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Following Up an Indie Darling (ft. Dean Walshe - Wild Bastards) | Firelink Podcast
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This week on Firelink, Marty, Nick, and JM8 are joined by Dean Walshe, 3D Art Lead & Technical Artist on the new indie Wild Bastards.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:33
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Firelink Podcast, episode number 36 for Wednesday, September 11th, 2024. My name is Marty, I am joined by Nick Galandra, Jamaite, producer Eric, and our special guest, Dean Walsh, the 3D art lead and technical artist on the new indie game, Wild Bastards. Dean, welcome to the show.
00:00:52
Speaker
Thank you very much. Great to be here. Thanks for joining us all the way from Australia.
Global Podcast Presence: A Failed Attempt?
00:00:55
Speaker
I was going to say this is the first ever three continental podcasts, but Jamaite is in the US currently. I've gone and ruined it by being in Massachusetts. God damn it.
00:01:04
Speaker
The times would be horrendous to do. all three yeah but Truly. Yeah, truly. has come to either that We do that internally. we We know what it's like. Yeah. Try to find a meeting to where our Aussies can can meet at the same time as Jay and the rest of us is always, always tough. I think we almost wear, he looks like Dean's wearing a navy blue shirt, but it almost looks like we're all wearing black shirts too. i can like a in celebration of ah Wild Basterds.
Dean's Game Development Journey
00:01:30
Speaker
The follow-up to to Void Basterds? It's not a sequel, right? It's a follow-up. No, not a sequel at all, but it's our next game, which there are yeah is an exploration of what we do at Blue Man 2. Thank you. Thinky FPS. I like that. I like the Thinky FPS. Is that like the opposite of a boomer shooter?
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, probably. but Yeah, there's twitchy FPS's and thinking FPS is there. Yeah. yeah yeah's Call of Duty's twitchy. Yeah. Call of Duty's definitely twitchy. But yeah, we'll be chatting with Dean about his his career in the industry, ah the the stuff he's worked on in the past, obviously launching a game like Wild Basterds, which launches this week. We're chatting about that game. And then ah news wise, just at the end of the show, we'll be talking about um the PS5 Pro. our Our thoughts on its reveal yesterday. um if if any of us are excited about the $700 piece of hardware. And then also, if we've been playing anything, and God knows, I've been playing Astrobot. So all I really want to talk about is is Astrobot because it is ah delightful, absolutely delightful. i But Dean, let's let's start. ah Where did your road in the games industry ah kind of start? how did How did you get to where you are today?
00:02:46
Speaker
ah Well, I started back in art school, ah but with the intention of going into games. And so I was doing fine art and oil painting and drawing and all that sort of stuff for a couple of years. And then I studied 3D.
00:03:00
Speaker
Uh, and it was early, early days, so there wasn't too much going on with it. Uh, and I ended up being really lucky. um I moved down to Canberra in Australia to study. And there was a studio here called irrational games. And at the time they'd just done freedom force two. So they were doing that in parallel. I had no idea that they were doing bioshock. Uh, and while I was studying, I ended up doing some MMO work for a canned.
00:03:30
Speaker
canned potential and MMO, if you remember Citizen Zero for the Xbox. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which was a long time ago. Yeah. I was on like a student team doing this demo for a mech MMO. And so I did that and then spent a little bit of time here and was like, well, that was interesting. I will never come back to Canberra.
00:03:55
Speaker
And then for people who don't, out of curiosity, like what, what, what kind of capital like I know camera is the capital, but like, what is like, but like smith it's some okay. Do people like it? Like, is it, is it looked upon favorably or is it like one of those cities that the rest of the country kind of mocks? It's the butt of the jokes. It's the Washington kind of like very, very academic for the most part, things like that. um Yeah. People come here to work for the government.
00:04:23
Speaker
So, so I went back to Brisbane after having done a little bit of that stuff and ended up doing arc viz. So I was doing architectural visualization stuff for a bit. And then I got back into games and I was working on Star Wars, which was a interesting first game, like first shippable game.
Industry Challenges and Resilience
00:04:43
Speaker
And I did Star Wars, the force unleashed. We did the PS2 and the Wii version and the PSP version.
00:04:51
Speaker
Um, and that was great. I was an environment artist on that. Got a lot of creative freedom. Uh, yeah, it was a great kind of first experience for kind of a ah big thing, but it's interesting now. Like, um, it's still being released that same version, which is odd. Cause at the time we felt like the real.
00:05:11
Speaker
Uh, second-class citizens doing the PS2 version, yeah yeah you've got yeah Xbox version, PS3 version, like real front and center. yeah Um, but we've gotten a switch release and things like that. Um, so yeah, it was, it was interesting as the first project to work on a lot of creative freedom, shockingly for something like that.
00:05:32
Speaker
Oh, that's surprising. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think because you do, I guess. we put um Well, it's also you're doing the second tier thing, so. Yeah. Their eyes aren't on you as much. The eye of Sauron isn't on you. It's on the the team working on the next generation because they didn't know yeah Star Wars 3 Disney to. So, yeah yeah. Yeah, that's what we used to get a lot of weird Star Wars games. so Yeah. Yeah. And and I think after that ah was another weird Star Wars game for me, which is we did the Clone Wars game.
00:06:02
Speaker
Um, so, uh, sorry. Um, so yeah, we did the Clone Wars game, which was my first foray as a lead. And at the time, Clone Wars was just starting, it wasn't seen very favorably as like a series. Cause it had only, it was coming after the 2d Dendi, uh, Tartakovsky version. Um, which was really, that was like an awesome, awesome 2d animation. And then they were doing this 3d series, which started off a little bit weak. And so we were doing a video game for that very short turnaround. Uh, and it was like the first at the time next gen, so 360 title for me.
00:06:48
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it was very different rendering graphics, very stylized, trying to match the TV show. And from there, the work that I was doing was pitch after pitch of canceled projects for a couple of years, as was the time around GFC. So I did some really interesting stuff. We were doing like, we were pitching to Atari a lot for some reason.
00:07:13
Speaker
and So I think there was one pitch, which was a gears of war centipede thing. Uh, there was an Atari Atari ah smash. There was a party game, which was really, really fun that, uh,
00:07:27
Speaker
I was working on, but that ended up being a very cursed project with, I think, about three different studios working on the same game and every studio closing down shortly after. Oh, God. Yeah, it's literally a cursed project. I feel like anyone who's been in the industry long enough has worked on a cursed project of some sorts, like something that is just like, oh, this ah was for some reason doomed and it was going to drag everyone who touched it down. It reminds me of Damn Buster Studios, because they got put on Homefront the Revolution, yeah which was under Crytek first, and then Dead Island 2, which went to like three different studios. They salvaged both projects somehow. So you had like years you had years of your career where like the work you were doing was just never solid the delay today?
00:08:07
Speaker
More or less. Yeah, so it started out like started off strong with like in a very short period of time to Star Wars games that got released and and we're working on some other Star Wars games which then got canned and and other stuff like that it was ah it was a very interesting era because it was like a like compared to now and stuff like that. It was huge technical leaps as you got to a new generation. So
PS5 Pro Discussion: Who's It For?
00:08:31
Speaker
there was a lot of technical challenges that you were facing and new types of games you could make. So there were a lot of demands, but then also like ridiculously short development timelines. Uh, and the work that we were doing in Australia, it was very much work for hire. So because it was work for hire,
00:08:51
Speaker
in Australia, we were kind of lowest dollar value we could in shortest timelines. But some of the work was really interesting. It was because it was incredibly demanding kind of stuff. Uh, I think we had some real talent in Australia. And so when those studios closed and things like that, a lot of the people from those teams and we were making what would be seen as janky kind of B tier games now.
00:09:17
Speaker
A lot of the people that I worked with, they're art directors, technical leads over at some of the big AAA studios now. like theyve They've more or less scattered to the wind those entire teams, but ah in the same way that I think Australian cinema um cinematographers and stuff like that have a really good reputation for working with what they've got. I think we had a lot of talent at the time go through and then have to move overseas. so there's yeah There was like a, like a pretty big, uh, uh, like game scene, right? Triple A game scene and everything in Australia was, uh, yeah. I mean, now we'd see it as triple A at the time. We definitely did not see it as okay. yeah Um, I think it's just the terminologies that have changed where there were big budget, relatively big budget projects and relatively big teams, but it definitely felt like if you weren't doing a game that was going to be like a, a metacritic standout,
00:10:11
Speaker
title, then it it's not triple A. So yeah in my mind, it was like, there were only like two triple A games getting released every year kind of thing. Um, so yeah, we, we were doing different types of work and there wasn't a lot of, uh, independent IP here as well. We were doing a lot of work for hire. So as a result, it, it gets impacted very, very quickly by something like the GFC.
00:10:38
Speaker
Um, and it was like team, team Bondi and 2k Marin, right? We're like the big studios and they shut down. It was in, uh, the Bay Area, right? Yeah. Now what was the, uh, the two kids? So that's, so that's where you did you end up working there? Right. Eventually, I'm not working there, but before they closed. Uh, so, so yeah, like I think, um,
00:11:03
Speaker
There were in Australia, I, in my mind, I saw there were two triple A studios. There was pandemic and we're doing some really, really cool stuff. And a lot of that team were, so I was at Chrome and we did tight Tasmanian tiger and things like that. And then we were doing all these styles games.
00:11:22
Speaker
And some of the team there, they went off and they, they were part of pandemic. And then you had a rational in Canberra who they were doing. Yeah. Uh, for that, um, they were doing freedom fighters, freedom force, say done freedom force one, freedom force two, they were working across with, um, rational Boston. So that was.
00:11:45
Speaker
Uh, that structure there and they yeah really were kind of sister studios. They were both set up. And, um, yeah, so it it was, it was an interesting scene. Uh, I was doing a little bit there and then it closed and then I went to teach. I took some time off and ended up teaching.
00:12:04
Speaker
when there were a lot of, I think the entire industry kind of reset you either either went overseas, uh, people left the industry or they were doing mobile development started slowly started to take over again after that. And this would have been before like kind of the, the, the burgeoning indie scene of you can remotely make a game together. So yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It was, there was, I think that kind of took off with a little bit of the mobile side of things where you had,
00:12:33
Speaker
few ex-developers, but even then a lot of the early mobile stuff was being done by small teams that had a mobile experience like with Gameboy. So Halfbrick who did Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride and stuff like that, they were in Brisbane and they did all the Gameboy games for Chrome and stuff like that. And they pivoted from Gameboy handheld to phone.
00:12:59
Speaker
So even that wasn't someone in the garage. It was an existing team and structure. Yeah. Yeah. and fruit Fruit Ninja took over the world at some point. Yeah. Oh yeah. That was a that' fantastic crazy. Like how the Australian games industry like kind of comes out of nowhere sometimes because path of exile.
00:13:17
Speaker
and and stuff like Fruit Ninja and all that. I think. Yeah. Yeah. you yeah it's funny it's I feel like every yeah you you can like almost point to different regions of the world and see like the like massive seeds of a tree that sprouted from there, whether you look at the Polish scene or even the Scandinavian scene, ah ah pretty much any any city in North America, you could be like, oh, the L.A. in the scene or the the Vancouver in the scene. And do you think we might have lost these?
00:13:42
Speaker
You know, we lost Dean and we lost Jimmy. You know what? We got the two of us. We got the two of us. We're dropping like flies. That is all that matters. We mentioned Curse Game Studios. We mentioned Curse Game Studios and then Jimmy may have broken his microphone and then it seems like Dean's connection may have zonked out. But we'll get that sorted out. Eric, you just you focus on that and we'll just keep chitter chattering. Before we get team back, do you want to jump to... Do you want to talk about the PS5 Pro?
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we might cut this. We might cut this PS five pro talk in half. We'll start some of it now. If Dean comes back, obviously we'll get back to to his story and and to, um, and to wild bastards. But, um, so yeah, the, uh, the, the big gaming news of the week was, uh, yesterday the PS five pro was ah officially revealed via a nine minute, uh, video.
00:14:40
Speaker
on on Sony's YouTube, as well as a blog post that that kind of went into details. That was Mark Cerny, who was known as ah A, the ah creator and father of Knack, and B, like a literal genius when it comes to designing the actual hardware and consoles and and architecture of Sony for the past couple of generations.
00:15:01
Speaker
um And so, yeah, they they showed off this this new console launching this fall, November 7th, for $700 US dollars, even more expensive, ah with conversions everywhere overseas. um And I dropped the link to the PlayStation blog there. and ah It was a very weird thing to show off in a very weird manner because clearly the visual enhancements are... are How do you show already show performance on a 60FPS stream?
00:15:37
Speaker
like How do you show performance? Yeah, how do you show performance when people are just like watching on YouTube on their phone and like squinting at it. and I'm just like, Oh, this grass looks the same to me. yeah It's also the fact that they showed the, you know, Sony showed no new games, no upcoming games. It was all um games that have already been released, which also included stuff like ah um The Last of Us Part 2, which was a PS4 game, and Ghost of Tsushima, which was a PS4 game, and, you know, Horizon, and War Ragnarok, which were cross-gen games. um We showed a couple of third-party games with ho Hogwarts Uglacy and ah Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and everything.
00:16:14
Speaker
um But then with that price, with that $700, it was just strange. I just didn't... I don't know, I left the end of it as someone who like wants to get excited about these things. I left the end of it just being kind of confused and and thinking like, who exactly is this for? Yeah, what a what a weird way to reveal like a big, powerful console and not have a game to show with it.
00:16:39
Speaker
Like that didn't I mean, that's the only cool hardware. Like I've already played these games. Most people have probably already played these games like. ah Are they really going to bump ah you trade in their PS5 and bump another four or three hundred dollars, whatever it is, because like the the part of that boggles my mind is is ah not having a dead. My dad comes to the door and he's like, I got chips.
00:17:07
Speaker
so I feel like I'm the only one whose stream is in cursed right now, which it might happen. youre like We can still have an hour left, so it's very possible my stream gets cursed in the next hour. but ah yeah I lost my train of thought because I was just thinking about the pseudo chips. Not having a disk drive is just ridiculous to me. because so that's where one of the One of the points I was thinking about for my unpacked video on this that I might may or may not do, I don't know. I don't know if there's nothing to really talk about here. but Usually when a new console is announced, I will trade in my current version. Like when the Xbox Xbox one had the Xbox pro or whatever it was called. but Yeah. Right in that version, you get a nice deal at GameStop or wherever you trade it in. And, you know, yeah oh, I got it for two hundred dollars. Great. OK, cool. This one.
00:17:57
Speaker
it like It's a hassle to even trade in my PS5 now to upgrade because the new one doesn't have a disk drive. Mine does. When I got to trade it in, and then I got to hope that disk drive is in stock and it's not a $200 upgrade anymore or $150 upgrade anymore. It's $300 plus another $80 plus tax. like This console, this consal if you have a disk drive and you want disk drive is over $800.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. it's from the Dean, does does ah what while you were gone, we we sort of just pivoted really quickly to the to the PlayStation 5 Pro stuff. like does Yeah. Like, does the hard, the does sort of the the hardware arms race on the console side of things, like, is that something that like registers with, with you guys, with developers, you know, or to to a certain degree. And like, I know a handful of friends who are developers who, uh,
00:18:55
Speaker
going to be getting the pro yeah because it's something that they value on ah on a personal level with the way that they play. I think the performance was going to be the biggest thing for them because they're the types of gamers who are playing cinematic mode and they want better performance in cinematic mode. So I think that's where the the difference lies with it.
00:19:18
Speaker
I think from a developer standpoint, there are certain benefits to general hardware arms races outside of just like, Oh, these leaves look much better now. Uh, which I think is unfortunately how it's kind of presented yeah because otherwise it gets a little bit technical, but.
00:19:40
Speaker
the real benefits tend to be things like the Ray tracing and and stuff like that. If it's working, it makes the development time quicker in spending less time doing custom bakes and things like that. The more stuff you can render real time without having to do pre-bake of something like pre-calculated, uh, lighting and reflections and things like that is beneficial for small developers. Now,
00:20:06
Speaker
It mainly becomes a benefit when that the standard. So it's not that helpful when we still have to use the lowest common denominator hardware as we still have to support that. But for the next round, it will mean that you can make much bigger things, much more detailed things, more assets, um, on screen at a time. Like we're still squeezing so much out of, out of a very small funnel. with these things, like there is a real bottleneck for certain graphical rendering things. so
00:20:41
Speaker
yeah Outside of even just doing realistic stuff, there's a lot of stuff we would like to do. There's also a lot of developers who will not touch any of these added features. i'm Sure. Yeah. I mean, I definitely like this one as well. You know, this PS5 pro to me is, you know, the tech heads and and the gear heads that want you know the latest and greatest hardware. But as far as like a consumer that just purchases games, uh,
00:21:08
Speaker
I don't know. I wish they would, um, wish I wish they would focus less on like the visuals and more like, are these consoles going to be able to do more physics calculations and stuff like that. And things that add to gameplay works out about that. And as soon as you have the the more bandwidth for graphics processing, there is this.
00:21:29
Speaker
a shocking amount of stuff now, which we're able to offload what would have traditionally been on CPU and stuff like that. We are able to put onto graphics now. So, and it's it's where there's been a lot of development. Um, so.
00:21:44
Speaker
they've got the hardware there for it. I think that's generally the hope is like do more with the graphics card and then you, then you get more access to other things. There has been some physics stuff on graphics card as well, calculations. So it's it, there is a lot of stuff that can come out of it, especially for first party stuff. You'll see yeah some kind of wild shit.
00:22:05
Speaker
but yeah like i i imaginegiing the ability to it'll It'll be folks like Naughty Dog or someone who like really puts out something where you see this or like Kojima. um yeah Yeah, exactly. yeah And I think also ah the other benefit you get to something like this is it's not something which requires custom work for developers to support. Like for the most part, this is this just opens up what's already there. So people already had their cinematics modes and stuff like that. It just means that rather than it being capped to 30 FPS, cap it to 60. Great. Like ah you'll actually see it supported. As soon as you have like a feature which is added to a console, which is like
00:22:46
Speaker
requires building from the ground up some input system or something like that. No one's going to fucking touch it except for first party. Yeah. Yeah, it's also, i it's interesting too because if you're like really trying to kind of push the boundaries and and create something that that is like cutting edge, um you know, we've heard some of the stories of like, oh, maybe the Xbox Series S, which seems like a really good deal, is like holding back some of that and like, you know, maybe Xbox isn't getting certain third party games because the teams are smaller and they're just like, well, we need to
00:23:23
Speaker
you know, we need to figure out how to make this game work on on a less powerful piece of
Console Development Challenges for Indies
00:23:28
Speaker
hardware. um But then at the same time, it's funny because in the indie space, I just feel like this is almost but It feels like folks might be used to it just because like this generation like the switch has been such a, you know, such a huge platform for for indie games. And so it's like, well, if you can get your game to run on the switch, like you can kind of put it anywhere. right like I love my switch. But you know, that that thing is ah ah think ready to get put out to pasture. I think like putting a putting aside the games media hat and even like
00:24:02
Speaker
myself being somebody that likes to be at the forefront of tech hat. My main holdup is like Xbox is already talking about their next gen hardware. And now we have PS5 Pro and it's like, well, how many years is this? How many years before this thing is obsolete and they announced PS6 at this point, or is like, is this PS5 Pro the next PS6. I don't, I don't know. Like it's just, it's the way consoles are done. That was kind of weird. I'm like, when do I want to upgrade? It's like, I'm at a graphics card point now. Or a phone, right? It's your, it's you, there's an iPhone every year and you kind of have to make this decision. Okay. I'm going to skip these for you. And then when my thing feels chuggy, I'll jump in and get the new one. But as a developer, I do not want that. yeah I don't, I don't either. As someone who just grew up where it was very clear lines of demarcation.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah. The mobile market, like testing across all that stuff is a nightmare. Yeah. I have to, and I have to imagine, especially in the indie space, if you were going to be releasing a game in next year, in any game next year, the year after, you're going to want it to run probably still on regular switch because there's 150 million install base. You're going to want it to run on the new switch. You're going to want to run on the, the both, all skews of the Xbox, probably still the PS4, the PS4, PS5, whatever this new thing is, PC, is it Steam Deck yeah compatible, everything like that. and It's a lot. Compared to compared to like the number of platforms and hardware variations we used to test on, like you would be three platforms. That was it. There wasn't any augmentation. Three platforms for console um and then PC. yeah You would dev you on PC and stuff like that.
00:25:41
Speaker
now. And i I think there was a real tough period. I think like people who were releasing between generations when they started to do the split hardware at that point, if you're just doing the Sony and Microsoft platforms, you were having to test six hardware variants just for two platforms was six. So that, that was, ah that was a lot. Yeah. that's a
00:26:16
Speaker
That's my yeah man that's really my concern. is like you know You bring up the iPhones, Marty, but like even with iPhones, you know once you're three years on, like if there's a game that you wanted to play on your iPhone, yeah it's like it's too old. No. yeah like Consoles are kind of heading in that direction. I don't like that. but like I liked when we went from 360 to Xbox One and I'm like, okay,
00:26:37
Speaker
I'm upgrading and I'm just good to go for now. And it's like now you have the series S and it's like how long before that becomes obsolete and I have to upgrade to a series X. Oh, now the series X is obsolete. Now I need the series Y. was like I don't i and particularly like this direction of mid-generation upgrades.
00:26:55
Speaker
It was one thing to just make a console smaller, but now that we're messing with power, it's like, yeah, I was expecting smaller. That's, that's always kind of, especially when you keep going bigger. yeah Then the console market is turn literally turning in the phone market because phones keep getting bigger. to or Well, and things are, you know, there's, it feels like there's two separate races now. There's the, ah you know, the arms race for making the most powerful thing. And then I think Switch and Steam Deck have proven that there's a lot of people, myself included, who really like handhelds.
00:27:26
Speaker
And like the idea of being able to play a library of games that I might already own on Xbox or PlayStation or Steam or whatever the whole Nintendo's online thing is, ah being able to play that on the go is great. And then having a dog where I can play it on my TV is great. So um yeah, i'll be I'll be curious to see, you know, obviously Sony's kind of dipped a toe in the water with that with the PlayStation portal and and Xbox has been rumored to have a handheld in the works and everything. so Yeah, just kind of a weird fracturing of how people play games.
VR and Indie Development Insights
00:27:56
Speaker
I used to be a console writer die, but these days I'm like, I'd rather just upgrade my graphics card every six years or something, my processor, and then get a long HDMI cord and hook it up to my TV.
00:28:10
Speaker
I just, I just play everything on my steam deck. Like when new game comes in, like, like, uh, wild bastards came in, runs great on steam deck, runs excellent on steam deck. So playing a couple hours of it last night on there, I'm like, this is great. Like this, this is great. Yeah. Um, yeah. And maybe that's also my, my like broken senses. I was, I'm always like, Oh, I like like spending the day watching football, but then being able to like also play a game at the same time.
00:28:33
Speaker
And maybe that's just like a broken way to do things where I'm not actually paying attention to anything. But it makes me happy. It feels like it makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. This is why I need to get used to wearing a VR headset because you can have football playing behind you and you turn around and see that and then you see in front of your game. What are you going to live in? You're going to live in augmented reality world. Have you have you have you fought with VR at all? on the development side or do you have interest in it? I made myself really, really sick with it. Um, I got like early on, I, I got one of the, um, the Microsoft mixed reality headsets.
00:29:10
Speaker
No, I know that when they were doing their mixed reality thing, but they then had their VR ah set oh they call yeah mix reality. yeah Um, and I was using that as a dev kit early on and I like hooked it up to unreal and was driving around like a moon buggy on like Mars or whatever that I rigged it all up and went into like a physics death spiral and just that in VR. I was like, I can't do this. yeah but I would find it hard to work on a VR ah game. Cause I think having the headset on and even, even back when I was doing
00:29:48
Speaker
doing like PS3 stuff and things like that. That was when they were talking about doing like 3d games and people were doing 3d games on PS3. And that was, from my perspective, I was like, I don't want to work on all of those because I don't want to spend my day with 3d glasses on. It will give me a headache. yeah Oh, you mean 3D? Like the actual, yeah, what like Killzone 2 or 3 or whatever was 3D. Yeah, that was a weird, I think I've like memory hold that little slice of history where like 3D TV, I guess it was around Avatar probably where 3D TVs became like this big thing. and and Yeah, they tried real hot. That was the quickest fan in tech in a while. They went out of style real quick. Yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
But that, that was definitely one where I kind of early on was like, I, if a project like that comes up, I'll have to step away from it because the amount of time you spend looking at a project and working on it and things like that. Uh, I was worried that it would make me, make me feel sick or yeah damage. my lives so Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's also funny because I felt like that that was um shortly after the the crazy launch of the Wii. I feel like that was a moment where um um I know me as a fan at the time that I'm assuming people who are in the industry looked and was like, well, we can't count anything out.
00:31:08
Speaker
until we see how it goes, because what if this thing becomes as big as the, we did, like what we, everyone thought was kind of done. Yeah. Yeah. It was a huge arm trace. And that was, that was the era when I started and like going back to like what I was discussing before, that's exactly we were doing, cause we announced false unleashed and then the, we got announced or like, it was like,
00:31:30
Speaker
around the same time we was there. And so they were like, we're going to do this. And everyone was like, where's the lightsaber we gain? That was like the number one thing. All the journalists, all the articles, all the forums, everyone was white. They're like, this thing you wave it around like a sword. Yeah. Give me the lightsaber game.
00:31:49
Speaker
So, and we were doing the PS2 style, so they're like, well, we'll do what we want as well so that someone can. But you can't just like right click, add lightsaber, you know, physics. No, and it's a, it's a lot more complex when you then start to get into like all the complexities as to how that should work or what people expect.
00:32:09
Speaker
And after that, when we're doing the Clone Wars 360 stuff, that was PlayStation move. That was connect in that same era. This is the the waggle. Yeah, this is the waggle era. Yeah. I went back yeah this summer. ah I'm weird. And I just went back and rewatched a bunch of E3 conferences from around that era. Man, it was a weird time. It was very weird. does Yeah, so this this was done by one of the other teams in our studio. They did the lightsaber battle game, which was dueling game. But yeah, we we were doing like a prototyping and pitching lightsaber games and kind of like third person clone shooter games and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, there was a lot there was a lot of weird things going on that people were trying.
00:32:59
Speaker
um and not necessarily executing on. Yeah. There's a lot of let's throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And as sometimes by the time your thing got out, it was like, well, we've moved on to the next thing. Actually, like motion controls are kind of.
00:33:14
Speaker
not Exactly. and And I think like that was people were trying to push to the graphics at the time. That was like a huge step to go to 360 and PS3. So that was like a big thing, but then they were still trying to differentiate themselves and hoping something would stick. And then, yeah, the the industry shifted so much because you had mobile at that time, but it did lay the groundwork for what ended up being a lot of R and&D stuff. So,
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah. We ended up on our summer arcade. Yeah. Yeah. Changed everything. Yeah. So you were you were sort of walking us through um your your ah your your journey towards void bastards and wild bastards. Yeah. Before before you cut off. Where do we remember where we left off? Yeah, I think it was around that era where I was I was doing teaching work and then I was in Canberra again.
00:34:09
Speaker
And the irrational, which was now 2K Australia, they, they were hiring again. So that was where I ended up after all that stuff and taking off a bit of a break to do some teaching as an industry was starting to come back. Uh, I joined 2K Australia to work on Borderlands, the pre-sequel. So that was.
00:34:34
Speaker
kind of out of left field, it was after they'd done a bunch of other things post Bioshock and they, they'd just done, uh, infinite. I think at that stage as well. So they just shipped infinite and we were doing it pre-sequel working with gearbox. And I was an environment artist or level architect. I think was my title.
00:34:59
Speaker
And yeah, so it was, it was great fun. A lot of creative freedom again, like shocking amounts of creative freedom. Uh, these screenshots are from the DLC that we did for it, which was, uh, led by the 2k Australia team, which was great. We got to kind of just go wild and do and all the subconscious and clap going into clap chap's mind and things like that was a lot of what I got tasked with, which was great fun.
00:35:26
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, I was working there until the end of 2K Australia and then didn't know what was next. I ended up. briefly teaching again for like a month or two. And you teach him like game design stuff or were you teaching yeah yeah architecture stuff like non-game architecture? I'd done real part his work and i was I was teaching people more or less yet game development. And ah one of the people I worked with at 2K Australia was like, oh, you should talk to this guy that I know. ah he He does indie stuff. You should talk to him. There might might be some work there.
00:36:04
Speaker
And the the person was Jonathan Che. So John Che, who co-founded Irrational Games way back when, and was the reason there was an Irrational in Canberra. And after they sold Irrational to 2K, he left 2K Australia and took a break. And then years later started up in indie studio and they did Card Hunter as Blue Man True.
00:36:34
Speaker
And Card Hunter went on for quite a while. Like it it had a lot of updates and it was, if anyone played, it was a really cool kind of web browser based flash game. And then they had a steam release and things like that as well. And so they'd done all this work on that and they were now trying to do an FPS again.
00:36:54
Speaker
because that was John's background. He had done system shock too. He had worked on thief back in the day, uh, bioshock of course. And so it was, those are, those are stinky shooters, by the way. twitchy shooters thankky shooters And so after having established all that kind of stuff, this idea that as an indie now with what was available from engine middleware and stuff like that,
00:37:19
Speaker
could you do a thinky shooter like you did with a 30, 40, 50 person team? Could you do it with like five people? And they'd done all this card hunter stuff and that was all 2D.
00:37:36
Speaker
So they're like, this works quite well. They started prototyping and then they're like, we need someone that does 3d because that's like, we we need that little missing bit of it. And that was when like I joined the team and it was void bastards. And at that stage it was called false light and it was still a space survival kind of rogue like.
00:37:58
Speaker
And yeah, it was it was the perfect project for me in terms of it was from a game design perspective, it was everything that I was starting to experiment with in my own space as a developer.
00:38:10
Speaker
And then visually it was incredibly unique. My background at that stage had pretty much been exclusively working on incredibly stylized games, having done the PS2 stuff and worked with Clone Wars art styles and then Borderlands. Despite in my own time working on completely different stuff, I'd kind of realized that I'd I had all this experience in that space. So it was a really good match working with ah our art director and creative director, Ben, Ben Lee, where it was just taking his illustrations and his designs and seeing how we could do them in 3d. And I worked with, uh, Fabs, who was helping with some of the rendering techniques at the time.
00:38:54
Speaker
And it's still like void bastard stands up. It was like a lot of choices that we made. We wanted to make sure that it was like visually really clean doing stuff differently. And as a result would age really well. So, and, and it ended up being yeah a lot of, a lot of people really liked it.
00:39:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And what's the obviously some of the the bigger games you worked on before this um were existed in other people's IPs, whether it was like a Star Wars game or a Borderlands game, whereas with this and then with Wild Basterds, you guys like what's what's sort of the difference in in I guess philosophy or in or in process if you are creating your own pool as opposed to kind of working in someone else's.
Indie Creativity vs. AAA Constraints
00:39:40
Speaker
ah You've got ah a lot of.
00:39:43
Speaker
avenues available to you. And I think that's where games end up being in general better because you have that creative option where you can respond to what the game itself needs a lot more. I think when you're working with an IP or you're working in a franchise or something like that, there are certain restrictions that might not lend themselves directly to making the best game, best experience.
00:40:09
Speaker
especially when you're a small team. And I think we work really well because we are so small and we are able to focus and pivot. If something's not working, we can change it. Now, if you're on a triple A team and you've got a 10 character artists who've had to build up some hyper realistic character system and animation system and things like that, and you want to change their hat.
00:40:31
Speaker
then that's got a lot of layers of discussion or it's like, Oh, we want to change it. Now they're, they're weapon as a machine gun instead of a rocket launcher or something like that. Uh, when you're a small Indian, you're building these games in a very agile way, you're able to respond to that stuff without much issue. You can, you can do what best serves the game. And I think that's why you do see so many indies swinging for the fences and, and making bold choices because that's all we can do. Uh, and we don't have any restrictions stopping us from doing that kind of thing. So void bastards was definitely, uh, part of
00:41:11
Speaker
part of Blue Man Tree's approach to things is because we have a lot of creative freedom, because we're not, ah we can kind of work on the games that we want to. one of the early mandates or or goals for John and and Ben and and the team was definitely doing the types of games that normally wouldn't be published. So exploring, exploring ideas that had been pitched with all the rational games that never got picked up or publishers were like, no, there's a little bit too, a little bit too hard, or it might turn off a certain player base or something like that.
00:41:48
Speaker
as an indie where we can kind of do our own thing. It's like, and it goes down to things like we're going to call it void bastards because a triple A publisher is going to be like, they might be interested in that for a week. And then they'll be like, we're a little bit worried that it's not going to, uh, work well on streaming platforms or something like that. Uh, but as an indie and potentially for better or for worse, we're able to do that.
00:42:18
Speaker
And so confirm avoid bastards did get demonetized when GLC reviewed it. Uh, yeah. Uh, that was a, that was a fun, fun. That was actually a, it was actually ah a very good, uh, thing for us. Cause it bumped a lot of people to our, uh, YouTube membership spec at the escape. Yeah. YouTube doesn't like the word bastards come support. Yeah.
00:42:43
Speaker
but but I'm glad I had that, that side benefit. I mean, even, even with wild bastards, it's we're like, ah, it should all be sorted by now. Uh, but it's still the thing of like, you have to get secondary approval to a release on certain storefronts and things like that with them. so Uh, yeah. So speaking of, uh, wild bastards, so, uh, void bastards released four years ago, five years ago, was it 2019? 20. I mean, the original release for it was probably like six years ago or something. like if you So I think, I don't know. You guys are in early access, right? No, no, no, no. release
00:43:25
Speaker
Yeah, but we had, had a delayed console release for, so for PlayStation. Yeah, I didn't play it until I came to console. So I think that's where yeah we launched 2019. Yeah. We, we launched on Xbox and PC, but then we did, um, cause we were a game pass game. So oh yeah one of the early, early game pass games for windows and console game game pass games. So what do you, uh, what's, do you have opinions one way or another on, on sort of game pass that model?
00:43:56
Speaker
There's obviously been a lot of talk this year about, about indie funding and, and whether it gave us a good thing or a bad thing. And I feel like I've heard both sides. the argument but I think it works for some people. If it's there, I think, um, there aren't as many, many, uh, opportunities going around at the moment. So I think that's, that's the main thing. I think most developers are happy for something. If there's a partnership that will help get their game out to people, I think. Um, but then at the same time,
00:44:25
Speaker
platforms have different needs or different driving factors.
Impact of Game Pass on Indie Games
00:44:29
Speaker
So it shifts and changes. And that's always been the thing in terms of consoles working with third parties for for um for release is the console cycle drives that so much. like I think you'll always see a lot more indie support at the start of a console cycle because we're the easier ones to fill out your release. yeah Otherwise you have five games the first holiday of your console. And yeah that worked in like the N64 era, but I don't know if that works you anymore now. Exactly. so So yeah, I think, um but yeah.
00:45:05
Speaker
ah After, uh, after with void bastards and so many people had access to that, uh, because of things like game pass and through humble and things like that, um, that, yeah, when we started looking at our next game, and I think that's generally our approach is doing different projects, unique projects, uh, niche projects, I guess. And.
00:45:33
Speaker
because we've got that creative flexibility. Also, most of the team don't want to do sequels. I think if, if we had have done void bastards at a, at a larger team or a larger studio, you would have had to do a sequel. Oh yeah. off one Yeah. That would have been the next game green. That is void bastards too, right? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, for better or for worse, uh, it might, might've ended up as something, something great, but also I think,
00:46:01
Speaker
internally, our approach to it was like, well, we don't really want to revisit and unless we've got something new to say or something new to add to that. And so the first step after that is like, well, what's going to be the next thing? Like we, we want to explore something new.
00:46:18
Speaker
And I think a lot of that came from similar ideas. So we still wanted the strategy layers. And we wanted to explore it in a different setting and a different kind of approach to how you have your combat and things like that, but still have some of those familiar ideas. so But we wanted to do something very different. and And there were a couple of little systems in place that we wanted to explore with it.
00:46:44
Speaker
Um, and it, it came out of that and then we got a cool setting and, and it kind of just snowballs from there. So yes, what was the, oh, go ahead. Uh, I was going to say that, yeah, like road, you know, Roguelikes and everything are are huge in the industry right now. Like what is, what is the new stuff you are doing in wild bastards that separate sets it apart?
00:47:05
Speaker
Well, I think even with void bastards, it was one of those things, uh, trying to find fits similar titles when you were doing void bastards. Cause you're always as a developer, like what are other people doing? what What are they solved? Um, what other issues have they faced? Have they done a similar game and it, and it's not working. Uh, let's avoid doing what they do. Uh, it's why it's, it's often good to play mediocre games. Um,
00:47:33
Speaker
And there really wasn't that much in, in general there at the time, there were a few, uh, indie FPSs for sure, but not like there are now. I think there's a lot more indie FPSs in the current landscape. Um, but at the time there wasn't too much and then that boomer shooter rush. That's all been in the last four or five years. It feels like exactly like the like the indie, the indie market is like completely corner of the tactical shooter market and everything. Exactly. There's so much there now. Um, and, and with void buses, one of the biggest design challenges we had early on was this idea of, uh, when you water ship, you don't have to kill everyone. You collect what you need and then you leave, which is an extraction shooter, which has now become the, and at the time it was, it was incredibly hard for us to complain, to explain to people. And, uh, I mean,
00:48:29
Speaker
I don't, I'm not saying this, but void bastards might've set off the extraction shooter interest just as a single player game. ah yeah But so for, for wild bastards, what we're doing differently is it is that rogue like thing.
00:48:46
Speaker
It's that rogue-like experience of you're going in and you're you've got this power curve that you're going through and you're collecting people and expanding them and leveling them up and working out how they interact with each other in ah in a rogue-like format.
00:49:03
Speaker
And it's a Western shooter. And realistically, even even in the indie space where everyone's doing all these different types of rogue lights and rogue likes and shooters and stuff like that, that marrying those aspects is still definitely ah not commonplace. So.
00:49:23
Speaker
And I think especially like the strategy layer of it, where we do have the planet map um and you've been playing it. So we've had the demo out and stuff like that. And we're releasing very soon, but that planet map aspect to it, where you are moving, that was very much one of the early design, uh, goals for us was this idea of having a real strategy aspect to it, which then pairs with this first-person action combat scenario, which is is quite different to Void Bastards, but it's still got almost some of that strategy layer that you would have in in a Void Bastards ship. You're doing some of that on the planet map.
00:50:02
Speaker
And then in person, you've got all these different characters who are interacting with each other. We can have more ah backstory and narrative to them as well with the outlaws. So yeah, the the game has the the loop has like those three kind of interesting pillars, right? It has the the moment to moment, you know, shooting kind of the the um very like expressive based shooting of which character you are and which ability you're using. It has the sort of the tactical decision making of when you're going across the map being like,
00:50:32
Speaker
and And even like you said with Void Bastards of like, how long do I want to stay on this planet? Like, oh shit, like should I, should I, you know, it's that risk reward, which is always great in these games of do I push it a little bit further, but risk ruining my whole run. And then the third pillar feels like the the story pillar, which um one of one of the things that stood out most to me was I kept playing because I kept being excited to unlock a new weirdo for my ship yeah and like a new character to play. And like every time I got one, I'm like, this is great looking like this is,
00:51:00
Speaker
Like, i don't I don't know what goes into designing a character that is immediately intriguing to me, but I got that here. Every time I unlock someone new, I'll say, this is great looking. Like, this is cool. i'm I'm excited to see what this person plays like, and I like how they're kind of vibing off the other crewmates and everything.
00:51:17
Speaker
It's a, it's a fun cast of weirdos. That's the, and and we, got we got amazing voice talent. Like, I think we we're really, really lucky with that where all 13 outlaws have really great voice actors. And and we went through and ah originally we weren't intending to have all their dialogue, uh, be voiced. And then we ended up being like, and why not? We got, we ended up getting these really good voice actors and it's kind of sad that you don't hear them more. So they did an amazing, our, our, um,
00:51:47
Speaker
our audio director and stuff like that Ryan went through. And in a very short period of time, we were able to get all of the audio recorded and in, and it really does help flesh them out and and make those oddball characters, uh, just jump off the screen a little bit more. i And yeah that was always the intention was just.
00:52:08
Speaker
to all these weird outlaws. They're weird in nature. They're weird in character. Let's make them weird as well in how they play. Like let's give them some features.
00:52:21
Speaker
It's, it's got that DNA of a hero shooter, but not multiplayer. So you've got those aspects where you can learn a character, but then it's also about pairing them. So it's about how they interact with one another. It's like, Oh, I can, I can do use hop along who's a snake outlaw and stun everyone and then go in and use this other stunt to kill them all or headshot them or something like that. It's, it's definitely that kind of.
00:52:47
Speaker
strategy layer where it's like pairing them and working out how they work well. And then they get into arguments and there's like a relationship meter and like they can, yeah, things can make you go closer or grow further apart. There's a relationship Mark meter. Mark is a, I just want relationships and all. Every single one of my ups. I think the most recent trailer you guys released or maybe it wasn't the most recent one, but the most recent one I saw was the character trailer. I was sitting here like, wait, there's more, there's more, there's more. Yeah. Once I realized that the entire cockpit is going to get filled up, I'm like, oh, hell yeah. It was great. Yeah. Yeah, it was great fun. And even when we were going through and designing those things, it's about that.
00:53:30
Speaker
that little, how nice it feels to fill out a space like that. And so yeah when I'm modeling the cockpit and I'm so putting all the crew in the cockpit, as soon as you start to have those things in there, you're like, oh yeah, this is cool. This is my actual gang. like This is real Western vibes. like This is what I want. ah Yeah, it's funny. We were talking um last week we went over the the news about the Concorde the Sony first party game that you know released and then it was old and and is now offline and the future is TBD on that um but we were kind of talking about like
00:54:05
Speaker
again like I mentioned earlier of like that secret sauce of like what makes a character in a game like like a hero shooter or a game that has like a large cast of characters like what makes a character immediately enjoyable aesthetically and then enjoyable you know pairing that with enjoyable mechanically and like what is it that like you know if you look back to like Team Fortress 2 and what Valve did there or what Blizzard did with Overwatch like what makes those work in a world where you Gearbox and Battleborn didn't work or Sony and Concorde didn't work so like is there anything like when when you're designing characters like this like what I don't know like what is the
00:54:45
Speaker
Like what is the smell test there?
Character Creation in Indie Games
00:54:47
Speaker
I guess. Well, I think for something like this, uh, we have the benefit of being a single player game. We, we are able to build something which can be very weird and, and, uh, niche without this demand of like, it's got to appeal to everyone and everyone's got to play it and stuff like that.
00:55:05
Speaker
So we can do stuff which ah other people wouldn't have the ability to do. But I think from a design standpoint, when you're putting these together, there was early on, we did a lot of iteration, like I was saying before, as an indie, we we can do that. Some of these characters started out as different archetypes. ah From the get-go, the setting was a Western. it was Everything was through the filter of this is a Western game, but it's sci-fi.
00:55:35
Speaker
And when you're doing that, you've got a lot of expectations about the people you'll meet. So there's a lot of, we know, we know who these characters are and these Westerns and stuff like that. So you want them to feel familiar, but then it's sci-fi Western. So what's the twist? What's, what's the, how are they still unique to, to us?
00:55:55
Speaker
And so I think there was, there was an archetype and that was familiar, but then how do we make them different and unique and make sure that they've got systems where how they play or their weapons, their personalities still jump out and, and are recognizable. Like I think, uh, it's also a benefit when you you don't have to balance it when it's a single player game, like yeah in in the same way, there's a different type of balancing.
00:56:23
Speaker
It's an experience balance, but when you're doing an experience balance like that, you can, especially with wild bastards for a sector where you've got your, uh, you've got your mods that you can equip to your outlaw. You've got all of the upgrades. So all the ACEs you can collect to your outlaw, they will interact in different ways where you can have one of your outlaws just be completely overpowered. And you feel like a God for a couple of planets and it's great fun.
00:56:52
Speaker
You can't do that in a hero shooter. And so you're always kind of capped a little bit. And there's also this demand as to what's going on. And I think it's really unfortunate. Like for, I think there's more of just the games and the service.
00:57:09
Speaker
games as a service issues around expectations that that's a real limiting factor I think for some of these games which if they're in another format would probably still be able to find their audience.
00:57:21
Speaker
um it's a bummer to see how kind of doomed Yeah, it's fun to see how many of those like worlds you look at, like even what Bioware did with Anthem, you know, like this seems like a cool, this would have been a really cool single player game. ah yeah But the fact that, you know, it kind of came with the, you know, um live service baggage, shirtend I don't know if that's the right term, but, you know, something that feels ah like you're chasing a trend, but because of AAA development taking seven, eight years,
00:57:52
Speaker
maybe that trend has passed or maybe that trend has solidified and the the games that are here, your Fortnites and your pub G's and your destiny. Yeah. Those games are are locked in, you know? Exactly. I think it's, it's a, and it's why we really like doing, I mean, Card Hunter was a online multiplayer game. Like that was, that was the history to Blue Man Choo was their first outing was a multiplayer game like that. Uh,
00:58:17
Speaker
And I think at the same time, single player just affords a very different experience. It affords from a development standpoint. It's very different testing standpoint. You get to do very different things with it. ah So yeah, I think, ah It's, it's definitely one of those things you can do. So with the outlaws as well, one of the things that I've loved about it when we've done every single phase of testing and gotten and user feedback and stuff like that is how strongly people have opinions, uh, that will then shift overnight. So every, every single time we've done testing, uh, someone will unlock an outlaw and they'll be like, I just got this outlaw.
00:58:59
Speaker
I hate them in it. Or then someone else will be like, you need to nerf them. They're too powerful. And then they'll be like, Oh, no, actually like, Oh, actually this, this outlaw is my new favorite one. yeah And I think that's, that's the best part of it is like, uh, generally when someone's like, Oh, I'm not feeling this outlaw yet. And then two sectors later or something like that, they're like, Oh, I take them on every planet that they might go through. That's what I like about hero shooters. Like there's usually, usually character for everybody in there in some form. Yeah.
00:59:29
Speaker
But then if you get outside your comfort zone, you might realize, oh, there is someone here that's been even since, you know, fighting games, since people had like, were like a i Blanca man or something. And then was like, Oh, kind of like Zangief. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's it's tough when it's a game as a service to push someone out of their comfort zone. Like ah I don't, cause you don't see that you don't have you'll get maybe some encouragement through, uh, achievements or something like that to try a different out a character or something. It's really bad. I took all heroes in hero shooters now outlaws just because I've had to like,
01:00:04
Speaker
I've had to, had to like change my brain of like the different characters you play out. Uh, but yeah, in terms of motivating people to try different things in a multiplayer game, it is quite hard. Uh, you might have your daily challenges and stuff like that to do some of that, uh, in a single player game. That's what it's all about. It's about having those systems. And I think that was void bastards as well. It was all about pushing people into corners.
01:00:30
Speaker
where they then have to like, that's what I love about it. Cause I, as a, from a personal standpoint, I'm one of those people who save scums in a immersive CM or something like that. i'm I'm really bad at stopping myself from, from challenging myself really, be or trying to 100% something. Yeah.
01:00:50
Speaker
And it was what I loved about void bastards working on it was it was, it pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I got so much more reward from that experience because of it. And it's same with wild bastards. You're like back against the wall and you're like freaking the fuck out and you still pull through and you're like, Oh, that was, which is more similar to what you do get in a multiplayer scenario. So, uh, I do like the fact that we're able to explore those spaces in a different way. And it gives us the ability to just.
01:01:20
Speaker
go wild with weird shit. Yeah, I did it. I was playing last night and I was playing with the the finger guns. God, it shoots fire. I think I yeah ended up killing myself more than the enemy enemies killed me. It was cool to unlock him and then be like, Oh, this guy plays differently than just anything I'm used to in traditional. Yeah, fire. Yes. Fire doesn't just do people. It stays on the ground yeah i get run through this.
01:01:47
Speaker
Yeah. can i run through this no yeah He's supposed to be impervious to fire. He shoots fire. Well, ranking my game design knowledge he's not all fire and level them up. That's when you, because when you unlock them, it's got to good good vanilla smoky. thats so Yeah. I think there's definitely a lot of interesting stuff that you can do in terms of the choices. When you get those ACEs as to like, do I want to make them a glass cannon or do I want to give them extra health? Do I want to.
01:02:19
Speaker
give this character the ability to do a super jump. And, or do I want to give them the ability to fly? Like, uh, there are, there are a lot of avenues and ways to explore the characters, which is kind of fun. So. what is and ah Oh, go ahead, Marty.
01:02:34
Speaker
Oh, no, I was just going to ask, ah you know, ah the both these games are roguelikes, you know, yeah as one of their genres, or I don't even know if Roguelikes is a genre now, it's just kind of like a modifier. um yeah But as we were talking about earlier, that's just become it It feels like you know but ah half of the big games every ah big indie games every year have some sort of roguelike element to them. like why Why do you think that's become ah such as such a popular and and kind of um beloved design philosophy in games? That's addictive. One more run.
01:03:07
Speaker
it It is, I think there's a lot of, it's, it's I would love to, from an academic standpoint, do like a real deep dive into the evolution of game trends, both in art and design.
01:03:23
Speaker
Because I think there's so much there that we kind of lose. Like even, even when I was talking about like the era when I was doing PS3 and Xbox 360 stuff and it was connect and move and things like that. And what that influenced on a game design standpoint, I think you get the same thing now. Rogue like and light formulas, I think really appealed to
01:03:48
Speaker
it's a It's an interesting framework for a small team to work with because you're able able to explore that life-death scenario and also variety in a different way. And I think it's funny because it's deemed as such a such a genre now, but it's such a broad formula. Like what is yeah a rogue like and light? And it's like you die and start again. Yeah. It's like silly to compare, you know, uh, wild bastards to dead cells, to FTL, to, you know, to Hades. But like, it's just like a term now that can kind of point you in the right direction ish. And I feel like the, and i
01:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. Sorry. as goes I feel like the, the current trend is like, especially for indie devs is you have a core mechanic that works really well and you just keep making alterations to that core mechanic. That gives you a lot of replayability. So like one of the roguelite lights, likes, I don't know which one of this I'm playing a lot of is a death must die. I don't know if you've played that one. I love it. I cannot put it down. It's like every time I unlock a character and I find a new piece of gear and like,
01:04:59
Speaker
one of the cool things they do in that game is you might be doing a run with like the barbarian guy but you pick up gear for the magic guy and so you're like oh now I gotta go test this gear out with this new magic guy then you go right back in and it's like that just constant variation and constant like flicking into your head of like oh I got this new thing to try I gotta go back gotta go back gotta go back Look, it's, and, and I think we've, we've seen those same formulas and I think it goes back to AAA's lack of
01:05:32
Speaker
or general risk aversion to these things. And i i I think that's kind of where a lot of this is born out because the idea of killing a character and having you restart progress or anything like that has always been something where even if ah if a bigger studio tried it, early focus
The Rogue-Like Genre's Appeal
01:05:49
Speaker
testing blows used to blow it out of the water. It just wasn't the expectation.
01:05:54
Speaker
And so I think that's definitely opened it up a lot as well. Like I remember, um, still battalion, the original design. Yeah. with the hit object button on the controlkenna And they wanted it to delete your save. Like, which is such a absolute bullshit move to do to someone, but like,
01:06:13
Speaker
how to, you that's some real, real, uh, kind of bravery in your design. of If, if you can do it, it's like really sticking to your guns and being like, okay, no, this is an idea that we want to see through. Um, yeah that makes you sweat. So, yeah so no, I think, uh, I think, yeah, a lot of the appeal to, to indies and stuff like that is,
01:06:35
Speaker
is it allows you to explore mechanics in ah in a different way because you will allow you're able to reset and let people try things different times. and yeah there's been But at the same time, I think the other boom that you see has been almost like a Metroidvania cross-rogue approach.
01:06:56
Speaker
which again is another genre as Metroidvania is a Dean where it's like, all right, what is a Metroidvania? It's you're exploring and retracing your steps and stuff like that. Okay. That's a very broad, but broad kind of classification for what has become a genre. Uh, but it pairs fairly well with different mechanics. And so you have huge games like Hollow Knight and stuff like that, uh, where that they're still punishingly difficult in their own ways and stuff.
01:07:26
Speaker
So yeah, it's funny those ah we we talk a lot about like ah genre names and souls like or anything like that. Like what makes the souls like what isn't a souls like is are the modern Star Wars game souls like like just because enemies respawn when used when you sit down at ah at a save point. um and Yeah, i don't I don't know if it's just like the medium of video games is is so is still so young that we have trouble as it grows to name things. um Yeah. Well, I think we'd name them after an existing game. And smashed two of them together and, and souls likes and stuff like that. And inherently games are complex combinations of systems. So
01:08:09
Speaker
they it's like which which is which are the aspects of that that we're naming it after like what what's the standout bits of it and I think as things change like I've seen a lot of people kind of lament the fact that Metroidvania is a thing because they wish that there was a better name to broadly discuss that type of game design uh rogue like and rogue light kind of works because there's this subtle difference there, but most people don't know what that is. And the words just sound alike. So when you say it, it's like, did he say like or light? Yeah. So again, from like an academic standpoint, if you are like exploring and looking at how these things evolve and influence one another, ideally we would have better ways to discuss it because it's confusing as all hell.
01:08:56
Speaker
yeah i Yeah, I agree. And even if you get into the more minutia of it, though, it gets even more confusing. So keeping it kind of helps people have a lot of baggage with it. Like, I think there's a lot of games out there where we might really enjoy it and we try and explain it to a friend.
01:09:14
Speaker
And we might try and mechanically describe it like that. And it's like, Oh, I don't like that. Or I don't like rogue likes. And it's like, no, no, no. And like, I often find this thing because I'll explain void bastards or wild bastards. And it's like, Oh, I don't like losing all my everything when I die. It's like, well, you don't lose everything. yeah Just a little bit, just so stay a little bit, just enough. So.
01:09:38
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah I feel the same way about those names, but it's like, I still use them because it is, it isn't easy. Like if you're telling someone about a a new game, using one of those words can at least put them in the right neighborhood.
Challenges of Game Naming and Discoverability
01:09:52
Speaker
And then you're down into what kind of a Metroidvania is it? What kind of a roguelite is it? What kind of a, you know, anything like that. Yeah. I think for the most part, it's all we have. Yeah, exactly. Until something better comes along. Our community came up with one. You you can steal from us because it's way less complicated than Soulslike. Recursive Sprawlr. It's a terrible name. I think it's a terrible name. I think calling a Soulslike a recursive Sprawlr is a mess. Recursive makes sense because the loop is recursive. You are treading familiar grounds outside of this podcast. Yeah.
01:10:27
Speaker
Recursive shooter. Well, we'll start using recursive thingy shooter. Yeah. So I still like thinkies. I like thinkies and twitchies, the big two. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, I think, yeah, how it makes you feel or how you interact with it is is always a good thing. Just just say this game is like Dark Souls. This game is like Castlevania. They put a weird gamer term on it. Simple as that. We more Mr. Mosquito likes that. That's that's the problem. It's not getting a mosquito like.
01:10:54
Speaker
The shooter is like Call of Duty. You don't turn your brain on much. and Have you? Oh, go ahead, Nick. Yeah. Bigger, a bigger. I guess industry question I have for you just because, you know, you guys are about to launch another another game. and You know, you've you launched Void Basteries all the way back in 2019. And since then, I mean, covered games for a long time now. And I can't tell you like,
01:11:20
Speaker
where it's ever been over the like the last two years where there is literally a game every single day at this point. like we There's no way to keep up. like How do you guys feel about the how the market has just exploded and it's also retracting at the same time because you know all these layoffs and everything, like where do you guys kind of feel in that realm?
01:11:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're, we're very lucky cause we do our own thing. Uh, it's, it's a scary market at the moment for, and I've got a lot of friends who've been really heavily impacted because of all this stuff. Uh,
01:11:53
Speaker
And it's shocking the number of games getting released, uh, void bastards 2019. It was, it was right before, um, COVID as well. like I think there's a big aspect to a lot of what we see being developed. Like this wild bastards is our first COVID game. Like, Oh, it's our, our COVID game. It's our game that we developed predominantly through that. Um,
01:12:18
Speaker
And there's a lot of, lot of bigger studios and things like that. So it's, it's wild to see how many games are still coming out. And then with funding drying up for other devs and things like that.
01:12:31
Speaker
we haven't seen the result of that yet because we're still seeing the tail end of all the games that have been in development for this period of time. So I think we will get a dry spell like I assume. I assume it's got to slow down. um And I think discovery of games is really tough. So for indies and stuff like that, yeah because of those numbers and even back in 2009, when we we saw the GFC kind of thing,
01:13:02
Speaker
The way the market adjusted through that was interesting because we had the AAA titles, the big blockbuster titles still selling. And the shovelware, which some of us were working on, the shovelware kind of market, people weren't buying those people being burnt too many times by bank by paying full price for a bad license game.
01:13:29
Speaker
And so that's why we've had this, this period of like no license games, like it's really weird, right? Like completely flipped again, where it's like, uh, just the fact that recently we've started to see it completely shift to all these license games again. And then people are getting burnt again. And the, the audiences are kind of being.
01:13:50
Speaker
like it We kind of have been through it, just not at the scale. And like even way, way back, I found it really funny when you were doing, cause we were looking at all the Atari stuff. That was an era where you had the same thing. The games crash around all that was you just had so many games coming out and they were just the same fucking game. It was it was like the same game, but with like a small variation or something like that. And it's like moon patrol three yeah and, and the, the audience just couldn't keep up. So they got burnt out and they were going for the names that they trusted. And like around that time as well, you saw Nintendo.
01:14:34
Speaker
absolutely dominate with the Nintendo seal of approval. Like that was a big thing because you had all these third party titles coming out, which were shovelware. And I think, yeah, we've, we've got the risk at the moment. the The thing that I find amazing is the fact that with all the titles coming out at the moment, there are really good ones. Which is really, that's the sad part of it is I think there are some really great. Oh, there's a ton of great indie games that just are not selling. yeah And like we get review copies of these games all the time. And like one of them, one of them is Arco, like really good reviews on that. Yes. Cannot seem to find an audience to buy it.
01:15:12
Speaker
And, and I'm, my hope is that if there is a little bit of a lull, if there's a, if releases do start to slow down a little bit, we see a revisiting of, because I think this year has been intense for releases.
01:15:26
Speaker
it's been yeah as large a lot of really high quality indie stuff coming out. Right from the start. like It was yeah know has not has not let up. I think we got 20 review codes in the last two weeks. Well, and just like the year started with Palworld and then Bellatro and Animal Well, and like it's these like these these massive generation defining games. yeah Any other year you'd have one of them and you'd be like, this is amazing. Uh, so, so, I mean, my, my hope would be that it gives some, there's some breathing room next year or something. And maybe, maybe we see the unheard of thing where a game that released and sold this much gets like a bigger spike next year. Like that would be great. I would love to see that. I,
01:16:12
Speaker
I don't think it's going to happen. yeah Like you said, discoverability is also still like um in storefronts. It's really, it is really, really tough and no one really does it well. And honestly, no one does it well across also movies and TV, like streaming services, like amazing things. There's like amazing Netflix originals that just get buried.
01:16:32
Speaker
And I'm like, how does the algorithm not know? I would absolutely watch this movie. Like it should know this by now. The incentives, that's where it lies is like the incentives are working for their intentions. Like people are still using those platforms and still interacting with them and stuff like that. The level of their enjoyment isn't.
01:16:54
Speaker
is infected in like, yeah is someone occupied or is someone having the time of their life? theret oh Or did they just put this on to have something in the background while they're folding laundry here? How many times have rewatched the office today? but No, exactly. Yeah.
Developing During COVID-19
01:17:08
Speaker
Or just like, I'm engaging in. Yeah. And look like that's the other incredibly valid thing of like, is especially when times are exhausting. You kind of do want your comfort stuff. So I think we've seen a little bit of revisiting across all media in the last, last period. So. Yeah. I mean, that's going, going back to COVID. Like it's.
01:17:31
Speaker
amazing to me that anyone was able to make anything during COVID. really Not only like, man, it's crazy that a triple A team was able to like figure out how to work remotely or an indie team was able to like pull their shit together and and make it through that or a solo dev was able to do it, like find the ambition to work when you're like, is the world ending? but Like, are we gonna all die? Yeah, it's it's kind of wild.
01:17:55
Speaker
And then like this, this game as well, uh, I had a kid at the start of it. So wow it's been, it's been like my foot, my, uh, foray as a father or my, my entry as a father and this, and then COVID. And then also in Australia, we had a horrible bushfires at the end of 2019 started 2020.
01:18:15
Speaker
So we went, for like I had to evacuate and things like that from where we were living. And so we went from, it's been high tension stress, yeah just slowly, uh, slowly kind of recovering over the course of this project. We so feel that too.
01:18:32
Speaker
it's been crazy have been a crazy year yep ah have you were ah I mean, have you had a chance to to play anything recently that you've that you've done play or watch anything or have you just been sort of knows the grindstone getting the game up? um We've been getting the game done, but we've also got the benefit of I think small team. We give ourselves plenty of time. We don't have to rush. So we're not in like a crazy. There's certain little things where they're like, Oh, we have to work out this or that, but for the most part, we, we give ourselves a little bit of breathing room. So, but yeah, in terms of stuff that I've been enjoying, I've been kind of trying to, trying to revisit, trying to catch up
Innovative Game Ideas and Industry Praise
01:19:13
Speaker
on a few things. Um, so I've got Pacific drive. I was like really keen to get into. So I just had just kind of was starting that the other day. Um, and I'm very excited to like sit down and actually do that as a dedicated, like give myself some time with it.
01:19:29
Speaker
That's one of those games that feels like, Ooh, this doesn't feel like anything else. Like this feels like a unique idea. Yeah. And I think I really enjoy that aspect of games in general. Like I think as a medium, there's a lot of stuff that hasn't been done. So I'm always like drawn to, um drawn to anything, which is going to be a bit different and a bit new. Um, and I've even, I was going back and playing signal us cause I'd, I'd missed that when it first came out. And so but I've been playing that as well. So, and Bellato still, you've got a,
01:20:03
Speaker
Oh, man, it's to be released on phones in like a week or two. That's going to be that's dangerous. That's dangerous. that that is dangerous need The Internet's just going to stop for a week. It's yeah, it's it's one of those things of like, you can't do that to people. and I messaged the PR guy about that. I said, you need to sell that thing with like cushion toilet seats.
01:20:25
Speaker
but and No one is going to leave their breath strong for a while. A little wrist tethers so you can't drop it. yeah it's go to It is going to lead to like an epidemic of people getting like, drop their throat on their face when they go to sleep. Or just like they're going to get like carpal tunnel syndrome.
01:20:41
Speaker
Cause no one could put this, no one could put this fucking thing down. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, yeah, that's like the game side of it. Like I've, I've been, um, and then yeah, film, TV, just everything. I like, I like weird stuff. So, um, what's a good journey thing you've watched recently or just a good weird thing, a good weird wrecking. Uh, I was like, I'm,
01:21:11
Speaker
I keep thinking it's around the corner. I keep thinking severance season two is about to release. I think it's January, which is insane that it's been like three years. It's been three years last season. It's been three years. I think by the time it launches, it'll have been three years.
01:21:29
Speaker
But while I wait, uh, I was watching slow slow horses the new season, which is that is absurd to me that they're able to put out banger after banger year after year. That's a, well, I mean, it's based on a book series. So they've got, yeah they've got a good, they've got a good basis. Uh, there's not a ton of VFX, I guess in it. And yeah but the the production turnarounds for it does, it feels very different to, I guess, uh, time wise that they pump them out. So that's good.
01:21:55
Speaker
You know what? I'll give Apple credit. but do pretty good They do pretty damn good book adapt adaptations. I mean, its yeah Apple Originals, I think by by and large, they seem to give these shows a lot of budget. and They get ah incredible talent and they seemingly get out of people's ways. But then they also said they're like defunding most of their CV stuff.
01:22:18
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think that's the streaming bubble is first thing. I mean, that's just everyone was like, well, people are going to be at home 24 seven forever through covid. And it's like, well, no, people are going to start leaving their houses again. And middle yeah. Well, yeah. Game companies. Right. Nick, you've been playing to watch anything. ah Yeah. As ah Dean says, he likes ah
Nostalgia in Gaming and Media Adaptations
01:22:40
Speaker
checking out new things. I checked like new and weird things. I went back to a game that was ah basically revisiting the 360 with the Warhammer Space Marine 2.
01:22:49
Speaker
And, oh man, ah that felt like coming home. I was so happy with that game. I was pretty happy with it when I talked about it last week and then I finished it over the weekend. And yeah, that felt like playing like Gears of War 1 for the first time. Again, just like the technical marvel on screen and just straightforward action combat. No skill trees, no loadouts, no nothing. Just good levels, stories, cinematic action pieces. Great. No notes. That's all I wanted from it. and That's what I got.
01:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, it is funny how there's like, sometimes I just want to play something that reminds me of something from 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. like I don't even want it to remind me of something. I just want it to be like, no filler. Just let me get in, get out in eight hours. And then I moved to the next game and I'm done. I think that's reminding you of a time yeah sort of a AAA genre that doesn't exist anymore. Cause everything is like, well, if we're putting this out and dedicating the time to it, it has to have an open world with a million points of interest or, you know, ongoing drops with live service.
01:23:49
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I can't recommend that game enough. if You just want like a straight up action game for the first time in a while. with Like no, no bullshit attached. Right. Uh, I did, I did start Star Wars Outlaws, uh, beginnings a little slow, but it, as it opens up, I'm getting more and more into it. Um,
01:24:08
Speaker
And thankfully, like I was like fighting with myself, like, do I want to bring my PS5 back to my parents' house? Won't be here for a while. I was like, nah, I can wait two weeks to play Star Wars Outlaws. And then they released the cross-progression patch yesterday. And I'm like, all right, fine. I'll play it here on my PC. ah so I think my secret to the Star Wars Outlaws has been that, is I think one of the reasons it ah had some mixed reviews was because apparently reviews went out like five days before the embargo. And that is a game to me, I am savoring like, I'm treating it like an episode of a TV show every night. I just drop in for like 20, 30 minutes and just sort of exist in Star Wars and do some Star Wars stuff and go to a bar and lean against the bar and like overhear a bunch of weirdos talking to each other. Like, this is great. like Yeah. That's $5. The weirdos. This game has so many weirdos. It's great. that's um That sounds good.
01:24:58
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, like I mean, i I really like Star Wars. and like haven't really had a problem with it yet. So I think the insta fail stealth missions in the starter are annoying, but I'm out there. So as soon as I got out of those and like got the speeder and all that, and I was like, all right, this is like, it's opening up, feels better now. Uh, so it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's growing on me. And then, uh, I hate to say it, but I've gotten addicted to marble snap again. Why does this keep happening? What's going on? These blocks are going to be the only thing to to to fix this. You know what? It might be. Uh, but I think Marvel snap is just like,
01:25:34
Speaker
ah Instead of stress eating, I go play Marvel Snap. You stress snap? Yeah. I'm gonna drop it on my face when I fall asleep and somebody has to wait like three turns for me to lose the game. There you go. ah do do you have any yeah Do you have any mobile games that you constantly, I mean maybe Bellatro will be the one but like the games on your phone that you just continually revisit?
01:25:56
Speaker
Uh, yeah, there's, there's been a few grubbins. If you've ever seen that one, it was like a word word game one speaking of weirdos. Um, so it's got little weirdos and stuff in it, but yeah, it's like a little mobile word game, which I enjoy.
01:26:12
Speaker
And, uh, wait, mobile word game. What's it called? Grubbins? of Grubbins. G R U B B I N S. Save it for Yahtzee. He likes those word games. Grubbins is also a great name for some, for a bunch of little weirdo. Yeah. So, oh um, yeah, maybe things to do.
01:26:33
Speaker
It's a nice one that I like to keep on my phone, just cause it's a good one to go back to. But, um, yeah, belatros probably, ah I mean, at the same time, there's like, I've played so much on switch for me to go to a mobile platform and loot, like.
01:26:48
Speaker
I'll be starting, I guess, again from scratch. Like that's enough of a barrier where I probably won't do that. Um, hopefully, but we'll see. The sirens call. Yeah. Like I think, um, I did get tempted again. Like when into the breach got released on phone, I doubled it on that one just because yeah I am obsessed with into the breach. So I was like, yes, that's that's one I'll i' go. And that is a perfect game to play in like a little bite sized chunks like that. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. It feels right at home on mobile. I guess that and FTL. Yeah. Did FTL get released on mobile ever? Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah.
01:27:29
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'm excited to see what they're, I don't know what they're working on next, but I'm excited to see what they do next. The only other thing I've been doing is, uh, uh, keeping up with green to power of season two, which, uh, I haven't watched any of the, uh, I know, I know, like, yes, chat. I know talking fans are probably his next socks. Uh, I, I'm actually invested in a season where I was not so much in season one. Like I feel like this season has been a market improvement. Okay.
01:27:56
Speaker
I feel like oh ill it doesn't, it does. It feels like I think I don't need to do week to week. I'll probably just wait for it to be done. And then it's it's ending and better formatted for week to week. I would say that like the cliffhangers are better. Yeah. It still doesn't feel like a week to week show.
01:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, no. Yeah. It still feels like it should be like Ben's show because like it just feels like a long movie, really. Yeah. Yeah. But I definitely like um the writing just seems a little bit better this season. And and then I don't know, like Tolkien or like, you know, the people angry about it online do. So one of the one of the interesting things has been like going back and I talked about it and with Jay ah in our meeting this morning a little bit where I was like,
01:28:40
Speaker
reading reading the responses to season two and then seeing like how i feel like the rings of power subreddit is actually really positive on this season which is surprising um and then like learning like how how much peter jackson changed in lord of the rings movies that they were not okay with and then they're like This show is actually getting all the lore that they really like now. Oh, yeah. There were there was plenty of like hardcore fans who got, um, yeah. <unk> against It was just early enough in the internet to where I used enough to listen to them. Yeah. that happens And the, the Peter Jackson stuff and the, the real Tolkien fans, they don't want to see pumpkins in the movies. but And then I went, and then after they're watching part of season two,
01:29:22
Speaker
went back and like looked over the lore of a Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, and I'm like, oh, this stuff all kind of makes more sense now. It's kind of interesting how that works. You get different takes on things were from different mediums, and then you go read where it actually came from. and Yeah, because some of the characters in the show were, isn't that Kellen Brimbor?
01:29:40
Speaker
Celebrate like Celebrimbor. Yeah. Yeah. least That is a decent Shadow of Mordor and War. Yeah. There you go. And then, you know, Sauron and the Shadow of War looks like Sauron and Rings of Power. Sauron? Yeah. I'm all for a hot Sauron. Give me any big bad guy and just make him hot. Totally down. ah The only thing, ah the main thing I've been playing the last couple of days has been Astrobot, which is It is literally done more for my mental health than like therapy and medication
Astrobot's Impact and PS5 Exclusive Reflections
01:30:15
Speaker
has. like It is shocking how happy this game makes me. It is like- We need to get it. Damn. he's that's ah That's a really endorsement.
01:30:24
Speaker
and i don't like in its both sides of it as just a platform where if you strip away all of the the Sony history from it, it is such a good and inventive 3D platformer that, again, these little bite-sized levels that each have their own like really charming ideas and twists to the formula. And and we were talking about being impressed by visuals. like It's hard for me to ipress be impressed by photorealistic visuals anymore. But in this game, when I open a trap door and just 10,000 apples fall out and all the apples have their own physics. And so like every time I get hit by the apples, I could feel it on my controller. I'm like, this is the most futuristic thing I've ever seen in my life. This is this is weird. We are living in the 22nd century now. um But then fold in the the love.
01:31:10
Speaker
for Sony history, which I have from the PS1, and just the deep cuts it has to like everything you'd expect from you know Nathan Drake and and the the ah the Last of Us crew. But it goes way deeper than that to where it's like, oh, they're they're shouting out like jumping flash and wild arms and Patapon and Vib ribbon. and like It's just such a... like it is It is crazy how every time I unlock a new thing,
01:31:40
Speaker
And I just like pointed my TV and I'm like, I remember that. And I usually hate that. Like I'm trying to figure out what the difference between, there's a Funko game coming out in like a week, like a Funko pop game. I think that ah think it comes out like this week. Oh no, maybe it is next week. yeah i think it's I think it is like within the next few days. i But to be what it's, um you know, and that's that it brings in, it's like got back to the future and Jaws and Nope and Mega Man. And I don't know why I look at that and I throw up a little bit.
01:32:09
Speaker
Whereas I play this and I don't, maybe it's just because some of that stuff feels cynical. Whereas this feels like it genuinely comes from a place of love, which you could then say it's cynical because Sony has left so many of these franchises by the wayside. Like, um, you know, that's, so yeah yeah, references, not trying to sell you the toy.
01:32:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But it just it just works on me. And I just really. I just really love it. But it's about looks fun. The Funko Pop game looks I don't I still don't know what the Funko Pop game is. Like I know you are a Funko Pop going through different worlds, but I don't know if it's like the Lego games, which I do. I like the Lego games. Like I think it's just like a game style. I like the way Legos look and I do not like the way Funko. I always want to preface, listen, you collect whatever you want, you spend your money on whatever you want, I'm not going to judge you, the man. No Funko's entering this house.
01:33:12
Speaker
No son of mine will bring a phone call. But yeah, that's been, that's that's that's been about it. um Yeah, we're we're at the 90 minute mark, so we can we can wrap up here. Dean, thank you so much ah for for joining us on this episode. Thank you for for rolling through the technical difficulties of Jay possibly not saying a word on this podcast. yeah I don't think he said a word. Which he would have been great because he he also he's also a game designer and he's also taught uh, game design at at university. I was like, this is going to be great. Like, and he's usually in the UK, but he's in Massachusetts in the U S for like a week or two. So I was like, this would be perfect. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's a sadly, uh, not to pick to make it work. Yeah, but thanks for rolling through the rolling through the punches. We got two super chats throughout the show as well. So Justin Davis, thank you so much, eight Australian dollars. Shout out to fellow Aussies. Looking forward to hearing more about Dean's work and some Australian game development. I feel like we got ah we got a nice little, I mean, i'm I'm sure there's like books worth of stories to tell. Oh, I can, I can tell that that's fine. yeah Um, and, uh, Fatcock, thank you so much for the $10 don't know. Uh, I don't want to derail you guys, but is the PS five pro worth the getting or not based on just the hardware that might have came in before, before we did our chat about it. Um, I mean, that is, uh, she went up to spend your money on.
01:34:41
Speaker
What it's like is this thing know now this is you might inspire you like are you like a tech nut who who yeah wants your 60 frames per second and 4k visuals in ratchet and clank rift apart or yeah are your eyes broken and can you not tell the difference between anything like me? I think I think if you don't own a ps5 yet sure if you own a ps5 but I don't know if you don't own a ps5 I'd probably be like well first off consoles need to get cheaper what are we doing?
01:35:09
Speaker
Like we're four, we're four years into this console cycle. What are we doing? How are these not cheap? Remember when the PS2 was like a hundred dollars? GameCube was like a hundred dollars after a few years. PS5 just went up in price. I got my GameCube for like what would have been 25 US because one of the local, and that was when Sunshine just had come out because a local retail stock carrying GameCube. That was like cheap. It was ridiculous. Yeah. They just needed to get rid of stock.
01:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. loved them Um, yeah, these things are moving in the wrong direction. They can't get more expensive. I mean, they probably need to get more expensive because this stuff is expensive to make, but but that's Sony's problem. Having a, having a 40, 90, that's the size of an airplane. and they're not getting yeah Yeah. Hardware costs a lot at the moment, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. Across the board. Like even if you're building PCs and stuff like that, unfortunately we've,
01:36:06
Speaker
there's been some real supply issues. Yeah. It's going to be ah an interesting next couple of years, especially when the actual next generation starts. Like, is that like, is this like a new precedence? Like can they charge just $600, $700 for a council? ah ah Potentially. That's the reason that we see this generation get extended. Soft extension. Yeah. Well, cause it also doesn't feel like it started really. Well, I mean, COVID obviously threw over in everything, but it just doesn't feel like,
01:36:35
Speaker
I don't know. Like how with the, by the end of the PS3, you got a game like the last of us and you were like, Oh, you used every ounce of power in this thing. Uh, by the end of the PS4, you got the last was two or death stranding. You're like, Oh my God, look what you did with this. I kind of, I don't know. I don't feel like we've gotten those things yet, but wet know there's like maybe the the enhancements are all under the hood stuff that like,
01:37:00
Speaker
i doesn't really register with me, like, you know. Aside uh, aside from Returnal and I guess Astrobot now, have we really had a full PS5 exclusive?
01:37:14
Speaker
I think Spider-Man 2 was exclusive. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because of the load times that they said they could only do on the PS5 and they did it on PC. A bunch of webs. PS4 can't handle those webs. Thank you so much for joining us. Where can folks find you? What should folks check out? Obviously, Wild Basterds launches tomorrow, the 13th? Or the 12th?
01:37:43
Speaker
and Counting the hours at this point. Oh my God. Counting the hours. So that will be available on a PS5, Xbox series, PC, and yeah, it's and switch. Sorry. Hell yeah. So that's, that's a lot to launch on one day. So.
01:38:03
Speaker
Yeah. oh That's the main thing that I guess I can forward people to. But yeah, other than that, um, I'm on the internet doing things. Sadly, we're also on the internet. Yeah. Against my free will. yeah I think we'd all be happier if we weren't, but still.
01:38:22
Speaker
and Nick, what about you? What do you got going on? I put out an unpacked episode yesterday on the Concord fiasco. You can go watch that. And then ah tomorrow, we're figuring out time still. ah But a bunch of us will be on playing Towerborn, which just came out in early access on Steam. Right now, it'll be myself, ah Jess Hoops, Tina, and probably Jesse Galena. So we'll figure out a time and get that posted up tomorrow, right i'm where you know. Very cool.
01:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, and then on Friday we'll have a new episode of Dev Heads. This is a Dev Heads week, right? Yes, is it I think it's as long as Jay has a mic. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure Jake can figure out Jake inexpensive. Yeah. I'm sure I'll be fine. Uh, yeah. And then, uh, yeah, as a reminder, no devil may cry tomorrow, uh, because Casey is, uh, well, the reason Casey's not here, he is going on ah a work trip for a secret
Closing Remarks and Gratitude
01:39:15
Speaker
game. So, um, no devil may cry tomorrow, but I promise we will return next week with the adventure of Dante and all of his friends.
01:39:23
Speaker
Uh, awesome. So yeah, thank you, Nick. Uh, thank you, Eric. Thank you, Jermaine. And thank you Dean so much for joining us and and congrats to you and the rest of the team on the launch. Like I said, creating anything and putting it out during the last couple of years, uh, not only, and, and you personally having, having a child during that process is nothing short of a miracle. So, uh, congrats on that. And I'm i'm excited to to play more wild bastards and unlock more weirdos for my cockpit.
01:39:50
Speaker
Yep. Heck yeah. So yeah, thank you. Thank you everyone watching live on YouTube. Anyone who's listening or watching the VOD, we appreciate you all. Have a wonderful rest of your evenings and we'll see you all soon. Bye everyone. Bye.