0:01

John: What's good devs. Happy father's day to all the fathers out there.

0:06

This might be the last one, but also the realest one for me, as I can see here and

0:13

anticipate what it will be like next year.

0:16

And the long road of diaper changing feeding.

0:19

Living and raising a little human being with everything I

0:21

got while still working at epic.

0:24

Being a great husband. And still pumping out this podcast.

0:28

So father's day 2022 in the books.

0:31

2023, I will join you.

0:33

Hopefully. As well as Juneteenth, I looked it up and it's crazy, right?

0:38

Because the civil war ended and the emancipation proclamation was an 1862.

0:45

But it wasn't until June 19th, three years later, that word got back to Texas.

0:52

And they commemorated the emancipation of enslaved people.

0:56

So you can look at that day, it's kind of like.

0:58

The last day officially in this country of, of slave ownership.

1:02

It's my understanding, but I can always learn more.

1:05

major date celebrated this week.

1:07

on top of the fact that June 20th is my partner Catherine's birthday.

1:14

And you know, Catherine's voice from the intro to this podcast.

1:18

So. If you see her, talk to her, make sure to send her some birthday wishes.

1:23

Now with that hit my music.

1:28

On episode 35 of the auto play area, the game developers podcast.

1:32

We sit down with Sean Alexander Allen.

1:35

The founder and studio, head of new challenger and the creator of treachery

1:39

and beat down city for the PC and switch.

1:42

Before that he was a capture artist at rockstar games in N Y C.

1:47

And he's the person I owe a big heap of props for bringing me on to give

1:52

my first conference talk Back in 2020.

1:55

During these pandemic years on culturally aligned protagonist design.

2:00

And that would go to a lot of fire up on the me as in 2021, I would

2:05

go on to speak all over the place. And it was actually where I manifested this podcast.

2:10

We talk about the vision he has for the game, Dez of color

2:14

expo and other expos behind it.

2:16

What it's like coming up in NYC. What it's like having left there.

2:20

And we go deep in, on his development of treasury and beat down city.

2:25

And what's next for new challenger down the road.

2:29

This was a conversation previously recorded March 30th.

2:33

Please welcome. From NYC coming to us from Maria to Georgia.

2:37

Sean Alexander Allen.

2:40

Let's start the show. Catherine: Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome to the out of play area podcast, a

2:49

show by video game devs for game devs, where the guests open up one-on-one

2:53

about their journey, their experiences, their views, and their ideas.

2:58

No ads, no bullshit. Join us as we venture far out of the play area with your host

3:04

seasoned game designer, John Diaz

3:07

John: So right now you're coming to me from Marietta, Georgia.

3:11

Shawn A: Yeah. John: when we've met, he was in NYC, in New York, native, just like myself.

3:16

when did you make the move? how has that been? What do you miss

3:19

Shawn A: Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, it was a late 20, 20 move.

3:23

John: in the middle of the pandemic? Shawn A: yeah, it was, I mean, we like, I actually, you know, I had a kid

3:29

September, 2019, and I had found out that my, you know, my wife's middle sister,

3:36

so the sister closest to her, they're like best friends basically, you and so

3:42

her and her husband and their two kids.

3:44

So yeah, my, my nephews are, They, they were like going to move to Marietta

3:49

because like my wife's family of some of her mom's family lives down here.

3:53

And in 2019 we had a bookend of like my mom dying at the beginning of 2019,

3:58

her mom dying at the end of 2019.

4:00

And we were. I don't have family. Really.

4:03

My family is all like my game, my game industry people.

4:06

was like my only blood that I could count as family.

4:10

um John: A lot, from both of you and usually you have one to counterbalance the other,

4:13

but in this case you were both kind of at a big loss, losing your parents like

4:17

Shawn A: yeah, yeah. And I lost my dad. Like, I mean, I've never known my dad.

4:20

I've been piecing my dad's life together for the last 10 years or so now.

4:25

But like you know, trying new things. So it's like, let me be closer to, you know, her family also, her sisters

4:30

were always like, big supporters of me.

4:32

like, my wife was like, oh, there's this guy in my life.

4:35

So like, they were all like, yeah, like we see you're so happy.

4:38

Like, you know, go for it, et cetera. So they're, they're great folks.

4:40

And so I was like, yeah, I want to be close to these people.

4:43

We have a kid, like, let's get the kids together, et cetera, et cetera.

4:46

I was actually looking at the Atlanta game space, which is bigger

4:50

than the New York one in 2019.

4:52

But then the pandemic kit, you know, early 2020.

4:55

So I was like, oh, well everyone's remote anyway.

4:58

So let me see what we could do.

5:00

And no one really raised an objection to me leaving New York because there

5:05

was no real policy at the time. then we started looking for a house, got a house right before the housing

5:10

explosion cost-wise happened.

5:12

And and so thankfully like, I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.

5:17

My mom, you know, in poverty and I now live in like a house with a kid

5:22

it's very, like, I keep thinking about the little shop of horrors, but where

5:26

it's like the, where they sing, like they're in skid row and they sing that

5:29

song about somewhere that's green. And it's like, living in the suburbs and stuff.

5:33

And it's, it's interesting, you know, like 38 years in New York city.

5:37

I don't know how I'd be raising a kid in that city under

5:40

the pandemic and everything. Like, just getting out of the house to go to the park was like a 20 minute affair.

5:46

Then you'd have to walk. Thankfully we live near central park, which was cool, but like still

5:50

it's like 10 minute walk, hang out.

5:52

Then someone has to go use the bathroom. So it's like go home.

5:55

Like, and then it's over. Like, you spend like a half hour getting there, spend 20 minutes

5:59

there, then have to spend a half hour. So like, my kid can just go in the backyard and we

6:03

can just hang out with her. Or you walk around the subdivision solve.

6:07

Very strange to me though. Cause like I remember just even the other day, like I was just

6:10

going over something in my head. I go over a lot of things in my head while I'm walking and everyone's

6:15

just like, Hey Sean, what's going on?

6:17

I'm like see Yeah.

6:19

Don't you see that? I'm like, literally, like, I look like I'm like upset and I'm like, and in New York

6:27

just don't with you. But out here, everyone has to pass to say, hello, you have to wave to everybody

6:32

as you're walking down the street John: human interaction is very special when you're in the suburbs, right?

6:36

Like every person you see is one in, I dunno, maybe 10, 15 minutes, if

6:41

that, and people like to know the neighbors, know as opposed to New York

6:46

it's a, it's a totally different vibe.

6:48

I can empathize a hundred percent, especially in the name of family, man, you

6:53

know, like It seems like nothing but cool opportunity to bring up your child and,

6:57

Shawn A: yeah, no it's she loves her aunt, so much.

6:59

And I think the, her, cousins are, I think, below her aunt, like,

7:03

cause like it's funny she just loves her aunt so much and she hurt.

7:07

My wife's sister was like, it was like a music teacher for kids a lot of times.

7:11

So she has like taking care of lots of kids of different ages

7:15

It's like the kids all play well together, which is then.

7:18

Yeah. It's just, it's really nice vibe and also just, yeah, all the outdoor time

7:22

and all that stuff is just great. John: Is there anything you miss from the big city?

7:28

Shawn A: I mean, I miss everything. I missed, I was missing the city during the pandemic though.

7:32

Like, John: You wait, what? couldn't get out to it.

7:35

Yeah. Shawn A: yeah, I think about how COVID is like this like thing that has destroyed

7:39

the ability to be people it's interesting.

7:41

Like it's like the height of New York was like museums and comedy clubs and

7:46

concerts and hanging out with friends is on like rooftops and this and that.

7:51

And like, and then plus having a kid just met, like me and my wife were

7:55

literally like, you know, we were talking to someone in our building who was a

7:58

childcare provider for like night times.

8:00

And she was like, yeah, I'll watch your kid at night, et cetera, et cetera.

8:03

And we, you know, had daycare set up. They were literally on the cusp of like, you know, going on

8:07

dates again and cultural things.

8:09

And then the pandemic kids. So like when people are like, oh, I just want to go back to normal.

8:14

I'm like, you know what screw you, man. Like I basically, you know, it was, my kid was six months.

8:19

Like my kid was finally, finally had the immunity had the vaccinations for

8:23

other stuff that she could actually like be around more people B and D.

8:29

seen by a childcare provider. And we were finally okay with it.

8:32

And then it all shut down. So basically went from not having any, not having a life to not having a life again.

8:39

like, so we were six months into like, not doing a whole lot.

8:42

And so when people are like, I'm tired of it, I'm like, well, I'm six

8:45

months more tired of it than you are. And I still avoid most things.

8:50

So John: Have you found a space down there?

8:53

MERITO? It's not too far from Atlanta, right?

8:56

So big city. Not too far away.

8:58

Shawn A: yeah, we had to go down there for our vaccines cause there

9:00

was nothing available around here. Which was nice.

9:03

Cause it was again like nice to go to a city and see like black

9:06

folks in fashionable clothing. Cause the suburbs

9:08

are not are very known for very basic

9:12

John: Yeah, it was this Swagman. Shawn A: there's this shaky knees festival solid run.

9:16

The Juul is down there in a park. And but that it's funny, cause like it could take me between a

9:20

half hour to an hour and a half to get to downtown Atlanta and that

9:24

concert was during the world series.

9:27

So it took an hour and a half to get there because of all the traffic.

9:30

John: you had to learn how to drive. You didn't know how to drive.

9:33

You don't have to drive in New York. Oh yeah.

9:36

So you don't get your license or you got your license of what?

9:39

Shawn A: I accidentally have a driver's license down here, which is funny.

9:42

but my neighbor who, has a, three kids cause again, moving from the city to

9:48

the south, that was kinda like how progressive is this and whatever.

9:52

And him and his wife's house had like black lives matter and we

9:55

believe these things and like matter is the basic whatever.

9:59

So we were like, oh, okay. These are people we can hang out with and chat with.

10:03

And we made friends and they have like three kids that are

10:06

like four, seven and nine. So They get along with our kid.

10:09

They're very understanding of her being younger.

10:12

And because they met her before she could really communicate like before

10:16

two, you don't really talk much. Now she is a fountain of words, which we all appreciate.

10:21

So like we became friends and that's what he drove me down to Atlanta, he's

10:24

going to help me learn how to drive off. So that was good.

10:27

John: maybe any VR racing game simulation.

10:31

Get the pedals Shawn A: I've been joking about that for a long time.

10:34

How I got trained to drive on cruise in USA, like.

10:37

John: Yeah, that takes me back. Absolutely.

10:40

that was always funny. A lot of people don't believe me and it's just like, yo, my name

10:43

Europe, and a lot of these big cities with great public transportation,

10:46

you don't really need to drive. You're actually shooting yourself in the foot by having to pay for

10:51

insurance and gas and all this stuff.

10:53

When public transportation gets you around just fine.

10:57

Shawn A: Yeah, we could have afforded a car anyway. And who wants a car and eighties, New York.

11:01

John: Yeah, Exactly. Shawn A: it would always be other people who would drive me places, which is funny.

11:05

Cause like my mom was a taxi driver in the late seventies, so like she knew how to

11:10

drive, but there was no reason to drive.

11:14

John: Speaking of city, fashion, Atlanta swag, finding it, searching it.

11:20

Talk to me about your love of sneakers.

11:24

Shawn A: it's actually funny cause like it's sort of born out of a hate for

11:27

sneakers at sneaker heads actually.

11:30

John: talk to me about this. This Shawn A: as a kid, I could not afford sneakers at all, really until like high

11:36

school, like financial situation changed and I could get like one pair of sneakers

11:41

per year and I never got any of it.

11:43

Like I didn't like all the kids had like. Jordan twelves or something back in high school

11:48

and like It was the black and red Jordan 12 that at 96 97.

11:53

yep. John: That was year. That was his last bulls run, I think.

11:56

Shawn A: That was a, and I was just like looking at them.

11:58

I was just like, what are these? And I'm still a little perplexed by them.

12:02

But fast forward to the future, like when I was with my ex and she had a kid

12:06

by way of a guy who was a sneakerhead and he wouldn't pay child support.

12:12

But I remember like when I was at rockstar, they made them

12:14

some midnight club, air Jordans. John: Oh,

12:17

Shawn A: so this guy had the gall to be like, so, Hey Sean, like, how

12:21

do I get the midnight club Jordans? And, you know, I'm a nice person.

12:24

So, and also, you know, you can't really just explode on the kid who

12:28

you take care of his dad like can. So I

12:31

like, I'll look into it for you also, because I was curious, I didn't

12:34

really know a whole lot about it. And then I looked into it and there were apparently only four pairs that were made.

12:38

And the producer who came up with the initiative didn't even get a pair.

12:42

So that's why I told him, but it was more like. you know, screw you, man.

12:45

Like, how are you? give him money, give him money so your, so that you stop hurting my own family.

12:49

Like, you know, you're supposed to be paying a couple of pairs

12:51

of Jordans per month to take care of your kid and you don't.

12:55

So, and I wanted to actually make like, I dunno, there's this game, Cal clicker.

13:00

it was a, I hate Farmville type of game made by this guy, Ian BOGOs,

13:04

who did a lot of like, subversive games, writing and design.

13:09

And he made this game called cloud Cal clicker where you

13:11

could click a cow once per day. And if you wanted to click the cow more than once per day, you had to pay.

13:16

and people actually started paying the click their cow more than once per day.

13:20

And he was like what? And then eventually he was like, I don't agree with this.

13:25

Cause this is weird. I'm making money off of people where the goal was to like, not get people to do it.

13:31

so then he had like, it had a Cal apocalypse or something where he killed

13:34

the world or something, and people started writing, like, how can I get my callback?

13:38

Like what can I pay I think you can upgrade the cow and you could like,

13:41

you know, give a hats and stuff. And yeah,

13:44

John: That's the essence of all, a lot of monetization and games today, man.

13:49

That's crazy. It's like through negative reinforcement, people wanted to pay

13:53

Shawn A: Yeah, it was nagging. Yeah. And so I initially thought about like, what would people

13:57

pay for like digital goods?

13:59

It's funny. Cause I've been thinking about this for a very long time.

14:02

John: very on topic in this day and age Shawn A: yes, it's annoying to me because like, people are going

14:06

about it in the wrong way also.

14:08

Cause they're like digital ownership and I'm like, nothing is owned on the digital

14:12

ski base, like but sent me down a path of like thinking about wanting to make a

14:16

game that had something around sneakers.

14:19

And then I ran into the problem where, so I started buying sneakers

14:22

just to see what it was like. John: Like as research

14:25

Shawn A: it's funny. Cause like air Jordan ones, like, I dunno, there's like a whole thing about

14:29

like, ah, why do people all like these? And I'm like, I've just liked high tops like that for time.

14:33

Like whatever brand, it was like I had a Paris have this weird problem

14:38

where I, this, this, this thing in my brain that still makes me mad.

14:42

Like I was a kid. And back when my, my mom went to a store, she bought me some high tops

14:47

that I thought they were beautiful. They were like white and turquoise.

14:50

And they were by this brand, Sergio TECINI Many people don't know what that

14:54

brand is, and I didn't know what that brand is, but I didn't really care.

14:56

I just liked John: Sounds Italian sounds exotic.

14:59

Yeah. Shawn A: And I brought them to school and the kids just basically

15:02

laughed me out of school. Like they were like, what is this nonsense?

15:05

These are Nike's blah, blah, blah, blah. John: They were against the mold.

15:09

Shawn A: it turns out however, those kids were all just behind the times

15:13

because like biggie where Sergio TECINI and a lot of his videos,

15:17

like, because he knew and also big

15:19

in Africa Europe Yeah John: to travel the world.

15:23

Shawn A: but it was also just like a brand that was more, that was

15:25

actually just right off the side. Like it was in New York, obviously.

15:28

It was it was just funny. Cause I got them probably at like a store where they were not expensive

15:33

and they were a discount brand. But like, yeah, like if you go online right now, like all that

15:38

stuff, like tracksuits and everything is like, it's all expensive.

15:41

That makes me mad. Cause I was like, man, I was actually a trendsetter.

15:43

And, but everyone just, I was used to being bullied for

15:47

being poor and everything. So I just, it just took me and I just took those sneakers off and put them

15:51

in a closet and went back to my thrift store Nike's that had holes in them.

15:55

until I got like some modal Nike's that there, I ended up getting like the,

16:00

Wayne Gretzky Nike's and they were great. They were 20 bucks and they were Bulletproof.

16:05

Like they were plastic on them.

16:07

That you, if you kick somebody with it, you would hurt them.

16:09

Like tremendously. It was, yeah. It was like this turtle shell front.

16:13

That it was cool. I thought they were cool too.

16:16

And yeah, nobody bothered me again. Cause I had, new Nike's it's so stupid how like a brand like that.

16:21

but yeah. So like I've always liked like that kind of, that silhouette of just thin

16:27

high top John: tole. Hi laces, all up and down.

16:30

Kind of that clear soul. Shawn A: Yeah. So like, so then I started, I bought some AIJ one mids, not even knowing

16:36

how much everyone I've learned so much layers of like sneaker culture that, and

16:41

I still don't understand a lot of it. Like, cause there's like a are they terrible?

16:45

Or are they not terrible? People who hate the mid, like there was a whole joke where someone was.

16:49

He's like I left three boxes of JJ, one mids in my car.

16:54

And when I came back, there were 20 more and I was so sad.

16:59

Like someone broke into my car and left some more and it was just like,

17:03

I don't, I really don't understand it.

17:05

But yeah, I bought these. It was like a purple and like bright pink, bright blue, like

17:11

sky blue pair that were great.

17:13

And this black with like infrared, like I really love neon red, that's

17:19

and the black had like a sheen to it that only light someplaces.

17:22

And those are actually now both worth a lot more now is weird.

17:26

I caught them on the downswing and that's the thing I've, I've bought those.

17:29

And then I started buying more and, and then it's like, now

17:34

I have like sneakers below me. I have above me.

17:37

I have seekers in my closet. And I'm, and I'm still working on a project, but it's gone from like agro

17:44

to being like, how can I make this also?

17:47

Because I learned ever since I also had to do free to play design for awhile.

17:52

And I think a lot about ethics and all that stuff.

17:55

And like, how do you make something enjoyable to somebody?

17:58

Because I don't think digital goods are forever, cause they're not,

18:00

I've had so many free to play games that have closed and I've lost

18:04

all the stuff that I didn't buy. Cause I don't buy stuff usually I'm I usually go to the skill route and stuff,

18:10

John: progression has gone. Yeah. Shawn A: Yeah, but like all this stuff disappear.

18:13

So like, my goal honestly is to, I, well, right now I'm just figuring

18:17

out like something to do with seekers and in a, in a fun way and more of

18:21

a culture reaffirming way, because I just really started to care about it.

18:26

Like, John: So your collection is a, how many pairs

18:30

Shawn A: I don't know, John: last cow? Shawn A: like me right behind me on soon 6, 5, 6, 8, 14.

18:40

There's 14 up here. There's like three,

18:44

four or five there. If there's more in a closet by, I

18:46

John: say, 20, 31 for day of the

18:49

Shawn A: 30 or so. I mean, that doesn't count the ones by the door.

18:52

My boots also, like I have like these really good eight

18:56

air force, one duck boot, John: Oh, the ones with like the spiky kind of

19:01

Shawn A: have had, I had, I got that pair.

19:03

I got a black on black pair. That's now also hard to get and And I bought them when they came out.

19:08

Cause I was like, oh, these look cool. John: I would buy those.

19:11

I would buy those every year if I could, man, but they're hard to get

19:14

Shawn A: Yeah. And then like in 2020 during the pandemic I bought like these wheat ones.

19:18

Cause I guess again, I think I was ahead of the curve too, because like

19:21

that weak color, you know, that nice. That nice kind of orange, just brown.

19:26

John: You know, Timberland yellow kind of Shawn A: Yeah.

19:28

But, but a little, little warmer, right?

19:30

Like that that's caught on. Like clothing has been popping up in that and those popped up and I bought them.

19:36

They were not sold out. And then they disappeared and jumped up in price and they it's actually took like

19:40

weeks for people to be like, oh, that's the thing I've learned about sneakers.

19:43

It's like people will dog, a pair.

19:46

I saw, I bought a pair of sneakers, the pair that I rocked for a while, these

19:49

patent black like with white bottoms ADJ ones that I thought were beautiful.

19:54

The first pair I bought was on sale at a sneakerhead shop extra

19:57

butter in And I saw them and I was like, they were like 20 bucks off.

20:01

I was like, I think these are beautiful.

20:04

I'm going to buy them. Then the next two pairs of them.

20:06

Cause I bought two more pairs because they were went down to $70, a pair on

20:10

John: oh my gosh. Shawn A: There were $300 now because everyone eventually was like, wait,

20:14

these are actually really cool. And they were like three colors and Nike actually spent a lot

20:19

of money on marketing them. They were like the whole air Jordan, like something I forgot like, like I forgot

20:26

like some sort of space thing with them.

20:29

And they were like all these like space things or

20:32

John: okay. I wonder if it was kind of like a little like star speckled soul or something that

20:36

was kind of clear lunar or something. Shawn A: No, no, they were just like this black, but like really interesting,

20:41

like very shiny and the different, different levels of like sheen, like

20:45

one was sparked smartly and one was like more start just black and yeah.

20:51

And like, I have one more pair I've, I've broken in the second

20:54

pair and I have one more pair. That's still unworn.

20:56

And I'm like, and that's the thing I hate about sneakers is that like, it's like,

21:00

I can't replace them now because I'm not going to spend $300 on a pair of these.

21:04

I wish I would have like bought 10 pairs of them. John: the thing

21:07

Shawn A: you gotta have, everyday sneakers that you like. And now it's gotten to the point where a black and white pair of Jordans

21:14

is hard to get and that's stupid. Like you just like, why don't you just make like, just please make some

21:19

pairs that are nice that I can just buy in a store, like Timberlands,

21:23

like imagine if they were like, oh, this color just never exists again.

21:26

It's like, but that's the standard color they're like, yeah, you

21:28

have to catch it next year. And there'll be $300.

21:31

Cause we're only going to partner with billionaire boys club

21:33

or John: that's, that's basic economics, right.

21:35

Supply and demand and create a scarcity. Right.

21:38

But I'm with you. Like, I like the fact that there are certain shoes that they keep making

21:42

the same model, same color ways.

21:44

You're always guaranteed to get them, but they want to sell new ones.

21:47

I would, you, would you now consider yourself 30 pairs in, would you

21:53

consider yourself a sneakerhead? thing

21:56

Shawn A: Yeah. I mean I it's like, I think I

21:59

John: to dream Shawn A: Oh, I mean, that's actually like I'm Kelly stuff behind me.

22:01

Like I have like a pair of like, I have a pair of the like Lego Adidas, shell, top

22:07

ones that had like, like the stripes are like jagged, like, cause they're Legos and

22:13

they, I think they are made out of Legos type things cause they have a partnership.

22:17

And then I also have the Lego set of the I have like, I mean behind

22:23

John: Legos set shoe Shawn A: I have the, like the off-white air Jordan, one like

22:30

that, like other brand of made, they put together versions of those.

22:34

Cause I just wanted to see what it was like. And they made you give you a little figure.

22:37

That was like, Jordan, it has like a back.

22:40

And I dunno, it's, it's, it's funny. It's it's interesting culture, like I think a lot about it.

22:45

You know, I'm still selective obviously. And also you just get a lot of ELLs on the sneakers app and wherever.

22:51

So it's kinda like, but like I've, I, I think you don't become a real

22:55

sneaker head until you really are hyped about a pair and you can't

22:58

get it and you're just upset. And then you go out of your way to pay a hundred dollars plus over for the pair.

23:06

And then you're like, okay. I finally feel like my soul is complete.

23:10

Now that I have this pair. That's when your Alliance, when you've ascended to like sneaker head.

23:15

John: I am super, I look forward to seeing this game now, knowing where it's been

23:21

incepted from and the years of research and transformation that it's undergone.

23:26

And you know, you and I have talked a lot about culture and games and, and, you

23:31

know, I've even kind of thrown out the idea of having like a sneakerhead panel

23:38

at some conference, wherever we can just kind of throw our feet up and talk, talk,

23:42

shop in a table or something like that.

23:44

Something I've heard you talk about that I'm particularly excited in one day

23:48

is throwing a hip hop and games panel. curious what's on your playlist these days?

23:53

Shawn A: I mean, the one sad thing is that like, I listen to wireless music these

23:57

days because= I don't travel anymore.

23:59

I used to listen to a lot on my commute because it's like

24:03

harder to listen to music with lyrics in it when you're writing

24:06

John: I'm with you, I'm with you. I need to listen to like instrumental stuff.

24:10

Absolutely. Low-fi Shawn A: it And that's actually like polluting my Spotify thing.

24:14

Cause I top top And I'm like, I honestly, they need to, the thing they need to do is they need

24:19

to create a exclude from history, like because like I listened to the entirety

24:26

of like the Phoenix rape soundtrack for like, there's like a piano sessions of it

24:30

that I love that was, I think the piano sessions of Phoenix right, is my number

24:34

one played album of 2021, which is stupid.

24:36

John: That means you will work and you were working a Shawn A: Yeah, exactly.

24:38

And like, and like like classical music and like Ben Prunty, who did FTL and into

24:44

the breach, like the game soundtracks. Like I love his music so much.

24:46

I've loved it for years. And also like, I buy a lot of this music.

24:49

I know necessarily you can't actually buy a lot of Japanese game soundtracks

24:53

for less than like 50 to $80. So I'm like, so I don't feel bad about streaming level Spotify, but

24:58

I actually, you know, I buy a lot of the albums by the artist actually.

25:00

That's how I traditionally learned about people is the, like, I just

25:03

listened to a bunch of music and they'd be like, here's your release radar?

25:06

And here's your recommended weekly. And I used to just grab them, dump them into a playlist so that

25:11

I always had it and then go back and like check out the artists and

25:14

be like, oh, am I a fan of them? Am I not a interestingly enough, the album I've been listening to which means I've

25:19

listened to like two or three times in the last week was Denzel Curry's,

25:23

John: Oh, love me some Denzel Curry, man.

25:27

Shawn A: and I got to him because of release radar, like, him

25:30

and a bunch of other people. I went back to listen to Flatbush zombies, 3001, a laced Odyssey.

25:35

Cause I love that album. John: damn. I missed them.

25:38

They came out here during the pandemic when I was like, man, I don't

25:41

know if I'm ready to go, go into a show, but I would have risked it.

25:46

I, if I was living by myself, I would have masked up and risked it

25:50

to see them live because you know, they might come out here once a year

25:53

if that, but I opted to miss out

25:56

Shawn A: I've been listening to group that's kind of, kind of not hip hop.

25:59

is a, this group called horror. John: Hi.

26:03

Shawn A: H H oh 9, 9 0 9,

26:06

John: Okay Shawn A: even though yeah. They're horror.

26:08

So they're like a, they're like a punk metal rap group.

26:11

It's like these two black guys it's funny. Cause both on Denzel Curry and their album, they feature Saul Williams.

26:17

Who's a favorite musician slash artist of vine.

26:20

And I thought that was like wild because they're such different albums

26:23

and horror's album also has Corey Taylor from Slipknot on one of the

26:27

songs, which was also really cool. I've always like high school me and like current me are both like just

26:34

geeking out over this album that I've been listening to her for a long time.

26:37

They, I saw them play like a live set at a Afropunk a long time

26:43

been obsessed. Like, it's interesting cause they like, they clearly, you know, have like awesome

26:48

bars and at the same time, like just like shouting and like punk sensibilities

26:54

and just loud guitar and electronic like industrial stuff going on and.

26:59

It's just like really chaotic and really controlled simultaneously.

27:02

So I just John: well, I mean, depending on who you talk to, right, you can see

27:07

there's a thin line between punk and hip hop, where it's like, you know,

27:12

anti-establishment like going against the grain, complaining about the status

27:17

quo, you know, just different forms.

27:20

Shawn A: Well, they talk a lot about that. You know, when they talk about, CBGBs and like the, the merging cause like

27:25

a lot of rap groups, like African of a Bata would be down there.

27:28

Would, we got introduced to the people in the east village where

27:31

I'm from, like, it's funny. Cause like I know, I keep thinking about how, like my dad played CBGBs

27:36

in the late seventies and I'm just like, I wonder how much overlap

27:39

there might've been at that time. What he might've thought about the scene.

27:42

Maybe he hated it because he was Maybe he loved it because I think a lot of

27:46

people were you know, were really getting into the, like So I mean, punk and rap

27:50

were, you know, they weren't always, adjacent in Manhattan because people

27:54

would bring it down and bring punk up and.

27:57

John: Yeah. It's like downtown Bronx kind of Brooklyn comes in the middle.

28:01

There Shawn A: Blondie, right? Like, it's really strange.

28:04

Cause the first rap song to hit the mainstream was Blondie rapture.

28:09

Right. Where she's like rapping. And it's like a white lady song

28:12

John: you are educating me right now. Shawn A: yeah, that was like, and she talks about fab five Freddy

28:17

who's like, you know, the guy who was instrumental in merging.

28:20

they call it like, you know, east village and stuff like downtown.

28:23

And then like uptown was like Harlem and the Bronx So like he would bring,

28:28

you know, rap down there because he was all about like art and everything.

28:31

And that was like where that scene was. So, you know, it took certain like people who are

28:34

John: Holy shit Shawn A: to bring everything and yet like, so rapture was the

28:38

first rap song to be played on MTV

28:41

John: so it's like ratchet delight, 79 rap rapture, 81.

28:48

Holy Shawn A: I don't think rappers, I dunno if rappers are like, got

28:50

to MTV, that was like the thing like rap Rapper's delight was big,

28:55

But MTV like John: like mainstream,

28:57

did Shawn A: mean, everybody knows this, like John: well, yeah, they only wanted to feature like rock bands, right?

29:02

Like, like what do they call it, man? Like hairstyle, rock bands, whatever.

29:06

Shawn A: we talk about John: yeah, we could talk about this for a minute.

29:08

I love it. I just had to take advantage for my damn self.

29:11

Right? Like it's, it's rare that I get to get into these topics with fellow

29:16

NYC ERs, you know, I have to tap in so that I don't lose grips as I move

29:21

around and live on the west coast. but game dev, bro, I met you through game dev.

29:26

You've kind of changed my perspective on a lot of things.

29:29

I didn't know that the New York city game development scene was what it,

29:33

what it was and what it was becoming. And here you are, not by choice, but I recommend to everybody, you know,

29:38

get out of the city, stretch your wings, see how other things operate.

29:43

And then bring back whatever you find at some point in time.

29:46

So you're down in Marietta, in the south being around family, living in the burbs

29:51

now, but now you got some property. You got office space, super proud, super happy to see that.

29:57

Tell me about where you are today.

30:00

What are you doing? How's the company, Shawn A: yeah, as of the 18th March 2022, I was my last day at MLB

30:09

where I was there for six years. as when you own your own company, it was my first day back to full-time.

30:15

Working for my company, new challenger. John: New challenger, new challenges been an LLC for a minute, but

30:22

now you saying you're full time. Shawn A: yeah, it was a, it's an LLC since 2012.

30:26

Actually this was 10 years. Like in the middle of 2012 was the end of my tenure at rockstar.

30:31

And then I had to start this all C and we're actually in the process

30:35

because you can't merge an LLC from New York, you can't convert it to

30:40

be a corporation or anything. So we're figuring out we're in the process of merging the LLC with the corporation,

30:47

which was started this year also. So,

30:50

John: interesting. Shawn A: we're cause you need a corporation in order to like, you

30:52

know, get investment and stuff. So that's and that's what I had to do to get money, to continue the

30:58

company and to be able to take my life into my own hands essentially again.

31:02

John: educate me, Sean, a LLC, and a corporation.

31:06

Isn't it. Limited liability company versus like incorporation.

31:11

Is that the two different things? Shawn A: Yeah. So we're a C corporation.

31:14

It's it's interesting. Cause so like an LLC is a pass through entity where all the money that

31:19

you earn is on your own tax return.

31:22

So like, you know, if you earn a hundred thousand dollars for your

31:26

business, that's what you get paid.

31:29

That's like, goes on your thing as like a, I earned this amount of money.

31:32

You know, having that EIN is helpful because then it's like, okay, well

31:36

you're actually a real business and not just a person pulling random

31:39

money, even sole proprietorship, they still kinda like how it copyright.

31:43

They recommend you filing a copyright, even though you own the

31:45

copyright on anything you make. Because it's easier to contest.

31:48

Similarly. It's easier to just, like deductions become like the big thing when it's like,

31:52

oh yeah, but an LLC, you have deductions.

31:55

And so like, a lot of this stuff is like, you know, cause then you pay people,

31:58

you pay for things you pay for stuff. It's a lot easier to just be like, oh my desk, oh my lighting.

32:03

Oh, is all for my business. Yeah. Whereas, you know, when you do a company, pretty sure you have to

32:09

like invoice the company if the company's paying for that stuff.

32:12

But it's not as easily tax deductible if you're working for a corporation,

32:15

Like as I was working for major league baseball or corporation,

32:18

so yeah, that's just like, you know, different, it's more like

32:20

invoicing you know, have to have more paperwork, even though I'm technically

32:24

the president of new challenger, you know, if I go on a corporate

32:26

trip on an LLC, I just pay for it.

32:30

And then that's a line item on my taxes.

32:33

Whereas like for like a corporation. As a flight, you'd be like, okay, well, I invoice the copany

32:38

for the money for my flight. They give me the money back and then they, even though it's still my company.

32:45

I mean, and also now I have like co-founders who also have shares

32:48

in their shares and everything. you could, you have shares in a corporation, but an S-corp is different

32:53

than a C Corp in that an S-corp is just a tax designation of an LLC.

32:58

it's really annoying. I've had to look into it, but like an escort basically then removes

33:03

the the tax liability from you.

33:05

Like it's no longer a pass through entity. it's now like you do you file a separate tax return and that's, people do it.

33:12

I don't know why, because I never really looked into it.

33:14

John: Okay. But you're a C Corp Shawn A: now I'm a C Corp, which means, yeah, we have, we have shares.

33:18

We have like bylaws, we're supposed to have a board, the

33:21

boards, one person right now we secretary, we have president, you know, we have an official,

33:27

you have to have official people that do certain

33:30

John: there's like, what are the key roles in a corporation then?

33:33

Like, cause I know, you know, there's, all this, but like in reality you only need what like three there's three

33:41

key positions that have to be filled. Shawn A: well, right now it's like president there's like secretary

33:46

and maybe something else, but yeah. I don't know, right into the key two things, our president, secretary, and both

33:52

of those could be the same person, COC.

33:55

All those things are just designations that you set up in a company.

33:58

Like you don't have to have any of them actually like, but you know, I'm always

34:02

confused by CEO because it's like chief executive officer, but like, I feel

34:05

like that role changes based on a lot of times, that's basically like I shake

34:09

people's hands and they give us money you know, we do business, you know, we fundraising it's and for like a nonprofit

34:15

it's different than for a for-profit. It's a I don't know.

34:18

John: Okay. I don't know as a valid answer

34:20

for sure but you're the president and you have a separate person as a

34:24

secretary that's new challenger.

34:27

do you have the time to develop or is it still kind of biz dev mode at this point?

34:32

Shawn A: It's, it's a lot of everything. know, you know, me, I'm, I'm, you know, I work doing game deals with color expo.

34:38

That's one thing. That's what I always say. I always have say I have like three jobs now that I don't

34:42

have the full time, day job. New challenges is now my full-time day job my evening job

34:47

John: How does that feel? How does that feel to be say that to

34:49

Shawn A: feels amazing, I did it for about a year and a half from between rockstar

34:53

and having to get back on the job scene.

34:56

And, you know, it's, it's, it's hard having a day job and having

34:59

to do all this other stuff. John: I imagine it's not where your heart is,

35:02

Shawn A: Yeah, it's a, yeah, my heart was not, definitely not in my day job.

35:06

you know, but then again, I also throw myself at anything that I'm doing.

35:09

So like I need to be the best at what I do wherever I'm at.

35:13

So that's also another thing is it's like, that becomes frustrating because

35:16

then you run into issues where people are okay with mediocrity and are not,

35:21

and that becomes a culture clash.

35:24

And that, that's definitely happened to me in the past.

35:26

But yeah, so like now it's just good to be like, yeah, I'm new challenger and

35:31

I'm also doing the game deals with color expo, two things I, greatly care about.

35:34

And yeah, so new challenger is like, it's dev it's some business of it

35:39

all kind of happens simultaneously. It's, it's definitely exhausting.

35:43

I'm actually two of the first things that I'm looking into.

35:45

Like, cause now I need employees so that

35:49

Cause like in order to go with one of these companies that can get you

35:51

better health insurance than the ACA you need to at least three employees.

35:56

so salary people, W2 people.

35:59

And so, I'm one that to find two more

36:02

John: so the secretary doesn't count Shawn A: well, right now he's not employed.

36:06

He's just the secretary and the like the and, own stock in the company.

36:11

But like, until he has a job, he doesn't get paid.

36:13

Like nobody gets paid until they have a job. Like, cause we have like the secretary who will also be probably the, like the COO

36:21

and have a CTO who he has a full-time job.

36:25

John: going to be the first spot you look for your, your tech engineer person.

36:29

Shawn A: Yeah. Like you need to find engineers. I need to find a producer who I'm trying to build like an interesting role

36:35

because like, I actually I got a lot of producing experience from being like

36:39

put in an AP position and I'm trying to look for someone to can fill like an AP

36:44

role who can help me because I'm still doing treasury, meet down city stuff,

36:47

but also have the next thing. So it's like, I need somebody who can take over that because there's just like

36:53

managing to get the build, getting the bill, looking at the build, being like

36:57

this works, this doesn't work, And then just handing that back to the person

37:00

that can take three hours sometimes. And that's like third of my day.

37:04

Right? it's like, so if I could not do that every time, that would be super helpful.

37:09

Because I also have a whole other game to design

37:14

John: follow-up. How do follow up that bad boy?

37:16

So in your day to day as president, whereas partial BizDev, you're

37:21

managing treachery and beat down city. You're trying to dedicate some cycles into the next thing that may or

37:26

may not be a sneaker focus thing.

37:29

what's your like key tool set? What are things that help you do your, day to day?

37:33

Shawn A: The secret thing is the next, next thing. It's something I'm also working on, but like the next thing is going

37:39

to be more combat focused and I'm looking forward to announcing it

37:42

John: see, I would expect that I would expect the, whatever you do

37:45

next follow up that combat system.

37:48

Shawn A: I'll be hinting a lot. I've been watching a lot of movies and stuff

37:52

and getting a lot of books that that if someone looked at my Amazon

37:55

purchase history, they'd be like, oh, I know what this guy is working

37:57

John: Oh, Ooh. Okay. Okay. Some hints.

37:59

Shawn A: I, I mean, I use Trello, I still use that's like my

38:02

primary, like tracking stuff, John: Did you come across Trello?

38:06

I'm curious because in your post-mortem for church free and

38:10

beat down city, you talk about. going through a learning process of like, man, how do I get organized and how do

38:17

we do our task board and stuff like that. And so, so was Trello kind of your solution for that?

38:21

Shawn A: game does a color expo, which has moved on a sauna, which

38:24

I need to understand all these tracking things, just bug me out.

38:27

Like I've been using JIRA for the last six years and

38:30

was still never able to actually get a solid answer for how to use

38:34

it by like anybody that I worked with who was also a producer.

38:38

the annoying thing is that people walk in and be like, no, but

38:41

this is how you use a thing. But if you ask three people, how do you use a thing?

38:44

Like, how do you use epics in JIRA? None of them will give you the same exact answer.

38:48

Cause I'll be like, well, what about subtests? Can't you just use a sub-task instead of making an epic there's so many like

38:54

things that people can't give you an actually answer to and because they just

38:57

use it and it just makes sense to them. John: can easily start a war over the epic debate.

39:03

Shawn A: Yeah. So Trello like was helpful. Cause I looked at it, I'm like, I don't know what to do here.

39:07

And we were using Google sheets and just listing stuff and that didn't work.

39:10

And so Trello was like, they'll be the key thing was like, let's make

39:13

boards, like let's make a backlog. and then like make boards, at one point it was just bugs.

39:18

marked fixed slash implemented, and then marked verified.

39:23

And, but then it became like, well, our game has UI.

39:26

It has enemies, it has music, it has all these things.

39:28

So we have lists for basically everything.

39:30

As well as like our console ports that are going on right now.

39:33

And then those get, you know, moved into in progress and they get moved into, and

39:36

it was just like, I didn't know that. John: So it sounds like Kanban style kind

39:40

Shawn A: exactly. So it was like all, but like, it's all about how you set it up, right?

39:44

Like nobody says, Hey, here's a way.

39:46

So with the game, those of color expo, those folks knew how to

39:49

do this stuff better than I did. Cause I had, never set up a JIRA by myself.

39:53

It was always set up for me. I didn't know that secret, then it's all up to you on how you set it up.

39:59

And John: yeah, the workflow, the tags.

40:02

Shawn A: because everybody acts like these things, they all feel very opaque.

40:06

And like, this is how it goes.

40:08

And you're just like, yes. That's how it goes. But you have to set it up that way.

40:11

Like it doesn't give you a template and say, or maybe they do, but you

40:14

got to pay like some weird amount of money and you still don't even get

40:17

the features you want with Trello. Like, I want more colors for labels.

40:20

And like, no, no, you don't get those. I'm like, but there's like 16 million colors.

40:24

Like, why can't I have more colors? They're like, I don't know.

40:26

But you can't. And like so, Trello, like Google suite, like that's been really core.

40:32

I'm still confused when people give me an outlook file, like a word file

40:36

or something with doc X. Cause I'm just like,

40:39

John: they don't import nicely. Shawn A: Nope. John: that's crazy.

40:41

It's crazy. How Google has kind of like superseded Microsoft office or like their

40:46

iron hold over the business space.

40:49

So trust. G suite all Photoshop

40:53

Shawn A: Photoshop, illustrator. I'm

40:56

of I'm one of the only pixel artists that uses Photoshop.

41:00

It's really frustrating, but it's the thing I learned on and the thing

41:03

I know and when I try to use other things, I'm like, what do you mean?

41:06

you can't save layered files. So illustrator I use cause like, you know, vector art, logos.

41:12

I do all my own logo design right now.

41:14

I don't want to keep doing it, but it's what I've had to do.

41:19

which was before it was Autodesk purchased and made free.

41:23

It was like 30 bucks a year or something or 30 bucks total.

41:26

I don't know. And it was great cause it's like, I really liked that it has like a kind

41:29

of light marker just on the base. Like it's just like, you can just color stuff very quickly.

41:33

I do it for like production art mostly. one day when we do our art book for treachery beat down city, there'll

41:39

be a lot of the sketchbook stuff

41:41

puzzle, the nice pencil right off the bat. Like I went to art school, so I'm very picky about like how hard a pencil looks

41:47

on a thing and how like sketching fields. And it actually feels really nice.

41:50

So, and it's, pre-configured that way versus like Photoshop, you'd have to

41:54

figure out like what brush and, you know, they give you like an sketchbook.

41:57

They give you a pen and a marker and paint brush.

42:01

That's like, they have clear delineations, whereas Photoshop is so

42:04

customizable that you have to basically find someone who knows good brushes

42:09

and then download their brushes. sketchbook just starts in a good place.

42:12

That's easy to work from. John: do you draw on like a way calm or tablet?

42:17

Okay. Shawn A: I've been rocking a way. Calm tablet, like the plastic joint, not a screen since like till I was a four,

42:24

like when I was in school, they were able to get like us a discount on them.

42:28

John: How much did it run you at that time? With the discount?

42:31

Shawn A: I, dunno John: 200. That's fair.

42:33

Shawn A: a medium, like they're like 400 for the medium.

42:36

John: You went to school for computer art. That's where artists fundamentals come from.

42:40

Shawn A: yeah, like I had a Photoshop class and that was the teacher who Like her website used to be Photoshop, diva.com.

42:46

She was like an alpha tester on Photoshop.

42:48

she used to do photo compositing with photos, like, cutting the negatives and

42:52

putting them together and then exposing them to make like new photos and stuff.

42:56

So that was helpful because like, just literally, like, even though I

42:59

understood graphic design and I thought I understood bits of Photoshop, she taught

43:03

like so many, like low lying things that you know, I use them to this day.

43:06

Like, I, I'm still the resident retoucher in my house.

43:09

Like we tried to get wedding photographs like retouched.

43:12

And from the company that was recommended by the people who

43:15

we got our photographer from, and we could not tell them how to do it because when we gave them

43:19

notes, it just came back bad again. So then I was just like, I'll do it.

43:23

John: yeah. it's that saying? Right? You want something done?

43:25

Right? Gotta do it. Your damn self.

43:28

Geez. your academic training is in art and here you are, that's like your, your

43:34

key go-to tools, but you did a bunch on treachery and beat down city.

43:39

it's funny hearing you talk about the pixel art because yeah, it's got a really

43:42

what I say nostalgic or retro look, but then to hear that you probably did it

43:47

all yourself makes total sense, right? Like using what you know, bringing that into your project.

43:52

Shawn A: took a long time. The first thing that we made for the game was it well, we started making

43:57

these little people, like that was like, cause I, I had this idea for like a

44:01

green to use, like even like a small, but still way out of scope, like side

44:07

scrolling, 3d kind of look that was going to be like street fighter four.

44:11

And I was like, and it's true. Actually, a small team can pull that off now.

44:15

It would take a long time but it's actually happening now.

44:18

Small teams are now coming out with, like, I saw a trailer for a game

44:21

that used like arc system works is a cell shading technique in a fighting

44:25

game that just looked really good.

44:28

But, but at the same time, like I wanted to experiment.

44:30

I wanted to learn like what to do here and like cause a lot of people

44:33

are like, well why'd you do it? And I'm like, well, double dragon on the Nintendo.

44:37

Very specifically. Now if the arcade never actually played the arcade as a kid,

44:40

John: any S double dragon. Shawn A: yeah. And bad dudes on the Nintendo.

44:44

Yeah. Those two games, I just really like the light.

44:47

Reduction infidelity you know, it's expressionists in that sense where it's

44:51

like, what does the mouth look like? What does it like, you know, super Mario, I know they talk about that.

44:55

They did these things because they showed off better, but like

44:59

Shakira, Miyamoto's an artists. Cause if you look at other pixel art of the day, most of

45:03

it is not as good as his art. Like he had color and like him with a, to Zucca.

45:09

Takashi to Zucca yeah. He was the other artist.

45:11

He worked with me a Modo side-by-side doesn't get anywhere near

45:16

John: the acclaim, right? I mean, I don't, his name definitely does not bring as much as me and modals

45:21

Shawn A: yeah, I don't know if he was the artist, but there was also another guy that did a lot of the key art like that Moto didn't do all of it.

45:27

but just looking at how they did it, like they just clearly had

45:30

a key idea of color composition sensibilities that other people did not.

45:34

And they also have the ability to have like, you know, a few colors on screen.

45:37

Whereas, so, you know, they use their technical limitations, but

45:40

they made beautiful art out of it. Right.

45:43

you know, they program the music to hit on specific notes.

45:46

And even though that was like a limitation, this is

45:48

why the games beautiful. And so like the, the thing about current pixel art, a lot of times I feel like

45:54

people don't think about it like that. They think about like, let's make pixel or as opposed to let's make art.

46:00

that is pixels. John: Yeah. That's what, w what are your constraints, right?

46:03

What are you trying to bring to life? And got a great look.

46:06

Shawn A: And, at GDC last year, I actually gave a talk that was

46:09

like animating a complex fighting game, three frames at a time.

46:12

and it's still not anywhere. It's not YouTube, but still behind the gate or

46:16

John: paywall and the volt still linked to it.

46:18

Shawn A: yeah. And it's like I talked about how there was a point where, cause everyone does

46:21

all this like really bouncy Pixler. And like, I hate it because like, I think a lot of it's not actually good animation.

46:27

It's just moving. like street fighter three, great looking game, a lot of games don't

46:33

understand what was good about it though. And they bounce everything.

46:37

They're like, oh, you got earrings, you got hair. And I'm like, you can't just balance everything at once.

46:42

Cause then it does like that. Doesn't, that's not how that's not how shit works.

46:45

Like really in real life. Like, your hair doesn't bounce the same way as your body,

46:48

but people just do it because. Uh, reason.

46:51

so I was like, well, my games stark on its own.

46:54

And I kept thinking like, do I add more? And that I was like, you know what, I'm actually gonna figure

46:58

out how to do more with less. And I'm going to limit everything.

47:01

If I can't do it in three frames, I might not do it.

47:03

and sometimes we went over, if it was a hundred percent necessary my grapples

47:07

would be used slightly more complicated, but we used a lot of street fighter to

47:11

Sprite, flipping techniques, because like they would do stuff where a hurt, a hurt

47:15

characters frame would just keep moving.

47:18

And like one eighties in order to like, while like Zane, he was grappling them.

47:22

So Sanjeev goes through like three or four frames of a grapple while the

47:26

other character is just the same hurt frame or goes through two for frames

47:30

of cycles and just, they keep rotating it and putting it in different places

47:34

so that it looks like this move is happening, but saying was really just

47:37

holding a solitary character and it's just flips from like 90 to 90 degrees.

47:42

Like, not a full cause, like Sprite rotations, bad.

47:45

It's ugly. Unless it's done really well, but yeah, that was just all,

47:48

really challenging myself to make sure my art all worked together.

47:52

John: That's awesome. I mean, so many times these things are disconnected, right?

47:56

Like you have your artists and you have the person implementing it

47:59

and engineering and tech artists. And, and so I always find that fascinating to, to see at this level, when you would,

48:08

did you have to implement those as well?

48:11

Or were you working with your engineer to go, okay, here's

48:14

the frames of the animation. This is how it should play in this, how it runs

48:18

Shawn A: Yeah, that's been, that was a, that was a, several conversations

48:23

over time, because there was a time where our a lot of things were more

48:26

machine-driven like fallbacks were machine-driven where, like, if you

48:30

hit somebody, they would fall back.

48:32

And it was like you know, an arc in the game of the arc.

48:36

Like, so it was floaty, know, it needed tweaking, like,

48:41

John: there wasn't really an animation, right. You're just kinda like setting some position on screen programmatically,

48:47

right That's what you mean by Shawn A: yeah, like when you tween something, right.

48:50

John: yeah, there you go. That's a better word. Shawn A: it's like goes over an arc, but that's how things were

48:56

animated a lot of times and there was a lot of like, how does street

48:59

fighter to work and guesswork right. Of a lot of stuff.

49:02

John: that's a great foundation to build off of or strive after for

49:05

Shawn A: yeah, we really like, we're like, okay, so every fallback is like

49:09

two or three or four frames of just, it goes to a fallback animation of

49:13

them, like kind of like arms down and falling back and then transitions to

49:17

a downstate when it hits the ground. But it has like pretty much a fixed arc in a lot of ways.

49:23

Not always because there's actually some other programmatic stuff that came up

49:27

like if you, kill somebody with a throw, like with a pile driver or something, they

49:32

will bounce because they also have a thing where when they hit zero, they fall back.

49:37

they this thing where it's like, they hit the ground and then

49:40

they fall back off the ground. It is actually pretty cool because it looks like you're like, you're

49:44

skipping rocks with people like you do a body slam bounce off the ground

49:49

John: an extra Browns. do you take me back because I love the shit out of street fighter two.

49:53

in your opening sequence.

49:56

It is literally that scene from the street fighter two arcade, right

50:00

where the dude knocks out the other person, but it's flipped now, right?

50:03

It's not white dude knocking out black dude. Shawn A: Well, it's a, play on the whole, remember that Pepsi, commercial,

50:09

where they were like the cops. And

50:11

John: it to me. Shawn A: think it was supposed to be like one of the Jenners or

50:14

Kardashians or whatever were in it. And everybody was like, all these pictures of people dancing

50:18

and all this, like unity. And then the, and then she walks up to a cop and like, gives him a Pepsi rather.

50:24

And he like opens it up. And like, does like a cheers thing.

50:27

And everybody's like, oh, soda saves the world.

50:30

Right. and that's how you solve police violence apparently is by being friends police.

50:37

So this one is, a socialite, like she's in her jacket and all that stuff, but

50:41

she's just there holding a can of Coke or

50:43

of Fs Cola rather. and then the cops there, the shitty racist cops there, and that she punches

50:49

them out the background is actually a multi-racial group of people.

50:53

Like if you look at the background, It is tiled also because like, I don't know the

50:56

game, we never really figured out tiling. So a lot of it was manual by me, but like the sorts of background, Sprite of

51:03

just a bunch of characters, like doing so little animations of celebratory thing.

51:07

And then yeah, she, knocks them out and then it goes, yeah,

51:10

like the Fs Cola fight someone. And so it's like the flip of that.

51:13

It's also like slightly on a play on sorry to bother you.

51:17

I don't know if you've seen that movie. it's uh So sorry to bother you is like movie about like how

51:22

far will you go to make money? And it stars the Keith Stanfield he's like a poor guy who gets a job at a

51:28

call center, Danny Glover's in it.

51:30

And he teaches him about this thing called the white voice.

51:34

And it's it's, overdubbed in the movie. So it's like, I think it's it's David Cross David Cross.

51:38

And like Patton Oswald, like do the like overdub voices.

51:42

And it's really funny cause it's just like your inner white voice.

51:45

It's like, it's not even a white people sound like it's what they it's what

51:48

they aspire to sound It's like, you've never, you've never been fired.

51:52

Only laid off. You don't even need the money.

51:55

You're just here because you want to come to an office and so he starts using that.

51:59

It starts getting more and more like richer for the company and the company

52:02

is basically dealing in slavery. people can sell themselves to the company.

52:07

And they just They work for the company for the rest of their life it's like

52:10

a big thing and there's like protests, but then there's a part where a woman,

52:14

who's a like one of the protests or she throws a Coke at the outlet flake as

52:18

he's walking in his name's Cassius green, Which is funny, cause like Kashi is green, right?

52:23

Like, So he, she throws a thing at him and it hits him in the head and

52:26

he goes like, ah, and it becomes like a YouTube, viral sensation.

52:30

And it's like, and so it like have a Cola and a smile bitch.

52:34

Like yells that. And then that becomes this huge viral thing.

52:37

And that's, if you see any of the posters, there's like a physical poster

52:40

as him on a phone with like a bandage over his head with like a red block.

52:44

And it's because of he got hit by the can.

52:48

And so that was like the fight.

52:50

Someone was like kind of this like play into that.

52:54

And it was actually because we needed an interesting intro for the launch trailer

52:58

and because I wanted to have something that would catch people's eyes immediately

53:02

that transitioned into, oh, this is going to be the beginning of the game.

53:04

and again, hook somebody immediately cause they see.

53:07

not just street fighter, but it's also politics, right?

53:09

Like it's and if you get where I'm going with it, then you're like, oh cool.

53:14

But if you don't, you're just like, oh, she find her ha.

53:16

And if you don't otherwise, it's like, oh, these are these

53:19

big sprites that are moving. And you're like, oh, okay.

53:21

I'm so John: it does a great job of like catching your glimpse.

53:25

If you, if you're looking at it in a convention show or something like that,

53:28

you'd be like, oh, that looks familiar. Let me go check it out.

53:30

And then it's kind of deep in that combat is the big part of this mechanic, but

53:34

the city is also living, breathing and much more modernized than any other

53:39

depiction you've typically seen of it. Right.

53:41

And the characters and the layers in here, came across the treachery and

53:45

beat down city by sheer coincidence.

53:47

I think it was a two-fold thing of like connecting with you for game days of.

53:53

Or maybe coming, coming across some of the things you were talking about on

53:56

Twitter and then being like, oh, snap, you know, Sean's got a game out there.

54:00

Like, what is it what's going on in here and check it out.

54:02

And then I guess, timing was perfect where prime gaming was featuring it or giving

54:08

it away for free or something like that.

54:10

And I checked it out and I, I love the look obviously, and then the

54:14

whole montage to beat them ups. And then the combat system was crazy to me.

54:18

Right. Because you've, you've since called out so many inspirations for it, like fallouts

54:22

VAT systems, traditional JPGs right.

54:24

Like anybody who plays old school Pokemon, like living in menus and

54:28

selecting fight or run or ability.

54:31

And then even the real time input part of like a Mario RPG, right.

54:36

Like something that blew my mind, right. Like, oh shit, I'm no longer just watching the thing play.

54:40

I can still actively do inputs to like increase damage or whatever.

54:44

And then you couple that with like insane characters, right?

54:47

Like sweet backstory, vibrant, colorful characters that I've

54:52

never seen before that you don't see represented in this manner.

54:56

And I was like, yeah, you know, re remind me the name.

54:59

It was like, was it a Puerto Rican lady, a Mexican grappler.

55:02

And then like a Jamaican. Capoeira dude, Remind me their names

55:06

Shawn A: Lisa is the MMA beside us boxer, Puerto Rican woman, and bread The bull

55:12

killer steel is a, the Mexican wrestler and Bruce Maxwell is the Jamaican

55:18

American Capoeira G Cuno fighter.

55:21

John: you put a lot of years into it, but I look at these gameplay systems

55:25

and I'm just like, oh man, tell me more.

55:27

What was some of the challenges putting these, some of these things together,

55:31

things that you didn't plan for? I'll preface this by saying you have a full one-hour post-mortem where you

55:37

go through the entirety of the game.

55:39

So I'm definitely gonna encourage people and I'm going to link

55:41

to it, to go check it out. If you want to learn more, definitely grabbed the game, take it for a spin.

55:46

I think it's on switch PC, Shawn A: we got something to drop this year.

55:51

Like wise, we were hoping to be out everywhere.

55:54

But there's at least one other console that's coming out.

55:57

that'll be out when we drop this DLC. It comes out day in date with that console.

56:01

John: oh, this DLC. Shawn A: The game actually ends on a, on a cliffhanger.

56:04

cause like, you know, project management, you start learning things

56:07

and you, I realized that, I had over promised but also the things

56:11

that I did promise like 40 some odd interviews, here's all this music.

56:16

Here's all these moves. Here's a bunch of levels.

56:19

Like right now I think the game clocks in at like four or five

56:21

hours, depending on how you play it. And I'm like, that's pretty good for 20 bucks.

56:24

Like, so then at some point I was just like, and we had actually decided we

56:29

wanted to make it like episodic in the sense that each like part of the

56:31

story was like the end of an episode.

56:33

And, you know, the whole game is actually made to be like bite-sized chunks.

56:37

Like the ramping of all the fights and going to the Halaal car and

56:41

fighting the boss is meant to basically be like, okay, you got, you keep

56:44

going through these little chunks. And they are all designed to go from like easy, medium, or easy, slightly harder,

56:51

medium, you know, in the beginning, and then a little harder than medium.

56:55

And so we would design it to be like, okay, well, this isn't gonna

56:57

feel like drastic, sharp cutoff.

57:00

Right. We wanted to really introduce ideas over small, small little bits and

57:04

then the whole thing is designed in the sense of how many ramps does

57:07

it take to get to the center of the sociopath to get to the boss?

57:09

And the boss is supposed to, you know, they're not bespoke, like

57:12

a lot of games are, every boss is basically a normal character.

57:15

Like they just have different stats. so then we have these ideas where the bosses can reinforce certain things.

57:21

Like, do you know defense? Do you know, very basic things.

57:24

If it's earlier on and you gotta defend more and know more about

57:28

countering and whatever, and probably know more about item use as you

57:31

go on, but, some people get it. Some people don't as, as with all games,

57:35

So we have like another drop to do So it's like a, to be

57:38

continued, a big thing happens.

57:41

The whole story gets turned on its ear and yeah, we're doing a lot of

57:45

like, just writing and design for the next episode, with a question

57:49

mark of, is it one, is it two?

57:51

people have to play the game to figure out cause like I don't want

57:53

to spoil be like, yeah, this is the end or whatever something that's

57:56

interesting about indie games as you can be a little bit more mysterious.

58:00

You can so the good thing is like, most people aren't like where's the second episode I

58:05

paid for this game and blah, blah, blah. Most people are like, I can't wait.

58:08

I'm excited for. it's funny. Cause like we had to tell our Kickstarter backers also, cause there's a bunch

58:12

of them that are just not in this and we're like, you're going to be

58:16

in the next bit like so, and like some of the art from Kickstarter

58:19

backers will be in the next bit. John: I love hearing that when a game is released, what will.

58:24

Two years ago now, 2020 March 20th.

58:26

Yo, you actually going today day and date to your anniversary.

58:31

Yeah, look at that. Shawn A: Yeah, it's been a lot, like, I mean, well, it's been like two and two

58:36

years and two weeks now since like the pandemic began and, and like me figuring

58:41

out I'll launch a game into said pandemic while taking care of a kid, at least

58:45

my kid has daycare now, which is good. John: yeah.

58:48

Oh, hell yeah. Shawn A: that was, that was brutal.

58:51

John: Where does new challenger come from?

58:53

What's the inspiration behind the name. Shawn A: so a bit ago, I don't know.

58:56

I like finding games obviously, like I've loved street fighter

59:00

John: Yeah, you put the quarter in new, new, new, new, new challenger.

59:02

Here comes new challenger. Shawn A: so I had a website a long time ago and it's still the website's

59:06

URL is a new challenge or a waits.com.

59:09

And I came up with a company like an idea called a new challenge or a weights.

59:13

And the website is a new challenge or a waits.com, but it's, but it's, it's

59:16

direct, redirected from new challenger.

59:19

And so I on I'm actually probably coming up on my 12 year anniversary on Twitter.

59:25

And so I wanted to make like a new challenge or something on Twitter,

59:31

but the new challenger thing was taken, it's still taken by a defunct

59:35

account that was tied to rev three.

59:38

I don't know if you remember them. It was a media group that was like think Anthony Carboni ran that he's

59:42

a games, purse writer, media person.

59:46

And so that account's still taken.

59:49

And so I was like, I was online at for the, we, you

59:53

everyone, that was a huge line. You had a lot of time to think about things.

59:56

And so I was like setting up my Twitter and I was just like

1:00:00

typing all these different things. And I was just like so I decided a new challenger and I was like, well,

1:00:06

it's too close to the new challenger.

1:00:09

So then like let me just change it to the you.

1:00:11

to be kind of like, it's the new, new John: the

1:00:15

Shawn A: yeah. and that, that just became it and oh, and I think, well, that's the

1:00:19

thing, that's my Twitter handle. And then one day I was like, well, what do I, I needed to come up with an LLC name.

1:00:24

And I was looking into like funding and stuff.

1:00:27

And I was like, well, what do I do? And that was. This is your new challenger.

1:00:30

That'll be my company. and it makes sense because the more I thought about the industry and the

1:00:35

more I thought about my place in it. And I was like, well, you know, we make games that like, are

1:00:39

about fighting challenging things.

1:00:41

And then also the company as a self, like as like quote unquote minority,

1:00:45

whatever under underfunded, under, under invested in like a lot of

1:00:49

people call it underrepresented. Uh, But seeing other people trying to fight that because it's like,

1:00:52

I grew up in poverty in the city. Right.

1:00:54

Like under invested in basically necessarily.

1:00:58

And so, as that person, I just am a challenge to the industry.

1:01:03

argue with people's sensibilities and then, you know, for sure be

1:01:06

density is an argument against a lot of people's ideologies.

1:01:09

And like, it's like, it's a game that's similar to like, get out,

1:01:12

like all the white people are bad. Like.

1:01:15

John: yo you, you got you, people got to check this out.

1:01:17

People got to check this game. I'm telling you it's unlike anything it's extremely

1:01:22

refreshing in so many ways, right?

1:01:24

Like it's nostalgic and retro, but it's also modern and mixes

1:01:29

a lot of cool elements together. now being able to look back and to see how the game turned out.

1:01:35

taking what you thought it could be, what it ended up being.

1:01:38

Talk to me about any of the features or components that you are

1:01:42

most proud of or things you wish you could have done differently.

1:01:47

Shawn A: I mean, everything is the fighting system. Could I

1:01:49

better, et cetera? Like of course, as I thought about it over years.

1:01:53

Sure. Which is definitely gonna spill into my next project,

1:01:56

John: But I have to add that I love the way that you build your combo on the fly.

1:02:02

I thought that was so bad ass. I don't know why, I guess I'd never played fallout or anything like that,

1:02:07

but me it was like, oh yeah, what can I unlock you?

1:02:10

What can I fit in here? Right. Like, Shawn A: Well, that's the thing like up, isn't that right?

1:02:13

False about like how much you can do damage

1:02:15

and like you use items on the fly and do all that stuff on the fly.

1:02:19

And I thought it was always funny that reviews of fall three were confused.

1:02:22

They were always like, but then the little moment to moment,

1:02:25

shooting's not that interesting. It's only interesting when you enter.

1:02:29

That's the point, wrong with you?

1:02:31

It's the whole thing like the game is not a running gun.

1:02:34

First person shooter. The game is a tactical first person shooter, where you stay in

1:02:39

cover until you have your points. You peak out, you line up with somebody, you blow their head clear off, and then

1:02:46

you go back and you like, figure out what you're going to do in like, maybe move on.

1:02:49

And, I love fall three when I played it.

1:02:52

John: still hear about that game. Shawn A: The conceit of the game was I was really frustrated, you know,

1:02:56

beat them ups were coming back because of the Xbox live arcade older ones,

1:03:00

which I was like, yeah, I love these. And then like newer ones, like, like I thought castle Crashers misunderstood

1:03:07

the genre for a lot of texts. Cause also it took a lot more from the 3d character actions, genre, which

1:03:13

has a lot of like juggling and combos in the air and stuff that I it's

1:03:19

fine for character action games, but that's not a beat him up thing to me.

1:03:21

And also cause like th then that means enemies become bullet sponges or punch

1:03:25

sponges because you're like, you, you, you have to have someone to juggle in the air.

1:03:30

So that you have to have more energy. That's why devil may cry at works, but like a beat him up where it's

1:03:37

like, you just need to keep, like, it doesn't have the like cinematic flare.

1:03:42

It doesn't have the whole, like, can you make your combo meter higher

1:03:45

or whatever it doesn't have that it just has hit people and move on.

1:03:49

That's what a beat them John: We'll forward. Shawn A: I like do it in an interesting way with it, make the enemies interesting.

1:03:54

Make all these things interesting. So, and yeah, like Scott Pilgrim is a game that everybody in my opinion gets wrong.

1:04:00

Like, I didn't like that game that much, again, enemies were punched sponges.

1:04:03

It was poorly balanced. It had great art because Paul Robertson's art is amazing.

1:04:09

But like that has blinded people to the fact that the game is

1:04:12

like, has very poor fundamentals.

1:04:14

Like, if it's a four player fighting game and enemy can't

1:04:17

block, it shouldn't be able to block on both sides simultaneously.

1:04:19

And yet they can in that game because the whole point should be

1:04:22

that they block on one side and somebody comes up and hits them in the

1:04:25

back But you know, there's a book that just came out about beat him ups that were

1:04:28

actually featured in called go straight. It's like a bitmap books, great book.

1:04:33

It's beautiful. All their books are beautiful, but I was super excited and super

1:04:37

surprised that we were featured in it. But the thing about these games is that they are in Japan.

1:04:41

They're called belt. Scrollers also, so the idea is that you move forward, stopping, you

1:04:46

stopped to fight and then you move. And if the fighting, when you stop is just forever, then it's

1:04:51

like, you're something missing. Like either the games like made a specific way to keep you to stop

1:04:56

you because it's a quarter muncher. But if it's like an enemy that just blocks too much, it's

1:05:00

like, that's just poor design. I think that's my opinion.

1:05:03

but, so we were trying to make the best of beat them up.

1:05:06

That was like the thing that we were trying to do. And then when we were trying to do that, I was realizing actually even realized

1:05:11

years later that I was trying to do something that wasn't going to work.

1:05:14

The things I wanted to do conflicted with the genre and I didn't realize this.

1:05:18

and we were just like having a hard time. Technically we're in GameMaker.

1:05:21

There were just a lot of animation issues and all sorts of stuff.

1:05:24

So it was like, what do we do? And I was, I went, I was taking a shower, like a literal shower

1:05:29

moment and I sat there and I was. Beat him up RPG.

1:05:31

I was like, we're going to have here.

1:05:34

And I was like, was like, I was like Mario RPG, like I've thought about Mario RPG.

1:05:38

I thought about hybrid heaven, which is this game on and 64.

1:05:42

it was from Konami. It was supposed to kind of be like metal gear, but not at all like metal gear.

1:05:46

So it has like a story like aliens and, like government coverups and stuff.

1:05:52

But the whole battle system is one-on-one fighting game, but term-based

1:05:57

where a lot of this came from. Like, it has like you stop, like the enemy goes and goes enemies attacking.

1:06:03

but it's very based on 3d fighting games. So it's like, you can choose a step left or right.

1:06:07

You can try to block. Um, And if you step left or right, but the person kicks in the direction

1:06:11

that you step in, then you'll get hit. So it has that 3d fighting element where if you step around somebody,

1:06:16

but they do like a roundhouse kick, you might still get hit.

1:06:19

And it was interesting. And it has like way too many moves.

1:06:22

It's a game that I love though. And you learn your moves by getting them done to you, but if you got

1:06:26

the head, but in the game, you were basically invincible for a lot of time

1:06:29

because you also could hurt enemies. And if you heard a body part and you hit them again, you just kept whaling

1:06:35

on that body part, you would win. So the head butt would literally damage an enemy to the point

1:06:40

where their head was almost done.

1:06:42

And then you just hit them one more time and you beat them. So That was actually something about being the most, that like, you know, in double

1:06:47

dragon, on the NES, everyone does the back elbow to be Jimmy Lee, like the last boss.

1:06:53

Right. Spoilers. If anybody hadn't played this, the 30 five-year-old game,

1:06:58

John: like your, your face forward, back attack?

1:07:01

Shawn A: yeah. Yeah. So like you just get this like elbow, that's the most powerful move of the game.

1:07:06

And what you do is you just walk up elbow and then wait, and then do a medial

1:07:11

elbow as they get up and you just keep hitting them until you win essentially.

1:07:15

And that's, you know, dominant strategy. And I don't like dominant strategies.

1:07:18

I I've, I like to play fighting games BMS or whatever.

1:07:22

It's funny. Like I used to want to be a competitive player and I started to learn

1:07:25

that, like, you can't have fun as a combative player, you have play to win.

1:07:31

John: find one strategy that works there's no, I mean, people, freestyle

1:07:34

people go for the audience kind of wow.

1:07:37

Moments, but yeah, the the, dominant guy, like, you know, you might pop

1:07:41

out a raging demon when you can, but it's not the, the most frequent strategy.

1:07:45

Yeah. Shawn A: there's this guy, Cain blue river who like a south American Marvel vs.

1:07:49

Capcom player. And he plays like the ones that I want to eat with.

1:07:52

I was like Hulk and hag are, and like the characters that I'm like interested,

1:07:55

but like, yeah, literally those games at the end are all about figuring out how

1:07:59

to have a long combo, not let the other person, if a person presses a button and

1:08:03

you catch them on a wake-up, they're done.

1:08:05

That's goal in that game, that game goal in the game is not to

1:08:08

like, be exciting and have fun. And that's fine.

1:08:10

I just learned that about the fighting games.

1:08:13

Cause I always would, put out the risky,

1:08:15

John: High-risk high-reward severe punishment.

1:08:19

Shawn A: yeah. And I'd get my ass handed to me by like, like I once about to play

1:08:22

like Chris G, who was, again, a John: Yeah.

1:08:25

No Chrissy, Shawn A: I was, I was at a friend's tournament was about to start and we

1:08:29

were in warmups and I started playing against John: What game?

1:08:32

What character? Shawn A: for I'm a zingy flare.

1:08:36

I'm bread was basically the first character we made because

1:08:39

we wanted to make a grappler. That was interesting. another, one of the core tenants was like, can we make a grappler you know,

1:08:44

more interesting in these games So, yeah, and I was playing with Chris G

1:08:48

and I realized that I like, I don't have the patience to play competitively.

1:08:52

Like, cause he's a competitive player he's going to play in the

1:08:55

most annoying way possible to win. And I'm like, I want to have fun.

1:08:59

I just, I that's actually, I think where I gave up mentally and I was

1:09:02

like, I don't want to be a competitive fighting game player anyway.

1:09:04

Cause like also one of my best friends, you can't play smash brothers with them.

1:09:08

Cause he's done competitive smash. You are not going to have fun with him.

1:09:11

He's not going to let you have fun. He is going to, he turns off his face and just plays and like his brain

1:09:17

shuts down and it's just smashed brothers until everyone is dead.

1:09:21

and then he wakes up like it's really strange.

1:09:23

John: the difference though? Right? There's like playing for fun and playing to win are, are mutually exclusive.

1:09:29

I mean, they're having fun, I guess. Right. If they, when they're having fun, but,

1:09:33

Shawn A: know John: yeah, that's debatable for sure.

1:09:36

That's debatable. I, I'm in the middle in there somewhere, right?

1:09:39

Like when I'm playing for fun, I pick characters that I don't

1:09:41

really know that well, and try to do things that I see the pros do.

1:09:46

Yeah, for sure. Damn man. I love a little fighting games.

1:09:50

inspiration, obviously from beat them ups fighting games.

1:09:53

And a lot of lessons learned similar to your sneaker research, right?

1:09:57

Like you now have an appreciation for these 2d fighting mechanics,

1:10:02

these combat design considerations and systems and, and pros and cons.

1:10:07

Shawn A: I am the encyclopedia on this stuff these days.

1:10:10

there's only a couple other people like that as people who also design 2d,

1:10:14

like beat them up slash fighting games. And that's the thing, like not everybody is that person, like

1:10:18

when they make some of those games. that was the thing I was going to say, is that like, yeah, we were

1:10:21

failing to make the best beat them up. So then we just took a lot of these elements and there's

1:10:26

also fire pro-wrestling is one of my favorite games and it's

1:10:29

it's a great single-player game because has a behavior system.

1:10:33

That's very simple. It's basically like when at full health, do I do the move that's on square or

1:10:39

do I do the move that's on triangle? Do I do the move that's on circles, triangles run square is

1:10:45

usually we then cross was medium.

1:10:48

Then circle was heavy. Then square plus cross was usually reserved for like the finisher.

1:10:54

And then there's like, do you throw the character in the ropes?

1:10:56

Do you jump off the ropes? Do you do all this? And there's like, the game has all this like really layered,

1:11:00

like telling a character. Like if you have full.

1:11:03

You're more likely. How often are you likely to run to the ropes?

1:11:06

How often are you willing to do square triangle or circle?

1:11:09

And so it creates like this way where you can create a character that

1:11:12

actually acts like a real wrestler. Like, and then it has like sub things.

1:11:16

Like if the character is bleeding, do they have a special move?

1:11:19

Like, like how Rick flair in real life, if work flares bleeding, he usually will win.

1:11:24

because he gets a boost in real life, like in real life, fake wrestling.

1:11:27

Right. And so like in the game, there was actually a thing where if

1:11:30

you were bleeding, your stats went up as opposed to down.

1:11:33

And there was like a thing where like, it was like one hit reversal

1:11:36

where like, if someone hit you with your finisher move, there's a chance

1:11:39

you'll sit right back up out of it. it's again, it's all chance based.

1:11:43

and there was also like auto counters. So like, if you, if you could do any move at any point, there were no meters.

1:11:48

There was no, like, there was no meters at all. Everything's invisible.

1:11:51

So your health is visible. You could actually beat somebody in one attack in that game, because there

1:11:55

was also a there's also a hidden thing called critical where their every move has

1:12:00

a chance to do a critical, especially based on your characters type.

1:12:03

So usually the critical would be mapped to their finisher.

1:12:06

So like you could theoretically run to the ring, get in as you could

1:12:10

make Steve Austin, cause his face is in the game and you could grab

1:12:13

the person, put them in a stunner. And if they don't counter it, because there's a chance that

1:12:17

they won't counter it because it's auto, it's all auto countering.

1:12:21

And then if the game decides. The rolls, the dice.

1:12:24

There's a chance you could critical them with one stutter and then

1:12:27

they'd just be laying on the ground, like in referee would like, go over

1:12:30

to them, check if they're okay. And then go like, and the match.

1:12:32

And so that's interesting.

1:12:35

I want an interesting fighting and that's what they do is that

1:12:37

like, there's a small chance. You will just auto counter a finisher, even when you're at really low

1:12:42

health and about to be defeated. So like in our game, we put in like, all these counter moves where like the

1:12:47

grapple counter system was built so that at high health, the characters

1:12:51

more likely to counter then at lower health, but then there's like grappling.

1:12:55

Then there's more grappa or friendly characters, like the sneaky types, which

1:12:58

are less likely to auto grapple versus brawlers who are more 50, 50 versus

1:13:02

grapplers who were 75, 25 because they were grapplers why wouldn't they counter?

1:13:07

And I grew up as an only child.

1:13:10

I wanted to basically make an interesting fighting RPG that

1:13:14

you could play by yourself. And then that, then when all that came to me, I was just like, yeah,

1:13:19

like, cause I didn't want to try to make like foreplay or beat him up.

1:13:22

I wanted to make something that, cause I actually cause NESW drag.

1:13:26

Because they didn't have two players, they gave you a leveling system.

1:13:29

And so like, I like that leveling system.

1:13:31

The fact that that leveling system was based on how often you did

1:13:34

certain attacks, you could actually gain the experience stuff, but it

1:13:37

would actually make the game harder. You got more experience for punching then kicking and kicking

1:13:41

did more damage than punching and kicking, was way more dominant.

1:13:44

So if played more aggressively and maybe got hurt more, you'd actually

1:13:48

get moves faster in the game.

1:13:50

And then, and then really be able to just destroy the game.

1:13:52

Once you got like the jump kick and stuff, and even then enemies

1:13:55

had like counters where they would duck enemy will throw you off them.

1:13:58

If you got on top of them, like all these different things that I

1:14:00

thought was always really interesting. And that was all built into this game.

1:14:04

That again, from like 1987, And like fire pros from the eighties also it's from the late eighties.

1:14:09

So it's like, these games with these fundamentals are from very long time ago.

1:14:13

And I was like, yeah, we're going to do that.

1:14:17

so, so became like wrestling matches rather than just because also the idea about the

1:14:23

game was like, why do you have to fight people on the street in the first place?

1:14:26

Right. Cause beat them up. So like you just roll through 30 of the same

1:14:29

John: everybody's a, member or some type

1:14:33

Shawn A: And our games it's based a lot on like, you know, growing up as a racially

1:14:36

ambiguous person who had like a white mom in like a neighborhood filled with people

1:14:40

Also not really understanding, cause my, my white mom was also very xenophobic

1:14:45

towards like, the quote unquote, the Puerto Ricans and stuff like that.

1:14:49

So even though she would make friends a lot of people's moms, she like she's from

1:14:53

like North Carolina, she's a progressive person, but like a lot of progressive

1:14:57

people, as we all know, are racist and or xenophobic and Islamophobic.

1:15:01

And that was my mom. She John: that generation,

1:15:04

Shawn A: progressive enough, but again, progressive enough to have

1:15:06

a kid with a black person, not progressive enough to let that kid be

1:15:11

in a Muslims elementary school class.

1:15:14

Like it was just strange. Right. It was, there was a weird fascism to like certain, like Progressive's

1:15:20

where they, they, they, they still believe certain things that, that they

1:15:24

just still believe like archetypes and stereotypes of certain people.

1:15:28

So, but yeah, so like, you know, growing up and having people shouting at me

1:15:31

and my mom and like being like, like asked what I am by cops and like, you

1:15:36

know, being, cause we've got being racially ambiguous every or, or just

1:15:39

people like a lot of people, like a little blood, a lot of Puerto Rican,

1:15:42

Dominican, like older women would just assume I was Puerto Rican or Dominican.

1:15:46

Cause I I am John: being New York

1:15:49

Shawn A: Yeah. And so they would just start speaking to me. So all of these like assumptions of who I

1:15:53

John: start speaking to you in Shawn A: Yeah, of course. And I'm nah, man.

1:15:56

I'm don't know. And I'm it was just like all these assumptions and, you know, people

1:16:00

harassing you for like, to give them money or buy their CD or just was like,

1:16:06

and also, one time I threw a snowball at like a friend and it missed, and it just

1:16:11

went into the street and somebody came back and they just punched me in the face.

1:16:15

Cause I was throwing snowballs and they got hit by, I think, a different

1:16:18

snowball that wasn't mine, but they just like, like I used to get

1:16:21

into like the dumbest fights also. I like would almost get robbed except I didn't have any money.

1:16:26

So like, I remember a guy, like we were playing, ultimate, mortal combat three

1:16:30

in like a shoe store near my high school.

1:16:32

And cause that's, that's what they had for some

1:16:34

uh, Brooklyn tech. And so everybody would be in there, but by that point it

1:16:38

was just me and somebody else. And some kids came in and they were like, they were like, yo jump.

1:16:43

And it was like to see if you had any change in your pocket.

1:16:45

I just had my keys and my chain wallet.

1:16:47

So they were like, cause I, I had $1 a day for food and I would spend it immediately

1:16:51

and then eat my, like my hostess cake or whatever and drink my tropical fantasy.

1:16:56

Cause I yeah, I didn't have that. That was me having more money than I had as a younger kid

1:17:01

where I had no money every day. John: Hold tropical fantasies are like the big, like

1:17:05

Shawn A: it was 20 ounce. John: 20 Shawn A: hours Yeah.

1:17:08

For 50 John: water, you know, soda flavored sodas.

1:17:12

Shawn A: Yeah. Yeah. Like I, I love the blue cherry one.

1:17:14

That was my jam, but don't know.

1:17:17

John: such a value, bro. How

1:17:19

Shawn A: Yeah. I mean, I would always be like, I'm not spending a dollar on a soda, I'm

1:17:22

going to get some food and some soda.

1:17:25

But yeah, so like, so that guy was like, yo jump.

1:17:27

And I had no money, so he just left. But like, again, like, like the city is less like a very violent

1:17:32

place, like verbally, a lot of times sometimes physically.

1:17:36

this game came out of a lot of, it was like, well, what if I could fight all the

1:17:39

people who were shitty to me on the street or shooting at me or shooting my ex-wife

1:17:43

who was a dark skin, Puerto Rico woman with like long hair that was mistaken for

1:17:48

the help, like on more than one occasion. So it's like all the characteristics of the, of the main characters are

1:17:54

based on like friends and people.

1:17:56

I know interactions we had with each other or with other people.

1:18:01

And so it all just manifested into yeah, three players.

1:18:05

John: Into your three awesome characters.

1:18:08

do you get to play each of them the narrative or you kind of select

1:18:13

who you are at any given time? Shawn A: You select whenever you want.

1:18:16

But there are like, through the whole thing, there are these revenge fights

1:18:20

that are, are revival, rival fights, rather where you end up in a fight,

1:18:24

because the thing is, we didn't want anyone to be able to go through the

1:18:26

whole game without seeing the, the eyes through the eyes, because each person's

1:18:30

important and they have to, you, you, we need you to have a conversation

1:18:34

between two or all, three of them.

1:18:37

So there are fights that all three people are involved in the, the

1:18:41

talking, but then it ends with one person because that one person is

1:18:45

like, no, I'm taking this personnel. Or someone starts getting like racially profiled or, and then the other people

1:18:51

are like, I'm going to help out. Or like, you know, like, you know, Brad and Bruce will be

1:18:55

like, I'll fight them for you. And Lisa's like, no, like screw that.

1:18:58

I'm going to fight them. Like, that's what I want to do.

1:19:01

And it's so then you get a sense of all three characters.

1:19:04

There's like a build of the teams, like dynamic.

1:19:07

You get to know that they're all in there for each other and that they also

1:19:12

have things that they don't like about each other, but they also do like, you

1:19:15

know, so there's like a lot of banter in those cut scenes with people involved.

1:19:19

Like it's, it's funny to me, like you were talking about like the different

1:19:22

characters and like I've seen people like highlight like queer characters

1:19:25

on the switch and I'm like, that had never even previewed the game.

1:19:29

And I'm like, Lisa literally is wearing bisexual colors.

1:19:32

Like she's wearing pink and blue and purple.

1:19:34

And I'm like, that's the bisexual flag. And she is either BI or pan, like, you know, whatever she likes men and

1:19:41

women, like, and like, there are cut scenes where she, fully comes out.

1:19:46

There's a whole cut scene that deals with like kinks and sexual attraction and stuff

1:19:50

in the midst of and wrestling references.

1:19:53

And it just is like, it's a whole lot of stuff.

1:19:55

John: you wrote all that, right? Shawn A: And it's all stuff that like, I think about on a day-to-day basis.

1:19:59

And I've had to think about the characters and who they are and how they

1:20:02

interact with the world around them. also it's grown as I've grown as a person.

1:20:07

it's, the game that it's hard for me to talk about because it is me as a

1:20:10

person is like John: is you the first one?

1:20:13

Shawn A: I don't recommend opening your heart and throwing it out the

1:20:17

switch like I did, because it's, yeah, it's just hard for me to talk about

1:20:20

like, it's if someone doesn't like it, it's like, do you not like me.

1:20:24

John: Yeah. Yeah, there is that paradox, man, but I mean it's easy for me to say,

1:20:28

but I'm glad you did it, right. I'm glad you, you put yourself into this experience because it's very unique.

1:20:33

how long would you say, from like a time standpoint, you started in 2012 and, and

1:20:38

shipped in 2020, and then now you got DLC.

1:20:41

So been like 10 years at dev, huh? non-stop of

1:20:45

Shawn A: initially, yeah, initially the funny thing is the first thing that was

1:20:48

made for it was the intro cut scene.

1:20:51

And it was just I met in verse phase, the musician I had just these

1:20:55

characters and some backgrounds and I was like, I don't know what this is.

1:20:59

I had done some Sprite work and my ex-wife and her best friend had like

1:21:03

a little like variety, YouTube show that they were trying to get to be big.

1:21:07

So they like were like, Hey, do you want to do like a little short for this?

1:21:11

so I did a thing where it was like bread where like a bicyclist is trying

1:21:15

to run it, the group and the group standing there being like, you move?

1:21:19

Like you're on the sidewalk. You're coming right at us.

1:21:21

Like, and person just kept saying, watch out.

1:21:24

And then bread does like a Lariat and like a flaming Larry and

1:21:28

knocks person off their bike. And that's actually kind of a, you know, where the idea of.

1:21:33

That move. And also like the idea of having like bicyclists right at you.

1:21:38

Cause it's stuff that's happened to me again in the city where people just

1:21:41

are like, get out of the way and I'm like, I'm on the sidewalk you get out

1:21:43

of the way, like it's you to be here. And also when I go to other cities and it's not illegal

1:21:48

and they're all like behind you going, I'm no, like I'm walking.

1:21:52

Like you go around. I like, I I'm, I'm pedestrian.

1:21:56

I'm like an aggressive pedestrian, like you want so, so like that was

1:22:01

like a thing and I needed music for it. And so I found this, I was just looking for chiptune music and I found like,

1:22:07

a cover of forget you or, you know, F you by Cielo green by inverse phase.

1:22:12

And it was great. It was like this amazing, like chiptune cover of it.

1:22:16

And then I was like, I remember I announced on Twitter that

1:22:19

I wanted to work with him. And he was like, oh, in what capacity?

1:22:22

And I was just like, oh, well, I've got this idea for a thing.

1:22:26

And then I, so we made a two minute intro song and that's how

1:22:29

I actually honed a lot of that. cut scene.

1:22:31

Art came from that because the intro used to be like, I don't know.

1:22:35

I used to do like really in-depth pictures. And then like, it was like really weird looking and pixel, and then I had to

1:22:41

keep 50 percenting it and expanding it back out and making it till it was truly

1:22:46

one-to-one pixel and still readable.

1:22:49

And I had to keep basically, like I did like four or five iterations of

1:22:53

that intro, but the first intro was just stock photography and it was like,

1:22:58

I had to base my stuff on something. And so I found a lot of photos of like time square and like, presidents and and,

1:23:04

and landscapes and all sorts of stuff. And so you can find the photos that I had referenced in my art,

1:23:12

like composition, whatever, but yeah, basically it's unrecognizable just

1:23:16

in the sense that I had to basically crunch all my art down, bring it all

1:23:20

back up and then fill in to make sure that it was actually still readable.

1:23:23

And it helped me learn a lot about pixel art.

1:23:26

And I just, I it's something that like a lot of people take for granted.

1:23:29

And I, you know, I got to learn about like the art of doing it while doing the intro.

1:23:34

And I still had to change it over time when I realized that like

1:23:37

the trailer was like, even my backgrounds, they weren't like correct.

1:23:41

They weren't one-to-one. So like when we would, you know, stretch it for the game it would

1:23:45

go like, if it's like one pixel or two pixels, if you ever did like.

1:23:50

any in between some stuff will get stretched, like, because it

1:23:54

was an in-between cause you're stretching it like 150% or whatever.

1:23:58

So you have to do one or two or three.

1:24:00

You couldn't do like, one and a half or something

1:24:02

John: oh, yeah, for sure. You need to have like powers of two kind

1:24:06

Yeah. Shawn A: I had to learn and then, you know, we had to just keep redoing the

1:24:09

art until I finally learned like how to do a project and then like and it's

1:24:15

like, yeah, like operating within the limits.

1:24:17

And it was just, it was fun because like, it was like, how you make

1:24:20

a bodega look like a bodega? When every magazine is only two by three pixels tall, the no

1:24:26

smoking sign is like very small.

1:24:29

All these things. It's like, what parts do you highlight the name of the place obviously,

1:24:33

but, and maybe the lotto sign is like just an abstract yellow and blue

1:24:38

image on a, on a, on a glass window.

1:24:41

Like it's. John: I love it. Yeah. I love pizza for me.

1:24:45

The image of a bodega sign. It's usually to get like bright, yellow and red and it kind

1:24:50

of covers a corner usually. Shawn A: there's also the like awnings too.

1:24:53

Cause like what the awnings? What do they sell?

1:24:55

Can you write the words big enough for people to read?

1:24:59

I had to basically like approximate, what words would look like

1:25:02

in two pixel height things.

1:25:04

So it'd be like two. Like one, then one, then two, then one, then maybe one up

1:25:09

here and then like a space. And then like, just trying to write words look like they're words, even

1:25:15

though they're only two pixels tall and one pixel wide, for letters

1:25:19

John: is this going to be the calling card or the style of new challenger?

1:25:24

Is it going to be pixel art? Shawn A: No. John: No.

1:25:26

Okay. Shawn A: that was, that was my first thing learned a lot.

1:25:29

I mean, I think it's, for me it's more like good art so the next thing a lot

1:25:34

of what we want to do is expanding on like the black art aspects of it.

1:25:39

Like graffiti cause that's also one of the things that, you know, we like

1:25:42

making environments that looked lived in, but in order to make a lot of

1:25:46

the graffiti in the game, it came from like looking at watching graffiti

1:25:50

documentaries and buying graffiti books.

1:25:53

I have a bunch of like graffiti art books that like from the seventies, like when

1:25:57

people would take the photos of them and like look at the styles and then use those

1:26:02

styles to create the graffiti in the game.

1:26:06

And I, that wasn't like the intention in the beginning, but it ended up becoming.

1:26:10

You gotta respect like the art styles and respectfully present things.

1:26:15

And that's going to be the prevailing thing. Like

1:26:17

it's cause I think my brain also changed as time went on.

1:26:20

Like it's something that I say a lot is like I had a talk that was

1:26:24

like, it's bigger than video games. And it was like, it's bigger than hip hop.

1:26:27

Like the dead press song because it's all about like video games are important.

1:26:31

Like video games are great, but like, I think they're, they're really

1:26:35

powerful and you know, you can't. John: Well, that's the medium of this time for sure.

1:26:40

Shawn A: think it's fine that some people want to stay in like the pixel

1:26:43

zone and you know, I might do that for a smaller game in the future,

1:26:46

but I don't know. I really want to make just something that looks like, beautiful painting.

1:26:51

That's like a goal, like beautiful, like Harlem Renaissance style, like

1:26:56

graffiti, like interesting thing looking into the next thing we're looking into

1:27:00

is that like Harlem Renaissance art and graffiti has a lot of overlap of

1:27:05

thick black outlines, bright colors simplified shapes and you know, trying

1:27:10

to, and like there's also like Kerry James Marshall, who, again, I've, I've

1:27:13

seen and learned of so many people and he's artist of today and his art.

1:27:19

It's just beautiful. It's like black silhouettes with like little bits of white highlight into them.

1:27:24

But like, it's like black, like, like he draws all black.

1:27:27

He just only draws black people, paints them huge paintings, like 10 feet

1:27:31

tall, like 20 feet wide sometimes.

1:27:34

Like I went to an exhibit and the paintings were humongous

1:27:37

John: like 10 feet is like a basketball who

1:27:39

height Shawn A: Yeah. So maybe eight, nine, I don't know, stuff but big paintings with, barbershop

1:27:44

scenes and like the hairdresser scenes.

1:27:47

And he had this whole sequence of like black Frankenstein and the bride

1:27:52

of Frankenstein, but they were like, you know, how giant Afro with like,

1:27:55

white lightning cutting through it. It's just very beautiful.

1:27:58

And so I want to do, you know, I want to do something along

1:28:00

the lines of like the many, like great black artists of our time.

1:28:04

Like, that's like the next thing that I want to do. And then I also have like an idea for like something that's way more like anime,

1:28:10

Graffiti influenced also. So, you know, there's, I'm really trying to pull from The, the future.

1:28:16

I think treachery beat density is a great. It's a great, like it's a pixel game.

1:28:19

That's like a protest about a lot of stuff.

1:28:22

And so the next stuff is like, I want to move on with the

1:28:24

art but I'm really happy with where I, you know, with what I got to do.

1:28:28

John: You learned, you put it out there and your next game is going to be

1:28:31

influenced by something different, right? we'll see an evolution.

1:28:34

We'll see a progression. I like it. Sean, so you, you are a key piece of the game developers of color expo.

1:28:42

That is pants down, kind of my favorite game developer gathering.

1:28:47

It was, you guys gave me a shot.

1:28:50

It was my first place where I got to come on and give a talk back in,

1:28:54

I don't know, 2019, I guess, pre pandemic or 20, 20 GOC, 2020 a game

1:29:01

I came on and did a little spiel on culturally aligned protagonist design.

1:29:05

I, I gotta give you your credit cause you helped me refine that thing from

1:29:09

what my outline to what it ended up being that I could kind of be pretty

1:29:13

proud of and in a little book, right?

1:29:16

I think that's where I first manifested or throughout an idea of, Hey, I

1:29:21

want to put a podcast together. So stay tuned.

1:29:24

And by nature of having the thing captured in video and watching

1:29:27

it and be like, shit, man, I got to do it now, here we are.

1:29:30

And I'm, and I'm ecstatically, happy to be able to kind of come full circle

1:29:33

and, and bring you on to this podcast that I've created to share your message.

1:29:38

Let the people, let the world know who you are with new challenges up to after.

1:29:44

You know, having been able to come on to onto that platform.

1:29:47

So I thank you immensely.

1:29:49

I try to tell everybody I can and if shit pushed it, when I was at

1:29:53

EA and I'm pushing it while I'm at epic to be like, Hey, we have to get

1:29:57

involved in game developers of color. I want to just get you to, to share your insight on, what it is and where

1:30:04

you guys are trying to take it and where people can go to learn more

1:30:07

or what you guys are looking for.

1:30:09

Shawn A: thank you. I mean, I appreciate that. I appreciate, again, like your willingness to just take the notes.

1:30:13

Cause you know, they could have gone a completely different way.

1:30:16

John: yeah, read Margaret. That's like a good man.

1:30:19

Shawn A: it's like, I know what I know and I'm going to cause people just do that.

1:30:22

Sometimes I was, I was actually talking to a young developer of color

1:30:26

at GDC this year, who I was trying to pull out of him what he does.

1:30:31

And he was just being really, it was weird, he's new.

1:30:34

And he wanted to talk to people, but was also really aggressive to the point

1:30:37

where I just didn't want to talk anymore. Cause I was like, so what do you do?

1:30:41

And it was like game developer. And it's like, what does that mean?

1:30:44

Cause this is literally a game developers conference, which is

1:30:46

an umbrella for game developer. It's interesting.

1:30:49

There's like a, there's a weird conflation where some people think game developer

1:30:52

means is like, you know, the typical dev, like the typical developers, developers,

1:30:58

developers do, but like the, like, and that was, that didn't mean artists.

1:31:01

That didn't mean animators, that meant people who made office.

1:31:04

Right. It made people made that's what made, but like the term, wouldn't be called

1:31:09

the game developers conference. If that has people who do sensitivity reading to marketing to produce, you

1:31:16

know, production, like it's everybody, that's what we're game to over.

1:31:19

And he just didn't seem to understand that and kept trying to ask all these questions

1:31:22

and he kept just getting really sarcastic. And I was just like, dude, I've been doing this for like almost 20 years.

1:31:26

Like over 20 years, I've been thinking about these terms.

1:31:29

So I'm just asking you questions so that I know what you do.

1:31:32

And again, like, so again, like the fact that you were. All right.

1:31:35

Like, cause again, like this culturally stuffed cultural stuff

1:31:38

with characters is like stuff I've been thinking about for a long

1:31:40

John: Yeah, Shawn A: And I saw it and that's kind of why we also like ask people like

1:31:45

to tell us who their background is. Cause I was like, oh, there aren't that many like Dominican

1:31:49

speakers in the game space. And I was like, I love what you're doing.

1:31:53

I love who you are. It's actually, it is actually a little weird cause we actually do

1:31:56

try to make sure that we represent as many types of people as possible.

1:31:59

So I'm always like, cause like, you know, it can be really easy to be

1:32:02

like, you know, black people have a heart and I'm like, yes, that's true.

1:32:06

However, indigenous people have it hardest.

1:32:08

So, and like other groups, if they're not represented, then we are not represented

1:32:12

as our rainbow coalition of black and brown folks that we're trying to do.

1:32:16

So like when I saw that, I was like, okay, cool. Let me work with this dude.

1:32:19

Cause I like his idea. and also, cause we were talking about Louis Lopez and I think that's

1:32:23

a great like connection there too. Cause like I

1:32:26

felt felt like he was, I felt like, well like, like the Wiess being a Dominican guy

1:32:29

written by white people and potentially coming out kind of weird sometimes.

1:32:33

And I was like, yeah, let's let's dig into this. Cause we also worked at the same company, a rockstar at one point.

1:32:39

So I was like, yeah, let's talk.

1:32:41

And then you were like, sure. And I was like, wow, that's great.

1:32:44

And I was just, and again, like it's, I went to this rap conference

1:32:48

once that happened in Williamsburg. And I don't know if it'll ever happen again, but one of the things that people

1:32:53

were talking about was their importance in breaking artists and being like the

1:32:57

first people to drop a new artist and like, and that stuck with me in that,

1:33:02

like, that's what I want game does with color expo to be is like a spot that gives

1:33:05

everybody their first time out, because GDC for me is really hard to get into.

1:33:12

And I've even had talks that I've given that like they get, bad ratings from,

1:33:17

from an audience that's just doing respectability politics or something

1:33:21

on me, like being like, like I've actually, looked at my, I've literally

1:33:25

looked at like my talk ratings there.

1:33:27

Cause you know, you get all John: yeah, you you've done like four.

1:33:30

I feel like Shawn A: I've spoken, I've

1:33:33

John: at GDC specifically Shawn A: spoke at 2013, GC 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.

1:33:39

I think I skipped, I skipped 19 because Because I was able to

1:33:42

get Mike a part of why, well, I didn't get any talks accepted.

1:33:45

And then I was going to do 20 between and happens.

1:33:48

So and then I did three talks in 20, 20, 21, and

1:33:53

and I didn't do any talk this year because of my arguments with them and payments.

1:33:58

And they only wanted pay me for one of my talks and I know they don't pay

1:34:02

a lot of people for anything they do. John: big one, bro.

1:34:05

I put in a lot of hours into my first GDC 12, right?

1:34:08

It was a panel. So it was like five of us of us, including myself, a lot of time.

1:34:14

And you know, got like top 5% rating or something like that.

1:34:18

So a big deal for them.

1:34:20

But like, all they say is like, okay, here's a pass.

1:34:24

Right. But you're on the hook for getting yourself there and

1:34:26

everything else like that. And so that's a big difference from, I think the way you guys run things

1:34:31

where you actually pay your speakers for their contribution to the.

1:34:36

Shawn A: yeah. And if someone needs, like, when we did it on, when we did an in person,

1:34:40

if someone needed to come, we had a policy if you were speaker and you

1:34:43

know, we wanted to do it for everybody.

1:34:45

And if you were a dev, we did do it. Sometimes also, if you were again, because we try to represent as many

1:34:51

people as possible, you know, we flew out to south African game developer.

1:34:55

It was $1,500 a piece. I think both of them gave a talk to, sometimes we'd be like, if we're

1:35:00

going to pay for you to come out, can you at least give us a talk

1:35:03

And then we'll just be like, here you go. Like I told some people, I was like, Hey, if you need help getting out to our

1:35:07

event, just give a talk, be on a panel or something like, I want you to be on this

1:35:12

panel because you'll help round it out. But then also that'll give us the incentive because you're kind

1:35:16

of working for us at that point. So you give you money.

1:35:20

But we also had a game dev who had a tabletop game and

1:35:23

couldn't afford to come out. So we were like, well, we, we, we were down in tabletop games.

1:35:27

This game is like from a, like a queer Asian perspective again,

1:35:30

because we try to value having as many different types of games and as many

1:35:34

different types of people as possible. We said, yeah, let's just throw money at that person and get them out here

1:35:38

because we want their game out here.

1:35:40

And so yeah, our, our whole, the game does the colors, but the whole thing is

1:35:44

about like, we don't get paid a lot of times you don't get paid to come out.

1:35:48

The tech industry, everyone gets flown out. People get paid like $40,000 to give a talk sometimes.

1:35:53

And these people want to argue over $500 a lot of times,

1:35:56

and like and paying for you to come out and everything.

1:35:59

And it's like like, and they're not transparent about what they earn.

1:36:02

it's like, you know, and you're John: for-profit entity

1:36:05

Shawn A: Hey, so it's like, Like why?

1:36:08

And so, and you expect Juliet spend like two grand.

1:36:11

Like the first year I went to GDC, I spent $2,000 on my ticket.

1:36:13

It was 2012. And I John: I only go with like the it's on company dime these these days, man.

1:36:20

Shawn A: Yeah. So and that's actually, and then the second year 2013, I was on

1:36:23

a PlayStation mobile panel, like talking about places you're mobile.

1:36:27

And so that got me, my badge. And I think I was actually an exhibitor at like the police boost.

1:36:31

So I got that badge and I wander the expo hall.

1:36:34

I really love exhibitor badges. Cause you get to wander the

1:36:36

John: Yeah. That's a key thing. So somebody posted this genius idea on Twitter and I don't know,

1:36:42

I never thought about it, right. Because the magic of GDC really is just, just all these developers are

1:36:47

in the same place at the same time. Right.

1:36:49

So it's just like, just get your butt to San Francisco.

1:36:53

You don't even need to go in the conference right.

1:36:55

To, be able to benefit from being able to connect with and talk to and play

1:37:00

games and learn from and exchange. You know, for people that get to get thousand dollars or whatever, for the past

1:37:06

Shawn A: yeah, there, I mean there's companies that do. Like to dice this year and one of my friends, like their company, like I

1:37:13

knew a couple of people, the company, they, they just had a suite upstairs.

1:37:16

They didn't have badge to the thing. Cause it was, cause that event cost $3,000 to go to.

1:37:21

And like even just like $900 to go to like the awards or something, it was

1:37:25

just like, it's this ridiculous amount of money that people were just like,

1:37:28

nah, we're just going to rent the suite. It's going to cost us like 600 for the week.

1:37:32

And for some reason that hotel was really cheap. It was lot cheaper than my GEC hotel.

1:37:36

But yeah, I mean, a lot of people just hang out in the park, that's big thing.

1:37:39

Or then I'm a part of a a list where they ended up renting out a suite

1:37:45

and having these small little quiet chats that you could just go to.

1:37:48

They were an hour and a half each and it was so you could have like this, yeah, you could have this.

1:37:51

And they have, you know, a party and stuff. So, you know, there's, there's definitely a lot of ways to do GDC

1:37:56

without going, or like you could go to like, get the Indi summit badge,

1:37:59

which is for the first two days, that's actually pretty nicely discounted.

1:38:03

And it also gets you into the expo hall.

1:38:06

And those tickets are very limited and they're, but they're cheap.

1:38:09

And so that's what I did the years where I didn't have the other thing,

1:38:12

but I, oh, no, I think I actually gave mine away cause I ended up speaking.

1:38:15

But like, yeah, that's why that's one of the reasons why I

1:38:17

would like push to give it to. But again, like it was like trying to give a talk was like very opaque.

1:38:22

You get bad feedback from somebody who just doesn't like

1:38:25

the way you said something. And so there was a lot of respectability politics in there.

1:38:30

I looked at my reviews and they'd be like, I literally say one comes

1:38:34

to GDC for actionable information.

1:38:37

And there was none of this in this talk.

1:38:39

And then the next one will be like, wow, the actionable information

1:38:43

that I just needed for a moment. And you're just like, like, I don't know.

1:38:45

I, I like, I have a, I don't understand the audience there.

1:38:50

A lot of them are really like, I don't know what's going on.

1:38:53

So like, they, they like get very confused and I've had to learn like how much you

1:38:58

have to repeat stuff for people in order to think that, yeah, you have to really be like, here's the points of doing it.

1:39:04

Cause if you don't, some people just get lost, even you're being clear.

1:39:09

So you have to kind of make your talk for the people who can follow

1:39:14

along to a full talk and the people who really get lost a certain point.

1:39:17

So, that's a again, like I think it would be really helpful if people,

1:39:21

so again, like I had to learn how to pitch talks to get talks submitted.

1:39:25

I had to pitch talks three or four times to get them accepted.

1:39:28

I didn't want game does with color expo to be that way. So our whole thing is like, We just take as many people.

1:39:34

We, last year we took as many people as we could.

1:39:37

Some people had, you know they couldn't, they couldn't do it.

1:39:39

So then we took other people last year.

1:39:41

We actually took all of our speakers from the year before.

1:39:45

And we wait-listed everybody.

1:39:47

Because it was like let's look to fill the spots with the new people

1:39:51

and then let's fill in as necessary.

1:39:54

And then let's fill in with, you know, with our heavy hitters.

1:39:58

Cause again, we have heavy hitters. We have like heavy hitters that are built because we keep like there was

1:40:03

a Aubrey, Jean Scott is a, she did a talk about like NASCAR, cause she's

1:40:08

a, trans indigenous woman who talked about like NASCAR player customization

1:40:14

from like a socially minded place.

1:40:16

And that was like a great talk. And I'm the speaker curator.

1:40:19

So I like, see these talks. I'm like, yes, we want you to give this talk.

1:40:21

We want again, have AAA. When I have like vets, we want to have new people again, like everybody new to

1:40:26

speaking, but also new to the industry. But also again like you and like, there's that guy Joe, who had like a

1:40:32

10 lessons in 10 years type of thing.

1:40:34

It was his John: That was a great one, 10 minutes

1:40:37

Shawn A: first talk ever. And he was really excited to give it just wanting to make sure like

1:40:42

was constantly emailing and be like, Hey, when is this going?

1:40:44

Is everything okay. And like was ready to give it.

1:40:47

And it was just great. Cause it was like, as someone I met a while ago and I'm like, thank you

1:40:50

for giving your talk at our event. And that's the whole thing is like, we want to make, make it very comfortable

1:40:55

for everybody to give their talk. We don't want people to feel triple and sec, like second and triple guest.

1:41:01

And like and we don't want people to think that like, because at the end of

1:41:05

the day, and then at the end of the day, everyone, like all like so much of the

1:41:09

feedback is like, we love the talks. We love the community.

1:41:11

Even online. People are like, we love the community.

1:41:14

We love the talks and that's, you know, that's and people, especially

1:41:17

these days are like, oh wow, these talks flow so well into each other.

1:41:22

I wonder if someone designed it and I'm like, it's me the game designer, thinking

1:41:26

about experiences and thinking about like, there's there's even time thought

1:41:30

it's like two, two or three short talks, then a longer talk, then a long talk,

1:41:37

like then a 45 minute, like a panel or a talk from one person, because we wanted

1:41:40

to give you like a ramp and then a And then the break would be like 20 minutes.

1:41:44

So then it's like, okay, well I can leave for a half hour, back

1:41:48

and come back to some short talks. it was, it was, we did the thing

1:41:52

John: yeah, it's pace in the loop, the curve.

1:41:54

And I love that there's no overlap where it allows me to consume every

1:41:59

talk without feeling like I missed out.

1:42:01

Right. Like I got to make a hard decision between talk.

1:42:04

I really want to go see and another song I really want to go see.

1:42:06

So I appreciate that about the scheduling as well.

1:42:08

Shawn A: Yeah. The only thing with that is it makes it hard.

1:42:11

Cause like if we can't break a certain talk barrier, like we can only do so

1:42:15

many talks if we keep it on a single, John: that's true.

1:42:18

you want Shawn A: that's the thing about GDC is GC can have five talks at the same time,

1:42:22

because it has like all these different rooms and, it allows more trains of

1:42:27

thought, like you could be like, I just want to go on to the, technical track.

1:42:31

Like I want to be on like, I want to go to these programming

1:42:33

talks because that's what I do. And, you know, we hear from people like, oh, I want a more technical

1:42:38

talk or I want more programming talks.

1:42:40

And I'm always like, then submit them because I can't,

1:42:43

I can't submit talks for you. talks want.

1:42:46

But John: you want. Shawn A: but also I do think like, you know, we eventually will potentially

1:42:51

have to break that single track because or just, or just accept

1:42:54

that like, there's one track. If you don't like some parts of it, you'll leave.

1:42:59

If you do, then you say, and you learn something new about that.

1:43:02

I mean, that's the one thing people have talked about that they learn

1:43:05

about overlapping things that they didn't necessarily know about because

1:43:08

they stayed for a talk that they didn't necessarily think was related

1:43:11

to them, but then they were there.

1:43:13

And one of my wife's friends doesn't do games at all.

1:43:16

He came to the event in person the intent of leaving after about an hour,

1:43:20

just because he had other stuff to do. And he stayed all day he was like, this is fascinating.

1:43:25

John: It's really well done. It's very accessible.

1:43:28

Right? You guys have affordable price points for everybody.

1:43:32

And I think, you know, I would love an excuse to go to New York, any excuse I can

1:43:37

to go to New York to do game dev stuff.

1:43:39

But the fact that you guys like everything else went online and

1:43:42

you guys were pioneers, like, I think you one of the first ones to

1:43:45

go online and kind of trailblaze.

1:43:48

And, correct me if I'm wrong, Sean, but it, it allowed attendance to

1:43:52

kind of skyrocket by going online.

1:43:54

Shawn A: yeah, I think we doubled the first year and year was

1:43:58

actually like kind of steady. It was kind of let's same amount of people, like

1:44:01

John: new people. Shawn A: But new people but the good thing was I, again, like you see

1:44:04

ticket sales all over the world. and that's something, you know, we've learned a lot from the GDC experience

1:44:10

that a tons of people got COVID a GC B the online experience was apparently like

1:44:15

10% of the talks were streamed, which a lot of people were really upset about.

1:44:19

And so the thing is, is like, if you're going to offer a, hybrid event, you got to

1:44:23

do it both good for both groups of people.

1:44:26

and then also make sure that they're not getting sick from it.

1:44:29

So I feel like we're vindicated by keeping it online only for now.

1:44:33

I know in person is important. Like I was at GDC.

1:44:36

I'm the only reason I actually felt comfortable at GDC was

1:44:38

cause I had COVID in February. So I was like, I was we

1:44:42

yeah, we had triple VAX plus natural immunity meant like, cause I got it

1:44:47

even with triple VAX, like for my kid. And I meant that I wasn't very likely to get it and then transmit it to my kid.

1:44:54

And like, you know, I've done two tests since getting back and

1:44:56

nothing It's the most, the most conclusive, negative like

1:45:02

I've actually seen like, like my wife actually didn't have it earlier this

1:45:06

year when she thought might and she had a faint line and she did not have it.

1:45:09

And they see that that's not likely to happen.

1:45:12

And it happened because we actually did get COVID later.

1:45:14

So we know we didn't have it then we both felt sick for like a couple

1:45:17

of days and then we felt better, but it was, it was allergies actually.

1:45:20

So I don't know. Again, COVID is like a Russian roulette with your life and

1:45:25

with children and everything. So it's like the in-person thing.

1:45:29

super important to me. Like, I felt great to see so many of my friends to be around for some like

1:45:34

momentous events, but yeah, I want to, that's why it just then makes it me think,

1:45:39

well, we need to make the online better. We need to make community better.

1:45:41

We need to figure out how to, and where we are. We're working on our, our, after hours, like party type things where

1:45:47

we're thinking about like, you know, what, what went right last year and

1:45:50

how could we make it better this year? Like, how can we, it's literally just, how can we make everything better?

1:45:55

We're actually keeping the time the same this year.

1:45:58

just seeing, like, because that was a huge growth, it went from

1:46:01

two days to four with more content.

1:46:05

So we're like, well, how do we make the same four day thing?

1:46:09

Now we just like, again, we iterate, we tweak we say like, okay, how do

1:46:13

we, how do we do things similar?

1:46:15

How do we do things that were working as well as possible?

1:46:17

And then how do we do things that like some of the like networking

1:46:21

stuff, how do we make that better? And that's like a big, a time investment

1:46:24

of researching but yeah, it's important.

1:46:27

We want to 'cause we, we want game deals of color, exposure to be like

1:46:31

mini GDC in a sense like where we don't have like, you know, 12,000 people.

1:46:35

It would be nice. John: Sure. We'll get good. We'll get there.

1:46:38

We'll get there. Shawn A: but like, we want to make sure that like you come to our events.

1:46:42

And you could get picked up by a publisher. You could get picked up by a business and you could find a job.

1:46:47

A company can find you like, it's like and we have heard that there are people who've

1:46:51

come and they've checked out our games. And heard that, like, those games have been shown at events.

1:46:56

They like were parts of like special parts of like, like a company is like a

1:47:02

real at like a PAX or something, Cause the big thing is like the challenge in

1:47:06

this industry is getting opportunities to do business, getting opportunities,

1:47:09

to meet people, getting opportunities, to find jobs, getting opportunities, to

1:47:14

actually talk to people in a real way.

1:47:16

That's not like, because I've submitted a lot of Java applications over the years.

1:47:20

I've never heard back and you never get real feedback.

1:47:22

You submit a game to a publisher and they won't tell you anything.

1:47:25

And it's like, how am I supposed to know?

1:47:27

I might, I might not change my game, but how am I supposed to

1:47:29

know what, what I did wrong or what didn't fit if you don't tell me.

1:47:34

like, so like one of my something I said many years ago is that

1:47:38

information dissemination or lack thereof is one of the biggest

1:47:41

problems in the games industry. You don't, it's so pink.

1:47:43

You don't know how to get a job. Everyone says, here's how you get a job.

1:47:46

Here's how you pitch. But then you pitch, you do the thing correctly.

1:47:50

You back. when you hear back, you don't ever, you get a form letter and

1:47:54

it's like, how do we get past?

1:47:57

That is like the key thing. And so that's the game does a color, I suppose.

1:48:00

How do we get past it? And. Yeah.

1:48:03

Work with a smaller group of people to get them through, because again, we're

1:48:06

the smallest part of the industry, right? So it's like,

1:48:08

John: yo it's sensitive as a staggering and Yemen information dissemination.

1:48:12

Absolutely. I mean, that's a key reason that this podcast exists, right?

1:48:17

I'm one of, I don't know how many, but you know, I'm trying to do for what I

1:48:20

can to spread the knowledge and share all of our experiences because the, I guess

1:48:25

amalgamation of all of our experiences can hopefully be some type of fact

1:48:30

of, Hey, these are the different ways that it works with different people.

1:48:34

Kind of, I wish I had more time to get into how you broke in, right?

1:48:38

Getting your foot in the door at rockstar, the time you put in at MLB the, the NYC

1:48:43

game development scene, but your history, your journey is, is fast and rich.

1:48:48

You know, we only touched on a bit, I'm happy to have shared what you're

1:48:54

up to on GDC, where new challenger is, where it's going, where it's growing.

1:48:58

Shawn A: You talk about the intro and I'm like, my, the way

1:49:00

I got into the games is like it's something that no one can replicate.

1:49:03

So it's like a lot of it was luck.

1:49:06

A lot of it always is luck. John: oh yeah. A big part of it is luck man.

1:49:09

Like right place, right time. Right? Like, is the position available and are you there when they're looking for it?

1:49:15

Right. Do you have the skills that they're looking for?

1:49:19

Shawn A: like some of it was luck. Some of it was nepotism.

1:49:21

I got into a bra MLB because I knew that like the teacher that I used to have

1:49:25

like ended MLB New York was small and they said, Hey, Sean, what are you up to?

1:49:29

And then the other people had worked at Take-Two in rockstar.

1:49:32

So they, they knew how shitty the environment was.

1:49:34

So like, I could just talk to them about it and just be like, Hey, like

1:49:37

we have like, you know, common ground. And then they had, you know, the need for somebody.

1:49:42

So like, and they, you know, I started with like a one month

1:49:44

contract that ended up turning into six years of working at a place.

1:49:47

So it's like, again, like most people don't get these weird instances that

1:49:53

again, like, I can't, I've not been able to get a job off an application.

1:49:56

I've never actually gotten like, off of a cold, except at rockstar rockstar.

1:50:00

Like I got that because I applied like mad and again, they needed what they needed.

1:50:06

there was no HR person at the time. My old boss was the one looking at stuff.

1:50:10

So the fact that I had a three thing and they needed to capture

1:50:13

person And that's the problem. That's why we that's.

1:50:15

Why game does it color exists? Because like, there is no way to report.

1:50:19

How I got in and I have a hard time.

1:50:21

I got lucky, extremely lucky, right.

1:50:25

Time, right place. And that needs to not be the way it is for everybody.

1:50:29

It can't, it can't be that way for everybody. Like, you need to be able to get a job, like even getting into like

1:50:33

retail was right time, right place. Like, so it's like, you know, people need to be able to earn money to live.

1:50:39

And it's like, they need to be able to like, how do we get the

1:50:42

2% of black people to be the 10%?

1:50:44

Like if it's like 13% of America and it's still like a tiny percent then like of

1:50:50

like black folks in America, or like, how do we get more indigenous people?

1:50:52

How do we get more Latin X people if like it's all luck.

1:50:55

So like the game does of color expose about engineering, situations So that

1:51:01

John: Breaking new developers. Shawn A: you, you were now in front of these people, like they can't escape you.

1:51:05

We, one of the tenants that we have is if you come to this event and you're a

1:51:09

sponsor, if someone hits you up about a job, even if they really do not fit

1:51:14

that job, I need you to tell them that I needed them in a nice way to say, Hey man

1:51:19

like this job is an environment, art job.

1:51:21

You do primarily character art. That is realistic.

1:51:24

This is a cartoony environment job.

1:51:26

We appreciate. But if like, maybe if you had a more environment stuff, give it to us.

1:51:30

But usually it's just like, unfortunately, because of the competitive and you're

1:51:34

like doesn't tell anybody anything. So it's like, I mean, that's the key thing is.

1:51:39

I just, you know, I just want the games industry to be better for everybody.

1:51:41

I accidentally found out about helping people at GDC.

1:51:45

Cause like, you know, game, those of color. So gave people scholarship.

1:51:48

We gave them like badges for GDC. And I accidentally ended up in an like, not accidentally, but someone

1:51:54

I knew on Twitter who I'd never met before I was talking to her at GEC.

1:51:58

And then later on afterwards, it was like, thank you for GOC

1:52:01

expo for giving me this badge. I was like, oh yeah, I'm just, I keep tabs on a lot of people and I'm like,

1:52:05

oh, it's great to see what you're doing. It's great to exhausting, but like also very fulfilling.

1:52:10

And then it turns out that that person was helped by my team

1:52:13

because I'm not on that thing. I don't deal with those tickets or anything.

1:52:17

I'll slide somebody in and be like, yeah, this person is one of our people.

1:52:20

They need to get this badge. Like I advocate for people all the time that I see like a fire in them,

1:52:26

it's like, you know, it's again, it's a, it's a hard industry.

1:52:29

I feel extremely lucky to be in a I don't want to be in it a

1:52:32

lot of the time and it's hard. So it's

1:52:35

the fact that I've had so many people. You know, supporting me, I'm like excited and scared and all sorts of

1:52:41

things for the future, because like, you know NFTs are bothering me because

1:52:45

everybody worried that like I'll run into like 10 different meetings where I

1:52:50

could make money if I wanted to be evil.

1:52:53

But like if I wanted to be a shitty person and take NFT money, but I not that person.

1:52:58

So it's like, like game does have colors, but we have a sponsor

1:53:02

call I saw on their website. Oh, we do NFC.

1:53:04

I said, I was like, yeah, we got to go like, and they were

1:53:07

like, is this a hard stop? And I'm percent. Like, I, you know, it's hard to have it's hard to have things like, ethics among

1:53:15

I, so it's like, it's reminds me of the Vince staples line where he's

1:53:18

like he's like, I want to fight the power, but I need a new Ferrari.

1:53:22

John: Yo hard

1:53:25

Shawn A: Yeah, like, I mean, I, I love Vince staples.

1:53:27

He's one of the most exciting Ben, one of the most exciting people

1:53:29

on ramp for a very long time.

1:53:32

And, I'm glad that I see that people are catching onto that

1:53:35

John: Yeah, man. Yo. Shawn A: that's the good, that's a good place to end up and to this.

1:53:41

People's. John: Everybody go check out some Vince staple bars, man.

1:53:44

Sean, I really appreciate your time.

1:53:46

My brother you know, there's definitely more to talk about.

1:53:48

I look forward to seeing what comes out a new challenger, especially

1:53:52

picking up that DLC final question.

1:53:55

We usually do a whole lightning round and ask you all these personal questions

1:53:59

that are usually fun and exciting, but I want to be respect for your time.

1:54:03

got to ask you the question of the show that I ask everybody.

1:54:07

And it's selfish for me, right? Cause it gives me a pool of referrals for people to interview.

1:54:13

But if you had a good time falling out of the play area, is there anyone that you

1:54:18

would nominate out of your circle, right? Be it a mentor role model or someone you want to help me break

1:54:25

in game dev that I could sit down and interview for the podcast.

1:54:29

Shawn A: Yeah, I've been thinking about this cause it's like, Cause there's

1:54:32

John: got a vast network. My Shawn A: I mean, again, like it's yeah.

1:54:34

There's like anyone who's at game does a car expo is there

1:54:36

because I want them there. John: yeah. Yeah.

1:54:39

I got few. I got a few people lined up from that.

1:54:41

I met through game desert of color. So for sure.

1:54:44

Shawn A: one person that I think like, well, two people.

1:54:47

That I think you would just, well, three people, I think you y'all

1:54:50

would get along Okay think talking to cat small would be really fun.

1:54:53

She's one of the co-founders of the game does a color expo.

1:54:56

John: For sure. Hell yeah Shawn A: she's in tech and not in games and like she makes games,

1:55:01

but she doesn't do that first. I think that's an interesting thing to

1:55:05

Cause I bring that up a lot about how, like how black women are all so

1:55:09

disrespected that like she's had a really hard time finding, you know, everyone

1:55:13

wants people to work for free black women.

1:55:16

And that's been a lot of her experience. And also again, yes, she founded this thing and has been, she's done a lot

1:55:21

of great things in games and tech.

1:55:23

I think and then two people that I reconnected with in person, this at GDC

1:55:28

was my buddy, Justin Woodward, who he

1:55:31

yeah, he runs the thing called the media India exchange.

1:55:35

He's also a game developer with his company and terror bang.

1:55:37

I met him nine years ago at Evo. He was one of the, there was like a, it was a small indie table and like him

1:55:43

and his and the dude, Evan who was with them, like, you know, two black dudes.

1:55:47

I was like, they were like him. And then this guy, Richard Tarell.

1:55:50

So it was like four black people at a, at a game dev table of like six

1:55:55

games or eight games or something. I was like, wow. That's, that's like 50 50, like at that point, like that was wild to me.

1:56:00

And Justin is. Just a hustler in games.

1:56:04

I think my friends Sterling, the Garvey who I've known for a similar

1:56:09

amount of time through actually, we, there was like a two year time span

1:56:13

where both we ended up at like a great restaurant, like afterwards and

1:56:18

he was in games press a long time ago I was at the dinner where he started

1:56:23

working at this company hit detection, which does consulting and games.

1:56:27

Like they do like reading and stuff like that.

1:56:29

John: I think, I think I saw this on your Twitter that he's not like the head.

1:56:34

Woo Shawn A: we were eating falafel in the mission.

1:56:38

And again, this is why it was like important to be there in person

1:56:40

because like, his father passed and I was able to like be there with my

1:56:44

friend and say, you know, I don't understand your relationship, but

1:56:47

I understand family relationships. So to be able to give a hug to your friend, to console them.

1:56:53

And then also at the end, we, I booked book, ended my trip and then I got to

1:56:56

sit there while he got his text saying, this is when the head is stepping down.

1:57:01

And this is when you are the official person.

1:57:03

And like, just be able to be like, you know, I'm proud of you like that.

1:57:06

John: Oh, what was that? Was that like hugs high fives.

1:57:09

Shouldered that Shawn A: yeah, it was just, yeah, we were just eating falafel and I was just,

1:57:13

like, I just said, I'm proud of you. Like, you know, it's just people that on the come up.

1:57:17

John: on the phone. Okay. Shawn A: yesterday we spent lot of time in New York.

1:57:21

I don't know Justin's from the bay area and cats from the Bronx.

1:57:25

So, but then also let's say one other person like Ava, Ava car

1:57:29

is a great person to talk to. Ava does a lot of like talks, Ava runs glitch, which is like a publisher.

1:57:35

They do a lot of tool development, but they have a huge community.

1:57:37

And they just do a lot of great stuff and, glitches definitely like a sister

1:57:42

organization to game does a color. So we try to share as much info.

1:57:46

And yeah, just try to, we're we're really trying to figure out how to

1:57:49

work together, better in the future. Cause we, we both announced our ticket sales going on sale

1:57:53

or submissions rather going today.

1:57:56

John: Oh shit. Shawn A: yeah, we weren't there.

1:58:00

There's like their thing is they're actually having something during

1:58:04

So, you know, Eva and I are just, we're always in communication.

1:58:08

We, and we have very different ways of looking at stuff.

1:58:10

Ava also deals with a lot of like funding, and Eva gave toxic

1:58:14

game deals of color expo also. John: yeah

1:58:16

her name is. Shawn A: yeah. Or they, their name,

1:58:20

John: They, name is familiar.

1:58:22

Thank Shawn A: it's well, it's just, for me, it's been, I also have my own,

1:58:26

like, you know, the key, they, like, I've been on a weird journey.

1:58:29

I became a, tried to be an encyclopedia of people's pronouns and like, it's funny.

1:58:34

Cause like, I, I have to correct people now when they say preferred pronouns

1:58:37

and I'm like, no, they're not preferred because you don't say your preferred

1:58:40

pronounced E if you were assigned male at birth and that's what you identify as

1:58:44

that's not preferred that's it's he it's.

1:58:47

So like the term preferred is like saying that you made something up or you made

1:58:50

a preference, like sexual preference. It's like, no, this is who I want.

1:58:53

Right. like born in you. So like, if someone

1:58:56

John: do we say, you say what

1:58:58

are your What are your pronouns? Okay, awesome I'll fix that.

1:59:01

I think that's, I think I'd say preferred pronouns on my little template

1:59:04

Shawn A: yeah, I actually had to, like, I saw it was at a meeting

1:59:07

where somebody said something like, like transgender or women.

1:59:11

And I was like, no, it's, it's trans people.

1:59:14

can say trans men or trans women, but like, you know with a space

1:59:17

also because women are women.

1:59:19

I don't know. There's, I've been trying to be like as respectful because also like a

1:59:24

lot of that stuff opened a lot of like meeting a lot of people on the

1:59:28

spectrum of race, gender, everything in the games industry, which is weird.

1:59:32

Cause you hear that they don't exist, but I'm thankful that this is my friend group.

1:59:36

It's like the small percentages are in my circle.

1:59:40

And so like, it's like helped me understand who I am as a person.

1:59:44

And so I try to just give that back to everybody and, you

1:59:47

know, everybody slips up still. And I think as as, long as you have care in

1:59:52

John: Hell yeah. Shawn A: and you like can correct.

1:59:55

When someone says, Hey, that's not me.

1:59:57

Like somebody recently was like, I'm not a woman, but okay.

2:00:01

And I was like, oh, I'm sorry. I took And I said my bed and they were like, and they, and they were like, yeah.

2:00:09

But I, I, but, but they were like, and also I agree with

2:00:11

you and it was just like this. So it like, you know, if I just like, if I basically got on my soap box, then

2:00:18

you know, that would be, you know, you got to always have learning moments

2:00:21

and always have to course correct. And again, like that's what the game does, the color expo.

2:00:26

And that's what I'm trying to do with this company. So, you know, I'm looking forward to talking again in the future,

2:00:31

John: Sean man. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the overtime.

2:00:34

we'll stay in touch my friend, have a great one.

2:00:38

That's a wrap, kicking it with Sean Allen, talking about his

2:00:42

grit and starting his own thing. And that long road of making a game all by yourself.

2:00:46

Doing the pixel art and everything. Sounds like the next thing from him, a new challenger will look vastly

2:00:51

different while still bringing that must check out combat gameplay.

2:00:55

I chatted with him this week. And he mentioned that he's branching out from the game devs of color.

2:00:59

Into a new venture I'm hyped to see where he takes that new time into.

2:01:03

Please check out the show notes for links to his game, devs

2:01:07

of color expo post-mortem on treachery and beat down city.

2:01:09

If you want to know more about that game, as well as a few of his GDC talks

2:01:13

available on the vault and a link to that goes straight to the ultimate

2:01:18

guide to side's schooling, beat them up. So book.

2:01:20

A lot of my homeys that I've met in this industry, all share similar stories

2:01:24

of having to leave their hometown to do this thing myself included.

2:01:28

And I'm always lurking to see how many of us get back to our

2:01:31

hometowns with the knowledge and experience that we've acquired.

2:01:34

To see if maybe we plant a seed somewhere there.

2:01:36

I don't think I'm a go back to living in NYC, you know, weather and.

2:01:42

Population and bang for your buck and all of that.

2:01:45

Taxes. But I'd love to go contribute to the dev scene there.

2:01:49

But even more than that. I love to go back to Dominican Republic and grassroots dev scene down there.

2:01:56

That's really enticing to me. We'll see, we'll see.

2:01:59

On the next episode of outta play area. We'll sit down with Leon Cooperman, the CTO of caste AI hailing from Ukraine

2:02:06

and having come over to the states. Through IBM and building various companies of his own, who looks

2:02:12

to share his story in the podcast. He'll be the first non strict game developer on the podcast.

2:02:17

But nevertheless, the developer who works adjacent to our industry and whose clients

2:02:21

include or can include game developers.

2:02:24

And who appreciates the craft and games.

2:02:27

I always encourage growth evolution pushing outside the lines a

2:02:30

bit in life and on this show. So.

2:02:33

we'll see how you will feel about it. I'll be interested to see what the feedback ends up being.

2:02:37

make sure to follow us so that you don't miss out on that episode.

2:02:40

Thank you for listening, Deb. If you found this episode informative, I ask that you pay a link forward to

2:02:46

a developer to help grow our listener.

2:02:49

If you're a game developer with a story you think could help a fellow dev

2:02:52

out, please go to out of play area.com and click on the Calendly link at

2:02:57

the top to meet up, please make sure you get approval from your manager

2:03:00

or studios, PR HR team beforehand.

2:03:03

Out of play area, the game developers, podcasts releases, new episodes every

2:03:08

other Monday on all the major players, including Spotify, apple, and Google.

2:03:12

Please make sure to follow us, to see what developer falls out of the play area.

2:03:16

Next time. I'm your host John Diaz until next time devs stay strong.

2:03:21

Stay true. Stay dangerous