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Episode 21: Izzy Kestrel (Electrifying Incident)
214 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Izzy Kestrel from the Electrifying Incident development team. Topics include the development of TEI, Thinky Games as social experiences, Gex, and A Little Game Called Mario.
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Transcript
Introduction to Dracneck and Friends Podcast
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Dracneck and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Seren, the producer at Dracneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Dracneck at Dracneck and Friends.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello. Today, we're joined by Izzy Kestrel, who you may know from her work on the electrifying incident, among other projects small projects like a little game called Mario.
00:00:46
Speaker
How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? You know, no no real major complaints outside of... It's the existing in the United States complaints. The major
Izzy Kestrel's Journey into Game Development
00:01:00
Speaker
complaints. Yeah. Yeah. ah So do you want to give yourself a slightly better introduction? You've worked on a hell of a lot, so I can't really sum it all up in one sentence.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, ah you know, I made Mario. That's kind of the key thing, right? That most people probably know me for. Yeah. so So I've been active for about a decade, doing some like independent stuff for a couple of years.
00:01:24
Speaker
um mostly like pixel art, kind of like... I didn't do the pixel art. I had a friend do that. But very mechanical, very arcade-y sort of games. And then I kind of got into my weird era and never really left.
00:01:36
Speaker
So I've got some weird stuff about famed 90s video game Lizard Gex, some fan games there, guest appearances to other places, games about Universal Studios theme parks adventure, the GameCube game. cube game I made a game about a GameCube game. cu game And... ah I've worked at companies like Phenomena, No Goblin, and Astra.
00:01:57
Speaker
Astrological. And with you guys. I've worked with you guys, too. Yeah. ah You worked with us on a Electrifying Incident. What did you do on a Electrifying Incident? ah So I was brought on as the the Godot ah expert, basically. I don't think that was literally my title. I think it Godot programmer or something like that. But you wanted an expert, and you got me. we We don't really have job titles at Dragon Magnum.
00:02:20
Speaker
ah I mean, did you listen to the intro where I say, head Dracneck at Dracneck and Friends? Okay, yeah that's the only title we have. Sarin's not like the secondary Dracneck?
00:02:32
Speaker
No. No, I think that would be weird. Back before Mari joined and the only people that worked every week at Dracneck and Friends were Alan and I, I would tell people that I'm the and friend.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, I'm a friend too, right? Yep. So how that worked how many friends. Yeah, you're you are a friend of Draknek. You worked on Electrifying Incident.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah, cool. taking Taking a step back, actually taking a bunch of steps back, what got you into game development in the first place?
Early Gaming Interests and Perceptions
00:03:04
Speaker
That is a lot of steps back. ah So when I was a child, I played video games.
00:03:11
Speaker
ah I guess that's kind of... Wow. Bold. really unique story there. Yeah, breaking. Child play video games. ah Yeah, no, i my family was very supportive of it. My mom always would rent games for me, and like we'd stay up playing Mario until like 3 a.m., and then she'd be like, oh, crap, you've got to go to school. So she'd she'd kind of get you know just ah as invested as I would.
00:03:35
Speaker
And yeah, I think... For a long time, I kind of saw games as something that I deeply enjoyed as like a player, but it would never be something that I could like make myself that didn't seem like accessible to me, even though I was kind of like a technical kid and I would like do a lot of computery stuff and kind of understand computers. and you know all the All the right ingredients were there for me to become a game developer, except for was was terrible in school in all respects, but mostly especially in math.
00:04:08
Speaker
um And for a long time, my my understanding of like programming and like dealing with computers on that deep of a level was like, oh, that's all math, and I'm not i'm not able to do that.
College and Realization of Game Development Possibility
00:04:20
Speaker
that's I'm incapable of of like learning how to program or doing anything real.
00:04:24
Speaker
But, you know, and then i would like I would say that, and then I would like download RPG Maker, and I'd spend like hours trying to make something in that. And then, you know, I'd always play around with game making tools growing up, but I didn't really take it seriously until I was like in college, I think, like late in my college career.
00:04:43
Speaker
and I met someone who ah unfortunately it was laid off at a nearby game studio in Iowa City, which is strange because there's not, there wasn't a lot of those. um But Activision acquired, ah it was Budcat, Budcat Productions, Budcat, never know the subtitle.
00:05:02
Speaker
Budcat and then a friend Clover Greenhouse, I worked with her a number of years, virtually competent ah games who did all the art for those games. ah She came to work at a video game store with with me. I'm like, oh, I know a real, real live game developer now.
00:05:17
Speaker
Maybe it is possible to be like a normal person that makes video games. Yeah, awesome. I think outside of being in your weird era, like, what would you say drives you with, like, what games to work
Motivation and Creative Inspiration
00:05:33
Speaker
on? Other than, like...
00:05:35
Speaker
let's Let's politely say excluding the ah three full-time jobs that you had as, say, money and healthcare care for those. But for like the the projects that you make on your own, what drives you to feel like it's time to start work on another one? What drives you in the creative direction of pushing towards one?
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, um I just like to make stuff, and I want to make stuff, and I want to put stuff out there. I, you know, I think I spent so much of my life consuming media, like kind of like playing a lot of stuff, watching movies, watching TV, like engaging with like creative works.
00:06:17
Speaker
And that stuff shapes me in such a profound way, like all the things that I've like engaged with. And I think that's really cool and interesting. And I want to like,
00:06:30
Speaker
I think it would be cool if I did that for someone else, right? Like, I don't know if like someone's going to play Gexfeld, for example, and be like, wow, this is my personality now.
00:06:40
Speaker
I hope that's not the case. But, you know, I i think that i I spend a lot of time making things that I'm always trying to make something that that pushes a new ah new skill set for me, or i can like learn something new i can like hone my craft more
Open-Source Project: A Little Game Called Mario
00:06:59
Speaker
and be quicker at a process or just like i i want to be able to to do it sustainably and be able to like you know have a kid and that's that takes up lot of time i i just want to be able to keep making things and i have a lot of like big things i'd like to make and a lot of things that are more you know narrative focused have more like themes and more like i guess
00:07:21
Speaker
They're meatier productions than just kind of the weird smaller games that I make. um And I think the critical thing to like be able to make those big, really interesting projects is to have a lot of smaller ones to to build me up to to be able to have that that confidence to make something bigger, you know?
00:07:39
Speaker
And yeah, can you keep talk about some of your projects? Like at the start, we name-dropped A Little Game Called Mario, which I think is possibly best-known thing you've worked on. But like if somebody doesn't know what that is, it's probably polite to them to give them some context on.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose. ah So A Little Game Called Mario, that if you you put that in quotes, that that is the title. the The joke was based on a a tweet, as as a lot of my works are, ah just...
00:08:08
Speaker
throwaway jokes that kind of snowball into something bigger. I just take the joke too far. um And the idea was that, you know, there's this common thing in games, or probably any medium, right? But like games especially, it's really awkward where you say like, oh, im I make video games. And then, you know, the average person is like, oh, and maybe this is a polite thing to say. They're like, oh, what have you worked on?
00:08:34
Speaker
You know, like, like they're going to have any idea what what What these games are that you've worked on, you're not going to say Minecraft, you're not going to say Call Duty.
00:08:44
Speaker
You might, but i'm unlikely you're going to say anything that they've actually heard of. so it's kind of like, you know, why I asked the question. But someone tweeted like, oh, you should normalize just saying like, oh, I worked on a little game called Mario. Maybe you've heard of it. And that's funny because of course they're going to know what Mario is, but you definitely did not work on Mario.
00:09:03
Speaker
So the joke was that I made a really simple platformer in Godot. And when I say simple, I mean simple. It's just like a black like a black background with the little Godot head that comes stock in your project that to like use that as the character.
00:09:21
Speaker
and it could run and jump around, and that was about it. And I released this as an open source project on GitHub. And i put this framing around it and said, like this is called a Little Game Called Mario.
00:09:34
Speaker
It is open to contributors. If anyone wants to contribute to it, if you want to so edit it, you want to add stuff to it, you want to make a new level, you want to make new art for it, you want to add music, whatever you want to do, ah you are welcome to come do that.
00:09:51
Speaker
And I tried to make that as accessible as possible, which is no small feat, because Git is very confusing, ah even for someone who makes video games, has made video games for a long time.
00:10:03
Speaker
and ah The idea is that if you come and work on this game, you you are able to say that you worked on a little game called Mario, which is funny. ah There was a credits, auto-generating credits thing that would like populate into the game. Any change to the game would actually be automatically ah published. So it was like, as as much as we could take down the roadblock speed bumps to make it so like you could get something in the game and get seen by other people as easily and quickly as possible. That was what we tried to do.
00:10:35
Speaker
But also more importantly, like kind of getting past the stupid joke, ah you can also say like, hey, i I'm a game developer. I make video games. Because anyone can make a video game. Anyone can like do this stuff.
00:10:46
Speaker
ah You don't to like go to college. You don't have to like, you know, have any specific kind of ah credentials to to do these things. You can just do it. And if you like make a little piece of music or you like,
00:10:59
Speaker
If you draw a little crayon drawing and then you go and you add it to ah the background of some little Mario level, um that still counts. you know like You still contribute to a game. You put the work in and added your thing to this hodgepodge project.
00:11:15
Speaker
um And that's really cool. So it was a cool thing that went slightly viral for like a couple months and still exists today. And it is a little bit different every time I open it, which is really fine Yeah, no, that's... It's awesome, and it's like this creative co-op, almost. yeah So, unlike a lot of people that we have on this podcast, ah your work is not preeminently like Thinky Games.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah. We both worked at Astrological. I hired you there. And then we were laid off, and then i you know continue working at Draknek. I've hired you there again.
00:11:58
Speaker
ah Because I had a good time working with you the first time. and so ye Collusion. Yeah, that's nepotism maybe there's no ethics in in video games yeah um but i think like outside of because seren keeps pulling you in like how do you if view thinking games as like a player slash sometimes game dev and then also how would you describe your relationship to them yeah so i um i i think of myself as a fan of
00:12:30
Speaker
the the genre, so
Interest in Thinky Games
00:12:32
Speaker
to speak. Is that the word? is it a genre? ah I like to refer to it as a mode of play, but yes. play ok That's fancy.
00:12:41
Speaker
It's like, but because the because the gameplay is happening in your head, the gameplay is not dexterity-based. All right, you're you're saying Thinky Games is bigger than your genre. i No, I mean, not not in a pretentious way. Like, literally, when you look at like a po like when you're looking at like a Sudoku, the writing it in is not actually the gameplay. The gameplay is what's happening in your head.
00:13:04
Speaker
that Similar with almost every game that we consider to be a Thinky game. Like, the actual processing is happening in your head. So I i call it a mode of play, but that's just me. Okay, yeah, I like that.
00:13:15
Speaker
um Yeah, I think that I've been a fan for a long time of this this type of game, this type of games mode of play. um I remember like as far back as NES, think about like The Adventures of Lolo or something like that, like a classic, just like old Sokoban sort of style game.
00:13:35
Speaker
Those things are always those have been in my mind for a long time. and I think, you know especially mentioning earlier, like my mom would play games with me I feel like actually a couple of years ago, maybe on like Nintendo Switch Online or whatever, they have one of those games on there.
00:13:49
Speaker
and I sat with my mom and we just played played through a couple levels of that because yeah i appreciate that these games have the mode of play that you're describing where you can, you know, as a group, you can kind of like analyze the situation and all the information is on the screen.
00:14:07
Speaker
i you can work together on a solution and it doesn't have to be like, Oh, if I'm not holding the controller, I'm not playing. Right. I like that collaborative effort. Actually. oh it was like two weeks ago or something. And this is the second time I've done this. Actually, I did this at a different job too. I work in it t currently at my local university.
00:14:28
Speaker
And ah we had a like game, a Brown bag lunch, like gaming session sort of thing, where the idea was that I was going to bring in a video game for people to play. And I brought Baba you And I put that up on a projector in a classroom. And then we had you know probably 10, 15 people from my department come by and like eat lunch and play. And that that game, i love playing that game in in that kind of setting.
00:14:54
Speaker
Because it's just like, okay, one person play, which is you know you've never touched it before. it's It's simple. You can move the character around, push things around. it sos It's not complicated to move. But then everyone in the room is kind of like shouting...
00:15:08
Speaker
ah basically nonsense ah to to the the to uninitiated. Like, oh, baba Baba is you, but wall is block, or wall is stop. Water water is sink.
00:15:20
Speaker
And then people are like, what if water water is wind? And then someone's like, water is wind. you quit So quickly, people get into like the magic circle, where it's just like, oh we're still accepting that i water is wind as a phrase, means literally anything. And I think that's so funny. And people we played for like an hour and people loved it. It was a great time.
00:15:45
Speaker
might have got off the question. No, no, you're... I mean, that that is a type of relationship to have with it, right? Is is to be able to... turn it into like a social experience, which is you know something that, like you said, not not every game can inhabit, right? like If I'm playing...
00:16:09
Speaker
Super Mario Brothers to go back to Mario for a second, but like the Nintendo Mario. Yeah, the other one. Yeah, the poser. um The one that only that really gate keeps the amount of people that are allowed to work on it. Yeah. um If you go back to that, like you can sit down and watch me play.
00:16:31
Speaker
But you're not playing. That's not you're you're having a decidedly different experience than I am. Yeah. Yeah. I thought of been another like little yeah experiment that I did with someone. I had a friend who um we did we did like a like a culture exchange almost where ah she wanted me to play The Sims, which i I've never really been a Sims person.
00:16:56
Speaker
like i I know that the games exist. I probably like touched one once or twice, but it's never really been like something I've wanted to engage with with very deeply. And ah she's very deep into the Sims. She's like, we should do like a Twitch stream where where I teach you how to play the Sims. And I'm like, OK.
00:17:11
Speaker
And then we'll do another Twitch stream. where I teach you how to play into the breach, which is not a game that she was very, uh, the two genres, the two genres, right? this is Yes.
Collaborative Experience with Into the Breach
00:17:24
Speaker
This is so funny because I am an into the breach fan and Charlie, my spouse is a Sims fan. yes This is so funny. You could have this experience. It's it's right there for you.
00:17:35
Speaker
Um, but, but the thing that was so fun about that is, um, into the breach, I, a game I adore, uh, up there, if I'm naming top Thinky games, it's it's very high up there.
00:17:47
Speaker
um That game is has so much information that's always accessible. like You don't have to dig very hard to like figure out like where ah a missile is going to go or like where so how some turn is going to turn out.
00:17:59
Speaker
And you can like undo things. like There's so much accessibility there. And basically, I had her controlling you know actually like doing all the mouse clicks and and doing all the actual actions.
00:18:11
Speaker
But I was sitting on the sidelines the whole time saying, OK, so what's going to happen if you do this? And try to be as light touch as possible where I can kind of be like, well, maybe you don't want to do that. Maybe this will happen if you do that. But like have you thought about this?
00:18:23
Speaker
And we played a single run you know over the course of a ah couple ah couple weeks. And we we won. we won the first time, our first run, with her on the on the on the mouse, never having played before.
00:18:38
Speaker
And I think that's such a good encapsulation of that, like you were saying, like the mode of play or whatever, where I can act entirely as the brain, and she can just only be like the hand. She's contributing. to she By the end, she was making strategic decisions, like kind of engaging on a level that was really cool.
00:18:55
Speaker
But like just understanding, having that knowledge and being able to like understand the game state to that point, having my expertise come in without me ever even touching the controller,
00:19:06
Speaker
we were able to to complete the game. And that's kind of cool. Yeah, no, that's that's absolutely awesome. Yeah, some of my favorite memories from exhibiting games that I've worked on have been yeah setting up a game Like somebody sits down starts playing it, and then people will be like waiting behind them to start playing.
00:19:29
Speaker
But then sometimes you'll see like people lean over their shoulder and go like, oh, what what about this? What about that? And it you can you see it turn from a single player game to a cooperative thing in a it's a really beautiful way. Yeah. Yeah. I...
00:19:51
Speaker
i First of all, that's not the story I thought you were going to tell, Ellen. um What was the story you thought I was going to tell? ah You sitting behind people that you know and just shouting, WRONG! i mean, that's a different type of corporation.
00:20:06
Speaker
No, that's antagonism. um no I mean, I do think that somewhere... and this this is too niche to be probably high-budget project, but somewhere in this design space, I feel like there is room for a co-op designed one of these where it's it's using maybe like different... like It's very purposefully including...
00:20:45
Speaker
different types of thought process that are all required for the solution. Like things that one person is less likely to be able to solve all on their own. Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
Again, that's super niche. But I think that as a design space, games that are very purposefully trying to tap into that are, you know, it's, it's underrepresented. Yeah.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, i've I've actually thought for a long time I've wanted to do, um um' I'm really interested in like the design space of um like the technology that you use for like a Jackbox game, right? Of like playing, you know you have something on a screen that everyone's sharing, and then you have people on phones. i got i'm I'm saying it now, I'm really like, this is kind of what I did for, I was ah i went to New York NYU last year to present something at at their No Quarter event.
00:21:42
Speaker
And this is kind of what I did a little bit, was putting people in their phones. But I want to have like one main screen and then have, you know, like a couch of people and everyone has ah has a touch phone, has their smartphone, and they have some kind of touch controls. They have some kind of like stuff happening on their phone.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I think that's like such an accessible, like most people kind of know how to use a phone now as like a controller and how to like interface with the phone. um there's not as much of a like, oh, you need to learn how to like look and ah move and look with two sticks at the same time or something you would if you like handed someone ah ah normal game controller.
00:22:20
Speaker
um And making some kind of like puzzle game or something kind of like ah a thinky game, I suppose, ah where there's information on the screen, but then there's information on the on the phones too, and everyone kind of has different information. Everyone kind of has to like work together I think the game Space Team kind of hits this mark a little bit for me where it's like everyone has different buttons on their panels. you Yeah. Like shout directions at each other.
00:22:43
Speaker
um Something like that, but a little less chaotic and then like augmented by, ah you know, a full screen. I also regret to inform you the Space Team is like over 15 years old. Yeah, I know. i regret Speaking of Space Team, that developer was actually working on something very much like this, a more escape room-y thing. um i don't I don't really know if it just ah if it got abandoned or if he's still slowly working on it. um But like yeah, it's this kind of thing of like... Sounds a great podcast guest to write on the list, Alan. That's a great idea. He's also a very big fan of physical escape rooms.
00:23:27
Speaker
Well, sorry, i didn't I didn't realize the space team is ah is a dead reference. yeah Once the game hits 15 years old, you cannot discuss it anymore. ah yeah Yeah, it's like, i you know, Super Mario Galaxy, the heck is that?
00:23:43
Speaker
No one alive knows what that is. Yeah. i Sorry, i meant um the the space team-like game in Roblox, I guess. I'm sure there's something like that in Roblox.
00:23:55
Speaker
Oh, God. I mean, if we want to talk about, like... projects that give people depression. We can pivot to Roblox. I know you have Roblox stories. I do have Roblox stories, yeah. I don't know any of your Roblox stories. Let's have least one.
Entry into Gaming Industry via Roblox
00:24:11
Speaker
oh okay. Yeah, sure. ah um what So the reason i I got into the industry sort of was ah thanks to Roblox because i when I started Phenomena, they were hiring for a Roblox developer, a gameplay engineer for Roblox.
00:24:28
Speaker
specifically and i basically knew i knew that roblox existed i had never touched roblox before i had no idea what it was like to play roblox i didn't know how to make a game in roblox but i was like but i'm a quick study i could i could learn this and i think what worked to my advantage is like that i had you know my portfolio of non-roblox games was stacked i had a really great like a lot of games that i'd i'd shipped a lot of games And then also, like there probably weren't a lot of people that weren't like you know in their teens applying for jobs like that.
00:25:04
Speaker
ah So I was able to get that job, and I kind of just learned how to work with Roblox Studio, like they're their engine to make stuff on the job. And you know what? I think that's a really cool platform. Maybe not. There's a lot of ethical problems. If my kids were old enough to play Roblox, we'd have to have a long talk about safety on the platform. it It'd be a very complicated discussion, basically.
00:25:31
Speaker
um I think for children, it's it's complicated, and it is a game for children, so but that sucks. But um from like a technical standpoint, just like a design standpoint, it is really cool that this that this thing enables you to play, like to create a multiplayer game. like that is That is the core like bit that you can do in Roblox.
00:25:51
Speaker
So it's super simple to... like prototype something to make it like a third person game and just like launch it for people to play. um That year that I got that job, I hosted my new year's party in Roblox. I recreated my friend's house ah in Roblox.
00:26:08
Speaker
And I like added like a, like a JPEG of his cat that would like hide around the house you would go and you'd click it to pet it. then it would disappear and hide somewhere else. um There are all kinds of like little secrets. I added achievements to it. It was all super easy.
00:26:21
Speaker
um even only working in the ah engine for a couple of months. But yeah, it was a very strange ah first job. And the products that we worked on um kind of ranged from like, I think a lot of them were collaborations with like brands.
00:26:38
Speaker
So we they released like a Ralph Lauren, um like winter escape game where you like had to, you know, you like collect hot cocoa and do like all this kind of like whatever random wintry stuff.
00:26:50
Speaker
um But of course you would like wear Ralph Lauren fashions ah while you did it. And i remember um that was a real rough project from like the working with the Ralph Lauren people.
00:27:02
Speaker
I was told that they, that one of the producers got a call from someone like at the company. it was like two in the morning. They got a call, a phone call from someone that was like, Hey, this hat is not,
00:27:17
Speaker
not right this stuff this is not the hat that we disney level uh you gotta to get this right yes so that was that was a lot um there was an Abercrombie and Fitch project that that uh was scrapped when the company shut down um that might have been NDA but uh there's like a lawsuit like publicly known of Abercrombie and Fitch like suing phenomena because they didn't finish the game So I think it's safe to say that one.
00:27:47
Speaker
Incredible. Yeah. And the the project that I was on, which i'm I'm really actually really happy that I was able to, I don't know if it was intended because I was on, I like worked in higher education before, but, or if it just kind of worked out, but I was on a project with um project lead the way, which they're kind of like ah a group that does a nonprofit group that does like STEM stuff for kids.
00:28:08
Speaker
And we were working on a game about human biology and like going inside the body and, I did a lot of the design work on that game in the early phases. we didn't have but ah a lead designer yet.
00:28:19
Speaker
And so I like figured out, like okay, what's the best genre to go with? like I played a ton of Roblox junk to try to figure out like what kind of genres worked, what people like to play. And we eventually landed on kind of like a tower defense-y sort of thing, but also it's like team fortress-y where you have like different units. You like have different ah cells you can ride around and like do different things.
00:28:42
Speaker
And it was a really... fun for a while it was a really fun project to work on and then you know the studio shut down um and another studio finished it but that game did come out and i personally i don't think it's as good as it could have been if i was allowed to continue to work on it but i do think it was a cool idea still um but yeah fascinating platform i do i think it's really interesting it's bad for a lot of reasons but also very interesting Yeah, the thing that really interests me as somebody who has never used Roblox is that I can see that it makes it so, so easy to make multiplayer experiences yes in a way that kind of breaks my but brain. It shouldn't be possible to make it that easy to make a multiplayer thing.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's fascinating. It's really it's really cool. um i also I also love, I want to shout out the... um There's a pane that is just it just it is just there. When you when you open up Roblox for the first time, there is a sidebar called the Content Browser.
00:29:46
Speaker
um And you you go to like you know you weren't use like a Unity or like ah Unreal or something, and they have like asset stores, right? They have places where you can go and like buy assets, or you can kind of go seek that stuff out.
00:29:58
Speaker
But this is like integrated to the Engine on such a deep level where it's it's just there in a little window. It's like if you were browsing files on your computer, um They have a bunch of little thumbnails.
00:30:09
Speaker
And you can search in it. and You can search for, like, Sonic the Hedgehog and get, like, a dozen of, like, models or, like, little, ah you know, different things that people have made that kids, probably teenagers have made.
00:30:21
Speaker
You can, like, search for, like, laser gun. And you'll find a ah million laser guns. And not only can you, like, just drag and drop those models into your game and just use them, a lot of them also have, like, scripting logic attached to them. So you can go and grab, like,
00:30:36
Speaker
I think I have a GIF somewhere. of like I found like a shrink ray. And so I i grabbed this shrink ray gun, dragged and dropped it my game. This is a fresh project I hadn't done any other work on it. I had not touched code yet.
00:30:47
Speaker
And I hit start, and I was in the game with my little Roblox avatar. i picked up the the laser gun, and I shot it at like a cube, and the cube shrunk. The cube went down like ah tenth of it of its size.
00:31:00
Speaker
um And then I like i found like a... I think I bounced it off a wall or something. like I shot it at wall, it bounced back at me. And it hit me and my character's body, just like one of my arms just got really small.
00:31:12
Speaker
And I just kind of do it like she shrinking on my body parts. and then like, I couldn't even walk straight because my body part, my body was so out of proportion that I wasn't able to able to like, to move ah any more properly.
00:31:26
Speaker
And it's just, it's, it's so interesting that you can just like jump in there and start doing all that stuff. And it's, it's no wonder that like 12 year old's, get so fascinated by this platform. Because even like creating stuff, you can do so much with without having like any idea how to how to code or or do much of anything.
00:31:45
Speaker
you know would have been a really powerful thing for me to have when I was a child. Yeah, and i i look at that and I think, yeah, that it's it's really cool. And it's like obviously like the next...
00:32:03
Speaker
it's it's it's a logical leap from toying with RPG Maker as a kid or, like, yeah or the original versions of Game Maker, and then I just think about, like, the child labor exploitation of it all. It's really good.
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah. Ooh-hoo-hoo! it's um it's It's really something that I think, ah you know, as as it exists, like, burn it down. Like, just, I don't i don't want it to exist.
00:32:28
Speaker
um But I do think it, like... my perspective, having, having been paid, you know, ah living wage to to work in this platform for four hours a week.
00:32:39
Speaker
I, I think it is such like a huge gap in, like, if someone's going to take one thing from this podcast, like go play some Roblox, like go, go, go open Roblox studio and just like understand what that platform is, because I would love to see, like, I think like our industry as ah as a whole,
00:32:58
Speaker
is kind of siloed out from that platform. Like it's been around since like 2008 or something. And it's wild that there's not more coverage about it. that that We don't really think of it as like, as video games. Like it's not a meaningful, like part of our industry, but like that there's some really interesting, like tactical stuff that they're doing there. Like, you know, the the easy multiplayer and like the content browser and um just like the way that like the game types, like the kind of things that that kids are doing in there, the the kind of modes that they like to play in,
00:33:28
Speaker
um i people need to study that like i think it's so important for like game developers that are from a more traditional background to like get in there understand like what the the the future players basically like your future audience is is getting up to right now uh i yeah why do you feel like dreams get some level of respect where roblox doesn't i'm like do you have theories for why there's a distinction there dreams Dreams as in the ah the PlayStation.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I have theories. Yeah. I mean, i think it's, um you know, it's Media Molecule, right? So it's like they they made LittleBigPlanet. there's There's some prestige there.
00:34:08
Speaker
um I think just look, at like if you look at like the trailers and you look at like the way, it's called Dreams, right? So like that you look at the stuff and it looks it looks very like quote unquote dreamlike when you like look at kind of the aesthetic that it has.
00:34:21
Speaker
It feels more artful and more adult, I suppose, in some kind of way. roblox like Roblox looks like shit. It looks it looks terrible.
00:34:33
Speaker
There's like, you play these like weird little Lego minifig sort of looking guys, and everyone, like they're all really ugly. um and it's all like user-made content, so it's like all like really you know and and made by teens as well.
00:34:45
Speaker
um I don't know. It looks really rough around the edges, and doesn't look like something that you'd want to spend time in. But ah Dreams does look like something that's very polished and and pretty. um And then it's also like on a platform that you can like,
00:35:00
Speaker
make stuff on your console, which is is kind of a neat thing. Yeah, i was I was going to say, I honestly think that it's the fact that it's gatekept to PS4 and PS5, whereas Roblox is on PC and mobile.
00:35:13
Speaker
And one, that means that it runs a low-end iPads that run it at like three frames per second, but kids like slop so they don't care. but And so I think that that's part of the stigma. But like also, i think...
00:35:26
Speaker
the actually the fact that so few people have access to Dreams. Also that I don't know if it ever pivoted to be free at the end because I know they've walked away from that project.
00:35:40
Speaker
But like at launch, it was $40. Yeah. And that's that's one barrier to entry. Then you need a PlayStation 4. ah That's another barrier to entry. And then if you want ah access to good sculpting, that requires the PS Move controllers. That's another barrier to entry.
00:35:57
Speaker
And like I think that by putting up these barriers, you are, one, like you are eliminating the... mainstream ability for it to take off, which I think is part of why it failed, but it also in doing so, the people that are actually like uploading components to the server for people to use in their own projects or building their own projects are ultra mega dedicated So you get the equivalent of the high-end user-created Roblox experiences in Dreams, or at least single-player ones, but you are not getting the weird, I'm just going to say, borderline hate speech ones.
00:36:44
Speaker
I'm being nice there by saying borderline. But i feel like there's another reason, but that's ah that neither here nor there. Do you have any questions for Alan and i either...
00:36:55
Speaker
Like, as Draknek, or just in general? ah when's When's your first Roblox game coming out, Alan?
00:37:05
Speaker
We've shipped something in Humanity. It's true. he man it Is that the... With the dog? Yes. Okay, cool. Yeah. ah like yeah Last year, for Cerebral Puzzle Showcase 2024, we...
00:37:20
Speaker
ah we ah they made an in-game level hopper for cerebra for people who joined through Cerebral that highlighted a bunch of much thinkier levels that users had created, and the playlist opened with a level that Alan made, which... It was just barren because I have no sense of aesthetics. It's so funny because I watch i then watched the developers of Humanity play Alan's level blind, and they all they opened, and they said, oh no, this is threatening and powerful. It's all using default graphics.
00:38:01
Speaker
And it's like, you know, they're like, apparently, you know, that if ah if someone has posted a level that is all using default, and it's like, it's either going to be walk straight to the end, or it's going to be, I was only thinking about the gameplay. So you're in for a real gameplay experience. yeah And then they proceeded to take like 15 minutes to solve your puzzle.
00:38:24
Speaker
Incredible.
00:38:27
Speaker
um But to answer the question, like, I i don't think Roblox aligns with the kinds of puzzle games that I am good at making.
00:38:38
Speaker
But thinkygames.com, they should, like, do a Roblox thing. Like, they should they just yet get a bunch of thinky developers and yeah joe get people making thinky think games in Roblox.
00:38:51
Speaker
I know that the people who work on thinkinggames.com listen to this podcast. Yeah. So, Joe, as you are listening to this right now, just get your to-do list, which is way too big, and just add another thing on it.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah. Just one more thing. Just slot it for after cerebral. I... do maybe making having people make stuff maybe is is a step too far but like i i do think joe you should go on roblox and figure out what the best puzzle games and roblox are like what what's give me like the top 10 thinking games on roblox i was gonna say that's a i think that's a list that has an audience yeah and even even if joe doesn't do this hey you person who listens to this and plays roblox games pitch something to thinkygames.com yeah yeah oh crap is that me
00:39:39
Speaker
Oh, maybe that's you. easy ah You might have other reasons for not pitching to thinkygames.com, but... Yeah, yeah, fair. Oh.
00:39:50
Speaker
Anyways, yeah, do you did you have any other questions? Yeah, that but that was a that was a joke question, sort of, ah but my my real question that I came prepared with, um and hopefully no one's asked this before, but you have kind of this, like, this...
Monster Character's Life Beyond Puzzles
00:40:07
Speaker
Cinematic universe isn't the isn't the right word. what like ludic Ludic universe? Sure. You have this monster, right? you' have this monster that appears in a lot of different games. It's having little mini-adventures now.
00:40:20
Speaker
Mini-expeditions, even. Mini-expeditions. but If the monster wasn't... um If the monster wasn't solving puzzles and doing kind of like the Sokobani kind of stuff, what would the monster be doing? like what what's the What's the genre...
00:40:36
Speaker
would a monster Would the monster be good at, like, shooting stuff? Or, like, driving a go-kart, maybe? Good question. Like, where would you go? Go-karting isn't it.
00:40:49
Speaker
Shooting guns isn't it Yeah, what what's the answer, Darren? The in-universe answer, the obvious one, is they'd be they've been researching history.
00:41:00
Speaker
They're going to museums all the time.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, actually, i could i could see i could see like a um like museum, like decorate your museum game with a monster. Yeah,
00:41:17
Speaker
I don't know. Like Animal Crossing sort of vibes. Animal Crossing could fit. Not as much like, oh you own a museum and you're like you know managing the business end of it.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah, the monster is not a capitalist. so yeah So we're not thinking like two-point museum here. Okay, gotcha. No, in case the first 30 seconds, or 30 seconds for me, excuse me, the first 10 minutes of a Month of Expedition isn't clear enough. ah Not capitalist, not colonial.
00:41:53
Speaker
Perfect. thank you for Thank you for the answer. So Electrifying Incident is coming out on April 15th, which is ah really soon if you're listening to this when it comes out.
Development of Electrifying Incident
00:42:04
Speaker
Izzy, as someone who has played the game ah by virtue of working on the game, is there anything that you're like especially excited for people to get their hands on with it? like what ah was Again, outside of the paycheck, like what's to you like the most interesting thing about that game?
00:42:23
Speaker
Yeah, um... you know i think it's I think it's cool that it it started life as a puzzle script game. you know and kind of like i think i think the simple like the simple view, if you are outside looking in, you don't really know kind of what goes into game development. is like You had this thing that was a low-res, pixel-y game, and we was just water.
00:42:49
Speaker
inflated it into like a full three d thing just add water And yeah, it was it was it was cool to, for for me personally, I did some of like the map generation stuff.
00:43:02
Speaker
it was It was nice to have like a blueprint of what the game should look like and be able to just write some tools to like convert that stuff into into three d and then have it sort of dressed up. um I think visually it like looks really cool. and I'm excited to see like all the little but little flares all the little you know nice little touches that just makes it feel like more like a a real 3D space rather than being like kind of the flat thing that didn have as much detail. i think it's, it's like, looks really cool.
00:43:27
Speaker
I'm excited hear the, hear the the new sound direction too and everything. And there might not be anything, but I'm curious, like, is there anything that, like, you, like, people could look at and go like, oh, like, that's an Izzy thing. Like, is there an anywhere where you, like, you feel like you you made your your mark on this game? man. Well, i wasn't in there long enough to to put Gex in the game, which is kind of my go-to.
00:43:54
Speaker
i for For legal reasons, it's probably best that you did for this commercial game. Well, okay. i mean they' Not literally Gex, but you know, if there's like a lizard somewhere, that would be... but If there's still time to put a lizard in the game, ah please please do that for me. ah That might be a little scope creepy.
00:44:13
Speaker
Yeah, well... Maybe like some blocks in the shape of a lizard. I don't know. just Just do your best. Maybe in the credits scene. Oh, yeah, okay. I would appreciate it. You can cut this out you need to, but...
00:44:29
Speaker
i When I was with ah No Goblin, um I was very adamant about having there there's a ah level, and I can't really speak anything about that game because it's still not announced. to Somehow.
00:44:40
Speaker
Somehow that game is not announced. ah Hopefully sometime soon it will be announced. But I think I can say that in one of the levels in the game, ah there is a ah green gecko sort of statue, i believe, that that one of the modelers put together.
00:44:57
Speaker
to to make a Gex-like character. ah Incredible. Yeah, I definitely have tried my best to to leave that mark. I know at least in every Slack ah <unk>ck that I've been in, I try to get a Gex emoji added, so at least that's... You're two for two on Slacks that I've invited you to.
00:45:15
Speaker
Yes, and and the other two Slacks that I've been in, yes, also have Gexes in them, so that's four total, I think. ah Incredible. Yeah, no, i'm I'm super excited for people.
00:45:28
Speaker
like you know i I think I've probably said this in another Electrifying Incident-related podcast episode, but like screw it, it's been enough weeks.
00:45:39
Speaker
um I'm just excited for people to go in and experience a one-sitting game from Jack Nick. Yeah. yeah like I know that Alan has designed a lot of those through PuzzleScript, but also most of our audience is not experiencing Alan's PuzzleScript games.
00:45:58
Speaker
Also, most of my PuzzleScript games aren't one-sitting games. i mean they They could be, but like this a lot of them are like and meatier than this even. Yes. or Or harder than this. I think it's closer to harder than this.
00:46:14
Speaker
um You know, you want to know you you know what i know what I'm really most excited about? Is that going to be a walkthrough? Is that going to be your answer? um I'm excited to have a credit in a released video game. Oh, God.
00:46:29
Speaker
This will be... You'll be the first. No. no Oh, my God, yes. You will be the first, yeah. No, that's right. my God. we You didn't get patched. Oh, no. so I worked on Snackbird Complete. Did some QA for that game. i have not in the credits for that game.
00:46:46
Speaker
No, Izzy, I'm sorry. I did a little bit of QA in Ranger as well. I'm not in that either. Which, you know. um um No.
00:46:57
Speaker
Someday No Goblins game will come out. I'll be in that. I work with Studio Any% a little bit on Mossfield Origins. I don't believe that game is out yet either. you're going to be the first. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for giving my first professional credit. If you don't count a little game called Mario.
00:47:15
Speaker
Sure, yeah. Of commercial games. Yeah, game games that I was paid for. oh my god. Do you have AmobiGames? I do. um Yes, I i do. have a couple old games. I have one game on Steam that I released independently that was off.
00:47:36
Speaker
Wow. what That don't really just like not knocked me on my ass. No, you're right.
00:47:47
Speaker
You're so right. I'm so sorry. um that You have had such a fascinatingly consistent run of bad luck with games that you worked on and crediting you.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yeah. Slash releasing. Yeah, that's that's the that's video games, baby. That is. Yeah, no, you're you you are definitively in the credits on this one.
00:48:12
Speaker
And will definitively come out within like four weeks of us recording this. Awesome. So you are you will have a credit. and you Thank you again for the opportunity to to work on ah work on a thing.
00:48:28
Speaker
got You were meant to be in so many other... Anyways. this is
00:48:35
Speaker
ah Is there anything else ah that you wanted to chat about that we haven't gotten to?
Conclusion and Farewell
00:48:42
Speaker
No, I don't think so. This was fun. um i we We talked about Roblox more than I thought we would, but that's that's fine, because don't have a lot of ah you know avenues to to talk about Roblox anymore.
00:48:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's totally chill. i I warned Alan ahead of this that this is probably just going to end up being Saran and Issy just chat. Yeah, I mean, I feel i feel like if if we didn't have interesting tangents on this podcast, then it would not be worth existing.
00:49:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's, you know, we're... we're I can't come up with the better word than extracting, but like we're getting valuable side information about things that people are passionate about or like weird experiences that people have had.
00:49:28
Speaker
And in this case, I would define that as a very weird experience that you've had. Yes. Definitely. there are there is a You have such a long list of hyper weird experiences in this industry.
00:49:45
Speaker
Yep. don like you So do I, but mine usually involve at least getting credited. Yeah. at the ah At the end of the project. Yeah. Or at least having an in-game location named after me.
00:50:00
Speaker
ah yeah speaking speaking ah Speaking of ah weird crediting situations. um if anyone here listening to this has any connections with the limited run games or the folks making the Gex trilogy, I feel I deserve to be in the special thanks for that game.
00:50:16
Speaker
I'm just saying. i i don't think it would happen without me. I didn' i know there's not like that's not literally what happened, but like people really would they really be publishing in Gex trilogy if I haven't been ringing in that bell for the last 20 years? don't know. Do you want the honest answer?
00:50:34
Speaker
No. Okay, great. Then we'll leave it at that. I will say that ah you talking about it has made it a better business decision. that They wouldn't have made a bad business decision.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. Damn Alright. all alright Well, thank you very much for joining. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you having me. Yeah. ah Where can people find you online?
00:51:01
Speaker
Yeah, i'm I'm is not on most things. I-Z-N-A-U-T. um And by most things, I mean ah my website is not dot com and blue sky, basically. I'm not on the other the the bad website anymore. And co-host that shut down rip.
00:51:19
Speaker
Or co-host. Yes, co-host is gone. But ah you can find me on blue sky, basically. Yeah. yeah if you want If you want to see some weird reposts
00:51:31
Speaker
Might I recommend giving Izzy a follow? up I don't think I've reposted anything that weird. If you if you want if you want to be if you to want to be sent messages from Izzy at like 11pm on Discord that say, sounds like you need to be following more bad bitches then. Might I recommend following Izzy?
00:51:56
Speaker
ah No, it's is a pleasure as always to catch up. um Thank you for listening to the Draconeck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com.
00:52:10
Speaker
Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawadniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
00:52:45
Speaker
a nice guy. Joe's a nice guy. Joe's a nice guy. Joe's a nice guy.