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Episode 54: Michael Brough (868-BACK, Corrypt)
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In this episode, Alan and Syrenne are joined by Michael Brough (868-BACK, Corrypt). Topics include returning to game development while disabled, how 868-BACK is a more ambitious game than previous works, the development of Corrypt, and yearning for the past.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction with Soren and Alan
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome to the Drakknek and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Soren from Drakknek and Friends, and I'm joined as always by Alan Hazelden, the head Drakknek at Drakknek and Friends.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello.
Introducing Michael Bro and His Game Design Journey
00:00:36
Speaker
Today, we're joined by Michael Bro, who you may know from his work on a large amount of games and in fact, a whole genre considered to be bro likes.
00:00:47
Speaker
How are you doing today? I'm good. So can you give yourself an introduction for people who do not know who you are or what a bro like is?
00:00:59
Speaker
I'm I'm a Kiwi and I kind of got into the indie game scene in an the early 2000s when I moved to the yeah UK and connected up with the yeah UK indie scene there.
00:01:11
Speaker
And i made several puzzle games, most notably Corrupt, and a lot of roguelikes and games that around and about roguelikes. 8.6.8 Hack, of which I'm working sequel at the moment, 8.6.8 Back, Imbroglio,
00:01:33
Speaker
Cinco Pals, and like a few other little ones. And just a whole bunch of weird stuff too. like You can't really sum it up. I've done stuff. ah What got you into wanting to design games in the first place?
00:01:49
Speaker
Into in the first place? Goodness. As long as I can remember, it was a thing that i I wanted to do. As a child, I remember, what do you want to do when you grow up? Oh, I want to make computer games.
00:02:01
Speaker
no, you can't do that. That's not a real job. Think of something else. like You showed them. Well, ah maybe maybe they would still think that if they look at my present financial situation and
00:02:19
Speaker
But that was a thing. like I mentioned that
Career Milestones in Indie Game Development
00:02:23
Speaker
i i got into it for serious when I moved to the UK, and that was when I actually met in person.
00:02:30
Speaker
other people who did that because in our terror in New Zealand at the time it was not a thing and so like the people around me were saying that's not a thing was like oh obviously it is a thing because these things get made so it must happen somewhere and like the the fact the fact that I was in the UK I didn't I didn't work for a company there or anything but just just the the mere fact of meeting people like Alan and and Stephen LaValle and Terry Kavanagh is what like really convinced me that this was a thing that I could do. Yeah, because we we had Stephen on the podcast, that episode went out, I think, a month ago of the time this episode is coming out.
00:03:13
Speaker
And yeah, we talked a little about the the Cambridge Jan scene, um which was deeply impactful on me too. And yeah, like i I would have met you there and you would have either been working it on or just released your game Vertex Dispenser.
00:03:29
Speaker
Did you start that project before making those connections with the UK game dev scene or after? Yeah, I started that actually in New Zealand when I was studying maths there.
Game Design Philosophy: Small Possibility Spaces
00:03:43
Speaker
And then, yeah, so I was making games before that, but I wasn't, I internalized the belief that it was, that was just a hobby and not, not something I could really do as my main thing.
00:03:56
Speaker
So it was somewhere in that transition that that I, when went back to when I said, oh, I could actually finish this as kind of a big game, which wasn't necessarily a good but that's what I did.
00:04:10
Speaker
And then, but more importantly, got into the the game jams and learned the ethos of how you ah you actually finish something, how you how you ah you finish something quickly and develop your skills of the entire process by by by the practice of jamming.
00:04:29
Speaker
and that really informed all of my work going on from there. So going from early jams and early prototypes, I guess i guess the question I have is a lot of your games stem from or feature relatively small possibility spaces in a, in an industry that frequently pushes for larger possibility spaces.
00:05:02
Speaker
Do you think, I know that that has over time, especially become very consciously associated with you and your ah games and people who make games that are inspired by yours originally.
00:05:18
Speaker
did that sort of stem from the process of how you were jamming these games out? Or did the process of how you were jamming these games out stem from your desire to explore a small possibility space?
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, at first I would i would say that the possibility spaces aren't that small just because of how combinatorics works. even Even if something's on a small spatial area, when you're looking at how many different combinations of different placements of objects on ah on a grid there are, the numbers, like the the the literal multiplication gets enormous very quickly. There's only a small number of choices at a time, very quickly. Yes, I think that's more what I meant to say.
00:06:03
Speaker
No, but it's ah it's an interesting point to think about because a lot of the... um superficially larger games like that you're referring to they sparser. They have ah a larger geometric space which the objects inhabit, but less objects and less different arrangements of them and less relationships between them.
00:06:25
Speaker
so what what i to To go back to your question, what i i certainly did start making these smaller games from what was practical for me to make in a jam.
00:06:36
Speaker
I had been when I was making Roguelikes, I started trying to make Roguelikes like the big classics, ADOM and NetHack. They're on like an 80 by 20 grid and that's 100 levels deep and so on.
00:06:49
Speaker
and Gradually getting smaller and smaller led to something that I could practically make. and then But when when i when I had that, I realized this is actually great.
00:07:01
Speaker
This can have really as much depth of interaction by having and a denser set of objects on the smaller space that have a denser set of relationships and interconnections between them.
00:07:16
Speaker
And do you think there's anything else you did or do, you um, that helps shape a project into something of completable size?
00:07:29
Speaker
I, I have to say that's like a lot of, uh, intuitive sense that's built up by, by by practice, by doing a lot of times.
00:07:40
Speaker
um Doing the game jams, like you just go through that process over and over again, making a two hour game, making 20 minute game. So some of those Cambridge jams, we we we had challenges coming throughout the jam, say, make a game about this in half an hour. And and not everyone leapt to it, but if you, yeah, these kind of improv challenges um builds builds your intuitive sense of what you can do, what what what the shape of a finishable project feels like.
Balancing Creativity with Physical Limitations
00:08:15
Speaker
And it's not it's not something... i I might be able to articulate some principles with a great deal of thought, but it's just a field developed by practice.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I i definitely yeah i i have a similar sense of like, oh, I can't really articulate this, but I i feel like this is a promising direction and this is a scary direction.
00:08:41
Speaker
I know you've you've talked a little bit about how the last few years have been pretty rough in terms of how much you've been able to make games and you've been, yeah, like 8.68 back feels like a good return to form. I'm curious, was there any of that intuition that you'd built up from previous projects that you felt like having that kind of gap Did, did that, did you, were you able to bring, bring back those intuitions, um, like fairly quickly, or do you feel like you needed a while to work back up to your previous level of like intuition and direction?
00:09:20
Speaker
I've definitely needed to build back up my capacity to work. Like so certainly at some points during my illness, my brain was just not working. Right.
00:09:33
Speaker
Um, i remember I quite clearly remember playing Bubba is at one point and really struggling with some of the levels. And then six, nine months later, played it again at a point where my general fatigue and brain fog had lifted and absolutely breezing through some of the puzzles I'd struggled with and heaps more after that because the intuitive machinery back online. So...
00:10:03
Speaker
so I would say that there's that there was some having to build the intuition back up again, but it was more building the entire ability you to work back up again.
00:10:16
Speaker
i think my intuition has been online before my, like my my stamina, for example, my ability to work for, you know, more more than an hour at a time. ah so Certainly,
00:10:32
Speaker
yeah like Like my current Project 868 back, I started, I guess, about two years ago. and looking at how I was working then to working now, i was i was already recovered quite a bit then.
00:10:48
Speaker
But across across those those last two years, I've built out more and and I'm just able to go and go and go now, which is... amazing. and i can still i can still overdo it, and if I do, I still hit a patch of fatigue and the symptoms cut start coming back. so i'm i'm still I'm still, in that sense, disabled.
00:11:09
Speaker
But as long as I stay within the ever-changing space that that i that I'm capable of and inhabiting, which is a challenge, then yeah then I'm able to be very productive again.
00:11:23
Speaker
ah and How do you balance And this is something that, like, you know, I'll talk about that often, but like sometimes i deal with as well. How do you balance, I guess, being kind to yourself when your desire for creative expression outpaces your ability to execute just from like a how many hours in the day you're able to actually sit down and do the work type of ah manner?
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, it has been sometimes frustrating because... Creative work, when you're doing it, when you're feeling inspired, it gives you energy.
00:12:03
Speaker
Sometimes when I was really exhausted, wanted the energy that I get from from feeling productive and I couldn't access it. Honestly, there's no simple answer. i I've had to be very patient and Yeah, listen listen to my biological and physiological and psychological needs and take it slowly, accept that I can't always do what what I used to be able to do and what I sometimes think I should be able to do. and
00:12:41
Speaker
But also like taking time off to rest, to take a walk outside, to go to the beach, like these things. these are regenerative energizing activities as well.
00:12:53
Speaker
I yeah if i okay but i guess the basic what what one of one of the basic principles I've realized for for for dealing with note the chronic fatigue is that there's always something that I can do actually.
00:13:10
Speaker
And I have to really listen inside my body, like, what what is that thing? Sometimes I'm sitting down trying to work and I just hit, like, I can't concentrate, I can't can't do anything. And if I really ask myself, what do I want to do? I want to go and wash the dishes because they're piled up. and and And, like,
00:13:33
Speaker
I seemed incapacitated. it seemed like I couldn't do anything, but then this simple physical activity I can do, or maybe even go for a run. like Sometimes I can't walk, but somehow, illogically, can run, and then I feel better. and then i can ah It doesn't always make sense, and you just have to be really open-minded about what the need of this organism is right now.
00:14:02
Speaker
And so sometimes it's it's unexpected, but there is actually always an answer. Sometimes it's rest, of course. Sometimes it's just stop and lie down. But it's often a physical activity, just a different one than what I was trying to do. Yeah, thanks. i said That's a fantastic answer.
00:14:20
Speaker
I'm curious, have you gone through phases, either on this project or others, where you're... your ideation has gotten significantly ahead of what you're able to actually get into the game. i can i can kind of feel like for for games like 868 Back and many others you've made, you could like...
00:14:42
Speaker
come up with like endless lists of like, oh, what is this? What is that? And like actually, but the the act of making the game is like taking those lists and going like, okay, well, what are the yeah actual important ones to try? And out of the ones I try, which ones work?
00:14:58
Speaker
um And i I feel like with that kind of, when you're balancing, okay, how much bandwidth do I have for actually sitting down and making the game? ah It might be quite easy to get ahead of yourself and like have too much of backlog to like ever get through?
00:15:14
Speaker
Yes and no. Like, honestly, my my current document, like I keep a text file of what are the tasks to do? And that's currently a thousand lines long. Like, that there is a lot of stuff, but like a lot of that is is kind of minor.
00:15:31
Speaker
Actually, it's like this UI element needs to change or the it bug if you combine these three devices. and like like it's In terms of like the the the big scale ideas of like what's a whole new mechanic that could be introduced, I haven't so much had that experience of getting ahead because I haven't been thinking ahead.
00:15:57
Speaker
i think ahead in terms of the broad scope, but in terms of like, okay, I've got to a point where I need to put in a new ability for an enemy to have or something, then when when I reach that point, the idea comes. am not I'm not spending time on ideation ahead of time.
00:16:16
Speaker
i I'm just trusting that at the moment when I do need the idea, then it then it will just come because I have the ability to generate as many ideas as I need when I need to, i'm just not not wasting time cycling that ahead of the work that I'm actually doing.
00:16:37
Speaker
That's interesting. So you're saying that it's less that you are um like having like ideas like, oh, what if this was a program?
00:16:48
Speaker
Or what if this was a dev that you can install? And more like you'll get to a point in development where you're like, okay, well, I think that there's not enough progs what's all or like what What's something that could fill this space? Okay, I'll just come up with something whole cloth that fits the specific thing I'm trying to deal with now.
Game Content and Development Strategies
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. like like If I find one that needs to go, it doesn't work for some reason, I'll take it out and there's a hole for like a day. And then i the the idea that I need comes as soon as I start trying to have ideas and and I put that in.
00:17:26
Speaker
like that that That happened recently. we We took something out and I put a new one in. I thought, i' actually this is a bit weird. I don't know if I like it. And it was there for a couple of weeks and my playtesters didn't mention it.
00:17:38
Speaker
And then one of them said, i think the reason none of us have been talking about it is because it just works. was like, oh, okay, great. I mean, i i'm I'm sure now you have a pretty good sense of like, oh, how many of this thing do I need?
00:17:53
Speaker
um i mean, you've you've got kind of a a database of things so that that kind of like informs that kind of how much content do you need? But like, did you Do you think that sense of like, oh, there i I need more of this or oh like, the the like how how did you feel like when when enough is enough and you don't need more of a certain type of content?
00:18:21
Speaker
It's a lot about if there's a need for a certain type of interaction, like you're playing the game and you you you know you want to create a combo, say im I'm looking for a thing that combines with these two or three f elements in an interesting way. And so, say yeah, it's not, so sometimes i look at the numbers and I think, oh, it would be cool if this was a nice round number.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so, for example, the number of devices in the game right now it's actually 68, just to be cute. But that's because it was it was near that number. i was like, oh, if I just added a couple more, then then it would be the number that's in the name of the game, and that would be cute. So that's not...
00:19:05
Speaker
But mostly I'm thinking there, you have two or three devices that that that say increased damage and wouldn't be cool if there was a thing that was useful by itself, but was extra useful if you combined it with something that increased damage, so for example.
00:19:24
Speaker
So it's about finding the the spaces in the rule set where an interesting combination could arise and then trying to find the particular mechanical rule that would go with that.
00:19:39
Speaker
So as we record this, it's ah the game is going to be out in three-ish weeks. And that's ah especially funny because when this episode comes out, the game will already be out.
00:19:55
Speaker
um No, this is going out. Oh, this is going out just before. Oh, incredible. Oh, even even better. ah How are you feeling three weeks before launch?
00:20:07
Speaker
I'm really excited to get it out and really, really busy.
00:20:15
Speaker
But like and in a good way, I feel like there's a there's a substantial chunk of work that would still be good to do. The version we have is pretty good and like if I suddenly got sick and we had to release that version, it wouldn't be a disaster. But this this I have a huge list of bugs that mostly you'd have to be playing for quite a few hours and be doing some particular tricky thing to be able to encounter that bug. There's is so many edge cases in this game, um but a few bugs still that that you can run into early on. and i'm
00:20:59
Speaker
Working with Finji has been interesting because they're they're really good at at what they do. and they've really encouraged me to, i don't know, this is obvious, but prioritize the things that will affect more people and that are nearer to the start of the game.
00:21:19
Speaker
Because i the way I kind of usually do things is treat everything as equal. I just have a a big text file of all the things to do. And when, when the text files empty, the game's done. So I release it.
00:21:33
Speaker
And like that, that's, that's, that has worked for me on my own for smaller products, but it's not, it's not so practical for a bigger game and and, and working with a ah publisher, they, they want to be able to schedule releases and like plan around that ahead of time. so so it's been,
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's been great. like Adam Saltzman is super helpful to talk to on this and just learning these organizational skills that I hadn't needed in my previous projects of prioritizing, triaging and all
Reflections on Project Scale and Communication Challenges
00:22:15
Speaker
this.
00:22:15
Speaker
So it's, yeah, there's ton of work to We still have, we've got someone working on some graphics and working on some sound effects that are still coming in that are going to Like, yeah, it's it's this wonderful stage of these last few things, bringing the game to a new, new kind of life with these outside contributions, which I haven't done so much of in the past.
00:22:40
Speaker
And yeah, so it's, it's exciting and a lot of work. Yeah. Does this feel like a, ah different, um, size of game to the projects you've worked on previously?
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's definitely the biggest. You know, Vertex Dispenser, my first commercial game was quite big, actually. i did this this typical thing of being over-ambitious for an early project, and I did actually manage to kind of finish it and release it, but it had had had some problems.
00:23:23
Speaker
But also... I also burnt myself out a lot trying to do do something that was a bit beyond my capacities at the time. which like it's it's a young Young people <unk> should guide find out, explore what their capacities are, not necessarily <unk> go beyond them like that. but but stretch them. So I'm i'm not, I don't think I was necessarily so wrong to do that. But it's, I kind of shied away from that kind of scale after that.
00:23:56
Speaker
And like I said, it did did lots of game jams, which was, which was great for me. And I guess I've been gradually scoping up since then. And then this, I i expected, like coming back after my illness, I expected I was just going to make some small things. And then that just grow and and and grow yeah it's something yeah because i i feel like there's a even even people who like follow your work and like are excited for this game i feel like there's maybe something about it it's like oh yeah michael's michael's doing another another game it's it's going to be good
00:24:35
Speaker
um And like also the fact that it's a sequel to 8.6.8 hack, it like implies like a certain level of like scope. I'm like, okay, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a good thing. raw It doesn't inherently imply, oh yeah, this is going to be in order of magnitude, more involved, like more replayable, more great defining. Like it's, it's exciting. um I hope, I hope people are going to, yeah, really enjoy digging into it.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah. i like When I did the crowdfunding for a year or so ago, and like sporadically since then, i've I've realized that I haven't really managed to communicate what it is.
00:25:19
Speaker
And again, it's nice working Finji. They have a cool marketing team that are trying to figure out this problem of how to explain to people what it is. I don't have to do it all myself.
00:25:31
Speaker
But yeah, people really have... an idea of what to expect from me, which feels strange since I feel like I've done so many different things and and they should expect that I would keep doing different things.
00:25:51
Speaker
But don't know. I mean, it feels like this type of game could uniquely benefit from that from that kind of explainer.
00:26:03
Speaker
But there's also, i mean, and this is not even just strictly true of bro likes, like this is just generally across the thinky space. There's a real difficulty of getting someone to understand why one game, like someone from for the general audience to understand why one game is different than another.
00:26:24
Speaker
um One thing I think about a lot is like games that are Sokoban inspired are like famously hard for so people for like people in the general audience to understand why one is different than another why one why one might be better than another.
00:26:40
Speaker
But in this case. Do you have a relatively refined pitch at this point or are you still working on that with Finji?
00:26:54
Speaker
I
00:26:57
Speaker
i probably should have a refined fit, shouldn't Well, maybe that's just Finji's problem. Maybe it is. i think what I what i would, for especially for the the wider audience, I'm trying to draw their attention to the the the setting, the the vibe, the the genre, like,
00:27:21
Speaker
It's a cool hacker in a and a cyber world. That's maybe something to talk about, that that this game compared to my previous games has, it doesn't have a full like pages of text story, but I've done more work on world building and and creating a setting and and creating, was going to say creating a world, but I just said that with world building.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's...
00:27:51
Speaker
making it feel like a place and that it's inhabited by plausible characters. that that it's it's It's been something that that people criticize my games about, that they're they they're too abstract for for for a lot of people.
00:28:07
Speaker
and I don't think I've necessarily solved it in a way that will satisfy these people, but I have done differently, and that's interesting.
00:28:18
Speaker
There's not narrative told in the way that the wider audience might expect, but it's it's there. it's To me, it's told and in the way that was interesting to get it in there.
00:28:31
Speaker
It's famously a hard problem to tell a story in a game because it conflicts with the interactivity of a game and people have strong opinions about this. And I think I've done and a good way of walking that line.
00:28:48
Speaker
But I know for a lot of people it'll be too far to one side or the other. But for me, it's I feel like I've done done it well. I mean, i'm I'm happy to hear that.
00:28:59
Speaker
I'm excited that you know you're able to execute that creative vision. Do you have any questions for us? so Yeah, for for Alan. how so Because I i lived in the UK for some years and was involved in the UK scene And then then I've been away. Like, what is the scene like there now? ah Are there the same kinds of events? Are the same people still around? but ah Are there jammed? like what what's What's the feeling of it?
00:29:29
Speaker
I mean, i I'm not in touch with whatever scene there is as much as I was. But I think partly that's because the scene that we knew doesn't really exist anymore, which is quite sad. It feels like...
00:29:45
Speaker
That kind of like community of creators getting to know each other and like influencing each other's works, I think that still exists, but it's way more online now, and that affects...
00:30:01
Speaker
if like how it works as well.
Evolution of the UK Indie Scene
00:30:04
Speaker
um But the the Cambridge Jam scene like kind of dispersed and stopped happening.
00:30:12
Speaker
The people who I met in those communities are kind of not really centralized anywhere. um i I do hang out with game developers, but it's much more for like playing board games than for...
00:30:29
Speaker
sitting down and like comparing design notes and like going like, oh, I'm stuck on this problem. And like, I actually feel like the UK is worse in that regard than lots of other places I've been through. Like Montreal, Melbourne, Los Angeles seem to have a much stronger community and like culture than London does or anywhere in the UK really does these days.
00:30:58
Speaker
That's, yeah, that's that's really interesting to hear because like personally, I'm trying to figure out where to be. And that time when I was in the UK it was one of my most productive periods. And part of that was the scene. So they're like, oh, I could move back to the uk But obviously, I know it wouldn't be like it was.
00:31:21
Speaker
But that's a a good data point to know. And I think part of that is like, oh, we we just all got old. And like, why why should I know where the cool 20 year olds making games are hanging out? Or what they're like, that's that's not my scene. they they'll They'll have their own spaces and they'll be making interesting stuff. um ah Statistically, it's happening on Roblox.
00:31:48
Speaker
Right? Sure. yeah But we always had a few of the slightly older generation who who would hang around and... and
00:32:00
Speaker
i i think I think Discord is partly responsible for it. um And that's saying something as somebody who's got a lot of valuable community from Discord.
00:32:12
Speaker
But it's not quite the same. Yeah, that's... I want an intergenerational scene where where we have sometimes the sometimes the the the up and coming artists and the the people who've been doing this for their whole lives in one place.
00:32:29
Speaker
I also think part of this, depressingly, is just the way we were doing things kind of got got swallowed up by the indie game scene like exploding in size.
00:32:43
Speaker
and i think the motivations that we had 10, 15 years ten fifteen years ago are harder to maintain today when it's not really the case that you can make something interesting and get a large number of people to like see it.
00:33:06
Speaker
And it wasn't guaranteed back then, but it was definitely... easier to like make something cool and not think about like okay i gotta market this and have like that thing spread either through word of mouth or through journalism or through getting a game on steam before there were so many games on steam and so i think people aren't rewarded for making interesting things in the same way that they were a decade ago yeah it's interesting because i obviously i have
00:33:40
Speaker
I have children now. I have the motivation to to make money for extra reasons. And I find that if I just like set out to make something that makes money, it doesn't work. like The creativity doesn't flow.
00:33:56
Speaker
And what what we had in that scene, it was about letting your creative freedom express. it wasn't It wasn't about if I make something I can get 10,000 views on social media. It wasn't about that.
00:34:16
Speaker
But I don't know, maybe the fact that that was there did did help support it somehow. Yeah, i don't I don't think it was about money and I don't think it was about views, but I think i think it was to some degree about recognition.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah, cred. Yeah. And like everything's kind of about cred and when you get down to it. But I feel like it it would be very easy today to make the kind of things that we were making back then and not feel like you were able to find the people who would appreciate it.
Designing Complex Puzzle Games
00:34:54
Speaker
yeah it was It certainly felt odd that I could just see this guy from nowhere and just just make something and then there's suddenly some New York professor is teaching about it in their class. like what That was always surprising and amazing to me that that things like that happened.
00:35:14
Speaker
But yeah, it was also super cool that that could happen. and you're right, I don't know if that is much less accessible for for for that kind of thing to to spontaneously happen today.
00:35:31
Speaker
and men maybe maybe not maybe not at all for a lot of people. I liked the Cambridge indie scene. Yeah. Me too. fans Is there anything that we haven't gotten to talk about that you wanted to chat about?
00:35:46
Speaker
think we should talk about Karypt a little. Yeah. Go for it. Which is your your most puzzly work, I think, or the most well-known puzzle game you've done.
00:35:57
Speaker
How do you describe it? I actually very, really need to describe it because most people I've talked to have heard of it. It's a moderately interesting Sokoban variant that then has another layer, which it sort of started as a a programming puzzle game, but turned into something else.
00:36:15
Speaker
And I ended up finding it a mechanic that... felt like it really expressed something artistically, like almost on a political level. It's like about...
00:36:28
Speaker
a kind of pollution, a destruction of the world, ah the consequences of power. And like like big themes managed to to squeeze into a little package. And so that's that's cool. And it was it was fun to make and like intense to make actually. It was because ah it has this sense that it's made up of a world of of little grid puzzles, but all of the grids interact in a way. So I had to kind of work with the super position of all these grids and what position objects are in in one place in the world affects what the level design had to be in other places in this ludicrous way, which was a real puzzle to figure out to make it. It was more of a puzzle to make it than it is to solve it.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's the kind of thing where you you can you need to have everything in your head at the same time in order to make any change. And so it's the kind of thing that you can kind of only make if you are like really focused and powering through you and like getting it getting it together in like a semi-short period of time. Because the moment you put it down,
00:37:41
Speaker
like the cost to pick it up again like it like to to relearn where you were and how everything fits together and why why this thing over here was it this thing over here ah it's very very precarious i mean it's the kind of design that's incredibly rewarding i've done it a few times but yeah like very involved and uh very puzzly to make yeah absolutely i There are a few things in it that I feel like, oh, maybe that it could be improved, but I can't go and break that open and improve it. I'm not not in it like I was, so it's just it just has to be how I managed to get it then.
00:38:24
Speaker
Is there anything specific ah that you feel like, oh, I wish this thing could be improved? I'm not sure. the like There's some points where the game forces magic upon you but you. You go into a room and magic has already happened.
00:38:37
Speaker
Right, right at the start. Or does it also happen later on too? Yeah, I feel like maybe that was unnecessary and it could have been set up to all be from the player's actions. I'm not sure sure why I did that.
00:38:52
Speaker
that's That's a big design goal, like because I feel like the way it currently works, it tutorializes things in a very, very neat way. But yeah, I can i can see where you're coming from, of like, on a thematic level, it would be satisfying to always have this corruption be triggered by the player.
00:39:14
Speaker
The other thing is that mostly you want to create open spaces because it's right a top-down 2D movement, open spaces where you can move to. There's no reason why you would want to lock in a wall. Yeah.
00:39:30
Speaker
I'd love to there to be reasons why you would just, it would just be deeper and richer. And the only thing i I can really think of is if it was a bloody platformer, cause the wall would be looking at a platform that you could jump on and Just looking open spaces, wouldn't give you vertical access.
00:39:47
Speaker
And so that's a huge, and maybe, maybe someone should make that as a separate thing of its own. Am i right that you toyed with something like that in your game for Experiment 12, which is a ah deep cut?
00:40:04
Speaker
Yeah, that that's honestly one of the the games I'm most proud of that I've made. So it's ah it's a good card. It has has multiple worlds overlaid with with the same inputs.
00:40:15
Speaker
So there there is a kind of some some DNA it shares there. and And some of those worlds are platformers, but it doesn't it doesn't have the concept of like locking. Right.
00:40:27
Speaker
is Is there anything you learned about the process of making Crypt that you you feel like was like a an interesting takeaway about making puzzle games specifically?
00:40:40
Speaker
So to make it, I i made a ah level editor that was in game that I could flip, um just have it have a button on the screen that I could flip between playing the game and editing the levels really quickly.
00:40:54
Speaker
and And I had that on my iPad, so it would be like playing it on the bus and be able to switch between playing the game game and making a game game really quickly. and i don't know if I would say i I've learned that because I haven't done that since.
00:41:09
Speaker
But yeah, that it's a lesson I should learn from that, just how how valuable it can be to make your own tools and to have those tools easily are the accessible in the context of of playing and testing the game so that you can just just just have a very low friction to solving problems that you find.
00:41:29
Speaker
i had also like an editor for the graphics and for the music embedded the game, which nobody else does make a difference to anyone else because it was was just just for me. But it helped make the process of making it feel expressive that that i had put it all in one package around around thinking game communities when my work comes up i i sometimes see that obviously people are especially enthusiastic about puzzle games and like people would like to see more puzzles from me and i'm i've mostly since then made more strategy games and the thing is i i don't really play a lot of puzzle games i don't
00:42:14
Speaker
I play Allen sometimes, which which i i really do like. But as as as as someone who studied as a mathematician and who who does making games and and programming, personally, i i find that solving puzzles feels a bit fake.
00:42:32
Speaker
Like it's not like to me a real problem. as something that's open-ended that has maybe never been solved before, like like it like an open research problem or like a ah the the kinds of problems that arise in programming where you have a wide range of possible approaches you could solve them by and you're You're thinking about efficiency and practicalities and externalities and not not just this little pure but fake thing. And I know that for a lot of people, that is the very appeal of puzzle games, that you have this this self-contained thing that that doesn't have externalities.
00:43:16
Speaker
And I respect that people like that, but it's just taste me. It's like... like Whatever, it's fake.
00:43:27
Speaker
so i've I'm not usually set out to make a a pure puzzle game. It's just sometimes when you're exploring systems, that's what turns out to be the nicest way to express it.
00:43:40
Speaker
I don't want knock puzzles because I know a lot of people here are really into them, but it's just not that interesting to me to spend
Lessons from Developing 868 Back
00:43:50
Speaker
so much time on. of I'll make them sometimes.
00:43:54
Speaker
a a thinky genre that i think you haven't made anything in i'm curious if you play them or would be interested in designing them it's like engineering games like zaktronics oh i love zack likes actually corrupt started as a zack like i've been playing space cam and i was like oh i could put a little grid where there's some little guys that fly around and maybe rotate left or right and then like if they go over a certain tile they'll slip a bit, so so they'll flip between turning left and turning right states. and
00:44:28
Speaker
So there's like some elements from that kind of engineering setup that are still in corrupt. Yeah, I i think Zach does a great job of those and So like there's there's a steady stream of those coming out that are just more or less perfectly what I would want from them. So I'm not feeling i not feeling that there's a hole in the world that that that I can fill there. you know if If he wasn't doing it, then maybe i would feel I had to.
00:44:59
Speaker
But I really like them. And maybe I will make one sometime. or Maybe I will try to make one again and end up with something else, like as as happened with Corrupt.
00:45:12
Speaker
Awesome. And ah what lessons, finally, what lessons do you think that you've learned from the development of 868 Back that you suspect will carry forward into future games?
00:45:27
Speaker
i could I could fill a book with this, honestly, because coming back to working productively after my illness, I've had to quite consciously develop my working practice.
00:45:42
Speaker
But before I started experimenting making games when I was a child and it was just a thing that I did. It's not a thing that i externally examined.
00:45:55
Speaker
to sit down, start making a game i like yeah'd I'd examine elements of process, like how how do i how do i do a networking client or how how do I do a pixel shader, but I didn't examine the entire thing as a whole.
00:46:10
Speaker
But now i now I've had to rebuild that and it doesn't sum up easily, but I know
00:46:20
Speaker
how to create an artist. like that the The balance of spending time by yourself, spending time socially, spending time in nature to just feel...
00:46:34
Speaker
balanced as a person and get into the the space where creativity comes on call. And how much time to spend sitting at the computer, when to take a break, when when to go for a walk.
00:46:47
Speaker
I don't have a a formula for it, but I have. and yeah um Ask me again and in a few years and I might have this more more verbally articulated.
00:46:59
Speaker
you know, that's how long ideas take to digest. But i have a i have a practical understanding of how to do work that that that i previously just had the intuitive understanding. And I think in future, i will have more of the verbally articulated understanding, if that makes sense. that There's this the stages that an idea goes through before you can really communicate it effectively to someone else.
00:47:28
Speaker
But also it's been the first time I've been collaborating with others on a really significant scale. Like some of my other games, i got someone to do a little bit of sound and music or i won one jam game I made with Andy McClure.
00:47:49
Speaker
across a weekend. like like i hadn't I hadn't done a ah serious collaboration, but on 868 Back, Tara has been working on the music for, that's my wife, she's been working on the music for for several months. And so there's been the the back and forth there and and learning how to how to support her to be able to do it, how much how much information I need to give her to give her the context of what the music needs to do the game. And again and then then now in this last couple of months, we've got someone who's doing some graphics for scenes in the game and someone who's doing sound effects.
00:48:26
Speaker
And that that practice I've done of learning how to work with Tara is is coming in. and I've learned things from from that to to be able to work with these new people who are coming on in the last phase.
00:48:40
Speaker
And of course, learning learning more things as as I see what which communications work for forgetting getting them to understand what what's needed and and which things then we need to go back and forth more on.
00:48:56
Speaker
Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. No, it answers it really thoughtfully. Thank you. Awesome. With that, I think that's everything, unless, Alan, you have one last thing to ask.
00:49:11
Speaker
No, I don't think so. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much. Michael for taking the time to come and speak to us. You're very welcome. um you know Normally I ask where people can find you online, but for this, maybe the better question is where can people find 8.6.8 back?
00:49:37
Speaker
Steam and i think GOG maybe itch and maybe humble. like Check Finji. They are doing all the what platforms. of that I shouldn't accidentally announce something that's not true.
Podcast Closing and Credits
00:49:53
Speaker
Okay. Check Finji. It will be out quite soon on on PC and it will be coming out on mobile at some later point.
00:50:04
Speaker
And it's it's it's actually, because it's a surprisingly big game, it's going to be a lot of work to actually make it work in the mobile interface. But I promised people in the crowdfunding that it would be, so I have to figure it out. So it goes. I hadn't quite realized at that point how much of a bigger game it was, even though I knew it was a bit bigger. This is always a thing.
00:50:25
Speaker
people People for centuries to come will be learning the lesson of do not promise specific platforms in your crowdfunding campaign. um i'm I'm still waiting for the PlayStation Vita version of Mighty No. 9. I'm not, actually. But that's a they they promised that, and then they said, whoops.
00:50:45
Speaker
ah All right. Thank you. Thank you very much again for joining us. And thank you for listening to the Dracnik and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoisemusic.com.
00:50:59
Speaker
Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawadniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast service of choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
00:51:31
Speaker
you