Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Dracnecker Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Alan, the head Dracnecker at Dracnecker Friends. Soren's ill, unfortunately, but today we're joined by Zach Gorman, who works on Spook Express during the ah some of the comic...
Speaker: work and also has done both other comics you might be familiar with. How are you doing today? Good, good. How are you? Yeah, good. Do you want to give a bit of an introduction to yourself and the stuff you've done?
Speaker: Sure. um i don't have a ton of video game experience. I've worked on a little bit here and there, but mostly came in through comics. And I've done a lot of other sort of writing and mostly mostly i do prose writing now, but I still dabble in comics occasionally.
Speaker: Don't draw as much as I used to. But um yeah, I guess like... Background is, people might be familiar with the Magical Game Time comics I did. They did like video game web comics like 15, 20 years ago or something that we're fairly, that it still gets circulated on like Reddit sometimes. So, I mean, they're they're still out there. You can't get rid of that stuff. But um not that i would necessarily want to. But yeah ah yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wrote a children's book series, middle grade series called Disby Thest Tube.
Speaker: Worked on some animation. Oh, that's it. a lot of people probably know like Over the Garden Wall. I worked on Over the Garden Wall. Probably the most famous thing I worked on, debatably. ah But what you should be best known, well known for, obviously, is ah you worked on Spook Express. and ah Yeah, so each each chapter of the game has this comic book style intro.
Speaker: And you did the ah the original line drawings for those before somebody else, before David Hellman colored them in, right? Yeah, yeah, it was cool. Yeah.
Speaker: working with David, i just it was it was really a time a time limitation thing for not having the the time to paint them. um But it worked out well. And you know I remember David's work from way back in the day on like braid. So i was i was, right? That was braid, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. yeah then And so it was like, ah thought it was cool. was a cool opportunity to get to collaborate too. I don't collaborate a lot like that. Um, the old Marvel, it reminded me like the old Marvel style where, you know, you like one guy does the pencils and someone else comes in like inks it and colors it. And that's, you know, I think they, they probably still do that, I guess. But, um,
Speaker: It's never like kind of the kind of art I did. I was always indie comics. I was always, you do everything. Indie, indie. This is all going to get done. I guess I'm going to do it. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, the all of that comic stuff happens quite last minute on Spook Express.
Speaker: And yeah, you you were busy. Other people busy. so um like And you you have like a bit of ah an affinity for like spooky stuff. Is that right? i I do. I feel like I have like like a correlation with like Halloween and like stuff. I don't know. i All my stuff has always has monsters in it, pretty much. But then I worked on like Costume Quest.
Speaker: both ah did a graphic novel and worked on the animated series ah that was one season. was a one and done at Amazon. It's still streaming there somewhere um on Prime. But...
Speaker: ah It was kind of weird. that was sort of like a weird experience. So I can i get into that later. But yeah, and then also like because of my work on Over the Garden Wall and, um you know, my kids book series is just like a very D&D like monstery type of thing. And ah I don't know, I sort of always gravitate around Halloween stuff and then Spooky Express. Like it's get a long resume of like Halloween affiliated work, which guess is like part of my thing. I've always liked that stuff. There are worse things to get a typecast for, I think. Yeah, no, right. it it It fits because, again, I love monsters. Everything I do has monsters in it and some in some capacity. ah So, you know, it just it works.
Speaker: Sometimes it's a little more fantasy, but yeah. but What was your first impression of Spooky Express when we showed it to you? um It was cool. Like, I'm not... I don't know. ah You know, I guess that's not true. I am a puzzle game guy, but, you know, it takes like a specific...
Speaker: kind of thing to like grab my interest. But I really liked the like the character design and stuff. um It was fun to draw the little train, and the I liked the designs. don't know. It's interesting. My gaming preferences change as get like giving like preferences is like change as i get older and now that i have kids, and you know I don't play games the same way I used to. So actually, like the style of game I play has changed quite a bit.
Speaker: i don't know if it's considered a puzzle game, but I guess I'm trying to think of like the last like puzzle game that I got really into was probably, don't know, does Bellatro count as a puzzle game? It's not really a puzzle game. It's like a card game. don't know. It's stinky, but not really a puzzle game.
Speaker: Yeah. You know what i played not that long ago actually really liked was ah it's an older Murder by Numbers or by the number. Yeah. It's kind of like a yeah, like a number grid like ah thing. But it was that was pretty fun.
Speaker: like having a little bit of a plot in my puzzle. Like I got this kind of like a little story. There can't just be like just if it's just puzzles, it's it kind of loses me. Sure. But yeah, I mean, so you already mentioned you doing like online webcomic stuff.
Speaker: um Did you manage to like ah get enough of a following from that to like get more like ah paying work or yeah, like what's your career trajectory be like?
Speaker: Yeah, that was, that was it. That was the start of it. Um, you know, I was working uh, a restaurant just like as a food runner at the time when I like, and it was interesting right when that the Tumblr comics that I did, cause it was all like, I think it was kind of the right place, the right time for Tumblr. And like, you know, I was doing like animated gif comics, like Zelda earthbound stuff, like just like fan, fanboy kind of things, fandom stuff. And, uh,
Speaker: And it was like Tumblr like just kind of happened to blow up at the same time. And it was the perfect, like that was exactly what that audience was looking for. And from there, so once those kind of took off, i i I started working, collaborating with Fangamer a lot, doing like merchandise. They do like, because they were big into like the Earthbound fandom scene.
Speaker: And from there, yeah, like it just kind of snowballed into getting offered other jobs. I think that's how I met um ah the Double Fine folks was at like a comic show when I was there tabling with Fangamer and I, you know, met them. And ah that's how i ended up doing like the Costume Quest book and then later like the Costume Quest series and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so it really was like a launching pad, like just fan fan comics. ah Yeah, to like longer longer format comics. and then And then from there to writing and whatnot.
Speaker: Yeah. When you worked on the Costume Quest comic, was the game done and then you came in afterwards and you ah you did it completely after the game? Or was it in parallel at all?
Speaker: It was... So the first game was done. They were working on sequel. They had just started, i think I think they had just started developing like Cosm Quest 2. And they wanted like a, just, you know, something that kind of bridged the gap between that. um And so it was, they were just, you know, do whatever. It was very, they were very hands off, which which was great. um The guy i worked with there is actually now he's like,
Speaker: for a while, he might not even be doing this anymore, but he was, he ended up as like the head of like indie games for Sony or something. don't know. He's like, he's got some like big, you know, yeah. I know Greg.
Speaker: Oh, Greg, Greg Rice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, is he still doing that? Uh, I think he is now at fictions, but don't quote me on that. I could be. Okay. All right. Anyway. But yeah, he was the one I think who kind of got me the job basically. So i'm thankful for that. He just sent you an email like, Hey, are you interested in this?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I met him at the show and we just started talking. We like hit it off and we're just talking and it just kind of came up um that they wanted to do that. So, yeah. Nice. And I got into, so actually if you beat the second game, because they were developing at the time that the book came out, like I'm in the end credits of the second game. There's like a little like table and I'm selling the book at the table, which is is my claim to fame is like that guy got I got into the end of Costume Quest 2. thought that was kind of neat. Yeah.
Speaker: yeah But it wasn't like ah you were writing that that book and they were saying like, oh, can you change this? Can you change this? It was kind of just like you're doing it. Yeah. They were very hands off. um And then when the when the animated series rolled around, that kind of created some problems. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah. Because like, oh, God. um forgetting her name now. That's fine. I probably shouldn't be naming her anyway because it's going to sound like I'm giving. I'm not at all. But I think it's Tasha who created Costume Quest. And I absolutely understand. It was like kind of her baby, right? Like she created it. She was the one who like pitched it internally and like um it was her thing.
Speaker: And then but when we were working on the animated series, they wanted to like read... You know, Dolphine was of the impression of like, let's just like throw it out, like redo whatever, you know? Right. Like don't don't care about the canon of the anything existing. Just treat the TV show as its own thing, right? Yeah. And and she was working...
Speaker: at like Pixar or something at the time. And so she had a no compete. She like was not supposed to be working with them, but she had opinions on, you know, and I was like, so, so it was it like, I feel like I was, we had to walk a tightrope a little bit of like, ah you know, trying to like honor the original thing. And then meanwhile, everyone, especially at like at Frederator, I should say, who was always working with during the development process. Because I wrote the the Bible and like pitched the the show. Like it was really like I was the one who at the very end, at the 11th hour, they brought in Thurup Van Orman, who was like the creator of Misadventures of Flapjack and stuff. And he came in because they they felt like Amazon wasn't going to trust me because I was an untested entity. So they brought in someone with like some more experience.
Speaker: And Therab helped like bridge the gap and get it ah sold. But yeah, a lot of like the the pitch Bible stuff was all mine. And then when it came time to write the show, i just like, because I was inexperienced and didn't want to live in L, didn't want to move to LA, ended up being like a staff writer on it, even though it was sort of my pitch initially, which...
Speaker: You can judge the results for yourself, I guess, if you watch it. will say this. There are a lot of cooks in that kitchen, and I tried my best. ah I still think there's like some some good stuff in it. um But yeah, it was Hype-rave. You're really standing behind the creative vision here. Well, you know what? It was ah it was like a really interesting like it was a really interesting project, I will say, like adapting that for a TV because like the mechanics of it are so gamey. Like it's not like um like you go door to door on Halloween and you're like
Speaker: you knock on the door, an enemy opens the door, you fight the enemy or whatever. Or you just get candy. It's like a very, very... Have you played Costume Quest? I guess I'll just assume. No, I'm familiar with it, but I haven't actually played it. Yeah, okay. So it's like a very simple, cute Halloween-themed RPG, like turn-based RPG. And the kids, like, when you go into the battle cut scenes, they like...
Speaker: transform into these like into the costumes they're wearing so if you're wearing a robot like cardboard robot box costume in the real world when you transform into the battle sequence you're like full robot real robot so it's it's kind of hard to figure out like what that means when you're like have to give it like a more of like a plot and like serialize it over a season um so we had to do a lot of figuring that out and it was it was a challenge so i think some of that challenge probably shows in it um but Also hilariously, like the first one of the first notes we got from Amazon, which I will say i am working with Amazon was not great.
Speaker: um But one of the first notes we got was like, you can't like don't don't mention Halloween, like by name. like these people in other countries aren't going to know what Halloween is. I was like, this that's impossible. It's literally just a game about Halloween. um And they were like worried that they wouldn't know what Halloween was. And so we had we literally took the word Halloween out of the show. We turned it into like ah like a harvest festival or something. because like And how is that how that was more clear to everyone, I don't know.
Speaker: um But they were young... Also, the producers we worked with there were young and they're amazon Amazon's animation depart i don't think they exist anymore. So I feel like it's okay to be a little like critical because i think they still might do animation, but I don't know if they do like animation for that age range anymore. They might have realized it's not really in their wheelhouse. I'm not sure. It was it was an interesting experience.
Speaker: But yeah, do I guess the yeah the pacing of the game or the structure of the game lends itself better to the pacing of a comic book than a TV show. ah Possibly. i think with the comic, I was just more free to do whatever I wanted. ah There weren't any other cooks. and you know it always just Nobody really what you were doing Yeah, and I i knew it it was a short comic. It's only like 50 pages or something. I got That's sitting behind me, but like, um it's short. So, ah you know, it was like 50 pages. Set it on set it out Halloween. i was allowed to say Halloween.
Speaker: So it was ah it was it was pretty easy. It was like a... And I just did like a So the the games feature the kids. And I was like, I'm to just like ah the events, but like center from like a monster's perspective. So I have the monsters come over to get the candy, but they're like friendly monsters. And it's, you know, it's cute and it's fun. I'm still pretty proud of the book. It's one of the few, i don't have a lot of, for someone who like has a background in art, like that was drawing comics was amazing.
Speaker: Really, like, that's how I got into this whole thing. but But I don't have a lot of books where I also do all the art. Like, I feel like I do a lot of, like, writing comics now, and I don't have a lot where it's, like, written and drawn by me. um Oh, that's another video game-related thing I did. i did a tie-in graphic novel for a Hello Neighbor book. Oh, sure. Sure.
Speaker: And actually think I think it actually came up. I didn't draw that one. I just wrote it. um And that, I think, it came out pretty good, actually. It's one of those things where, like, I did i forget about it. I forget it it's out there. But it ah it is out there.
Speaker: Was that, like, an intentional decision that you wanted to do more writing and less art? or did it just happen? Um, it's sort of happened because think part of it is that I, well, I draw fast, but as you can tell, like, I mean, if you look at this kind of stuff, I draw it, it's clear. It's got a looseness to it, but I'm also a bit of a perfectionist. So I want to redraw things a lot. And like, I think the process is just too slow.
Speaker: And I found that with writing, I could just like produce work faster. um and also i just, um, Not that like productivity is the most important thing. I feel like I hate that. I hate feeling that way, but that's, you know, that does, you know.
Speaker: um But I do because I do miss it. I do miss drawing more. That's why when I get like a little freelance like thing like this where it's like it's not a huge ask. um I love it. Like I was I was so happy to do the comics for Spooky Express. Like I would have loved to draw the collar them too and do the whole thing if I had more time.
Speaker: But, um you know, any excuse to draw because mostly I'm just writing now. And it was sort of deliberate and sort of just something fell into. um And I really ended up loving writing prose, which is not something I had ever planned on. So that was like.
Speaker: The fact that I do like write mostly prose stuff now is kind of strange to me too. But that's just, I don't know. I never grew up as someone who was like, oh, I love the written word. I mean, I liked books as a kid because, you know, I was a nerdy kid, but like I never, I was more of a comics guy. You know, I read more comics than like prose books when I was a kid.
Speaker: It was only as an adult that I kind of got into it. Is it also partly that there's more work for prose writing than for comic book writing? Um, yeah, I'm not sure. You know, I get like, ah I get, I would say i I probably end up splitting about half and half, I guess. I usually do like a couple comic projects a year, like one or two like comic projects, freelance things. And then I'm continually writing prose, but everyone just stopped buying it. So I haven't sold a book in a while. Although, I will say that I've written two prose books and from the same series, that Disney series I mentioned earlier. And it's currently, like this is public. It's like in development right now at Warner Brothers for feature animation. so like there Somebody read it.
Speaker: Yeah, like I don't know. like nobody Nobody seemed to like buy it when it came out. But apparently, people like it enough to like you know option a film. So, I don't know. It took a long time. Yeah. And yeah, talk to me about ah Over the Garden Wall.
Speaker: What was your involvement on that? Oh, that was really... That's like one of those things where I'm just so grateful that I got to be a part of it because I'm like a fan, you know? i like love what they what they made.
Speaker: and that was just... The stories behind all of my jobs that I do like that are so like asinine because I always had to be like, well... I got an email and I said, yes, I never, like I'm not good at promoting myself, especially now that I have kids in like no time. And I'm like not on social media because I just decided that was terrible and I hated it.
Speaker: um So I've basically just left all of that behind and I don't know how to get work. I have an agent. ah She doesn't like bring me a ton of stuff. I have to kind of ask her like, is there anything you might have for me? when when like When I'm starting to feel like I just don't have anything to do.
Speaker: But ah what was I got totally sidetracked. I was saying, oh, over the garden wall. So... Yeah, i I got an email from Pat and they had done Tome of the Unknown, which was like a short ah test of the idea, basically. It was originally called Tome of the Unknown before it was called Over the Garden Wall. And they had done like a short internally.
Speaker: and I don't know, maybe maybe they released it online. I can't remember. But it was basically just him and ah who was it? Anyway, so so Pat McHale... contacted me about doing it. And at this point, like I was so kind of the neat thing was that I get to I got to see it from like the beginning because he asked me if want to do some storyboarding for it. And it was like for episode number one. So ah so there wasn't any like other storyboards to go off of. It was me and my board partner was Natasha Allegri, who um did like she works on Adventure Time, but also like Bee and Puppycat is like her series.
Speaker: uh super super talented and like also like really experienced and i had like zero experience uh in storyboarding really i think i'd maybe done one or two i had like there was like a large there was a time when like anyone in indie comics who's like roughly my age probably did the same board tests for adventure time when that was happening like ah because those were going around and they were really like pulling from the indie comics scene which was kind of amazing if you happen to be someone in indie comics.
Speaker: All of a sudden, once like Penn Ward and Adventure Time and all that stuff starts up and which really did kind of start with actually Thurup and Flapjack because that's how like Penn and those other guys got their like feet wet, really.
Speaker: But yeah, once once that ball started rolling, you know, like I think I was just like in their system. And so so Pat like asked me if I wanted to do it And I got like said, getting to see it from the beginning was really cool, even though the first episode was going to be like the backstory episode.
Speaker: So I'm not credited on the first episode because they moved it to like later in the series because they realized it made more sense to start like media res and then show the flashback later. um And I think a lot of the stuff I did in that episode actually got overdone by, redone by ah Steve Wolfhard anyway. But yeah, like there, it was, ah it was cool. I, you know, I'm really like,
Speaker: proud of it. Cause it's, it's even though I had like a small part, like I get credited as like a writer and and storyboarder on two episodes, but you know, I got an Emmy certificate for it. And also like, which is great. I have an Emmy certificate with my name on it. Cause it won. And, um and just like everybody knows it.
Speaker: Like and anytime, like I'll see people with like, like I have an over the garden wall tattoo because I'm a huge fan. And like, I'll see people with like a tattoo or like a t-shirt or something. And I'm always like, man it just feels good like it's just it's such like a it's such a solid like piece of finished art and i feel like when you work on other shows it doesn't feel that way you know it's like i got to do an episode and that was fun but because it was a mini series and because it was like so um and also i think it helps that it's so it's so seasonal it's like everyone you know bring it back in the fall and around halloween and november and it's like uh it's great because it keeps coming back and there's like a whole fandom to it you know which is fun So were you approached for storyboarding and then you also ended up doing writing or was the original idea you'd do both?
Speaker: Because of the way that they did the a lot of those shows, um storyboarders just got writer credits because you were sort of writing it with the boards. like they Which was a big part of like why i think...
Speaker: the some of that Cartoon Network stuff around that era was so good was because those guys who were, and girls, I should say guys. I say guys for everyone. I i don't i don't know why. i I can't, it's one of those habits I know I'm supposed to break and it's hard for me.
Speaker: The people making Adventure Time um and those shows were like, they were ah writing with the boards kind of at the same time. It wasn't like you didn't work from like a script, like for Over the Garden Wall, for example, which is like one of, I guess I'll just use that. It was like,
Speaker: Pat would have a breakdown of like sort of like a rough outline of the episode and then maybe some ideas for jokes or like some a couple specific things that they might have. And then he'd pass those on and then you'd sort of just fill it all in with the like writing as you um as you draw it, which is like a comic. And I think that's why they feel fresh. And it feels like i don't i don't know a lot of places that still...
Speaker: do that now that like Cartoon Network doesn't really exist it existed name only but I don't know other studios didn't really do that as much like you know you work on like a Disney show or something and it's like it's all scripted out beforehand Costume Quest that we were doing was all scripted out it was a scripted show but I'm sure there are some that still do it board driven board drivenve versus script driven I guess you'd say Yeah. And was it after that that you started shifting more towards writing?
Speaker: I don't know. I honestly don't really know how it happened. I think I just got this idea that I was going to write a book and i had like been, think and maybe I'd been asked to like write one or two like comic scripts for things at that point. It's really hard for me to like form a timeline. I have the worst sense of time. Honestly, it's, It's terrible. It's like, it's, it's a problem. So I don't know what happened in what order, but I know I did some comic scripts for stuff and where I wasn't drawing it.
Speaker: And then also, and that kind of motivated me to think like, okay, maybe I'm a better writer than I thought. And then, and then I just had this idea in my head that I was going to do a book that i wanted to write a novel, was like a kid's, I mean, a kid's novel, because I can't, you know,
Speaker: Although, i don't know. I talk with the idea of writing like adult fiction, genre fiction, of course. I can't do anything that's not considered genre fiction. But yeah, I don't know. I'm sure you could.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess. But like, why? so much harder. I thought I read some of literature. i'm like, ah but ah couldn't this be like set in space? I don't know.
Speaker: Shouldn't there be a monster somewhere? But yeah, it's a I think it was just like getting that confidence. And then like basically, the first book I i wrote, like my agent managed to sell it to HarperCollins.
Speaker: So then I was like, well, the rest of this is going to be ah frigging cakewalk. And then I have not sold book. So, turns out actually selling pros is really hard, but I really thought it wasn't for like a while, like a good year or two. I thought like, well, is easy. is everyone always talking about how hard it is? And now no one wants to buy anything that I write anymore, so.
Speaker: um Yeah. What's the, what's the pitch for those two books? Cause yeah. Okay. So this is this B that stoop is about um a girl who works in like a very D and D fantasy sort of dungeon set in a mountain. The first book is called this B that stoop in the black mountain. The black mountain is like this huge imposing mountain filled with, with a castle on top. And it's a dungeon full of monsters. And she takes care of the monsters. She's like the gamekeeper there. And so she like, feeds all the dangerous monsters and tends to their, you know, their problems. So that's the very short, that's the short pitch for it. She's got a slime best friend, was a little glowing slime who lives in a jar that she carries around.
Speaker: um I think it would make a great toy if the movie ever gets made. i was like, I was, I thought that like when I first wrote the book, i was like, that'd be a great toy. It'd be a great toy. Do the, do the people with the tv show rights now have all the merch rights looked up?
Speaker: They do. I get a cut of it, though, which I, you know, you actually thought now now you're reliant on them to do it. the yeah like you there were There were sites you could just do like merch on. Yeah, I could have. Yeah. But no one would have bought it. i could have done it. But the so the the thing is, you you sign away everything, basically, yeah um for in exchange for, you know, you get like,
Speaker: I don't know. I have an entertainment agent and i just trust whatever she says. I don't know what the hell's going on with these contracts. So you're like, okay, is that good? Is that a good percentage? And you're like, yeah, that's great. So, okay. Zach's agent, don't listen to this podcast.
Speaker: I have no idea what I'm doing. I just blindly trust my agents. ah Yeah. I don't know. But... It was, I think it was, I think it was good, but yeah, you do sign away like everything and and and they're so granular. It's so specific. It's like, okay, but here's what happens if we ever do. So it's for animation, but they were like, if you ever, if they ever do a live action remake, that's like in the first contract that you sign.
Speaker: Which is nuts. Like they're, they, they plan like so far down the road. It's like, okay, if it's a video, game if it's, if it, what is, what's like video game rights? What are like, you know, everything it's all, it's all laid out now.
Speaker: The contracts are so long. It's just, yeah. A normal human can't really understand them. You need like someone to end interpret for it for you. Yeah. But I guess, yeah, but the people you're working with are just kind of used to that. So hopefully for them, it's just kind of boilerplate.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so. I don't know. I probably should know more about the business side of things, but I don't. You probably have to, right? i'm Not really. I mean, we we'd never like signed away the rights to one of our games to a...
Speaker: like movie or TV production company. um So yeah, I've never had that perspective. We've done, we've done merch, but we just do it through a print on demand service. um We did a plushie, but we did that through ah like sell, like you need to sell 200 these before, know,
Speaker: We'll pre-order 200 of these before we'll actually make them. and Okay. Okay, this is a limited time run. Yeah. But, like, that stuff is all, like, very simple contractually. um Yeah, we we haven't really had to do anything super messy or with, like, big Hollywood tights.
Speaker: we We got approached by somebody who was interested in the rights for, like, a Monster Expedition TV series. um but like Okay. that conversation never went anywhere.
Speaker: yeah It's probably for the best. I mean, i don't know. Yeah, it is it is kind of like a distraction, really. I mean, I just want to... like If it was up to me, i would just like write and have someone pay me for it. And just that would be the end of the story. like i don't see I don't want to deal with any of the other stuff. It doesn't really... i don't know. I mean, it's exciting, but it's it's exciting in a way that mostly i just interpret my body just interprets as stress. So I just try not to think about it. like it's the It's fine.
Speaker: yeah i like You have no control over it. You have no agency. And maybe at some point in the next 10 years, something will happen and maybe something won't. Yeah, it's very slow, too. It's all very, very slow.
Speaker: Do you get the rights back if they don't do something with it in a certain time?
Speaker: I guess that of course that's information that would be in the contract somewhere. question. It's probably in the contract. Yeah, I mean, like, if they don't renew... Like, they had, like, 18 months to essentially renew, which I think is probably coming up fairly soon. and um and if they...
Speaker: if they decide to keep on in production, I know I get paid again for the option. So I don't have that coming up. But I mean, as far as like, I bet it's a long, I bet it's a while.
Speaker: I don't know how long it takes for the white right for the for for me to be able to like sell it somewhere else. I'm not sure. Not that i i think I would. I don't know if anyone else is interested in it. It's not like there was like a bidding war over it. It's not like a like a hot commodity.
Speaker: you Did your agent just like tell you one day, like, hey, this is an option. Yeah, I got I got contacted by my like entertainment agent and she was because so years ago they had i didn't actually find out about this until like when this this round of attempting to sell it was going on. But the the first time when the book came out shortly after the book came out, which was like, oh, God, I don't know. Many years ago now, not quite 10 years ago. i think maybe it was like 2018 or something.
Speaker: And when the book first came out, ah there was, I got partnered, my literary agent put me in touch with this entertainment agent, said she was like interested in it. She, there were these two screenwriters um who were, wanted to sell it. And so they were developing it and pitching it. And they were like, oh, we're going to try to sell it around. and like, great. um So they, they,
Speaker: I didn't know this part, but they actually had like, I guess they had gotten pretty far in the live action division at DreamWorks. And i I had not heard anything about this. But then basically they just decided that once it got kicked, pushed up the ladder far enough, they just decided that it would be too expensive and it was just, you know, not not a worth the risk. They dropped it Um, then this time around, you know, it had been so long. I hadn't heard anything. the, the books were like functionally just, it was a thing that happened. They were gone in my mind.
Speaker: It was over. It was like, it's a thing. I wish it would have gone better. Cause I knew, I didn't even get to finish the series. I did two books and it's just ends on a cliffhanger. Um, and cause I guess they didn't sell well enough.
Speaker: So I never, I never got to finish the series. And it was just kind of like hanging out there in the background is like this project that happened. And then I get an email randomly from the entertainment agent like, oh, these guys want to sell it again. OK, this time is like an animation. like All right, great. Good luck. Like, I just assumed nothing would happen. And then sure enough, they're like, OK, people are interested. And Warner Brothers seems like they're going to jump on it. So it just kind of came out of the blue.
Speaker: I think the two guys had... ah where The two screenwriters who were pitching it, they had worked on like... they They were doing mostly live action. and then they worked on Transformers 1, I think, with that director and like kind of got more, we're just kind of leaning more into animation and, I don't know, making context and on the animation side and just wanted to try again. so i guess I guess they still like carried a torch for it for all those for those years in between. But yeah, it was cool. So then, so yeah, it was just kind of out of the blue. Nice. Well, fingers crossed, it eventually happens.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I don't i don't know. ah Last I heard, they were I saw some like concept art and i heard they were like on moving on to the next round of the script. So I don't know. I guess it's still still bopping around there.
Speaker: I don't think there's a director attached to it, but as far as I know, know. And yeah, what have you been up to since writing those books? Um, like i said, i've written a lot more books. I've, uh, that did not get published. I've written some comics. Um, I recently, last year I did like a, there's a kid series called investigators. I did a, there's a spinoff of that called agents of suit. I wrote one of the co-wrote one of those.
Speaker: Yeah, not a whole lot recently. I've honestly, like, ah since having kids, like things have just like slowed down a lot for work, and sort of deliberately and also just managing time. so my, like, my, my work was never like our, our primary source of income for the family. yeah,
Speaker: It's kind of just like, you know, I sort of let my work take a little bit of a backseat. But now that I'm, they're getting a little bit older and I'm starting to get more time, trying to figure out like where I'm going from here.
Speaker: i got some other books I'm writing currently. I got like one that I'm probably like three quarters of the way done with a script. And then one that's with a first draft, I mean, and then one that I've just sort of been eager to get into writing, but Yeah, not a whole lot. I'm building, it's Halloween, so I'm building an unnecessarily elaborate, ah like big haunted house thing.
Speaker: That's what I've been working on all the last two weeks. Nice. Halloween crafts. And just stay from the outside of your house. And yeah, are you are you interested in doing more work on video games?
Speaker: I don't know. My last experience was interesting. So I worked, I worked on high on life, which I mentioned before we started talking. ah And that was a with Squanch.
Speaker: And it was their like last project before ah the Justin Roiland like stuff kind of blew up. And then he ended up ah leaving the studio and they made a sequel. I haven't played the sequel. Um,
Speaker: But that was a, it was sort of a chaotic and it was a weird experience. It was sort of being done like it was an animated series, because I guess that's his background. And so,
Speaker: you know I feel like i was kind of dropped into the deep end on some of that stuff and did the best I could, but it was a little bit of a mess. I don't know. And so like that I guess that kind of like turned me off a little bit from working on games, but that was probably like a very unique thing. And I've and i've never... like I don't know how to actually like do any like development like stuff my myself. like I don't...
Speaker: um I can't write a line of code to save my life. So, you know, I mean, it would definitely be like from the art side. i think i think like art and writing, yeah, I think I would be into it.
Speaker: It's just a matter of finding the right right fit, I guess. And And I don't get offered a lot of that work. So again, like I said, I'm terrible self-promoting. So if it's like if it's not like being offered to me, I probably won't end up doing if anyone's listening to this and they're like, I'm working on a game and they like want to feel free to email me.
Speaker: Because I don't know, i might I might be into it. I'm just, yeah. kind of just floating by with that stuff. i don't have any plans. I have no plans. have no calls anymore. You're just going to let life happen to you. Hey, yeah and that's ah a good way to live if it worked for you. Yeah.
Speaker: What are you guys working on? Oh, we're working on a bunch. I am way too busy. Pleat Polar Opfit. We... yeah Yeah, we've been working on a new game, which um we've teased on this podcast before, but haven't like said anything about it.
Speaker: But that's that's really cool. I had a brainwave earlier today that I think i think should be promising. Is there anything you are talking about yet? uh not about that game but uh it'll be good when when it's ready but it's not gonna be ready for while um but as well as that we um we're publishing a game called Dittery which is super super cool um yeah you're you're exploring with uh weird temple and there's a
Speaker: magical ability and there's a bunch of secrets and uh think the secrets are going to be what's really special about it um we've been working on that for like nine ten months now and then we also just signed another published game that uh we also can't talk about yet but we'll be announcing december january that time kind of the game um that's uh Yeah, I think that's it's going to be exciting too. So yeah, we we've got a lot of pots in the fire. Is that the phrase?
Speaker: Yeah, close enough. i don't know. Yeah. a lot of things in the fire. there's There's many things in the fire. Yeah. Yeah. Iron's in the fire. is that And then we've got a grant and we're currently reviewing applications for the grant. And yeah, ifs there's always stuff going on. Like my my backlog of like unimportant stuff that I should get to at some point in the future is just like constantly growing. That's a... Where are you based out of?
Speaker: I'm in you the UK. I'm in London. Oh, OK. Yeah, most of the people working with me are in the UK these days. Oh, OK. So they give they you can get grants for?
Speaker: oh no, we we are giving out grants to you. Oh, you're giving out grants. I thought you were getting a grant. But we did actually also get a grant. So the Intel and Devout project, um the reason we're making it now um is, yeah, we got a prototyping grant from the UK government.
Speaker: um which is cool. um we We actually got the same graph for Spooky Express, but for a much smaller amount of money. Okay. ah Yeah, I guess the UK government just kind of wants to invest in like helping people make games in the UK. And like we we have to use the money on UK-based people. so Okay, yeah. So it's an incentive to like hire people here rather than abroad.
Speaker: Yeah. I worked on some, I worked on like a Canadian like animated series once. um And it was, they had very specific rules about like, i remember one of the thing that sticks with me the most that I remember being funny was that you could write, there was like a, there was a part in the show where they like, I wanted there to be like a little song and they were like, well, you can write the words to the song, but you can't write the tune. That has to be a Canadian. And I was like, okay, I guess that's all right.
Speaker: You write the words, but not the, do not try to write a ah tune. You cannot do that. I was, was listening to a podcast about this recently. This, this, this concept of CanCon, Canadian made content. And like, you, like to, to count like, uh,
Speaker: at some point like to air stuff on the radio at least a certain percentage of it needed to be canadian content and that was like defined by okay what's the majority out of like who wrote the words um who wrote the tune where was it recorded uh all this kind of stuff so like it all comes back to like rights and uh that's yeah They're fairly serious about that stuff. I don't know how well they could track it, but I mean, it seems like they're fair they're pretty serious about it. I'm sure there's a database there somewhere.
Speaker: ah Before we wrap up, is there anything you wanted to chat to me about or pick my brain about? So as someone who makes puzzle games, what are like so what are some games that you would recommend right now that are out there that aren't your own? Or even your own, I guess, are fine, but to recommend. You can recommend your own things, but what what is what are like the what are the puzzle games you like or things you're into? Well, there there's a couple came out very recently that I really enjoyed. um One of them is called Colorbound. It's a puzzle platformer where you are using this, like, um you've got a...
Speaker: an instrument that can change the color of blocks in the world. And so you're using that to like change the blocks. So they are the same color as a background. So you can go through them or give them a color that has like a property that like, this will have gravity and then it will fall down. and oh yeah so yeah, it's a,
Speaker: I just, I just played it and I just had a delightful time. Um, uh, yeah. Uh, and then kind of the polar opposite and a super abstract game that I really enjoyed that just came out. It's called Vexcel.
Speaker: Um, where you've, got like a tiny grid and you're clicking on these shapes in the grid and they'll do different things depending on the shape. So there'll be like one shape that like pushes a blocker tile away or one that ah rotates things around it. So they're, or swaps things around it so they're in different locations. And you're just having trying to shuffle all the objects around so that certain objects are in the right location.
Speaker: But yeah, it just really clicked with my brain, like very minimalist and elegant in a way that, yeah. OK, cool. It's just lovely. And it seems like it's going to have loads and loads of different types of machine that you can interact with. And you can just be like, oh, is this getting stale? Well, just throw in a new type of behavior and learn how to deal with that.
Speaker: It's called Vexcel? Mm-hmm. OK. I think I played the first, so my son, who's seven, i think I think we played what I would consider to be like the first puzzle game. Like mostly he likes like racing games and stuff. um and We tried to play, I mean, there's like a sort of puzzly element to it. It's a little platformer too, but tried to play ah the Lego Voyagers together. yeah I played a little too. It's two player, like it's like mandatory two player. And I feel like you found it really frustrating. Do you have any good recommends for like kids, kids puzzle games?
Speaker: Huh? Um... No, my my my my my my sense is not really calibrated for young players. um Everything i love is like probably way, way too hard. um I mean, out of our games, I think like ah good snow is hard to build. I don't know exactly what age it's a good fit for, but like there' there's a certain like age of young players that I think that game could be cute and nice for.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. a uh i feel like i should have some some other ideas but nothing's immediately coming to mind um yeah okay uh oh i mean um maybe some of phleb's stuff um uh 20 small mazes or strange jigsaws um they're like super charming um weird and quirky and uh yeah like 20 small mazes is literally just like a bunch of mazes but each of them have like a unique twist um uh so yeah that that could be a good fit yeah i'll check that out it'd be easier if it's on the switch but uh
Speaker: It might not be. Is PC only? It's not. It's PC, but it's free on PC. Okay. Yeah. All right. see. Cool. On Switch, there'll be a bunch of Nintendo games. um The puzzly Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, think, was kind of interesting. I haven't quite sold him games like that. He definitely wants games all time. he just gravitates towards things that more action oriented.
Speaker: he's definitely interested he definitely wants to play games all the time i have to like but but he just like gravitates towards like things that are like more action oriented like um yeah don't know. It's like a reflex thing that he likes. He's just really into cars right now. So he's obsessed with cars. No shortage of car games. Yeah. that's it's a First it was Mario Kart and now it's Forza 6. I don't know. he's He loves cars.
Speaker: It's hard to convince him to do other things. But I like other types of games. So I'm trying to introduce some of that stuff. Well, yeah. This is a lovely conversation. so glad we did this.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks for asking me to do it. Yeah. um And thank you for listening to the DirectNica Friends official podcast. Music is by Priscilla Snow, you can find at gooenoise.com.
Speaker: Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis, and our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawodniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast servers of choice, and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
Speaker: you
