0:00

It has felt like the tenor

0:02

of that, like, general commentary

0:04

we got from people has

0:06

shifted, where it went from,

0:08

like, shouldn't she be using

0:10

your talents for something more,

0:12

something more, largely I've gotten,

0:14

but in the last couple years,

0:16

people just being like, man, I

0:18

wish I was doing something enjoyable

0:20

that other people enjoyed. Hey

0:24

everybody, welcome to episode 509 of

0:26

Coffee with Butterscotch, the game-deaf comedy

0:28

podcast of Butterscotch shenanigans. I'm Seth

0:30

and I'm the games programmer. I'm

0:32

Madam the slip slinger. I'm Sam

0:34

and I'm the out-of-the-artiste. And this

0:36

is a show where we talk

0:39

about life, business, and working in

0:41

the games industry. Today's February 28th,

0:43

2020 vibes. Before we get started,

0:45

we have a warning that's going

0:47

to be profanity. in this show.

0:49

And we'd also like to thank

0:51

our recurring supporters over at money

0:54

grab.bscotch.net. Thank you so much for your

0:56

monthly donations to help keep this podcast

0:58

going. So we are right in the

1:00

thick of the Crash Lands 2 beta.

1:03

It has gone quite well. We see

1:05

the playtime just creeping up and up.

1:07

It's been pretty interesting to watch. So

1:09

maybe we want to kind of talk

1:11

a little bit about what we're seeing,

1:14

how it's. how it's been. Yeah so

1:16

the last podcast episode we were on

1:18

day like starting day four right so

1:20

we're now at around day 11 and

1:22

we had a handful of the kind

1:25

of front-order people who were just pouring

1:27

all their time into it managed to

1:29

beat it which is good because a

1:31

big thing when we talk about was

1:33

like needing to get some just some

1:35

eyeballs and people passing through the you

1:37

know the end of the game content

1:39

to make sure that whatever weird paths

1:41

people were taken that that would work

1:43

and it all seems to be hidden.

1:45

really really well. So that's been really

1:47

exciting. And then what we're seeing now

1:49

is, you know, people who are putting

1:51

in more of like your real totally

1:53

more standard, like, you know, slightly busier person

1:55

right now gaming time, which is like, you

1:57

know, a couple hours to day wherever else.

2:00

still just been plonked away. And so one

2:02

of the biggest things that we started

2:04

questions to was, was our own, our own,

2:06

one of our own, like the KPIs,

2:08

right? Uh, is, is this idea of median?

2:10

Well, it's actually, it's not our KPI.

2:12

It's, it's true. Yeah.

2:16

So it's not a mobile KPI by

2:18

any stretch, but it's, uh, but it

2:20

is like one of Steam's primary ones

2:22

that they service to you. Is this

2:24

idea of median play time, not average,

2:26

but median. And there's this interesting chart

2:29

on the back of Steam. If you're

2:31

on your partner, Steamworks account, where you

2:33

can see, uh, essentially like player fall

2:35

off by, not by like days, which

2:37

is how you think about immobile daily

2:39

retention, but by hours of playtime. So

2:41

how many people made it past 10

2:43

minutes? How many people made it past

2:46

one hour, two hours, five hours, whatever,

2:48

right? And Steam doesn't provide you basically

2:50

any comparative information with other games, except

2:52

on that one hour mark, uh, it

2:54

will, it has a little like, uh,

2:56

sort of byline that tells you if

2:58

you're average compared to other games on

3:00

Steam, like the whole catalog, if you're

3:03

above average, below, well, above, well, below,

3:05

et cetera. So one of our major

3:07

kind of planning points, when we were

3:09

putting the sequel together, it was like,

3:11

okay, we're, we're looking at the chart

3:13

for something like crash lands around that

3:15

one hour mark. It's already down to

3:17

about 70 % of players are still around,

3:20

right? This, this is why we look

3:22

at medians because like most people who

3:24

boot up any game will not make

3:26

it past the first little bit of

3:28

the game. Yeah. Right. And there's that,

3:30

you know, first couple of hours or

3:32

whatever. Yeah. And there's a joke in

3:34

games that like basically nobody finishes games,

3:37

right? Which is true. Um, it's just

3:39

sort of statistically, right? Uh, it doesn't

3:41

mean you don't, that you don't want

3:43

as a dev that you, there's no

3:45

value in finishing a game or making

3:47

the ending awesome, right? But there's, every

3:49

so often you do see some of

3:51

those like, uh, I don't know, some

3:54

of the NBA types be like, why

3:56

do we even need to bother with

3:58

polishing the end of this? Cause 10

4:00

out of the every 100 people are

4:02

going to reach or whatever. Yeah. What

4:04

they don't realize is like, what if

4:06

we, what if we cut the game

4:08

in half? So it's half as long.

4:11

Well, people will still only make it.

4:13

halfway through. Because that's just what happened. This is what happened. So what we're

4:15

looking for then with with crash lanes versus crashings too is is trying to

4:17

bump especially those early basically the first hour first two hour numbers up considerably

4:19

and at least from what we've seen from the beta and again all the

4:21

caveats we've talked about all the caveats a billion times but you know it

4:23

is a it is a small group it is a time pressurized group which

4:25

is both like a pro and a con there's all these things that make

4:27

it pros and cons so it's kind of Again, who knows what it means

4:30

exactly, but we are seeing that

4:32

that median, median playtime is considerably

4:34

higher already than the crashings, which

4:36

is great, like by a wide

4:38

margin. And then that percentage of

4:40

people who are getting across that

4:42

one hour mark is also way higher,

4:45

like 22% higher than it was for

4:47

the original game, which is again, very

4:49

good. So all those numbers are the

4:51

sort of thing we're like. you know

4:53

it's still not the market right so

4:56

it's still not actually it's not paying

4:58

players with an unlimited amount of time

5:00

who opted into playing the game yeah

5:02

who got it through stebe who maybe

5:04

didn't even know about crash lands you

5:07

know exactly there's like it's asterisks all

5:09

the way down but I think in

5:11

this movie we've been talking about internally

5:13

as you know we every couple days one

5:15

of us of some of us will look

5:17

at some of the numbers and be like

5:19

what does it mean right And I think

5:21

for me personally a lot of it has

5:23

been like it's it's a sort of thing

5:26

where I get my hopes get up quite

5:28

a bit where I'm like I think this

5:30

is going to do well like I think

5:32

it's going to do really well but then

5:34

just because I know again the caveats I

5:36

understand how the markets is anything how how

5:38

like you can you can make something that's

5:40

really good and still new you know some

5:42

people play it like then it becomes this

5:44

sort of I feel like I vastly between

5:46

very being very confident and being very confident

5:48

and being very confident. Well, and like, it's

5:50

also very easy to obsess about, you know,

5:52

you'll look, you'll look at the people who

5:54

put in like 50-60 hours or something, right?

5:56

And like, okay, like, it's working for them,

5:58

right? Yep. No, no question. there don't need

6:00

to really dig into that right and

6:02

then you go down to the other

6:05

end of the chart and you'll see

6:07

somebody who has like six minutes yeah

6:09

what the hell right and you're like

6:11

what what is that because you could

6:13

kind of come with a laundry list

6:15

of things where you're like maybe it

6:17

was a device problem like maybe they

6:19

booted up and just ran like shit

6:21

or maybe it crashed maybe they just

6:23

installed it and then realized they didn't

6:25

have time to play because something happened

6:27

you know like you can come with

6:29

a lot of reasons and none of

6:31

them are particularly Obvious or in your

6:33

control, maybe, necessarily? They're not the data.

6:36

It's usually the problem. Yeah, they're not

6:38

the data. So if you don't know

6:40

them. Yeah, like, and that's just guessing.

6:42

Yeah, the way that I think about

6:44

these things is, I mean, the first

6:46

is just a fundamental truth, which is

6:48

that you can't know until you launch

6:50

your game. how it's going to be

6:52

received, right? But leading up to a

6:54

launch, what we're trying to do all

6:56

the time is look for signals that

6:58

give us confidence in a statistical sense

7:00

one way or the other, but like,

7:02

oh no, something is going awry or

7:04

oh, this is looking promising, right? But

7:07

none of those tell us what's going

7:09

to happen. They're just sort of signals,

7:11

right? And so I think I always

7:13

kind of break things apart into positive

7:15

versus negative signals. And the question you're

7:17

always asking is just, is this consistent

7:19

consistent with. some hypothesis, right? So hypothesis

7:21

being the game's not working and we've

7:23

got fundamental problems and it's not, it

7:25

just can't possibly work, right? We have

7:27

direct evidence against that. Nobody plays a

7:29

game for 50 hours that is bad,

7:31

right? And that's just not a thing.

7:33

And certainly not a good time, they

7:35

just would say that and then they

7:38

would stop with people. It actually maybe

7:40

even in particular people who were biased

7:42

towards. one in the game in the

7:44

first place, which is what our tester

7:46

pool is, because they love the original,

7:48

right? So if the sequel was significantly

7:50

worse than the original, we would. They'd

7:52

be pretty pissed off about it. We

7:54

would hear about it and we would

7:56

see it. And that's not happening, right?

7:58

So that's really like, we have a

8:00

nice strong signal that like the worst

8:02

case scenario is definitely not happening. Definitely.

8:04

We have given the biases at the

8:07

pool, we have given the comment, and

8:09

so we have the comment of those

8:11

biases, which is basically people who like

8:13

crash lands one. What our data shows

8:15

right now is that people who like

8:17

crash ends one, like crash ones too,

8:19

a lot. A lot. Not all of

8:21

them, right? Because there's like, you know,

8:23

there's going to be like the one

8:25

or two. people who were like, no,

8:27

I wish it was closer to the

8:29

original, right? Which we've heard, right? Yeah,

8:31

but statistically, but the majority, the wide

8:33

majority of them, right. Yeah, because again,

8:35

you can't please everybody, a game for

8:38

everyone, it's a game for no one,

8:40

right? So, yeah. And so, so we

8:42

know that that's true. And we have,

8:44

basically, the bottom sort of 25% of

8:46

our test or pool, kind of hasn't

8:48

really made any additional, any additional testing

8:50

since they like basically booted out to

8:52

game once or twice, right. But we

8:54

don't know why. Because what we haven't

8:56

heard is those players coming in and

8:58

saying, oh, I hated this and here's

9:00

why, right? Correct. That's basically this kind

9:02

of silent population of people. And it

9:04

was just generally disengaged. Yeah, just disengaged

9:06

people, right? And so if what we

9:09

were hearing was people who have played

9:11

the game for a short period of

9:13

time and then told us and like

9:15

complained about it loudly, we would know

9:17

that there are people who hate this

9:19

game and we would know why. Right.

9:21

The silent version of that has a

9:23

lot more possible explanations, including people don't

9:25

like it and aren't communicative, right? But

9:27

that's going to be a subset of

9:29

the reasons of the people aren't playing

9:31

it. So what we're left with is

9:33

like pretty weak negative signals and very

9:35

strong positive signals. None of these tells

9:37

us what's going to happen at launch,

9:40

but all of them are consistent with

9:42

what we would need to see and

9:44

what we would see if the game

9:46

was good for... original Crashins players and

9:48

was a good overall experience, right? The

9:50

part that's really missing fundamentally is how

9:52

how will it be perceived by people

9:54

who are not Crashlands one fans. We

9:56

just don't have that information in any

9:58

way, shape, or form. And we can't

10:00

get it. There's just no way to

10:02

get it, right? So that's that population

10:04

of like, well, at launch, we want

10:06

to recapture Crashins, one players, definitely. And

10:09

there's a lot of them. So all

10:11

the signals that we're getting are good

10:13

and leaning towards that being a success.

10:15

And then we also want to have

10:17

a much wider market and bring in

10:19

new people. And that, who the fuck

10:21

knows? Who knows? Who knows if that

10:23

can happen? The test is launched basically

10:25

for that, right? Yeah. We like to

10:27

use Valve as an example because remember

10:29

they released that card game artifact, oh

10:31

well. Press probably got a decade ago

10:33

by now. Yeah. But there was a

10:35

lot of interesting chatter about that because

10:37

it's like, okay, valve releases good games,

10:40

right? Like we're talking half-life, we're talking

10:42

portal, we're talking to team fortress, we're

10:44

talking left for dead, right? And so,

10:46

and also they have data about all

10:48

the games. Oh, they have more data

10:50

than anybody. And so if you could

10:52

use data. to then sort of reverse

10:54

engineer like what the market is interested

10:56

in and what kind of game to

10:58

make, they would be the ones who

11:00

have the financial resources, they have everything,

11:02

everything, right? Then they released this artifact

11:04

game and kind of it did. Nobody

11:06

gave a shit, right? And so if,

11:08

if Valve can't reliably release hits, then

11:11

nobody can, right? You just don't know

11:13

what's going to happen. Well, I think

11:15

that's the big thing is that is

11:17

that leading up to launch, there are

11:19

negative signals that you can see. Definitely.

11:21

You can see a lack of press

11:23

attention. So it's like one of the

11:25

things we had trouble with with level

11:27

head. We was just getting people to,

11:29

you know. either review it or do

11:31

anything. Do anything with this. And then

11:33

we talk about the nail whiff thing,

11:35

right? Like that doesn't actually correlate to

11:37

the quality of the game. Like the

11:39

game might be doing a really good

11:42

job at what it set out to

11:44

do. It's just a question of do

11:46

people give a shit. Yeah. And making

11:48

the games for a living, the goal

11:50

isn't actually to make a good game.

11:52

It's to make a game that sells

11:54

successfully, right? Yes. And normally we think

11:56

of the form. a big requirement for

11:58

the latter, right? So we make a

12:00

good game that we, so that it

12:02

will sell well, right? But the ultimate

12:04

goal is actually selling it successful. Yeah.

12:06

We think of good as a necessary

12:08

but not sufficient condition for the game

12:10

to succeed. And in some cases, like,

12:13

I think if you're looking at a

12:15

game that did super well, and you're

12:17

like, yeah, but it's a terrible game.

12:19

Again, that's, the game is a lot

12:21

of lifting is the problem, right, because

12:23

it's like. what exactly about it appeals

12:25

to people. You have, you have, you

12:27

have, you can have such different, you

12:29

look like Stard Valley versus like call

12:31

of duty. They're both games, but like,

12:33

it's not like a pizza, right, or

12:35

it's like. Well, and different people are

12:37

gonna, are gonna, are gonna feel better

12:39

or worse about each of those games,

12:42

right? Like, like you could have somebody

12:44

who's really into call of duty and

12:46

they'd be like, play call of duty.

12:48

That game sucks. So what is a

12:50

terrible game is very subjective, right? Because

12:52

a lot of times people just use

12:54

their preferences to determine. When they say

12:56

a game sucks, what they really mean

12:58

is I wouldn't like to play that

13:00

game. Not that the game is inherently

13:02

bad at what it was doing, right?

13:04

So there's a lot of... They often

13:06

do mean that, but it's because they

13:08

can't tell the difference between their opinion

13:10

and objective reality. But it's like we're

13:13

seeing all the signals that we would

13:15

hope to see. And one of the

13:17

questions we asked internally, because we're just

13:19

looking at this data, but we don't

13:21

have, it's not like we have this

13:23

data for every game that's launched on

13:25

steam, right? Like, oh, they ran up

13:27

with 100 people, what did their graphs

13:29

look like, right? What did their graphs

13:31

look like, right? We don't have, what

13:33

did their graphs look like, right? What

13:35

did their graphs look like? question of

13:37

like what would, how would this look

13:39

if it were going better and how

13:41

would it look if it were going

13:44

poorly, right? And then you try to

13:46

like thread that and it's one of

13:48

those things where or at least so

13:50

far as I can tell, largely for

13:52

the data we've gotten so far, we

13:54

can't, I can't figure out a realistic

13:56

way that it would look better, if

13:58

that makes sense? Like, is it, is

14:00

it, like, theoretically, we just don't know

14:02

what. better could look like. Because like,

14:04

it's like theoretically, it could be the

14:06

case that a game was so good

14:08

that even people who didn't have time

14:10

somehow down their whole lives and maybe

14:12

this is like, yeah, it doesn't mean

14:15

that like every day has eight hours

14:17

of playtime from every single person in

14:19

your beta group. And it's like, yeah,

14:21

that's exactly. It's like, is that the

14:23

things that look better are. It's hard

14:25

to, well it's impossible to decide like

14:27

which of those are realistic versus unrealistic

14:29

and so on and on. There's a

14:31

slight scale here, right? Yeah, it's a

14:33

huge range. Yeah, and that's where it

14:35

becomes tricky because we're like, it looks

14:37

good. Yeah, but I know what. I

14:39

even think about how like, right? Like

14:41

whenever a new wow season starts, there's

14:43

this huge distribution in my wow rating

14:46

guild of how people approach it. So

14:48

like there'll be probably like maybe 10

14:50

percent. to 15% of the people will

14:52

literally take a week off of work

14:54

and just play for 14 hours a

14:56

day for the whole first week. Other

14:58

people like myself have no real change

15:00

in playtime. I still work normal hours.

15:02

I would play in the evenings, maybe

15:04

play a little bit more on the

15:06

weekends than I normally would. And then

15:08

there's other people who play very casually

15:10

where they play maybe like a couple

15:12

hours a week. Right. And for them,

15:15

they're like, yeah, new season, but like,

15:17

it's fun. I'm just vibing, right? And

15:19

they still just play a couple hours

15:21

a week. And all those groups of

15:23

people are enjoying the game and playing

15:25

it as much as they can or

15:27

want to, right? But what you end

15:29

up with is this huge difference in

15:31

playtime, right? So kind of what we're

15:33

seeing in, but again, like, you can't,

15:35

it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that

15:37

the like if that if the playtime

15:39

goes up or down a little bit

15:41

in like different parts of the curve

15:43

you can't really tell why that. that's

15:46

happening or what it means. And so

15:48

one thing that's kind of interesting about

15:50

the playtime curve that we're seeing with

15:52

the beta is that in the first

15:54

week, it looked like an exponential curve,

15:56

where like the people towards the top

15:58

end were so much farther ahead than

16:00

people in the middle. So yeah, it

16:02

was like kind of like flat at

16:04

the bottom end, you know, and then

16:06

it was like, it just kept going

16:08

faster and faster and faster. Yeah. And

16:10

so we were looking at that and

16:12

we're like, what that probably means is,

16:14

again, just like the wow people, right?

16:17

Like the people who took a week

16:19

off and just played for 12 hours

16:21

a day, in that first week, they're

16:23

like, they got like 70 hours in,

16:25

right? And then like the people playing

16:27

casually had like two. But then the

16:29

people who took a week off, they're

16:31

burned out now. They're so, they got

16:33

to sleep, like they're just so fucking

16:35

tired, right? And then after that kind

16:37

of initial rush, their play time falls

16:39

off a cliff. Yeah, it drops by

16:41

more than half, right? Which is like,

16:43

there isn't that there was like, we

16:45

are, which is expected for the genre,

16:48

right? It's not like, like, the hope

16:50

is that someone plays through the whole

16:52

like, you know, 40, 60 hour experience,

16:54

but it's not like a repeat game

16:56

that you're gonna play, that you're just

16:58

gonna play for like six hours a

17:00

day every day. You know what I

17:02

mean? Like, it's, we know that. It's

17:04

not a hobby game. Yeah. Yeah. And

17:06

so, so, so what you're kind of

17:08

seeing is like, so what you're kind

17:10

of seeing is like, like, like, like,

17:12

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

17:14

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

17:16

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

17:19

what you're kind of seeing, like, like,

17:21

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

17:23

like, like, like, like, like an insane

17:25

amount of time in the first week,

17:27

got to the end of the game

17:29

or whatever, or they're like, okay, I've

17:31

done enough because it's beta, and now

17:33

I want to like wait until launch

17:35

to go like do more things, you

17:37

know? And so the people who really

17:39

went all in, their playtime kind of

17:41

is like, is like slowly trickling down,

17:43

and then other people who are playing

17:45

more consistently, they're like slowly catching up.

17:48

line just like a like a y

17:50

equals x kind of thing yeah yeah

17:52

because like the people in the middle

17:54

are just like they're all playing the

17:56

same amount every day and they're just

17:58

yeah so again like it's all good

18:00

signals meaning like yeah people are just

18:02

playing the game how they They want

18:04

to play it. If they're really into

18:06

it, they can just go nuts and

18:08

just kind of know life it for

18:10

a while. Other people are playing it

18:12

more casually and they can kind of

18:14

spend an hour or two a day

18:16

and have a great time. And they

18:19

just keep coming back. And so again,

18:21

all good signals, all strong signals. Does

18:23

it mean anything for lunch? We'll find

18:25

out. Yeah. And so otherwise, we are

18:27

starting to prepare for marketing. Because I

18:29

think what is it. Six weeks, five

18:31

weeks, something like that. It's coming in.

18:33

April 10 away. So it's coming, April

18:35

10th. So there's a lot of stuff

18:37

that needs to happen. Yeah, the game

18:39

has to be done enough basically, just

18:41

basically when this podcast episode goes live,

18:43

that we can start handing out keys

18:45

to press. Because the other thing about

18:47

like, oh, we talk a lot about

18:50

the order of ops and how you

18:52

get to launch day. But so much

18:54

stuff just has to be done well

18:56

in advance. of your release day because

18:58

like we were talking about localization there's

19:00

always lagging behind so we need to

19:02

have time to make sure that gets

19:04

finished up but that's not just so

19:06

that it's ready for launch but also

19:08

so it's ready for press and streamers

19:10

to have earlier access with the completely

19:12

translated game right and so it has

19:14

to be enough done that even if

19:16

you give them the coffee enough like

19:18

by the way some of it won't

19:21

be translated until we get to launch

19:23

but certainly enough of it is that

19:25

you can have the full intended experience

19:27

and confused So like what to do

19:29

with that, we have to get stuff

19:31

to press early enough that since we're

19:33

not a AAA title, that they can

19:35

fit us in between when they're doing

19:37

all the other stuff. If you want

19:39

to get into the larger publications, that

19:41

again, we always got to think about

19:43

what's their incentive, what's their interest, right?

19:45

And a lot of them, because they

19:47

love like the people who work their

19:49

love games, and because indie games frequently,

19:52

break out and become things that people

19:54

talk about a lot, they basically are

19:56

rolling the dice when they're covering. a

19:58

smaller game like an indie title right

20:00

they're going to always be covering every

20:02

large play the game won't bring attention

20:04

to their article, it's going the other

20:06

way, you know. Right. So, but they're

20:08

basically gambling on that because it's like,

20:10

okay, if the game does hit big,

20:12

then now they got, you know, they

20:14

already have stuff in, you've started cooking

20:16

about that. So what you need to

20:18

do then is basically get, you're getting

20:21

the press keys out to those, like

20:23

the big ones in with enough time

20:25

that they can like, it's essentially figure

20:27

out how to like, slot you in

20:29

amongst. all of the Giants, right? In

20:31

their playtime, right? Because they're play testing

20:33

all these things to have their... Because

20:35

there's a sequence of things where it's

20:37

like we have an embargo date for

20:39

preview, like preview stuff from press and

20:41

streamers and stuff, right? Which is basically

20:43

like, we put some limits on, like,

20:45

you know, please don't go beyond this

20:47

many hours of gameplay, because we don't

20:49

want to spoil the whole game, you

20:52

know? don't actually put any review scores

20:54

in yet because we don't like we

20:56

don't really care about that exactly but

20:58

press outlets do because they want to

21:00

make sure that their release that their

21:02

scores go up before or at least

21:04

the same time as everybody else is

21:06

so there's like stuff like that we're

21:08

trying to like thread all these needles

21:10

of the timeline but all of it

21:12

requires that these people that are involved

21:14

with that have enough time to play

21:16

the game enough that they can form

21:18

opinions put scores together and they're trying

21:20

to do that with what is a

21:23

50 hour game, right? In our case,

21:25

threading that in between, all the other

21:27

games are also trying to do this

21:29

with, which include the ones they have

21:31

to cover, which are all the big

21:33

AAA things. So yeah, you're running this

21:35

thing, then where it's like, okay, yeah,

21:37

you want to give keys to people,

21:39

I mean, you want to give them

21:41

to them, you know, basically we use

21:43

in advance, but of course, the reality

21:45

is like, every week that the game

21:47

isn't launched, it is also a cost,

21:49

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

21:51

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

21:54

for, for us, for us, for us,

21:56

for us, for us, like, like, like,

21:58

like, for, like, like, like, for, like,

22:00

like, like, for, like, like, for, like,

22:02

like, like, for, like, like, for, Okay

22:04

where can we really call this thing

22:06

quits of the highest quality that we

22:08

can you know really manage before it

22:10

goes to that first like before basically

22:12

we're sending out what you consider like

22:14

gold the gold CD like the gold

22:16

edition of the thing right where it's

22:18

like this is the launch version or

22:20

close enough to it that we don't

22:22

mind we can easily be like don't

22:25

worry about it. So we're essentially going

22:27

to be doing that next week. Yeah,

22:29

which is crazy. And then otherwise we

22:31

have this. We have this kind of

22:33

funny thing. I mean, this always happens

22:35

at this stage of development, which is

22:37

you have to change your mindset toward

22:39

the game, not in thinking about, oh,

22:41

it would be cool if we did

22:43

this. It would be nice if we

22:45

had this. Instead, it's like, what has

22:47

to happen? Yes. And only do those

22:49

things. Because if you keep cramming more

22:51

stuff in the game, now that's becoming

22:54

more and more of a risk. Because

22:56

as you approach the launch date, changes

22:58

become more risky. Because you're like, change

23:00

something less tested. Yeah, they just, you

23:02

don't have as much time to test

23:04

them and find any issues. And so,

23:06

you know, because of all the, with

23:08

all the beta feedback, you know, we

23:10

ended up having, I think, I personally

23:12

had 120 something items in my. in

23:14

my task list of like things that

23:16

things that things to do and to

23:18

change in the game and as we're

23:20

coming across as we're coming up to

23:22

this timeline of saying okay we need

23:25

to start getting keys out to press

23:27

and stuff like that we had to

23:29

just sit down and take it in

23:31

just go okay let's look through this

23:33

list and and sort it by urgent

23:35

like stuff that needs to happen so

23:37

it can be localized or whatever that

23:39

definitely needs to be in there. Then

23:41

there's must-haves, which is things that still

23:43

need to be in there, but they

23:45

can happen after the urgent things. And

23:47

then every other thing, no matter how

23:49

much we would like to do it,

23:51

is dead in the water, is going

23:53

into the post-launch pile, we'll revisit it

23:56

after the launch. Because really, really, the

23:58

ideal case for us is basically the

24:00

couple weeks leading up to the launch

24:02

day. We're just playing Crash Lands, too,

24:04

and making tiny little adjustments. Surgical bug

24:06

fixes, basically. Yeah, little, little, little, optimization,

24:08

little bug fixes, little bug fixes, little

24:10

tweaks to the game economy, like this

24:12

recipe here or whatever, but nothing major.

24:14

the whole team. or to hold everyone's

24:16

job is the same, which is just

24:18

keep play testing the game as we

24:20

make these surgical fixes to try to

24:22

get sufficient coverage leading up to the

24:24

launch. So it's all about the triage.

24:27

I had a pretty funny realization yesterday,

24:29

which was about this mechanic in the

24:31

game, where we had this thing, like

24:33

you can hit enemies with this weapon,

24:35

and it spawns a fire patch under

24:37

their feet. Okay. And it's a really

24:39

strong weapon. for the reason that if

24:41

a fire patch is like an area,

24:43

right? So you hit an enemy, and

24:45

if the fire patch appears, then all

24:47

the surrounding enemies will also get burned.

24:49

Okay, so just, so just, it's useful

24:51

for me dealing with a large horde

24:53

of things, you know, yeah. So if

24:55

you think about like, let's say, your

24:58

alternative is like, you have like a

25:00

dagger that when you stab somebody, it

25:02

makes them bleed for 100 damage, right?

25:04

but there's a group of enemies, the

25:06

fire might actually do 500 damage, right?

25:08

So it scales up with number of

25:10

targets. And so this is just one

25:12

of those surgical balance things where I've

25:14

been playing with this burning tool, this

25:16

burning weapon for this past week, and

25:18

I'm like, why is this so much

25:20

better? Like I know that on paper

25:22

it's like, yeah, the fire patch will

25:24

do damage to surrounding enemies, but like,

25:27

this thing is just absolutely obliterating groups

25:29

of enemies. So I'm like looking really

25:31

closely and I'm like, the fire patch

25:33

is actually spawning under every enemy. So

25:35

when the dice roll happens, if you

25:37

happen to catch, you know, five enemies

25:39

in your swing, then you get five

25:41

of them. Yeah, all five of the

25:43

Maccalfour patch. Independently rolled per enemy, right?

25:45

Yeah. And then all five fire patches

25:47

burn all five enemies. So suddenly you're

25:49

doing like 25 times the amount of

25:51

damage and it exponentially goes up. So

25:53

you hit 10 enemies, you're doing a

25:55

hundred times more damage because it's like

25:58

a squaring, basically, of the number of

26:00

enemies. And so there's these things like

26:02

that. where we, and I'm literally to

26:04

change this because of the game changer,

26:06

I just like checked a checkbox and

26:08

then that changed how the fire patch

26:10

is spawned and everything is okay now.

26:12

But there are these little things like

26:14

that where I was kind of like

26:16

having a less good time playing the

26:18

game, but I couldn't put my finger

26:20

on it because it was just feeling

26:22

way too easy. And I was playing

26:24

on the hardest mode. And I'm just

26:26

mowing on the hardest mode. And I'm

26:29

just mowing enemies down and then I

26:31

would try switching to other play styles

26:33

and just none of them were even

26:35

coming close to how fast I was

26:37

killing stuff. it out, you just can't

26:39

find some of those things. And so

26:42

that's where our time needs to shift

26:44

into sort of like in this last

26:46

month, but especially the last couple weeks

26:48

leading up to the the watch. It's

26:50

like finding all those little fiddly things.

26:52

One big part of it too is

26:55

also even less on. The one big

26:57

thing we know from the beta also

26:59

is basically the game is working right

27:01

so there's really only like one or

27:03

two of these spots where we want

27:05

to massage some of the like progression

27:08

flow like how the player actually moves

27:10

through the content but we actually largely

27:12

want to not touch almost any of

27:14

it right because we know that it

27:16

works so works well enough and so

27:18

there's also I think more of a

27:20

focus sort of like in the in

27:23

the next coming after like next week

27:25

or so on just technical improvements like

27:27

straight or very up, like very, very

27:29

nerd level optimization, right? So that's what you're

27:31

doing on that. Optimizations. Yeah, trying to just

27:33

make it so that, so that the game's

27:35

overall footprint on devices just gets lower and

27:37

lower and lower. And the big benefit of

27:39

that is that it actually comes in a

27:41

variety of forms. One is that you have

27:43

these like tipping point things with all sorts

27:45

of stuff, whether it's like a device that

27:48

has. just enough RAM to run the game

27:50

until X thing counts. Until 20 minutes. Yeah,

27:52

that it crashes. Basically, it's sort of like

27:54

putting up some time in, not just for

27:56

the game to like run smoother, because it

27:58

already runs well on a good device. But

28:00

also just to make it so that

28:02

post-launch, we don't have as much stuff

28:04

to deal with, right? So there's kind

28:06

of this like banking of time and

28:08

this investment in just these tons of

28:10

these optimizations, which will be kind of

28:13

what's on cessplate coming up here. Yeah,

28:15

I gotta say, I love optimization. If

28:17

my whole job was just optimizing, I

28:19

would be so, I'd be so fucking

28:21

pumped. Very satisfying. It's like, you know

28:23

that it works, man. I don't know.

28:25

There's nothing, you know, it's like, but

28:27

it's also that like, like with this,

28:29

with this fire patch thing, you know,

28:32

like I fixed it and I went

28:34

and tested it. I was like, this

28:36

feels better for me. And the change

28:38

I made is working the way that

28:40

I'm intending it to work, right? Is

28:42

it good though? Yeah. I feel like

28:44

it is, but I don't know if

28:46

everybody's gonna agree. Because like, you know,

28:49

some people just like to, you know,

28:51

be an orbital nuke and one shot

28:53

everything and have no challenge. Design is

28:55

based on feelings. So design is based

28:57

on feelings. And so you can never,

28:59

you can never have something that everybody's

29:01

gonna like, right? And so. But everybody

29:03

likes higher percentage optimization stuff, you know,

29:05

man. If I optimize some shit, because

29:08

like, like, like this. this week, actually

29:10

those last weekend, I found some stuff

29:12

for the mobile version, I was able

29:14

to boost FPS by 40% on mobile.

29:16

Yeah, it's just a huge amount. It's

29:18

a huge amount, right? And it's fun

29:20

to like find those bottlenecks and find

29:22

some something where you're like, I wonder

29:25

like if I could change the order

29:27

operations of this or like. Store this

29:29

data differently so it can be retrieved

29:31

differently than that you can measure it

29:33

You can be like and nobody's upset

29:35

that they got more FPS Nobody everybody

29:37

likes that and so there was actually

29:39

unambiguous win I was speaking of mobile

29:41

to it's one of the things I

29:44

was curious about for the and hoping

29:46

to see in the beta So so

29:48

the beta test or pool is biased

29:50

towards people who could play on steam

29:52

and mobile Right. So it's high representation

29:54

of mobile platforms. So basically like 60%

29:56

of all testers have at least an

29:58

Android or I device, right? And then

30:01

like 80% of testers have a steam

30:03

like PC device. and that a huge

30:05

fraction have both, right? So the reason

30:07

we did that was because we wanted

30:09

to make sure we could test cross-platform

30:11

stuff, have a lot of device representation

30:13

for a smaller number of users, because

30:15

that was just. you know, better information

30:17

density basically. But also what we wanted

30:20

to know was if people do have

30:22

access to multiple platforms, would they preferentially

30:24

play on? Because the assumption has always

30:26

been like the PC experience is just

30:28

is just better. Your screen's bigger at

30:30

minimum. That's just a better experience, right?

30:32

And that people would be like really

30:34

biased towards that. And that is true

30:37

that most of our playtime is coming

30:39

from steam. But it's not as biased

30:41

towards that as I would have expected.

30:43

Not from a form factor standpoint, right?

30:45

Because you got stevex in there too.

30:47

So you end up with. But I

30:49

mean just steam PC like like it's

30:51

biased towards that definitely. But again, so

30:53

is the test for population the first

30:56

place. But I'm not really seeing like

30:58

suppressed playtime on mobile that I would

31:00

have expected to see. And now we

31:02

are at a quarter iOS, 16% Android,

31:04

50% Desktop and then 7% steam deck.

31:06

I rounded those numbers. We're not going

31:08

to exactly add up 200, but yeah,

31:10

of playtime people who put it. Yeah,

31:13

which basically matches the proportions of the

31:15

devices that people have, right? So I

31:17

would have expected that to be biased

31:19

towards because 80% of people have Windows

31:21

PC, right, in our test pool. So

31:23

I would have expected that to bias

31:25

towards like 80% of playtime. Like if

31:27

people had steam on a PC, that's

31:29

what they'd be playing on. And so

31:32

that has been a very pleasant surprise

31:34

to me. That also means that, meaning

31:36

basically that people are just having a

31:38

really good time on the mobile version

31:40

and a good enough time that they're

31:42

not like, oh, I'll just wait until

31:44

I get to my desktop. Right. And

31:46

so these mobile optimizations and that since

31:49

figured out how to do have dramatically

31:51

improved that experience. But it's also given

31:53

this nice positive signal of like, okay,

31:55

this actually could be really successful on

31:57

mobile. And the whole cross play thing

31:59

is like. Within this test pool bias

32:01

towards that like is working really successfully,

32:03

right? Which yeah, again, these strong people,

32:05

but who knows? Yeah, we had a

32:08

lot of people in the beta who

32:10

have messaged us surprised that their saves

32:12

just, they didn't have to do anything,

32:14

but they just like. signed in on

32:16

both devices. They played on steam for

32:18

a while and then they just picked

32:20

up their phone and hit play and

32:22

they're just playing the save still right

32:25

where they left. They're just like, I

32:27

don't get it. How does this happen?

32:29

It's, you know, did a lot of

32:31

work behind the scenes to make it

32:33

good so that you don't have to

32:35

think about it. But yeah, I mean,

32:37

all this, we get there. At least

32:39

on my side, since I've left a

32:41

lot of technical stuff to do, that

32:44

I could take a bit of a

32:46

nap after we get this thing kicked

32:48

out to press. You know, we'll just

32:50

be like, okay, take a fucking minute.

32:52

Yeah, I mean, it would be best

32:54

if everybody involved in content just took

32:56

a nap. So that, so that, it

32:58

also make us stop touching the game,

33:01

which is also, exactly, that's okay. Because

33:03

every time, every time we touch the

33:05

game, it's like, okay, there's more QA

33:07

that has to happen a lot more.

33:09

I have to make sure it's fine.

33:11

So if we could, although our QA

33:13

are complaining about it, they're like, thanks,

33:15

please give us, give us more stuff

33:18

to do. Yeah. All right, we have

33:20

to get to a question. who says,

33:22

look out, this could require some prework.

33:24

Would you replay your older titles on

33:26

Bscotch.ich.io and give them a score on

33:28

the nailed it or whiffed it scale?

33:30

So we would have had to have

33:32

done that, which we did not do.

33:34

So we would have had to have

33:37

done that, which we did not do.

33:39

So we looked back a couple weeks

33:41

ago, at some of our games. We

33:43

thought, well, we don't need to play

33:45

them, because we made them. And we.

33:47

We did play them quite a bit.

33:49

But there's some, there's. Some pretty goofy

33:51

ones in here. So we'll talk about

33:54

we'll talk about a couple of them

33:56

on the on the nail whiff scale.

33:58

Yeah. So people can find these. What

34:00

is it like B scotch dot inch.

34:02

I or something? Yeah. Yeah. So these

34:04

are basically our jam games. And then

34:06

we also have a comic up there

34:08

crash ends origins. People want to check

34:10

that out. So I will talk about

34:13

torso demon saga. Oh. So this is

34:15

a as a two player to isometric

34:17

platformer, I guess. Yeah, we're top down,

34:19

but yeah. So it's it's basically a

34:21

game where you kind of like simply

34:23

navigate through these levels. I can't remember

34:25

if it was randomly generated or not.

34:27

I think it's probably true. Yeah. And

34:30

the goal is to basically find the

34:32

exit of these levels. And there's like,

34:34

a lot of darkness that surrounds you.

34:36

And there's this like mouth. I think

34:38

we just called it the raging mouthpiece.

34:40

It's just this like shadow made of

34:42

particles that has like a mouth that

34:44

will come out of the darkness and

34:46

try to get you. And then it

34:49

like veers away when it gets into

34:51

light. So the gimmick of the game

34:53

is that it's two-player game and you're

34:55

tethered together with basically a stretchy bungee

34:57

cord. Neither of you has arms and

34:59

legs for some reason. I think that's

35:01

why they're called torso demons. But you

35:03

do butts. The reason being who has

35:06

time to animate that. It's a time

35:08

to animate that. So you know, it's

35:10

a jam game. We can draw butts

35:12

though. So they have butts much like

35:14

many of our earlier characters like tack

35:16

from quadrupus rampage. You got to have

35:18

at least butts. So you can't jump

35:20

in this game, but you can pull

35:22

the rope, which, flings your partner, basically

35:25

equidistant. to the other direction. So if

35:27

your partner, let's say your partner is

35:29

like 200 pixels south of you and

35:31

you yank the rope, it'll fling them

35:33

so that they end up 200 pixels.

35:35

I mean, it's basically that chained game

35:37

that went viral a while ago, where

35:39

it's co-op. I think it's like, it's

35:42

a big thing on Twitch too. You

35:44

play as like people trying to escape

35:46

hill or something, but you're chained together.

35:48

Yeah, and you gotta go do, basically

35:50

do like hazards, you know, together. Yeah.

35:52

So there were some kind of goofy

35:54

things you could do, like, if you

35:56

both pulled the rope at the same

35:58

time, roughly, you would swap places. And

36:01

also, like, since you can't jump, you

36:03

would need to basically, if you wanted

36:05

to, if you wanted to cross a

36:07

gap as a team, then like one

36:09

of you needs to approach the gap,

36:11

the other one needs to get away

36:13

from the gap, then the closed person

36:15

pulls you, flings you across, and then

36:18

you pull the rope to fling, to

36:20

pull the rope to pull them over.

36:22

Well, you're being chased by the raging

36:24

beast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is

36:26

for me one of my favorite concepts

36:28

of a game that we did. I

36:30

feel like I feel like it nails

36:32

it just in terms of like it's

36:34

simple and it was pretty fun to

36:37

play. There's not much to it because

36:39

it's a jam game. Yeah. But that

36:41

mechanic on its own was fun enough

36:43

that you just didn't really have to

36:45

have much going on in the game

36:47

to have it be kind of a

36:49

kind of a couch co-op. Be games

36:51

are just really fun to. They're just

36:54

fun to make during jams. Because like

36:56

we had to bread brothers, which I

36:58

think was the one we did for.

37:00

We made that one. Ages. Back when

37:02

we were in to be tronics. Yeah,

37:04

basically you're paid emergency sandwich, split in

37:06

half, and you have two different kinds

37:08

of guns for some reason. It's insane.

37:10

But like, but you could, one point

37:13

then was that you could, you could

37:15

like. If you get close to together...

37:17

You can slap your slices together. Yeah,

37:19

you can close to each other and

37:21

you slap your slices together and you

37:23

like Megazord into the sandwich. Into a

37:25

peanut butter sandwich. One of you controls

37:27

the legs, the other one's now the

37:30

gun. It's fucking weird. But it's the

37:32

sort of thing where it's, you know,

37:34

again, for something you build in the

37:36

weekend. It's just a really fun. a

37:38

lot of those catch-cove games. They're actually

37:40

just fun because you play them with

37:42

another person. So they're inherently like... The

37:44

bummer about those games is that they

37:46

just like can't be... Like these are...

37:49

They can't go anywhere. They weren't meant

37:51

to go anywhere, right? But those like

37:53

designs though are the exactly the kinds

37:55

of things that if it had actual

37:57

online multiplayer, right? It's like, that's like

37:59

a requirement for a game like that

38:01

to actually have any kind of success.

38:03

82 people who want to play it

38:06

are almost guaranteed to not be in

38:08

the same physical space. Yes. And even

38:10

if they are, it's more likely that

38:12

they each have a phone than that

38:14

there's like a console with two controllers

38:16

that they can use, right? So. I

38:18

think it's one of the, it's one

38:20

of the, it's like the curse of

38:22

that game style, like the multiplayer stuff.

38:25

Any co-ops, you know. Yeah, it's like,

38:27

there's so many cool weird ideas, but

38:29

for anything to be successful, it's like,

38:31

well, gotta fucking figure out on my

38:33

multiplayer. Yep. It's just the only way.

38:35

Well, and then, you know, if it's

38:37

online multiplayer, then it needs enough like

38:39

loops and engagement, long-term engagement things like

38:42

keep the player base going, you know.

38:44

I think back to the days of

38:46

like unreal tournament where where games hadn't

38:48

evolved to the point of having battle

38:50

passes and you know player bases of

38:52

two million or whatever and so like

38:54

you know you'd you would like play

38:56

unreal tournament and then nobody gave it

38:58

like the like the company like Epic

39:01

who made it they didn't give a

39:03

shit whether there was 10 million people

39:05

playing it or 10 people playing it.

39:07

They weren't even running servers you were

39:09

just they didn't even run a server

39:11

from a list you'd be like there's

39:13

like 14 people there so that looks

39:15

like a good match that's like I

39:18

thought yeah and then the game didn't

39:20

have that it didn't have any purchases

39:22

in a battle passes didn't have a

39:24

lock like literally just you'd you'd beat

39:26

up the game and it the game

39:28

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:30

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:32

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:35

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:37

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:39

the game it's like you'd beat up

39:41

the game it's like it's like you'd

39:43

beat up the game it And that

39:45

only works in a fair context, you

39:47

know, like at that time it worked

39:49

amazing. But nowadays, because you're competing with

39:51

these AAA studios who who have juiced

39:54

the engagement. mechanics of the game then

39:56

like those games just suck all the

39:58

oxygen out of the room and like

40:00

nobody plays on real tournament. I mean

40:02

it's not so true you can actually

40:04

still play under a tournament and there's

40:06

still a few people playing it right

40:08

but nobody's talking about it it's not

40:11

a it's not a fortnight you know

40:13

what I mean? Well the people who

40:15

are playing it at this point you

40:17

know like I wouldn't want to go

40:19

play against them you know because oh

40:21

yeah and there's rampant cheating just yeah

40:23

because there's no Again, there's no antitrust.

40:25

Because these these games are from a

40:27

day like back in the day when

40:30

land parties were how you played them

40:32

because like internet was slow enough that

40:34

it was not that good of an

40:36

experience to play online. And so you

40:38

would like get together with some friends

40:40

and love your giant machines. You would

40:42

love your machine over there. What we

40:44

used to do is we went over

40:47

to Grinnell College computer lab. after hours.

40:49

Yeah, one of one of my friends,

40:51

dad was a professor over there and

40:53

he would just let us in and

40:55

then take off and then we would

40:57

just like and it would be like,

40:59

just don't go to or accept this

41:01

room until you're going to leave so

41:03

that nobody gets so that he doesn't

41:06

get in trouble for like letting all

41:08

these kids in, you know. And then

41:10

we would just each, and then we

41:12

would of course, we all burned a

41:14

copy of the game. Yeah. So it's

41:16

just all fucking unreal. Just college computers

41:18

and start. Yeah. Just have a land

41:20

party like all all day. Because we're

41:23

like 14 and we don't have money.

41:25

We don't, you know. Yeah, we, we

41:27

did it. We did some crimes. You

41:29

know, but you downloaded some cars. Yeah,

41:31

that's how it was back then, you

41:33

know. We all make up for all

41:35

of our, the piracy and our youth

41:37

and we can't afford anything. But like,

41:39

like, buy, buy a fungal lot of

41:42

things. Because like they got re- like

41:44

under the tournament stuff, they all got

41:46

remastered and re-released on steam. That's true,

41:48

I also bought them all, yep. So

41:50

I mean, I paid, I paid. I

41:52

paid. For anybody listening to the podcast

41:54

who has pirate or games, as long

41:56

as you buy them someday, you know?

41:59

Yeah. I don't give her shit. Put

42:01

a pin in. Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's

42:03

fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

42:05

All right, there's one more game that

42:07

I want to talk about, which is

42:09

the game. I can't see shit. Oh

42:11

yeah, that was a good one. So

42:13

this game, the idea was, you're a

42:15

blind creature. You have to use echo

42:18

location to do platforming. It's a platform.

42:20

You kind of like show something that

42:22

makes noise. and it's like it comes

42:24

out as a projectile and then that

42:26

hits stuff and when it hits something

42:28

you could see that like a sort

42:30

of it's sort of like a you

42:32

know like a sound vibration it goes

42:35

through the platforms that it hits so

42:37

you're kind of like spitting out these

42:39

barks and I think you can like

42:41

I think they ricochet or something so

42:43

you could kind of like you'd spin

42:45

up this thing that looked like a

42:47

little sort of like a little white

42:49

circle kind of thing and when it

42:51

would hit a surface then a bunch

42:54

of smaller of smaller of those orbs

42:56

would refract off of it and then

42:58

splash on to other things. So like,

43:00

so basically the bigger the the bigger

43:02

the sound, the more it would kind

43:04

of like ripple out through the stuff

43:06

you hit so you could you could

43:08

see it. So with this we used

43:11

to use a system from Game Maker

43:13

Cult surfaces where you can sort of

43:15

like temporarily render things onto an image

43:17

and then you can kind of like

43:19

occlude parts of it or whatever. So,

43:21

so it's meant was basically, there was

43:23

this. There was an entire, there's an

43:25

entire like platformer level, and then we

43:27

obscure it by putting a surface in

43:30

front of it. So that surface has

43:32

just like fog or clouds or some

43:34

shit on it. And when you would

43:36

spit out these things, then they would

43:38

basically temporarily like punch a hole in

43:40

that surface so you could kind of

43:42

see the world behind the veil, and

43:44

then it would quickly fade back away.

43:47

So. So you could only see, you

43:49

could only quote, see things temporarily by

43:51

making these little chirps that would kind

43:53

of like reveal a piece of the

43:55

level. And if you were jumping to

43:57

a place that you, because I think

43:59

you could. only spit your projectiles like

44:01

left and right I think and so

44:03

if you were jumping to a place

44:06

like maybe like you're standing on a

44:08

ledge you can't see the ledge because

44:10

you saw it at one point but

44:12

now you can't because it's below you

44:14

all right I think I think I

44:16

think if you're standing something you can

44:18

see it if you're touching something you

44:20

can see it so you'd see this

44:23

little ledge but then you're like you

44:25

think you're standing at the edge of

44:27

a cliff you're pretty sure because you

44:29

saw it at one point with one

44:31

point with one of your echoes with

44:33

one of your echoes and one of

44:35

your echoes and you know, chirp out

44:37

your little sounds to try to reveal

44:39

if there's some place you can jump

44:42

to. And then once you jump, like

44:44

mid jump, the thing is fading away

44:46

from view. So you have to kind

44:48

of remember where it was and try

44:50

to land on it. As far as

44:52

like being an echolocation simulator, it's pretty

44:54

good. You know, it's pretty good time.

44:56

Yeah. I think we made that one

44:59

as part of our, we did like

45:01

a one week game jam where we

45:03

just made a game every day. And

45:05

I think that was one of them.

45:07

That was one, the Shucks, I crashed

45:09

my ship and now I have to

45:11

explode heads until I find out my

45:13

ship parts and repair my ship to

45:15

get off the planet. That's the title.

45:18

Yeah, that one's also on the, on

45:20

our age page. Yeah, there's a lot

45:22

of stuff. I think my, one of

45:24

my favorite, one of my favorites is

45:26

just, I mentioned, do you even lift

45:28

before, but it's the elevator simulator? concepts

45:30

that like I you I could not

45:32

necessarily you know I guess I would

45:35

I could not conscientiously suggest that the

45:37

studio invests in this idea right but

45:39

it's like it's very fun to build

45:41

like a blind platformer basically dumb ideas

45:43

right blind platformer elevator simulator where you

45:45

your whole job is being elevator and

45:47

like move people up and down a

45:49

building while there's aliens also in the

45:51

corridors that you got like managed closed

45:54

doors on them in and Stuff like

45:56

that. Probably it's basically the commercial versus

45:58

non-commercial making of games, right? It's like,

46:00

having an idea being like, it would

46:02

just be fun if we may, if

46:04

we got to make this. and if

46:06

it existed in the world. And that's,

46:08

yeah, ideally, people would also then buy

46:11

it so we could keep on making

46:13

more things like that, right? But there's

46:15

a lot more things in that camp,

46:17

actually. Infantly more. Yeah, because it's like,

46:19

it's all these little ideas, like, you

46:21

know, whether it's bread brothers, I can't

46:23

see shit, whatever else. It's like the

46:25

idea of how you would, even how

46:28

you would spin that out into like

46:30

a marketable thing that anybody beyond. beyond

46:32

the fact that it was fun to

46:34

build, wouldn't it? Or like 10 minutes

46:36

would be interested. I think this kind

46:38

of comes down to games versus mini

46:40

games. Yes. So I think about how

46:42

like the the fishing game in crash

46:44

ends too is partly inspired by so

46:47

like is partly inspired by a game

46:49

we made where you had to like

46:51

catch birds out of the sky in

46:53

a jam. And also partly inspired by

46:55

the fishing mini game in original crash

46:57

lands. And neither of those mini games.

46:59

We would probably ever think about like

47:01

making it into a game in and

47:04

of themselves, but they're fun. They're fun

47:06

little things to interact with. And so

47:08

we just roll them in as part

47:10

of a larger game. Yeah, there's some

47:12

distinction. I think someone who's talking about

47:14

it's like a distinction between toys and

47:16

games, right? Which like a toy is

47:18

just like it's an interesting concept and

47:20

concept like. but a game that is

47:23

where the loops come in. And I

47:25

think that's always the tricky one. A

47:27

game is an integration problem. It's like

47:29

merging all these toys and ideas into

47:31

one. But you can also take the

47:33

approach of like the UFO 50 where

47:35

you just make 50 toys and then

47:37

say this is a game, right? Yeah,

47:40

that's true. A toy chest, you know.

47:42

Yeah, I actually never played anything because

47:44

it's like. that looks like stuff that

47:46

I'm into. But that was very successful.

47:48

Yeah. That's a project. Well, I mean,

47:50

in a way that, and if we

47:52

think about like, and crashants too, we've

47:54

got stuff like, the combat is a

47:56

completely different thing from the combat is

47:59

a completely different thing from. gardening, which

48:01

is completely different fishing, which is completely

48:03

different from the quests and stories, you

48:05

know. Yeah, I mean, most games are

48:07

actually a collection of toys that co-edare.

48:09

It's just a toy box that works

48:11

really well together, you know, bunch of

48:13

fun things to play with that all talk

48:16

to each other. It's like having lots

48:18

of Legos that you then can, like,

48:20

you know, mix and match. Speaking of

48:22

Legos, this is definitely a Don Secreter.

48:24

Go for it. But I just saw

48:26

yesterday. that Lego released a new kit

48:29

for like a T-Rex skeleton. It's like

48:31

part of their drastic part, set or

48:33

whatever. But it's one of their like

48:35

realistic e kind of models and

48:37

it's like three feet long. It's just

48:40

this huge, delightful like 3,000-piece T-Rex skeleton.

48:42

And I was like... It goes live

48:44

in March. No doubt, let me sell

48:46

it instantly, I want to get it.

48:49

But that's one of those few things.

48:51

How much is it? It's like 250

48:53

bucks, because you know, Legos. That's it.

48:56

I mean, yeah, exactly. That was my

48:58

thought too. I was like, it's something

49:00

worse. I figured out it'd be 10

49:03

times that much. I know. But yeah,

49:05

so just so people know that that

49:07

is I think that it's going

49:09

to exist in the world. of

49:11

you mean like those little tie

49:13

tires? They produce the most tires

49:15

out of any. I think it

49:17

might be stretching the definition of

49:19

tires, but I mean they're rubber,

49:21

you know, they they're tires. Tiny.

49:23

But kind of like the more

49:25

the more I learned about Lego

49:27

and kind of like what they've

49:29

had to do because they were

49:31

a case study and lots of

49:34

business school things because because they

49:36

make these tiny little fucking plastic

49:38

bricks. and they make billions

49:40

and trillions of them. And

49:42

those little bricks need to

49:44

perfectly fit together. Yeah, the

49:46

precision is so high. Even

49:48

when you've had them for 30

49:50

years, you can take a Lego

49:52

brick from your own childhood and

49:54

stick it onto a Lego brick

49:56

that you bought today and they

49:58

will fit perfectly together. right? Which is

50:00

honestly it's like a compared to you know

50:03

like a like a cyber truck whose wheel

50:05

just falls off because you drove it. You

50:07

know, like different kind of engineering, you know,

50:09

the amount of engineering they put into, yeah,

50:12

into something that's arguably a, it's just a,

50:14

it's just a toy, so like, who cares,

50:16

right? But they really give a shit about

50:19

the engineering of their stuff. If you're really,

50:21

if you're interested in learning just cool stuff

50:23

about like people solving interesting problems, look into

50:25

Lego, because a little people are nuts. You

50:28

know, people are like extremely serious about what

50:30

are at. at the end of the day

50:32

like essentially whimsical things so whether it's making

50:35

video games. Yeah like it's what we try

50:37

to do right is we try to apply

50:39

the same degree of rigor to the the

50:41

technological product of games that we make right.

50:44

Yeah I love it I think it's always

50:46

so fun seeing that contrast where it's like

50:48

you make those against silly but it's very

50:50

intense putting it together. It's like it's something

50:53

that we we I don't know it's it's

50:55

come up in a while in the podcast

50:57

but like in the earlier days of us

51:00

doing this of us doing this. Yeah. So

51:02

much of what we heard from other people

51:04

was just like kind of disbelief that we

51:06

were following this path because it's just games.

51:09

Who cares? Couldn't we all be doing something

51:11

more worthwhile, you know? And meanwhile, those people

51:13

are like selling insurance or they're like working

51:16

in banks, stealing people's money, you know? Like,

51:18

the seriousness aspect of it is like most

51:20

things that people actually do for a living

51:22

aren't actually, they have the veneer of seriousness,

51:25

but they don't need to be happening. Really?

51:27

They're absurd. Yeah, it's actually absurd. Yeah, it's

51:29

just what we're used to and we're used

51:31

to like, you know, we're used to applying

51:34

this like, oh yeah, well, this is important

51:36

because it has a place in society that

51:38

mediates some kind of a thing without asking,

51:41

like, but what if the thing wasn't even

51:43

happening? Would that be? I will say it

51:45

was funny. I don't know if you guys

51:47

felt this, but like, as we transitioned out

51:50

of our, like, like, as we transitioned out.

51:52

general commentary we got from people has shifted

51:54

where it went from before we had. in

51:57

one way, in some ways, before we had

51:59

much success at all, which, you know, people

52:01

are always gonna shit on you when you're

52:03

trying to do something new. So in that

52:06

one case, but also just kind of even

52:08

after the original game came out and stuff,

52:10

that, like, shouldn't you be using your talents

52:12

for something more, something more? that other people

52:15

enjoyed, you know, and I don't know if

52:17

it's just an age thing, because it's like,

52:19

you know, most people were talking to at

52:22

that point, we're in their 20s, we're else.

52:24

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, I think

52:26

once you're, once you're talking to people who

52:28

are now like in the middle of the

52:31

grind, you know, yeah. Well, but also if

52:33

you, if everybody who made creative products, uh,

52:35

film. books, music, games, you know, TV shows,

52:38

whatever. If all those people were like, you

52:40

know what, actually, we're gonna take our talents

52:42

and put it into something useful. What kind

52:44

of fucking world would that be? You know,

52:47

where, hey, there's no more football on TV,

52:49

there's no more concerts to go to, there's

52:51

no, you know, there's nothing. We all just

52:53

go, uh, work at insurance companies. We need

52:56

a diversity of things happening because it keeps

52:58

everything interesting. Here's the thing. We were as

53:00

a species playing long before we were working.

53:03

So I'm gonna go with the, I'm gonna

53:05

go with the most primal aspect here, you

53:07

know. Well, we're always working, but long before

53:09

we had jobs. That's for sure. That's a

53:12

relatively new concept, you know. Yeah, so. Yeah,

53:14

I think it's probably a good good place

53:16

to hang our hat for this episode. Yeah,

53:19

I think it's basically making a serious effort

53:21

to do to make fun things, you know,

53:23

that's, yeah, serious fun. Have, be serious about

53:25

your fun. Yeah. We'd like to thank our

53:28

producers Fat Bard and Sama Acosta for putting

53:30

the podcast together and thanks to. our

53:32

community moderators who keep

53:34

our to running to

53:37

get more involved To the

53:39

butterscotch community. Just go

53:41

to the Butterscotch community we

53:44

have links to the podcast

53:46

up way for you

53:48

to donate and links

53:50

to the podcast archives.

53:53

And if you haven't

53:55

yet, head on over

53:57

to steam and give to

54:00

the podcast get over to

54:02

the app store and

54:04

pre and give get over

54:06

to Google a and

54:09

pre get over to The App And

54:11

all those things will

54:13

help boost the game

54:16

on launch and help

54:18

us have a successful,

54:20

And successful release. mean,

54:22

appreciate it. game on you

54:25

all for listening. us We'll

54:27

see you next week.

54:29

release. Yeah.