0:31

Hey,

0:31

folks. Dani here with episode ninety

0:33

of the Nokia Podcast, a solo intro

0:35

because I've explained exactly what's

0:37

going on here. This is a bonus episode,

0:40

something I recorded myself during

0:43

the week. It's an interview Jay Armstrong

0:46

from massive monsters. They're the folks who

0:48

worked on cult of the lamb, which is again,

0:50

obviously, we've been talking a lot of that on the podcast

0:52

recently. we wanted to get more dev interviews

0:55

on the feed. We obviously did a bunch of them back

0:57

in the past, but we've been enjoying just having

0:59

this sort of scrum with the crew

1:01

every week and Quite frankly, what happened

1:03

was there was too many good games came out

1:06

these past few weeks, so we didn't wanna sacrifice

1:08

one of the weekly scrums. I really just

1:10

wanted to talk about Montblanc this week.

1:13

So we we III recorded

1:15

a couple of dev interviews this week And

1:18

so we're deciding just to put them out on their own

1:20

and see how that works. It's probably

1:22

an appropriate way of doing it, especially as myself

1:24

and Jay talked for somewhere around thirty minutes.

1:27

All about cult of the lamb, the design of the game,

1:29

the history of the studio, lots of

1:31

the interesting stuff I was interested

1:33

in, like, the aesthetics and the sound design and

1:35

just how exactly they made this very unique game.

1:38

And it's a fascinating chat, and I hope you enjoy

1:40

it. I also wanna, of course, give a shout out to one

1:42

of our incredible battle pass holders, Cody

1:44

Krueger, Forrest Pruish, Andy

1:46

Fagan, Cameron Ladd, George

1:48

Sicotis, Jacob Godserve, and

1:50

Tokyo, Telia. Thank you all so much for

1:52

supporting this. And the the podcast

1:55

is gonna keep doing more of these. We think

1:57

developer interview stuff, and also If

1:59

you watched our video to drop the noclip

2:01

crew today time of recording,

2:04

you'll see our new studio. We are

2:07

very soon very soon transitioning

2:10

to having the podcast be a video

2:12

as well. In fact, if you're watching this on YouTube,

2:15

you can't see me right now, but you will see

2:17

myself in j talking. although I sort of

2:19

borked my own camera, so it doesn't look

2:21

super great. But we're moving

2:23

that over. So all even the scrum ones will

2:25

be in video and also

2:27

we're planning and we're pretty sure

2:29

we're gonna be livestreaming those as well, which is pretty

2:32

cool. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation

2:34

I had with Jay. We're actually

2:36

gonna have another one of these developer

2:38

interviews in a couple probably

2:41

in a week time, I think. Earlier

2:43

today, actually, I interviewed Rafael,

2:46

Antonio, and Judy, and Robbie. From

2:48

Woolfite Studios, all about weird west

2:50

and some interesting stuff that's dropping soon

2:53

for that game. So check out for

2:55

that on the feed as well. But until

2:57

then, enjoy this chat for myself

2:59

and Jay.

3:04

Jay, thank

3:06

you so much for taking the time to talk

3:08

to me today. It is currently six o'clock

3:11

Pacific time. Where are you and

3:13

what time is it? Well, thanks for having

3:15

me. It's nine AM and

3:17

I'm in Singapore at the moment. Terrific.

3:19

So not too early, not too late. This

3:21

is a good a good sweet spot for me. It's like I'll just

3:24

have my coffee. I'm ready ready to talk games.

3:26

Excellent. I've been building furniture in an

3:28

empty studio all day, so I'm ready to sit

3:30

down and talk to a developer. And

3:33

I'm very excited to talk to you, not

3:35

just because Kalded Lam was it's

3:37

one of my favorite games of the year. I've had a blast

3:39

playing as we were talked about in a bunch of the podcast,

3:41

but also in my research, I realized

3:43

that you were you were one of

3:46

you fall into a category of developer, which is

3:48

quickly becoming our favorite type of dev

3:50

on NoteClip, which is you make

3:52

a really good game seemingly out

3:54

of nowhere and then we do research and

3:56

realize that you've been plying your trade

3:58

in the wonderful world of flash games

4:01

for a long period of

4:03

time. That's right. Tell us

4:05

a little bit about massive monster, the, like,

4:07

sort of, collective of of you

4:09

guys and, you know, not

4:11

just the games you've released on say Steam over

4:13

the past couple of years, but but just like, your history

4:15

of making games because it sounds like you've made a lot of

4:17

games. Yeah. Yeah. We

4:19

have. So so, yeah, you're absolutely right.

4:22

as much as I wish, I just, like, made my first game.

4:24

We explored it out of nowhere. It's been it's been,

4:26

like, more like it actually, when

4:28

when we release than the very same

4:30

month marked a ten year anniversary from

4:33

the first game I made with Julian,

4:35

who's one of the co fans. Wow. Ten years

4:37

ago, we'd released our first flash game.

4:39

And ten years later, we released Colton Over night

4:42

success. Over night success. Exactly.

4:45

So yeah. So that's how you all started

4:47

doing our I think we all started making flash

4:49

games, you know, new grounds, armor

4:51

games. We work with armor games a lot, and

4:54

we would go to, like I say, we we're

4:56

all individuals at the time. We we

4:58

we, you know, we

5:00

would go to events and and sort of gravitate

5:02

towards like minded people. And so

5:04

James, Julian, and myself all

5:06

kind of found ourselves converging because we all

5:08

had this sort

5:09

of similar aesthetic, similar kind of art style

5:11

that we really, really like, kind of influenced

5:13

by Dan Powden and and

5:16

and castle crashes and things like that. So we

5:19

found and also wacky ideas. So we

5:21

we, like, made a few games together, but

5:23

we don't really ever form anything too

5:26

specific until sort of flash started

5:28

falling away. Right. And so

5:30

it was sort of the do one of the mobile

5:32

games started really taking off and it was like, what

5:34

do we do? Do we it's every every

5:36

fast developer is jumping into mobile, which

5:38

I think

5:38

looking back was probably a very

5:41

I'm glad we didn't go down that route because

5:43

I think it's become very, very difficult now,

5:45

not that indie games are easy.

5:47

But so we so we decided

5:49

we all loved console games. So, like, we'll go

5:51

down that route instead. And so the

5:53

three of us kind of club together and formed

5:56

massive monster. And the idea was to, like,

5:58

move from flash.

5:59

So games that would take five minutes to play,

6:02

take us three months to build to building

6:04

out full console games, which should take, you know,

6:06

ten, twelve hours, twenty hour games that

6:08

would take three years to make. But we we had no

6:10

idea what we were what we were, like,

6:12

undertaking. We had no idea the scale of the

6:14

task from transitioning. So we

6:17

we had to, like, learn as we went and when

6:19

we first what we what we

6:21

pitched first was a sort of

6:23

reimagining of our flash game,

6:25

which is called Super Adventure Powers, which is

6:27

you're a young boy with a giraffe in your backpack. And

6:29

we thought like, well, let's do a sequel. And

6:32

we went to every publisher and every publisher

6:34

just didn't respond to us. Right. Apart

6:36

from apart from Army Games who

6:38

knew us for years because we made

6:40

flash games and they were looking to

6:42

transition to the sort of empty space as well. So Yeah.

6:44

What a match match made in heaven though?

6:46

Yeah. Exactly. So we we we

6:48

sort of grew together with them into

6:50

sort of making it was just steam and then

6:52

and then later console and stuff. And so

6:54

we spent three years

6:57

making that game and it did it

6:59

did fairly well for us. not

7:01

like cultural land well, but it did

7:03

okay. It did fine. We could keep making games, which

7:05

is kind of the goal. And we did another

7:07

one, which was again, armor games sort

7:09

of asked us to make. It was a it was

7:11

another adaption of a flash game

7:13

into a a console game which called Never Give Up.

7:16

And That one didn't do so

7:18

quite as well. That's that

7:20

was like an interesting project.

7:22

But what it

7:23

meant was that by the time we came to the coast

7:25

of land, we had two console games

7:27

that we we could show. And so

7:30

other, you know, other publishers started

7:32

to actually take kind of take our call.

7:34

And so Yeah.

7:37

So I'd made AdventurePiles just myself

7:39

and Julian, and then never give up was just

7:41

myself and and James. Okay. And so

7:43

we're like, okay, we've done these two fractured

7:45

project. The idea was like make as many games as

7:47

possible and and release them and they'll all

7:49

do. And and we realized that actually,

7:51

no, that's a very

7:52

time consuming and difficult way. And,

7:55

you know, you've only got if you if your time

7:57

is like a hundred percent, you can you don't get more

7:59

time. There's only

7:59

certain amount time, right, we give it to a game.

8:02

So we we decided let's all just pull in

8:04

together and make one really, really good

8:06

thing that we pour our hearts and soul into,

8:08

and that and that's where we came to it with the cult

8:10

of the lamb. Excellent. So I explain

8:12

the timeline a little bit to me because I can never

8:14

it's hard sometimes when you go back in history,

8:16

especially looking steam pages to try and figure out

8:18

exactly what was going on, because Adventure Palace

8:20

has a release date here of twenty eighteen, never

8:22

give up as twenty nineteen. So was

8:25

that the case? And were you then Have you only

8:27

worked on caught up the lamb? Basically, is that a COVID

8:29

game?

8:30

Yes. Yes. So, adventure

8:33

pals and and never give up. I worked the

8:35

same time. Okay. So I was doing two games

8:37

at once for like three or four years, and then

8:39

they both came out like a year apart. So

8:42

that was that was something I don't

8:44

recommend to people. Is is being

8:46

the only program on two games that have gone

8:48

several years. Yeah. But it but

8:50

again, like, it's like the great thing about the flash

8:52

games was we could make a game in three months

8:54

and put it out there. And so, like,

8:56

we we very much kind of cut our

8:58

teeth on working really hard, trying to produce

9:00

as much as possible, as quickly as possible,

9:02

as good as possible. And that

9:04

ended up serving us quite well when it came

9:06

to the methodology behind call to the

9:08

land, which is a very iterative process

9:10

of kind of make something really quickly. Does it

9:12

work? No. Scrap it. Make something,

9:14

you know, And so it's actually

9:16

it's it was the benefit in the long run now

9:18

looking back. But at the time, obviously, it was quite a

9:20

quite a challenging time.

9:23

And so, yes, that's right. So

9:25

the the two games came out

9:27

one year apart, but they've been in

9:29

production for, like, four years. Right. And

9:31

because I've been waffling, I've forgotten

9:33

the second part of your question. Well, how

9:35

about this? because I'm very interested in you

9:38

keep talking about you know, the the three

9:40

of you, the sort of, like, fall trauma that has

9:42

come together to work on called trauma.

9:44

So, like, I guess, there's always, like,

9:46

you know, support people involved in lots of in lock

9:48

and all these different types of things and music and

9:50

whatnot. But in terms of like core

9:52

development team, was it just the three of you

9:54

on cult of the Lam, or did you have more

9:56

like support? Yeah. For

9:58

the first for the first, so it's a

9:59

three year development plus a year sort of

10:02

prototyping and and pitching and stuff, For

10:04

the first year, year and a half, it was just

10:06

the three of us. Okay. But since

10:08

then, we brought on to full time

10:10

programmers, Harrison and Will, who are both

10:12

brilliant. We we love very much they're gonna stay with us.

10:14

Brilliant. But but over the course,

10:16

as you say, we had contractors and it kind of

10:18

expanded to to nine people at one time was was the

10:20

biggest it got to. But

10:22

aside from that, it's just three of them.

10:24

Almost almost double digits. Yeah.

10:27

Almost so close. So

10:29

close. So so but I think the

10:31

reason the game is as big as it is with so

10:33

few people is is kind of the the history that I've

10:35

just sort of been talking about does. Yeah.

10:37

Institutional knowledge. That sort of,

10:39

you know, you you don't make a a great game

10:41

overnight. So, you know, you've done your

10:43

ten thousand hours of of

10:46

learning or whatnot. There's so much about the

10:48

game I wanna talk about or ask you

10:50

about rather because it's it's always so

10:52

fascinated to to learn about these projects.

10:54

especially once the dust is settled and it seems

10:56

like, I mean, people have been

10:58

raving about it. It's got, you know, something

11:00

like twenty five thousand very, you

11:02

know, very positive average reviews on

11:04

steam. It's obviously come out on, you know,

11:06

other platforms as well, and people seem to be

11:08

really enjoying it. And III

11:10

wanna ask a question, I guess, and it's

11:12

a really boring tri question, but I think with

11:14

this game, it it it's the

11:16

question that I've wondered from the start because

11:18

there's so many different sort

11:20

of layers to this game. It's it's

11:22

partly sort of a dungeon crawler.

11:24

It's it's partly sort of a

11:26

city building game. Thematically,

11:28

it has so many interesting things going

11:30

on, not just in terms of you're building a

11:32

cult, but also just in the, like, the the

11:34

depth of cultish lore that's

11:36

in here is is really

11:39

fascinating. So, like, obviously,

11:41

this game does not get The way it is now

11:43

doesn't, you know, get written down on a piece of

11:45

paper. I can't imagine that you like came up for the

11:47

concept of this game as it is

11:49

now, you know, on on

11:51

1A4 sheet. So I

11:53

guess, how did it evolve? Like, what was

11:55

the sort of that maybe the

11:57

seeds that we can still recognize

11:59

today

11:59

of the game and then, you know, what

12:02

parts didn't make it in and and when

12:04

did other aspects of the game sort of get

12:06

layered in there. Yeah.

12:07

Yeah. It's it's a great point now.

12:09

There's there's no documentation anywhere.

12:11

It's all been like iteration and

12:14

trial and error. But the but you're right.

12:16

The the core of it was I

12:18

just had this sort of you

12:20

know, mixing a sort of rogue like dungeon

12:23

crawler with a colony sim base

12:25

builder and just kind of pushing them together.

12:27

I think it'd come out of like

12:29

a science fiction book I'd I'd read and and they

12:31

all lived. It was all these people who lived on this sort

12:33

of air balloon and and the world was kind of toxic.

12:35

And and some people would dive down and get

12:37

things and bring them back up. And I just thought

12:39

that was such a great sort

12:41

of loop for a game, you know. Right. It's like you've got

12:43

your thing and and then you go down into

12:45

danger to bring And I love that idea of

12:47

being responsible for a group of

12:49

people, which it's so hard to capture

12:51

that sort of, like, emotional

12:53

relationship with NPCs

12:56

because, you know, usually, they're they're

12:58

either just standing there or on their they're on their

13:00

little, like, day cycle and they're walking here and then

13:02

they're they're animation there. But they're

13:04

they're not they're

13:04

not you can't really interact, you can't really form an

13:07

attachment. So the goal is really, yeah, form

13:09

an attachment with your

13:11

SIEM, your your your your colonists

13:13

and and then be responsible for providing for

13:15

them and and going out into danger and and bringing

13:17

the stuff back. And that was the core of it.

13:19

And that's so I put

13:20

a prototype together and I I took it

13:22

to James and Julian, and I think they both really

13:24

liked it. But Julian kinda

13:26

said, like, I love

13:28

this, but it's also it's also terrible.

13:30

You are my

13:32

my concept was like, you're on the back of a

13:34

flying whale and then you dive down into the

13:36

world and and the problem

13:38

was like, as I explain that concept to people

13:40

that people's eyes would just kind of glaze over

13:42

and blah. I don't know what you're talking about,

13:44

man. Nice. And so so

13:46

he various students that we

13:48

need to have like a one line, what

13:51

is the player fantasy that we're trying to

13:53

deliver with this game? And so

13:55

So then there was, like, nine months of trying to figure

13:57

that out. We tried. We tried,

13:59

like, you're a lost god and

14:01

and you're trying to regain followers. And

14:03

so there was always that sort legally sort of element

14:05

to it. And then we tried actually, there always

14:07

was. Because the next thing we tried was,

14:09

like, create your own hell kind

14:11

of thing. Okay. Say, go out and find souls

14:13

or reap the souls and bring them into

14:15

hell and then you'd sort of punish them,

14:17

you get points for punishing them. But the

14:19

problem was the art style was so damn

14:21

cute. that you did not wanna punish

14:23

these guys because you just felt

14:25

horrible. So that didn't work

14:27

either. And So the next thing

14:29

we tried was a call. And as soon as we put that in,

14:31

it it just kinda clicked into place.

14:33

Okay. This works because you you

14:35

you wanna exploit them. So we wanna

14:37

push that you're exploiting these guys. And

14:40

and

14:40

so that's for your benefit, which then improves

14:42

your chances in the the other side of the game dungeon.

14:44

Then we've got this. We always have to collect the

14:46

resource thing that works and come back. And and

14:49

so when we found that and and the freedom

14:51

to, like, be as evil

14:52

as you want, So if you wanna mess up

14:55

these cute guys, you you really really can

14:57

have a lot of options. And we put a

14:59

lot of breadcrumbs to kind of tempt

15:01

you into into doing

15:03

that. But if you wanna just be a benevolent

15:05

leader, you you totally can as well.

15:07

So that was kind of the process we

15:09

went through in and And

15:11

then the the the next

15:13

journey was sort of figuring out, right, how do

15:15

we how do we deliver on this this promise

15:17

that we've made? We promised you you're gonna run a

15:19

cult. Right? So So what does that mean? And and

15:21

how can we make that games mechanic?

15:23

Because the things like the rituals and the and

15:25

the sermons and things, I've never

15:27

seen those in in other games. And so when you're

15:29

making like yeah, when you're making a Metroidvania, it's

15:31

like, okay. Cool. So we'll have the double jump. We'll

15:33

put that there. And then that'll be, you know, you

15:36

know what you're making, and then it's just the

15:38

case of making a really, really good

15:40

one. Whereas this one, we

15:42

didn't really know what we're making until about

15:44

six weeks ago when it two

15:46

weeks before release. And then we're like, oh, that's what

15:48

the game is. Okay. Yeah. I can

15:51

imagine that, you know, you sort

15:53

of get you could get very lost in the weeds

15:55

on either one of those games or, you know,

15:57

that that because it's funny. I I never thought

15:59

about this

15:59

game as like a god game before, but

16:02

then he the two prototypes you talked about

16:04

before, one sounded a little bit like black and white,

16:06

and one sounded a little bit like Dungeonkeeper. So

16:08

I was kind of thinking and, like, maybe it's because I

16:10

entered Peter Marnier like two days ago, but and

16:12

I have both rock on the mind. But

16:14

it it I guess the question is,

16:16

how did you stop, you know,

16:18

as complex as that as that

16:20

SIEM is? And I imagine

16:22

in terms of codes, there's an you know,

16:24

with a day night cycle that you could be in the dungeon

16:26

while all this stuff is happening back at the base. I

16:28

can't imagine how complex it is, but for the

16:30

player experience, it's it's

16:32

not that complex. It's it's it's actually

16:34

quite like elegant and and easy to

16:36

master and it doesn't feel overbearing. It

16:38

doesn't feel like a job you have to go back

16:40

to. How did you balance that, like, there's

16:43

there's a lot going on there, but it

16:45

doesn't overwhelm the player,

16:47

I guess? I'm real

16:48

first

16:49

of all, I'm really happy to hear that that's it

16:52

feels that way. That's that's exactly what we

16:54

wanted. Yeah. The the you're you're

16:56

absolutely right. We would get

16:57

super duper deep into one side of the

16:59

game and then test it and the

17:01

other side would be rubbish. And it it only works

17:03

on both sides of good and feeds into it. So for

17:05

a long time, it we're a bit worried about it, to be

17:07

honest. But what we've what I found or we

17:10

what we found was that the

17:12

more we strip things back and

17:14

simplified things the

17:16

the better the experience. So originally,

17:19

you didn't have a global

17:21

hunger. You didn't have a global faith.

17:23

Each follower had a had a faith and a

17:25

hunger and you know, because a lot of this

17:27

was inspired by Rimworld. So that that's like

17:29

one of my favorite games. And yeah. And that's

17:31

that's kinda so so in that game, you look

17:33

at what their thoughts are.

17:35

Always hasn't got a good bed or hungry or, okay, I'll solve

17:37

those problems. But because, you know, you're

17:39

playing this with a controller in your hands or,

17:41

you know, you're not really It's not a

17:43

it's not a

17:44

it's not like a a

17:47

base builder game traditional one where you have a lot more

17:49

control and you can pause it and get really we

17:51

we found that actually that was just

17:53

overbearing, particularly when you got like ten

17:55

followers. Right. Just can't. You just go talk

17:57

to everyone. It's very tedious. And so we

17:59

had this radical change where

18:02

we just said, okay, strip it all out. That's

18:03

actually why the funnel of thoughts is still in

18:06

there because that's how it works. that's

18:08

actually just vestigial, and we'd we'd pay for the

18:10

localization. So we're like, oh, okay.

18:12

Because it's otherwise, just the

18:14

sunk costs. Yeah. sunk costs. It's

18:16

in there. It looks really cool. It's it's

18:18

fun if you if you want it's there. And so

18:20

yeah. And so every time they and then the flip

18:22

side of that was the the dungeon because in

18:24

games like, you know, Biden, Isaac, Hades,

18:26

all these games, you you just

18:29

go and go and go and go and go

18:31

until you die and then you come back. And so

18:33

we thought, right, that's what you have to do. But of

18:35

course, as you go and go, then you

18:37

follow a staff to death and and so

18:39

we go, okay, we'll put teleporters. So once you've got

18:41

certain, you know, once you've done a few rooms, you

18:43

can choose to go back but the you've

18:45

been so conditioned to just keep

18:47

going that you think, no, it's wrong. It's

18:49

failure to go back. Right?

18:51

Yeah. And so we had this

18:53

this big problem. And when we eventually said,

18:55

okay, here's a mini boss and then bang, you're

18:57

going home whether you want to or not,

18:59

suddenly that that stress for the

19:01

player went away. So

19:03

fun. Wow. Yeah. And again, yeah.

19:05

Yeah. And I must have been quite scary to to take,

19:08

ultimately, take a really big choice away

19:10

from the player. you know,

19:12

that that must be a scary prospect

19:14

as a as a designer. Definitely.

19:16

But it yes. And but

19:18

also because again, because we do it so

19:20

quickly, you know, we always kinda leave

19:22

in a a bull somewhere that, like, lets us

19:24

revert whatever crazy change we've done. So it's like,

19:26

okay. Well, let's put in a sort of if, you know,

19:28

if mode equals go home or whatever, then

19:31

have the teleporter have it have it

19:33

lock otherwise. So we always knew

19:35

that whenever we're making these changes, there's a lot of experimentation

19:37

and a lot of, like, freedom to just right.

19:39

We gotta we gotta figure this out. We gotta try

19:41

and we had a really aggressive

19:44

schedule because we wanted the game to come

19:46

out, you know, because our previous

19:48

games still like four years. And so we wanted the game to

19:50

come out. So we were always always up

19:52

against it. So that that

19:53

pressure was really

19:56

powerful in in being like, well, we don't have

19:58

time to discuss this. Let's try

20:00

it. Wow. But but you're also like you said, you know,

20:02

you didn't allow yourself to get caught in

20:04

that sort of technical dash problem

20:07

of of you know, being stuck too far

20:09

down this this mode. You you were always

20:11

sort of designing with the idea of,

20:13

oh, we might change that. We might back it insert

20:15

here that that's a big part of your process

20:17

too. We must

20:18

have said the phrase minimal viable

20:20

product or MVP about fifty thousand

20:22

times a day. could be just like, just just

20:24

try it. Just empty if you just get it

20:27

working to the minimum standards so we can see if

20:29

this is the way to go. And if it

20:31

doesn't, then then cut it out and, you know, would

20:33

go back. And and so we one

20:35

real learning process for us was,

20:37

like, never get attached to an idea. because it's,

20:39

you know, never have pride or attach yourself to

20:41

that idea. If it's it's

20:44

because we have this

20:44

clear, like, It's a game around

20:46

running a cult. These are the things we need to deliver.

20:49

Things we need to make sure we're hitting. We

20:51

knew that. We all agreed and we

20:53

all knew exactly what that was. we all

20:55

agree when something and it's obvious as well.

20:57

I think if you're if you're fighting for

20:59

AAA system

21:00

in a game, and everyone

21:02

else is telling you it's not quite right. I think you

21:04

and your heart know it's not quite

21:06

right. So we just kind of cut all out and just

21:08

said, no, that's that's that's gotta

21:10

go. And and let's try something else. Excellent. One

21:14

thing I I have to ask you about

21:16

because I think as

21:18

much as I enjoyed this

21:20

game's systems and I

21:22

spent a lot of time

21:24

exploring it and trying different things and

21:26

messing around with like like you rituals

21:28

and sermons and there was so much going on.

21:30

The one sort of comfort blanket

21:32

of the entire experience is

21:34

I don't know if we have a word for this. Is it

21:37

presentation? Is it vibe? But

21:39

just the art style

21:41

and the audio design,

21:44

is just so dialed

21:46

in. Like, the the the

21:48

unique sounds of moving in

21:50

in and out of, I don't know, menu

21:52

menues, I guess, in in one sense, like the build

21:54

sort of pings and the the sands

21:56

of the chorus and all these little thing

21:59

just tiny little elements that

22:02

I I just loved every moment of

22:04

fucking around in the game. Can

22:06

you tell us where that comes from? You know,

22:09

the the graphics, of course,

22:11

but also the audio because we I feel like audio

22:13

always gets kinda lost in the watch.

22:15

Yeah. Well,

22:15

yeah, start with the audio. We

22:18

I

22:18

I too feel the same. There's there's the the first

22:20

kind of curse you get the

22:22

projectile. When I first heard the sound,

22:25

I it was not what I expected at all. I thought it would

22:27

sound like a or something, but it was this sort

22:29

of bizarre kind of

22:31

scream process that

22:33

I haven't it blew my mind and I just

22:35

thought, wow, that's amazing. So we

22:37

got Eunice Turner who was

22:40

fantastic, fantastic audio design. He's done any

22:42

any big indie game. He's

22:44

probably

22:44

done it. He's probably done this out. So we managed

22:46

to get him onboard and

22:48

we're all, you know, we're just like,

22:50

it doesn't matter. He's the best. Let's just get

22:53

him if we can. Yeah. And it was

22:55

definitely the right decision. And and similarly

22:57

with the music. We got Narayan,

22:59

who's our River Boy beats his

23:01

his, like, Spotify name. And it

23:03

was a similar thing. We actually were fans of his

23:05

band before we met him. But

23:07

again, it was just, you know, he's

23:09

awesome. Bring him in. We don't know what quite

23:11

what we're doing with him and And

23:13

we ended up just saying things to him like, oh, we've got this new

23:15

level. It looks like new area. It looks

23:17

like this. We want it to sound like

23:20

this and this and this, but also ignore

23:22

just do whatever you want. And, Ilija, now we just

23:24

don't give him instructions. We're like, oh, we need something for

23:26

this and and he just comes back with something that,

23:28

you know, it's almost like when we put up

23:30

rubby fingerprints on it. It ruins it. It's

23:33

better to just let him do his thing.

23:35

So again, it's like a tiny team. We

23:37

don't have time to kind of look over everything. And

23:39

so what we try to do is just get

23:41

the really super talented people that we

23:43

love and just let them off the leash and

23:45

let them do their thing. And

23:47

that was I'm so

23:49

thrilled to

23:49

be able to work with those guys. And

23:51

we're gonna I I hope continue to work

23:53

with Narayan on on future things as well. He's

23:55

he's just awesome. And

23:58

and then on to the

23:59

art style. Yeah. Yeah.

24:01

Similarly, James has just been

24:04

drawing games

24:04

for, like, ten, twelve years

24:06

ago through the flash. that's all hand drawn

24:08

stuff. And we knew going

24:10

into this project that we oh, I

24:12

felt like I wanted us to elevate away from

24:14

2DA little bit and try

24:17

and like step up a little bit what

24:19

we're doing. But the problem is we've got, you know,

24:21

Julian and James are both

24:23

two d artists. So

24:25

it's kind of like how do we make this game,

24:27

not just

24:28

A2D game, but also use

24:30

our two d art. And so

24:32

we've just looked at don't starve. And I just thought, why aren't

24:34

more people doing this? Like, this is just

24:37

brilliant. Like, why, you know, the guest is

24:39

funny. I I haven't made that connection, actually. It's

24:41

funny. You know what I mean? because it doesn't feel derivative. I

24:43

don't I don't want I don't see calls of

24:45

the lamb and think, oh, that reminds you of something up. But

24:47

you're right. Yeah. It's a totally I

24:49

see it now. That's maybe that's where I stole

24:51

the technique. But in terms of the overall

24:53

visual style, James and

24:56

Julian are are far too talented to be as

24:58

derivative as I am. So

25:00

I yeah. So I I just kind of we

25:02

had a lot of discussion. I just felt like this is the

25:04

way to go. And In the end, it made

25:06

things more difficult in terms of design because,

25:08

you know, we'd originally designed these dungeon

25:10

rooms that had like more like into the dungeon with

25:12

like lots of different paths and things. But

25:14

It just visually, it just was too confusing.

25:17

And so, again, this is this is again,

25:19

stripping it back and making it simpler and we just went

25:21

with the so binding bias at

25:23

one room you know,

25:23

combat next round combat because I which is kind of a

25:25

shame because I had designed this like way where

25:28

I

25:28

could create the sort of mesh

25:30

to go around shapes and it. But again, just have

25:32

to scrap it because it didn't make the game better.

25:34

So don't get too

25:37

attached. Don't get too attached. Exactly. Exactly.

25:39

And so the the only

25:41

thing about James and Julian's artwork, which

25:43

I will, you know, publicly criticize

25:45

them on about is that

25:47

it's too cute. Everything they do. Too

25:50

cute. So Yeah. Well,

25:52

isn't it a wonderful juxtaposition, though, you

25:54

landed on where it's like the

25:56

cuteness and the hellishness. It's just

25:58

like it shines through even

25:59

that more. It's like a reminds you of things like

26:02

future armor. And whenever future armor

26:04

goes dark, it it feels super dark, you know, because it's -- Yes.

26:06

-- you're not expecting it or or yeah.

26:08

Or when the lambs eyes turn from

26:10

that cutsy little sort of anime face

26:13

to, like, you know, red or

26:15

white or whatever. Yeah. Just in the fire and

26:17

they does a little spin. It's just,

26:19

what a wonderful little yeah. And

26:21

and restrained our pilot as

26:23

well. Like, you know, lots of reds, blacks and whites all

26:25

over the place. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

26:27

they're they're both brilliant in their own way.

26:29

They both So James did like

26:31

the the majority of the of the

26:33

sort of actual drawing of all the

26:35

characters, but Julian would sort

26:37

of design some

26:38

of the other characters, but also he was very, very concerned with

26:40

the overall palette, the overall the

26:42

sort of the luts we'd use, the

26:44

sort of color colors

26:47

we'd use and and making sure it was very

26:49

striking visually. And and so they

26:51

they work together really well on that.

26:53

And, you know, it's no

26:55

matter what they do, it gets cute we we I

26:57

kept we kept saying, like, make it darker. Make it

26:59

scary. Make this boss more scary. And but but

27:01

the nice thing about cute things, it makes you fall in

27:03

love with the followers because they're adorable. You know?

27:06

So it kinda wets out. It's

27:07

it's also like I found it very

27:10

satisfying that, like and I

27:12

won't, you know, I won't spoil anything

27:14

or or talk about at the end of the game, but

27:16

the whenever you would beat a

27:18

boss, you could also, you know,

27:20

indoctrinating them into your cult and

27:22

having them return to their sort of normal form and

27:24

then just be another, you know,

27:26

plaub in your in your army of of

27:28

worshipers. I've I always

27:30

made sure that they were that they

27:32

were praying. You know what I mean? When they came back

27:34

-- Right. Yeah. -- I wouldn't put them on the

27:36

lumber or on rock. Yeah. No. No. You

27:38

need to get out of this and

27:40

and pray for making me go through

27:42

that boss battle. I wanna ask

27:45

you about that as well, difficulty. It

27:47

was not a game that I found

27:50

particularly tough in terms

27:52

of combat. But I

27:54

didn't mind because I

27:57

guess, you know, just sort of almost part

27:59

and parcel with Rogue Like Games. It was interesting to play

28:01

a game that I didn't find

28:03

super challenging. But what I I

28:05

didn't mind because my brain was

28:08

obviously thinking about these other things.

28:10

There was there was enough going on that I

28:12

had to worry about that I didn't need

28:14

one of the things to be super difficult

28:16

if if that makes sense. And -- Yeah. -- was that

28:18

like an intentional thing on your

28:20

part to, you know, was it a harder game at

28:22

one stage? Was it an easier game?

28:24

Yeah. Yeah.

28:25

It's definitely intentional. A

28:27

lot of it was to do with

28:30

when we announced the game, there was a

28:32

lot of, like, oh, this is, like, haze these

28:34

meats

28:34

out and more crossing. And and

28:37

so everyone seems people seem to be excited

28:39

about that. And we thought like,

28:41

oh, shit. like, oh, shoot. That's

28:43

a very different audience. Right? Animal

28:45

Crossing is is like a very relaxing

28:47

game, and Hades is a very sort of

28:49

intense game. And so if we have

28:51

people coming to us who love Hades and we have people,

28:53

you know, we need to

28:55

find a difficulty that

28:57

will be good for both. And so we do

28:59

have, like, the harder and harder extra hard

29:01

difficulties, which are challenging and

29:04

and really if if you're good at road lights,

29:06

then you should probably play on hard sort of thing and

29:08

there's an easy mode which is almost

29:10

like combat's almost trivial. So

29:12

easy. yeah, it was just

29:14

like our attitude. Like, we wanna include as many

29:16

people. We want everyone to play this thing and everyone

29:18

to enjoy it. And yeah,

29:20

it's definitely not not as hard, but sometimes you're

29:23

on there GC. Our goal was always

29:25

with the combat, like,

29:26

ideally, It's not

29:28

like you're gonna get You

29:30

might not necessarily lose, but we want you

29:32

on the edge. So, like, whenever you're

29:34

like one half a heart, one heart, then

29:36

you're more likely to get another heart to keep you in the

29:38

game. So it was the idea of just keeping you in that

29:40

sort of biting point. That was our goal with

29:43

it. Excellent. So

29:45

I guess what's, you know, what's it been like post

29:47

launch? Obviously, we're still sort

29:49

of in the shadow of of

29:51

launch. I'm sure there was a

29:53

bunch patchwork and all that sort of stuff that has to happen especially

29:55

launching on multiple platforms at the same time.

29:57

Yeah. But what was it like, you

29:59

know, the

29:59

reception? How did you, you

30:02

know, had you feel about the launch of the game? When did

30:04

you feel that way? And I guess,

30:07

what's next?

30:09

Yeah. A great question. I feel like I haven't really

30:12

processed quite quite what

30:13

it is because, you know, we just

30:15

immediately got back to work like almost the next day

30:17

and when I we've got all these

30:19

problems and and we're talking with our porting partners

30:22

about the console version, trying to help with that.

30:24

And and then, you know, we we wanna fix all

30:26

these things that are coming in because, you know,

30:28

we had got a million people playing it in the first week,

30:30

which is like -- Goodness. --

30:32

unbelievable. Like, I thought I was like,

30:34

maybe, you know, because we would

30:36

devolve. And maybe in a year or two, we might get to a

30:38

million or something like that. Like, in a

30:40

week. So obviously, all these we've

30:42

been testing QA for, like, four months straight. And we've

30:44

thought we got everything. And suddenly, it's

30:46

like, look like Yeah. Your QA

30:48

pool is suddenly, like, two hundred

30:50

that whatever Yeah.

30:52

Definitely bigger. Yeah.

30:54

It exploded. So there

30:57

hasn't been a lot of time for reflection. I

30:59

mean, I don't

30:59

know what to I

31:01

don't know how to process it really. I

31:04

mean, it's a lot of people playing

31:06

the game. It's a lot, you know, and and two days

31:08

earlier or like a week, sorry, two weeks earlier.

31:10

no one had played it. And so very,

31:12

very strange. It was very

31:14

exciting watching the trajectory of the

31:17

game because We didn't really

31:19

we didn't know if we would just be so we had no idea

31:21

what people would think because, like, we made the

31:23

game during the pandemic, so we didn't go

31:25

to any shows we actually haven't seen each other since

31:28

before the

31:28

pandemic as a team. Oh my gosh.

31:30

Yeah. So

31:31

we actually are gonna meet up in in Pac Australia

31:33

in a few time, and that'll be the first

31:35

time that the team is together. So I think

31:38

that's when it all kind of sink in and and we'll

31:40

all, like, celebrate and raise a

31:42

few glasses. But it's yeah. So

31:44

what happened was we we did the steam next

31:46

best, which is where they released

31:48

demos and and there was, like, twelve hundred games

31:50

and there are three categories, and we were number

31:52

one across all three categories for the whole week.

31:54

Oh my god. And that's that's

31:56

wild. That was

31:56

really wild. Every day I kept, like, refreshing it,

31:59

but this can't be This can't be right. They're not still

32:01

And it's just doing it because I have it, like, it's I'm

32:03

in my developer account. I go to private browsing

32:05

and see if it Yeah.

32:08

Yeah. like, it's just it's just trying to feel better. And then we we

32:10

we have a twitch integration. So we

32:12

we release that, like, a little bit earlier to

32:14

to streamers and things. And that's when presales

32:17

start taken off and wish list started exploding. And then so

32:19

by the time we came to release, we'd

32:21

actually cleared

32:21

our development budget, Reko,

32:24

before the game even came out from

32:26

indie games. unbelievable.

32:27

Based on what? I'm pre on

32:29

preorders or Yeah. Just

32:32

preorders. Yeah.

32:32

So it's crazy.

32:34

So it just kinda, like, took off and just

32:37

kind of exploded. And and

32:39

since then, we've just been trying to, like, you

32:40

know, as I

32:41

say, we came back Monday and we're, like,

32:43

right stand up. What are the bugs? Let's get on them. Let's get this

32:45

as stable as possible. But,

32:48

yeah, it's it's it's it's

32:48

also strange. I went on the Reddit yesterday because

32:51

of that, and it's just pages and pages

32:53

of stuff. I'm just like, all these people playing the game, what's

32:55

going on? Yeah. So I think I think I

32:57

haven't figured it out. I I don't I don't have a good

32:59

on time, but it's I'm

33:02

grateful for for success.

33:04

And we're gonna keep working on

33:06

it and keep improving it. And and say we haven't

33:08

start working. We're not gonna start working. We're

33:10

gonna keep we we have more

33:12

ideas for how to expand the

33:14

game and

33:14

add more content and address

33:16

the biggest sort of

33:18

the parts of the game that that need more love.

33:20

We're we're doing it right now. We're kinda adding to that

33:22

and growing it. And we just wanna add we just

33:25

wanna keep making the game as good as

33:27

possible because, you know, a lot of the ways we

33:29

set up to be like that, you just, you know, you

33:30

put more locations in the road map, you can do

33:33

more dungeons, you can have more buildings

33:35

and we just want to continue to expand it and

33:37

make it bigger and bigger and better and,

33:39

you know, hopefully turn it into a indie classic

33:41

at some point if we can keep going

33:43

and keep going Well, you're well on your way already.

33:46

Fair play, and I I hope you all have a great

33:48

time in Pac's Australia. That sounds

33:50

like a party a long

33:52

time in the making as well.

33:54

Thank you so much for taking the time to

33:56

talk to us today. And, like, yeah, it's it's

33:58

interesting to hear, you know, I play that

34:00

game and it's one of the I have to play a

34:02

lot of games just for work, and and

34:04

then I have my games I play for

34:07

fun. And oftentimes, you know, those are one and the

34:09

same thing. But usually when I complete

34:12

them, I stopped playing and I just could not I

34:14

I was I was

34:16

going I I beat in the final boss and

34:18

I'd I'd, you know, done all that and then I was

34:20

just like, looking for something

34:22

to do. And I was looking at steam achievements.

34:24

Just I was like, oh, I need to figure out some

34:26

other reason to keep playing it. So to

34:28

hear that, yeah, maybe you'll be adding

34:30

some extra sounds very exciting as well. Gera, I'm sorry. Thank you so

34:32

much for talking to us and best of

34:34

luck in our packs Australia and

34:36

enjoy those pints,

34:38

enjoy those coffees, whatever glass you raise.

34:40

Thank you so much, Danny. Thank

34:42

you for for speaking to me. And as I

34:44

said, you know, before we started, I'm such

34:47

a huge fan of what you do. You're amazing. Please keep

34:49

doing what you're doing, and thank you for talking

34:51

to me. I'm super grateful. Oh, it's been super fun.

34:53

Anytime. Thank you very much.