Getting Creative after World Changing Events with Dave Mervik | Game Dev Unchained Episode 255

[Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof i am your host and always brandon fam with me a special old friend from earlier episodes dave mervick how you doing dave all right i'm sitting here in my pajamas now because of this ungodly hour you asked me to come back on well i think everyone is i think everybody is technically in pajamas now uh all the time and uh we're all about if gamers i think game developers always joked about just having a good t-shirt but i think uh because of all the zoom calls where we're like trying to up the game a little bit uh just something without stains but uh before i go any further

for those who haven't heard uh earlier episodes when you were on would you mind giving a little introduction of who you are where you're from and where you at uh my name is dave mervick i'm the uh senior narrative designer on little nightmares too and i work with the guys at tasha studios and malmo sweden and it is night time for us here well thank you man yeah thank you for staying up i mean you must like talking to me somewhat to to sacrifice your sleep a bit account in the days i think the last time i talked to you were i think maybe a little after the first little nightmares came out and we kind of went over how that development went uh since then of course you guys are working on the sequel and i kind of want to understand more about you know that transition uh being a little a smaller studio like how was that transition like what can you kind of

walk us back to when kobe became serious and what what your studio had to do to kind of transition towards that and was it a smooth transition and uh yeah it was weird i remember i remember hearing little like glimmers of it you know because when things are happening elsewhere it's fine you know it just barely makes the papers and then suddenly oh now it's here in real countries which you know just shows how spoiled we are done [Music] yeah my mum was actually visiting she was overseeing me my son and uh and we had a whole like 10 days planned and then like on the second day she was here i got a phone call from his sister luckily saying denmark's closing their borders in about 10 hours and it's like it was like rapidly pack up and get around the country but then uh then it was the same [ __ ] work they were saying oh yeah we're probably

gonna start transitioning everyone to working from home gradually and all this and then the next day it was uh right we're moving your home you you will be working from home uh from monday um and i t work the whole weekend and pulled it off on there i think it's because when you've got like a a digital infrastructure like games companies the transition so much easier then you know so many people still having to go to work because they just don't you know that's what the job entails and it just sucks but yeah we've so we've been spoiled considering you know most people stay at home anyway it's just it's just how it is you know just oh i'm in front of the screen again all right ordering food and okay yeah it really is um in terms of working uh it doesn't really feel that much different of course you know you're

taking out the commute and then you know once in a while you can turn around and joke around your friend like i would say half the day and then maybe get two hours into work right i do miss that before my day yeah yeah but in terms of work uh very familiar you know you're in your little box anyways when you actually get down grinding and i'm finding a lot of developers getting more done because we kind of want the bulk of the day to ourselves if i get these tasks done it's my day is my day so there's a motivation with that but there's also like well i'm like there's this thing i didn't get to uh i guess i can spend a little time at night to figure that out because it's right there um and i'm also seeing how it's like taxing all the developers into this self-crunching mode because it's so available to us um but uh it's interesting to kind of hear your story about that too because i think i i can relate where i didn't really take it seriously at the beginning and it was like of all places i was playing basketball at my gym with a bunch of people and i started

seeing these little groups talking about the virus more seriously i was like what does that mean should i even be here these guys are like the sweatiest stinkiest people and if they're worried maybe i should i should really rethink my weeks um spending my time here and yeah just like that the next week everything was closed and it was pretty immediate it was little creepers where like ass it's in china i don't need to worry about it and then it was suddenly overseas and on our problem i think within our countries us and uk got hit pretty bad because of that maybe slow processing that we had um at the height of it it made me so crossed up though because like you know i mean like my dad oops i think we just lost him for a sec well now you know how it's live well i'll just wait for dave until he comes back anyway he was out in west africa so i

worked in west africa for some reason do you mind kind of going over that story yeah we lost you yeah five minutes all right when you were starting because i'd had a mind blank okay and it was intentional yeah yeah but i hope everything's okay i just kind of caught the last something about your dad yeah yeah yeah i was just saying like when when my dad was out in west africa uh when ebola hits i'd say and but it's like it's only because i had like a personal connection to someone out there that i was like really kind of struck by that and he had to get out very quick but like it was the same like you were saying you know oh this is over in china and like it makes you feel like really ashamed of like your reaction to that it's like how many people are affected by that out there ah but it only counts when it comes over here you know what i mean like oh now we take it seriously now we have to well in the case of the us

and the uk do nothing until it's like absolutely out of control but you know it's just that yeah you're just like that why didn't we take it seriously why didn't anyone take it seriously when when you have a shot i keep yeah even though it's like a whole continent it's still so parochial you know and like uh closed closed off i'm like well it's fine unless it comes here but now it's too late i've seen outbreak you know dustin hoffman was on top of it but no one else was it's funny that you're bringing that now no i've seen that movie but i would say that um there's something that to that i think one of the things that uh researchers are kind of coming out of there's a lot of the we country that's like socialist type of countries are paneling this a bit better the we kind of first type of mentality and then the eye countries such as ours are really struggling with this

and not even about things happening over the fence in other countries and continents but like i see it within my neighborhood like well it's you know this this so and so who lives down the street they they got it but it's not our our little bubble so we don't and it's like all the way to the last minute of just pushing you know the the thinking keep pulling the next ladder up yeah yeah right right now it's you lot i'm fine still lou yeah and i'm still seeing that it's like um even when my uh my my sister-in-law's boyfriend got it and he works as a emt at a hospital so of course he got it right but then luckily he didn't spread it within our bubble and then the next you know it's very weird you see these internal struggles with them like like my um immediate family is very closed off like we're treating this very seriously and then our other parts of our family are just hanging out every week in this family gathering which is the number one spreader uh funny enough but then that circle

just got back together as soon as as he kicked it i was like guys that was a close call that was a real thing there that could have like killed the whole family there right there but everyone just i don't know maybe the struggle is real and i think i do understand and sympathize it's like eight like a year in maybe almost now and if we had taking control like new zealand uh people would have just told me about it hunkered down six weeks and just moved on with their life but no we're dragging this on because of our stubbornness i think and it's like i think both the us and the uk had the worst people in charge of the worst possible time i mean yeah you know we we could like someone said recently like the uk could have had a situation like new zealand if they hadn't destroyed that guy and instead they got the worst government in the world who've done who've done so much to damage the chances of of people getting through this you know it's ridiculous

and my sister got it when she's she works for the nhs um and i was more angry than she was at the the token gesture that came every thursday where people would go outside and clap for health workers for a minute i i found that insulting yeah but this isn't that podcast does it but it i i am you know what i mean it's just no i i think it's selling the nhs out from under people telling them they're not absolutely unprepared for something like this because they live on the edge all the time because there's no profit in looking after people but we will give you a round of applause every week oh well thanks for that man but you know i mean obviously this this affects everybody right i know we're a game development podcast but like look at how we're i think there's a mental toll even with me i was working from home before i'm kind of kind of want to dig into if you

had a history of working from home before maybe a few days in there but even this was like very taxing this is because i'm used to like working at home and then taking a break and i hang out in the weekend and then come back this is like in prison man it's like i'm constantly locked to work it's like what else are you going to do but not be productive you're going to you know you got to have things to do and we're just finding things to do and it's very i think as a creative there's a limit to that where you can be really creative but then i'm at that point where i'm like i need to get the [ __ ] out and do something because i'm just sourcing from the same garbage i'm recycling from my filth to try to come up with something creative but as a narrative designer what what are you what are your struggles through this like how are you how is it hampering your creativity your inspiration um i think probably i mean i i've always worked from home a bit you know like because i can

you know so because i i live out like an hour outside of town now so like sometimes it was just better i've got no one to meet so i'd expect to i just stay at home and read and work and all that stuff but now it's this thing of like no you can't go in and as soon as someone says you can't you have to do the thing that you're you are doing then you suddenly don't want to do that you you feel you know so and for me like it's this sort of when i need to see people i need to be able to go and see people because i really i feed off that like we've got such a great uh group of people at tasha as well like i genuinely i i i imagine everyone says this you know they could barely even if you're american they have an american accent in my head but like it's it's just a great group of people and i i look forward to seeing seeing them when they get in and like suddenly when you don't get that you don't get don't get the energy to

when you walk away to sit down and work you don't have that anymore it's just like i'm at home uh i'll take the dog out i guess and maybe have a coffee and then i don't know i mean at the minute the phase i'm in now is like like i said it's lots of research and i'm writing and trying out of ideas i am so it's kind of fine it's what i'll be doing anyway you know but uh yeah i the the hard thing and i think for all of us we all miss because we don't i breakfast together every friday friday morning and it's just a lovely thing get some music on just sit sit at a table and [ __ ] with people you know usually abuse the guy who thinks every marvel movie is great he knows who he is you like the last part of black panther really you really liked that last fighting scene you don't think it was overblown cg fest i've actually stopped now i i

same with star wars i just stopped yes i i ran out of fake smiles [Laughter] there comes a time in everyone's life and you've got no more fake smiles to give yeah but uh yeah you're talking about stuff that you know we've had a lot of people on and kind of speaking to the same same struggles it's like um like these human beings can go only so far like you can't really feed off each other and then they become like work they feel like work now you have to schedule it to kind of just brainstorm and it's not spontaneous anymore and that's not how these kind of creative sessions you know you want to go at it but this is what we got um are you finding a certain rhythm now do you what what benefits are you seeing from this what cons do you think it's just irreplaceable until you guys can get back in the office like what kind of discussions are you having internally in with your team

of what's working with this and what's definitely not working as soon as this is over we gotta do some type of hybrid approach i mean everything's working but that's how it is it's like nothing's nothing's better than it was before yeah but we're making it work and i think that's that's the difference now is in the very beginning it was just like a struggle you know to get group group discussions at all functional because you know it can be awkward anyway particularly if you're in like brainstorming or feedback or something no one quite knows when to jump in even if you're in the same room together but when you've just got to have like this one digital hand you know or like keep your poker face while someone's saying something that you absolutely just disagree with something which i absolutely fail at every time i i watch my own face going you suck at this so bad switch to profile picture mode yeah yeah

yeah but it is it's things like that where you need the energy of the room and you you vibe off people you know you can see if someone's enjoying what you're saying or if they're not enjoying what you're saying and now all you have is what you see on the video and you don't know what maybe they're checking their emails if you just don't know sometimes like because everyone's got to juggle so much maybe they have to quickly check something or someone's bothering them or maybe their kid just comes in and you're like oh well that moment's gone and that happens to me all you know my lad will run in and just wants to sit with me and play with ps4 controller i'm like sorry i am listening but i have this also so you know we make it all work now but nothing's better we had a lovely thing today actually like a lovely colleague of ours is is moving on um and she was having like an exit interview and uh our hr manager kind of arranged a

surprise goodbye for us so we all jumped in at the end of this exit interview nice i'd said troy and all this and that's northern for goodbye but the way i just realized i forget myself sometimes so you you kind of have to be a bit more creative but it all kind of feels patchwork doesn't it you know like yeah nobody would enjoy a digital surprise party no i'm playing for like all right is this the best we get then we'll take it you know it feels better than nothing so but uh yeah i think if anything what i'm finding uh with developers is that we're we're since we're home a lot i am seeing you know when i started this whole thing my kids more i'm i might i'm able to kind of remind myself to take more breaks you know and enjoy you know what we're working towards this whole time is to enjoy family life and time at home as best you can because we really think about it you know eight hours away from

home or ten hours plus depending on your commute every day five days a week i mean that's uh at some point now i was joking especially when we were finishing a project i was seeing my my cubicle buddy more than my wife for months on end right yeah so i mean there was always something like that for game developers that we felt kind of locked to our table and and i think i love the fact that dynamic has changed and i think the the poor part of it is that um it's kind of thrown into this extreme situation of uh where we're parents and teachers now and now they're always at home as well and it's like all right i need some break from people to concentrate and it's just it's hard to balance it's not something that we should be getting used to but temporarily we have to yeah i think what where we are now like because a lot of people had like been interested in you know like for example like flexible working hours

uh and um you know working from home where possible and all this because everyone has different responsibilities and they do you know particularly in sweden they want to help you make have that work-life balance you know where you can and so it had been like on the on the boil a little bit but there was no pressure and now it had to happen like literally in our case over the weekend um so now like when this finally if ever is all over um now we have that infrastructure it's just working so you know it's that's the kind of thing they're thinking it's like if you you know it's there for you now if you if you want to work from home it's better for you and the team to work from home do that but what what we want is for you to want to come in we want to make this a place that you don't want to be away from for too long and i think that's a really nice mindset that they're going to just make the office a really cool place and obviously

we miss each other loads but you know it's available now like like you say that there are positives to this [ __ ] situation where people have found out that there's some stuff that kind of works about being away from the office and they can make it work after all so i think my hopefully will find that there's like a nice balance to be struck there where people can be productive in a really cool way like sometimes i have ideas in the middle of the night i come down and do a few hours then yeah and do less hours in the day you just can't you can't be creative from nine to five sometimes you know it doesn't work that way yeah i definitely sign off on that i think different people i'm i'm an early bird i've always been um i think part of that is being a family man i have to you know if i want real work done i have to wake up earlier than everybody to kind of get it done um but uh you know there was a restriction to that with studios especially it's one of those um it's

appearances right right so if i'm showing up four hours earlier than ever but no one sees that they just see the guy who's leaving at four or five p.m it's like bro so there was a period in my my my uh uh career that i had to kind of balance that out it's like you know i get creative in the morning but i can't show up too early otherwise i'm spending 12 hours for no reason just to show that i'm there yeah so it's always weird but now i think with this it kind of allows people to just check my checking dude everyone's kind of doing the same you know you see that i'm putting in the time you're seeing the good work that's coming through it's purely about work and then the office is just irreplaceable in terms of team gatherings and just brainstorming and i think that's the best of both options i definitely see a lot of studios going that way um i think i think that focus on on the output is so much better than hours checking your hours yeah have you have you done your eight

hours a day all right yeah what have you done well not that much well that that doesn't matter in the end then does it we're here to make a game i'd rather someone came in for three hours and nailed it yeah and what took the rest of the day off is the only thing that matters in the end is the job obviously you can't you don't mess anyone else up yeah you know i love that i love that it's breaking that barrier that industrial revolution and as creatives it just doesn't work it's never worked for me um i never liked it you know after 2 pm after lunch i'm done i have a big meal and i'm like mentally checked out it's just like waiting around and just just [ __ ] around with colleagues at that point which is valuable in itself but that's reality i don't know anyone that's super efficient really after lunch it's just people counting the clock to get out there's a big push in sweden for like the six hour day hey guys let's take a break and have a

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in mentality i think managers uh generally in the game industry always felt they need to manage 24 7 otherwise we're just a bunch of pack of kids that won't get work done but it's like we're professionals and we want to get work done so we can do other things and i think this if anything yeah big kids are showing at least that we have responsibilities we're trying to nail it so that you know we have the week to ourself and it is about the work and output and i think that's helped i i don't unfortunately this thing was the uh stimulant for that type of thinking it was no other way in any way that a lot of studios would have let this happen as a trial all right setting up the infrastructure just for a trial it's just this was unfortunately the only way that this could have happened and maybe it's for the better um but yeah it does suck that we're hearing i was talking to my friend who was

working uh at a company with me years ago in the u.s who recently not recently i think he moved to china five years ago to work at a big chinese company and he's chinese but like he was like oh yeah we're walking around uh like normal and i was like well i mean started over there [ __ ] don't act like you had nothing to do with this it was like yeah we're you guys are still struggling he's like well come on man it's like i just had cafe with my friends over down the street it's like yeah that's nice but it is it's disheartening to kind of hear new zealand it's i'm glad to see the light at the end of tunnel but it is tough at least in the united states right now to kind of hear these stories people kind of resuming life and you're just like infighting with your family about why well this is why i can't visit you you know there's a pandemic going on putting our parents in it's like it's weird man it's a real challenge for for everyone to argue about what's safe and what's not now yeah no no

it's it's there's so many experts out there you know like i mean like armchair experts they they know all about uh vaccine strategy you know yeah yeah yeah just an expert at everything everyone's suddenly a doctor now huh yeah all of a sudden you got your pieces how face masks work actually yeah yeah so many theories really happy to see new zealand doing well though because i think jacinda arden this is just a model of a the new kind of leader or it should have been always that kind of leader but you know to see someone like that succeeding with someone who cares about about the people that they're leading i think is is great it definitely made me pay more attention to where i lived because i've always felt like there's a certain age that people start paying more attention to politics and you know

the the well-being of our future generation and i think this pushed me in a big way i was like maybe united states is not that great like if this was a real zombie biting apocalypse holy crap like we were really left on our own here um and seeing countries like even canada not so far off my friends were saying that they were really taking the whole you know global health care system man that's kind of actually pretty useful for things like this not to worry about that yeah yeah who knew right and even even if not even if i don't wanna you leave the united states even hawaii right this little island on its own i was like wow they seem to be all right compared to like i live in california i was like it's such a contrast wow when it's just maybe local government and stuff it's always in the these kind of places and like like the uk is the same like

it's it's fine as long as it's fine you just keep you on the edge barely above water and the minute the minute anything goes wrong they're not prepared because it's it's about money it's not about you it's not they don't care they don't care about you how how is anyone surprised in the uk the most servile no no not fair on the uk actually england particularly that you've got oh the royals are still allowed to exist yeah and these public school boys that all littonians still in charge and you're surprised still when they don't give a [ __ ] about anybody else they're bred to be that way why don't they care about the working class just give that some thought then you know what i mean it's just i just i don't know yeah it beggars belief

all my family and friends are back there and i'm i just i hate that they're in that situation but like that's what are you gonna do you got it you gotta just gotta change that system because there's no options there's no options right now there was an option and they destroyed him but yeah it's not that podcast no no but it's it's relevant like i i would love to kind of dig into your thought being as a creative like these issues you can't just keep creating games ignoring what's going on if the world's burning around you like to me uh it's very distracting uh in a bad and good way it kind of woke me up to a lot of issues that you're saying right um like like he said just barely head above water until things are not fine anymore and everything got exposed like this last year in the united states was pretty insane besides the virus you know

we had all these riots and that riot was kind of global too that kind of sparked you know changes and um it it got really crazy and felt unsafe and very clear that uh we're not as i don't know it sounds like we're insular but not really as safe bubble wrapped as we thought we would when things really do hit the fan and it really made me realize like hey you need to pay more attention to this stuff because this little virus you know although it's killing a lot of people it could have been a lot worse and are you prepared as head of the household to kind of take control and figure things out within the little control that you have and a lot of that is just like i need to probably think about another place and be like gabe noel from valve and like move everybody to new zealand i was like that was a big bold move from a

game company like every game company's kind of struggling changing infrastructure it's like [ __ ] we'll just move to new zealand it seems like they got this [ __ ] together did i miss that has that actually happened no but i i know he's living there i know i don't know if he moved a lot of people over there but i would imagine maybe some people went with them just to get things functioning again because i think because they're such a creative house where they need that kind of person-to-person uh brainstorming session otherwise you know it'll be very everything's on valve time ten years or so you add coven in that that's 20 years he's like we need to ship some [ __ ] like they're getting they're getting it's funny with them because they finally got to and this is all speculative but from what i see it finally seems like they got the the bug bite to make games again with half-life values like oh wow this feels really good to ship games and then this happened so that kind of killed their buzz a bit but to me that was a major game company that

was making some major moves in response to what was happening and [Music] you know aside from the network and i.t problems like that that to me kind of woke me up a bit to like future companies and what to do um you know future of the game companies here but uh i guess my question to you is like what i'm curious about is this is such a crazy experience hopefully once in a lifetime in our generation like i'm looking at my kids who's like 10 and three it's like wow this is going to affect you it's gonna [ __ ] you up somehow we'll see how that goes i can't wait to see how that story unfolds but as a creative i wonder you know how how you what are you coming out of this like like what kind of new ideas that you feel will come out of this little struggle where we're basically in prison i'm always curious to see once we out of this what kind of creative

projects might be in response to this because that always seems to me as an artist as an advantage of something traumatic and different um that we can't kind of come up with some some peace with it through through our projects yeah i think uh as with everything it's always the people like human behavior i'm interested in when anything happens um so i hope i don't go my uh the next project i want to write is uh it's about a virus [Laughter] yeah yeah yeah you know what i mean like yeah but it won't be long will it because all the movies will come out and all that oh this is us trying to wrestle with our our past and yeah but for me like it's always whether it's been kind of internal stresses at work or yeah something global like this it's

always really interesting to see how people behave and the people that you thought you could trust the the people who you thought were on your side see how it is see how it goes when you're up against the wall who who's there for you now you know because i i i i don't know if it's it's probably clear already with this [ __ ] i've been saying about the english uh government at the minute but like um i i have a certain point of view on that on there so i've always been suspicious of of these people thought yeah you would pull the ladder up straight away yeah yeah yeah but you always think oh maybe i'm just a cynic oh i'm just you know one of those lefties and well you got confirmation yeah yeah you still see it and i you know i peop you know i thought with people on the other side you know just like debated it and all this like no no it's not like that it's about this

then you see it and you're like that look this is what i've been saying they don't care about you what more do you need you literally what the old cliche they were saying that the turkeys voted for christmas again when they voted conservatives in i am and like you you must know at least that then they're about individualism it's not about the collective it's about taking care of number one and profit over people always and you've done it again and like i'm saying like you're only fine as long as you're fine and the worst thing happened with the worst people in charge who will only look after themselves so again you just see that's how it's going to go and like you were saying before you know like it there's you're always just shaving it down to like the small group in the middle like oh it's only happening in china oh it's only happening

in the working class district so it's only happening downstairs but they're dirty downstairs aren't they i've got the penthouse i'm fine all this it's just like it's bringing out the worst in some people at the same time it's bringing out the best in some people as well and you know that's what i'm saying like that's the stuff i'll carry forward i'm probably talking about just remaking the last of us and how am i that'll be my next project but i think the human story um is what i always look into too the human connection of every genre right it's that if you can really nail that that that that everything else is kind of like a backdrop a set right so i i i do kind of uh synchronize with you on that element because um like i think a lot a lot of people in our generation the last 50 60 years were pretty dormant pretty comfortable um since the world war and i think

because of that we're kind of putting putting up blinders at least the like privileged countries that we're not dealing with wars every day and it's not on our front door like you said that we always have to think about it like overall globally we've been kind of like in this easy resting period and i think this was kind of necessary to kind of remind people are you guys prepared as a country to really face a catastrophe can you band together and this little trial kind of showed me that no we can't things got crazier uh right after everything got locked down and people were frustrated and a lot of people weren't taken care of and thought they would be taken care of and i i don't know how crazy it was over there um in the uk but it seems like sweden was a little better but uh you know we were just closing down businesses without any like any plan to kind of help the people who were running these businesses like this is your plan to

shut down for a year how these people are gonna figure things out and so there's a defiance there people you know businesses were there was unnecessary infighting that uh i really felt sad about that i thought you know this is something what government usually would take care of and it does really become a worry i wouldn't say a distraction because it is important but it does kind of put pause and like yeah we make entertainment we do fun things right everybody's playing last of us too during epidemic how ironic right and then it's like is that really good like netflix like everyone's watching like virus movies like you guys this is the best this is not the best time to be doing this you got to do more oh no i need a break from all this [ __ ] let's go watch contagion yeah i know right yeah so like it's a very funny way to kind of see how people react to this in their own bubble and uh i also said it was so typical isn't

it it's so typical of our generations yeah but like it still has to be met without the phone yeah yeah but this is like my darkest moments i'd come home and say this we are due a massive war because this is what happens with the at this peak spoiled people you know people who post posting reaction videos to something that they've already reacted to in real life yeah they've got there's nothing happening it's just content content people are brands all so it's just we're out of ideas i'm like that this is it isn't it you read about this like time and time again that you you reach peak spoil [ __ ] cultureness and then there's something just whether it's a [ __ ] volcano or a war that just takes generations of people it's the same and here we are watching virus videos on netflix because it's still not real enough

yeah how many levels of hype are real you have to wade through to understand what's going on and taking it seriously i don't know i have i haven't read this book but i have it uh rise and fall rome i forgot who was written by in my like my cue list is like all right maybe this is this is why a lot of ancient civilization that were at their heights started to fall because there's always a fall right and i do feel like there's a semblance of that with you know talks of civil war in the u.s like the storming of capitol hill was kind of crazy like that's how we started 2021 right and was like oh my god guys don't we have enough things on our plane this is just this is what i think the aftermath of the consequences of how the government they had eight months at least on our side to kind of figure out before the first like big big big search and then the second eight months to kind of figure out to respond to it and it's exactly the same way and then it's like of course people are

gonna react and get angry and they're gonna go out there and you know expose uh more people by being in these groups it's like people are just reacting to the mental toll that lockdowns tend to do to people look at all the prisoners like it's not normal to lock anybody inside and tell them it's not safe and then tell them uh mixed messages of how to be safe and we're still arguing about masks and stuff since we can't get our act together and it does really worry me i don't get that what's the argument people say it doesn't do anything what well so does not wearing one yeah that def that definitely doesn't do anything that's empirical evidence you're literally doing nothing i see difference does it make it only took me one image to fully understand it's like there was a meme going around was it bernie but also amine was going around about like these two stick figures it's

like this is how it works right if you wear pants and the other person wear pants and if you pee there will be less pee on the other person let's take off one of these pants and see what happens it's like yeah i mean this is totally logical and people can't see that and it's um it's it's crazy it's like if i'm gonna get i'm gonna get it and that's the attitude that most people have still and um even that isn't it it's like it's like it's just it's a signal of being spoiled still yeah it is desperate to have your civil liberties genuinely challenged that you'll grasp anything to to classify it yeah someone's saying just protect other people by wearing a mask in the situation that's my civil liberties no it's literally not if you want to talk about the loss of civil liberties you've got a

long and checked history of people who've had that actually taken this is not bad is it i know i get um we should can we talk about games [Laughter] no no no no no i get you i get you but it is one of those things man it's like uh it's it's hard dude it's hard going through the day and we're trying to concentrate and make entertainment for people and then we have this this huge thing that happens every day and i see it every time i go out the very little time i go out to the grocery store and it's very easy to spot an [ __ ] now i would say that's right that's a plus oh that's one thing that's another one right there even even i'm getting so judgey and i shouldn't right because i i feel like i become the problem where someone just like who doesn't want to be an [ __ ] and it is helping but they don't put the mask on till the very last minute they're just walking it in their hand

and then as they cross the door well i can't buy groceries until i put the songs all right and then they wear it like this you know with their noses yeah i was just going to say these are my least favorite people yeah yeah am i helping no get out of here man i saw someone have one of those snowboarding headbands and they just pulled it down and it's like this thin right i was like what are you doing dude you look like an idiot so why you know what sucks it's like when you see people driving badly they're not the ones that die they just cause yeah because problems yeah for other people and that's what drives me crazy is it would be great if it's just thinned the herd like if if you want to not wear a mask you will die then or you won't because it's a hoax and all this yeah but you know what i mean yeah but it's not it's not them that will pay the price so i don't know it's just uh i don't know if if this all makes the history books oh it's definitely embarrassing more than anything it's definitely there

when when i'm like a ghost i'm gonna haunt those people you you know how humiliating the end of our civilization was thanks to you we could have gone out with a proper bang instead no one wants to talk about it when you get this history book up oh god really oh no it's uh it's a weird time i i think um i think there's a mistake to even think a lot of people because the vaccine is only being rolled out i know friends who are working and in that industry are getting you know the first and second shot people think overnight is going to be over this is a long draw man this is like a year or two there's a lot of people who are anti-vaxxers along with that it's like all right throw those people into the mix it's like great it's a good two to three years of our life chunk where we're just not able to be ourselves and just finding it's really a struggle man as a creative you're just trying to

get things going but like to me it um it really makes it hard i i think for anybody i guess in any industry it makes it hard it's like oh my god like do i feel like making games right now it's like is that the most important question right now to get this out um i think everybody's gonna say i know it's like what kind of games you wanna make like you're asking asking before yeah you know because you know you think games you just think primary colors happy clappy uh you know yeah forget everything nonsense but like there can be a response to it and you know it can be measured it doesn't have to be your big triple a i think it's time we took stark of our response to the verse yeah yeah because it's always that guy isn't it yeah you know i think there can be hopefully at least that there will be some kind of reactions to that and games can do that

you know i mean everyone games are actually doing well aren't they in this whole thing because everyone's indoors like why not get through to people then i know it's like a long development time and all this but you know that's that's the kind of thing for me it's like the stuff i read like people's reactions you know some really kind of cool cool journalists and stuff that keep me going they just give you that better hope that there's people out there that kind of what makes the world worth something you know and it would be nice to see kind of games doing that and kind of getting through to people a little bit it's not about shooting the virus in the face yeah for 60 hours plus loot you know it can be something else you know so you know that that can be a thing that that comes out of this yeah i think any type of message that we can have people experience and

and come up with their own thoughts and and you know uh kind of relate to it's gonna help inspire you know the next generation of game developers and just remember you know uh everyone's struggle and and kind of put in a time capsule it's like you know this is what came out of this artistically uh yeah i think a lot of the artists are are the ones going to lead us going back to normalcy um in those response and reaction uh projects basically because it's it's gonna be a long time i don't even think there's a lot of hopes thinking that by september we can all hang out with family and stuff and maybe there will be some semblance of that but um the way things were i think it's going to be like another year and it's it's just um hopefully we have games like you guys and all this kind of help us through but yeah we're always there to cheer people up

little nightmares sounds like a fun year anyways but nice having you on yeah yeah yeah yeah just shouted the world for 50 minutes i bet bandai are listening to this game you said you were going to be here yeah i will i will say i do appreciate um the depreciation of essential workers it's like unfortunately these jobs are the lowest pay jobs in our society and then suddenly that becomes the most important thing to keep us functioning and i'm glad that that's finally being highlighted uh in the same way that um entertainment is finally you know i don't hear as many articles saying games are so bad for kids and [ __ ] in this period like i haven't heard and now everyone's stuck in the house with their kids yeah playing games like thank god for games oh my god i got five hours to myself yeah i'd like to take this opportunity

to say uh thanks for the imagine video celebrities that really got me through some tough times where i thought things couldn't get worse yeah that was one with the wonder woman right that got panned dog adults oh my god that was better and some people i actually liked as well yeah i was like that no no not yours super crazy i watched it again recently was it just as bad yeah them in their uh hampton house something special about that yeah like you're so detached yeah you genuinely thought that people would get up yeah that's the thing yeah they're really hot yeah the celebrity that's that's just one side of the coin that felt like yeah it sucked to be at home we're bored that's something that you would hear a lot but people don't have to worry about like finances and there is a discipline a bath full of

petals [Music] this it's not about you man yeah it's like it's it's about people who are forced to go out like you see they're essential workers yeah i wonder how long that'll be remembered i hope there is a better response to that and unfortunately it's those essential workers that are the demographic that's getting hit the most too i mean yeah of course within expectations right of course they're out there um but it is one of those things like i i i got to appointments like well i mean these guys i was trying to be as supportive as i can in door dash and you know get the meals at certain points like man they they're kind of touching everybody at this point it's like is that really safe for the guy who touches everyone to touch your meal and then you're you're sitting there so it wasn't until i finally i got to go out and pick up these things and i would see how these guys would just gather next to each other waiting for the meals like oh man this even this system is kind of broken because everyone's like

filthy and and trying to get through and they're not really practicing all the things that we should be doing and it's just all [ __ ] man that's a crazy thing like people think that this system is supposed to be there to protect but it's kind of rag tag too it's like guys have you ever seen these door dashes gather up in front of a restaurant two feet from each other and their masks are like under their nose it's like they're touching your stuff and everybody do you really put yourself thinking you know people just think meals at their door and they didn't have to go out it's like this guy touched us he he spit handshaked everybody and then here is your meal it's like that's how it works and it i didn't realize that until two months ago where i was like you know i was having suspicion about it and then when i finally saw it's like wow look at these there's like 50 people waiting at the restaurant and they're not the i saw three of them talking to a homeless man while waiting within two feet it's like oh my god

let's just light all the trashcan on fire and just like inhale that while he's like you're about to give food to people oh man it's just all [ __ ] man when you see it like that it's like there's nothing that works there's nothing in place to respond to this and people are just winging it always doesn't it yeah probably what's weird with sweden though is you're not actually allowed to go outside force people to stay at home oh okay yeah it's kind of loose here too to be honest there's no like police policing people are to me traffic seems to be the same still um there's no enforcement uh i think the only enforcement has been unfortunately the businesses um where people are trying to survive and they're not giving solution and people are closing left and right like there's a lot of restaurants especially their clothes and i think that's the wrong way to do it i

think in california is there's a huge exodus going on right now with people and businesses like elon musk and all these tech companies are leaving it's like yo when this is over there's no jobs here you know i guess this is not a good idea but it's affecting in so many ways i don't think we're gonna be able to see the full list of damage until way after the fact and i think that's gonna be too late if people aren't realizing it now uh of this whole maybe all the people who could afford to live in san francisco way back when we'll we'll be kind of happy able to afford to live there again i know if so yeah valley leaves yeah i think the locals are finally happy he's like finally got my house back my little closet house for like five thousand dollars it's back on market but that that is a positive i would say that like these mecca cities

um game development has always been kind of like have these these towns that everyone flocks to and of course that town is super expensive to live by and so to get around that that's always been two three hour commutes back and forth with the remote now we don't have to worry about that as much as a positive people can live in affordable places and have a good decent salary that um that reflects that that to me was a huge change just because i i can imagine you you know originally from uk you've moved around a lot within the industry and i have to for for good jobs right not that job down the street because it's available so i want the good job so i have to move um i see that at totally the net positive i would love to kind of hear your perspective about that if you have friends that are currently dealing with that's like where they're living where they want to live and working at where they want to work at without having to sacrifice uprooting anything yeah i mean that's something that we've kind of had

had on on the horizon anyway like you know because there's a there's a very strong talent pool uh in sweden but it's not big enough because there's so many developers here like particularly in malmo there's so many you know established on on startup as well and so if you have any kind of ambition to grow at all you have to be able to uh bring talent in from around the world and and also make you know maybe they can't move or maybe they don't want to move or it's you know there's problem with visa or whatever so we've already been looking at like can we have remote work and can it can it work um we've actually done it successfully with one guy who who had to move back to the us and one of our designers and so that's just something now that's like it's just the standard obviously in the way things are at the moment that

yeah welcome to tasha stay where you are but certainly you know we'd be in a position to if someone was too good to pass up then we have we have that ability and you know you always need sort of like proper flesh time with people you know to to get to know and all that but for the most part it it we at least know it's possible to to get really talented people whether you know whether they can actually be in-house or not so it's it's all about the fit for us you know as well as skills we need need to be a good fit for for the studio because we're i don't know uh i won't say unusual but like a certain type of people we have a certain dynamic yeah i think that's really important my my mentality developer happiness has always been tied to um if i'm surrounded by you know you're

always forced to kind of meet new friends that's unavoidable but like there's a as i gotten older like family has become such a rocky like a good foundation for me and my family to be around just around the grandma around the sister-in-law like it became more and more important and it was one of those times where i felt like i was climbing higher into the the chain of command at a studio but then i was finding me myself farther and farther away and uh it always been a sacrifice and i'm infinitely a lot more happier just being where i want to be and now now the options are open where you can work at a great studio without having to to re-route your whole life meet new friends and just yeah it always feels temporary to me it's like even if i move somewhere to a great place it always feels temporary because the game industry is super volatile but i think with this push where it's more about the output and

the individual's happiness while they're working at a studio um it's one of those things like i said it's a byproduct of this epidemic but it's the only way that this could have happened i think where a lot of students are rethinking that but yeah i agree it's too it would have been too big a risk so it would have been like like a trailblazer company tested out and shows everyone that it can work and that it's better yeah and then you know that's how it goes isn't it oh all right yeah we want to do that too then now the risk is less yeah but yeah so yeah yeah the ip protection has always been an issue it's like what send all the files to your home computer where are you it's fine man i'm in my pjs i'm good i'll see you soon so now we're not doing that but now that everyone's forced to it is weird but it's awesome and it is like i said we won't know the

damage of this whole thing until after we get a breather um and see what's up but uh i definitely feel spoiled on that on that front because we we moved out here i think about three years ago and we were in we were right in the middle of malmo before like in an apartment i would have gone but would have gone berserk in the situation there and i can only i can only imagine how hard it is to be forced to stay in an apartment yeah you know and to feel scared to go outside even if you are allowed to go outside to just feel scared because the few times i've ventured into town like lately i've been stressed out it feels too many people and everyone's being dumb yeah and that like now i'm out you know out in the middle of vietnam yeah you know population

a thousand or whatever you know you just you don't have that same stress but uh yeah i feel like super lucky and really really spoiled like how is it over there like that i'm looking out at snow capped pine trees and yeah no people like that oh it's hard you know probably the same as you yeah farm life have definitely become really appealing nature the love of nature and distance and just being away from the city life is i think overall everyone's appreciating more and um yeah like like even like uh i am i'm spoiled too not having to kind of get through this with through an apartment uh and trying to figure that out and bumping into people it's definitely that urinal uh uh that fear of being at the urinal and then of all the available urinals that guide always finds that one next to you right

i feel that anxiety every time i walk in the grocery store it's like yo why you got to get in my space it's like why can't you just wait i freak out in grocery stores now because people are just in your zone all the time and it's very hard it's very hard to kind of like gauge what's right and what's wrong if i'm being overly stressed for no reason but yeah like close talkers are like 100 times worse now aren't they yeah because it's not just like your garlic breath you know there's something that in there potentially as well just all right then i hear you just fine stand right there but yeah it's it's gonna change everyone's behavior for sure i mean i i for one gonna wear masks for a while and it sucks and it's a long that's a large chunk man we're not getting any younger it's a large chunk of our life that's like i feel like we're missing out and it's hard not to go back to that thinking that i'm missing out a chunk of

my life but i guess every generation has this thing i'm pretty sure when the wars were going i i felt like our ancestors were that's what i'm gonna say i mean like if if this is as bad as it gets for us pretty good boredom yeah it's it's very on brand isn't it yeah but you know i'll take it because i can't imagine i mean living in the in the the war zones that exist now yeah that's going on right now but you know again like you know when it was the world wars it's just you can't comprehend it and we can't possibly comprehend that i hope we never see it but i'll take boredom yeah all the time it's still it's still horrible and it's horrible that people are you know the loved ones are passing away and alone or on what's up yeah or you know whatever it's just it's horrible but it's it's not the same not as bad yeah

so it's a wake-up call i only hope this is as bad as it gets yeah same here man same here i hope it's a wake-up call for sure i think so too yeah we got too comfortable but uh it's you know speaking of comfortable we've been talking for an hour and this is the part of the [ __ ] pajamas in your pajamas in my apartment in my ghee uh look at this looks like a drug there doesn't it this is everything i put like some fake background or something i will say this we're learning more about our co-workers than we would normally be comfortable with so what you got back there it's like ah you didn't clean up all right it is totally isn't it like what's that bookie reading i don't approve of that book it's a phallic thing that's uh yeah that's a lot of kleenex that you got we're learning a lot

just for moisturizing other things but uh it's interesting i think we i think there's gonna be i always joke with your friends there's gonna be a massive orgy after everyone gets a thumbs up like the the the camaraderie the people hugging it's gonna be insane on an insane level um that's like that bill hicks bit isn't it where he says you know if they'll find a cure for age there's gonna be [ __ ] in the streets i think it's going to be the same effect where everyone gets the thumbs up to hang out again um and maybe we'll just be licking each other's faces yeah yeah and it might be the the best medicine to kind of like help us not fully forget this but help us recover um the bouncing back that day of but uh this is the part where i would love to kind of hand the mic over to you i want to thank you for coming on and i knew this was going to be casual we got into like really interesting

tangents and obviously uh i always expect that when talking to you because you're the the narrative designer right i'm always kind of listening to like what kind of stories are you kind of brewing up from all this that is not about shooting viruses in the face it's very interesting this is actually a good idea that's what our next game is going to be all about viruses being blown away uh i'll be the first one to buy it for sure but crime [Laughter] but this is where i kind of hand the mic over to you and whatever news anything that you want to post updates anything where people can find you uh tell our good listeners and viewers out there uh what's up uh yeah well sadly or probably happily you won't fire me in many places socially i uh keep a low profile in that respect but uh i yeah i have got to say uh little nightmares two is going to be out very soon i think

it's nice i i should know this off by help i think it's gonna be eleventh nice um it's really cool really nice it's not far off now there's a demo out now um which i've already also played myself even though i've played this game to death it's really nice to kind of play it on my legit console at home so yeah that's uh that's uh what's going on as far as uh tasha goes at the moment so really hope you enjoy that um thank you man i've got nothing else to say man although then i would just start recommending loads of music but that's i always do that um no i i it's been a pleasure talking to you same man i was uh looking forward to catching up with you again i would say this like steam wishlist is around the world are being conquered right now during this pandemic in a way that hasn't been you know it's been neglected for years and it took the epidemic for people to

like i need to play these games like i am going through them right now and a little nightmares too i'm looking forward to that i love what you guys are doing over there and uh looking forward to hear your post covet games your ideas oh it's gonna be super dark i love [Laughter] wow even crazier huh but uh as always man it's been a pleasure um just shooting the [ __ ] with you man yeah yeah be safe stay healthy montana get too stressed out [Laughter] no problem yeah and then second second guess the door dashes put that in here i will never never order from don't ever do it man if you see them you'll see what i see all right man have a good one yeah you too take care take care

[Music] you