kind of art direction and the ability of the team to to execute.
01:04:52
Speaker
But yeah, don't i have I did all the concept art for every character and then I did 90 percent of all the texture work and the stuff I didn't do, I worked over. So it's like the same heart is going into um representing it in 3D. It's no no less work. It's just different work, right?
01:05:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And what was harder than expected about like keeping the identity intact in 3D? Because it is like very impressive, like how you manage to translate it so seamlessly from 2D to 3D. But I imagine that wasn't an easy process.
01:05:31
Speaker
No, it was ah it was a process for sure. Like I mentioned that, you know, the proportions had to change because they just looked stupid, like lining up like four bobbleheads in three d For some reason, in 2D, your brain abstracts it and you're like, no, he's a cool guy with a pistol and a sword. I can see it. But if when when it's a 3D model, that proportion, you're like, oh, it's like a meeple, you know, it's like absurd.
01:05:52
Speaker
um There was some texture ah stuff like how we... handle the ink work versus the the colors. It was very important that you never see pixels on the black lines or else it defeats the illusion that they're inked kind of, you know, by hand. So the inks are actually a separate texture that's a higher resolution than the the color on the characters. um And because I felt strongly that if you got close enough to the characters and you start to see the stair stepping on the inclines, it would cheap and break down. So wherever possible.
01:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, that that that was a really important thing. I'm trying to think. Lighting, you know, we could do a lot more with lighting. There's a lot more variables to to play with.
01:06:43
Speaker
And it was a process to try and figure out, OK, we can't we can't and texture the characters this this level of brightness or they'll bloom out in in the lights and and that kind of thing. But it was just iteration. So there was nothing like unstoppable, but they were like satisfying sort of obstacles to meet and then push through every step.
01:07:01
Speaker
But it took us like over a year to to figure it out and start making assets that were like, put that in the game. um And then similarly, the backgrounds and environment assets had to go through the same process. How do we make combat arenas? Well, we can't just draw every single thing. we have to drive past it. So it has to be in 3D. And Mariel, our lead environment artist, worked with Trudy to kind of create this like texture first approach where...
01:07:28
Speaker
um ah Mostly Trudy, sometimes me, would would draw the the side of the building you know here, there and everywhere, at different sides and and stuff. And then they would build the model off of the texture instead of building a model and then texturing that model, which was nice philosophically because it i preserved the importance of the hand-drawn art. like Modeling existed in DD2 to serve and and elevate the texture work.
01:07:55
Speaker
Much to the chagrin of the the modelers, but I think the end result is a really nice a really nice marriage.
Narrative Themes & Character Development
01:08:02
Speaker
So yeah, it was great. That's one of my favorite things about D2 actually.
01:08:07
Speaker
Okay, cool. Um, I'd like to move on to the narrative and the overall theme of Darkest Dungeon 2. Um, the first Darkest Dungeon, like, is a story about inheritance and dealing with the consequences of someone else's obsession and, like, mistakes.
01:08:25
Speaker
Um, so I'm curious, what narrative territory did you want to, did you want the sequel to explore?
01:08:35
Speaker
And the first one's and ambition too, right? It's kind of like, it starts out as his ambition, but then you realize you're, you're executing the same boundless ambition, you know, and you're like, Oh, did I become the baddie? Yeah. but Yeah, D&D 1 is a bit like a nihilistic vortex, and it's kind of meant to suck you up. And then some of the lines towards the end, yeah exactly like what Tyler said, the the narrator is like, there's no difference between us. Like, you've you've ended up in the same spot as me. um
01:09:08
Speaker
And then I love the kind of like, um I guess there's spoilers here, but... um Yeah, the the time loop reset where you're always arriving at the Hamlet and always trying to warn yourself to to turn back um at the start of every of every campaign. So that's pretty hopeless.
01:09:26
Speaker
and And that was a fun like space to explore. With TD2, thought it would be cool to explore the concept of like, kind of like, yeah. yeah hope and self redemption and failure.
01:09:42
Speaker
So the whole game, every hero has five part backstory where they where they kind of fail or are challenged in some way. Similarly, there are five acts which are confronting the player character with their sort of the story of their failures. And I thought it was neat to like unpack the sort of preconditions that have to exist before you before you really fuck your life up.
01:10:05
Speaker
um and then ah And then what it takes to actually make things right and the fact that no one will swoop in and kind of and kind of save you. And I felt like that really married nicely with this roguelike thing where like you have to wake up and work at at doing better every single day and you're going to have setbacks. And and that's the same thing. Like you you die on a run, you start a new run. you set a new intention for yourself, come up short, what choice do you have but to try again the next day? um So it was a fundamentally more optimistic space and it was an interesting challenge to marry that with the sort of Lovecraftian cosmic horror ah influences that I think are really important in Darkest Dungeon. But um ultimately, ah i think that um i think that it really works well and I'm actually really proud of how you know the the sort of
01:10:56
Speaker
the the beginning, the the story of DD2, and then especially like kind of the end resolution where I feel like we managed to pull off kind of a happy ending in ah in an authentically Lovecraftian cosmic horror universe, which is like a ah bit of a ah tough tough sell. But I think by the time you beat dd two you feel like you earned that ending.
01:11:18
Speaker
and The theme, like I want to touch on a piece of that because, you know, when we were talking about like what got us excited about working on the second one. um Yeah, that that sort of inherent darkness of D.D. One um where, you know, it's all almost for not, you know, um was was cool and fun.
01:11:39
Speaker
But the idea of a journey. And hanging that journey on a framework of, you know, used the term earlier, but and a noble quest, um I thought was really powerful. Obviously, you know, a lot of us, we love Lord of the Rings, you know, grew up reading Tolkien, was excited when they made the movies, they were good. um But, you know, that part of the reason that story is just so compelling is like, it's ah it's a nearly hopeless quest,
01:12:05
Speaker
but one built on really absolute clarity of purpose. you know There's no like, well, I guess if you're into defeating Sauron, that's cool. But you know um I feel like in this day and age, there's so much, it's so hard to find like one common purpose, especially now in this like very politically divided world. um And I liked the pairing of,
01:12:29
Speaker
of like, no, we're journeying we're running a stage course across the world to dunk the ring and Mount Doom, you know, like, and the only people willing to do it are these effed up absolute shells of human beings, you know, that are the heroes. um That got me really excited when Chris was kind of like sketching out the idea of the second one ultimately being more about redemption and hope. And you you can achieve that, I guess, you know, spoiler, you can achieve that redemption. Whereas in D.D. 1, it's kind of,
01:12:59
Speaker
well, this is, I guess, a ah ah North American analogy, but it's, it's Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, right. When he goes to kick it. um And here, like we don't do that switch on you. Like you, you're, you are doing this, this very noble thing and it's, but it's for, it's kind of for no greater purpose than also your own.
01:13:21
Speaker
I mean, there is the whole cosmic significance, but yeah, you know You're doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because it's going to get you awards and um you know notoriety in terms of like these heroes. they're just Somebody's got to do it.
01:13:38
Speaker
you know Somebody's got to face down these these monsters. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. ah You mentioned the the backstories of ah the characters, so I'd like to ask a bit more about that.
01:13:51
Speaker
um How did you decide how much humanity to reveal behind characters that were like previously more archetypal?
01:14:02
Speaker
um There's a couple of considerations. I really think that the Twilight Zone-y vibe of not ever quite having a full picture is is important and and cool. um So I didn't want to literally expose everything.
01:14:18
Speaker
ah There is also... um the reality of like, if I'm writing a page and a half for each chapter for each hero, that's too much work to get done. um so we tried to be as like minimalist as possible, um, and, and sort of create a lot of space for kind of questions and interpretation. Cause I think that's really fun. It's fun to watch and in, uh, in the fan base, watch people try to like make connections and put things together.
01:14:45
Speaker
Um, so there was a practical reality to how much work can we put into these things? Um, there's a desire to kind of keep things a little bit vague. um But ah the way, the way I think about our our cast of heroes is like, they're, they're like medieval X-Men, right?
01:15:02
Speaker
So they all have like their tragic kind of, or, you know, whatever greater or lesser degree, tragic origin story. um They all have their kind of power or the thing that they do really well, better than anyone else. And then they kind of have their, their like iconic look.
01:15:16
Speaker
Yeah. because like low fantasy is just a bunch of sad white people in mud, muddy armor, you know, in ah in a trench somewhere. Right. It's not like it doesn't pop like visually the same way. So I pulled a lot from like growing up reading superhero comics and I tried to inject some of that DNA into our cast. And so when we came, you know, I worked with Trudy on the origin comics and and with Tyler and and trying to come up with like a cool hook, a little mini horror story for each of the heroes. was really fun and and exciting. And I think actually makes them, it moves them away from being archetypal, but I think that's good.
01:15:52
Speaker
I think that's a natural evolution for where we want to take our cast. I think making them actual characters um strengthens them and and allows us to do things like give them kind of canonical um events in their lives that they carry with them kind of each time. So it was cool to do.
01:16:14
Speaker
And then trying to do those in the mechanics of the fights were was really cool too. Yeah. And then the one that we didn't reveal anything on is the bounty hunter. Right. Yeah. And we still catch flack for that. Yeah. i I refuse to catch any flack for that because like, so think about Disney, right? Yeah.
01:16:36
Speaker
They're like, they buy Star Wars and you're like, okay, ah no one will ever make a bounty hunter cooler than Boba Fett. And somehow they managed to do it with Mandalorian. And you're like, okay, but surely they'll never ruin Boba Fett. And they managed to do it with Book of Boba Fett. And then you're like, but surely they won't ruin the new coolest bounty hunter. And they managed to do that too. And it's like, the more you say about the mystery character, the worse it is. So I will commit to never revealing the bounty hunter's origin because it's my small protest that ah if you're going to have a character who's edgy and mysterious, you can't then tell everyone their whole life story and keep taking their helmet off and showing their giant white veneers. You can't do it. ah So we're never going to tell you what the bounty hunter's past is. In fact, I wrote a voice line for Wayne when you recruit him that says he has no past.
01:17:29
Speaker
ah because I was furious at Book of Boba Fett. And that solidified my thinking. um Because they ruined my favorite character growing up. They ruined him. and ah And I just won't stand for it. I won't stand for it, Glenn. I won't do it. There's Slave 1 in the background there, I think, right? and you're There it is. that ship yeah And I should have known they were going to ruin them because they already kind of ruined them by making it like d Jango Fett's kid and Jango Fett is just – so i was like i knew i knew which way the winds were blowing.
01:18:00
Speaker
but That's funny. Yeah. Anyway, um you that's his whole thing is not is not revealing anything. So like that's that's the space he occupies. I don't i don't want to change that.
01:18:13
Speaker
Every hero has like, I think I'm very i'm very happy with our cast. like They all have like ah a bit of a different thing. And some of them are kind of like objectively worse than others, right? Like, you know, the Antiquarian's origin story is like,
01:18:28
Speaker
displays her greed and and and sociopathy, um whereas the the Lepers is traumatic, but not, um you know, it shows him to be a man ah of principle. And then the rest of them are kind of in between. And and I really like that they each have kind of their their own little hook.
01:18:44
Speaker
Sorry for getting worked up about both of them. I get it. um was it difficult to write like more sincere emotional material inside like such a grim heightened world?
01:19:01
Speaker
No, no, it it was very natural. Like I just, you know, they're, they're just people. That's like the thing we try to do, like Tyler, ah you know, um,
01:19:12
Speaker
from a mechanical and game design perspective and then and then me and on the softer side, like, or, you know, the artsy-fartsy side, um we're we're trying to reinforce the players that, like, Darkest Dungeon is about people like you and me trying to make things work. and And because ultimately those are the only kind of people there are. Like I understand the need for like really aspirational kind of power fantasy stuff, but that's not the space that we, that we trade in. um So the idea that no one's coming to help you except for your
01:19:45
Speaker
your closest friends who are just as screwed up and and weird and quirky as you, um i think is a really cool a cool thing. And it and it was you know very compatible with the general air of of ah cosmic apocalypse and and emotional duress and you know failing relationships and meltdowns and all of that to to try and imagine these guys having a hard time.
01:20:09
Speaker
Yeah.
Wayne June's Legacy
01:20:11
Speaker
ah You mentioned ah Wayne June um a moment ago. I'd like to talk more about him, um if that's okay. um His voice is obviously such a huge part of the identity of both Darkest Dungeon games. um And with his passing not that long ago, I imagine it might be a bit difficult ah to talk about it. But I'm curious what you remember most about working with him.
01:20:43
Speaker
I feel like I've been talking a lot. It's okay. I mean, you're you're Chris, you know, you, you dealt with Wayne the most. I dealt with him some, but um so, I mean, it's appropriate.
01:20:55
Speaker
I guess sir
01:20:59
Speaker
he was just a really, he was so grateful to be part of the thing we were making and really loved doing it.
01:21:11
Speaker
And that's like, there's no um there's no better collaborator than than that. we We look at we look at this at hiring through the through the same lens. I'd rather have someone who's 75% as good, but 200% as invested than someone who's you know ah a little bit better, but as a bit of a of a bounty hunter as it were.
01:21:35
Speaker
um And so Wayne just wanted to do a great job. ah you know We would send him retakes. He would read every line multiple times. He would rerecord the stuff that that wasn't quite working. We spent a lot of time, Jeff from Power Up Audio and I, on calls with him early days on on d d two to try to really figure out between the three of us what was going to be different from from DD1.
01:22:03
Speaker
We didn't want him to change his voice or, you know, do an accent or anything like that. um But we knew we needed a slightly different tone, you know, because we knew from day zero that the narrator in DD2 was ah was a good, good man, you know, and and we're not going to pull a twist on you and and reveal he was a bad guy. That's that's DD1's whole thing. So And he just really loved it and he was always very grateful and and would always you know thank us you know ah to an embarrassing degree. And he was very humble. um
01:22:36
Speaker
And he spoke very highly of of us and the and the game whenever he was interviewed. and um And I know he was being authentic because he would say the same things to me. And I felt the same way about about working with him. So it was just a great...
01:22:49
Speaker
a great collaboration that came up randomly because I'd heard some audio books and then Tyler was like, why don't you just fucking email them for a trailer? You know, and it's just so weird to have like a 10 year story written out of that kind of like really quick exchange. So the whole thing was, was really, uh, it was a happy accident.
01:23:07
Speaker
Yeah. But you know, Born on, i mean, he was such a professional and also an interesting guy. Just like, you know, I think music was probably his bigger thing. I got the feeling, you know, I know he he or he'd done music for a long time and he had this, you know, such an incredible, distinctive voice.
01:23:25
Speaker
But it was also you know interesting, like we never we never got a chance to meet him in person. um you know There was a time where we offered to fly him out for the wrap party of DD1 and he he politely passed and you know ah passed on that opportunity, I should say. and um you know just like um But he was, yeah, I think Darkest Dungeon was a really unexpected success in his life too, you know, in the same way it was for us that it suddenly became this big thing. And for it to start from just a, hey, read a few lines for a trailer because we need narration for a trailer because that's what happens in trailers to like, wait a second, let's write him into the game and structure the game story around this character, you know, um
01:24:11
Speaker
it it's there was there was a number of things on dd1 that kind of worked that way where like when you start putting something together and then put you know make yourself open and available and then you you see there's other people out there and and you kind of get these like accidental because the same thing happened a very accidental meeting um with our composer stewart chatwood um you know which we can talk about too but We were so lucky, you know, and even even our so you know sound, kind of the whole sound crew actually was yeah almost was accident. Yeah, it was all luck.
01:24:43
Speaker
Yeah, all luck. And that that was something, I guess we didn't say it earlier, but when you were saying what was sacred of going to DD2, our whole sound team, you know, the actual sound, power of audio, um Wayne, narration, and Stuart for the music were like,
01:24:59
Speaker
This is staying. like this is absolutely This is the great team that we've got to keep together. and i think We even said that when we did the thing when we we know we sold the company to Behavior. We're like, this doesn't change. like the The audio team, all all that has to remain. Yeah, we we need to work with these same people. It's interesting. like Wayne has become, you know his his work has become such an important part of Chris and I's life with this game.
01:25:27
Speaker
And so, yeah, him passing, it was very kind of unexpected. um but Both of us had exchanged a couple of emails to him, even even while he was in the hospital. And you just you just never really think because it it wasn't like he went in for a thing that's like, hey, this is the end, you know, no one is a picture of himself like.
01:25:46
Speaker
a selfie with all these tubes hooked up and he's like thumbs up like isn't this crazy and I'm like okay i hope you get bit well soon like yeah like I had no idea that it was actually as severe as it was um and because he had a good sense of humor um he recorded like singing Africa like a couple lines of Africa for us like just as a joke you know and so he had a good sense of humor and um that that was partly why it was kind of a bit of a shock for sure Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was hard hit, you know, and it's hard to process. And, you know, we've been lucky enough to have a little contact with his his widow. And, you know, she it was interesting even just to hear kind of her express how much this meant to Wayne, because, yeah, he was not a very necessarily effusive guy, you know, like he's um but kind of like his voice, every word you heard from him was impactful.
01:26:39
Speaker
I felt like, yeah, I was pretty sad because um
01:26:45
Speaker
it was like I learned how to write knowing how he was going to read it. um It had been like, yeah, like a decade. Right. So I could sit down and bang out.
01:26:57
Speaker
tons of text and I was reading it to myself in his voice in my head and then he would deliver it and it was like 90% I knew which words he'd hit. So I knew which words to use when I wanted him to hit the, you know what i mean? It was like a really good, and it was also like how I spoke to or how the game speaks to the to the players directly, right? It was through Wayne.
01:27:20
Speaker
um And so, yeah, when after he he died, It's kind of like, OK, I felt like, um yeah, a little bit. I don't want to overstate it or sound like cheesy, but a little bit of like ah a tool or a limb or ah a thing that I relied on is like now gone. And that absence was like, I think, felt very acutely, even though we were not in the middle of like.
01:27:44
Speaker
you know developing a big DLC and we're on the hook for work that we'd never get and it was a big problem that way. It was more just like, I i miss being able to just like sit down, um express what I feel like needs to happen and then know with absolute certainty and confidence that it's going to come back awesome.
01:28:03
Speaker
the yeah Those types of collaborations are very rare.
01:28:10
Speaker
do you have ah a favorite like line reading or a moment where he surprised you
01:28:18
Speaker
no i can't i can't too many yeah i think that my my favorite wayne memory though is like um there's a there's like a suburb of vancouver ah called richmond um which is like just kind of like Apologies if anybody lives in Richmond. It's below the waterline. It shouldn't be there. But it's all these towers. And this is where Jeff lived, our our our main audio guy at Power Up. And we had met them and we're going to put together the trailer ah for DD1. There was no game, but our our plan between Tyler and I was, look, if no one cares about the trailer, we shouldn't even make the game. Right. So it was a bit of like a litmus test. um
01:28:57
Speaker
to see because, you know, we were we're not as old as we are now, but like, you know, ah early to mid 30s. They didn't want to take a me her didn't want to take a flyer on something that had no future. Right. So we're like, oh, we'll test the waters with this. um And we had, I had like storyboarded it and drew it and everything. And we got the edit together from the motion graphics guy.
01:29:21
Speaker
And we were going to put the audio mix together at Jeff's apartment in Richmond. And he had this big audio set up looking out over like the, he was like, I don't know, 15 stories up looking out over the rest of the little town the town there, the city.
01:29:33
Speaker
And when we put Stuart's music in with Wayne's narration, were all just like, Holy fuck. And I think I turned to Tyler or Tyler turned to me. I can't remember. He's like, well, he has to be in the game now. Like that's the end of it. And so the whole narrator came from how powerful his voice was in that first trailer. Um, cause I didn't want to do flying text on our trailer because that to me wasn't the tone of the game. So i'm like, well, we need someone to, to sort of talk, uh,
01:30:01
Speaker
But I had not thought about it as being a game feature until that moment. And it was like, okay, this is this is the whole thing. Like, it has to be there. yeah It's undeniable. And that was really, like, amazing.
01:30:13
Speaker
And that was just to per his performance. just He just threw himself into it for 500 bucks. language you know Just a random email from a random guy for 500 bucks. He read this thing and kicked its ass so hard that ah we paid him for the next decade. It was amazing.
01:30:35
Speaker
Was he like immediately on board? Because that's like a longer term commitment when you ask him, like, can you be the narrator for the entire game? He couldn't wait. Okay, cool. But also I think it's like, you don't know, you know, it's another job, you know, i don't I don't kid ourselves to think like, he's like, oh, how exciting, you know? I mean, he probably was like cool. But, um, you know, it's also like, Hey, will you narrate this indie game that we have no idea if it'll ever sell sell more than 20 copies, you know? Um, so I think though that was probably a a journey for him to, to do all that work for the work sake and then be like, wow, this, this game is like getting a lot of a lot of attention. Um, you know, I think similar, uh,
01:31:22
Speaker
to so With Stewart, he had done a bunch of high-profile things before, but he was into the subject matter of this game. And so I think the same journey of like then when the game actually was successful, I think it was probably a nice unexpected surprise for both Stewart and Wayne. Because let's face it, a lot of games...
01:31:41
Speaker
They never escaped to orbit. you know But they both like, yeah, ah the power up guys had immediate confidence. um Wayne threw himself into it. Stuart had like immediate confidence. Like we were really blessed by people who saw what we were trying to do before, like when it was like a bunch of screen mockups on an iPad and they're like, that's awesome. I'm all in. And not only is that like great because you're like, great, we have like audio now. um But it's also like emboldening. You're like, oh, someone else believes in this. yeah That's cool.
01:32:14
Speaker
Yeah. How do you think about preserving his legacy in the series going forward?
01:32:24
Speaker
Well, we're not going to use AI to make his voice. Yeah, I read that article from a while ago, and that's kind of why I'm asking like how how you're thinking about that. I he made two great games.
01:32:39
Speaker
He delivered two fantastic performances and I think the the the scarcity elevates the work. you know The fact that there aren't limitless Wayne June narrated games out there makes ours even more special. so um And it's a performance. It's a human being emoting and responding and interpreting you know words written by another human being. ah that That's the...
01:33:07
Speaker
that's, I think that's like vital. So I think the best thing we can do to honor his legacy is to leave it alone. He, he built his legacy, you know, like, uh, he's done a an incredible job and, um, we should just not fuck with it.
01:33:22
Speaker
Uh, I would love to, you know, and I don't want to, ah can't talk about what I can't talk about, but, um, I'd love to include nods and, and, um, you know, reverent appreciation for for Wayne, either by, you know, call outs to the characters he played or by including some of those lines in future projects in ways that make you know sense. um Because I think like,
01:33:48
Speaker
he he should be remembered in the franchise.
Community Feedback & Development Adjustments
01:33:51
Speaker
Like, you know, if there were to be subsequent DD games, i would expect each one of them, like the same way every, every Marvel movie is like, Oh, Stan Lee, Stan Lee. um You know, like just an acknowledgement that he was a, that he was an important part of it is I think what we can do.
01:34:07
Speaker
Yeah. um Let's talk about early access, um if that's okay. um We already talked about it before, um but I'm wondering like how you separated useful criticism from like comments like I want a different game criticism because yeah as we talked about in the beginning there was a divide in the player base and so I imagine there were just a lot of comments I want a different game but then there must have also been comments like very useful um so I just wonder how you made that separation how you looked at the feedback
01:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, you know, obviously with the way you kind of put it there, if someone wants a different game, it's it's ah it's really easy to ignore that. Not because you don't care or or feel bad that maybe you've lost a custom you know a player of the game. But look, not every game is for every person. You know, there's lots of games. yeah I mean, gosh, the amount of games hitting. But, you know, sometimes all my friends will be into a game and it'll just not be a game I'm into. And that's OK. I think one thing kind of lost in some of the discussions in sort of the current state the game industry is like, it's okay to not like a game and move on and go play something you enjoy. So obviously, yeah, there's nothing you can do if someone's like, I don't want it a run based roguelite, you know, like, oh, that sucks, you know, but so you can kind of throw those away because they're not actionable. There's nothing you can do. um
01:35:42
Speaker
But the there's tons of useful stuff when people are engaging with the game. um You know, and either sometimes it's presented in ways that is really useful. You know, someone says, hey, i kind of feel like this move is a little weird. I don't know I'd use it. And then, of course, sometimes people say this character sucks. What a joke.
01:36:02
Speaker
They don't even know what they're doing. um That's also still useful. Right. But it's helpful when you can, like, um get it presented to you in a way that is is that you pull it apart. So the things that we do. So first of all, I'd say. um this was true for dd1 and dd2 is ultimately chris and i always try to remember what game we're trying to make because um as a game developer game designer you know you're always going to get feedback and sometimes that feedback is kind of it's a different version of that thing we just said if someone's saying i don't like that game it's like a little more nuanced but you realize oh no like if someone said you know i don't like all the randomness and dds like, well, there's going to be randomness in DD and that's important to us. We talked about why with poker or whatever. um So we always try to remember what we're trying to do.
01:36:49
Speaker
um But within that, if someone gives feedback for something that is... totally up for potential change, then we try to consider it. um The ways in which we've collected the feedback has increased dramatically from DD1. We have ah our own Discord, which I encourage people to join if they haven't already. um We regularly do play tests where we do these like private groups where we give people access. We put them in a Discord channel and we let them play and comment and we do our best to not sort of like... like we' ask questions, but we don't like if if it's a whole bitch session, we let them go, you know, we like because that's what we're trying to figure out is like, and a lot of times the most intense discussions are because they do care, you know, they really do care. They want it to be fun. They feel like this is a problem. And it makes them mad, because if only this was fixed. And so there's been so much useful feedback.
01:37:41
Speaker
um So we we and we'll run like sometimes we'll run four of those different groups at the same time. So let's say we're putting out a new, you know, piece of content. We'll set up four groups and have those people just hammering on it. And, um you know, some of the people are like longtime community members that have played hundreds of hours of the game.
01:37:59
Speaker
um And then sometimes we try to get people in that are like newer, you know, because you don't want to only get feedback from people that have 500 hours plus. You also want to understand what it's like to someone new. um But I think we were just fully committed to that experience, um especially in DD2 because you know we had had the experience of DD1. And so we put more things in place. Like when DD1 launched into Early Access, we didn't even have a community manager. It was just Chris and I. There was another job we did. Yeah.
01:38:27
Speaker
We were splitting it. It was like, you do Twitter and you do Facebook. And we're like, OK. Exactly. And so you know by the time DD2 rolled around, we had um we we had a lot more stuff in place. I mean, our producer now, he originally came on to help with community on DD1. Now he's our producer. um Since then, we hired Michaela Pantolini, who's our um communications director. so we have a lot more systems in place. And now our play tests run so well between John coordinating and Michaela doing the community side ah and then, you know, our QA and everyone else. Like we've, that's something I'm really proud of that we built that platform.
01:39:08
Speaker
we've We've not only built the ability to do it, but we've embraced it fundamental to our development. um So we try to collect feedback, but ultimately there's there's always so many choices that you have to make that are kind of a creative choice. And there's plenty of times that Chris and I will look at feedback and say, well,
01:39:27
Speaker
you know, like, like a common piece of feedback, the battery hunter should be fully playable. And we're like, we don't want to do it for the reasons that we believe in. We know it makes some people mad, but there's an example where like, we don't just do it because there's feedback on it. We'll, we'll, we'll change based on feedback. If we feel like it's ultimately in service of the game that we're trying to make, you know, and that's, yeah. That's an interesting example though, too, if i just wanted to jump on that, like yeah the bounty hunter thing, many bounty hunter fans were, uh,
01:39:56
Speaker
disappointed that he wasn't fully playable, but the goal, the role that he fills in this particular game, not forever, is being like an overpowered character that you can use very briefly to kind of like salvage maybe a run that's starting to to tip over. So the feedback we're interested in is not whether or not he should be fully playable, but is his value felt? Is he powerful enough to feel like he's a rocket launcher, like he's a run changer?
01:40:23
Speaker
yeah I want to hear all about that. If people are unhappy with his skill loadout, they're unhappy with his damage output, his his compatibility with other heroes, all of that is fascinating and absolutely on point, and we're totally open and receptive to that.
01:40:37
Speaker
Existentially, we're not going to get knocked off the the the position we have that um we need a character who overperforms for a short amount of time. That's a really interesting mechanic, especially in a roguelike. So it's kind of an interesting example that that you hit on, Tyler, just like worth explaining. I feel like just if how we think about the feedback, like we want a lot of it, but there are going to be times where we're like, well, no, this is kind of fundamentally what we're doing.
01:41:05
Speaker
Yeah. The game is complex enough that we we rely on the community a lot. And, you know, um and so we've tried to really incorporate that into our process, like I said, because look, with, ah I don't know, a dozen plus heroes, each with 11 skills plus three paths on addition to their non-path, it's actually like, yeah, our combat designer or our like hero combat designer, James, um really experienced designer. And he...
01:41:34
Speaker
you know He pointed out to me a while back that like, messing with the new DD to hero is basically like 40 or 50 skills. Um, it's not 11 skills. Cause with the way that we do stuff with paths where we kind of dramatically change stuff. And so all that is to say that, you know, we're not a giant company where we have big groups of internal playtest teams, um, and massive QA, like our QA was like one, two people. Now it's, I think one person I forget, but, um,
01:42:05
Speaker
we need We need the community because they're the ones that, I mean, they know aspects of the game better than we do, but we know what we're trying to deliver. And so, yeah, it's it's ah you it's great. I mean, Chris and I have been early access fans since the beginning, you know,
01:42:21
Speaker
and The reason is it's it's a pretty cool thing to be able to like get involved in a game's development from a player standpoint if you're into that sort of thing. Obviously, some people are like, hey, when it's done, let me know. And that's totally good, too. But from a developer standpoint, it's it's really neat. um It's hard.
01:42:38
Speaker
And I think one thing about early access that is the hardest is people really don't like change. And so... it's ah It's kind of a bummer because the purpose of early access is to be able to kind of like you know iterate, ideally just polish, but sometimes you've got to change things. And um it's really hard to change things once the game is out. So I think there is still a purpose for private playtests before early access.
01:43:03
Speaker
um I think in any any new game that we should create, we'll probably try to employ some of that because once you're out and once you're selling copies. And once YouTubers are talking about it and there's a collective agreement on what the game is um Positive or negative, it's kind of done. It's kind of locked in. It doesn't really matter what you change. If everybody sort of starts talking on on YouTube or Twitch about um balance is terrible, balance is terrible. It's like a political message. Like it spreads and is internalized by the player base at large. And then it kind of doesn't, you it's really hard to change that narrative once it's kind of settled in.
01:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, I have an anecdote on that specifically when we released DD2 into early access. um So you know there's the relationship system, which is kind of the version of the stress system in the second game. Your heroes develop affinity with each other, and then that that kind of indirectly causes them to form positive or negative relationships. um But anyway, so we have all these different kind of triggers that can cause of cause plus or minus affinity.
01:44:08
Speaker
and um in the build that came out, you know, on early access launch, one of the events where like, um it was a kill stealing one, I think we're like, let's say you, a highwayman's done a bunch of damage to an enemy and then the grave robber comes in and finishes the enemy off.
01:44:26
Speaker
The highwayman can sometimes go, Hey, that was mine. You know? And it's funny because I played tons of D and d games growing up and that's, that was real behavior. Like people would be like, no, no. And if you played, I don't know,
01:44:38
Speaker
you know, Diablo, original Diablo, everyone everyone's trying to jump on the treasure first. Like there are competitive behaviors even amongst allies. And anyway, so it was meant to be a flavor thing that happened occasionally. um There was an error in our data and it was happening like all the time, or very, very frequently.
01:44:54
Speaker
And so one of the things right away, people got really mad about the, um, the relationship system because there was a couple of these annoying kind of semi-ological triggers that were happening all the time.
01:45:07
Speaker
And I realized, oh crap, like too late, like maybe two days later or something that it was a data error. And there's an example where like, boy, I wish we had done more private group testing before early access because that That shaped some of the sentiment. like It wasn't itself only responsible, but it definitely shaped some of the initial responses people had to the relationship system. and We had a hell of a time.
01:45:32
Speaker
like I tuned it out. It got better. and Of course, we did other changes too, um but we struggled for a while to kick the narrative that the you know the relationship system was just fundamentally flawed. And so, yeah, that stuff is hard. And the other thing that happened is like, for example, now some some outlets will actually give are ranked like a number score for your early access game.
01:45:53
Speaker
And that had not happened to us on DD1. Like all the early access press was generally like, hey, this is kind of what the game is. It's pretty fun so far. This seems a little rough. We'll see where it goes. um And then we came out into early access and um I think it was IGN or something had adopted a new kind of approach of like scoring your early access build.
01:46:14
Speaker
And like, that was a bit of a shock for us because look, you know, it's not like we thought we were releasing something terrible, but we knew it's early access. So, Hey, buy it. If you want in at this rough stage, if you want to wait till it's done, wait till you're done. So I think some things have changed now, like Chris is saying, where, um you know, you,
01:46:32
Speaker
It's hard, like you crystallize the impression of your game at that at that point, even though it's not done. Yeah. Yeah. It's a strange thing too, when combined with kind of, I think the general gaming communities have have a somewhat more matured understanding of what, uh,
01:46:53
Speaker
what goes into making a game, but I still think that there's a lot of ah ill-informed opinions about how much work it actually is. um So when you have heightened expectations around early access, um you have ah kind of crystallizing crystallizing opinions that happen faster and faster nowadays because there's so many more people talking ah you know online. And then you have the realities of of game development where you can't just pivot on a dime no matter what, you know um whatever.
01:47:24
Speaker
a Reddit user might claim, um you're not able to respond quickly enough to kind of avoid some of these like crystallizing impressions. The the hero paths for us are are a great example. Like we have something like what, 13, 14 heroes in Darkest Dungeon 2.
01:47:38
Speaker
um They all have these three paths. Like Tyler said, it's like about 80 skills essentially per hero. They all have to be balanced. They all have to be changed. Last year we did ah we did a big pass where we're going to, you know,
01:47:51
Speaker
update the paths on on the remaining heroes and and do a hero balance pass. So the effort that went into that was, I don't think understood by the by the community at large. Like we ran our testing pools. we had So we had a community manager and producer running the the Discord groups. we have four um cohorts of testers with about 10 to 20 people in each one. We have the combat designer who's deep in these gigantic spreadsheets, changing numbers, moving things around. And even if we only allowed one week per path per hero and there were four heroes left, I could be wrong on the number there, but four heroes times four paths, like...
01:48:31
Speaker
That's over two months of work right there. And people are like, well, why isn't it done? why Why shouldn't it? It should just be finished. We're tired of waiting for it. And I understand the impatience comes from a ah desire to play the game, which I love.
01:48:42
Speaker
um But we also want to do the work. We also need time to do the work and do it and do it well. And when you just add up, like I've experienced a drop in my stomach when I realize how much time it's going to take us to do this, you know, whatever work is in front of us. I'd love to snap my fingers and get it done faster, but it's just not not the way it works.
01:49:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. During early access or maybe even before you entered early access, um were there ideas that made it far into development, but ultimately had to be cut or reworked? Because I ask it because that's, I'm always super interested in that part of game development and game design, like what made it really far, but, but still had to be cut. And what did the game like look like before that, you know?
01:49:30
Speaker
Yeah. ah camping on DD2. we cut Yeah, we definitely cut made some real key cuts. I don't know that anything made it super far. Like one thing we have done usually pretty well is cut things early. um And I remember us like high-fiving after some cuts because it's kind of a freeing experience. like So you come up with an idea. Yeah, so like we wanted to do camping in DD2 because you know it was such a cool part of DD1. I'm really proud of that tactical camping system. I still think it was a real neat addition.
01:50:02
Speaker
And so we were trying to but then we realized like it was it was kind of hard to differentiate between that and the end. And we're like, is camping really just a subset of what you're to the end? And you're going to be doing that again 15 minutes later. And, um you know, and so we're like, oh, even though camping is such a something we're proud of in D.D.,
01:50:22
Speaker
we got to cut it. And it's so relieving to cut something and realize like the game doesn't need it. um Another thing that we, this didn't get cut exactly, but versions of it got cut. So the way that we call them stories, but like when you, let's say you arrive and there's the people like the peasants like help and you have some options for what you do. Like someone's like, let's give them food. And someone's like, let's rob them. um We struggled with that system for a long time, trying to make it a really big, like,
01:50:51
Speaker
much more blown out system with like all these possibilities. We called it stories. And then we just kept, we just kept not getting where we needed to go with it. And we eventually realized that it should just be pared down to these kinds of tactical, you know, if you, if you abstract it, they're kind of like tactical choices. If I make this choice, I get this resource, sacrifice this resource. If I do this, whatever. um That one, we,
01:51:16
Speaker
Like we spent a fair amount of time going down some rabbit holes that didn't end up panning out. um And when we eventually simplified it back to what it was, it was, you know, it was hard because we had had this vision of all these things that could be.
01:51:32
Speaker
But letting that go, i think, was really important. um That's my memory of that, at least. the No, that's a good one, actually. i kind of gloss over that and in my memory. But yeah, we did spend, we had a dedicated designer and an engineer for for quite some time working on like, because we thought, okay, this is a chance to get a little bit more RPG with it, right? Like a little bit more kind of immersive. But yeah, ultimately, it was actually at odds with the roguelike thing. It's like, you don't want to stop and hear about someone's woes
01:52:03
Speaker
while you're on a cosmic existential quest for the future of humanity. You don't want to hear about, like, well, they collect me 10 wolf pelts. Who gives a shit? like Collect them yourself. I'm busy. So it it worked out better, but it took us a little while get there, for sure.
01:52:18
Speaker
Is there anything else we cut? I'm trying to remember. like we I feel like DD2 was more about iterating on systems rather than cutting things, um yeah you know with the exception of the things we mentioned there.
01:52:30
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. It's more like, yeah, we went through revisions, like even the, yeah, the relationships and even the driving, like we kept kind of iterating and adding things and, um,
01:52:44
Speaker
You know, we were lucky that the art direction, you know, the the art direction stuff he talked about and then the combat redo that I talked about were happening at the same time at the very beginning of the project. um And that really set us up because there was a point like we were about a year into trying to make the token system.
01:53:01
Speaker
And the problem wasn't the token system. It was that ah we switched technology. We went from a 2D engine to Unity. And it took us like it took us longer to rebuild,
01:53:13
Speaker
combat in DD2 than it took us to create combat in the first place. And not because anyone wasn't working hard. It's just like, yeah, so yeah it's funny, like DD1 went from like,
01:53:25
Speaker
From the day that we figured out how we were going to structure combat, we probably had something up and running in a month. you know But DE1's engine was like a dune buggy of just like it can only do this one thing. Whereas like Unity is like a 3D, it wants to make a platformer. or you know And Unreal wants to make a shooter. ah So we're like, okay, I hear you on this platforming thing, but what if there were no platforms and these 3D models behaved like they were 2D and Unity had a...
01:53:53
Speaker
had a hard time with that. Unity also had a hard time with edge tracing and fog and all of these art important art features that um I don't want to speak poorly of Unity.
01:54:06
Speaker
I mean, part of it was we we chose a ah rendering path that ended up stopping being supported. So there was some just like unlucky bounces there that you know maybe other projects didn't have to deal with. but That was our darkest version.
01:54:18
Speaker
What was like going in that story? Oh, I think I was going on the story just to be like, there were some things that if they didn't end up working out, we would have been in trouble, but nothing really made it too far and then got cut. You know, I think we were able to get stuff cut somewhat early.
01:54:35
Speaker
Okay, cool. um Yeah, before we round up the podcast, the last thing that I want to talk about is the release of ah Darkest Dungeon 2 when it came out of Early Access.
Reflections on Launch Experiences
01:54:47
Speaker
um What did launch day for Darkest Dungeon 2 feel like compared to the first game? That's a really good question, man. Nicely done on that. you're um d d one or like early access launch more so than, okay, well dude I'll do them all really quick. GD1 early access launch was like pure unbridled and adrenaline, exuberance and disbelief that we had immediately started selling so many copies as we did, that people liked it, that it was actually working. Like it's happening right before your eyes. an Unparalleled feeling that I will probably never experience again. moment We're never going to have that thing. I'm so grateful that I have like this, like,
01:55:33
Speaker
little nugget of a memory of that ah left inside me somewhere. DD2 DD1 full release was like kind of a solid, we did it. We'd weathered a few community storms. ah The game continued to perform well. It didn't surge the same way that early access did, but it was still very, very good release. And it kind of cemented our review scores.
01:55:57
Speaker
um and you know And so we felt like bullish and and it was like, fuck yeah, we did it. um DD to early access launch was this is just the start of a very long and difficult road.
01:56:12
Speaker
And there were a lot of people who were like singing the praises of like the art and they're like happy that we're making new stuff. But then it didn't take long for the sort of like comparison criticism loop to kick in. And we're like, okay, this is a different feeling altogether. This is not like...
01:56:29
Speaker
we're on a rocket ship. It's like we have a half built rocket ship and we have a limited time to to fix it. um DD2, for me, the launch was this weird mix of like pride, ah satisfaction and relief and just exhaustion. Yeah. All that the team was like watching streamers, like Admiral Baru playing it. And he had a whole bunch of people watching and he beat the game and he was like just singing the praises of the climax. And that was so awesome and validating. But I remember watching the team like they're having drinks and stuff. And and my feeling was just,
01:57:07
Speaker
okay I'm kind of spent. And then we started talking about DLC. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the one piece I'll add is the DD2 early access launch was on Epic Game Store only. That's true. um So we also had to deal with some fallout from that because and honestly, when we signed the deal with Epic, um it was several years before that release, you know, like it it was still very early on in development. It was a really good ah financial decision for us, which is, you know, people may not want to hear, but there's a reality like DD2 took
01:57:44
Speaker
I don't know, it was like $15 million dollars or something to make. I forget exactly. It depends on what you count, like count through full release and then DLCs, but it's somewhere between, don't know, I'll call it 15 to 20 million probably. And and ah It is profitable for all you haters out there.
01:58:02
Speaker
Just FYI. Don't say that. No, ah I'm sorry. um Because we get you know we get attacked a lot because it it hasn't sold as much as DD1. But anyway, what i' was going to say is when but when we made that decision with Epic, we thought the chief risk is was pissing off Valve, pissing off Steam.
01:58:21
Speaker
um But we're like... you know Basically, the deal with Epic was enough that we you know we already knew that we weren't going to lose money on the game. So um that was important. And we can make a better game. We hired more people and spent more time making DD2 because of the Epic deal, which is in service of the people who played it on Steam. So we felt like we're yeah we're doing right by but even people who don't like the Epic game store.
01:58:45
Speaker
We're making them a better product. you know Yeah. And but what we didn't know, and maybe this is another thing where like kind of when you ask the question of like, you know, essentially, did you know by making a sequel that's different that you'd anger a lot of people? I also don't think we thought we were going to anger people like when Epic was positioning itself. It's like, hey, you know, it's some.
01:59:09
Speaker
It's some other storefront competition to Steam. Generally, people don't like, you know, um only having one option. Epic, you know, has a different cut for developers, whatever. Anyway, all this is to say, though, that that, you know, we just didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal. Then in the intervening time between when we signed that and then we released, you know, a fair amount of community backlash,
01:59:32
Speaker
generated for the Epic store. And I'm not here to comment on whether I think that makes any sense or not. But I will say that, you know, we got like many games got caught in the sort of blast of that where you like um some people are just mad that it was out on Epic. um It was almost helpful for us that like it was a smaller player pool rather than kind of like having quite as many people. But it was an additional community challenge. So there was kind of a bummer to that, too, where, you know, you've spent years working on a game.
02:00:00
Speaker
And you finally put it out there on the shelf and you're, you know, you're, you're hopeful that people will, and then people are just mad that you're selling it there, you know? And it's like, um and we, you know, we're lucky. We have a great relationship with Valve. You know, Steam has been absolutely critical to our,
02:00:16
Speaker
whole existence and we love and it was great because when we told him about that, they're like, well, yeah, I see why you do that. um We hope you'll bring the game to us when it's out. And we did. That was always the plan.
02:00:27
Speaker
And so anyway, yeah, the early access launch on DD2 was a little different than DD1. But like Chris, I think like shipping DD2 1.0, There was definitely some intense pride on all the things that we saw that we had improved.
02:00:41
Speaker
um you know but it And it actually had a better, um like it it it sold more copies, earned more money than DD1 did on its launch day, um or even even early access launch day. um you know So the initial burst was great, um and that was good. um But then I think like, you know, it it's It doesn't move the same number of units that DD1 does. That's no surprise to anyone, I don't think, in terms of um you know the data's out there. But we've we've tried really hard to keep working on it. you know It's still been a successful game, like I said. i think it's like...
02:01:16
Speaker
It's weird when you make games, you know, it's kind of like being a musician, I guess you'll release a new album and sometimes it outsells the previous album and sometimes it doesn't. um But you you don't want that to get in your head and be like, oh, well, why make music? You know, like, oh, OK, well, our first album was so good. Why? Why even make music anymore? No, we like making music, you know, and we're going keep making music. So.
02:01:43
Speaker
um what did darkest dungeon 2 teach you that darkest dungeon 1 never could have
02:02:01
Speaker
just going for it just digging right in the ribs like rooting around um
02:02:10
Speaker
Because I feel like with Darkest Dungeon 2, you went through like a longer process, more involved even with the community. There was more criticism during that process. So it it it sounded like it was a much different experience from the first game.
02:02:28
Speaker
So I'm wondering, like what did that teach you that the first game never could have teach you taught you? I think like, okay, for me, maybe, um, it was a rougher like time at sea, right? Like making two over one for all the reasons that we've talked about.
02:02:48
Speaker
Um, but I think what I took from that was, um, our process of steering towards our kind of like creative vision,
02:03:03
Speaker
um was was ultimately ah correct and and really the only way that I know how or would want to develop. Because in the end, despite the fact that there were some stormy seas, there were some you know beautiful days too. In the end, we got to a point where you know the game got to where it wanted to go, regardless of you know the sales or or whatever being what they are, um ah which again are are totally good. but um
02:03:35
Speaker
it it The game came into its own. we We got to know it and it became ultimately what we had set out to make. And I think that's what you can control as ah as a developer. You can't kind of control um the market into which you launch a game. You can't control ah you know if ah if a huge game is going to scoop your release window. You can't control if player expectation doesn't match what you've put out. like you can't You can't control so much of of of the business and the timing of of video game creation and and release.
02:04:11
Speaker
So I guess two taught me that, um to focus and and really believe in and cling to the things that we can control.
02:04:23
Speaker
what What we cut, what we keep, how we build, how we build our team, um how we make the team feel over the course of development. A lot of times you know in these talks, like we discuss a lot about the game and we discuss a lot about the impressions of the game. And you know it's all about the game, which which is important, but it's oftentimes um very easy to forget that it's made by a group of people Those people need to feel good about the work they do. They need to feel like it matters. They need to feel like they're contributing in meaningful ways. um And if it's miserable to to start a game and take it all the way to launch, that team will fracture.
02:04:58
Speaker
People will quit. It's not a great place to work. um And so, you know, making sure that that people felt like we were steering ourselves in a consistent a direction towards a release that we could quantify, towards a vision that hadn't changed, and then and then validating their their efforts and their contributions along the way.
02:05:21
Speaker
um I felt like two really showed that you can get through some stormy waters if you do that, I guess. I don't know. That's... Yeah, it's tough. Like what was occurring to me is just kind of a lot of stuff we've talked about today, i think shows some of the things that you know we've, and it's, I realized that we've sort of hammered on a lot of things about like where DD2 departed or where it surprised people or whatever. But ultimately, um I'm proud of what we built. I had an experience recently actually, was about two months ah or a month and a half ago, I sat down and played DD2 for real
02:06:02
Speaker
like just to play it. It'd been so long since I booted it for any reason other than to check something or look at something or remind myself about something. I said, you know what? I just want to like with a fresh brain.
02:06:13
Speaker
And there were a million things I picked up right away that I'm like, Oh, I wish we had tweaked that or done this, or this is a little confusing, but it was fun and it was an interesting game. And I'm proud of what we built. Um, and I think maybe one thing that is, um,
02:06:33
Speaker
You can't live or die. This is tougher to put into practice than to but philosophy philosophically, a thing DD2 has tried to reinforce in me and maybe even Chris too is like, man, you can't live or die by your press clippings. Like, um you know, DD1 was a really, you know, for the most part,
02:06:56
Speaker
almost always positive ride, except for some issues we had with corpses and whatever else that people can read about. um And DD2 was you know a little more of a battleground.
02:07:07
Speaker
And if you're not careful, it gets in your head, you know and it'll affect your design process, and it'll affect your outlook, and it'll affect all these things. And um you know the the lesson I want to take from it is like just because you didn't please everybody doesn't mean there wasn't something of value. you know And um our whole ethos as creators, going back to DD1,
02:07:30
Speaker
is we want to take risks. We want to do things that are unusual. We want to, you know, because we feel like we can't create something really noteworthy without taking some of those risks. um But, you know, just like poker, when you make the bet, you could lose money or you could, you know, it doesn't always work out in your favor, but I'm proud of what we, what we built, you know?
02:07:52
Speaker
um I have one more question, but it might open up a whole other can of worms. And we've been going for over two hours, so feel free to let me know if you have to go. um But the Kingdom's expansion came after the full release.
02:08:07
Speaker
And I'm wondering how that came about. Was that maybe a direct response to some of the criticism? Or was that in place like before you even entered early access?
Future Expansions & Creative Lessons
02:08:18
Speaker
Was that an idea you had even before early access?
02:08:23
Speaker
No, it was... um
02:08:28
Speaker
Could we get excited about remixing our own album? That's the fundamental sort of premise of Kingdoms. um You know, ah what if we, yeah, it's it's a remix album um and, you know, it it sort of seeks to like,
02:08:48
Speaker
I guess like when you say it's responding to criticisms, it looks like we're scrambling and trying to serve up ah just anything we think people will will eat and we don't operate that way. um We were not blind to the fact that you know many in our player base uh hearkened for uh more like of a longer term campaign la dd1 um you know some of that persistent kind of like growth over a campaign getting to know their heroes having death be more consequential um you know we'd read all that and we thought okay well let's
02:09:22
Speaker
is there kind of and a cool way we could take what we have and and rebuild it into something that would create an experience like that? Like, is that something that we think could be fun to make?
02:09:33
Speaker
um And that's where kingdoms kind of came from. Okay, well, what if the kingdom is persistent? You know, you still drive around, but there's a map and there's the ins and now you can upgrade ins. And, you know, it it it began as sort of a thought experiment and then kind of became like,
02:09:49
Speaker
um You know, this this could be really exciting and and fun to do and kind of more interesting than um Look, like I'm a character designer. I love all all the heroes, but like ah definitely a more exciting proposition from a risk standpoint than making DLC with another playable hero.
02:10:08
Speaker
um we had We had done that and we'd done a great job of it. And we introduced some really cool stuff in the in the the Crusader DLC, like a little bit of a mini quest chain. So that technology, I say in quotes, but that like... um innovation in Darkest Dungeon 2 with the Crusader quest chain was also something that informed our enthusiasm for Kingdoms. What if you had a big long quest chain you could do? And you know both Tyler and I are are older and remember original D&D modules and we got really inspired by like, yeah, we could have like these adventure packs basically.
02:10:42
Speaker
um So it it it started from kind of a mix of all of those things. Yes, we know there's GD1 ah lovers out there? Can we serve them DD2?
02:10:54
Speaker
But if we if we couldn't imagine a way of doing that in in ah in a way that we thought was cool or fun, we wouldn't have done it. um And the the team internally really rallied around around the Kingdom's idea. And end to end, it was like, what, a year? a year and maybe Yeah, we did it really fast. And i I think you're right about how it started as a thought experiment, and then we got excited. And that's kind of the fundamentals of how we green light anything is if he and I start getting excited about it, then, you know, that's, that's a really important first, you know, as opposed to going out and trying to do like focus tests or market research, it's like, no, we, we know the market, we read the things we know what's out there. And then we're like, wow, actually, if you take all these mechanical parts of DD two, yeah. That the fact that you could reassemble them into a different machine sounded, sounded kind of fun. And, um,
02:11:45
Speaker
And yeah, we thought it might bring in some DD1 players who haven't taken the plunge on dd two and acted a little bit as a way of like introducing the game that they then may go back and play Confessions mode. um That's the hope. And then also for people who had already played Confessions mode, like a big difference on DD2 to DD1 is like...
02:12:04
Speaker
DD2 was kind of built in a way that, look, when you finish the five bosses, you could call it a day and we're happy. Like we're happy if you're happy. You beat the game. you beat the game. You you played it for 50 hours and you won. Whereas DD1, you know, is kind of like you could almost go forever and you could put thousands of hours. Now, the truth is you can put many hundreds or thousands into DD2.
02:12:25
Speaker
And we did stuff like the vitrine to incentivize you to do all these different challenge runs with different infernal flames. and um But We were also fine if you like got your 50 hours, you're like, that was fun.
02:12:36
Speaker
And so Kingdoms also felt like a new thing to give to those people because it wasn't it wasn't only a mechanism to perhaps attract some DD1 players. It was also like, hey, if you like DD2, you love the combat, you had fun with the confessions, you did all the hero stories.
02:12:52
Speaker
Here's a new a new way to play. And the big risky thing we did there, which I don't know if – I really like the strategy, but I don't know that it worked, was offering it for free.
02:13:03
Speaker
um So our thought – We both loved that strategy. we were both enamored. like We were like, we're just going to give it to people. All three of them. And it was a lot of development cost and a lot of money and ah you know and and we did it pretty fast, you know all things considered. But um you know our thought was DD2 was already priced a bit higher than DD1. It's like $40. It was a bigger team. It was more money that went into it, et cetera. There were justifications of why.
02:13:31
Speaker
But I think that we didn't want to be like, hey, let's say you are on the fence and want to try DD2. We didn't want you to have to buy that plus a big, say, $15 DLC of Kingdoms. So we said, let's just do it for free. um And, you know, i Yeah, I don't know that it it really, i think it probably would have, it certainly would have made us more money if we just sold it. But the intent and the strategy was to just pack more goodies into the game. And that's always been something we've tried to alternate. Like we'll do some paid DLC, but we've never been shy about putting free stuff in. And this was a big, this was a big, ah I guess you could say gamble.
02:14:11
Speaker
um And it was fun to work on, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing that you yeah gave that for free.
02:14:23
Speaker
And I imagine that was also maybe only possible because you don't have a publisher. Because I don't think anyone could have convinced a publisher to give out all that content for free. We probably should have charged, I guess. But I i don't know. and know we like it like i don't want to. This isn't like lip service to the community or anything. But like we've talked a lot about how valuable it you know, impactful the community is, how much we rely on them for testing. And and ultimately, we we make games for people to play, right? Like that's the whole the whole thing is to entertain people and and challenge them in interesting ways. And so I feel like part of what was happening for Tyler and I was like, it was a bit of a thank you play. Like,
02:15:12
Speaker
yeah we value that we have been around for like a decade over a decade making, you know, in darkest dungeon, we have people who followed us every step of the way and we have the opportunity. yeah you're right. Without a publisher, that would have been a tough sell um to just, to just do something kind of reckless and fiscally irresponsible in the name of like,
02:15:33
Speaker
I guess in a way trying to just like humanize the relationship between us as developers and and the community as players, you know, like we're, we're here. We want to enter. We want to give you things that, that are entertaining and and challenging and interesting. And we're happy that you've stuck with us, you know?
02:15:48
Speaker
But yeah, I think though it also we felt both those things could be true. I thought it would both be a nice thing to do for the community and end up might actually be better for the game.
02:15:59
Speaker
um And what I mean by that is usually like kind of when you're selling paid DLC, kind of what you're doing is you're. you're just selling to people who already own the game, right? Obviously some new people come in and buy both the game in the DLC when they hear about it, but it's kind of like selling D and d modules, right? Like there was always kind of like a thing of like, if, if there's a million people who have the player's handbook, you know, you're not going to sell the module to more than a million people. you're going to sell it to a subset of the people who are playing the game. And so we we felt like with what kingdoms was trying to do,
02:16:31
Speaker
it didn't make sense to be like, like DLC attach rates usually vary between, don't know, call it like 10% on the low end and maybe like 40 or 50% on the high end. Meaning like for every a hundred people that own the game, you're lucky, you know, a really good result would be 30 40 buying the DLC.
02:16:48
Speaker
you know, that would be that would be fantastic result. We've been lucky with Darkest Dungeon, like often our attach rates, you know, like DD1, our attach rates are like over 40%. It's crazy. But um anyway, what was going to say is, you know, we didn't really want to be like, hey, we're going to sell kingdoms to 30% of the people who own DD2. We're trying to be like, hey,
02:17:06
Speaker
like this is an undeniable value proposition. Not only do you get this entire game, but you get this entire mode also. Play whatever, play both, play one, whatever, have fun. And then, by the way, there's a couple DLC over here that you can buy if you want. So... DD2 is a huge game right now.
02:17:23
Speaker
yeah Like... It is big, yeah. The two DLCs, three extra characters, one extra region, all three kingdoms things, those three factions, plus the... Yeah, it's a gigantic game. Yeah.
02:17:37
Speaker
Okay. I think that's a good... Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Tyler, what'd you want to say? Well, I think that we've we've said on an interview before that that... Well, we're not on the dungeon, I think we' said yeah we said. We're not going anywhere.
02:17:52
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, I think that's a good note to end the podcast on. um Chris and Tyler, it was an absolute delight and honor to talk to you guys. It was so much fun. And I can't wait to share this episode of the podcast with my audience.
02:18:07
Speaker
Thank you so much for having us on. We really appreciate it. It's always ah always nice to be able to to talk at length and and try to pull back the curtain on some of this stuff. So thank you for the opportunity.
02:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, and the questions were very, very thoughtful. um So that always, you know, we've done enough interviews that um it's it's fun for us when there's like thoughtful, insightful questions. And obviously you did a lot of lot of prep on that. So we appreciate it.
02:18:32
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, i'm glad to hear that. Thank you, everybody for listening. And till the next episode. Goodbye.