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Episode 09: Mairi Nolan (Draknek & Friends studio manager and escape room aficionado)
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In this episode, hosts Alan and Syrenne are joined by Mairi Nolan, the studio manager at Draknek & Friends. Topics include how Mairi got into puzzle games, her love of escape rooms, and what being a studio manager at a company like Draknek & Friends is like.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Dragneck 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 Dragneck and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazilden, the head dragneck at Dragneck and Friends. Hey.
00:00:36
Speaker
Today we're joined by Mari Nolan, who you may know as Studio Manager at Drag Deck and Friends, among many other things. How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you guys? Good. ah So do you want to give a quick rundown of who you are and what you do? Because you do quite a lot.
00:00:56
Speaker
I do do a little bit too much if you ask me. um But yeah, no, I'll go from the top. So, Saransa, my name is Mari Nolan. I am a freelance puzzle game designer. um I usually work in tabletop games and escape rooms, but more recently a little bit more video games as well.
00:01:12
Speaker
Um, when not doing that, I try and escape from every single escape room in the world. So that's my big hobby. And I also like to write about them. So I write for two newsletters, the escape industry newsletter and the escape room as well. So yeah, without diving into too much detail, that's kind of a top level of who I am. I make games and I play games.
Mari Nolan's Game Development Journey
00:01:32
Speaker
Awesome, so what got you into game development? I feel like get starting to play games is pretty easy, but what got you into making games?
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't know if there was any kind of one inciting incident that kind of got me into making games, except it was the kind of thing I was doing anyway. It's like I always kind of look back to like being at university where I studied something so, so far away from game design, it's like impossible to make a connection. And I was doing things like murder mystery society and we had an assassin club and stuff like that. And from that, I would like spin off my own like side quests and like side plots and stories to like run with friends who were in those kinds of things.
00:02:12
Speaker
And the whole time I was doing that, I was like, oh, this is so much fun. But I'm not a game designer, like, I don't know, imp pasta syndrome or whatever. But I never really thought to actually call myself a game designer until much, much later in my, quote unquote, career, when I was doing marketing and sales for an escape room company. And one day, I just like piped up in a meeting. And I was like, hey, what if we did like an at home version of this so that as a marketing activity, people can play the escape room and then take home a version of like what happens after the escape room. And they were like, yeah, that sounds great. Go and do it. And I was like, oh, okay. So I went away and did it. And I kind of guessed from there, i that was the first time that I'd actually done something professional, again, air quotes as a game designer.
00:02:53
Speaker
And yeah, that was kind of like a physical print production game. So a little bit different from the kind of stuff I do these days. But I guess technically, that was my first game I made that I was actually paid for. And I started calling myself a game designer after that if that kind of answers the question a little bit. It's a very roundabout way. It's really hard to like kind of inspire the next generation of game designers by saying, Oh, I just kind of fell into it in a meeting one day. But yeah, that's the truth.
00:03:19
Speaker
I am mean, and my story of how I got into this was also basically ah not replica replicable in any way, so I totally get that.
Indie Game Development Challenges
00:03:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, who in the world has a job that they feel like they could explain to other people how to get? That's a very good point. Like, barely anyone making indie games profitably. Yeah, I was i was going to say in this industry now, I feel like there's a pretty straight road map to like be a teacher. Sure. Yeah. Like if you're, if you're like a respectable job, just like jobs in the world, like, yeah, there's plenty of jobs. Like a really high tech job, like surgery or like something like that that you really have to train for. Right. Exactly. But like, yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't go to school for this. I went to school for public relations. ah How's that working out?
00:04:14
Speaker
Yeah. Uh-huh. I proofread press releases for Alan sometimes. ah love it That's PR-ish.
Passion for Puzzle Games and Mysteries
00:04:21
Speaker
So digging into puzzle games specifically, what excites you the most about them?
00:04:27
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good question. Um, for me, puzzle games are kind of like environments that are like controlled in a way that I don't necessarily know that I can say that about many other games. Like in a puzzle game, there is a clear right answer. Maybe there's multiple right answers, but there's a right answer and there's a wrong answer. And there's like steps to take to get to the right answer.
00:04:48
Speaker
And I love that kind of like deductive aha moment like going through their steps trying things like rolling back seeing what works and what doesn't work. And I also love making that for other people as well like seeing them plot out that like critical path and like whether they go on it and how do they solve a certain situation. And I guess it's just maybe me as a person, why I like that kind of like control so much. I'm the kind of person that has a spreadsheet that itemizes every 15 minutes of my entire life for no other reason than I like to see the fun graphs at the end. So I guess I'm like,
00:05:18
Speaker
I try and put that into the puzzle games and try and game if I find things like that. um But yeah, I think it's that that does it for me in terms of puzzle games. Also, they're just so fun just to get to the end. And like, I guess when I'm talking about puzzle games, I'm talking a lot of like, detective-y kind of games or like narrative puzzle kind of games or or even like escape rooms and stuff like that. And I love that kind of like moment at the end where you whip the mask off and you figure out like who it was or who done it or like what the big finale is and whether it's a twist or not. I live for that kind of stuff. I love it.
00:05:50
Speaker
What do you think got you into that? like Was there an especially good detective story you read when you were a kid or something that like made you a fan of that for life? Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm really wrecking my mind. But all the games I played as a kid were absolutely so different. My favorite game as a kid was Ape Escape 2. I just love catching monkeys. And I cannot, even no matter how hard I try, make a convincing argument that that's a puzzle game. No, it's not a puzzle game, but it's a good game. If if you want to make the genre of good game, it's definitely in that genre.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah. No, that's a good point. I'm going to go with murder mysteries. There wasn't a particular one, but I used to love watching like murder mystery TV shows. I used to love going to murder mystery parties. I think it must have been like nine when I went to my first murder mystery party. And obviously at nine years old, you're not doing anything complex. There was no like deepness to the story, but just being able to put on a costume and be someone else and like solve a mystery. I won that game, by the way. like I absolutely smashed it.
00:06:49
Speaker
Not only the murderer, but I solved every single thing that every single character had to do, and it was amazing. Oh, incredible. Okay, that that's the origin story. Like, you say you don't know, but that's it. Yeah, I think that's your origin story right there. I still talk about that party today. It was so great. Yeah, no, I think that rooted itself in your psyche. So you're a very good murderer and you're very interested in ah escape rooms slash murder mysteries slash ah detective unveils. Yeah. Side tangent focusing in on escape rooms outside of like in-person entertainment like mystery murder theaters. Was there like one experience with an escape room specifically that like really solidified your interest in that field?
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question as well. Escape rooms actually are really, really new. They like basically came to the UK at least in like 2012. I think, strangely, a little bit later in America, like 2013, 2014. So all the escape rooms seem to have really popped up kind of in the last decade, which is absolutely bizarre. Like it's way too early to talk about escape rooms more generally like that. But the first one I ever did was in London, and it was in the middle of nowhere, this weird little industrial park outside of the main city. And we like traveled hours to get there. And it was like an old office that was clearly not used. And it was just a guy who'd like built this cube out of like corrugated iron. And I was literally like, I had no idea. And I was really claustrophobic at the time. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is how I died. This is not good. and We escaped with, I think, three seconds left on the clock, and it was such an amazing, exhilarating feeling. Like, we were just grinning the whole time. And I think I walked out and I immediately was like, okay, what what are you doing next weekend? We're going to book another one. We went a lot tamer from then. Like, we didn't book anything in the middle of nowhere anymore. There were plenty in the middle of the city to do that.
00:08:38
Speaker
But yeah, that would have been quite early as well, maybe like 2015, 2016 was probably the first one I did. Before that, I think we had stuff like the crystal maze. um I can't remember if there was like a live experience of that at the time, but um things that escape from adjacent have existed all over the world. I mean, theme parks, right? I'm talking about theme parks at this point, immersive kind of in-person, puzzle-y experiences. But I think escape rooms were that kind of overlap between being in an immersive, almost like LARP-like space, whilst also solving puzzles, which is what I like to do. So that's probably one of the most memorable ones. More recently, I've been to some very good ones.
Escape Room Enthusiasm and Experiences
00:09:20
Speaker
So there's this list called the Terpeca List, and it's the top escape room project. And they basically rank all of the escape rooms in the world. And you can only actually rank it if you've played over 200. So it's kind of like people who consider themselves hardcore enthusiasts. And right now, I'm trying to work my way down that list. So I'm I guess like the last maybe 15 I've played were on the list and they were amazing. It's like impossible to talk about them all. They're just like, imagine like the most incredible like set design, like enormous like environments, like taking two or three hours long. Like they're just wild. They're mostly international though. We don't get too many Topeka runs in the yeah UK, unfortunately. So I have to travel a lot for them. You have to. I have to, unfortunately.
00:10:02
Speaker
unless people want to make something nearer my home. um Yeah, I was in Switzerland last week and we did two tobacco rooms and then the week before that I was in France and we did a tobacco room and then before that we went to Barcelona, we went to Austria just to do tobacco rooms. I think my friends and my partner are getting a little bit sick of it and they're like, I plan a holiday and then the follow-up is like, are we just going for escape rounds? And I'm like, maybe, maybe there's an escape room there.
00:10:26
Speaker
just incredible. ah If you ever travel, like when you travel to another country, is that list something that you consult? Like if you need to go for work, like if Drachnik sends you somewhere for an event? ah Is that is that a list that you consult of like, well, can I extend my stay by one day and do that? is Exactly. Incredible, incredible. Love that for you.
00:10:51
Speaker
when we were down in Brighton earlier this year. Unfortunately, we we did do a few rooms. They weren't Terpeca rooms, but they were like the best ones in the country. And I think um Alan got strong armed into playing those with me as well.
00:11:04
Speaker
Which was quite fun, I liked them both. I was not that reluctant. I was ah very happy to play ah some Escape Ruins. But if I scaled it back, I could have gone for more. Yeah, left to my own devices, we made it would have done like one. And like, if you'd had your way, you would have done like four in like the three days. At least. Yeah. They were good, though. They were really good.
Joining Dragneck and Friends
00:11:27
Speaker
So, and then you're also studio manager here, as you're acting like good friends.
00:11:32
Speaker
I am, yes. Thank you for having me. Recently, just over six months. Yeah, which means that we I get the pleasure of talking to you most days, but obviously with the rest of the company here, it's probably weird, but like do you want to talk about that experience and like what that's been like to go into a ah puzzle developer and puzzle publisher from the outside moving in? has Have we disappointed you in any way? Have we lived up to your expectations? Yeah, that's that's a framing.
00:12:05
Speaker
So the big question, have you disappointed me? Absolutely not, it's been great. But no, it's been a really fun six months so far. So let's see, I joined back in April, which for anyone who sort of follows Dragoneck and Friends things, we were building up towards the Cerebral Puzzle Showcase, which is a big annual festival of the best puzzle games um on Steam.
00:12:26
Speaker
um So a lot of my first few months were focused around getting that set up and stuff. And then after that, we've kind of been, well, my role at least has been focused a lot on things like um some of the initiatives we're doing, like the Draknik New Voices Puzzle Grant, which is, I guess, soon to be announced. Depending on when this podcast episode airs, we might announce the winners. This is airing in early 2025.
00:12:49
Speaker
oh they've already been announced. Fantastic. um Yeah, and we've had quite a few ah releases as well. So we launched soccer bond express on Android and iOS, we announced that lock digital is a published game as well. And we have some really incredible, really exciting games.
00:13:07
Speaker
which you guys know about but I guess they're not publicly announced yet so I won't say too much but yeah we've got some really cool things going on in the background. I think this is a really great time to join direct neck and friends like I am just generally in the business of like getting good puzzle games made and as you can tell from like jumping from video games to like tabletop to escape runs The medium is kind of second. I felt like you can design amazing puzzle games for any kind of medium. And I think direct next one of the leading puzzle game designers in the video game space. So it's just a cool, um it's amazing place to be at an amazing time with so many exciting games on the horizon, which I'm dying to talk about, but I went in this podcast. But yeah, it's been a really good six months. Again, can't thank you guys enough for having me. It's been great.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's been great having you. Thanks.
Team Dynamics and Decision-Making
00:13:53
Speaker
do you Do you think there's anything about working at Dragneck that like isn't what people might expect or wasn't what you expected? Like anything that like might be interesting for people to hear about? Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
I think people from the outside might expect us to be a bigger team, but it really is just the three of us. And we still get so much done, even though it's just three of us compared to like any other company. Like if you described what Dragneck & Friends does, so like, three says our own games, publishers games, runs the cerebral puzzle showcase, runs a new voices grant, like all these really cool initiatives. And now this podcast as well, I think if you describe that to someone on the outside, and I do describe it to people, they're like, oh, wow, you must be a massive team. And it's like, nope, just the three of us. We make it work.
00:14:36
Speaker
We do it efficiently. I think that's pretty surprising to those on the outside. What do you guys think? Yeah, definitely. And and to be clear, ah the ah the the games that we make ourselves like have bigger development teams. It's not the three of us making or all the assets and all the puzzles and everything for every game. That's true. That would be a lot. What about you, Saren? I mean...
00:15:03
Speaker
What about me in terms of like, it seems like more people do this or oh like this drag neck leave up to my expectations? Well, I kind of meant just like, what do you think people would be surprised by?
00:15:16
Speaker
Um, I think people would be surprised by how off the cuff a lot of big decisions get made oh by Alan has an idea. And if we have the bandwidth to do it, we pretty much do it. Like I love that. though That's great. that it's not like There's not really a board of external stakeholders, right? like We don't need to sit there and like really make P and&L statements, profit and loss statements for every
00:15:52
Speaker
every decision because like, I don't know, direct activity voices puzzle grant isn't profitable. That's not the point. Like, we make a lot of decisions for the space and for the industry and like,
00:16:06
Speaker
there isn't some conniving back end document where we've like calculated the goodwill value that we get from X. And so like, I don't know, I think it just might be maybe not for in the indie space. But I know that a lot of people who don't think about video games in like an indie versus AAA versus small team type situation,
00:16:33
Speaker
are like mindset, who just think about games, just keep hearing stories about the big companies. And so some of that stuff might surprise them. Yeah, that makes sense. I think some things are just more important than profit at the end of the day, like running stuff like The New Voices grant, super invaluable to the puzzle game industry. We've seen so many lovely messages from people who've applied and like thanking us for running it this year. It's been great. Absolutely. Alan, I've been dominating this conversation. You got to jump in.
00:17:02
Speaker
ah Yeah, I mean, I don't know, do we want to do more about Dragneck? Like, oh what what do you actually do day-to-day? Or... So what would you say you do around here? ah That's a good question.
Studio Management and Teamwork
00:17:19
Speaker
This feels like a job interview, but I will...
00:17:23
Speaker
know, I'll answer honestly. um So I work part time. So I do like 18 hours a week. um Some days are busier, some days are quieter. um We have various different inboxes. So we had a lot of different messages about a lot of different things throughout the day. um We are well, I am sort of managing the portfolio of games we already have both the ones we've already released and the ones that we published in terms of like applying for various festivals and grants and managing things like tax relief um at the moment. I'm not necessarily directly involved in the day to day of like the actual games we are currently working on. As you said before, we kind of have a team built around that. And as Studio Manager, I can be fairly hands off because you guys have it all under control.
00:18:09
Speaker
um But yeah, things like that. And obviously, different times of year, it ramps up to be busier in certain ways. So when we are building up towards things like the cerebral puzzle showcase, which I was thinking about this morning, actually, because it is coming up quite soon. But when we're doing things like that, kind of setting that up, getting that organized, um writing out, like getting the press out for that, getting the socials out for that, like writing all the emails around things like that. um Obviously, we only really do sort of emails per social when we have big things to talk about. And that's sometimes of year over other times of year.
00:18:38
Speaker
But yeah, it's very varied. I would say no two days look the same. um It really depends on the kind of things we have going on, um and where those projects are at different stages, um whether they're very, very early, just talking about ideas versus like, we're about to ship a thing. Here's the thing kind of thing.
00:18:56
Speaker
um But yeah, Studio Manager role, very, very varied. It depends what you guys need me to do. Sometimes my job is just being on a call with Alan, making sure Alan's doing his work, which is great as well. Like I enjoy that, lets me do my work in the background. um But yeah, that's my day today, I reckon. What about you guys? I mean, yeah, variety is really the watchwords. Yeah, despite the life around here.
00:19:20
Speaker
Which I know as is part of the reason that you're so invaluable is just because like just keeping all the plates spinning itself feels like a full-time job and so like just but making the time to like do level design work or to um get hands-on with with one of the developers we're working with to like help them fix problems is just like Left to my own devices like, oh, well, like I'm spending all my time just like making everything happen and like not actually getting anything or like, like keeping, keeping everything going without feeling like I've done anything. So yeah, it's a, it's a tough balance. Yes. And then, I don't know. I i do a lot of the game centric stuff. I'm not making assets, but I do like.
00:20:10
Speaker
Well, this is hard to talk about if we're not specific specifying the game, that like the projects we're working on internally. But like, but for example, for locked digital, um like this is like me working with the dev team, make sure they have everything they need, making sure that like, we are on trajectory and on timeline for finishing the game on deadline, on time, on budget, on the platforms, and that they have the resources that they need. This is like over sync.
00:20:38
Speaker
functions like localization as like a publisher function. Um, so it's a, it's a lot of that from the production side of things.
New Microgame Project and Strategy Shift
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I i think we can, we we we don't want to like reveal what we've been working on the details, but like, I think we can talk about the fact that we just finished or today we're wrapping up a six week microgame project. Um, which at the time this podcast releases, we'll probably be announcing it within two months. Hopefully.
00:21:07
Speaker
Hopefully. Yeah. And like that that would be the first project that you've seen Dragneck make as like an internally developed game. um Yeah. ki Yeah. what What was your thoughts on that? Yeah. It's been a really interesting project to see. So I feel like this project is maybe not representative of the previous Trackneck and Friends projects, both in terms of things like the scope was so much smaller. And yeah, hope it's okay to say we're using it more of an engine test as well. So some of the like questions we were asking about the game and some of the things we were like testing out in in the game are were a little bit different from what would be in a typical development cycle, um sort of pushing the buttons in certain directions to see if the engine would work for what we needed it before it's potentially used in future ones.
00:21:53
Speaker
it was really good that it was really nice to see like you brought in brought back all the sort of old teams have worked on previous games as well and it was so nice seeing everyone just kind of be on the same page about a lot of things and work so well together. um Great little team assembled around there. And I think it's been a great start to finish process of that whole game. Trying very hard not to mention any specifics about it, but it is such a cool little game. I loved playing the prototype and I am personally so excited to like play this new version. and I'm personally so excited for this to be announced so very soon after this podcast is released.
00:22:30
Speaker
Um, it's great. I was actually writing some store copy for it today. So very, very early, but it feels very real and tangible right now, which is very exciting. Yeah, it's a it's a really cool thing. And I mean, I joined in the midst of the development of a monster's expedition. And then it's been four years between that and this with no internal development of games.
00:22:59
Speaker
So it's nice, it's nice to loop all the way back around to where I started with the company. Yeah. It's kind of funny, that the wild rides that Drank's been on since you you joined. Yeah. I mean, I take, I take responsibility for increasing the ambition and, but I don't take responsibility for the burnout that Monster's Expedition left you with.
00:23:26
Speaker
I mean, Monster Expedition, like i I did burn out after that from like mainstream, from like like being heavily involved in making a game for for a long while. That's what I'm talking about, yeah. That was yeah like that was just like the pressure was just so high with like the immovable timeline and having been working on it for three and a half years.
00:23:48
Speaker
and So what the audience can expect is Omasa's Expedition 2 twice as long, twice as twice as much content. That's what everyone's super excited to make. Yeah, um everyone everyone can't wait for. the the third The watchword is like, games that are as good but made faster and with less stress. That's that's the goal. And like, we we really have gone a long time without focusing on development, so it's going to be a while before we're able to make anything the same scale as Monster's Exposition, but we're kind of back in that that mindset of like, oh yeah, let's let's make stuff. Yeah, and it's it's a fun mindset to be in. From your perspective, how did this compare? like How did this game feel after such a long time?
00:24:33
Speaker
ah This kind of felt like just a long game jam, really. um I mean, it helped that we had like a prototype to start with. It was like the template for what we're going to make. And that's made it possible to make a game of this level of production value in such a short period. But.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah I don't know like i I think it's just like it is it's been like a nice small like six weeks is so manageable and it like doesn't feel like it's dragging on and it doesn't feel like oh I've been working on this for so long and it feels like there's so much left to do it's just like no like this is like we had it playable two three weeks in and then it's just a case of making it better um and that feels good.
00:25:21
Speaker
And also, yeah, I think it helped that, like, thinking of it as an engine test rather than, like, this is the next big game meant that it was harder to have scope creep, which is they so valuable for shipping. Thank God I succeeded on that. Was there no scope creep in this one? Well, Seren started out saying that we weren't making level changes and that didn't happen, and that was for the better.
00:25:49
Speaker
i This is an audio podcast, but I'm shooting glares at you right now. No, it is. I mean, like it's it's it's kind of funny because like we started out going like, oh, yeah, this is this game, like the level design has already been done. um There's no need to tweak it. um And like kind of from the start, I knew, well, there's a few things I want to tweak. And I ended up tweaking more than that because I'm a perfectionist. But also, I'm very glad for the engine test that I did because we learnt so much from having to have, like, the tools to make level changes that stretch to the engine, and whereas if we'd just gone like, no, the level content is set, like, I don't think we would have had a as good an understanding of, like, what it would be to actually make a game and make content for a game. Yeah. Still shooting daggers at you through my eyes. Yeah, more more about that game soon.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yes, now shifting away from advertising our projects. It's teasing, not advertising. A teaser trailer is still an ad. Mari.
Diverse Projects and Escape Room Design
00:26:58
Speaker
Yes. So you've not just worked with us, of course, you've worked on a variety of projects. Do you have a favorite stage of a project? like you get especially excited for like the blue sky era of ideation and like green pastures? Or ah do you get most excited when it's all coming together? Or like first play it like what part like really excites you the most?
00:27:30
Speaker
I would love to reply and just say the end when it's finished and I'm off the project and I can just hold it in my hands and be like, look, I made a thing and then not worry about it again. But that's a cop-out answer. That's a good question though. I really like getting into the nitty-gritty of puzzle design and like designing an actual puzzle and sort of tweaking the very small little variables to get it to work.
00:27:54
Speaker
So I would say the stage I like is after the ideation, it's when we're kind of doing that first pass at puzzles and sort of getting it right and sort of slotting puzzles in to get the difficulty curve just quite right and kind of tweaking and pulling back. And I really like that because I like to be in the weeds of that kind of thing.
00:28:13
Speaker
um The bit I like the least is then when you send those off and get feedback and everyone's like, this is terrible, it doesn't work. That's my least favorite part. So it goes the puzzle creation and then the end when it's done as the second bit. The Blue Sky bit at the beginning is really fun, but hard to lose like lose sight of what are we trying to say? Basically, when I think about game design, I do think like board game tabletop first, and the ideation phase is great, but a lot of people are like, let's have this, and let's have this, let's have this. And like, I've spent most of my career thinking about like the bill of materials, like, how can this fit into a box? How heavy is this? Like,
00:28:52
Speaker
I've got a lot of contacts with factories. And I can like tell you off the top of my head, like exactly how expensive very different materials are. And someone will say like, I saw this in a tabletop game, like, I don't know, thermochromic paper where you sort of heat it up in your hand, and then it reveals something. Oh my god, so expensive. Like it has to be worth it to put it in a game.
00:29:10
Speaker
like, it drives me wild to think about it. So I feel like in a lot of those meetings, I'm the one in the corner like, and we can't do this, we can't do this, it's too expensive, we can't do this. They'll never get a sign off of this. So as fun as that is, I prefer designing once I have my constraints. And yeah, I'm thinking about it in terms of like the actual sort of projects I'm working on at the moment, the ones I've sort of recently finished. And yeah, the funnest parts in the project for me is when I'm sitting in front of a spreadsheet, or I'm sitting in front of like a stack of paper, and I'm just like folding, and I'm just like making things and I'm sliding things around my screen to get them to sort of work and slot into place. I think that's, that's a really fun moment. Yeah, sometimes when I finish a project as well, it's like, it's good. And then you're like, Oh, I just want to like, do it all over again, and like start immediately start doing the part two of it. But
00:29:59
Speaker
yeah it said some Yeah, I don't know if you guys agree, and maybe there's some more of a question for Alan, like, cause you design, it you do a lot of game jams and you do a lot of puzzle design. Would you agree that's like one of your favorite parts as well? Or would you say something different? um Yeah, I mean, I i do fewer game jams than I used to, but yeah, like I, I think I agree that like the best part is like when you know what you're making and you can just get stuck into like making it and iterating on it and like making it really good and just making a bunch of content for it. I really love level design and like coming up with an idea for a puzzle and then making the level geometry that will force a particular interaction to be required. um and like
00:30:43
Speaker
ah Oh, that this this this this is meant to do this, but like, oh, it doesn't work because of this thing. And then so just like that flow of like taking something that's in my head and like making it real and then making it so that it works better and then works better. um Yeah, it's just very engrossing.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree as well. While you were talking, though I did think of another part that I would do really like, and that's pitching. I love pitching projects to people, which is an unexpected answer. But at that point, you're even before the blue sky, right you've like just got this idea and you're like, this is going to be the best idea ever, but you don't yet have to worry about the detail.
00:31:22
Speaker
That's a good part of the game dev process. And yeah, you talked there a bit about like how you're working on a bunch of different things as well as working at Trackneck. Is there anything that you can talk about or anything you want to share?
00:31:34
Speaker
ah i So yeah, outside of drag neck and friends, when I'm not working here, I freelance puzzle game design. At the moment, I'm working on, I don't know specifically how much I can say, it's not that it's not, I'm not under and NDA, it just hasn't been announced yet. And I'm like, oh, I like to let people announce their own projects. But I'm working on one which is an audio book adventure.
00:31:55
Speaker
which is very, very different from, I guess, video game, tabletop, anything like that. It's very like, um choose your own adventure kind of style, but the challenges you're encountering are puzzles. And so I'm sort of overseeing a lot of those kind of challenges. And it's aimed at kids as well, which is quite an interesting, I guess, challenge in that, like we sort of had the first round of play testing on the vertical slice of that a couple of um weeks ago, and just the ones that like really clicked with kids of like eight and nine, and then the ones that went right over their head. And it's never quite what you expect and kind of how kids play with devices in a different way. it's I find that absolutely fascinating um when people do unexpected things during play testing. So I'm working on that. And then the other one I'm working on, which I am pretty sure I can announce, is a video game called Wax Head. So I'm doing the puzzle design of that. And that's kind of like a indie, cozy slice of life
00:32:46
Speaker
um record shop simulator. um I say puzzle design, it's very much like the interactions you get with customers. like Customers come in, you have to figure out what to recommend them, which records to recommend them. The puzzles very much support the narrative in that one. With like with that game, we're not trying to get yeah anyone stuck. like It's very much like, there's a correct answer and then there's multiple layers of other sort of close enough answers. And so that's another nice challenge from a game design point of view. It's like, that's an example where there isn't a hundred percent like perfect way through it. We want to get every player through it in their own way. And so that's a cool thing to play around with.
00:33:24
Speaker
The only other project I'm working on in the background, which is very off at the moment, is a pure tabletop game. And it is a murder mystery, detective-y kind of game, which is not slated to go into big production until early next year. I say this year, because this comes out in January, until a little bit later in this year, like February.
00:33:44
Speaker
um But that's going to be a kind of 90s offline, Goonies-esque, Stranger Things-esque adventure, following this group of kids um that kind of discover an old artifact. And so with that one, I've got the first part of the game design document, but that's going to come into play later on. and now that's a really fun stage to be in because I don't need to think about it for a long time but I every time I spot something like 90s aesthetic or like a weird website I'm like bookmarking that for later on like we're gonna turn this into a puzzle and that's really fun that'll be all paper-based so that'll all be um you'll get like a book bag and it'll be full of like worksheets and little trinkets and like little sort of links to things and and that should be quite a fun um project so
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, those are my three projects I'm working on outside of Direct Naked Friends at the moment. Very varied. It's safe to say that when I'm not working at Direct Naked Friends, my days are not the same. Every single day I'm doing a different thing, working at a different stage, working in a totally different platform. Like even this week so far, I've been working in like Photoshop, Blender, and Asprite for different projects. And then also like how I'm exporting and talking to loads of different teams across different times, loads of different times.
00:34:53
Speaker
It's manageable, but varied, like a lot of context switching 24-7, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we we kind of touched on this earlier, but I ah get the vibe that like you really enjoy the variety. um I do. not like do you Do you think it's that youd you'd get bored doing the same thing or is it that you like stretching yourself or like where where does that passion for like constantly doing so many different things come from?
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head the first time. I think I do get bored very easily. I like the new challenge. like i love to be The moment I feel like I get something and I feel complacent about it, like I no longer want to do it. kind of thing I want like a brand new, fresh challenge every single day. I want every day to be exciting, unique.
00:35:36
Speaker
um Yeah, I tend to take on projects that I'm like, I think I can do this 75%. And I really want to learn that last 25%. And that's what makes it like, interesting to me. So like I even said before, a sprite, I've never done pixel editing before in my life. And now I'm like working on a project was very pixel heavy. And I love it because I got to learn so much in like a short amount of time. So I think that's what it is for me.
00:35:59
Speaker
I like to learn new skills very quickly, and once I've mastered them, I'm bored of it. If that makes sense. Do you feel like you've not yet mastered escape room design and like that kind of... but like that yeah Do you you feel like you haven't mastered the design of the games, that you the type of games you work on?
00:36:19
Speaker
Definitely not. I can always spot flaws in my own game design and I'm like, I've got to improve that next time. I've got to do this in a different way and whole new challenges. Yeah, definitely a long way off mastering.
00:36:30
Speaker
Actually, I feel like when you mentioned escape room design, I think designing escape rooms is maybe my weakest type of design because it's difficult to kind of visualize something 3D until you're standing in the space. So the lot of work that goes into escape room design behind the scenes is very theoretical until you actually hold the like the machine. But once you hold the machine in your hands, it's too late because it's been developed already. like You can't really go in and tinker too much with a prop at that point. Iteration is very expensive with a typical escape room.
00:36:58
Speaker
So much. So gosh, I feel like that's the one that I want to work on the most. I'm not quite at the stage where I'm like, I want to open an escape room, but I very much like to do that kind of stuff and so much more to learn. Is there anything else that we want to go over?
University Assassin's Club Stories
00:37:12
Speaker
I would love to go back to something you said right at the start, which is you mentioned the Assassin's Club, because I also was part of the Assassin's Club at my university um just for one year, but i I had a lot of fun. So yeah, I just wanted to hear about your experience without any good stories.
00:37:30
Speaker
Oh, I loved my Assassin's Club. It was so much fun. I joined in like my first year and I just stayed through all the way to the third year. What? That's a good question. We just give an an overview of how how they work. Yeah, sure thing. So how they worked within my university might be different. So please tune in if yours um differed. But basically, the Assassin's Club was like, you what we were given, we were in factions. There were four different factions and you worked for your faction and you could do different things. But essentially, you had a target that you had to get.
00:37:59
Speaker
and you could um essentially assassinate them by going up to them and sort of tapping them on the shoulder or whatever it was at any time throughout the time limit. And um you didn't necessarily know who they were to begin with, like you'd be given a name and you had to basically tap them on the shoulder. By the end of the game, obviously, you did know everyone because once you tap someone's shoulder, you would get another name, they'd have to repeat and do something else.
00:38:21
Speaker
and In ours, they did get a little bit more like, they were a little bit more narrative in that like the factions, i they say at this point, I studied international relations. And everyone I was with was studying some kind of geopolitical or economics, something like that. It was my university, that's what the whole thing was about. But um yeah, we had like whole narratives that would like go through the whole like year, like different things would happen and like factions would merge together and it'd be points based on the points would translate to like,
00:38:48
Speaker
events that would happen. So yeah, that's kind of how we ran it. Was yours kind of similar? Oh, mine was way more streamlined. There were no factions. It was just like, it's running for this two week period, you'll get at targets. Same target structure, like you just get a name and no other information and you'd have to just figure out who they are and what they look like from that. But yeah, no narratives, no factions, just the bare bones of Hey, you've got a target, like you've got a target that you're trying to track down and find and tap or shoot with a water pistol. But obviously the implied structure of this that maybe you didn't focus on with your description is that obviously at the same time somebody is coming for you. And so there's just like a level of tension and paranoia of like,
00:39:38
Speaker
um knowing that at any time, um like somebody could be creeping up behind you or like, oh, like you you have this lecture, like this lecture is like a core part of your course. So like anybody who's figured out what course you're doing is gonna know that you're gonna be, you're meant to go to this lecture. So like, is that that something you want to be like more careful about? Like, do you want to like sneak in at the last moment or do you want to scope it out in advance and like,
00:40:04
Speaker
ah Yeah, but but but that side of like thinking. um and and and And yeah, like ah you you mentioned that you you kind of get to know the regulars, um and like the the really hardcore players. um yeah in the I mostly did just for the first year um of my university, and then I kind of... ah didn't didn't have so much energy after that. But yeah in the third term of that first year, I i actually got my hair cut. like i I had fairly long hair, and like I ah cut it just at the start of a game to try and throw people off. You might have seen me earlier. Brilliant. So good. So smart. I did the same, but with my hair color. I have blue hair for people listening at home. But back then, I changed my hair color very regularly. So it's not that noticeable from behind.
00:40:56
Speaker
um But yeah, ours was similar, especially with the someone after you, but we definitely did it like, having a script like you had, you got like a bracelet, which was your faction, but you could um leave your faction if you wanted to, you could be convinced to join another faction, and like they're all kind of levels like that. And like we did for one particular campaign, we had like other objectives as well, which was like to convince people to join something or like spying, for example, like it got probably needlessly complex, but It was great fun. Needlessly complex, and I was involved in the game design, so I had to take responsibility for that, but I thought it was great fun. It was absolutely fantastic. um Yeah, I never won, but I got assassinated a lot. Maybe the colourful hair actually did not work to my advantage, but it was fun while it lasted. Yeah, I miss it. I'd love to do a short version of that today, like just design like a one-shot evening kind of thing over a large space. That would be great fun.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the the way it happens at universities, it kind of can only happen at universities of like, oh, this is a this is weeks long and like there's people around, but like only a certain number of people are going to
Conclusion and Credits
00:42:07
Speaker
be playing. But like that structure doesn't work in any other context.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Maybe like a work context if you worked for a massive organization that had like a whole office building and you had like a long period of time. I think the key to it is not necessarily knowing who has you have and kind of having to figure out the name and kind of be sneaky about that and kind of learn things about them from afar whilst also watching your own back.
00:42:34
Speaker
Actually, now that I think about it, it would be really fun to do at a conference. like It would and be very silly because like it would be like this distraction. like It would make it harder to actually like focus on like attending a conference and like get out of a conference what you'd normally be there for. um But I could see that being fun. It could be funny if you like were given the name of someone who was also a speaker, and so you're just like sitting in the front row ready to shoot them with a water pistol.
00:43:01
Speaker
Hey, I i've i've really enjoyed the talk, by the way. I think that would work. yeah We should pitch it someday to someone. Yeah, pitch it to the um GDC... ah ah What do they call their... DFI's report? No, no, the the the physical controller thing. All controlled GDC. This is an all controlled GDC game.
00:43:28
Speaker
um Not a bad idea. I'll sit on that for a while. Alright, with that we should probably wrap it up. ah Thank you so much for joining us, Mari. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure, as always.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah. And thank you for listening to the Dragneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulandmoise.bandcamp dot.com. Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice, and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.