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learn more. Hi I'm Alexa Ray

1:50

Korea and this is the Game

1:52

Maker's notebook podcast. Today I spoke

1:54

to Anne Douglas and Nate Austin

1:56

the lead development team behind Wildermith.

1:59

Now Wildermith is billed as a

2:01

character-driven procedurally generated game which on

2:03

the surface sounds a little incongruous

2:05

but I promise it works if

2:07

you love deep-designed shop talk and

2:09

also some advice on how to

2:11

get into the industry. This is

2:14

the conversation for you. I hope

2:16

you enjoy it as much as

2:18

I enjoy having it. Welcome

2:26

to The Game Maker's Notebook,

2:28

a podcast featuring a series

2:30

of in-depth one-on-one conversations between

2:32

game makers providing a thoughtful,

2:34

intimate perspective on the business

2:37

and craft of interactive entertainment.

2:39

The Game Maker's Notebook is

2:41

presented by the Academy of

2:43

Interactive Arts and Sciences, a

2:45

member-driven organization dedicated to the

2:47

recognition and advancement of

2:49

interactive entertainment. So,

2:55

like, beginning question, how did

2:57

you get here? How did

2:59

you get into game development?

3:03

Gosh. I'll start, I guess, I

3:05

always wanted to do it.

3:07

I started making little tiny

3:09

games in GW Basic when

3:11

I was small. Our dad

3:13

got a family computer, which

3:16

was kind of a big

3:18

deal back then. And I

3:20

just started making a little

3:22

text adventure games.

3:24

jumped into the industry officially

3:27

a couple years after college.

3:29

I was able to get

3:31

in doing some QA stuff

3:33

and then eventually worked my

3:35

way into a programming interview

3:38

and was able to go from

3:40

there. What do you mean, warmed your

3:42

way? Can you elaborate? Oh, well,

3:44

I didn't have a CS degree.

3:47

I wasn't really qualified in a

3:49

prior experience, but you

3:51

know, I had this QA. stuff

3:53

on my resume and I, you know,

3:56

contacted the person and,

3:58

you know, asked. nicely

4:00

to be given a chance and

4:02

then passed the test basically. That's

4:05

not warming at all. That's cool

4:07

though. Yeah, I am. I did

4:09

not grow up with video games

4:11

much. We didn't really have them

4:14

in the house or whatever, but

4:16

I went to school for art,

4:18

for visual art, and then after

4:20

that. There was the terrifying period

4:23

of, okay, you need to go

4:25

get a job now. And it

4:27

happened to be that a little

4:29

casual game startup was the first

4:32

place I ended up, which is

4:34

actually where I met Nate. And

4:36

then from there, the next job

4:38

after that was a games job

4:41

because our boss had previously worked

4:43

at another games company. And so

4:45

a lot of it was kind

4:47

of hopping between companies based on.

4:50

people I knew who had previously

4:52

worked there who could recommend for

4:54

jobs. And so got most of

4:56

like my game industry, like gaming

4:59

experience inside the job as opposed

5:01

to as opposed to being really

5:03

familiar with gaming and then trying

5:05

to make a job out of

5:08

it. So it was kind of

5:10

backwards for me. Interesting. About you

5:12

Doug? Yeah, I didn't plan to

5:14

get into games necessarily. I went

5:17

to school for creative writing. and

5:19

had a concept of I'll do

5:21

something I'll do something with writing

5:23

but I wasn't super like prescriptive

5:26

on what that would be and

5:28

this kind of just happened because

5:30

Nate just wanted to make games

5:32

and I was like okay well

5:35

I'll chip in in this little

5:37

way this was like right after

5:39

college and sort of like floated

5:41

around other things and Then sort

5:44

of just the momentum swept me

5:46

up and I ended up finishing

5:48

this game with them. You are

5:50

all, this is a family business,

5:53

essentially. What are the benefits challenges?

5:55

Like what's it like working with

5:57

your immediate family on something as

5:59

intricate as a video game? I

6:02

think basically it's great that you

6:04

start off with this enormous shared

6:06

vocabulary and shared understanding. tone and

6:08

feel that you're aiming for, we

6:10

can communicate that kind of stuff

6:13

really quickly where I think that,

6:15

or my experience is that like

6:17

with other people you often have

6:19

to like explain and explain and

6:22

over explain really exactly what you're

6:24

going for. So I think we

6:26

were lucky to really hit that

6:28

right away. Yeah, you guys had

6:31

all grown up watching the same

6:33

movies, playing the same movies. hung

6:35

out as well at your parents'

6:37

house, I was like watching, yeah,

6:40

watching everybody play X-com and all

6:42

that. So we had a, yeah,

6:44

we had all that time together.

6:46

And it was also, you had

6:49

a lot of, you could talk

6:51

about things a lot more casually

6:53

or during, you know, hopefully we

6:55

didn't annoy your parents too much

6:58

by talking a lot of game

7:00

design at various family get-togethers, but

7:02

it was always something that was

7:04

really fun to chew on with.

7:07

you know, with family that was

7:09

going to be around anyway. And

7:11

you didn't have to feel like

7:13

in order to move an idea

7:16

forward, we have to schedule a

7:18

formal meeting, and we have one

7:20

hour to talk about it, and

7:22

it was just a lot more

7:25

free form than that thing. And

7:27

really let us do a lot

7:29

more thinking and a lot more

7:31

iterating in a more condensed time

7:34

period. It's a much better Thanksgiving

7:36

conversation than like politics. Oh, here's

7:38

the, yeah, to talk about all

7:40

the ideas that you have and

7:43

to sort of like push them

7:45

back and forth and create little

7:47

concepts. games that you maybe never

7:49

end up going with, but ultimately,

7:52

like, you just have a lot

7:54

of ideas in your shared backlog

7:56

as a family, I think. Are

7:58

you, I'm wondering, are your parents

8:01

very, are they gamers, are they

8:03

into video games? I know every

8:05

family gathering, I have to re-explain

8:07

what I do over and over

8:09

and over to all of my

8:12

family members, but I'm wondering because

8:14

you were all working together, was

8:16

it maybe a little bit easier

8:18

there? Our parents are, yeah, we're

8:21

going to play all sorts of

8:23

stuff. I don't think he's played

8:25

our game. What? It's on the

8:27

switch now. But it just came

8:30

out on, yeah. So you might,

8:32

you might actually. But yeah, he

8:34

plays all sorts of stuff these

8:36

days. Your parents, not at all.

8:39

No, I had to explain to

8:41

her. We'd been working on this

8:43

game for probably eight years. And

8:45

I was talking about a boss

8:48

fight. She says, what is a

8:50

boss fight. Yeah, I think I

8:52

have a lot of memories with

8:54

my mom of just like of

8:57

playing Nintendo where as a kid

8:59

So yeah, we kind of grew

9:01

up with that and it's nice

9:03

to have that shared touchstone Yeah,

9:06

I'm I'm jealous actually my parents

9:08

have no idea still Yeah, if

9:10

we made it supportive though, even

9:12

if they don't know the ends

9:15

of the outs like our parents

9:17

were my parents and we're always

9:19

super super supportive Even though, you

9:21

know, we don't know exactly what

9:24

it is, but you love that

9:26

you're doing it. Yeah. So you've

9:28

mentioned, you've mentioned Xcom, and you've

9:30

mentioned Xcom in some previous interviews,

9:33

you mentioned growing up in Nintendo,

9:35

digging into your well of inspiration,

9:37

I want to talk about the

9:39

sort of narrative of Wilder Meth,

9:42

and then get into the mechanics.

9:44

What were the big pieces of

9:46

inspiration for your meta story? Yeah,

9:48

a lot of it. It's hard

9:51

to separate the mechanic. in the

9:53

narrative, because I think they're super

9:55

intertwined. Like for instance, when you

9:57

say meta story, I think of

10:00

how Wildermith is just sort of

10:02

about the fabric of storytelling and

10:04

about how stories themselves, like stories

10:06

of one hero tend to be

10:09

very varied and very like, oh,

10:11

he was here, but also he

10:13

was here at doing this and

10:15

doing this and also. She was

10:17

here doing this, but at the

10:20

same time, didn't like that person

10:22

that she was allies with, but

10:24

actually no, she did. Like, there's

10:26

a lot of that storytelling if

10:29

you go back into like world

10:31

myth, right? Into myths of, you

10:33

know, like Greek myths and whatever.

10:35

And so bringing that stuff to

10:38

life was a marriage of the

10:40

mechanics where you have our legacy

10:42

system where you kind of like

10:44

have this hero that goes on

10:47

this long adventure, but then oops

10:49

you reboot them back to their

10:51

like... sort of shield days like

10:53

what if they went a different

10:56

way and so Wildermith I think

10:58

like from the start was sort

11:00

of about that about the how

11:02

simultaneous iterations of a of a

11:05

story can coexist alongside each other

11:07

and like one doesn't have to

11:09

be more true than the other

11:11

they're all sort of true. Did

11:14

so for you was that something

11:16

that came first or was it

11:18

the mechanics because I'm kind of

11:20

hearing that you maybe those things

11:23

kind of came together in the

11:25

beginning like together like those were

11:27

ideated on together? I think it

11:29

was the mechanics first as far

11:32

as like and then once you

11:34

sit down to write that story

11:36

like well how does this make

11:38

sense that we're keep rebooting these

11:41

this same batch of heroes like

11:43

it makes sense if storytelling itself

11:45

is like if reality and storytelling

11:47

and storytelling are the same Yeah,

11:50

we from playing X-Con week, you

11:52

have your favorite soldiers that you

11:54

tell stories about and you're like,

11:56

and it's it's kind of bittersweet

11:59

or sad when the game ends

12:01

and that's that character is lost

12:03

forever or they die, even if

12:05

they die in a really heroic

12:08

way and they're lost forever. And

12:10

so we wanted to really soften

12:12

that and say, no, you get

12:14

to keep playing with your favorite

12:16

people. That was that was the

12:19

goal from early on and then

12:21

yeah, like, like you said, it

12:23

kind of. led to examining the

12:25

nature of these meta stories. Yeah,

12:28

which hopefully allows you to feel

12:30

like you can get a little

12:32

more attached to them. You can

12:34

start making your own headcan and

12:37

you can have your favorites. You

12:39

can, you know, you don't have

12:41

to, you don't have to guard

12:43

your heart because you know, they're

12:46

going to be gone in four

12:48

hours and like, well, I better

12:50

get ready for the next crew.

12:52

But, you know, I have favorites

12:55

that have on for, you know,

12:57

eight years or whatever. So it's

12:59

pretty cool. Yeah, so you have

13:01

you have that that meta story

13:04

with your messaging and the idea

13:06

of the heroes and the legacy

13:08

and then moment to moment interactions

13:10

and then Interwoven is sort of

13:13

your The overarching sort of the

13:15

narrative glue that brings everything together

13:17

which is the the battle against

13:19

evil and your Gorgens and Stuff

13:22

like that. What was the inspiration

13:24

for that part of your story?

13:26

I think early on Oh yeah,

13:28

early on we didn't have a

13:31

lot of that. Okay. We didn't

13:33

know we were going to have,

13:35

you know, those campaigns basically that

13:37

came a bit later. I think

13:40

we were sort of working on

13:42

this gameplay loop of battle, battle,

13:44

battle, battle, slightly harder battle at

13:46

the end, and you're done kind

13:49

of a thing, but... But when

13:51

we were talking to people, we

13:53

were, you know, talking to our

13:55

play testers and all that, it

13:58

seemed like people were, they were

14:00

really hungry for a big story.

14:02

The big story, the thing that

14:04

interesting tells you what you're doing

14:07

here that's slightly. more than just

14:09

there is a monster, you know,

14:11

go kill it. It's like, well,

14:13

what is the monster doing? What

14:16

is it trying to accomplish? How

14:18

are you gonna, yeah. Yeah, and

14:20

I'd say that our, like, I

14:22

think our starting point on that

14:24

too is just wanting to tell

14:27

human stories, personal stories, like small

14:29

stories within the context of fantasy,

14:31

which is always so epic and

14:33

always so like, elevated language wise

14:36

and so on. We wanted to

14:38

tell like common people stories that

14:40

were colloquial and that were conversational

14:42

and that like delved into personal

14:45

relationships and personal psyches and just

14:47

tell really personal stories within a

14:49

fantasy context and so that all

14:51

is there in the day-to-day events

14:54

like the regular events that happen

14:56

and the conversations that happened between

14:58

characters within those and then yeah

15:00

like they were saying it. became

15:03

sort of a necessity to have,

15:05

there has to be some overarching

15:07

plot, there has to be something

15:09

that takes you from here to

15:12

there. We always wanted to be

15:14

super, like the plot to be

15:16

character driven as much as possible.

15:18

That was always a huge point

15:21

of emphasis. And so once we

15:23

brought in. Which is a challenge

15:25

when you have a procedurally generated

15:27

cast, each of whom can die

15:30

any time. It was a huge

15:32

challenge, yeah. an RPG where there's

15:34

a lot of player customization, there's

15:36

a lot of like player input

15:39

into what makes these characters who

15:41

they are. So if you can

15:43

build an engine that the player

15:45

can put their characters into that

15:48

engine and out will come a

15:50

story that writes them into it,

15:52

like, yeah, it's... Sorry, I think

15:54

I got lost in thinking about

15:57

that, but no, that's that was

15:59

um, that was great I thought

16:01

I put I picked up what

16:03

you were throwing down I did

16:06

want to ask about the fact

16:08

that you know, the game is

16:10

described build as a character driven

16:12

story, but it is very much

16:15

procedurally, procedurally generated. And on the

16:17

surface, those things can sound incongruous.

16:19

So what was development of that

16:21

system like from a design perspective,

16:23

from a writing perspective, making sure

16:26

that you were creating something that

16:28

worked when it was procedurally generated

16:30

while still maintaining these like very,

16:32

very, person-to-person driven moments. What was

16:35

that balance like? We kind of

16:37

developed a sort of guiding light

16:39

over the course of working on

16:41

the game, which was that everything

16:44

in the game contributes to creating

16:46

iconic memorable characters, and particularly visually,

16:48

as well as narratively. When

16:51

you get gear it shows up

16:53

if you're wounded you could lose

16:55

a limb and then like everything

16:58

that happens to your character is

17:00

like recorded in the history and

17:02

and wherever possible Visually it's recorded

17:04

to and it all accumulates So

17:07

we kind of I mean like

17:09

we didn't start out with this

17:11

notion, but I I had just

17:13

I was working at right games

17:16

previously on League of Legends And

17:18

one of the things I love

17:20

about that game is just how

17:22

like broad the cast champions is

17:25

like how they're each so distinct

17:27

and memorable on their own and

17:29

how many of them there are

17:31

and how you can remember each

17:34

one. So that was something that

17:36

I really wanted to capture as

17:38

much as possible, but with a

17:40

procedural system. And so basically, I

17:43

mean, it came to a point

17:45

where like every. gameplay decision, every

17:47

design decision we made, we could

17:49

look at it through that lens

17:52

of does this encourage unique memorable

17:54

characters or not. And when it

17:56

came time to say what sorts

17:58

of things are happening to them,

18:01

there's the, you may have heard

18:03

us talk about the, the library

18:05

of plays concept, where it's yeah,

18:07

you have a bank of these

18:10

events that have all been written,

18:12

maybe with certain characters in mind

18:14

or maybe more general. And depending

18:16

on who you've got in your

18:19

party, if you've got some lovers,

18:21

if you've got some rivals, if

18:23

you've got a wolfman, if you've

18:25

got whatever, different things might come

18:28

up, different events are available to

18:30

pick from for the game to

18:32

pick from as you're going through

18:34

there. you'll get events that feel

18:37

like they fit this party in

18:39

general. And that was that was

18:41

just a years long. Yeah, building

18:43

up that library. Yeah, I think

18:46

like and the process is for

18:48

us at least was very trial

18:50

and error. It was very just

18:52

like, let's put this in and

18:55

see if it's working. See if

18:57

I feel attached to this character.

18:59

See if they're like speaking with

19:02

their own voice or whether they're

19:04

like whether it's janky to go

19:06

from this event to that event

19:08

and suddenly they're like acting like

19:11

a totally different person. Yeah. It

19:13

was a lot about smoothing those

19:15

lines. Yeah, our technology, like our

19:17

sort of nested tags that we

19:20

use, the whole like system for

19:22

writing comics evolved really enormously from

19:24

this very janky like editing weird

19:26

text and markup manually to like

19:29

the full blown comic editor that

19:31

we have now that has syntax

19:33

highlighting. crazy features. So from a

19:35

long time, sorry, no, no, um,

19:38

from a, so from a rating

19:40

standpoint, how do you ensure that

19:42

your moments, moment dialogue is is

19:44

consistent, that it makes sense, that

19:47

moments are popping off in a

19:49

way that makes sense, that the

19:51

way that characters are interacting with

19:53

each other makes sense, when everything

19:56

around it is procedurally generated. It

19:58

sounds like, based on the possibility

20:00

space in Wilder Myth, writing everything

20:02

bespoke would have just been like...

20:05

millions, like millions and millions of

20:07

lines. So how do you get

20:09

it? It is solidly over over

20:11

million. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, for

20:14

sure. Yeah, it's, there's a lot

20:16

of words. Okay. I think it's

20:18

like to talk about how to

20:20

do it, I suppose, is like.

20:24

Look for times when, like look

20:26

for the times when someone doesn't

20:28

sound like themselves and like make

20:30

an exception for that, just in

20:32

every single case. So like a

20:35

generic line might be like, let's

20:37

go, let's, let's go in, right,

20:39

to the cave, to the dungeon,

20:41

to the whatever dangerous situation, right?

20:43

Who wouldn't say that? A character

20:46

who is a little cowardly or

20:48

a character who is a bit

20:50

of a loner, right, isn't gonna

20:52

be as like collectivist, right? So

20:54

it's kind of just. looking for

20:57

places where this could be jarring

20:59

if the character has these aspects

21:01

and making an exception, just like

21:03

drawing a slash, if they're this,

21:05

say this, otherwise, say the more

21:08

generic line. It's like the basic

21:10

concept that pretty much is used

21:12

everywhere throughout the game. So we

21:14

can split on personality, we can

21:16

split on relationship status, we can

21:19

split on anything that the game

21:21

records basically had. introduce lines that

21:23

talk specifically to those scenarios. It's

21:25

really cool. It's really cool. As

21:27

a writer, it's really freeing and

21:30

you can get lost in it.

21:32

You can get lost in writing

21:34

all the different nuances of it,

21:36

but it's also so engaging to

21:38

do. I think like the tooling

21:41

is what made Wilder Myth possible.

21:43

Like having all these things at

21:45

the writers dispose all these tools

21:47

to to make these conversations feel

21:49

natural and and have like the

21:52

ability to just subtly nuance even

21:54

a word even a capitalization even

21:56

a like you know all the

21:58

way down to like the faces

22:00

changing the faces on the characters

22:03

there like I think the tooling

22:05

is the key to making it

22:07

possible and making it doable to

22:09

making it not like a terrible

22:11

suffering task that you have to

22:14

yeah one of the lessons of

22:16

about tools that I've heard is

22:18

that when you have better tools,

22:20

the work doesn't necessarily go faster,

22:22

but you do better work. Right.

22:25

You're able to do better work.

22:27

Right. I will say, yeah, the

22:29

tools evolved very slowly, and I

22:31

think we really benefited from an

22:33

extremely long, slow death cycle, which

22:36

I wouldn't necessarily recommend to anybody

22:38

else. But it was just where

22:40

we were in our lives. where

22:42

it was just the two of

22:44

us for years, just like, going

22:47

very, very slowly. And so, but

22:49

what it meant was that we

22:51

were able to get in some

22:53

content, kind of must play with

22:55

it for a while and say,

22:58

well, what if it was a

23:00

little better? Well, we could make

23:02

a tool that did this and

23:04

that. And we just after several

23:06

rounds of that, it got better

23:09

and better and better. So the

23:11

point where suddenly we could see

23:13

where we were going. Yeah. Like

23:15

that helps a lot where I

23:17

think as if we had been

23:20

on a shorter time scale, it'd

23:22

be like, well, we got a

23:24

ship. Because what it is, let's

23:26

go. So we were going to

23:28

ship that thing in 2016. We

23:31

have some blog posts on the

23:33

deaf blog that are like, yeah,

23:35

just a couple more things and

23:37

I think we're ready to go.

23:39

Five years later, yeah. Yeah, actually

23:42

ship. I really, I would just

23:44

love to. I would love to

23:46

like take take Wilder Myth and

23:48

like do the equivalent of like

23:50

popping the hood to like look

23:53

under look underneath it. I imagine

23:55

that the sort of the way

23:57

that you have set up all.

23:59

of the lines and events to

24:01

be triggered by your library? Like, what

24:04

does that look like if I'm like

24:06

going in and looking at it? How

24:08

did you organize your data? Like what

24:10

things did you tie together to make

24:13

sure they popped and what were a

24:15

little more bespoke solutions? Well,

24:17

when you go into the comic editor,

24:19

you'll see, the first thing you'll see

24:21

is just along the left side, just

24:24

a massive list of events, just that

24:26

isn't the game and a bunch that

24:28

are not in the game. And when you

24:30

click into one of those events, then

24:33

the next thing you'll see in the

24:35

top left corner or somewhere is, how

24:37

do we know? What makes this pop? Like,

24:39

this requires, you know, a loner and somebody

24:41

who... Is their rival? Is their rival? As

24:43

well as, you know, here are the people

24:45

we absolutely need. Here's some

24:47

people who are optional, but it

24:50

would be interesting if a skeleton

24:52

is also there or something like...

24:54

The idea of the things they could

24:56

do or whatever. Always interesting. Oh,

24:58

skeletons are always interesting. Yeah, so

25:00

that's how the random events work that

25:02

way, where we just have a huge

25:04

bank of them. And we have a

25:06

bunch that are really wide open, so

25:08

they can happen to any party, and

25:10

those have to be written so that

25:12

they work for anybody. And then we

25:14

have also a lot that are much

25:16

more specific, where they fit more

25:19

specific circumstances. And there was just

25:21

a point at which we reached

25:23

a critical mass of content, where

25:25

suddenly it started to work. Whereas

25:27

like before that, it's like, okay, you

25:29

get this event again. You're gonna get

25:32

the same five, you know, ten every

25:34

time. But yeah, you reach that critical

25:36

mass of content and it starts to

25:38

feel really like, like, this magical

25:40

transformation takes place. And then the

25:42

campaigns, they work a little bit

25:44

differently because that's a more linear

25:46

setup. But that's only like one

25:48

out of every four or five

25:50

events as a campaign event. Those.

25:53

Yes, you are basically on a

25:55

rail. Maybe there's one choice or

25:57

two choices, but you're going to

25:59

see all these. and that's when you

26:01

knew, okay, this is working really

26:03

well. You mentioned, going back to

26:05

your comment about you approached, you

26:08

have found a critical mass, and

26:10

that's when you knew, okay, this

26:12

was, this is working, everything is

26:14

working, and you also mentioned getting

26:16

repeat events. As you were building,

26:19

as you were, as you were

26:21

testing, so I'd love to, like,

26:23

know more about that, like, the

26:25

story of that process from, okay,

26:27

we've ideated some events, they're still

26:29

maybe too repetitive, we have to

26:32

add more, where do you, like,

26:34

where do you reach from when

26:36

you're coming up with these events,

26:38

and where did you find that

26:40

critical mass, like, when were you

26:43

like, all right, this is popping

26:45

off, maybe we add a little

26:47

more, maybe we stop here, like,

26:49

like, like, It's sort of endless.

26:51

Oh my gosh. Okay. There was

26:54

definitely a point. I think when

26:56

he's talking about a critical mass,

26:58

I think it's that identifiable point

27:00

when during development when it actually

27:02

became fun for us to play

27:05

for us to play and like

27:07

see a story develop and feel

27:09

like the story was organic for

27:11

the characters that we were, you

27:13

know, pushing through them. Yeah, I

27:16

was going to say, well, deciding

27:18

how long a playthrough was going

27:20

to be. We have right now,

27:22

we have three chapter and five

27:24

chapter playthroughs. Most of the campaigns

27:26

are also five chapter. And you're

27:29

deciding how big is this map

27:31

going to be? How many events

27:33

are you going to be seeing

27:35

in a typical playthrough? And I

27:37

think that was kind of changing.

27:40

And that was up in the

27:42

air for a while, too. So

27:44

those two things kind of had

27:46

to. Now I can settle in

27:48

on like 15 to 20 random

27:51

events per playthrough and then if

27:53

you've got you know twice that

27:55

number in your bank then you're

27:57

starting to get somewhere. Yeah. I

27:59

think we were pretty good about

28:02

we didn't we try not to

28:04

repeat events within our test playthroughs.

28:06

I think there were what we

28:08

will call fallback events where it

28:10

just says you approach stony hill

28:12

creek or whatever it is and

28:15

it just shows the heroes they're

28:17

walking that's your fallback and so

28:19

it would just you know if

28:21

you ran out of events for

28:23

that particular group you would just

28:26

see that but if they walked

28:28

over to the swamp suddenly there

28:30

might be something available in the

28:32

was coming up but it wasn't

28:34

you know it wasn't disruptive to

28:37

a play test or anything like

28:39

that. Yeah and when I say

28:41

it's endless I think I'm saying

28:43

it's just it's always hungry for

28:45

more there's never a time when

28:48

there's enough we never reached a

28:50

point where someone where nobody was

28:52

ever going to comment that they

28:54

got the same story again it's

28:56

broken. Truly a beast that must

28:59

be fed. Well, there's this thing

29:01

you notice that I've noticed in

29:03

games like Hades or Disco Elysium

29:05

where they're both really good about

29:07

never repeating anything. And I think

29:09

that is way more powerful than

29:12

we usually give a credit for

29:14

as game tabs. Yep. Right. We

29:16

never show the same panel twice.

29:18

We never show the same panel

29:20

twice. We never we were thinking

29:23

about like, um. halfway

29:25

through some we're thinking about like

29:27

nPC barks basically would they say

29:29

things during battle but you'd have

29:32

to make so many of it

29:34

makes so many because depending on

29:36

how long someone plays that's yeah

29:38

it's just a lot of content

29:40

and it I feel like it's

29:43

yeah it's kind of immersion breaking

29:45

when you're walking with the nPC

29:47

and they just kind of keep

29:49

saying the same thing over and

29:52

over during battle it's yeah that

29:54

away even if they just don't

29:56

say anything that's that's almost better

29:58

than you can recognize how it's

30:00

made less magical when this character

30:03

that seems to have their own

30:05

specific life suddenly says the same

30:07

thing that my other character and

30:09

the other playthrough said. Just as

30:12

a coincidence of like, oh, this

30:14

line falls up falls with their

30:16

personality stat, so they're going to

30:18

say that line the same exact

30:20

way as that other character. It's

30:23

like we have, I can appreciate

30:25

how that is, that throws off

30:27

your sense of immersion and throws

30:29

off your sense of wonder like,

30:31

wow, this character is my own

30:34

and unique and yeah, alive. From

30:36

a still in this vein, from

30:38

a writing standpoint, because everything is

30:40

organized by events, so you have

30:43

these events, you have your campaign

30:45

events, but everything is procedural. So

30:47

how everything gets picked to come

30:49

together is different. From a writing

30:51

standpoint, when people talk about writing

30:54

for games, it's kind of two

30:56

big schools of thought are, oh,

30:58

I'm writing this linear adventure. Here's

31:00

my big script. Or it's something

31:02

like a branching, something branching like

31:05

a Baldur's Gate or a Massifactor

31:07

or a Dragon Age. But for

31:09

you, because this was so many

31:11

moving parts, you're not writing one

31:14

script and then handing it in.

31:16

You kind of have to keep

31:18

all of these things in your

31:20

head at once while you're writing.

31:22

So what was that process like

31:25

writing for a procedurally generated narrative

31:27

game? It's tricky. I think there's

31:29

a mode when you're writing an

31:31

individual event, a random event. And

31:34

then I think- Which is pretty

31:36

self-contained. Yeah, usually very self-contained. You

31:38

can't, you can't have a giant

31:40

secret reveal, you know, in a

31:42

random event, you know. every event

31:45

after that isn't going to reference

31:47

it necessarily. Right. So you can't

31:49

really reference stuff outside and you

31:51

can't really set up stuff. It

31:53

has to be self-contained. Yeah. Versus

31:56

a campaign. Yeah, I think there's

31:58

a whole, like a traditional mode,

32:00

which Doug can probably talk about

32:02

when you write a campaign, which

32:05

is much more about like pacing

32:07

in a middle and an end,

32:09

the characters. arcs and is it

32:11

like do a bit more of

32:13

that like television episodes kind of

32:16

a little bit yeah that everything

32:18

has to end up the same

32:20

way that it started off basically

32:22

I mean not entirely true because

32:24

you can apply consequences to characters

32:27

yeah and that will like got

32:29

a mortal wound yeah at all

32:31

these these two fell in love

32:33

talk about that yeah you can

32:36

do stuff like that that changes

32:38

the characters and that's the strength

32:40

of the system But you can't

32:42

like change the plot which is

32:44

weird Yeah, I think Ultimately just

32:47

keeping in mind where your values

32:49

are as a writer or as

32:51

a as a creator as a

32:53

narrative designer even right where our

32:56

values are on bringing these characters

32:58

themselves to life and telling this

33:00

stories of these characters and having

33:02

those stories arise from those characters

33:04

So keeping that in mind just

33:07

what is a story that would

33:09

come up from these from a

33:11

character within this world and trying

33:13

to tell that story is sort

33:15

of how I would come up

33:18

with an event right and a

33:20

choice would be maybe if I

33:22

was playing a D&D campaign what

33:24

are the things that the PCs

33:27

would elect to do right so

33:29

one of them's gonna attack the

33:31

MPC one of them's gonna like

33:33

talk to them, you know, there

33:35

could be another option based on

33:38

some specific aspect of that character.

33:40

So all of it was very

33:42

much based on telling stories that

33:44

spoke to the specificity and the

33:47

humanity of the characters themselves. And

33:49

that's true of the of the

33:51

campaign plots too, where I would

33:53

come up with characters first. And

33:55

the story would have to arise

33:58

from what those characters wanted. So

34:00

like this one has this ambition

34:02

to make a dragon or something.

34:04

and the other ones have different

34:06

ambitions or different places they're coming

34:09

from that interact with that goal

34:11

to eventually lead to a climax,

34:13

a battle. I think it's also

34:15

tricky trying to feel like the

34:18

good guys in a world where

34:20

monsters have language and monsters, like

34:22

have feelings and stuff. That was

34:24

also a thing that was that

34:26

we were balancing. sort of all

34:29

of these really interesting messages and

34:31

tone and things like what you

34:33

just said having something for players

34:35

to think about as they're going

34:37

through your world. Did you did

34:40

you have like a little brainstorm

34:42

room or writer's room for this

34:44

or have you was it just

34:46

like the three of you working

34:49

on this very closely? We I

34:51

think the team was all pretty

34:53

open about having conversations sharing ideas.

34:55

There was never a like One

34:59

person has an idea and like

35:01

that's it. There's no conversation. It

35:03

was it was very collaborative at

35:05

a certain stage But once it

35:07

got to the writing to it's

35:09

hard to share that task I

35:11

think when it's Word by word

35:13

when you're like in their writing

35:16

sentences or line by line, right?

35:18

You've got your script that you're

35:20

writing and you're splitting out the

35:22

personalities That part was more solitary

35:24

But a lot of the ideation,

35:26

especially around plots and around like

35:28

what could happen in this game

35:30

mechanics wise and like what tech

35:32

do we have? What tech can

35:34

we like create that will enable

35:36

this story to feel special and

35:38

feel impactful, feel different than if

35:41

I was just playing random events.

35:43

Yeah. the tone of the game

35:45

and the kinds of things we

35:47

want to happen are not happen

35:49

and we also we constrained ourselves

35:51

to a very narrow band of

35:53

player character behavior, which is basically

35:55

heroic. Okay. And the basic reason

35:57

that we did that is because

35:59

we had to, because we couldn't

36:01

write every possible path. If we

36:04

had to, if we had to,

36:06

because we couldn't write every possible

36:08

path. party members like backstabbing each

36:10

other sometimes or like acting in

36:12

like more anti heroish ways and

36:14

you're gonna have that show up

36:16

in one event and then in

36:18

the next event they all have

36:20

to work together again and they're

36:22

not going to reference it because

36:24

yeah we can't cover all of

36:26

those possible bases so it was

36:29

basically it's not because we think

36:31

those are the only valid stories

36:33

is we had to really make

36:35

a hard draw a hard line

36:37

of like, this is how our,

36:39

our heroes act. And because we

36:41

always know that they always act

36:43

that way, we never have to

36:45

account for them having acted in

36:47

different ways. And I mean, you

36:49

can say that like, oh, we

36:51

would give the player a choice

36:54

as to whether they backstabbed them

36:56

or not. But I think we

36:58

learned kind of early on that

37:00

those choices end up feeling kind

37:02

of false when you're actually playing.

37:04

You want the, the player to

37:06

be able to trust that you're

37:08

not gonna. Yank their character from

37:10

them or whatever yeah, and I

37:12

think unless unless you can really

37:14

honor it like unless you can

37:17

really honor Whatever decision it is

37:19

maybe once or twice ever where

37:21

we're like here You're good. This

37:23

is going to remove the hero

37:25

from your pool of heroes for

37:27

this game. Are you sure you

37:29

want to do this kind of

37:31

a thing? Interesting few and far

37:33

between yeah When you were because

37:35

you did release in early access

37:37

and you obviously did testing Did

37:39

you ever did you ever run

37:42

into players that wanted to I

37:44

guess be nasty? or play a

37:46

little rough. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that

37:48

was some, we got that feedback

37:50

from early on. Yeah, what's that

37:52

I would have, let's say, yeah,

37:54

but we had it from the

37:56

very beginning, like taking the game

37:58

to conventions. Oh, I really want

38:00

a character to be evil. It

38:02

just, just was an impossible ask.

38:05

Yeah, and I think that's a

38:07

common story too, where it's like,

38:09

you want to do the evil

38:11

playthrough of this or that. I

38:13

think for a long time, it's

38:15

sort of a struggle for game.

38:17

for narrative games to try and

38:19

honor like oh you want to

38:21

do an evil play through well

38:23

like here's the options but like

38:25

in a lot of cases it's

38:27

like oh well if you do

38:30

that well then no one will

38:32

talk to you yeah well I

38:34

can't really play the game then

38:36

like so yeah it's kind of

38:38

that same issue that we ran

38:40

into and just decided to avoid

38:42

offering something we couldn't like promising

38:44

something we couldn't fulfill. I think

38:46

if you were gonna If you

38:48

wanted a game like that, you

38:50

would have to sort of write

38:53

the whole game that way, where

38:55

like, oh, these players, these, they're

38:57

in a party together, but they

38:59

don't trust each other. If you,

39:01

as long as you were, then

39:03

you could be consistent with that

39:05

tone across the whole game, but

39:07

you kind of have to set

39:09

up that expectation for players that

39:11

people might, you know, split off

39:13

or, or, yeah, you have to

39:15

kind of pick one party dynamic,

39:18

because all of your events have

39:20

to hit it. Yeah, and I

39:22

imagine if you decided if you

39:24

did something where you had both

39:26

options available That would just blow

39:28

line count scope count like you

39:30

would have to be able to

39:32

accommodate for all of that in

39:34

so many other ways Yeah, he

39:36

wanted to be able to satisfying

39:38

like yeah follow-up on it to

39:41

make the game feel like it

39:43

really paid attention to your choice

39:45

there. Yeah, yeah, honestly maybe doable

39:47

if you had a big team

39:49

of writers that like you could

39:51

knock that out Frank out two

39:53

million words. Yeah, I remember really

39:55

on we were talking about like,

39:57

yeah, having, um, stat. like almost

39:59

like personality stats that apply to

40:01

your company. Oh, it was just,

40:03

it was for a while, it

40:06

seemed like a good idea, but

40:08

it was just we never, we

40:10

were struggling to produce enough content.

40:12

Yeah. Or one party dynamic without

40:14

like also having to multiply. Yeah,

40:16

those would be stats that would

40:18

like be about your reputation as

40:20

a group of heroes, right? Like

40:22

are you the nice guys, are

40:24

you like seen as sort of

40:26

a menace, that kind of thing?

40:29

Which yeah. A lot of cool

40:31

ideas die. They never die. They

40:33

just go to the graveyard to

40:35

be resurrected later. Yeah. So, but

40:37

it also sounds like the, based

40:39

on the, Doug, you were talking

40:41

about the messaging and the things

40:43

that you want people to think

40:45

about as they're playing, the tone

40:47

that you wanted was, could only

40:49

be achieved through the struggling hero

40:51

archetype. And it also sounds like

40:54

that kind of played, played into

40:56

your overall picture as well. Yeah,

40:59

I think like they're not even

41:01

necessarily struggling, but just living, you

41:03

know, just breathing, living. Yeah, maybe

41:05

same thing. But I think like,

41:07

just having characters that felt alive,

41:09

that felt like they had to

41:11

eat breakfast, that, you know. I

41:13

think that was the main thing

41:15

I wanted to get across, or

41:17

at least like for me, that

41:19

was sort of a beacon that

41:22

I was sort of striving towards

41:24

was having the characters feel real

41:26

and feel wholly human in their

41:28

struggles and also in like their

41:30

joys and in the ways that

41:32

they shared company with their friend,

41:34

like their party members and so

41:36

on. I think we wanted them

41:38

to be sort of fundamentally likable.

41:40

Like they all have distinct personnel,

41:42

like hopefully they all have the

41:44

personalities come across, the personality stats

41:47

come across, and we want those

41:49

to be as punchy as we

41:51

can make them. But we also

41:53

want the heroes to be sort

41:55

of fundamentally likable because we want

41:57

you to get attached to them,

41:59

we want you to like them,

42:01

we want you to get invested

42:03

in them. Yeah. What was kind

42:05

of more on the, speaking of

42:07

bringing all the events together. and

42:09

your writing, what was the revision

42:11

process like? And when I say

42:14

revision, I mean, when you were

42:16

going back into the game and

42:18

sort of watching everything fit together,

42:20

essentially, I guess, queuing the story

42:22

is one way to put it.

42:24

How did that work? How did

42:26

you make sure that all the

42:28

pieces that we're getting pulled together

42:30

were working and were synchronous and

42:32

you didn't have, you know, something?

42:34

an event that maybe you had

42:36

to go back and rewrite because

42:39

it moves maybe a little too

42:41

specific or there was something in

42:43

there that was incongruous with what

42:45

could possibly come later like what

42:47

is all of that editing life?

42:49

It's in there. Hopefully we just

42:51

don't see them that often. It's

42:53

a lot of like playing the

42:55

game, it's a lot of just

42:57

playing the game and specifically picking

42:59

for the event you just wrote

43:01

often to make sure like okay

43:04

if I take this party in

43:06

there what's going to show up,

43:08

how are these characters going to

43:10

act. Just reading it, there's a

43:12

lot of revision. Revision is the

43:14

fun part for me. It's, I

43:16

don't know, it's kind of just

43:18

observation and sometimes players too would

43:20

report something like, hey, this was

43:22

weird. My character who is a

43:24

leader said this line that sounds

43:26

like kind of not leadery. And

43:29

so just like going back and

43:31

including a case for that. Finding

43:33

those. looking for those little lines

43:35

that feel jarring and just smoothing

43:37

those over. A lot of it

43:39

too I did in the tool

43:41

itself because that was pretty robust

43:43

you could sort of and have

43:45

the tool with characters and see

43:47

how the story would play out

43:49

for a character of this type

43:51

or that type. And so a

43:54

lot of it was reading it

43:56

within the tool, which like there's

43:58

a big bank of words on

44:00

the side with all your splits

44:02

and there's also like the comic

44:04

represented visually that you can see,

44:06

which is really really helpful as

44:08

a writer. Yeah. So you were

44:10

able to look at just pop

44:12

it up and like look at

44:14

it. That's cool. You can roll

44:16

it as many times as you

44:18

need and. Sometimes certain relationships will

44:21

be there or something. It don't

44:23

fill it with dummy characters, but

44:25

who all have the different stats

44:27

and stuff. So you can see

44:29

how this is gonna play with

44:31

two hotheads versus, I think somebody,

44:33

you could put like a parent

44:35

and a child in there. Yeah,

44:37

yeah, you could. Bad relationships could

44:39

have done it without being able

44:41

to preview in the tool. Yeah,

44:43

being able to iterate that quickly

44:46

was. Yeah, 100% that's what made

44:48

it. That's what made it. doable.

44:50

That's what made the task of

44:52

revision doable at all, I think.

44:54

Wow. Yeah, I'm a sucker for

44:56

a good narrative tool. That sounds

44:58

really appealing to be able to

45:00

just roll into it. It's great.

45:02

It ships with the game too.

45:04

I mean, it's the better side

45:06

of the game. I think that

45:08

was another thing that helped us

45:11

end up with a pretty good

45:13

tool was you had wanted to

45:15

make it sort of modern friendly

45:17

from the beginning. We saw the

45:19

potential for this for people to.

45:21

just be able to write their

45:23

own events and put them in

45:25

the game as like packs of

45:27

events. People could write their own

45:29

campaigns, they could, you know, add

45:31

all this stuff into it. And

45:33

so I think we spent a

45:36

lot of effort like getting it

45:38

to a point where you could

45:40

show it to not anybody, but

45:42

like somebody who was, you know,

45:44

invested, somebody who wanted to learn.

45:46

Yeah, I'm someone with like no

45:48

technical background, no programming background at

45:50

all. I'm just, I like to

45:52

put words together. And it was

45:54

something that I could learn and

45:56

like it was built alongside my

45:58

requirements. So like part of it.

46:01

Like in that way, it was

46:03

easier for me than it would

46:05

have been for anyone else. But

46:07

if I'm able to do it,

46:09

I kind of think anyone could

46:11

do it if they spend enough

46:13

time on it. And that's a

46:15

really neat tool to have an

46:17

existence rather than just like writing

46:19

into a spreadsheet and handing it

46:21

off to someone or something like

46:23

that. Yeah, you and Nate and

46:25

Patrick are both, you know, good

46:28

programmers. I had to do a

46:30

lot of interfacing with people like

46:32

Doug or people like me who

46:34

are, we have our subspecialties, but

46:36

we're not programmers. Yeah, I think

46:38

like, I think it would have

46:40

that variety on the team. The

46:42

great thing about the tool is

46:44

just that it empowers people to

46:46

implement themselves, you know, like I

46:48

can implement a story myself, even

46:50

though I don't have any programming

46:53

or like I can't, I can't

46:55

interact with the code, but I

46:57

can implement a whole event into

46:59

the game without. asking anyone else

47:01

at this point. And like getting

47:03

to that point was obviously a

47:05

lot of work in a struggle,

47:07

but it's a great point to

47:09

be at. I think like for

47:11

a, if you're thinking about making

47:13

a game and you want to

47:15

include a bunch of storytelling and

47:18

a bunch of like bring in

47:20

people that maybe don't have the

47:22

background that you have as a

47:24

designer or as a programmer, but

47:26

just like making a tool that

47:28

liberates them to interact and to

47:30

implement. within your game is, like,

47:32

to me, it sounds like a

47:34

great, it worked really well for

47:36

us is what I should say.

47:38

Yeah, especially since you have, you

47:40

said a million, a million lines,

47:43

a million words, more than more.

47:45

Yeah, I don't know how many

47:47

more. Oh my gosh. Yeah, to

47:49

have space for a writer to

47:51

be able to go in and

47:53

do that themselves is really powerful.

47:55

Something else about Wilder Myth that

47:57

I really liked is your difficulty

47:59

customization options. I found it very,

48:01

very intriguing. that you separated out,

48:03

combat difficulty, and your, your moment

48:05

moment combat, and then your overland

48:08

campaign kind of, kind of difficulty.

48:10

And I'd love to know more

48:12

about the design choice behind that.

48:14

They used to be won for

48:16

a while, you know, initially, I

48:18

think. And we've always wanted to

48:20

give more options so that people

48:22

can play the way they want

48:24

to play. I mean, one thing

48:26

about playing a game like Xcom,

48:28

which we played a ton of,

48:30

is just people play it differently.

48:32

Some people want to play out

48:35

impossible and some people don't. Like,

48:37

I play, like, kind of casually,

48:39

like, I don't love playing on

48:41

the super hard mode. And there

48:43

are people who play a lot

48:45

more casually than me. And like,

48:47

why would we want to? make

48:49

a game that those people couldn't

48:51

enjoy, right? If we had a

48:53

choice. And then at the same

48:55

time, there's people who, for whatever

48:57

reason, like, I think our overland

49:00

is, it's not as well developed,

49:02

it's not as strong as the

49:04

combat, it's, there's just not as

49:06

much meat there, but there's people

49:08

who get that and enjoy that,

49:10

and there's people who, like, it

49:12

just kind of falls flat for,

49:14

and they just want to take

49:16

a group of heroes around and

49:18

fight monsters monsters and fight monsters

49:20

monsters. So separating those out was

49:22

a nice, like, clean way to

49:25

let people customize their experience. Customizing

49:27

your experiences, yeah, I think a

49:29

big deal. Like just customizing, toggling,

49:31

just the different things that this

49:33

frustrates me. I don't want to

49:35

deal with that versus here's the

49:37

thing that I really want to

49:39

focus on. I feel like you

49:41

know, a lot of the worst

49:43

feedback we got was from people

49:45

who... were playing on a difficulty

49:47

level that was just too hard

49:50

for them. And they didn't want

49:52

to move down on a difficulty

49:54

and I get it, like as

49:56

a gamer I get it. I

49:58

totally get it. But we wanted

50:00

to remove as many barriers as

50:02

possible to people finding the right

50:04

level because the game really doesn't

50:06

want you to die all the

50:08

time. Like it works best when

50:10

moral choices and deaths are rare.

50:12

Especially once you're getting to those

50:15

later chapters when things start, difficulty

50:17

starts ramping up a bit. You

50:19

don't want to be, yeah, you

50:21

don't want to be gated from.

50:23

that sweet end game content, high-stakes

50:25

stuff that you want just because,

50:27

oh, you didn't manage your map

50:29

optimally in the previous two chapters

50:31

and now you just need to

50:33

get to the end or whatever.

50:35

You know, we didn't want that

50:37

kind of thing to happen. Yeah,

50:39

I really, I really like this

50:42

feature and I felt as someone

50:44

who is a storyteller themselves and

50:46

who, again, is not, like, I'm

50:48

not very good at like... Twitch

50:50

combat so games like for example

50:52

in recent years the Star Wars

50:54

Jedi games have that difficulty and

50:56

it's the one choice but while

50:58

you can kind of make everything

51:00

a little bit easier on yourself

51:02

so you can get through the

51:04

story when you hit these tentpole

51:07

boss fights these tentpole moments you

51:09

lose some of the difficulty like

51:11

that would make that moment pop

51:13

more and make that moment feel

51:15

more feel more dramatic. and separating

51:17

out the management of everything else

51:19

going on versus your encounters I

51:21

think is a really smart addition.

51:23

I hope I see other games

51:25

do something like that. I think

51:27

it's really really cool. I played,

51:29

I started on storyteller mode and

51:32

I actually went up because I

51:34

found it very challenging and I

51:36

really enjoyed it. I want to

51:38

talk a little bit about your

51:40

decision to release in early access

51:42

as well. We have seen a

51:44

lot of narrative, narrative focused games.

51:46

with unique concepts go through early

51:48

access and find great success. Boulder

51:50

Skate 3 is the big one,

51:52

but also slay the princess. was

51:54

released in early access. And I

51:57

have spoken with those developers as

51:59

well, and they said that early

52:01

access really helped them kind of

52:03

drill down in places that they

52:05

didn't know that they needed to

52:07

drill down. So I would love

52:09

to hear more about why you

52:11

chose to go the early access

52:13

route and what that afforded you

52:15

in the long run. Yeah, it

52:17

was enormously valuable for us. Our

52:19

whole process of getting the game

52:22

in front of people was a

52:24

real slow roll. It was very,

52:26

very hard. We started the few

52:28

people at like the local gaming

52:30

shop. They let us come in

52:32

there for a few hours and

52:34

play test our game and we

52:36

gave people candy bars. And then

52:38

we went to our first convention.

52:40

We're okay. You're seeing a few

52:42

hundred people now and none of

52:44

them know how to move their

52:46

heroes or whatever. And you're like,

52:49

okay, combat clarity. What was your

52:51

first convention? What was your first

52:53

convention? Well, I think we went

52:55

to... The very... Well, it was

52:57

like ATX, which was dying. That

52:59

was not... Yeah. Pax was the

53:01

main point we went to, I

53:03

think. Yeah, Pax South, was kind

53:05

of the first big one. And

53:07

then I think we went to

53:09

South by Southwest that year, too,

53:11

which was... Oh, wow, okay. It

53:14

was not a great. Max was

53:16

way better. What about, like, like,

53:18

B for you didn't, because... Yeah,

53:20

the Boston Festival of Indie Games.

53:22

We shook up there one time.

53:24

I think that was like the

53:26

year after. Yeah. Oh, is it

53:28

a couple times? Oh, yes. You're

53:30

right. Yep. I don't remember anything.

53:32

No, but yeah, getting that feedback

53:34

was always a huge struggle for

53:36

us. Like, Wildermouth doesn't have that

53:39

like gimmick that you can explain

53:41

in one sentence or like a

53:43

snapshot or screenshot or. our trailer

53:45

or something. It's like, and we

53:47

knew that like it's very true.

53:49

You have to tell somebody even

53:51

why this is given two to

53:53

four hours and you'll start to

53:55

get what this is about. That's

53:57

hard to tell people. Yeah, so

53:59

our marketing strategy was always about

54:01

building word of mouth, about like

54:04

people will give good reviews, they'll

54:06

tell their friends, you know, if

54:08

you have good reviews, Steve will

54:10

promote you. And in order to

54:12

make sure that we were hitting

54:14

that, we needed as much feedback

54:16

as possible as early as possible,

54:18

and then we just executed on.

54:20

Absolutely everything. All of the feedback

54:22

that we got, we tried to

54:24

fix. Wow. For years. And for

54:26

years, it was all about combat

54:29

clarity. We were on HIO before

54:31

we did. Yeah, that's right. Before

54:33

we even went to early access

54:35

on steam, we started off on

54:37

HIO. And that was also extremely

54:39

valuable. So at every stage where

54:41

we got more and more eyeballs

54:43

on it and we kept fixing

54:45

everything we possibly could. So that

54:47

by the time we launched at

54:49

1.0 on steam, like... we run

54:51

the game through thousands and thousands

54:53

and thousands of people we know

54:56

what people are going to say

54:58

when they play and even by

55:00

the time we hit early access

55:02

obviously it was a huge mystery

55:04

we were we had no idea

55:06

how well it was going to

55:08

perform financially but but we knew

55:10

that it like it was yeah

55:12

it was a solid core yeah

55:14

core experience yeah was pretty solid

55:16

and then at that point you

55:18

can start getting those reviews and

55:21

getting those reviews and getting that

55:23

like that sort of virtuous cycle

55:25

of, yeah, more people find it.

55:27

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How, when

55:29

you, when you decided you were

55:31

ready to leave early access, like

55:33

what is that, what was that

55:35

moment like for you, like when

55:37

did you have that, like, all

55:39

right, we're good, like, let's go,

55:41

like, it was when we finished

55:43

campaigns. We said, yeah, it was

55:46

a feature. Yeah. And I think

55:48

at that point, you know, you

55:50

know, if we hadn't. felt like

55:52

other elements of the experience already.

55:54

Yeah, we would have held it.

55:56

We were, we were, we were

55:58

hitting a point where. like we

56:00

had gone from profitable that kind

56:02

of down to break even in

56:04

early access so there was some

56:06

pressure to get this out yeah

56:08

see how it's gonna do right

56:11

but yeah we also we we

56:13

did like we redid a bunch

56:15

of overland mechanics like halfway through

56:17

the early access period because we

56:19

got some feedback about that. Yeah,

56:21

we added a bunch of UI

56:23

that hadn't been in there. We

56:25

did we did a couple of

56:27

mock reviews which was valuable tool

56:29

for any game to have for

56:31

it's a professional journalist to review

56:33

your game as if they are

56:36

reviewing it for real and then

56:38

you just fix everything that they

56:40

write about. Yeah, it's months out.

56:42

Yeah, from when you find a

56:44

release and then it feels like

56:46

cheating. Yeah. That's smart though, like

56:48

there are, I used to be

56:50

a consultant before I became a

56:52

full-time dev and there are many

56:54

consultancy firms and people whose whole

56:56

job is to come in and

56:58

you know help these developers kind

57:00

of see things from a different

57:03

perspective. It is very very valuable.

57:05

It's not cheating, it's just part

57:07

of the job. It is, no,

57:09

I mean you have to be

57:11

willing to take the feedback. I

57:13

think it's like it's one thing

57:15

to have a strong vision, but

57:17

you also have to be able

57:19

to take feedback feedback I think.

57:21

You have to watch those streams.

57:23

You have to watch the streamers

57:25

getting computers in your tutorial. And

57:28

you want to puke and you

57:30

have to sit through it or

57:32

go, okay, where did they get

57:34

stuck? How can we fix it?

57:36

How can we fix it? How

57:38

can we make it more clear?

57:40

Yeah. I want to sort of

57:42

hard pivot for my last couple

57:44

of questions. I want to talk

57:46

to you about some advice you've

57:48

given and learnings that you've. shared

57:50

about working on Wildermouth in previous

57:53

interviews. We are in a state

57:55

in the industry. right now where

57:57

AAA is kind of like funky.

57:59

Yes, that face exactly. AAA is

58:01

funky and we're seeing a lot

58:03

of students and younger folks graduating

58:05

out of programs entering into the

58:07

industry where there's not, just to

58:09

be frank, not a lot of

58:11

work to go around for a

58:13

lot of specialties. In an interview

58:15

previously, Doug, you talked about advice

58:18

to aspiring writers. You said, make

58:20

time and invest effort in collaboration

58:22

that may feel ultra conceptual and

58:24

terribly distant from any meaningful manifestation.

58:26

Hopes and dreams are worth a

58:28

few hours a week. They may

58:30

blossom into more than you expect.

58:32

And I found that incredibly profound.

58:34

I know you're surprised, but I

58:36

found that incredibly just profound. I

58:38

see a lot of people I

58:40

work with a lot of students.

58:43

and a lot of younger early

58:45

career developers. And I see a

58:47

lot of people who are afraid

58:49

to do something that isn't the

58:51

thing. Like maybe somebody who wants

58:53

to be a writer is afraid

58:55

if they don't only take writing

58:57

jobs, it's gonna dovetail their career

58:59

and it's gonna bring them out

59:01

of the path. Similarly, I've seen

59:03

people myself once upon a time

59:05

took a marketing job that kind

59:07

of detoured me this way, but.

59:10

it was still in game, still

59:12

in entertainment, and it was all

59:14

in service to sort of coming

59:16

back to where I wanted to

59:18

go. So I would love to

59:20

ask you, you know, has this

59:22

advice changed since you've kind of

59:24

had time to see your game

59:26

in the wild and really sort

59:28

of absorb what people are saying

59:30

about it? And as you look

59:32

at the wider industry, is there

59:35

anything else that you want to

59:37

add to that? Do you still

59:39

feel that way? I think like

59:41

you can't be too specific or

59:43

precious about which opportunity you're like

59:45

aiming for. You also, I think,

59:47

as a writer specifically, it's I

59:49

think it's so valuable to reach

59:51

into other writing disciplines that you

59:53

maybe aren't super comfortable with to

59:55

try and teach yourself and prepare

59:57

yourself. for like when that moment

1:00:00

comes. Like in my case it

1:00:02

was learning to write poetry even

1:00:04

though I didn't really like poetry

1:00:06

at the time. I love poetry

1:00:08

now but in college I just

1:00:10

invested a lot into starting to

1:00:12

write poems even though I wasn't

1:00:14

good at it or screenplay was

1:00:16

another thing right where it's just

1:00:18

like I don't even watch movies.

1:00:20

But just like trying out these

1:00:22

different disciplines participating in them not

1:00:25

just reading them but writing them

1:00:27

but writing them. I think is

1:00:29

really valuable to a writer. And

1:00:31

I could imagine that that is

1:00:33

sort of that that would apply

1:00:35

to all disciplines is that like

1:00:37

you just reach out and you

1:00:39

try different things, you gain experiences

1:00:41

and different things and broaden yourself

1:00:43

as a person and it will

1:00:45

prepare you for when that moment

1:00:47

comes, you have whatever skills you

1:00:50

need to make something memorable that

1:00:52

will Hopefully, hopefully, I guess, get

1:00:54

you employed, but also just help

1:00:56

you make something beautiful, make something

1:00:58

that you want to make, and

1:01:00

that you're proud of afterwards. Yeah,

1:01:02

I agree. I think that, I

1:01:04

think that, again, like, from a

1:01:06

writer's perspective, I feel like we

1:01:08

maybe get a little too scared

1:01:10

to just kind of go off

1:01:12

and just sort of do something

1:01:14

like that, do something on our

1:01:17

own, when it's sort of a

1:01:19

little bit off the track in

1:01:21

That they made you said in

1:01:23

a similar interview where you told

1:01:25

people to just start making stuff

1:01:27

and I very much agree this

1:01:29

is what I tell students when

1:01:31

I tell young developers who are

1:01:33

asking how to break into the

1:01:35

industry I say don't worry about

1:01:37

breaking in just start making stuff

1:01:39

like have stuff that you can

1:01:42

show and you said very specifically

1:01:44

and this caught my eye read

1:01:46

books and articles but not too

1:01:48

many focus on making things and

1:01:50

the lessons the books and articles

1:01:52

contained will make so much sense

1:01:54

I would look for you to

1:01:56

elaborate on that a little bit

1:02:00

So, yeah, books are great for

1:02:02

theory, right? Like, but theory doesn't

1:02:04

stick if you don't have, like,

1:02:06

if you haven't prepared your mind

1:02:09

for it. It's sort of, you

1:02:11

have to, like, dig up the

1:02:13

field before the seeds will take,

1:02:15

you know, you can't just scatter

1:02:18

the field on, scatter the seeds

1:02:20

on the harder. You have to.

1:02:22

have some practice in there as

1:02:24

well. And then when you read

1:02:27

the book, suddenly that one line

1:02:29

about the wisdom of doing something

1:02:31

this way makes sense because you

1:02:34

have personal experience and then you

1:02:36

can take that lesson and actually

1:02:38

understand it. Whereas if you read

1:02:40

the book before, it'll just bounce

1:02:43

off. I think the other thing

1:02:45

that I see is like, it's

1:02:47

easy to get too wrapped up

1:02:49

in the theories to the point

1:02:52

where you're never actually doing things.

1:02:54

You've got to do stuff. And

1:02:56

I think as somebody who's on

1:02:58

the indie side, when I'm looking

1:03:01

to hire people, I want to

1:03:03

hire people who have a variety

1:03:05

of interests and who are like

1:03:08

have hard skills that they've honed,

1:03:10

but like who can do a

1:03:12

bunch of different things and who...

1:03:14

have done their own projects just

1:03:17

because they want to. Like, those

1:03:19

are the people that I want

1:03:21

to work with. Yeah. I agree.

1:03:23

It is tricky. It is, it

1:03:26

is tricky. The, and you know,

1:03:28

I said it already, industry is

1:03:30

in a weird place right now,

1:03:32

but I think that the best

1:03:35

way, and it sounds like we

1:03:37

feel similar, similarly, the best way

1:03:39

to. find your footing is to

1:03:42

just start doing it even if

1:03:44

you don't have someone giving you

1:03:46

money even if you are just

1:03:48

a person by yourself like you

1:03:51

just just start doing it. Oh,

1:03:53

I wanted to add also, it's,

1:03:55

it's, if you can, like, being

1:03:57

able to sort of find your

1:04:00

comparative advantage, they call it, was,

1:04:02

was big for us. Find, I

1:04:04

don't know, I think I struggled

1:04:06

for a long time because my

1:04:09

art doesn't look like what you

1:04:11

think of when you think of

1:04:13

video game concept art. And there

1:04:16

was always sort of some insecurity

1:04:18

about that, but like, having the

1:04:20

opportunity to, Just work in a

1:04:22

space where like like like find

1:04:25

that thing that makes your work

1:04:27

maybe a little bit different Mother

1:04:29

people's work that'll that You know

1:04:31

that's a that's a good thing

1:04:34

like find a way to make

1:04:36

that right find a place for

1:04:38

that to shine and I think

1:04:40

that was a big make it

1:04:43

a strength we we really conscious

1:04:45

about bending the design of the

1:04:47

game around the staff the strength

1:04:50

of the team. Yeah So it's

1:04:52

like you're going to do 2D

1:04:54

art. That's great. Let's do that.

1:04:56

Let's lean into that and let's

1:04:59

not do any animation whatsoever. Nice.

1:05:01

Yeah, Doug has such an amazing,

1:05:03

you know, lyrical writing style. Let's

1:05:05

let's really let that time. Let's,

1:05:08

sure, let's go for it. Let's

1:05:10

put a million words in this

1:05:12

game. Because that's, you know, and

1:05:14

not everyone can. Yeah. So if

1:05:17

you can find a game or

1:05:19

a context where that That thing

1:05:21

that's always made you a little

1:05:23

bit different giving that a chance

1:05:26

to shine I think people And

1:05:28

this is a weird thing, but

1:05:30

I think this is also where

1:05:33

having a custom engine kind of

1:05:35

helps you Yeah, so I wouldn't

1:05:37

necessarily recommend it because it's a

1:05:39

time shouldn't have to do but

1:05:42

Then I think about as you

1:05:44

can customize every little thing so

1:05:46

writing these tools that do exactly

1:05:48

what we want is,

1:05:51

you know, it's no harder than writing

1:05:53

other tools that we're gonna write. Like,

1:05:55

yeah, you don't have the inspector panel,

1:05:57

but it also. means when you do

1:06:00

sit down to write a tool, you

1:06:02

can write exactly what you do need.

1:06:04

And the other nice thing about having

1:06:06

a custom engine and a very unique

1:06:09

art style is that when somebody

1:06:11

sees a screenshot of your game, they

1:06:13

know what game it is. They're like,

1:06:15

oh, that's will do this. I remember

1:06:17

when Banner Saga came out, we're like,

1:06:19

oh, that's going to see a screen

1:06:21

from across the room and say that's

1:06:23

Banner Saga. And that was so cool.

1:06:25

And so I think like... Having that

1:06:28

unique look and feel or

1:06:30

whatever it is like finding

1:06:32

your Comparative advantage not worrying

1:06:35

so much about does this

1:06:37

fit into a triple a style

1:06:39

Is the market doing this right

1:06:41

now who cares? Just do your

1:06:44

thing especially as an indie

1:06:46

because the market is enormous

1:06:48

Mm-hmm. We forget It's true. Yeah,

1:06:50

that is yours out there Yeah,

1:06:53

that's excellent advice. I appreciate

1:06:55

you being so, so candid

1:06:57

about that. And sorry if

1:06:59

I like weirdly brought up

1:07:01

like old interviews, but I

1:07:03

just found, I found when

1:07:05

I was reading them, them

1:07:07

so applicable to where we are

1:07:09

right now. So I really deeply

1:07:11

appreciate you discussing that with

1:07:13

me as well. I think it's

1:07:16

just startling because I don't remember

1:07:18

last year. Oh, strange. Yeah, it

1:07:20

was a pleasure. Yeah. Yeah, I

1:07:22

think we're all, we're all kind of

1:07:24

in that same head space, but

1:07:27

I wanted to, I appreciate it.

1:07:29

And I'm glad we got to

1:07:31

talk about it. And thank you

1:07:33

so much for your time today,

1:07:35

for being so candid, for talking,

1:07:38

you know, in-depth shock with me.

1:07:40

I really appreciate it. And I

1:07:42

know a little late, but congrats

1:07:44

on Oman Road launch as well.

1:07:47

Oh, thanks. Thank you. Thank

1:07:53

you for joining us for the Game Maker's

1:07:56

Notebook. For more information on the Academy of

1:07:58

Interactive Arts and Sciences, our part and our

1:08:01

other initiatives, please

1:08:03

visit www. interactive.org.

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