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ENCORE: From AAA to Indie: How Proactive Game Devs Change the Industry with Willem Kranendonk
32 Plays5 days ago
Dive deep into the strategic mindset of level design, the shift from AAA development to indie studio entrepreneurship, and a radical new business model for creating innovative "Cocktail Games."
Key Takeaways & Discussion Points
The Reality of Level Design- Beyond Architecture: Willem, a former level designer at Velan (Knockout City) and Zynga (Star Wars Hunters) , defines level design not as architecture, but as the execution of the game's intent and vision. You are the "great implementers" who build the playground for the core mechanics.
- Finding the Fun: Execution requires risk-taking. Good levels break the traditional norms—like the restrictive three-lane structure in some shooters —to find unexpected fun and keep the experience fresh.
- Inspiration Outside the Engine: To avoid creative blocks, step outside your comfort zone. Willem found inspiration for a level in Knockout City (Rooftop Rumble) by listening to Pink Floyd and used JFK assassination podcasts to conceptualize Darth Vader's Castle.
- Be Proactive & Self-Taught: The number one required mentality is knowing that no one will hold your hand. You must be passionate and proactive in your job search and skill development.
- Master the Editors: Don't just be proficient in Unity or Unreal Engine 5. Learn multiple, even difficult, editors like Hammer (Source SDK). Experience with proprietary tools (like those used for Knockout City) is invaluable.
- Go Primal: Start creating content immediately. Use basic primitives and geometry (like brushes and gizmos) to block out your ideas. Don't get stuck in tutorials.
- Why Start a Studio Now? Willem felt the Western game industry was approaching development wrong, relying too much on "new coats of paint" over true R&D. He seeks to optimize costs and focus on brand new, innovative products.
- The "Cocktail Game" Strategy: This is OCI's business model. Instead of reinventing a genre (e.g., Gin + Tonic), they take the components that made a genre successful and combine them with an entirely different, unexpected element. This approach is versatile and cost-effective.
- The Ideal Team: OCI looks for people who are agile, passionate about making games more than playing them, and aren't scared of any new editor or software.
- The AAA Reset: Willem is optimistic, predicting the era of the $700 million-dollar budgeted game is over. The power is shifting back to smaller, agile creative teams, like Respawn and Media Tonic, where passion and risk-taking lead to great games.
- AI as a Tool: AI is exciting and should be embraced, but it will not replace the unique vision and creativity of a human mind (e.g., Kojima, Ken Levine, Todd Howard).
Connect - Willem Kranendonk on Linkedin
- Odyssey Cocktail Interactive (OCI): Check out their website at OdysseyCocktailInteractive.com. They will be present at GDC!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Player Driven Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Player Driven, where we talk to gaming studios to understand what they are making and how they make gamers tick. Today, we're talking about the silent hero of every great video game, traversal.
00:00:12
Speaker
It's not just how you move from point A to point B. It's the very foundation of immersion. Good traversal feels intuitive. an extension of your will. It's the effortless web swinging of Spider-Man, the complex aerobatics of a Warframe expert, or the thrilling grapple hook escapes in action games.
00:00:31
Speaker
The magic happens when traversal meets level design. They are completely symbiotic. You can't have amazing web swinging without towering skyscrapers providing anchor points. You can't have complex stealth if your movement abilities can't exploit vents, rooftops, and multiple pathways.
00:00:48
Speaker
Traversal can also be your reward. The new double jump in the Metroidvania, it doesn't just make you stronger, it unlocks entire new sections of the world. Movement dictates the pace, sets the mood, and defines your relationship with the environment. Whether you're slow walking through a tense horror scene or flying across a map in seconds, traversal is what truly connects you to the digital world.
Willem Prandonk's Background in Game Development
00:01:10
Speaker
On today's encore episode of Played Room, we're talking to Willem Prandonk, the founder of Odyssey Cocktail Interactive. He has a resume that includes building the iconic levels for Knockout City and even working on Star Wars Hunters.
00:01:21
Speaker
But after a decade in AAA development at companies like Zynga, he walked away to build his own studio. Why? Because the biggest companies in the industry are approaching game development wrong. In this video, we uncover his counterintuitive strategy for building innovative cocktail games. the exact mindset that separates good level designers from bad ones, and the crucial proactive skill sets you need to break into the game industry right now.
00:01:45
Speaker
Stick around because the future of the $700 million budgeted games is about to change forever. And if you haven't been following PlayerDriven, I just want to really keep you up to date on what's going on and what we're building out here at PlayerDriven. So right now it's myself and we have Lewis Ward who's helping with our sub stack and you may have heard him on a few of our podcasts as well who's helping out when he can. which is some super cool content. On Thursdays, we do our live stream, right? Usually we have Colin Nese on there who works on the games industry side of things. And we talk about what's going on in the game industry, but we often have game designers on there and other people as well as share some insights live. And we stream that across Twitch, LinkedIn, TikTok. We kind of mix it up, just trying it out the different networks to see what can work or what can't work. We have our discord, which is growing growing. You can check out the discord link. It's
00:02:33
Speaker
probably easiest to find it on playerdriven.io but we're continuing to build that out with content as well and we're hearing from a ton of you and we love it if you have any questions things you want to hear about reach out let us know we've been building out content based on what we've been hearing from you so share this with people that you love because the more people you can share it with it really does go a long way and we appreciate it send a like let us know what you have been liking about the show you've been great and it means so much to be able to hear from you so i do appreciate to all of you that are listening and letting us know what you think of the show This episode with Willem, again, is an awesome episode. We really hope you enjoy it and have a great rest of the year.
00:03:12
Speaker
Good morning,
Journey to Becoming a Level Designer
00:03:13
Speaker
good afternoon. Welcome to Player Driven, everyone. Greg here. Today, we are joined by the founder of Odyssey Cocktail Interactive, Willem Crandonk. He has a great history of working from companies like Velen and Zynga, and decided to start his own studio of odyssey cocktail interactive and i'm really excited to hear this story and i'm even more excited because he's a level designer and so far our level designers have been some of the most passionate people we've spoken to in the industry and i think we're going to continue that trend here villam thank you so much for joining us today anything i missed or anything you want to say about yourself no no that's that's great intro thank you for inviting me on the show um it's it's fun to meet to an east coaster uh as well um and
00:03:56
Speaker
And yeah, just thank you enormously for the invite. No, thank you. And I saw your announcement on LinkedIn about starting Odyssey Cocktail Interactive, which we'll talk about as OCI, I think. We'll see how it goes. And I loved to the announcement. I looked at your history as well, right? And you worked for Velen, which I truly fell in love with Knockout City. And I see you were part of Zynga and you built levels for Star Wars Hunters. And that's such a cool background. And now you just did decide to take that scary jump, but awesome jump into creating your own studio. and I want to get there, but let's start from the beginning of you were a level designer for multiple studios. How did you figure out that is your passion? How do you know that's where you want it to be?
00:04:36
Speaker
Well, i and first of all, great question. i actually don't get asked that a lot. I think um it's always kind of been there. My my grandfather was a civil engineer, and so civil engineers tend to, you know, there tends to be quite architectural types of individuals. I always grew up loving shapes and designs of shapes. It just was very inherited.
00:05:00
Speaker
I never really thought that there was a profession like level design, really, at any point in my life. But I realized it was always there because I loved building with Lego pieces, structures. I played a game called Blockland as a kid, which is, you're really, really old. You'll know it is a very silly and stupid game.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I always tried to make my own dream house of a racetrack because love Formula One and all that nonsense. And yeah, I had a lot of fun with my friends making always houses. And this led to like my love for for making stuff in that engine. So you know on Minecraft, I learned how to recreate Rapture just for fun. I know it sounds like I'm still a dweebish teenager, but at the same time, it was...
00:05:45
Speaker
It was really what began the path kind of to me figuring out what I wanted to do. And then I realized actually while I was working at Wade Ford as a QA analyst, now almost a decade ago, um that it was, it was i had a good nat you know knack for from working in editors and I really liked building stuff in editors and um took a year off from working in the industry, actually almost a hos year off, like seven, eight months off.
00:06:15
Speaker
to build a lot of blockouts and I realized, okay, I got this and then didn't think I was going to get a job. And then Velen knocked on my door and said, we're looking for a junior designer. Would you be interested? And that was really where my career, i mean, my career started obviously before that, that's where really my level design career sort of kicked off and knockout city. And it's not a bad game, I guess, to to start your video game after career as a level designer.
00:06:40
Speaker
No, I remember the levels of Knockout City. Me and my buddy, we played religiously, and I know you said you were part of the ah the sky the rooftop level, which is kind of the iconic one from that game. And I've cursed so many times at that level from falling off the bridge. Yeah. Thank you for being a part of that. and And I'm really curious. I love the analogy with the Legos, right? I sit and play Legos with my son now and he loves drawing, it but I never really thought of that as level design, but it makes really common sense. I mean, it's sense now that you've been talking about it, right?
00:07:11
Speaker
I guess, and this is a weird question. Like what is level design actually? Are you are you drawing it? Are you putting it on paper? Are you building the the blocks, the shapes? Like what what is the concept behind level design?
00:07:26
Speaker
Well, I think every level designer has their own view. Some more generic than others. Some will say it's architecture. Some will say it's about you know guiding design principles.
00:07:38
Speaker
I'm a bit more Dutch about it, and I say that's all BS. I think it's all about executing intent of the game in the end of the day. I think that's what level designers are, really great implementers. You can have all the great mechanics in your game, but it cannot be executed without good playground spaces to execute that gameplay. And and sometimes it's as simple as a plank of wood across two buildings. Sometimes it's it's more complicated, like, you know, you have a lot of verticality skyhooks in Bioshock Infinite or something like that. Other times it's, you know, it's even more simple, you know, it's it's you know it's just a one, like, you know, plane with a bunch of platforms you can jump up on.
00:08:22
Speaker
Bottom of the line, your goals as a level designer is just to execute fine execute the vision of the design team. At the end of the day, of your gameplay is is going to come from whatever we execute as level designers in that space. And that's what I think makes makes our job quite interesting, because it is about understanding the game's hierarchy of needs. I always believe that it's more prevalent in multiplayer games than maybe in single player games. But I think that's For me, at least, that's probably what I i believe is is one ah what our job is.
Risk-Taking in Level Design
00:08:58
Speaker
I love that answer. yeah And you said execute the fun, then you kind of changed it to execute the vision of the design team. But I've spoken to many game directors that talk about finding the fun, right? So I guess the game director and maybe some of the game designers are... or people who are creating the game, right, are are trying to figure out how do we find the fun in this game? And now you're talking about how do we execute that? How do we make it fun? How do we make that translate to the actual map or look at the feel of the game? Am I kind of going down the right path here?
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, you are. You are. I mean, I'll tell you what, on Knockout City, that was like the number one thing. Feel fast, learn quick. that's That's how you do it. Like you can have like a thousand books and listen to like a thousand level design interviews or whatever. at the end of the day, your game,
00:09:42
Speaker
you have different needs for it. I mean, the the level design for Knockout City versus Star Wars, you get two totally different games. You know, Knockout City is about finding a bowl and creating a space when you do have the bowl. It's the spaces in between the transitioning.
00:09:56
Speaker
On Star Wars Hunters, it's a bit of a mess overall, but it was mainly about flow, was about getting to the objective clearly and structuring the architecture to get you to those spaces as cleanly as you can and as effectively as as you can.
00:10:12
Speaker
um But, you know, I think that's, you know, yeah and even if I look at my single player experience on Bark, you know, it's it's a three-act structure, Kishibuketsu philosophy, how you execute that in a 2D realm space, you know, you're exceeded no level design book prepares you for making a shoot-em-up like that, you know. And then even the stuff I did at Amazon, where we had a lot of the Kishibuketsu philosophies for the game we were working on, which I'm not sure I'm allowed to talk about, but what I can tell you is that, you know, it's, it's a, no role that applied even from the game that I worked on in didn TikTok with Bart or shoot him up could apply to that Amazon game because in the end it's like, yeah, okay, you can have all these principles are wonderful and nice.
00:10:59
Speaker
If the game doesn't feel fun and you put them in there, you've not executed your job correctly. And so, To us, like, you know, to to me, I think regardless of whether you're an experienced level designer or a junior level designer, it's about breaking down your game in the best way possible. I think that's what makes, separates the good levels from the bad levels.
00:11:20
Speaker
You know, um the good levels are the ones that sort of break the traditional norms for the intent of the game in the best way possible. Yeah, I feel like that's a risk, right? And not necessarily a bad risk, but sometimes you play a level that's just too far from the norm. It's just like, this doesn't feel right. But I think, you know, without those risks, you don't get those rewards. And I think there's a payoff on on taking and I think most players are willing to forgive a not great map if there's other maps in there, right? As long as you take that risk, as long as you take that chance, right? And, you know, I'm a big Call of Duty player, right? And you see with with each update, they do change the maps a little bit. They might put a new platform, they might put a new thing. And that It's interesting how this world of live ops games allows you to make these changes on the fly, whether you love live ops or hate them, right? It does give you the ability to to make these changes on the fly based on feedback.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, again, I agree. I mean, that's that's the cool thing. Like, you know, always from a live ops perspective, i always think throw what you can to the player and always build it off. Of course,
00:12:22
Speaker
you know, you want to always in the end produce good maps and and and and that's always subjective, but like you always want to do the highest quality that you believe fun for the product you you're creating.
00:12:33
Speaker
But I do think like, you know, um players also don't want to see the same content over or no in terms of level design. I feel like level designers today have gotten to that, which is a bit of a shame. I'm also a bit, I was, grew up a big Call of Duty fan.
00:12:47
Speaker
If I see how much risk they were taking compared to what they're taking now, some parallel, I don't know how you feel, but I always feel old Call of Duty, know, from modern warfare onwards, ah up until probably Black Ops 2, that they took a ah great level of risk and and and and sort of evolved their experience into the thing that where we we we see, you know, that we get nostalgic about. Versus today, like, I can't really think of many and um but I love the level designers involved in Call of Duty. just want to make that clear. I'm not here to dog them. But what I am saying is I wish there were more risk in the levels that we're taking now.
00:13:26
Speaker
No three-lane stuff, you know, no no like, sort of, you know, leading-line sort of stuff. Like, just just make the Call of Duty map you really want to make and try to get players to play everywhere in in these multiplayer spaces rather than forcing gameplay to happen in very specific areas that you hypothetically think are gonna bring people are to um into the action. I think i think we have to have to go back to kind of like understanding what's fun with the version that you were given and continue to evolve that. And I think that's something that as a level designer, I would i always try to encourage juniors to to go for. And you know I think it can be applied to any new genre on the end.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's really well
Creative Processes and Inspirations
00:14:10
Speaker
said. i actually did a ah podcast with one of the Respawn studio heads, and he kind of mentioned that, you know, when you're ah more at the top of your game, right, you're afraid to take these risks as you've got the biggest player base, right? And if you mess it up, you don't want to lose those players, right? So yeah you become a little more risk adverse because you want to make sure that, hey, we don't want to rock the boat too much, but at the same time, then you get bored. Players will get bored. Something I really respect from Fortnite is that every season they just radically change things up they put different players different different ways to interact with each other and i think it's fascinating and i love the design that people take like i don't know it's just fascinating world to me it is and you know it's only gonna i think respawn are probably on the west at least and probably revolve probably like the great risk takers with their their level design honestly in the end and i think
00:15:03
Speaker
I'm hoping that they'll continue to to be that North Star for the Western level design approach that I think all the scientists look towards going forward. And I'm a big fan of Respawn. Anything they do, I'm a big fan of.
00:15:19
Speaker
We just need Titanfall 3. That's all I keep asking for. Where's Titanfall 3? And maybe this will be the big update they come out within a couple days here. Maybe they'll say, hey hey, we're going to throw some ah Titans in there. Converting all the way to Titanfall. Exactly.
00:15:33
Speaker
um I'm curious on on where you draw your inspiration from, right? How do you, when you hit that creativity block, like what do you do to kind of open up your mind again? You know, I think for me, it's, I indulge in my passion.
00:15:47
Speaker
Honestly, i take risks by just, you know, always opening my mind to certain genres and and themes. And I always get out of my comfort zone as much as I can. That's the number one thing I do.
00:15:59
Speaker
I just make the same type of level over and over again. Like I make a rooftop rumble like four five times, I'm not, um'm first of all failing as a level designer and I'm especially failing as creative. You know, I mean like every map that I've ever worked on, I put myself in a different booth. I mean, through for rooftop rumble, I remember music was a big part of, with my sort of vision on how to, um,
00:16:25
Speaker
had to get motivated because for whatever reason it just puts you in a zone and you just sort of and at that time it calmed me down. I was in a certain situation in mental space by then. So I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd, which I know is very odd, but I didn't listen to Dark Side of the Moon. I listened to that Adam Mutter, which is a very long 23 minute David Gilmour style. um uh shoot um and then for like you know like and then you go to like uh vader's castle and it was honestly it was a lot of podcast listening you know it's it's like what how you get from vader's castle to to that and it was like very specific like it was i think it was to do with uh some jfk assassinations or something like that the conspiracies that come from that all right it's like
00:17:16
Speaker
It's like you you go from that to to Dark Vader's cast. It's like, right, okay. My point is this I like to just sort of have something that's kind of out of that world to zone me back into that world. It kind of keeps me split way, distracted in the right way.
00:17:31
Speaker
um And in terms of like how creatively i sort of change it, I i don't know. I just i do mood boarding. I just do a lot of paper designs. I experiment. i I try all kinds of shapes. I walk in What I like to do, my favorite thing that I like to do is if there's a multiplayer game that allows me to walk around private, like alone in and the editor of the current mechanics, I'll just do that.
00:17:56
Speaker
Analyze, take screenshots, take videos and show how I do certain actions. And then I'll capture that and try to bring some of that geometry into the space and see if it comp lets it, which I did for Vader's castle actually. I did ah got um inspiration from, God, what I meant the name,
00:18:16
Speaker
sort goes back to me. It's this Spec Ops, the line, which is an underrated classic. kit If anyone has need to play it, it's it's awesome. um And yeah, that's essentially how i think, how I think creatively, how I continue to think creatively.
00:18:31
Speaker
it's Nothing like a good podcast to help ah help build out Vader's castle. I love that. I love how you can find this creativity ah in in more than just visuals, right? I mean, and and i you know, when you look at level design,
Importance of Sound in Game Design
00:18:45
Speaker
right? and I know it may be...
00:18:47
Speaker
doesn't seem like the obvious thing but it's i'm sure it's just the more than just visuals that make that level right the sound comes in and everything right it's it's that full immersive experience i love how it's just not visuals for you that's helping paint that picture and i think it shows that it's a bigger a bigger piece than people think yeah and i think you know i'll stick with vader the dark vader and vader's castle like i knew we were going to do that and you know big star wars fan like unapologetically big Star Wars fan. And I don't mean it in like the way where people are like, oh my God, I work on Star Wars, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm the type of guy who laughs his butt off whenever I see Dexter Jutzer and start doing the voice and whatever. That's the type of person.
00:19:27
Speaker
So I really kind of know going into that, like Darth Vader, like I know what you're going to get from that architecturally. um So for me, what's important is like, okay, you know what it's going to look like. You have your artist going help you move forward and all that. And even then, if you don't have an artist, like I already have my own private move forward to know what to do and how to do things.
00:19:47
Speaker
It's always important to take your life a little bit outside of the game to motivate like to motivate your creativity towards it. And that's why like I'll always do something different every single time.
00:20:00
Speaker
but My inspiration actually was there was a famous F1 driver called Sebastian Vettel, who actually isn't my favorite racing driver. i love i love the guy. He's a very sweet guy from what i I've read and seen online. But Vettel, he does this thing where every year he names his car.
00:20:16
Speaker
He doesn't always gives it a different name. It doesn't matter what it is. It has has has no um no like secret meaning to it. He just comes up with a name. but It allows him to have a fresh reset.
00:20:27
Speaker
Although that said, he does take quite far his names. Like one of the car names pulled it was Kate's dirty sister or something like that. where did that come from? um Like that's kind of how I did the same thing too, you know, with with with everything I've done. And even with with OCI, like, you know, when we were coming up with like, well, how I wanted to think about starting the company, it's about kind of going outside of what I traditionally know. Otherwise I can't stay fresh in that,
00:20:56
Speaker
in in in my mind. you You kind of always have to do that in an R&D industry.
Advice for Aspiring Level Designers
00:21:02
Speaker
So I'm not sure how to ask this question, so I'm just going to try and phrase it to see if it makes sense. So as a level designer, you know, I always thought you needed to know coding to get into gaming, but I'm assuming with a level design, you don't need to know coding. What are the skill sets that you would say to someone that's in school right now that they would want to be able to learn to be able to be a successful level designer? Good question.
00:21:25
Speaker
I think... Well, one of the things I noticed with a lot of junior level designers is first of all, you have to you have to have the mentality that no one is going to hold your hand.
00:21:36
Speaker
I studied in a Dutch university. um I'm half Dutch, but I'm mainly American. It may not sound like it, but I am American first and foremost. I don't have the resources in this country or the Netherlands. I mean, I don't live the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands, like you don't have any level designers that you can go to and call to to help you with like the basics of learning stuff. So I was very self-taught.
00:22:02
Speaker
So I think the number one thing you have to do is self-teach yourself, no matter what it is, design, engineering, it doesn't matter. You you always have to. And you have to be passionate to learn that. If you're not and you're like saying, oh, I want to be a level designer, blah, blah, blah, whatever, because I just want to good luck. Like you need to you need to be proactive in your job.
00:22:21
Speaker
um and and And the second thing is learning your editors, learn as many as you can. Don't be proficient in just Unreal Engine 5. Don't be proficient in just Unity. Go beyond that.
00:22:33
Speaker
When I started level design properly, i learned one of the most difficult editors you can work with, which is Hammer, source SDK, which any of the old school level designers can tell you is the equivalent of hell. um It is absolutely terrible. um in in a way where it's very buggy and it's very complicated and and and it's a very specific workflow you have to work with.
00:22:58
Speaker
But that's prepared me for everything because for Knockout City, for instance, like when we were developing the proprietary editor for that game, I used a lot of my experience and how we uploaded custom materials from that to apply it into our game, working with the environment artists so that we can prototype faster and then therefore we get to the fun. So the point about being a level designer is all the hypothetical stuff, all the theories and all that, that's nice and all. Like that does help. And I believe in it too, despite me criticizing it for most podcasts.
00:23:29
Speaker
But the most important thing is you need to you need to get in there and actually start producing that content.
00:23:39
Speaker
And something that's a bit lost, especially in Western development today, is the lack of proactiveness that a lot of junior developers have to get that. So if you're a junior right now, you know, learn the tutorials quickly in Unreal 5, just get on with it and get creating in it, you know, put some geometry in there. Even if if you don't know how brushes work, get some primitives, learn how the gizmo works. I mean, I still, to this day, use primitives to make most of my levels. Some people will think, oh, he must be, you know, he must be out of his mind, but
00:24:14
Speaker
On Knockout City, I had no choice in some cases because it's just how we did things. And, it you know, it yeah, I mean, some tools are are luxury. And so in the end, you have to work with the tools you have.
00:24:26
Speaker
Just be basically what I'm trying to say is you can be a you can you can be someone who has a paintbrush and knows how to use a paintbrush. But in the end of the day, you just have to get on with it and continue practicing the crap to own in on that paintbrush thing.
00:24:41
Speaker
And that's my advice to anyone. I love how you put that. um We talked to a lot of people on the podcast and you know layoffs have been tough in the industry, right? And people are kind of sitting, wallowing, upset, which is so understanding, right? but But be proactive, build something. If you want to be a community manager, go out there and try and build a community up. If you want to be an artist, go create some images. If you want to be an indie developer, go and build a game. And it's cannna be good, maybe not, but it's cannna give you experience. And then you're going to grow from there. You're going to get better and better. I love the idea of be proactive, right? Go chase what you want. it's not going to just fall into your lap. You have to go get it.
00:25:17
Speaker
And I love the fact that you said you need to keep honing that craft. I mean, if you look at the best baseball players, hockey players, football players, right? They still have coaches. Are their coaches as good as they are? No, but they still need that practice. They need to go out there they need to hone those tools to make sure that they work for them. And I think this is a perfect...
00:25:34
Speaker
transition into odyssey cocktail interactive because you're you want to build this studio so let's start talking about that but before we do so we're going to do a little fireball around here where i'm going to throw some questions at you so you good to go sure let's do it all right what did you have for breakfast oh god uh this morning i had porridge and water not milk which my brother thinks i'm still stuck in some sort of war in an entire universe, but yeah, let's, yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
It sounds like you're in the Netherlands. i feel like it's like, uh, yeah, I feel like, uh, we had some porridge this morning. Wonderful. Um, what is your dream vacation? all the Well, I mean, I'm going to be probably moving to Japan, so I don't think that's, uh, well, we are moving to Japan, but, uh, uh, I would say probably I'd go back to Greece. I love It's my mom's home country. I've been there most of my life. um I'd go to the Penopolis and just get lost and no internet, nothing, and just sit there, read a book and read about Lord Byron or something like that.
00:26:41
Speaker
Can you let our audience know a handful of the places that you've lived and let us know which one has the best food? Oh, God. ah um I have a long list. I know you did that. um I was born in San Francisco. moved from from San Francisco to war-torn Indonesia in the late 90s, and then got evacuated to Greece, and then to Greece, to Chile, and then Santiago specifically, and then Santiago to UK, and then the UK to the Netherlands, then l LA, and then back to Holland again, and then back to um to to New York, and then us to Austin, Texas, which is where I currently live.
00:27:22
Speaker
um And I would say the best country for food would probably be Greece. I think even Gordon Ramsay said it the best of the three was between Italy, France and Greece. he actually preferred Greek cuisine.
00:27:34
Speaker
I'm biased, but yeah, it's, it's awesome. It's very simple and it's, it's the best. And, um, yeah, I, I love it. All right. Great answer. Now going to have to go to Greece. That's on my bucket list now. ah your country What is the last movie or TV show you watched?
00:27:51
Speaker
Last movie I just watched it last night is Onibaba, which is the the which is um god it's called Demon Hag in in translation. It's an awful name for something, but it's a Japanese horror movie and it's a cult classic. ah It's about these two peasant women who raid the corpses of dead samurai during a war. one of the girls falls in love with a former guy who participated in the war. I don't know in what timeline. And she accidentally gets a possessed mask. One of the girls who's older thus the hag part, I guess. Again, it's awful name. The older woman and it turns into some demon creature and and like tries to scare the other girl from you know falling in love with this this man that she's falling in love with. And it's crazy, it's weird, and it's a brilliant movie. You watch it on YouTube. alright know that's That's an answer for sure. That's an answer. I don't have a TV show. I'm not watching a lot at the moment.
00:28:49
Speaker
All right, last question. Maybe the easiest, maybe the toughest. You don't have to say the favorite, but if I were to say choose a level that really stands out with level design that you had nothing to do with, what level you going to choose?
00:29:01
Speaker
Or what game?
00:29:05
Speaker
Damn. um I mean, the game that really inspired me was Bioshock. um Welcome to Rapture. It's opening is great, but I adore Fort Frolic I think it's it's it's this an incredible, incredible section of the game. Yes, it's you know it's fetch quest eliters. It's a lot of fetch questing, but it's so good and still aged well to the gate dead to this day with its pacing and all that. um
00:29:42
Speaker
Love it. but Probably my favorite level, or Ravenholm, but everyone says Ravenholm. All right. So let's go back to our normal scheduled episode here. So the last thing we talked about is how you have to be proactive, right? You can't just sit and wait for something to happen. So you've been a level design. You were last at Zynga. What in your mind and the wrong way to ask it, right? What made you say this is the time to go for it?
Founding of Odyssey Cocktail Interactive
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah, you know,
00:30:11
Speaker
I always wanted to start a studio, but I always felt like it had to be the right timing. I tried to start one up before i went to Zynga, just because I didn't think anyone was ever going to take a gamble on me, honestly, on the local design side.
00:30:25
Speaker
I know some people are like shocked to hear that. But like when you deal with rejection over a rejection and you are you know getting tired of it, like you know i don't I don't like going through adversity over and over again. But anyway. um I felt the reason I wanted to do this is when I felt like in the West, at least we're just approaching game film and wrong. And this aside, especially, and especially on the studio front too, think too much over reliance of let's do this game, but let's have a new coat of paint on, on them.
00:30:58
Speaker
I think we talked about this, you know, before the cold, but like, i think the the important thing is how do we actually create new RID products? I was tired of get seeing the same game over and over the game quality.
00:31:11
Speaker
today, i know people can complain about but quality of games today is is incredible compared to what it was before. You know, and so I'm not worried about the quality per se of the games, but I'm worried about are we actually taking risks? And so I felt there was a new way to approach it by maybe, you know, bringing a lot of hybrid games, but also by doing a philosophy where we're not reinventing that genre, which costs a lot of money to do that.
00:31:38
Speaker
You know, we can... We can essentially save a lot costs in the process just to make brand new innovative products. you know Our tools are faster than ever before. our our developers are more you know knowledgeable of what can go long than ever before. We have all the analysis in the world things through Google, chat GPT, whatever you can think of.
00:32:01
Speaker
I don't see a reason why we can't take more risks that use a lot of the foundations that have already been provided to be able to make these games. And thus I wanted to start OCI and our Odyssey Cocteau Interactive. And um I think it's ah it's a big jump for me. I don't, you know, being honest, this is not my forte.
00:32:20
Speaker
But where I do believe that in the end of the day, it would be nice to start creating some jobs and creating some new experiences to optimize the ability Make more players optimistic, I guess.
00:32:35
Speaker
I think you said a lot of great things there that are fantastic. I think quality of games over the past few years has drastically gone up. But the problem is there's been a lot more games in here that also kind of kind of skew what people think. And I think it was, i don't know if it was Take-Two or someone, but one of their heads stepped down yesterday because one of the games they they announced had a lackluster reception by people. It was basically a Fortnite clone, right? And I mean...
00:33:02
Speaker
It's just like, all right, why are we going to try and build Fortnite again and again? And I love how the indie world is starting to take the world by storm. I think Bellatra is a great example of that, how, hey, we take something simple, but something that we haven't seen before and we repaint it and we do that. And I love how you're telling yourself that you may not be ready for this. You and you don't necessari necessarily know all the things that you need to know, but how do you surround yourself with the right people to help build that out? Have you thought about the people you want to include in that and kind of sold them in that vision?
00:33:31
Speaker
Well, one of my closest friends is a guy called Grant Arthur. And he always said to me, you know you're probably even the most excited about making games that I know. And he's been 30 plus years in the industry. um And um for me, I know that I won't, ah well, I know that there are people who maybe are even more enthusiastic about it, but it is hard to find those types.
00:33:51
Speaker
I think for us, we're looking for people who are very agile, regardless of resumes or any of that. Like need people, the team that i really want to build a team that I think enjoy making games more than they like playing them. And I think there is a surprising amount that's increasing over time. I don't think we're the type to really hold on to to to telling people what makes a great game. I think we're the types who like, of okay, let's just get in there and then we'll tell you what's a great game afterwards. So I think
Building a Creative Game Development Team
00:34:22
Speaker
that's number one. So we're passionate about making games. We're agile to make these games and we're not scared about any genre or any of that. And that's, I think the third quality, which is that, you know, we're the type of people we want in our team are the type of people who don't get scared of an editor, don't get scared of a piece of software.
00:34:41
Speaker
I see like, you know, I say blank game meets blank game. They go, right. What do you need it in? I want it in Unity. Cool. I don't know anything about Unity. Who cares? We'll learn it right now. That's the type of team you want to have. I know it's a dream team, but you'd be surprised there is a surprising amount that is available. I think the only good that's come from the layoffs, and know it's awful to say that, has been that there's a lot of that talent that is available that studios are not taking a chance on. And we're lucky on our team, we've got
00:35:12
Speaker
some amazing people we've discovered over the last ah few weeks and months or so that that have stepped up to the plate to fill up that void. So yeah, and just being more picky with who we want. We need people who want to work with me, not I want to have it so that you can tell people on LinkedIn that they've worked on it. We really want people who want to to to to make these games regardless if it's on specific genre or not.
00:35:37
Speaker
um And our passions, again, passion, agility, and um you know ability to to to to survive in any situation.
00:35:50
Speaker
You kind of connected a lot of parts of what we spoke about earlier to now. First of all, you talked about people who are willing to be proactive, right? What we spoke about, hey, I haven't i don't know Godot, I don't know Unity, but I'm willing to learn that. now The beauty of the day and age we are in today is you can go on YouTube and find tutorials on how to do any of this stuff. Whether you hate ChatGPT or love it, I can say, hey, I need to create a game in Unity, and it will give me a starting point. It's Is it going to be good? No, it probably won't be good. And people are going hey, this is AI. Yeah, it is AI, but it's a starting point. From there, it's up to me to make it my own, make it my own vision and build it out. But it's a starting point. And sometimes the starting point is the hardest point to do it. And the passion, that's the one thing you said that really...
00:36:31
Speaker
interested me because you know you said you were wanting to find people who are more interested in making games than necessarily playing games and i've always under under the assumption that people who play games know how to make the best games and i know it's not one-to-one but i find it fascinating hey that there's people out there that love to make games but maybe not play them as much and i think it's good to look for people like that because you need both sides of the coin to understand hey i'm really good at making games i don't necessarily love to play this type of game but i know exactly what to do it and helped share those best practices with the others. And I think people in the studio can start to build off each other like that. You can learn from one person, they can learn from the other.
00:37:07
Speaker
What will say is like, and I self confess, it's like, I have mainly been known for multiplayer experiences. And that's been my background. But ask anyone who has worked with me, and they'll tell you that I'm one of the worst multiplayer designers they've ever seen. i mean, seriously, I'll knock out city.
00:37:25
Speaker
like people would gang up on me so that they can get free points. And it's fine, I don't care. You know, it's funny. i mean, look, I mean, then vice versa. I also know a lot of players, like proper video game players who are fantastic video game developers too, right?
00:37:40
Speaker
I think for for me, what's important that they, in the end, you have the way I see it is that it is a privilege to do this for a living to make games. You know, most people don't have that privilege in and most parts of the world and in the US and in wherever you can think of.
00:37:58
Speaker
And what we do, we are lucky to do it for a living. So we spend every day making this the moment that really you know defines the rest of our lives. And so I think for me, that's the type of people you want to invest in. You know you can have an amazing resume, 30, 40, 50 years of making games, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna make a great game.
00:38:22
Speaker
or be a good studio head in doing that or or whatever position you are. And vice versa, you could be a junior who you think on paper with all their experience sounds great, ends up being very hand-holdy and you have to you know guide them to the promised land.
00:38:36
Speaker
Bottom of the line, they need to come in and they need to be less interested in necessarily working for OCI, reading for themselves. They have to come in because they know they've got a shot to do something really, really fun and special because they get players, but they also get the idea of fulfilling the creativity that the game needs.
00:38:55
Speaker
And that's what you want to do. And my job is as the as the boss at the end, it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is my team comes in and they're they're excited to to make games. And we're we're very lucky, our team at least, that we're we're able to do that.
00:39:10
Speaker
So why cocktail
Concept and Development of Cocktail Games
00:39:12
Speaker
games? when you When you first announced this, you were talking about cocktail games. And why don't we start at the higher explanation of what is your concept of a cocktail game? And I know we can't go into the details because nothing's been fully announced, but like, where's the vision leading you?
00:39:26
Speaker
So cocktail, as I alluded, the idea is to go back to basics rather than just let's reinvent name X genre, racing genre. we start bringing components that made the racing genre so successful that drew players in, but also then combine it with something else that maybe has nothing to do with racing, but could work together with it and see kind of what comes out of it. And i the way I see it is, i I don't know if I explained it to you last time, the way I see it is, it's like a good cocktail drink, you know? um wheat Gin, I see that a lot of games like gin and equivalently tonic, if you take these two ingredients, right?
00:40:06
Speaker
Everyone's trying to perfect both of these ingredients, spending more and more and more money, and maybe it tastes better than the other. But it still tastes exactly the same. It's still gin. It's still tonic. what you have to do is go back to the basics and go, oh, you just combine them and see what comes out of it. And results, you get a pretty fine drink. And so that's cocktail undercreated, I'd argue. That's kind of why we want to see our games. And that's both the high level and honestly, the the deeper level of ah of the development of these of our games. And I think it allows us to be quite versatile in the market. It means that we're not going to be known just for, you know, making a specific genre of game or multiplayer games or racing games or whatever. We know for cocktail games, so a wide variety of different games. And that keeps us on our feet, allows us to adapt to different market challenges that present ourselves. and
00:40:58
Speaker
also even within them, be able to stand out in a different aspect of it. So that's that's essentially the type of studio we wanted to create, whilst being cost effective, which I think this allows us to do.
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, I like the conversation. I like the the analogy to the cocktail because that's what it is. and that's what makes sense. And I've always heard over time is that some of the best games come up when you start like mixing genres that start to make sense, right? And less people take these chances or or they take it in a weird way. So, you know, you're you're in startup mode here, right? What are your like lists of to do's? Like, where are you at?
00:41:36
Speaker
So right now we're looking for a publisher. I mean, like we've we've done a lot of diligence. We're doing the, you know, we've we've pretty much got a base team up and running from across the world. We're going to, we're very international studio. I'm an international person. So, you know, I really do think the talent is outside of North America. And I think honestly is now hard or it might be even better than some places around the world on average.
00:42:02
Speaker
um You know, we're we're right now, we're looking for a publisher for our ah prototype that we've just finished. We're on course to finishing new aspects of it. And it's a very exciting prototype. And we're partnering with the studio or company that I can't announce just yet um that we're talking to that's helping us co-develop this experience. But I think it's a clever way of approaching our early goals of, you know, let's get a a really good looking prototype in a short amount of time. um and um
00:42:33
Speaker
Honestly, like that's what we're looking for. We're looking either really for publishers or at least an investor into our business. And we've also been diversifying ourselves, like, you know, how do we raise money? And we're we're trying to touch to get into co-development for outsourcing work for for the some of the games that could require us to do that.
00:42:53
Speaker
And that's it. So how long does this prototype actually take to put together? Current prototype. Again, we're talking about For Activist, we did in less than, let's say now we're in day 23. Yeah, day 23. It's almost done. Nice. You got your own a little game jam going on there, building this stuff out.
00:43:13
Speaker
It's really cool. And it has, the only thing I can say about it is that the right to some of the things that people know me about, but also it's something that's quite surprising and unexpected.
00:43:25
Speaker
When is the right time to start to market?
00:43:30
Speaker
When we get publisher. which will be, hope, as soon as possible. I think, honestly, our goal is to try and release this particular game sometime ah in the next year or so. But that's that's the optimist in me.
00:43:46
Speaker
I think we have something very special, and I think something that, okay, some people might be scared to to put publishing money into, but honestly, our team has been able to adapt to any challenge so far.
00:43:59
Speaker
and I think it's so different from anything else, content wise. i I don't see a reason why we can't go to market as soon as possible. Most likely it will be an early access product, but I can't reveal more than that.
00:44:13
Speaker
So I'm curious on, you know, we often talk about building community.
Community Building and Future of Gaming
00:44:18
Speaker
It's something we'd like to talk about in this podcast, right? And I think Manor Lords is a good example of, you know, they built up the community. The game got boosted because of the community. And I realize there's a handful of games that can manage to strike lightning. i don't know what the right word to say there is, right? It's why why wait for the publisher before building out a community? Is that just kind of ah your own thought process? I'm just yeah curious about that.
00:44:44
Speaker
We want to build a i think I'm a very extroverted person, so community is very important to me. I love talking to players, fans, journos, other developers about any game. It's always been like that. I have my own Discord server mainly for game developers. I haven't, be honest, used it for a while but because of starting the business and also wrapping up production on Star Wars took lot out of me. But I think community comes from listening to feedback addressing feedback, executing feedback, no matter in what form it is, whether it's how you apply your Discord logo, how you talk to people, how you address the game concerns that maybe, you know, addressing the voices you can't hear in the back of the room, finding ways to get to the back of the room to hear those voices.
00:45:35
Speaker
I think that's honestly how I i address it is always try to get everyone heard. Listen, Mike, I can tell you what makes my game great and what makes my studio great in the end. The community matters more. I want them to enjoy the ride and be a part of it. And I want them to know that they're going to be a part of it new matter what.
00:45:55
Speaker
Love it. Love it. I think one thing we can do is, you know, where where does the industry go from here? I think optimism, investing into these type of people who really want to create jobs and get the most out of people, I think is obviously what's important to me.
00:46:11
Speaker
I love how you said it. You know, the layoffs is a very disappointing and upsetting time for the industry, but it's also kind of a light, this glimmer of hope that, you know, everyone says for the longest time, MBAs took over gaming, right? Everyone's just trying to make a bottom dollar at the end of the day, and it's all they care about. But, but... Willem, yourself, and there's other people out there that just love making games, and they're going to continue making games. And I think it's a really positive thing that will will happen over the course of the next couple of years. It's just we have to get through this rough patch ah in order to get there. But you know as we talked about multiple times here, right? Proactiveness. Go out there. Make a game. It may not be good. I watched this hour-long video on the making of Bellatio, and it's just fascinating how he had no intent to make a real game and all of a sudden turned into what it was. And there should be more people that take chances like that out there because, you know, there's all different types of gamers. My mom's a gamer now. My sister's a gamer, right? Because they all play these games on their phone and there's something for everyone out there. And I think people just need to take these chances. when When you take a look at kind of what the industry is turning into, are there tools? Do things like AI scare you or excite you? Like how does the future look from ah the point of making games? Yeah.
00:47:27
Speaker
optimistic i think i'm optimistic because i think the whole 700 million dollar budgeted games are over i think you know i think we we the the guys in the big chairs ordering other guys with vi with smaller chairs making games are are are going to deplete i think it's going to go back to the creatives i think these credits today are going to be more proactive than ever before i mean there's some mean look at respawn respawn's a really good example of this there's going to be another res respondw There's gonna be another MediaTonic. There's going to be another From Software. It's it's right there. And I'm hoping OCI i can reach even 1% of those heights.
00:48:09
Speaker
But i'm I'm not scared of of of AI. I think if AI is pretty tippy-team, then we should use it. i'm also I also think the creative in the end is going to dictate the final vision of the game. It's what Stephen Spielberg says. Yeah, AI, embrace it.
00:48:26
Speaker
there's no replacement for Steven Spielberg. It's the same with there's no replacement for Ken Levine, Todd Howard, um you know these these these legends, Miyamoto, Kojima, you're not going to get those guys replaced ever. And vice versa, the creatives that are up and coming now, or you're not either. I mean, the Bellatro story is a real example of this. You can have, like it is proven over and over again,
00:48:52
Speaker
The people who want to be there, want to make the games, are going to see that in the final product. But Lotro is a great example. i love that story. i love the story Laurian, even with how long it took to make that game. You can see there's been a lot of love put into that.
00:49:07
Speaker
I love the story of oh no oh how Elden Ring was made and how the CEO took you know a cut to make sure he can pay his team. These are the type of studios to make players get excited about the future.
00:49:22
Speaker
Those are the studios going to be making great games. I tell you what, there's a lot more coming after all this. It's going to be a blast the next few years. Yes, it's rough right now, but we have an obligation. i have an obligation as a guy who's running a studio to do right by those bugs.
00:49:41
Speaker
Man, the energy from level designers. I don't get it. it's just You guys have so much passion for the industry, and I love it. I think your insight on the industry, on where it's going, where it's been, how it goes full circle is just fantastic. I love your thought on AI. I think AI is a fantastic tool that everyone should utilize and take a look at, but it's not going to replace the human element of it. There's going to be these human interactions that... like creativity isn't something a computer can truly
AI vs Human Creativity in Game Design
00:50:09
Speaker
replicate. And it's fascinating what it can do, but the mind of a Kojima, right. Or Ken Levine and who Todd Howard, right. Like they just have something that is special. And I think more people have that than they think they just need to take these chances and
00:50:23
Speaker
test themselves, right? It's scary, but you got to just take these chances because every once in a while, you're going to find that diamond in the rough and all of a sudden that's it. But you can't find that diamond without looking for it. And these tools, these people, everyone that's available can be utilized to help you find that diamond. So you can either sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to call you in, or you can go in and start making your own team and building your own team, which is what you're doing at OCI. And I think it's a fantastic endeavor. And I think you have something great that can be really fun once it's all said and done. So first off, Willem, thank you so much for this. I think, again, your insights are just fantastic. Let us know a little bit more. Where can we find oci Where can we find you?
00:51:03
Speaker
Yeah, so you can find me actually on LinkedIn. I don't really have social media as much as I used to. I do have threads, but I do often regret that. I don't even know what my threads is. I think it's Willem underscore credit dog.
00:51:16
Speaker
that you can But you I'm sure if you find my name, you'll find me somewhere. But I'm on LinkedIn. and We do have our own website, odysseycopptildirected.com. um And we'll also be, we're looking to be quite present at GDC. So if you're at GDC, you might see me there. do follow us on our socials and we'll know more about that as time goes by. We're not currently hiring, to be honest yet, but we are,
00:51:44
Speaker
When we do, you'll you'll know it through our social media page on LinkedIn. Cool. We will have information for everything from Willem to OCI on the player-driven website. I think you're doing some great stuff. Once there's a prototype available, I'd love to be able to give it a shot, test it out, share some some stuff from it when possible. And I will be stalking you down at GDC because I will be there as well. so Oh, come plan and build. We'll have it there. Boom. There we go. Again, thank you so much for today. i am looking forward to learning more and best of luck with everything.
00:52:16
Speaker
Likewise. Thank you, Greg. Stay safe and thank you for the invite.