Macro and Micro Narrative Storytelling with Chella Ramanan | Game Dev Unchained Episode 0196

[Music] Oh ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome back to the podcasts that we make about video game development and the life style of game developer is my name is Larry Charles on one half of the podcasting team that brings you this awesome podcast the other half behind this invisible wall is the first person to ever use the term unpopular opinion mr. brain a film being unpopular this is Brandon Pham welcoming our special guest this week shall we practiced off-camera and everything is are you I'm gonna unmute you real quick and now we should be able to hear you hey welcome how's it going alone I'm good thanks how are you wonderful wonderful glad to have you

with us on this podcast Tuesday so so happy to be working with you I I would say usually at this point in the product cast we just ask you to kind of give us the Cliff's Notes version of your resume why you're cool and why you do what you do and what brings you to our podcasts and then we will take over there for the rest of the interview mm-hmm so if you would politely okay I got to it rudely okay my name is shallow ramen on I'm a videogames journalist but not for much longer but I've been writing about videogames as a journalist for about 18 years nearly 18 years I've written stuff for the Guardian the game section of the Guardian and I write well I've just written my last column for game industry calm who are based in the US but I I'm

co-founder of Pocky in play which is a diversity organization which focuses on improving the representation and visibility of people of color in the games industry we're based in the UK but hopefully one day we'll be International and I'm a game developer as well so I'm working on a game called before I forget which is a narrative adventure game about a woman with dementia and that's with my partner Claire Morley and together we are three fold games so a little micro studio and I'm also working on another game called Windrush tales which is about the Windrush generation which I don't know if people are aware of in the US but that's the generation of people that came from the Caribbean to Britain and pretty much helps to rebuild it after the war so because they

were part of what was once the empire and then became the Commonwealth they were invited to come and work and last year was the 70th anniversary my dad was part of that generation so I wanted to celebrate it but then last year we found out that our government was trying to send deport some of that generation under the hostile immigration policy that our government currently employs yeah so it just made that game even more worthwhile to you to make ready not only a full schedule that's me I think welcome to the podcast I have you and we want to shine as much light onto diversity issues and it's funny that like you're the guest right after what we just did on our previous show we were talking about I don't know if you've been following more down how they're not not wanting to put women or

minorities in the game because of fear that it's going to upset their current customer base yeah it's just a develop a small development team that's really in hot waters right now because they they're slow to react and basically sitting on their hands okay Wow okay we'd had that compensate I thought we were past that conversation but I guess not creeps up once in a while but yeah yeah I mean this is as a development team we know how positive of having diversity having lots of say in the development process of every game what is the uphill battle right now for other people that recognize that as well to recognize the importance of diversity yeah like what what is the

white wire people not having an understanding that this helps there I think it's just the lack of diversity in their team's prime usually that's the reason I don't think people are you know sort of purposefully going out to make homogeneous games they're just who they are and they hire people like them and you know that the games industry is primarily white and male and middle-class and able-bodied and straight and you know all these things and so they just reflects themselves and they don't think beyond that and it's a shame and so it just yet it takes a little bit of self-awareness to you step outside that and the default in our

storytelling in the West is a white man that's the default hero who's supposed to stand in for all of us so we learn it from a really young age that that's that's what a hero looks like so yeah I think that's primarily the reason no and I you know Larry and I have been in an issue for a long time and I've looked at primarily the design discipline in the writing team and as the the main example of how the game will come out and it is very much a referral type of image tree we kind of hire people that we know and that we've worked with before there have similar mindsets as ours but those two disciplines in particular I feel have the most influence on how the game shapes and forms because as an artist you know we get our directions from that

those two teams so I'm talking to a writer and designer I would love to know both your perspective and in your experience I get what you're saying is funny oh let me see oh my god I gotta sign meetings and I saw Larry right many many so there's a shot right like there's gonna be some inclusivity of this one person that yeah at least for sure you're expecting one person to fight what but surprisingly like you know I haven't been on a team where I feel like it was like overtly oppressed forgetting like - like Oh Larry no yeah no no this no that no this no that yeah why are you even like I haven't had that experience yet so luckily although my teams have always been predominantly Caucasian I would say I've always been in a group of respectful developers so I can clearly give that credit personally so sorry I guess uh yeah and well I mean

I haven't really worked in big teams you know that's about to change I'm about to join Ubisoft massive in yeah thank you so but in terms of my teams well I was thrown together with the people on before I forget though there were three of us and I was the only person of color we were all women so yeah I I said oh I just quite like her to be Asian to be Indian and they were just like okay fine so that was nice and easy but I know from peers who are in Indy and still in small teams and you know we like to think of India's quite progressive and whatnot but I know from peers that

they have sometimes struggled to maybe yet they've always heard or that their perspective is important is it's sometimes overlooked so that's a bit sad and can be a bit yeah a dispiriting and wearing that person you know there's a lot of emotional labor in that in being the lone voice that perhaps isn't listened to yeah that I think people maybe don't appreciate mm-hmm I mean obviously you guys are when you're being creative it makes start with an idea to lone and then go into meeting and then going back to being alone right so most your process is being alone and being creative and it is disheartening to kind of go back to a group and everyone doesn't understand where you're coming

from and you're trying to design a mechanic yeah like usually from a character or situational perspective I would say like there's often times where my outlook will be different or what I would say is appropriate or not appropriate like I would have a huge stance on like there's a very polarizing moment I think Call of Duty which world war two you had to like you're walking through this like tree ish like greenish area at the part of town or I forget cuz I didn't even get that far in the game yeah yeah but they had two men who were hanged and it blew up on the internet like what they're hanging people and then like you they zoomed in and the color was like like a dark tan might have even been a tan white person we don't know but it was enough that like it was ambiguous as to like the race of the person yeah it could have been yeah you know minority and like for that and I was like if I was there I'd have been kicking and screaming yeah how did they not see that you know what I mean I wasn't on that team but I actually did talk to a couple of the designers like about that specifically and they're like no we were

like don't look at each other for a couple weeks I'm like just even have this and not a lot of people were trying to voice their opinion not to do it but it ended up being a call that went over was how it was broken down to me but I was like but there was people in there at least fighting for it which gave me half of a breath of like cool yeah but then there was people in there who were fighting can you give me these names yeah for a long time so we know everybody so yeah it's always interesting to kind of hear the argument of course at first I think people don't purposely try to be racist right it's more like they're trying to argue from a different perspective and see so they're so far removed from it they don't see the the problems with it and that's the main problem yeah the diversity issue it's just they can't really yeah why why

do you why are you mad yeah are you mad Larry we're just gonna hang a couple guys like thinking this same personal character how how that's crazy man even yeah I forgot about that completely I think they could have done without it yeah it's a game about shooting don't do that someone say like it's a vehicle to help villainize the person we want you to want to get the main bad guy kind of thing I warranty wasn't enough I just know that like certain things I would say because of how toxic it would be for somebody in a certain demographic to be like man this is appalling for me yeah I wouldn't ever want to even take that risk yeah I mean we we our first had a funeral scene and that blew up because

it was press X to give respects and we got memed for centuries and what was the design meeting behind that like I'm sure you guys saw that was a problem right I think it was it really just came down to wanting to have a creative way to show that you like Ben do something and so well because it's the first reveal of like you have the armor being removed and it was like because the camera pans down to show like oh my arm is gone to help set up the rest of the Bionic implants and stuff okay yeah yeah well I mean like I'm sure you face issues like this and you're writing meetings and people are proposing throwing all types of ideas which is fine when you're brainstorming but did any of those crazy ideas get through to to fruition where you're like why did we well like or here's a great question maybe that can kind of springboard off of that is the like did you ever get pigeonholed into something based on like it's a woman events will send you or it's a minority events will send you

because you're gonna talk you're like tokenized to represent in your writing and if so i guess how did you feel or how did you kind of handle those situations sorry what was the question again oh I missed the beginning you have a editors and I'm ignorant to how the whole process of writing or games journalism goes but like and there's like hey these articles we want you to do and it's like to women's marches one minorities and games and randomly chosen of Korea I mean yeah so I needed types of games journalist and I've been really lucky where I've been sort of given editorial freedom to especially yeah my caller my kid come up with whatever I wanted to talk about that week so I was lucky in that way but I suppose maybe

sometimes because we did do a podcast quite in the early days which was the editorial team and maybe sometimes I'd bring up a topic like a hair texture in character Jan or something that they wouldn't really get while I was bringing it up you know she'll are you and your hair sometimes make yeah make light of something just unintentionally because like all the by all the teams I've worked to have been like really really great and supportive of you know whatever topics I wanted to do and so but yeah it's just like you know a sort of cultural lost in translation moment sometimes with things like that I suppose the times that I feel most tokenized is when it comes to which panels I'm invited to sit on and yeah oh

it's always the diversity panels like oh we're doing a all about diversity and games and like I've got to the point where I just like I don't talk I'm just saying I don't talk about that anymore it just came in let's talk about other parts of life because yeah I mean obviously we've all dealt with this issue before and um but that it's only a part of it obviously we want to get past that and just focus on the creativity which is you know a lot of the things that we came in the industry for I don't want to just write about an Asian kid you know there's so many different things I have interest in hobbies too like white games have seemed to have no end point for everybody about white kids

and again I know it's so much more interesting you kind of go outside yeah especially is it creative yeah I'll say this it's quite risky for them to do that and get it wrong yeah so at least give them that let me see this let me see you I want to be your [Laughter] if it's if it's in earnest like a it's important to us they were doing this story of the Zulu warrior yeah he came up with this great story we think it'll be cool yes Larry we do want your opinion we do want to kind of use your opinion as a barometer yeah put it all on the table oh no problem I can respect that let me play I can I can appreciate interest

attempts at trying to show like a different culture right I actually applauded Rockstar and grant the thought of five I think the character's name is Lamar not the not Franklin the the black main character but like what the news name was the more like that's a risky character to write to not have like black cannot only want to say to not have black people to do this for you but like to be unassociated yeah with that demographic because I'm pretty sure rockstar games didn't come from areas where Lamar would have come from right spent a lot of time there but I actually thought that the portrayal was of a character and not taking a look at a character and stereotyping interesting this is the black part like it was actually done in a way that was like this is actually pretty good yeah he's saying derogatory like hood like

real extra hood stuff where I normally am like I'm upset because that's the only african-american character that we write into the whole film yeah but this one was actually actually done well I was like I've met people like this person actually think they've done it tastefully yeah I think that they show this character has appeals has morals has grounds that he stands on but he's just hood his [ __ ] yeah anguish but you know so that was a good attempt and I'll applaud rock star on that yeah and that's them prolly consulting with a lot I'm sure there was to make sure was a thinning I mean Franklin's mother was was it his mother or his aunt wasn't I didn't think she was good I just felt you this very type of okay ever bad black mother who yeah I just I just like considering they don't do women well anyway I thought then to pile on with like the neglectful sort of selfish

black single mother taker I can't remember if she was just great I didn't play the game so I have known I've know where her introduction is no more involvement of the game obviously kind of like considering the three story arcs that they're telling but I'm not gonna do but you can see where their focus was in their consultant they probably don't really they just said that sprit - yeah like that - yeah I wanna go back and see cuz like I was just up here like hey they did such a good job and I was like [Laughter] well at 18 year career in games journalism also being involved in it sounds like two simultaneous game development projects oh yeah yeah the

question coming from me though as the designer in the group is I guess when did you see that transition in your life occur when were you always interested in game development or was that because you're like during the journalism you're like oh actually I want to try my hand at it now tell me like the story of you going into game development yourself and like how great it's been for you and yes that is a loaded question no okay so I've always been writing fiction on the side I mean that was my first love was you know the goal to be a novelist I mean what what journalists I mean yeah if you had a sentence a penny for every journalist who wants to be a novelist we'd all be rich right so yeah so I was I was always attending either writing classes in the evenings I was writing something I think that point I was

running a writing group and I was fairly seriously working on a novel and I think draft three of a novel and I saw this ad I think it was game industry drop beers did an article about a writing for games course in with an organization called the Argonne Foundation which is a really highly respected writing foundation that does writing courses across all sorts of the answer of discipline so can be play writing rating for radio writing biographies all sorts of things poetry everything and they have been bequeathed houses from well my well-known authors so I was at the Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath house which is up in Yorkshire and the tutors were David varela and John in

gold of inkle games you might know heavens fault in 80 days so he was one of the tutors and then Rhianna Pratchett was a guest tutor she came on for an evening so so I saw that and I liked going on writing retreats and I write about games and so I was like oh that's like kind of a cool intersection of things that I enjoy and yeah so I signed up for that and basically that kind of changed everything kind of changed my perspective and my focus because I thought oh this is something I can really do and I really enjoyed the it was a week a residential week but there and from that from listening to the Cheetahs and their journeys I picked out the the common threads were that they'd done lots of different kinds of writing so Rihanna started as a journalist and

then she studied theatre and hone her craft and David wasn't saying who's sort of a copywriter and then and they'd all returned sort of like I like short stories and a couple of radio plays so I went home and I was like okay I'm going to you know start looking at interactive fiction I'm racing a game in ink and then I did a course on writing for radio so I wrote a radio play off the back of Barton's I produced it myself with a couple of friends and it was put on at the local literary festival and then I went to a game jam and that's where I met Claire and that's where before I forget began and yeah but what and then it's just kind of yeah grown from there and before I forget has kind of it's touched a chord with people which means that even though it's not finished yet it's had

quite a lot of good coverage and you know people have really enjoyed the demo and yeah so that's where I am now yeah and then I really wanted to do something for Windrush as its you know part of my heritage as I was thinking I'll shall I write shouldn't store me what should I do and then I was like oh like I could do a game an interactive fiction game that's perhaps Illustrated or something and to keep it quite simple and manageable and so I there's a friend of mine who used to work at PlayStation and he writes comics so I said and he's I I was like you know from the Caribbean heritage right and he was like yeah I'm sunk it's in Barbados and I was like okay I want to do this thing got this idea for a game do you wanna like be a co-writer and so that's where that began basically yeah that's a wonderful journey actually I wish there was more

opportunities for just lots of career paths like hey let's all get together as a group let's just like all sit down and hone our crabs and a communal collective I see artists doing it like sketch groups like I'm a small skill but I would love if there was like a design retreat let's all go to you know Corey's house yeah he's gonna give us two weeks to just get some couches and talk games let me do well is there any high-level goals I hope your your game development opens up for you or like any new avenues further than game development that you're looking to explore because you did mention like there's some diversity like oh I see all we're doing with different things so maybe like first stop games next stop movies I guess are there any other writing goals oh my god I'd love to what I'd love to write a movie I mean I have talked to a writer friend of mine he's also a games journalist and he's he's on his third novel at the moment yeah we have discussed like writing a Netflix show or

whatever the latest iteration of streaming TV will be together but yeah I think it's just that's the good one of the good things about being a writer right is that there's just so many avenues you can take that so yeah I'd might explore all of those avenues if possible yeah I'm a huge movie buff so to write a film would be amazing but yeah we'll see I think I will concentrate on moving to Sweden at the moment and getting before I forget well I can't wait to see what you get your hands on there hopefully we'll keep in great touch because you know obviously NDA NDA stuff you can't say yeah but when you can like Larry it's big Larry I

love I don't want to take your spotlight I'll take ten seconds to just say I love any sort of game that has story character growth and development nah I prefer games that take me on an adventure usually the hero's journey but I love that over a fighting game or action game alone right now the strategy game alone like I love gone home I love like got a war for and how they taking now I love those types of games and so I double down on my respect for people who bring that into game development from writers who come to the table and like look I get it you have a solid idea for like characters and why how these conflicts are happening but let me let me sew that together yeah let me really put some breath into this experience I promise you your customers will like it so I will always work with a good writer yeah whatever so I'm vouching for you and people like you who do games writing if we must come make these games awesome yeah you know I'm tired of [ __ ] translation hell nah

you really miss out a line that's cheap I mean challenging especially I feel like games writing you have to write a lot more dialogue than other mediums because of these options that the players have to take and you got to have different scenarios I get to think about and it's just a lot of writing that you got to do that some people might not even get to write and yeah at least in the bigger triple-a franchises they're moving more away from a singular kind of gotta work I feel like the Sony cam is kind of holding holding the torch for a single-player narrative right just from beginning end play the hero and here's the story right I feel like it's kind of quiet for a while it felt like a lot of just open-world player's choice dialogue second story third type of thing hey what's your

personal feelings yeah well I think there's space for both or all of the yeah always because I suppose you have the sort of telltale which you know tightly written stories but are very good at giving the illusion of choice and you know getting that player emotional investment through the sheer sort of craft of the choices they they give you you know they're brilliant games for sort of studying in that respect but in my personal choice I mean yeah yes because I do like the Uncharted I I love the intro two games just so beautifully written and you know they give that we've always

been searching for that game that feels like a movie and Naughty Dog gives us that you know they did that perfectly and it's yes it's a sheer joy to play in that respect because it's like that sort of that dream that you know gamers have always had like play a game that feels like a movie and I do prefer that to more open world games I think it's it's hard to create a satisfying story experience in an open world you know as a that's a real challenge and I think it's one that you know narrative designers are you know they're having a good go at it like how do we do this we have to crack this nut because it's one of the things that really sets us apart from films is you know this this thing we can do give an open-world where the

player can do whatever they want but also somehow put a narrative in there that feels satisfying and not tacked on or extraneous yeah it's a challenge but what's great about games is there's space for all of those things you know there's space for everything you know from the game I'm writing which is extremely linear that you know there's no choice you know sort of gone home type games with very minimal gameplay mechanics that focuses purely on story to you know everything you know beyond that everything in between that and I don't know Skyrim or something those vast vast experiences but I think stories still really employ take the one heartening thing for a narrative designers writer as that story remains

important because you have to do something with the graph the graphics have to be there for some reason you know there's a story you know because the graphics are so beautiful now there's has to be a story there somewhere doesn't there you have to stress that distraction that supports what we're doing graphic discipline that narrative team writers like just just pick on I feel like within the game development studio like I the art team that picks on the design team and I feel the design team probably talks about art the scene I think that as a designer I probably pick on everyone except for engineers okay yeah everybody is open open season is there is there a certain group that you feel like whenever we do our thing these guys

are really messing with it too much or the narrative team always at the bottom of the wrong any we've already got it done just going there unless right so some stories and dialogue quality here okay so just so you know hopefully that has been flipping I hopefully narrative team is getting bigger right there's more emphasis on writing at the beginning of the game those are the core development in the team when you're forming a studio now like it that wasn't the case like five plus years ago you used to be treated like I don't know the audio guys I think you guys are unfortunately still at the end with the visual fix kids it's fair to say like the game sizes tables you know super small it's like going from one writer at

that time to now like who you bringing up uncharted Assassin's Creed you have macro story and micro story you know you have cycloaddition like there's narrative designer yeah it's like I just do dialogue there's I'm doing overall story right I mean I just built that goes on the website yes oh my god like it's we've grown so much yeah so I'm proud cuz yeah as long as I know that both are sharp if and it's hard to do and I'm not gonna I'll let you attest to it I imagine it's hard to do a macro story really well that is just as like fine tuned indeed or a micro story that's just as fine tuned in detail as like the overall macro story yeah usually like when I see a game like Uncharted or they do like hey in this area you can do whatever you want but then you're gonna get back on the story path as we transition you from here to here you know what I mean you know that's the best way I've seen it thus far but and that's fine with me cuz like like you said it's a game movie like nothing beats Saturday morning nothing

to do big-screen TV and you're playing like an epic you know like you're going on an adventure I love being taken out of my life to be something or do something else and like just really have that like immersed experience and that would not be possible without the reason why Nathan Drake won on that adventure yeah and you know who came up with that not me yeah I came up with the challenges location but I didn't send in the Madagascar well actually yeah we are here to talk about games and I know you're working on a game so I want to give you kudos there but I actually also am working on a little game I've been testing it out it's a it's a it's a really fun game and it has a lot to do with dialogue so you being the expert I would love of you to play this game with me would you like to play yeah sure okay yes Wow okay alright yeah the game is called the Fast Five I'm gonna ask you

five rapid-fire thanks and from you I need five rapid-fire oh god I feel like I'm on Ellen now I know clouds are gonna pop out of your uh you know all right so uh question number one if you could take over as the writer for any game or movie series to make the next installment which one would it be oh my gosh I don't know gods it's supposed to be rapid-fire any game or all a banner saga okay banner saga nice question number two if there was a video game world that you could live in for one day but all the rules apply which one would you pick oh the rules apply okay I'd say assassin's creed origins oh nice

she's like I got a couple people on my list leg question in regards to your preferred way to write laptop pen and paper typewriter what's your preference fountain pen and paper respect question number four your favorite thing to add to a breakfast burrito what the Frick is a breakfast oh oh my god okay alright I'm gonna strike down from the record but if I ever meet you in person I need you okay okay question number this is number four question number four was the first video game you ever owned PlayStation alright question number five the one game movie or book you think was the most inspiring piece of written content that you yourself have played

read through or watched most inspiring most inspiring so personally if you you don't have to say this was the best yeah probably a secret history by Donna Tartt alright I'm gonna save way so the game is finished but can you give me like a little brief about a secret history by Donna Tartt and why okay yes that's an awful and it is about a guy a guy who's he's a poor kid from California and he aspires to go to an Ivy League university so he's always like pouring over the brochure but I think his parents don't want him to go they want him to just get a job but he's really clever so anyway he ends up at this Ivy League university and then there's this elite group of students who are quite enigmatic and charismatic and

they're in this sort of elite class that there's Latin and classics and things like that he gets wrapped up in them and from the beginning of the book you know that bunny is dead who's one of the people in the group so it's a whodunit and when I was like 15 or something and I read this book it was just like a really nice flip that I really enjoyed so yeah that opening scene is Bonnie's body there they are searching for Bonnie body because it's snowed and yeah they have something to do with it and so it's from the beginning it goes back to the beginning and it comes through to how Bonnie died yeah and include it sort of involves a sort of bacchanal that this kind of elite group engage in and yeah it's it's a cool book anything with like good plot twist is I'm a sucker for so there's like a free promo for that novel yeah

yeah she's a beautiful beautiful writer she's really great but she takes her about ten years to write things so yeah the Goldfinch was her last book so she's only written three books and you know first one was when I was like 15 it's like yeah take for a while call you economy well I have a favorite question that I like to to ask our writers usually Netflix is building the interactive storytelling element right and off to me it's obvious to hire writers from the game industry to head these shows like what were your feelings with that type of medium this is a new type of medium for game developers basically more so than filmmakers in my opinion to make it work yeah yeah I mean well we had found a snatch was that earlier this year last year

yeah yeah this year's been flying so I can't remember which was yeah which was interesting it was interesting to see the games industry react to Bandersnatch because you know it was I think it was hugely successful and Bears are sort of before Bandersnatch and post Bandersnatch how you talk to people outside the industry about what you do as as a game writer so you know you can say to sort of Joe or Jane Schmo walking down the street or yeah write games and it's a bit like snatcher you know you say I'm doing an interactive you know choice based narrative within a game you could you could use Bandersnatch now as an example and they'd probably know what you're talking about whereas before they've just been like even if you said

choose your own adventures they would just still have been like I don't see how that relates into a digital for they yeah you know it's quite it's still quite a leap it's not for us from choose your own adventure books to games but for people who don't play games are not familiar with them they don't see how that could be so it's interesting in that perspective that it's taken interactive fiction to a mainstream audience and then there's the whole conversation about whether it was good interactive fiction or not yeah so there was that whole discourse i watched on twitter which was interesting and we did a podcast episode on it and i have a podcast and argued itas my co-host drew decided that it was what did we decide it was something like fun but not good we enjoyed it but it wasn't

the best example of interactive fiction it was obviously doing things that have been done quite a long time ago in the but then interestingly Tom Barlow is currently he's working with Netflix and that should be really interesting you know because he did he did her story which was fantastic you know I'd loved that so I think they're going the right way with Sam Barlow and I think there are other he I'm sure there are other people who are involved in from the games industry in the Netflix I thought I can't remember specific names but that's heartening as soon as that collaboration was announced I was like okay this is going you know this is good they I suppose they clever basically because Charlie Brooker and black mirror is a really big draw and it's a big name

so they went with it with that which is great you know people are going to watch it yeah exactly so you know people are ready for something weird with black mirror and it was the perfect platform to try this out because nobody apart from us knows Sam Barlow did I saw I was bored but it was like do you want to take his ships yeah but like what I really loved that didn't get enough attention was the beer girls one oh my god the burgers yeah he did like cheese you're gonna go oh it was so good do you want me to jump out of the helicopter oh do you want me to eat this this Dookie on the ground is like I eat the dig are you really making me do this aren't you yes what kid was in it I was watching a little I was like yeah this is really you know what sucks for bagels he had to

do all the things I knew Avenue for a touch the cactus yeah you don't let the find anything get out on the Hornet sting and row by the helicopter but I thought that was - yeah this model was a lot more successful with the Bear Grylls than the Bandersnatch really that's interesting so the trailer for that because it was really was doing all the stuck with my Babs yeah it was definitely more oriented and it was fun seeing and kind of going through it all he's like oh looks like you killed me I'm stuck in this cavern he's like yes I know well maybe the payoff right it's a lot because you if you're not into game development or like really gave a crap about the like nostalgia that they were kind of leaning on with the like Zork clone or whatever they were doing their super simple he's gonna really yeah

there's a certain level of control for sure I think where I landed on all that is like I'm happy it exists I'm having that Netflix took a stab yeah because yeah to filmmaking right we're watching movies has been a yeah yeah some experience yeah now so cool there's a little bit of agency in it now yeah so I can have a deeper experience and we can have talking points that are different then I saw it my way you saw your with it now it's what I did this yeah you're bending X and this is the ending that you saw yeah a blurring of the lines isn't that yeah they love happening yeah this is interesting yeah you mean deed of the other download for K they love you spending more time in it like so that's very very good for what they're doing which is the problem that I think is streaming platforms will have because it requires so much more time to stream games with stadia and all this different things it's a problem it's like not everybody has the free internet due to

allow that but Netflix is coming from the bottom up so they they'll find a sweet spot Phil yeah be interesting I'm really interested to see what sandbar they does I you you'd mentioned briefly your podcast if you just so we can reiterate while it's on our mind in case any of our listeners want to jump in on that what was your podcast again it's called argue the toss a very very British yeah yeah it's a turn of phrase yeah yeah so it's yeah but just the two of us normally talking about games and films and stuff we talk about films a lot and we're both right so it's from a sort of writer's perspective we tend to do a deep dive on like story narrative in films and games and sometimes we have guests on I get one interesting writing

question for you because again like we kind of illustrated that Rockstar may or may not have done character writing right so do you have any successful techniques or suggestions for people who may be in the scenario where like I'm gonna be writing somebody unfamiliar to me because professionally and I'm a writer and I've been hired to do that job maybe what quick two or three piece of advice do you potentially have and I don't want to say quick like I'm limiting you but you know trailers so tips for writing the other particularly do you mean yes please and this is for me sorry I want to get I want to get better okay getting into the head as well I suppose the thing that's good that we have now is the internet and social media so you know there's black Twitter and you know those from the Irish Twitter Jewish Twitter and so that's a

good place to start to see what conversations those communities are having what their concerns are who they're listening to who their spokespeople are they're the media that they go to and then following that and yeah sort of immersing yourselves in writers and filmmakers and I suppose theorists from those that group or marginalized voice or whatever it may be and then consulting with people I think if especially if it's a commercial product then you pay a consultant to look over what you've done and help you get it right and I suppose failing that you ask friends or maybe you know communities like groups online there are bloggers

and vloggers and all sorts of people who are happy to give that kind of assistance but ideally you'd pay them to do that because it's a skill in and of itself as you know just as being a writer or an editor or something would be yeah just try and immerse yourself and I think don't take because the thing that lots of people do with with people of color in when they're writing people of color they use movies and they think that the black people in Hollywood movies or on TV are like real black people but they're not they tend to be stereotypes and they tend to be from a very small pool you know what that community is like you know like people don't all come from you know one part of an LA sort of you know sort of urban

sprawl you know they don't all just come from New York or whatever it may be you know for some of us from London first live in the countryside you know there's all sorts of experiences so don't use Hollywood shorthand to inform what you think a group is I think that's the biggest biggest mistake people make hey man I'll cosign triple cosign whatever I can do to support that 100% I you can always tell the people who have done that or like who have their expert experiences or assumptions based on those fictional you get there in the first time conversation where they come into it presumptuous and then they meet

you in get gamedev well it's studio right I'll say there's two areas where I feel like most of the like oh I can tell you're very ignorant is fictional Lord news are the like main sources where they'll say like all black people ultraviolent they only do this they only do that and like I've seen guys like okay cool yeah this is by the way let me get them join us since that's what you thought I was here to do you know like it's here for a civil discourse now I'm here for the Jordans can't hide it according to the news anyway I'm sorry this is starting to get personal so I'm just gonna bow out I don't want to a little want to take I don't want to do that yeah [Laughter] definitely is a small part of it you know just being allowed to be creative and going to a work setting and having the battle through that of course it's just part of part of the first part of

the job I think I think there is a lot of fear though which is maybe why more diverse characters aren't written so which is a hard thing to wave a carb you know it's easy to say don't be afraid especially in you know the days where there's like a Twitter flame fest can just like take you down so yeah exactly but I think it does help if you you know you took care and you did you did you did the groundwork then you probably still will mean make mistakes and when you get called out for that mistake they'll double down on it or become defensive you you kind of have to just hold your hands up and say I got I got this one wrong I I tried but we got it

wrong we're listening for next time I wish more people yeah I wish more people on both sides of you argument we're interested in opportunities to learn right the person making the mistake but then also yeah feels like they could either yell or be like okay now mr. Hollywood yeah this is not okay do this do that and you might have a better success next time yeah what I will say though is I looked at the clock and you've achieved one hour of podcasting with us we've talked about writing career we talked about diversity initiatives we've gone all over the place and so I feel it's only fair reward for stomaching an hour of Brandon and Larry you get to talk directly to our audience to shout out promote raise awareness or shine some spotlight on anything you care about anything important to you anything that you're working on or just something you think

needs a little more attention than it currently has so without further ado the floor is yours oh wow it feels like I should be selfless and help with something that isn't about me I will first I'll do the things about me to to get those out of the way so if you are on twitter at three fold games is my make micro studio and that's where you'll find out news about before i forget which is going to have a steam page very soon and then you'll be able to wishlist it and all those lovely things and yeah we have three holds games has a website and stuff but Twitter's probably the best place to find us and poke in play if you are interested in diversity and making this industry a better place to be for people of color and all the intersections of

emotional ization that go with that then we are a spoken play and you can get involved as a sponsor as volunteer or just supporter and big up the things that we do will be really awesome we want to grow the community we're based in the UK at the moment but obviously I'm going to be living in Sweden one of our team lives in Tenerife and another one lives in Germany so we kind of are International already but be nice to have some folks in the US and Canada as well and somebody that somebody that's doing something that isn't me I'm trying to think oh I have I was just a guest on a lovely podcast called talking simulator which is by Jordan Erica Webber she's a games journalist friend of mine and she's just started this podcast which is 30-minute conversations with interesting people talking about game things so check that

out that's really lovely talking simulator I like the name yeah that's what everyone says but I'm so slow it took me ages to figure out that that was a pun such a good name and I was like yeah yes then I was like oh I see what she did it's been an honor and a pleasure to have you as another one of our video guests on the podcast so we really appreciate you jumping on here to do this and I wish both of your video game projects and your podcasts and your new writing opportunities nothing but the best and support low down so we don't things I have to say like the other game goes well good luck we've just been sitting here not doing anything thank you so much for having me it's been a pleasure and again when you let us know when the

Ubisoft project is out and I can like alright we're gonna add that to the list of cool people we know yeah so well come back we'd love to have you anytime separately I'm Larry Charles talking to someone who writes Brennan fam see you guys next week [Music] [Music] you [Music]