The Creative Credits Sequence

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Secure your digital world in physical form with IMate bit For twenty years, IMABit has been crafting premium expansions on the industry's best games They've pioneered community experiences like Day of the Devs and Summer Game Fest and have brought over two hundred award winning physical games and soundtracks to life. Fr breakout hits like Sea of Stars and Persona F to originally published titles like Escape Academy and Simpler Times. I M make Bit's passion is fueled by artistry and games whether interpreting beloved brands from a new point of view, or extending the mythology of a game Perhaps when you're developing What's the IMA bitit difference? Their collectibles are premium, but for them, they're personal too. See for yourself at imabBit. com Hi, I'm Alexa Ray Ka, and this is the Gameemakers's Notebook podcast. Today, my guest is my friend, Jason Wishnov of Iridium Studios They just recently published their JRPG musical, People of Note I really like talking to Jason. He is a former current voice actor, background in engineering and has become this video game indie design multilasser. And the story of how he got from where he came from to people of note is really interesting. A lot of his personal journey in the indie space does kind of mirror the story of the game I think it's really interesting how he built this game with a lot of musical inspiration. He talks about how it basically designed itself when you think about the intersection between music and math and game development. Really quite fascinating. lease enjoy. Welcome to G Makererss Notbook, a podcast featuring a series of in depth one on one conversations between game makers providing a thoughtful, intimate perspective on the business and craft of interactive entertainment. The Game Maker's notebook is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences a member driven organization dedicated to the recognition and advancement of interactive entertainment Hi, Jason. Fally, here we go, talking about peopleople of No. I'm so excited. For the people listening watching at home, tell us a little bit about your history. How did you get here Well, thirteen point seven billion years ago, there was the expansion of space and time. I am the creative director at Iridium Studios. Hi, my name's Jason. Um You know, I mean, it's kind of a long story, but essentially I made an indie game when My Iie game was the only game that came out that day on Steam in twenty eleven U Turns out that's great for business. That's start of that sort of kickstarted everything U I made a second game. that game was called Squence, but then a lawsuit happened and now it's called before the Echo turns out there's a board game called sequence and they don't like it when you name something the same as their board game Oh dear. Yeah. And then we made a second game called their Cayan Echo. that was a voice controlled strategy game. U And then some years later, we convinced Anapperna interactive to take a chance on an JRPG musical. I want to be clear to the listeners at home, that is a Jon RPG. that is not a Japanese RPG. I'm clearly not Japanese. And it's a musical and we released it back in April april seventh and here we are about a month and a half later And u Yeah, that's about the general story That is a very, very high level story that I feel like doesn't does you a disservice because you have a really interesting You went to college for prorogramming, compomuter science Yes, I have two degrees at computer engineering and electrical enineering, That's correct. Electrical engineering. I didn't know that part. That's really that's interesting. U So you got this your educational background is in programming and then you actually were a voice actor for a while, or you still are actually. Yeah, I actually like I was like semi retired and I actually went back in like a week or two ago because there's a new Dungan Romampa game coming out. Oh, congrats. Yeah Very excited about that Um Yeahah, you know, I was always like the math and science kid growing up. That was like my whole focus and what I was really good at. But you know you start to get into your teenage you know years and you want to rebel and how to rebel against this, but to long for the stage and for acting and writing and all those other things that my parents would scoff at and not much was done about them until college where I started taking some acting and writing classes, though they were always electives, they were not like a primary focus. I did get my engineering degrees. I thought it a financially stable route though these days, wasas that correct? I don't know Um But yeah, like I moved out to LA and I decided I wanted to try making video games, voice acting and writing. thoseose are the three things And I kind of got to do all free. I feel very lucky and very fortunate But yes, I became a voice actor. as mentioned, I'm in Dungan Rumpa. I was in League of Legends. I had like a little little career going for a little bit Um, but ultimately I I wanted to make games. And of course I narcissistically cast myself in my own games because why not Yeah. so I'm kind of like You know, I think that people of note as mentioned, it's a JRPG musical is in a way combining the two halves of my brain in a way that feels very satisfying to me Yes, there are a lot of math jokes in people of noe. I am just immediately like right off the bat U And also like cast yourself in your games because when you cast yourself, it's free, right? It's free. technically technically, technically, it's free So I remember talking to you about peopleople of No like last year. and I know a bit of the story, but I want you to walk through the kids at home. the inception story. Like where did this game come from in your brain? You said math and theater kids So how do we get to people of known Well, you know, I wish this part were a slightly more interesting story, but it was like twenty seventeen. It was either late twenty sixteen or I have to look it up U Hamilton came touring to L.A. I had not seen it I'd heard about it, of course. I went to go see it in the Pantagas theater here in LA. And I like it ended and I like felt a mild panic because I was like, oh my God, like E every game developer after seeing this is going to want to make a musical. I have to hurry up Turns out that was not true at all. But and then it took me like nine years. but u You know, the idea of musicals, technically, I want to give some credit has been explored in games before. There was a PlayStation one game JRBG called of Rhapsody, which wasn't you know, I don't want to hate on Rhapsity, it was a product of its time, but it didn't quite do what I believe a musical can do justice. And you know a lot of that was just technical limitations of the PS one know when people think of musicals, I guess, they tend to think of stage musicals. They think of Broadway, they think of the the, which is great. And I love that format, obviously It's not the most popular format in the world. A lot of people just don't engage with that, but what they do engage with is Disney and they like musicals are still very, very, very prevalent in modern culture, very popular. U at the time when I was pitching the game, it was like Frozen meets fininal Fantasy. And these days it would be Kpop deemon Hunter meets Expedition thirty three But effectively I same thing And I was like, can I just bring you know, a musical two gaming and you know, and that could take a lot of forms, right? Stay Godds came out and that was more of like kind of a choose your own adventure sort of visual novel thing. And there are other games, there's an indie game called Billy Bust upp. There's several like musical games either out or in current development. I'm just a little final fantasy little freako U and it's my favorite series and I love, you know, I wanted to make the RPG of my dreams So I put together a very idealistic pitch, like exactly the game I wanted to make and How niche is this at the time term based RPGs weren't doing great So it was like kind of a hard sell a lot of publishers and a lot of folks. I went through a lot of those I lost count. I was counting at some point. I think I got over like sixty five ns before I got a yes Yeah I mean, that's story might also be worth telling. I don't want to sit here and just wr Y Yes, it is, please. L like that's that's part of how we got here. So. Y. So if anyone's wondering what pitching a game is like Um, you know, I put together a deck And I put together a prototype with my own money from previous games and stuff like that U Do you have music I had music, I had one song. I had worked with Jason Troke Miller on the song that eventually became Mash upp, which is the third song in the game Yes, Yeah, it's kind of like a duet kind of situation. I thought it would represent it well. So we had that song for sure And Annaarna was really interested in the game and we had a lot of talks. They seemed like a really good partner after like four months of going back and forth that actually Unfortunately didn't work out. They sent me an email and they were like, Hey listen, We really like the game. It just didn't fit into our schedule. It didn't fit into our portfolio this year U At the time, I fell into a brief depression because I really felt like that was going to be it I dusted myself off and I kept working. And then about a year and a half later I went to Cuba And this is important. My mom, my family's from Florida and you know, typically the You know, Caribbean Islands are a very common vacation destination, but Cuba was a new one because it had opened up for tourism only a circa like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen Thanks Obama U So we went And we went on a bus tour of Havana And near the end of the bus tour, we went to a little marketplace and the lady was like, Hey, listen, if you want any of the three big Cuban goods, that's coffee rum and cigars, this is the place to do it. You have twenty minutes get back on the bus before twenty minutes elapse or you'll be left in Cuba And I was like, well, I don't any of those things. I don't grind my own coffee. I don't drink and I don't smoke cigars. So I sat on the bus for thirteen minutes And then at the fourteenth minute. Wait a minute. What am I doing? Like Human cigars are like prized in America. likeike there are rules. you can't import cigars, you have to physically go there Bring them back, limit of fifty. by the way, that has ended. You can no longer do that. Now you can't bring back Cuban cigars. They'll be confiscated So I rush off the bus at the fourteenth minute. Luckily I speak like a decent enough about amount of Spanish to like you know, frantically buy a box of cigars. I'm pretty sure I got ripped off whatever. I ran back. The bus was pulling away. I knocked on the door and they stopped and they let me back. So I didn't get transed. Amazing So I come back, I've got these cigars and I'm like, okay. Business, Jason, who who are we going to give the cigars to Wh's it who's it Yeah,' going to be cool I'm going to give them cuban cigars. Anapperna came to my mind. They were really nice to me. I'd gotten the closest with them. and I had actually I had U one of their numbers because I helped them write the end credits thememe to Watom way back in the day Um, wow So I texted him and I was like, Hey, a weird question. Do you like Cuban cigars? And he was like, yeah, And I was like, cool. do you want any? And he was like, yeah, yeah, swing them by the office.'ll that's great. So I swing on by and I give it to him and he's like, Hey, this is Nath Gary, by the way and shout out to Nathan Gary for list Um He's like Hey are you coming to the Donut County Lunch party tonight And I was like, the what? the what now? Wh what? And he's like, Yeahah, it's that it's that button Masher. It's in L Falice or silver like or whatever And I was like, no, no, I didn't I didn't know about it. He's like, Yes, swing onm by. So I was like, okay so I frantically drive home, LA traffic Sorry, this is getting to be a long story Stight Yeah, yeah U I change into like a nice outfit and I get out there a button mash a little late, but I make it And this is the first time I had really interacted with Anaperna outside of the conference room. you know, So everyone's a little looser, everyone's a little less buttoned up And I'm talking to to someone who had actually eventually become my producer, Neil. And Neil was a little bit I'm just I'm not gonna to lie. He was a little tips, you know, that's fine. He wasn't you know, sloppy or anything He was like Hey, man, like whatever happened to people of note? Like are you still pitching that man? And I was like, ye, yeep, still still pitching it around. And he's like M, we really wanted to make that happen like bums me out, man. like Have you been like working on it? Like have you done anything? Like, you know, has anything changed? And I was like, well, I finished the script, which was something that had not been done prior He' a Dark S light You lied. Was it the script is not done? The script is not done. Okay. ye. I lied. That's my bad meal if you're listening. It wasn't a complete lie. It was about two thirds done. mayaybe sixty percent D And he goes, dude, you should send that over, man. Like I'd love to read that, dude. And I was like, yeah, I'll send it over tomorrow. So Yeahah, man, so I'm sitting there in my head, I'm like, oh boy oy Okay, okay. so I I rush home Luckily, my roommate at the time, Beth May, who actually might be known to some viewers now. She's on the Dungeons and Dragons podcast, Dungeons and Daddies Um, but she's a writer, she's an excellent writer And I was like, Beth, Hel me out, girl. I'm going to give you Like I think was I forget what I offered. I was like, I'll pay you two hundred dollars or three hundred dollars to like stay up with me all night. She's an expert in screenwriting and formatting and she's just got a great mind. And I was like, I want you to just help me. We're gonna bang this out. We're going to finish the script and she's like, I got you, dog So we stay up all night. I think she finally tapped out at like four thirty AM, but it's fine U we finished the script I send it over And they were like When you said, listen, you probably know this, you're a writer When someone asks for a script and you send it over You don't really expect them to read it quickly or at all, maybe No, notot when it's your script, which I saw like about like a hundred plus pages. Yeah As long this not aort This is not like a twenty two minute eisode of television, right? This is No This is long And I send it over and I'm like, who knows when this is going to be read Two days later I get an email being like, hey, several of us read the whole script. We really like it. And I was like, whoa They're like, whyy don't you come in? we'd love to talk a little bit. And I was like, Ohh my God, what's up So I come in again, this is a year and a half after they said no, by the way. And They some stuff happens, whatever. I'll get to the crux of it. They basically say, Hey, listen We really liked people of note, we really liked you It came close, but it didn't quite meet the mark And specifically what gave us pause wasn't the gameplay, the music, the writing Any of that, it was the art style. And at the time and still perhaps today, Anapurnna is known for being a very kind of like high art type of publisher And I was, you know, this was prototype stuff. This was not beautiful Citicism is perfectly justified And they were like We are going to make you a deal. I won't give the specifics here due to NDA, but they're like, we're going to give you a little bit of upfront money And we want you to find an art style, find something unique and beautiful and special, something that gives us confidence And if we like it We will consider that the first advance of your budget. If we don't That's okay. we'll pass, but you know, we're not to ask for the onlyoney back And they're like, is that cool with you? And I was like, oh my Godd, of course it's cool with me That's a great deal. So ye. We we said yes. Now we had to still do a contract for this because money's being exchanged hands And one of the things that kind of shocked me was like the length of time that they asked for to make a decision. Again, I won't give the details, but it was like they were like, we have this amount of time to make a decision after your final presentation to us. And it was a massive amount of time And I was I initially tri to push back on it. I was like, can we make that a little shorter? becauseuse that's kind of crazy and they were like, no, We need this time or the lawyerss worrying I was like all right whatever Five months pass I end up working with Chelsea Hash, who was a genius, by the way. She actually later went to work for Anaperna, but at the time she was independent found a wonderful art style which survived to the very end. It's basically what you see in the game And made my final presentation on december seventeenth, twenty nineteen. I remember the date very well And I thought I crushed it. I thought I did a great job. I went up there. I did my my my show You know, my my Song and dance literally in this case. We had a new song as well to kind of help with that final pitch And at that point I knew I was like, I have to put this out of my head because they said they had so much time to make a decision If I if I think about this or if I wait at my phone every day for an email, I'm going to lose my mind So I try to put it out. and the next day I scheduled a lunch with my friend Erica Limbeck a voice actor who ended up being in the came Yeah Eric is great And I was driving to meet her for lunch at Chilei Johns in Burbank shout out to Chilei Johns Burbank. B Chil in. LA. in my opinion And I'm on the four hundred five and I see my phone because I'm using Google Maps, I have a notification pop up from and a perote It's an email. And I was like, Ohh my God, what is this? And I know that I can't read it becausecause one way or another, I'm going to have a very strong emotional reaction. its a no I' going to be devastated if it's yes,'m to be latedate I' on the road I'm going sixty five miles per hour On the four or five I said, Ohh my God, I'm like I start shaking. I have to like, I have to pull over. I can't be on this road right now. I need to get over. I need to get off Get off at Mulholland D drive. There's no pullover on Mulholland Drive. There's no shoulder. I have to drive like two miles before I can finally like pull into someone's. I'm like they might come out shoot. I don't know what's going on here I'm like shaking, my hand is shaking. I open the phone. I still have this email in my inbox. It's basically like, yeah, that fucking world we're in. L I mean, paraphrase. Wow And I instantly start crying, I'm bawling. I'm in the car. I'm in someone's driveway. If they were looking out their window, I look like a psychopath. U So like trying to collect myself and like after fifteen minutes, I'm like, oh Godd, I'm really late for Chilli Johns. I have to keep going I get back on the road and I'm driving and I'm crying the whole time. And finally, when I get there, I kind of collect myself. I'm like, it's cool. It's cool. everythingvery's fine. I gave like a hundred dollarars bill to a dude like a panandler. U I was feeling good. I get into Chile Johns. Chilei Johns is like for everyone who's listening, certainly, I don't know if anyone's been there. It's one of those old school like you shaped diner kind of situations where everyone's sort of looking at each other. I come in, I thought I'm collected. I'm not collected. Erica sees me and I instantly start breaking down into horrible tears again and she didn't She thought something was horribly wrong. She thought like someone had died or like I was in grief. Oh God. Are you okay? I'm so sorry. And she's like comforting me and I'm trying to get it out, but I can't get it out because I'm crying too hard And finally I tell her and she's like, wait, that's a good thing. And I'm like, yeah, it's a good thing. And she's like, o, congratulations. And everyone was looking at us and it was very silly. U that was december eighteenth And thus Thank you so much love note was funded on that day That's a beautiful story. and there's a reason I wanted you to tell it because I feel like so much of so many elements of this inception story, like you are Capital I indie, like you are indie. like that when we, you know We're talking about game taxonomies these days. It's like, o, tripleI, you got, you know, big funding from EA or whatever. Like you came from the part of the industry that is like, we want to do this because we want to do this and we're scrappy and we're full of hope and like of dreams and whatnot and this journey that you went on to getting people of no approved. reallyally kind of can I feel those themes in people of knowes Like I have a question later, like how much of cadence is you Hearing this story. reallyally like I can see the parallels between the two of you I think that like the most proud thing I can say about people of notote is that people who know me as a person are like rolling their eyes the entire time they're playing the game and they're like, that's just the most Jason thing I've ever heard. Like it's really just, you know, and I want to be so clear when I say this like No one is an aur. This game is not mine. It's the teams, you know, but at the same time, I was the only writer and designer. So when you're like king to an NPC or like, you know, when you're kind of seeing an insight into a character, like, yeah, that's kind of just me, those parts, even though the game, of course is so informed by by the team and shout up. we had a we had a group we a group Google Doc for the puns So I want to reallyally give a lot of credit to the team for a lot of those puns. They were not just all me. The math ones were probably me, but so many of the great ones were from the team as well. But yeah, like it's me, and it's also the team like crystallized into game form. And I am very proud of that, if nothing else I can I I can feel that when playing peopleople of notes Uh, when you so when you built your team, you got your team together. Obviously, again, you are indie. It's not like, oh, I have a team of twenty five people on my payroll at all times And this is also a musical. So there were very specific people you need. You needed voice actors who could saying you needed people to write a lot of music. So how did you go about getting your T team together. for this c. Yeah, it's like an Oceanss eleventh thing. You're like, I got one last job, you son of a bitch I'm in Um Well, so I want to say that, you know, this is the classic You love to see this work out when you like go to someone talented And maybe you can't like pay them maybe their rate, but likere like, hey, man, I have this thing. It may never get funded. You may never see anything out of it, but I really want you to help me because you're great. So I went to Jason Charles Miller who if you don't know who he is, he is an amazing musician U used to be in a band called Godhead. You might know him best for listeners as the primary male vocalist on Final Fantasy fourXteen main track, so he did close in the distance and the Shadowburger's main theme and all these other major themes. But he's such a great songwriter and I knew him from mutual Friends. And I was like, Hey, man, I really want you to help me write this song. And that was Mashup. So that was the one that we ended up pitching with Um, And I didn't I think I paid him like a thousand bucks, like straight up.ike I was like, this is way below what you should be charging for this. And He's like, No, I think this is cool and I'd love to give it a shot So and this was this was in twenty seventeen. So it was over two years later that the game ended up getting actually funded. And I got this was one of my first calls was I got to call him and I was like Hey man, we did it like we finally got it and he was celebrating too. So In a way, kind of already had that one locked in. So Jason Charles Miller was responsible for nine of the thirteen musical numbers And he's very, you know, he's a very diverse musician. He could obviously handle pop and rock and country and a lot of the others. But there were some genres that maybe he was not the best at. So you know, just kind of jumping into the musical aspect for a second, we had our rap number. And I was like, this one I really want to be like authentic from someone who comes from this world, right? This is not my world. this is not JCM's world So we ended up finding this guy. He was on becausecause you know, it's a tough thing because we want the actor and we want the singer to be the same thing, right? So we put out this was we had a whole thing. We eventually went saag after, but at the time We were like there was some stuff going on and we couldn't quite make it. So initially it was going to be non union. And we went to a website, I think it's called backstage. com. It's a very anyone can go on it. This is not for agents. This is not for high powered folk like anyone can go and audition on backstage. com We end up getting this guy And he's not really an actor, but in his like application, It says he's a Grammy nominated rapper. And I was like, that can't be true. That's a lie, right And I look it up and I'm like, No, it's not This guy is a Grammy nominated rapper And he was just he wants to act And he like found this random little indie game Exact thing on backstage. com And I contacted him and I was like, Hey man, like Do you want to write The song, Do you want to like actually do the rap And he was like, of course, man, like what's up? Just give me a vibe. And I was like Siderverse and he's like, say no more, famam, I got you. And so he end up writing spitting image whichich is Vodan's number in the game. That's the only song where I had like very little lyrical input. like I was like, here's the vbe, hereere's who vxes go and he like It's one of those things where you're like you're really nervous becausecause you're like I dont know this guy. I've never met him in person before. Is it going to come back and be good or am I going to have to be like, no, this is bad, please start over. No,'t the first draft I was like, we're basically done here. Like I changed a couple of lines ' I'm like, oh, this will help this character's development a little bit. But like that was it So That was just one example. We got Andrew Vversa for the EDM number We had a guy John Torkington whose dad was in a like boy band in the eighties and nineties and we got like, him to do the sorry Girl musical number So wehe Dad I love Sorry girl. It's so fun. Um, And then we wanted people, you know, artistically that I mean, you don't need to be a musical theater fan to make rocks for Dirandas, right? You don't Ne that stuff We did end up finding Like I think it helps. like our animator David We actually We found an animator who we liked early on And they were like, hey, look I don't know if I can do this for a couple of reasons. I kind of have a thing coming up But I know this other animator who just graduated and he iss obsessed with Hamilton and And I was like, giveim me his email. Wow Yeah and He actually, his demo reel included him animating a section from an actual Hamilton musical number because he just loves it so much Wow. Hey, man, do I have the project for you? He's like dope And that's important, right? Because when you're animating a character, you want that theatricality. and I wanted someone very familiar with that world and that sense of movement Um And and like I want to be clear, not everyone had that. likeike our VFX artists, like, Yeah, I guess your VFX artist could have some musical background, but she did a great job. You did a great job. That's fine. So not everyone had it, but I think I did always kind of give that intangible a big plus if we found that in an application. Um and just to kind of wrap it up, notot to say that this production was smooth. I mean, we had a couple of different art directors throughout its process. We had a couple of resets Um, But we ended up finding, you, in the end, just such an amazing team that really brought everything together And you know, it was a little bit like up and down until twenty twenty two. So it's not that we got no work done for two years. We got plenty of work done But we were still finding, experimenting, kind of trying to get things in order. And then it was like in mid to late and dont the pandemic also kind of maybe messed things up a little bit too U But in like mid late twenty twenty two, I think we kind of coalesced around kind of that shared vision and kind of brought it to the finish line from there Yeah. So You're You're building your team You've seen And everything is built on. you saw Hamilton and decided, okay, I want to do a musical video game What what came first? wasas it the idea because again I can see the parallels in Hamilton and Cadence, you know, wanting to take your shot, wanting to be, you know Yeah, I'm not throwing away my shot. Yeah. Yeah. so did likeike what part came came first as you were Building out your world and your story? was it cadence and her journey? Was it the idea of these countries that all have a different genre, like what was the nugget that set you off into the world that you created Yeah, it's interesting. I've thought about this question like only in retrospect. like when I was in it, I'll tell you how I think I thought about it. it, you know, and I'm sure have you Have you felt in your journey as a writer that you have ever been There has been a lead or a director or specifically a designer coming to you and being like Hey, this is how the game has to work and we need to we need you to figure out narratively just something that even makes remote all the time. All the time. Yeah. And I've heard this from many narrative designers and writers like, you know, I've heard it from Kerrie Sirau and I've heard it from so many people and there's this inherent Let's call it friction, right? In a good team., It's not a fight, but it's friction between the narrative element and the design element And I'm not saying'm I actually have some level of imposter syndrome around my own writing And I have maybe a little bit less, but still a little bit of imposter syndrome around my skills as a designer But you do get, you know how in an MMORPG, sometimes if you have a full armor set, you get a little set bonus Yeah. I feel like I'd Yeah. I feel like and I'm an engineer too. So I get a set bonus, I think, for being all three of those things. cool way to describe it all setparate t on it. Yeah Um So what came first truly, of course, this is not a surprise, I already said, it was like, I want to make a musical. and was like, okay How do I want that to work? Well, I want to be a JBG. And that also is kind of an initial condition. I wanted to be a jarberer because I wanted to be a jabberer. There's no reason. I didn't like, oh, what would be the best genre for a musical? I didn't think about that. I was just like I want to be a j. So I thought That first was design actually. It was like, well, if you have a party, And it's a musical What genre? likeike what are we is it a pop musical? Is it a rock musical? And I was like No, man, like I want something for everybody So I want to have differentiffere members be from different plays, different genres. And then I was like, okay, so I'm going gonna have a pop girl or I mean, I didn't specifically think like, whatever, just a pop person, a rock person, an Iian person, whatever So then from that, I hop ladders. I'm like, that's technically a design point So I jump back to narrative and I'm like, okay Why have different people who are going represent different genres How is that? like are they just all Is it like one city that it's all going to take place in? orr is it a world And I thought about like, would it be cool if like everyone had different genres to kind of represent who they were and maybe those genres come from different places like in a very artificially separated world. I'm like, that could be cool Then I hop and then I'm like, okay, cool. now we have different cities representing different genres Then I hop back to the design ladder and I'm like, okay How's that going to work in batt I really kind of thought of this idea where the music would dynamically change early on in that So I thought about like, oh, it would be really cool if when you do an ability with cadence, like it switches to a pop version of the track And I was scared about how much work that was going to take. And I was right to be scared about that But it was something that I really wanted And then I was like, whoa, oh, and then I came up with the mashup idea And I was like, oh, that'd be really fun if like they could combine. That's like their limit breaks. Like that'd be sweet And then I was like, okay okay, I got this mash upp thing. let's hop back to the narrative ladder. How do I make mash upps a big thing in this world, like we're kind of focusing around the idea of musical harmony of different things coming together. And I thought about, okay, these genres don't even like each other. They don't even hang out. They don't maybe they know about them, but This is not something that's commonly done. And so I started building up the themes of that And that's when Cadence came into view or it was like someomeone who There's a lot, I mean, this is a question you said you had rolled up. There's a lot of me and cadence, right? There's a lot of like I want to shoot my shot. I want to be, I mean, it's the video game equivalent of being on stage, but I want to make my game and put my art out into the world And I always thought about this inherent guilt that I had being an artist, I'm like, well, I could be building homes for needy people in a in a, you know, developing nation, right? Like I could be devoting my time and money to purely altruistic, but I'm not, I'm making art and there's this inherent guilt that I think comes with that that I've always felt. And maybe that's not you know, a lot of people would say That's not fair and of course I kind of believe them intellectually, but emotionally, I never quite felt it So like I kind of decided that cadence would her arc would be she would start just wanting to do her own thing and then her journey would be going across the land creating this band. I don't know the specifics yet They're going to join her party but she's gonna to like, not be into the idea of like doing it for other people. She's just going to be about herself and her dreams and her goals. But her change is going to be that she realizes that that's, you know, that there's other things going on and that there's a more important kind of here in the world. And I kept hopping ladders. I kept going back and forth and like one writing decision would inform a design decision and then one design decision would inform a writing decision And that's that set bonus where I didn't have to fight with anyone. I didn't have to justify myself or ask for something unnatural. If I kept hopping ladders quickly enough and everything kind of coalesced at the same time, There would be less ludo narrative dissonance. There's not zero. That's maybe impossible. but like, It's I don't know. I I feel that I can't hold a candle to the Josh Sawyers of the world in many senses And to be fair, I think Josh Syer is also like a designer. so maybe he's just flat better But like It is very helpful to kind of have these skill sets complelimment each other and not contrast each other. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it was it sounds like it was sort of Kadence's journey began. Oh her arc or who she who she initially was was kind of the thing and everything built on that. Yeahes, she was first for sure. It was first. Cadence was first. And I don't think I locked down like genders and you know, approximate like ages and races and demographics, Like that was locked in a little later when we talked about like that was really more of a character design decision I also like I was like, okay, who's going to be the foil to cadences You know, like Cadence is largely just me even in terms of like her speech patterns. Like when I'm being busessy with friends, like she ye, she talks like you. She talks like me, right? She talks like me And I was like Wh's going to be a really good foil to her like, you know, where you can kind of bounce things off and that I think that was the original kind of thought of fret, which is like an older guy, he's more serious where they could kind of have like sometimes some comedic moments between them And I started also thinking about like each character having their mini arcs where like we have the overall arc, of course, but like who are these characters? what are they struggling with? And I thought about like music, Typical conflicts in music, right a very typical conflict in music is like a band broker Right? L that's a classic So I focused on that for Fret and I you know, I'm focusing on the reconciliation you know, between him and Freak and how that affects who he is. And then I thought about an EDM. I thought about my own imposter syndrome and I thought about people I thought about Avicci, right? I thought about Tim Burgling and his struggle and his ultimate, unfortunate demise with, you know, drugs and everything. and that was a little bit of a that was a rough one for me because A lot of the game is so lighthearted in a lot of ways, but in Cythia and in Luminom just like Yeah, drug abuse and the idea of like tying it to your you know, creative identity and this idea that artists tortured and that they need these substances or these pains to create their art And so I'm like, is this a little too heavy for this game? I don't know. And then I was like, I don't care, whatever it's my game And Yeah. And then I talked about, you know, with Vox, it's the idea of like parental legacy. It's the idea that like you Do you owe something to your parents? Do you owe something to who they want you to be? Ands that's coming from me in my math and science background where you know, my parents expected You know, I have the ability to do it. I could have been an engineer. I could have just gone and worked for Intel or whoever Um You know, and they want the best for me. That wasn't a negative desire on their behalf, But like what do I do I owe anything to them Will they be disappointed in me? famamilial expectations, different cultures treat that differently. that was kind of, I don't know. I just like, All these things took shape over time, but in all of them is reflected mee and Arc also, Arc is also someone who has a lot of be in him he's the other side of the coin, you know, to cadence and his desires And he's like, no I I'm the only one who can make the world better. I, you know, and he has this like stre where he's like, I can't trust other people because y'all are insane you know, from his perspective. Yeah. So everyone is me basically. Well, I love that your will they won't f characters were both sides of you That's interesting.'s let's unpack that. Yeah sure.s let's go to a therapist session for two hours Well the so like JRPGs can their cast, their characters. From what, you know we've experienced and the ones that we grew up with, the cast of characters can make or break the game Yeah. So it sounds like so it sounds like you picked your you kind of, you kind of had these themes first and then you chose your musical genres to go with them Yeah, I mean, you know, I think the You know, a group breaking up, for instance, like that that could apply to anything, right? Would pendulum broke up. They're an EDM group and it could be pop or rock or anything But like And then I thought about the impmposter syndrome and like kind of dru like that one sort of naturally tended towards EDM, right? And I knew who cadence was in her journey. So I was like, all right, that kind of leaves rap and rock, rap is a little bit more of a solo experience. There's usually not like groups or bands and rap so much. So It just kind of slotted in so it was rocked You know, everything just kind of slotted in nicely. And there was an initial question too of like, what are the primary genres that, you know, represent your party Because There's a time in the game where like, Lasso is about to join the group and then he ends up dying and you know, he like country was in serious consideration for one of the four primary genres Um, Interesting. Yeah, and classical to some extent was too. but of course, that ended up being arc I knew I wanted pop, I knew I wanted Rck. I knew I wanted EDM And then I felt like Rp should be one of them for several different reasons You know, Could you have jazz? Could you have blues? could could have could Drauston have joined your group in the Lilton Green? Initially, he was going to be a guest character fighting with you H design had like an owl on his head and we didn't want to animate that. So we were like, oh, never mind. like forget it. Um so we ended up sticking with these four buy it. Yeah, like it all sort of like and then, you know, talking about the battle system and how all that worked. like Yeah. the mash upps and the time signature and the crescendo system, like all these things being musically themed I don't like it all felt kind, you know, when you know when you're messing with ideas and you're like, man, this writes itself. like you say that as a writer I kind of felt like the game designed itself, like I kept thinking that I was like, oh, of course, the time signature is how many turns you each have? That's so obvious that of course, you know, I don't know. I didn't feel like I designed the game as much as I did Unearthed it. It was like, it was there the whole time. I just found it It feels very like the idea of music being baked into your encounter system does feel very natural. I was going to say like the The stanzas, the timing signature, like the quick time butts for when you have your special attacks. It really does all feel like I remember playing it and just being like, Yeah, of course like of course, of course, of course, this is, of course this this is how it is When you were so when you were choosing all those genres as well, it's interesting that you have so classical being kind of like the ancient, the backbone like elder kind of place that music comes from, and then your four main characters kind of have this I guess newer sound. mayaybe if you're thinking back to like maybe the ies or sixties like they're from newer genres Yeah. and then you have country Can you explain your decision to make the country music people, the villains Yeah, this was this was a point of significant contention for a while Yeah, like You know, a lot of people were like, hey, you're making some like really serious like political claims about A you though? Yeah, that's why I kept arguing Yeah And I think at one point, like someone suggested like, oh, can we change the villains to be Dco? because like no one's going to be mad at Dco. And I was like, first of all, I would be mad about that. So no Um I think like Okay. I knew the considerations, but I had two arguments against it One is that Country people are lied to And Lasso again is like about to join your team at the end. Unfortunately, it does not work out. He gets murdered, but like in the ending musical number, like Martell, you know, the other country kind of person is like hanging out at a bar with Freak or something. So like you know, the idea that like The real villain here is this like solitary man in anguish who's been misled by someone who is genuinely evil The country villains aren't the real kind of folks at the end But the other and the real reason why they are the villain, and this is the truth is that I really wanted the super sing and Bluegrass punch. That's an incredible joke. Can we talk about that joke? So this is important. No No less than a third of the narrative of people of knowe built to support a sequence of puns at the peak of the octave range, which is itself a pun where Someone goes super singing And then T stage boss battle, they go super singing Bluegrass. And then in both of those battles they use moves like Kameha, Yiha Yip me Kayo big twang attack. like this this sequence of puns arise very early. Now, here's the really interesting thing about this You actually have two options Super singing Bluegrass works Maybe even better than super sing and Bluegress is super sing and blues We could have done super Sing and blues. So I actually briefly was like, what do I do Do I make the country music the bad guys? or do I make blues and R and B the bad guys? Oh no.. Oh no. Yeah. And I was like, I don't think I can do that one And also I also then thought of a few of the secondary puns as well. like Tame Haiha doesn't work with blues. Big twang attack doesn't work with blues. So there were like secondary puns that were leaning me toward country Yeah It feels weird to like make a huge narrative decision on the back of like a funny pun But I was like, I'm I cannot lose this pun. I refuse A lot of people say kill your babies. I'm not killing this baby. This baby is surviving becausecause to me, that section is like you know, I had I knew I wanted him to go super super Syan basically in a musical number at the end I knew how I wanted it to look. I knew I wanted the silly mustache that went blonde. you know, I wanted it all And I was, you know, it it's my game. I do what I want Yes, yes, you can't. You this actually this joke actually, the suuper sing and Bluegrass joke, I talk about in my baby Girls talkal that I did at GDC last year how In game making, sometimes we can get so hung up on We have to be serious, we have to make like serious decisions. And we have games and stories that are c'ampy. But I feel like we have this natural inclination to take ourselves maybe too seriously and not have fun And when I got to that point in the game, I was like, Jason and company had fun making this game because you picked a vibe You picked a bit committed to this bit to a point where Well it's to a point where it's no longer a bit. It is plot. it is story. it is it is world building. It is a small thing that blossomed into this larger larger impact on your story and your actual game. So when I hear stories like this, like That That's what it's all about, right? You picking a vibe and committing to it And I' just like now its the game. Yeah. And I heard your conversation with Ben Starr actually about bits and the nature of bits And like, People would ask him like, o, aren't you embarrassed to dress up like Jimbo? And he's like, abbsolutely not L like my goal here is to make people happy. and why would I be embarrassed about that? And I really resonated with that discussion because I was like, yeah, my whole game is a bit and like type of person who Like I think there's one negative, you know, and you shouldn't read negative steam review, but I I was looking at them early on because I want some of them were like Hey, I'm leaving this a negative view because of a bug, and then I would like I'd be like, oh my Godd, let me like tell me about your bug. Let me try it But one of the seam reviews like to that point somehow and like said, I turned off the game because it wasn't taking itself seriously. like And like, I don't know how you got to that point notot knowing what this game was likeike it's I like I'm not hiding it from you, you know, like great. The type of I want a goofy smile on people's faces, I think that serious games have have just 're so I've played so many wonderful games that kind of explore so many themes, but like, man, I just want a little bit more whimsy in the world I just want to be silly and goofy and that's who I am as a person you know, and it's just reflected and I I don't apologize for that Um, I That's that's the vibe I wanted to put into the world. And I think at least in that respect, I succeeded. The Game Maker's sketchbook, a celebration of artistry and interactive entertainment, is backed with official game art selections for its fifth annual showcase. 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Early bird pricing ends on august third Gameemakers's notebook listeners can use the code Dice Athens one eight seven for an exclusive ten percent discount Register now before tickets sellout at dice Europe. org Talking about the whimsy during obviously making games is hard You the understatement of the centurry. and you've had a long journey to get to peopleeople of note. You said, you know, end of twenty nineteen, you are finally like, all right, we're off to the races. It is twenty twenty six. That's a lot of years to preserve the whimsy. So as you were developing and working on people of know, how did you protect that whimsy and that and that and that campiness because there is a lot of like when you look at the art style, obviously very colorful. when you when you play the game, like the the whole story of you know, learning to lead on people and it's not all about you and kind of this this together and' this very campy story how do you How did you hold on to that during this six year development cycle That's a tough.'s that's a good question. And because like, you know,'m we're here at the end at the top of the mountain and I'm laughing about it and talking about the funny things in the game, but like Yeah, when you really get down into it about what those six years were like, it was really hard. I mentioned that We had several resets I guess People talk about the suk cost fallacy likeike it's a bad thing and it is a lot of the time But sometimes it can be a good thing too. And This game was conceived with whimsy. It was designed with whimsy. its script has whimsy And then you're in production And I was just like, damnit, I'm not, what am I going to do? right? A what I'm got to change the script? Am I going to change the puns? Am I going to change these things? I have an obligation to my twenty nineteen self follow through. And this is not a endorsement of the military industrial complex, but there's a There's a saying amongst soldiers, I guess in World War I where People you know, countries go to war for a variety of reasons, whether they be religious or economic or to stop the third Reich or whatever. But when you're in the trenches For the individual soldiers, you're not fighting for a cause, you're fighting for the soldier next to you That's what they say anyway, I have not been U, and that's how I felt Like even in when I was feeling the worst, which was twenty twenty two. That was when I was feeling worst about the project. That when all this was kind of going down I was like I not only owe it to my past self, but I have people here They're my employees. they're To some extent, my friends, at least as far as a boss, employee relationship can be friendly and A lot of them are younger, a lot of them are right out of school. They're notre they're fresh and they're excited about games. There's none of the jadedness that can come from older kind of game devs sometimes And a lot of them, they don't even know about like some of this drama behind the scenes. They don't know about the difficulties and the publisher talks and all the re, you know, all this other stuff. And like They're so happy in we have show and tell every week at six PM on Thursdays and they're so excited and happy to show off their new animation for the Moroc Chameleon or their new environment for the Octave Range. I can't let them down. They need I have to keep it going And I think that Morale is the most important job of a director. likeike sureure it's my job to like, make the game go and make all the decisions that are required but like Me And you know, this a lot of the skill comes from being an actor. Like a lot of it comes from knowing how my words are coming across from keeping up an emotion that maybe I don't feel internally, that sense of like excitement and joy. I wasn't always feeling that. But damnit I sounded like I did. and Keeping that up for the team and keeping them excited even during very difficult times. was maybe the most important sorry, payroll was the most important thing. Morale was the second most important thing Got ahead make sure they're paid Um, But that was my most important responsibility. And I took it very, very seriously U And I think I was able to maintain that. If you talk to any of my employees, including my art director, Tim who is the most, he it's very funny. He like doesn't, he's not a whimsical person, I think I' poor But he was like it was like a good cop bad cop. He will tell you he's like, yeep, Jason was that vibe the entire time Anbody know When you have enemies that are like Orcarina Yeah It's very hard to not have the whimsy. You said you had like a whole sheet for puns, just like running puns? Yeah, running puns. like, you know, We listen, I have some that I really wish got into the game. likeike we had a lot of storefronts that didn't get into the game We had florist in the machine, a flower shop in Cordia. we had Caroon five. we had you know, all these sorts of I I put a lot of the I put them in an N PC conversation in Durandis. We had like, it was amazing. We had four different clothing store names. There was like S system of a gown Warn Mayhem. It was like we had so many and it's just impossible to put them all in We had some creatures that we didn't get in there U Moth's art, we had, u Cello, which was a cello turtle combination We had , I can't even remember we had so many and Ultimately you just kind of have to pick. I'm really amazed that you did get weird owl in there and like nobody has ceased and desisted you At one point and again, I cant maybe can't say too much here. The lawyers came out to me and they were like, Hey, we need a list of all of your potentially infringing content so that we can make a determination as to whether these things should be allowed in the game or not. And this was like this was like late in development. This was like Oh no a year and a half before release where we had already done all this stuff And I emailed them back and I was like, Hey, Listen, I can give you a list or at least I can try because that's actually very difficult to do But I need you to know that like I think you just need to live with it. think that like if you ask us to take out specific things I don't Not only will the game be worse but like I'm not even sure we can get rid of them at this point. Like a lot of them are very baked in. like the weird owl I guess you could replace the weird owl But like if you were to replace, for instance, like the killer quQueen bee, right? You said we have That's a that's a violation of copyright. We can't do that I'd be like, look, that's a whole enemy that we've animated that like the attack names are built in. We've already started localization on them. Like to remove the killer Queen bee would be like a significant effort, and that's just one thing. We're talking about environmental changes, enemy changes, dialogue changes. the voice actors might have to come back in. So I was like, y'all, I think you're just going to have to live with it. And to their credit, they were like Yeah. All right. We're just going to let you like What if they came back and they said you couldn't do super singing like a third of the narrative is built around this, like you can't do that. And you know, the achievement is funny, the achievement name for beating Super Sing andless I was fair use Yeah, whichich maybe it is, maybe it doesn't U may not no legal commentary is coming from this recording U but they let us get away with it and no one has yet come after anyone yet. cross your fing D Was there ever any discussion about or okay, reframing my question. when you were putting together say, for example, yourour boy band.' you're incredibly like Mlder. Like Yes, Mlder, like just like weird boy band and like they have a song you're putting together all of that. Was there ever any discussion of Oh, like we don't want this song to sound too much like X Group or you know, making sure there was no likeness without making it feel very much like everyvery boy band song out there, which is a good thing. It felt very like It was like legally distinct. right. Yeah, it's and that's that was the goal too. It's like a real evoke. And the closest certainly we come in that song is I think mother, mother, mother That's very close to u I want it that way where they kind of do the end part harmony. Um, you know, it turns out and this this part This actually this bombed me out Um, Under the lights, I love under the lights. I think it's a banger. We came up with that. That was a second song we ever made after Mash upp, which was the first We pitched with Mashup, Then we made, you know, we want our I want song, right And it turns out coincidentally, I had not seen the greatest showowman at all The greatest showmans rewrite the stars It very close musically to under the lights which we truly did not know. like I had not seen The greatest showman And then a lot of people were like, hey, this is really similar to rewrite the stars. And I was like, oh no, do we have to rewrite it And ultimately, we determined we don't and it actually weirdly kind of worked because We ran into this problem where We wanted this amazing song. But at the same time It has to be not good enough for noteworthy. R And not just for, you know, Sharp might say it sucks even if it's great, but I didn't want the players to think it was amazing because we have to really believe in Kadence's journey to go out and create something better. So the players like, Hey, that was the best song ever. I don't know what's going on here It kind of it almost worked out in our favor because you could say, well, it's a great song, but it's derivative And that was unintentional, but you could read it as like Ma commentary unlike this song is too close to an existing popular song and Cadence needs to find her own meta voice, AKaa not I don't know. this was all very coincidental and after the fact, but like It bummed me out that we were really close to that. And like we did get comments from people being like Oh, this is just rerite the stars and I'm like, Yeah, I guess H But it was ye, it was unintentional. It goes back to what you were saying earlier about how you felt like the game designed itself It feels it just feels like there was a lot of creative. harmony and synergy that sort of allowed all of these puns and these ideas and these very like meta commentary on things between you know, rewrite the stars and under the lights and the country music folk being, you know bambzzled into being the villains of this story for a while It just seems like it all just kind of like magic. Like that's that's magic. That's what we want in the studio. that kind of, right? Yeah. And like I Being a creative director is hard, but it's funny because I A lot of that stuff that you're talking about felt easy and easy is over exaggeration. I don't want to tell any writer or designer that their job is easy. but like it felt natural to me is probably the best word I can use. and the vast majority of my job eighty percent plus was engineering I'm here on this podcast talking about the design inspirations and the writing inspirations and what I wanted to achieve. and all that is very, very true bigig part of my job, but not by volume By volume, eighty percent of my day for six years was spent engineering the game. likeike I was the we had an engineer for a year and a half And then in the boom times of late twenty twenty one U he came to me and he was like Hey man, u Deck nine just offered me twice my current salary, so I'm gonna leave. And I was like Yeah, that's I can't match that one and he's like, I know. and I'm like Yeah. And we just kind of looked at each other and we were like, well, you know, that's that's how it goes, I guess No one was mad. It was just like, hey, you you get offered twice the salary you got to take U So he left And he did and I want to give Patrick some credit here, Patrick if you're listening,'s up man Um, He did a wonderful job with a lot of the like base systems and setting everything up, like the just the basic functionality of like saving, loading, moving from screen to screen smoothly, the core mechanics, like he was wonderful. But he left in late twenty twenty one And for the last next like four plus years, like I was the only engineer on the project And that includes H A bugs. I mean, I must have fixed twenty thousand eight hundred bugs or so U, personally Uh that was just m I feel like every time I saw you for a couple of months, you're like, well, gott to go home and Bug Yeah. like S about me The team at like largely rolled off like march twenty twenty five I think most of the team left. And that, you know, that's that's mostly artists, right? That's environment artist, that's animators. Tim our art directors stayed on longer than that to help polish up some last things. but you know, we stopped having weekly or morning standup meetings in march twenty twenty five because like we just didn't have the people anymore And it became a very sort of solitary existence With the exception of Tim, our director, shout out to Tim But like it was just it was kind of just me interfacing with the QA team who they were in Canada. and the porting team to some extent there're in South Africa And it was kind of just me at home alone fixing bugs, communicating with them. The South Africa thing was weird because like I was staying up t like midnight or one AM to talk with them because I'm not a morning person and I didn't want to wake up at seven AM to talk to them So I'm having like one AM conversations and stuff. And it became like a very weird liminal existence for Almost a year. Uh with like without a team and the creative stuff is mostly done. and now I'm just like desperately fixing bugs T turnurns out having another engineer would' have been dope, but It wasn't in the cs He finished the game and it came out. So it was fine, I guess. sure did Did you so when in that last year other than bug fixing, what were you working on? Be something that I wanted to ask about is your difficulty settings decision That was an early decision So then okay And it came about from angry interternet arguing and let meiz There's a lot of Capital D discourse out there and a lot of it is stupid U One of these many stupid topics is Dark souls should not have difficulty settings people We'll argue til we're blue in the face that this was the way that the developers intended it Who are you to ask them to change their vision and I am furious at those people. because And let me be clear for everyone that's listening if you're the other side of this argument, you are wrong And I'm about to tell you why The developers' desire is to have you overcome a difficult challenge. and that I respect That is a valid feeling in design, constraint and design Unfortunately, The idea of difficulty itself is a It's a very simple math equation. I love math. You do it is what the game is asking of you minus player's ability, that gap, the difference between those two things, player's ability and what the game asks is what creates difficulult. And if you want a specific amount of difficulty You must, by definition be able to change what the game asks you to do because every single person playing is going to be at a different skill level And that by the way, doesn't include people just people who are bad at games. It includes people who are amazing at games. There are people who have played every single souls game everyvery from software game and they're incredible at. And those people are not getting the desired experience either because they're blowing through these things and they are not having to overcome and struggle If you want those people to have the intended the intended desire. You need to offer an even harder difficulty setting So don't give me this, donon't give me this this is my soap box. I'm very upset about this Also, if you go aowing alley Are you mad that they have bumpers? No, you idiot. don't put the bumpers up. It's fine. God, I'm very upset out of these angering internet. and yes, I should not have even been participating in and them there's no point in arguing on the interternet. you did. here we are. And I was upset and And I was like, you know what? I'm going My game is going to be enjoyed by everyone, Dang it And so I decided early on to let players skip entirely. Of course, regular difficulty settings easy, medium hard, totally fine But you could skip the bat and you can skip the puzzles. There are a lot of people. there's a lot of people who are like, hey, I love RPGs, but I don't want to solve puzzles And and while I don't fully understand those people, get Listen. They're spending twenty five dollars. I'm asking them to spend twenty five dollars. in an economy that is hard in a world full of Thousands upon thousands of methods of entertainment, many of them free And it is not my Please tell them what they like And so there are people who maybe want to experience a musical but feel intimidated by battle There are people who love battle but feel intimidated by puzzles And I worked very hard to balance all of these things. And in fact, one of the major things I was doing toward the end of development was Bay testing and balaning You know And But you know, at the end of the day, even though I'm going to balance it, I want you And these these also act as accessibility settings. They also act as like def fact because you can turn them on and off at any time. Maybe one day, you're really high Or maybe one day, you're recovering from a surgery. And maybe You're just not feeling at your mental best that day and we all have those days. We all have days where we're feeling forwarditted or in a fog or just not feeling great That's cool Live your life. Play how you want to play. I'm not here tell you how to do that That's fine. Well, I mean, I You're talking about me spoiler everyone he's talking about me. I was recovering I was about two weeks out from from a major surgery and desperately, desperately grinding through people of note because I was enjoying it. but I was able to text you and be like, how do you solve this puzzle But no one else has that Yeah, you could have turned it off or like, I guess the other way to do it would be like find a YouTube long play or something like that. But you were like, Jason, what do I do? And I was like, Oh you have to You have to just get the image of the drum off the wall and you're like, oh, okay, cool. Oh whoops, I didn't even look there because I'm on drugs. Let me be clear mind. O let me be clear also, like you should not feel bad about that because one of the benefits, another benefit of letting players turn puzzles off is that I did not need to makeake them baby simple No, you didn't I it let me put friction and real difficulty in there. I do not think my puzzles are cakewalks No, they're not like They're challenging and the like if I didn't allow players to turn off puzzles, if all of these were hard required. Don't think I would have been as comfortable doing that But for people who enjoy puzzles, who enjoy that moment of confusion followed by that brilliant moment, the aha moment do feel like I was a little bit freed up to add a little bit of that extra friction becausecause I gave players the option to unfrictionate it to slick it out Right. But like when you were saying, you know, you are you like we are both Final Fantasy Sickos, great franchise. But when you talk about being inspired by Final Fantasy for people of note, you're not talking about anything that's come out in the last ten years. you're talking about like seven or ten. Yeah even Cadence's run cycle reminds me of Tetus's run cycle. if I' fancy down, I can see it. But like Those games had the environmental puzzles, I think about for talking about ten, the all of the clloister trial Cliser trials. Th could get really tiring and just but they required you to think like you actually had to put the work in. and I feel like a lot of games that have those kind of puzzles now are like, oop, we gott to put the yellow paint on everything or Oh, we can't do it too difficult because we don't want players to get frustrated to put the controller down and walk away. Having that friction is a staple of those old school style games. and it very I very much felt that Nostalgia withiff going through like Sharp's Mansion, which is where I got stuck and that was what I was texting you U So yeah, it's very like the design DNA is there Yeah, and ten is famous for the clloisters. I would say seven and nine don't have quite as involved in, you know, dungeon, puzzles, you know, I think the real inspiration for those This may not surprise listeners. Golden Sun And an old example, Loofia too, one of my favorite SNE ast. Yeah Loofia mentioned. good stuff Lufia too had some dastardly puzzles, like really, really difficult stuff and I loved it I'm just a puzzle scho too. I love Baba as you and I love B blue prime I'm a blue print sick Um But yeah, like I I was and I I was constantly kind of like, I can't make these puzzles too hard, you know, even though sometimes I would want to make them really hard And then we would do place test play testing and they're like, hey, no one is solving this. I'm like, okay, I'll go change it. You know, but it's a very difficult balance to strike wherere like you want friction, but you don't want anyone to be really frustrated U But at the end of the day, like you can't please everybody Right. And because I offer that option to turn off the puzzles I was like, look, I'm just att the end of the day You know, this is while it is a commercial product and I'm sure that my publisher has financial expectations for sales This game is, I mean, it's a game for me. It's a game for my fifteen year old self, right? Like that's the aud audienceces's game is not a demographic. It's me in the year two thousand one. and That's what me in two thousand one would have wanted to do. So that's the long and short of it Loo from your current vantage point in twenty twenty six over the landscape of games where you have made this I would say indDAA if we're if we want to want to argue semantics on it independent game in a landscape where we are seeing a lot of the major publishers specifically making safe choices or we're seeing a lot of games like yours maybe fly under the radar and or find funding because there is this desire to hit the largest hit the largest target audience and you know, all of us are endlessly arguing if you want to talk about the Capital D discourse, like What do what do the gamers want? Like We want everything. There's no one game that's going to hit that hit that bull's eye perfectly forever But having made the game that your fifteen year old self wanted, seeing it out in the wild, seeing people enjoying it, talking about it U with other developers, with players looking at where we are in this gaming landscape, how would you convince the people that have the power to make these games happen to invest to allow these the fifteen year olds inside of us to make these games Well, I guess I succeeded once, though I would say that twenty nineteen was a different place than twenty twenty six If I were pitching again and perhaps I will in the midterm future. Um I would say that every major hit always coming from a place where you would not have expected it to come. And there's a line in my game that directly addresses this. It's Arc who says like It's, you know People will tell you what they think they want, but the truth is they have no idea It's our job as artists to show them something new. And then he looked at the camera Hello it' Jainster talking Um And I think about Blueeprints a lot and I think, you know, because I've spoken with Tonda about this and he's he has gone on record of saying I thought this game would sell seven copies and it kind of created this huge thing. I think that my game and, you know, my game hasn't blown up and that's okay, but Claire Obscure did. And if you tried to argue when that game got I don't know the actual like funding history of that game. It started development and I want to say twenty twenty. And again at that time, Turn based RPGs were very much seen as like going away Yes Fal fantasy has already shifted to action mayaybe the only big JRPG that's still selling super well turn based is personersa you know, and like there yeah, HD two D like octopath had kind of come out and done okay. Like That would have been likeike a lot of people like a Belatro. And then all of a sudden after these games come come out, there's always the copycats, right? There have been a million Belatro clones out there. whether it's volum air or the the solitaire one or the There's a million of them. There's a chess w, several chess wes that have come out. Yeah. like it's not that those games can't do okay. You know, some of them do well They're never going to be The way that it arrests the gaming consciousness, the way that Balacher does, the way that Clareobbskeure did, the way that Blueprints did It's like Being safe tryrying to be safe following in a trend Yeah ultimately means that you're going to be one of a sea of trend followers trying all to desperately keep their head above the waves And it's like I would argue And this this is pure math. This is I'm not even arguing for the sake of like aristry I'm going to be like, hey, look It's your job to find that one game. that suddenly connects and suddenly hits And I think you have a better chance of doing that. by funding a few oddball different games that are from a place of real passion because you know the quality is going to be there when you do that. And yet, they're not all gonna to hit. I guarantee you Also I think they have a better chance of hitting and making the big impact splash you want than by going after just the same trends that dozens of different companies are going to go after. And by the way, a lot of those different companies are going to be using you know, whether it's very cheap overseas labor or AI. you're going to be fighting in this like swarm of mediocrity and it's randoms it's completely random if you to get the virality and the attention that you want It's, you know, one random streamer is going to play it. likeike it's so impossible. to fight and stand out amongst that crowd if that's the route you're going So I would just say to publishers or people that I'm, hey if you're listening to this publishers, what's up? I'll you in like six months But like T try something new because. It really does work. I remember there was a I forget who was a twenty twenty four was a twenty twenty five. someomeone game of the year winner of the Game Awards was like I guarantee you the next people that are speaking up here will again be a game made by passionate developers making something new And I was like, he's right. I forget who said that, but like someone said it and I'm like, Yp, that's tr. I forget who said it, and I feel like it was the year before Balders's Gate. and then we got Balders's Gate Yeah And it was yeah. I C inact And It's like, hey, that's and that'll be my pitch in six months. That's a little preview to all the publishers out there know We'll just just clip this and give it to him. My last question your' Joyful, brilliant, surprising credits sequence So for all of you listening at home who maybe don't watch game credits, you need to watch the credits for people of no. it is a live music video where Jason sings about all of the people that made the game. U Why did you do that? U I actually have a history of uncommon credit sequences So in my very first game sequence AK before the Echo The end credit sequence was me and the lead actress cast style talking about the credits as they rolled Like that's like the voice hy become be like, Oh man, Ed Bosco. like he came in from out of town. like he wasn't even You know, he only had him for a day. we would like kind of give this commentary on it And then the second game There came an echo was a twenty I was't twenty. it was like fifteen minute video was live action video again of like me and as many of the cast and crew as I could get in LA, like in my living room And I like we would just introduce everybody be like, this is this is Steve. Steve worked on this. and like Steve would stand up and say hi Um I think that I just, I don't think that white text on a black background gives the story of the passion and the like It's just, you know, you see like a Marvel movie and like the VFX team rolls by and it's it's eighty names and they go by in a second and a half. And it's like, manan Those are all people who like They stayed there till three AM desperately fixing a merge conflict They missed time with their families to do this I understand that like even getting in the credits is a big thing for VFX studios these days. like getting getting your name in it is actually something they fight for and unions fight for because of how important it is But I haveve always viewed even that as grossly insufficient to celebrate hard work those eighty people probably did.. And it is true that if I tried to make a musical number Th in Credits musical number for a Marvel movie, it would be very hard because there would be fifteen hundred people For my small little indie game, I was just like You know what? Fuck it, I'm gonna do it And it did cost an additional, I want to say twelve to fourteen thousand dollars because We had to write the song, we had to produce the song. We had to rent the space, we had to get the cameras. We had to fly in Jimmy who wasn't in town. We had to get the equipment. And then let me tell you just unrelated Credits, as you maybe know can be very politically fraught, like who's in, who's out? What title you know, the publisher wants these people in the special thanks The order was wrong. twenty four bit doesn't have a hyphen in the name. Turns out that was a thing. I had twenty four bit was our publish reporting company Um I will say that if it's white text on a black background, it's very easy to modify the credits because you just change a text file. I know Re rendering this video and like changing it was actually very difficult and part of that is on me because I didn't have preremiere proro plugins that we used only land in our video production. guy had those. So every time that our publisher would be like, hey, you need to change this name and be like, we have to re render the whole video and I can't even do it myself. I have to reach out to Landon and it has to be this whole thing was actually a huge pain in the ass but dam it You did it. It was funny, so I did it. is very very much keeping with the campy whimsical, like You can tell that you all had fun making this. Yeah. And, you know any any game developer will tell you that it is not all fun anyy game developer will tell you that it is a struggle and it is hard and it is difficult and they are right. But if you can't find the fun, if you can't have any fun, if you can't feel a sense of whimsy I don't want to tell someone they're in the wrong industry if they're just trying to make a living, but like I don't know why. I I feel like there were more stable choices for you I feel like you have to have that and if you don't Again, listen, make your living. I'm not going to tell you to get out of the industry or anything, but like To me, it's a very important part of making games that feel good to play. And you know, we're here because we want to be here. Nobody put a gun to our head and said, you have to make video games for a living. So absolutely not No. we put the gun to our own heads basically. Yeah, persona. V persona. Thank you so much for this chat. I learned a lot about you at this conversation as well, even though we've like talked a lot And I'm excited to see what you make next. So am I? I've got a few ideas. Which will it be? Hm I don't know yet, but for now, I'm in my vacation era You know I'm just showing out. And for those listening you know I believe very strongly in game unions and we should have them. Um I did structure my studio very like film like where I brought in a crew or the game. and I told them all up front. I was like, Hey, this is a one game thing because I need to rest. After this is done, I cannot keep going So That's what I'm doing. I'm resting, I'm on vacation, I'm gonna travel I'm going do some fun stuff and I'm really excited about it I'm excited for you Thank you than you for coming on. O course, thank you for having me. I appreciate it Thank you for joining us for the Game Maker's Notebook For more information on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, our podcasts, and our other initiatives, please visit www. interactive. orgot