0:00

Well that's 18,000, The

0:02

next 18,000. player has

0:04

place which is still a which

0:06

is lot a fuck But is

0:08

a third. This reminds me

0:11

of a third. This it was revealed

0:13

of how like of was was written

0:15

by one guy. one third of

0:17

Wikipedia was written by one

0:19

guy. Oh yeah. Hey everybody,

0:22

welcome to to episode 499 of Coffee

0:24

with Butterscotch, the Game Deaf comedy podcast of

0:26

Butterscot Shenanigans. I'm Seth I'm Seth

0:28

and I'm the programmer. I'm

0:30

Adam Adam, I'm the

0:32

Miscellaneous Programmer. I'm Sam and and

0:34

I'm out-heist. this is a show where

0:36

we talk about life, business and working

0:39

in the games industry today is

0:41

December December... 20th, 22 by 4. And before we get And

0:43

before we get started, we have a

0:45

warning. There's going to be profanity

0:47

in this show. Uh, and we'd also

0:49

like to thank our recurring supporters to

0:52

thank our recurring supporters Thank you so much

0:54

for your recurring donations to help keep

0:56

the for your recurring this is our last

0:58

episode of the year, which means, this

1:00

is our it's time to look back the

1:02

year, in time time to look back back

1:04

in time across the space out

1:07

what the figure out the

1:09

fuck happened. It's been a, it's been

1:11

a, it's been a wild it's

1:13

we have some been a wild year,

1:15

we want to go have some stats that

1:17

we want to. some through that

1:19

that the numbers, some stuff that

1:21

that we could actually measure then

1:23

we'll of of studio. And then you

1:25

just kind of talk about,

1:27

you know, we've a high level to

1:30

we've managed to pull off and what it's

1:32

kind of been like to work on on crash

1:34

to this year. year. And then if

1:36

if we got time, we'll, we'll

1:38

get into some questions. some questions. Yeah. So

1:40

not, but we'll, not, but do what

1:42

we can. Yep. Yeah. If you're a subscriber to the B.

1:44

Scotch a subscriber to the B

1:46

scotch value, which is our, our

1:48

newsletter, in your inbox by have already gotten

1:50

these in your inbox by the

1:52

time you hear this, probably Yeah, definitely.

1:54

long. Yep. Definitely. If you're a

1:56

subscriber if you want to you want to

1:58

see more of this. of stuff stuff. make

2:00

sure you're make sure to also to that

2:02

thing. subscribe to you can just go So .net

2:05

and go to it down, Shutnet and track it down, anyway,

2:07

it down there. this year I wanted to

2:09

look back and do a little back and do

2:11

a little figure out to figure out how do we a

2:13

whole last year of work You know, some

2:15

numbers, way that Spotify tries to do.

2:17

an easier got an easier problem because what does

2:19

is everybody doing do on a Listening to

2:21

music. to listening kind of thing. How measure

2:23

it? How much time do we spend

2:25

doing it? measure it. One fucking thing. So

2:28

easy. I was trying to trying to figure out

2:30

how to summarize the work of a

2:32

team of nine a a video game, you

2:34

know, a so game, you it's limited to

2:36

the stuff that is the sense is in some sense

2:38

But the numbers are pretty fun and

2:40

interesting. So here's what we and We

2:42

added So here's what we got. We

2:44

assets to the game. assets to

2:46

So that's between Sam and

2:49

our new and new artist and. 700

2:51

new things. Now, a piece

2:53

of art, though, isn't just An

2:55

art asset is not one is not one

2:57

picture, right? And our consist of of

2:59

multiple frames. It can be an animation.

3:02

It can be a a skeletonized monstrosity

3:04

that is animated and can

3:06

do stuff, right? can do stuff, right? So

3:08

of them take a week to

3:11

put together. Some of them Some

3:13

minutes or whatever an hour,

3:15

you know? Yeah, an hour, you know, but 700 is

3:17

a lot lot no matter how

3:19

long it takes, you know? know, you

3:21

know. And so, so, but collectively does

3:23

consist of of parts as in like

3:25

art pieces. art that come together to

3:28

make up those 700 art

3:30

assets. up those 700 art assets. that's a

3:32

lot of things. That's a lot.

3:34

That's a lot. It's going to be

3:36

an to be an right? Because that's

3:39

right? just measuring the sub -images

3:41

of sprites. measuring the images of sprites. And the

3:43

bones of... you get the attachments

3:45

for the export? Attachments for export?

3:47

Okay, that'll be accurate. for accurate.

3:50

Okay, pretty close. Yeah, I tallied

3:52

it all up. close. Yeah, I tallied it

3:54

up. Couple thousand. So that's a lot, that's right? between

3:57

two artists, we also

3:59

added added. 80,000 words to to the

4:01

game. I believe words than the first game had.

4:03

the first game had. are like

4:05

5,000 more since I believe there are

4:07

like 5 ,000 more since

4:10

I put those stats together. I

4:12

I assume there's also a

4:14

dozen new art assets a

4:16

I week together because I was

4:18

a whole week ago. words.

4:20

know. that's between everything and ,000 words, and

4:22

that's between everything and other

4:24

or descriptions, descriptions, quests. blah, just just

4:27

all of it. And so the And

4:29

so count now total the count now for

4:31

the game is That's a lot. If you ever do

4:33

national novel a lot. If you ever

4:35

do words is the sort of like short novel goal. ,000 words

4:37

is the sort of like short

4:39

novel goal, longer than a novella, shorter

4:41

than like your typical novel, but

4:43

it's like a it's a good round

4:45

number that's like, yeah, that's basically

4:47

a whole ass book, right? So we're

4:49

in the territory of having almost

4:51

three of those three of those currently. Yeah. It's funny.

4:53

I was talking with with Jen, our

4:55

writer about this a while back, and she

4:57

you know. know, it it like a

4:59

lot of words, but what you

5:01

don't realize is that in a don't realize

5:03

is that a lot of the words

5:05

are used to also describe the

5:07

scene and the action the the things

5:10

that are happening. things that But in a

5:12

game, that's what the art is

5:14

doing. And that's what the gameplay is

5:16

doing. So most the dialogue is literally

5:18

just the of that the words is literally just

5:20

the words, the dialogue of the novel, uh,

5:23

and not, not the rest,

5:25

which makes it even more impressive,

5:27

more you know, You know, because it's a chest

5:29

dialogue. Uh, so it's, it's a

5:31

lot. And on on top of

5:33

that. we are translating it right it,

5:35

right? So 100,000 of that so far

5:37

have been translated translated by team

5:40

consisting of dozens of people

5:42

because it's basically two people translating

5:44

one person reviewing the translation the

5:46

of whom are fluent in

5:48

the target language are fluent in the target manager

5:51

in charge of the whole

5:53

thing in then you know whole

5:55

thing, and you know, various other parties in small

5:57

army doing a small army doing translation stuff.

6:00

means it ain't cheap. It's cheap. It is not

6:02

fast. cheap. also, it's one of, it's fast.

6:04

hard to do the work to produce one

6:06

of, it's extremely hard to

6:08

do the work to produce

6:10

the words in the first

6:12

place. As we're saying, is basically putting

6:14

together, what Jen's putting together is basically

6:16

the dialogue, the dialogue And to figure out

6:19

where the dialogue's going, and it's, but

6:21

it's for a branching that some narrative, be

6:23

That some parts can be shut off

6:25

in a given moment. It depends on

6:27

where you are in the game. the game. but

6:29

not seeing that you're doing it. So

6:31

you're trying to you're where everything is

6:33

where things take place and so on.

6:35

But if you make all of

6:37

it, then at least you have that.

6:39

At least you have that part

6:41

in your brain have okay, I know

6:44

what's going on I I say, when

6:46

I say the phrase beep-boop over here. I know

6:48

here, I know that's referring to this

6:50

scene, you know, a character from this other

6:52

scene, you know, a thousand words ago.

6:54

thing or some of that wasn't a or

6:56

but was this other thing or

6:58

whatever, or whatever, or whatever, right. for translators for translators. And just got

7:00

spreadsheets. got just got spreadsheets. They're trying they're trying to

7:02

figure out how to piece this together.

7:05

And I'm trying to, and I'm trying

7:07

to figure out how to get the

7:09

information to them that they would need I

7:11

could get the you build, them that they would need stuff

7:13

you year, lock server and stuff this built Right. Yeah. I

7:15

built our string server for for. managing all

7:17

that and trying to make it so make

7:20

it easily provide stuff to provide stuff if

7:22

you're interested in all If have had probably

7:24

five or six podcast had episodes where

7:26

we've talked a lot about episodes where we've there's

7:28

basically all about it. and then

7:30

it's come up one episode that bunch of

7:32

times because it's and then lot. It's

7:35

a huge part of the because it's

7:37

process. It's a huge part of the development because

7:39

I basically review all the strings

7:41

as they get ready to I off

7:43

to localization. as they so every week

7:45

to be reading off to thinking like, how

7:47

confusing is this one gonna be

7:50

one going to be then the it. it's

7:52

on the top of my mind

7:54

all the time. it's on the top of my mind

7:56

a lot, we're it's not of the

7:58

way through. of the way through. And we've just

8:00

submitted another batch recently and we'll,

8:02

you know, we'll, be know, be a

8:04

kind of all wrapped up a kind

8:06

shortly after all the words wrapped

8:08

up, which is going to be

8:10

soon. all the words wrapped up, which is be soon. Yeah.

8:12

of loads So words, to to particular

8:14

for writing writing so many of those. a

8:16

lot. So we've a lot. added So we've

8:18

also added because another new assets a

8:21

another thing we talked about a

8:23

lot over the past this is the

8:25

game which is our internal content

8:27

management tool tool for that in in game how

8:29

we is how we add new So so if

8:31

we have a new or a new item or

8:33

a new item or whatever that

8:35

thing a scene a question or whatever. we use

8:37

we use that thing to make

8:39

what we call a a moat that that

8:42

basically pieces together the data that

8:44

kind of data So we've got the

8:46

thing so of those moat things, right?

8:48

Yeah. So each one of those

8:50

represents some concrete kind of some concrete

8:52

kind that's a lot. That's a

8:55

lot of stuff. stuff, that's about it, just a

8:57

updated. so now the way that we we store, we've

8:59

got the game. change got the game basically that

9:01

information, right? like And then we've got

9:03

the right? map, which stores the everything

9:05

is, where the tiles are out

9:07

in the world, where the the

9:10

things world, where the phases of like

9:12

scene changes, like all that. So

9:14

basically anything that you can see

9:16

pretty much is stored there, where is

9:18

stored there, where everything goes. So thing has been

9:21

updated 2 ,300 times over the

9:23

year. times over the year. That's 10 times a work day,

9:25

workday, basically. So that's a lot,

9:27

a it's a lot of times. And

9:29

then the database consisting database new of all

9:31

of but 3 ,100 new assets, but

9:33

also all the assets that were

9:35

already there. So we didn't just

9:38

add stuff. We also changed stuff,

9:40

right? So collectively there

9:42

were 2 ,200 published updates

9:44

to that collection. which

9:46

be be any number of changes in each of changes.

9:48

of changes. Yeah, could be like a could could

9:51

be a hundred things things could be

9:53

just one thing, you know, whatever,

9:55

thing, you know, but yeah. yeah, so,

9:57

but that's basically 10 times a

9:59

day for the. past year, the map has

10:01

been updated and the database of all

10:03

of the data has been been Is that

10:05

Is that clear? Is levels? Is that Cause I

10:08

feel like workshop levels? I feel I mean, we're

10:10

working insanely high. I I'm just looking at

10:12

the version number of the just I'm just

10:14

looking at the the version number of the

10:16

and the changer data. And that's it. changer

10:18

now and the end of the

10:20

year, But between now and the pending year. Yeah. of, it

10:23

kind of comes in kind of it kind

10:25

heavy waves, guess. Really heavy waves. Yeah. Really be

10:27

like a day or two where there's

10:29

almost no changes and then suddenly like bunch

10:31

of us are working on shit all

10:33

at once. And it's just like, just like bam

10:35

bam bam bam bam bam. we between because He's doing

10:38

all of our audio stuff. And so

10:40

they're making stuff to it. We've got to it.

10:42

we've got, Sam two artists got a We the

10:44

two artists stuff. We got we got Seth all the

10:46

quest stuff. got Jen doing So all of

10:48

those people those day have some amount of

10:50

stuff that they're committing to the, the

10:53

total set, set of. is cool. Cause actually,

10:55

you know, one of our big challenges

10:57

and goals with, this this game we talked about

10:59

about this. just a few few episodes ago was

11:01

at the start of development we were

11:03

looking at the scope of this game

11:05

and we were like of this can't make

11:08

this game in the way that we've

11:10

been making games. Like we need to

11:12

redo everything to be scalable be we

11:14

can add more people to the process so

11:16

that we can that we can have a

11:18

lot more parallel development happening with fewer

11:20

dependencies and fewer people waiting on each

11:23

other to do to do shit. And so we we all

11:25

all new tools to make that happen

11:27

and and hey, look at that. It's working. We're using this shit

11:29

out of the out of the that we have. And

11:31

And without really any of them, we

11:33

got a lot of tools and without

11:35

any of them, the whole thing would

11:37

be thing significantly more of a nightmare more

11:39

of a different game. Let's just make a

11:41

different game. game. It Yeah. It be a

11:43

different and less game. game. you know, I

11:45

heard, I heard less. heard less. of We the

11:47

one of the monsters in Monster Hunter I

11:49

very popular. I mean, it's a monster

11:51

hunting game, of it. of it. very very

11:53

complicated. They're like like I'm following I'm following yourself. But

11:55

one one of those monsters apparently takes

11:57

about a year a some change to make.

11:59

make. And they have, which happens in parallel. exactly, so they

12:01

it, of course, with of very large

12:04

team. large But mean, they have dozens of

12:06

these things and it's like, it's insane.

12:08

it's We insane. about that with that with AAA for

12:10

like I can't remember can't remember were talking we

12:12

but for one of the big but

12:14

titles, of the big triple titles, the same where they would

12:16

have a team of basically five people,

12:18

each team acting in parallel people, on

12:20

a different sort of level of the

12:22

game. a different sort of And it was the

12:24

same deal because that process takes of three

12:26

to six months. right, right, right, right, right? to To

12:28

complete a section. right? Right. So you solve that problem

12:30

with scale. just have way, have tons of

12:32

of teams, we're in kind of kind of in

12:34

this weird middle ground where we

12:36

have such a small scale have such a small

12:38

scale that, still the case that case that

12:41

like, if a single took us six months

12:43

to add, the game wouldn't be finished,

12:45

be right? Cause we only have a

12:47

couple of people working on it.

12:49

So we still have like a little

12:51

bit of parallel work happening, a but

12:53

it still has to be happening, but it

12:55

still has to be fast as fun. So we got that that.

12:57

And then, together because all come

13:00

together because of how things of how

13:02

things work complicated morass, own whole

13:04

complicated can right? But we basically

13:06

can independently version the data so the

13:08

world map can be we publish when we publish

13:10

it. to it, data can the game data can

13:12

be incremented when we publish changes to

13:14

it, and then the game itself, which basically

13:16

bundles those things together plus all of

13:19

its logic and stuff, and stuff, right? Also can

13:21

be versioned. that it captures a snapshot of those

13:23

other things, right? those And so for that,

13:25

every time we do that, we go

13:27

through an automated system that that makes the

13:29

builds a mixture of Windows build on first it makes

13:31

Google play a build it makes our our iOS build it

13:33

makes them test builds does all Things that

13:35

actually that actually customers can play, I

13:37

guess you could put it I

13:39

guess way, you could put that way with QA or

13:41

Yeah, so that so that goes

13:43

through QA QA then our QA our

13:45

day day whatever version is available

13:48

and they can test changes

13:50

and so on. and So that

13:52

has happened and so times. has happened 333

13:54

which is more than once

13:56

a day on average, a day on

13:58

average, right? What's a workday? And that That means

14:00

because every time we do that, every

14:02

time we version of the game, we

14:04

make a build for each of those

14:06

platforms, that's at least three builds per

14:09

version. So we're looking at, you know,

14:11

a thousand plus builds. Because also there's

14:13

also the demo builds and all these

14:15

like test things that we do and

14:17

stuff. So we're looking at well over

14:19

a thousand built. versions of the game

14:21

that got deployed to targets and like

14:23

the whole fucking deal. What I really

14:25

love about this is that we just

14:27

think it back at the first crash

14:30

once but Seth would just sit there

14:32

for an hour while the game every

14:34

Friday. Yeah. One per week. That was

14:36

even true up until towards the end

14:38

of the first year working on level.

14:40

Yeah. Was like each week. And like

14:42

in level head we were like we

14:44

need we need some we need some

14:46

QA like we really need QA right

14:49

and so we work on level head

14:51

we hired some part-time QA that they

14:53

would just only come in on Fridays

14:55

yeah and then like Thursday end of

14:57

day was when I would go back

14:59

through through get and like make a

15:01

Google doc and like type up all

15:03

the patch notes of manually of what

15:05

what changed that week and then make

15:07

and then the entire last half of

15:10

my day on Thursday was making those

15:12

builds. and putting them in drop box

15:14

or whatever for the QA team. So

15:16

once a week we would get our

15:18

like four hours of testing. Yeah, it's

15:20

insane scale. If you want to and

15:22

Seth put a talk together about that

15:24

for GDC in 2019, I think it

15:26

was. 20 or 20. That was your

15:29

digital talk. Yeah, yeah. Because. Yeah, pandemic.

15:31

Yeah, so if Sam can drop a

15:33

link in the show notes to that

15:35

talk to give you that, if you

15:37

want to, if you want to hear

15:39

the full picture, which is how we

15:41

went from making a build a week

15:43

at most in doing no QA to

15:45

where we are now, which is we

15:47

make builds one or two builds every

15:50

day and goes to QA every day.

15:52

It's like, oh God, you know. Yeah,

15:54

that talk is called stress free game

15:56

development, if you only looked at up.

15:58

on YouTube. And so that brings us

16:00

to the end of the things that

16:02

are fairly. easily measurable and relatively interpretable

16:04

because things like so sure I said

16:06

we added 700 new art assets but

16:09

how many got changed I don't know

16:11

it's too hard to measure right yeah

16:13

we added 80 thousand words but how

16:15

many got changed my heart about that

16:17

too is that every every armor set

16:19

that flux has is around I think

16:21

60 pieces and we added the other

16:23

half of them but you wouldn't actually

16:25

pick that up because it's just a

16:27

it's an update to her spine file

16:30

which is a basically it's another 300

16:32

drawings yeah just inside of flux of

16:34

spine file which you wouldn't have seen

16:36

which is like so there's stuff like

16:38

yeah it's it's an undercount you know

16:40

what I mean it's an undercount well

16:42

that's thing is why it's an important

16:44

takeaway of knowing like this is why

16:46

At this point in my life, I'm

16:49

like, don't bother measuring almost anything. It's

16:51

fucking pointless. You just, you take the

16:53

way the wrong lessons, right? Because all

16:55

you know is the thing you can

16:57

easily measure. In this case, it's easy

16:59

to look at like a number that

17:01

is bigger now, right? But that brings

17:03

us to the lines of code, which

17:05

is a thing, good example of like

17:07

how hard it is to make a

17:10

meaningful sense out of this, right? Because

17:12

over the year we've added 18,000 lines

17:14

of code, which first blush, when I

17:16

first saw the number, I was like,

17:18

that's not very many, right? If you're

17:20

not familiar with this kind of thing,

17:22

it seems like a lot, right? But

17:24

like, I was like, oh, that's actually

17:26

weirdly small. Because what I'm not capturing,

17:29

because what actually matters is change. It

17:31

doesn't matter what was added. Right. It

17:33

matters what was changed, which includes addition

17:35

subtractions and changes, right? Now, I would

17:37

bet anything that if we looked at.

17:39

I've deleted a lot. Yeah, that if

17:41

we looked at the additions, deletions, and

17:43

changes, like for individual lines of code

17:45

in the project, it's easily well over

17:47

100,000. I would bet. Yeah. What interesting

17:50

example is, so. So we parted ways

17:52

with Netflix this year and while we

17:54

were working with them we had their

17:56

SDK integrated into the project and we

17:58

were developing our cloud saving system in

18:00

accordance with the specs that they required

18:02

for how their stuff worked. And that

18:04

was a ton of code in the

18:06

game. And then once... once we parted

18:09

ways with them, like, all right, rip

18:11

it out, right? And just delete all

18:13

that code because we don't need it

18:15

anymore. And we, but then, so that,

18:17

like we added a ton of code,

18:19

removed a ton of code, and then

18:21

we rebuilt the cloud saving system after

18:23

that to be a different, a totally

18:25

different model, but it was probably about

18:27

the same amount of code, maybe even

18:30

less code than the original cloud saving

18:32

system we had, because it was simpler.

18:34

Right. And so. As one of my

18:36

favorite sayings is like in programming the

18:38

most powerful key on your keyboard is

18:40

delete, right? Because like, oftentimes your first

18:42

solution to a problem is too complicated,

18:44

too convoluted, and over times you learn

18:46

more you can simplify it and like

18:49

break it down, you know, and you

18:51

end up with less code. but more

18:53

functional code. Yeah. Often it's more valuable

18:55

to have a negative lines added counter,

18:57

right? Especially with the way we've been

18:59

moving, which is this parallelization of the

19:01

work of making the game, has also

19:03

largely been about not having code. Not

19:05

requiring code for things to progress. So

19:07

all of those geez, all of those

19:10

game changers that I was talking about,

19:12

all of those game changes, adding new

19:14

modes for whatever else, did not take

19:16

new code, right? So that creatures, for

19:18

example, I think, probably have something like

19:20

2,500 lines of code, I would guess.

19:22

But every time we add a new

19:24

creature, of which we now have a

19:26

lot, that adds zero lines of code

19:29

because they use the same code, right?

19:31

It's the game changer data that gets

19:33

interpreted by the code. And every now

19:35

and then, so I actually, I did

19:37

some tweaks to creature behaviors to their

19:39

pathfinding this week. It actually added nothing.

19:41

It added no lines of code. It

19:43

was just some modifications here and there

19:45

to stuff that was already there. And

19:47

that affects every creature. And it's like

19:50

a sweeping change across the whole game.

19:52

So yeah. It is kind of funny

19:54

though when you hear about managers in

19:56

larger companies measuring productivity of their programmers

19:58

by how many lines of code they

20:00

produce. There's no way to measure it.

20:02

And so, because I've also been seeing

20:04

a slew of articles from like people

20:06

trying to measure the impact of like

20:09

AI tools on coding, right? And positive

20:11

or negative, mine of takeaway every time

20:13

is like, this is bullshit because. you

20:15

need a metric to understand like what

20:17

the impact is and the metrics are

20:19

things like quality productivity and I'm like

20:21

how the fuck are you if we

20:23

measure code? Anytime somebody measures productivity in

20:25

my mind I'm like what is that?

20:27

Like when people are like oh yeah

20:30

for example like like the average workers

20:32

productivity has gone up by like 300%

20:34

but wages have only gone up by

20:36

blah. I'm like agreed that we should

20:38

all get more money. But what the

20:40

fuck is this product? Is it actions

20:42

permit? Is it Starcraft? Are we just

20:44

going to action to commit? You know

20:46

what I mean? Like is that what

20:49

we're doing? Is it email sent? What

20:51

is it? If I have meetings all

20:53

week, like is that? And again, just

20:55

like if I'm programming, it's usually more

20:57

productive to have not done something. I

20:59

think we could safely say that. regardless

21:01

of the metric used, it was a

21:03

very productive year for us. Wait, oh,

21:05

that's the other thing. It's like, as

21:07

we're all stages, snapshots, right? Because we're

21:10

looking, because I was looking at a

21:12

snapshot from basically December of 2023, and

21:14

then a snapshot from last week, December

21:16

24, right? And so it's not only.

21:18

is it, because it's again, changes are

21:20

what we actually do. What you do

21:22

is you hit a key in the

21:24

keyboard to make a change, right? What

21:26

you do is you move a pen

21:29

and add a stroke to a page,

21:31

right? It's like, that's what we actually

21:33

do. But what we can measure are

21:35

basically like, but most of what we

21:37

do, we throw away, right? You rewrite.

21:39

It's kind of like measuring a coastline,

21:41

right? It's like, as you zoom in

21:43

a coastline, I try to measure how

21:45

long it is. It gets, it keeps

21:47

getting longer. Every time you zoom out

21:50

and it gets longer, right? It's the

21:52

same deal trying to understand, like, what

21:54

actually, what the fuck actually happened? And

21:56

so all we have are these snapshots.

21:58

And those are already impossible to really

22:00

make meaningful sense out of. So. It's

22:02

cool when the amount of stuff we

22:04

can capture that represents a tiny fraction

22:06

of the work is big, right? Because

22:09

that fucking tells you. Like that's the

22:11

lower limit by a lot. Yeah, it's

22:13

way lower than what actually happened, right?

22:15

Which is all to say. We did

22:17

a fuck load, over the year. It

22:19

was a lot. We basically made the

22:21

whole ass game in effect, right? this

22:23

year. And it just makes me like

22:25

it blows my mind thinking about how

22:27

like with a team of nine, three

22:30

of whom are basically the content team.

22:32

The rest of us are all doing

22:34

support roles of various sorts, right? So

22:36

the team of three basically make four.

22:38

Four. Four. Yeah, I don't know. Two

22:40

artists. Yep. Two artists. All right. Yeah.

22:42

So a team of four basically doing

22:44

all the content stuff. I always think

22:46

of like the categorically because historically it's

22:49

only been Sam. and looking at the

22:51

numbers, the enormous underestimate representing that work,

22:53

and the thinking of like Larian doing

22:55

Baldur's Gate 3, oh yeah, with 600

22:57

people and a single character. I think

22:59

they had 400, I think 400 people

23:01

over seven years. Yeah, for seven years,

23:03

and like, to the point where they

23:05

have, you know, like a single character

23:07

who has a dozen hours of spoken

23:10

VO dialogue, right, like, fucking... unimaginable. Like

23:12

think about how hard it is to

23:14

operate at our scale, like all the

23:16

tools that we've developed, all the practices

23:18

that we've worked out, how hard it

23:20

still is, right? And like trying to

23:22

measure like operating at that scale. I'm

23:24

like, I don't know, it's no wonder

23:26

they were talking to people who work

23:29

at big studios or just like underwater

23:31

all the time. Yeah. Because we also

23:33

are. And, you know. I mean, the

23:35

hardest part of anything is the integration

23:37

problem, you know. I've like, okay, I

23:39

have this thing, I have this quest,

23:41

I want to, the story I want

23:43

to tell. I mean, we were, Sam

23:45

and I were even laughing yesterday because

23:47

all throughout crashants too, we've had this

23:50

little thing that happens when a little

23:52

thing that happens when a, when a,

23:54

when a, when a, when a, is

23:56

we just had these three little exclamation

23:58

marks pop out of it, these red

24:00

exclamation marks to represent like, it's mad

24:02

and it's coming for you, right? And

24:04

as kind of our end of development

24:06

sort of polishing and stuff, you know,

24:09

we're just kind of looking at everything

24:11

like what can we kind of shore

24:13

up to just like make it better,

24:15

right? And that just kind of popped

24:17

up yesterday and then was like, I

24:19

could make a new like a new

24:21

like a sprite of like a cool

24:23

looking. It's irritatedated me as an art

24:25

person because it's just. It's kind of

24:27

just a flat looking, it's just three

24:30

exclamation points. It's just text, also that

24:32

means like, if we change the font

24:34

over to like a CJK font, then

24:36

those exclamation marks become like much further

24:38

apart and thinner, which doesn't look as

24:40

good. Yeah. And so, yeah, let's get

24:42

a sprite on that thing. And baseline,

24:44

you know, as a as a game

24:46

programmer, somebody was like, hey, can you

24:49

like make it so that a visual

24:51

of an exclamation mark flies out of

24:53

this. creature. It's like, yeah, that's like

24:55

taking five minutes, no problem. But then

24:57

the question is, okay, well, like, we

24:59

already have a system of other text

25:01

flying out of creatures of like the

25:03

numbers when you deal damage them and

25:05

stuff. And that thing's actually kind of

25:07

complicated because those numbers kind of like

25:10

add together and they try not to

25:12

overlap, etc. etc. etc. All right. So

25:14

that first is like, okay, should this

25:16

exclamation mark respect those same rules? Or

25:18

is it like a different thing? And

25:20

then also what about things like the

25:22

health bars over their heads and other

25:24

stuff like where should this thing pop?

25:26

Where should this thing? But then when

25:29

you go to plug it in, then

25:31

you got a bunch of questions to

25:33

answer. Now we have the advantage of

25:35

there's very few people to ask to

25:37

get the answers to those questions. We

25:39

can just kind of quickly do it.

25:41

And I can't imagine, like, so we'd

25:43

be like, yeah, we should swap this

25:45

after the exclamation mark. And they're like,

25:47

all right, well, we'll put it on

25:50

the board and in two weeks, we're

25:52

going to have a meeting and see

25:54

how we can, we're going to call

25:56

in all the engineers involved and we're

25:58

going to see how we can get

26:00

that exclamation market. I see why a

26:02

lot of those quality of life things

26:04

just go out the window at larger

26:06

scale, because it is hard. It is

26:08

hard. It is hard. It is hard.

26:11

It's very hard. It's very hard. It's

26:13

very hard. It's very hard. Yeah, somehow.

26:15

We talked about like the field of

26:17

view slider and star field and shit

26:19

like that, right? Where it's like, there

26:21

are reasons why, why all those things

26:23

just don't go in and it's because

26:25

everything goes harder than you think. Once

26:27

you scale up, it gets hard to

26:30

do just about anything. So yeah, I'm

26:32

very proud of how we've managed to

26:34

scale up and because of the care

26:36

we've taken with it, it's gotten, it's

26:38

just gotten easier and easier to do,

26:40

to do stuff in crash line, like

26:42

within crash lines to itself itself, you

26:44

know, you know, you know, you know,

26:46

you know, you know, you know, you

26:48

know, which is cool shit, adding all

26:51

the sense. Yeah, a lot of the

26:53

problems that we've had on the sort

26:55

of like the game side, a lot

26:57

of it actually just has had to

26:59

do with optimization of the dev tools.

27:01

Correct. Yeah. Just because of, you know,

27:03

if we have, you know, if we

27:05

have, so fucking big, there's so many

27:07

things in it. Yeah. If thousands and

27:10

thousands of things, like how do we

27:12

speed up load times and stuff so

27:14

that like we're not sitting 10 seconds

27:16

for this thing? you know, so can

27:18

we get that down to six or

27:20

five? You know, I know like a

27:22

lot of people who use like unreal

27:24

engine or unity are probably here in

27:26

like 10 seconds. Oh, please give me

27:28

give me 10 second load times, you

27:31

know, but we're big believers in the

27:33

problem of like, if you have a

27:35

load time almost at all, that's an

27:37

opportunity for you to accidentally derail yourself.

27:39

Right, because as soon as you find

27:41

yourself alt tabing to be like. like

27:43

check an email or something. You go

27:45

overshoot. Well, you're not, yeah, you overshoot

27:47

and now you're in the middle of

27:50

something else and it creates this big

27:52

task switching, you know, waste problem, right?

27:54

And even if you don't, it does

27:56

change your behavior because I, because I

27:58

find like when I'm working in my

28:00

web stuff, I guess I'm working on

28:02

my new web stuff, like with blork,

28:04

which you're talking about the past, like

28:06

the string server, right? So I just

28:08

I just make changes as I go.

28:11

I'm I'm I don't take into account

28:13

Viewing it like seeing the consequence of

28:15

the change as like part of my

28:17

how I work on the project when

28:19

I switch over to so you can

28:21

get into a flow state when you're

28:23

just working on stuff seeing what happens

28:25

whenever when I switch back to like

28:27

rumpus the project that powers all of

28:30

our web stuff right which is old

28:32

and huge and huge and I've not

28:34

been able to upgrade it to all

28:36

the newest ways of doing things, so

28:38

it's just too big and hard to

28:40

do that with, right? Or when I

28:42

go try to like do some stuff

28:44

in Game Maker and the crashes do

28:46

code base. In both cases, it's just,

28:48

even though like the wait times aren't

28:51

horrible, it's noticeable. But something I have

28:53

to pay attention to, which means that

28:55

I, the way I work is completely

28:57

different. It's basically like, I try to

28:59

figure out things I can all, I

29:01

can make, I can change it once.

29:03

Yeah, you do bigger batches basically. You

29:05

do bigger batches, which was now increasing

29:07

the likelihood that that debugs. That's harder.

29:10

Yeah, so it is, it's, it's, it's

29:12

been really important this whole time for

29:14

us to keep all those times down.

29:16

And like, and we, the times are

29:18

like, we all feel the times being

29:20

too long because they will always be

29:22

too long, right? They just always are

29:24

too long, right? But we've done a

29:26

decent job of like, too human. children

29:28

human people being added to the world

29:31

across our team. We've actually had four

29:33

children added. In the past two years.

29:35

Yeah. So prior to crash ends to

29:37

zero children. within the studio. It's like

29:39

nobody in the studio had kids. And

29:41

then over the course of crash, it's

29:43

two four kids. We're bored. Sudden, sudden

29:45

explosion of babies. It was time. I

29:47

mean, I mean, I'm proud of theirs.

29:50

Like, you know, we got, like, Jordan

29:52

got to take full parental leave during

29:54

his time. Right? So you got two

29:56

months? Don't. Because if I can, that

29:58

might sound, I guess for our European

30:00

business or anything. But two months, but

30:02

you know, this is America and we

30:04

have no government assistance with anything. So

30:06

all that is just, that's just us.

30:08

That's us. Doing that. Just doing what

30:11

we can. Try out. Yeah, you know,

30:13

and I got to take two weeks,

30:15

which like, not a lot, but, but

30:17

still something, you know, more than a

30:19

lot of people get, which is insane.

30:21

Which is insane. Yeah, begged all of

30:23

your parental leave for... My plan is

30:25

post-crisis. Take it a nice chunk. Spend

30:27

some more time with the kids. I

30:30

think it's kind of a interesting topic

30:32

too. I was talking about if you're

30:34

a small team like ours and if

30:36

you're in like a role like Sam's

30:38

role, where the project basically comes to

30:40

a halt at some point if Sam's

30:42

gone for too long, right? And so

30:44

when it comes something like parental leave,

30:46

it's like we want to be able

30:48

to be able to say like, oh

30:51

yeah, go take your... two months, three

30:53

months, whatever, parental leave. But it has

30:55

a different cost at that point. Yeah,

30:57

but the cost on the company is

30:59

that if Sam is gone for like

31:01

a week is fine, two weeks starts

31:03

to like shave a little bit, but

31:05

everybody can still make stuff work. The

31:07

amount of rework that will have to

31:10

happen. The longer Sam was gone, goes

31:12

up really fast, because if he's not

31:14

around to help with decisions, by the

31:16

time he gets back, we're like, oh

31:18

shit, we shouldn't have gone down some

31:20

path or whatever, or whatever, right. So

31:22

once we shouldn't, or whatever, or whatever,

31:24

right. So once we shouldn't, or whatever,

31:26

or whatever. So once we shouldn't, or

31:28

whatever. So once we shouldn't, or whatever.

31:31

So once we shouldn't, or whatever. So

31:33

once we shouldn't, or whatever. But it's

31:35

like now starting to become the problem.

31:37

Four weeks now, like probably some bad

31:39

stuff has happened. We get all the

31:41

way out to like two months. It's

31:43

like, oh shit, we've derailed something badly.

31:45

Well, and so, you know, what you

31:47

basically got to do in that scenario

31:50

is plan ahead and like reorient what's

31:52

going to happen in that time, right?

31:54

So if it was like, okay, we

31:56

have like a bunch of tech stuff

31:58

that we just want to solve that

32:00

doesn't. require much in way of like

32:02

art or game design, you know, like

32:04

the coverage stuff that Sam's involved in.

32:06

Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's like,

32:08

it would be doable, but it would,

32:11

you know, we'd have, we'd have to

32:13

like shuffle things around. But it's not

32:15

really doable now. Yeah, it's the timing

32:17

is huge for all this stuff, right?

32:19

And I think I'm, I'm just really

32:21

happy we're able to give that at

32:23

least like, like, like, like, like, to

32:25

be so chunky. for you know maybe

32:27

whatever else because yeah I know but

32:30

the plan is next year to take

32:32

off basically to take the total amount

32:34

of time just sort of break it

32:36

up over the year in more manageable

32:38

chunks which I'm very excited about because

32:40

the babies are they're more interesting now

32:42

you know frankly yeah so it's true

32:44

yeah taking the print to leave in

32:46

like the first two months it's like

32:48

babies just sitting there but it's awesome

32:51

it's kind of like what it is

32:53

like battling that and then afterwards these

32:55

who got a lot of just hanging

32:57

out to do you know a lot

32:59

of care and hanging out to the

33:01

bed. Yes. So yeah. Yeah. It's my

33:03

own personal life achievement this year is

33:05

I lifted 3.7 million pounds this year.

33:07

That's a lot. Which is pretty backloaded

33:10

actually because at the start of this

33:12

year I would go to the gym

33:14

and I would do one set and

33:16

then I feel like I was going

33:18

to throw up and then go home.

33:20

You know, so it's been a good

33:22

journey for me to become much stronger

33:24

and healthier and And I've lifted several

33:26

blue whales. Didn't you get most of

33:28

those blue whales lifted in the last

33:31

like four months? Yeah. Yeah. I started

33:33

to be able to get into like

33:35

a much better routine, actually like over

33:37

our summer break in July, where I

33:39

really kind of sat down and kind

33:41

of like planned out what I was

33:43

going to do, because I think the

33:45

trap that I've always fallen into in

33:47

the past is thinking of things in

33:50

like a temporary way. Right. It's like,

33:52

okay, I'm going to do a six-week

33:54

six-week program. I'm gonna do a 10-week

33:56

program. And I kind of pivoted my

33:58

thinking on it. It's like, no, this

34:00

is just, I just need to like

34:02

change how I'm living my life so

34:04

that I make space for this, right?

34:06

always and make it flexible so that

34:08

it's not really like if I miss

34:11

a couple of days I can't get

34:13

derailed. Like that's the goal because that's

34:15

always happened to be in the past

34:17

you know and so yeah I've managed

34:19

to keep it up for like six

34:21

months just getting in there and doing

34:23

stuff. It's huge. So it's huge and

34:25

soon so will I be. Well then

34:27

on the, because I'm this last, like

34:30

the heart stance, right? Did you go

34:32

ahead? Yep, that's the end of the

34:34

heart. And there's a bunch of stuff

34:36

about like, you know, other games and

34:38

stuff, but I think, actually, I'll just,

34:40

I'll hit a few level head items

34:42

because it's kind of fun. And level

34:44

head doesn't get talked about that much,

34:46

you know. So we also have, our

34:48

first time and games done quick. Yeah,

34:51

so huge things to the community and

34:53

then illegally say on particular who did

34:55

the run. We've all, like back when

34:57

we launched Level Head, we were like,

34:59

this is a game for speed runners,

35:01

like we. We were trying so hard

35:03

to get anybody to pay attention to

35:05

give a shit and like put it

35:07

in those things and just nobody did.

35:10

So good. It was the community for

35:12

every year. They resubmit, they keep on

35:14

doing it. And so this year. And

35:16

it was a great, it's great to

35:18

watch too. Even if you don't know

35:20

exactly what's going on, like the commentary

35:22

is great. We do a fantastic job

35:24

and the video is on YouTube. So

35:26

you can look up a level head,

35:28

GDQ or a. illegally Sam, you'll find

35:31

it. Yeah, and Sam, we could pop

35:33

a link into the shownotes also. And

35:35

it's also focused, because so legally Sam

35:37

completed it in 46 minutes, which isn't

35:39

even the record, right? It's, you know,

35:41

very fast. For the campaign, yeah. And,

35:43

which is particularly funny, because like, I

35:45

still haven't completed the last, like, I

35:47

don't know, 10 levels or something of

35:50

the game. And here this person is

35:52

just... I'm not sure what the real

35:54

record is. It's chatting the whole time.

35:56

I'm the performative aspect of it. I

35:58

don't understand how you do that. I'm

36:00

not sure what the real record is,

36:02

but it's probably close to 30 minutes

36:04

out of a bit, because when people

36:06

aren't like trying to talk and do

36:08

it at the same time. So. But

36:11

it is very fun to watch the

36:13

techniques and stuff that the community is

36:15

putting together for that. So it's not

36:17

super fun. So even though there aren't

36:19

that many players of Level Head, it's

36:21

still like the stuff adds up. Like

36:23

everything just adds up, right? So for

36:25

the past year, we've had 13,000 new

36:27

levels added. Jesus. So, and because of

36:30

the, and we designed level it intentionally

36:32

this way to make it so that,

36:34

that it's not dependent on how many

36:36

people are playing right now, right? Because

36:38

we knew for any game, no matter,

36:40

even if it was really popular when

36:42

it first launched, it would eventually not

36:44

be, you know. And so, the logic

36:46

was, well, if somebody makes a level,

36:48

like, who cares if they made it

36:51

three years ago? You know, if you

36:53

know, if you haven't played it, that,

36:55

that's a new level to you. That's

36:57

a new level to you. That's a

36:59

new level to you. That's a new

37:01

level to you. That's a new level

37:03

to you. Yeah, it's a lot. And

37:05

it's hard to know if those are

37:07

published levels, and it's hard to know

37:10

if those are good, right? But, well,

37:12

most aren't, because that's just the rule

37:14

of things. Most aren't, but we have

37:16

another metric to get a sense of

37:18

like how many of those are good,

37:20

which is did somebody bother to get

37:22

them published into the tower? You know,

37:24

put the grade levels, put the points

37:26

in, and it graduated out of the

37:28

marketing department. And so of those 13,000

37:31

new levels, 2000 got added to the

37:33

marketing department. So if you, I mean,

37:35

if you wanted to play a game

37:37

that had fuck loads of content, then

37:39

even level head, which doesn't have that

37:41

many players, added 2,000 levels. I did,

37:43

I did see, I think it was

37:45

in the level head, uh, subreddit, which

37:47

I lurk. I lurk in, you know.

37:50

Somebody had popped in basically being like,

37:52

hey, I want to play this game,

37:54

like I wanted to play when it

37:56

came out, but I never got around

37:58

to it. And now I'm worried that

38:00

the player, the player base is too

38:02

small, you know, because I think they

38:04

were looking at like steam concurrent players

38:06

or something like that. Probably. Yep. And

38:08

so I jumped in I was like,

38:11

well, here's the thing, like, it's not.

38:13

on steam. You know, it's on like

38:15

seven different platforms. There's enough people. There's

38:17

enough people every day playing the game

38:19

that is still, because of how we

38:21

design that flexibility system with the marketing

38:23

department, everything. There's enough bandwidth, weirdly enough

38:25

for. Yeah, it's designed to work at

38:27

pretty, dang, small scales. And it turned

38:30

out it works, which is pretty dope.

38:32

So, and like, and weirdly, like the

38:34

longer you wait to play it, the

38:36

more stuff, you know, like the better

38:38

it is, the more stuff. As long

38:40

as there are a few dozen people,

38:42

not even like at a time playing,

38:44

but just like actively playing the game

38:46

and playing. community levels and stuff. That's

38:48

all it takes to keep the game.

38:51

It's all it needs. It was my

38:53

design. It's a crazy thing. It's pretty

38:55

dope. So I love to see the

38:57

network. Because that means that, you know,

38:59

level head can still have its day

39:01

someday. We're all hoping. Because it's just

39:03

waiting. It's waiting in the wings. But

39:05

the individual players, there's kind of fun

39:07

stats for us. I actually like looked

39:10

at the stats to see what the

39:12

community was up to. for the levels

39:14

that have accumulated the most playtime so

39:16

of levels he's made right which could

39:18

add up to 250 days of human

39:20

time has gone real that is way

39:22

more than most game devs most into

39:24

game devs man yeah yeah yeah published

39:26

that's insane that's great because that and

39:28

that literally meaning if you were to

39:31

sit down like and play this 250

39:33

you know days of straight hours right

39:35

so break that in to take that

39:37

time as three to give you a

39:39

work day, right? And you're looking at

39:41

two plus years of playing hundred days.

39:43

Somebody is putting all their time into

39:45

it, right? It's 2,400 hours, 4,800. Yeah,

39:47

so it's going to be something like

39:50

6,000 something hours of hours of play.

39:52

So that's fucking cool. And that's the

39:54

top. There's also like, all this stuff

39:56

is on a power curve. Just like,

39:58

I think it is kind of fun

40:00

to look at like level level in

40:02

stats because. they work the same way

40:04

as the games industry at large, right,

40:06

where you've got a few at the

40:08

very top, there's a power curve, it

40:11

rapidly falls down, and then there's like

40:13

a long tail, you know, and you

40:15

can see that it's the same power.

40:17

And the people who publish a lot

40:19

of levels, and therefore end up with

40:21

a lot of followers, like as they

40:23

publish their next levels, those levels immediately

40:25

get more play, and it kind of

40:27

creates this feedback loop, right? Just like

40:30

in game, just like in game. successful

40:32

studios, they're like, they've already got people

40:34

playing their existing stuff and then they

40:36

have a built-in player base. The best

40:38

thing about the marketing department system is

40:40

that that allows people to break out

40:42

of it. So, because we are like,

40:44

we're in the games, it's true, we

40:46

know how fucking hard it is. And

40:48

so we were like, how do we

40:51

make sure? that's not just a winner-take-all

40:53

system. I would say the marketing department

40:55

is what it used to feel like

40:57

in the indie space in like the

40:59

early 2010s with like how YouTube worked,

41:01

right? It's also how steam worked at

41:03

the beginning because like- Because steam green

41:05

light, steam green light, but like steam,

41:07

when you would publish a game on

41:10

steam, they would guarantee 500,000 views. That's

41:12

true, right? That's true. Where they would

41:14

put your game in front of 500,000

41:16

people to collect the stats to collect

41:18

the stats to decide what to decide

41:20

what to do next, right to do.

41:22

is like a most recent thing from

41:24

a conversation I saw with Chris Zakowski

41:26

on and some YouTubeers that they use

41:28

the discovery cue now when you publish

41:31

to kind of do the same thing.

41:33

It's like they put the game in

41:35

there and then basically see how well

41:37

it. But they don't put everything in

41:39

there. I don't think. Yeah, I think

41:41

they do. Well, yeah. Because they're used

41:43

to being... I don't really see garbage

41:45

stuff in there to be that stuff.

41:47

Exactly, because I get mostly popular things

41:50

like the discovery. Yeah, and it's because,

41:52

and it has to be, because otherwise

41:54

people would stop using the discovery cue,

41:56

right? Because if all they saw was

41:58

the bulk, because most games are a

42:00

person's first game. It's like, what's on

42:02

steam these days, right? which isn't, to

42:04

say that they're bad necessarily, but they're

42:06

gonna be rough around the edges, you

42:08

know? But they probably are. And they

42:11

probably are. Most, yeah, most things. And

42:13

that's, yeah, and that's the thing is

42:15

like, is once, once, once you don't

42:17

have the initial step of pre-filtering. games

42:19

for quality, at least by some metric,

42:21

right? Then the bulk of games become...

42:23

things that any one person doesn't want.

42:25

And so if what people are shown

42:27

is a discovery cue, that's just statistical,

42:30

it's just the games, then they're gonna

42:32

stop using that system because all they're

42:34

seeing is stuff they don't want, right?

42:36

So we're well beyond the time, we're

42:38

like, steam, we're like, steam, but guarantee

42:40

that if your game got on steam,

42:42

which was hard, then it would get

42:44

shown to people, and that Floyd's in.

42:46

100 days video where he basically played

42:48

the whole thing which is so far

42:51

if we you can look up like

42:53

I've done 100 days of crash ends.

42:55

The YouTube channel is Floyd's and it's

42:57

fantastic. All of his series are basically

42:59

just essentially either 100% or plays a

43:01

kind of more like a larger scale

43:03

open-worldly kind of games for 100 in-game

43:05

days. He did 100% crash lands. Yeah

43:07

he did. in and there's press the

43:10

video to watch a man slowly go

43:12

insane. Yeah, that was what was so

43:14

fun. It's way too much time and

43:16

again. Yeah, it's like two hours, but

43:18

it's sort of, it's like moving. It's

43:20

just the whole thing, but his commentary

43:22

is also hilarious because it's like, I

43:24

mean, you know, all of our games

43:26

are just the sci-fi kind of goofball

43:28

shit. So he's trying, he always reading

43:31

stuff for like talking about. who in

43:33

what city in this like insane broobist

43:35

town needs this thing done to some

43:37

other person and he's just sort of

43:39

losing his shit because the names of

43:41

stuff the names of everything are just

43:43

bonkers and things it's a it's a

43:45

very good time if you want like

43:47

a recap of busy if you want

43:50

to recap of the experience playing crashins

43:52

without playing it you don't have like

43:54

70 hours to Dunk before Crash 2

43:56

comes out. It's a pretty good, it's

43:58

a pretty good time. I mean, it's

44:00

just a two and a half hour

44:02

highlight real, you know. It really is,

44:04

yeah. It's, I found it, I watched

44:06

the whole thing. It was, because I've

44:08

also forgotten so much about the original

44:11

game. And. It's just a useful video

44:13

for us, to be honest. It's very

44:15

useful. Yeah, so I also reached out

44:17

to Flights. And I was like, hey,

44:19

thanks. By the way, by the way,

44:21

you probably. You probably. didn't think about

44:23

in these terms, but this is also

44:25

an extremely useful dev resource for us.

44:27

Because when we're like, what the fuck

44:30

was going on in original crash lands,

44:32

we could just be like, oh, let's

44:34

just like skim this video. Yeah, this

44:36

is pretty dope. And then for the

44:38

level of players, because some of these

44:40

numbers are just staggering. So player, Sire,

44:42

C-I-R-E, takes the record for the most

44:44

published levels period with 884, which is

44:46

a lot of. published levels. Damn. So

44:48

it's probably like 7% of the levels

44:51

that were published last year. Oh, that's

44:53

probably over the past, you know, four

44:55

years. Yeah, that's total, because total levels,

44:57

there's a lot of care what it

44:59

is, but there's a lot. It's over

45:01

200,000. But, but Sire also has the

45:03

most levels graduated to the tower. period,

45:05

but also this past year. And the

45:07

past year alone, they've gotten 229 levels

45:10

into the tower. What a day on

45:12

this? Which, if you're doing all the

45:14

math, is more than 10% of the

45:16

levels that made it to the tower

45:18

this year, right? From one person. Again,

45:20

this is the power group, right? Yep.

45:22

And, and, uh, credible. And then one

45:24

that is, and then we're going to

45:26

stat that's so unbelievable. The community seems

45:28

to think it's real. So I kept

45:31

it, but, but, which is a player,

45:33

Lomuk funfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanfanf has the most ribbons, which

45:35

ribbons are for top score, top score,

45:37

top score, top score on a level,

45:39

with 18,000. There's definitely a strat for

45:41

that, which is gonna be like going

45:43

and finding, just like finding levels with,

45:45

they like. and maybe have like a

45:47

low spice score like basically trying to

45:50

find levels that the game is unlikely

45:52

to surface it's clearly there like there's

45:54

a system in place for that right

45:56

and yeah but even then a fuckload

45:58

of work well the funny thing is

46:00

like I think we may have it

46:02

I don't think we have achievements related

46:04

to ribbons I think so just because

46:06

we were like we don't want people

46:08

to like the incentivized I think we

46:11

might have a low one but not

46:13

yeah I think we have similar I

46:15

wish once. Yeah, but like there's nothing

46:17

that you get for getting that many

46:19

ribs. That's personal satisfaction for the love

46:21

of the game. Well, that's 18,000. The

46:23

next second place player has 6,900, which

46:25

is still a fuck load. That's a

46:27

lot of fuck load, but is a

46:30

third, you know, this reminds me of

46:32

how like, uh, when it was revealed

46:34

that like one third of Wikipedia was

46:36

written by one guy. That's just, yeah,

46:38

that's tight. Yeah, because we owe that

46:40

guy a debt. Yeah, because Sire's here,

46:42

who has the most levels published, also

46:44

is in second place for shoes, which

46:46

is the speed score, with 8,600, right?

46:48

Which also makes sense, because if they're

46:51

publishing that many levels of the tower,

46:53

that means it to be playing a

46:55

lot of levels to accumulate all of

46:57

the marketing books, right? And, but they're

46:59

not just doing that, they're also. winning

47:01

a lot right which is pretty dope

47:03

and then finally a player juice box

47:05

which is a trademark infringement but whatever

47:07

it's like has has the lead in

47:10

shoes speed speed scores with 9600 which

47:12

again it's great just and this is

47:14

the kind of fun thing about levelhead

47:16

is even though we're perennially kind of

47:18

bummed that the game didn't take off

47:20

the way that we thought it would

47:22

and should and it goes I was

47:24

updating some stats also on our website

47:26

and stuff and I checked our review

47:28

score on steam It's still an overwhelmingly

47:31

positive. It's a 97% positive on stage.

47:33

The thing is, for the people who

47:35

got into it, they went real hard

47:37

into it. Yeah. And it's just, and

47:39

so it's that simultaneous perennial bummer that

47:41

the game didn't get as big as

47:43

it should have. But also seeing the

47:45

thriving small community who's just doing cool

47:47

shit, they're so into it, and you

47:49

start to see these guys, because like

47:52

somebody these players have been playing for

47:54

years. for just years. And so they

47:56

get to accumulate these kinds of wild

47:58

numbers. I mean, that was the goal

48:00

with that game. Like we wanted to

48:02

make a hobby game. It's like a

48:04

game that you can play for years

48:06

and there's always something new and fun

48:08

and interesting. to do, you know, and

48:11

we did. We did it. So, like

48:13

you're saying, sometimes it's just about like

48:15

confidence and discovery, you know, we're like,

48:17

it's possible that if Krashen's two takes

48:19

off and people start looking back through

48:21

the catalog and they're like, what else

48:23

has this company made? And you see

48:25

our most recent title of that is

48:27

level head, like level head numbers can

48:29

go up still. You never know. Actually,

48:32

I think original Krashen's had its biggest

48:34

sales. moved to the most units this

48:36

year. By far sold to more units

48:38

this year than I'm proud. And we

48:40

did it. So we have got questions

48:42

to, very steepest, so we did our

48:44

steepest accounts ever this year for usual

48:46

crash lands. And we have the hype

48:48

from Creshens too that are driving sales.

48:51

And so collectively this year, I didn't

48:53

actually tally it up to like look

48:55

at past years, but without a doubt,

48:57

this is our biggest year for Cres

48:59

for Creshens to sales. since the launch

49:01

year. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And collectively, it's

49:03

like, in terms of sheer unit volume,

49:05

sheer units moved. Yeah. And if you

49:07

were to add up the past several

49:09

years, I didn't go back to see

49:12

how many, but if you were to

49:14

add up the past several years of

49:16

units moved for original crash lands, it

49:18

would still be less than this year.

49:20

So just, we've got so many players

49:22

of crash lands this year, which is.

49:24

fucking cool. But we're gonna, but that

49:26

was part of our strategy too this

49:28

year, was to say, the more players

49:31

we get playing Crash Lands, and if

49:33

we have a mechanism to let them

49:35

know the Crash Ones 2 is out,

49:37

we're coming out, then we get to

49:39

basically use it as an advertising platform

49:41

for Crashins 2, and we did, we

49:43

have an original crash, and on steam,

49:45

we have a pop-up, or we have,

49:47

we have a message somewhere that tells

49:49

you, like, that kind of stuff. So

49:52

we have that system. And back when

49:54

we were collecting stats on that, because

49:56

we're now using a new mechanism that's

49:58

better for players, but we can't track

50:00

it anyway. So back when we had

50:02

a worse but trackable mechanism, it was

50:04

the biggest driver. of wish lists into

50:06

crash lines too. And so we were

50:08

like, okay, let's just triple down on

50:11

this, sell the game for nothing, and

50:13

just like, just get people in there

50:15

and get people into crash lines too.

50:17

It worked. So yeah. It worked. So

50:19

yeah. It boosted those wish lists by

50:21

quite a lot. Yeah. So I think,

50:23

you know, in, in like, in the

50:25

scheme of things, then as far as

50:27

what all these numbers mean, for us,

50:29

I think it's always like, like, like,

50:32

again, like, like, like, then you kind

50:34

of got to get the context. And

50:36

I think for us, it's like, starting

50:38

this year, we did not have any

50:40

of the rest of Crash Land's two

50:42

beyond the first zone. And even that

50:44

still had some stuff left to basically.

50:46

A lot of missing pieces. Yeah. So

50:48

this whole last year, we're now set

50:51

this currently actively building out the final,

50:53

like the basically the finale kind of

50:55

boss area. So we're at the end.

50:57

Just about all the side of content

50:59

is actually complete. Also, we basically did

51:01

that ahead of time this time. So

51:03

the bones of it are, it's basically,

51:05

I mean, like, the bones of it

51:07

are all, it's all done. You know,

51:09

I mean, like, the bones, the guts,

51:12

like, the bones, the guts, there's like,

51:14

there's like, there's like a few, we

51:16

got pop the eyeballs in, you know

51:18

what I mean? Like, there's some, like,

51:20

there's some, like, open wounds here and

51:22

there, you know, but like, like, some

51:24

things, you know, like, like, like, the

51:26

bones, like, like, like, like, like, like,

51:28

like, like, like, like, like, like, on

51:31

top of that didn't have localization going

51:33

yet, nor the full systems ready for

51:35

that, which now again, it's mostly localized.

51:37

We didn't like, I guess from like,

51:39

from a control standpoint, from a like

51:41

UX standpoint, there are still just a

51:43

lot of things that we had left.

51:45

A fully rebuilt controller support. Yes, controllers

51:47

work in menus menus now and all

51:49

sorts of ways, like a whole bunch

51:52

of overhauls to that stuff like the

51:54

reality as far as what this looks

51:56

like for us coming into then the

51:58

launch of the game and into next

52:00

year is. I think one of, well

52:02

I'm very excited because one. we haven't

52:04

announced the launch date yet, but we

52:06

chose it in a way that I

52:08

think allows us to finish, again, like

52:11

finish getting the game fully tightened down.

52:13

I guess that is an announcement end

52:15

of itself, is that we do have

52:17

a launch date. We actually know it

52:19

now. Yeah, it is set. Quite known

52:21

it. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know,

52:23

all that stuff kind of, it all

52:25

starts on rolling in 2025. And so

52:27

it's kind of nice to be at

52:29

that end point to be at that

52:32

end point. Level Head came out May,

52:34

May, April 2020. April 2020 was when

52:36

we launched Little Head. Yeah, it's already

52:38

like a month into the pandemic, you

52:40

know, it was a chaotic time. And

52:42

we started on crashins to stuff like

52:44

fully around October, November, something like that,

52:46

with some some initial multiplayer experiments and

52:48

stuff like that. So you're looking at.

52:51

We just we just passed the four

52:53

years of like development of crashins to.

52:55

Yeah. So it's been a long road.

52:57

this last year has been one of

52:59

those things where I feel like, you

53:01

know, that we talked about, we're like,

53:03

would you rather walk across the planet

53:05

or take this take half the time

53:07

building a jet and then just fly

53:09

across? And that's sort of what this

53:12

felt like, you know? And the thing

53:14

is, it's one thing in theory to

53:16

say it at the beginning of a

53:18

project, right? I think we could do

53:20

it this way and it'll work, but

53:22

it's a whole other one to be

53:24

now kind of finally at the end

53:26

of, the systems and the tools and

53:28

that kind of stuff to do. So

53:31

we're trying to predict the shape of

53:33

the work and the shape of the

53:35

work as it could be, and what

53:37

it would look like to get us

53:39

there in our ability to do it.

53:41

And then we have to commit to

53:43

that, and then it has to work,

53:45

right? It's a big gamble. And the

53:47

fact that we get to just feel

53:49

it paying off so intensely, where it's

53:52

just like, yeah, shit is just moving,

53:54

is rad as hell. Yeah, so I'm

53:56

very hopeful, I guess, going into next

53:58

year, that this will be a, that

54:00

crashes too will be a big, big

54:02

success for us, you know, as a

54:04

studio. because I think from a development

54:06

standpoint it's been a success, right? We

54:08

always talk about- We've learned a lot,

54:11

we've changed a lot, we've got tons

54:13

of great new tools going forward. It's

54:15

been kind of funny too, like every

54:17

now and then we've had these conversations,

54:19

we're like, how do we make it

54:21

so that the next game is just

54:23

like easy to make, you know? because

54:25

this has been hard, like, it's been

54:27

hard to, it's been hard to like

54:29

think of how to solve all these

54:32

problems, but then those conversations always kind

54:34

of wrap back around to like, that's

54:36

just kind of how we do it.

54:38

Like we're, we're not going to be

54:40

satisfied doing something mundane. Like we're, We're

54:42

always going to come up with something

54:44

like, I wonder if we can do

54:46

this, right? Because, you know, I think

54:48

if something is easy, it's boring. And

54:51

it's just not really worth doing because

54:53

you're not challenging yourself to try to

54:55

push the envelope in some new way.

54:57

It's like the big challenge with this

54:59

was just scale. Like, how do we

55:01

make something this complex, this big? How

55:03

do we scale up the team? How

55:05

do we deal with the tools for

55:07

that? With the next game? It may

55:09

not be a challenge of scale, but

55:12

we'll throw some... I'm sure it'll be

55:14

interesting to do our stupid shit. Yeah.

55:16

Yeah. That we... Whatever it is, whatever

55:18

it is. Yeah. Well, I think, I

55:20

think it'll, because scale is still its

55:22

own kind of... Because now that we

55:24

have all the tools and stuff, right?

55:26

And then it becomes a grind, right?

55:28

Because now the limitation is just how

55:31

fast can you write a words, how

55:33

fast can you code, how fast can

55:35

you, whatever, right? It all becomes, that.

55:37

So the work is where it's supposed

55:39

to be, but there's still so fucking

55:41

much of it that now what's happening

55:43

is you're kind of doing one kind

55:45

of thing instead of being constantly passing

55:47

between stuck things, you know. I wouldn't

55:49

mind a slightly smaller scale thing for

55:52

the next, wherever that means. Yeah, that's,

55:54

yeah, I think we mentioned this in

55:56

one of the last episodes too of

55:58

like, what's the next game, you know,

56:00

and like for me, it's like, yeah,

56:02

something smaller, it's like we have. more

56:04

or less, because like you said, we're

56:06

going to fuck around, but like, take

56:08

the toll we have on it. How

56:11

about a rogue-like, something more chill? Reusable

56:13

content to the Max kind of a

56:15

deal, you know, something. I will say

56:17

one of the lessons from here is,

56:19

because a lot of, there's a lot

56:21

of things that are true on paper,

56:23

but then in practice, they fucking suck.

56:25

Which, which I think, like, like, for

56:27

example. Like, what you're talking about, Sam

56:29

of, like, doing the same thing over

56:32

and over, right? It's like, like, it's

56:34

more efficient. So, like, in Sam's case,

56:36

he's just been, he's been animating and,

56:38

he's been animating creatures, creatures, he's animating

56:40

creatures since October. Just the whole time.

56:42

And the thing is, it sucked at

56:44

first, because it had been so long

56:46

since he animated a creature that he

56:48

had to do a bunch of archaeological

56:51

archaeological digging to figure out how they

56:53

come together, and that was kind of

56:55

miserable, right. And like so the first

56:57

one took much longer than any of

56:59

the others. And there's like an economies

57:01

of scale that comes from just doing

57:03

it over and over, just back to

57:05

back, just creature, then creature, or creature

57:07

development, right? Yeah, you get a lot

57:09

of momentum basically, right? Yeah. So like

57:12

on a per asset basis, it's in

57:14

theory more efficient. You know, but you're

57:16

a person with hopes and dreams and

57:18

feelings, you know, and oh my fucking

57:20

God, it does it suck to do

57:22

the same thing and nothing else for

57:24

two months at a time. Even if

57:26

you enjoy like at a base the

57:28

thing, you know what I mean? It's

57:31

like. coming up with whatever the weird

57:33

monster does. It's fun, it is fun,

57:35

but that thing is like, that's actually

57:37

the first three hours of work, and

57:39

then the other 50, this is raw

57:41

shit, you know what I mean? For

57:43

like, yeah, and of course, like, you

57:45

know, I'm, like, Jen and I are

57:47

over here, like, working on the story

57:49

and stuff like that, and Sam's like,

57:52

like, because these creatures are complex, like,

57:54

because these creatures are complex, You know,

57:56

big cognitive load and so, so we're,

57:58

you know, we're trying to minimize the

58:00

amount of interruptions that we put onto

58:02

Sam because anything we do will like

58:04

slow him down and then he's stuck

58:06

in hell for even longer, you know.

58:08

And, and it's kind of, it's kind

58:11

of made me like rethink a little

58:13

bit going forward of like the benefits

58:15

of batching. But yeah, do like a

58:17

couple at a time and then let

58:19

it rest and move on to something

58:21

else so that you can like enjoy

58:23

life, get some variety, see things from

58:25

a different perspective, get some distance from

58:27

the problems that you were working on.

58:29

And think is most to try to

58:32

optimize. Has it has been that, right?

58:34

Because like, but when you get towards

58:36

the end and also towards like marketing

58:38

questions always, hey, we need to be

58:40

able to make a video. It's like,

58:42

oh, I guess all the shit needs

58:44

to move now. So hang on. I

58:46

think we kind of got here because

58:48

we were like batching some other things

58:51

as well. So that like this batch

58:53

of things just sat for a really

58:55

long time until it had to be

58:57

done all at once, you know. And

58:59

so something I want to try to

59:01

think about going forward is like trying

59:03

to not have any one person stick

59:05

to one specific like thing, like type

59:07

of thing for too long because I

59:09

think like you need to be able

59:12

to. See things differently and do a

59:14

different thing every now. I think it's

59:16

also just I think it's the end.

59:18

Yeah the end of dev is just

59:20

it. Yeah, I think no matter what.

59:22

It's just this. It's just it's always

59:24

because it's so because I'm dealing with

59:26

the opposite problem, which is I don't

59:28

get to do one thing for any

59:31

period of time. So I'm saying there's

59:33

a middle ground, right? A flag. Yeah,

59:35

but if you're doing a new thing

59:37

every five minutes, it's miserable. Yeah. If

59:39

you're doing a one thing for five

59:41

months. And it can also be. Yeah,

59:43

but the reason it's basically tolerable. this

59:45

came out and I got to spend

59:47

the last five years almost you know

59:49

working most of the time basically the

59:52

way that is best for me right

59:54

yeah with spikes here and there if

59:56

like but each time I was like

59:58

I understand why there's a spike of

1:00:00

not being able to do things the

1:00:02

way I want and I know it's

1:00:04

temporary so it's fine right as something

1:00:06

like at the end of dev the

1:00:08

temporary is longer you know it's it's

1:00:11

it's some months it's months yeah rather

1:00:13

than maybe like a week or two

1:00:15

This is in service of this thing

1:00:17

that has a very specific date. And

1:00:19

even then like most of this stuff

1:00:21

will be resolved long before that date,

1:00:23

you know, yeah. I hear you, I

1:00:25

think part of it too is just,

1:00:27

it's also just a personal thing. You

1:00:29

know, I think the reality is like

1:00:32

for the last 12 years or whatever,

1:00:34

working together, I, you know, I didn't

1:00:36

really want to be doing the art

1:00:38

for the first five years, sort of

1:00:40

quietly, it was kind of resistant to

1:00:42

the very into it. But also the

1:00:44

thing is like that it all kind

1:00:46

of worked because of the shape of

1:00:48

things where it's like we had such

1:00:51

integration challenges because everything had to go

1:00:53

through Seth that like it didn't make

1:00:55

sense I could I could just I

1:00:57

could overwhelm you in like a couple

1:00:59

days and then I had to go

1:01:01

do something else because it didn't make

1:01:03

sense. Like you made the campaign in

1:01:05

the first crash and then you and

1:01:07

Adam collaborated on all the like revisions

1:01:09

of it and so like you know

1:01:12

there's I I I do enjoy doing

1:01:14

like that you know a varied chunk

1:01:16

of things. And I think it's true

1:01:18

that like too many of the same

1:01:20

thing back to back has always been

1:01:22

for like as a personal weakness. You

1:01:24

know, some people are like, I mean,

1:01:26

you know, our artist and like she

1:01:28

just crushes through art stuff. There is

1:01:31

this ADHD thing. Yeah, it has the

1:01:33

ICNU, right? Like it has to be

1:01:35

interesting, challenging novel or urgent. And like

1:01:37

right now we're kind of just into

1:01:39

urgent camp. questions. They're interesting, but not

1:01:41

the long part, which is kind of

1:01:43

when I was getting in with the

1:01:45

nation stuff. I love the... couple hours

1:01:47

of each of what each getting into

1:01:49

it where I'm figuring out exactly what

1:01:52

they're gonna do and like getting this

1:01:54

gray box animation is done super fun

1:01:56

the next 40 just kind of pounding

1:01:58

a little fiddily a bit little fiddily

1:02:00

bit for 40 hours you know so

1:02:02

yeah I agree with you on the

1:02:04

I agree with you on the premise

1:02:06

I think it's hard to it's hard

1:02:08

to pull off you know but yeah

1:02:11

I think we did a pretty good

1:02:13

job of trying to shape the work

1:02:15

around or we don't get the best

1:02:17

for the people doing it. How people

1:02:19

are feeling. Yeah, but it's, if you're

1:02:21

not feeling good and you're doing creative

1:02:23

work, it's not. Yeah, but the challenge

1:02:25

is that, you know, it's, it's the

1:02:27

whole like, that's true, but also we

1:02:29

live in a society, you know, so

1:02:32

like, we got deadlines. We're all depending

1:02:34

on each other, get our shit done,

1:02:36

and we, and facts don't care about

1:02:38

your feelings, you know. all this and

1:02:40

there's all these external constraints that force

1:02:42

us to have to find those balances

1:02:44

and sometimes like right now it's just

1:02:46

like we're leading up to launch so

1:02:48

we're kind of everything is a constraint

1:02:51

now for how we do the work,

1:02:53

it's just what it is, you know,

1:02:55

but you can kind of find a

1:02:57

certain pleasure or joy in like the

1:02:59

challenge of trying to figure out how

1:03:01

to squeeze things in to hit the

1:03:03

deadlines, you know, and like for sure,

1:03:05

that so. I mean, after I did

1:03:07

that first creature and took a little

1:03:09

longer than I anticipated, then I had

1:03:12

this like mild panic about how to

1:03:14

get the rest of it done, and

1:03:16

then just spent like an afternoon doing

1:03:18

a bunch of math, you know, trying

1:03:20

to figure out like, okay. How can

1:03:22

I fit what feels like way too

1:03:24

long, like 13 weeks of time into

1:03:26

like nine? You know, what would I

1:03:28

need to do? And I was like,

1:03:31

oh, that can actually, yeah, I can

1:03:33

do that. And not by killing myself.

1:03:35

And came up with some pretty, pretty

1:03:37

cool ways of like creating animations in

1:03:39

ways that they could be used in

1:03:41

multiple ways without like too much rework

1:03:43

and things like that, you know, kind

1:03:45

of going to do with the armor

1:03:47

set. right like fluxes animations people are

1:03:49

gonna bust out the texture page for

1:03:52

flux and you're gonna see like the

1:03:54

way that the way that flux moves

1:03:56

is so fucking weird because you've got

1:03:58

like you got a handful of different

1:04:00

like poses of each limb and stuff

1:04:02

like that they get like cobbled together

1:04:04

Frankenstein style to make all these different

1:04:06

poses So that we can have armor

1:04:08

set, like the way we had to

1:04:11

do is because of that, you know.

1:04:13

And you'll see it if you're like,

1:04:15

for example, trying to get a fucking

1:04:17

screenshot. You're like, and every time you

1:04:19

get a still, you're like, what the

1:04:21

fuck is happening? And like, and you'll

1:04:23

see this with, because it's also an

1:04:25

animation style, the smear frame, right? It's

1:04:27

just how it all works, but with

1:04:29

like flux in particular, because it's so

1:04:32

much is going on. What do you

1:04:34

try to capture a screenshot? Does not.

1:04:36

Every now and then things are just

1:04:38

kind of a, things are kind of

1:04:40

a squoosious. Yeah. Smearing, stretchy blob. Yeah.

1:04:42

But hey, it's okay. You do what

1:04:44

you gotta do. Big lessons from, or

1:04:46

big lessons from last year from me.

1:04:48

A lot of it came from trying

1:04:51

to. Basically, the time we spent the

1:04:53

first half of the year trying to

1:04:55

complete the husk, which is the second

1:04:57

zone. And it was just one of

1:04:59

those reminders where it's like, okay, we

1:05:01

thought we knew how to do this

1:05:03

in terms of putting a whole zone

1:05:05

together because we just finished the first

1:05:07

one. But the reality was like the

1:05:09

context in which we finished that whole

1:05:12

first zone was so different, so mutated,

1:05:14

compared to the context that we were

1:05:16

going to produce the second zone in,

1:05:18

which was like, we had all the

1:05:20

tools now, all of the tools now,

1:05:22

all of the whole team there. all

1:05:24

of a sudden. It was just, it

1:05:26

was actually such a different structure that

1:05:28

I think it kind of reminded me

1:05:31

like, okay. We made a lot of

1:05:33

assumptions that it was just going to

1:05:35

be the same. And then we kind

1:05:37

of just siloed off and it just

1:05:39

started grinding away. And again, like to

1:05:41

some degree to the whole like needing

1:05:43

to just kind of bang stuff out,

1:05:45

there's a certain fact of like responsibility

1:05:47

there where it's like, yeah, you just

1:05:49

need, we needed like 15 fucking terrain

1:05:52

terrain tile. and all the associated do

1:05:54

dads with them. So it's like, that's

1:05:56

just a certain amount of work, gotta

1:05:58

bang it out, whatever, right? So there

1:06:00

is that truth of like, there's a

1:06:02

value and just kind of being like,

1:06:04

give me a minute, I need to

1:06:06

go, knock out these things so we

1:06:08

have the foundational pieces. But I think

1:06:11

likewise, there's a, it's, it's, it's, it's

1:06:13

happened with every game in every design.

1:06:15

It's like, as you, as you. meet

1:06:17

reality with it and all those all

1:06:19

of the ways it is different show

1:06:21

up the reality of like any one

1:06:23

of those can cause it to actually

1:06:25

experience for you building it for you

1:06:27

experiencing whatever to be like a totally

1:06:29

different experience way harder than you thought

1:06:32

we were so it's sort of like

1:06:34

you was all this with the pandemic

1:06:36

shit it was like you change one

1:06:38

protein okay on the one protein mutation

1:06:40

on the edge of this fucking virus

1:06:42

and now it can like jump between

1:06:44

people super easily right it's the same

1:06:46

Yeah, exactly. Pretty much the same, but

1:06:48

the difference matters. Different enough than it

1:06:51

matters a lot. So I think that's

1:06:53

kind of what the big ways, like

1:06:55

I want to, going forward, is just

1:06:57

be a little more upfront about like,

1:06:59

okay, here's the ways we think of

1:07:01

this, this, this is the same, but

1:07:03

importantly, let's not just. look at those

1:07:05

when we're planning out, like how to

1:07:07

do something, but what are the ways

1:07:09

in which this context is actually very

1:07:12

different and make sure we kind of

1:07:14

enumerate those a little bit more ahead

1:07:16

of time on some of these things

1:07:18

when we're doing like a second round.

1:07:20

Trying to find those those upcoming speed

1:07:22

bumps or question marks, yeah, for sure.

1:07:24

Yep, so it's been a year, got

1:07:26

a lot done. More to come. So

1:07:28

like like Sam was saying, like I

1:07:31

was saying, we've got our launch date,

1:07:33

we know it. Soon you will know

1:07:35

it. Not, not just yet. I was

1:07:37

actually, I was actually thinking about this.

1:07:39

I was trying to figure out like,

1:07:41

because we know when we're going to

1:07:43

announce the launch date. We know when

1:07:45

the launch date is. And I was

1:07:47

like, should we announce the announcement? The

1:07:49

announcement date? It's not that we're cool

1:07:52

enough to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So

1:07:54

soon say it's coming.

1:07:56

I already announced

1:07:58

it announced announcement is

1:08:00

coming soon. is coming soon. That's

1:08:02

all all the time

1:08:04

we have for

1:08:06

this week. Our next

1:08:08

episode will be

1:08:11

the will episode. 500th And it

1:08:13

will be coming out on January on

1:08:15

January 1st, which is pretty cool. is pretty cool.

1:08:17

we'd like to thank our producers producers

1:08:19

Fat Bard and for putting the podcast together.

1:08:21

And thanks to our community moderators

1:08:23

who keep our discord running to get

1:08:26

more involved in the To get more You

1:08:28

can just go to podcast community, you

1:08:30

we have links to the Community Discord, a

1:08:32

way for you to donate and links

1:08:34

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haven't yet, head on over to Steam of the

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up the charts. And and appreciate it. So to

1:08:42

a wish you all for listening. boosted up the see

1:08:44

you next. appreciate it. So, thank you off listening.

1:08:46

Thank you off listening. Thank you off listening.