Their 0 Combat Game Made Them Millions

anything that even slightly messed with that design pillar is not even on the table. Like combat is one of them.
Can you share any numbers? If not, that's fine.
We're like 3.6 or 3.7 million gross across Nice. Actually, probably closer to four now, across all platforms.
This is a conversation with Danny Weinbaum from Eastshade Studio [music] and they are entirely focused on making narratively driven, non-violent adventure games. They made one of my favorite games of all time, which is also called Eastshade.
rather gouge my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than [music] make a Friendslock game. One-dimensional character is actually pretty good cuz most characters are zero-dimensional characters. It's a game about being a painter on an island and you solve everybody's [music] problems just by painting. I loved that game. They have really good quest design. They have awesome environments and I wanted [music] to learn from Danny how he thinks about designing games like this.
It's kind of like Skyrim if instead of everyone needing a problem that can be solved by killing [music] people, everyone had a problem that can be solved by painting something.
I got a lot of very good nuggets out of

it and I hope you will enjoy yourself. Well, I just found out that there's another game you made that I didn't even know about about, which is Leaving Lindal. Yes, is that how you pronounce it? Mhm, that's right. Yeah, that's how we pronounce it anyway. I think we're like three years into Eastshade. I was [music] like, "Oh man, we like spent a lot of money making Eastshade and a lot of time and [music] it seems kind of scary to release a game like and we've never released a game and here we're releasing this game that we we spent all our money on and all my wife's money on.
[laughter]
Just like such crazy investment and like what if I mess up the launch? Like there's just so many things that could go wrong. So, I just wanted to release a small game.
[music]
So, we made that one in six months. Um and then released it and it it did I guess okay for six months. I think it made like I think it grossed like 80 grand [music] today. And that was um during the development of Eastshade you decided to make another smaller game, like a small in-between project. Exactly, exactly. And you know,

it was for for learning the ropes of launch, it was extremely helpful. Um like I actually did some really stupid stuff when I launched that like I like we launched with a soundtrack and I messed up the repository, so the soundtrack had like no files in it. Just like really dumb stuff like that that I'm very glad that we learned that on Leaving Lindal. That kind of just you know, back-end stuff, admin stuff, how to launch a game, things like that. As far as an actual like marketing tool for Eastshade, it's funny. Even in the negative reviews on Leaving Lindal, most of them would they would say it was too short. They said, you know, "Oh, this is way too short. This is really not good. I don't like this at all, but I'm kind of interested to see the full game." So, it's like, "Ah, okay. Well, you still kind of are interested in the full game." That's I mean, kind of interested is is actually pretty high benchmark in this industry. Mhm. But it was more of a straight walking sim. Leaving Lindal was. So, I think it was a horrible representation of what Eastshade was. Got it. And I can also I

recognize one of the locations at least from Eastshade. So, sharing the same location the game?
Yes, it's the same IP, you could say, but like not a demo. Different games. Um it Leaving Lindal is technically a prequel to Eastshade, but different games, different mechanics. Um which is a super confusing, super weird and super confusing thing to do. And I think from from that perspective, from like a marketing and business perspective, I think it was it was not good.
[laughter]
So, how did you guys get into game development anyway? Was it like um Okay, we're leaving the typical we're leaving our day job and we're going all in on this. Any of your viewers who don't know me, I used to work in AAA games as an environment artist, as a 3D environment artist. Uh I worked for ArenaNet and I worked for a little outsourcing company and I also worked for uh Sucker Punch on Infamous Second Son. And
Nice. I don't know. I I never really planned on I always saved my money like crazy. Like I was making pretty decent money and I was like living on less than half

of it. Like I was living like a college kid. And um and I was saving all that money cuz I knew that one day I wanted to make my own game and I figured that, you know, nobody was just going to give me a bunch of money. So, I thought I was going to need a lot of money. And then I started seeing other people make you know, pretty pretty reasonably scoped games all by themselves and being successful at it. And I started to feel like, you know, a little bit competitive even. Like I I could do that. I could make something, you know, that would knock people's socks off. And and I started working on Eastshade in the wee hours. Oh my gosh, I was like staying up till 5:00 in the morning and then like going into work at like 10:00, like sleeping for a few hours and it was just destroying me. But I was I was so insane. I was so hooked on making Eastshade or what would become Eastshade that I just had to I just had to quit. I was like, "Okay, well, I've got this much money." I quit with $130,000 in the bank. So, I thought, you know, I'll work for two years and if I can't

come up with something, oh well, I'll just go back and get a job like a normal person, no big deal. Anyhow, it ended up being five years.
kind of a decision you made together with your wife or did she join in later? So, at first it was just me. I quit to make Eastshade and I was just working on Eastshade on my own. And then she started like helping. You know, it's it's exciting and she's also an artist. She was an art teacher.
Um for an art instructor, after-school art instructor at the time. And like, you know, we kind of like the same kinds of games. Like like both our her favorite game is Skyrim, my favorite game is Oblivion. Okay. And so she even though she didn't have like games industry background, she started helping with things. She was like drawing UI art and then she was like messing around in the engine. She eventually started learning Unity and she was already a digital artist. Like she could already do Photoshop and all that stuff. Um but then she started just helping with more and more stuff and then she started helping with so much stuff that I was like, "You should quit your job and do this with me." And yeah, and then she ended up being like

she ended up going super in getting super into it and now she's like one of the best game designers I know. So.
Nice. Can you quickly pitch Eastshade to everybody who hasn't seen it before? Yeah, it's it's a it's an open-world adventure game where you play as a traveling artist. So, it's kind of like an RPG. It's kind of like Skyrim if instead of everyone needing a problem that can be solved by killing people, everyone had a problem that can be solved by painting something. So, it's not like Photoshop the game. Like you don't actually sit there and draw, but um people will have quests that you solve by oh, you know, I'd really love a painting of an owl um and then you think, "Oh, well, I bet I should go paint an owl and give it to this lady." And then those sort of game builds up like that. That's such a wholesome pitch.
[laughter]
It's interesting that you compare the game to something like Skyrim or to like these RPG-like games. Maybe it's because I have never really been huge into RPG-like

games. For me personally, it was more like Outer Wilds. It was almost like a little bit like a Metroid brainier vibe for me. Interesting. Yeah, I can see that.
I really like Outer Wilds. Have you played that one? I've [clears throat] played a little bit of Outer Wilds, but I'm too stupid for it. I got [laughter] it. Um yeah, but cuz for me Outer Wilds was like probably the most memorable gaming experience I had so far. So, for for the people who have played Outer Wilds already, so that is like there's nothing else like this. Like chasing that that memory. And your game came extremely close.
Really? I find that fascinating.
It did because you know, it's not not everything is knowledge-gated in your in East Eastgate Eastshade. Mhm, mhm. The the thing in Outer Wilds is sort of that you can complete the game in 10 minutes if you know all of all of the answers, right? Right.
not entirely the case in your game, but it's still it's your game is still very information-based in the way that

if somebody requests a painting from you, you need to know that location or you need to know like the answer to the puzzle. Yeah, no question marks or anything. to to create that painting. So, it's surprisingly similar vibe, but in in a very very different flavor of it and I think that's why I really liked it. Also like the immersive experience of you arrive on this island and you start out in this little town and you slowly expand your range and you have to stay in those inns overnight, right? Cuz you otherwise you it's very freezing at night at first if you don't have like a coat or whatever. Like can you tell me a little bit about this this role-play feel or like what were you trying to achieve with the game specifically? I guess I think I when I think of the RPG genre, it's one of the few genres that puts a lot of its uh puts a lot of its sort of

production muscle into making someone feel a sense of place. So, really making you feel like it's a world cuz most most game worlds, they're game worlds and they're they're, you know, everything every decision that's made about them is to serve the um the mechanics of the game, which makes perfect sense, right? If you go and like Mario 64, like all the platforms and everything are all the jump heights and everything are the whole world is designed for your player controller and the kinds of jumps that you can do and stuff. But in the RPG genre, it's it's almost like the mechanics take not a completely a backseat, but a little bit more of a backseat, right? Like we have we pour all these resources into things that really don't actually affect the moment-to-moment gameplay or the mechanics of the game. Like all the NPCs and how they all have schedules. It actually kind of it's it's even harder cuz sometimes you need to like go find them and you don't know where they are and stuff like that, but there's sort of a fantasy of this is a

place where people live. That's another thing you have in common with Outer Wilds. Now that you say it, that's cuz Outer Wilds also has this time loop and you need to know when what happens. And that's also Right, I forgot that's also the case in your game. True. Yeah, and in Outer Wilds you've got like people sitting around the campfire like playing the guitar and just little touches like that. Like that's hard. That's like you use a little spend a lot of money making someone play a guitar, right? And then hold the guitar and do all that stuff. It's not really important for the I guess mechanical aspects of the game, but it's important for the vibes. And yeah, [clears throat] obviously they prioritized a little bit of that as well. I would say Esha prioritizes it even more. It's like that's really That was our main design pillar and anything that even slightly messed with that design pillar is not even on the table. Like combat is one of them. Combat sort of makes your world into an arena, right? If If 95% of the people you encounter you're murdering, well, [laughter] you need to make like a narrative concession to to explain that, right?

And it sort of makes you know, you have to consider that in your world. So that's not an easy concession for us. It's like, well, you know, that's not our top priority. So we're just We're not going to be killing people in this game. I think you said one very interesting thing in the comments where where I think in the video I talked about how I think that making a fun game is sort of the easy part once you get to a certain experience level of game dev. Uh-huh, yeah, I I remember
And and you you were I think you were all like It's like the opposite for you. The appeal comes The appeal side of things comes easy to you. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I I just played Thronefall like 3 days ago and and I've played What is the What is the one where you're flying in the in the in the feds? Um that's Superflight, but I I personally actually did not work on that one. I joined Grizzly Games Okay.
joined Grizzly Games after they made Superflight. Gotcha. Okay. Well, anyhow, I mean, after playing Thronefall, I like I can see like you guys have the magic

for for like Yeah, just just really tight and and beautiful design loops. Um Yeah, just really fantastic amazing game. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I guess the appeal part it's sort of you know, I think it's like cheating. We just spend too much damn money on our games. [laughter] Like we just make this world that is like really detailed and with Jaclyn and myself, like I think we're kind of lucky because our taste is sort of I don't want to say generic, but like we have taste that is a lot of other people have the same taste. Like Esha is like a whimsical, you know, sort of high fantasy world that it I think a lot of people enjoy. I mean, it's like a woodland fantasy cottagecore sort of thing. And a lot of people are into that. And then of course we have the sort of production chops, like just the craftsmanship to actually make something like that at a really high fidelity. It just It sort of trivializes the the appeal part and except when you consider

the actual production time. Like it takes us a ton of money and time to get there. So it's not easy in that sense, but it's easy in that it's the path is clear. Whereas finding the fun, oh man, like we had some really dumb stuff going on in Esha when we started. Like It started out as a survival game. Like talk about crapping all of your design pillars. It was It was completely wrong. It didn't do any of the things that we wanted players to feel. Like it was the opposite. It was like, now your hunger bar is going down. We're actually penalizing you for smelling the roses. And that was really stupid. So we we sort of you know, we we had to think really hard. It was Jaclyn who came up with the painting idea and to make all the quests around it. And even then I was too stupid to realize that the painting had to be At first they were like more like pickups. Like you would like find the painting. Oh. And they were predetermined spots. Which is I mean, in hindsight that's so dumb. And even at the time she was like, no, that's that's not going to work. And I was like, no, no, no, give it a shot. Give it a shot. She was like, no.

[laughter]
Yeah, so eventually we had to do the actual painting. Well, for me personally the fantasy of painting I think is very key aspect about the game cuz painting for me is one of those fantasies that I do feel very drawn to, but in in real life I don't really have the time to practice or master painting cuz I've got too many other things going on already. So for me the painting aspect was actually one of the things that made me want to try the game. Okay, so the fantasy
enjoyed that part of the fantasy for sure, yeah. And I think the fact that you can paint whatever really adds to the fantasy. I agree I think it would not have worked if you just collectibles somewhere in the world. And also it's what gives me this Outer Wilds feel of matching the exact exactly the correct image to the exactly correct person. And then there are even sometimes there quests for where people don't even specifically tell you they want a painting, but if you give them the correct painting there still some some sort of reward and

so on. So that I find those moments very very rewarding. Right. Okay, so your You know, I love your formula for appeal, by the way. That presentation plus fantasy times readability. So you're saying that like So I was speaking mostly about presentation. Um which which sort of maybe is um maybe some of the part that comes easy to us. And you were saying like the actual verb, the fantasy of being a painter is another part that sort of adds up to the Yes.
um the equation. I think the readability is probably not very good for Esha, but
[laughter]
I mean, it's it's okay. It's mid. I think the the fantasy is being a painter and also being an explorer, right? And at least the explorer side I think is communicated relatively well. Let me check out the store page. Esha. Yeah, I I think you you definitely get the peaceful explorer vibes relatively

quickly from this. That's good. The The big risk was that And I didn't really know it at the time, but I think a lot of people still think Esha is a walking sim. Which I'm not throwing shade at walking sims, but walking sim is a very specific kind of game. A walking sim is a is a an adventure game. It's a first-person adventure game and it tends to be a game where you can't really change the state of the game world that much. Um and it's not a game where you have a bunch of quests and inventory and crafting and things like that. That's not walking sim stuff. So I feel like we actually align a lot more with an RPG. Um Outer Wilds is I would categorize Outer Wilds I think as a puzzle game would be where I'd put it. But it's Seeing how the way you talk about the solving the quests, it is more puzzly than I was even thinking. So it's you I I really enjoy hearing your perspective on it. I think um you could also look at Outer Wilds as like an RPG with a with a very open

quest structure, right? Uh-huh, okay. So the quests are not presented in the typical format of you have a quest giver and then you go through the quest in a linear order. It's more like the quests are scattered all around the universe and you have to find the correct line through the quest to to solve the quest. So it's a it's certainly puzzly. I agree with that.
But then there's all those game verbs, too. Like you're driving a ship and stuff. So it really muddles the genres a lot. Yeah, sure. Yeah, the the verbs are interesting, right? So I think it's very helpful if on the screenshots you can sort of see the verbs. And when we look at Esha's screenshots, we see a lot of beautiful environments and that's probably where people get their walking sim vibes from, right? Cuz the verb the verb you see on the screenshots is the walking. Yep. Yeah, I I agree. I agree. And actually, that brings me to a question I have for you. I was so annoyed with people thinking Esha was a walking sim.

I I eventually made a new trailer for the games, the second trailer in the Steam page slot. And it's like this new kind of trailer I feel like that's emerging. The developer explains the game point-blank like trailer where they just literally just I just tell you. I just explain what the game is. And I saw you did that for Thronefall and I was really fascinated by that. And I was wondering why you chose to do that instead of like a more traditional trailer where you you know, more traditional cuts and shots and stuff.
So I was sort of lucky in the way that I joined Grizzly Games after they made Superflight and they did that explainer trailer for Superflight for whatever reason. And it's They got a lot of very positive feedback for that. So it's like, that's so awesome that you're just so transparent about what the game is and so on cuz in these explainer trailers, like even for Superflight, they were like extremely honest. They were like, it's a very small game. Like don't expect anything crazy, basically. Doing very good expectation management in the

trailer. And that that worked out very well. So I guess it was like, don't change it if it's like working. So we did it for the next games as well. And it was all always got good feedback. Always people were like, that trailer was so helpful. I'm like, okay. If it's helpful, then we should probably keep doing it, right? Gotcha. I think it works great for Thronefall, too. Yeah. Yeah, and then the other thing with those kind of trailers is that explaining the game in your trailer sort of forces you into a good trailer structure. So even if people watch it without sound, the the fact that you use the footage to explain the game also makes it so that the footage also does a very decent job at explaining the game.
Cuz whatever [clears throat] footage you have to pair with the explanation is going to be illustrative as to the game verbs. Yeah, totally. I can I can see that. Your part How big is Grizzly Games?
Grizzly Games at the moment is just the two of us. At the moment it's just Paul and I. Okay. And the team has changed a couple of times. So, Superflight was a university project from three of my

fellow game dev students. And then Islanders was also a university project, but with a different team where one of their team members left and I joined in.
Got you. And now for Thronefall, another one of our team member members left and now it's just for Thronefall it was just the two of us. Got you.
Friedemann is also making very successful games. He He released Slots and Dagger recently. Okay. It's like a slot machine roguelike, which is doing really well. So, he's he's also still making good stuff. You guys are like the A-team. You guys are like the Avengers.
[laughter]
Um and you do you do both art and code, right?
I I'm a You're flipping the script here. You're interviewing [laughter] me. I have like a whole questions, man. I could interview you the whole time. Um I'm a I'm a game system designer. Yeah, so I am not specialized on art. I'm like specialized on gameplay coding and balancing stuff. Okay. So, all of the

art stuff for Thronefall, that was mostly Paul's doing. Got you. Got you. Okay.
But the thing is I'm also a generalist. So, if I have to do art, I can also do relatively decent art, I would say.
Wow. Okay. Nice. All right, I'll stop flipping the script now.
[laughter]
For now. I'll come back to it later.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Did you do any market research before making Eastshade or was it like just making the game that you wanted to make that you wanted to play? Or how did you balance like the the passion side of things with with the business side of things? Yeah, definitely like 100% this is the game that I would want. Like I was already really interested in ditching combat loops. Cuz like I I mean I love Elder Scrolls, but the thing that I love about Elder Scrolls is not fighting. I don't like hate the fighting, but I've always felt like it's, you know, it wasn't an important part of what I liked about the experience. So, I was I've always been very interested in in making game worlds that

have mechanics that sort of like put the game world more front and center. Um as as like a place. So, I was always very interested in that. I will say like like I was saying before like I just have naturally have taste that is like not that niche. And that helps a little bit. Um also being a AAA 3D environment artist helps cuz like I I didn't do market research per se. Like I didn't know how to like approximate revenue of games on Steam or anything like that yet. But I was I've always been competitive. Like I've always wanted to I've always been looking at the kinds of games and I'd always like size them up like ask myself like could I pull off something like that or like you know, do I think I could make a game more appealing? I've always kind of thought about appeal. Um but no, definitely never looking through like the the Steam tags median revenue or anything like which actually I've never done, not even for Songs of Glimmerwick. Have we done that? Which which is really funny because my for my marketing is not the problem video, I got a lot of

comments being like, "Wow, so you just chase trends." And I'm like, "Actually, no. We've never given a crap about this stuff." But
In your marketing is not a problem video, the point What's What's the exact point you make there again? Point of the video, I was trying to show people how to get a better intuition for the quality benchmark of the middle class of Steam. Because I feel like a lot of indies, they basically only have In the video, I called it consumer level knowledge. Like they pretty much only know the the mega hits. Like they've heard of like Undertale and, you know, Vampire Survivors and like really, really popular games. And that sort of informs their entire idea about like how what What does a game have to look like to actually move units on Steam? And um I've just always felt like if you look at enough games in the middle sellers, like let's say between 100,000 and a million dollars,

you'll start to like develop this sort of intuition. And I would I imagine, at least this is how I felt, it allows you to sort of look at a Steam page, not know the wish list, not know the you know, review counts or anything, and make a pretty decent guess at at how much that game made or is going to make. Of course, you know, you're going to be wrong sometimes. Like this Mega Bonk game, I would have guessed that that game was going to make like you know, three grand or something. So,
[laughter]
you know, I'm happy to admit that I'd be super wrong about some games. But most games, there is some rhyme or reason here. And I imagine once you get that intuition, then you can sort of like make better plans and and better expectations for your own, you know, indie dev aspirations. Have you looked at a lot of middle class games deliberately or do you just play a lot of these games? Or where does that feeling come from? Now it's like a hobby of mine. Like I really like looking. Actually, I I wrote an article a long

time ago. I was scraping Steam before it was cool. Um I wrote an article about trends and tags and genres. Um I scraped all of Steam and I basically just approximated revenue based on review counts. Um and I extrapolated revenue based on how far they were into their sales curve. So, I sort of like gave a ballpark lifetime revenue of just about every game on Steam. And then I could like organize it by tags and genres and I just wanted to see. Now it's trivial to do this cuz we have sites like Game Stats and stuff and Game Analytics. But at the time that I scraped Steam, um there wasn't really many data sets out there like that. And actually a bunch of people started using my data set. Even marketing companies would use my data set to do their own numbers. And then a bunch of people made like a way better. They're like way better at scraping than me. Like they know how to do like web stuff way better than me. So, I'm happy nobody should use my geek data set anymore, but I've always been interested in it. So, first you said you didn't do any marketing research and now you come out with this like that you scraped Steam to get data. Yeah, so this

is This is When I started [laughter] Yeah, yeah. Let Let me explain that. I've always been interested in it was the wrong word. That's not true. After I started Eastshade, I would say like a couple years before the launch of Eastshade is when I started to get really into this stuff. I mean, partially cuz I'd spent literally all of the money that I'd saved over my whole life and I wanted to know like how effed we were, basically.
Right. That makes sense. [laughter] Um but yeah, then I got pretty into it.
So, during So, while you're developing it's like trying to get some insights and and hindsight. Not like what game are we making? It's like how screwed are we? Exactly. [laughter] That's right. Okay. And And what's What was your conclusion about how screwed you are? Um I thought we're I thought it was going to be all right. I thought like, you know, even if I took the low end of most statistics for like like Jake Birkett already had his his Birkett ratio article, his famous Birkett ratio article. The The original OG Birkett ratio. That's just For anyone who

doesn't know what Birkett ratio is, that's just your your pre-launch wish lists, like the night before you launch, compared to or you know, the correlation of that to your week one units sold. So, I even using conservative extrapolations, I could already see like we're probably going to be all right. And then at the high end of those estimations, it was like, "Oh, that's really exciting, but I don't want to think about that." But it turned out to be the high end of those.
Nice. Can you share any numbers? If not, that's fine. Oh, for Eastshade? Yep. Yeah, yeah. I think we're we're like 3.6 or 3.7 million gross across Actually, probably closer to four now across all platforms. So, that includes um PlayStation and Xbox and and a Game Pass deal as well. Oh, that's very good. And that paid for development because you were you were like making a world like this is very expensive. And What do you What do you What exactly do you mean with expensive? Just in terms

of the hours you personally spend or were there any other costs that played a significant role? The biggest cost was just me and my wife, Jaclyn, just working full-time. So, I had to work By the time Eastshade shipped, I'd worked for for 5 years full-time. And she had worked for almost 3 years full-time. And then we had a couple contractors, really like short-term small stuff. And then we also paid for like localization and stuff. We didn't have a lot of external costs. I don't I think we spent less than 60 grand on like paying for other things, you know, paying for like contractors and stuff. But just our own like cost of living and everything. And we lived really like as cheaply as we could in in the United States. I mean, we're we're a very rich country and we, you know, cost a lot to live here. True.
Um So, yeah. I forgot, does Eastshade have voice acting? Yeah, fully voice acted. So, we also did full voice acting. Which initially I thought would be completely out of the

question, but I just started looking around and I saw that it really is not as expensive as I thought. I think we I don't think it even cost us 25 grand to voice act for Eastshade, all of it. It's like 50 characters. I think it was like 3,000 words or something like that. Maybe that was the localization guy. I can't remember. But yeah, it wasn't prohibitively expensive. Um it was a lot of work cuz you had to do the casting. And you know, just vetting through all those and picking the one. And then you got to have the back end to like generate all the scripts for all the voice actors. They have to have like little unique IDs so the game engine knows which ones to pull. And then you send all those off. Then you get them back. And then you might have to do like pickups if you have to change a line or something. So, Mhm, it's a lot of work. But we're going to do it again for Songs of Glimmerhaven and we have even more We have like twice as much voice acting.
[laughter]
So, about like it very much sounds worth it, right? So, cuz it adds a lot of life to the world, if you know what I mean.
does. Yeah, I I agree. I think it does, yeah.

I think it does. I mean, you just have to be you just have to do a really good search for the right actors. Cuz I mean, gosh, a voice actor can knock out like thousands of words in an hour. So, if you just send them the scripts, you know, um they can do a lot, but you just have to find all the right people with really high-quality production audio, you know, the audio has to be perfect. Basically, with voice acting, you're judged by the worst performance. That's what I find. Mhm. Um yeah, people will be like, "Oh, the voice acting is not very good." But they're just remembering that one person that wasn't very good. So, it seems It's a high bar, but yeah, I don't like have your friends do it or whatever, like I would say, cuz that could, you know, that won't add as much.
I see. Yeah, for Will You Snail, I had my friends just to the typical game game [laughter] thing. But you had like some like effects and stuff on the voices and stuff, right?
Yeah. Sure. I'm wondering what what other developers can learn from Eastshade.

There are a couple of things I'm thinking about. One is, of course, the environment art, cuz you said you're an environment artist, right? Mhm. The environment art is very good in Eastshade. Well, thank you. That's That's one thing. Maybe Maybe let's start there. What can you What can you teach us about environment art? Yeah, so for environment art, I would say that the most important thing and just an art in general is like to use reference. Just find great reference and let that guide you. I would say, like Mhm. Some people, they just try to make stuff up from their head too much. But if if you can find great reference and you can be very relentless in your pursuit of trying to unpack By the way, this It does not matter what style your game is in. Like Songs of Glimmerhaven is, you know, way more sort of stylized and cartoony. Doesn't matter. We still use a ton of reference. You just have to try to figure out what makes something look cool and what details are important and you want to try to express those in your stuff. So, for example, trims,

moldings, uh the the patterns on doors, the shapes of windows, the tessellations in the windows, the muntins in the windows. Um if you're looking at forests, don't just think, "Oh, forest is trees and grass, right?" No, forests are not trees and grass. If you walk around in a forest and really pay attention, like most places that have a lot of trees do not have a lot of grass. Grass needs a lot of sun, so you think about things like underbrush and ferns and things like that and you just try to include all those. So, that's the first thing I would say, just use reference, stick to it, be relentless, keep trying to up you know, if it's the reference looks way better than your game, try to figure out why the reference looks so much better. What exactly is so different about the reference? It could be a photo, it could be anything. Could be concept art. And just try to pursue those details. And then the next thing I would say to try to not rant too long, cuz I've been doing environment art for almost 15 years and I feel very strongly about it.
No, please, please tell the rants are what we're here for.

[laughter]
I would say that a lot of games game art in general, they sort of they worry a lot about the generic elements, which is important. By the generic, I mean, like a town is is a bunch of houses, right?
Right. Very generally. So, you think about the houses. But sometimes people forget about the non-generic details. So, like if you walk around a cool city, uh do you live in Berlin? Is that right? No, I studied in Berlin. Now I'm back in Bavaria. Okay, Bavaria. Okay, well, you got no no shortage of cool cities. Um I the a German I've been to Germany, but I just Munich is one of my favorite cities in the whole world. But when you think about the cool things about
Munich is ugly as hell, but That's crazy. No [laughter] way. I mean, it's not really fair, because like I feel like all the German cities are more beautiful than like most American cities, so. Anyhow. Okay, so basically, you just want to make sure to include

the cool parts about a city. Like when you walk around a city, things like water wheels or like landmark buildings that look different from all the other buildings. Obviously, churches, but everyone knows those, cuz those are awesome. Like when you think of cool cities, really cool cities, ones that have a lot of tourism, you got, you know, cities with canals, cities with weird features. Like in Munich, there's just randomly this little like wave pool in one of the parks that surfers will surf at. It's like, that's so crazy, but like if you walk around the city, you remember stuff like that and it's just really cool and it feels like exploration, you know, in real life. And you just want to you want to have all that kind of stuff. Like in in Eastshade, we tried to have like every area had a stick. Like we had like the mudslide area in in Lindau Old Lindau, we called it, and that was sort of this weird, you know, mudslide where all that the houses had been sort of swallowed up by the hillside and and the mud was sort of leaking, you know, uh into the houses

and all that stuff. Just memorable stuff like that. And if you're talking about like forests, all the weird stuff you see in a forest, like a fallen tree where like all the roots have been pulled up, um or like like weird-looking logs and nursing logs, um strange rock formations, waterfalls. Obviously, people know waterfalls are cool, but really like like river rapids and and terraces and cascading waterfalls and all those details that are so hard, but they're so important. That's what I would say.
It's the at least specific stuff all of most of the time, right? That makes places interesting. Yeah. It's not like you don't want a city full of houses, you want very specific houses that tell a specific story about the place. Sure, yeah, exactly. You want You want different, you know, unique architecture, but then also unique unique buildings even within those buildings. So, you need both. You need really, you know, good generic-looking stuff, but you need also need really good non-generic stuff. Otherwise, it'll

just be boring, so.
How would you do environment art somewhat efficiently? I mean, you said the game took 5 years to make, so I'm assuming that a lot of the time was spent on making the environment. Y- Yes. But still, like do you Did you handcraft all of the assets or where where where the assets coming from, for example? Most of the assets I made myself. Like 95% of them. Um mostly just cuz I'm pretentious and nothing is good enough for that I can find on the internet. But also, you know, Eastshade's a weird-looking place and and it looks special, I think, and you're not going to get there with if you get a bunch of generic assets, then you're going to get a generic-looking game, you know? But I I'm glad you said how do you be efficient, cuz I do feel that I was efficient, even though it did take that long. Um I tell people and this blows people's minds. I tell people 60% of the total

production endeavor of Eastshade just went into purely performance and nothing else. That's performance. Yep, just performance. That's how hard it is to make a like Oh. a 3D game with a free camera, I call it. It's a camera you can look anywhere. Um you just I won't I won't go into it, but
[laughter]
in terms of efficiency, yeah, I think just learning a lot of the UV unwrapping trickery. Like we don't have a lot of hero props in Eastshade, where Mhm. a lot of environment artists, they'll think, "Oh, I'll make a cool table and I'll like sculpt it and then um it'll be, you know, unique-looking and stuff. And we In the games industry, we call it a unique unwrap or a 1:1 UV map. That just means that every part of the table has a unique place in the texture. And I do a lot of um more tiling textures in environment art style. Tiling texture does not just mean it tiles, you know, indiscriminately over the whole thing. You got stuff like trim sheets, where like you got like a strip of wood or a strip

of like filigree or pattern or something. And then you just unwrap little bits of the pieces of the environment and you stick them on those. Um and then you can make like cool-detailed looking stuff without just constantly having to make unique textures all the time. Right. So, you have sort of a generic texture sheet that you can share across multiple models, which then which then means you can do better batching and so on for performance.
Exactly. It's also good for performance, yeah, cuz you are sharing a lot of materials. Um but then, yeah, you just have to you know, you look at reference and just try to you know, make all your trims and your moldings and your roof details and your silhouettes and your shapes and your pop-outs and your you know, all those sorts of things and you try to just use a sort of base of textures that you have and that helps a little bit. That's mostly architecture stuff. Then there's like a whole 'nother batch of tricks for Mhm. um for forest stuff. But what's sort of the the warning tale? Cuz like making I think making a game

like this that's sort of open world explory is is on my bucket list. So, what's sort of the the warning tale you would give to someone who has plans like that in terms of performance? Uh for performance, yeah. So, first of all, I would say that the the quality bar is insane and it's unattainable for performance. Even if you look at AAA games, even like a game like Metro, like you look at the forums and you just see hundreds of people complaining. "Why is the performance suck so bad? Why are the devs so lazy? Why are they so stupid? Why don't they just Why don't they just optimize the game?" Mhm. If a game is unoptimized, it's literally going to run at like two FPS. Like obviously, there's just so much work that goes into it. So, from my perspective, I'm kind of over making like free camera 3D games that are open world cuz performance is just a losing battle. That's not really a warning, that's just kind of a defeatist take, I guess. Um but your number one enemy in terms of actual practical takeaway is going to be

draw calls. Yeah, that's just how it how it is. Um so, you need to find a way to consolidate the draw calls. There's a couple ways. You can either use a lot of culling, which has art consequences because that means you need like things that are going to be blocking sightlines, which is ugly cuz all the coolest places in the world have big sightlines. You don't want to be blocking your sightlines, right? So, I don't like that one. Um there's batching or mesh combining. That one's really good um and that's actually kind of what we based E Shayd on at first. I'll talk more about that later. At first. [laughter] Um so yeah, the more stuff you can combine. I actually had E Shayd I had every single foliage in the entire game on a single atlas and they all used one material. And so, any plant could combine with any other plant. So, I had a hex grid that would just combine up all the plants. Oh, sweet. Yeah, so that's how we did it for that. Then the third way, and this is sort of more modern now, is GPU instancing.

Um so, that's going to have other ramifications cuz you don't want to have too many unique meshes, right? Cuz unique meshes means a unique set of instances and that's not very efficient. To capitalize on instancing, it's almost like you want to make one rock that has like a bunch of different faces and then you turn it all different ways so you can instance it. Your your tri count is going to be insane. But um the instance count is going to be very efficient cuz they're all going to be instance, so. Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of like pick your poison of what way. But whatever way you choose, um you can mix them a little bit here and there. But you just have to really build all your art with that with your sort of strategy in mind from the ground up. It's not like you do performance at the end. Like, "Okay, now I'll make the game perform." No, no, no. If you're making a high fidelity 3D open world game where the player can look anywhere, then you have to you have to like think about it from the beginning, at least in my opinion. So, you need a performance strategy from

Yes. from the beginning. And the problem is of course if you make a game like this for the first time, then maybe you don't know all of the problems or strategies that you're going to need, right? There's some of that, yeah. But I made E Shayd. That was my first Well, I don't know. I worked in AAA, but I was a peon. So, you know, nobody came to me asking what what we should do about draw calls. Um but I still learned a lot working in AAA. Still sounds like you had to figure a lot of this out during development.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I made a lot of plans and then tried them and certain things worked better than others. We eventually did move to GPU instancing in the end for all the plants. So, all that work I did to atlas all the foliage, that ended up not being the final path.
But does that mean that every type of plant is a separate draw call now? Yep, that's right. So, if you've got a fern and a bush, then those are at least two draw calls.
But you can do I think stuff like color variation is something you can still do with GPU instancing or is or is it if if it's a different material or different

color, it's also a separate draw call? It depends on the engine. It's uh Unity now has a property block, I think they call it. And it's basically a little bit of extra data you can pass in to the GPU that you can use to sort of modify the So, it depends on the engine. One interesting piece of advice I think I picked up from one of your videos is that it can be smart to design environments with a specific perspective in mind, right? So, kind of have these hero shots from specific angles where it looks really really nice. Heck yeah. Yeah. And thanks for watching that video, by the way. Um but yeah, I think that's a That's like one of the best tricks. Maybe that's one I should have mentioned about environment art. I mean, I've got a lot of them, but um yeah, you can you kind of work like a painter, I call it. Like the painter that you know, they compose the scene to the painting. And if you do that in your environment, then at the very least you make sure you have at least one banger. Um

Sure. Cuz if you don't do that, you might have zero beautiful vistas. Um but it also I find it makes everything else look better, too, cuz it gives you some sort of like bones to work around. And then you end up with all these other cool shots that are just like, you know, from different angles of this like of this beautifully composed I found it interesting when I heard you say this because I think E Shayd for me has some of these very memorable moments where I was like, "Oh, damn it. That's a banger banger screenshot right there."
All right. Like when [clears throat] you see I'm not sure when the second city you go to with this slightly with this arch bridge and so on. It looks very painterly in a way. Yeah. Awesome. One question I guess I have is also how do you balance generic props with like these specific hero props? Cuz I you I guess you need some stuff that you reuse everywhere like rocks, plants, and so on, right? And then you have these more specific designs and models that are only in specific places.

Yeah. What's your take on how much should there be of each? I don't really use that many hero props. I try not to use here So, when I think of a hero prop, I think of a prop with a unique unwrap. Um that is like really like one time like a statue, essentially, right? Or like maybe a very ornate fountain. But I I can make a baller ornate fountain out of a trim sheet. Like I can. That's that's my like my superpower. Like I can just like, you know, put like make a bunch of little moldings and stuff and and put them on a bunch of trim sheets and I I can make it look really good without even a unique texture. Um but I guess
So, it still be a unique model that you just make very quickly and efficiently, I guess.
Okay, I see what you're saying. So, that you would call that like a hero prop. How to balance them? I just think of like every area you want to have, I call it a stick. I don't know if that word is is translating, but like you want to have like you want to have like a cool memorable thing about each area. So, like Nava uh

the the city you're talking about has that crazy bridge. And that that's the stick right there. It's like it's a city surrounded by a canyon, which is already really weird. And it has this crazy arch bridge. And that's the stick. At least when you're entering the city, that's the stick. Then the the city itself has a bunch more weird little sticks inside of it. Like like the tower in the middle of the city has this like garden at the bottom. That's kind of weird. It's like a garden in the first floor of a building and it's all open and stuff. Like that's a stick and that's memorable. And if you walked through a real city and you saw this garden plaza, you know, that you could see that with like a bunch of like Romanesque arches all around it, you'd be like, "That's really cool. Like come check this out." You know? So, you just want to have a lot of those. There's also a building in Nava that looks just like a penis if you look at it from the right angle [laughter] that everybody likes to talk about. That was an accident, but it is a stick. I see. I see.
[laughter]
But if like talking about this big tower in the center of Nava, is that would you

consider that a hero prop or is that made of generic reusable assets?
No, the tower itself is just one giant It's almost too fat to be a tower. It's more like a giant like building cylinder thing. Sure. I don't know. I mean, that building takes up like 25% of the city. So, do we call it a hero prop? I don't know. Cuz all the buildings
it's like not it's not like you modeled all of the walls separately and then assembled them in engine. It's like one mesh. Yes, exactly. Actually, this is very to my taste and how I like to work. I don't like using like tile sets and stuff. Like everyone's like, "Oh, go super modular." I don't do anything modular. Um cuz modularity is I find that I can make more unique-looking things and like really fast. Like I get more variety making three unique buildings than you get out of making one modular, you know, set of stuff. I'm using a rhetorical you. I'm not I'm not saying you specifically. Um at least that's how I feel.

Cuz like you can make them a whole modular set and you can say, "I can make a thousand buildings out of this set." But like how samey will those building Will they really look different? I don't know. You might just make three different buildings. And then you could turn it different angles. So, I prefer just to make like a whole building. It's also good for performance. Otherwise, you're having to find some way to batch these uh different pieces in the engine. You're either combining them or you're using instancing again, so. Are there any duplicate buildings in Nava?
Nope. I don't think there are.
[laughter]
I think it's all unique buildings, yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's a single one. Is there? Okay, no. There's there's like two or three. Okay. Yeah, but they're really like sort of low-key. And one of them has like a water mill on it. So, it's like it's the same building, but I like added a bunch of crap to it make it look like a different building, so. So, your argument is that not only does not using a tile set look better, which is a I think that's pretty obvious assumption to make. I would agree to

that. I think it looks more interesting and unique. But you're also saying that it doesn't even save you that much time making all of these tile sets. For me in the way that like I work in the way that we work at E Shayd Studios, it wouldn't really make sense. But there's so many roads to Rome. And and I know there's going to be some person listening here like, "Well, I'm making a rogue like with 700 levels." Like, "Well, of course for you need a tile set." So, I'm not like I'm not like a hard liner on like tile sets are garbage. I'm just saying that like we build grand gardens. That's E Shayd Studios. That's our thing, right? We build like worlds that are grand gardens and every corner is sort of handcrafted and And take 5 years and we spent $2 million making the game. So yeah, that's just kind of how we do it.
remembered that one one more way to look at Eastshade would be as like a tiny open world. I I really love tiny open world games as well. For example, there's a short hike. Do you know that one?
yeah. I I thought that was I played that game and I was like, yeah, this is kind of what we're trying to do, too. Yes. We need more tiny open worlds. I

really like that.
them. I love them. Yeah, I like them, too. Uh is your is your next game also a tiny world? It's I don't know. I mean, I know what you mean by tiny open world, but Eastshade is like a kilometer across. Which Skyrim is only 4 and 1/2 kilometers across. So It's not that tiny. Not that tiny.
[laughter]
But Glimmerwick is bigger than Eastshade, but it is like that. It's an open world, for sure. It's not like a, you know, Assassin's Creed size open world, but it's it's definitely an open world and it's so Eastshadean in the way that the world sort of like the main metric for progress is sort of opening up the world in the game. Like you're excited to see the next area sort of thing. So we definitely do that in Glimmerwick as well. But yeah, totally. There's a lot of Eastshadean DNA in Songs of Glimmerwick. I guess what I mean with tiny open world is that it's a world that feels relatively densely packed, right? It's not like you walk for hours and see nothing.

Totally. Totally. Yes, at where that is like one of our like we love making a very dense world where like every second you throw a stone and you you're some on something new.
You already mentioned a little bit like the the quests. You also made a video about that. I I was an interesting watch as well. Oh, thank you. Thank you for watching that. It's like that video is like obscure. Like almost no one watched it. So I'm glad you watched it.
There there are some real gems hiding on YouTube in the in the game dev scene. Like some videos have like 1k views and are like really really good. Yeah, I know. It's hard. Doing much better than that. Title and thumbnail. What makes for a makes for a good quest? What makes for a good quest? Well, I've got a rubric that sometimes I refer to, but Jacqueline kind of makes really good quests and she never even looks at it. So I don't know how useful it is. But we seem to have similar sensibilities. Um but there's a lot of things that that make for a good quest. There's a lot of different ways a quest can be good. I don't know. I'll Okay, I'll I'll

give my really weird finding. I I did a huge research stint on because you know, I'm kind of curious. I don't just like to assume that I know why quest is good. I want to actually get data on it if I can. So I was like researching like all the quests that players say are good quests. And I was looking through um you know, on forums and Reddit and stuff. And then when I'd find a quest that people would mention a lot, um I was always you mostly using uh Elder Scrolls games just cuz I know those games better. I know how they work better. And then I would go to the uh the wiki and I'd read through the quest logs to kind of see, okay, what ex- how does this quest really work? And the only thing that I found in common between all quests that people reported as good quests was that they have a lot of stages. Isn't that stupid? It's just like a good quest is a big quest? No, that can't be right. That's just stupid. But I think that there's maybe something to it

because when you think of a boring quest, it's like a it's like a template quest, right? Mhm. Go kill five monsters and bring me their five, you know, rhino horns or whatever. So that's a quest. Two stages or what would it be? What would it be?
Two or three depending on how you want to count it, but not very many stages. And when you think of more interesting quests that like stuff actually happens, you get these long you you get a lot of quest logs. Um the most common quest in Oblivion, Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, was a Brush With Death, which is a quest where you go into a painting. And everyone's like that basically everyone says that that's the best quest in Oblivion. Like that's by far the most reported one. And some people even said like it's such a small quest, but it's so good. It is a small quest in terms of play time, but it's a massive quest in terms of like complexity of stages. Um cuz there's so much stuff happens in that quest so quickly. And of course you end end up going into the painting and

all this weird stuff happens. Um so it's hard to I mean, the premise of the quest is also really cool. And I think that's an important one. Like how you come across come across the quest, what kind of verbs that you're asked to do in the quest are really important. And then a lot of people do say that the reward of the quest is important. That one feels kind of hollow to me, but it's what people say, so.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Anyhow, I'll conclude my rant on There's some there's one very memorable quest in Eastshade also that maybe serves as a interesting example, which is when you go with the boat onto this little island on the lake and then you get stuck on the island because I think there's like a storm, so you can't leave the island anymore. Uh-huh. And you have to suddenly uncover a crime that occurred on the island. It turns into a detective game for for a minute or so. Yeah, and I I was like really bad at solving Oh. this crime cuz it was like quite tricky, actually. But it was still like

even though I I didn't really manage to solve it very well, it was a very very memorable quest for me cuz it was like so holy crap, they went through a lot of effort to make this. And it's exactly what you said. It's like a that I think is a quest that has a lot of stages, right? You have to talk to a lot of different people in the correct order and find things and then you need to go outside in the storm and pick up some clues there and then it all comes together and it comes to like a satisfying conclusion. Well, I'm glad you liked the quest. The quest was awesome, yeah. Awesome. I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, Jacqueline wrote that whole quest. Um put most of it together, too. Yeah, some people don't like that one just because it's sort of like it traps you it like basically forces you to do it. Which some people they they're kind of like their minds in a different place. They're doing something else. But it was it was definitely a break from I we try to make all the quests like unique, I guess. Just like a break from the pattern. Everything is nothing is template with us.

Another reason why we spend so much money on our game. I mean, Songs of Glimmerwick is I just did some math this morning. And the game is going to cost almost $2 million by the time we ship. Holy hell. So
That's quite risky. How stupid are we? How stupid are we?
[laughter]
Dude, are you doing the how stupid are we research again or How screwed are we?
[laughter]
Exactly. I was surprised. I didn't think we'd spent that much.
And that's in the majority is once again in just your own development time or are there like even more external costs this time? Mostly do we kept it small. So we have one full-time programmer and Jacqueline and myself. Jacqueline's been working on the game for 6 years now full-time. That's so much time. Yeah, it's crazy. Since 2019 we shipped Eastshade, she moved started working on Glimmerwick. I've been working on the game for 5 years. I kept working on Eastshade for a year after we shipped, so I'm not counting that year. And then

our our programmer, Jenny, she's been working for almost 4 years. So put it all together, you have got about 15 person years. And at about $100,000 a head, there's $1.5 million right there. $100,000 a head might sound high to someone outside the United States, but um you can include HR and all that. And none of us are beginners. Like we're all kind of ninjas, so um yeah, that's kind of how we do the math. Then some external costs and things, too, but most of it is pretty small compared to just the the salaries. How did Glimmerwick come to be then? Was it once again just something you wanted to make or was it more based on like market research this time around? No, we're just pretentious artists. Um and in 2017 or 2016, I can't remember, Jacqueline in a coffee shop we were just like jack up on coffee and Jacqueline was like, we should make like a farming sim, but like

wizard world. And I was like, yes, we should. We should do that. That's our next game. And we were just like way too jazzed about it. And and we just stayed jazzed about it until we shipped Eastshade. It's all we wanted to do. We wanted to work on that. So Eastshade's kind of like my baby and Glimmerwick is kind of like Jacqueline's baby. So she's the lead designer. Um I just watched your video about I think the title of the video is like this video will change your view on game design or something like that. Oh, what a banger, dude. What a freaking banger. That gosh. It's such an amazing video. Anyway, um you have a boat one or Which one or which one was that again? The boat it's the boat one about taking measurements. And you have a little section in there about captains. And even though Jacqueline and I were married, we still one captain per game for us. So Eastshade, I was the captain. I have the final say on everything. And for this for Glimmerwick, Jacqueline is the captain. She has the final say on everything. Got it. Yeah, so that makes the decision-making process a lot easier

then, yeah. Easy. We don't usually fight about um usually if one of us feels really really strongly about something, we can usually convince the other.
Yeah. We've never had an issue where we both happen to feel really strongly about it and we both happen to have a different opinion on it. I don't think that's happened yet. But yeah, so it's it's usually pretty easy. I think it's still easy enough with two people. I think four is where it starts to get really difficult. No way. at least you have a tie-breaker person. Okay. But with with four, it is like whoa. Two on two.
That's where it gets rough.
[laughter]
The idea for Glimmerwick was initially a farming game. And then it transformed into like a magic school over time. Or how did that happen? You know, I'm glad you're you're calling it not a farming game now. I mean, there is farming in it. This There's a farming sim component. But we've tried to sort of move our marketing materials away from

like we don't want it to look like a pure farming sim game. But yeah, that was the initial
doesn't, yeah. Okay, great. That's great. Yeah, the initial pitch was that and I that is so common now. Like it's sort of witchy witchy sort of a lot of it in the cozy gaming space. A lot of farming sims. Um even a lot of like witch witch academy style schools or magic school academy. That was completely there was nothing in 2016 when Jaclyn pitched this game to me. There was nothing. It was like like Stardew Valley had recently come out and we just both thought that that was going to be I mean, we thought it was really good for us, too, cuz we felt like we can make like a really cool world that people wanted to be in and like just the whole the whole like comradery of campus and just like, you know, college life magic school college life and stuff. Um but yeah, but now there's a lot more stuff like it. There are a lot of lot more witchy games now is what you're

saying? Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I feel it's like a gut feeling, but I've seen a lot of these witchy games not do super well. Is that something Do you know any witchy games that have done well? Yeah, I know. I think they've done I think they've done well. I feel like Ikenfell sold pretty well. Ikenfell? Never heard of that one. Here, let me see. I've got a little list. No, I actually I actually think it's a pretty good genre. It has a high median revenue. I mean, there's there's a lot of games in it that I would say like don't have super high production values. So This entire magic school thing is obviously incredibly appealing fantasy, right? As like stories like Harry Potter prove and so on. Exactly.
And also Hogwarts Legacy, which is also I think sold really, really well despite some controversies and so on. Right. Um some other games I pulled up my little list here. Like Sunhaven did crazy numbers. Um I don't know if you saw that one. Little Witch in the Woods also did

pretty crazy numbers. And yeah, a bunch of other sort of smaller ones also doing pretty medium medium numbers.
All that that kind of stuff has just been outside of my bubble. Interesting. Yeah, it it seems pretty good. But again, it's like I mean, we're not going to change it based on
[laughter]
No, of course.
not not now. But I think I don't know. I think Glimmerwick's going to I just I think it's going to be a banger.
[laughter]
Not not I don't know about in terms of sales, but like when we were working on Eastshade, I thought I thought it was pretty good. I mean, I was really proud of it, but I I knew that it there was going to be like I knew it wasn't going to be to everyone's taste. And I thought that some things about it were kind of janky and we just never I'll say that it like that game ended up bigger than I ever dreamed it would be, but still I hated playing it. I mean, not cuz I thought the game was bad, but just the type of game that was like adventure game just when you know where everything is
[laughter]
I don't know. Glimmerwick is completely different. I

When I I every time I play it I'm like, "Oh my god, it's so good." Like I feel [laughter] I feel so much better about Glimmerwick in terms of the game that it is. Interesting. Yeah, I think it's I think it's a better game than Eastshade. Um of course, you know, it's all to taste. So we'll see, but we don't know. We I think we have like 115,000 wish list right now. Oh, that's super solid. And have you Have you even played the Steam Next the first card yet or Nope, we have not done the next week. Have not done a demo. We're working on a demo right now and we're in closed beta for it. Nice.
And we're getting really, really good feedback. Actually, I wanted to ask you, do you Do you guys do closed betas for your games? Yes, we have like a Discord server and we have like we collect a group of playtesters from the community and from a couple of game dev friends we trust and then we have them play the games early so that we don't get any surprises when we release it. Right. How big How big do

you guys like that group to be? Like Do you like to have like 10 people that you trust or do you like to have like more like 40 or 100 or what kind of numbers are you? If I can ask.
Yeah, I think maybe around 20, 30 is like the group we tested with. there's there arguments to be made about different sizes, right? There's qualitative research versus quantitative research and depending on what you're trying to test for, different approaches maybe make more sense. Hmm. Like for example, if you're trying to catch all of the edge case bugs, then having more playtesters makes more sense because more testers going to find more bugs. Right. Yeah. Do you ever worry that like um the kinds of that like your pool is too biased? Like because naturally, people in your pool are people who like your games. Unless they're just all full of your your guys's friends and Hmm. like designer buddies. Like how do you get an

unbiased pool?
I guess the first time you get an unbiased pool is with your demo, right? That's what it feels like. And it's like it's it's crazy how hard it is to know if your game is good until until you just go full public. Like it's so hard to know. Yep. Yeah, I talked to Isto Inc recently. Uh and he had like this theory about the the gap is what he called it. Like where people say, "Oh, this is pretty cool." And then there's like this strange gap where on the other side of this gap, people say, "I want to play this." And they're like surprisingly similar statements where the people are like, "This is cool." and "I have to play this." Like different to distinguish between those statements, but like one is they don't buy the game and one is they do buy the game. It's like Yeah. Like it being close is not enough.
[laughter]
Yeah, I think that was a very accurate way to describe that, yeah. Yeah, we're getting really good feedback right now,

but again, I don't like And also I think one very scary thing is that even if the game is fun, the other question is also is it appealing enough and do people understand what the game is from the store page? Cuz having a fun game alone also does not sell your game, I think. No, yeah, it definitely doesn't. It's like you said, your equation is good, man. Your equation the appeal has to be there, the fantasy has to be there. I really don't doubt that it's a good game. It looks really cool and also I feel like the more I hear you talk about the game and the devlogs and so on, the more the more I want to play it. So the more I understand the game, the higher my urge to to play it becomes. Okay. All right, I like that. That's good. And that's a good thing. I'll just have to get our potential fans to listen to a 1 and 1/2 hour interview.
[laughter]
No, I'm just kidding. I'm just Yeah, I'm [clears throat] I'm honestly curious to see how well it does based on first impressions. It's It's hard for me to say. I don't really have a strong opinion one way or another. I'm

just curious, I guess, to see. What has changed from Eastshade to Glimmerwick? Cuz obviously you learn from every project. What have you taken from Eastshade to Glimmerwick? Like the first thing is I think very obvious is you changed the art style. Mhm. Mostly because you were fed up with optimization. Well, that I would say that's a huge bonus. The the reason the art style changed is cuz this game is Jaclyn's baby. And Eastshade is my baby. [clears throat] I see. So um yeah, this game was always going to be Jaclyn's going to do all the art for it. And I see. I see. Yeah, so that's how we sort of figured it out that I'm more of a technical artist role or like a I don't know. Like I write all the shaders and I sort of pick the lighting model and we do use like some 3D and stuff. Um but largely, I'm I'm just trying to make the game look like one of Jaclyn's illustrations. If we If she were to illustrate an entire like edge-to-edge area, I want it to look

like that. I don't want it to look like a game with lots of illustrations in it. I want the whole game to look like one big illustration. So that's sort of my role. Um but I will say I have learned working with a fixed camera game and it's not actually the the like 2D like illustration sprites, whatever, 3D. That That doesn't really matter to me that much. The nature of the fixed camera is everything. I love making games for fixed cameras. It sucks to make every single nook and cranny of every single building, of every single tree. You turn it around every single everywhere. People can go everywhere just like animals. They're just walk They're just going wherever they want. Like it's some kind of zoo for them.
[laughter]
There's no no limitations whatsoever. And then you have to worry about LODs and imposters. That For people who don't know what that is, that's like things when they get really far away, it's like it's like even lower than an LOD. It's just like a like a proxified version. And there's just so many things you have to worry about and I just dream about even a 3D game.

I feel like we may may have given up on fixed cameras as an industry a little too soon. Like as soon as we got the 3D camera controls down and we had a lot of really crappy iterations of that, but once we had something, everyone seemed to want to do that. That was the cool new thing. But we had so many games like like the Final Fantasy series up to 10, I think, had all fixed cameras. Even though some of those games are 3D by the end. And like even games like Resident Evil with like the tank camera controls, we used to have a lot more fixed cameras in games. And by the way, when I say fixed camera, I don't mean a camera that doesn't move, I just mean a camera that the player can't move. So, the camera will do its own things. Death's Door, did you play Death's Door? Okay. This is a like a new recent indie game. I think it was a Devolver Digital published. But, that game had a fixed camera. But, nobody even talks about it. Nobody even notices that That's the first thing I noticed about this game. I was like, "Oh, I was really happy about that cuz I don't feel like I ever want to work on a game that has a free camera anymore." I

That's too much power for the player. Just no no controls for you. I'll I'll tell you where the camera's going to go. I remember an area in the point-and-click era where where point-and-click was moving to 3D, but they had like these fixed camera perspectives where the camera was only moving like on a dolly or something. So, On a dolly, yeah.
fixed camera could also mean something like that, right? Where it's more There's like could also be more perspective, but you just don't choose where the camera goes. Exactly. That's right. Yeah, you could you could do it like that. Could be a dolly. You could even be like kind of top-down. You could be moving through a through fully 3D city, and there could be just a track, and the camera's always trying to you know look at you, but it's always sticking on the track. And then you walk backwards, it walks backwards with you. Walk forward, it walks forward with you. You go off onto a path, it follows you on the path, but on a track on the path. Mhm. Like it could still do that. You just don't control the camera. And I feel like that would you'd be able to make more beautiful worlds, more more detailed, bigger, just literally like more to

explore, way more performant because you don't have to worry about every single level of detail imaginable or the player looking to the horizon or any of that. Uh unless you want to point it at the horizon, in which case you know exactly what you're going to be drawing. And I just think that it would be awesome. So, that's what I'm thinking for next game.
So, you want to stick to fixed camera for sure. It's like Yes, and I would love to do something that is like I think has never been done before. I'd love to mix camera behaviors. I don't think people would even notice. Like this sounds really weird, but I just think it'd be cool to have a a 3D world where the camera is always doing something that the designer designed for it. And it And it could be specific to the space. Like in an interior, that could be a different camera behavior than if you go outside, it would be another different camera behavior. But, we'd always know what the camera's going to be looking at, and we'd be able to polish everything to the nines. It would be like the most beautiful game ever. It would look like a

100 million-dollar game. And it would just be way cheaper.
Because you don't have to polish every nook and cranny. You can kind of leave out the things that you can't see and so on. Exactly. And I mean saves time, but also you can always make it more beautiful when you know where the camera is. Just cuz you art to the camera. You don't have to art, you know, from every perspective. Right. Cuz when you do for example art for something like Eastshade, then you say you pick a couple of hero shots that you design from. Exactly.
But, when you have a fixed camera, then everything can sort of be a hero
shots, baby. Yeah.
[laughter]
I think in defense of like free cameras, I think for exploration games, free camera is very cool because um that kind of exploration is part of the fantasy in a way. Mhm. So, I think can make free camera makes sense for exploration games, I think. People love free camera. It's tremendously risky. I'm terrified. I don't even know if I'm going to do [laughter] it, but I'm excited about it. I know people like it. It's It's an interesting warning though, and

I think as you're right there is there are a lot of advantages to fixed camera, and Thronefall is a fixed camera Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And that was hugely helpful because our art is like very crap, to be honest, but the fact that the camera is so far away and fixed perspective makes it easy to get away with a lot of things that otherwise we The art is not The art is not crap on Thronefall. But, you know, designing
you look at the 3D models and like very very amateurish stuff, I would say.
But, that's the That's the beauty of it. Like you're looking at the big read. You're making the asset for the camera level that you're seeing it, and that's the magic. That's the That's what a good artist does. Like you make it look good from the angle that you're going to see it or however it's going to be used in the game. That's the read. We've talked about different levels of read, like the close read, the mid read, and the far read. If your game is far read, you got to focus on the far read. For people who want to make adventure games like this,

how the heck do you design a prototype world like this? Do you start with gray boxing or do you start with a vertical slice? How do you build this out?
Well, there's sort of two components cuz there's the mechanical aspect, and I believe adventure game is more of a game backbone. It's not really like a game verb. I have this crazy take about Elden Ring. Elden Ring is kind of a giant adventure game. Mhm. Like in the way that like the the world gates you, right? And a lot of the exciting part about the world is sort of finding those gates, and then going and doing the other dungeons and boss battles, whatever. And eventually you find the key to the lock, and you get really excited, and you're like, "Oh, I'm going to go open that door." And one of the most exciting things in Elden Ring is getting into the new area. It's so exciting cuz the maps are so cool. They're like It's really It's It's like a grand garden design, in my opinion, Elden Ring is. Mhm. Um So, that's like of how like you can pair

a lot of different game verbs with your adventure game backbone. So, I don't know if it Does it make sense to even prototype the adventure game backbone? Maybe it does. We've never done it though. Maybe our games would be better if we did. In which order do you build your games? Do you start with like a basic character controller, and then you start building like one part of the world, and you slowly expand it out, or how do you go about it? For Eastshade, I was really concerned with the what the world was going to look like, especially cuz I was using a new engine. I was using Unity, and I I didn't know for sure if I could make the game look as good as I knew I could make a game look. Um so, I was doing a lot of like visual prototyping, I guess you would say. Okay.
Um but then I moved on. So, like the second part I was going to say for prototyping for an adventure game would be like your map. Since most adventure games are very map driven, like that's kind of the fun part is like like exploring the mapping and unlocking to the next part of the map and potentially like doubling back on

other parts of the map and how the map loops around and all that stuff. Um so, I think that's a reasonable place to start um to start building out the sort of broad strokes of your map, but I do think it's good to hone in on one little part to make sure you can make one little part look really good. If the visuals are going to be an important part of your adventure game, which adventure game genre, visuals tend to be pretty important, so. Yeah. Um that's what I would say. But, in general, I think we're garbage at prototyping, and I think we probably don't do it as much as we should or as thoroughly as we should.
Right, right, right. But, I'm still curious in which order you build things, right? So, you you do start with one area and expand it out. I would say so, yeah. For Eastshade, started with one. Although even in like within 3 months of Eastshade, I already had the the terrain shape roughly, the shape of the islands, and where the river was going to be, and where the mountains were going to be, and where my two cities were going to be. Okay. Um so, I already had sort of planned that out.

Um and then I started honing in on one little area. And we did make a vertical slice. I think like 3 years in Alindao, the whole Alindao area up to the toll bridge was uh we made a complete vertical slice of the game. Like pretty darn vertical slicey. Like even all the art was mostly done in stuff. I see. Okay. So, for Eastshade, you did make a vertical slice, and that's also what allowed you to make this spin-off game, which also takes part in this in this slice of the world. Yeah, some of that game does take place in the vertical slice area, uh but some of it doesn't.
And for Glimmerwick, was it a similar thing where you started with one area, or did you build out the entire map? Or when you say planning the map, is that also like on paper, and then you already in the beginning you start thinking about which areas are blocked off in the beginning, or like how do you think about this?
I would say we do. We think about which areas are where the school's going to be, how far can the player go right away in the beginning, what kind of impasses. Impasses are really important to us, like just the way that we make the

games. Like the impasses end up being the cornerstone of the progression in the game. Like Like this you know, you can't get past this bridge. Well, in Glimmerwick we have a ferry. This little girl drives a ferry, and she's off goofing off, and you have to get her back. But, like there's a chain of quests in order to get that done. So, we Since we know that environmental exploration is the biggest reward for the player that we have. That's the biggest chip we can we can play. A new area. That's like the you know, the grand reward of any end of any quest chain. So, we make sure to sort of space those out, um and we want the environment to be able to support the kind of impasses that we can think of. We really want the impasses to be somewhat believable, even if they're maybe goofy, like why is a little girl driving a ferry? Like within the game world, they kind of make diagetic sense, I guess. Um and we want them to be like varied and interesting. So, sometimes we think of an impasse, and then we have to think of the make

the world that serves that impasse. Like in uh in Glimmerwick there's a gondola. So, that's one of the impasses. You got to repair it. Okay, so now we need to make a gondola that takes you up to a mountain area. Now we need a mountain area. And then so, we need to you know, shape the world in that way. So, I'd say it's kind of impasse that's like the sort of skeleton of the of the world. But, for Glimmerbrook, we did the same thing. It seems like we're very I mean, we're very visuals-focused. We're very visual studio. Um we have a lot of like art muscle, I guess, between Jaclyn and myself. Like we're both um like good artists, and we think a lot about it. So, I was really concerned with I mean, I knew Jaclyn's illustrations were amazing, but I wanted to make sure that I could, you know, make that happen in engine, like make it actually look like an illustration. Like one big endless illustration. That's what I wanted. So, I did do some prototypes of like individual areas.
Can we talk about this impassive, is I think what you called it? Mhm. I would maybe describe it as lock lock and key

systems, right? I often use lock and key as well, yeah.
I have this theory, and I'm curious what you think about that that the way your locks and keys are contextualized, and how they exactly look in your world is tremendously important. That's not a theory, that's correct. No, I'm just kidding. I I just I we were like exactly on the same wavelength on that. I 100% agree. Even with those exact words, I like it. I think [laughter] of it in that exact way. Okay, okay, okay. Cuz like when you think about the most boring one I could come up with is like literal key. A literal lock and key. Yeah, exactly.
and key. That are like the one of the most boring ways to do it. And for obviously for some games, that's exactly the correct way to do it because it's very easy to understand. Like if you have a like a fast-paced action game or something, sure do it like that. But like for a narratively driven exploration game, the other typical thing would be like a a co- like a lock where you have to put

in a numbered code or something, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. And Outer Wilds is the exact opposite example where the lock and keys are so interesting that they are the gameplay. Outer Wilds, the lock and keys are s- are almost incomprehensibly mind-blowing. Like the idea the ideas for those locks and keys are just like And I'm not even someone who like I was too stupid to play the game. So, the game wasn't my cup of tea. I Maybe watch a let's play sometime just just to find inspiration from it.
Right. But I immediately knew within the first 15 minutes, even though it wasn't my cup of tea, I was like, this game is a masterpiece. I can see why it's a masterpiece. Because the lock and keys are so insane. Like Mhm. Just the knowledge gates are are so interesting and and um novel and inventive and crazy and

mind-bending and like yeah, they just fill you with awe, I guess. Mhm. But yeah, totally.
would like to give an example, but it is like you can't give examples without spoiling and ruining the experience and fun.
Yeah. So, if if you have locks and keys like that, that's obviously awesome. And I guess different kinds of games require different kinds of locks and keys, right? For example, if you want to make make sure that the game is approachable to everyone, then it's a bit risky to make like locks and keys where you need to be giga brain to Right. [laughter]
to figure them out.
Yeah, really really smart. I still wonder what what do you think makes for a good lock and key?
Man, I don't know. It might be a lot of the same stuff that makes for a good quest. I'm trying to think like of our best lock and keys. I I think that our best lock and key in Eshade might be the Nessa's balloon. Um there's this captain that has this air balloon, and she needs to like market it cuz nobody's riding it. And so, you have to paint uh her balloon. And then at the

end, once you paint it for her and put the posters around, then uh she gives you a ride up into the mountains. So, that's like hot air balloon ride. I mean, even talk about fantasies, right? Like you can ride a hot air balloon, but it's expensive, and you can't do it everywhere. But it's cool. Everyone wants to ride in a hot air balloon. So, maybe just that fundamental fantasy the the lock itself maybe is like a really cool thing. Like It has a good In this case, it has a good payoff, and also it the payoff already teases you before you open the lock. It's like a It's like the the lock is on a glass door. You can like see the air balloon behind it. Like, ah, it would be so cool to ride in that. Maybe that's a thing. Yeah, we also have like the zip lines with the trolleys that you ride them. So, you see the little zip lines in the world. Mhm.
who doesn't like zip lining? So, Sure. Yeah, and maybe like vehicle locks and keys tend to be really cool. Like you can only get to this part if you have a a jet plane or you know, whatever. But that doesn't answer your question,

which is what
you have a raft. I feel like that was also very cool, and you only can get to the island if you have like a raft or a boat or something. That's right, yeah.
yeah. I think yeah, those are very cool. That's like what Metroidvania games are built on. These these kind of lock and key systems all often times, yeah. That's true, yeah. And then since we had it we knew that we wanted a kayak as as a key, we had to make the world such that we had good locks to use the kayak. So, we designed the whole like you you sail over the north side of the island to the little like ice area. Like we had to, you know, build all that. That was just to make use of a good door that we had thought of or a good lock. So, it really is built around the locks. I don't know though. I don't know if fundamentally it's like it feels like it's just vibes. Like if it's cool or not. Is it taste? I don't know. Mhm. Yeah, I'm just I'm I'm curious about the the theory crafting behind it cuz I'm I haven't seen a lot of people talk about this stuff.

Yeah, most people don't make adventure games, so it's it's I'm actually I'm impressed that you've done so much thought about it because I mean, as as far as I know, like you guys don't I wouldn't put you guys in the adventure game category, but you've still know a lot about it.
I'm doing research for future games. Like this is This is a research interview for future games. Okay, I love it. Exciting.
Well, obviously I you want to dabble with different types of games, right? So, it makes sense to learn as much as possible before you dive into those. It is honestly it's really it's such a insane treat that I get to talk to all of these cool developers like you. It's like incredible that I have this opportunity. Well, I'm I'm happy to be talking to you. I'm happy to be talking to you. You get to mine all the developers, but Yeah, it's insane. And I'm I mean, to be fair, I'm I'm sharing the results, right? For the people who are curious.
sure. For sure, you are. Yeah, it's awesome. So, I feel like for the lock and key, maybe this requires some more time to think

about. I'm not sure how much theory crafting we can do about this on the spot. Yeah, I I don't have a great that you would think I would have had one by now. We've got two adventure games, but Maybe maybe it has to fit the game also a little bit. Do you have any magic-based locks in your game? Yes, we do. Maybe yeah, I think we're thinking on the same light are in the same like vein. Yeah, there's a spell that like raises like chunks of the earth. And so, you play a song to raise the earth. And that is sort of a you know, we use that as a sort of door to different areas. I see. What role does magic play in Glimmerbrook in general?
Well, there's the sort of farming there's a farming game loop. It's not like super front center. It's not like Stardew Valley. Um but it ties into the quests a lot. And you use the magic to farm. Um you like you can enchant your axe to go around and chop trees, and then you can just go leave, and the axe will do all the chopping. So, it kind of takes out a lot of the tedium, which is kind of risky

cuz some people like the tedium. So, um I don't know. We'll see. People might be like Actually, we've already gotten the feedback. Some people are like, the axe chops so slow. Like it takes forever. I'm just watching it chop. And we're like, why are you watching it chop? The whole point is that you can go do other stuff while it's doing that. We're like trying to remove the tedium, but people really want to see the tree fall down or whatever.
[laughter]
Um So, yeah, you use your magic to farm. And then yeah, we tried to make some impasses out of the magic. Like um the raise earth. And then just all the quests have different use cases for the magic. Like you've got to repair the gondola using a magical Anyhow, I don't want to I don't know. Spoilers? I don't know. Who cares? I don't know. It's like a potion that like ungrows the plants. Like reverses their growth. And so, it sort of like thing is overgrown, and you make it un- un-overgrown. Stuff like that. So, it's still adventure game, but we we do the the musical spells. And the mu- the spells themselves are um

it's like a rhythm mini-game to like learn the spell. And then once you learn the spell, then you can do it. Yeah, I'm curious to see what [clears throat] what role the the magic plays cuz one of the very big risks with with magic is sometimes that um you kind of leverage the fantasy, but you forget to put in any any magic. Like Actually, the first Harry Potter movie has this as well, where I think Harry casts like a single spell in the entire first movie or something like this. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, You said you're doing tech art for Glimmerbrook, right?
we can call it that. Yeah, I mean, I write shaders, and I come up with the pipelines, and I figure out like, you know, how we're going to like do our rigs for characters, things like that. Yeah, and I mean, I I do a little bit of programming, and then so it's kind of weird. Like sometimes I have trouble even figuring out how to categorize the kinds of things I do on Glimmerbrook. But um I know I'm doing a lot of like

quest markup and and authoring of collision bounds and uh meshes and things. And we also have like a weird projected uh a lot of the illustrations that Jaclyn does for the buildings, we project onto sort of low-poly proxified 3D meshes. Yeah, I see. That's kind of how the the dev looks. Okay. I can I'll pull up a clip from from your devlog if you're famous or That'll make it less boring cuz like I feel like I'm like less boring as watching paint dry right now. So Oh, no worries. [snorts] I'll cut out all of the boring parts. Do you do the writing for the games or is that your wife? For E-Shade I did a lot of the writing. I'd say I don't know what percentage of it, maybe half, maybe a little bit more, I'm not sure. But for Glimmerwick I've done very small amount of writing. Actually Jenny, our programmer, has I would say done more writing than me Mhm. on Glimmerwick, but Jacqueline, my wife, has done 80, 90% of the writing, something like that. Do you have any thoughts on what makes for a good story or for good writing in games?
I

I would say a lot of what I think about games writing is viewed through the lens of quest of making quests. I think it's really hard to tell a story in a game in the classical sense with like this will happen and then they're going to be a twist here and then these two characters say this to each other. Like that kind of stuff is kind of hard to do. We do have some of it. We even have things we call them character arcs in the game, which are basically like quests for particular characters. I think that a lot of games, I don't know, we try we try to keep the exposition light. We don't want to just like make people read. We try to do the exposition in like the world itself, like the things people are seeing. And I think that you want to try to You know, what when people talk about a character in a book or movie and they call them one-dimensional, it's kind of like a knock, right? A one-dimensional character is a bad character. But in a video game, a one-dimensional character is actually pretty good cuz most characters are zero-dimensional characters.

So like if you can Sometimes I feel like if you could just come up with one stick for a character, like oh, this character is just really anxious all the time. That's it. You cuz you're you're not going to get that many lines with them, right? Cuz it's a video game. You're going to get literally like 5% as many lines as you might have in a movie. So if you can just imbue one thing into their lines so that at least the player can come away with some idea about what this person is like, I think that's helpful.
I see. I think that's the end of my That's the only things I can come up with. I'm just probing in a couple of different directions. Where where's the most where the most value to extract is from you. Can I ask one more thing about marketing? How do you think about marketing in in general now? Do you think it's sort of a thing that happens automatically if you have if you have a good game or do you think you need to put some work into marketing? I think I'm I you and I probably are pretty similar about like I've heard you say that like there's just a few things that you even can do

and they're pretty much you do them every time. Like once you kind of know the ropes, you know, you've got your announcement trailer, you apply for showcases and festivals, you probably do your demo release and then maybe you do Next Fest, maybe do a couple other festivals. Like there's certain beats and then you maybe have your release date announcement or whatever. And that's kind of just what everyone does. I mean maybe there's some cool gorilla marketing tactic out there that if you're really creative you could come up with, but by and large, you know, most of the time people want to play your game, you do those basic things. We don't have a lot of data on on good games. I don't like that term cuz I think it's really confusing to people. Sure, good can mean a million different things.
Exactly. Yeah, I guess I'll say games that people want to buy. We don't have a lot of data on what happens when somebody has a game that people want to buy and they don't do the basic marketing things uh because it tends to be so freaking hard to make a game of that caliber that by the time you've done it,

you you're you're going to take it seriously enough to do a press release and to do uh you know, announcement trailer and to do the sort of basic things that you tend to do. Like we don't usually see a high-caliber developer put a lot of effort into a game um and a lot of craft into it.
into marketing.
Exactly. We just don't see it very often.
True. But yeah, in general I I definitely feel, you know, it's I don't know what percentage the game it is, but it's a pretty freaking high percentage. How important do you feel like word of mouth is for something like an adventure game? Do you feel like people share these kind of games with word of mouth? I have no idea. I have zero data on it. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. That's why I'm asking.
[laughter]
If people are like, "Boy, you should really check out Songs of Glimmerwick." I think it must be. I mean even with our beta like I like ninja released our our beta application form cuz I don't need like 10,000 people wanting to play the

game right now, right? So I just need like like you you said 20. We we have we have 30 in our closed beta. So I just like posted it on I think it was just like a Blue Sky. No, I posted a couple of times in my Twitch chat and that's it. Um and even now we're getting applications all the time that were like, "My friend told told me about this game that and they say it's so cool and I just wanted to see if I could get into the beta." So that was very encouraging. It's like some people played the demo of our game that is beta that is like has bugs and stuff and they were like so excited about it that they wanted to go tell their friend to please try to get into the beta program cuz they want to talk about the game with them, I assume. Cuz they didn't know about our game before. They'd never heard of us before. So that's already happened. I think we have like 45 applications and like think it's like eight of them explicitly it says cuz I asked, "How did you hear about the game?" in the application and they're saying, "My friend told me about the

beta and said that it's really cool." See, that's an interesting insight. So people do share these kind of things. That's all I had got on it. Like I and I had never really had any other knowledge about it before, but that seems like a lot, you know, just for 32. It does. And it also sounds like sounds like you're maybe on the correct side of this gap, right? It's like it's not like, "Oh, this looks cool." It's like, "I want to play this. I want to share it with friends." We're get we're getting like 10 We're asking like 1 to 10, how would you rate this game? And we're getting like a surprise I mean our average is like 8.7. So it's like a lot of nines and 10s and everyone is saying like just people are saying really crazy. Like they're just really jazzed about it. Seems good. But again, is it a biased pool? I don't know. What do people like about it? Is it What what are they praising about it?
A lot of the same things that people liked about E-Shade, honestly. Like people love the world. They love meeting NPCs. They love exploring and people are

also saying they really love the There's certain characters in this in the game that are like really funny and people are saying they love them and they want to hear more from them. People have said that the classes are cool, that like it gives like good vibes, like it really feels like you're in a college class. We've heard a lot that our potion mini-game is really addictive.
You do have classes in your game? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So yeah, just
How big of a role do they play or like how are these classes triggered? Are they part of quest lines or when do these classes happen? So the classes happen there's a you get little letters telling you when your classes are going to be. It's not like every day. There's like there's like I think there's three classes per season and there's only four seasons in the game. It's not like a game that you go years and years forever, like Stardew Valley. Mhm. So it's just a few, the months are only two weeks long. Uh like, you know, I think 14 game days or whatever. And you have like two or three classes per

month. Are you on a limited timer? Can do you have only have like four weeks to explore the game world or how does that work? So we did some really crazy stuff. I I feel like the way we handle time is like some of the biggest innovations that we've made in the game cuz the clock does move forward all the time except when there's an event. Um we call it like a timed event and when there's an event, so this could be a class or a festival or even like shenanigans, like your friend told you to meet you at X place, whatever, then your clock turns into a little icon. We call it an event puck. And that means time is frozen and you can do whatever you want. You can go do quests and stuff, whatever, but you got to go to that thing um at some point. And the only bottleneck for how much you can do in a day is how much energy you have or mana. So every spell you cast costs mana and um there's only so much you can do

in a day. Eventually you'll run out of mana. Um if you wanted to min-max the game, you could try to like load up on like pretzels and
[laughter]
You could try and that's fine. If people want to do that, it's totally cool. Um also when you get to the end of the day, it turns into a little uh moon and stars and that means it's night time, but nothing's going to happen. You can still go do whatever you want. As long as you still have mana, you can still go do and talking to people's free. So you can go and talk to people, pick up quests, do whatever you want. So there's no time pressure in the game, but there's still the passage of time cuz passage of time is important for the sort of like vibes of of school, you know, you've got your classes and your exams and stuff. So it was really hard problem because we did not want time pressure. Like we hated that about I guess farming sims. It works for farming sims. They're effectively time management games, most farming sims, right? What you do with your day is kind of the game. It's kind of like how you want to tasks you want to put into your day. It's sort of like this little mini management game. And uh we didn't really want that. We wanted it to be no, smell the roses. Like hang out,

like vibe, do whatever you want. Um so we needed to remove the time pressure, but we couldn't remove the night day uh ebb and flow cuz that was just totally too weird. So, that's how we That's what we did, if that makes sense.
Well, that's an improvement you made from Eastshade, because in Eastshade, you do have the time pressure of night comes every day. And eventually, I guess you removed the time pressure by giving the player tools that allows you to ignore those constraints. Exactly. But, although in Eastshade, there's infinite days, so Sure. I didn't really think of night as a time pressure. I thought of night as an impass, actually. I wanted to turn night into an impass, so that we could give you a key to master the impass. So, that's kind of why I did that. Some people hate it. It was a very satisfying one, actually. You're right.
Oh, good. Okay, I'm glad. Yeah, people complain about it, though, so I don't know.
Yeah, I think you can see this an annoyance if you fail to see it as an impass. Then you're like, what the hell is this?

Uh one of the most annoying things are when you get feedback that is like clearly just baggage taken from another game. Yeah.
It's like they had an idea about what it was, and they wanted to be that way, but like, that's not my problem.
[laughter]
I don't know. It's like I mean, it's fine. You can have an opinion. Uh there's nothing wrong with that, but when people say it in a qualitative way, like oops, they made a design mistake. They made it so you die at night, which was really stupid. Mhm.
It's like, I don't know. I That bothers me. Like, if I was giving that feedback, even if I hated the mechanic, I would say, I don't really like it how you I personally don't really like it how you, you know, die at night for X and Y reasons, but whatever. So, but how how do we get here? The the passage of time is seems to be a very important concept for role-playing and exploration games. It's like I I hate coming back to this all of the time, but it's just just like the parallels become even come more and more undeniable as you know, like so in Outer Wilds, the concept of time

obviously also plays a very big role, right? The and the is it that maybe the passage of time is what makes the world feel alive? Is it like otherwise, it's like a frozen image in time, or what do you think? What is it about it? I think you're right. I think that's it. Because RPGs, most RPGs have the design pillar of they want to be a a place, fantasy world, a living breathing place. Living and breathing, you've got it has to beat to a clock. Otherwise, they're just automatons in a in an amusement park, right? They're just like animatronics, and they don't really have any life. So, if you want NPC schedules, which, you know, most people feel like that makes the world feel more alive, then you have to have some kind of passage of time, but it has so many downstream consequences. It It really does. Like you said, it's a big problem. It It's It is a huge problem. Like, you have to design everything around it. Like, even like narrative and tone problems. Like, if someone says, "Oh my gosh, my daughter is trapped in whatever. Can you

please help me?" Okay, it's kind of weird if like you just, you know, F off for 3 weeks, and like, you know, the night keeps I don't know. It's It's hard. I think what you're doing with Glimmering is really smart, actually, in terms in terms of time. I've never You're right, I've never seen anything like this. It's like you have passage of time, but you take a lot of liberties with how you how you interpret it, and like you don't have
a funky way, yeah. Yeah. But, you still have the night every night, so it feels like, okay, we did stuff today. The day is over. Tomorrow, I'm going to see my friends in the morning, going to go to class in the morning, whatever. It works really well. I'm I, you know, I I'm sure you feel like this. Every game has like a few design decisions that are like eureka decisions. They're like, that is a banger. Like, that solved That was a Miyamoto design decision. That solves multiple problems. And that one, the the locking of the clock for events and for night was was one. Like, we were Jacqueline and I were just like buzzing after we thought of it. We were like, oh my god, that's going to solve so many

problems. [laughter]
[gasps]
Mhm. What's funny is that like as a game developer, I can I also feel the vibe. It's like, oh my god, I got to remember this. The [laughter] the fact that you can take some liberties with your time system. It's not like if you have a clock, it has to be constantly ticking. It's like
Exactly.
really cool thought, for sure. Could we talk about YouTube for a second? Oh, yeah, for sure. I was wondering like, how much you think about your audience, and like who you're talking to? And how much you I I guess like, do you feel like you're trying to talk specifically to game developers, or are you talking to people who are just tangentially interested in game development, or are you even trying to maybe talk to some fans of your games?
It changed over time, right? When I when I started, I used to think about my YouTube channel as like a marketing tool for my games. Okay. Now, I think about YouTube in a completely different way. Now, it's like a almost like a charity I do for other

game developers. Like, I don't think I have to run this YouTube channel anymore. It's just like it's fun to be part of the of the dev community in this way. It's fun to be part of the discussion. I like to contribute to the discussions. And there are there are a couple of cool perks that come with having a YouTube channel. Like, for example, I get to talk to people like you and so on, which is something I would have otherwise maybe not have the opportunity for. So, that's a cool perk for me.
me up even without the YouTube channel. But, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Yeah. But, I don't really look at YouTube from a marketing perspective anymore. There's like stuff I want to try for my next games. For for example, I want to try making some shorts about my games, cuz I've cuz I've heard some people had some good marketing success with that. But, like the the majority of videos that I make on my YouTube channel nowadays are like very niche content for game developers specifically. Like, nobody Nobody else is going to listen to a 2-hour interview about game development. Like,

I very much shifted to to just serving game devs at this point. And like, all of the videos I do are very specifically for game devs. And I'm like, I don't care how effective this is for marketing. That's not really the point of this anymore. So, I I guess it depends on the goals you have going into it. What I What I hear from you is that you would maybe like the YouTube channel to be more of a way to attract people who are interested in the kinds of games you make. Is that what you Yeah, for sure.
That is That is what I was thinking about. I think a lot of people imagine that having a YouTube channel this like the size of yours would you know, have a big impact on your game sales. I mean, I happen to know and many And, you know, anyone within 100 miles of this field will know that it it doesn't end up being that big, but do you attribute any like Do you think that that there are any gamers that find you through your

YouTube work that end up buying your games? Is it like almost almost vanishingly small? Is it like 2%? I mean, to be fair, game developers also play a lot of games. I think Definitely. It's a bit of a myth that you should not market to game developers. I'm like, why why not? Game Game developers play a lot of games, probably. So, why should you not market to game developers? Strange idea. I mean, one of your videos gets 400,000 views, which a lot of your videos get, like those kinds of numbers. I mean, most showcases don't even get that many views. So, yeah, it's true.
I think it would be unfair to say that there's like no gain in having a YouTube channel, obviously. It helps, right? Yeah. Okay. It depends on It's like I I think of a good way to think about it is like a safety net, maybe. It's like it limits your downward potential. Like, you there's like a maybe a certain barrier that you can't fall below, but it doesn't necessarily help with the upwards potential.
Breaking into the like, yeah, yeah,

getting into the real mainstream. That makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the correct way, probably, to look at it. I used to think that like Yeah, I I just thought content marketing, devlogs. I thought devlogs would probably only be for developers, but I've been seeing more Kind of like what we're what we were just talking about with the time, passage of time. You don't have to be a game developer to, you know, shoot the about that. Like, there are Um but then, I made the I made the one video uh my wife and I went all in and it made millions video. I don't know if you've heard of that one with the
I've seen that video, yeah. It's I think it's your most popular video, right? Oh my god, by far. You know, it has 2 million views now. And that one pierced into the mainstream. So, like, for that one, I got I mean, that video made me It's hard to quantify exactly how much, but there's no way that that single video didn't like make my company at least 50 grand. Just the video in like sales and

wishlists and stuff. And that got me thinking like, I mean, obviously, I can't I don't have any more topics that can be like that, but if I make 10, 20, 30 videos, and I get one or two like that, then I wonder if it becomes worth it. I I don't know. I I also just being able to I like being able to talk to our audience, cuz I feel like I don't really have any way of doing it.
Mhm. Have you tried shorts? I haven't tried any shorts yet. I mean, we we did have a TikTok going, um but we weren't running it. We We're paying a company to do it.
that might be worth looking into. I feel like if you want to reach gamers, that's maybe the better place to do it than long form nowadays. Really? Okay.
Cuz it just ends up in people's feeds. And if it's engaging enough, they'll watch it. And for long form, you're a bit more reliant on either them searching for it, or for their interests interests to more exactly align for the algorithm to recommend it. Whereas, for shorts, I feel like it's a bit more bit more wild card, right? More more random

people can see your shorts than [snorts] than your long form.
bad at that format. I'm so [laughter] I'm so bad at that. I don't know. I don't have the eye for it. I I have a random question. Sorry if I'm like a little bit jumpy with the topics here, but for
mind. Yeah. for Glimmerwick, you're obviously, if you have like a such a large
[snorts]
painting map, how are you handling all of those textures? Cuz I I would assume you have lots and lots of high-resolution textures to make like such a large world-sized painting, right? Yeah, well well we use lots of So the goal is to make it look like one big painting, but it's not one big painting. It's we use a lot of tiling textures for the ground and for the like really big things. Things that are too big that the texel density just needs to hold up. Um the interiors, when you go inside a room, those are one most of them are one giant texture. Some of them are so big that we couldn't even do that. Like the library, the inside of the library,

the resolution that we would need to make the pixels hold up when you zoom in was like beyond 8192, which is like the maximum amount that you could stuff in your GPU. [laughter] So for that I mean we could use multiple textures, but for that one we mix a lot of um tiling textures and then Jaclyn just draws certain bits like desks and like props and points of interest and windows and things like that. Um and then I'll just project them. I put them all into a big atlas and then I cut them up and make little projections and cards and assemble it basically, which is extremely tedious and actually very technical. More technical than a lot of the stuff I did on Esha actually. It's really weird stuff we're doing on the interiors. Um but some of the interiors are small enough she just draws the entire thing and it's like a 4096. And then that's not a problem cuz you just go into the interior, it loads in and then it unloads when you leave. So plus I mean we have so much memory nowadays you

could like just like burn memory for warmth. You could just Yeah, yeah. So that it's not a problem from like the performance perspective, but like from a project management perspective it it sounds challenging because I assume you have like a folder with like 500 textures probably something like that. Oh yeah, Jaclyn has I mean our our build has over 2000 individual textures. Way over. It might be even more than that. But yeah, I don't know. We use we use Perforce, which is really good with big binaries and our our the total size
We use Perforce, which is a the version control we use. Oh, okay. Um which is just better with big big files basically. Got it.
Um it's like just faster. And I don't I mean how big is our game? It's like it's not that big. Like the project is is only like 10? Is it? Let me see. Let me see how big it is. Oh, it's 40. Whoa. It's 50. Okay, I lied. It's 52 gigs.

That's our project. But the build on Steam is only two gigs. I don't know. I don't know how it happens. [laughter] Compression I guess.
I mean compression, sure. So do you have just good naming conventions for all of these textures or do you sort them into folder structures? How do you handle like the the assets? Yeah, they're they're all I mean everything goes where it goes. So we don't have a lot of like Jaclyn, I need to know where this one like Actually the names don't matter at all cuz like we're like okay, we're making the library now. Jaclyn draws the library. She she you know, draws the concept for me and draws a bunch of the high-detail parts on some massive texture. She checks it in. It's not that's not even a texture. That's just for me to splice up and make into an atlas. And then she just gives me a Trello card that says library is ready for projection. This is the path. And then I just project it and then it's I put it in the interior and I've never even know about it. If I need to go back to it, I'll literally just open the interior in

Unity, click on it and trace the path. We don't even [laughter] really believe in names. Okay, okay. Okay, okay, I see. So because you're working on the same things a lot of the time and because you're just you can just pass the directory in a Trello card or something. I see. Yeah, it doesn't we don't end up needing to I don't know. We know where everything goes. Like the world is a grand garden. So like you'd be like the the city fountain east city fountain yellow city fountain. Yeah, I know which one that is. I'll go right to it.
Right, right. So like having 2000 textures in your game is not as big of a problem as it sounds. No, it's nothing. I don't even Yeah, it's not an issue whatsoever. Unless Jaclyn named it something so weird and then we start working on it a year later and then she can't name she can't remember what she named it. That's happened before. Yeah, okay.
[laughter]
That happens, I assume. But it's it's rare.
Let's say I want to make um adventure game an adventure game now and I obviously also want to I want it to be a good game. I want it to sell well. Maybe I have an idea for a theme.

What would you recommend I do as like the first steps? Oh man, you're you're totally working on an adventure game. You Uh some someday. I'm not working on an adventure game right now. Currently I'm working on a co-op multiplayer game with Paul. Okay.
the adventure game, I think it's it's starting to brew in my head, yeah.
Okay. Okay.
[laughter]
Gosh, I don't know. I feel like if I say something I'll sound like I'm trying to know what I'm talking about and that I like I have the right path, you know? Okay, so you you have given the disclaimer. Now I'll give you advice.
[laughter]
I I really think adventure games are a sloppy they're a sloppy genre design-wise. Like I often say that the that our games, the design for Esha and for Glimmerwick, it's not clean. It's not a clean design and it doesn't have to be. It's like a throw-shit-at-the-wall design. Like cuz it's it doesn't have to be super balanced. It doesn't have to be

ludicrously perfect. Um it doesn't have to be orthogonally like this is for this and you would do this if you're going to do X and Y and the reason why that works is because of the game theory here. Like doesn't have to have any of that stuff. I think it depends on what if your adventure game is going to have a unique game verb in it cuz some of them do. Like Esha had painting. You might have something weird like making cupcakes or something. I don't know. Then you could potentially just prototype that verb. For us, like we already know we can make an adventure game. That's actually the one thing I know. I know we can make a banger of an adventure game. I know we can make great quests and great stories and a great world and map that people are going to really enjoy exploring and and going into every corner. So that one we have a lock. So and every I think I think we'll always make it adventure games. I think every game we ever make until we're dead is going to be an adventure game. That's awesome.
change, but the adventure backbone I just we just love it too much, I think.

So I guess if you don't have that cuz I'm I can only speak from my perspective. Like if you've never made an adventure game, how do you prototype an adventure game cuz That's exactly the question, yeah.
they're so content-oriented. It's like you said that basically adventure games are locks and keys and the lock and key is so important, right? The dress how you dress up that lock and key in terms of like what is your door? What is your key? is kind of what makes it interesting. You can't prototype to make a true prototype you would just make it a a door and a key, right? Unless you're prototyping the door I don't know. I don't know, man. Yeah, there are so many problems with that and then also [snorts] how do you test if it's cool? And then you have the problem similar problem to puzzle games that you probably burn through play testers really quickly cuz if somebody has tested a lock and a key once, I'm not sure they can like their second the second time they play it's not going to really give you a

good intel on how it works anymore. Well, if your lock and key is puzzle-based, but I would say that your lock and key doesn't really have to be. No, sure. Um But is it is it like if your player quests, you know, for the second time, is it really is it really the same as playing it for the first time?
No, it's not the same. It's you're right. That's true. That is very true. Yeah, you burn through play testers like that. Yeah, like I I don't feel like Esha has a lot of replay value. And um Glimmerwick has a little bit more cuz it has a lot more systems in it. Okay. But it's still very much an adventure game. I'm trying to think I for quests I feel like we know if the quest is good before we even start implementing it. We're just like
A lot of about feeling and taste maybe?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. If we're like like we talk about a quest and we're just like if we're super excited about like oh yeah, that would be so cool if you come around the corner and there like Esha, my favorite quest is the the midnight drummers. The

concept of the quest is that you hear these drums in the night and you're trying to find them and you're just getting closer and closer to them. That setup is so cool and it just it's so like it gives me like goosebumps and it's so mysterious and interesting that I already knew I got goosebumps when I thought of it for the first time. Like I literally the hairs were standing on my arm. It's Maybe that just happens to me. And I'm not saying oh my god, it's I'm so such a genius. I'm just literally saying that was what my body did when that idea popped into my brain. So I knew that some of that players were going to feel. So that's at least that's for quest design. I have not answered your question. This is literally the worst answer in the world. I don't even know what the question was anymore.
Your question was how do you prototype an adventure game? Yeah, or what advice do you have in general? Where where where should I get started, right? For example, should I get started with like art? Should I get start with story? Should I start with setting? With world building? There are so many things to work on. I'm just wondering I think

where would you start?
the world map and art is a is a decent starting point point. I don't even know what to do in the map yet. Maybe let's make it a little more concrete example. Let's let's design an adventure game real quick. Let's maybe say we want to make an adventure I want to make an adventure about becoming really good at fantasy board game. It's like everybody in this world is crazy about this board game and I'm like a young hustler who wants to compete in like this world's biggest championship for the board game. Okay, so is the board game going to be like a mini game within the adventure game? Yeah, probably. Right? If it's play such a big role then probably you can also play the board game and like hustle people.
This is stupid advice cuz I'm just speaking for my since I already know how to make an adventure game like I would start with the board game with the mini game just because if that's going to be what it's all about then I would just want to start with that.
Yeah, yeah, fair that needs to be good.

Sure. So that would be like the verb kind of I imagine all the quests in this adventure game would be like you got to beat you know dice dice throwing Bob. He's been playing this game for 10 years and he's down the road whatever. And then you know you might have other interesting quests that maybe don't involve the board game necessarily. Maybe there's like I I don't know. Maybe also about gathering materials. Maybe you can like maybe it's a card game and you have to collect rare cards or something have like a lock and key system like that a bit. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So if there's if the board game is going to have things you find in the environment that help you in the game then I would think yeah making a little sort of map with I guess I would go in the sort of vertical slicey direction with this. I would say a little area of the world that you're going to test out the kinds of quests that you're going to have in the game. The kinds of like dialogue that you're going to encounter that will give you

your assignments you know for the player and sort of see how that mini game links up with the world and maybe you're just collecting stuff for the mini game. Maybe the actual mini game you can put on the shelf like we're not going to worry about that but just know that you're collecting stuff for this mini game. You could prototype that probably. Again, you're talking to a guy who's never made a prototype in his life.
[laughter]
No, that's fine. I'm gathering That's why I'm talking to a lot of different devs and like trying to figure out how different devs think about things. Let me tell you this. I I really after watching your video about about pathfinding or search algorithm for design I I'm feeling like I definitely want to do more of a prototype phase for our next game. But it's like I think different games require you to test different things. Right? For example for Eastshade you said that you made a visual prototype visual prototypes early

on. Yeah. I think that was probably the the correct thing to do. Right? You were you were testing the things you felt most unsure about. In a way. Like maybe you were confident that like you could figure out how to do great quests and so on but you weren't sure you could do good graphics in Unity. So that's what you went to first. Yeah and I thought that that was kind of the that was like my magic card. Like the game is going to look completely bananas. That was what I had in my head. Like people are going to see and they're going to go what the hell is that and that's I guess kind of our appeal factor too. So I needed to make I need to make sure I could make a game that looked bananas in Unity. It doesn't look bananas anymore. At the time though like I was making Eastshade in Unity 4 and it looked exactly like it does today in Unity 4. So it looked very ahead of its time or what do you mean? Yeah, people were like what the hell am I looking at right now? Like what is this? Like what is this? What did you do? I see. I look forward to all the comments talking about how incredibly

cocky and insufferable I am. No worries. I don't think that's a problem at all. If you if you would build another adventure you would What I'm hearing a lot is that like the vertical slice method probably makes sense cuz it sort of for if it forces you to define all of the important questions sort of. Right? It it forces you to define the art style. It forces you to define how like a quest feels like in your game.
I think you could do you could do vertical slice without even art if you wanted to prototype the adventure hooks of your game and sort of how those things played together and what your quest what your quests are going to look like. I think you could do it without art as well. I think it could work. Unless you were really scared about making the game look then you maybe could do the art. Yeah, I know you've said in the past never work on the art and the you don't prototype the art and the mechanics at the same time cuz that's just called making the game. Yes. [laughter] Which I agree with. You're not really prototyping at that

point.
true. So slightly different spin on the question. What are you going to do for your next game? Are you already cooking something? Yeah, I've got an idea. I don't know if we're going to do it cuz I think it's like way riskier than any game we've ever than Glimmerwick or Eastshade. It's weirder. I I'm really interested in Well, I I've been on the never-ending quest to find like the mechanic to replace combat that I can make amazing adventure games around that has enough sort of meat there to like tie into other things but that doesn't steal the show and doesn't have make us have to do weird narrative concessions like everyone in the world is trying to kill you. I and I just want to find something that has enough room I like I feel like painting isn't it. I feel like it's too it's too simple I guess and people have suggested things like oh you can make different styles of painting that you like pick up along the way and like different colors. You could you could complicate it. You could like

sort of splay it out into more a more meaty sort of mid-level loop but I just have never I could just never think of a way like what you're like picking up different styles and then how do you do that? Like what are we using like a little like filter to make the style I don't know. I just it never spoke to me. But I've been really interested in merchant games which is an incredibly narrow niche. There's not very many of them. I don't I wouldn't say they sell bad but I wouldn't say they I wouldn't say they sell good either. So thinking about viability kind of meh I don't know. But also I've never seen one at the like I've never seen one as expensive as what what I think we would probably make. Maybe like the guild or something. I don't know. But I just feel like I've been playing them for research and I feel like there's actually a lot there. The basic verb of buying something and selling it at a higher price there's actually a lot of stuff you can

do with it. You can you can have a whole entire skill tree on like sort of modifiers for that. You could have production chains if you wanted. You could buy an idea I had was like you could buy properties and that could be like the final end point to sell your production chains so you get a little bit more money for them. And I'm thinking like okay I could build a sort of loop around that and then hook it into an adventure game. So there's like this big map and you There's characters and I'm thinking like when you do quests you actually collect that character. You can put them on your staff and you can assign them to like a trade route or a production chain. So it sort of marries the the adventury narrative ness of it with a sort of more mechanically rich thing. I already wrote like a little design doc on it. I don't still don't know if I'm going to do it just cuz I don't know. I'm scared that it's like too I'm scared that the fantasy of being a merchant doesn't appeal to enough

people. I think the metric often times happens when you find the correct way to romanticize a fantasy. Right? For example who would have known that car wash simulator would do so well or something.
is so it's so yeah, not me. That's for sure.
[laughter]
But but then like if if you find the correct way to romanticize it and like you only take the good parts of the fantasy and you exaggerate them and you remove the bad parts of the fantasy then I think a lot of fantasies can become a lot more appealing than you initially anticipated and I think being a merchant is already not not a bad fantasy at all.
starting point.
No, not at all. I think it's a pretty cool fantasy actually. So I'm wondering if you like what for example what I really like is when people in the world are very passionate about a specific topic. Right? For example in Eastshade people are very passionate about paintings. What a coincidence. I'm a painter.

That's that's that's such a that makes it way better if everybody was just like oh yeah I don't really like paintings or whatever.
[laughter]
Fantastic. Now it feels just like real life painting. Just a just a dumb artist. What do what do we need you for? I think that makes fantasy so much better. So I feel like if you could find a believable way to make like traders the stars of this universe then I think it could be way more interesting. If people don't look at you like oh yeah there's the trader. I'm going to buy my bread if he's more like holy you're you're you can actually be someone by being a trader. You know I feel like they could certainly elevate the fantasy.
Interesting. Yeah. It's an interesting thought. And also I think there's a lot of skill expression and things you can do with trading. Right? For example you can over the time you can pick up some knowledge about how much certain items are worth and then you can trade more efficiently. So there's there's also some skill expression you can do with that. Can you like

haggling competitions or whatever? It's like could also be a kind of competitive and maybe you have like an a competitor who tries to outsell your something. There can be like some story lines around that or I was actually thinking that the the sort of main story would be that you someone in your little party gets fired for a really stupid reason. They're just like a really horrible nasty company. Mhm. And and they're like sort of the big merchant in town. And then you sort of like run off with some of their some of like their cart. And so they're like chasing after you. They're kind of like the bad guy now in the game. But everyone doesn't like them already and you're sort of growing your company and then they're like the I guess there won't really be bosses, but yeah, you're you end up being like kind of the hero in a sense that you just just like displace [clears throat] this big bad company who treats their employees really badly.
I think that sounds fun. I think like it plays a similar as you said it plays a similar role as combat where you're trying to defeat the bad guy, but you're

not you're like not killing them or whatever. You're just like beating them down and then honestly being someone like being defeated in a different way is almost more satisfying than just killing them. Mhm. Cuz you can you can still have the reaction when they're dead. They can't really react anymore.
That's right. Yeah, exactly.
[laughter]
Yeah, I was thinking like to sort of think about like I guess the the magic of startup culture. Obviously startup culture has a lot of negative connotation, but there's something very exciting about being on the ground floor of something new. I mean that's something I felt. I'm sure you felt it as well like when when Jaclyn and I were working on E-Shade, we really felt like we had so much purpose. And even though we were working a lot, we just I don't know. We were just really excited about you know, about what we were doing and I wanted to kind of create like a little cast of unlikely characters that come together that create like this little startup company. And to sort of yeah, make that into sort of narrative pillar, I guess. You created some a very special experience

for a for a lot of people if I hope you make more of them.
[laughter]
We will. Oh man, it's all Well, unless Glimmerwick I mean we spent $2 million on Glimmerwick, so we could be I mean if it completely it's not very likely that it completely tanks if it's sitting at like 100k wish list or something. Oh. Yeah.
What what's it around the number? I 115, yeah. And we haven't done Next Fest yet. And I think our demo's better than our You know, some games they look they like don't Some games are showers and some games are players and even though I don't think Glimmerwick looks bad, I still almost think it's a player. Like I think people come away more excited. Well, according to our little questionnaire, I asked people what was their excitement level about Glimmerwick coming in and I and then I asked them how what is your excitement level now? And so many people are up upgraded their answer to day one purchase. That's like the top level of day one purchase. Yeah. Like some people like likely purchase to day one purchase or like want to see

reviews to day one purchase, that sort of stuff. And yeah, I think once people play it, they're just going to they're going to be hooked, I hope. I think you're right. I think maybe it comes down to a similar thing as with E-Shade is that you you can't really see the verbs on the screenshots so much. So it looks looks a little bit like a walking sim once again.
we did such a terrible job with the Steam page for E-Shade. I don't think our trailers are good. I don't know. I mean it's so late now, but I think we could have done a much better job with that game.
I guess what what are the verbs for Glimmerwick?
The verbs would be the casting this Well, I would I would call it farming farming loop. And the questing just like talking to people, you know, sort of adventure game stuff. Um and then also some of the environmental spells that you can cast to get through the impasses. Uh there's also some mini games like potion brewing and stuff. Yeah, cuz one thing I wanted to suggest is maybe to to deliberately pick some screenshots that

show some of the verbs that actually do a good job at representing the game cuz the first screen four screenshots I see the first one is walking. The second one is like a zoomed out screenshot of this cathedral where I think you're talking to someone. So this one I it's very hard to see any verb at all cuz it's so zoomed out. Then the third one is once again walking and the fourth one is standing in front of the flower close star which I think it's cool which maybe the the verb for that would be to explore cuz it looks kind of like you're exploring this little hut here.
Oh, okay. That's really good. That is really good feedback. Okay, let me go through so the Oh, the one where you're in the you feel like you can't tell what's going on in the interior. Um on the second shot.
the the second shot is more about the environment and about the verb. I think that's a fair thing to say. Got you. Yeah. Yeah. And the second and the third one the verbs are walking. Yep. Yep, I agree. I know I I suck at this. I suck at this Jonas, I don't know how to show verbs. I

think it's mostly the realization that showing the verbs is a good thing in the in the first place. I think most developers don't think about the screenshots in that way, right? They're like let's show some cool varied stuff from my game. I totally agree. Yeah, I totally agree.
Yeah. And and that is a realization that I've I've had and I believe I had it after I made the Glimmerwick Steam page, so I'm going to try to show the Time to learn from that one. Yep. There's one screenshot where it looks like you're creating this the stone bridge by playing your flute. That's for example one that shows some cool action. I at first I didn't understand that that you're currently making this thing appears. I wonder if you can take a screenshot like that and give it a bit of a lift to maybe make it look like it's just coming out of the ground to explain that a bit more. Like something like this is Or more particles on the on the avatar or something like more particles to make it look like she's really doing something.
Connection between the avatar and the bridge appearing maybe or maybe some

some movement lines for the rocks coming out of the ground something like that. Yeah. So that you can really see the verb of casting a spell. So to speak. Yeah. Very cool. I got you.
you want to pick verbs probably that match your game play. So if your game has a lot of walking then show the walking. If your game has a lot of talking then show the talking. Always good to be transparent about what the game's about. Got you. I see. Yeah, we have most of our verbs on the sort of back end of the screenshots, but I I just always felt I don't know. I feel like sometimes our verbs don't look as good as as walking through a pretty place, but maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe you just don't not be I think that's the mistake I made with E-Shade. I think that I I was too scared to show because the kinds of things you did in E-Shade, I knew there were verbs. Like you drive a kayak, you drive a bicycle. That's weird. What game you drive a bicycle? And you know, you do all these things, but I was just scared that they just didn't look as like

immediately beautiful as some of our just like environment shots and I was worried that I was selling the game short, but I actually think I was selling the game short by going way too environment heavy.
I mean the biggest win is if you can do both at the same time. If you can have like a pretty screenshot that also shows a verb, that's like the double win, right?
And there's all I I literally I can't I physically can't show I can't put up a screenshot that isn't like at least a little beautiful. I'm always going to doctor it up a little bit like um but you know, it it's hard to make some of these look as good. I'm going to rearrange that. I've got to do a big pass on the Glimmerwick Steam page. We haven't really entered our final like marketing campaign. We're just sort of chilling and really not doing anything. Um so
phase are you in right now? We're in the do nothing phase. I mean until we do our like release window announcement with which will come with a new trailer probably and then

um hopefully maybe we can get a showcase or something. And then eventually we'll go to our our demo. Are you still you still working on the game, right? So it's not done yet or how how much percent have you completed?
I it's got to be over 80. Okay. In the final stretch. Yeah, I mean Jaclyn played the game like a month ago and it took her like 25 hours. Oh, yeah.
knows where everything is. Like people do not like we could beat E-Shade in 6 hours, you know, cuz we know we know how to do everything. She doesn't flounder at all. So I think it would take a new player at least 35 hours like at least to to finish it. So it's and it's just hand authored content the entire time. Just quests nonstop.
Wow. So there's not hopefully there's not going to be anybody who's like too short. I can't I shh. You know what you know what there will. There will because the comparison people will make is Stardew and they'll be like I thought I wanted to go into year two or something.

Which is fine. It's valid, but hopefully they'll still like the game anyway. How would Like another random question. I don't know how I got to this one. How do you think about creating a satisfying finale and ending for your game in in a non-combat game? Like what's the How do you make a satisfying ending for a game like this? Oh my god.
I I am so bad at endings and I don't care about them either, which makes it even worse. Because like so often I'll watch a movie and people will be like that movie sucked. The ending was and I'm like who cares? Like I'm not someone who like to some people the ending is all that matters. It's like that is the final cap. That's what it's building to. I'm not that person. Yet somehow we came up with a really good ending for E-Shade. And basically everyone loves the ending for E-Shade. Can you catch me up? I kind of forgot what happens. I've I completed the game, but like you make the final painting, then what? Yeah, you once you complete like Mother's Last

Wishes or whatever, then then you get a a letter from the shipping company that says you know, you can go home whenever you want. Uh you can have a free ride on the ship, and you drive away, and it's just purely cinematic. This is not like a cool mechanical ending or a cool narrative ending. You're just leaving. And you could you're still have control of the camera, but the boat is just going away, and it's really Phoenix's Phoenix's our composer. The track that plays is so like just ethereal next level that I think like that track combined with the ship going away from this big island you spent just like, you know, 15 hours exploring on, it makes people really emotional. And I have heard so many people have told me that they cried on the ship leaving Eastshade.
[laughter]
And it's so weird because the first time this is it's just so surreal. The first time like I was animating that ship, right? And I I already knew what track we're

going to use. So, I had a I had like the first pass set up. The first time that I got on that ship and my little character controller was sitting on it and it was driving away from the island, and I was looking around and that track was playing, I cried. Like real tears. And I was like, I don't even I don't know it was you know, year five of development. I was like, I don't know if this is just cuz I'm very emotional about like finally complete like getting close to the finish of the game and this track is just making me feel stuff or if there's actually something here, but it's so weird that those tears translated to other people somehow. Like the energy of the I don't know. It's the weirdest thing in the world. I would not have expected people would cry just from driving away from the island on a ship, but tons of people did. Like literally hundreds of people have told me that they cried at the end of the game. And then you get to that your little artist studio, and you get all these letters from people on Eastshade. And you it's sort of modular. Like the people who you helped or the quests that you did, you'll get a little letter from. And you'll see all your paintings

that you made on the wall, and you feel like, "Oh, that was a beautiful journey that I took."
I wonder how I forgot about that cuz I I got to that ending, and I I think I vaguely remember the ending being quite impactful. Maybe that's why I asked, but I for some reason I just wasn't remembering what specifically the ending was. Yeah. Yeah, you you Thanks for the for catching me up there again. It feels
[laughter]
it feels strangely relatable and sentimental. It's like almost like once again, it's almost like similar to Outer Wilds where in Outer Wilds also the the ending kind of reminds you that all all good things come to an end, and I feel like the ending of Eastshade was maybe a bit like that as well where it's like it's it's not you're not sad that you're leaving this 15 hours of content. Even though it's great, it's more like it's it's a reminder that everything will be left behind eventually. It's sort of It's like a deeper emotion behind it, I

feel like almost.
Yeah, it feels like the end of the Lord of the Rings. Like it's an honor to be by your side here at the end of all things. And also there's I think there's such a beauty in in low stakes finalities cuz you you weren't on the island to like save the island. You weren't on the island to do like anything crazy. You didn't blow up any buildings. You didn't leave any crazy marks on the island. It was more like tiny interactions you had with characters. Mhm. And that's it. And now you're leaving. Yeah, just like a trip. You're flying away from out of Munich, the apparently a very ugly city according to Germans. I've learned
[laughter]
in this podcast.
I feel like I'm depends on who you ask, right? I was thinking a lot of people really like Munich. I was in Munich for like half a year, and I maybe the area I was in I didn't like it, you know. Okay. [laughter] No, no, no. For Glimmerbrook, have you figured out the ending already? Yes, we have the ending. Should I say it? I mean, you spoiled everything else. No, no, no. Don't don't spoil it. Don't spoil it. Just Just let me know is it like I'm like more like wondering how do

you if you have like a 20 hours of content, how do you make a finale that sort of you know how you have you have you have often times you want these tension curves to kind of rise in tension, and then you have like a climax at the end. Is that how the ending is? Do you have like a climax, or is it more like that's it? So, Glimmerbrook does have like a story, more of a story more of a main story than Eastshade. Mhm. Um and there is a sort of like narrative climax. But it's it's kind of similar in that like we kind of looked at the Baldur's Gate 3 ending. Now, obviously there's a bunch of endings or whatever, but fundamentally you have this like reunion party. Sorry for people who have not played Baldur's Gate. I won't talk about the narrative ending. But plus there's a bunch of them, so it could anything could happen. You don't know. But there's a reunion party at the end, and it's sort of modular. Like who is there is based on who you picked up, and what their conversation looks like is based on the sort of outcome of their arc.

So, you get some finality for all the people, and it the ending feels a little bit specific to your play-through. Now, Glimmerbrook is not like a choices matter game. It's not like we did like tons of branches the way the Baldur's Gate 3 is. But we still sort of kind of use that as a model where like you we there's a sort of a reunion, and you sort of get to hear about all your friends and students and what they sort of went off to do. Um and hopefully that'll make people feel like they really spent time. Like almost like they were they spent a year away. Like like they were What's that What's that called when a student goes somewhere else for a year? Oh, I don't know the English word for that. No clue.
[laughter]
But so you're kind of trying to It's like you're just done playing, but you're already trying to invoke the the nostalgia muscles, basically. Yeah. And maybe that's also maybe a little bit what what Eastshade does is like when you when you're at home and you get all of these letters, it's like feels like it's been been half a year or something, and you're looking back at what happened, yeah. That's exactly what

we're trying to do. We're trying to make people feel nostalgia for the adventure that they just had, I guess. So, that's our stick. You can do that. Just [laughter] see you. I don't know if it'll be
That's that's it's a good It's not the worst strategy. If you have anything else, feel free to ask. Otherwise, I think I'm very satisfied.
Do you find you you said I have one more question about YouTube. You said that YouTube feels like almost like a charity like more of a charity thing to you.
I run it, yeah. The the way you run it, right. For yeah. Do you feel like it's it is a distraction from game dev, or do you feel like it's more of an inspiration for your game dev? Cuz like your videos are extraordinarily polished, I would say, and I have to imagine I mean, there's no way like some of your some of your videos there's no way you make them in a work day unless you're like just godlike at like in terms of speed. So, if you look at last videos I made cuz I as mentioned I switched gears a bit also recently.

The all of the videos I made recently, they're all made very very very quickly. Okay. Like the What sales on like there are two videos recently that also did really well that are more like presentation style videos. One is the What sales on Steam you don't need a hook video, and the other one is if you scroll down a bit further, best code architectures for indie games. Both of them I've made in around a day. Wow, that's really impressive. And then the pod- podcasts are also made in in less than a day. So, Okay.
I think one important realization I had when it comes to YouTube recently is that the time you invest into a video is not at all correlated to the amount of views you will get.
[laughter]
I know. I know. Um what about the Throne Fall devlogs? Would you mind exposing like how how long those took?
Yeah, those are things that they're obviously more a bit more higher effort. So, a lot of them I feel like took

probably a week to edit, and then recording was like spread over a a long time frame, of course, usually. Okay. But like taking a week off to edit a YouTube video and doing that multiple times for a game, I'm not honestly I'm not sure if I want to do that again or if I'm just going to be more sloppy about my devlogs next time cuz I feel like if I make like 10 videos over the course of the game's development and I take 10 weeks off of game development for that, it's not sure I want to do that anymore, honestly.
Yeah. And as far as far as do you feel like it So, that would probably you would call that a distraction to have to to do devlogs like that.
Yeah. Yes and no. You know, you get some you get some wish list, of course, from it, which is helpful. Can't deny that. You get some feedback from people who see the game in the comments. You get some Also, people are anonymous on the internet, so you get some very honest feedback, which is also helpful. Mhm. So, I think the like there's not really

I wouldn't consider not doing devlogs. They're too useful to not do them. But I would think about ways to streamline the process as I've done with other videos recently where it's like the podcasts are mostly edited automatically. The the videos where I talk about game design theory stuff, they're just PowerPoint presentations now cuz it's like I just make the slides in a day, and then I present it in one shot, and I don't do any any editing at all almost. Oh, really? So, you just like read it like an essay? I just talk over my slides. I design the video basically as slides, so I plan and design the video in Photoshop, export all of my slides as PNGs, and then I just talk over them in one shot, and then in in editing maybe I have to edit out a couple of small sections where I repeat myself too often or something, but it's like very very minimal editing, so all of that can also be done in a day. Interesting. That's a really good

technique. I hadn't really even thought about that. Doing it like that.
And yeah, I think it's YouTube, if you want to do YouTube well, it's a lot about working smarter, not harder. That's what I'm noticing recently. Oh, yeah, for sure. And for for devlogs, I'm currently thinking about ways to streamline that so that I don't have to spend a week editing. I'll I'll let you know if I come up with anything. So far, I mean, I haven't really spent too much thought on it. Mine take me about three work days each devlog, and the best devlog in terms of numbers was our first one, which had 110,000 views. For Glimmerwick? For Glimmerwick, yeah. Cuz for E-Shade, you had the the one that got over a million views. Right, for just videos. I'm just talking about devlogs specifically. But yeah, for that that E-Shade video did did real real numbers. And then the marketing is not why most indie games fail video did pretty good numbers, too. I think like 300 and something thousand. But I'm just trying to think about for

devlogs, like I don't know. It's It's like on the cusp of being worth it. Like some of our devlogs do kind of badly. They do like 15,000, 20,000. And you know, 3 days of work to get 20,000 views for me, like is not really very good, but 3 days of work to get 110,000 views is great. That that will That will actually push real wish like I've seen legit wish list increases increases from that. The numbers make the numbers make a real difference, right? If you get 10 or 100,000 views, it makes that makes the difference. Yeah, for sure. It's also I can also post the devlog on our Steam community hub as like a a content update for players cuz I'll sometimes we get like, is this game dead? Which is really funny to me. It's like, bro, we're we're we're we're like a million dollars in. It's so not dead. It's We work every day on it. But you know, they don't know, so it's nice to be able to post them there just to keep them a little bit engaged and thinking

about the game. Um and you know, we have a lot of Steam followers as well. I think we're like 7 or 8,000 Steam followers. Devlogs, they're also so much about packaging them cleverly. Like the difference between a a 10K devlog and a 100K devlog is like the thumbnail in the first 10 seconds of the video. And that's like that's like the difference. I hate it because I have no idea. I like I don't I don't get it, Jonas. I don't know how to don't know how to do it.
Yeah, just steal the most popular thumbnails and put a spin on it. But then sometimes your game doesn't lean well into why those thumbnails work and so on. So it's tricky. It's interesting cuz when you make videos with game dev advice, you get humbled from your viewers a lot cuz they they vary they're very quick to call you out on crap advice, and you've made like you've made some of that experience as well with like your marketing is not what you think it is video, right? It's like if you miscommunicate or if you

say something that's not entirely true in every situation, then people are very quick to call you out on it. Yeah.
And the way you very quickly learn that you shouldn't probably shouldn't make any too crazy and too strong statements. You should
[laughter]
package things carefully and and so on. Yeah, but does it help? I mean, maybe if you just make the maybe you extremify all of your if people get more they put more comments and they I don't know. It's more engaging. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's hard. That it's funny though that that that video had so many different like camps of people. Because I feel like amongst amongst successful devs, like devs who you know, make games who've sold, the idea that the game is like 90% of the success is really uncontroversial. But like I've never met like I'm in communities of other successful devs, and basically everyone is is on the same page about that. But in

the greater sort of game dev, you know, internet, you find, you know, a lot of people are more mixed on that.
I wonder if it's just more comfortable to justify if your game doesn't do well, it's just easier to say that it was the marketing than it was the game cuz you spend so much time on the game, right? Yeah, I think some of it has to be cope a little bit. But still, I don't know. I I just I can't help but feel like if I could just show people how to look through the middle class of Steam cuz most people don't know how, you know? They literally don't know how to look at They don't know how to look for mid-ling sellers. They only They're just basically a consumer on Steam. Mhm. Can't help but feel like if they've seen enough of them, they would start to get that eye. Like the eye that I know you have, the eye that I think I feel like I have to just like, I don't know, to just have your head screwed on straight about where you sit, I guess, in the market. But can I invite you back for a little game show cuz I I had like a an idea for

a for a little game dev game show that basically goes like this. I I like I like write a little script or something that just hides the review count of a game, and it just pulls up a random game game on Steam, but without the review count. And you have to guess the review count.
Oh, I would love that. I mean, that sounds like a blast. It also has great potential to embarrass myself tragically cuz I Yeah, sure. Same.
[laughter]
Cuz like if you if you put a megabonk if you put megabonk on there, I mean, now that I know it's mega. If you put something like that. The new friend shop the friend slot genre, I feel like is completely destroying our Cuz those games are so hard to tell which one's going to hit. They're just they're all so sloppy.
[laughter]
Chris Zukowski released a very interesting blog post about this, I think, yesterday. If you haven't read that one.
read You did, yeah.
I read it. I Did you have any feelings on that? Sorry to take ask you more questions, but I No worries.

Um I thought it was a banger blog post. I really liked it. And like very interesting observation that there is a market for deliberate jank at the moment. Mhm. The great convergence, he calls it when the game is easy to make and people want it. That is exactly the quote I I was referencing there. Exactly. Like the games that are easy to make are also what's popular on Steam right now. And also what is not quite being made so much yet as well. And he was he he was even saying that like it would be worth it to stop your current game and pivot to one of these other genres. He said it would be worth it for most people. I I had It was a fantastic article. Chris Chris Zukowski is like my favorite sort of blogger on on this topic. I love how data-oriented he is. Yeah, yeah. I was surprised that that article it kind of made me feel stuff like
[laughter]
it would it made me feel like it was a little bit it was like a little bit too far for me. Like is this going [laughter] too far? I just like, okay,

quit your game cuz these things are hot right now. And then he talked about like the suffering for your art and it's sort of like I mean, he could definitely comes from a different perspective, I think, cuz I'm like the ultimate suffer [laughter] for art. But I don't even suffer. I just I like I like taking it to the lab. But I felt like he was talking to me. I felt like he was like I think him I think a lot of developers took offense of that. Yeah, I think I've seen already seen some some backlash on on X for for the exact same reason. Okay, that'll be fun.
but he's like he's like we probably weirdly right about it in some way at the same time, right? Oh, sure. Yeah, for sure. No, it's good stuff and good data and it's an interesting perspective anyway. Well, like as an as an artist, obviously you look at them like, I'm just like just making a like a friend slot game just cuz these are doing well at the moment is maybe but weird advice also when you look at it from an artist's perspective. I mean,

I I feel like it's almost alien. Like I can't even wrap Like can you it's hard to imagine I would rather gouge my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than make a friend slot game.
[laughter]
So Not that I I don't have a problem with those I mean, it's great. I you know, people enjoy them. That's great. I'm not taking anything from anybody else, but just for me as an artist, it's like, what am I even doing if the if the point is to make video game I don't know. Anyhow, I did I did have
is also it's not a very nice genre description. No, it's not. We used to call them co-op games. I feel like there's a lot of untapped potential in in co-op games. And like a friend slot game, I guess, is a co-op game that is a bit jank and is made to deliberately create funny streamable moments. Mhm. But if my I mean, if you steer away from that a little bit and you just make like a like a good co-op game, I think this uh still very interesting from an from an artistic perspective and so on.

But there's a very there's a very high risk you're just going to be called friend slot anyways. Uh yes. Probably. But maybe friend slot is a nice gateway to maybe sort of the generally greater genre of co-op, you know, becoming a little bit bigger. Maybe if people get more into it, so. Yeah, in interesting developments. I'm curious to see where the where the space will go in the next couple of years. Also like with the emergence of more and more AI tools and so on. Like very very curious how they will play out. We'll see. Yes, very curious. I better not say anything about AI, otherwise this we're already at 3 hours, so Yeah, let's not get into Thanks so much for your time, really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Jonas. Really appreciate it as well, and hopefully I'll Sure, I'll chat with you again sometime.