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Hunting for a Publisher (ft. Adam Engels - Black Mesa) | Dev Heads
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This week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by Adam Engels, project lead at Black Mesa to talk about what it's like to hunt for a publisher.
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Transcript
Introduction and Support
00:00:00
Speaker
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Meet the Hosts
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome everybody to DevHeads, the show about the ins outs and goings on of game development. I'm Michael Sirhas. Please say hello to Jay. Hello. And Adam. Everybody.
Adam's Journey with Black Mesa
00:00:46
Speaker
We're talking today about Black Mesa and finding a publisher. ah Adam, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I'll give you the um the very quick rundown of some of my background. I went to college at the Art in Institute of Pittsburgh, which is now defunct. I started as an artist on Black Mesa while I was in college, you know circa 2006. And the whole goal of that was to sort of get a portfolio so that I could go into the game industry um and use my degree. um I had some friends pull me on to Black Mesa. I didn't even finish the art test. They're like, no, he's good. Just bring him on. so like First tangent of the day, like make as many connections as you can and don't burn bridges because like stuff like that happens all the time in the the game industry. so Super fortunate to have those friends that were able to get me on a project as just kind of like a little side thing to do while I was wrapping up school.
00:01:38
Speaker
um started at a small-ish company called Page 44 Studios. I think there was like 40 employees there at the time. I had a ton of fun there. My first game was Tony Hawk Proving Ground, ah porting that to PS2 in the Wii. And as a a Tony Hawk kid um growing up in the 90s, that was like a total dream come true. ah Page 44 ended up getting acquired by Zynga.
00:02:03
Speaker
ah Zynga eventually laid me off um with a very generous severance package, so like no complaints there either. um And while all of that was going on, I was also doing the Black Mesa stuff, went from being an artist to the lead artist.
00:02:16
Speaker
um and then eventually just sort of fell into being the project lead um because the previous lead went on to to do other great things. ah After the 2012 release, um Valve actually approached approached us about taking the the game to retail, and to Steam, um and we considered that for a long while and then decided it would be the best for the project.
00:02:41
Speaker
uh, put the game on the steam. it It did really well, like super fortunate to have all the support that we had on that front. Um, and then we decided to turn the studio in a crowbar collective itself into a full time development studio. Uh, because previously on black Mesa, there was a couple of us that that were working full time on it, but most people were just, you know, after they come home from work and then work on a another game. Um, so it, it was much a really big learning process of like converting a studio, starting a new project.
00:03:09
Speaker
Um, and just getting, uh, all those ducks in a row. That is a great synopsis of quite a long and interesting career. I never, I actually like Adam and I have worked together, right? We worked together on black Mesa years ago, but, uh, I never knew that you worked on a Tony Hawk game. That's sick. Yeah, actually, hold on. This is going to be a disaster. What you got? this is It's Tony Hall. Yeah. shit Could you hold that a little closer? Is it too fragile? Oh, no, it's good.
00:03:37
Speaker
Nice. nice oh It's got that iconic PS2 branding. Yeah, absolutely. And um again, it was porting. It wasn't like, I wasn't at Neversoft or anything, but it was a fantastic experience. Our Unsung Heroes. yeah absolutely got it They got to take it. Here's the thing about porting. for anybody who's listening, you take what other people have made and you need to do it in a really good way, right? If you do a really good job, people don't really care because they're just playing the same game and it's deliberately supposed to not be that noticeable usually. I'm not talking about like a remaster remake here. I mean like a port. And then on top of that, if you don't do a good job, you can easily get the finger pointed straight at you or zero credit in some contracts.
00:04:22
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and we back then we were we were going for the Xbox 360 over to the the lesser consoles of PS2 and the Wii. So it was like breaking up the levels and redoing some of the design. It was just like a pretty interesting workflow.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's fascinating with porting, right? Because a lot of the times, especially now and with these big AAA projects, a lot the a lot of the companies that are either porting or doing, you know, auxiliary kind of like model work, their entire companies aren't credited in the credits at all. They kept like invisible.
00:04:56
Speaker
And that's in their contracts and they also reserve the rights to basically then name you if things do go wrong. um no Which is just the extreme versions of ah of what Mikey was saying. it's it's It's wild. There's so many unsung heroes in in game dev like, you know, testers, QA. Hey, I mean, maybe I'm biased, but like sound sound design. no you're right you're You're right there. Although I guess I could be a little biased because I'm at least Jason, but nu I think you're right.
Securing a Publisher
00:05:28
Speaker
Aside from talking about ah you and your history, Adam, one of the other things that we want to talk about today is about finding a publisher. Not a lot of people, I think not a lot of the players understand just like what that process looks like. And one of the things I'm going to kind of dig into today is what that process has been like for you and your teams. So kind of like as a general, maybe starter question, I think that might be good is How did you guys come to this decision? ah Because Kerber Collective was modders, right? Mostly, if not all, correct if I'm wrong. How'd you get to a point where you're like, well, you know what? I think we need a publisher. Yep. No, that's a great question. we We sort of started piloting things in parallel with Black Mesa. in um
00:06:11
Speaker
We needed dev funds, which might sound surprising because Black Mesa has been very successful. But we we built that project as to be as fair as possible to the developers. So it wasn't ah Crowbar Collective had this really successful game called Black Mesa. It was the team had the successful games. We we made sure that that was as fair as possible. So yeah first off, it's it's generally what most people find. They they need development funds to to bring their game to fruition.
00:06:38
Speaker
and um I don't want to say equal to that, but something we were really looking to improve on was like marketing and being able to to reach further than we could um on our own. in We were so fortunate on Black Mesa that people just know our name. so like We would do, back in the day, 12 images as a content media drop and the internet would just go nuts over it. and it's like People don't get that. like we We had a a really fortunate start and we wanted to sort of take that, and um or actually the point I was trying to make with that is because we had that clout, we never had to do marketing. We'd never had to run ads or anything like that or like reach out to influencers or all the the modern things that you do to get a game um out to the public. um So we didn't have a lot of experience with that. um So we were looking at that type of thing. um If we ever wanted to go to consoles, like we were just talking about like
00:07:35
Speaker
we we as a small development studio don't have a chance of like doing that ourselves. So that that was something we wanted to get more information on and you just have it to be available to us. So like sort of those two main things like funding and marketing were the the main reasons we wanted to reach out to a publisher.
00:07:52
Speaker
I appreciate the how candid that answer is because it's true and it's something that and not everybody might acknowledge right off the bat. It's very hard to pivot in any and any studio or with any creative project into something that's like not the existing brand that you worked on. yeah you Not only we, I guess, was part of a brand that we like ah There's a lot of piggybacking as far as like recognition goes. And that's okay. like that's That's part of the passion that fueled the creation of the team. And that passion can be transferred to something else. But that advantage, when that goes away, huge thing you've got to compensate for somehow.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, and having um you know we were not valid. We couldn't license or use the Half-Life IP to double piggyback off of what we had already built. so Anything we were doing was going to be our own IP. Regardless of the foothold you have, that that's ah a big step. and that that's ah There's a lot of work to making sure that goes off right. so we We wanted to do it the right way. and and Like I said, we wanted to make sure that we had the the funds and the resources we needed to to really pull this off. Was there ever a conversation about something like that where you talked to Valve and you were like, hey, what else? You know, you want to put us on anything else within one of your cool IPs?
00:09:13
Speaker
A while ago, we reached out to them about ah maybe doing more stuff. And and we decided that it's it's probably better if we do our own thing and and and build our own stuff, whether you know, success or failure, like we we kind of had to do our own thing. um And we, like I said, had that that fortune of having this successful title on Steam. And it was so huge in approaching developers, or sorry, publishers too. um My ah marketing manager, Brad, um he's very good at approaching people. So we actually went to PAX.
00:09:46
Speaker
Um, and he would just walk up to people and be like, Hey, you, you looking to, to sign a game? And then I could hit him with the double whammy of be like, yeah, we've already had a successful successful game on steam. We're looking to do a follow-up to that, um, with our own IP. And then that that would sort of perked their ears of like, Oh, you've already had a game out on steam. And then, you know, I i hate to name drop, but like you say black Mesa and generally people would know what that was. So, uh, legacy. right? The, yeah that legacy is originally it was the, you know, um being able to do those content drops and having um that connection with valve and, you know, what you guys had before, but now because of the, the warranted success of black Mesa, like you said, you don't want to name drop, but when you need to pull out that, you know, yeah that gun,
00:10:30
Speaker
yeah it's It's very easy to pull it out and then immediately I'm sure that perks people's ears up and gets them interested because that's one of the hardest things, right? with yeah um I've seen lots of friends of mine going to um you know events and GDC trying to find publishers and it's it's a hard it's a hard yeah job to try and hunt down a publisher because these publishers do have hundreds and hundreds of people you know, um approaching them to try and get their game signed. um And even games that are ah worthy and and, you know, do want getting this funding, ah don't get a listen in because they're just being approached by so many people, right? And they're not seeing what it truly is. It's ah it's a hard time.
Developer-Publisher Dynamics
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, as much as we can talk about, or as much like I mentioned this. Yeah, it's true. You guys, we had an advantage in some sense of like, we're working off of a great IP, but there's also a lot of responsibility that comes with that. Oh, numbers don't lie. So like, once you say, yeah, we shipped something, uh, also here are the numbers and like Mac Mesa looks publicly like an absolute success and is a success clearly. So.
00:11:37
Speaker
that doesn't lie to them. Even though, yeah, you got to piggyback a bit. It's still saying something that people looked at it and they didn't go, no, this doesn't do justice to the original, which is hard to do with any sort of IP from an external team. Like, holy shit, right? That's a whole story. a love i'm getting right it's like i eny you guys like It's absolutely wild. the The amount of stress, like, especially once you get that, that kind of public recognition,
00:12:00
Speaker
um ah I would constantly be double guessing like I'd be 3D modeling and be like, Oh, does this fit the kind of the art style? does it Is this what the the players want? I'd get so stuck in my own head because I'm used to creating my own my own stuff, right? for For my own IPs rather than um for some something that belongs to something else. It's crazy.
00:12:20
Speaker
yeah You mentioned that, and I see Kevin Sisk is in our chat, one of the one of the developers on Black Mesa. Hey, Kevin. And I'm thinking about the suit that he was working on and he was modeling. And like, yeah, you have to... It takes a lot of time, dude. Like, ah nobody thinks of sci-fi, IP fans as like the most understanding, flexible ah ah forms of games. You know, there's a high standard when you're trying to take something so beloved and do a reimagining of it. So so yeah, it did put you in a good position for sure for finding a partner. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the I got a bunch of stuff I want to cover. So if you guys ever need to interrupt me, don't do not hesitate. Go for it. Get into it. Yeah. i'm I'm here to sort of give a different perspective. i'm you know You could hypothetically make the argument that I'm being paid by a publisher, but like i'm I'm a developer and and we're we're in a a partnership with with a publisher.
00:13:14
Speaker
um but i'm I'm not here to defend you know shitty actions by publishers or giant corporations, but I do want to give a different perspective because you know we see all the negative headlines. We're probably not seeing the success stories and like the things that go well in a developer-publisher relationship.
00:13:30
Speaker
Um, and a lot of that stuff has changed over the years. There used to be like these really big publishers and they would, um, sign your game and they would print the CDs and put the boxes on electronic boutique or GameStop or something. And like the industry's evolved. It's diversified a lot. There's very small publishers. There's still those big names. Um, and that I think that's for the better overall. It's a ah lot more accessible than it used to be. Um, but especially recently we're starting to see some of those barriers come up and and people be like,
00:14:00
Speaker
really specific on on what they're looking for. um But ah again, like a lot of the people that work at publishers, you know they're not on the business side. you know They're in the trenches with the developers. yeah um and And they're just gamers that want to make something that can go out to the public and they can be proud of. So like that's kind of like the side I want to be on um and you're well acknowledging that there there are problems and like things that we can prove on like on all aspects of game design.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, I want to give a shout out to Tim Bender from Hooded Horse, who we've had on on the show, which gave a beautiful perspective of what a a really dedicated and focused publisher can can look like, and how that can benefit not just the developers, but also the gamers who love games and those genres. yeah ah it was It was so beautiful to see. It was really nice to have that chat with him.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think we moved into them a bunch. And they they seem to have a really good ah thing going with with their yeah there's process. And I um use the term partner um because i I think with all those headlines that we've been seeing, you know publisher has a bit of a negative connotation these days. yeah And when you talk to people, when you talk to publishers, um they say, hey, we're looking for a partner. like they They don't even call themselves publishers, even though that's what they are. and um Bit of an exaggeration, but they're definitely using the term partner and that is that's how you want the arrangement to be like um yeah
00:15:28
Speaker
it's It's a good for business overall because if a publisher does right by their developer, the game does well, now the both sides are making money. Hopefully you can take that and and keep that relationship for maybe a sequel or a ah related IP um and sort of all boats rise because of the success. and and You need to be able to have somebody that you can say, hey, I need help with this and they can handle it. um in like sort of That's ah another tangent I have of like In general, if if you don't communicate where you need help, like if it's the last minute and you say, Hey, I couldn't deliver, but it's because of this, this, and this, like that's a bad spot to be. If you're yeah communicating the whole time and saying, I need help with this and and trying to work as a team. Um, it's just puts everybody in a ah better scenario overall. And i that's yeah all industries, not just game design.
00:16:17
Speaker
I'm not sure if you can speak to this. So if you can't just say, get fuck J and move on. yeah Um, but like when, and be re hunting yeah yeah when hunting for a publisher, um, as a team, what kind of relationship were you looking for with those partners with the publishers? Like what what were the pinpoints that you wanted to get before you would know who you could partner with? Yeah, no, that's.
00:16:41
Speaker
That's a good question. um Definitely, like we didn't care if somebody hadn't wasn't like super familiar with Black Mesa or the Half-Life series, um but it definitely helped like get everybody on the same page.
00:16:55
Speaker
yeah um ah Familiarity with shooters was a ah big thing. um trying to think what else. um we Our ask was a bit higher on on the development fund side too, ah but that didn't stop us from reaching out to smaller companies. there were There were a number of publishers that we reached out to, I had never heard of before, and they got back to us and they had like these really good pitches. like And they really sort of educated us and gave us ammo to talk to other people that might be an even better fit. And it's not saying they wouldn't have benefit as well, um but for whatever reason, those other companies didn't work out. And in it was just a really, really big learning process. um But yeah, especially um as we got closer and closer to to signing, we were we were sort of like just reaching out to everybody and
00:17:46
Speaker
and There wasn't really any barriers. We if at worst, like I said, we would get um some reps in with talking with people and negotiating with people, all that stuff. Yeah.
00:17:58
Speaker
yeah what's Yeah, something that you need to kind of practice and get better at. like you could talk There's a lot of developers you could talk to and they'll talk all day about how awesome their game is and how these features are great, how they're so proud of their team, and even how they have this great workflow or pipeline for X, Y, and Z. Then you talk about like, so how do you sell your game to people? And they go like, I don' i just kind of talk about it. And that's not what you can do. yeah it's ah It's very difficult to condense it. It's very difficult to describe your market position.
00:18:27
Speaker
It's very difficult to describe unique selling points and all these other factors.
Negotiating with Publishers
00:18:32
Speaker
It's kind of like the game doesn't look completely different, but it looks different when you have to condense it. And ah you also got to mind your audience of who you're talking to specifically. That's another piece as well.
00:18:44
Speaker
Totally. There's a huge power dynamic out of the start because like you're saying, you you have to condense this, even if it's ah a small project, you have to condense this massive amount of work into something that's like appealing in a slide deck.
00:18:59
Speaker
And that has to convince people to give you money. And like that's a really hard thing to do. And there's a ton of YouTubes out there, um if anybody's interested on um like the really nitty gritty of that. It's a little bit different um depending on who you're approaching, how you want to go about that. Some publishers even have um like specifics of like you should do this, this, and this. Here's a YouTube on on what we look for. um And another publisher might be completely different. So now you're looking at making different decks for different people.
00:19:27
Speaker
um Another tangent on that is um Google Slides has linked slides. ah So you can actually have two slides that you update one and it updates the other, which is an incredibly powerful tool to have if you need to split off those decks, like I was just talking about. um Just be careful that you don't have something to do there. go ahead Sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Maybe we we should define ah what a pitch deck means. I think I just got a little inside baseball myself. So yeah yeah how would you describe how would you define a pitch deck? People who don't know. Yeah. ah So it's it's pretty much just an overview of the project. um it It generally has the overview of the the type of game you're making um the audience you want to target and and what you need um from a publisher. And obviously that's some most of the time that's dev funds. But there are publishers out there
00:20:16
Speaker
these days that don't give developer funds. that Their sole role is the marketing um and the um influencer stuff and um translations, stuff like that. That's their whole role. um so it's It's interesting and like a lot of people are sort of put off by that, but I think it's actually a really cool niche to fill. ah but yeah the The pitch deck itself is just like a very um broad overview that puts your project in the best light it possibly can so that somebody can give you money.
00:20:49
Speaker
It's a lot of the times when you know we're talking about communicating you know unique selling points or you know what the kind of feel of the game is going to be, which is in one mind basically like um a text version of a trailer. But it's yeah it's very different because a lot of the times you can communicate a unique selling point to an audience of like, this is why you should be interested in this game and why you should want to buy it. But the amount of um more information you need to provide to a publisher of just like, not only here is the unique selling point and why an audience will be interested, but also how we're going to generate revenue. What's our plan for the future of um you know the project? like Where are we going to take this? and But putting all of that information into such a small package because if it's too big, just like with anything, people will stop
00:21:40
Speaker
stop reading and lose interest and move on. um so It's sodencing but so I want to emphasize, I want to emphasize that point real quick, Jay. Like when, when you sit down with the, with the team, even though is everybody in the room, it's their job to fully understand whatever's going on with this, this picture to deliver the pitch effectively, even though that's what everybody's focused on doing.
00:22:03
Speaker
You will notice people tuning out like you notice people getting lost in the details even if they have a genuine interest to get in yeah ah so you really have to be a very good sales person sometimes other times it just clicks and it works and I guess the reality of that is even if it does click and work and they get your game.
00:22:21
Speaker
Now you have to evaluate if you, and even if you really like them, you have to evaluate if this makes good business sense, right? Like Adam, you have people that depend on you, right? For these strategic decisions that you make and that your leadership team makes collectively. yep it's It's a very nuanced,
00:22:36
Speaker
difficult process. It's not unique to gaming, but it's a I would say it's at least special to gaming. This sort of a hybrid of like the creativity angle and the business angle. Right. Whereas another field might be something like, well, we just have to make sure that this moves the line up or this is efficient as opposed to we also need to tell a wonderful story or we need to evoke a certain atmosphere or have fun gameplay and all those other. Oh, yes. Difficult, nebulous things.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I think something people can take away for all aspects of their life too is like the the sort of the executive summary. So like when we were building slides, we every large font title tried to describe the details within that slide. So like we tried to tell the story just in those big block text things um so that the executive you know flying through 20 of these a day um can get the gist of the game without having to read every single bullet point.
00:23:32
Speaker
um Gifts are huge um if you can ah put in any other type of media. And it's it's just like a if anybody's ever looked into like doing a Kickstarter or something like that. It's a project on its own. It's going to take a massive amount of time. You're going to have to keep updating it over and over and over. um So like plan on that. um But yeah, in general, like.
00:23:52
Speaker
um There's these this really um high-level philosophy of about getting information across, um and it's something I try and and really focus on, not just when I'm pitching to people, but like even when I'm you know talking to the team or or making um like ah directives or something like, how can we put this information as succinctly as possible so that people understand it? And then that all flows into game design as well of like onboarding people onto your new game and tutorializing and all that stuff. Like it's all the same methodology that we're using. Yeah. People people only have so much time and focus and energy. You got to condense. It's true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't, I don't expect people to read every giant doc that I write up with all the the details in it. It's too much.
00:24:37
Speaker
You want to create the hooks, right? you want to This can be for people looking at a Kickstarter or publishers going, like you said, through 20 of these a day. You want to create that hook that gets them interested and then have the further information for them to properly digest it. I think something that's fascinating to me, so coming from the indie space, I'm used to you know a lot of my friends Effectively, not begging, but like speaking to hundreds of publishers and being yeah told to go away, basically, um, because they, it's their first project or their, their, their first project did okay. And like, it it doesn't have that brand recognition.
Choosing the Right Publisher
00:25:16
Speaker
Um, so a lot of the developer publisher relationships is very different, but something you said, Adam, was that, uh, you reached out to publishers and they were effectively kind of pitching to you on why they would be a good fit. Uh, what was that like being able to have that kind of relationship?
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah. and like We don't we't look down on on anybody, but they we were just sort of like wondering like what does this publisher that we've not heard of have to offer? and like yeah At least two of them like kind of blew us away in their meetings of like Oh, you're planning on on this development fund for this amount of time. Why don't we extend it and increase the budget so that you're covered outside of this, this, and this? And it's like, holy crap, like we didn't even think of that. like yeah There are there are like sort of evolving our pitch for us.
00:26:01
Speaker
um So like that that was really interesting ah to to see from them and just like to sort of pivot onto the marketing thing. um Like I said, we were we were super fortunate to have people know know who we are. um But like even a a publisher with like a modest social media account can like really start a groundswell for um what your game does right out of the gate. um So people would be like, oh, we got this. um There was a ton of different looks of how they handled their marketing campaigns. um Some people just, they covered all the marketing budget themselves. like The developer would never have to worry about that cost.
00:26:43
Speaker
um Some people had odds and ends like um trailers were all done in-house, so you don't have to worry about that cost either. um Other people would split it with the developer 50-50 so that um you know it's it's more everybody has a stake in the marketing. I've also seen it where the marketing budget is 100% on the developer in their recoup, which I'll i'll talk about in a minute.
00:27:03
Speaker
um which is you know interesting too, because now now the um publisher doesn't have as much of a stake. They're like, oh, we're going to do this massive marketing campaign. And it's like, okay, cool. but What is this getting us? So like going way back to your question, like lots of different interesting ideas from different publishers that we sort of, I assume there was some boilerplate publisher spec and pretty much everybody used it, but that that really wasn't the case. It was all over the place.
00:27:33
Speaker
It's awesome. It's really nice to hear. It's like such a such a flip of the relationship I'm used to. And like I'll be honest, like as much as I've had positive interactions with publishers, i ah being in that indie space and used to having close friends being rejected a lot, I i guess I do have this kind of mindset of, a oh, publisher's bad. like yeah There's a bit of my brain that's like that. So it's really refreshing to to hear.
00:27:58
Speaker
um about publishers like wanting to find the best fit for the developers and stuff like that. Did you have any like, you're probably not going to be able to say cause it might ah suggest um some things, but like, were there any pitches where you were just like, Oh, this is, this is not good for the company in a way of like, they're like, Oh, we'll get 90% of the stuff for a small investment and stuff like that. Were there any like weird ones?
00:28:23
Speaker
There were definitely some weird ones, some ones where like things just didn't gel um yeah the the way we were sort of anticipating. There were um a lot that we were everybody was just on the same page and clicking and and that's easy when you're in like the honeymoon phase and like just sort of talking to each other. um Trying to think if there was anything really stand out that I can talk about. um But yeah, it was kind of all over the map. um There's another point I just completely lost.
00:28:51
Speaker
ah Anyway, I'm sure it will come to me. Yeah, it's it sounds like on the whole it was like if you got to the point where you're actually going to talk and have a call with one of these groups, there is probably something there possibly, right? Yeah. And most of them went really, really well. And the the point I just remember, too, is like there is still a very big power dynamic. like Even us in our like super awesome position, like there was a power dynamic, like they hold all the cards.
00:29:16
Speaker
um There's a ah YouTube by Daniel o Dwyer um on the the no clip crew channel, and and he pretty much went through the exact same process we did. And he does a very good job of highlighting like the negatives in all the the roadblocks they ran into trying to publish their game. And so if you want more info on that, definitely check that out. It's a fantastic video. Those guys always do great work. But yeah, like um we we in general had really good conversations with publishers.
00:29:46
Speaker
So refreshing. I'm, I'm so glad to hear that. Oh, I'm trying to think about like what specifically we can, we, we can speak to because there is some secrecy here, right? Adam. Cause like what we're talking about today is, is new knowledge, right? For people who you don't know, like that the the black Mesa team is, is signing with the publish, but we can't go into any more detail or or is the more detail we can go into. Maybe that's, we should, we should dip that in the bud. Well, well I can go into the the developer funds part of it. um Yeah. and Because that's probably what most people are interested about when they're talking about publishers. Like, what's the money? um And I can't go into to like specific values or anything. um But the there's generally, there's the funds that are given to the developer so that they can finish their game. There's ah what's called recoup, where the the publisher makes that money back. um And then there's red splits after that recoup is completed.
00:30:41
Speaker
um And if you're looking at your developer funds, generally you'll have an idea of of what you need, um but you can sort of look at it from the publisher's perspective as well of like they're at least looking to 2X their investments. They want to make twice of what they give to a developer as funds.
00:31:00
Speaker
um And that's on the very low end. you know It could go sky high from there. So with if you know roughly how much you want, if you have an idea of what you could like sell in terms of game sales, you can do the math to figure out what they're looking to make on their end. And if if the math doesn't line up, if if your game sales are too low for the amount of money that you're asking for, then you're probably going to know where that conversation is going to end up. and You might have to adapt um the scope of your game, you know when you're coming out, all that stuff. I encourage people to look at it from the publisher's perspective, you know not to give them any more sympathy, but because it will give you more information on your pitch deck and like your game development.
00:31:41
Speaker
um And sort of tied to all that is like the rev splits, which is like a hot topic um in the the developer publishing space. ah We've seen it all over the place from 70-30 where the the developer gets 70% all the way up to to even above 50-50 and stuff like that. and There are trade-offs with that. it's it's It's not the assumption that like, oh, they're taking more of the rev split. It's a worse deal for us. um you know Sometimes they earn that extra percentage that they're taking.
00:32:13
Speaker
um You know, if, if your game is a high risk game, it makes sense that they would want to have a higher rev split on that. So like, um, again, I thought it was going to be everybody's offering the same thing, but it it really wasn't. And it was, it was all over the place. And, um, there are levers that you can move to of like, Oh, if we do this, can we get this? Uh, so it's, uh, negotiating, which is just a ah nightmare all around, but, um, it's part of that.
00:32:42
Speaker
How much the negotiation was was in call and how much of it was emailed back and forth, generally speaking? ah Let's see. I'd say most of it was actually over voice.
00:32:53
Speaker
um and then you like trying to remember, you generally like agree on something and then just get it written down like, hey, remember we talked about this? And and it's a you know not just to keep people honest, but like so you can remember what you talked about, like meeting notes and stuff. um But yeah, they generally voice stuff. Yeah, makes sense.
00:33:15
Speaker
And as far as the ah the recoup part goes, how I wonder how ah ah nuanced or multifaceted, how many different kinds of recoup strategies people have, because that's a bit of a that's a bit of a bad word. I feel like a lot of people have. ah Did you hear a lot of recoups where you were like, no, that's not really fair to us, or then others where it's like, well, no, that makes sense for the risk that we're going for, or was that a consistent one? Was that usually one square deal?
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'm i'm glad you you asked that because that's actually probably the most important part. like Obviously, you need enough money to finish your game, but like the recoup process, it's very hard to wrap your head around. like Even if somebody's being completely transparent, like there's just so many variables that it's hard to understand. like Okay, so when are we making money again? so um It really pays it's important to know what is coming to me. And then as a side tangent too, if you're working with a publisher, say you're only steam, you're um there's a ah delay in the steam payment that goes to the publisher. There's a delay in the publisher payment that goes to the developer. So like you have to forecast when you make money and when you're actually going to get paid because there there are, there's a chain that goes through that. um So don't just,
00:34:27
Speaker
block in funds right up till release because you're going to have at least two months of um not getting paid. And then with the actual recoup, um trying to think of the different looks that we saw. ah Some people had a 100 plus ah recoup, so they they might get 110% of the money that they gave you. And that seems kind of scary at first, um but in the grand a scheme of steam sales, you can actually make that money back fairly quickly. And that that's obviously not
00:35:02
Speaker
It's all guessing every project is going to be a little bit of different, but like that seems really scary at first until you do the math and go through the numbers like, ah, it's not so bad. Maybe, you know, they're kind of hedging their bets by having a little extra on the recoup. um There's different payments like the way and I'm trying to explain this as simply as possible. This is why it's like the hardest part to focus on. Oh, yeah. um they A percentage of the developer funds like day one release might go to recoup while the other goes to the publisher. So you're slowly making back that recoup over time while the publisher is making money.
Marketing and Influencers in Gaming
00:35:39
Speaker
um That's something to to look out for. that That is the more scary one to me that I've seen out there um because you're it's not like
00:35:47
Speaker
you were paid a million dollars. The game made some million dollars. Now you're making money on the rev split. It's, um you know, the the money that the game is making is further being split um after release ah to pay back recoup and to pay the publisher. So like yikes. I'm sure that can get scary quick.
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, and it's just another variable that you have to put into your planning, um which is already very complicated to be begin with. So like, just keep an eye if if you're looking for a publisher, just keep an eye on that. It's not necessarily like a bad thing. It's just something you have to account for ah when you're doing your planning and make sure you understand um contract language is extremely difficult to read. um So like,
00:36:29
Speaker
I like to see a good lawyer. Yeah. And a number of the people we reached out to um said, hey, we're going to do this in plain English first. Everybody's even going to agree on that. And then we're going to give you the the big legal document. And both things say the same thing, but one covers our bases on the legal side. I really appreciated that because like trying to understand the legal contract and like keep all these things top of mind was just overwhelming.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's um and that is a smart thing to do. That's gonna both help make sure there's no misunderstanding, because you don't want misunderstandings, yeah doesn't help anybody. And it's also going to ah facilitate things, I guess, like speed it along. And after all, like just like I was quickly saying, but like a lawyer is going to ensure that the the initial, not cheat sheet, but the initial summary fits the contract.
00:37:20
Speaker
and it's it's worth it as a brief aside ah for people listening saying this is why game develop this is a part of why ah game development is so stressful yes yes there's a lot of even if you're not the person involved with these kinds of decisions, you are affected by them and you work alongside them and that stress kind of carries through. And it's why it's so, of course, upsetting when you know you you finally push something out there and then ah players who have no like you know understanding of what the process is like ah talk so much shit because yeah it can't be understated just like any business how much
00:38:00
Speaker
nuance there is to the field. And it's, again, like I was saying earlier, it's all this nuance on top of the actual other really abstract and difficult thing to achieve, which is like ah meaningful artistic creativity.
00:38:16
Speaker
right Yeah, absolutely. Only when the numbers make sense can that happen. Exactly. And you could be a solo dev and you could just throw yourself at the problem too, but even solo devs need to be mindful of all these things as well to some degree at least. Yep, and throwing yourself at the problem has a huge cost to, you know, your mental health and your work-life balance. Yeah, dude. It's like I was saying a few streams ago, like a lot of us are just obsessed nerds and it's not a healthy way to live, right? Being an obsessed nerd.
00:38:42
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, I'm not here to defend these giant corporations that make terrible decisions. But I mean, I think we all can agree that a business's job is to make money. So like, I don't fault a publisher for trying to get the best deal that they can out of a a relationship. Like, that makes sense. We're trying to do the same thing as a developer yeah talking to the publisher.
00:39:01
Speaker
They're trying to do the, like you said, the same thing in the sense of their job is to make money, but that can seem very corporate and very gross. But when you think of it in the sense of.
00:39:13
Speaker
Like they need to make money so they can help create other games. Like it's not just to have the CEO get a fat bonus at the end of the year, right? Or I'm sure in some cases that is true, but like, you know, like, but it's also, well, we need to make, hopefully double our investment so then we can fund the next game, right? That we really want to publish, but we don't have the the means to do so. So they can grow and get more games made. So like they are a huge cog in the wheel of getting the games that we all want.
00:39:42
Speaker
Not only to to make, but also play, right? A huge part of the calculus is do they do they have the bandwidth for it? Not just financially, but like do they have the people that are able to give you the resources that you need um for the agreement?
00:39:59
Speaker
Um, and then yeah, the, the money too of like, Hey, this is a really awesome project. We're really interested, but we, we just don't have the funding for it right now. And there were a number of people that got back to us like fairly quickly and we're like, Hey, sorry, we just can't do this right now. Like ah super appreciate it because like we have also been ghosted and now it's like, where do I spend my time? Um, if you can start narrowing it down, um, it at least helps you focus on, on who you're delivering to and and who you're trying to sign with. Yeah. Sure.
00:40:30
Speaker
man. Oh, there's so much stuff. I want to talk about why it's like, I can't can't talk about it. Is it a secrecy? I know the secrecy ah so part of me loves the secrecy and part of me hate hates it because it's like, I just want to, I just want to talk about it.
The Evolving Role of Publishers
00:40:46
Speaker
How about i like this, you Adam? Uh, if I can, if I may interrupt Jay, um, when will things become less secret or can you not say that?
00:40:54
Speaker
Uh, I can't say the exact it very soon. And I don't mean that as a joke, because we did used to use that as a joke on the the Mesa days of like, everything was. Oh yeah. I remember that. Um, yeah, but we'll, we'll just say that the team, um, is going to sleep very well this weekend because we've been grinding on all the things like countdowns have started. Like there's, there's lots of interesting.
00:41:14
Speaker
Uh, and grinding usually, uh, comes before some sort of important thing, doesn't it? It sure does. And good sleep also comes after the grind and then before the important thing, I guess you could say, but I'm only speculating and read that as as you will free maybe you can speculate.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that it all ties back in going back to the publisher thing of like, um, how are how are you doing your your marketing stuff? um and And two of the points I have that I didn't cover of, um like they have connections at places like Xbox and Game Pass, you know Epic Games, um if they can shop your game around for those like types of, I don't wanna call them exclusivity deals, because they're they're generally not too exclusive, but those types of deals um to get your game in, they they have connections with influencers, which
00:42:06
Speaker
You know it's not the the days of we're going to run some ads for your game and people are going to know about it like influencers a huge part of it. ah Whether you like that or not. um I think it's it's very cool but it's definitely like a different dynamic these days of like how you go out and like get your game to people.
00:42:23
Speaker
Um, using the influencer space and and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, I guess I can speak to that slightly because I am an influencer in, in, in that, in that kind of way. It's crazy eat now. Yeah. It's, it is wild how much this kind of space has shifted because you can spend, you know, what, like ten thousand dollars running ads on bloody Twitter or YouTube and and get a small percentage of a return. You can have you can get an influencer excited about your project and have them cover it and see a hundred times the return. yeah But doing that in an organic way and not feeling like you're trying to sell something to them yeah and stuff like that is is very difficult because inherently I get these emails
00:43:13
Speaker
you know, 10 times a day of people being like, hey, check out my thing. Like this is coming coming out. And even though you're coming from a ah genuine place of I've made a thing, I'm super passionate about it. I want you a creator. I i enjoy to to check it out. um That initial email feels really corporate and kind of like yeah he like it feels gross.
00:43:39
Speaker
But building a relationship, like this is people's jobs on teams, like building relationships with influencers and like PR and stuff like that. So so you can get them to do it. It's crazy how much has shifted. Yeah. And it feels kind of dirty um and like you're you're shilling someone um and you can kind of the number of um Twitch streamers that I watch and stuff like You can kinda tell when they're not super into something but they're they're doing it, and I think the ones that I watch are they're fairly transparent. They're like, yeah, you know this isn't really the game for me, but I really appreciate the opportunity from X, Y, and Z to to be able to do this, but like you don't wanna be in that scenario where where somebody you can kinda tell somebody's not really vibing with your game. like Ideally, it it all goes off with a hit, and you see like, lethal company and and content mourning and like these games just like going absolutely viral and like you hope for that but like that those are that's like lightning in a bottle so like you have to try I mean that's that's part of your marketing campaign and and just what you have to do to sell yourself
00:44:39
Speaker
There's a lot of money that goes towards this stuff. Paying for a video could easily be tens of thousands of dollars yeah and beyond. right And that's something that should be like illustrated. 20, 30, 40, 50K just to make a video and upload it to YouTube. ah no yeah Nobody would bat an eye at that. When you're talking about that level of money to get somebody to play a game,
00:45:03
Speaker
ah you you know the people that are holding that money are going to do their research and say, wait, we're only going to give this to people to ah to whom this is relevant. do You know, it'll happen where it's either a bad strategic decision or the exposure is just so hot so high where they give it to somebody who it's it's out of. your target audience, right? Just because that person streams so much. That person puts up ah so many good videos and then just gets such great viewership. We just have to try. That definitely happens. so But for the most part, like if you're giving away that much money, there has to be some sense to it. And it's, it's I'm not saying it's always the best decision.
00:45:37
Speaker
ah But but there's at least a strong motivation to spend the money wisely. Yeah, totally. I mean, if in it's due diligence to of like, if I I spend a ton of money and I go to, you know, my game's a shooter, but I go to an MMO content creator, like that's a bad call. So like, you can sort of play your odds in that regard as well.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, like for all the the pieces, it should be said, we keep alluding to it, but we know that there's publishers out there that don't have developers' interests at heart, best interests at heart that are that are going to behave more selflessly or just be make strategically poor decisions. I think a big Uh, thing that should be mentioned in this whole conversation is that it really comes down to the the team. And when I say the team, I don't mean like the developer team. I mean the publisher, the partner team and their leadership and collectively what their decisions are. It's not all publishers are greedy and not all publishers are magnanimous and just want to help you make your game. There's a lot of greatness just like there would be in any other field. That's another piece that, that should be acknowledged and and within that, I'm curious Adam, if there was in, obviously don't want you to like say it name or something, but do you feel like you've ever met someone who, you know what, if if not ah this, they're greedy and they're trying to exploit us, you at least got a sense of like, now that strategically that this might be a good fit and we like them, but their high level strategy is no good for us. I'm curious if that was ever someone that you met. Like, I don't even know why they're talking to us. What are they thinking? Did that ever come up?
00:47:11
Speaker
I know we had a like i said we had a couple of conversations that just didn't gel well um for whatever reason you know maybe we we can find a person on like an off day or whatever but like i never got the feeling that like the the business was leading it in the wrong direction or anything like that.
00:47:26
Speaker
um with all in in Also, what I should have let off off with as well is I am not a publishing expert. like we we We've talked with people over the years you know just to keep connections and and see where things are going. we um We talked to a ton of people in order to sign our the deal that we're in now, but like there's just so much to this field that you could do it for years and decades and and still not know the ins and outs of it, and it's constantly changing. so like Yeah, just just my point of view on it isn't necessarily the the end all be all. And like I said, check out YouTube's and stuff for even more input because there's a ton of resources out there. Yeah.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And that's a great thing about game dev now, of course, is like, even when it comes to the business side, there's going to be some resources for you. Like there's going to be some videos that'll help you understand
Revamping Black Mesa
00:48:16
Speaker
all of this. And again, like it's not unique to this field, right? A lot of the things that you could find in plenty of other, uh, I guess like financial help resources or whatever business help resources, they will be relevant to the company that you run that happens to make video games.
00:48:31
Speaker
Yeah, and to to go back to what you're saying earlier, of like if you're starting a project or um looking to do something in the retail space, like start with an accountant, start with a lawyer. if If you can't find a way or afford those things, like you can't do it. like It's just a barrier, unfortunately, because like yeah you're going to really hose yourself down the line if you're not prepared for the the number of things that you need to have.
00:48:57
Speaker
especially if you're talking to publishers and like, oh, you're going to read a legal document and like understand it. Like, good luck. Um, so yeah, the making sure you have that infrastructure before you start taking these big steps is huge and it's scary. Like you could be as prepared as humanly possible and it's, it's just terrifying. So like the more you can prepare yourself to to be in a good position, the better.
00:49:20
Speaker
in And it's something i I would love to do more, whether it's podcasts like this or pre-recorded YouTubes of like all the things we've learned over the years. like we're We're a corporation now. like I never thought but the company would be a corporation. um but like Over the years, like we kept building these things and needing these things um to go into place. um So we needed business lawyers and we needed to change first we needed to construct LLC so that we could you know make money off of Steam. Then we needed to have a corporation for all the other businessy things that we were doing. um we We don't have investors, but like that's something we looked into as well. like Maybe we don't want to do a publisher. Maybe we want to have somebody invest in in the company.
00:50:02
Speaker
So like, um, anything, cause there's a ton of resources out there, but it's, it's not really specific to like building a business, building a team, um, and just highlighting like the mistakes we made and like hard lessons that we had along the way because like, Oh boy, there were so many of them. And like anybody that does this type of thing and says, no, it all went off without a hitch is lying to you. It's very difficult.
00:50:26
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's a chaotic mess and it's lovely. And that's actually a good, it's not lovely. It's not only lovely. There's parts that are lovely, macro lovely, I guess, ultimately lovely. If you're lucky and you work real hard, but, uh, but, but it's, it's kind of.
00:50:44
Speaker
um Magnificent or beautiful or some sort of lofty word like that just how crazy it is and how sometimes somehow Awesome things do end up happening getting released not everybody has that privilege, you know, I was talking to a developer about this very recently like not every all the hard work you do gets to be seen by the world and that's sad but when it does work out it's awesome and even for the times where it doesn't there's some great things to be taken from that too but yeah but um this is actually a good transition point because i kind of wanted to touch on this a little bit and like shift over to black mesa specifically like the project that brought you to the position where you are now uh black mesa was ah a hell of a project and it was
00:51:27
Speaker
and and i I worked on it. So I'm speaking from my perspective, but of course you were there longer and are more involved. It was just fucking nutty, dude. Like I still, when I'm talking to people and they say, they'll they'll say to me, uh, like I'm talking to a prospective client or whatever, and they'll say, Oh, so you're familiar with doing like this and this or, Oh, we kind of do things this way. I hope that's not a problem. And I'll go, well, you know, I used to do game development through a message board, so I don't think that's going to be an issue.
00:51:52
Speaker
Yeah. I was thinking about what we would talk about today. I was thinking that exact same thing of like with that, that preamble I did of like my background, like.
00:52:03
Speaker
me going from an artist to a lead artist to the, that was on a forum. Like Skype was around in those days, but it it wasn't yeah like it was not screen sharing was not what it is now. If I had to record like videos or something, I had to lower my screen resolution to like 640 by 480 or something so that my computer wouldn't die. and Record that, upload it to some FTP or something, put the link onto the forums. People would have to download it and watch it like.
00:52:29
Speaker
just so many I, as an indie dev, I'm working with people all over the world, um, like on the, with the bog team or, you know, on the unnamed project I'm working on. We, like, we heavily use like perforce and, um, and stuff like that. And I'm trying to think of like, I'm doing a little bit of the communication stuff, but like you said, streams, like I can stream my perspective and like, I'm having a problem with this implementation. I'll go stream to the programmer and he'll fix it like that. Or like just, Hey, we have a new build. Like just get from like purples. I'm thinking how blissful that is compared to like you said, uploading to the forum and just being like, please someone look at this. Check this thing. It's not all bad either because everybody was doing it for fun. Money wasn't really into the equation or anything like that. There were still heated arguments, but it was all passion and all of us working towards the same goal.
00:53:26
Speaker
We were, again, really fortunate to have ah that amount of it. But like even on the the new project, we have um automated build systems that like something gets checked into the project, and the the system automatically builds it to make sure it doesn't fail. And like that's already saved our lives like multiple times over. right um So like just the the progression and like the systems we've we've built over the years, based on our experiences, just it's mind-blowing. And to Mikey's point too, that the fact that any type of levels or art came together on the Black Mesa side is is just a ah miracle. And were it not for the dedication of the team and like they they want to get this thing that they love done, um like it it just would not have happened. and
00:54:08
Speaker
Not to ramble, but it reminds me of two um in college. I was working with Mikey and I's buddy, Chuck, and ah he was interviewing a developer. I believe they were at Red Storm at the time.
00:54:22
Speaker
And they're like, yeah you' you're working on this project called Black Mesa. Some people actually know about it. You have to make sure that it gets released. like Doesn't matter if it's good or not, you have to make sure that it gets released. And that always really stuck with me um to make sure that it it it gets out into the world. and um it's It's important in game design at all. like Even if you don't think it's perfect,
00:54:44
Speaker
send it out to the world and then move on to the next thing because um you know not everybody has the luxury of working on a project for 15 years and having it be successful. like you You need to find a good stopping point. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Get your project out there, learn your lessons, and move on. and When did Black Mesa start development? Maybe we should make that clear to everybody who's watching.
00:55:06
Speaker
yeah it's um ah 2004 was when there were, there were two mod teams and they were, they realized they were both kind of working towards the same goal. Um, and at the first they were just putting in high-res textures, updating a model. Uh, there really wasn't a plan, I don't think, um, to go in and like redesign the whole game.
00:55:28
Speaker
And after those projects ah merged, um it became Black Mesa Source at the time. And then the sort of the guiding principle became to create Half-Life as if Valve had made it in the current day. So taking all the lessons from Half-Life 2 and all the design method methodology, and Half-Life 1's a brilliant game. like i Another video I would love to do is just like, not that nobody's ever done it before, but like a breakdown of what made that game so successful.
00:55:57
Speaker
Um, but it, it definitely shows its age and there are definitely things I think valve themselves have evolved into, um, that we wanted to sort of leverage and and put into the game while still staying true to its roots. So like you were talking about earlier of like, anytime you take out a well-regarded IP and try and do your own spin on it, it's extremely dangerous. So we sort of had to walk that line.
00:56:19
Speaker
um And I don't think we were too insecure about many of the changes we made to Earthbound because we had that guiding principle of like, I really think this is what Valve would do with how they would evolve the mechanics. The Zen stuff was completely different and we definitely had a lot of constructive criticism after that was all done. But yeah, to to to wrap it up, 2004 is when it it all started and then it sort of like evolved over time into this much more robust, dedicated project.
00:56:45
Speaker
That was something that I, cause I came onto the project, geez, it must've been like what, 2015? Right before, it was before the early access. Yeah, 2015 was launched so with probably 2014 somewhere in there. Okay, so 2014 and ah the the part that you said about, I definitely got, I got the routiness that part I collected.
00:57:08
Speaker
Because we're we're all modders, right? ah but But now it's going to get commercial, so let's get serious. And ah the passion and the the kind of vision that you just described for the project of like, well, what if it was half-life and modern day? the The new lessons learned, the higher production value, Raleigh, just what we could do graphically now versus what you couldn't do in 1998.
00:57:29
Speaker
ah and And I remember being appreciative of that environment because I remember coming in and I was, ah I mean, I was doing writing and narrative design and voiceover right for the HECU Marines. And I thought, you know, we've got all this excellent stuff that that I assume Ben Truman like write wrote himself and the and that he designed himself ah narratively speaking for like the scientists and the guards ah because we couldn't call them all barneys, I guess. So we took the cards.
00:57:56
Speaker
And ah and I would thought like you guys got to do this for the Marines. And I pushed for that. And it was something that you guys were open to. And that was something that I really appreciated. And it's something that that is special in a team culture. And I guess it comes from a real deep passion for the source material.
00:58:13
Speaker
where I basically just had to like advocate for this like, hey, let's not just have the Marines do their Half-Life 1 scenes, but but ah you know ah shifted to Fifth Division that you just described. But let's push into it more. Let's add some new scenes. How about this? How about this? And something that not all teams will do is be welcome to that kind of thing. That was something that I always appreciated working with you guys. And it just spoke to the good, ah again, the passion, the team culture there.
00:58:38
Speaker
Yeah, the the team is very good at it developing things. like that I said the perfect is the enemy of good. And I say that on repeat with our team. like I often say are our team is too good at design because we're like, oh, what if we did this? It would be even better. But if we did this, it would be even better. And like yeah, that's true. But we have timelines as well. So like they know what it takes to make a game that that really is is good and hits on all cylinders. But you have to work within the the realms of possibility. in um A lot of that we learned on mesa like getting our our ducks in a row so that um after we went retail it it didn't take another ten years even though it did take a long time and i can't stress enough like how many.
00:59:20
Speaker
I don't want to blow my things we did wrong from throughout the entire game. um But like just being open to like we think this is how it would have played out had Valve done it themselves. Like the the scene that you did um in the surface tension on cut where you over the radio, you can hear the Marines bleeding out. He's reaching for his eye. Like trying to like that's one of my favorite parts in the game. Thank you, man.
00:59:45
Speaker
it It's just like something that we added in there. and If you run by, you miss it, but if you're paying attention, you get at this whole other backstory. Let me just tangent again to like one of the biggest things that makes Half-Life feel real is that there's always a little like cracked doorway that you can see more of the facility. There's there's always like a ah loader that's walking off into the distance and it makes the environment feel so much bigger than it actually is.
01:00:11
Speaker
And having that radio call out of like, there's a combat going on somewhere I can't even see. And there's a Marine dying, like that's what builds the world and makes the Black Mesa research facility feel real. um So like always look for that. And it it doesn't have to be like over-engineered. It could be, like I said, like just a closet that's peaked open and a shelf is blocking it and you can see more of that, but you can't get there. Like that's just huge for, for building a world.
01:00:34
Speaker
It's there. I really appreciate you saying that, man, because that scene is like some I'm the kind of ah that's like top five game development things I'm most proud of and because even if I didn't like it, there's like more than there's at least two really well produced fan animations.
01:00:52
Speaker
depicting that scene that happened like off on the radio. Yeah. And they've got like hundreds of thousands of views. And that just wilds me. I only discovered that last year and it came at a good time because it was after I just got laid off by Meta. And I thought, like you know what? I think I did a good thing that that must have resonated with some people. And it came from like a realistic space. It came from me talking to my mom, who's an ICU nurse and saying, Mom, like if somebody got this kind of injury, say from an alien on their leg, where do you put the tourniquet? And she's like, oh, hands length above the wound. And that's, um you know, I tried to bring just like you guys had brought so much authenticity before I came there to like the scientist dialogue and all that kind of thing. I wanted to bring that to the to the Marines. And that was um that was a I think when people play black bass and they say like, oh, this is the modern way to play it.
01:01:42
Speaker
It's because not only do we you know let you, I think you described it very well, peer through the the filing cabinet, the the corner there and say, like oh look, there's a world that I can't get to, but I but i see Not only do we do that, but like the the authenticity ah of the of the dialogue itself, the believability, I guess you could say, was an important factor of that as well because it was nicely contrasted with all the craziness of like how do you actually deal with this portal to another dimension and these creatures spilling
Game Design and Genre Evolution
01:02:13
Speaker
through. It was it was really a cool project. Cool.
01:02:17
Speaker
All it takes is just like viewing or hearing one of those details once within an experience for it to make every subsequent appearance of those details to grab you. Right? Because like like you said, um people could just walk past and not pay attention to these things. And I'm sure a lot of players do in a lot of cases, but you get that one spark and then every other radio radio call that comes in or split open doors, it's like, Oh, what am I going to see now? What am I going to, what am I going to get to experience? Yeah, that is crazy. And like those, those details are so impressive to me. Like, do you think that
01:02:55
Speaker
without the the collective passion, because obviously it started from, you know, being a collective, uh, mod space without the passion of that original IP. Do you guys think you'd be able to put up with the hardships of effectively creating a game over a forum over those years? Is that something that gave you guys that spark? and yet Sort of.
01:03:15
Speaker
It was kind of like game design with training wheels on. And it's not to discount like the hard work everybody did. But like when you have this, especially for the earthbound levels, we we had this template and and we knew we could build upon it. And um it's kind of interesting going back to Half-Life now because you you see the differences in the spaces and like what we put into it. Like I had forgotten how small the rocket launch sequence was in OAR in the original Half-Life.
01:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, um but but at least starting point of like we knew we had this sort of pseudo blast pit that this rocket was going to come out of and like ah shoot up into the sky. So like we were able to to build around that. And when when you're building your own game, your own IP, like you don't have any of that scaffolding. It's really tough. And I I think you see a lot of success um with games that sort of build off or like establish that scaffolding early.
01:04:08
Speaker
Um, like I know you, you had a developer on from trip hang too. And like, I imagine and this is just me completely guessing. I imagine they they took a lot of scaffolding from fear yeah to make sure that they could nail the the vision of of their game. And like, nobody docs them points for referencing fear. Like everybody should reference fear. It's a great game, um but, but but that it it helped them to deliver a game that, that was really successful.
01:04:34
Speaker
It'll also be like that. You said that yeah hundred them yeah it's wilson john it's the lead it's a very small team. It's like four people, I think. And um yeah, it's, it's important. It, what, who was it? Fucking Isaac Newton, whoever said it, it's standing on the shoulders of giants, right? We all inspire each other. We all lift each other up. And that, that stuff is what's cool about the field. But anyway, Jay, go ahead.
01:04:57
Speaker
Well, it's, it's, I completely agree. I, it's a sense of doing that and having that initial spark to, to take some scaffolding, like you said, Adam can also be a marketing hook. yeah Like, Oh, this is just like, I can't remember the name of it, but we were talking about it ages ago, Mikey, it was basically Morrowind, but Oh, dread delusion.
01:05:20
Speaker
yeah like and how you described it was oh well it's just Morrowind but more and yeah i feel a little bad about that comparison by the way because as i read more into it i'm like oh no there's some other cool shit to this however but vi bri yeah that's the hook exactly yes it's just like you were talking about hooks earlier like if that well i think they got published by dread xp i don't know but i if i had to guess that that team leader, or though that leadership when they were making their pitch deck, they probably said like Morrowind with, ah but it's a broken magical world, ah low fidelity, la yada yada. There's a lot of ah pieces there that even though we make these comparisons, what was the famous gaming journalist one? It's like Far Cry with guns, or excuse me, it's Oblivion with guns is Far Cry. I forget something like that.
01:06:08
Speaker
We kind of laugh at those, but there's a reason why that sort of condensed message is useful. It's because one, like it helps you describe your inspiration and it's fine to be inspired by another project, but also it just helps you like get a snapshot of the project because other people know nothing about it and you know everything and you kind of get that snapshot. There are no new ideas. Yeah. yeah and the And it's okay to blend genres. i mean that's So many different, um, so many different games are just like, well, we took a little bit of this and we took a little bit of this and we smashed them together or maybe five things and you smash them together. And that's pie chart in our publisher pitch. There was absolutely a pie chart, like from like like that just part of the process.
01:06:56
Speaker
I almost reflexively asked, Oh, and what did it say? But I guess you can't share that because it would be too, too revealing. It's just read for your pitch deck for us. just like me yeah do some as on arbitrary stream We will, uh, uh, J and I will role play some disinterested, uh, detached executives. that have to I'm going to I'm going to pick up my phone. I would be texting in the middle of it. Yeah. Oh, yes. I mean, if we can put NFTs into it, it'd be great. Yeah. Oh, do you have a sort of Web three elements going on here? Yeah. Well done. It makes me ill. It makes me upset. Oh, my God.
01:07:33
Speaker
Yeah. let hang Who am I? I was talking about here. Let's come back. Your room is awesome. i I'm obviously a half-life dork and I just love what you've done with the place. It is that half-life orange. If the passion of the Black Mesa team was not yet clear. Yeah.
01:07:50
Speaker
it. Take a look behind Adam. For those of you who can't see, there's, uh, uh, it's, did you look up the RGB value for fucking a Gordon suit in flight, determining the paint color there? Uh, it's the, I don't know if it's Gordon suit, but it's the dev texture color for the hammer editor. Um, it's the that used for the, the depth textures and I've been meeting the years to get my ah buddy has a vinyl shop and I want to get the like a 512 or something to put in the corner. Um, just the lettering. texts Yeah. If you look at the depth textures, it's a 512 by 512 and it has it in the corner. So like only nerds would know, but, um, it's not so cool. Yeah. you mar detail I live for that. shit Yeah. it's So good.
01:08:34
Speaker
Let's talk about this. what's the worst I'm going to ask you a tough question. This is something that I discussed with you guys at Steam Dev Days in 2014. What's the worst part of Half-Life 1? Ooh, that is a good one. And don't say Zen. Something else that's bad. Because everybody says, like oh, Zen, they didn't have enough time. And we know that from the documentary. What's the worst part of Half-Life 1 besides Zen?
01:08:59
Speaker
ah So I think OAR stands out as being a little bit confusing. What's OAR? For people who don't know. Thank you. um On a rail stands out, just because it's a little bit confusing, but it has a kick-ass gimmick of you you shoot an arrow and now it changes the track direction so that your tram goes around.
01:09:19
Speaker
So like I think that sort of pulls it out of the like bad space because the gimmick is so good. And like I remember vividly just being super young and like um redirecting that tram and and enjoying that so much. I think probably what puts people off in a modern context is the the tram ride into Black Mesa. and It does all those important things that we talked about earlier of like establishing this facility and making it feel real, but it's just a bit too long. And I think a lot of people lose interest in the game because they ram ride in, they get these cool vistas. Now they're in the AM anomalous materials labs and they have to go around and there's fun stuff to find, but you have to seek it out yourself.
01:10:00
Speaker
A lot of times players go the wrong direction and in the the airlock guards like, nope, you got the wrong airlock, Mr. Freeman. um And I think people just lose it there. And I've seen it on Reddit um with our game, too, of like, this game's boring. Like, why are people playing this? And like, I think that's probably in the modern context. What um is a barrier to entry for like a fantastic game?
01:10:22
Speaker
first time user experience is extremely important, especially in a new IP. Like it's, it's, it can be really tough, not just tutorialization, but narrative introduction and exposition and stuff like that. It's super difficult. We're not the first to say it. I'm sorry. I was just going to say real quick. We're not the first to say it, but like half-life one was a uh very deliberate like subversion of the games before it you are not the space marine you are not the doom marine you were ah going to work as a scientist you you were assistant and assistant i think like you weren't yeah you weren't even ah a team leader and that subversiveness was a nice hook for people who are like whoa, like I'm actually in a world instead of just running through the corridors. And there's all these other pieces that helped it too as modern for one. Like that was yeah that was a little unexpected. And then, ah but in a modern context, to see what you're saying, we're like, that could just be perceived as like, I was kind of boring. Like I just don't know where I'm supposed to be, but that's all I was going to say. Go ahead, Adam.
01:11:21
Speaker
ah Exactly to your point. like Attention spans have gone significantly down since the 90s. I don't mean that in a bad way. like We're taking in information and processing things much faster than like the generations before us. um so like We have to adapt to that. We have to to accommodate that. and it's Like I said, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Everybody looks at the generation that comes after them and is like, oh, those damn kids. but like If you look at like zoom way out, like year over year, decade over decade, like the world is getting better and like people are getting better at things. So like my little optimist pitch there of like, these are good things. It's kind of a pain in the ass to design too. And you know, going back to the game pass thing too is like, there are so many options for players out there right now. Like if you don't hook them right out of the gate, they're just going to go to the next game that they already have for it for free on game pass or what have you. so like
01:12:13
Speaker
um Like Jay was saying that the first time user experience onboarding players, making sure they understand the systems is like insanely critical to to having a successful game. i think you're I see what you mean as far as talking about the the attention span shift. To me it's it's a little less about that because I feel like there are gamers out there ah who really enjoy ah the the sort of patient slow burn that both Black Mesa and Half-Life 1's start are. I guess the problem is now what makes it different from the 90s to me is it's it's less about the shift in attention span and it's more about
01:12:47
Speaker
ah the the pacing ah and gameplay that you get from a game like Black Mesa would specifically not be expected in like ah like a first-person action game. it's to yeah You'd expect it in some other genre, and that's the kind of ah piece that instead of it being like groundbreaking in the in the late 90s, now it's just kind of like, oh, but this is like a fast-paced action shooter. Why am I just kind of fuck it around a bit? I'm not really here for, for story, uh, but players who are there for that are maybe playing other more, uh, I don't know, walking sim inspired games and stuff where they're specifically just supposed to walk around and and take stuff. And that's like a supposedly touch up span.
01:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, but I would say it's more attributed to that than like a shift in attention span. Cause there's totally still players to me that, that likes slower games like that. Right. They're just not necessarily playing action or arcade shooters, which half-life and black Mesa kind of are that that's how I would define it at least yeah genres, man. This is why I kind of love and hate genres because you can, you can communicate so much information by saying FPS.
01:13:56
Speaker
Right. yeah But that also sets up expectations of like, like in Half-Life's case does have a slower opening is more about, you know, it's narrative delivery and stuff like that. So somebody can be like, I'm going to go play this FPS and immediately be like, oh, I'm not immediately shooting someone. I'm going to turn this off. Right. Yeah. But would they have even started to play if they didn't know it was an FPS in the first place? Right. Like we need these things, but they can also constrain and set up.
01:14:25
Speaker
and you know Incorrect, but um false expectations. um We just hope that our FT UX is enough to grab a player if they're that way inclined, right? It's difficult. I'm going to make an episode of on first time user experience because it's yes rough, man. Super rough. It's true. Now I'm thinking about games. I'm challenging my own thought here and I'm thinking about games that like had a slow burn FPS start.
01:14:49
Speaker
ah Prey the new prey that was like a good one that compelled you ah Because at the end of a also you are just going to work, but it's even worse just going to work You're just taking part in a boring experiment. That's what the part. That's what the beginning of prey is. It's half-life is sort of yeah, so it it doesn't stay boring for long yeah yeah breaking that because some mistake in that window though is like one of my favorite gaming moments. Like allow am I absolutely adore that.
Challenges in Game Development
01:15:22
Speaker
It's been eight years already. I i think it came out in 2016. I know it's happened to us all. what yeah i mean are you forgetting What happened to that team? Didn't they? oh did Did that team get shut down or are they working on something else? It was our Kane Austin.
01:15:41
Speaker
It was like in Austin. Yeah. Yeah. Tragic. Yeah, it sucks. It really does. But you can't. It takes time to build great things, you do great things, and I guess nothing lasts forever. I mean, that's the shitty interpretation, but that's the way I kind of rationalize it in my head. Like, you can't have winners forever, and sometimes you commit in certain ways, or you have a bad release, and then bad shit can happen as a result of this. So, I mean, what are you gonna do? Maybe Prey will be remembered even more fondly because there wasn't a
01:16:19
Speaker
a sequel and there wasn't something that could either push it to in a new direction. Maybe it'll just be remembered as that, you know, beautiful little gem. That was, that was the one shot. Yeah. We got to give that team credit because I'm looking at it now and holy shit. Yeah. Uh, they made great games. Arc's fatales, dark Messiah, uh, both, you know, the dishonored games, uh, and then pray.
01:16:42
Speaker
some other Dishonored stuff Wolfenstein, Deathloop and Redfall. Like they were trying to do unique IPs. They weren't getting stuck into one spot. They took some risks there. So that's another piece of the the discourse around, I think of of the games that followed Dishonored. They need credit for that. Yeah. What team is making the blade game? I thought it was the guys who made Dishonored were making that Marvel's blade.
01:17:07
Speaker
that Yeah, I think it was like from the team of who made Dishonored were making a Blade IP game that was meant to be Dishonored but played, which is the hook. The French studio. Arcane Leon. yeah the I thought it was the guys who made Dishonored. Well, they they might have been... Hold on, I'm looking at it now. They might have shifted.
01:17:27
Speaker
team over or both teams worked on it. Yeah, I think I don't know enough to say. chatel night Yeah. Yeah. Definitely true. There's a lot of development going on between those studios. Yeah, it makes sense. And that's it. I think they're DLCs for play. We're actually really well regarded as well. And I start to play Moonfall. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. I'm going to write that down right now. Thank you, Adam. Of course. Sorry. To your point.
01:17:52
Speaker
um And it's certainly not to to blame the players, because people should play with what they're interested in and what really resonates with them. But like studios take chances on on new IPs and stuff, and and then players don't always play them. So like yeah we we get lost in our own little bubble of like, oh, they're making another sequel. It's like, yeah, but then you know I didn't play the the latest. I didn't play Deathloop, even though I love that studio. ah So like we I think there's We have to take more chances as video game players and and be more involved in that and and sort of support the things we want to see, even if um you know maybe they don't hit 100%. It's tough. um yeah As tough as the space is, um I'm hopeful for it because as much as it sucks when people get laid off and studios dissolve, the hope
01:18:41
Speaker
And this is like the silver lining. Obviously, I'm not saying it's good that these things happen, but those are talented people full stop. And if they decide to stay in the field, then they go somewhere else.
Opportunities from Industry Layoffs
01:18:53
Speaker
They bring the talent somewhere else. They say, fuck it. Now is the time for me to take a risk and form my own studio or form the studio with my friends or do solo dev and It's also helping this situation is like it's in my opinion like never been easier to to make a game, right? Like the tutorials are there the engines are there yada yada I'm sure I've said this ad nauseam on here all the time, but that's the silver lining here is like
01:19:19
Speaker
those people, the creativity is still there. As gamers, we just have to be patient. We just got to keep sifting because that's the thing about gaming now is like it's so saturated. Like there's some great projects. Maybe you get lucky and you go viral, ah but you do kind of need to be found in some sense. And as players, you know, do the dive, like start looking, you might find something that you, that you like, um, and not just on Steam, maybe on other platforms too.
01:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, one of my favorite games um ever got a 6.4 on IGN back in the day. It's called Hidden and Dangerous. And like, um thank again I that game. I had so much fun with it. And it like, I looked at the screenshots. I think there was a video at the time and I was just like, Oh, you know, what I think I'm going to try this game because it looks like exactly what I want. And it's like a 10 out of 10 for me. And i I don't fall IGN is, you know, as much as of a punching bag as they've become these days. But like,
01:20:08
Speaker
It's not for everybody, um but it the screenshots look cool to me. So I dove in on it. And I try and do that more often as well because I'm with limited time. It's really hard to take those chances. um But yeah, the like the the payoff that you can get, even if you get a a couple of games that don't resonate with you, if you find that one that's you know underrated, but it's exactly what you were looking for, like that's what makes it worth it.
01:20:31
Speaker
and Adam, we've got to play Hidden and Dangerous together. I've tried to get that game working in the past before, and I also had nobody to play it with. I love when you say that. you describe Can you describe it? to me yeah It's a um ah World War II tactical shooter, so um you have a squad.
01:20:49
Speaker
I'm still going way back. If you remember the original Ghost Recon, it's kind of like that, but set in um World War II. You can hop between your units, you can overhead plan with your units, you can set up your machine gunner to like cover this field of fire. um They had a ton of mechanics, like in one of the missions, you're behind enemy lines in France and you got to steal clothes off a clothesline to blend in so that the Germans don't see you. like totally ahead of its time. um One of them you you happen to I think it's a ah B-24 Liberator and like you leave the area like shooting the 50 cals off of the side of the Liberator as it flies off and the Germans are like sweeping in at you. yeah I see the video up on the stream like it. Don't let its age fool you. It is an extremely um interesting game. The controls are rough um like a lot of those games of that era. But oh, man, it is it is was ahead of its time. Yeah, that's awesome. yeah I am.
01:21:41
Speaker
i I think it's also worth noting, speaking of like teams in there, Eric brought up, oh, fuck yeah, thank you, Eric. By the way, it's not to be cute, it was armed and dangerous, which is a hilarious game, but very different. And Hidden in Dangerous, that team went on to make, you know, Hidden in Dangerous 2 and stuff, but also Mafia.
01:22:02
Speaker
Oh, it's a check studio. Yep. Yeah. So that's when you're playing mafia, you're playing ah the the work of a team that ah cut its teeth on. I'm looking now a couple of MS-DOS games and then Hidden in Dangerous in 1999. Yeah. And then in 2002, they made mafia. So feel pretty different.
01:22:18
Speaker
And one of the nice things about Hidden and Dangerous is like, and I'm sure I've complained about this even though I kind of participate in it, a lot of tactical shooters are about ah sort of obsessing over and fetishizing the aesthetic of the operator and the tactical shooting, or they only have like the high lethality gunplay, and that's that, and that's enough to be a tactical shooter. ah This game doesn't have that, because it's the Second World War, we didn't have that sort of I guess that's when commandos were starting to get hot and ship, but, but you know what I mean? It doesn't have the modern fetishization. It's all about the gameplay and it's really hard, but then I see cinematic moments too. Like Adam was kind of describing. It's a really cool project. Yeah. Great game.
01:22:58
Speaker
All right, before we get, well, we would usually get into our improv section now with Tina, which she would have prepped, but Tina couldn't be here, unfortunately, today. But we do have one, we do have one that we were gonna use a while back that we didn't, so we'll reuse that. But before I get to that, we do have a donation from DarkJackal. We'll give him $5, thank you.
01:23:18
Speaker
and says, thanks for the combo. It's been an interesting perspective. On a different note, any new games inspiring you lately? Ooh, that is a fantastic question. i never Whenever we're doing stuff, we're um always playing games and and looking at at how they they come together. Let me look at my to play list.
01:23:39
Speaker
Here's how authentic you know it's going to be, because Adam's going to his two playlists right now. Because this is the shape, when I just said like, oh I have to, and I was wrong, I think it's called Moon Crash, the prey expansion. Thank you for the person who corrected my chat. the yeah The terrible movie that recently came out.
01:23:55
Speaker
and oh Okay, yeah, I had to go and write that down real quick because I have a bunch of we I think many gamers have this so we have games on our list and then there's the Inspiration section and then the fun section. ah Yeah, for me at least I have one of those sometimes the class number a favorites. it to play section um It's a a play section is getting massive ah Helldivers is obviously huge. I think everybody's been you know sort of referencing that in the industry of, how do do you have a ah live service model game that doesn't feel like it's trying to sell you at every corner? And I think they nailed it. And you know, Sony did their best to try and and torpedo that project, but um they in general, like it just brilliantly handled game game design and rollout of post-release.
01:24:44
Speaker
um Content that that people were excited about and like the the game loop is just so solid and the the events that they do is are just really interesting and fun. um I have Pacific Drive on my to playlist. I have not played it yet, but like that that game kind of gets you know me excited to to make my own games because it it just seems like it's so different and sort of like that sci-fi post-apocalyptic vibe that resonates with like the Half-Life audience. Yeah.
01:25:11
Speaker
and
01:25:15
Speaker
Left 4 Dead is still huge and just in terms of like we were talking about onboarding and stuff like that game is like. the the perfect way to to get into something. And like, it's not a um overly complex game, but like every mechanic you you can learn in that and utilize later and and sort of level yourself up. There's depth to it without it being just a brick wall right out of the start, like an ah escape from Tarkov or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. that That's a very good Tarkov is a good comparison, of course, just like the high, high barriers to to entry and to continue having fun with it. ah Left 4 Dead was simple, but at depth.
01:25:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And the the last thing I just saw in my, my list. um And I don't want this to sound like I think too highly of myself, but like the Resident Evil 2 remake, um somebody described it to me as like, oh, its I imagine that this remake is how people felt when they played Black Mesa and like, oh, I couldn't have put it better than myself. Because when I went into that, it's like, this is how I remember Resident Evil 2. I know it didn't look like this on PlayStation, but it it was just a ah ah core roots. Like they understood what Resident Evil 2 was and then just
01:26:25
Speaker
vastly improved on it. And I still want to go back and play the original because I just played it so much as a kid. ah But yeah, that game was was awesome and and sort of in line with like the stuff we were talking about with Black Mesa of like how do you take this really beloved thing and try and improve on it.
01:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's a very good, very good shout right there. I felt ah genuinely scared and tense when I played that game. Great pacing, also like simple design that has some depth, I guess, like strategically planning out your mentor and stuff and and making the split second decisions of like, do I do I do I sacrifice the knife or the grenade to get out of this situation? How much health do I have? ah All those things are like the design felt very elegant. Like those were simple decisions.
01:27:09
Speaker
but they presented them in a way that made all of them feel meaningful and they were meaningful to the gameplay. Yeah. And there were, I can't even imagine how challenging it was to design that game. There there were multiple points where I was like on the razor's edge of like being soft locked because i I just didn't have enough resources to take on what they were throwing at me. Excuse me. But they, they, I got through it.
Gaming Trends and Inspirations
01:27:32
Speaker
Like, so either they're doing some smart stuff behind the scenes to make sure that you have equipment or I just got lucky, but i'm I'm willing to bet that that was a huge design challenge for them and something they've really spent a lot of time on to make sure players got through the game.
01:27:46
Speaker
Yeah. The genre is so tough to, to like, just balance. Like I can't imagine doing testing on that game and just being like, Oh my God. Like how do we tweak this to make this, this one hallway manageable, but also keep that tension survival, survival horror is just absolutely wild. Mikey, what about you? We'll say what's the game has been inspiring you, isn't it?
01:28:08
Speaker
I feel very inspired by, I guess this sounds funny because I'm half-life gushing right now, but it's not only for that. I'll give another one to balance it out. Abiotic Factor is a very inspiring survival crafting game. I think what that team has done, like I don't think I would have expected it to be possible to make such a good survival crafting game that took place entirely indoors, but they have an excellent Excellent atmosphere the whole premise is like it's kind of just half-life and they know this and they this is like a part of what their Inspiration is themselves, but you're in a secret facility and people from the aliens. I guess not technically aliens ah creatures from another dimension come in and the military comes in and all these different ah I don't know if they're technically military more paramilitary but all these people come into the facility and instead of being like
01:29:01
Speaker
Gordon Freeman, who is very martial and great with shotguns for some reason and his HEB suit, ah you're just like a guard or a scientist. And instead of like having to escape the facility through like a you know a one to eight hour exp linear FPS experience, you're just trying to survive. So you're tearing up bedsheets, you're sconging around scavenging around for food to cook. You're like finding a little kitchen area somewhere else in the facility in the cafeteria, cooking your food and then running back to your base, which is like outside the the bathrooms and it smells because there's poop in there. There's all these different ah and you actually poop in the game, by the way, which is very realistic and appreciated. But there's all these different. What's that? It's a poop sim. Poop sim.
01:29:46
Speaker
Yeah, but and the poop that you that you cut, it because it's a survival game and everything should have like, ah or it's nice to have some sort of use for your waste, I guess. It's it's nice to have like a lot of itemization and and mechanics that fit into that. You can actually poop into a bag and use it as fertilizer to grow and survive longer in the in the facility. No organic wasted.
01:30:08
Speaker
Exactly. yeah And yeah the way they managed to take ah that setting, which is like cool to me because I like Half-Life and stuff, but also just like being an indoor survival crafting game and answering that question and still having the vibe of like when you go out in a survival crafting game and you're like deep in the caves in Minecraft or whatever and you're like, fuck, I'm not going to make it back. I'm going to die out here. You get that in this game. and You're like, which corridor? How do I get back? You're lost in the the cave maze that is this research facility.
01:30:34
Speaker
And they did a great job at that. So I found that very inspiring for sure. Sounds great. To go back to our comparisons, if if you like Valheim and if you like Half-Life, that is like perfectly made for you. it's it's a really I only played the ah the beta, but it was it was fantastic.
01:30:50
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. No, it's it's awesome. What about you? j What's inspired you recently? Oh, motherfucker. Mine's a bit of a cop out. So my second favorite game of all time, I recently got, ah well, I guess it's just a port really, um which I've been waiting for for years, which is Red Dead Redemption. And man, that game, it's taken me back to a time of you know just simplicity of just like I guess just the the idea of like there being cheats the the goals of the game are extremely simple the narrative is delivered in a very simple way um and i I remember playing the online so much and just having these memories of
01:31:30
Speaker
and going after cosmetics but them all being tied to progression and ah like the time I've invested in the golden weapons and everything and it just really took me back to a time where it was just like I get the stuff I get from the game is based on what I put into it rather than the the amount of money I put into it Um, and it just, I really want that. And also just the fact that I'm, I'm waiting to finish the main campaign before I go to it. But the idea of having DLCs with undead nightmare that are just campy and completely different and like not connected to some, you know, higher level think piece. It's just, uh, here's a fun thing we wanted to do as a team. And we think you'll like, like go, um, it's really taking me back to, yeah. Like.
01:32:18
Speaker
It's taken me back to a, and I know this isn't right, but like a simpler time. And um it's inspiring me with with some of the games I'm creating, especially considering one of them is um multiplayer and has cosmetics and stuff like that. It's really inspiring me of like, how, how do we do these things? How, how do I want the player to feel?
01:32:40
Speaker
and about acquiring these things and um and stuff like that. So it is a new game technically, but it is ah and just a port, basically. Well, how do you maintain it's it's a good inspiration, at least what I'm hearing from you is like you look at that and you go, OK, yeah, how do I how do we maintain theme? How do we maintain atmosphere and ah and not break that in in this project I'm working on? Why not look back to a time when we were like more disconnected from the the monetization efforts that always at least have a risk of harming the aesthetic of your game, et cetera. That's a good place from which to draw inspiration. I think, yeah I think it's just memories, right? Because why it's ah my second favorite game of all time is not specifically the main campaign, which is fantastic. And also on dead nightmare, but
01:33:33
Speaker
the multiplayer I played so much of. yeah um And it was like, well, what kept me hooked about that? Like, why did I care? And it's because their prestige systems, um like you could look at someone and tell how much time they put into the game, not how much money they'd spent. Oh, they've got the whale skin. Cool. Like while they have money, it was, if you saw someone on like a zebra,
01:33:56
Speaker
You'd be like, well, I can't remember. It was like prestige level five or something. You would have played the game X amount of times, um, gone through the leveling system and you'd be like, I don't want to mess with them because they clearly have put a lot of time into the game. yeah Um, just from like a skin or all golden guns requiring X amount of headshots.
01:34:14
Speaker
Like I had all of the golden guns and that was a point of pride for me because it was, it was a grind, but I had to go through that. And I knew that that was visible to other players in the game. And I got this kind of sense of, I don't know, pride from being like, yeah.
01:34:32
Speaker
I don't know it was like and I remember that and I think maybe I'm remembering it wrong because the online isn't included obviously with this remaster but it's really taken me back to that and I'm like that felt great and then I know there is but there's there's a way to monetize monetize and experience but also have that at the same time And how do you do that? And how do you balance that? um That's the dilemma I'm kind of going over in my head.
Innovative Game Concepts
01:34:56
Speaker
Not saying that our game is going to have monetized cosmetics. um Just a thought experiment, you know?
01:35:02
Speaker
So I think why we're kind of on the same page there. And, you know, I fully recognize that I'm getting older and like games aren't necessarily built for my demographic. But I do think the industry is going to swing a bit back more to what you're saying of like the simplified game loops and just sort of letting players go in and and have experiences with their buddies and, you know, not get sold to it at every corner. And like I said, Helldivers has shown us that you can do it the right way, still make money, still have a good game.
01:35:32
Speaker
Um, and, uh, I think people are really, even like we were, I was just talking to my buddy earlier this morning about, um, the first war zone and, um, how much simpler it was back then. And like, I, I appreciate that the games need to progress and you can't keep selling the same game. Cause we'd complain about that too. Um, but yeah, wait it's just, we, I want to have a more of that set up of like, there's this world and I can explore it with my friends and maybe have a unique experience in that.
01:35:58
Speaker
that water cooler moment of like a thing that happened um and not have it be pure intensity all the time. For sure. 100%. Oh, I forgot to say my other balancing one.
01:36:09
Speaker
yeah government Alpha Protocol. Playing that recently. Yeah. ah Inspiring. You can have great writing and an in-depth RPG style story that's not in a fantasy or weird sci-fi setting. You could have it actually in a place that's great for it, which is like the world of espionage and and intelligence work. um and And it doesn't have to feel too um Esoteric mechanically like I'm not a huge fan of the gameplay now protocol I think it's very much of the time but but I really like how it was written and how the the narrative design was with the choices that you make and the effects that you see that that was a another one.
01:36:53
Speaker
And then, um, some of the stuff that the, the SIM genre is doing is also pretty inspiring cool. Cause they're, they're pulling in other elements for other games. Contraband police have been playing and, uh, having a game that is as multifaceted as like, you're not just doing the papers, please SIM thing. or You're not just driving the truck Euro trucks, you know, like the genre has come so far there. Now we're defending the border in actual FPS combat from rebels. We're driving our prisoners around like a, an open map to to jail and then coming back. There's ah there's a really cool um genre pulling into of that genre that's happening right now. wow I've never even heard of that game that looks really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Both are cool.
01:37:37
Speaker
recommendation That was the balance out my half-life fanboyness with a biotic factor. Hey, you always got to bounce it out. It's it's appreciated. um I talked to you about it. No, never, never too much. So the question is, do either ah does anybody have a hard out at a specific time? Because I don't want to keep people keep people locked in because we we might want to do our improv thing, but if people have a hard out, then and it's ah it's all good. I'm good.
01:38:05
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I, uh, I got like 15, 20 more minutes actually. All right. We can probably, yeah, we can probably get an improv. i think we can do Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. Let's just keep our, let's just keep an eye on our times. And what was it? 3 PM Eastern? We'll, uh, we'll call it. Okay. So we have one that Tina prepped months ago, uh, that we didn't end up using, but I think might be interesting for, um, our specific conversation. So Eric, would you be able to pull up the image for me?
01:38:34
Speaker
Okay so what Tina had prepped was considering this as a horror game, 4 billionaires just went to space and did a spacewalk. How can we make a horror game about billionaires going to space?
01:38:50
Speaker
or people who can't see or or understand, like this is the segment of our show where Tina will present us with something, an image or a video and a premise, and then say, ah pitch a game about this. So we see some, it's it's very well produced, this video, and there's spacesuits like very futuristic and cozy and nice, and here they are, they're lifting off on the rocket, and those are the rich billionaires, I assume? I assume so, yes. So what was provided by by Tina. so Can we create a potentially, I'm going to say multiplayer. If we got four billionaires and we were sending four people to to space to do a space walk, how can we transform this mechanically and narratively into a horror game? What's. ah I think from their perspective, maybe.
01:39:37
Speaker
the economy crashes back on Earth. And what can they do from the space station to to protect their riches while they're off floating in space? did Did they bring their wealth with them? ah but I feel like their wealth needs to be expressed somehow mechanically. I don't know what they could do sign there with it.
01:39:55
Speaker
The size of the book, yeah. But I like that it's, I like that it's hard. And yeah, I like the idea that they're isolated. ah Their wealth could also just not be relevant to them anymore. The the pillars here are horror and multiplayer. I'm immediately thinking of, I don't know if this is an angle we want, but games like Phasmophobia for warned, ah lethal company, four player cop, horror, something's on the ship that came from earth, the thing that killed earth.
01:40:21
Speaker
but But I feel like we could go deeper with that. And we have to use that these people are billionaires somehow, right? That's some kind of expression there. i i like So this is off the, what you guys think of the billionaire aspect.
01:40:40
Speaker
i e I'm trying to think, okay, so what is the horrifying thing about potentially, well, not necessarily being trapped, but being forced to stay in space? And for me, the the void of space is the most terrifying part. And I think we could do some like kind of survival crafting multiplayer aspects of you have to leave the safety of the the pod or the space station and do a spacewalk and effectively ah fish for space debris.
01:41:08
Speaker
to be able to get things to craft. So there's the risk of being out there and maybe we we have some resource management of being out, you know, certain levels of oxygen that being hazards out in the with space debris and things. um flying around and your tether maybe being you know cut and jettisoned off into space and stuff. yeah um I think some interesting things we could do with that. like Imagine being out on the spacewalk and seeing in orbit a really valuable piece of space debris coming, and you have to like communicate with people like, this is coming, this is where it is, we have to try and get this, right because this is going to be really useful to us. Yeah, maneuver too. Building this piece of time. I think that's going to be interesting. like fish that is yeah I really like that idea. and it's but like
01:41:51
Speaker
Not every game has to have a message or and ah a if you will, but like space debris is like a legit concern. It's like becoming a ah bigger and bigger issue as we we have more of these things that are becoming obsolete and really no way to take care of them. So like it is really interesting that there's hardware out there. Why don't we repurpose it to to solve a problem?
01:42:14
Speaker
modernware and dangers and that observational that observational gameplay of being able to spot things which is in my opinion going to be quite difficult um to visualize because ah spotting stuff on a black background that has lots of white dots all over it and seeing small specs moving and being able to identify what they are you can also have a system of like There's a space debris, people who go out on the spacewalks and are effectively fishing or netting specific aspects, but also people on an observation deck who are monitoring it and being able to, they can have tech that allows them small things. Yeah. Like in this kind of region, this is coming towards us. You guys need to get in position and and do this. And having that cross communication, I think could be really interesting.
01:43:00
Speaker
I'm trying to build the the pitch deck in my head, which we will need when we try to find our publisher. which us with see so yes great And I think ah it's kind of like a mashup of space engineers and the raft is what I'm sort of imagining. You guys know in the raft, you start with a shitty little raft and you're slowly building it out. That's what I'm imagining, the the survival crafting this coming through of um of Like you're you're in space you're starting with the station and you're building out the station itself the horror to me It's becoming a lot like a spacey also subnautica in my head as well yeah What I think we need to press on the hard bit to like the void is definitely scary but I think we we either need to make like a The void taking you like an ever present threat, which could be as simple as like, well, you have limited oxygen and when you go out, you need to be mindful of of that. But, um, but what are some other ways we can bring the horror into it?
01:43:58
Speaker
Well, just so like a baby step to get there. I think it was an episode of Firefly I was watching the other day and um it's not the lack of oxygen that gets you first. It's the temperature drop because there's nothing to hold the heat in anymore when you're in the vacuum of space. So like even losing oxygen, losing temperature, now you're starting to see your your breath um in there that that starts to get to that that horror side of things. We just need ah an antagonist to to establish the threat um that we're trying to prevent. What if these are all billionaires, right? Yeah. um What is the thing that happened on Earth? This sounds silly. ah Some sort of radical group that I'm assuming that Earth like doesn't ah doesn't exist anymore. Like the ah is that our premise? the The billionaires are the last ones left. What if so something happens here?
01:44:55
Speaker
It's we have a funny opportunity here to say a game that's about the poor billionaires stuck in space and the people on earth who I don't know what exactly happened on earth yet, but it involved some people that were hateful of ah the corporations man and wanted to ah have some sort of like Global revolution related to that maybe that exists some sort of magical thing and and and ah They used it and it fucked up but in their zeal they're coming for you up in space and they they hate you for how you ruined the planet and ah Brought them to do this. I I don't like the optics of this but But I'm trying to again connect the the billionaire angle so it's not just like survival in space Yeah
01:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's tough. but The true horror for the billionaires is that their money doesn't mean anything while they're up there. The space station is either blown up by the radicals and only one section is workable and you have to build it out and make it functional through the space fishing or, you know, space debris just rips the space station apart and you have to rebuild it. But like your money means nothing anymore. And like, yeah.
01:46:10
Speaker
not just the the for the billionaires and people who um exist free money like, hey, in these situations, your imaginary ah paper currency doesn't matter. right You can't buy your way out of this. What are they going to do? you know like You can't communicate. You can't get another ship sent. you know You have to start funding for yourself. um So I think, but like antagonistic wise, do we have a more the the void of space in it taking you, whether that's in, you know, the temperature drop, the oxygen and or the tether breaking and you just getting cast into space. um Do we, ah do we add permadeath?
01:46:54
Speaker
Like yeah you're playing with your mates and if you die, like you're dead and you cannot read your match anymore in a survival game. Oh God. like it's and help hisstead be the cards That introduces, cause now you have to give that person something to do while they're out of the round. Um, yeah. Right. And.
01:47:12
Speaker
I wonder too, if we could wire in a, the among us aspect of like, okay, Jay's out fishing for hardware. i'm I'm going to mess with like stocks or whatever to like steal his wealth back down on earth. Well, he's distracted with this and you have to check on my on the the hardware and the the stuff you're building, but check on your crewmates too, to make sure they're not working behind your back.
01:47:34
Speaker
There's an interesting angle there, I like that. The PVPVE, I guess, is what you could call it. ah we could this is This is perhaps a little bit stereotypical, but also makes sense. Let's assume these billionaires are cynical people in it for themselves, right? They're yeah they're acting at a self-interest that probably has something to do with how they got other wealth.
01:47:52
Speaker
And what if they're trying to fuck each other over? There's also a good suggestion here in the chat. I like could they be billionaires like Tony Stark, each having a genius in their own way. Maybe each of them has some sort of like specialty ah that's related to how they got all of their their money somehow could be another cool angle to it. I like the idea of the trying to fuck each other over. I do as well. I like to clarify to none of us are suggesting that just because you have wealth, you're a bad person. But like in terms of game mechanics, that's what makes it interesting.
01:48:20
Speaker
Yeah, we're trying to market this idea. The money people are the bad guys. Sussy, Sussy Guru 2000 gives five euros and says a game about billionaires should have a negative skill tree. With each level up, you actually get worse and failure becomes more like would be. Oh, you using so you actually, okay. When you're skilling up, you're choosing the thing that will hurt you the least.
01:48:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's a tangent, ah a game called Void Bastards. um Yeah, I know. There's every time it's a rogue light, I believe. um And every time you spawn, you have negative attributes. And one of them is called anxiety, where the combat music will just come in, whether there's an enemy around or not. And that's one of my favorite game mechanics that I've ever heard. um So like stuff like that, I think it would Even if it's a positive, if it also assigns a negative and you're weighing those values, whenever you do a skill tree, I think that's a really important thing to do. And like, yeah, it was like payday to nailed it in that regard. And also like in a multiplayer aspect, how those negatives would affect you, but also the people around you. So you learn how to deal with those negatives, but it affects other people as well. That could be really interesting.
01:49:34
Speaker
Damn, I'm always surprised about like how cool the the ideas we come up with are. Even in a joke perspective, this could actually be our really interesting. Speaking of Void Busters, we had a few months ago, um one of the artists of Void Busters was on Firelink, um, I was meant, I was on it too for like five seconds and then I broke my microphone and had to leave, but ah ah oh no it for what I was there for it was, it it was good. So, uh, check that out. If you haven't seen, that's cool. Void bastards, as those of you who just, who can see the footage now, uh, has an awesome aesthetic to it. Really cool art style. Yeah. They had a sequel, um, come out to spiritual successor. I can't remember something west. Yeah.
01:50:18
Speaker
put that up on Yeah. and I don't have any association with them, but I hear their games are really good. I've watched people play friends, play void bastards, and it looks like it was a well-made game. And one of the best mechanics I've, I've heard of wild bastards. Oh, well, simple enough. That's the one.
01:50:37
Speaker
interesting yeah it came out just a couple months ago yeah which is which is we were all lining up i also played it at GDC it's um it's very fun. to it I was just thinking too about our our game design of you know what is the antagonist and and maybe the stuff you reel in could have um some sort of Again, the the venom goo or something that's, if you accumulate too much, it it creates you know something that's going to hunt you or like negatively impact you in some way to like yeah bring the the threat home and not just have it be that the world's gone.
01:51:10
Speaker
also like cultural like repercussions for like say if there are still factions down on Earth. the ah The type of space debris you reel in can have negative connotations and relationship factors into like, oh no, we've we're using way too much Chinese satellite debris. And they're going to start sending people up to kind of deal with us, right? Because we're stealing their technology and and stuff like that. And there's so many aspects she could um you could feed into this. I really like this. I could talk about, see, i these are my favorite parts of the ah
01:51:45
Speaker
These dev head episodes we do because they really fascinated me in doing this back and forth really. Really good stuff. It was me pink. But enjoy it. We got two minutes before we have to we have to bounce because we got places to be stuff to do. So is there anything?
01:52:04
Speaker
you guys would like to ah to plug to ah to say before we before we bounce off this raft into space? I have a quick bunch of bullet points that um I wanted to sign off with. The Black Mesa Blue Shift team has an update coming out. They've been teasing about it. I don't want to give too much away for them, but it's it's coming up next week. ah Check that out.
01:52:26
Speaker
um Is that a mod project for people who don't know? It is. It's a completely separate team, and they are remaking Blue Shift on the Black Mesa engine, and they're doing fantastic work. um I always get a sneak peek of that, and I'm super grateful for that. um ah Thanks to you all for having me. This has been a ah really good time. Thanks to my team. Thanks to the friends and family that support us. um Special thanks to our our community. We always sign off with you know thanks to our community and stuff, but we We really mean it like we wouldn't be where we are today without our community. And like i I feel bad that I can't be more in the Discord and more on stream and stuff. But um hey I have been working diligently behind the scenes so that we can we can be more in with community because they're a huge part of our success.
01:53:08
Speaker
good I really appreciate them. um If you're interested in what we're doing next, to check out our YouTube because, like I said, there's there's stuff coming there they're soon and a plug for Jay as well. If you've not checked out Design Delve on on YouTube, do check it out because I watched that. um I've not seen every episode, but I'm getting there and it's it's really good stuff. Thank you so much, man. That means that that means a lot to me. it's We were chatting. Let me tell him, guys. We were chatting before this call started. Like, oh, hey, how's it going? We're going to get started soon. And ah Adam shared, yes, that he does watch design dope. That's not something that just came up where he discovered it or before the call. That's something that he already did. And I didn't know that. and um it means a lot to me like It's always, it's always really nice. i I make my show in such like a, cause I sort of produce the entire thing, right? I do everything. but Um, it's, I'm in a very insular bubble. So like, to me, I just kind of make a thing and just chuck it out to the world and then just move on to make the next one. So it always warms my heart with, um, the community and, you know, friends like Adam come on and be like, yeah, I actually watch it. It always blows my mind. I'm like, Oh my God, people watch this. It's going to watch my ramblings. So thank you. I really appreciate that. Of course.
01:54:23
Speaker
Thank you. Alright, we gotta bounce. Mikey. Alright. You brought us in, send us out mate. Alright. Well I just want to say thank you again everyone for watching. We're going to have something very interesting on soon so stay tuned. I guess I won't reveal it just yet Jay or should I? I'm referring of course to this thing that's happening next week.
01:54:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I reckon i would maybe maybe hold off because there might be some... i okay We'll see like scheduling on che scheduling things, but i should something next Friday should be happening and it's going to be fun. Yes, um stay tuned. Something next Friday involving us should be happening and stay tuned. We'll leave it at that for now. and Otherwise, you can catch us the Friday afterward, of course, talking about another lovely topic. I've been Mikey and Jay, Tina couldn't make it. and This is Adam. Thanks so much for watching and take care, guys.
01:55:13
Speaker
Thanks everybody. Bye bye.