GDC Plays GDCA Nominee Control with Mikael Kasurinen and Brooke Maggs

good morning everyone good evening to our guests if you're on the East Coast good somewhere I don't know wherever you are in the world buh-buh-buh welcome welcome to the Game Developers Conference twitch channel we are here my name is Brian Francis I'm usually much better at this I'm gonna wander around this room for a second while they introduce us then I'll start playing my name is Brian Francis I'm a contributing editor at Gamasutra I'm the community manager for GDC and I am here today streaming control control did not come out this month to the best of my knowledge it came out last year but we are here playing control today for some very one very important reason which is this game the fine folks at remedy entertainment have been nominated for several game developers Choice Awards those awards specifically are for best audio best narrative best technology best and visual art and game of the year it's also picked up several honorable mentions I'll go ahead and drop the link

to the full nominations in twitch chat and in the lower left hand corner to commemorate this nomination our two developers from remedy on the Left we have Brooke Maggs and on the right oh god oh no this is it named McHale kind of finish the shooting is really good it really is best in audio hi everyone I can see in chat that we've got manic maniac 536 and we've got remedy games hanging out high remedy yeah we are here like I said we're comentary at the stream but also we're taking the opportunity to catch up with Brooke and McHale and just we didn't get to do this last year when the game came out we're gonna talk about the making of control

it's already been a lot of great interviews and features about control I totally suggest you google around check them out but what we're doing today here is we're taking some of my questions about the making of control and we are also taking your questions about the making of control so if you have anything particular you want to know more about go ahead and drop your questions in twitch chat and I will ask them for my part however I should start by letting Brooke and Mikael introduce themselves Mikael would you mind going first for me right yes so my name is miguel cotto renin and i'm the game director on control and being at remedy for well almost 20 years now I did a little tour in Sweden and went to the States but the majority of my career has been remedy about them expect to don't wake quantum break and now control is this the latest one right and Brooke

would you introduce yourself for me please yes hello my name is Brooke I'm a narrative designer on control and I moved here from Australia to work on this game basically um and it was my first triple a title my background is in indie games and indie development I was a freelancer as well before that so yes making this game has been an absolute good job cleaning up very well he's going to be very impressed I worked on this so impatient actually with the team it was a lot of fun because we were thinking of things to do with party as a cool side Bishop and we thought about wouldn't it be funny if the director of the bureau had to like take out the trash the rating Bureau should have to

take the trash yeah hump humble himself a little bit and then he has you know the test for you that maybe seemed a bit more just take that's right that's right getting rid of the rodents and so I were actually working on the clog in just a second for full contract maniac has asked us to substance boiler where he's replicable I will let folks know we're only going to be here for an hour so we're looking at you know basically the same hour of the game second third hour spoiler wise I don't think we're hitting anything that I would consider a spoiler because I finished the game and I know we're coming up but if your instead of about that feel free to drop the visual listen audio whatever you need give it quick shut up Brian Brian Otto and handle one who also dropping by

and chat like I said we're taking your guys questions so free dropping for us and yeah oh man this I think at this problem when I first play to do which is I don't nor the last barrel is don't tell me I'll find it there it is anyway what I think it is I need to move on to the actual questions McHale as game director of control I love to start by picking your brain about controls origins and if you wouldn't mind explaining how this game get started and I'm gonna be blunt like control is a really unique game it's got a really unique narrative home vibe but also like has to balance some kind of cannot totally conventional but familiar action tropes so do you mind like explaining the origins of the game and when you start a balancing licks combination of out there very out-there concept with conventional gaming yes it has many aspects affecting that kind of fun the

root of why we created a game like this we were coming out from a project where we wanted to have kind of thought like a more accepting in normal world with more casual experience on so on we didn't wake before condom ray and we're come over all feeling like the next game we want to do is going to be a bit more like brave and take more risks and not be afraid of being a bit strange and that mentality existed already quite early hominin before we even have any idea of what we wanted to do next so so it can't it was to stomach upper atmosphere that existed already then fed into this and what was important to me personally was that we stopped the credit game where we focus more on the world than on that kind of let's say narrative focused elements that we

usually do so it's less about the singular katha more about what is this place what is its kind of [ __ ] basic nature and me and Sam some legs so we started the concept all of these different elements that was the first decision kind of like let's not even vary that much about the plot let's worry about the main character yet let's just talk about what is this world what is this place what are the experiences that we want to have and from that we came up with the bureau here's the oldest houses the location and so on and the background for all of that was that we wanted it to be an experience that is unexpected full of surprises and we embrace the strange side of the supernatural elements or so on and we're not afraid of going all out and what we don't want to have is that we kind of explain everything is happening and actually quite the opposite like we

won't just show things and leave the interpretation for the player and of course you need to designing you need to provide like elements that people can see and start to draw conclusions or solve so there was this kind of acceptance that let's let's not explain less than spoon-feed and so on and once we kind of put those elements together and we started to see that okay here's a compelling package of element there's this exploration in the strange phenomenon and we've revolve around that Brutalism was there almost right from the get-go that it's an omen that would want to have it in the oldest house and and the side that we're not going to explain everything let's just play a dive into this world I leave it upon them to to kind of understand what's happening and and from there we start to fit the pieces together and start talking about okay what if you know you're kind of a director of this place

and actually that was the first idea and then the second idea was that maybe you're an outsider because we wanted to because I wanted to be bold with the strange ideas but they feel character that's already part of the world then you don't have this view into this world that the player house so we wanted the main captain them be personal includes an outsider to this world at the same time we wanted them to belong so yeah you become the director like within the first five minutes of the of the story and a huge part of that was to give that lens into this world through a character that can relate to you understand that their kind of experience all of this at the same time as you are at the same time that character is now a fundamental aspect part of this well as well and getting to grips with all that is a huge part of that journey that you take with Jesse and yeah we took something like six months roughly to concept all of these

bits together and it was pretty much just me and Sam talking have a lot of discussions and getting core ideas together and then came the time to actually start you know creating the ass as creating demos and all these elements that we needed to be able to communicate further different ideas and so on and yeah from there we kind of went into this stand and game development procedure and so on and that's how it came together before I do want to jump to Brook and invite you to your experience but I'm Michaela man ask one more question which is obviously remedy has a technology base and it has a a format game development that it's more familiar with as a company how did you and your colleagues Oh Matthew around Oh junior college figure out okay I can use this weapon um after being in fact could you

all come up with like this kind a format for balancing you know the work you need to do you know I'm making sure level made sense on making sure that gameplay felt like something that players could still understand in a weird world while chasing that Chase see that sort of weird the summation of that I think that you guys were saying were new weird yeah a lot when I was hearing the marketing for the skin a new weird was basically a stance that we took into this world it is a literary genre but at the same time it's not just about hey let's a strange world is about the kind of a holistic behavior of characters within it and how these different concepts come together and this kind of avoidance of explaining too much what's happening and leave a lot to interpretation it was it

was a challenge to balance out these type of elements together with the game that we want you to be able to understand quite quickly so that's why it was important that the core mechanics are seemingly simple like telekinesis Francis being a core element of what Jesse can do what I like about telekinesis is that it it is visually simple it is easy to explain like you conceptually get it you understand what's happening and there is a sense of connection to the physical world it's not like completely alien it's not like some force that enters the world that you don't understand we would have to explain and so there's none of that get it quite quickly what's happening and how it works and that was crucial I wanted it to be an approachable relatable game play you can pick up the controller start playing and can start having fun really quickly but at this disorder layer where is the actual world

itself that's filled with mystery and secrets and even contradictions like sometimes you see your thing I think it works in one way but then once you can type further into it you learned that oh it's not that simple and so on so it was important for us to have these two layers that they can be complexity and this kind of depth to the world that can sometimes almost be impenetrable but playing the game should be fun should be easy should be intuitive and finding the right tone with the different missions different side missions and all of that I was a lot of iteration because we we wanted to really follow thinking that let's not explain everything let's let the player pay attention and that they feel like they should be paying attention and kind of draw their own conclusions so it was a huge balancing act of like exercising restraint sometimes like no we don't need to tell them and tell them held up as thing toasting something it actually became stronger when did these kind of decisions and then what maybe was tough

about it because game decides we want people to be able to jump in and get it quickly so sometimes it's required like like a specific attitude of like looking at the thing and that's incredible I'll be telling too much and that's I think a huge part of the process and a lot of time when things are kind of iteration I got a million questions about this topic but Brooke I'm gonna throw the question both of you from it Brooke your role was narrative designer my understanding that you that you were able to join the game later on in the product I'd like to know there's there's it would be ignorant of me to say that games are either plotted out at the start and figured you know and then just executed at home way what's what is its ordinary designer what is your bowl coming into a project like this and and working figuring out story even though the game is already on the way you talked about that yeah that

was some it was really interesting and it was it was a bit of a challenge to I guess because it's it was a brand new IP my first task really was to sync myself into the world and to understand all those concepts that had been set up that that we were just talking about and and understand the the ins and outs of them you know what are objects of power and what does the bureau do and you know who is Jesse and why is she here and like not only and know the story and the characters and know the world you know that's been so lovingly built and then also understand what the tone is I think that's pretty key actually the the mood control is a moody game and and like it has a certain mood and tone to it that comes from the new weird johner which is not over explaining things which is elements of science fiction and fantasy but never you know straying into either

genre like completely so coming on to the project I remember I actually remember having conversations with Sam about trying to understand certain parts especially when then mind sort of understood what was going on and then I was you know given some areas of the game to sort of cut my teeth on I suppose and one of them was the motel sequences and I even I went I think I went to Sam and I went to you and I went to Stewart a well designed director who all these people collectively sort of came up with these ideas and there was this legacy of ideas of what this was supposed to be and then what the tone should be and then keeping that mood throughout development is a balancing act as you say you just have to play it and review it and then say well I think that's actually over explaining the strangeness you know maybe we need to dial that back

or now we've gone too obtuse and people don't get it so yeah we need to you know spell things out a little bit more so for me it was you know an exercise in wrapping my head probably around the largest narrative world for a game that I had taken on yet and then I guess embodying that information and I actually spent a lot of time because we were we were in the heat of production as part of something I did when I first started as I went to every room and introduced myself and said what do you will do in this room and how can narrative help you and I actually incidentally picked up these questions that people had about the world that were you know pretty nuanced kind of questions you know so I didn't always know the answer so I would collect them up go back to the narrative room we would sort of talk about you know the answers and what that should be and then I would sort of take them back to the team because the team don't necessarily have the time to delve into

every sort of nook and cranny of the world that we in the narrative department have our you know great you know law sort of documents going on but sometimes they just need an answer quite quickly and so then being able to convey that narrative mood and that information to them quickly and succinctly was was a lot of what I was doing and then also after that I took on the side missions and so part of my job was to understand the intent behind them to understand you know what this one is meant to say flesh out a character or it's meant to introduce an aspect of the world and then I would go through because a lot of it you know was sort of in partial production so I would go through and see what was there and meet people who were working on it and find out what their design intent was and yeah sort of lays between departments for the side missions and for the motels and we we

definitely honed them all I would say in that time so yeah that's what I was doing a lot of this money I just want to say how amazing employment that's where it walks because you are the glue between different departments of all your levels and so on and kind of finding also I think opportunity as well like you know we weren't maybe even thinking of highlighting certain things in sediment quest and then you kind of saw this like hey what do you think on like this I'm gonna bring that up there and so on and that was that was wonderful and I think hugely important to create this kind of cohesive world it feels like connected on so on so yeah thank you very much that's lovely to you I'm trying to do a good job as director as director of the oldest house right now but director of the Bureau of controllers today not the oldest house but I am going to pause the game so I can get questions and chat because this

ending is really hard I'm gonna grab the brain Otto Brian Otto would like to know has a speedrun for control change the way you you all approach development at all it will stack on that question which is speeder has been a thing for a few year I'm curious if speed running at all and its existence and formed how you think I came development macam well first off I just want to say again how amazing the screen run you know Wallace I really enjoy it so it was a lot of fun I don't think it at least to me it doesn't really affect the way we work on the game like it is it's I think it's a it's a great thing to kind of observe and see and you see the game through different eyes so it's always great to have a perspective and but I think

fundamentally I am NOT personally looking at the game from that angle and and it's kind of hard to even imagine how would that it would work because huge part of speedrunning is have this attitude of let's see how much we can essentially break the game that's different idea and and it's it's weirdly enjoyable to see that happening even though it is it's kind of a takes you your heart sink a bit like oh no that happened I didn't even know that was possible but it's also fun at the same time and what makes me personally excited about games is the improvisation it is when people do things that you don't expect with your game and I cannot think about it a huge part of controls the vision for combat was that it is this physical space that we're giving to the player with a lot of low-level

systems that work in a predictable physical way so there's no like clean clear rules that the dog westcoast like this there's a sense of looseness to like you can pick up any physical object you want we were not gonna just like well let's we try to make everything functional and physical and behave in the way that you expect and with understanding that the risk is that we might not have perfected every single bet we haven't probably checked every single possibility of what the place might do and in a way that was the intent I wanted people to improv us have fun and be able to see where people come up with ideas that you didn't think of is fantastic I love that and especially speedrunners does the essence of what they're doing so yeah you know in a way we think about it but I don't think it affects the game development per se at least from my end

that makes sense we I'm very happy with a PC and Gamasutra while back interviewing some dopers you work with beginners to get their game on but obviously that's the exception now while I beat up I'm going to be pause to jump Oh actually yeah there's a question in chat from ruckus would like to know the layout of this game begins action game was hippies elements like half-life or the hero sugar combining powers like prototype or singularity oh sorry what was the actual question how did this get shorter begin to come together was it born all set piece driven like okay or was it more like we're gonna develop these powered and then develop sort of develop set pieces around them and you mentioned in your answer just a second ago that this is a you know you have to low level of powers with yes that work everywhere right I

say yeah it's it wasn't about set pieces it was about the world itself and then finding compelling elements it can discover yourself within this world and less about constructing senator burr moments for the player and and instead like you know let the player be the ones that figure out how to go through it what to do and so on and I kind of stay on from there way I think as much as possible sure enough like when you look at set pieces in the in the kind of a sense as let's say boss fights or the objects of power that you discover in a way yes that kind of thinking existed early on but the whole idea was that it's like you know the boss fights in dog thought that the convex is there you can discover them and so on but they are not necessarily like a Biggers at these moments like connected to the story and

so on and more to the ball and gameplay instead I think it's probably true to that we we knew that we were going to make a game with you know gun playing abilities but we also knew that the world would well it's it's all set inside one location but it's a very interesting kind of winding shifting strange location that you can explore and I know a lot of the world development that's Stewart and the team did to build out the oldest house thinking of it as I go at bureau and going okay well if they're studying you know the supernatural and unexplained what kind of departments would they possibly have and then you know then we had the research sector and then what would go inside the research sector and then it's also about the combination of making that space large enough to be enjoyable with those abilities but also for example I know

one of the reasons that Stewart young mega sort of went with Brutalism is because it's very straight clean lines that actually works really well when the players are running around you know kind of destroying things with their abilities like the environment is is more readable in that way if the environment was super busy all the time it would be really hard so it's all been really considered in terms of how it's designed and for example in the maintenances sector you have the huge huge power reactor which is sort of a set piece in and of itself I guess so each area is very has its own character like I know that style guides were put together for the color palette of each sector that what the lines on the floor will say for what kind of signage you know the maintenance sector uses compared to the research sector because there would be different people there they would need to know different things so yeah and then how the oldest house

opens up over time to you know its ties into the gameplay pretty closely as well so you always have reason to come back through different sectors as well so that influenced the way that the game was was created oh that's good follow-up question kind of about the space of game one of the cool things about the oldest house is that it sort of lets the player in on the spirit that level design games a giant no it doesn't always aren't always very elevators aren't actually on leaders you know like what was it like sort of making a space for both of you I'd love your thoughts on this that this could like the opening area of the game ITV first amongst the other for you as a perfect fit like it doesn't make sense and yet it's working well the huge part

of the style or field wanted to have that there's this conflict a collision of strange and mundane and we wanted to avoid like let's just have strange stuff and then acting strange what made it interesting is as familiar something that you recognize to understand like an elevator but then as you use it you discover that okay something else something more complicated is going on that you're having a hard time understanding so and even you can see that for the entire game that most of stuff is it is kind of taking something that you can really like understand and then turning it into something surprising a song that's the feels planet ah if you love unexpected and we know a lot of the level designers kind of really got creative with that is way you know in the research sector for example there are quite a few environment secrets and I remember

working with Anna Marie and she was telling me all of these things that was possible for players to do if they use the launch ability to stack things up and they could be able to get into a certain area or something like that like she was really thinking very how players would play the space but then also what creative things you could do given the strange nature of the oldest house so I think it it's a lot of freed up level design a little bit in a way to you know do that but then also from a from a story perspective so the motels are basically the motel sequences are a way for players to get from one area of the oldest house to another to open up areas and spaces and this whole idea of having this transient space that you says with a light switch cord you go to a motel in a completely different area outside the oldest house and solve some puzzles - - then get the key to get back

to a different part like I don't think that would have been you know that's not that's something that our world allows for which is allows us to be more creative I would say yeah so yeah also while I'm here I should assume that you're giving a talk at GGC I talked about the making of the hotel motel so if you're going to GGC or if you just like keep an eye on our GGC evolve Jesus YouTube channel I'll keep an eye out for that talk it's probably good ball I am beating up the enemies I'm give there's be a tough question to sort out but I'd like to give you go and really the kit our maniac for 36 just a brief nod because they've been really good viewer say they are asking about the possibility they're an artbook and also finding out what is behind the redacted sentence of some of the arts of the of the collectibles which I have been find

that they're productive the point is that you can't find out yourself and letting players find information I well I mean we had a lot of fun we had a lot of fun riding them but I would say that that is top secret information that's probably being lost forever unfortunately very top secret important stuff that cannot be revealed if for information about an art but I would invite the full Eternity games - sorry sorry though that on you had if you reply that one I need to read that to you um way McHale the only so much time with you left so I do want to squeeze in

some more questions um but with a team like the one you have like you know this really talented team of creative people working as hard as they can to put out an interest you know to execute the vision that you and Sam and your bold director whose name I'm blanking on came with what do you feel I like acted or asking directors this part what do you feel is essential communicating the you're the reason behind your guesses and knows four people is obviously you sort of have the authority to go yes no yes no to everything they they throw you but what's the difference between just arbitrarily toss handing down yes and knows on what they make or explaining and shepherding you know and making a even better product I guess just totally arrived you just use drop the hammer and go yeah well sometimes you need to start with that and then what do you need to you're responsible for making people

understand reasoning behind it and and you want you want to take the extra time to make sure that everyone is comfortable with that position what's tricky with control is that it embraces certain kind the loss of Faison idea is that yes you can say them out loud like early on in production and say these are the key elements that we should all look at and think about and and so on but then when it comes to actual execution when you actually start to build things you realize that there are a lot of things that are not clear-cut there there is this gray zones and a lot of things that are will less for interpretation and so on so that that I think made it this tough and there was a need to quite often have this sit down where we kind of like okay let's let's talk through this concept and kind of sometimes it is about finding the answer together and a huge part was very important to me with control was that that we we don't work in a way where me

and Sam like we Green let's give it to people and we can't do this game that's that's not what I want I don't think that's what we wanted a huge part of it was to establish that this is the wall we want to create here are the high-level rules that you want to follow and then give the team this kind of a sandbox to plan that they can start building their ideas on what kind of side missions we could have us all a lot of the ideas comes from aren't actually directed from the team themselves and and it is it's kind of it's good for creativity a lot of ideas I or some never come up with and I just want to that's exactly what we want but then there is this importance to do a follow like you know huge part of my job is to ensure that the end result it is cohesive it kind of makes sense sometimes it might be hard to see how it makes sense but you feel in it it's there even the weirder stuff that you

see in the game feels like it belongs there and that's something accident does that's us carefully considering all these different aspects we're doing and and that's the basis of recently the time trying to try to provide and and sometimes there are things that are just I'll be honest sometimes it's like you just have to kind of realize it you have you can't ignore what's the right direction and of course I stand all the time trying to explain it but sometimes it kind of can be like totally this is the right way to go and that there needs to be that kind of a higher level direction sometimes that I just different my change yeah complicated but yeah but it's time well-spent isn't it because when you spend the time to explain why you're making a decision then it helps clarify the direction and the mood and the thing that we're going for now I remember when

when I first came to remedy Sam took the time to take us through the narrative presentation which basically sort of summed up the world for us and like introduced us to you know what you guys have been creating and sort of introduced us to the characters I didn't sort of just oh I'm here I'll just you know go off and read about this I guess you know they take the time and you even did a young it was like a creative game overall overview update for us and presented it to us the whole team which was talking about the key pillars of the game and what you wanted to get across and you know what it was about and like the physicality of the powers and the you know the strangeness of the entities in the world all of that kind of stuff helps like I think I think that the leadership here spends a lot of time on

that because it's it's such a remedy I think I guess like we have these very interesting complex worlds that you know take take some time so like get I guess yeah I get across and especially because control was a new IP and is doing different things don't play in world wise so that I imagine required just like a lot more sort of considering on how you would communicate that Inc it for sure us that's us I think is one of the hardest parts when you are creating a new IP basically none of it makes sense and you really have to do the legwork to justify your reasons like you can't just come up with things you have to have they're the kind of our fundamental thinking to do like solid behind everything that you're saying and yeah that took took a lot of time but at

the same time I want to kind of leave wiggle room for the team to be creative and have that little sandbox where they can come up with what off new your ideas as well right on doubles I think a really good answer I'm gonna give you a quick shot to Billy the Kid three who says they bought two copies of this game for two of their friends for Christmas and got the specialist to mediate five three six who seem to have a big for the e-cigs in this game my partner who played this game with me and was a big out with you and immediately made her after because she played it and got ahead of me and she's like okay you need to go to the own wake room and I'm like I never played out money and and she went watch and she still made me go there we searched central research this one my favorite this is my favorite Lobby I really like oh yeah I also I

also love the doctor darling videos there yeah well man we're getting into the doctor darling stuff it's so good we only have few minutes left with McColl's so I'm going to Brooklyn window some questions your wait a moment I want to give the call a chance to talk with are going to when I started in this game I realized that you could secretly call it a Metroidvania because there's a just like in Metroid 2 Castlevania you get upgrade those upgrades reopen the areas in the whole pictures for you oh no there's too many Rockets stop it and let me put this game is a straightforward adventure but a you know like you said so like you've described today it's a world that players can learn more about both literally they can learn nerd of things and they can also

learn how to move in it which is they went to revisit old zones and use their abilities to put areas anyway would you mind oh do you mind explaining the process of creating areas that players can reoccur in backtrack through without feel like they're working time yeah I mean there's this responsibility that we all bear we want to create an interesting place and I was huge part of the thinking that we had from the get-go that I mean looking back like we came from condom break and it's a linear story during game a lot of spaces were built with a purpose in mind but it comes affront through them in 10 seconds we never attend and so on I was actually interesting I felt like when we work in condom that we we spend

that a lot of time justifying the existence of different things you see in the world there's a lot of Lord of love stories behind them or so on and to me at the time it almost felt like we spent all of this I'm kind of building this framework this construct of ideas that is expressed within the place that you go through but then the place just kind of blasts through them kills everybody and moves on the next room and it was a it was a bit of a shame I felt and when you look at control I think you know you're seeing elements have been already been doing and in no previous games you know kill them all in your games so I think they kind of understand know how to create the complainant already existed but the problem that they've had is that we always done that kind of a linear story during thing with driven by the action we're driven by the story we need to move on to the next beat and so on so it was a big change honestly to us to kind of change that thinking that know you're here for the world you're here and therefore it's like let's give

the players a chance to discover and when when that landed like when people really took it like yes it's it's not about thinking where the next trigger is is not about you know where the next cinematic will happen it is of the space itself and through that thinking great thing started to happen and we get these themes like the trees in the middle of this space frames it's a kind of grounds it that acts as a kind of an anchor point and it could leads in two different directions they always return to this central area and so on it led to that kind of very visual thinking is connected to the lore of the wall is connected to all these different things that you discover yes in the story as well so you know it kind of happened or Danika Lee but it had to happen through a process where everybody was able to know when we step back and away from how we thought about things before and then raised the idea that the focus should be

on the space instead of just the kind of coordinating piece that kind of Alenia on we usually culture and once that happened and once we kind of continued to the writing it can't just came together it's kind of weird and I think about because this is a massive change that we did in the way of thinking and yeah I think a huge part of that is that kind of an Ohana understanding that they already created the previous games that we did so many questions so many observations at you right now just like I couldn't get over to this fight for instance how this day all spawn in this corner you're fighting this corner of the walls they're looking at right here Drive you like visually look in this corner so it was easy for me it's fight was quote-unquote et because I could like just sort of throw on everything there's so much about canola I think is so cool but celebrating and that's probably why it picked up so many nominations at the Game Boy Search which I forgot submission or on 18th and you can watch it on here on Twitch or you can attend show at GCC this year if you

come sorry for the bris yelling McHale before you go and we're gonna have some time with Brooke before shut down the stream I'm going to share one observation I had and carry about your thoughts about it what separates controller me from a lot of other video games is that this game kicks off with a different kind of empowering premise that highs back to what you talked about with with this world that we're trying to explore and this um everything which is the idea that um you were right like the is it a theme that I feel for the minute the game starts there's the set of validation that comes with Jesse's story and the way you explore this world which is you know as you pass through two letters as you read the collectibles you get the sense thing you know there was a conspiracy you were losing it there was a cover-up you were separated from your brother people were acting with bad intentions around to you there's something really empowering a way for that that's different than other games I've played a lot of games you know you get stronger you or you start you become strong that's that's a great

kind of power you look at games like they'll make five where you start strong lose your powers and have to read and it's a huge part of our behavior and and yeah and I think there's something really interesting and unique in that I was in love with that idea I think the moment was set up loud so yeah it's a huge part of the experience as guard yes I'm sure the old guard survived everybody said they don't have time to witness your glory today we call thank you for joining us I understand you have to duck out thank you for your insightful answers about directing in role rattle all the nominations and yeah that's about it's all I got for now Brooke we will chat with you for the

rest of our time today ok excellent I'll do my best the kid wants to say thanks to the stream going down bro my entire flow of game of this no I'm just wandering around the area uselessly now you're doing you're doing well your if you can say an area that's a little bit kind of interesting and curious over there yeah I remember that remember if this is something you do now or if you do it later because it's the stupid question I think it's lighter yeah well oh yeah now it's actually an interesting challenge with with narrative and liberal design and game design all paired together is that

question which is can the players access this now so that's not necessarily something we came up against in previous games because of course they were a little bit more linear in the way that you move through the spaces like um McHale was talking about before but we would have to work closely more closely with the other departments in terms of okay so what does the play knowing the story which characters if they met what could they potentially uncover and then make sure that we distributed for example the optional content all those documents accordingly and make sure we didn't spoil anything that might come later and if players could sort of decide it not to you know do main missions one after another and explored and went to side missions we need to make sure that you know all of those secrets were well-kept so um for example there Annamarie made sure that drop would kill you you know you don't

necessarily spoil things for yourself either but yeah we had to be careful about that actually so that was interesting that was an interesting challenge why don't you hear one of my favorite things to ask narrative designers about is I often feel very strongly that the concept of games has informed tools they are made so I'm curious especially as someone who you'll get to make the Ocean View Motel how you felt that uh working with um I don't know if you work direct with the North Lane engine or if you're using other tools with it but I'm curious how you felt as a storyteller your ability to execute the vision that McCall was talking about was affected by how you working it yeah I mean I personally wasn't jumping into the engine I mean I did I did a lot of play testing and I did a lot of build reviews and things like that one of our other narrative designers was doing a lot of the we have

a tool that we use to to do a lot of that stuff that had to do with dialogue and pacing I am I will I lie I did use the tool to do a lot of the optional content set up and things like that so that was really interesting funnily enough there were some interesting limitations around how we could make the documents work with the text and I actually think that that was really helpful because it meant that we were like okay so we could do a lot of documentation but we can't put heaps of pictures on them because of the way the tool works we could put but it actually you know made us be creative with the idea of what kind of funny like office documentation would you find around actually being quite stare with the amount of words that we could use as well so we really just had that sort of one-page to use we you know some games

sort of let you flick through pages so we had to be pretty sparing which I think was good I think that limitation meant that we had snappier you know document stream there are quite a few to read but they don't take a long time in and off themselves so that was interesting but then also for me for my work a lot of what I was doing was doing a lot of the vision holding for the side missions so and for the motel which I'll talk about in my talk but for the side missions clay our writer one of our writers would be in the room with me and they would be taking notes of what Jesse needs to sort of say or take note off or what she might say to help players along in the particular side mission and a lot of what I was doing was often walking between departments talking to the level designer in sound design getting a list of animations that we need for those side missions getting lists of like and getting that sent off so they could be mo capped and things like that so a lot

of like detail orientated work to make sure that the narrative is being carried across in the the whole mission but it's not necessarily to do with just the dialogue so yeah making sure all of that is accounted for and then letting clay know that you know Jesse will need to do something in this side mission I don't know like turn off the clog or I don't know solve a puzzle with the radio and so then she needs a line that's probably specific to that so a lot of that is feeding information to the people you know that what they need to be able to do their particular thing so that's that's a lot of my work in in the development part anyway let's close up this chat I have been asking great questions but I'm going to goes off with a little bit of a tease for your talk

but the Ocean View Motel what I would like to know is the ocean you mentioned at the ocean view miss hello those transit spaces let's just sort of pick up the player from one area and move into another with this in-between zone of passing through you know a sort of Pacific Northwest knee motel and then we're getting a great look at the lobby today in that space you do some of the most interesting like like it sort of underlines the theme of the gain a very specific wave just you know the the odd interacting with with mundane objects creates dramatic consequences hmm and I would just like to know what was your process for architecting the little interactions and look and then the little just like that you know they have these except for natural payoffs a little bit yes because earlier as you go on what was your process for coming up from of those yes so some of them so when I jumped onto the motels there were prototypes for puzzles for them and some

of them were really great and I took elements of them and redesigned them only because some of them had fallen out of the narrative mood and tone so they they were a little bit too obvious but the reason for that was they were somewhat placeholders saying like put a mysterious cool puzzle here and this is what it could look like and then I went ahead and worked with the different level designers and sort of proposed my own puzzle designs that were simpler admittedly but also maybe weirder and then I can't completely take credit for the puzzles themselves because I would have an idea and talk to the level designer about them and then they would have suggestions about how to make it more readable and work better technically and then you know we would go back and forth on that but um and a lot of what I would do is pitch like the props for the motels in the environment and tour about what it should look and feel like

and I worked with our environment artist Mikey and sort of sat with her and you know we looked at things together and reviewed it together so that was that was really fun and then some of the motels are really specific and have a very specific theme I don't know how much I should say so as not to spoil but um from the first couple levels we feel free of sport that just because the game is now for well so well the opti motel for example there's one that's got a very Finnish theme to it and so we were for the longest time thinking about what that should feel like and Sam had some pretty clear ideas for it so it was making sure that we were delivering on that for him and I also worked with the sound designer to design the stinger feel that when you successfully solve a puzzle like what that should sound like because it's really tempting to be really obvious or on the nose but because you're getting a strange Pyramid

key from the board we sort of figured that something that sounded like that would be really cool and you know some of my happiest moments on the game is you know sitting with these other super talented people and helping them and and them helping me realize the vision for the motel sequences so it's going to be a real pleasure to talk about it and delve into detail for the for the talk so yeah March 16 for the 20th if you look at the earth screen you will see the date on the upper left-hand corner you can check out Brooks's talk it's not scheduled yet if you don't know what day in time it is I'm sorry complete mystery yeah with that I'm going to start wrapping up our stream thank you all oh my god I saw my Kinect logged in and then saw that yell bit with that I'm going to

start wrapping up our stream make you everyone for rolling surprising technical today congratulations to Brooke McCall and everyone else that remedy Sam and a lot of the folder work this game and friends and personal friends with one of the people who worked in production on the writing and Gale get it all that yeah oh my gosh sorry we didn't get to show them off today because they are one of favorite things about this game - yeah shout out to them shout out everyone who worked really hard to bring this game life through all parts the process with that I need my filling for we are and what we do there are game developers conference thank you folks for tuning in if you're not a developer you should know that go live regularly in fact we're going why later today we're doing two streets today where we are gonna be interviewing the folks from the outer walls team amazing yeah that game is so cool I'm

sorry I guess you're competing with them but hey you know everyone competing with them yeah so we're gonna be talking with them starting at 3 p.m. est that's 12 people cific from there so if you hit the following you know go to notification we go live if you like to attend gbz you can totally just hit the button at the bottom of the screen I've set up a button down there so you can get your pass if you want to check out if you're talking the nerd of Summit or is it somewhere else in the narrative summit I'm through the narrative summit you want to get these summits pass to see Brooks talk but if you got anything from an expo you can attend the awards on the 18th no matter what bad you have so you should totally do that and you're not gonna attend the awards

like a dude records in the show in person like I said it'll be streaming live on Twitch so you can watch there so you could you should fall over the reason - that's what's happened before people spawning good job it's a good this game that technical glitch we had earlier Mamie and I can't just push a button and send over I may need to hop in a video editor and sit you back together with that in mind I would like to thank everyone for watching Thank You Brooke and the folks of remedy for said of the stream up and I cannot wait to see your talk of GDC thank you so much it's been a pleasure have a good day everyone and enjoy your wishes in the oldest house and you're gonna stick with us for the outer wilds drop hey see you

in a couple hours bye you