Final Thoughts and Future Expectations

It's kind of funny's Patreon pledge month. supportupp us at patreon dot com slash kind of funny. We really appreciate it. What's up everybody and welcome to the kindind of Funny Games Cast for july sixth, twenty twenty six, of course, I am your host, Tim Gettyies On the day that we are recording this is blessing atyoa j Junror's birthday. Happy birthday. bless.. There we go. And joining us today two very, very special guests from Tys for Bob, one of our favorite developers out there. canan't wait to actually talk to you all about Spyro Ar Beyond and much, much more. We have the Associate creative director, Lou Studdart Hey everybody. whose birthday it was on june twenty ninth? Happy birthday Birthday buddy. Let's go. And we also had the studio head, Paul Yan. When's your birthday. Itth in August, I feel jealous of you. I feel like I need to pull it on there Of course, if you're watching live, you can't be part of the show because this is pre reccorded, but we still would appreciate your super chats, so please send them through. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon dot com slash kind of funny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Oeg a buster, delay need the Psalm twwining and Lax nomad. But for now let's begin with the topic of the show T toks toks toks It's toys for Bob. It's Spyro, a realm beyond. First off, I want to say congratulations boys. Thank so much. Congratulations on going independent a couple years ago, on finally announcing the project that you've been working on and for that project to be Byro. a realm beyond and it getting So much positive reception. How's it feel, Lou? It's honestly pretty shocking and incredible. I mean you make something in secret for so long and then you just hope that people connect with it and to see The response that we've gotten so far is just really amplified the team. you know, really made us really feel seen and excited. So it's felt great. Were you surprised at how well received everything was? I think so. I mean, you never really know how things are going to get received. and you know, we bank a lot on Spyro. This first game out as ourependent you know in independence. And it's just so great to see that positivity and that reception roll it. Is there a difference from Cash? because I know Cash for it's about time came came out. and I'm sure when it was announced, there was an excitement around it because crash is what you associate with the PS one platformer. But for me growing up, I was always more of a sppyro kid, you know, I had an SD four but on the PS one side, all my friends all had Spyro Yeah So I associated the platform with Spyro. so like When we saw the trailer, I was like, oh man, this is awesome. But I know crash feels like more of a I guess iconic PS one character. I don't know if you guys have opinions on that, but when this was announced Did you guys have that same thing of, oh man, they're showing up just as much as Cash I think, you know, It's just it's almost been twenty years since there's been a new spiral. So there's just a lot of Now I'll speak for myself,'s a lot of bent up energy of like, finally, we need to see Spy up not just in a remake form. and like obviously we did in twenty eighteen, we did the reignited trilogy. and that gave us a lot of confidence that there was going to be an audience who was who had the hunger for a new title And so That's where we went. and it's great to see validation of that in this first announce. Very very excited I mean, what I loved seeing from this is because I am a huge crash guy I' a hugepy guy I'm a huge three d platform. guy. All of this is my alley. And when the trailer dropped, obviously, we werere all very excited. But over the next couple days, when I was like, we were talking about all the summer game Fest announcements, because I think this was an incredibly strong summer game Fest. Yeah, seeeeing a lot of the kind of standout trailers, I was shocked How many views the Spyro trailer had? Like it was up there with and in some ways, eclipsing some of the biggest titles, the Final Fantasy seven Revelations and God of War, like Spyro was right there. like that that must have been pretty awesome. Absolutely. I mean, it yeah, knocked us back into our seats. It's ye, we were literally watching the numbers climb up as we're like, o People are connecting with it. You know, as Paul mentioned it's been a while. and so you always kind of hope that there's the audience. you hope that New people are interested in it. and I think what's great about Spyro, He's such an appealing character 's such an appealing, you know, type of world and tone to live in You know, it kind of stuck out from the rest of the summer Games Fest, you know, it really kind of found his own you know, lane and I think that's what helped him kind of, you know, soar above The noise in some ways. Yeah. So speaking of soaring Spyro a Rome beyond There's not much that we have right now. It was spring twenty twenty seven, it's coming to to all platforms, which is very, very exciting to hear What else can you tell us that wasn't in this trailer? A whole lot. What can you tell us this's industry have hand soaring. I'm seeing a lot of fly in indlying than the normal ev rises. Yeah, ye. So essentially, you know, Spyro realomem beyond, we wanted to really push what it meant to be a dragon. We wanted to push and expand on Spyro's just general playability and his moves and what that means and we're showing off in kind of the reveal is Dragon flight And so if you remember the original games, you know, they had the speedway levels, they had the regular exploration levels, but they're always divided. Yeah. It was always these differing experiences that you'd experience you know for a limited subset of time or with boundaries And so when we started the game, you know, after working on Reignited We kind of had this notion of what happens if That is Spyro's base kit base ability And how do we still retain the feeling of exploration and you know, adventure of a spyro game while also embodying him with ility to take to the skies at a moment's notice. So you're going to be exploring on ground, you're going to be exploring in the air. It's just it's up to you on how you want to engage with it as opposed to the game going Now you got ninety seconds. H had it, right? Yeah. So that's That's one of the big things that we're pushing on for the game. When approaching creating a new spyro game, Are there prerevious spyro games that you look at as far as, oh, we want to make sure we include these elements, know, arere there things from maybe the PS two games or PS one games that really speak to what makes Syro spyro? Absolutely. I mean, we're paying attention to the whole spectrum, the whole timeline of it, the fan base, our own feelings about it, the original intent for all the developers and what they did with the games and where they carried the series. We're looking at all of those things as inputs But I think where we are building this game off of really trailing off of the Reignited trilogy and harking back to the classics, right? The spiral that we remember in the early nineties of PS one And so like, what are those elements there? How do we make sure that we're paying reverence to who the character is and that whatever we're building on here and taking him into a modern era that it's always paying respect to that core. I think the character is one of those things. You know, onene of the things that we found when we were making Reignited trilogy is, you know there were different voice actors between Spyal onene, Spyro two and three. Inpire one it was Carlos Alz Rocky did a great job but then Inomniac switched over to Tom Kenney for two and three When we did reignited, we brought Tom back and we unified it so that Tom Kenny was the voice of Spyro because that Kas where the fan base gravited as well as our own flavor. And so for this game We decided, hey, we want to while we're making a new adventure and a new game We still want to retain the character We really fell in love with, that original personality. And so we also brought back Tom as well. as the voice of Spyone. So if you played the original games, you played Reignited, you will recognize that tone and that personality and that voice that really drives a lot of who that character is Yeah. But then for us, it's What happens when we take him, that person, that character on a new adventure And so it isn't you know, a full reboot like the legend of ones where they kind of reset their own timeline and retold the tale in a different way. This is taking that character that you know into new places. Tom Kany is SpongeBob, right? He is. Yeah. So he's SpongeBob. He's the Iice King on Adventure T. And he's star scream and transransform his animazing. He is one of my favorite people to work with and as soon as we got him in the booth He was telling us about how many times he's been at conventions for those voiceover roles that he's done hearing people come up to him telling him that they want new spyro. R. And so it I know. So Both. Tom' so excited with us about how there is such a vocal fan base and an excitement around the character, the personality and seeing this purple dragon come back. So looking at toys for Bob with this purple dragon and the orange bandicoot. Yeah. the back and forth between that I've always found very interesting. like there was a lot of aboutb a decade ago, a lot of different studios under Activision that would seemingly kind of like do this handshake back and forth with Beox and vicarious vion and toys for Bob of who's working on The remakes who's working on the sequels, who's working on the cart racers, spit offs and all that to follow Y'all's path from Skylanders, which was very much a reinvention of Spyro with some crash appearances too.. But then to get into the reignited trilogy, to follow that up with y'all making Crash four and now making this Why was that the kind of path you guys went down? Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's a really interesting perspective. and one of the things I wanted to mention is, you know, vicarious visions Banx, great friends of ours and they go back to with us on the Skyllanders franchises You know, so on the Skylanders' games, we would alternate years between U making you know, the original ones and then Vicarious doing superchargers and We'd go back and forth and we also worked really closely with Bannox. We actually worked with Bannox on Crash four as well And so we have that kind of connection with those studios U, you know, and as far as which one we worked on when It was kind of based on also the release patterns of the remasters and just what you know, seemed like the fan base was calling for at the time. Um, And we're a small studio. And so for us, it's kind of like we have to mentally put a pin in something and go Yeah, we'd love to get back to Spyro, but you know, let's get this out of our system first. Let's really invest, let's really dive head firstirst into the world to crash And then once, you know, we get out of that, it's like, okay, now where do we want to go to next? And while they're kind of hand in hand, you know, with the the mascot and the year they came from, the Playsttation, you know uh, uh, mascot platformers of their time play completely different. Oh yeah. you know, like one is about tense precision execution, you know, super exacting tests with a very specific answer to how you need to play that, which is crash And then Syro is much more about this fluidity and exploration and Zen like kind of combination of moves and interacting with the world And so it really is a very, very stark and a design mindset shift for us by going between both of them. B, I love Cash four so much. to the point that despite being suchuch a huge crash fanboy from back in the day. I do think it is the best one U and appreciate. A lot of that was just because of how much clear love, care, passion was put into the gameplay, getting it right, the characters, the world, the music, all of it, right? Everything we've seen of Spyro so far has that as well Cash took all of the precision platform your to out that like challenge that difficulty, that bang your head against the wall type stuff Spyro, it being more exploration based and all that. Are there things you learned from Crash four that you are going to add into sppyro. Is there a desire to add a bit more of that crash platforming precision intopire. I don't know if it's direct relationship, but I think the process of us observing and learning a character leararning about the fan base and what they appreciated, learning about what we Remember our fondest memories about them and how do we build on those? Those are things that we absolutely take forward into Spyro. I wouldn't I have a hard time like grasping on specifics from scrash to say like it's because as Lou mentioned, the experiences are so, so different. I mean, I guess one commonality that attracts us to these types of characters and these types of the IP is that it's character base We love colorful characters and we love controls that feel amazing, in and of themselves, even independent of the level and the structure of the game. If you can have a character that feels incredible to almost toy like in its controls, That's where we want to be. Yeah I've always been so impressed with Spyro Reignited tririlogy in particular with that because just the way that Spyro Anim It's so satisfying to look at that moving around just spittning the stick three hundred and sixty and seeing the way that he moves it's like, o, this just feels right. Yeah, which is why I'm curious of what are some of the learnings that you had while working on this game as far as what fans gravitate to and why they love it because yeah, when you talk about Spyro, sadly, I hadn't played the Rig United trilogy, but I still have memories of playing OG Syro and two things come to mind. it's the exploration that you're talking about with that dynamic with crash versus Spyro and what makes them different. But then also it's holding square and just like dashing real fast. Yeah running circle. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad thank you for saying that. I'm sure there's many folks on their team where are just like Thank you for appreciating the finesse and the attention to detail that is going on. I think like When we did the Reignited tririlogy, which is a remake of the classics, we spent an incredible amount of time doing frame analysis of how much How much movement does Spyro actually achieve in a jump? or in a glide And so making sure that all of those things feel very, very accurate is like a strong foundation for that feel that you're talking about, which is a culmination of a number of things. It's about the frame accuracy, it's about the animation, it's the juiciness of it, it's the interaction with the world, the sloping of the world, the sound effects, the V effects. know all of these little things come together into something that you inevitably you just have these muscle memory about You talk about charge and I can immediately feel that on my thumb, right? Yeah And so for this game, it's taking that What we learned about how thoseose moments make us feel and how it feels as a player do charge to hit ramps to go into a glide, then you know, round a corner to chase an egg thief and to do all these things in that fluidity of movement, It's how do we explode that now to an added vector? How do we add that to now these new abilities that Spyro has and the new way of of encountering your environment. And so it's still wanting to retain that core of How you evaluate a space how you explore these areas Now to give you so many more tools and then to build from the ground up, around that And so with the ability to fly from the get go You're still charging, you're still, you, doing that, but now you can also just immediately jum, start flapping your wings and going up. And so it led us to building things at a grander scale. And so you see it in the gameplay snippet much more verticality. There's much more height to things. There's much more layering of the play space. And so it's figuring out how to build that still that same feel, but modernize it and push it forward, add more to it, and build on it. Can you talk a bit more about The mechanics of flight Like, are you Once you jump in the air, you're just kind of unlimited flying around. Is there like something you needed is there a buttons to press into flapper? Yeah, so it was lly diving into all of the systems just yet, but I can at least tell you, you know what we got in in the gameplay trailer shows. We wanted to make sure that it is active? It is decision making, it is pressing buttons. It is almost you know that platforming feel of evaluating a play space and figuring out how to continue. And so what we show in the gameplay is Spyro diving down to pick upp speed We then have him use his flame breath, spit a fireball at distance to ignite a campfire to create a wind up draft to give him quicker lift. then it's awesome. press a button to flap his wings to push on his momentum and to keep his speed up for than activating a magical, what we call these sky rings that then allow you to boost forward in the air. And so it's really about evaluating the play space. It's looking what you can interact with connecting all of those to sustain your momentum and to keep going. It's super important for us that the player is able to say Look at that thing off in the distance How do I get there? And then how do I leverage the environment around me and my abilities in order to do that Because what we don't want is for it to be a flight simulator, where we say, okay, here's the destination hid in the GPS and we're going to coast and get there. There's no fun on that No autopilot. No autopilot. We want active decision making. And that's you know, platforming as a term in this flight space is a little bit different than platforming like jumping on the ground. But similarly, we want that kind of decision making to happen in that space I know I guys are describing all this. excites me I'm sure it excites himim because I'm already thinking about like, oh yeah, I'm going to like this, hit this, you know, hit this button right here and I think there's something about that execution that really works for us when it comes to platformers. For you guys, when you're thinking of these mechanics that are newer to the series, is it exciting? Is it scary? Is it both when you're something that's additive? because of course you've done this before with the Cash, but with Spyro, how's the feeling Yeah, it's very much both. And for this game in particular, we had this goal right at the outset of let's kind of start with this new idea in mind and not just take, you know, a singular thing and let's add it on for level specific usage. It was full blown, this is his kit. This is Everyday move And so for us, we started building that out. And so in white rooms, you know in early development prototypes, it was two purple blocks with two yellow triangles to make a facsimile of a spyro. And then let's see how flight feels. Let's get that feeling right And then let's build the world and the activities and the play spaces and everything around what we found out of the character movie And so it wasn't Hey, let's take everything the way it was and let's add something new to it. It was we had to start from scratch and build outward And part of that is scary and there's excitement in that too, because there's some pioneering that goes around. Yeah. And one of the first questions that we ask is like, what other games even attempt to do something like this There's not many examples of that. Most of the times when you think about flight in gamepace, it is a flight simulator. You're a plane, or you're an Ironman type of, you know, mech helicopter type of,, rocket And what we wanted was something that is better Exactly. But something that speaks to the fantasy of who Spyro is as a dragon as a physically traveling through space and not this giant you know, giant dragon, but a small but mighty dragon. All those are a very new territory. And so there's a lot of exploration and discovery And that's exciting for us because there's a lot of newness there It's really leaning into that dragon fantasy, but asaul mentioned, most dragon fantasies are It's much, much bigger Yeah than the rest of everything else. And for Spyro it flips that on its head What was the conversations around? crash, it's about time having The number four in the title and spirro around beyond not is a very interesting question. For Crash four for us represented a very direct contininuation from those original games And it was a bit of making a stance of, hey We really revered these original games. the games that came later, really great, but they got away from the foundational type of gameplay W those original crash games that we were returning to? And so some of it was a bit of an expectations and level reset of Hey, these are going to play very much like the original trilogy of games And not so much like, you know, Mind overver Mutant or the more three D open space era for insanity. Yeah, exactly, right? Where it was more, you know, you've got full stick control, you're more Mario sixty four inspired exploring areas for Syro We want to make sure that you know, with a number four, that comes the expectations of Hey, you may want to know these original games. P Spyro is very important to us given the gap of time between new games, to make sure that this is a welcoming entry point This is a place that anyone could start So yes, it has, you know, reveerence to the originals, it has references, it has, you know, things that will satiate de fans Yeah, exactly. the deep fan base. But at the same time, we want to make sure it was clear to everyone who's coming into this, no homework required and it is a new experience. It is playing in a new way in a way that, you know, maybe your crash four was more you know, tied to us returning those original games. What are two things in your personal opinions that you think every spiral game should have things I mean, to me, it's charming characters. I always like exploring, you know the levels in the worlds, meeting new, exciting, charming, fun comical characters to me is so much of what makes a Spyro game a Spyro game jumping from You know, the first spiral game where you had all the Elder Dragons to the second spiral game where you really had, you know Alura and Hunter and everyone show up. And then in the third game they had Sheila and Bentley and all these other characters. too me, making sure that you're filling the cast with really unique, really fun, really compelling characters that interact with Spyro in fun ways. That to me is the tonality of the adventure of a Spyro game And then it is that fluidity of movement and the exploration piece, right? The feeling of I want to scour every bit and it's fun to move around the space. Yeah. L you get in this relaxed mindset of now I'm kind of chaining my charge into finding a ramp to to going on speed pads to doing all of that as you explore and evaluate and kind of make your way through That is the toy like joy of a spyro game to me I'd agree with that one. I think I would describe it as flow. Yeah Bow is so, so important for Spyro and you taking words out of mind. The second one I would say is Jen's Yeah That's maybe very tied intimately and with flow is that you need a compelling reason to go after things. And I think that's just the lust for collecting and harding ding treasures. little treasure. Yeah Yeah. I'm dying to ask questions that I know you guys can answer because I wanted to be like one of the collectables like, arere we gonna be collecting eggs of dragons that are going to be hatching? We'll come back soon. We'll come back please You bring up it's toy like. Was there anything from Skylanders that you're bringing in to this spiral game I mean, I think Skylanders is really where we as a studio kind of found our humor and our kind of fun and whimsy, you know, it's something that really defines us as a studio and something that's carried forward Just the humor in everything, the feeling of being in places you want to spend time in with characters you want to spend time with is so part of what made Skylander special and all the different ways that the characters moved and played, you know, it really got our own chops of making character based. you know, action adventure games or platformers. And so that, you know, obviously there's no one to one, but it's just That is what our studio has thrived on and that's what we love making. And so that is continued from finding, you know, how we make crash move to really how we feel about just hands on sticks with Spyro as well And T ofo, I love Skylanders and have so many like cherished memories of that series. I'd love to return to that at some point The Skylanders' universe and Spyro Rome Beyond completely different universes. We just wantanna make sure that there's a really clear line between those two, even though that Spyro does exist in different forms there In my head, they are very different universes, very different characters. And so I think indirectly, there's lessons that we've learned or there's tonality that can be brought about, but they're different I mean, speaking of that, I kind of want to talk about the game development side of all of this because it's so as the industry is falling apart around us. It is very nice to see every single platform on that screen and to kind of have a level of belief where Siral' not just a nostalgia act. It is and it will speak very loudly to the old people. but also there is something that is just naturally endearuring. and like this is a product that makes sense to release att any time, But in twenty twenty seven, that makes sense for switch two players for PS five players for Xbox players, for steam players like I have a feeling that this game is going to do very well and that's good. But also y'all went independent not that long ago. Now this game is happening. How long was the development time on this We're at about, you know a little over two years. We started really from the ground up when we win inpeenda And you feel good putting a spring twenty twenty seven date on this. We do. Yeah. That's incredible. Like how is that possible in a world where we're seeing so many teams take five plus years to get these projects. likeike we're hearing about Spyro and we're going to be playing it. You know, not too many months from now. Yeah. It's hard to speak I won't speak for other teams, but I know our team. and we have like a sweet spot. if you look at the track record of the games that we produced before. two to three years somewhere in that pocket is like the sweet spot for us. I think L we can can just understand the scope of what that looks like, the timeline of development and we like to ship. It's very important for us to ship because ultimately, the end goal of this is not for us to noodle endlessly. it's to get this into people's hands and produce joy in the world. That's the real end goal When we see a timeline, we're going to commit to that and we feel good about her here. Yeah. and it prevents us from going stirk crazy. Yeah. Yeah Yeah exactly. I mean, yeah, you live with a game for so long like I just, you know, it's been our deevelopment mentality for so long of kind of the size of projects we like to make and the time in which we like to make them. We are a smaller studio which allows us to be nimble and punch above our weight, which is Amazing shout to our team for that U, But we do like to make sure we've got our own guardrails and get things out the door to people As quickly as we can. When working with Xbox for this, does the conversation start off at Spyro or was there an exploration process of figuring out what IP or what kind of game you wanted to make with them? It came it started with Spyro. We started it to say, this is the game that we've been thinking about since twenty eighteen, and we'd like to make this. By the way, we also want to go to independence. So it was these two giant topics came together and said, listen, this is our proposal. We'd like to spin off in independence. And the first thing that we'd like to do is for you in partnership with you. and we want to make Spyro because it's been on our minds and we have this design premise which Lou just spoke to about how can we take the flight in Classic Syro and how can we elevate that and take it to any level I want to talk more about your independence and how that all looks and the pitching and all of that after a quick word from our sponsors This week, we're sponsored by patreon dot com slash kind of fununny. becausecause it's Patreon Pedge month. If you enjoyed the crazy amount of summer gamefest coverage we put out in June, please consider tossing us a few bucks this month with a Patreon membership or upgrade your pledge for July. Patreon members receive perks like add free audio and video versions of every show, access to quips Twitter like equivalent with posts from Greg, and daily exclusive episodes of Gregway. We're releasing episodes of Gregway publicly each week this month so you can get a taste of what the show is all about. Right now you can go watch Blessing talk about what it was like being a guest on dropouts actually game showow. That is very, very cool. All patreon. com slash kindind of fununny members will also have access to watch this month's happappy Hour, a monthly call and show where you can chat with the kindind of Funny crew li And we're adding in a perk for gifted subscriptions, custom character art from the one and only Andy Cortz to be featured alongside the kind of Funny crew in the Gamescast intro for the entire month. We'll have some fun surprises for members this month, like our live recording of Game S showdown last week. So join us over on patreon dot com slash kindind of fununny This episode' brought to you by Factor. Sometimes hunger strikes and you're just exhausted or you've been hosting shows back to back to back and you just don't have it in you to set up and prepare the whole meal that you thought you would have time for. That's why so many of us here at kind of fununny love Factor. Factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals designed by dietitians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without the shopping or On many occasions, Factor has completely saved Craig and Jen when they needed it most. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods, and healthy fats. FactTor bans one hundred seventy five plus ingredients, so no artificial colors or sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, noor refine seed oils, just nutrient dense food. For more choices to better nutrition, ninety seven percent of customers say that FactTor helps them live a healthier life Feel the difference no matter your routine. headad to factactorymeals dot com slash kind of Fny fifty off and use code K of Fny fifty off to get fifty percent off and free daily greens in your box with new subscriptions only while supplies last until september twenty seventh, twenty twenty six. You can see the website for more details So now that we're back. I want to talk about this this independence. First off, congrats that huge again, like especially with where we're at in the industry right now, it's like The amount of Games dailyies is that Bless and I were talking about toys for Bob and just being so concerned about what might happen or what is happening or whatever it is. when the independence news broke, it's like There is faith here. Having said that, I didn't really think that faith would end in a new spiral maybe Yeah it was very it was whiplash because it wass like, all right they're alone. Oh wait, they're still working on the kind of games we want them to work on, which is really cool. that I mean, as much as you can speak to this, like has it been a fairly seamless process I would say on the development side, yes You know, one of the great things is and I'll give a shout out to our studio leadership as well of making sure that you know, behind the scenes and keeping that continuity of team and our process. It was a very quick reset you know, from us going from you know, being wholly owned to being independent and allowing us to get right back into our tools, making games super quick. Obviously the process of getting there took some work I'm sure you could talk to and having to be grown upps and, you know, take care of our own, you know, taxes and payroll and stuff. but You know, as far as getting the team, you know, we had our team team carried forward and team began working. And so that's been really nice There's certainly been a lot of work on the behind the scenes, like this kind of suggesting there on setting up a company and doing all these adult things and like taking care ofselves outside of the development But maybe, you know, the I think It's important to probably roll back the context for like what led up to that decision And I can understand the optics of it is like, oh, you went independent. and now you're working with the same folks that you were working with before. How does that make sense? I think part of that is it speaks to the partnership that we've had with Activision It's been a successful one and it's been a good one. And there's plenty of we've got folks over there that're very thoughtful and they're very supportive. We've got a lot of friends over there. And so that was a very natural transition to continue working in thatacity To cut you off real quick. Skylanders franchise generated over three billion in lifetime revenue. The partnership We did okay on itle So I you know, that That's all been fantastic. And I think what led to it is if we look back to like twenty nineteen, twenty twenty When COVID hit Ething changed, right? Everything changed. One of the things that changed, small thing, but Yeah at the company level, there's a mandate to support these larger franchises like Oarzone was huge, right? It just exploded, surprised everyone. It needed a ton more resources. Overwatch two was another one that was in big in development. And so there was a mandate for all teams within the company to support these initiatives. And so Toice For Bob stepped up And we did good work W work that we're really proud of. We got to collaborate with teams that were fantastic to collaborate with Um Also, we were straying away, we were splintered off in our effort. And like like Lou talked about, we're a small team One side of it is that we splintered off into many sub teams and so we kind of lost that singular team aspect of who Tys for Bob is And then the second is that we got away from the types of games that we kind best known for and the types of games that we're personally attracted to, which is these games that are about colorful characters in whimsical handcrafted worlds So I think that the combination of all those things in that time in the whirlwind of the world is upside down On top of that Microsoft is in the you know, in the process of acquiring activ, there were just so many changes that were on the horizon And so we just looked at our we had a lot of times soul search when we sit looked at ourselves and said That proble we should make a change. We need to find our core again. We need to find our soul again and get back to the types of games that we love So that was the that's the real impetus out of that. And we said, look Activision We love working with you. We love spiral. We have this idea that's been, you know, a germ of an idea that's been you know, killing us and we want to make this game. How can we make this happen? And so when we connected with Xbox leadership, you know, they saw in conteacts all of these things. There's a plan immediately for independence, you know, in a game. and it was a win win situation, right on paper. And so there's obviously I'm oversimplifying, but there's a lot of details to kind of sort out there and it was very complex. but There's so many people on all sides of it. They' very thoughtful and they said, lookook, you want to preserve the team? Absolutely. We're celebrating our thirty seven year anniversary this past April. The team has been one of the longest running in all of North America. Let's continue doing that. We'd love to keep the team together and make the types of games that we want to make And so long story short, they were supportive and worked out for the best. And so that's's that's why we're here withpire Ram Beyond. Yeah, I mean, I love it. I feel like that that is incredibly lucky reality that we're in that the had don all went the way that it has because it's not the case for some other teams, but The timing was good. What's up? The timing was good. Yeah. And I mean, you know, the timing in so many ways, you bring up COVID, like that that kind of that killed your your in person studio. and now the entire team is remote. Yeahes. We are a fully remote studio How is that? Like did you stand by that? does that feel like one hundred percent things are working We can get a game done in three years and it's remote? I mean, we've done it a couple of times now. Yeah. it write it, you know, the again that tight turnaround times of the games we make. I mean we ship crrash four remote. We worked in support capacity across a number of initiatives, across a number of games, remote We shpp Crash Team Rumble fully remote And so we're continuing it on with Spyal. At this point, it's just the way of life. Yeah. like It'd be a more controversial question to say Should we return back to the same space? like this is just how we operate. Yeah. When you approached activion and Xbox about independence and then also making a Spyro game, at that time, did you guys have ideas beyond Spyro? Or was it very much we want to make Syro and we'll figure it out later. We've got lots of ideas. Yeah. That's just probably the one that, you know, as were think about you know, u Reignited trilogy sold over eleven million units. You talk about the commercial viability of that. There's a strong case to be made, right? There's a validation that there's an audience and every year There's a spyro celebration, community D. and it's like the fans are so loud about this so clear. how can we not make this down? So let's make this our priority out the gate I'm so fascinated by the support studio stuff of you talk about the coll of dy and there being the mandate for that kind now because Again, we talk about this stuff a lot and we know some things, but we're very uneducated on them things are really going. So we are often talking out of our assets to the best of our abilities to get things right. But I've always been fascinated in what that kind of looks like throughout the ages because going back to The before the Call of Duties where it's obvious everything needs to be like helping War Zone or helping Overwatch, it would just be like when the Tony Hawks Proroskator games were like the biggest thing ever. And I always find it so fun that Tys for Bob made Disney's Extreme St adventure Yeah back in two thousand three, which was still get asked about that. It' get asked about. It's the most unbelievable game because it literally just took the engine from Tony Hawks Pro Skator four and just slapped Disney stuff on it. and it's like, that means it's an incredible game because Tony Hawk four was incredible Like The is I think old school example of the same type of idea of like there's money to be made here. like let let's do this. And then later obviously Skylanders being the, you know initial toys to life game and then I kind of feel like it was the opposite way of like people then copying the toys for bob like trying to do all that As we get to Crash Team Rumble in twenty twenty three. That's the one I find so fascinating where I loved the game. playing the game itself was a lot of fun, and we had fun doing party modes and streams for it. But felt very Like some of the decisions made with it were It felt mandated. I guess is a thing. Am I wrong in saying that? L okay, wasas that a game that y'all are like? This is the game we want to make. We actually started, I think prototyping that before Crash four Interesting and it was just something that someone had an idea for. I mean, obviously again This was in more of the era of the bubble of live service games or more online games and it was something where It was this notion of Hey There's these really fun, you know, characters, but every time Cash became a spino. It was like, you know, crash team racing orashash crash Bash. They never played like Cash as a platformer. And so it was this wild idea of, hey These are these really cool experiences, but they always deviate from what makes a crash game a crash game. Crash team racing racing and, you know, Crash games sure. you' piloting a biplane but there's no racing Right? And so it always felt different than the core moment to moment of a crash And so this notion of A can we that feeling of platforming in a multiplayer space in a way that's never been done. B can we feed our own teams joy and hunger of making unique playable characters that interact with the space in a really different way And so that's where all these different playable characters came from, all these unique ways of traversing. you have Dingo Dial doing his, you know, his reverse vacuum cleaner, jump to glide and boost. You've got, you know, double jumps from some, you've got air dashes from others. It really kind of comes down to, if you talk about the lineage of the studio, the love of making characters and the way that they move and attack and explore a space is something that is just so fun to do Try and experiment and push on platforming to not just be a single player run through a space and be done with it. but to find a way to connect those was the thought experiment behind that game As you're operating as a studio in twenty twenty six, of course, like Tim mentions, we talk about video game news all the time in the last few years and increasingly so, there's been a lot of bad news, whether we're talking about layoffs, studio closures, you know, games taking longer to make, physical additions going away. There's just so many things, right? Y P you guys operating as an independent studio Is that something you feel every day in your day to day, right? Or is that something that that you're able to ignore and just go, Hey, business as usual, lock in, make the game. U, you know, I mean, speaking for me personally, I mean, it's we're a part of the greater community of game developers. and so It's it's awful to see that stuff You know, but at the same time, we count our blessings that There is our team and there is hope for people and fans out there to deliver a game to them. And so for us, it's really It's trying not to fall into, you know thought holes or growing concerns and to really make sure that we're fully committed on doing what we do best, which is creating funun amazing joyous experiences for players who want them. I mean, there's you're speaking to like some really big things that extend even beyond the industry too. like multiple industries. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, those things definitely exist. I don't know how much of it is actionable on our part. So we've got a lot in front of us to focus on' developing. So like I think that's kind of both, you know, the most important thing that we could be focused on and also our happy space You know, how the industry trends, you know We count our blessings and we see where we go and we survive and we persist. That's what we do So three D platformers seem to be that core thing, you know, being like We're going independent We want to do what we want to do. and that is three D platformers for the character, for the gameplay, for all that. What are your thoughts on three D platformers outside of Toys for Bob? They rule in twenty twenty seven, right? Like Do you feel like this is like a golden era I don't know about Golden era, but it's a resurgence, deffinitely. I mean, it's something that you know warms my heart because that is totally my genre of choice You know, seeing the Rayman announcement at the games Fest. So bring it on. That's awesome. We talked a bit about, you know, Astrobot land game of the year. Yeah couldouldn't be more happy. It is so great because these are the experiences that You know, the reason that I play games is because I grew up with those experiences You know, I mean, I was a NES kid, you know, playing as many Marios as I can get my hands on and making my way through. And so to see you know, that come around. I think to me and the reason I always gravitate to it is it's like the purest form of video game in my mind because it is really about fantasy of controlling a different character and the fun and joy that comes in the responsiveness and how you interact with the world And it's like you can layer other things on that. But to me, that's like the source of what makes a fun video game is just exploring a space and Hving a unique character and a unique way of doing that And so to see that rise up and to see people really connect back in with that Also in the indie scene, you know, I mean, there's a ton of really amazing indie platformers too. And so Yeah, bring it on. the more the merrier, it's phenomen. I love see it. By any chance have either of you played Penny's big Bakaway I haven't know. That's one that came out a few years ago. I feel like you should check it out. Okay. Yeah. It's one that it's a little lowk. I feel like we didn' talk about it enough. Like it's one that I played and appreciated just for how unique it controls. You're playing as a main character who has a yoyo and that yoyo kind a lot of your momentum. N number of our team members have played that. Yes. Yeah. I believe the same people who made Sonic Man ye Yeah, right? Part of the team. Part of that. Yeah Yeah. I remember the yoyo. yeah A question that I'm sure you guys can answer. But because you are working on a sppirro and because you guys have put out crash and have now worked with these franchises for a while now Back in the day for Game Boy Advanced, there are two games. Y, Crash purple, Spyro, orange Would you guys ever want to do something like that again? Having worked on them both in quick succession, you know, as mentioning, it's they're very, very different. Obviously, we love a challenge. We love both those franchises. If someone said, wouldould you like to do it? I don't think anyone would turn it down But as a thought experiment, it's hard. Oh yeah. because that would be my follow question Yeah. What would be your vision on how to make that kind of crossover thing work because crash is all about limitations. Yeah and specificity. Wh whereereas Spyro is all about free form And so it is it is very, very, very different. So I think that would take heck of a thought to figure out, but You know, again, we adore both of those characters, both those franchises and Yeah, if the opportunity presented itself, I'm sure we would take on the challenge. N. And again, because we have you, I feel like we have to ask this ro so the comments are going to get mad Has Banjo Kazoo ever been talked aboution Bob Frequently, you mean? Of course. Yeah. No, I mean, it's a franchise we love. Again as as platformers, you know, as platformer fans Panjo's top of the heap. We have some, you know, huge, huge fans of that franchise on our on our staff, you know, I'm talking they've got the jiggy as their, you know, profile pick kind of a thing. They're that level of fan. So You know, if the opportunity ever arose, they'd be amazing. but we love, we love the franchise. there's, you know, if you look at the through line of the types of games that we like to make, I can imagine that that's part of that staple as well. those characters, you know, I think you described as nostalgic. I think that's one way of looking at it. I think of them as timeless. Yeah. Ionic. Yeah. They're iconic. And I think there's, you know, the types of games that we want to play prodce are ones that speak to a timeless place in the player as well, an ageless place, If we call it the inner child Right? And so I think those They're wonderful games. We're hugeans. Has there ever been desire to make a new three D platform mascot character? or are you very happy kind of sticking with these iconic characters because they do exist and they have been underserved for a long time. I guess you like O brainstorms go really wide. So absolutely, we've thought about the big spectrum of this I would say that a big attraction to characters that are established is that they have a timeless quality. They have a foundation, they have an audience that is vocal about them and are speaking specifically with direct feedback about what's important about that. And that's really useful to like build on in terms of you know, developing your design ideas about what's next. So I think there's an appreciation for both of those things, right? There's the openness of new and its possibilities. and then there's the foundation that comes with these timeless characters that's actually very inspiring creatively Of course, we're talking about Spyro being the first project during your independence and that's kind of what helped drive your independence You guys have a dream project beyond Spyro? Is there something that you're itching to make that you're like, this is the next step or this is like our the top of the hill that we want to climb here? This is certainly one of our ones, right? And making this our first game, I think that speaks to that. Yeah I'll speak personally. I just love this crew and this team. whatever that project is. as long as we're working together, I think the combination of everyone's different sensibilities and craft and you know creativity produces some magic and when it's paired together with properties that you see some commercial know viability with and you've got a fan base with, I think that's the right mixture of things that would be something that we could latch onto and be successful with. Yeah. I mean, I do think that that is again, a testament to the talent that y'all have over there of like keeping so many of the team together to be able to put out these projects. Like looking at the list like back to back to back, it's kind of wild where there's some project being released that y'all worked on every year, even if some of them were like Call of Duty support things, but it's like it's wild for A Rome beyond coming out in twenty twenty seven. It's like Well with what y'all are saying, it's like maybe if this is successful thirty twenty thirty one. we get another game. It's like that's a really nice cadence to be able to have the team Be creative, put out products people are loving. like I don't know, just warms my heart. this so on bad stuff. This just seems like such a huge win But taking it back like to Spiral Rem beyond I talk about that game. what does a realm Beyond mean thematically for the game We'll have more to share on the narrative, obviously as we go. But you know I think it also speaks to us wanting to take Syro Beyond Right? It's it's the evolution of the franchise. It is pushing it forward. It is bringing it into a new era. And so for us it was very important to have that feel in the name as well. It's We want to say, hey, this is the first new game in twenty years We are making sure that this is a new adventure or want to remind you that you're going to, you know, places unexplored both in gameplay and narratively We want Spyire to be timeless. Yeah, just nostalgic Yeah And that's this is one step towards doing this. So this is semi a silly question, but we always talk about when a new game's coming out, specifically a like legacy sequel or reboot or, you know, any combination of those things To get excited and build the hype. Sh you go back and play the old ones or should you kind of just not get spired out and wait for this to come and allow this to be the thing? Do you guys have recommendations I don't think there's ever a bad time to play a Spyro game. I think it's fine. Yeah. now I'm all in Is it homework to do this? No, you said no. Should you play those games? Yes. Yeah.. Yeah, defeinitely Yeah Um Can you talk any more about the fire breath mechanics? Becauseuse like what we're seeing here of the the campfire and then it allows him to blow up like outside of the flying, is it is there going to be a lot more in terms of like combat and things like that Well absolutely have more to share. Yeah. but Just the tip of the iceberg, you can see here is changing the way he's using his flame breath while in flight. You know, if the original game it was all very much a sustained flamethrower. And what we found when we increased the scale and increased the speed of movement and the want to interact with the world while you were doing so He needed to have more ring And so we are showing off here is yeah, when he's in flight, you see it is now a fireball and so you're being able to interact with the world much quicker and you know, with that lead time of you getting to it When you are considering the scope of the game of it being kind of manageable, were there moments where y all had to look at this and be like, okay, we're hitting we're going too far O o. Yes. Yeah. I mean every game is like that. you know I mean, part of it is You're eyeballing, it's always napkin math, right? It's you're like, I think we can pull this off and then you realize That's a lot, you know, and then you kind of maybe pair down in one area, you know, amplify in another. It's just part of making a game. It's part of the iteration loop. It's part of development process. And so yeah, absolutely. there were times where like, That's a lot of game. And we want to make sure that we, you know, manage our team, manage our focus, manage What it is is important about the game And so yeah, there are areas where you tighten the belt and there's areas where you expand part of the game development Creep is real thing, right? Oh yeah. right? Be every time you're in a conversation with creative folks, it's always like, wouldn't it be cool if this happened? And wouldn't it be cool? And they absolutely are cool ideas. But if you commit to every single one of those, you know, without some discipline, then your game blows out a budget and blows out a time. and so Luckily for us, we have high tenure folks who have worked together and can complete each other's sentences. They kind of know each other's like sensibilities For decades, we worked together. And they're also highly senior and they understand what it means to ship And we have this cadence and we understand like two to three years, what is the scope within our team So all those things kind of focus down into we know ourselves and we know when things are a little bit beyond our reach or like too much and then we'll pull it back down to be what's appropriate for us developing it and also for the experience Of course you guys have been working with Spyro for a while, right when we're talking about Skylanders. But when we jump to Spyro gited tririlogy in twenty eighteen, were there things you guys learned from making that game that you've been able to carry into working on this new one Yeah talk about kind of just the spyroscope of it all and kind of how that went together. That was kind of. Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one is is first recognizing that Skylanders is a different beast of its own, right? I think just making that crystal clear for ourselves was one part. And I think if we're honest with ourselves and we're paying attention to the feedback, book, there's fans during the Skylanders era of spyro that felt left behind. like, oh, that's not the spyro that I recognizeed, that's not the one that I grew up with. So we You know, the opportunity came up for reignited. We' like Oh yeah, to get back to the authentic, you know, classic spiral. Yeah, of course. we would love to go for full circle In that discovery period, there's a couple of different lanes of how we wanted to validate our own memories about who Spyro was One of that was doing this deep pool All of the fan feedback, all the fan videos and all the forums and just plucking out all the comments they make and all their rose tinted memories of what the game was. That's like one giant bucket that we just showered ourselves with to like get familiar with. So it's Jeremy Dooley's entire life, right? was play a big gamees absolutely. If you have a tattoo of Spyro,, you probably someone were gonna be paying attention to R said like that's one giant bucket. Another one was going and talking with the original Dvs. So we actually reached out to prrice and some of the original artists and developers at insomniac who worked on. and they were so gracious to have a conversation with us. They had no obligation to, but you know, we wanted to go down memory lane with them and just say, hey, could you just paint a picture for us? like what did you Where were you? going for? What were you trying to do? And they actually unloaded on us a bunch of original concept art and sketches and even design docs. So we got to take that and just show ourselves with like original intent, the fan feedback And then the third one is the technical analysis of what that game was to make sure that we had absolute accuracy on what it feel like because we wanted to make sure that your muscle memory of the game, once you picked up the controller, it just like It just resumes, right? You shouldn't have to like be reprogrammed or recollect. We The first question that we asked Ted was, do you guys have source material? We'd love to look at the cat so that we can reconstruct it and And he's like, unfortunately, we moved several times. it's many, many years ago, we don't have that. So actually one of our engineers Um source emulator and then modified that so that wed looked at the original game and actually peered into its data, extracted a lot of the models, we extracted the levels, we measured all the metrics, we found the exact placement for every gem. We measured the timing and the speed and the paths of certain enemies and like I said, with Spyro frame, what are they doing what is he doing as you're pushing the button over that period of time? And so that gave us a lot of All right metrics that gave us the authenticity on that side of it. So I think that between those three things, pretty good picture about how we got to authenticity and reverence.. How much were those metrics kind of accurate to what it should feel like versus You having to change it to make it feel like you remember it feeling like One of the benefits of Spyroscope was that we were able to have a single controller run both the emulation of the class game and what we were building So a lot of times simultaneousild ye. So sometimes we would spawn Spyro in the same spot and we'd go chase the egg thief and we'd run the same thing and just look at it and say That's of course, you're never going to get one hundred percent one hundred percent. but we're getting really, really, really, really close. But as far as, you know, the what things that you had to change to make it feel almost a little more to the expectations, which kind of go with The rose tnded glasses is like controllers have changed. Right Wite analog stick camer That wasn't a thing in the original games, even though it was, you know, a fully three D space, it was the bumpers you know rotating it just on a thing. So it becomes okay, you have to make some of these small concessions to modernity, but you do it in such a way that They exist within the rose tinted glasses because everything has modernized with it And so you can't go so far back that you're preserving some of those quality of life things. And so we introduced a couple of different camera moves. You know you could change between an active or a passive camera that changes kind of how quickly it snapped behind Spyro and charging and exploring the world. The right analog stick was supported. So a lot of those things were done without much friction or any you know negativity to the preservation of the original game, because it's just the way games have evolved along the time. So Huge question for me, right? As a kid, I had a Dmo disc that had Crash Bash and Spiral Year of the Dragon on it. And in the Spiral Year of the Dragon one I believe in that demo was the skateboarding level . Is there any chance that we bring back the skateboarding? Because I loved it. I know people hate on it. I loved it. It was huge for me Um I think I can say no skateboard. Sorry. is sorry. I would have preferred no comment T to break your hearts so. Yeah. Oh well. Yeah. There's always, you know, hopefully there's a know that the thing, right? We We want to set expectations for a future for Spyro. if that Yeah. Spyros skate adventure comes next from the studio Because the fan outcry Maybe that's where we're go in the outcrying thing. That's right. Noted. U, my big question is, is Bob a real person? Is there a real bob? There is there is no Bob in her studio, but no. Bob is who I likeked I call the inner child. So our studio mission is to inspire love, joy and laughter for the inner child and all gamers Bob is who I call that inner child This is a way better answer than I ever would. That's so beautiful. Now a follow up question to my skateboarding question. Sure. Would you guys ever wan to bring back Crash Bash? 'causeuse I also liked that Uh Yeah, I don't know. That's an interesting one. honestly, I h think that. I think I mean that's a toss to the comments to see like Yeah. like is there an appetite for it? I mean, we kind of scratched a bit of that itch internally with Crash teeam Rumble, just the notion of kind of trash and platforming as these kind of More of a party party sensibility to it Never say no. All right s betterter than skateboarding. which I will always. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was awesome.ike such great insight into all of this. Is there any final things that you guys want to say about Spyro Am Beyond O or just tooys for Bob in general I mean, honestly shout out to the studio Everyone's working to make sure that yeah, we are coming out in spring of twenty twenty seven. And so immense immense pride in what the team's producing and You know, the quality of the game and we're pushing hard and we're really excited for it to come out I can add to that.' Spiral Realm beyond comes out spring twenty twenty seven. and We're super excited to see the excitement from the reveal and we're appreciative of all the fan and the community, you feedback and all of that attention and the support for the studio.. Absolutely. goodood feels olst us. I mean it's great. Yeah. ye. You guys are doing incredible stuff. I can't wait to have you back in this studio. happy to be hopefully playing the game sometime soon. You know what I mean? I don't know when, but but sometime before spring twenty twenty seven, you know, But you are welcome here anyt timee. Thank. Thank you for all of this. Thank you all for checking this out. Until next time I love you. Goodbye