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Interview with David from Falling Squirrel
98 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, I talked with Dave from Falling Squirrel
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Transcript
Introduction to Dave and The Veil
00:00:09
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, here comes another episode of... Oh, let's see if I can... And now, here comes another episode of
00:00:40
Speaker
And now we present
00:00:58
Speaker
Dave from Falling, and now we present Dave from Falling Squirrel. Oh, I love it. I love the clapping. Thank you very much. So now, Dave, this is Joseph. And now, without my awesome listeners, we're going to hear from Dave from Falling Squirrel about the origins of the veil, et cetera. So Dave, the floor is yours.
Exploring The Veil's Unique Gameplay
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah, thanks a lot.
00:01:28
Speaker
Where to begin? This game, The Veil, Shadow the Crown, was about five years in the making. It is, for those of you who don't know, it's an audio-based game that is blind accessible, but it really is a game that's made for anyone looking for a novel experience of adventuring and sword fighting in a medieval setting. The game's
Development Insights and Accessibility
00:01:56
Speaker
on the Xbox, and it's on PC, and it started with an idea about, again, five years ago, where I wanted to make a game that I thought I could sort of afford to make on an indie game budget, but I wanted to be kind of big in terms of the narrative, lots of actors, lots of narrative threads and things, and so I thought, hey, if I do it with just audio, that'll save me a lot of money. And you also forgot to mention that you use a shield to defend yourself, too.
00:02:27
Speaker
oh absolutely yes yes the whole idea of combat is is based on swinging a sword and using a shield and um... and shooting a bow and that's actually the progression of how this game came together is we sort of started small with what we thought we could do with a sword and a shield and then we expanded to a bow and then there were some puzzles and adventure aspects as well and uh... and i was very very pleased to have um...
00:02:55
Speaker
A large number of people from the blind community helped me make this game. It all started at the CNIB in Canada where we got together for some focus testing sessions and they became partners in designing the game and obviously thinking about keeping it accessible, but when you're making a game that only has audio, that's 100% important for anybody to play the game, that it needs to be accessible without visuals.
00:03:25
Speaker
Ah, awesome.
Narrative and Voice Acting Excellence
00:03:26
Speaker
I must admit, since I was one of the testers, and I appreciate the honor of being a tester, I thought the voice acting was real cute butt and real astonishing.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you. That was one thing I felt they could add to this genre, because there are a lot of audio games out there for people in the blind community. I'm sure you're familiar with anyone who's gaming anyways, familiar with a bunch of games, a Blind Legend and a Heroes Call. And actually, those are two of the higher quality games, but a lot of games don't have a tremendous amount of budget for doing
00:04:04
Speaker
uh... uh... place work uh... and i come from a triple a background and so i hired professional actors and uh... wrote script relatively carefully and and made a pretty big narrative experience with some fantastic actors i took the time to cast in this as well as a couple actors from the blind community i might add as well who were who were also happen to be amazing amazing actors mixing all that in with the sounds was kind of a pain in the noggin too wasn't it
00:04:35
Speaker
Uh, yep. But, you know, it's the pieces that I work with, right? You find good pieces of dialogue and you get a good audio pack from, I think I use these things called this, it's the Boom Audio effects packages, which are pretty well used in the industry. And with just a few simple things, I mean, recording actors,
00:05:02
Speaker
When I first played the game in this entire game, this is the sound that I was thinking of. That's how time flew by when I was playing it. So that sound you heard, that's how fast time flew by when I was testing.
00:05:31
Speaker
What did I miss? Are you still there, Dave? Awesome, yeah. Did you enjoy testing?
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm here now. Did you enjoy testing again? I played a song on the pad and played another one of them sounds. And I said, that's how fast it flew. I threw a nice testing game. Literally 300 people. Not to say he wants to win, but I know you're here.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was a long credit list. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. But I could. I got so much great feedback early enough in the process where I could actually make changes to help make things better. So it was a really great experience. And when I saw my name in the credits, I'm like, holy cow, thank you.
00:06:28
Speaker
Absolutely.
The Veil's Award Nomination
00:06:29
Speaker
Actually, first of all, this is just in. We were nominated for a Games Award. This just over the last couple of days. So, do you have any plans for future games in the world? And so, I think for Best Innovation and Accessibility, which was a huge honor, we're up against five triple-A or four triple-A games. So, we're like the David in the live story.
00:07:01
Speaker
Moving forward, I mean, hopefully we'll have success after this awards. Maybe we'll get more sales and there'll be a little bit more money to look at making a new game right away.
Future Developments and Community Engagement
00:07:11
Speaker
But in general, this summer, I'm going to evaluate kind of what we have in the combat system currently in the Vale. And I would love to start working with whomever's interested in developing some arena modes for the combat in the Vale and potentially some PvP player versus player modes.
00:07:19
Speaker
But those games did do a great job with accessibility from what I did.
00:07:32
Speaker
So that's that's my play. I don't know when that would happen, but I think it's gonna happen kind of organically over time Putting out little prototypes and sort of start that the testing cycle again Hopefully a fun testing cycle because there'll be a lot of fun gameplay to try right away
00:07:56
Speaker
Oh yeah, good question. We might just make straight updates to the game that's already out there. So when the time comes around, how will this be integrated then?
00:08:11
Speaker
develop it as a stand-alone experience that's very combat-focused and it just won't be a very expensive game. It'll be like a pay-what-you-can type game that we might put out on itch.io for the community to just basically help make... Yeah, no worries. No, for sure. I'll certainly be coming back here asking you to tell your listeners about it because I'll take as much help as I can get when I work on these games.
00:08:42
Speaker
And if you do, I wouldn't mind being a tester for that, too. Yeah, no, I'm glad I made it tolerable. Testing's not always the funnest thing to be doing. But yeah, I didn't hear too many complaints. That was a good experience. It's a real pleasure being able to be a tester for you, good buddy. Yeah, no, I'm glad I made it tolerable. Testing's not always the fun.
00:09:13
Speaker
Thank you. That took a lot of time. The nice thing about them is they're all fully voiced and they're kind of in the context if you like. And they're still in the tutorials that you get to learn how to swing the sword and defend yourself, hit your steel and whatnot. That really really happens when you take five years to make a game.
00:09:30
Speaker
Usually your tutorials are a lot stronger because you get a lot of people playing it and you kind of know what people have a hard time learning quickly. So I'm glad you felt that way. And you're probably part of the reason it actually works pretty well. That's totally feedback from the community that makes those work.
00:09:59
Speaker
Interesting
00:10:09
Speaker
I almost did it. I got to the part where the guy charges at you and shoots arrows first and then tries to take you out. They're trying to block those arrows. It's quite a challenge too. Guys who throw axes or shoot arrows at you as they're running in. That's by the way, I found that the hardest fighting scene for me.
00:10:36
Speaker
And then we thought, okay, what can we add? What should learn that? What can we add to kind of turn it up? And that's what I wanted to do. Yeah, actually, that's what I think we're going to look at in the summer, is giving players more agency over moving around. It would be nice if you could return the favor back of those enemies and shoot arrows and throw axes back at them and give them taste of their own medicine. Yeah, actually, that's what I think we're going to look at.
00:11:06
Speaker
Because I figure if enemies can shoot arrows at you, and a person is charged, why can't you have the same playing field and have you be able to throw axes and stuff back at them and give them a chance of their own medicine at long range? I think that'll be part of PPP too. If two people are playing and you both have a choice of going
00:11:35
Speaker
Awesome. I think they make a really dynamic combat system. So that's something we're going to look at this summer. Oh, sweet. All I can say about that is this. There's nothing like applause. Slightly uttering applause. My favorite. Did you hear that?
00:12:05
Speaker
No, it's great. This is a good app. I like it. I don't usually do interviews. This is one of the amazing technologies of Backpack Studio. I can play sounds in real time on the interview that I have forwarded.
00:12:25
Speaker
And in the early stages of the game, when I was taking it out, when Mrs. Hoyle was explaining how to swing a sword, and the princess was trying to go find her brother, you know, because he was hiding. And when I came across that funny little skit, I'm like, I thought of this sound.
00:12:52
Speaker
No, awesome. I like the setup. I will pretend this is a live studio. I thought that was kind of a little funny about the remarks I was getting, you know? Oh, really? When did it come out?
00:13:17
Speaker
Yes, well I must admit this backpack studio app is totally awesome and kick butt to Visual impairment It came out a while ago actually and if you want to follow backpack studios developments you can follow at backpack underscore studio on Twitter and
Backpack Studio App for Podcasters
00:13:47
Speaker
It's voice over usable, yes. And the Backpack Studio app, you can set up remote interviews, you can record podcasts, insert sound effects once you load them off pads. You can load up the pads and the Backpack Studio app gives you like over a thousand free sounds from the library to pick from, or you can import sounds from Dropbox, etc. Yep.
00:14:17
Speaker
But according to Backpack Studio, if you want to use the remote interview feature, it's called Backpack Live. And that's just an extra subscription that they come out with as an add-on thing.
00:14:33
Speaker
But since I was one of the beta testers, I get full access. Yeah, no, I guess one thing I'll throw out there is that if you go on the gameawards
Community Support and Future of Audio Games
00:14:45
Speaker
.com. You have anything else you'd like to share at this time about the world or future prospects of this awesome company of yours? Your favorite game in all these different categories that comes from
00:14:56
Speaker
your vote so please if anyone's listening and has played the veil or likes the veil or wants to support us that way please go to their website and vote for us and outside of that I'm looking forward to the awards coming up I'm looking forward to the summer when I get to work on
00:15:15
Speaker
more aspects of doing all audio games and I guess I should throw it, as always, a warm thank you to the community that really helped make this game possible. And again, not just making a game that's accessible but helping make a game that is fun for everyone to play. And I guess I should throw it, as always, a warm thank you to the community
00:15:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, you're better at this way. Before I stop the recording, and we wrap the website up there, I stopped the recording. I wanted to provide you with the message of their contact info, how they can follow you on your social media platforms.
00:16:07
Speaker
crown you'll find us there and most of the game is covered on Facebook and Twitter under the falling squirrel tank so you can certainly reach out or keep track of what we're doing there under falling squirrel.
00:16:50
Speaker
Well folks, this completes this interview with Dave from Final Squirrel. Stay tuned for another episode of
00:17:17
Speaker
Are you back on? Well, I'm stopping the recording now folks, so until next time, bye bye!
00:17:31
Speaker
So