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Being Deceptively Indie (ft. Wilson Chung - Trepang2) | Dev Heads Podcast
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This week, the Dev Heads crew is joined by Trepang2-developer Wilson Chung to what goes into making a game feel big, even if you're working with a small team.
Second Wind is fully independent, employee-owned and fan-funded. Consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $1/month at patreon.com/SecondWindGroup
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Transcript
Introduction and Support
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by us. Since Second Wind operates 100% independently, we rely on your support to help us continue delivering the great content you love. Consider checking out our Patreon if you want to access ad-free versions of every podcast, plus your name featured in our video credits, as well as other exclusive perks. So if you like what you see, hear, or smell, maybe, visit our Patreon page and become part of the community today. Now back to the show.
DevHeads Podcast and Hosts
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to DevHeads, the podcast focused on the ins, outs and goings on of game development, with host experience ranging from indie, double to triple A, but we're missing our triple A representative today, Tina, sadly could not be with us, kind of like me last week, um but she will have a lovely little message for us later on regarding our little improv pitch meeting, but you still have me and my wonderful co-host, Mikey.
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello, forgive me. I'm fighting. you it's a car fight And we have a guest that we have both been extremely, extremely excited to come on, which is Mr.
Guest Introduction: Wilson Chung
00:01:09
Speaker
Wilson Chung. Hello, Wilson. Hi, everybody. Nice to meet you all. So Wilson, for our audience, could you give us ah just a brief description of who you are, what you're about, what you've worked on?
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess, okay, brief introduction. So, yeah, for me, I'm the the lead developer of Trae Pang 2, this game you can see Mikey's playing right here. um So I guess, you know, being an indie developer, um you know, I did a whole bunch of stuff. um I was in charge of, like, yeah programming, production. I did most of the VFX, sound design, and a little bit of everything else.
Small Team Success in Game Development
00:01:46
Speaker
um And then, yeah, like, it was just me and and three other dudes, two brandons, and Jacob, just my friends working on this crazy game. And here we are. It's kind of surreal. I hope to believe that is that is the thing there, which is why we've got this this specific title for this episode, because I was blown away when I found out that for so correct me if I'm wrong, three people.
00:02:12
Speaker
or four or three of my friends. I'm a person to work on this game, which is is absolutely insane. um Absolutely insane. um i'm I'm in awe that you guys could produce something of such quality. And I mean that in in the nicest way. I'm not trying to say, you know, how good, how good, you know, just four people make something like this. um I'm, I'm blown away by the the quality of every single aspect of the game. um I've been playing it a lot recently and there's not a single part of it that doesn't feel
00:02:46
Speaker
ah polished and um correct and it's really blown me away. like What does that process look like for such a small team? like ah you Are you all tackling like multiple different um aspects of the development?
Role of External Contributors
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess before, ah you know, we take credit for everything, I still got to mention that we did have contractors who who did small roles, like hearing, for example, I think we had like 20 something voice actors, because like, obviously, like as a programmer, I'm not going to voice act know or animator as a guy yeah voice acting. We had a few like ah contract artists here and there on uns short it contracts. And then, um of course, we also had a publisher who did all the business stuff and and the funding side of things. Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
um So I guess it wasn't just for people. um But yeah, I mean, um it was absolutely nuts. like um but it's It's really like surreal even to to talk about. like ah i like you know I had like imposter syndrome like every day working on this thing. um I think we all did. We were we were like crunching like mad in the last year or so just just to get this thing out.
00:03:54
Speaker
um But I guess like, um I mean, I guess one thing we did learn from from the crunch we did, like, the the times we did crunch is that, yeah um as as a small team, like, you know, we we can work like 80 hour weeks or whatever. um But even then, we're we're only, but you know, working maybe two times as much as a normal person. And like, yeah that's just not enough. So, I guess like the the the moral of the story is like that that we learned is just like as an indie developer you you can't you know just choose to die on every hill like you have to compromise
Indie Dev Mistakes and Game Focus
00:04:28
Speaker
some things. Oh yes. And I think the mistake that a lot of indie developers do when they first get started is like
00:04:36
Speaker
they're going to make like the most detailed, most realistic simulation of like life. And they're just going to have like, you know, realistic ballistic physics. They're going to have like a realistic, like hunger system where your, your body digests food and like, there's going to be a day night cycle and the planet is going to like rotate and there's going to be like, you know, procedurally generated, like everything. and ah yeah sco It's going to happen no matter your size, right? Yeah, right, right. But I guess, you know, if you're like Star Citizen or something, you you have the money to do that. But if you're four people, like you have to just really, you know, um just figure out like what is really important for this game. And I think the things that we really focused on just like big explosions and like just some gore and and blood and stuff everywhere, like that stuff isn't like crazy expensive to do.
00:05:24
Speaker
Um, and I guess like we were never like, I mean, in the beginning we we kind of had this mistake where we're just like, it has to be this way. Like I want it to be this way because that's going to be awesome. Um, but later on we realized like, you know, maybe this is really, really difficult or really expensive to do. Here's a cheaper and easier alternative. That's just as effective.
00:05:42
Speaker
So that's yeah for me is it's going to be one of the reasons why I think you've been so successful is being able to objectively look at those costs, not just as in monetarily, but also like development time um effort, like how much crunch is this thing going to to take and being able to look at the fundamentals of the game and think what is needed for us to achieve the correct game feel for this for this
Gameplay Mechanics vs Realism
00:06:10
Speaker
game. And when I was playing, I was saying this to Mikey um just before you came on. My entire thought process while I've been playing, it feels like to me that at the top of your priority list has just been fun, like making combat and the gunplay enjoyable to do. And like you said, not ah realistically simulating exactly how every single bullet would would land and like you know and all of that. but
00:06:35
Speaker
just focusing on making something that feels good um and is enjoyable to express through gameplay. um is Was that a huge focus? Am I wrong? No, you're you're definitely correct. like I think a lot of the meetings we had, like we're like you know we're just brainstorming like the complete like ridiculous, like batshit crazy ideas. like We're like, oh, there's going to be like a guy uploading his brain, and then like a helicopter like flies in, and it also is like carrying a brain that is uploading, or you know that' something ridiculous. There's like six brains in play in that in that level. I mean, self-restraint is something that um yeah like health is and and they they don't even have brains. um but What were we talking about again? So like I guess the the the reasoning behind everything is like,
00:07:25
Speaker
ah like We usually start out with something that that might sound kind of like grounded, and then we just keep going crazier and crazier, but also crazier in a way that would be doable. and Sometimes the way we do things, it sounds crazy, but it's actually a lot easier to develop. um For example, like we rely a lot on on vehicles. and so You'd imagine like a helicopter flying through the sky or like a submarine like popping up and and launching missiles. like these for how it Yeah, like these yeah like that sounds like that could be really complicated, right? But um but I think the thing is, like people generally start to think or gen tend to think like like games like they're movies. like um So if you're making like an indie film, like just recording two people sitting on a bench talking is is not going to cost a lot. um But in an indie game, if you want something subtle like that, that also looks realistic.
00:08:15
Speaker
you can't really cheap out on that right like you need like realistic looking eyeballs and like you know because if if you if you want to make something subtle but you screw something really tiny out like people are
Games as Illusions
00:08:25
Speaker
going to notice uh but for example the helicopters we have there like they don't obey the laws of physics at all but and They're just a giant flying piece of metal in the sky, and people aren't going to notice, and and they enjoy it when it blows up. so you know that's That's a good way of just like keeping things within an indie budget, but but it still looks cool. 100%. There's not a necessity for that at the same time. right like I imagine a big part of the scale of your development that you do
00:08:52
Speaker
Is i mean just like you're saying just to turn on what we need to do to get the effect that we wanted to have the privilege of trying to like, what are realistically or or simulation ble doing all these things it just need to make it look good and you had this strong core vision got guiding you all the way which is like all the comments gotta be fun and violent everything's gotta contribute to that and look a lot of the stuff is actually less expensive than we think.
00:09:16
Speaker
And that's my, my favorite thing about game dev in general is what my next episode of design delve is about, which is just the kind of idea of. Games in themselves are magic tricks. They're illusions. We, we are not simulating everything. We are not um doing a one for one um translation. We are using smoke and mirrors to give you the impression of, uh, what we want to show you. And that stuff is what got me into game dev.
00:09:46
Speaker
learning about those little secrets, um, and, and how we pull the wool over our players eyes. Um, I just find that fascinating. Do you have any examples of like, I know you spoke about the helicopters, um, like we can see in the gameplay. Oh, for anyone who is watching and not for our listeners, we are trying something new. And Mikey is currently playing the game. I just currently dying. Jay getting the shit blown out of them by airstrikes. Sorry. Continue. But we're trying something new, so you'll be able to see that as we're playing. But we saw the helicopters there. But do you have any other examples of ways that as an indie team, you have kind of used smoke and mirrors to kind of hide certain things or present them in a certain way?
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess like I like I definitely agree with what you said like um like video games are yeah like it's um it's impossible to simulate everything that would just yeah, and that that wouldn't even be fun right so I guess the way I think of it is like it's an abstraction I guess like um it's like Yeah, I guess like it's like being in in your own personal like action movie. um But it's like, I guess like everything we do is fake. I mean, even that loading screen you saw right there. This is the only level with the working loading screen we couldn't get the space to work in the other levels. So in the other levels, the actual loading happens during the fade fade in and out to black and the loading screen actually doesn't load anything because we couldn't get it to work. That's a topic of mine in my video of just like, how loading screens are usually, um and Mikey and Tina were speaking about it to me a few weeks ago, loading screens are just approximations to keep players um thinking, ah like, oh, something's happening, you know, things are moving. Hence why, you know, the the you guys know this, but for our audience, the moving symbols you see on loading screens are called frobbers.
00:11:43
Speaker
in UI talk. um And they are literally just there to signify to the player that a process is happening, your screen is not frozen. um Like, just gotta let it happen. um That's why we always see, you know, slow zooming, you know, PNGs on loading screens. It's just like, something is happening. Just show motion. yeah Yeah. And like you said, it's not it's not really real in in that sense.
00:12:07
Speaker
It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I guess another thing is, um for console development, if if you ever have a black screen, I think that's more than like two or three seconds and nothing's moving. or Or just any screen where nothing's moving for more than two or three seconds, that's like an instant, I think, certification fails they fail. So you can't release the console. You need those spinny throwby things. um But yeah, I mean, like I guess everything we do is is fake. like um I can't, I like, what is even like, if we I don't know, this is a weird question. Like, what is it? take here's Here's a good question. Maybe here's another way to phrase it. What's like a good example of a really fake thing that you did in Trapeze too. really that That's a good example of like making it work as a four person team, four person core team.
00:12:52
Speaker
um I guess there um there was one one time we needed to to throw the character in an elevator, um but um Jacob, our animator was really busy at the time, um and we couldn't even do a proper cutscene. So I just wrote some code where if the player walks close to the elevator, an explosion spawns behind him, and then ah the camera spins around really quickly, so it looks kind of like he got knocked into the elevator, and then it fades out to black, and it's like... And people thought he was a cutscene, but it's not really a cutscene. It's a necessity for you to take those steps as a small indie team trying to do, you know, ah much, you know, bigger ideas, right? A lot of small indie teams wouldn't even think to, Oh, well, we can't do that because it won't, our team can't facilitate it. So let's think of a different way of doing it. Let's frame this information in a different way. And you're like, Oh, fuck that. Like let's try this way.
00:13:48
Speaker
And you got the results you needed, but just in a different kind of thought process. I love how our, we were talking about this with Julia last episode, the restrictions of having a small team or being solo in her case, but mad woman.
00:14:04
Speaker
It can force us to think and program ah in different ways that we wouldn't have before, and it makes us better programmers, better artists, and and stuff like that. like Do you feel like through this development process, like you've you've grown like as ah as a creator? Yeah, because I think um i think especially because like we we announced everything and all that, and it's like,
00:14:30
Speaker
You know, we couldn't just indefinitely just keep tweaking things and because I think it's like, you know, every indie developer, they they kind of have this dream of like, you know, what if I just, you know, indefinitely tweak things and then one day this is going to result in a game. yeah but You know, that never works that way, sadly. um And I think, um you know, once once we partnered with a publisher announced a release date, we're like, well, there's no going back here. We have to release a game at some point. um And I guess, um you know, it's easy to as an indie, it's easy to fool yourself and be like, oh, like, you know, it's not good now, but maybe after like a thousand tweaks, this will be good. But you know once once we're looking at the timeline and like the timeline is getting smaller and smaller and our budgets getting smaller and smaller, we're like, all right, we got to focus on on what's actually important here. um Because I i think it's like, you know we even if we had infinite money in time, we could feature creep a whole bunch.
00:15:22
Speaker
um But that wouldn't necessarily make it a better game because it's like, for for example, like at one point we were thinking like, Oh, what if we have a level that's like survival horror and it's like, you know, you're really powerful for all these levels, but what if in this level you're not and like, you're just running for your life the whole time. And I think we prototyped it quite a bit. But then we realized like, isn't that just like deceptive marketing, like we're we're trying to sell people an action game and then they they play halfway through I think you know having those constraints like prevented us from just you know making it all together the wrong game that people didn't want to make. right so
00:15:56
Speaker
yeah hundred percent it's also a question of like um There's a balance that always needs to happen, right? It's okay to change things up. That's one of the things I've been enjoying so much about the campaign is like, he I guess this is minor sports. Like here I am, I'm escaping the facility. Now I'm fighting the cultists in the United Kingdom. Now I'm investigating the crash site. Like those kinds, you could get the energy from the game of like, wouldn't it be cool if I could hear those meetings that you guys had in my head while I play the game.
00:16:23
Speaker
um which is great. But then you kind of need to set limits because, yeah, you'll never finish the game.
Balancing Vision and Feature Creep
00:16:28
Speaker
And also, as you're saying, you kind of might stray a bit from the vision. I wouldn't call it deceptive marketing. It's just it's just ah it would take so much time and the game would change into something that maybe the people playing it weren't necessarily going to enjoy. So I think that makes sense. And at the same time, that problem to me doesn't feel unique in a sense, but it feels strongest in modding teams and indie teams. It's so easy to get excited by the next exciting thing.
00:16:53
Speaker
Right. Instead of like, I should really fix those bugs man. I'm going to go do that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because I remember recently seeing, like, speaking of modding, I saw there was a mod team they announced, like, I think they were going to port, like, was it every Bethesda game world into Starfield? And I was like, oh, that sounds like it would be crazy. They're going to port, like, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim. Oh, my god. I didn't get even fall out into Starfield. And, I mean, they're probably going to be working on it, like, 20 years from now still. Yeah, that's nice.
00:17:24
Speaker
ah Now that's, that's an example of that extreme kind of creep, you know, that, that kind of, yeah what, if what if we put everything this company has ever done into one game? It's like, um, the games and one game is fine. There's a Halo map like that or projects. It's yeah, it's a, it's quite a.
00:17:40
Speaker
It's like one of those wouldn't be, it'd be cool if ideas that starts with maximum creep right at the beginning. yeah This is why you need people leading the projects to be able to say, no, like we we can't do that. i know the bad guy Um, but it's for me talking about sticking to a vision as you were speaking about.
00:18:03
Speaker
At what point do you feel like you, cause I feel like once you've got the game and it feels good and you've you've reached that kind of space, that's when the ideas come in of, well, this is good, but what if we added, like you said, survival horror, or what if we added this and stuff? How long did it take you as a team to reach the point where you were like, we, this feels the way we want it to. So now it's just adding, you know, more content. Did that take a a long time?
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, I guess, but I mean, maybe it never felt like that. yeah because yeah um I think because we're so critical. um it's I mean, like we definitely do enjoy like play testing this game and stuff, but like for us a lot of times, we're just like, oh man, there's this bug here. like you know What if we had this or what if we had that? like Even like you know two weeks from launch, we're just like, oh man, we missed an opportunity to do this or that. um So I think it's just, you know we have to choose to to just not you know, die on every hill and just, you know, be like, I we had to compromise. efficient um And so I mean, the game we shipped, like, we're not 100% happy with it. But there's always like, oh what if we did this? What if we did that? But I mean, I guess that's just life. Like, you have to accept that, you know, the game is the ship. Is that part of it that you're especially proud of that you every time you see it in motion, you're like, ah we really nailed that? I guess.
00:19:28
Speaker
Like it's weird because it's um like the the stuff I did, it's hard for me to be proud of because I can just see like, all right. And he's like fixes in his space. But like other people's stuff, like, I think, for example, like the animations, like if you can see, like, you know, they could have been amazing with those animations because he's he's really experienced. um You know, you can just see like i look how angry the dude looks when he's running with that shotgun. You can feel it if you can tell.
00:19:54
Speaker
I like the subtle little ones too like in the beginning when you find a guy who broke you out and he's dead and you kind of look at him and you look turn up the face to look at the face and then ah Because the characters, you know not speaking you have to physically express in an animation very quickly some sort of sentiment or or Opinion about what just happened and he just goes tapped up and he like taps them affectionately on the dead shoulder and then walks away and And it's like, oh, that combined with the music conveyed a lot. It really falls a lot on animation and sound, for sure, when when you're at that scale. A hundred percent. Right. Because I think the thing is like, um I mean, i like I guess I was in in charge of things, but, you know, I didn't really have experience in charge of of anything really. So um I usually left things pretty open-ended. I was just like, you know, can you make this thing and and make it happen by this date and and get it looking like reasonably good or sounding reasonably good?
00:20:49
Speaker
And then you know whoever's working on it, whether it's animations or music or whatever, um they would make something that that kind of fits within the vision of the game. And you know it it would usually surprise me, and I'm just like, oh, that's totally not what I expected, but that's actually pretty cool, like the the shoulder tap. Like, Jacob had so much fun with the the animations. like There's even one where he's like you know poking the elevator, and it looks pretty funny. yeah I mean, like the music, like for this level, I don't know what people can hear, but I think ah yeah music, music Brandon, our our composer, like one day he just woke up and he was like, I'm going to make a song that sounds like Seinfeld and make it into if you yeah actually againel and yeah Seinfeld. It sounds like the Seinfeld theme. Does not sound like Seinfeld to you? or the seinfeld and I think
00:21:38
Speaker
yeah so gone for go ahead ja i think So a lot of people say, Oh, well, if you could make a game, you know, and you were a solo dev and you can make your dream game, you had an unlimited time, would would you do it? And I think my answer is no, because yeah the beautiful part about indie for me is collaboration. And, you know, having an idea, say, if you're leading the project or you're in charge of a specific specific aspect and you go, Hey, like you said,
00:22:07
Speaker
we have this much time to do this, could you get this music to me in this time frame or this sound effect or this animation? And you have an idea in your head of what your ideal for that would be. And a lot of the times when you're collaborating, you do have to temper your expectations because their idea and interpretation is also different. But for me, that's the beauty, the the people I've collaborated with in this space and even here at Second Wind.
Collaboration in Indie Development
00:22:31
Speaker
I ask, hey, can we work on this thing together? Like El Cheshire, I'm the wonderful artist who does a lot of my backgrounds in my animated show. And I'm Javed, who's been recently doing the thumbnails.
00:22:43
Speaker
I e ask for a specific thing, thinking I'm being very clear and have an idea of what I'm getting in my head. And then what they turn out is so much better than what I thought in my head. And it's usually different. It's very different from what I had, but I trust them as artists um and as individuals to just take that and flow of it. And that's the beauty of indie dev is that kind of collaboration um with with your team.
00:23:11
Speaker
Do you find that it was easy for you to to kind of give them those ideas and let them fly with them or or was there some back and forth that was needed? So I think in the beginning, like the the very, very beginning, this was just a solo hobby project by me. um And i have just to to add on to your thing about not never wanting to to do a solo game with infinite resources is, I mean, just imagine what would happen to your sanity if you if you had like infinite money at a time, but you worked on a solo game for like 20 years.
00:23:41
Speaker
and i'm like completely crazy But anyway, I guess, yeah, it's already so low. And then at some point I was like, yeah, like there's no way I can i can do this by myself. there There are people who are actually good at the things that but need to be done here. And if I were to attempt them, it'd be really terrible. So um I guess like.
00:23:57
Speaker
you know, in the beginning I was a bit maybe too, you know, I had kind of a death grip on things. I was like, oh, like, man, I really wanted it to be this way. And like, you know, why why' did you make it that way? um But then like later on, you know, I realized like, you know, why why why are these people part of the team, right? They're not here to just, you know, be bossed around by me because they know things that I don't. And like, ultimately, like all I can really do is be like, all right, like it needs to be done by this day. There's this much like funding or budget if you need to like, you know, buy things or or hire other people.
00:24:26
Speaker
Um, and just make sure it fits within like, you know, Trey Pang being this, this crazy action shooter. Um, and yeah, just, you know, just, and then after that, just chill out and don't overwhelm people with input and stuff. Just let them do their thing. It's really refreshing to hear that I hear from, from a lead to be like, I early on had this kind of, um,
00:24:47
Speaker
I don't want to use the word stranglehold because you know it's it sounds regressive. You want to keep the project in in your mind. and like vision yeah your vision it start sight deris yeah and It's totally understandable. I've been in similar spaces with working on projects. um But being able to let go of that ah makes, ah one, a better work environment, which you guys um you've expressed. And also I think makes a better product for for the players and a better experience for them because games are art and are expressed through a collective, I feel um can be a lot more powerful than um just one singular vision that could be a little bit biased maybe.
00:25:34
Speaker
So I think it's, it's for the best. So you said it started as a soda project. Um, Mikey was speaking about you the, uh, we had a meeting earlier in the week and he said that you had ah quite an interesting.
Wilson's Career Transition
00:25:44
Speaker
I might've been wrong about this. Oh, okay. by the way it's how the to Explain like, how did you get into game dev?
00:25:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, so this is a funny story. I guess, what what did Mikey say? I want to hear. Did he slander me? I don't want Jay to say my error. if it i want say so Am I wrong there? ah So I can't say whether that's true or not. There was a lot of NDAs around that. So I did work for a tech company. um There were a lot of US government contracts.
00:26:15
Speaker
um I actually didn't even know what I was working on most of the time. like They didn't actually tell me anything. They had to do a criminal record check, which is quite strange for you know a tech company. They usually don't care. But but yeah then after a while, I was like, oh, I saw like you know some things on some some newsletters about like defense stuff. And I was like, oh, that's something I might have worked on. um But yeah, so thank you. Before that I was an assistant language teacher in Japan at a middle school. um And before that I guess I majored in arts in university. But I guess like all my life I was doing like like mods, just really small indie games. um And then I guess yeah like for some reason I just
00:26:58
Speaker
I just didn't want to work in tech or or education anymore. And I was like, I'm going to you know try doing video game stuff. And I guess eventually like these crazy as these crazy three dudes joined me and then we ah pitched it to a publisher and eventually started a company and shipped again somehow. that's a dream you'd like So you you were like, I'm kind of done with this career path. I want to move into your passion or your games and um game development. And you just started that journey, put something together and pitched it. And it it got picked up. That is the dream. That is the absolute dream.
00:27:30
Speaker
Oh, I love it. ah Yeah. I mean, there there was like just way too much luck. like I had no idea like how how we got so lucky. like um I mean, the the pandemic was actually really good for us because you game the game economy just was booming when the pandemic started. And we happened to release a demo right at that time. And then all these publishers were were coming to us. We actually never reached out to any publishers. They were all just coming to us, which I mean, it it doesn't work like that right now and you with the current economy, I imagine.
00:28:00
Speaker
um yeah just it's funny mom it's fight meant to happen yeah that I mean, yeah, that might've been it. I don't know. Like, I don't think we possibly could have been lucky. um These things line up. these You got to take it where it comes, you know, like.
00:28:14
Speaker
i I know a lot of devs, indie devs who who work exceedingly hard making some really interesting projects, but publishers you know don't don't give them a day for for whatever reason. I'm not bashing publishers at all. um But sometimes you know you're in the right place at the right time, and um it leads to you know this, like trying to. like This game wouldn't exist and if those stars didn't align. so got to take it yeah with
00:28:45
Speaker
oh sorry your i nice okay with gameplay. So what was your kind of focus with the structure of how you progress through the game? So with each kind of, um, you know, new area and missions you're going through, what were you trying to achieve? Was it what Mikey said, which was the, Oh, wouldn't it be cool if we were doing this here in this cool environment? Was that it or did you have other goals for like what you wanted the player to feel in each section?
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually ah a great question. I got like a lot I can talk about. So I guess to start, like um so I think for our whole team, like most of us came from a modding background. Jacob, our animator, was the only one with AAA studio experience. so I think for the most part, we we only made bite-sized things. It was like, here's like a Half-Life 2 map that's 10 minutes long. And then maybe 20 people would download it or something like that. um So like I guess we were thinking, like when we first started, we were thinking like really, really short-sighted almost. We were thinking of of gameplay almost like a TikTok. We were thinking, like here, have some fun. And then we're like,
00:29:56
Speaker
We don't know what to do after that, but here's another bite-sized moment of fun. and But then once we started putting together entire levels and we're watching people play them, like we'd realize they'd be really fatigued at the end because the pacing was just like all over the place. They'd be like, yeah know here, kill 20 guys. Here, kill another 20 guys. Here, kill another 20 guys. And then in the final room, it's like, kill 50 guys. and people would just
00:30:21
Speaker
Oh, dropout. Oops, sorry. Hello. If we lost you for a second there, Wilson, you said people kill 50 guys and then... Yeah. Yeah. So it was just, you know, it was nonstop killing, which I think um we didn't really fully... ah I mean, we we never really fully and fully addressed this issue because as you can see in this level, like this one has received quite a bit of criticism for just being endless silly dudes. I have killed a lot of people, Wilson, in the past 10 minutes. I'm really digesting what you're saying.
00:30:50
Speaker
ah you're ashamed of yourself you know you're a murderer don't get to sleep night forever again You've established them through your story that they deserve to die and they want to kill me. This is self-defence. I'm sure that will hold up Nicole. I mean, they had families, you know, like, I mean, they they got to pay their bills. really There is a line about that. I i appreciate that.
00:31:14
Speaker
life insurance. Oh, you see ah you have yeah yes, that was Brandon's like, was it? Actually, I don't even know. Yeah, some sounds least brandy like it because we we really have to I mean, for us, like we don't want the bad guys to feel too bad. Like we do want to give them some lines where it's like, Oh, it kind of makes sense why why they're doing this, why they're just rushing into to get killed over and over again. and So you can you yeah hear their boss yelling at them. out I think But I think that's exactly the question about the pacing, sorry. yeah I guess, yeah, then we realized like, you know, there needs to be more than just killing dudes over and over again, because that's not a game.
Balancing Combat and Story Elements
00:31:54
Speaker
That's like, that's like a half-life map pack, right? um And people aren't going to pay money for a map pack. So, I mean, yeah, like then, then we started thinking like, all right, what about story? Or what about like world building? Or what about like,
00:32:07
Speaker
Here's just like a really cool scene where you where you get to see something and it just looks really cool or or catches your eye. Or sometimes, you know, there'd be nothing happening. And then, you know, Brandy would just write like a really cool song and you just listen to that as that happens. um And I think that overall made it a much more enjoyable experience because killing people over and over again does get old eventually, unfortunately.
00:32:29
Speaker
Well, it's interesting. I like the way you describe it because it's almost like you built from the inside out. You kind of worked on your core of like, okay, uh, we want like fun combat. Let's kind of create a 20 seconds of fun. And then as you did that and you're like, we can't just keep doing this over and over. Now let's create peaks and valleys. And one way to do that is like through linear experience, a story with a creative level design, uh, aesthetic appeal through the music. And you sort of built out from there, it sounds like, which is,
00:32:58
Speaker
a good way that you develop. you know you You work on the little piece first, and then you bring in the bigger pieces. Yeah. I think another thing that like we were really skeptical about in the beginning, and um I know VA Brandon isn't going to like it when I when i call him out. But anyway, VA Brandon, he he was a voice actor. he He had some background in mapping and stuff. But he did like yeah he did he he wrote like pretty much all the dialogue, hired the voice actors, got directed them, and all that stuff.
00:33:25
Speaker
um and like there are times
00:33:30
Speaker
I think we lost you, Will. You said there were times where- You're a second man, no worries. You're back. Your internet is terrible at this place. But yeah, there were times where, like, here's a quiet moment. Like, what if we have, like, a radio play even where you just hear characters talk on the radio?
00:33:46
Speaker
um and like we were really skeptical about that in the beginning we were like man like would people want to just stop killing people and listen to a radio play um but almost everybody seemed to like that stuff because it was just expanding on the world and and people wanted to know these characters and um i guess looking back i wish we did even more of that but we've been a little bit skeptical of it um so yeah our whole i already forgot what the question was sorry i was talking about like First of all, it was all pacing and then like, how do you um put these little moments into the game? I think with you talking about the radio play, I think knowing where to and put your resources is really difficult. Like we were speaking about early on, ah it's very difficult to know what to prioritize in indie development, especially when you're trying to do so something so ambitious like this. And for you being able to be like,
00:34:38
Speaker
older yeah are people going to want to do that or are we going to want to put resources towards something that we think people might skip right this is this is one of the reasons why a lot of the choices in dialogue and um choices in games are so fake and obfuscated because you're not going to want to make half of your game that only a certain percentage of players who choose a specific dialogue option are going to see, because it's just a waste of resources and is too costly. um But it's really refreshing to hear that, you know, even those small details that um internally might think of, is this worth it? A player is going to want to do that, that people are really responding to it, and it's actually
00:35:19
Speaker
flipped it for you and you're like, we should have done more of that. that should have been bigpo you know And in whatever you guys do next, right? Like those thought processes are always going to be there. And that's the beauty of game dev and any kind of profession. We're always growing, we're always learning. um And then we're going to make something better because of that.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a learning experience for sure. Like, I think um one thing that kind of shaped the way we we paste things overall was like, yeah, pretty early on when when we were doing the whole thing was just like killing lots and lots of people. And we just kept escalating that we eventually ran out of room where like, you know, how many bad guys are we going to put on the screen, like 50, 100? There's like a limit there, right? So um I remember we watching ah an interview with like, I forgot who it was, it was some famous movie director, but um I think, the the um I'll paraphrase what you said, but it was something like, a good action scene should never have, and then it should be like,
00:36:18
Speaker
um because Because then you're just you're just, you know, making a pattern and people are just following it and they're just going to fall asleep, right? So it's more about a but then. So it's like, you know, this thing happens and then, but then this thing happens and surprises you. But then this thing happens. and So it's like, yeah. That's pretty cool. And I can see that that expression in gameplay, right? And the way I can see that expression in gameplay and how you've done that. It's. Yeah. yeah right like I think you dropped out for a second there. Wilson, I just tried to take over it for um for a second. i What you were explaining about the butts instead of the and-ends, that kind of energy, you've really translated that into gameplay. And I think, in a way, it's also needed in a game like this because I don't think you ever want to be
00:37:13
Speaker
actively searching around for enemies that are either, you know, looking for you and you're doing this weird Scooby-Doo chase. Like ah in this kind of experience, that's not entertaining. um What I've noticed is what you're doing is there'll be a a sea of enemies that are coming for you that are very aggressively coming for you. And you have to use your skill and your abilities to outmaneuver them and kill them. And then it's final. But then there's another event that immediately happens.
00:37:41
Speaker
that introduces new enemies and that's how you keep that flow rather than just a trickle. They all slowly walk out the same door and align. Just walk at you, you know. You're always trying to do it in that exciting butt way. And I really respect that.
00:37:56
Speaker
I'm thinking of two examples. And again, I guess there's minor spoilers here, but the first one would be we were about to go down into the depths of the facility. And one of the guys on your team says, oh, there's probably going to be a ton of grunts down there. Watch out. And you go down there and everybody's dead.
00:38:12
Speaker
And you're like, oh, wait, I was playing this like incredibly fast paced power fantasy shooter as people would describe it. And then now I'm just kind of wandering around and it's a little scary. I don't know what happened here. I'm so powerful and something killed all these people. I'm starting to feel a little insecure about my power like that. That was a cool moment. And then in a more, I guess, not silly way, but bombastic way, maybe there's the you're on the oil rig, you're fighting the guys. And then there's a giant sea monster. I think it was an alien.
00:38:40
Speaker
ufo rear which is That was a big, that was a big, but then I would say, yeah, i we tried to the but the alien, but but yeah, like we we tried to take as many a one eighties as possible. I mean, speaking of alien buds, I remember reading about, um, the raising the bar, the the book about, um, the development of the half-life games and and the original name for black Mesa was black, but apparently or e be u like I don't know how you pronounce it. It's like a coral, but I don't know. Anyway, she that's it's it's all coming back to but who'd have thought that entertaining game design all comes back to but
00:39:23
Speaker
Think about that. I mean, during meetings sometimes the other guys would would just start screenshotting butts of the the characters. and and you know coming out with figuring out the secret to hang do with but is but sexual I want to ask you something about this, Wilson, if I could, because this butt thing is a good transition. Can we talk a little bit about your marketing? I feel like, indeed, listening right now, AA's listening, might benefit from learning a little bit about your, what I guess I would just call subversive approach to that, because it is butt related, I would say.
Indie Marketing Strategies
00:39:59
Speaker
Okay, so obviously I can't take too much credit for it because I think um yeah music branding kind of got the ball rolling with all the the memes and and silliness and stuff. um But I can offer a bit of perspective because like I was a bit lucky in university, there was ah a loophole basically where and people who who were undeclared, they could apply to do a work term under any faculty. And then I chose to to do a few business work terms. So I worked in marketing for about a year.
00:40:27
Speaker
I mean this is like a decade ago so my knowledge wasn't super up to date but I think one thing that I did learn was like um a lot of like small businesses they think their brand like like has a lot of weight to it and like they think they can just do the same thing as like a big company.
00:40:45
Speaker
um And I guess if you're like a small company and you've always been looking at that logo and and your your slogan or whatever, then like to you, and like you've always been working there, like like to you, that that means the world and you think you can just like, you know, put that thing out there and people will love it. um But unfortunately you can't do that, right? And it's like,
00:41:04
Speaker
For example, a lot of indie game companies, they'll they'll release a trailer. And like the first 15 seconds, it will just be like a bunch of logos and like somebody with a cool voice saying something. um And I guess the thing is, like if if you're at a AAA company, like like that those names like have have decades of of history, and and hundreds of millions of customers know that that name. And when they have that cool voice, it's like Troy Baker or Keanu Reeves or something. that those things those Those kind of voices like sell units, right?
00:41:31
Speaker
am And I guess as an indie, like you have to just acknowledge that you can't just try to emulate like what's what works for like this huge company. um like you You can't just like put a picture of of your main character and then get people get excited. right because it's like you know so Someone like Master Chief or or ah Captain Price, there's there's like decades of of games and and trailers that made these characters really important to people.
00:41:56
Speaker
Um, so for us, like, we knew, and and we also knew, like, you know, we, we, as four people, like, we can't really focus our efforts on, on making a trailer. Cause I mean, imagine if the game got delayed, because we're so busy making trailers, right? So, um, I guess we had to just focus on, on small things that would make it a big impact. And like, a lot of that was just like posting a bunch of silly memes. And, um, I mean, like.
00:42:20
Speaker
Like a lot of people are scared. They're like, Oh, what if i I, you know, post a meme and then nobody, nobody looks at it. And it's like, um, but like, you know, worst case scenario is just, you know, nobody, nobody looks at it. i think you something yeah but Making a meme costs you nothing. So if you, you know, for us, we would just post like a video of a dude exploding and put like a silly caption and like most of the time you would get like no attention at all. but But occasionally the algorithms would bless us and we get like thousands of of views or whatever. Um,
00:42:47
Speaker
But I guess, honestly, like our most effective marketing thing, even with the publisher, like the most cost-effective thing that we realized, we we were that was like yeah the most cost-effective thing for us was just sending keys to to YouTubers and and streamers. I mean, most of them would would just ignore it, or like maybe they'd play it and and do nothing. um But the few that did make videos, some of them would get like hundreds of thousands of views. And then, like surprisingly, a lot of those people would would go to our Steam page and and wishlist or or buy the game.
00:43:16
Speaker
Um, and yeah, it was just, it doesn't cost you anything to, to send a steam key. Right. So we're, we're kind of what we have been for a while. We're in a new age of marketing. And, um, sometimes, uh, having a huge ad ad campaign is really useful, but having a even moderately successful YouTuber cover your game passionately.
00:43:37
Speaker
whether that's, you know, saying they, they really don't like a thing or, or they really like something else that can have way more weight because I think it has more converting because people feel so such a connection to the people they watch. When very I watch that, if they recommend a thing, I'm like, yeah, cool. I, ah my views line up with this person. I love their taste. If they're saying it's good, I'm going to go get it. You don't really get that from an ad, right? That can only just push one kind of idea. But when you really get into it, and maybe I'm biased because I'm a YouTuber, but, you know, we're very reliable and we understand. We're all very trustworthy, right? I've donated to my Patreon, and I like to subscribe. I think all the donations that have come in so far from this podcast, we'll read them out later. We really appreciate you guys.
00:44:31
Speaker
But yeah, I think something beautiful you said there as well was not trying to emulate ah what what we're seeing in the the AAA space. I think it's also important to to understand that it's Also good to not try and be wholly
Focusing on Unique Game Aspects
00:44:49
Speaker
unique. I see a lot of new indies that are just like, well, we can't do this because this other game did that and that is bad and and stuff like that. And we don't want to be pointed out as copying it and stuff like that. It's like nothing is wholly original.
00:45:03
Speaker
You are never going to make a thing that is um wholly unique. So just concentrate on doing the niche thing in your game that you think is the fun part. Do that really well. And for me, Tripang 2 is that done to a tee? Like, it's spot on.
00:45:22
Speaker
and Yeah. Well, I feel like we could have been that a little bit more original. We'd probably make the next one a little bit more, more out there, but, um, yeah, like I definitely do more. that has making but Okay. Right on. I like it. Juicy alien, but, um, something else right here. Um,
00:45:41
Speaker
because they du I'd be unique in focusing on the the unique aspects. Right. So I think that since like, I guess because like there's there's so much data out there right now and it's like, um it's so easy to get like analysis paralysis and just think, oh, we can't do this. Like they're they're already doing that or we can't do that. And like, um and you know, it's like that South Park episode where they're like, oh, the Simpsons did it. I don't know. I think.
00:46:13
Speaker
think for um Yeah. um yeah I guess like the thing is, like um when when you start with an idea, as an indie, like you have to compromise things anyway because you have to yeah focus on your strengths and like you know you'll realize, like oh, we we tried this and it didn't work. So it's like your your original idea is not really going to resemble what the final product is anyway.
00:46:36
Speaker
um And I also feel like um like trying too hard to be original, it's like it's kind of like you know well back when everybody was a hipster, they were always trying to be really original, but then they all just started you know liking the same music and and looking the same. things like um Because if everybody's trying to be different, then you're all going to eventually just converge into a blog. So I mean, I guess, like like for example, like I don't mean this in like a bad way, but like um there are a lot of, like almost every day on Steam, you'll see like a dozen 2D side scrollers, and the theme is like you know recovering from a breakup or something like that. um And I don't think necessarily that's bad, but like I think a lot of those people were trying to be unique, but they were all thinking the same thing.
00:47:19
Speaker
um and go got my internet please if i yeah you're okay she's got a integrat but and that that But I guess one thing that that we believed in was just like, um if if we make a good game, like, even if there's like, you know, five or 10 others out there that that are like us, or or it's been done before, like, you know, people are still gonna play. it And it's like, um there's so many games out there now, like,
00:47:45
Speaker
Um, you know, you're not just competing with what just came out. Like you're, you're going to be competing against like games that came out like 30 years ago on, on, on steam or gone galaxy or whatever. So it's like, I think, yeah, that's not something people need to overthink. Honestly, it's a balancing act, you know, it's difficult. It's really, really difficult.
00:48:05
Speaker
All right. Just mindful of the time. I'm sorry. Usually I'll pitch things ah take a while. So I think what we'll do, and we've got like quite a few donations. Thank you guys. I will be going through them a little later on. um But I think what we should do is probably move it over to the pitch. And apparently Tina has made us a little video that Eric has prepared. So We're going to let me let me stop playing here so I can actually get back. So, Eric, you want to switch me over? I'm going to leave the game open. But I will save. OK, I now I want to hear from the chat. How'd I do? That was very hard difficulty and I didn't beat a single level. That's the topic. Yes, it is. I was having fun the whole time. You could probably see. look it's ta up It's true.
00:48:58
Speaker
so Okay. Hi, Tina. Hey, everyone. I'm so sorry that I missed today's episode. Hi, Wilson. I'm sad that I didn't get to meet you. I have a gift though for all of you. Hi, Jay. Hi, Mike. We're going to play the improv game. It was inspired by Amnesia's Fortnite from Double Fine. And I have a cool gift to show you to just start the whole process.
00:49:20
Speaker
um As you can see, it's a breakdancer. I think it's the windmill move. I think that's what it's called with a flame coming out of his ass, because maybe the player hit a perfect combo. I'm not really sure. It's bots. It's bots. That special effect. But I was initially thinking that the premise of the game is similar to QWOP. I don't know if you've played this before, but Eric will be very kind in showing you an image of that as well. So QWOP is four keys, QWOP, and you hit them to make a marathon runner run across the screen.
00:50:00
Speaker
And the goal is to get past the finish line. So I'm thinking maybe you have to hit a couple of keys on the keyboard to make the perfect windmill or break dancing move. ah This was honestly inspired by watching Reagan during the Olympics. She is now forever a meme on the Internet because of her silly. I guess that's kind. Yeah. Silly dance moves. Anyways, I'm curious to know what you all come up with. What is the game itself? Now take it away.
00:50:31
Speaker
Thank you so much, Tina. Absolutely amazing. and that's's keep the yeah We'll have that and give it to us. We're so sad you couldn't join us. but Okay, so alien bots, guys. We've... Yes. it's It's all come full circle. We we can see both cheeks. I'm happy. But how do we gamify this? How do we make this a game? but So... My first... Come on, go for it. No, finish, finish. i'm get to jump in Okay, I got nothing dude if you gave a flight Okay, I'm gonna do my best here I kind of okay. There was a subject 106 and a half All right now 106 and a half was some sort of ah ah Explosive assassin. Okay, if any of you guys ever read Scott the disposable assassin His whole deal was like you pay him money. ah He's a robot. He'd go and he'd kill somebody, right? And then he would explode, tying up the loose ends, right? Because you can't charge an exploded robot for murder. And and you couldn't track down who paid the robot for murder. This is just a guy who explodes. Like you pay him and he's an assassin. He goes somewhere. He's a subject who has no memory. He just has an inclination to do something. And he goes out and he blows up.
00:51:42
Speaker
Maybe he's not even a robot, but there was an error with the experiment. And instead of just exploding and combusting, he just exploded and combusted out of his asshole. And when that happened, he realized like, wait, I thought there's some sort
Humorous Game Pitch
00:51:56
Speaker
of lie. They go somewhere and they think that they're meeting with a, I don't know, the dignitary to negotiate a deal, whatever. There's some sort of false memories there. Then he realizes, wait, but I just exploded out of my asshole. My whole life is a lie. And he Decides to swear vengeance on the people who tried to turn him into a suicide bomb ah But the only he he has no martial abilities except for the flame shooting out of his ass So he goes anywhere it's capoeira Dancing inspired. Yeah, it's I think it's um Brazilian it's a Brazilian martial art. Yes
00:52:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's the guy from Tekken, Eddie, who does the, he does capoeira. We have a, a human experiment that explodes out of his ass and uses capoeira to take down the, the scientists and government body that turned him into the monster he is. Is it the government or was it a private corporation? Maybe we need to answer that over the course of the game.
00:53:06
Speaker
He doesn't know yet. At least maybe it was like a horizon like a corporation. Maybe it was the government. I can't connect the dancing to it though, but I liked the idea that he went to learn capoeira. I think it's capoeira. Yeah. Yeah. He's a dancer in ah in a pre in his actual life or something. I don't know. Maybe he was kidnapped and turned in and he has this Maybe it's like Jason, but you know how Jason Bourne disassembles the gun and he's like, how did I know how to do that? What if like the security personnel near the target he was supposed to assassinate? They're like, oh my God, like we don't know what's going on, but you're clearly a threat. We're going to shoot you. And he just capoeira assflats them. And then he goes, oh my God, I know capoeira.
00:53:45
Speaker
like kapuwera doesn't mention that he can like rocket if you want just like about remarkable yeah only i opinion but here's a weekend i'm thinking just like Jason Bourne he he retires from killing because he's like I'm done with that life it's over now and then and then he starts his second life he's like capoeira is my my my life now and You know, I guess there's some remnants of his previous life where, you know, he accidentally assblasts while he's ah doing the capoeira moves. But, you know, hes he's desperately trying to just, you know, do things when suddenly, you know, the FBI shows up at his door and they're like, subject 106.5, we need you and your assblasting capoeira skills to take down like this evil bad guy. and he liees he replie I told you I was done with assblasting.
00:54:36
Speaker
at the end did the center away What's that? It's a little bit where it as he says that. um I love this, like, narratively. I think this is fantastic. Um, but I want to, I want to bring this back to mechanics and like, how are we going to explore this? Let's back it up. Let's back that up. I think we've nailed the narrative. It's literally it's done. How are we going to explore this?
00:55:06
Speaker
mechanically So Tina's idea was the kind of co-op, like, jank movement. um But I think we do something similar, but instead of it being a struggle, it's just that is how you explore dancing. So each situation he gets into, it's normal movement until we go into Kappelware as blast mode, where maybe time slows down and you can unit swap dance around and you've got to try and like get over furniture and desks and stuff to like navigate your ass in the direction of the guy trying to kill you. have and i Do we have a dedicated blast button or does it happen in proximity? We've got to think about, you know, user like user experience. How are we doing this?
00:55:57
Speaker
There was an interesting innovation, or go ahead, Wilson. I was just thinking, maybe it's like F0 Mario Kart, where it's like the Nitro button, and you press it just as the last Nitro. and But anyway, so that's my idea. I was going to say, ah because if I'm understanding you right, Jay, you're you're saying like, what if it wasn't like, ah Janky, what if it was like a really fluid like Trappang? a fluid sort of action experience. And I'm thinking about how in vampire survivors have a kind of innovated on the bullet hell genre by making you not have to shoot, right? But you didn't have to hit the attack button. What if the ass blasting was automatic and it was more about positioning, getting yourself into the right. I think the positioning is the thing that we need to focus on because we can really yeah break down how many inputs the players going to need to do.
00:56:45
Speaker
Um, and that's super important and it's about just like getting into the right positioning, um, and moving across the environment fluidly. Right. I think that's, that's the most important thing, but also I'm going to throw out a curve ball here. If we had a dedicated ask blast button, it could simultaneously be used for combat and also traversal.
00:57:13
Speaker
you you bless an enemy base and and not while i'm drinking and you're my you take If your booty is close enough to a surface and your legs are positioned correctly, if said Ask Blast button is pressed, let's say, you know, it's Q or E on the keyboard.
00:57:32
Speaker
The blast from your ass will propel your body. And here's another curve ball. If you do that midair, if you try to co-op move, you do poses and you get style points.
00:57:46
Speaker
single point um on yeah and he had those problems fuel Fuel up your own ass blasting. Like I like the idea that it's, it's not just points for style, right? It like, it's a resource. oh Yeah. like goes up Yeah. I like that. I like that. Yeah. Self-conscious. So he needs to build up.
00:58:09
Speaker
it's sort of embarrassing thing That's true. So if the bar goes down to the bottom, he goes like, Oh, shucks. I'm out of here. And he just leaves because he's too embarrassed. Does your ass blast get stronger, the more confident you are? So if you're building up your style points, if you fail, you only let out a little tote.
00:58:30
Speaker
But if you if you build up you build up the combo to get the the S rank, which is ass, it's A double-S-S. Assed it. It's really hard to get there, but if you get there, you can press the button and it just kills everyone in the room because you effectively just took a box.
00:58:51
Speaker
That's good. I like that. It's a risk or reward thing, right? are you goingnna Are you going to be jumping into the air doing your poses and your moves to impress everyone around you and build your confidence?
00:59:03
Speaker
yeah i mean i like he could be He could be eating beans too, to you know to fuel all of that. That's a mushroom. He's going to pick up beans. get anyone else's gas We also don't make explain it, right? So every everywhere you go, be it like a scientific facility or um you know a castle to take down the the the big boss ways held up. henry ring so There's always cans of beans everywhere. And then the resource you have to go.
00:59:30
Speaker
and And there's all these there's all these goons and like clamoring through the kitchens of the um of the facilities that the Asplaster is about to attack. And the goons are like smashing the bean cans to make sure he doesn't have any feeds to get destroyed.
00:59:49
Speaker
They're burning the mushrooms. I mean, one but like I can imagine. Sorry, was it good for it? Oh, I was just saying, there's got to be like hazards. What if there's like a methane like gas leak or something and then like you know wait you accidentally fart into it and then it just explodes the whole place. I can't say the word invountary involuntary. Involuntary. Involuntary.
01:00:18
Speaker
like, oh yeah your combo you let out a little, a little blast and they can be small because it's your failure state, right? You've, you've messed up your combo. You let out a little, you know, but it's really, really bad because certain like obstacles for you to platform over are like, the room's filled with gas. And it's like, if you mess up, you're dead. That's our fail condition. Right. So, uh,
01:00:45
Speaker
Okay, wait, that that just gave me an idea. What if, okay, right? if He's a superhero, right? But he's like a masked superhero. So right during his his daily life, people don't know he's, he's ass blaster, whatever it is. So pass what yeah, he's ass blaster, ass blaster, man. What if he has to like, you know, it's like Spider-Man, he has to like go on dates and stuff and like not show off his ability. So it's You know, you have the daytime game loop and then you have the the superhero at nighttime. During the daytime he's going out with like Mary Jane or whoever and like, you know, he's got to hide all his abilities. He can't, you know, it's just like, oh, today we're going to eat some tacos and some, some beans. And he's like, oh no, no, no. Are you afraid you're going to be gassy? That's okay. You don't have to be self conscious about that.
01:01:30
Speaker
you know the half of it lady that's the That's the conflict that's causing the rift in their relationship. She's like, why won't you go to this Mexican restaurant with me? It's my favorite food. Why just won't you go? You like the food. Dude, there's so much turmoil.
01:01:46
Speaker
yeah like the frank yeah honestly you're the love of my life but if you won't go eat these beans with me it's over honestly like dad he would be these genebes like maybe she's allergic to like everything but beans so it's like yes it's just like lactose intolerant and everything intolerant allergic to like everything that I mean it's it's a really how do you say it's ah it's a relationship that's like like Romeo and Juliet it's like you know they're meant to be but so yeah you said having yeah we love each other but i native didn right you the thing we might all be going to hell for comparing ass blaster 2000 to Shakespeare
01:02:29
Speaker
oh i mean he's dead so i mind yeah you can't say i heard he you probably had a ghost writer anyway you know what he did who writes that much stuff i been say right I think Shakespeare would like what we're talking about, because I think he had a sense of humor. And, and this isn't a joke, Mikey. This isn't a joke. This is serious. This is, this is a very serious superhero espionage but game that we're talking about. i I appreciate if you took it seriously.
01:02:59
Speaker
you're right I deeply apologize speaking of which what's our like what's our theme here like what what are we trying to tell what are we trying to tell the world with ass blaster like what's what's he gonna learn through his arc what's the end the end is you know I never had to be self Yeah, exactly. What are we trying to say? What are we trying to say? There's no limits to what you could learn from Asplaster 2000. You know, any aspect of the game could teach you so many different lessons, right? Let's just think of one mechanic, the capoeira, the movement, the style points. What is that teaching our players, like, morally? A lot of things, right?
01:03:39
Speaker
i take a Go ahead. Sorry. we'son yeah I was saying he could use Capoeira to kill people because it's like a martial art, but then it's also like a beautiful thing that he can do to perform. So it's like, with great power comes great responsibility because he can kill people with that Capoeira. I love the ideas of the cutscenes, right? His Mary Jane that we have in this game, he can only eat beans.
01:04:02
Speaker
and you know they're They're going out on a ah lovely ah lovely night out. Maybe they're they're learning to dance together and they're you know they're they're doing the waltz and stuff. But then you know they they turn on like ah a bit of a spicier beat and his capoeira just kicks in. right And he just starts busting it out. Maybe he takes a few dances out while he's doing it and he has to fly.
01:04:24
Speaker
right yeah no and now now Now Mary Jane knows, she's like, oh no, he's the capoeira killer. like think she goingnna officer absurd Eddie and he calls her up on a birdie, he's like, everything I did, I did against the people who wronged me, the people who made me this way. And she's like, that's not what they're saying on the news. The news is lying. I love you. guys like you code to the pair sends another voicemail by way This is why I couldn't eat those beans. ah They sound really delicious.
01:04:54
Speaker
so how is this related to the cap weara which and When she hears that she drops the phone because she knows now she understands. He always loved her.
Narrative Elements in Gameplay
01:05:03
Speaker
He just couldn't have beans. It was too revealing and embarrassing.
01:05:08
Speaker
I mean, I mean, maybe they all learn to appreciate each other. You know, maybe he'll just eat those beans in front of her and then, you know, ask last a little bit. And, you know, there's a British movie called Thunderpants. Have you guys seen that? No. ah so All the Brits in the chat will know this movie. um It's about a kid who and I'm paraphrasing because I haven't seen it since I was a child. But it's about a kid who farts so much.
01:05:36
Speaker
Like to the point where they're so bad and they're so large, right? That it's becomes a problem. He can't, I think his, his mom or his dad leaves the family and runs away. Cause the kid falls in the ocean. He gets bullied at school, but then he uses it as a weapon against his bullies. But anyway, the, I think it's the us, uh, space was like NASA contact him or something to basically use his fault to feel a rocket. Take him to space. and there's language of it Thank you, Eric. There's a great picture right now.
01:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, on the screen. excuse um This is it. sort could probably And they they give him this special suit, right? That he can wear. It's like a spacesuit and he farts into it and it inflates and then like turns it into fuel and stuff. I think that's what our character could have. So we could have beans with Mary Jane. He could have a special suit that allows him to concentrate his energy. And that's how we get to that big blast, right? This is his super suit.
01:06:35
Speaker
and As you're doing your cap wearing, you're going, your ass blasts are happening and they're being contained in the suit. And the button you press is the valve to open it, which is also situated. Go ahead. well Sorry. How is he going to breathe while his suit is filled with is fee house special suits? his his stops here yeah youcased getting like Yeah. Baking himself.
01:07:04
Speaker
This is an important part of the stew. He can't smell it because it'll just die right away. So there's a connection point here. I'm i'm liking this. There's a bit of like a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. The thing I was embarrassed about is actually a great strength sort of ah sort of arc, which I like. like and There's an opportunity for a mentor figure who's like from the government and is like, I could teach you to control it. he's like What do you mean?
01:07:31
Speaker
ah to see council signal crisis does he contacted him After he he randomly finds it, after he like accidentally asked, like Jason Bourne asked someone and he's like, I didn't know I could do this. They find him in the alley and they're like, I've been following you for years. The that wilson said where like the feds come and they like, they find out about this. Cause of course they would.
01:07:54
Speaker
And maybe they like they hook him up with the mentor. The mentor has already worked with the government. I don't know. We could like combine those parts a little bit. Senior as last year. Like he was. Yeah. Wasn't as. Just the first one blast out of your ass.
01:08:17
Speaker
He's the he's the.
01:08:22
Speaker
piece He was used in the war and now he's washed up and he's come to mental the new blood or the new gas. you had to ask last thing ah Black operations involving a high degree of risk that that only asplasting could. could it's the only without injury He got injured, you know, during the Cold War or something like in Vietnam, like he like stepped on a mine or something and then he has lasted no more. like You know, he he knows all the knowledge about it eventually, but he can't do it He prototyped the suit and he tried to use it in combat and it backfired. And I don't know, maybe he literally backfired. Literally backfired. Literally backfired. I mean, he forgot to seal it or something and then he did like irreparable harm to himself.
01:09:17
Speaker
He has like a two-faced thing going on where half his face is by his own gas. you know because the suits with seal the there everything everything below his neck is like completely fucked and he wears a big trench coat or something oh so there's a part where he's talking to the mentor and the guy's like the ass blaster the new ass blaster is like you don't understand what i'm going through what do you know about pain and he just frowns and he just reveals his chest and he shows like
01:09:49
Speaker
different I was the first 106.5. It's fun. And also it kind of stinks. Like he can smell it. It's a rancid old wound. After like 20 years, the last part just never leaves. I'm telling you, boy, if you get hit by this ass blast, it doesn't heal. You're perfectly worth it. You wouldn't get the people that did this to you. You need to learn to control it.
01:10:20
Speaker
like i lost He's like, I lost my loved ones, my lover too. Like she didn't understand. He's like, you'll just have to give up on her, man. They don't understand people like this. Exactly. that That's what he says. But by the end, you know, he reunites with Mary Jane. She understands. That's his, you know, you're a wrong mentor. Love can happen to an aspect or something like that.
01:10:41
Speaker
um safe remember you can im on the art blasting field I kind of, I kind of thought this would start being more like more of a mechanical game, but the narrative is really developing. with yeah this like a visual model I do think the mechanical aspect, we've just nailed it. It's like, that's exactly what it is. It's a, yeah.
01:11:07
Speaker
Ass blasting style points game. Yeah. And it's first person, right? Just to, just to be clear. Cause that was how and I think. and I'm thinking like, I'm thinking like it's, um, half a visual novel and half 2d, uh, like 2d side scroller. Like imagine the complexity of something like Katana zero, um looked that up but with co-op ass blasting Eric, Eric will pull up, um, Katana's area. He'll do it like that.
01:11:36
Speaker
because he has a feeling you know yeah you have to deal with something you right i mean course yeah Because if you're in first person, right? You're not going to be able to see the Capoeira moves and the dance in, right? If you see the the gameplay footage, everyone who's listening, we're currently looking at a gameplay of Katana Zero.
01:11:58
Speaker
Uh, we've got a lot of the fast movement, um, move in, um, get the quick kills and the, the narrative aspects. I think we could really replace a lot of this samurai, um, Katana wielding gameplay with our Capoeira, um, style point ass blasting.
01:12:17
Speaker
um yeah Asplasti0. Yes. Asplasti0. And see if you can do all the particle effects. Oh, I'd love to. I mean, particles are so much fun.
01:12:34
Speaker
i mean i i like to plug these I mean, actually a fun fact is a lot of our smoke particles, for an unknown reason, Jacob, our animator, he likes to name things fart gas. So a lot of our particles are just named fart gas for some reason. Whenever I'm trying to find them, where's the smoke particle? And I have to type in fart gas to find it because Jacob just likes to name things fart gas. I never thought we would get so much ass.
01:13:03
Speaker
Out of this podcast like there have been is come back to butts So much i'm not complaining. I think I think this is top tier content. I think this is incredible I i've seen in the chat people are loving it. I think we should talk about booties more on the podcast. Honestly, it's tina Gina also didn't know about any of this And brought us an ass an ass blast gif Oh, it's, it's beautiful. I'm, I'm so happy right now. So I'm quite pleased. I'm quite pleased. Are you guys going to get demonetized? Do you think from all the, yeah lasting we got but and this i okay, beautiful segue. This, that doesn't matter because we are, um, primarily funded by our wonderful patrons and all of your kind donations, um, which we're going to go through now, okay which are going to progressively get more skewed towards being about booty as we progress. Cause I've got a future readout.
01:13:56
Speaker
Um, some of them are lovely, lovely questions. Um, so we'll just go through these and, um, answer them as they come again. Thank you so much for supporting us with your donations and everything on Patreon. We really appreciate all of you. And, uh, yeah, let's go for him. So snake in the garden. Hello. Gives two Euro and says shout out to Eric, the MVP of second wind. Yep. Eric, a producer podcast producer in the backend. We love you, Eric. Thank you, Eric. You're doing a great job.
DLC Summary and Features
01:14:22
Speaker
All right. Jewel row with two euros. Thank you. It says, I really loved your bang to still have to play the DLC. Oh, shit. Yeah, I mean, can you quickly summarize the the DLC? Go ahead, sorry. yeah Yeah, so you get to use a sword. um You can play Fruit Ninja versus the bad guys and just slice them up. And then, you know, it launches them in the air when you slice them up. And I know real physics don't work that way, but that's how our sword works. And then you can play Fruit and Ninja as you slice up their their organs and their their bodies as they all you know fall down. So I'd say that's worth a dollar, you know, if I could get that sometime.
01:14:59
Speaker
Beautiful. Thank you. sovereign with the five euros, a lot of euros. Thanks. Thanks. Euro peeps sovereign says from, uh, from a big fan of fear. I absolutely loved tripping too. So a big thank you for helping me scratch that particular itch. You did an amazing job. Awesome job. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much. Glad you're enjoying it.
01:15:21
Speaker
Yeah. Holy hell. Brandon McCagan. Thank you so much has given $100. Thank you. Appreciate it. Dev heads yet again with another awesome podcast episode grateful for you guys. Wilson and tripang too. Thank you so much.
01:15:42
Speaker
Thank you, Brandon. Love you. Thank you tina as well. were We're sad. She couldn't be here, but um you know, she infected us with her and certain brand of chaos, even from, I was going to say from the grave. She's still dead. She's fine. She's all right. Tina's last words. We're not sending us that video. She's like, like okay, so do you find I'm already dead. By the way, here's this gift.
01:16:13
Speaker
I mean, maybe that's why she didn't join. She was just like, this is too ridiculous. I can't be a part of this. i think she just dropped love spell off play isn't it she but the legend ah Pretty fist with the $5. Thank you. It says first time getting to watch live. Thanks Mikey for giving us over, uh, for giving us over at the hideous destructor commentary, a shout out a few episodes ago.
Doom Mod and Platform Challenges
01:16:38
Speaker
Those are my people. That's that, uh, that's that doom one and two mod that I told you guys about the ghost and goblins meets ghost recon is what they like to call it. Yeah. That's yeah fucking awesome.
01:16:51
Speaker
it it look doesn' a happen video Yeah. that's awesome um I'm keen. Thank you. yeah Check that out. More coverage. It's like a hardcore tactical simulation FPA. Imagine playing doom one and you're like loading bullets into magazines. That's hideous. Destructor.
01:17:07
Speaker
like turcon dude Yeah, kind of a little bit mechanical like core mechanically. Yes. Yeah. It's wild. that sounds pretty insane actually Yeah. Yeah. I'll show you. We'll check it out. It's, it's, I've never played anything like it to be honest. he Yeah. Dark jacket with $5. Thank you this and says, thank you for the combo. As always, Wilson, what was it like putting your game on multiple platforms? I know a lot of small teams only tend to release on steam.
01:17:37
Speaker
Oh, so actually it was a nightmare. I don't recommend it. but candor wil So I mean, I'm really glad, you know, we, we had a face software. They helped us with porting to the consoles and and putting it on all ah the other platforms, but.
01:17:54
Speaker
Man, it it is it is a lot of work, because like i mean each platform, they have their own like APIs for like how you do achievements and stuff. And ah they they might have their own certification process. and They might be like, you can't do this. You have to do this. And it's like, um obviously, you don't want to tweak it just for that one platform, because then people might get mad. Or or you end up having like several branches of the same game, right? So it's like, you get you if you have to tweak it to meet certification for one platform, you've got to tweak it for everybody. So yeah everybody has this stuff, right?
01:18:25
Speaker
No, it's it's I like that you're sharing that man because um People should understand the challenge. This is like part of our thesis with dev heads in a sense, right? Like we're trying to make people understand what it's like to be Developer from that perspective and also talk gaming stuff But from that perspective and like people need to know and stuff sucks and if it's terrible and it's really hard he sucks Yeah. I mean, I think if if you don't have a forwarding studio to help you, like, I really wouldn't recommend it. Like, just, just do it one at a time. It's way too much work. It's just through the guys you said that helped you or the the people that helped you. ah Kitty face software. is So K I T T E H software. i'm Sorry. K I T T E H face software. Yeah. they probably sounds Yeah. Props to the unsung heroes doing that, doing that contract work. Hell yeah.
01:19:14
Speaker
yeah they're amazing so you check out their other games if you're ever bored want to look at other well-ported games it's all right it is definitely oh sorry that's all right crispy jeb what a name increase crispy jeb gives two dollars cheers and says so how do you pronounce trapang 2 have i been saying it wrong Um, so actually we're probably all saying it wrong.
Game Name Origin and Humor
01:19:41
Speaker
Um, so the, the name came from ah a game jam back in, I think 2011, uh, me and a bunch of other friends, not, not these trade paying dudes, we're making a game about a sea cucumber for a game jam. And we just googled like exotic words for sea cucumber. And I think it was like Malaysian or Indonesian. Um, and it's like, it's yeah, it's pronounced trade paying and it means like sea cucumber. And it can also mean a verb for catching, um, sea cucumbers.
01:20:05
Speaker
But I don't speak Indonesian or Malaysian, so I don't know how it's pronounced. Well, if anybody does know the correct pronunciation, please hit us up. because but stopping quick Quick note here, um before I forget, ah if I remember Wright Wilson in in an interview, you explained the connection between that game and this one having something to do with like evisceration. What what was that? I can't remember exactly. Like something that happens to seek numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
01:20:32
Speaker
So sea cucumbers, they defend themselves by spitting out their organs. And I guess that's what the first game was about. You're a sea cucumber underwater, and there's a giant squids attacking you, and you launch your organs out to make them attack your organs instead, so you can get to the finish line. So here's a picture of a sea cucumber. It's like, try leaving now, huh? It's like, I'll wait.
01:20:59
Speaker
describe um but yeah like The second game ah The second game doesn't have much to do with sea cucumbers, but I guess it still has organ evisceration. So, you know, it kind of fits Hey, you can you can find that for it. Anyway, it's it's you just gotta Yeah You guys are making my earbuds fall out I'm i'm laughing and smiling so much um Yeah, that's definitely our fault. Yeah, it's both your fault. Damn it. I'm sorry. could do you ja I keep interrupting that excitedly. Rose Delta gives $2. Thank you so much. And says, why is an ass blaster not a windbreaker subject? So we have another podcast that happens on Monday's windbreaker. So um honestly, if I'm on next week's windbreaker, I'll i'll'll raise this and ah we'll we'll talk about it there as well.
01:21:54
Speaker
Sean Harringman has been a member for eight months. Thank you so much, Green Gang. Climate change activists hunt hunt him down in Ask Blast 2. In Ask Blast 2, he's become an enemy of the state because of how much gas he's pumping into the atmosphere. He's just ripping a hole in the ozone. that's there's there's so much It's causing people to get burned by the sun and and toxic fumes everywhere. is and he can't how are the world And then there's a conversation of like, is it worth it? Like we're at at that point, maybe he's like a government asset and he's killing people that are ostensibly bad, but he's really just tool of the state. And like, is it worth the sacrifice? Sorry, I'm getting back into it again. no it's like it's like commentary like so so so yeah' right i was just go say Crime rates are all time low, but it's drastically affecting the the planet where we're unable to to harvest many crops. A lot of people are dying. Um, so what do we want? Food or crime?
01:22:55
Speaker
cooter cry for maybe both you can have It's a story about balance. This is a DLC, I guess. Yeah. It's like the forest, you know, you need the dark side and the light side of the, the asplasting. Well, well said. well amazing amazing Okay. So, uh, pie gives two dollars and says, uh, trip hang two is an SCP type game. Thanks for the twist ending. Oh, don't say anything yet. I haven't played it yet. Whoever. Oh, well, yeah you're welcome. I guess. I mean, we like to do twists. We like to surprise people. It's always fun seeing the reactions. So yeah.
01:23:38
Speaker
hell yeah Same person pie with another $2 and says, is there a wiki for the secret lore in the game? Oh, I think so. There is a wiki. I think if you look up Trey paying to wiki, but there's some silly stuff there that's not quite accurate. Like it says there's like the original developer was named Gavin Alford. And I don't know who that is, but anyways, the guy Gavin. Yeah. Well, come on.
01:24:09
Speaker
how harry spells devvin alfred i think that's what just look a pray thing too you and then they'll they'll show up like again in elbbrad I don't know who that is. I mean, maybe he's me. I mean, he's my alter ego. Oh my God. i yeah but you you're right du bank cities you have A few different members that are no longer working on the game. For example, a man going by Gavin Alford and a few of his unknown friends that were previously on the team, but they left after the first demo.
01:24:39
Speaker
And they were burnt out on the project. Yeah. Maybe it was before my time. I don't know. There was a previous trip hang to team. The Lord goes pretty deep. They started as a solo project for you. And then you brought it to fruition and they're like, Oh yeah, these people worked on it and then left. And you're like, I guess I'm gonna get them on LinkedIn. Yeah. They want that. They want that technical director and Melbourne.
01:25:07
Speaker
All right. But I guess um if you want, if you want to look deep into the Trae Pang 2 lore, just go on YouTube, type in Trae Pang 2, point kid.
Exploring Lore and Future Updates
01:25:16
Speaker
There's this guy who does these really in-depth documentaries that, and it's mostly like, yeah, like it it's spot on, like what we intended to tell, I guess, but through really subtle means. So yeah, check that out if you're into the lore. 100%.
01:25:31
Speaker
nice Another one from Pi, another $2, thank you. Very, very curious and like they're getting to ask you these questions. says Which is a really good last question unless somebody else donates, which we will appreciate. the Question is, what is the future of tray the Traipang series?
01:25:46
Speaker
Oh, that's a difficult question to answer. So I guess the future for a trade paying studios is we're all taking a vacation right now, because we need that. that um That's the future for now. But I mean, we're obviously not going to just abandon trade paying and never touch it again. So there there will be more trade paying, whether it's an update or DLC or another game. There's going to be something for sure, unless we all like, I don't know, never come back from vacation. We just enjoy it too much. and vacation for the rest of our lives. No, I'm kidding. I'm going to do that. You're artists, you've got more, you have the hunger. I know, right? I mean, like, but even if we could, I don't think we'd enjoy just, you know, not working on video games. So we have to do that. That's why we're all into it. We we love the the art, you know, the the process and the creation. That's why we're doing it. Right. Yeah. Well, you live for it, right? 100%. 100%.
Conclusion and Gratitude
01:26:43
Speaker
Alrighty then, so thank you for all your wonderful donations guys. um This is the end that I really should write a spiel to do, but I'm doing off the cuff.
01:26:54
Speaker
What we have coming up, we have multiple streams and stuff. See, this is the stuff I should write down and have a hand, but I don't. um I have an episode of Design Devil that's coming out a week from today, which is on the topic of ah game devs lying to you is good actually.
01:27:15
Speaker
which should be interesting, um talking about how we, you know, use smoke and mirrors and lie to our players for their benefit. um So that's coming out in a week. So watch that. Watch all of our other wonderful shows, fully ramblimatic, design delt, bite sized, everything you can get your hands on. I want to say a big thank you to Wilson for coming on. It's been absolutely wonderful.
01:27:36
Speaker
to have you on. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Wilson. The conversation did went in directions I did not think they were going, but I wouldn't have it any other way. If I could give back the time, ten i wouldn i this blessing any timeine just to experience it again wouldn't change anything. Yeah. Thank you to all of our wonderful viewers and Eric in the background doing all the important stuff. And we will see you, uh, in a couple of weeks, uh, with another episode, which hopefully Tina will return for, and we will see you then. So goodbye guys. See you soon. Bye. Bye everybody. Thank you. thank