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Narrative Design w/ Harrison Pink
2 Playsin 7 hours
Ben & Jess are joined by Harrison Pink a designer who worked at Telltale Games, Blizzard, and Cyan. And yes: we ask some real Myst Q's!
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Special guest Myst Q's from our friend BogusMeatFactory: https://www.twitch.tv/bogusmeatfactory
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
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Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Introduction to Harrison Pink
00:00:29
Speaker
it's quest quest the adventure game podcast i'm ben i'm jess and we're joined today by a very special guest i'm just going to make it happen ben i'm not going to i'm not going to delay anything i have the introduction though well do you want to i just so you for the introduction i was just so to you i just said it did you memorize Oh, yeah, I did. Well, you know, I have a photographic memory. That's why I'm so good at adventure games. All right. i will I will read the introduction and we'll bring him in Harrison Pink is a game designer whose work has spanned from Telltale Games working on The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands to Blizzard working on Diablo 4.
00:01:10
Speaker
And ah working at Cyan, working on the recent Myst and Riven remasters, and breaking news, recently hired at Shiny Shoe as the lead narrative designer. Harrison Pink, thank you for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me, guys.
00:01:24
Speaker
Oh.
Sandwich Correspondent Segment
00:01:25
Speaker
What a, what a pleasure uh, and, uh, I'd like to, to thank, uh, our friend, uh, Francisco, ah for, for connecting us, uh, of, uh, Grundislav and Rosewater. Yeah. He connects us with great guests and great sandwiches. That's what kind of sandwiches now I'm interested.
00:01:48
Speaker
Now he is our official sandwich correspondent. He'll occasionally record, um, audio from the field testing new sandwiches out there. And you're probably crunching sounds like a lot of like mastication sound effects. Does that tell me that at least it's all involved? Usually it's after the fact. Usually we don't get a good light. Yeah. Now, mean, we, we have a separate ASMR podcast for just audio Francisco eating sandwiches. Um, that one's, that one's patrons only. like Um, But no, I mean, and you might be asking yourself, why does the adventure game podcast have a sandwich correspondent? And I guess the question would be, why don't more podcasts?
00:02:26
Speaker
that Absolutely. Good question. Excellent. Hard hitting questions here. here You know, actually, I didn't I didn't ask this. Harrison, where we're in the country are you living?
Harrison's Background and Sandwich Memories
00:02:37
Speaker
I'm in California. I'm in Southern California. I've been all over the place. I've lived in Atlanta. I lived in San Francisco, California. I actually grew up in a country called Bermuda. My mom and dad are from Bermuda, so I actually grew there until I was 15. Then went to boarding school in Canada. Don't recommend that.
00:02:51
Speaker
And then I went to Savannah College of Art and Design for game design and animation and film and all sorts of stuff. And then I just bopped around trying to find work. Well, my next question, and I guess what, uh, so, so where you are now, what's the best sandwich we're going to, Oh, wow. What is here?
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah. And Southern, or you know what? Let's because you've been all over now, like, yeah yeah yeah, or at least all over the, like the Northern hemisphere. That's true. That's true. ah ah But the place I miss the most is from San Rafael, California, up in Northern California, the place called Soul Food. um And it was an incredible. It had an amazing Cubano sandwich that I just haven't been able to replicate. And and like, there's some incredibly good food down in in Southern California, but that this one, you know, sandwich I've never been able to replicate. So if you're in San Rafael or in the San Francisco Bay Area, make a trip to Soul Food up in San Rafael and get yourself a Cubano sandwich.
00:03:49
Speaker
We'll have to send Francisco there too, because that is one of the, because he is, he has strong Cubano opinions. As any right-minded person should. yeah I mean, you can't just eat any Cubano and like, they're not all created equally. It is Yeah. I mean, I've had some pretty terrible ones.
00:04:09
Speaker
You know, yeah. mean, like Jimmy John's does a Cubano and I can't recommend Oh, wouldn't do that. No way. Yeah. On classic French bread. That's little insulting, actually, that you would say that you ate a Jimmy John's Cubano, but I'm going to let it slide. It was morbid curiosity. I get How do you resist when you see such an ill-fated sandwich on a menu that you know can't be good? And you start to think yourself, well, surely they wouldn't be dumb enough to put it on their menu unless somehow they cracked the code on this, and they had not. It's more like a scientific experiment than anything.
00:04:42
Speaker
I think I was probably just helping them gather some sort of like insidious market data. I mean, probably I was just being experimented on at some level. You're definitely being ap tested for sure. Yeah. The, uh, there's who, who was it? Was it you Jess that also got the, uh, Cubano, from, Subway.
00:05:04
Speaker
Is that correct? Now in all fairness, you're just getting, you're just getting the worst sandwich fast food. I the sooner was like Cubano. Cubano
Podcast's Food Tangents
00:05:14
Speaker
again from a Subway in San Juan, which is also in the Caribbean. So there is there's reason to believe that that could potentially be a decent sandwich, right? I mean, it but no, it turns out, like, if you just imagine what a Subway a Cuban sandwich would be like, that's what it was. so
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. who Who would have guessed? Who could have guessed? Yeah. But now you know. You know, you did you do your research. You know, you checked your you checked your your thats hypothesis. So, you know. Yeah. Everyone out there on the internet is always saying, it's like, you got to go to San Juan and try one.
00:05:54
Speaker
from subway you know i did it and uh you know now i can uh contribute to that reddit thread i mean i did have some spectacular food in san juan when i went oh yeah a couple years ago absolutely i i did not go to i didn't go to a single uh subway there where you miss didn't miss out, but yeah, no, I bet like the black forest ham would have been delightful. Uh, maybe a BMT. There are lots of great options, you know, but, uh, yeah, you, you don't want the, you don't want the Cuban sandwich. Um, but no, this is, I mean, this is definitely the kind of this is why we have a sandwich correspondent because Ben and I can only try so many sandwiches ourselves.
Current Location and Sandwich Comparisons
00:06:41
Speaker
I'm happy to be your Puerto Rican sort of, uh, sandwich, you know, represent not representative, but person who can sort recommend you on some good ones. That's what we need, yeah. Like a proper, like, Majorca or something like that. oh um You know, in Chicago, we have the the McDonald's World Headquarters are here.
00:07:03
Speaker
They do have the the menu of the international ah like McDonald's, ah like they, they'll, they'll put in a couple like international McDonald's things. And I've friends who've gone and done it. And you want to know what they've said?
00:07:19
Speaker
ah It's fine. Yeah. It's a rousing endorsement. Yeah. It's like you you see, you're like, wow, the the Japanese McDonald's has some really cool looking stuff. And it's like, it's it's still McDonald's. Yeah.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. That's how they get you. look um Anyway, speaking of being got. That's it. thats This is the whole podcast of sandwiches now. Sorry if you had other questions about video games. That's all we're talking about now. here Harrison.
00:07:51
Speaker
We can't do this again. You think we're we're joking. We had the voice of Guybrush Threepwood, Dominic Armato. Oh, sure. Dominic, yeah. and we spoke with him because, as you may know, he's spent a lot of his career as a food critic and a writer. he's big writer,
00:08:10
Speaker
And so ah that's what we spoke to him about for 90 minutes. Much to to the consternation of our audience, I imagine. Because I bet they had lots of questions about, say, i don't know, Monkey Island. But, you know, he's answered all those questions before. No one's ever done good long-form adventure game-themed food podcast with him. Absolutely true. Yeah.
00:08:32
Speaker
So we won't do that to you. We can't, like, again, we have to think of our our dear listeners. Because that's who we do this for. But I still have food questions.
00:08:44
Speaker
Just don't, don't you dare. Look, I'm trying to be serious here as a professional podcast. Trying to get us back on the straight and narrow. You know, someone has to do it. No, no, Ben, please proceed. I don't want to be the enemy of fun. So, so but, but, but bouncing all over, uh, North America as you have, what, what is a memorable sandwich that you've had other than, uh, that, that great Cubano?
00:09:10
Speaker
Oh gosh. It's tough, man. See, now you're, now you're putting me on the spot. Here, I'll hear all' all fill in time. I'll say one of the the greatest, and i've I've probably said this in all of our sandwich talk in all these years, my favorite sandwich of all time. It's from DeFonti's in Red Hook, New York City.
00:09:32
Speaker
ah it is a ah prosciutto with a and I'm just working from memory here it's been a long time with a fried eggplant roasted red peppers ah fresh mozzarella and ah think broccoli rabe some green and a lot of balsamic and on a hard roll and it is spectacular i mean Chicago doesn't have as many, like as someone from the Northeast, Chicago is, is not as, as strong as sandwich city. I feel as, as, as New York or, or your Northeastern cities, unfortunately as many good foods, but I, I feel perhaps it's a little, you know, where I was born pride. ah
00:10:26
Speaker
I feel that the sandwich game of Chicago just quite isn't isn't there. same Same goes with bagels. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can't expect, yeah, bagel game to be on point.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah. But, I mean, we you know we do have many other good things. but Like the bean. You got the bean. You got the bean. yeah The big reflective bean. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
It's like the spaceship from Flight of the Navigator. I do. I did think of that at least once while looking at that thing for sure. Finally, someone gets that reference. Love that Pee Wee Herman voice. Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah. Look, okay. Here's the thing you need to know about growing up on a small island. You only had so many videos you could rent from the video store,
Growing Up in Bermuda
00:11:06
Speaker
right? So like everything comes in on a container ship. And if you want a movie, you got to wait six weeks or more for it to show up in movie theaters because it' got to come in on a container ship. So Comic books, good luck. You want to read Captain America number four after reading number three, not going to happen. So you just kind of get what you get.
00:11:21
Speaker
And so it was like a, it was just a sort of dog's breakfast of videos at the store. And so that was one of the ones that was for kids and was sort of fantasy-esque available at the time. So watch that a lot of times because that was what we had.
00:11:35
Speaker
There we go. Yeah. see the bean does look, I've, that was like my brother taped it off of like TV once. And that's the best way to see it. yeah Flight of the Navigator missing the first 15 minutes, uh, with commercials in it is how I remember that movie. Uh, and that's super long play VHS. So the quality is not so hot. Yeah. That's what you're looking for.
00:11:59
Speaker
parent Like tracking issues, especially because you're fast forwarding through the ads. Uh, It just gets worn out super fast. Yeah, yeah. All remember is the the liquid metal steps that came down and like like melted down and turned into steps. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world when I was, you know, nine.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. Can the bean do that? Yes. You can go into the bean and it will open, but only if you're pure of heart. only if... It happens very it doesn't have like a creepy like liquid metal controls like where you just like put your hands forward and like morphs. No, no, no, it's not a t two situation. Okay, okay, okay.
00:12:38
Speaker
No, it is it is purely a flight of the navigator type situation going on there. and Anyway, here's a new gym. If you don't have a sandwich, that's fine because we can move on to so I'm not gonna give you a satisfying answer. But I think the sandwich that really sticks my mind the most is say what I used to have when I was in Bermuda. but from a sandwich up that doesn't really exist anymore. um but I will say that, uh, the fish sandwich in Bermuda is like a local like delicacy. Like it is thing that is known about Bermuda is the fish sandwich. And it's always like a white fish, like cod. Um, and it's always on, ah on raisin bread.
00:13:12
Speaker
Oh, reason and it has, uh, it's toasted and it has, um, a coleslaw with mayonnaise and stuff. And it's a big sucker. It's a big, tall sandwich. Um, and so like, there's like huge, like neighborhood arguments about who's got, which, you know, shop has the best fish sandwich. Um, but those are the requirements. It has to be on a, uh, raisin bread and it has to be, I think white fish. And it usually comes with a coleslaw on it. So if you're ever weirdly in Bermuda, a 20 mile Island off of the East of of the American coast, uh, look for a fish sandwich, see what you think. Okay.
00:13:49
Speaker
All right. Well, Jess, speaking of fish sandwiches, what have you been playing?
Space Quest and Gaming Discussions
00:13:57
Speaker
It's a great question. You know, when I think of fish sandwiches, think of only one game. No, you know, last week, our episode focused on adventure game remakes, remasters, reboots, all all these sorts of reimaginings of adventure game series. And It actually inspired me to go back and play a game we've talked a little bit about on the podcast before. I went back and played a little bit Space Quest 1 VGA ah this this week, inspired by our own podcast, because nothing inspires me like ourselves.
00:14:36
Speaker
And, you know, I have to say, you know, I'm on record as being a defender of the sometimes maligned remake of Space Quest One. I found it really delightful, Ben. I have to say the the music, the animation it adds, the original, while I love the original 16 color AGI Sierra presentation, boy, it builds the drama of this idea that maybe the universe is at stake, that it's a big deal that the star generator is missing. You actually see reaction shots from Roger that help sell the drama. Because otherwise, Space Quest 1 can't feel like he's just drifting through the game aimlessly.
00:15:14
Speaker
i feel like the remake gives it a little bit more of a sense of urgency that I appreciate. But again, that is a controversial statement, and I will leave it at... that I don't want to, this has gotten me in trouble before with adventure game fans who have surprisingly strong opinions and adventure game designers who have surprisingly strong opinions. Adventure game designers who designed the game.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yes, yes, it's possible that one of the designers of Space Quest stopped speaking to me over my opinions about that remake. So that happens, that happens occasionally. You know, that's that's just the world we live in. But Harrison, what have you been playing lately?
00:15:53
Speaker
I kind of oscillate back and forth. I i picked up blueprints again, so I'm back on my blueprints. I hit the like the the final rune on day 69. Nice. And then I'm like, I'm good.
00:16:08
Speaker
And I put it down. and then I can't remember why. i just It just came to my mind unbidden at some point. i'm like, I should get back to that. But adventure games are tough to go back to, right? Because you're like, what was he doing? What was the momentum? just dies. And that genre is really hard to drop and pick back up again.
00:16:24
Speaker
And so I was trying to figure out, like what at that point, it's all self-propelled motivation. like like I'm just deciding what I want to like poke at. And so I had to get back into it. And then on my first night, I so i solved like one of the like room puzzles. And I'm like, we're back. We're back, baby. So I've been just like like hardlining that. I've probably put another 100 days into that game. I'm running out of stuff to solve.
00:16:47
Speaker
um But it's it's not. Usually I play these kinds of games with like friends or with my partner. But this one I just kind of. did by myself and my friends are like, I'll give you some hints. I'm like, no, no, I got to like 100. At this point, it's a point of pride. Like i need to go all the way to the end without anything but just my brain. So that's where I'm at right now is like deep back in the blueprints hole.
00:17:05
Speaker
Oh, wow. Ben, have you played blueprints? can't remember. I have not played blueprints. I've been in a few hours on it. I need to revisit it. I put in a few hours right at release and then got distracted by some other shiny object. But that sort of puzzle forward adventure game usually is as much my jam as a narrative focused one.
00:17:26
Speaker
But i was I was kind of digging it, and I was feeling smart when I occasionally figured something out. So there's something to be said for that experience. yeah but yeah it has It does have the, it's kind of, again, like kind of like the Mists and Ripper games, where like there is lore there that does paint yeah a story, but you just kind of have to dig for it. It's not like scrolled out to you in like long journals or whatever.
00:17:47
Speaker
um But it there is definitely a story and I think once you sort of like embrace the randomness, where you're like, well, I guess on this one I'm not gonna get to do this thing I wanted to do. But there's so many threads to tug at, and you're like, well, okay, i gotta go, I can't go right, but maybe can go left and maybe you can kind of pull out a different thread. so You know, it is frustrating. And for an adventure game, you're like, I know what the game wants me to do. I just need to get RNG g to get to the thing i need to get to, which can be frustrating. But I think at some point you just kind of let that go and you just embrace the chaos. And it it's been really fun.
00:18:20
Speaker
Awesome. Well, Ben, what have you been playing? So, you know, I, and I have
00:18:37
Speaker
Is I've been playing my current cell phone game when I'm commuting, when I'm riding train back and forth. So initially, like, it was Bellatro, and I played that, and I played that, and I played that, and I played that, and then I was like, okay, I i can't i can't play Bellatro anymore. And then and then it was Slay the Spire kind of hitting the same, you know, feeling. So I played that, and I played that, and I played that, I played that. And then Slay the Spire 2 came out, and i was like, all right, well, that's not on my phone, so...
00:19:13
Speaker
But I don't want to be playing both of these games at the same time. And so the most recent game that I've been kind of grinding on as I, ah like, ride the train around
Mobile Gaming Habits
00:19:26
Speaker
is a game I, in in both Bellatro and Slay the Spy, I already had on the computer and played extensively before they became phone games that I ended up playing even more.
00:19:39
Speaker
But... The game I'm playing now is another game that I had already played, brought back, which is a Loop Hero. Either of you ever play Loop Hero? I see Harrison Donag.
00:19:51
Speaker
I love Loop Hero, which is a game I don't even know quite how to describe.
00:20:02
Speaker
I'm not even going to try Look it up. It's kind it's it's cool. it's It's kind of... It's got some... If I say auto battler, that kind of sounds like a vampire survivors type thing, but that's not what it is. But you are automatically resolving RPG type battles.
00:20:20
Speaker
um You're equipping a little are like ah a little ah RPG hero that walks in a circle over and over and over and gets into fights.
00:20:30
Speaker
with monsters that populate as you continue doing your labs. And it gets you loot and it gets you ah various cards that you can play to modify the terrain around the loop or the loop itself.
00:20:47
Speaker
Um, and it's a lot of fun and it's a great game. And like the previous two games, Slay the Spire and Bellatro, it's a game that has a lot of like kind of stuff that like it takes a while and there's a lot of stuff that you can kind of get out as you play further and further. There's like a very kind of slow grindy progression that makes it worth it Now, I'm sure I could probably speed that up if I looked up some strategies on it, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to... Like, a lot of the fun I have with Luperio is when I discover, I'm like, wait a minute, when I put these two things next to each other, it it does this thing I didn't anticipate. That's really cool.
00:21:37
Speaker
but Anyway, i I am concerned that I am starting to near the end of my... uh, tenure with loop hero again. so, if anyone has, you know, something like a kind of a, a fun long play in the vein of these three that one could play on an Android, uh, you know, quest quest podcast at gmail.com.
00:22:06
Speaker
I think it's a little bit of the benefit of those three is that I had already played them. So i already was like, oh yeah, what a, what a thrill. I get to play this on my phone.
00:22:17
Speaker
okay It's like, and I end up playing them more because those three games are all like kind of ideal portably. They're all ideal. If you're sitting on a train and waiting to get somewhere.
00:22:32
Speaker
Um, Jesse, you ever play loop hero? No, I haven't. But I will say if any of our listeners have any suggestions for like a good game to play while you're driving a car, I've been, I have about a 45 minute commute and I'm just looking for something to distract me. So if you, that's also quest quest podcast at gmail.com. Like it can't be too distracting, but also I don't want to be like boring.
00:22:55
Speaker
You know, want something that's going to keep some of my attention. So, yeah, I mean, a like I don't mind if it has tiny text I have to read or very elaborate button c presses or something. I'm pretty coordinated and good at multitasking, so I don't think it'll be a problem.
00:23:11
Speaker
Great. I'm usually shaving on my way to work as well. Yeah, like one of those like very very fancy people who's in such a hurry that they have to shave in the car. I drove by one of those the other day. I didn't think they really existed.
00:23:23
Speaker
That actually exists? Yeah, that's how busy some people are, Ben. I'm guessing he was probably some sort of like multi-millionaire CEO is the only explanation driving through my small town in West Virginia. He was probably a tech billionaire if I had to take a guess. Those guys don't shave themselves. They have someone to do that for them. That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. There have been someone in the back seat just reaching over. Yeah, yeah. And not driving him.
00:23:50
Speaker
He didn't hire a driver. He wants to drive, but he wants someone else to shave him. That's, you know, that's a... Well, maybe his driver does that. Like, that's a side gig, and he drives while his driver's shaving him, and then they switch seats again. Love that. yeah Yeah, that makes sense. ah I really can't believe that.
00:24:07
Speaker
I really can't believe that jazz. I saw it really he can't believe that you saw some electric razor. Does that help? Does that make it better? just yeah It would be worse if it was not an electric razor. Yeah. It's full straight razor. Just yeah.
00:24:27
Speaker
you Oh no, there's construction ahead. Yeah, right, yeah. Gotta merge. And then you have to clean that up. He's got the hot towel and in the side seat. It's fine. He's got a bowl with some hot towels in it. You know,
00:24:44
Speaker
luxurious were you on the highway um no no i wasn't this was i mean i don't know i don't know which is bad like this is a lot of stop and go like traffic lights and we were in a school zone uh so you know no that's jensen he's going slowly he's going slowly because it's a school zone it makes it so much safer at least this all makes so much sense this is
00:25:11
Speaker
Ben, this is just how, ah yeah I know you're like in your in your elite city you know lifestyle, but out here in the rest of America, this is how people live.
00:25:24
Speaker
I'm in a coastal elite in Chicago. That's right. Get me back to God's country. Yeah.
00:25:33
Speaker
Wow. So yeah, um I guess that's what we've been playing.
Game Design Challenges
00:25:38
Speaker
ah So, so ah Harrison, what initially, like, ah you know, spawned us getting on the the podcast is I believe, like a month and a half ago or so, you posted on Blue Sky something that it's like, I will talk to anyone about like my theory of game design.
00:25:59
Speaker
Something like that. That sounds right. yeah Yeah, that sounds like something I would say. So what's your favorite game? Someone read that that post, bad news. Can I swear on this podcast?
00:26:11
Speaker
Yes. It's fucking hard to make video games, dog. What? That's it. That's the whole thing. it's ah Any video game shifts is a miracle. that's the That's the truth. That's God's own truth. Like, it's... Everything is... ah You relearn. you You never learn lessons. You have to relearn lessons every time. Like, everything's a special case. Nothing you can't really... be like, oh, well, we're just making another one of these. So let's just, like, every single time things are different.
00:26:36
Speaker
ah Like, you know, even games that don't aren't like 9 out of 10 games, even if they're like 6 or 7 out of 10 games, like, the fact that those ship is ah is a monumental achievement to actually get something out the door, um whether it's one person or 1,000 people, like, it's it's, making games is tough. It's really tough. And it's a labor of love, and it's a cool job, and it's, and it's you know, it's a great it's a great opportunity. I feel very lucky to get to do it. But, yeah,
00:27:01
Speaker
because it's a creative thing, creating something is inherently self-destructive on some level. Like you're taking apart part of yourself and like putting it out into the world, whether you're writing a book or making a movie or whatever.
00:27:12
Speaker
Um, and so like, you have to kind of reckon with the fact that the thing you make right in front of you, by the time it goes out the door, looks very different. And you gotta just have to accept that. Um, especially at larger studios where a lot of hands are going to touch on the way out the door. So that's, there's no, there is my theory of game design as I remember it is just that like, you know, you you will, the thing will change a lot as you make it and there's no silver bullet. A lot of studios are like, we got the secret sauce. there's It's just, you get a lot of really smart people together and you are,
00:27:44
Speaker
a collaborative person. um I much prefer working in groups of people. I know a much better designer when I'm working with a group of people and getting my ideas beat up in the room and coming up with something that everybody's excited to to own a piece of than being like the lone wolf, super genius, who's just like goes away and like comes back with the perfect completed thing and you just put in the game and it perfectly fits. And so I think that it's just,
00:28:05
Speaker
ah it's a miracle every time they come out, which is not really a game theory, I know, but like that's kind of where I'm at mentally after doing this for almost two decades is it's really a miracle every time.
00:28:17
Speaker
You know, one one thing that was really interesting and ah like I've been like, and i both have been looking forward to this conversation is that all of the the the other guests that that we've had on the show are largely ah no or entirely like indie designers ah working either by themselves or in a very, very small or limited team.
00:28:46
Speaker
And looking at, you know, your, your resume, your, you've been working in like at a much different scale and in like a very different, uh, like, uh, place in the industry.
00:29:02
Speaker
And so I was like, Oh, that well, that's so fascinating. Like it's, I'm sure like the experiences are similar and also extremely different. Yep. Yeah, you're totally right. Like,
00:29:14
Speaker
Like I said a moment ago, like it doesn't matter. Even if you're a single dev, like, you know, even putting a thing out, you still, it still changes because ultimately you're giving, you're making something for an audience.
00:29:25
Speaker
And if it's, if it, you know, like sometimes you're like I'm just making the thing I think is cool, which a lot of times is little what people are making. And then it resonates with a lot of people, but like the games are living things and they're basically a dialogue between the creator and the, and the, and the audience. And you have to sort of decide like,
00:29:41
Speaker
do I agree with their feedback, whether it's positive or negative? Do I like, no, I'm i'm actually trying to accomplish a thing and I like it this way. I'm doing it. It's not, it's not a mistake. I'm doing this on purpose and say, you know, if thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it. I'm glad to hear your perspective, but I disagree and I'm going to continue doing things the way I want. So no game ever meets like survives contact with the enemy is what I like to say. And enemy in this case is kind of like any outside force, not necessarily an antagonistic force, but, ah things change and you have to be ready to to flex and and and reconsider your assumptions and reconsider what you said. Oh, I'm trying to accomplish X, Y, Z, but that's not coming through in the game. And one of the most important lessons that I've learned, small studio or big studio, is you're not going to get packaged in the box with the game to sit next to someone and be like, what was trying to do here is this, this, this, and this. Like, whatever context the player gets from playing the game is entirely out of your hands. So you have to be really, you have to really think about, like,
00:30:34
Speaker
there's no one in their ear explaining, filling in the gaps, trying to explain your the reasoning for why you did X, Y, Z. It only comes through the game and they're going to interpret that however they want. And so it's really important to remember that that stuff is going to change. So um yeah, like you said, I've worked at big places after really small places. Telltale started kind of small and by the time I left, it was quite big.
00:30:53
Speaker
And I've seen that change over time. I like how, how the process has changed over time and how we added more layers of, scrutiny and checking in and and obviously that helped the quality bar increase over time, but it also caused things to go a little bit slower and cause more people to be in the room or shifts in the in the kitchen.
00:31:08
Speaker
ah So there's no like perfect size, ah you know, like there are games that require lots of people and there are games that don't require lots of people. um But overall, the process has been very similar.
00:31:20
Speaker
um Even if I look, I'm the you know lead narrative designer, whatever you want to call it like I'm the story guy sometimes, like that's kind of what I was at cyan too. And so I'll be like, this is what I think the story should be. But at no point is it like, and that's the end of the conversation. That's the story. Like it interfaces with artists. It interfaces with the audio team. It interfaces with programmers. And to come in and just dump like a bunch of text on them, like like ah like a Bible, like here it is, here's the game. And then just like walk away.
00:31:46
Speaker
That's just not how any game works. Like you have to understand that you are a piece of a larger machine and understand that every other department's success criteria are different from yours.
00:31:58
Speaker
the artists are going to always prioritize the art looking great. You know, audio teams are always prioritizing their specific discipline. And it's, it's something that's really important to remember that it took me a while to get around to is that like everyone has different success criteria, but as long as you can respect their success criteria, be like, look, the art team's criteria is their art needs to look good. So I need to understand when I change something or I request something, or if I, you know, build a new thing out of pieces and kind of looks janky that like that is a failure to them because that's their success criteria. So, it's always a conversation with everybody. have to understand that like, even if it's four guys in a garage, you are always interfacing together and working together to like push one vision forward and keeping that vision in alignment is difficult no matter if it's four guys in a room or 500 guys spread across the country. And so that's, that's, it's like the, the, the, the problems, like the, the granular details of the problems change, but the overall high, high, like high reaching issues never really change.
00:32:59
Speaker
ah And I saw when when Jess mentioned, ah like Space Quest earlier, we were talking about what we've been playing.
Early Adventure Game Experiences
00:33:08
Speaker
ah You nod what what adventure like so I assume that you you were into the cyan, like, ah you know, mist and all those ah early on.
00:33:19
Speaker
But what other adventure games were were you playing when when you were a kid? That's a great question. I don't remember the first adventure. I was literally in preparation for this podcast. Like, what was the first adventure game I played? And I feel like it was, i was a little too young for for just text adventures. I remember playing Zork, but that wasn't like right when it came out. But um I think like I went to like a cousin's house and they had an old black and white Mac.
00:33:42
Speaker
like the single mac you know the one piece yeah yeah yeah yeah and so they had ah like a like a first person almost widget wizardry style like go forward go forward investigate the room like look at the dead body kind of adventure game where where you would solve a murder or something but i don't really remember the details but it was black and white hand-drawn sort of graphics um obviously the mist and riven uh the big ones for me but before that i played king's quest 6 Um, and again, that came just packaged in, like we bought a computer from like gateway or something and you get that big like manila folder of all the CDs of random sort of middleware and in there, tucked in there was a CD for King's Quest six. And I remember just installing that and playing that for hundreds of hours probably. Um, and I'd bring in, you know, it's same, same sort of experience that I'm sure we all had as as youngsters, we'd bring friends over, we'd try and pick solve puzzles together. You take notes, um,
00:34:32
Speaker
but this was sort of before the internet for me to get the internet a bit late too. So we, I couldn't go online and like look stuff up. Um, I had the same thing with alone in the dark. The other one, the big one was alone in the dark. the first alone and yeah yeah and i would just get stuck and I couldn't solve it. And there was no internet to go to, to like look up solutions. So these games would last you months, um, or longer or just, you never finish them.
00:34:54
Speaker
Uh, and I have a very vivid memory of, uh, playing Kings quest six and realizing that there was a BBS bulletin board. So you could go online to get solutions.
00:35:05
Speaker
Now keep in mind, I'm in an international, look I'm in into different country, right? And this is like a one 900 number or something. And so I, you know, my, my parents go to the grocery store or something and I like sneak around and I go get the phone line and I unhook the phone and I drag it into the computer room and I plug it into the compact and i log in and I know, I know what I'm doing.
00:35:24
Speaker
I log in and I'm like racing time because I know that like if the if the call goes on too long, it's going to become extremely expensive. So I'm like speed reading, but like, welcome to the Sierra BBS. I'm looking for like hints as three enter, ah find the game, King's Quest six, enter, go to the place in the game. I'm trying to, and I i didn't think at that time, like print anything out. would just like would read it and write it on a piece of paper, speed reading this stuff. It's like, Oh yeah, the the code for the door is, and then like log out and like disconnect the thing and put it all back before they would return.
00:35:52
Speaker
and just hope that the call was cheap enough that they would never like flag it. They'd never be like, what's this $20 phone call? So I would just like so try and keep the the call length as low as possible because was international phone call to like a 900 number to like get one answer to one adventure game puzzle.
00:36:08
Speaker
um those are the Those are the tough times. Kids don't know. Yeah. I mean there were several times, you know, growing up a massive adventure game fan, especially ah a Sierra fan, like learning that the Sierra BBS existed, like immediately prompted me going to my parents and say, it's like, look, I know in this house we have strict rules about long distance phone calls. yeah But if I could just dial into this for a few minutes, I think it might change my life. Absolutely not. And then then when the Sierra Network launched, yeah the Imagination Network later on, was like, look, now this is like a fully graphical opportunity for me to play Red Baron against people all around the world. It's like, surely you must see the value in a single $20 phone call or something like that. Absolutely not. No way. So, yeah, I knew those things were out there. I knew that some kids were enjoying them. But, yeah. I enjoyed the Sierra Network. You were just always bragging about it then. You were too honest. You should have just snuck it.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, that I wouldn't be here today. You don't know my mother and her her hatred of long distance telephone charges. I mean, it was it was really one of the most important principles she lived her life by was not having a large long distance phone bill. I respect that.
00:37:29
Speaker
We had family that lived like an hour away that we talked to every six years. Well, was it necessarily the long distance phone call that, that like helped, you know, encourage that or, or was that just a convenient excuse?
00:37:45
Speaker
Oh, I mean, my parents were happy to encourage all of my bad gaming habits that didn't incur by the minute charges. oh they were I meant the family members. Oh, no, yeah, and they absolutely. yeah That was at that part was absolutely a good excuse. Yeah, yeah absolutely. You don't know my mother. You certainly don't know my extended family. They're crazy.
00:38:08
Speaker
You wouldn't believe them. I've got a tight five about them.
00:38:14
Speaker
in a very least 10. That's right. Yeah. Can't recommend that show. don't Come to the second show. it' Sloppy 10. Yeah, we love it.
00:38:25
Speaker
and When I think that's one of the sandwiches you can get at Subway, actually. Yeah. Sloppy 10. Give me some of that sub crunch. You don't have sub crunch now at subway. What the fuck is a sub crunch?
00:38:41
Speaker
It's basically cornflakes. You can get on your sub, um, for a crunchiness. Um, it's, it's spelled. It's one word. U B K R U N C H. Uh, so I guess it's trademarked, uh, because of the K and it's also a comedy K.
00:38:59
Speaker
They, uh, it's essentially, they just saw people add potato chips to sandwiches. That's the thing. you can just do that. Yeah. They have them sitting right there. They have bags of them. Yeah. But no, they're basically, it's like, yeah, fancy, fancy Subway cornflakes. But they don't have the hotel mini boxes of cornflakes sitting there at the, no. All right. Do those mini boxes, does that still exist? I haven't seen it. The last time I was at a hotel. Yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
they're They're like in plastic like buckets now. Yeah, it's such a letdown. That's less fun. Like I don't want to peel the top off of a little like yogurt container style of cereal. I want to rip open a miniature box with a smaller version of the art that is normally on the regular box. this Tiny little wax paper bag inside. Yes. Get your four Froot Loops out of there. yeah Yeah. Makes you feel so big. it felt Like a giant. i say This is someone that six to Gulliver cereal. it Yeah, it's amazing. So.
00:39:59
Speaker
i so I feel like, so, so you said you were at Telltale when it was, when it was a smaller around, around what, what games were in development when you, you started there.
Telltale Games and The Walking Dead
00:40:15
Speaker
So I, I was just lucky enough to happen to be there when walking dead was just kicking off. so I actually got hired there because of, I believe, uh, missed fan sites and bunch of missed puzzles I made online. And I like walks to like the, the design director through that stuff.
00:40:30
Speaker
And then I got the job, which is really cool. But at the time, they had the King's Quest license. And so, as I said earlier, oh yeah heck yeah, let's go. King's Quest, I'm excited. So um that's what I was hoping to work on. And that's kind of what they told me, you'll probably be working on King's Quest.
00:40:45
Speaker
um So at the time, I think they had just finished Back to the Future. They were working on the Jurassic Park game. and uh i love that game by the way fun yeah it's fun uh it's very different amazing death scenes it's definitely not an adventure game in the classical but um it's fun it was telltale kind of trying to try and branch out and try some different stuff you know yeah uh and i don't think i honestly don't think the walking dead would have shipped in the format it had without like the jurassic park game as a stepping stone so you know it definitely gets credit for that um and so i showed up and i was like can't wait to work on king's quest and they took me aside and you're like so walking dead and i was like
00:41:21
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I mean, okay. And then but one day King's Quest for sure. And they're like, yeah, definitely for sure. And then we just quietly did nothing with that license and let it elapse. and then And then the other folks did the the new King's Quest games. Which is great. I would have loved to seen Telltale's take on it. Me too, man. What fun project that would have been. Oh my gosh. Yep, all the stupid inventory items that you, if you don't collect an hour one, you die an hour 20 and you don't know about it till the end. I would have made all that stuff for for sure happen. But ah so yeah, I just, I got there.
00:41:51
Speaker
And, you know, obviously Telltale was already doing very well at that point. You know, Sam and Max is very popular and um all those games are doing very well. ah And i think i I was definitely like under, they were under 100, I think, at that point. And then The Walking Dead really kind of blew up in a way nobody really expected.
00:42:08
Speaker
And we just started hiring and hiring and hiring. kind of It kind of became a big, like, factory. Mm-hmm. I, you know, i this is certainly not my story, so I don't want to tell it out of school, but the, the, the Telltale was never supposed to come Telltale formula, like the walking dead style of game, like the timer ticking down and the silence, you could pick silence and like the so-and-so remember that, like that was something that, um, that the, the, the game, like the show runners of that game, Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanderman pushed because that's how like the comic book felt, right? Like it's tense. You don't always get to make the right decision. You gotta make a snap judgment. Sometimes it gets people killed. Um, it's just, you know, it's, it's high tension at stakes is always moving. And if you say something shitty to someone three, eight three chapters later in the comic book, they throw it back in your face. And like, that was the whole point of is, it was evoking the comic book. It was never supposed to be like, this is the new paradigm for every telltale game.
00:42:58
Speaker
But you know, it's what happened with with a lot of lot lot of our studios where it was so successful and it worked so well with the, with the game engine that we already had that didn't require a lot of new mechanics that we were like, let's just keep making games in this style. which worked worked for a while, but eventually people started getting like, oh, it's just another Telltale game. Like, oh, this this new one, it's just it's just it's just the Telltale formula again with this this license.
00:43:20
Speaker
So I think that did kind of cause a little bit of fatigue after a while once once the studio was much larger and we didn't have a lot of, it became a lot harder to like kind of take risks, you know? and We've talked a little bit about this. You know, i think you know as someone who was following Telltale at the time as a player, you know, some of those later releases toward the end are, you know, really quite good games. I think both the seasons of Batman. i mean, it's great.
00:43:47
Speaker
they are fantastic, but you look back at the reviews and there are a lot of sixes and sevens flying around and the reviews essentially were just all framed in terms of the fatigue yeah of of what becomes sort of the house style there. It's a shame because I think there are a lot of games in those later years that didn't get the fair shake they deserve because that was the lens that that the you know community began viewing them through. And yeah, it it really does. Does some of those later games dirty? I agree with that. I do agree. I think if you go back and play Batman or Minecraft story mode or any of those games, they're like really, really clever use of the mechanics. They really did like actually evolve what those mechanics were used for um that. If you kind of saw them with without that baggage, you might see them in a new life for sure.
00:44:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think watching you play Batman season two, Jess, I still think about, like, that was that was such a fun stream.
Tales from the Borderlands Design Philosophy
00:44:40
Speaker
That's such a fun and interesting. Yeah, it's a fantastic, I mean, yeah, the idea, I mean, it's it's impressive to come up with anything new to do with Batman. at Or with the Joker. Yeah, here in the 21st century. And they did some neat stuff. Yeah, I'm curious. And and I think that actually ties into it. I've spoken to to someone before that was at Telltale around those those later years.
00:45:04
Speaker
And they had told me a little bit about what it was like wrangling IP. And I'm curious, you know, with your background, you know, on Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands, ah what was that experience like at Telltale?
00:45:18
Speaker
It's a great question. So IP games, especially for an outside studio, is ah is such a dangerous thing because you're you're you're banking a lot on the IP being sick like like popular and successful enough that people that wouldn't necessarily play a game might come over to play. like I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones.
00:45:37
Speaker
does that translate to becoming a Game of Thrones game player? And you really, you ride a lot rides on that. So, and they they come in with expectations, right? So, and it's something with Diablo, it's something like any game in it in a long running franchise where you, people will come in with expectations and everyone's expectations are different. Like what Batman means to me might be very different from what it means to you. How it feel, how it should feel to be Batman is maybe feel different, right? So um it was it's it's very it was the first thing we would do. So I was the i was the lead designer on,
00:46:08
Speaker
tailstone borderlands for the first year and then i kind of transitioned off and handed it off to the team that shipped it so that i can't claim the quality like my stuff is there underneath the foundation but the the fact that that's a fantastic season of game i can't take much credit for it so you know but i was there it is a fantastic just such an incredible job the game they shipped way better than the one i would have shipped i'll just say that but but a lot of the foundational work i was there for so um working with gearbox was ah super fun. Uh, like we worked with, with the creatives and the writers and stuff over there and they were just so stoked to just bounce ideas around. But the first thing we always do is like, what does it feel like to, and this but borderlands is a bit easier because it's already a game property. So you can be like, what does it feel like to play borderlands?
00:46:49
Speaker
Um, so it was like, okay, here are the things that like, if you had to squint and blurrily explain what borderlands was to somebody here, how would you do it mechanically? So it's like, okay, it's, You know, the world is really dangerous. um Nobody's a good person. Like you're stealing loot from your friends. Everyone's kind of ah a jerk to each other. um There's lots of players all happen. It's like a multiplayer game. So a lot of kind of chaos happening. The world is, you know, has a very specific style to it. It obviously has kind of like the meme-y, you know, pop culture references and stuff. And so we try to like figure out like, okay, for example, multiplayer. it Well, Telltale's not going to make a multiplayer game. How can we get that feeling of multiplayer, like backstabbing this into this, into this game?
00:47:29
Speaker
And that's where I came up with two sides to every story where you have Fiona and Reese and they tell a story and they're kind of lying and maybe they call each other out. And and so like, how can we sort of simulate what it feels like to play those games with a totally different set of mechanics, um which, you know, ah you, you will do with some success and some less success. But I think that really thinking through like, how do you feel, what were the emotions that are triggered when you're enjoying this property and kind of why, and how can we trigger similar emotions to, to,
00:47:58
Speaker
those but with the mechanics that we have, because we're going to shooting sequences, right? So how can we get you to feel like you're backstabbing your buddy without stealing loot from somebody? Well, that's fantastic. you I'd never thought about that. That puts it in such perspective because, you know,
00:48:14
Speaker
Reese and Fiona are such fantastic characters and such a great part of that game to sort of frame them as a way of capturing that, that multiplayer mode. And then I think also, you know, makes me wonder, maybe you could, you could comment on this. Like I think of, and I'm blanking on the name right now, ah Reese's best friend but and yes. And Fiona's sister. so Yes. Give it that. I mean, I feel like almost that,
00:48:44
Speaker
get some of that multiplayer hanging out with your buds sort of vibe element of it too. In addition to the backstabbing, no, that's why that's a great new way to think about that game looking back. Cause I love tales from the borderlands. It's such a delightful game. It's incredible. the team did an incredible job. Um, I'm happy. I got to be there for as long as I didn't sort of set them, set the foundation for success, but they just took it to another level. And i think that, um,
00:49:09
Speaker
the The struggle was always like, okay, we're not going to go to a vault and we're not vault hunters. Like vault hunters are super powerful. Like they yeah they they blow up scores of dudes and we're not going to do that. So we need to make them just like average idiots.
00:49:22
Speaker
with no powers and the time they meet a vault hunter was like they're like oh my god it's a vault oh we're we're in big seems like a superhero they're like but like it's like it's like meeting like homelander you're like oh we might just die right now you know like it's it's um so that was really important too and uh like you said having the having the npcs that are like your kind of number twos there to sort of you know build relation because like again telltale is about building relationships with people so you want to have ah a cast of characters that's sort of recurring that you can that you can rely on and learn their kind of like quibbles and like, oh, Vaughn's a little bit more like this and Sasha's a little bit more like that.
00:49:53
Speaker
um Fun fact that Vaughn used to be way more like negative and scaredy-catty all the time. And he was like, i don't know about this, Reece. I'm a little little scared about this. And we were just like, this guy's just telling me to quit the game.
00:50:05
Speaker
Like, you need someone who's like, down to clown. and so like we went back through and like all of him, all the stuff of up, but like we need a million dollars. And he like goes, done. Uh, is, was just, we need a guy who's like ready for the adventure. Even if he's like, Hmm, I think we should go X, X directions that are Y direction. The first run of, of that character was supposed to be like the nerdy banker guy and he's out of his depth and he's scared and he's clutching his briefcase. Um, he's like I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this.
00:50:30
Speaker
But anytime you play Reese, you were just like, I hate this guy. He's telling me to like effectively not engage with this content. So, It's definitely a lesson that I learned, like writing NPCs and writing like like support characters all the way through, even in Diablo. Like you've got to, they can feel scared. They can have their opinions. They can be like, I don't agree with this. But ultimately they kind of have to like buy into the adventure. Otherwise you're like, this guy's just dragging me down and I don't want to be around him.
00:50:52
Speaker
And that that just drags the whole energy down, you know? Yeah. As you end with a friendship there, that's like one of the defining traits of the, of the season. I felt like, yeah. And like tales from the borderlands is so like kind of peppy and high energy.
00:51:06
Speaker
And so having someone that is, is like, Oh, I don't want to do that. Yeah. You're like, well, I'm gonna, yeah but you doesn you you can have those cam like the whole point was that he's a come commit comedic relief character right but like he even so and he's like he's just constantly like just telling you to like he's pulling you back from doing the fun thing constantly it's like a leash like pulling you back from the fun thing you're like this is borderlands i want to cause some chaos and he's like i'm scared it just it just makes you feel guilty and you're like i guess i just quit the game to make him happy so it's yeah it was just it just you win yeah it's like you've got to think about the like the like the sort of
00:51:38
Speaker
the the momentum of the character like pulling you forward or pulling you back you know especially I think in an adventure game that moves at a slower pace than say an action game I mean already you know it's it's more deliberate than a lot of other genres and if there's something yeah just sort of hinting to you maybe maybe this adventure isn't worth your time yeah that yeah that's not going work out for the player yeah Uh, you know, so you worked on, ah tales from the borderlands and you worked on the walking dead and, you know, tell like, and those are those, you know, as we were kind of talking about those, those tell like those propulsive,
00:52:19
Speaker
a telltale like narrative games then later most recently you worked on the cyan games and ah like there's I have to assume that the the game design for Mist and Riven are entirely different,
Myst and Riven Remakes
00:52:41
Speaker
right? Yes, absolutely. Just slightly, yeah. Yeah, they don't they don't have dialogue options. They expect you to read like 17 pages of journals. there No one remembers anything. That's true.
00:52:54
Speaker
That's true, yeah. ah Yeah, designing. so So for clarification, when I got to Cyan, Riven was very close to completion. i was lucky enough to playtest early Greybok, sort of like layouts and stuff, give feedback and like help does like so like problem solve. like hey, what if we kind of change this? Because the remake of Riven has a lot of new content, new puzzles, new areas. And it was actually a real...
00:53:17
Speaker
joy to get to play Riven kind of from scratch again, which is not a thing you really get a lot. Even in remakes, it's just kind of like ah an up-res version of the game you know, and all the logic still works. You know where to go. You got to know to do, which is kind of how the new Myst is, which it looks gorgeous, but it's it's like if you know how to play Myst, you can just steam seen through that game. But Riven, they wanted to do something very different, and I think it was the right call.
00:53:38
Speaker
And they got, um you know, they brought the band back together. They got Richard VanderWijn, was the original um a production director or a production person on that game, kind of gave it its sort of distinct look. And they got him to help to design new puzzles, add new lore, all that stuff. So it was a really special experience that gets to sort of not only play that from scratch, from like a new experience and like get befuddled again.
00:54:02
Speaker
but to help them say, you know ah you know, when I was playing, this particular puzzle was really resonant and really important to me. And I i think we should maybe push it this way or that way. But I wouldn't certainly wouldn't say that I was like driving design on that game. um When I was at Cyan, we were working on a ah ah new kind of way. We were kind of like trying out some new stuff to work on. um And ultimately, ah we we weren't able to to get that going. But i did I was lucky enough to work on the rhyme ah ah piece, a new age for Myst. So that one I was pretty heavily involved from kind of the beginning to end in terms of design. And yeah, it was very, very different from a Walking Dead game, which is very dialogue heavy. And Myst is very dialogue light. So
00:54:45
Speaker
was was there Was there anything, like, was there anything where you were, ah like, from your, like, Telltale, or even Diablo, like, our or Blizzard, rather, like, experience that kind of bled in to that? That's a good question. I mean, there's there's sort of, like, the high level as you get, as you do your job for a long time, you just sort of sharpen your instincts kind of kind of ah experience that kind of brought got brought in. I think that spending a lot of time in three d spaces and kind of understanding how to draw the player's eye or to sort of ah like level design spaces out, like like the Cyan juice is how they design their spaces to to turn, you turn a corner and there's beautiful grand revealer. You go through like a tunnel and then now you're out in open area, you see big gold dome. And like, it's like they block lines of sight beautifully to sort of like give you a little glimpse of a thing. And then you don't you don't see it again for a while, like hints that something's coming. um but really trying to make sure that like puzzle and narrative comes through ah very cleanly.
00:55:49
Speaker
The thing I learned ah from not from walking dead and also Diablo, which is a game that has story and has stuff going on, but most people like just skip, skip, skip. I just need to know where to go to kill the demons. Thank you. Click, click, click, click. Yeah. Heartbreaking, but I, we know, you know, and, and, and it's a cyan was that, you know, you need to spread your story around a lot of different vectors and it has to sort of repeat itself a little bit where like, yeah,
00:56:13
Speaker
it's that joke from ah the good place where like we got all three of your clues. And he's like, I put 10,000 clues out there. Um, so you, you have to like spread, you gotta spread it everywhere. And so dia in Diablo, you use every part of the Buffalo to tell the story. And that's, that's everything from, you know, the obvious stuff like, um, quest name and quest dialogue with the NPC to the level area. Like when you enter now entering the the the bloody moors um to the monsters you choose to fight, like, oh I'm choosing to fight ghosts here instead of demons to the name of those things are called, you know, on unrestful spirits. It helps every little piece just like,
00:56:48
Speaker
sort of helps you kind of coalesce. Oh, um' I'm not really paying attention because I'm watching Naruto on my second monitor right now, but I kind of generally know what's going on. um And so you really have to like break the story into pieces and scatter it as finely across the space as you possibly can so that each person kind pick up different parts of it and they can kind of assemble it in their mind into sort of a ah story. And there's a lot of people who love the story in Diablo and will go and like eat all of it, um but a lot of people won't. You have to sort of cater to both audiences. And so working on Cyan Games, obviously that the,
00:57:19
Speaker
They're a slower pace, and the and the ah the the fan base and the the people who play those games want a slower experience with diet with with journals to read and oak doors to open and nooks and crannies to sort of explore and and story to sort of passively go, oh, that's why this is like this, because he he went around the bubble. They kind of put it together because of the environmental storytelling.
00:57:38
Speaker
um But even so, that lesson still was pretty built into my mind of like, OK, we want to tell the story about the brothers from Myst. as teenagers before they become evil, just as kids, just as normal kids. ah And okay, there are ways to do that. And we have to break up that story into multiple places. We can't just have it be like, it's just in this one journal. If you skip the journal, you won't know any of that stuff. So that's that's the, at least i don't know if we succeeded, but that's the goal is like making sure that you can you can get what's going on from just kind of like scanning the room.
00:58:10
Speaker
ah So I would say that that kind of was that through line of, of learnings of like, you can't rely on people to care as much as you do. Actually, that was the number one heartbreaking true rule of learning learning a video game. No one will ever care about your lore as much as you do.
00:58:24
Speaker
Never. They might care a lot, but, but obviously you care more. So, you know, you can't expect people to like energetically consume deep, dense world building where you're like,
00:58:37
Speaker
in the year two seven AD King Drathomir fought the demon. Like there's like, they check out immediately. i used to joke about pouring the cold water of a bucket of proper nouns over people's head immediately. yeah And they're like, I'm not even emotionally invested yet. And I got to like learn like history and stuff. And like, they just check out. And so kind of knowing when and where to put those bits of story and people be like, okay, I'm ready. i kind of got my footing. I kind of understand the general bounds of the world. They'll hit me with some story.
00:59:08
Speaker
um Okay, that's enough story. Thank you. I want to go explore. And so kind of like making sure that you don't just load it up and kind of know exactly where to deploy it is is something that you kind of learn over time.
00:59:19
Speaker
You know, you you mentioned the journals in rhyme and that actually. So just before i I ask this question, I'd i'd like to to call out. So in advance of speaking with you, reached out to a friend of friend of the pod. ah A pod friend.
00:59:41
Speaker
pod Pod friend is better. A pod person. but person po pod person. person. Yeah. Streamer ah bogus meat factory follow him on Twitch. That's a great name. Incredible. It's a good name.
00:59:55
Speaker
He's playing wing commander and I watched him beat wing commander one last night. It was really cool. Wow. Nice. I've never beaten. Never gotten the anywhere. in queen commander like but Like the first escort mission. I'm like, all right, I was packed this one up. ja Enough of that. Yeah. But ah but he is he is someone that is ah very much ah like a Myst fan. And so I brought this up and I i said that you worked on Rhyme.
01:00:27
Speaker
And so he had a bunch of, like, ah he he sent some questions about it. um this is one And this was the one that specifically he said, you don't have to answer, you don't have to ask all these questions, but please ask this one. so Got it.
01:00:43
Speaker
i So, quote, Journals are such an ingrained part of Ms. Identity. When writing them for Rime, what were some of the challenges to help humanize two objectively evil antagonists?
01:00:57
Speaker
And as a follow-up, how do you feel that pistolaries can contribute to the narrative of a game in an engaging way without feeling like it disturbs the pacing and momentum of the gameplay?
01:01:11
Speaker
It's a great question. A great. Yeah, I thought it was a good. He asked you just one question, that's two questions. Well, he did say as a follow up, he probably wanted me to ask a two part question. I've been in the rules. That's at least a question and a half. He sent me a bunch of them. This is not. No, that's OK. I didn't give me one.
01:01:29
Speaker
That's fine. It was. So when we so when we were like, we're going to do rhyme, ah I I look back on the first run. So Ryan was in real missed the first 3D version of this.
01:01:41
Speaker
And I remember buying Real Mist and being so excited to play it because it came with a new age. And Ryan was so cool and evocative. The art was incredible. It's this cold age. It's so different from the other places. But there really wasn't much to it mechanically or so or spatially. it was There's just not a lot of meat on that bone.
01:01:57
Speaker
um And so I remember I was never disappointed, but I was like, oh, I kind of i was hoping for a little bit more of a little little more juice on this. And so when we got a chance to remake it, I think that was my number one priority. And and Claire Hummel, who was the art director the we were kind of like ah ah ah a duo, like a cohort. We were both like, we got to make this kind of feel worth it. um Like, what can we add to Rhyme to make it feel like a nice coda to the story?
01:02:24
Speaker
what like because Because at this point, there's no more pages to get. There were blue and red pages. And there's no, like, and and and this is the kind of a weakness with the rhyme right now anyway. It's like, there's no real like, and there's never like, you did it, congrats. um and But like, what can we do to make it feel like something that really adds value to Myst?
01:02:40
Speaker
And so we settled on ah the the boys because they, in the journals, in the real Myst version, he does mention bringing them there and helping them construct. So they were clearly like a family doing ah a little project together.
01:02:53
Speaker
And I said, you know, the boys don't get a ton of a humanization or really any sort of, characterization at all because it's a game from the 90s and that really wasn't needed back then but in the years since then everyone's you know all the other missed games that have kind of dealt with those with those adult kind of bad guy characters we we have a better understanding of who they are but i think that it would be nice to understand them as like to humanize them and understand like who they were as people because like i don't like one-dimensional villains i don't think that they are one-dimensional villains like how how did they get to this point i thought it was really compelling
01:03:26
Speaker
um And one of the things that is sort of a common, it's become kind of ah like ah like a popular headcanon in the Myst community is that Atrus was just a bad father. Like he was just kind of an absentee father who was like, I got experiments to do. Kids, off you go. Go live your life. There's a lot of bad dads in fiction. I totally agree. But I actually argue that Atrus is not, Atrus and Catherine, who's the wife, is are not bad parents. um I just think that they gave their kids too much of a benefit of the doubt. Like Atrus is so very trusting and and and his wife is a very, trust they're both very trusting. And they were like they're ah they're kind of teenagers. They're kind of adults. Like we should treat them like adults. and And I think that was kind of the issue. I don't think he was just like, I'm not interested in being a father because that doesn't match the character that I know. Anyway, that's a side story. But we we ah decided we wanted to, you know, add some additional puzzles ah and add some additional lore to make it feel like a new exciting thing for for fans.
01:04:20
Speaker
And so I settled the journals of the boys, the Cirrus and Achenar journals. And the whole team was like, awesome. Like, cool. If you want to write them, great. And so everybody was on board with doing that. And to get to the actual question, the meat of the question of like, what are the what are the struggles? Like, I, from the very beginning, knew that I didn't want to just write them like child versions of the the men that we knew.
01:04:44
Speaker
where like, oh, Achenar is a weirdo who likes killing cats. And Cirrus, you can see that he's going to become an alcoholic later because he has a weird, addictive personality. Like, that to me just felt like, again, reducing them to the sort of comic caricatures of who they were. A pup named Scooby-Doo. Yeah, yeah. Like, they already are fully formed at like 14, but...
01:05:04
Speaker
yeah but they just haven't become like actually evil yet. They're like, Oh, they're on way though. It's a classic, a pup named Scooby-Doo. Yeah. Yeah. We can't pup named Scooby-Doo. These guys I said in a meeting and everyone nodded. Yes. We know what that means. And so, you know, I, I, you know, video game is video games are,
01:05:26
Speaker
ah designing video games is is sort of applied behavioral psychology. So like spending a lot of time thinking about people and why they do shit that they do, right? So I said, you know, I think what would be fun is seeing them as children and seeing the positive traits that then go sour and become kind of their, their you know, ah negative traits. But I don't want, like you could see how in a different world they could have continued to aid and like become positive versions of themselves.
01:05:52
Speaker
um And so I was just thinking about like, Cirrus at 13, Achenar at 16, who would they be? what what have they gone through? i didn't want to make them like these weird traumatized, like like ostracized weirdos, because I wanted this to be like, hey,
01:06:07
Speaker
Atrus is showing you his children when they were a family. Like, this is the last happy time they spent together. Because there's a little note at the end of Mestim, when you go back into the library, he says, I want you to see my brothers, my sons, because I know you see them as evil people, but I want you to see them the way I saw them for many years, as children, as my sons, as people I loved. And that's the heartbreak of these characters. So I thought about, okay... Cirrus wants desperately to have his father's approval. He's kind of like a little scientist, just like his father. He just desperately wants to make his dad proud, but he's also afraid of looking stupid in front of his dad. So maybe he has a little thing where he has an idea, but it's kind of a shame and doesn't want to tell his dad his idea because he's worried about it. And Achenar just, again, like I did, I'm trying to figure out like, okay, maybe he's more like Catherine, maybe he's more his mother. And so maybe he's very introspective. He's very empathetic. You can see that Sirius is going through something. Sirius is pacing around and he's like, I guess I got to talk to this kid and tell him how to, like I can tell he's frustrated. And so that's why Achenar's journal has like more like doodles and drawings. He's very observant. He's much more like artistic-y kind of to feel, just to kind make their voices a little bit different.
01:07:16
Speaker
But writing children is tough. As far as challenges go, writing teenagers is real tough because you don't, again, you don't want to make them cutesy and give them weird little affectations, but you also need them to sound not like adults. So getting that voice right and getting the texture that voice is difficult um because sometimes you read teenagers and you're like, this is just an adult. Like ah a teenager would never say these things.
01:07:36
Speaker
um So that was a chat. way um I went through multiple revisions. I had a lot of great editing notes from from Claire and a bunch of people who gave fantastic notes on kind of tweaking language or pulling back. Oh, oh we should reference Channel Wood or whatever.
01:07:48
Speaker
um So that is kind of that that was kind of the thrust of what I was trying to accomplish with writing those journals is showing you how. you know, oh, there's a breakthrough where they they figure out they need to slice the crystals into lenses and Sirius is all stoked and he's really happy. And then at some point he gets injured. He goes out, he sneaks out to go look at whales because his dad's like, you can't go watch the whales at night. So he sneaks out, slips on the ice, cracks his head.
01:08:11
Speaker
And then Achenor is like, fuck, I fuck dumb ass. I got to go find him, patch him up. And like, it's our little secret. We won't tell dad. and And there's an H.S. journal where he says, like, well, they're clearly hiding something. But you know what? Like, it's probably good that they're leaning on each other more. So I'm not going I'm not going poke at it. It's I'm glad that they have secrets that are not for their dad, which is like you dummy. They're going have a lot more secrets in a couple of years. So you can kind of see how these little moments as teenagers, we've all had a moment where we like broke a bone or fell out of a tree. And it like formulated like a crystallized in a moment.
01:08:44
Speaker
like it like it freezes that moment in time forever and your personality shifts permanently because of it. And so I didn't want it to be so dramatic that it was unbelievable. Like, oh, this is the thing that makes him evil. But you can see how, you know, oh, they started to form a bond where they start to like hide things from their parents. um And Achenor says something like, oh, like Sirius needs to grow up and understand that like dad's just a guy. Like he makes mistakes too. And maybe you can see in the future in the unwritten part between that, the rhyme and mist where like Achenor start telling Sirius like,
01:09:14
Speaker
dad doesn't know everything he's dead that's not that smart he's you know you can skip to see maybe that's where that comes from so just showing the first step and letting letting the the player sort of interpret maybe what could have happened between rhyme and the and them becoming evil but knowing kind of where to stop that was was very challenging and uh then Um, and then how did it ah you feel about like ah the, the diaries and the pacing of the game?
01:09:45
Speaker
Luckily, Myst is real slow. Um, and and so what's nice. Not a problem. Yeah. it Just take as long as you want. Um, uh, journal reading is always slow. And I think that we, I really tried to keep the number of pages low because like in Myst, the very first game, the, the, each of the books for the ages is really long. It's like 20 something pages. It's so long. And that's a where a lot of like modern gamers just they get to that, and they start clicking, how many pages are there? And it just keeps going. And they're like, you know what?
01:10:13
Speaker
I'm good. I don't need to play this game. So I knew I wanted to keep it short-ish.
Pacing and Player Experience in Games
01:10:18
Speaker
um And the trouble is, when you're writing a journal for a game like Myst, there is like like like puzzle clues in there.
01:10:26
Speaker
But you don't want to like underline and bold them so that when you're skipping through, you can just be like, there's the thing I need. um But you don't not want to do that because you want to respect how people play the game. And I think that's one of those things, again, like that I've learned over the years is you kind of have to meet gamers where they're at. And by saying that, I don't mean like lower the bar, get all rid of the friction, like just just point them at the answer. that That's not at all what I mean. But like people come to miss for a certain experience. So we should kind of like remember that while we're designing it um and just take that into consideration, not necessarily like pander directly to a specific kind of player, but say, look,
01:11:00
Speaker
there is a lot of text. There's a ton of text. And if you want to learn lore and learn the characters, it's there for you. But if you just want the puzzle solution, that's why the number is circled in us. It's circled on one side and the code for the the imaging devices on the final page. So when you're spamming through it, you're like, that's the end. Cool. up I see a thing screenshot.
01:11:19
Speaker
um And so you've got try and find, and for some people, that's too much direction. And some people that's not enough direction. Cause there's, there's such a breadth of, especially in adventure games, like what's too hard and what's too easy. So,
01:11:31
Speaker
There's no way to get it perfect. you know and i think i Ultimately, I think the puzzle in ri in Rhyme, I put too many steps it. made it a little bit too complicated for folks. um But ah my my goal was to add some actual zhuzh, some actual meat to the bone of being in Rhyme. I think we over-indexed a little bit, but that's another story for another time. But I do think that because journals, notes are are fun and important to Myst. Myst is a game about books. you know You kind of know that if you're Myst fan. I didn't want to make it a three-page journal. So you have to sort of go, OK,
01:12:01
Speaker
this, this generally feels about right. I don't feel taxed when I get to reading it. A lot of feedback from the rest of the team. Like, how did it feel to read this? Did it at the end where you're like, Jesus Christ, that so long. Um, or did it feel right? do we, can we trim it down, but still keep the core like the core of it there? But you know, there's a, there's like a letter to Catherine that's totally optional. You can find or not find it. If you want to read it, you can, if you don't want to, you don't have to. Um,
01:12:24
Speaker
ah So it's it's kind of ah it's a balancing act, and I don't think there's any ah any way to get it perfect, but I think Myst is lucky in that it's a game, ah fans of Myst games, Cyan games, are looking for journals to read, are looking for lore, looking for character, looking for like the rules of the world and all that stuff, so you can get away with it more, that the pacing is slower.
01:12:47
Speaker
um And I think you just to be really careful about putting all that stuff too close together when you're talking about pacing, like The boys' journals are kind of near each other, but they're only like four or five, six pages total.
01:12:57
Speaker
Atreus' journals are always real wordy, but we we kind of push them apart. So there's a lot of exploration you get to do between those. So you get to go up the elevator, you get to play with your Aurora machine, you get to turn the thing around, go, spoilers, go outside in the back, you can see the whales, you can go down to his room. Oh, here okay, here's another journal. This is a long one, but, and then after that, you close that, then you go down even further and you find the crystal room and there's all sorts other, so you've just kind of kind of find places to place those things that isn't like okay you walk into a room and there's 17 journals to read all in one place you're like you're immediately like oh my god this is becoming homework uh so really keeping keeping and finding other ways to tell that story too like okay we could write a journal entry here or a note here but is there a way we can tell it to the environment is there a way we can tell the story through the through the without any words
01:13:44
Speaker
Um, and so you definitely want to try and trim that stuff down as much as you can. If you're like, okay, this is a room with a lot of journals. We got to cut a bunch of them out of here. Cause it's, you walk in here and you see all the journals and you just go, Oh,
01:13:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, especially like late in a game when you hit like, oh, here's the reading section, like right as the momentum's building. Yeah. I mean, even for those of us who love that kind of narrative that can, know, this pacing questions, you i think about a genre like adventure games where it's maybe harder than in some genres to control pacing. I mean, it is very much a move at your own speed sort of genre for a lot of players. And to think about how you even just space out longer bits of lore drops with, with shorter punchier ones are telling that, you know, showing, not telling opportunities and things like that is, is a fascinating way to look at how you might achieve that pacing in a genre. That's very much moving your own speed.
01:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. And again, it's, it's very like opt in, like you decide how much you want to read, but again, like it's tough when you puzzle solutions or puzzle clues in there, you've got to really like, you you kind of have to get them to read it. And yeah, it's a struggle. It is a struggle. um I do, like you said, like if, you know, if the game feels like it's ramping up to something big, putting a big hefty journal right before, right after the moment, can be like, oh I just want to go. I know I've got the solution in my mind. i want to go plug in the code or whatever. You've got to, you know, find those right moments of, and every game has, you know, ups and downs and peaks and valleys that you can kind of be like, and this is what we learned on Diablo too, is like, find the valleys to put the story in. Don't put it like, while I'm trying to fight a hundred monsters, I have a guy like, let me tell you the story of my childhood. and you're like buddy, I'm trying not to die right now. So you've got to like find the right moments to, when to deliver story and when to let the game kind of just go.
01:15:24
Speaker
So yeah, I think you've got it. You you got it. You nailed it there.
VR Game Development Considerations
01:15:28
Speaker
I, you know, and so I haven't i haven't ah ah played this, ah the the recent Myst remake, but I am going to get it because I have a Quest 3 sitting here, so I might as well try it out in in the VR. ah did did that affect, like did...
01:15:53
Speaker
Did that factor into any of your, your thought through it's like, people are going to be peering through oh yeah reading journal entries with like this thing on their head. oh yeah. Yeah. I can't put it on. I put it on for 90 seconds and I want to die. So I actually was like, if we're going to test VR stuff, someone else has to do it. Cause I can't do it. they were like we'll send you a quest is it play a game is it not okay mobile like is it uh motion sickness motion sickness yeah i'm like that stinks that really stinks i love it so much but yeah it makes everyone sick yeah it's not it's i mean like some people can handle it some people can't i'm just not one of the people can't yeah no that's how it is yeah in riven there was a lot of uh okay we've got to like bring things up to sort chest height for people sitting down and using it um and i think that yeah i remember in mist we definitely had to keep in mind
01:16:40
Speaker
uh, sitting VR people that like, we can't put things on the ground cause they can't put their hand to the ground to touch a button. Oh yeah. We had to think about that stuff. Um, I think that we had talked about some kind of in world in like in headset journal system. Cause it stinks to like take the headset off and like take a note, put the headset back on. But we do have, at least you have the, the, um,
01:17:00
Speaker
the the camera and you can write notes on the camera like what you oh cool ah and at least in Riven I think you can I'm not sure if maybe we ported that back to Myst not sure but it's definitely one of those things of like okay yes um I don't want to have to literally hold my hand in front of my face with the controller and like do this with my hand to like turn pages there's a lot of pages so it gets very taxing so 100% thought about that stuff yeah and Ben do be careful if you play it in VR not to get sucked into the world of Myst That's the the world of reading.
01:17:36
Speaker
It will become my world. um That's that's the tagline, right? Like it's it's a surreal adventure, realistic, the surrealistic adventure that will become your world. Something like that. Surrealistic. What a word.
01:17:47
Speaker
did uh did the original mist come with that that gateway with uh king's quest six it didn't came with my gateway 2000 i remember no i remember gosh i don't remember how i was introduced to mist uh i think probably like an older school kid showed it to me. Um, and I didn't own it and I thought it was super cool and super creepy and and kind of scary and eerie. It was scary wait when I was a kid and played it I was scared. It, it scared me. And I like, it was just, there was, i and there's, there's nothing,
01:18:21
Speaker
like obviously scary about it. It was just scary. It's, the vibes are just, it's weird and you're alone and there's nothing here. It's always
Nostalgia and Strategy Guides
01:18:28
Speaker
weird kind of aggressive looking machines all around you. Like we talk about that a lot too. When I was at Cyan is like the the vibe of Riven or Mist at least is, is kind of spooky. The original one.
01:18:37
Speaker
um And so i i can't remember how I got introduced to MIS, but I remember ah loving it and playing it And then at some point I told my friend, oh man, I love that game MIS. I saw the box in like the computer store and looked at the box and read the back a bunch. I didn't own it. And maybe I read the chart that the the the strategy guide, which is what you do when you don't own the game. You just look at the pictures the strategy guide. Isn't that amazing? I miss those days. Okay, so. What way to learn about video games. Right? And so I remember deep, I remember buying or having or something, the the Prima Guide, which was written in like a story voice or like it was about a guy who was, ah he found himself on Myst and was like, he literally written like journal entries. Like I came across a weird thing. I flipped it back and forth. Nothing happened. Then I went in the library and read some books um and the and the clues for the puzzles were sort of like doled out
01:19:27
Speaker
with slow hints of like what he's noticing and then like more explicit and then more explicit from there until he just gives you the solution. But I remember reading that and being so enamored with like, oh, it's like reading a storybook version of Myst.
01:19:40
Speaker
um And I think there was also one for Riven that did a similar thing. And so ah what we were talking about before we started recording podcasts is I wrote the strategy guide, that the the player's guide for Riven, for the new Riven.
01:19:52
Speaker
And I said, they were like, can you just, we just need like a a guide for, play testers or not for play testers for like for, for press when we give the game to the press, but they just need to know, like, you know, because they only so much time to play the game, there might be parts where they kind of need some help to get through it. Can you just write like a top down here's, you know, here's, here's the details. was like,
01:20:08
Speaker
I would love to. Can I write it like the old Prima guides where it's a story? And they're like, if you want to spend time doing that, go for it. um And so the whole Riven Companion is ah written in that that format where it's like a person showing up in Riven and it's like all done in in world and character. It's two parts. So there's that. And then if you're look, man, I don't i don't have time for the story stuff. Just tell me how to solve the marble puzzle or whatever. i There's a second half, which is literally just puzzles, soft hints, medium hints.
01:20:36
Speaker
solution. And so you don't have to spoil yourself. If you just need a little hint, you can just get that. But I was very pleased. I wrote that thing like two weeks. It was like a real fast turnaround. And then Claire Hummel did all the beautiful art and sort of formatting of it. And so I was really happy that we were able to kind of keep the spirit of those old 90s strategy guides alive.
01:20:55
Speaker
that in game or do you find that on their website? No, it's a separate, it's a PDF. You can, I think you can buy it from the science store. I think it's also available on steam with like the art digital art book and stuff. um and it's like $10. So you know what? The internet has all that stuff for free, but it was' it's a cool package. um It's a fun little artifact from that game if that's something that that means anything to you. It was really fun to work on.
01:21:16
Speaker
i I do because, yeah, I mean, I've i've talked on here before, ah but very quickly when I got a LucasArts compendium when I was a kid that had a bunch of like Secret Monkey Island and Zach McCracken and so on and so forth. It came with manual with walkthroughs, but not direct walkthroughs with narrative walkthroughs. And I've always like enjoyed, it's like,
01:21:44
Speaker
written from the point of view of guy brush written from the point of view of indiana jones yeah uh and so on sierra was doing that with its companion books so i guess those were published by someone else but they had a king's quest companion that was split up very in a very similar way where it would have a narrative version of this of let's tell the story just talking about the puzzles and then there's a chapter after that that's like here's the shortcut with you know with all the just this is the puzzle spelled out and here's some maps and things like that but i was fascinated by this you know but to me kind of like you it was like this is this is as close as i'm ever going to get to a novelization of king's quest six yeah and uh it's fantastic yeah i loved it that's so cool i
01:22:24
Speaker
And I kind of like that the type of walkthrough, at least the ones haven't read yours. It's great. It's really good. I did a great job on it. Don't worry. That's what I've been hearing.
01:22:36
Speaker
The word on the street is 100% positive feedback from me specifically. but But what i like about it is also it is like it i like those walkthroughs and the LucasArts ones were like just kind of nudges. So like at the end of the day, I was like, I i solved i solved this game. but it was just like it kind of was like, maybe go look at the scumbar. Like maybe you should talk to more people and exhaust those dialogue options a little more. you know Yeah, it still leave leaves you the sort of feeling that you solved it.
01:23:14
Speaker
Now, so Rhyme came out, as as you mentioned, that came out later after the missed remake. What was like the discussion like to to get that that started in the the first place?
01:23:29
Speaker
I mean, they it was something that they had kind of noodled around with even before I joined the team. And they you know they had a gray box space. um And we sort of just went back to it and said, what do we want this to be? This was sort of post-Riven's release while we were kind of working on the the next thing. But we kind of wanted to make sure the team had something they could really get excited to work on while we were sort of doing like paper design, talking to business people, and doing all that kind of stuff. So
Developing Rhyme and Myst Contributions
01:23:54
Speaker
Rhyme felt like the right fit because it's something the fans have been asking for for so long because it was like the last piece of content kind of missing from the mised the previous Myst games.
01:24:02
Speaker
um And so like I didn't have any, I mean, I was like thumbs up. I would love to do Rhyme. I would be stoked to do it, but it wasn't really like up to me. It was certainly like, you know, science, creative leadership and and business leadership. They were like, I think this makes sense to to do. from ah like a like a financial standpoint and from a like staffing standpoint, this is the right time to do it. like we have that We have the people and we have the time to do it. This is probably the best time we'll ever have to do it. um And so they had already, like I said, they'd already been kind of toying around with what Rhyme could look like. So we had a really good so strong starting point to begin the process with.
01:24:36
Speaker
um So we just kind of decided like what's the art style, you know, Claire Hummel did a lot of cool concepts of like this is maybe what the ice should look like or this is maybe what the building should look like. How how a direct copy do we want it to be? Because Myst remake is pretty much a up rest version of the original Myst. Do we want to do that or should make it a little bit more like Riven where it's some new exciting stuff there?
01:24:55
Speaker
um It was just kind of a conversation basically with the entire team what excited the whole team. so I had my thoughts, I had things I wanted to do, but it was, it was definitely something that we all came together and we all like nodded in in agreement. Like this is how we should do it. That's so cool.
01:25:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'm curious. You know, I think at some level, if you'll pardon how corny this question is, you i think that I won't growing up and as a, I know, Ben, you have high standards. yeah And I know, well, I'll hear, I'll hear about this in our post show notes that you gave me. um But,
01:25:31
Speaker
You know, i think being a missed mega fan who then gets a chance to work on the series eventually is kind of living like one version of of the dream for a lot of gamers. Oh, yeah. You know, and I'm i'm curious, you know...
01:25:49
Speaker
I mean, it sounds like you're absolutely able to keep that love alive once you were working on this as a job, but then I'm also curious, you know, are there, are there any other games that, you know, now that you've conquered that childhood love that you love a crack at, uh, now? It's a great question. Uh, to, to go back a second, like it was a hundred percent of dream come true. It was, it was, it, there was no, like you get there and you're like, oh this isn't what I thought it would be. Like it was, it was just,
01:26:19
Speaker
It was an incredible experience. that The Cyan folks were so cool. um And i've I've been friends with them for many years before I joined the team. ah But it was it was just an incredible, incredible experience. And I very feel very lucky that I got to be there for as long as I did um as just one of many incredibly deep. The Myst fandom is very, very dedicated and very, like they love Myst. Like they're sticking around even though we haven't really been able to give them new content in a long time. ah But they they love the game. So I feel
Working on Beloved Franchises
01:26:46
Speaker
very lucky that I got an opportunity to do that.
01:26:48
Speaker
um Other franchises I'd like to, ah you know, it's funny. Diablo was another one. I played a lot of Diablo 2 back in the day. I played a lot of Diablo 3. So getting to work on a Diablo game kind of basically from the beginning, I was the first quest designer that that the Diablo team hired from outside the studio. So I got to really like help figure out what quests in the game should look like and help build the pipelines and sort of, you know, figure out what the identity would be and work with everyone. So that was ah that was another big one where i was like, this is exactly, like I can't imagine I could go back to 16 year old Harrison and tell him while he's playing Diablo two, that like, you're going get to make one of these. So that was another incredible, incredible experience experiences. um
01:27:26
Speaker
Gosh, you know, you you got me, you got me like thinking like, I like what other games growing up would I, I love to there are a lot of games that I liked playing that I don't think I'd be very good at designing like I liked I played a ton of like Sonic the Hedgehog. Would I be great at making a Sonic game?
01:27:41
Speaker
Probably not. That's not where my skill set is, you know, i'm more on the story side. I'm at a level slow him down, put him in a mist top perfect game. yeah Yeah, I mean, gotta to go fast anymore. Yeah.
01:27:52
Speaker
well it's it's like a tales from the borderlands you just have to find a story around well so funny everything around him is fast but he's slow it's funny that you say that because there was a free-to-play sonic visual novel game called the murder of sonic the hedgehog uh that oh yeah a couple of yeah actually worked on for sonic ah for the sonic team and they just they were like i love vn games so we're gonna make the game where we sonic's dead like You're going to make a game for the Sonic franchise where he's dead. And they did it. The the mad lads did it. And it was super fun. So like there is space in those fandoms for different kinds of experiences.
01:28:30
Speaker
um So you know trying different mechanics, trying different genres within the fandom, within that sort of style of game, or like that that sort of like IP, is I think that's something that's always really exciting. So maybe one day, Sonic puzzle game. Who knows?
Creative Freedom and Unconventional Genres
01:28:46
Speaker
uh mean maybe i can solve this puzzle with speed there you go um what if i ran around in a loop-de-loop and that solved this puzzle yeah you just bit a weight goes up you know would would that you know we could solve many of life's problems by running in a loop-de-loop yeah you know yeah yeah a lot easier than doing it couldn't hurt yeah i'll try it i'll report yeah ah Well, Jesse, do you have ah any any more questions? or No, that was fantastic. Thank you so much. Absolutely. It's been a real pleasure. This was fascinating. This was, yeah, I really enjoyed this ah conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time. pleasure, really. Thank you.
01:29:32
Speaker
And I'm really excited to to see ah what unnamed project in the future ah is. Me too, man. yeah It would be amazing if it was Sonic the Hedgehog somehow. and just like You're just doing the long tease, and then in a few years, someone will come back and be like like, he actually hinted at this in a 2026 podcast. That would incredible, yeah.
01:29:54
Speaker
That would be incredible. I wouldn't hold your brain. You just let out the license. Bioware did do a Sonic RPG that no one talks about. Really? i don't know this one.
01:30:05
Speaker
There was a DS Sonic RPG made by Bioware. How are the romance options? ah Incredible. Yeah. Rich. Explicit? Rich. Oh, filthy. Yeah.
01:30:20
Speaker
Like all DS games. Absolutely filthy. It's that stylus. Yeah. You can also blow, you know, we like you can blow Harrison and I went in the same direction. Oh yeah. I was trying to keep it clean in here guys. Come on. we It's because we both played Phoenix, right? Where it had the the mic on dan and you had to blow the dust, the, the, the powder off the thing. yes I, I, I knew you. I got it. There are also much more embarrassing ones where like, i can't remember with one of the fire emblem games or one of them from the era where you like blow to like,
01:30:55
Speaker
cool the tea from some anime girl and she has a little blushy and I'm like, I can't play this a train, man. I can't let see people see what I'm doing. like I got to play some other game. So they they've they gone they've they've come real close.
01:31:06
Speaker
The DS games have come real close to being a little a little much, but not all they haven't gone over the line yet. Sonic RPG
Conclusion and Teaser for Next Episode
01:31:14
Speaker
DS. It was called Sonic the Dark Brotherhood.
01:31:17
Speaker
Oh, man. Oh, man. Yeah. My favorite Assassin's Creed game. My favorite quest line and in the Elder Scrolls game. Oh, man. Wow.
01:31:29
Speaker
Anyway. All right. Well, thank you so much. And if you, the listener, enjoyed this, you know, rate and review, five stars, you can send us an email at questquestpodcast at gmail.com, especially if you have any ah long-term ah Android games I could play on my commute.
01:31:51
Speaker
uh you know that's needed you know i've i'm just gonna keep playing loop hero and i'll probably just go back to slay the spire or bellatro yeah i don't have anything else a good car aftershave um yeah But, oh, man, i always forget I always forget to prep our guests for this part. Don't worry, Harrison. We'll be fine.
01:32:15
Speaker
Join us next week when we discuss. What are we talking about next week, Ben? I can't remember. Oh, yeah, I barely remember myself.
01:32:27
Speaker
Next week, we're going to talk about Space Quest 4.
01:32:45
Speaker
Harrison, did you ever play Space Quest 4? I think I played all this. I think I bought my GOG at some point and played okay most of it. Most of them. Yeah. Well, there you go. Good enough.