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Episode 29: Lucie Viatgé (Spooky Express)
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In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Lucie Viatgé, the concept artist behind Spooky Express. Topics include the development of Spooky Express, her time at KO-OP, and her relationship with puzzle games.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakknack and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Seren, the producer at Drakknack and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakknack at Drakknack and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello. Today, we're joined by Lucy, who you may know from her work on the upcoming Spooky Express, as well as various other games made by Co-op. How are you doing today? Hello, I'm doing great. Thank you.
00:00:48
Speaker
Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself? ah What did I miss in the intro? Yeah, I'm ah and an artist who works in games. I've been working since 2016, I've done a lot of work at co-op, like you said, and then I started doing freelancing.
00:01:10
Speaker
I've been freelancing for almost two years now.
Lucy's Career Journey to Co-op
00:01:14
Speaker
And one of those freelance gigs being mock-ups and design and art direction for Spooky Express. Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
Awesome. So how did you get into doing art for games? um So I always wanted to be like some kind of an artist when I was a child.
00:01:35
Speaker
i think the first work I really wanted to do was like illustrator for Pokemon cards. But sadly, you have to be in Japan to do that. And it was kind of out of my reach.
00:01:45
Speaker
But I was also like really good at like tech stuff. And I really liked video games. So when I was in high school, I learned that you could study to be a video game developer.
00:01:58
Speaker
and that there were also like video game artists. um So I went to like a school that specialized in that in France. And I studied game art for five years in a specialized program. And then I got an internship at Co-op and moved to
Contributions to Gnog and Transition to Goodbye Volcano High
00:02:18
Speaker
Canada.
00:02:19
Speaker
I was very lucky to get like all of these steps. back one after the other. um but yeah, ah pretty much a dream come true.
00:02:30
Speaker
And what did what were you first working on at Co-op? I joined for Gnog, which was like a 3D puzzle game, very colorful, that ah Sam Boucher was the art director on.
00:02:44
Speaker
um I joined them, yeah, when they were, like, they they had... The game was pretty much not done, but like most of it was like very advanced, and they just needed help with animation at the end.
00:02:58
Speaker
um And so my yeah I did my final like graduation internship with them doing all of the 3D animation um on it. And then we did like ah VR and AR updates for the game by adding a little bit more content for it.
00:03:18
Speaker
And then they hired me as like a full time member and I stayed for like ah almost six years in total. After Gnog, we worked on ah Goodbye Volcano High. I mean, in between Gnog and google Goodbye Volcano High, there was a little period of like, we didn didn't know what to work on, like which new project was going to be made.
00:03:44
Speaker
But at some point, like a few members of ah co-op had like a chat at night and they came up with the idea of like a dating sim with dinosaurs.
00:03:55
Speaker
And it's the end of the world. It was like a meteor coming and everything. um And then, yeah, pre-production started like two weeks after the they got the idea that they were really into it. That's a really fast turnaround. Yeah, it was really fast. Like all the other like projects that we had started working on were just like, yeah, put on the side.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I ended up being like the main artist. on it for pre-production. and so when we started, uh, actual production and we hired a lot of people, i ended up getting the role of being our director on it.
00:04:31
Speaker
Um, and we actually hired like a lot of people and the project was like super ambitious. And so very quickly I had like a team of like 10 artists, uh, to manage.
00:04:44
Speaker
ah which was very, ah how can I say, i learned a lot. Yeah, I was going to say, that sounds ah sounds a bit like a trial by fire. how yeah how how What was your reaction to being told that you were going to be art director?
00:05:02
Speaker
Well, it kind of was kind of implied a few times ah as we were doing pre-production that like since I was the only artist working on it so far, then I would probably be
Challenges in Developing Goodbye Volcano High
00:05:14
Speaker
our director on it. And at first, like when I joined Co-op, it was like a very small studio and there were only five people working there and I was like the sixth person.
00:05:24
Speaker
And so I kind of assumed that all the projects were going to stay small. so Even when they said I would be art director, I was like, yeah, this maybe like we are we will hire one other artist and that's fine.
00:05:38
Speaker
ah But then when I realized I was going to be art director of like an actual team, I was really proud and excited, but also kind of panicking a little bit. Understandable. Of imposter syndrome.
00:05:53
Speaker
And did like did the scope of the game grow really quickly or... um Yeah, it was because we were looking for financing and it's really hard to get funding for like, just like a visual novel.
00:06:07
Speaker
um You kind of have to sell it a bit better than this. ah So as we were pitching the project, it kind of like, grew in ambition to be more like, ah like marketable for financing.
00:06:23
Speaker
um And so it it became like a narrative experience, like fully animated ah movie that you play through. um And as I was looking at like the different pitching documents, I was kind of like sweating a little bit.
00:06:39
Speaker
I was like, ah you know, we have to do it after we get the money for it, right?
00:06:47
Speaker
And yeah, when we got the money, like the, yeah, like the pitch document was like super ambitious and I, yeah. it was It was very daunting. And like the the project, in the end, like it took five years and a half to be made. Yeah, I was going to say, that was ah that was a game I was following for what felt like a very long time after it was announced.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah so And it was announced like maybe two years after we started pre-production. So yeah, it was really long. And it was also like very difficult to work on because it's not a type of game that a lot of people have made.
00:07:29
Speaker
um like Just the way that it's structured, it has a very big um cascading effect in the production of like we need the script first.
00:07:41
Speaker
So then we can build the, uh, the scenes and the storyboard so that then we can have the asset list so that then we can do the assets. Like it was very, like, you know, every, every department was relying on like another department doing their job, like in time. And so.
00:07:58
Speaker
Every time we had like a slight delay in something, it would like delay everything by a lot. And especially because we had a lot of trouble with like the writing um because like it was super ambitious and we weren't sure exactly if it was a dating scene or if it was like a story. like We had a lot of you know rewriting the game many times. And every time we would rewrite the game, we would have to like redo the entire asset list basically.
00:08:27
Speaker
So yeah, it was a lot of like trial and error and sometimes it was bit difficult to like continue assigning work to the artists knowing that like maybe in two months we're scrapping all of this and like starting again.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough. Making video games is not fun all the time. that but yeah, I mean, it seems like the end result turned out really, really well.
00:08:54
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, I think so too. It's, uh, yeah, it was, it was really nice when it came out. I was really proud of like the fact that it does exist in the end and it's really pretty and the story is really great.
00:09:11
Speaker
And yeah, I'm, I'm just sad that like, I wasn't able to stay until the end of the project because I, burnt out ah working on it. And also like there was COVID in the middle, which really didn't help with mental health for any of the team members. or like anyone anyone in the world.
Game Development Scope and Budget Pressures
00:09:32
Speaker
But yeah, like I left like one and a half years before it came out. And so it was like really strange to play it because I i knew the the characters and like the the story and like the the big a picture of the story but then like playing it I was discovering a lot of like what the how the game came out in the end which was pretty nice but a bit bittersweet for sure Yeah, I think there's potentially some similarities between that game and A Monster's Expedition. A Monster's Expedition was another game that like we were we pitching for funding and then suddenly we got so much more funding than we were necessarily expecting was plausible. And it's like, okay, well, I guess we got to up our game.
00:10:18
Speaker
And that caused problems with the development. Yeah. I think for Monster Expedition, actually there's a version of that game that we could have made for like five times less money that would have been like five times less stressful to make.
00:10:34
Speaker
Do you feel like the pressure and the stress of the development process were like, do you think that came from the added budget and the added scope that came from that? Or do you think it was inherent from making a genre that you just hadn't made before?
00:10:52
Speaker
I think it was definitely from like the yeah the hugeness of the scope. Because I think if we had made like ah an actual like visual novel, it would have been a bit more you know obvious like the types of assets that we're going to make, you know like just like the characters' ah profiles. like you like basic visual novel style, like portraits of characters and then ah backgrounds that we can just like shuffle through depending on the place that we're in.
00:11:23
Speaker
um But because the the budget was so huge and the scope was so huge, ah we were trying to make um basically a playable cartoon ah with a full storyboard, which implied that like any dialogue also needs to have like um like a space and ah animations and camera angles that um go from like one character to the other, to then like a white shot to then, like it was so complicated because then the asset list was
00:12:02
Speaker
huge and entirely reliant on the scripts and on what the action was at any time, any point in time. And I think that's what made it like so difficult to plan and organize because it it was really hard to have like a ah good view of how many assets we were going to need in the end for like each character and each location.
00:12:30
Speaker
even the animations like there are so many um animations that are used only once for like one specific moment in the script that then if like that moment is rewritten the animation doesn't have any use anymore um so i think that's what made it like so complex and so stressful and because we really had to be sure of a part of a script before we could start production on it.
00:13:01
Speaker
And it was really difficult to be sure of any part of the script for a very long time. But we we found like a few ways to make the the process a bit ah more simple. Like the main characters, we just decided to make like huge ah kind of like puppets master files with just like the straight on shots of this character with like their full body from the front, from the profile, from like a three quarter angle and the back and the three quarter back angle with like a lot of different hands that we drew one by one and a lot of different expressions and lip syncing.
00:13:45
Speaker
And then we could reuse these master ah files to make a lot of different images posing for a lot of different shots and then we only had to add like some bespoke assets for these characters if we wanted to have like um you know like a view kind of like from like a plunging view from the top or like anything with like a different perspective then we had to make like a separate I said, but at least we had like that one big file.
00:14:15
Speaker
But I think like each of these ah main character master files, like took maybe like one or two months to make. Like it was so long. Yeah. You're
Freelance Work vs. Full-time Roles
00:14:25
Speaker
like front loading that work going like, okay, we'll make this maximally flexible for the future. Yeah. But you can only do that for the main character if you can't do that for everyone. Yeah.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like we had a lot of secondary characters that we designed afterwards and for which we only have like a few assets because they only appear in a few scenes.
00:14:48
Speaker
But yeah, ah so much work. It's like giving me like shivers to think about.
00:14:58
Speaker
such a big ah big project. yeah Yeah. Hopefully ah your freelance work has been significantly less overwhelming. Yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
It has been. I mean, it has a pros and cons. It's like the contracts in themselves are a bit less overwhelming because they're like ah shorter. And also, like it's a bit more um clear usually what my role is. And like I tend not to take a role that is so intense as like an art director with 10 people ah to guide.
00:15:37
Speaker
ah But it's a bit stressful now in terms of like you know finding contracts that can align back to back. So I have work all the time. That's that's the hardest part.
00:15:50
Speaker
ah Because like yeah being employed was really nice also. Just knowing that you have a full-time job. You and me both. um No, it's... um Yeah, but the freelance life is always, unfortunately, about trying to find the next gig.
00:16:11
Speaker
But it sounds like you've gotten to work on some hopefully really fulfilling stuff, including, I hope, Spooky Express has been good for you? Yes, yes, it has. Uh...
00:16:23
Speaker
It's been when one of the nicest contracts that I have had actually since I started doing freelance work. Yeah, happy to hear that. ah So, it's yeah. yeah Why don't you talk a little bit about some of the work that you did on Spooky Express?
Concept Art and Visual Design for Spooky Express
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I got contacted last year and that last year for like a mock-up of like the general vibe and the characters during pre-production, I think he was.
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah. During a pitching process, actually. Yeah. Pitching process. Yeah. So and that was nice. It was like, uh, making a cosmic express, uh, kind of like spiritual, uh,
00:17:11
Speaker
uh, how do you say the the next spiritual spiritual successor? Exactly. ah But like with ah a Halloween spooky theme, which was excited to work, exciting to work on. And also I think it was in October that you contacted me. So it was kind of fitting.
00:17:28
Speaker
Um, and then I got to work on the project as like a concept artist. Um, and I honestly, like I've always liked, uh,
00:17:40
Speaker
concept art work. I like doing pretty much anything on the project, but I think concept art is like really fun to work on because you can just like draw a lot of random stuff and decide what's good and what's not. And just like look at, you know, inspiration and like try out ideas, which I really like.
00:18:02
Speaker
And yeah, so I did like ah concepts for a for lot of the monsters, ah some of which are not yet ah revealed and also for a lot of the environments and some other stuff like the map.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I think that's pretty much it. But yeah it was fun, like especially like the monsters and the environments, like trying to find ideas. I mean, mostly for the environments, because for the monsters, you came at me with a list of specific monsters ah to make.
00:18:37
Speaker
ah But for the environments, it was pretty much like, think of like just like spooky environments. Here are some ideas, but like what are your ideas? And it was really fun to like imagine what kind of biomes we could have.
00:18:51
Speaker
I really liked doing that. Yeah, for this weird Halloween train amusement park. Yeah. It was also fun. Yeah, I also yeah designed the the little train, spooky skeleton train, which was nice.
00:19:11
Speaker
it's It's funny because we're recording this just after ah the release of the demo. ah In fact, they the demo came out like two work days ago.
00:19:21
Speaker
And There's just been such a strong, positive response from players to the visual style. I don't know if you've seen any of that feedback.
00:19:32
Speaker
No, I haven't. I was really busy. no less lawyer Players love the visuals, which is like oh really, really exciting. Nice. I'm really glad to to hear that.
00:19:45
Speaker
he Just thinking back to ah starting working together, we hadn't figured out exactly which game we were making next, so we reached out to a few people to do mock-ups for different games.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I think like you turned in your final um deliverable of the mock-up, and probably like two weeks later, were knocking on your door saying, yeah, so we're probably going to make this next. Yeah.
00:20:11
Speaker
it's ah I didn't know you were mock-uping a lot of different games. Yeah, we no, it was not it was not the case that we had to decided that point to to make that game. We were like, yeah, we could make a few different things. let's Let's get some mock-ups for each of them, put them side by side in a deck, send the deck to people to see if anyone bites on anything.
00:20:31
Speaker
Nice. But then also share it with friends and get their feedback. And yeah, the the feedback seemed pretty clear that we should make Spooky Express. hu I'm really glad you liked mock-up so much.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, really really hit the vibe. so was funny because I had started another contract and you contacted me like, can you start in three days? was like, no, I'm sorry.
00:21:02
Speaker
um And yeah, that's that's really part of the thing. we When we started you like doing that first mock-up, we didn't have a development timeline in mind. were like, well, we'll start a new project at some point, but we don't know what it's going to be.
00:21:17
Speaker
And then it's like, well, since we know what we want to do next, I guess we should start really soon. It was, yeah. um So yeah, you you weren't available like to go like the moment we we started, but are you available so soon after. And yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, I had started like ah another contract, but thankfully it was just one month. So it was available pretty soon. Yeah, we're glad that you did, because again, just very, very happy with how it all turned out.
00:21:49
Speaker
Is there a particular monster that we've announced or shown ah that was your favorite to work on?
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think I really liked the zombie because ah it was kind of difficult to design because I was looking at a lot of references and usually I don't really like how zombies ah look.
00:22:19
Speaker
I think they, I don't know, like a lot of the time they look like caricatures a little bit, like I i don't know how to say it, but like A lot of the times I have a bad vibe from zombies. So it was nice to try to make one that I myself liked.
00:22:35
Speaker
And I really like the animations that Adam made for the zombies. So I think, yeah, I really like this one. Like the way it moves and it looks like really stupid and kind of lost.
00:22:49
Speaker
I really like it. I like the colors also. I really like pink and and green as like a color combo. Nice. So
Designing and Playing Puzzle Games
00:22:59
Speaker
yeah, you've worked on Nog, you've worked on Spooky Express.
00:23:03
Speaker
What's your relationship to puzzle games generally? ah I don't think I've played that many puzzle games, except I've played a bunch of Professor Layton, which I really like.
00:23:18
Speaker
um But I think they tend to like really make me tired very fast. because you have to yeah think so much and it's like i i think for me it's not honest i'm sorry to say that but i think for me is it's not that fun i mean it's fun for a while but then like i don't know when it when it gets like the same mechanic one more time with like one more twist and it's like you have to think again like you you're just you just have your
00:23:51
Speaker
a hit of dopamine because you just solved something and then you have to solve another thing, but like more complicated. was like, oh no. So yeah, I think I'm i'm better at like working on puzzle games than playing puzzle games.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, that that makes sense. I mean, before I started working on puzzle games, I was a fair weather puzzle fan. I would play a few here and there. like I would enjoy them, but it wasn't...
00:24:21
Speaker
it wasn't like a primary genre. And then i started working on a puzzle game. And then that puzzle designer introduced me to a puzzle designer friend. So I started working on that.
00:24:31
Speaker
And then another puzzle designer and then another puzzle designer and then Alan hired me. And then I was working on puzzle games all the time. And very quickly, I just became the puzzle game producer, which is very funny, but not necessarily what I set out to do. Yeah. And do you do you feel like you enjoy puzzle games more now?
00:24:49
Speaker
I do. um But that's also, I think, because having worked on puzzle games for a decade now, goodness, um I can see it more clearly through a game design lens and like a ah a lens of like what what is the design, what is the puzzle, what is the game in conversation with?
00:25:13
Speaker
um like what influences did the developer have which is like very clear in a lot of games and so yes if if anyone listening wants to learn how to like puzzle games more might i recommend 10 years of labor okay i mean that's a long way around you can there are shortcuts there are shortcuts it actually only took me like three uh I mean, i ah a lot of puzzle games are really like hard and off-putting, um so i think a lot of it is just like choosing the right entry points.
00:25:52
Speaker
Which puzzle game fans are not particularly good about shouting from the rooftops about? Yes. A lot of... ah So, outside of like the five or six breakout games that have like really broken out into the mainstream, most recently, the time of recording, was the game Blueprints.
00:26:09
Speaker
Outside of those, the games that pet that puzzle fans love to shout out and be loud about tend to be the really difficult ones made for hardcore puzzle fans.
00:26:20
Speaker
and not like, this is so accessible for everyone. Everyone should be playing this game. so Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. I tried Blueprints and I really liked it. So maybe you just need more like puzzle games for non-hardcore fans.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah. Have you played the Spooky Express demo much?
00:26:44
Speaker
No, not the one that we just released. Just like older versions that were just internal versions. Yeah, because i'm I'm aiming for Spooky Express to be on the more approachable side of the spectrum, which Cosmic Express was definitely not.
00:26:59
Speaker
ha No, not at all. I tried Cosmic Express and i really liked it but like you know it's like after 10 or 15 levels, I was like, oh, it's too difficult.
00:27:10
Speaker
And i I think feedback from the demo so far has been really positive on that aspect. um I think, yeah, it seems like everyone who's tried the demo has been able to get to the end of the demo. so yeah I don't think anyone's been blocked by difficulty, which has been good.
00:27:27
Speaker
There's a few hardcore puzzle fans that have said that they wish there were more difficult levels in the demo, but like, I don't know. The demo represents the planned beginning of the game.
00:27:38
Speaker
So... And it also doesn't include all of the levels for the first level packs of the game. Exactly. So ah please stay tuned for the full version of the game if your feedback was you want it to be more difficult and more complicated.
00:27:54
Speaker
We got you. We'll have optional levels. Can confirm. is in fact a Draknet game. And they will have a lot of new, very exciting biomes.
00:28:06
Speaker
Absolutely. yeah Alan is... Is Snowman the only game we've released that has no optional content to reach the ending?
00:28:16
Speaker
um To reach the ending, I guess so, because you need to yeah ah you to beat everything to get out
Development Process and Milestones of Spooky Express
00:28:24
Speaker
the gate. yeah I think Soccer Bond, you need to beat all of the main levels to see the credits, and then you get post-game stuff. Okay.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think Sockmond and Snowman both have that structure. Okay. Even a electrifying incidents. ah There's a whole separate... but We don't need to get into it again.
00:28:49
Speaker
Fans of the podcast, no. God. Anyways... Lucy, just just wait. Somehow, ah two days before launch, we're going to be asking you for seven new monsters because Alan is going to wake up one day and decide that actually the game needs a lot more scope.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah. I won't do that two days before launch. I know what I can and can't i add two days before launch. Do you?
00:29:26
Speaker
We'll see. History proves me right. History is written by the results of the producer knocking ideas out of your hands. But very much looking forward to this. Honestly, this has been... would say even by like a lot of Dracnex standards, this has been a very straightforward and relatively relaxed production.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, I was very impressed at like how smooth things have been going. late yeah the The milestones were pretty much respected every time.
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah, i'm not I'm not used to that either. um and I think no one in video games is used to that. Yeah, no, set up all the milestones, hit all the milestones. ah Pretty much no scope creep so far.
00:30:17
Speaker
You know, we're recording this on May the 27th. And so fans who listen to the post-release episodes of this podcast that are like, when did all the scope creep happen?
00:30:29
Speaker
After May the 27th, 2025. Because as of now, the scope has not creeped yet. Yeah, you gotta wait until, like, two months before the planned release to start adding content, you know?
00:30:42
Speaker
I also want to be clear that, like, two weeks ago, I told Alan very bluntly, this is, like, one of the last opportunities to safely change the scope of the game without stressing people out.
00:30:54
Speaker
And he said, no, I like the scope that we have. So... Well, that's very reasonable. Yeah, I also like the scope that we have. I think that the plan is to make a very full game that is not, you know, it's it's not a slight thing. This is going to be a full, full Dragnet game, and we're going to make it without stressing out our developing team.
00:31:19
Speaker
And I don't think we need ah ton else. And if we do, we can just release DLC five years after the game comes out. ah Five years? I think part of it is like, we could have been aiming to make this game faster.
00:31:35
Speaker
Like there's a world where we would be like, a lot of the content for this game is already done. And so we're just giving ourselves a lot of time to polish. Yeah.
00:31:46
Speaker
Polish, but also like test. Right. Yeah. Like by polish, I partly mean like play test and iterate on the level design and the puzzles.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's often like something that gets skipped at the end of productions. Yeah. And like your horror stories from Goodbye Volcano High, like reminded me that like, for me, when I'm designing puzzle games, like a real priority for me is like making sure that I can make content changes to puzzle design really late into the process. And so anything that like puts barriers between iterating based on play testing feedback is like a real red flag.
00:32:27
Speaker
And I think that's particularly true of puzzle games. But I think it's kind of true of any game. Like, i think maximizing your ability to iterate and make changes without throwing away work is, like, probably a very good way to, like, work for a lot of games.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know I think that the development structure here is hopefully really sustainable. I... I don't know. I also measure a lot of success by how many people reached out to me worried about hitting deadlines.
00:33:08
Speaker
And ah we've had that before on plenty of other projects um
Transitioning to New Projects
00:33:14
Speaker
internally at DracNag. And so far, we have not had that once on Spooky.
00:33:19
Speaker
Nice. So... Fingers crossed on that. It's either because the production is going well or because people are afraid of I really hope it's not people are afraid of me, especially because so much of the team has worked with us before.
00:33:34
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know. um I don't want to throw names out under the bus, but like you and ah Lucas, who's already been on the podcast feed, r are pretty much the new blood in working with Draknek. Yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
And then everyone everyone else is moved is like moved from another project onto to this. Right. here's Here's a question. Do you feel like the new blood and everyone else knows each other? Or did you feel like you managed to fit in?
00:34:03
Speaker
ah You know, when I joined, you were talking a lot about the electrifying incident. So I pretty much understood very quickly that like everyone else was already working on something together and that I was pretty much ah new. I mean, I mean, you don't have to apologize. It's like normal. But yeah, I did feel like a contractor joining a team.
00:34:26
Speaker
Okay. but I guess that was also but something where and for that we were like kind of juggling between Spooky Express and finishing up Electrunk Instant yeah in a way that yeah ah like we we've not done that before.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yes, we started the next game before the before the previous one was done. Yeah, yeah which which which can make sense for like a production standpoint to avoid having like a weird limbo in between projects.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, honestly, there were, yeah, there was just enough people that had basically completely finished their work on electrifying, or so we had thought that it totally made sense to roll up the next project and, like, for for example, put art on something else, right? Because at the time, we didn't think that we were going to need anything else art-wise for electrifying incident.
00:35:25
Speaker
And you ended up needing more art for it? Yep, not a lot. ah most of the um Most of the additional work on that after the first period of development was polishing up UI stuff or quality of life stuff and then the game design changes that happened. We probably needed a total of three d day three artist days between ui and an alternate ending screen.
00:35:58
Speaker
I think Ben you did the alternate ending screen. That's right. Adam just saw it and laughed and we took that and we took that as it's good. it's good
00:36:08
Speaker
but But yes, like lay I said, we had just from a production standpoint, it made sense to try and keep momentum of having worked more or less as a team, but being able to move on to the next project where like some people like Phoenix were still working on electrifying at the time and doing some preliminary work on ah spooky. Whereas like ah you and Adam and Lucas and a little bit of Priscilla were able to very, very much focus on pre-production on spooky.
00:36:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. which was an interesting ah production, interesting creative process. I hope we can do it again without problems.
00:37:00
Speaker
I don't know. i i get the sense that Spooky is probably going to... we're We're not really going to be rolling people onto the next project but before Spooky ships, but I say that now. Ha ha ha ha.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think we'll be spinning up development on a new project before Spooky ships, but... the The question mark is like, how soon after shipping a Spook Express will we have a really solid idea of what the next game is?
00:37:29
Speaker
And yeah we we will see. Have you kept like some of the ideas that you did like mock-ups for in the the back to maybe pitch after? we we got We've got plenty of options. yes yeah we are not Thankfully, we are not short of game ideas.
00:37:47
Speaker
We are short of... decisions about what the game is going to be because when you commit to a game you're committing to months to years of your life and the lives of people that you're working with and so it is just like a what is the one that we want to work on next but yeah i don't know uh do you have any questions for us yeah i was wondering like how did the idea for a spooky express come to be ah So someone, we we can tell the story now because it's it's in the podcast feed already.
Evolution and Design of Spooky Express
00:38:21
Speaker
Alan, do you want to tell the story? Yeah, so maybe six months after Cosmic Express released, um somebody just sent a message on Twitter saying, i would buy Cosmic Express again at twice the price if it was about ah dropping off ah monsters at tombstones.
00:38:43
Speaker
And at the time like, yeah. oh yeah that's fun uh too bad it's only two months until uh Halloween don't have time to make that um and like didn't think about it a lot but like that that idea just like stuck in my brain and like every couple of years it would like percolate up to the top of things like and I'd chat with Ben I was like yeah that could be a fun that could be a fun game to make so yeah it was it was really That one person incepting it into my brain.
00:39:15
Speaker
That's funny, getting ideas out of the community. And are you going to put Spooky Express at twice the price of Cosmic Express? no No, no, it will be the same price as Cosmic Express. yeah but its but But people can buy it twice. yeah you You can go to itch.io and hit pay what you want and type in any number.
00:39:36
Speaker
So I know you're listening, Zach. We're going to hold you to it. You're going to need to go into itch and pay $30,
00:39:46
Speaker
But I mean, so the idea was in my head for a while. And like, I and knew that it was a cute concept. I guess the thing that it really needed to turn into a real thing was like some way that wouldn't just be remaking the same game again, which wasn't something that I was particularly excited about. Like, but like like mean, Seren, you were here for a lot of these discussions. about Like, I would bring...
00:40:09
Speaker
Spooky Express up and I would be excited for it as a concept but be unexcited to actually like do anything about it. You would be so unexcited. and it's it i would I would look at how excited you were and I would literally prepare a preliminary production plan and say we can get started on it. This is who we would need to do pre-production. Let's go. you're You're excited about making a game again because Lucy, from your perspective, we shipped the Monster's Expedition in 2020 and it and it oh Oh, until 2024, we didn't make any games internally. We spent four years publishing other people's games.
00:40:43
Speaker
And how come you didn't work on anything internal? Burnout from Alan. Right. And also we were juggling a lot of We were juggling a lot of stuff. But the re the reason that we were publishing so much and not developing was predominantly burnout.
00:41:00
Speaker
And so... whenever Alan would talk about this, he would get so excited, I would be like, yes, I want to latch on to this. I want to take this positive energy. I want to go make a game together. Let's go make, um especially because like I hadn't, literally Electrifying Incident is the first time that i sat down with an internally developed Drakonet game start to finish. And I've been working with you, Alan, every work day, basically, for five years.
00:41:31
Speaker
And it took four and a half years to start a game together. So I was very excited. And I was like, yes, let's latch on to this creative energy. And then Alan would be like, oh, making the game? Yeah.
00:41:44
Speaker
yeah And ah at one point um i I said, oh yeah, OK, Ben, like go prototype something in PuzzleScript. And he did – and it it didn't quite match what I had in my head.
00:41:58
Speaker
And it didn't quite work. um And so, like, it took a took a fair amount of slow back and forth with Ben to, like – figure out like the, and like eventually I got it to the point where I had it designed in my head and I could say, okay, no, these pieces will work.
00:42:16
Speaker
And I like made one test level in public scripts and I'm like, yeah, this works. um But it took a lot of like pondering the idea and having it at the back of my brain before the idea could go from like, here's the concept to like, oh, here's the gameplay systems that make me excited to make this a reality.
00:42:37
Speaker
And how do you how do you design a ah game that like is kind of like ah Cosmic Express, but not the same one? like how do you like What were the ideas to make it like a different very different game?
00:42:53
Speaker
um So I think from the start, I had this idea that Spook Express would be ah more monster focused than Cosmic Express. Like Cosmic Express, you've got three alien types, but really only one of them is like...
00:43:08
Speaker
special and the others are kind of just generic aliens and like they need to get to specific destinations but they don't have like oh this alien has this special property and that's what that's what makes that alien unique only the slime aliens that have that the other one is just purple alien and orange alien um So I knew that like with a spooky setting, there'd be more scope for like, oh, here's a particular monster and here's something somatic about this monster that can have gameplay relevance.
00:43:41
Speaker
um So that was that was a big part of why I kept coming back to this idea and thinking, oh that there must be something there. And then the the humans is really when it kind of came together when I was planning it in my head. but It's like, okay, this is this is a passenger that like interacts differently with various different monster types.
00:44:04
Speaker
um And the idea of them them getting scared off the train, um like think once I had that, realization of like the most elegant way to have monsters scaring humans off the train, then i' was like, okay, yeah, this this will work.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah, because there there weren't a lot of interactions between the monsters of Cosmic Express, right? No, not at all. Oh, right. um And like, yeah, Cosmic Express, a lot of it was just like, here is gameplay variations, but there are like on the on the track, you've got like crossings, you've got wormholes, um you've got you've got the slime aliens, it's like the one alien-y thing, but ah you've you've got the, I think it's like question mark...
00:44:51
Speaker
boxes that anyone will will get into. And like, none of that feels particularly tied to the setting of Cosmic Express. And I knew that with Spooky Express, I could make it so that it was much more thematic with like gameplay and theme really being strongly tied together.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. It really works. I really hope so.
00:45:19
Speaker
I'm confident. Yeah, no, I'm... i any Any doubts that I had about like the readability or understandability of the mechanics kind of evaporated when I saw people playing the demo and was okay, yep, yep, this is gonna... This works.
00:45:38
Speaker
Nice. um Because unlike Alan, I have not been to an event and seen this game playtested. So that was a real... Okay, this is good. I get to see other people playing playing the game.
00:45:55
Speaker
ah And unfortunately, there's not, you know, if if there were significant problems, there's not a significant amount of ah dev time left to address
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:46:04
Speaker
many of them. So we might, we would, I don't know what we would have to do.
00:46:08
Speaker
But I do not want my hair to go gray because I'm thinking of hypothetical production problems. I have enough real ones. I have enough real production problems. i don't need to imagine what if.
00:46:22
Speaker
of Awesome. Is there anything else that you'd like to ah chat about, Lucy? I don't think so. I'm thinking, but
00:46:36
Speaker
think, yeah. yeah Any recent freelance projects you want to plug? uh no because like a lot of the freelance projects that i've worked on haven't been released yet so i can't really talk about them i'm working on a big one right now that i was doing like half a week on spooky and half a week on this other one um And it's kind of in a rush now. And up until end of July, I'm going to be working so much on it.
00:47:07
Speaker
And then I'm going to Japan, which will be ah very nice ah reward after all of that. So I'm just excited to rest right now, I think. Nice. Well, good luck. Thank you.
00:47:20
Speaker
Awesome. ah Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a real pleasure. Yeah, likewise. And honestly, thank you so much for working with us. It's been great getting a chance to work with you.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. um It was great working with Dracnik. Yay. Awesome. Thank you for listening to the Dracnik and Friends official podcast.
00:47:43
Speaker
Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoise.bandcamp.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawadniak.
00:47:54
Speaker
Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
00:48:19
Speaker
you