Transcript
Speaker: We don't have the actual soundboard yet. ah We can't really figure out how to do it, but we will insert it. what he yeah What he's trying to say is that none of us can be bothered to get it working. Can't just insert it in there later.
Speaker: Oh, my. I mean, it's late. It's late on a Friday. So, Richard, the knob you want is slightly above the little hole. We haven't started talking about knobs yet. and that's the knot That's the knob you want, Trolls. The knob that I want is.
Speaker: I just realized, I think the first time I was on a ah podcast with you was in 2016. Holy shit. was 10 years ago. Yeah. We've been doing this a long time. We've been going. Well, I mean, we took a break, but otherwise we've been going since 2014. I think the first time i had Dave on a podcast was when I was still doing the SQH podcast and it was season three. And I remember I was drinking heavily, so I have no idea what it was about. I couldn't tell. Well, at least you remember you were drinking heavily. It could be worse.
Speaker: I did an interview with Richard back then, and I distinctly remember ah we were getting into an hour-long conversation or something, and like somewhere around the 45-minute mark, I realized that I really had to pee very, very badly.
Speaker: And I couldn't just stop Richard, because once Richard gets going, it's like an avalanche of words And they're all fairly interesting, so I may have urinated into an empty beer can. Oh, dear. Oh, no, no, no, no. And now you know that, Rich. These are the behind-the-scenes tales that you never normally find out could usually fine about. Yeah, I've never done that, but, I mean, the spin-off could have been called Open Crowd Sauce as in S-A-U. Boo this man. Boo this man!
Speaker: Or maybe it was raining outside. You never know. Have we officially started? Can I cut out all of that? can I think you can cut out all of that very, very safe. It's your show, man. You can cut out whatever you want. Actually, I don't know who's in charge of editing this.
Speaker: I am. Okay, then you go.
Speaker: Hello, welcome to the Backseat Designers. We've been off the air for quite some time because we're all lazy bastards. I'm the Space Quest historian. My two co-hosts are Frederick Olsen, say hello. Hello.
Speaker: And Gareth Millward, say hello. Hello. ah There we go. Now we're now the now the podcast has officially started and we can get right to business because we've already entered the smut territory and we are joined today by two of the filthiest smut peddlers you can ever see. ah We have the inimitable Wikipedia of Adventure Games' Richard Cobbett in the house. What the fuck was that?
Speaker: The fuck? i im I'm doing porn music. Are you sure you're not the one who's drunk right now? You sounded like Coming soon, the Muppet Show. Fozzie gets his waka waks off. the fuck was like pac-man being stepped on it's like walk off oh well that's that's walk a walk a bitch ill i'll turn up the game next time oh turn up oh speaking of someone who always knows how to turn up the game as far as um what steam sensors will it allow we have the legend himself mr mr dave gilbert in the house out hello what's up
Speaker: Hi. it' Just stop fucking doing that. I don't know how to follow that introduction, but hello. Hello. Welcome, gentlemen. Well, um to give this conversation some historical context, if you're listening to this way ahead in the future, why would you? But we are literally days away from the release of Richard Cobbett's much anticipated um visual hentai novel, I think it is, Nighthawks.
Speaker: which David is publishing through YJDI Games, who have apparently now been diversifying, branching out the brand, as it were, into full-on legit porn. ah So I really want to get your baselines this. But it's officially not porn, according to Steam. So it's been officially declared not porn. i heard you I heard you say it was steamy, so... no i i i cant Can I just interject here? I am really fucking disappointed now.
Speaker: I was looking for... i had i had ah I bought a whole box of hand lotion. I've got... um like i' I've installed a toilet roll dispenser in my room. I was i was gung-ho for this, and you just wet-blanketed me like... no one At the very least, you've let a lot of the Kickstarter backers down, and you've got some explaining to do. Absolutely.
Speaker: why We reason on that if they're going to play our game to completion, they can decide what that means. No, but okay. So what obviously i' am only half joking, but I i kind of want to get your your take on this. Now we have apparently been preempted by a cartoon rat. Dave was on a podcast recently. Yeah, we're we're hurt. We thought we were your favorite vermin.
Speaker: yeah some Someone named the Rat Man interviewed me the other day and we we had, you know, of course, this is like the big, ah the the big i guess when it when the news broke, it was kind of Blue Sky's main character for the day. um I've never thought I would i would spend a week.
Speaker: i I think I've talked more about porn in the last week than I have probably in in my entire life, maybe. Yeah. It was learning more. I've learned more about how adult games work on Steam than I ever thought I would know. um But here I am. i now know how this works. It was very strange. It was.
Speaker: i swear, honey, this is research. oh Janet thought it was really funny. she shoot i but i was freaking out, tearing my hair out like you know the entire day. And she's just like, I'm not worried at all. You need to like you need to take a can of this gummy and play video games. You need to relax, which is which is what makes Janet awesome. We don't have those. We just have stress. Well, that is the British way.
Speaker: I was going to say, you're talking to two Danes and a Brit, so we don't really do sincerity. So let's get this out of the way before we go back to all of the porn jokes. How are you two doing? Because that must have been so stressful. I can't i i mean, now it's fine. um If you'd asked, like, at the weekend, then it would have been a different story. that That's sort of the funny thing, that when you kind of get the people sort saying, like, oh, clearly this was a marketing stunt. It's like, no. This was a Google how to tie a noose situation. I always use like i was refer to what what the executives of Coke said when they did new Coke back in the 80s. And there was such a an outcry that they brought the original Coke back and it was it sold more than ever. And they're like was this a marketing stunt? And they responded with like, i'm we're not that dumb and we're not that smart. Yeah. pretty much how I feel about this. i mean, yeah, like Richard said, um when we were in the thick of it, it was, it was, oh my God.
Speaker: I'm sorry, you're going to have to get used to that for the next hour. I thought you were British. Anyway, um um i it it was very stressful, but of course, now that now that it's over, it was objectively very funny. And It was a it this is very, very funny problem to have. that it It's also very funny like if you know what the content of the game is. yeah Because this is not a controversial game. Well, that vampires like vampires do suck.
Speaker: So there is that.
Speaker: And we are definitely in a much better position now than were. Oh, my God. Missionary. Missionary. god Jesus Christ. We are. lord sorry yeah Okay, let's 69, sorry, 86, that one. or i yeah i'll i'll I'll sit on my hands and mute my microphone. I'm terribly sorry.
Speaker: i I'm not going to be able to say anything. We're we're in a much better spot. like i feel You know what I mean. It was a sticky situation. think he lots Things are better now than they were before. Like the wish list. Ace in the hole. I'm not going to police my words anymore, but the wish list shot up. We got more attention than I ever thought we'd ever be able to get, especially on our own. you know um it's good I have been around for 20 years and i am big you know i do have some clout, but there is a limit to what I can do in this situation.
Speaker: um definitely helped me exceed that beyond what I was capable of doing. So it's all objectively good things. It was all good things that happened, you know, in hindsight. But I would not want to go through that again. will say, first all, I'm obviously happy that the controversy has been resolved, and I'm happy that the game is finally coming out, and I'm very much looking forward to it. You can all have a cigarette and relax. I wouldn't. I phoned it out. Oh, good. Because I kind of want to get into the actual contents of the game itself, the lack of smut there, notwithstanding. Because as much as I adore Richard and adore Dave, and I love everything that they put out, I've been paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to what the hell Nighthawks even is. I think we need the elevator spiel. Good journalism. Trolls, good journalism. Oh, fuck journalism. Marketing fair. Well, let's go all the way back to the beginning because you've been working on this for a while, right? I remember the Kickstarter like, is that eight or ten years ago something? Eight, eight, I believe. Please don't say Space Venture. I didn't say Space Venture. You said Space Venture. Please don't say Aero 47. Please don't say Aero 47. We did the same thing. I mean, this is sort of the thing that people will say that it's been a long time, but like, you know, metaphorically, it's not that bad compared to other games. Yeah.
Speaker: that Was that a metaphor? ah we're We're trying to steer clear of metaphors now, haven't you heard? ever well I don't know. I thought it was a weird sequel to the Persona games. but We can do similes and allegories, but not metaphors.
Speaker: Okay. right just just Just clearing that up. ah so So you say that ah that pre-orders and and and attention has been erected beyond visual belief. and so So I desperately want it. so All right, the premise of the game, vampires are real. People's people's appetites were wet. Oh, shit.
Speaker: That's not how you spell it. ah so yeah It's how you pronounce it. I don't care. Hashtag second language. Let the man talk about some sucking that goes on upstairs. Vampires are real. So what? What's the what's the big scoop on that?
Speaker: Okay, the bit well, the big twist is vampires are real, but also everyone now knows about it. So you have, say, Vampire the Masquerade. A fairly important part is there's a masquerade. In Nighthawks, eight years ago, vampires were revealed to the world. And as we like to say, there was screaming, there was panic, but then there was tomorrow. And now, like eight years later, like the initial arg is over, but people are still trying to figure out, okay, well, what does this mean? You know what? How does the world have to change the results? And more importantly, what's tomorrow going to like? Sales of turtlenecks have shot through the woof.
Speaker: Did I say woof? I meant roof. Through the woof. Well, trolls, you can play it doggy style if you want, and you will have to go through that. Dave, it's not on me anymore. Listen to them. Children of the night. You've just practice tracked him down to our level. And I think that's, i mean you don't get, you know, if if you start making puns when Richard is in the conversation, oh yeah you get what you get. That's all I'm saying. You might as well bend over and assume that position.
Speaker: but No, it's it's ah it's a game full of characters who love to talk, speak, ejaculate, you know, they all all of the verbs. But not explicitly. I'm starting i'm so i'm starting to to to to get why you, no, really, i'm i'm i'm I'm drawing a blank, you know. Do you have any idea why Steam did what they did and thought you making a porn game?
Speaker: Right, what it what it what what it basically was, like mine minus the jokes, as far as we understand, i said we haven't got like the official word, but this this seems to be it. When you sell a game on Steam, they bizarrely want you to tell them what they're going to be putting on their storefront. I know, it's shocking. Fuck.
Speaker: And so you have to basically fill out a content survey that sort of says, you're like, is there violence? Is there realistic violence? Is there sexual content? Is there a whole load of stuff like this? And basically, Nighthawks is about vampires. Vampires are inherently quite sexy, but it's all...
Speaker: in a very kind of restrained kind of level. Like, you know, there's no um particular kind of sexual content. there's a couple of bits of cheesecake, some characters not wearing very much, very occasionally. So we ticked the boxes and said, yeah, there's minor sexual content. it's It's a mature game for adults. um You know, some sex, some swearing, some violence, but nothing particularly explicit. They then came back with, um all right, well, can you send us a build so that we can see the content? That's something. Okay, that sounds interesting. Can you send us a build? Well, things that they wanted a build where they could directly go to the dodgy content rather than having to kind of play through 25 to 50 hours of game. The naughty bits. And then still risk missing it. So we may basically made a debug version
Speaker: which was just basically a list of here are all of the dodgy scenes. Here's the context. Here's the the background. Here's the artwork. Just, you you can check out, you can see that basically we are in in terms of like, you know, graphical stuff, very, very tame. It's like there's some butt shots and some other characters hiding things behind hands and scenery, but nothing explicit. And what we think happened is that whoever was ah looking at that just saw there was a ah long-ish list of things and went, okay, well, that's frequent sexual content, asked us to tag that into the system.
Speaker: And what we didn't know is that when we did that, intended to kind of like, okay, fine, we'll we'll take that, but then we'll get back in touch with you and... will kind of negotiate that this isn't really the case but as soon as you tick that box your game is immediately slapped with the scarlet letters of adults only and the problem with that is that it's not just know a categorization thing it means that your game vanishes like it won't show up in searches you can't link to it from the you from the web um you can't sell it at all in some countries like germany sorry can i mean interject for a moment here so so basically steam told you uh send us a list of all the naughty shit you send them a list of the naughty shit and a build so they can jump ahead and do it someone doesn't open the build and just looks at the list of naughty shit and goes well that seems a bit weird and you don't know for sure we just to be clear we don't know but we don't know exactly what happened but here's here' okay the
Speaker: This is what we assume happened. I don't want to like say, this is why it happened. We don't know. This is just what we assume. The disclaimer has been made. But what what essentially I was getting out of that is that someone persuaded you to mark your game as sexually explicit porn game. And you did it.
Speaker: And... No. Okay, no, no, no. Okay, here's what happened, basically. all it's It wasn't... um They, like, first, they they said in order to be approved, you need to tick the frequent sexual content box, which seems, I'm like, all right, fine. You know, we i don't think it's frequent, but whatever. Well, there was frequent, there was two boxes, frequent nudity and frequent um sexual content. You shouldn't have hit that box. I didn't tick nudity because there isn't really any nudity, but I did tick sexual content. I was about to say sexual combat. Sexual content. and um how do There is actually some of that in there. and so because i'm like I didn't want to argue. I'm like, whatever. just the We've got 10 days until we launch the game. let's just you know Let's just get it done. Whatever. you know and so i ticked the box, and it's that box. i did We didn't know that it would that that would
Speaker: ah flip the switch and market it as adults only and once you do tick that box you cannot remove it it's something that Yeah. you know ah stays there until someone at valve changes it i guess to stop people from you know ah you know yeah removing it after they get approved. Because the main thing is, there's a big colossal mix-up. and the The main issue is, um it's very easy to get angry at Steam. And if we had gone through the usual channels of submitting a support ticket, whatever, like we would have been able to figure this out.
Speaker: there's Because they did they they did figure it out. But the issue is is that the the usual channels... are slow you they you submit a support ticket it could take up for a week for them to get back to you um and they say we need this this and this and you reply and then it could take another week for them to get back to you and with time being a factor, um, that was the biggest problem is that we needed to get this fixed like yesterday, especially because people couldn't see the store page. It was removed. And so it was, that was a big issue. So it wasn't like they convinced us or forced us to market as adults only. We didn't realize that it was going to be marked as adults only. You'd think they'd tell you that like in and some help file or something. Yeah. yeah
Speaker: I mean, that's the interesting thing. and This has happened. There was another game called, oh my God, Future No Thanks, which had which is even tamer than our game. But there is one sexy scene in there, and that got hit as well. And that game is 10 times tamer than Nighthawks is, and they had an even more difficult time getting it fixed. It took weeks, and they did miss their launch date because of it. Shit.
Speaker: i I do feel incredibly privileged in a way that I'm in a position where I could make some noise and kind of use the the the the fan base and the um the bat signal the clout context that i that I have in order to make some noise and and get it dealt with. and I try not to take that for granted. But in this situation, I was glad I was able to do it and just get it. Have you thought about installing like a huge spotlight in your backyard with like the WadgetEye symbol on it and you just flash that into the sky when shit hits the fan?
Speaker: Francisco Gonzalez was already halfway to Valve HQ with a loaded gun. Yeah. Sorry, Garrett. Garrett has his hand up. no There were a lot of people I think that were going to that were willing to go to Batview and that was good.
Speaker: Yeah, sorry about that. So just for just to explain real briefly, there is a loose connection in my ah audio device, which means that if I just so much as look at it funny, it disconnects and that barely stall the recording. I'm terribly sorry about that. No problem. Okay, so der Dinskultor.
Speaker: So what were we saying? I completely forget. Yeah, so um yeah i was I was going to say something, so I'll just do a little gap and then... I mean, I think one of the things that's that's kind of come from this there were a lot of people that were willing to go to bat for you. And you've explained sort of the fact that he would delist you and it was causing all sorts of problems in how you would be categorized within Steam.
Speaker: But I wonder if this might sound obvious, but to people who don't really know how this kind of marketing and getting a game onto Steam works, how catastrophic would this have been for your sales if you hadn't managed to get rid of this tag?
Speaker: Well, I mean, just for starters, the game wouldn't have been available in Germany. And like we know how big the German market is for games. In the UK and ah certain other countries, you you wouldn't be able to even see the website unless you had a credit card on Steam. And I mean a credit card. Debit card doesn't work. ah Having a Steam account which is older than 18 years doesn't work. um If you don't have a credit card, basically it just treats you like a kid. ah We wouldn't have been able to get people to click on links to go and wishlist it. and It wouldn't have showed up in searches. It wouldn't have been recommended with like other related games. Basically, it would still exist on the service, but nobody would be able to see it or click it or recommend it.
Speaker: So yeah, that would be quite bad. They want to make sure you're 18, which is kind of annoying. And apparently, the rather than do... I guess a lot of the age verifications on most platforms are kind of invasive. um Like they want you to submit an ID, and that's kind of invasive. And so they I guess they figure that the least invasive way of showing you're 18 is if you have a credit card. But not everyone pays with credit cards. In many many countries, credit cards aren't that big of a deal. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm an adult. I can make my own horrible financial decisions. Here's my credit card. I mean, I understand their heart, I guess, is in the right place, assuming that's why why they do it. um And that is kind of the the interesting thing about a lot of the decisions that Valve makes, is that a lot of the decisions they make are to try and and make things easier for players and developers. um they don't Their decisions...
Speaker: The systems that they make are not usually based on how can we get more money. And that's kind of strangely um admirable in this day and age because you look at the companies that do basically control an entire segment of an industry and the horrible crap that they do. The fact that Valve is content with getting 30% of literally every game in the world.
Speaker: And they don't want more than that is weirdly admirable compared to like every other big company that you can name. I know it's weird to say, oh, but they they could do worse than they don't. That makes them good. That does seem weird. But, you know, compared to like other companies, I won't won't say out loud. We all know who I'm talking about.
Speaker: um It is weirdly admirable. um i I always think, like well, they could be worse, which is, again, weird. Even to the point that they they haven't been... like Even if your game had been smut, and we've established that it's not, the fact that they would even sell it at all... i mean I'm thinking about some of the stuff that Itch.io has had to go through in terms of yeah keeping the credit card companies on side. I think, yeah, I can see where you're coming from with that, David. I think i think one one big thing with Valve is...
Speaker: you have to remember how big like valve's market is compared to how big valve is and so like ah a lot of stuff makes sense but when you can think okay well we had we had trouble with nighthawks uh where we are a tiny tiny game but we were still getting like personal connection connection and kind of correspondence with valve Even before all of this stuff, like they are they are actually looking at the build. They are asking questions. When you submit things like um ah trading cards and like all of the governance that goes with it, they were kind of coming back and saying, okay, this is fine, but could you make the backgrounds 30% less bright so that they don't clash with the UI, that kind of stuff. And while on the one hand that can kind of sort of feel like, you know, fiddly, it's also, they're doing this for everybody.
Speaker: Like, you know, we totally get, like, they are absolutely buried, you know, under, like, requests and, you know, people wanting things and sort of trying to do stuff. It's totally it's totally understandable that sometimes things slip through.
Speaker: It's just the the case that that from the other side, when, like said, you've got everything, like, riding on one specific thing, it it could be difficult to have to wait.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I wanted to say that, you know, we can make all all the jokes we want about Steam, obviously. And we will. um And we will. and And, you know, to some extent we have. But it seems to me, without getting into a major political discussion, there is a lot of think of the children going on at the moment. I mean, Steam isn't the only platform where this happens, right? Oh, I've got a story about that. So the age verification, because my kid and I play Roblox a lot, and the age verification nonsense that they've pulled on that was basically to, because it's a big pedophile haven, let's be honest. um So they have this thing, this really invasive thing with the facial scanner. So you have to like go to their website and turn on your webcam and look straight, look left, look right, do you look 18 in a row? And there have been like...
Speaker: five minutes after they added the shit, people were just printing out photos of Kurt Cobain and holding them up to the camera and boom, you're 18. It's like, what? Why not Alice Cooper?
Speaker: ah Well, it's like, oh, oh, you're, you're over the age of 90. You must be dead. but No, no. and There's a song. I'm 18. Well, moving on. You did say, you did say earlier tonight that your musical education was, was narrow, but for fuck off. Yeah. Well, that is a point, but anyway, so, so, I had to do that for Kickstarter, actually. Part of the verification of... ah Just to be able to mail stuff to backers, part of the verification was I had to do that facial scanning thing. It was it felt creepy.
Speaker: like I kind of trust Kickstarter as a business, but it felt creepy. like I don't know if I should be doing this, but... it'd be i had to It feels awful smooching that glass plate.
Speaker: this is that And also the little the note down in the left-hand corner that says copyright flock systems. You're like, do I I got one laugh. I'll take it. No, I think the the problem is that the stores are under incredible amounts of pressure yet from the you know from the payment providers, and they're all aware that basically they don't know where the problem is going to come. um So, like, for just for example, you say...
Speaker: we've got GTA six coming out later this year. GTA six is obviously going to be controversial in many, many ways, but it's like, it's an expected controversy, you know, the Fox user, whoever, you know what they're going to say, you know, it's not really going to matter. It's going not going to be a big deal, but then you get something like say horses, And I'm not saying that horses has any kind of content problem, but like as a problem, that is probably not one that anybody's going to see coming. Like this sort of weird indie game suddenly becomes a core celebre across the entire internet. you know I did learn something interesting about why, because it's the big complaint. Oh, like what GTA is allowed through and, you know, Blood of the Dawnwalker is allowed through and all these and what, why? Because I discovered, this is interesting, that the big companies, they go through the, um,
Speaker: ESRB or the ERSB, whichever it is. um And so they have to they have to pay for it and they it takes time. you know so to they're They're vetted and they get the official, official rating you know from this board in Europe. And so when you know that they have that official rating,
Speaker: Valve knows they've been vetted because, you know, they can't play, they're not going to play that entire game, but these games know they can, they can take it right up to the edge and, you know, and not go over it. But for a little indie company, they don't know, like, how do they know that there isn't some graphic porn in our game? They don't know. So, and they're not going to play the whole game to find out. They just have to blindly trust us, you know? And so I, I understand why they would maybe be more careful with, know,
Speaker: indies than they would with, you know, Gorefest, like, um I don't know, like like... Like that game that's really gory. Like that game, like Gorefest 3000. Good save, good save. Everybody's favorite current vampire game mixed with journalism, Blood of John Walker. Oh, dude! well Designed by Peter Molyneux.
Speaker: Just as a complete aside, I think um that ah one of the actors in Nighthawks is the lead character in Blood of the Dawnwalker, and I find that amazing. Will Derenzi Martin is yeah is Cohen of v Lassia in Blood of the Dawnwalker. He plays Samuel, doesn't he?
Speaker: He plays Samuel. He plays um Christabel. Oh, yes. And he plays like one of the cult leaders who delivers one of my favorite readings in the game. No context at all. It's like brother, have you does the word silent mode mean nothing to you? um And that is just one of my favorite readings in the entire game. No context at all. one there's one thing ah ah because um obviously this is this is no real bearing but it's it's just ah to add some levity to the conversation Ben Chandler the artist and and you know absolute genius that he is behind and a tablet and the graphics he's done for Nighthawks it looks amazing I remember playing one of his early games, pre-Wadget iGames, on stream back when I was new at streaming and back when Twitch luckily didn't know who the hell I was. I forget the name of it.
Speaker: There's Pest Spider-Chance. It might have been that, actually, yeah. They all have Very weird names. They do. They do. but what Exclamation point or piss. or Oh, yeah. The one that's exclamation point is brilliant. But the one thing I was not expecting was it start it's very fantasy, very beautiful Ben Chandler-esque 320 by 200 graphics. Everything's going smoothly. I'm this little dude who does magic and helps people out. It's be a cute little game. And at some point, you advance the plot to a certain degree where now it's cut scene time. Let's ah advance the plot something. And boom, right there you go. Explicit lesbian porn scene right off the bat. that was piss that was piss that was piss right yep well what else and i'm streaming the guy there was yeah like i i was a bit blindsided i mean ben in a nutshell when he made that game uh i remember talking to about it and i said are you sure piss is a good idea for a good name for a game and he's like no it's a terrible name for a game that's why i'm doing it okay that's ben in a nutshell
Speaker: I love that contrarian approach to to to to that, because because it it is going to get attention. What I was not expecting was a full flash of titty and pussy, like in the middle of a Twitch stream. And and I was like, oh, shit. was in the middle of a cafe when I was praying. Yeah.
Speaker: So, I had to, like, quickly shut my laptop. i'm like, Jesus Christ. I said it's research, honey. One of the funny things about Nighthawks, like, sort dealing with this whole situation, is that it's really easy to kind of sort slip into either extreme. um You know, like, when Thais was saying that we've marked adults only, you sort of want to defend yourself by kind of like, you know, No, it's harmless. There's nothing in it. But yeah there is some stuff in there um because it's that kind of game. And, you know, we don't want to kind of like underplay that, you know, there is sexual content. It's just that there's that jump between mature stuff, which you would see after the watershed and, you know, dodgy Japanese visual novel. There's no question it should be rated M. they Rated rated m for mature, definitely.
Speaker: yeah Porn, no. Yeah. And I'd like to if anybody buys it for pornography, going to be so disappointed because like said, generally when, when I, you know, do ah a sex scene or something in a game, it's going to be part of a joke. You know, you know, it's, it's going to lead up to a punchline. It's going to be like part of something, you know, wider. It's not just going to be, and you have unlocked your cheesecake.
Speaker: I have a question too, but ah Gareth, how does it end up first? Yeah. So someone's bum. ah Ha ha. Yes. Yes.
Speaker: So one of the things that I've always loved about your games, Dave, and well, both of you really, and the games that you guys have put out is that you've not been afraid to have characters that reflect real life and in real life, gay people exist.
Speaker: Yes. And obviously we've had- What? Shut the fuck. I know. we are in Denmark. We are so, we are like 10 years backwards. So this is news to us, I'm afraid. ah Denmark is a very good place for LGBTQ rights and rightly seen as a good place ah to live. However, yeah but when when we discovered the fact that they exist a year ago, yes, we made, we quickly made amends.
Speaker: The point being that, that sometimes with these kind of um smut filters and this kind of accusation of pornography, sometimes that is just a way of shutting down these kind of differences and the things that exist in people's lives. So I guess the the the question is, is the commitment to having real life still there at Wadjet Eye Games and still there in the stuff that you want to write, Richard?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I, I, this hasn't changed my mind in terms of what I make or what I do. um only because like there were no consequences, like it was all resolved very fast. Um, there was no, as conscious as I couldn't even, can't even call it a controversy as no one, there there's no question about what happened and that valve was in the wrong and they realized that and they fixed it. So I don't need to change anything. I mean, the only thing that I worry about is that because of these stringent policies, you might get people who will just either a, they will, um, uh, avoid that kind of content in their work. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Or they just won't disclose it in the first place. Because I think being honest was our mistake. If we just didn't disclose it, I don't think they would have even noticed. Like Ben Chandler. Yeah, and like, unfortunately, a lot of AI projects as well. yeah Just to bring everyone down.
Speaker: But I don't plan on changing anything. I mean, I don't even... i mean, in terms of... um you know, uh, LGBTQ stuff. I mean, that's like about as edgy and controversial as a dry erase tattoo. I don't know why that's such a big deal now. Um, so I'm not, I don't, I don't see any, uh, I don't see anything controversial or or, weird about it. Um, it just exists. It's, it, it, it's that kind of person exists.
Speaker: And we write about people. That's really it. to To use Naitok's example, way I kind of agree with David on that one. I mean, i you know, it I always kind of win for people stop talking about like agendas and so on. It's like kind of, it's not an agenda. It's just, you know, people exist. People have a right to be represented. And if that if that fits the character, then then I will write that. and I would say the only exception I have to the rule is that there are some things that I... don't think I'm the right person to write, um which i don I don't think they shouldn't be written, just I personally am not the one to do it. Like, one of our backers um who is trans and has, like, a character in the game, their original... um go we we we would We want to do, like, backer...
Speaker: character and so on a bit better than like most games so we spent a lot of time talking with them like figuring out stories like throwing ideas kind of around and one of our backers i say who is trans had the idea that their character um would have been turned into a vampire kind of mid-transition and therefore being kind of mode locked into what they were before oh that's brilliant not matching this is what i sort so i think it's a fantastic idea i can't write this i do I do not have the, you know, the experiences and, know, whatever, to do this justice. Could we do something else? But that was nothing to do with, like, yeah was you would it be controversial? It is that I am not the person to write this story. If i if we had a ah like if we were, like, hiring writers, it would have been great to kind of approach somebody, like, in the gaming industry.
Speaker: community who is trans will say, hey, would you like to take this one on because you actually know this stuff. um But for this one, I had to kind of back up and we we ended up kind of doing a different sort of story, which was a bit like easy to do. But I...
Speaker: I would have loved to have seen that story in there. Oh, yeah, it would have been brilliant. And and I have to commend you for the self-realization that some things are just beyond my scope. I wish ah people in like the 90s, I don't want to point fingers at anyone, but I will, Police Quest 4, had the same approach to, let's say, urban dialogue. like Like, yeah, I am not qualified for this. That's a completely different chestnut. And and I mean, when when when when when the aim is to be controversial, then, you know, all logic goes out the window and all self-realization goes out.
Speaker: I'm going to say, I think that when, what's his face, Daryl Gates is saying your script might be a bit dodgy, then you should possibly take it. And I i think my my my, I'm not making a a comparison there. that The idea is know your audience, know know what you, know your own story and and your own like limits as a storyteller. And and if you can't, uh like that that's the thing that's the thing i don't think that you have to follow like the right what you know rule because i write characters are way outside of my kind of experience come on you go out to bars and bite people all the time don't you i think i've only been to a nightclub once in my life i i don't like that i don't like them um but it's it's more that
Speaker: what's what's the story that you're trying to tell and how does it reflect that this character versus a wider situation? So to to give a good, to give a good example, um again, Nighthawks example, we've got a character called um Hazel and Hazel is basically the assistant in, in quote marks of a vampire called Maze, who is basically compelling her to, um to serve him via the blood. And,
Speaker: Obviously, on the one level, this is a story about vampires, and therefore, like you know, you can do what you want. But on the other one, it's a story about abuse. It's a story about control. So those story's as a story, that has to be treated with incredible amounts of respect and care, even though the the players are supernatural.
Speaker: Um, whereas on the other hand, if you've got like a pirate running around swearing in every sentence, no one's actually going be bothered by that. No one's really going be able to say, well, you know, historically speaking, you know, this pirate would have had this accent and that kind stuff. So I think it's very much like, like, what is the story that you're trying to tell? What's the story that you want tell? And what story is yours to tell? And I think a lot of people with the best will in the world get that last one wrong. Yeah. Because I would not write, for example, a story about, I don't know, the trials of growing up as a gay person in the 1980s because I'm straight. I don't have those experiences. Anything which I would do in that kind of field would be stuff that I've seen on TV by other people, like second and third and fourth hand things. And I think that's a very important, maybe a very important story to tell because But it's a story that you have to be very confident is yours to tell.
Speaker: Completely agree. Yeah. I yeah have a question of that's sort of and in the broader context of the supernatural part, of because I completely concur and I have nothing to add to what you guys have just said. it's ah that's That's all very important, and I'm glad you you are cognizant of this, because a lot of people sure aren't in fiction writing anyway. They've... Never mind. So so i want I want to get into like the supernatural part, the the fun part, the whole vampire thing, the rules. and and Because there's one thing I've always wondered.
Speaker: um is So vampires are sexy. This is something that you have like stated as an and and unequivocal fact. Well established. Now here's here's my scandal.
Speaker: So erections. Yeah. How do they work in the vampires? Because they have no they have no blood circulation. Where does the blood go? The answer is they work quite acceptably. You must bounce on it. However, I would say that there is um a thing in the game. This isn't something which you kind of, like, get hands on, as it were. But...
Speaker: part Part of the game is basically taking this sort of very... um I mean, I i hope Pratchett has to kind of look at the rules, which is here's the rule, here's the cool part of the rule, but now let's go beyond that. Let's kind of actually look at it on like a day-to-day basis, like what what would be to live with this? And sex is part of that. um One of the...
Speaker: and like we We don't discuss like erections per se, because like the basic rule is all of the bodily functions more or less you know work as before. The blood just doesn't move around the body. But there are other issues, like the fact that vampires have no internal body temperature.
Speaker: And people are actually selling insertables ah whose sole job is to warm up the inside of a vampire's body so that they are more comfortable to have relations with. I believe sort of i believe it's certain called a hearth warmer in in this the script. Oh. And it's basically a heat it's basically is a heated dildo. So whenever you see Bela Lugosi in an old Dracula film and he seems to have a bit of a stiff gait, then it's... It's just like the thing hasn't quite warmed up yet. Now, i'm I'm glad you brought up the rules because I've... We've had our Bram Stokers, we've had our Anne Rice, they've laid some important foundational, but I think we can all agree that the absolute canon, the definition of what vampires should and shouldn't do, like and as in fictional characters would set rules and such, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I've been watching
Speaker: of like like ah you know an episode or two, just ah it's unwind and in the evenings. So going by those canonical rules, what are the...
Speaker: what what what have you um what What have you kept as far as vampire lore going? What have you ah decided to discard as like a sunlight, garlic, crosses, all that shit?
Speaker: What works, what doesn't? The majority of it is what would work within an urban, like well like a city environment. So, for example, um not being able to cross running water would be a bit of a problem um in a city where sewers exist. So it's like, let's just not worry about that one. But most of the the standard rules you would expect are there. So sunlight, no reflections, um ah no aging, you heal from everything. But we we try to make it a little bit deeper and like more introspective. So you...
Speaker: ah but like the The example which i like I like to use is the reflection is the no reflections. um So, okay, so you've got the the the basic Hollywood thing. Vampires have no reflections in our setting. They also can't be recorded. They don't leave DNA. you know They don't even leave like recognizable footprints. they They're basically very good at avoiding attention. But the basic one of of you have no reflection.
Speaker: Let's dig into that a bit more. How does sliding doors work when you want to go into a building? Yeah. How do you make sure that your hair doesn't look stupid when you when you leave your house in the morning? How do you put on makeup? David Boreanaz really has something to explain there. Renfield, more moose.
Speaker: Well, I mean, if you've if you've got if you've got one. But, like, those, those um again, those like, the the the basic, like, ha-ha kind of, like, implementations of, like, the vampire rules. But we've also got deep ones. so Would it make a difference committing a crime if you knew that you would never have to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards? What happens 450 years of like vampire existence later when you have forgotten what your own face looks like? You know, what's the psychological impact of that? Uh,
Speaker: So we we kind of like bounce around. A lot of what's interesting about doing vampires in the first place is they have all of these interesting mechanical elements which games haven't really played with that much. So, you know, you okay, yes, vampires have to get back in time for you know ah to avoid the sunrise, but most vampire games just sort set in these worlds of perpetual night anyway, you know, where you just don't even have to think about it. And...
Speaker: Or the the the threshold rule where vampires can't come into a home without an invitation. yeah That is a really interesting thing to build an encounter around because let's say you need to get into this particular place. You now have to work out how to negotiate an invitation. you got work out a trick somebody to give you an invitation. You've got to find some way around like your natural... um yeah it ruled And then we still go from that to like very silly things. So like at one point, um a character comes into the bar, like rubbing rubbing themselves on the backside because somebody, while they were on the way in, somebody reversed a car, but they only checked their rear view mirror. They didn't like do a manual check over their shoulder. And so they just bumped into them. And and and so like ah ah ah so a lot of this is is like, you know, being a vampire has cool elements, but it's also, in this case, a literal pain in the ass. yeah you know you and and and And again, it's like trying to not just...
Speaker: both sides it, you know, ah but it's like trying to sort see it it from every angle and see where the interesting stories come from as a result. mean, another good example is um early on in the game, you find out that churches around the city have been asked to take down their holy symbols from outside outside the their churches and mosques and synagogues and everything else because they cause pain to vampires who are walking past.
Speaker: And this is like an interesting because neither side is explicitly in the wrong, you know, you know, for the vampires, obviously they don't want to be hurt just by like symbols on, on their, their walk into work.
Speaker: But equally the religious organizations, in addition to like free speech arguments have, yeah, but if our symbols work, doesn't that say something? And, and, and, you know, ah there's a lot of, there's a lot of like, well, let let's, let's, let's really interrogate that. Let's sort of like, uh, try and take that to its full extreme.
Speaker: That's what I love about games because you can do that. And like, there are certain ideas of this that have been proliferated and like, I, I haven't read Anne Rice, so I'm guessing it's mostly going to be films like Christopher Lee, I think famously said that when he played Dracula, he wanted to play him. Like he was, you know, the loneliest person alive. He's been alive for centuries with no one. Well, the, I don't even want to say on a life because that's tick tock slang. So instead I'll say, fuck you. right ah But really, that's that's the kind of thing that you can explore and things that go beyond an hour and a half or two hours. i like this And this is really important because it is basically exactly that for most of the characters. They've all lived basically very constrained, you know, fuck yous.
Speaker: they They have this sort of, ah many of them haven't necessarily and even known that there were other vampires around. that There isn't like a Camarillo, there's no vampire government, there's sort of nobody else who's basically got your back or is there to explain the rules to you. You've got you've had to figure it out on your own.
Speaker: And so a lot of the characters, when we meet them at the start of the game, are like they're lonely, they're locked in really bad, toxic patterns, and they haven't really got any connection to anybody. And one of the the big like points of the story is that most vampire fiction is very cold. you know, it's all about, you know, uh,
Speaker: out ah betrayals and conspiracies and the beast within. Nighthawks is much more about finding the warmth and finding like that circle of light in the middle of the darkness. And the expression I like to use is ah even the darkest streets can lead to brighter tomorrows. Oh, poetry. And so the idea is that you get to the end of the game, you you get to the end of the game, you you look at how the characters are when you leave them, and then ideally you you start the game again and you you meet them for the first time. It's like, oh, wow, you were in a really bad place.
Speaker: yeah And and you you really kind of feel the like the the the level of their improvement. I have a question, because you brought it up earlier that religious religious iconography hurts vampires. So we are in the you know Shoma crucifix and they recoil in horror kind of. territory but you also mentioned other uh religions um other denominations which i find very very interesting because typically you've got like the christian iconography because these are like demon hellspawn and they will recoil in horror at the glory of god kind of thing uh but you also mentioned mentioned mosques and and synagogues and and shit like is it um
Speaker: Okay, I'm just going to throw out a ridiculous example. Like, is it limited to the ah religion of choice, or are you repelled by all religious iconography? could you Could you ostensibly conceive of a Jewish vampire who is repelled by a menorah?
Speaker: is this Yes. what in fact in fact In fact, there is one. Madame Lux and in the game is a stage magician. She's Jewish, and Jewish symbols hurt her. What about the flying spaghetti monster?
Speaker: No. but Bollocks. What happens if someone identifies as Jedi and a kid pulls out a toy lightsaber? The way that we handle most of those kind of questions is that we don't... Shut the fuck up, trolls, is that we handle it. I mean, there's that. But it's more that we never give mechanical reasons why things are what they are. We just present the rules that the vampires have to live by. And within the universe, people have theories, but we never authorially state this is why. And so for the religious symbols, the way it tends to work, and people do actually talk about this in the game itself, so I won't go into too much detail, because obviously all going buy a copy.
Speaker: Yes, we are. mean, yes, yeah why why did I laugh at that? course. yeah the the way The way that it tends to work is that it it has to be a symbol with faith legitimately attached to it. So the example is that if you show like a crucifix, that will work. If you put two sticks together and say this is a cross, that won't work. So it has to be like an actual thing. Fucking hell. Sorry, Peter Cushing.
Speaker: And it has to have it it has to have some, yeah you know, societal connection to it. we We never really, like, sort of cover, like, could you invent a symbol? And if you believe that it, would it work? We don't really kind of go into that. But we do have have have a whole sequence where someone is actually, like, just testing different symbols, you know. So, like, does um this...
Speaker: Does Wiccan symbol work? Yes, it does. Does the Jesus fish on the back of cars work? No, it doesn't. Does a swastika? No, it doesn't. But if you turn it around, so it's like the Buddhist symbol, now it does. And, you know, so that there is, you know exploration of that without, like, wanting to kind of give a specific...
Speaker: like God exists, therefore it works type answer. I like that. Because like big I think the more interesting thing is like how the characters react to it. So for example, um Madam Lux, like said, she's Jewish and she's practicc she's practicing. She still has faith, which is also a vampire.
Speaker: And we have ah we have a whole section which is like, how how does that work? And her basic thing is, well, I never turn my back on my faith. You know, just because, you know, this now happens as a result of what I am doesn't mean that I i am i am denying anything. i would I am happy to come home whenever God allows me. And, you know,
Speaker: in In those kind of conversations, I think you find like interesting elements of like how the characters think, how they they process things, sometimes how they translate things. um But I think it's more interesting like if you don't give a specific example. It's also a lot easier. Oh, I completely agree. i completely agree. i think I think one of the things that fantasy and science fiction can do really well is allow you to explore those kind of questions. And I feel like there's been a a trend recently that all lore needs to be explained in detail. And I like that you take of this approach.
Speaker: It's basically, we we know it exists, and we're not here to really figure out why, because it was so long ago. I mean, why yeah, like that kind of approach to it. I mean, i mean in internal internally, the characters don't know.
Speaker: you like They've got ideas, they've got theories, but there is no manual. um you know So I don't think it's a lot of the time there are rules and reasons for things which you could say, but often you end up just getting tangled in them. So, like, for example, one of the classic...
Speaker: but So one one of the classic reasons why... um so i just give me one second. My earphones are playing silly buggers. Yeah, one of the problems with with trying to explain the rules is you very quickly end up tying yourself in knots. So one of the classic reasons for why vampires don't shop um in mirrors is the idea they would have a silver background, and silver kind of obviously has effects on magical kind of elements. Okay, cool. ah But then that doesn't explain why they wouldn't be viewable in a DSLR camera where there is no silver whatsoever.
Speaker: Interesting. um And so, like, it's easy just to so of sometimes say, like, these are the rules. What's interesting is how you live by them, as opposed to let's try and scientifically work out Y, X, Y, and z Well, this also sounds like, you know, this sounds like, you know, and and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense at all, on the contrary, but it sounds like typical wet Jedi, you know, fare in that,
Speaker: ah the black world games and on about also tackled those questions like i don't know why i'm shooting fireballs out of my hands i i just am you know when i yeah how does time travel work dave um um in terms of like the in-universe explanations for why it works like richard said it just does Right. And i loved I loved that about that game. I loved so much about that game. but that was one of things go routine like there is this there's I learned this early, um that there is, ah I think it was with Resonance. um There was,
Speaker: early on there's a scene where um where you, you ah take control of, I think the Anna character and you have to like escape or pursue or someone breaks into her apartment and you have to escape and you manage to get to the roof. And then um the roof door opens up and then two of the other main characters, like Ed and Bennett just appear and they, and they help her. And then what follows is like a literal 20 minute conversation about how they knew she was up there. And I'm just playing this, like going through all this. I'm like,
Speaker: I don't think anyone really cares. like it's just It's not important. like It's like, okay, knowing why they knowing how they knew isn't going to help you enjoy the story. i've i've As I've done more stuff, I've come to realize plot is overrated. like The reasons why things happen is not as important as like why you care. Yeah.
Speaker: Sometimes stuff just happens. That's life, right? And that's why I hate the stuff Gareth talked about, you know. Every little nook and cranny must be explained. Everyone must have some relationship to someone to be there, you know. there are people who care about that and God bless them, more power to you. Like the, the people are poking holes at the, you know, if there's, there's a plot, there's a few plot holes like, okay, here's a great example. Blackwell legacy, right? Um, the, the, one of the first scenes in the game, like for one of the first scenes of the first game I ever did, um, you meet the, uh, old woman in the, in the park whose dog is ah on a leash and you have to arrange the leash to get tied up to a post.
Speaker: So there's a big thing about the dog having a dog leash and being on the dog leash. Later in the game, Rosa takes the dog out. There's no dog leash because that dog leash was such a bear to program. I didn't want to bother with it. And I was convinced people are going to call me on this. They're like, why isn't the dog on a dog leash in 20 years since that game came out?
Speaker: No one has cared. No one has mentioned it. Yeah. this is BSD exclusive right now like spending all that time trying to get the dog leash working like dealing with like a moving dog a moving Rosa and a moving leash was just impossible for my skill level at the time um but explaining coming up with a reason why the dog could be walked without a leash now but couldn't before isn't gonna make the story any better No, I mean, I don't like people who poke holes in everything personally because they always find the most obtuse places to do it. Like, look, the the mad plan of this insane James Bond villain doesn't make sense. Well, of course it doesn't make sense. he know he's that He's fucking insane.
Speaker: wrote rose Rosa Blackwell is not giving me a lap dance. Ding. Ding. Worst game ever. No, here's here's the thing. it It also depends on what kind of media you're consuming, what kind of story you're... Sorry, my my ah my connection cut out. If I leave my computer alone for too long, for some reason, this even this website, the my computer thinks it should go to sleep. So turns off. Bored, are we? it it'er Insert obvious je joke here. Yeah.
Speaker: So I just have to remember to move the mouse occasionally. and i'll be oh be yeah I mean, my my basic thing with like Nighthawks and like vampires and vampire rules so is that I don't really care why they work. and Vampires are inherently quite silly. You know, the rules don't really make sense. They kind of like being like clipped together from like multiple folklores and different stories, like sort different fictional backgrounds and kind of all this stuff. and None of them actually make any sense if you look at them.
Speaker: But what matters isn't the rules, it's what effect they have on the characters. Because they' they're having to live by these stuff, and therefore their experiences living by the rules matters. you know It's what builds your your connection with them, it's what... you know drives them in many cases it's what makes them interesting but it wouldn't be any interest more if i sort of just came in and said oh yeah ah buffy was right all all vampires are really demons anyway moving on to the next bit because that wouldn't that wouldn't change anything Well, I do think that's a great approach. you know I do think that's a great approach, and I hope we'll see a move towards that sort of internalized thing, because you know folklore characters are inherently weak at the moment you start explaining them, the moment you try...
Speaker: to make that contrived lore make sense it becomes boring like you know delving into films again i i loved ah robert eggers's version of nosferatu but i still kind of find it comical that part of of the plot of that film is to have the arch vampire trick someone into signing a contract where he signs away his wife you know part of the plot of that film inherently is ah you have been bamboozled but here's here's the thing a kiss i kiss a I was trying to make this point earlier. it depends on what kind of ah media you're writing, what kind of story you're telling, because if you have like a ah ah mystery that's that's being set up over a long period of time and different pieces have to slot together, it is very important to avoid the sort of obvious plot rules. And it's also very important as a storyteller to not fall prey to the idea that, you know what, I'll just let the audience work this out because I don't really have any idea to begin with. um
Speaker: one like ah a really bad example that I want to give is my my kids really into Poppy Playtime, which is an abysmal series of games where it's quite clear that whoever came up with the the first game had no idea they were ever going to do a second game. And the one who was doing in charge of the second game had no idea they were going to do a third game. This is the epitome of let's end it on a cliffhanger and work this shit out later. Not only that, but all the all the monster designs weren't really like they were thought up in a vacuum and then it was someone someone else's job to work out exactly why they were the way they were um so that's that's really that's that's the worst kind of storytelling but you can flip it around and it can be charming i mean look at you know look at the original quake a game that has made men weep because nothing makes sense well i mean that's there's barely any story in quake uh and and
Speaker: famously the john carmack nogger rath all long and she needs she needs a theme song uh she's got a thousand young they can join in the chorus don't assume the gender don't assume the gender of shop niggler i think she's canonically female but i know wasn't she like the mother of something i yeah the mother of a thousand young yeah which is why i was saying like she can have a chorus she can have a chorus line there Yeah, but everything Lovecraft does is is non-Euclidean and probably not adherent to human gender specifications.
Speaker: Well, I... judge of
Speaker: Right here at the tail end, i ah want, because we are going on on about an hour, and we have this pact that if we go above an hour, we have to kick Fred in the nuts. So i i just want to I just want to get Dave to to move his mouse a bit. Hang on second. Before we continue, I just need to count to 1,000. LAUGHTER
Speaker: One Mississippi, two Mississippi. You can kick my nuts anytime, Richard. Oh, thank you. Well, i I kind of want to get this on to to Dave to get him to move his mouse a little bit and maybe wake up from... I'm moving my mouse constantly now, so no worries.
Speaker: Good. i guess You should play Doom on the side if you like. um i kind of because don't Now we have you here, and like i um I'm kind of interested in the direction that Nighthawks is taking for the YJD brand, as it were. It's it's it's ah it's a new ah a new new area for YJD. First of all, what made you want to take the chance on what is no longer like a bread and butter, point and click, adventure game-y kind of thing? I think it um was because i was very ah tired from unavowed and I maybe wasn't thinking clearly. No, no, no, no.
Speaker: ah Because yeah he he pitched it to me just at the tail end of Unavowed. And I mean, honestly, it's just he pitched it to me and it was it was just fascinating what what he what he what he did with this world and the characters are amazing. I mean, he went into details about all that. But also, I've known Richard for a long time. I've always um a admired his writing. I love his writing. And I just figured, well...
Speaker: You know, he's he's not ah some newbie. He's worked on games before. He knows this specific genre um because it is very, ah the gameplay is very similar to like Fallen London and Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies. And yeah he's worked on those. um Actually, now I don't know if you were actually worked on Sunless. ah You didn't work on Fallen London, exactly. I have worked on Fallen London.
Speaker: Oh, you have? Okay. I know you made a parody game called Sunless Swindon. Fallen Swindon. Yeah. No, I've written for Fallen London. Okay. um And so it's just – there's sometimes when like I am – when things are going well for the company and then I – something comes across my lap and it's – it looks really cool.
Speaker: But I – there's not like a huge financial – at the time I thought time investment in it. Sorry. And I thought, and I figured, well, yeah, let's do it. Let's go for it. And the way it worked out was, you know, i was between projects and it seemed like a good time to take something like that on. And I just like being able to do that. You know, as being a publisher, I get to see games being made that I would not ordinarily get to make. Because that's just so not my wheelhouse. This kind of thing, not my wheelhouse. Stuff like like Hobbs Barrow, like horror games, not my wheelhouse at all. The stuff that Ben is doing with guilt. Which is amazing, amazing by the way. oh yeah never like i could make that game I could never make a game like that, not just art-wise, but like plot-wise, thematic-wise. I could never make that in a million years. And I get to be a part of those games. And it's exciting. It's what I really, feel is I'm very lucky that I'm in this position where I can make my own stuff. But then I also work with like some of the most talented people I've ever met. You know, I find that really just rewarding and I'm very lucky. So, I mean, a lot of the time when when something is pitched to me, it has to come at the right moment. And Richard pitched this to me at the right moment. And so we went for it. And here we are.
Speaker: But you asked another question. Everyone at once. Please.
Speaker: No, I'll just say that the nicert the nice thing with Nightworks is that like in terms of technology and so on, essentially, for much of the development, there was like, can I borrow a Ben? And so I was sort of borrowing Ben when he when he wasn't working on old skies, you know, when amazing ah yeah what he wasn't working on under kind of guilt. So what it has sort of taken a long time. It's not like he's been like a perpetual cash drain on like Wadget. It's really been more like kind of, you know, so how's it going? Has another disaster happened? Yeah. Are you anticipating any more disasters? No? Okay, see you next week. yeah um
Speaker: But it's basically been fantastic. like like Essentially, I've been able to, kind of like for the most part, like obviously apart from like voices and things like that, be able to kind of so sit in like my corner, do that, sort of send Ben art requests, and he's been able to kind of do those you know around his kind of other projects. It's kind of worked well. Whether or not Wadja will ever do an another game like this, I have no idea. um But it certainly doesn't like override any of the other stuff which is coming out, any of the stuff which mean there it's a it's a change it's a change from the norm um if people like it yay if they don't there'll be another conventional point and click uh coming along uh relatively soon there's also like um when just because we we change things up doesn't mean we're stuck in that direction like we went very high resolution for old skies uh ben and i agree that for guilt um we would go back to unavowed resolution. we're just um we're just He's just a lot more comfortable there, and it can he can make it a lot faster. And since he's writing it at the same... He's writing and programming it as well as doing the art. He just wanted something he could do fast.
Speaker: And so we went back a resolution. And that' and that's fine. and I'm about to maybe a month or two away from announcing another game that I'm publishing. That's like back to... like That's back to Hobbes-Bauer resolution, like 320 by 200. So there's no reason why, just because we mixed things up, that we're now stuck doing that. there's oh no like i can I can safely say that like yeah if... I know this isn't a pre-announcement, as far as I know it's not in the world, but like if there was going to be like Unavout 2, it would not be Nighthawk style. um if on the If, on the other hand, we agreed that we had like another...
Speaker: uh, game concept that would fit Nighthawk style and the timing was right and all of that, then maybe. And yeah, it's, it's a game. I, the most important thing for me though, isn't that it, whether or it's, it's a game. Yes, it is. but At this point, I really hope so. Well, you know, um,
Speaker: what i say yeah that The important thing for me is like is isn't that it's ah necessarily in keeping with the like the user interface of previous Wachitai games. It's that it has the same kind of heart. That even though at first glance it kind it looks like it's going to be dark and cynical, it's actually very, very warm.
Speaker: um You know, it's all about yeah like found family. It's all about essentially making the the world a better place for your presence. It's getting to know these characters, getting to you emotionally connect and vibe with them. um It's about that kind of journey more than it is, let's make up 2,000 years of vampire lore and then like spoon feed it out to people. think Richard just thinks he wandered into this sort of press release interview kind of thing. I will remind you that you're in the presence of... so look people the important The important thing is is that I've done quite a lot of these. So when I go into my flow state, I'm very much speaking in press release terms. I will now compensate by saying that Space Quest 2 is shit.
Speaker: Fuck off. yeah the The reason I brought up i know but the reason the reason why i brought up this is is obviously I know that with any good like brand, I hate using that word, but with any good brand, you you have the sense of identity. you know if If Dave puts out a game, you know it meets a certain standard and you know it meets it has that sort of wadged eye flair. i look i look kind of say i look I look forward to testing that on Tuesday.
Speaker: oh Oh, great. i'm going to cry again aren't i um well you're testing a lack of standards right now i will be testing whether i should keep my pants on or not no let me let me finish for bit because at the oh oh shit i just i just interrupted richard i didn't know that was possible um we you've done it a couple of times throughout Oh, it's kind of necessary. Sometimes don't worry about it. it'ss Again, again, he's like a word fountain. I deeply, I deeply ah object to that. and I will now give you my five, five reasons why. Well, but I'm more like 10, 20. Really? Any, anything that comes out of his mouth now, it's just white noise to me because of that space quest to, um,
Speaker: but what i oh so oh so So my talk is white noise, you racist. Shut the fuck up, Richard. The people hated him because he spoke the truth. What I wanted to get at was when you buy a White Jedi game, you know what you're getting into more or less. And I like the fact that we are now attempting... You're saying unpredictable? Slightly out of... No, no, slightly out of the box. I meant i meant in a sort of vibe sense. i did I know what you mean. Quickly rename it the Blackwell Nighthawks.
Speaker: can we just kick Richard out of the call can we burn some more bridges while we're headed oh yeah yeah please let's do it now okay so what I'm getting at is you can't burn the bridges that's where trolls live Jesus fucking Christ Richard I can't wait to I can't wait to go to Adventure X and finally slap him across the face no I will do no such thing I love you Richard and i and and you know that I will try to shut up for a few seconds no it's
Speaker: ah Fucking Christ, I'm so... Oh my God. I got tears coming in my face, Jesus Christ. All right. So, the vibe of a Wadjet Eye game, you know that. And now you're diversifying into something that is not Britain, but an adventure game for maybe the first time that I can recall anyway. What I'm saying is, I hope you don't pull a data lake and suddenly decide that, oh, now I'm going to be like the AAA guys who make these... What what was it? The Goblin Hobbit kind of thing that... Golem? Yeah, what lately fell flat... What Charles is saying is, Dave, he doesn't hope you want to work with Richard again.
Speaker: No, no, actually, no, let's let's be perfectly frank. Richard is is an amazing storyteller. Can I just say how much I want? i i' I'm worried about the long silence from Dave there. There wasn't really any gap to jump in there, was there? Because if there's there's two people that are complete motor mouths in this call, and you're one of them. I'm the other one.
Speaker: And Gareth is, at some sometimes I think he's mute, but then he's just... And sometimes we lose Dave because he goes completely offline. Sorry, I forgot to move my mouse again.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm back now. Sorry. What least like what happens is like it the computer goes to sleep and it comes back and then there's no sound at all and I can't hear anything. So if there's ever a Watch It Eye game that becomes horribly delayed because all the source code was lost because someone's computer shut down before they clicked save, it's going to be you not moving your mouse.
Speaker: Well, it's just because like with this with this website, like as far as the computer is concerned, nothing's happening. um And I set it to go to sleep maybe a little too soon after inactivity. Let's be honest, nothing is really happening. What what i but i think you should do. But you did have a question, and you you were i in the middle of asking a question. I've been in the middle for half an hour now.
Speaker: I speak sometimes. It was more of a statement. It it it was more of statement. Let the man talk! never in a million years there is i there was actually a question but it's just taken half an hour to fucking get there um
Speaker: ah the question is is there any type of we're finally getting there aren't we where Is there any type of game that, ah despite like having all the promise in the world, is there sort is there some sort of genre or is there some sort of gameplay style that you just wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole no matter how good the idea sounded?
Speaker: I mean, it i I can't say what that could be. I mean, if I like it, I mean, when you say that all the you know the games that YJ publishes have a certain standard or whatever, i i don't know about standards exactly, but it's more a case of I like them. And ah my my instincts have usually been more often right than wrong when it comes to like public perception and sales. I don't think there's any like way to tell what a good game is. like If we all knew what a good game is, no one would make a bad one. And so I i just go by instinct, like, oh, I like this. And you know if maybe we can work together. If you need help getting this out, I need ah a new game. I'm It's a good, it's a good time for me to work on so publish something.
Speaker: Um, cause also what tends to happen is that when I'm work, when I am working on my own thing, um, you know, ah by the, by the time I'm finished with it, I just can't even think about starting anything new. So that is a good time for me to work with someone else and help you their game you feel drained.
Speaker: Yes, you could say I do. I don't know why I said it in such a... But I get to... But because I can work with other developers and publish stuff, um that means I can still get games out. I can still get income from that. And like I said before, I get to work with other developers and I learn from them and I get very like inspired and refreshed by them. It's it's pretty amazing. So im like again, I'm very grateful that I somehow carved this position for myself. because So would you say that of the period between publishing a a game of your own and ah
Speaker: guy think getting into the vibe of starting up a new game and in between having you know other games to publish, would you refer to that as your refractory period?
Speaker: As my what period? Refractory period. It's the... Refactory? It's the gap between being it between ejaculating and being able to ejaculate again. Goddammit, trolls. He has so much sex that he doesn't know. Well, he is diddling his mouse right now. I don't know what's...
Speaker: ups Sorry. was going to make a point about the Gollum game and Daydilic and the focus on stories, but we went there, didn't we? So let's wrap this sucker up. And you know what? I just did... We went full circle right now because, as I've said many times, and I've embarrassed Dave about this many times, the first time I met Dave at Adventure X, I made some sort of joke, and instead of laughing, he turned around and looked square in the eye and said, I don't get it. And I think I've just accomplished... doing that again so i just what was the joke i don't remember i was so embarrassed i spent the rest of the day going dave thinks i'm an idiot i don't get jokes i i i wrote wrote a comedy game for a german developer a few years ago and every single exchange about the humor was i would explain the joke and then get a and then what happens And eventually I just had to kind of get down to it. It's funny, trust me. Which is kind of... feel like that must have been the meetings with Alistair and the... That German game with the unfinished business. See, now everyone's letting you talk, Trolls, and this is what we get. know.
Speaker: It's one of those i talk sometimes German game with the unfinished list. Alistair Beckett King. Yeah, Alistair Beckett King. Unforeseen Consequences. Unforeseen. like afterese it' something Something like that. Incidents, was it? Unforeseen. Which was a ah ah German game, and and they very clearly had Alistair in to sort of funny it up a bit, um which which worked.
Speaker: It was very German, but at the same time it was also humorous and nothing really got lost in translation. But there's there's that sense of there. I probably have to explain this to you because it doesn't really seem like you get the idea.
Speaker: um But anyway, like Fred said, he's sick of me now, so I should probably wrap this up. No, no, no, not now. Like I was sick when we started. I'm still sick now. Fair enough. First of all, with all merriment and mayhem that has gone on here, I just want to briefly utter my deep appreciation for the fact that Dave and Richard, you two gents, still for some reason want to associate with... Anytime, man, really. It is perplexing in a sort of good way that we can sort reach out to what I would consider too legends of the industry and go, hey, come on, this our fucking show right here. And then just go, yeah. I'm blushing. Stop. When the benchmark is the rat man. I don't know.
Speaker: um I always learn something from you too, so thanks for coming on. Yes, and I managed to avoid pissing in a beer can this time, so there is that. ah It's good to have goals.
Speaker: Well done. I mean, you should have just done it with a Lucas 8 bottle because then you could drink it and you'd never know the difference.
Speaker: Beautiful. I don't even know what a Lucas 8 is, but it was fun still. See, that's the difference between this and German adventure games. Now, um ah briefly, I just want to say that if anyone is in the vicinity of Oregon, ah this coming month, Fred and I will be at the Portland Retro Game Expo making... So will I. so Yes, so will Dave. And the Gilb himself will also be there. The Gilb?
Speaker: Is that what you shop in? What shop that? Is that right now? Can we kill that with fire? To see what it fits. The gilb and the cob. cob, yes. but as Ask him about Loom. Isn't the gilb that character in Paul? figure No, wait, that's the gimp. That's the gimp.
Speaker: This is definitely not what I was going for. But yes, there's PRGE. And then if you are suitably interested in watching me apologize profusely to Richard for embarrassing him, there's also Adventure X in November where I will also be there. I'm not sure Fred will.
Speaker: No. i gonna No. All right. So it'll it'll just be... I love... just Just before we go, I love the fact that you're going to meet up with these people on completely different landmasses before you come and see me in... Oh, you... How long have you lived at Denmark now, Gareth? Nearly five years.
Speaker: Nearly five. We have yet to meet in person since you moved. That's not true. we we didn't We didn't meet... No, no. We we met once in Horskiller. Once, yeah.
Speaker: When was I drunk? Yes. We're very drunk, yeah. We all were. Well, that's that would explain a few things. um All right, so once, but still, I mean, you're you're literally within, like, what is it, half an hour train ride, and Fred is like 15 minutes away? The last time I saw Fred was when we were packing shit up in a box. Yeah, we're not doing that again. No, never, never. Absolutely not.
Speaker: I will, however, be seeing Dave and Richard again soon, and I look forward to it very much because you are absolute delights, gentlemen, and I apologize for you having to be in my presence. But that is it for us now, I would say. So say goodbye, Fred.
Speaker: Bye. Seek auf Wiedersehen, Gareth. Knap my feßen.
Speaker: You've used that once before, haven't you? No, no, no. I said, yeah, yeah. iha on tvson oh he's He's never been this eloquent and romantic before. No, yeah youre you're going on steam with that one, are you?
Speaker: Right. yeah Yes. So ah once again, thanks to Dave and Richard and we'll see you. No, wait, that's my tagline. Yeah. Have a good one, everyone. You're very welcome.
Speaker: No, dead like it.
