DGC Ep 462: Looking Back on a Decade

Hello, and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past. to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duval, and I'm joined as always by my co host, a man who knows that his quest to become an avatar is the endless quest of a lifetime. Tim Longo. Which is much like being a podcaster. Um, I just wanted to say. You know, it's endless

Endless quest, it feels like quests and and riddles and uh mysteries of all kinds of bosses. Mysteries, dungeons, yeah talking to a lot of people. Yeah, talking to a lot of people, taking a lot of notes. Um inscribing runes, I suppose, and chanting mantras as you're waiting for the thing to final and upload. Um We have something a little bit different this week and we're releasing off our schedule for that reason. So why don't you uh why don't you introduce why why we're doing this this Yeah.

Well, uh apparently this week is our tenth year anniversary. Congratulations to you, sir. Thank you, and to you, sir. Uh yeah. The day this comes out we'll be ten years on the dot from the first uh aired episode. Nice, nice. Yeah. So that hence hence the the Thursday day delay. Yeah.

Yeah, it used to be a Tuesday podcast and then we're a Wednesday podcast. This week we're a Thursday podcast, but next week we'll be back. We'll be back to normal. You just never know. Yeah. Gosh, we were Tuesday for a while. Yeah, for a long time. In fact, we might have even started on Monday.

I guess sort of remember us like sort of like slipping like, Well, you know, okay, yeah, it makes sense. We'll still record Sundays, but then that'll leave us room, you know, you know, and then then we're like, Oh no, okay, let's talk Monday nights, we'll record Tuesday. And now it's uh talk Tuesday or you know, release Wednesday. Um so Uh yeah. I mean there

I have such you know me, like cloudy memory. As we started, by the way, June's parking outside. So I think that's appropriate for the year as well. Um she has lost her hearing apparently by the way, or most of her hearing. So that has changed her uh quite a bit. But she still barks. She still uh tells everyone what she has to say. Yeah, so ten years of barking and ten years of uh yeah, I just don't I never would have never would have thought.

I don't know what I don't think we ever had I mean we we say this all the time, but we never really had a goal or plan. We still don't. We still don't. So it's like here we are, ten years.

Okay, so I've got I've got a couple uh early trivia questions here for you. Okay, okay. How many series have we done? Oh. Just a guess. We'll see how close you get. Let's see if I'll give you I'll say get you with come within five, either side. We'll see how you do. Yeah, so series, it yeah, so that's interesting that you put it that way. I mean, I'm gonna say

A hundred and two. Okay. Well it was ninety one, but that's pretty pretty close. Okay, all right. Pretty close. All right. Okay. Yeah, so yeah, what what uh what to find, I guess. Because I know we've played Yeah, but some of those games were in the same series, so that was

Yeah, there's that. There was like the rotoscoping one I counted as one. I I basically went on the basis of what on our webpage we list as like series. In some games it's like we did one episode on that game, but it's sort of like what um after how many games do we do takeaways is usually how it kinda came out is like how I how I did that. Um or if we had interviews with games in a series.

Um, like we did for the indies last year. I separated those out'cause I was like, Oh, this one and an interviewer interview with that person. So that was another way I kind of distinguished them. Yeah. So that makes sense. No, nine that's yeah, ninety one tracks. So we've covered more than ninety one. We've done more games than series. Yeah. Um not counting the bonus g games, of which there are, you know, a j a generous handful. Uh how many games have we covered in our main our main series?

Yeah, so that's kind of where I was coming from. I mean You were you were very close on that, actually. Yeah, I feel like I could probably take that as your answer. I had it as ninety nine, um ninety-nine game. Oh okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, because there's the that one of our one of our community members started that you know that one

What's it called? That one game site that keeps track of the five. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. My backlog or whatever it is. Backlog, yeah. Um, infinite infinite infinite backlog. Yeah. Um, and so that that was sort of the list that I was keeping track. I'm opening it. Oh, okay. Yeah.

So we also there there are some bonuses on there that I don't count because it was like, Oh, we played the Evil Within because we played Resident Evil, you know, or something like that. And I don't I didn't consider that. Um and I don't have a separate trivia question about that because dredging that information up is would would be a lot harder. Uh so I just I just ignored it.

It's still off, yeah, plus or minus. So it's yeah, it's still an impressive number. Um it's funny that I hadn't yeah, I mean, until that br had had come up, I hadn't even thought about like like how many games we'd played for So just we just kept going and played played the logical ones, you know, and yeah, or or not even just some mostly the logical ones, but sometimes ones that we just wanted to play. Like

Trespasser was not logical. Correct. Yes. I did not put a uh you know game with most bugs uh in my trivia question. Anyway, so this is that wouldn't I don't I'm not even sure that would be the game. Oh uh um well yeah, technically it's there's probably like one bug in that game and it's just manifests itself a thousand ways. Um Or whatever. But uh no, that's not true. There there's some definite logic bugs in that game. Um you know, uh level design logic.

Uh all right. So I'm gonna come back with other trivia. But yeah, we're doing a different kind of episode tonight. We're gonna look back on the ten years. Um we have some sections. I'll pop in with more trivia Um but I kind of want to use it both as a well, mostly as a way to reflect both on ourselves, but also the cast itself and then some of the interviews. Those are kind of the things we came up with and then we'll we'll probably end talking a little bit about um

the way it has grown out into the world. Uh, just to put that in the broadest way. Um

So the first question I asked you when I proposed this uh special episode was, you know, looking at the games we've played and the discussions we've had, you know, what has that told you about what kind of gamer you are? Yeah, it was a good it was a good question. Um so when I was kind of prepping for it, it definitely made me think hard about that. And and I was also trying to think about myself.

Or or thinking about that question pre the podcast and post you know and and now basically. Yeah. Um, because it's not something I would have thought about much beforehand and and you know, did my taste change or or what yeah, what And I think the the main thing that it has made me realize, which you know, you have my notes so you know what I'm gonna say, but the main thing that it's made me realize about myself is that

And and if I look back, I think it's always been this way, but I never really, you know, of course thought about it, is is that I, as a gamer, not as a developer, but as a gamer, I'm very very appreciative and very focused around like a balanced um

a balanced approach to a game, like enjoying games that are very balanced in all of their different facets. And what I mean by that is, you know, um the narrative and the skill uh you know the skill based aspects of the game, the progression aspects of the game. uh the world building, the uh the art direction of the game, does that fit all of those things? And and and you know, and I talk a lot about sort of like and we talked about it with Ultima in fact as well as sort of

that Swiss clock kind of feel and the elegance of when all of those things come together. You know, you you c there's m many different um terms we could use, like Venn diagrams or whatever, right? Where everything you know, blends together for the center of that Venn diagram to be like, you know, the best of everything together. And I've noticed about over the course of the podcast, I mean, we're we're playing classic games, so they're always good in some way.

But the ones that I look back on the fond uh you know that I'm that I'm most fond of is are the ones that have that blend really well, you know, um, that that that hit each of those categories. And it feels like they were really well thought through and designed together as a unit.

And sometimes that's a happy accident, you know, of course we know. Yeah. And and sometimes it's very planned. Uh but that sort of core identity of the game as a player, those are the ones. And when one of those falls off. um or a couple of those fall off, that's often when I fall off, you know, um, of the game. I guess I'd even throw difficulty in there, right? Like if because skill is still important to me, um

uh if the difficulty isn't right, you know, and I won't name names uh of some of the games we played where that happened to both of us, but um but you know, that's a reason for me to yeah. So Yeah, that's that's funny because I think of that and I'm like actually I realized that

skill matter uh actually the type of skill I guess is specific to for me. So maybe I'll I'll get to that. Um'cause I I'm more of like a mental skill guy, like paying attention and things like that is a skill I I treasure, as it turns out. Um so I so the way I f reflected on this was not to sort of try to think of it holistically, but just to look at the long list. And say, Okay, which of these games did I then go deep on? Like played other games, um and it turned y you know, or or whatever. Um

Or just like put in way more time into for the game we played. Um as it's That's a good signal for you, yeah.'Cause you did often G get the bug and then you'd go deep. I'd go and do a bunch of others. Yeah. So one of them is the uh the soul's likes. Um I played all three of that trilogy. I like in that period of time when when we played that. I played so much like

So much time. Um and I even started Bloodborne. Uh so that was one category. Uh another category was Mistlikes, um, which I was really I had forgotten, but I was like, Oh yeah, I went and played Ribbon. and miss three and then Four, I think, was the one I had trouble getting to work on modern systems, like it was crashing a lot or something. I think was the video type stuff that they had in it. Can't remember if it was four or if there was a five or whatever. But like I played a ton of mess.

Um and missed sequels. And then I played abduction all the way through as well, which was Cyan's more recent one. So it's like I really got deep into that uh when we played that. Um, and then of course, and this is somewhat recency bias, um, but it is true if I look back, is that you know, we played Ultima And those old school RPGs that have mapping, you know, where you have to map it yourself, you know, even if you do it with a print screen or whatever. Um

You know, I I went and played three Eye the Beholder games when we played Eye the Beholder. You know, I played some of Might and Ma the original Might and Magic when we played Heroes of Might and Magic. Um I didn't finish that one because it was Um uh I don't I don't remember why. I think m may have been busy with work at the time, but for whatever reason I you know, I played a ton and then just like

thirty hours into Might N Magic. I was like, didn't come back to it. Um so maybe someday I have a lot of I have a lot of maps. I do not have uh K on level effort yet in Might and Magic, but uh good stuff. I was gonna say there's somebody who can speak for you on that Might and Magic. And then the oddball is um Kingdom Hearts, of course. Um that was my next question of like so what's up

Yeah. That's the only one that kind of like is more you know, it's a more about my heart being an abiding key than anything else, I think. Um anyway, I got to your heart. It got to me. Um And the thing is is th this is funny. This is not what I would have guessed. And certainly considering some of the early games we played, like I would have guessed, especially considering the time period we we mostly focus on, that I would want to go and play more of like

first person shooters, you know, or more action adventure games or immersive sims. And, you know, I do have some of those in my diet generally as a gamer, but like I didn't tend to like go deep. You know, I did play a couple Arkham games. I did play, you know, m some of the Halo sequel stuff. Um, but I didn't go like really deep and feel like

really drawn into it, you know, like I did with those other games. So that was kind of you know, it's not really like a specific of like, oh, I like games that are like this. It's more like These games, for whatever reason, just have have grabbed hold of me. And 20 years ago, you know, 30 years ago, kind of in the time period that we, you know, when we were starting out. These sorts of games that I played a ton of

you know, in connection with the cast were not the games I was playing from the period that we play. So um it's just uh it was interesting.

reflecting on that today. Yeah. Yeah. And uh that's actually a good approach too to kind of dissect it'cause I did the same thing. I w I went to the site and kind of, you know, tried to search the the data bank. To figure out that broad question, but to give some quick examples.

um of the games that I listed that are related to my my kind of like macro theme. Uh you know, Shadow of the Colossus is still one of my favorite games of all time. And that one You know, I mentioned world building specifically and of course the the narrative or the story is not that deep in that, but the sense of place and, you know, and is there, right? Um but it's also

There's skill and there's, you know, and there's there's a lot there's challenge and and it does delicately balance all of those things. It's a good thing. Yeah, I think the package is good. Yeah, for me the package is very balanced for the most part. Um Ultima Underworld, you know, I'm just gonna list some of these. We don't

to talk about them more deeply. Um Ocarina of Time was one I put on a list that I was surprised by because of of all the Zelda games, it's one of the ones that I kinda missed, you know, um that I shouldn't shouldn't have. And when we played it for the cast, I finally, you know, finished it and got deeper into it and and appreciated it appreciated even more. Now all the Zeldas have a pretty holistic feel about them, but that one in particular I felt like is is still I think one of the best.

And then of course I'm I'm doing a reverse order for my notes if you're looking at'em, but um I'm not. No, I'm d you don't have to cite me looking at your notes'cause I've got to do it. Okay, okay, good, good. Uh good'cause I'm gonna, you know, bounce around. But anyway, yeah, of course Dark Souls for me too. I didn't go as deep in the series, although I am slowly working with But I did finish two

And started Bloodborne, but um but Dark Souls One, I s you know, I streamed that and um and and did did it in my particular way. But that was definitely one of the ones that'll come back up. as everyone knows and jokes about. Yeah. But then yeah, the the obvious one that's pretty maybe a little bit recency biased, but I don't think so. I think it really hits all on all cells. In my balance was portal, of course. Yeah.

Yeah. Sort of like the perfect package for me. Yeah, oh absolutely. And especially, you know, as we talked about it being the perfect length as well. Like to do all of that and still be just like a perfect tiny like it's like a Faberge egg. It's just like it's not it's not gonna take up your whole living room, but it's perfect. Um so yeah that's a that's another good one. For sure. Um uh is there any more that you want to comment on in terms of what type of gamer you are or any surprises? Uh

You know, I I am surprised not to have a lot of first person stuff in that, although I mean Ultima Underworld. Um'cause I, you know, think of you as being you know, you've had some involvement with that in the past. Let's see. Um so that would that would be one thing I was kinda I'm kinda surprised or when I saw your notes earlier was surprised about. Um,'cause we played like Deus Ex, you know, and um

You know, in thief and things like that. And uh Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Um the funny thing about first person shooters specifically, and I and I actually would probably throw in the traditional third person action into this statement as well, is that

From um what do I want to say? Like, I mean, I guess, yeah, first person, that's why Portal, I think, is the one that hits me the the hardest there as far as like the first person perspective is probably my favorite perspective. But Those games, um what I've realized over time, and the and the podcast has helped me with this as well, is that those those games have become a pretty prescribed approach to

s both skill and presentation and and and kind of how it all kinda so it's hard the you know, U Ultima Underworld is on the list. I think Deus X is usually on my top five, top ten list. But from a skill perspective, it's not as much, you know, it's not as much there. Um it's a first person shooter. Yeah. I mean, I think of them as as more immersive sims than first person shooters in those cases.

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. It's like it's, you know, um, as far as a modern example, you know, dishonored is a better made game, right? Yeah, or pray. Yeah. More finely tuned. Prey. Oh yeah, of course. I forgot all about Pray. Prey pray is one of those games. Yeah. Prey, even though we didn't play it for the podcast, Pray would be Oh, we played it as a bonus. Yeah. Oh we did? Yeah. Oh okay. Yeah.

Uh was it for System Shock? What are we what did we play as a bonus? We played it I th oh god. Um I'd have to go look, but uh never mind. Okay, okay, yeah. And then maintenance. It might have been thief or day or Deus X. Yeah, I don't I don't remember. Um it's because that one that one goes back a ways. Um so that's Yeah, that's a good that's a good example. Prey is pray isn't Prey would be another one that that fits all you know that has all of the balance.

of all of these aspects done really well. So Yeah. Yeah, that's that's cool. Okay. All right. Well then back to a little trivia. Okay. Uh what was the earliest game we played?

Wow. I mean it has to be Colossal Cave Adventure, I think. Well done, sir. Well done. That is it. Nineteen seventy six. Uh adventure. Um and the runners up were um Atari Adventure. So the two earliest we played were in the same episode and then Rogue, uh, which is the same years. Oh, Rogue, yeah, just nineteen eighty. Um at least the

version we played, I so I didn't go tracking down. That's that's how how we listed it anyway. Um and then of course the flip side of that is the latest game we've played. I mean i well okay. I was about to say one but then I then I have to remember which I would accept that one. Uh Dark Souls? Yeah, I would accept that. Yeah. Okay, because we have our indie series, which we broke that rule, right, at some point? We did. Uh maybe. Yes. But there's actually a game we've played that was even later.

Later than Fez. Uh Stanley parable? I'll give you a hint. You uh you like to name characters in it. I'd like to name characters in it. What? Oh my god. It was part of the indie series, right? No. No. Oh, it's not. No, you've been streaming this game. Oh, dwarf fortress? Yeah. I mean, technically, we did play

We played some early versions, but we also played like the the Steam release, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that one's pretty much it. So on a technicality, I mean that one's really hard to say because like we played something from whatever, you know, twenty, whatever, but uh Yeah, we play the stream of it, right? I mean, you know, stream of different versions. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's that one's hard to nail down. But yeah, that's that's

pretty recent, yeah. And I am still I am still streaming it. Yeah. The funny thing is when we were when I was looking back at our at our list and trying to refresh my memory, I forgot that the reason I think the main reason we started we chose that one was because of the ASCII, right? Because the text based it wasn't because of the uh no we didn't I don't did we play it? Yeah, no we did. Uh part of our I thought it was part of our like

But I don't think that's true'cause we played well, maybe it is. I don't know. Um I will I will look it was near to Rogue and um Plundered hearts and stuff. So that's why I I I made that as well. May maybe it was maybe maybe that was why we did it that way. Um It's just such a funny game to your point. Like it's hard to nail down because it did start that way and and I'm, you know, playing the Steam version. Oh yeah, you're right. We played Rogue, Plundered Hearts, and Dwarf Fortress.

I forgot that the twine games we played, which also technically were probably later um than uh than Dark Souls. was uh was in that was was with plundered hearts. Um yeah, so I'm I'm just looking at now. But you're right, yeah, we played it. We played it with that. Um with that. So Yeah, okay. I mean, talk about a time capsule in one game. Yeah, no kidding.

All right, well let's uh let's get away from the trivia for a minute. Um I have another four questions we'll come back to later. Nice. Next we want to do a section on memorable moments. Um

We have both memorable moments and I think interview moments separately. Um So maybe I will go I did separate mine out, but yeah, you know, I did I did too. I did too. Okay. Um so I have a memorable moment um that I was thinking about today when I was looking at the list, and it was in the podcast. realizing that the bonus levels in that weird, like hidden off the path dungeon were all thematically to do with apocalypse now.

Oh yeah. That was just such like I was just like I had all the names and I'm like, it's so weird that this one is Saigon backwards and like You talk about Final Fantasy tactics. Tactics, yeah. You know, it's like, oh my God, like the time I spent and then finally was like, Oh my God. These are all apocalypse now. Um was a was a just a wild wild moment for me. Uh so I just I just remember like the uh

You know,'cause when you're in playing the game and you're just kind of making notes, you're kind of not always making connections like that. And it's it's one of the fun things about doing the cast, which is why I put it in here.

is that we have the space to think more about the games when we're not playing them, you know, and things just kinda come up because, you know, if I it's sort of like, you know, th there's this thing for programmers where if you have a problem with your code and it's not working like you th like you expect, you go talk to somebody, you tell them what your code is doing.

And while you're doing that, and this is called rubber ducking, you've probably heard heard me say that before, um, you realize what the problem is because you started talking it through. And like that's what happens, that's the magic, Tim, of podcasts. Um is that we have the opportunity to do that. So Yeah. Anyway, so I thought I'd throw out throw out one first for me. Um maybe we'll alternate so you can give me one now.

Yeah, and I think a lot of mine are gonna be pretty obvious. Um, and I I my memory's so bad that as far as like specific, very specific moments in, you know, when we were playing a game that I was like, What the heck? Um I you know, I wouldn't be able to remember all of them, but the ones that stick with me.

So the in no particular order I do like a game that generally was more memorable and a big surprise to me, but I'll I'll pick a specific, you know, kind of section of it that I was like, what the heck? was Shen Mu. Shen Mu is still weirdly a game that I think about a lot still today. And I'm st I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out why. You know, I mean, I think it's I guess it's obvious in some ways, but it's just for me specifically,'cause it to my to to contradict my earlier

What kind of player am I? You know, there are certain aspects of that game that are just missing or not there. Um, you know, there there are some skill checks and skill based things that I didn't engage with that much, technically with the fighting, but I I don't think

what I meant. But anyway, you drive a forklift in that game for a job. And that was a big memorable, big surprise kind of like moment as well as section where I just could not believe You know, um, and I didn't really know much about the game before we played it, uh, other than kind of its legend. And so yeah, anyway, that's one that always sticks with me of like, you know, kind of a uh what the heck moment, but also just very memorable to me. Um, even though it's just

as well. Yeah, no, that's that's a good one. I think that's kinda how I felt, you know, when I originally, you know, it wasn't part of the podcast, so it's not one of mine, but when I originally played Deadly Premonition and realized that the whole world was going on all the time around me. You know, was kind of a similar moment to that kind of in investment with Shenmu. Um that uh that I felt when it when I played that whenever, you know, in twenty fifteen or whatever it was.

Uh uh I had a moment from a game. I might as well, you know, we we've already brought this game up several times, but in Dark Souls, and I know you have one from Dark Souls as well, but when you drain the city By opening those big doors. Oh my God. What a you know, it's one of those peak gaming moments where you're just like, I can't believe I just watched that happen and like how much it meant to me, like, oh my God. Like

That was so, so cool. Um it had a cutscene. So like it was just the fact of it being connected in that way and like that door that I knew I couldn't open and didn't know why and opened it from the other like all of it just. kind of encapsulated in one moment like the coolness of that w I don't I guess you'd say world design or level design or whatever you would say, but like just like

Yeah. Connectivity of everything and like how the state of the world could change,'cause I also had that happen with the the goddess who I killed, um, and who wasn't really uh you know, wasn't was like a projection or something, something weird there. But uh anyway, it was like

Just one of those moments where everything changes and you're like, Wow You know, like like when you fly up to the the upper city, yeah, and Rwando and everything. It's like like, oh my God, we're doing this now? Like, you know, there's a lot of moments like that in that that game. So I could have picked a number of them, but uh

But draining the city was was mine. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I mean I'll on my second one I'll I'll I'll piggyback off of the Dark Souls and I think people will know what I'm gonna say anyway who pays attention to me because because it was, you know, it's a memorable moment in the game because it's a boss, but it's really more of a memorable moment for me because of the achievement of it, you know. And

Um, you know, debatable on the difficulty part because it's a Dark Souls game. So, you know, because it took me probably I don't know, six to eight hours to actually beat this boss, but um and I streamed I think all of it. Yeah, I watched a bunch of it too. Yeah, yeah. And I just, you know, it's one of those you beat your head against the wall and I did it with a starting weapon, which isn't a bad weapon, it's just

that that boss, Artorius, is who I'm talking about, is hard i in my opinion, hard to do when you're playing playing it with a a short range weapon. But um I did it with the the bandits knife. Um and I will never forget beating that boss until I, you know, for the rest of my life. I mean, I'm serious. Like and I know it sounds dramatic and I bet I'm that I'm exaggerating, but I don't think I am.

Um because I think there's some elements to it too because he'll be on his bet deathbed and and he'll say, Bring me a butter knife. I just want to remember. Yeah, I think serious. Like I you know, and I think it there going back to my original to you know, my answer to your question about what kind of gamer am I?

There at that point you'd done so much in that game. And like you said, there's been a lot of big memorable moments. And Artorius is part of the DLC, I believe. And so there was this sort of like extension of

The world, right? And this kind of like I think he's even alluded to at times in some of the Oh, he definitely is, yeah. The lore and there's stuff about like him going mad or whatever. Right. He's and he's such a melancholic figure throughout the game, you know, and then you get to actually go and yeah, we'll Yeah, so you finally meet him, right? And then he's he's a real jerk. Um then and then you spend so and then for a classic chronicle quote right there. Artorius, a real jerk.

Yeah, exactly. I want that in an item description for Dark Souls uh four. Yeah. Um anyway, uh Yeah, so so just a culmination of a lot of things coming together and then of course the achiev the skill achievement of it, right? Um, which is really the bread and butter of that, no pun intended, of that um of uh of that series, of that game, especially, right? Like the you put the time and the pain in, you know, and you get that.

you get that feeling of achievement. Like way bigger than finishing the boss for finishing the game. What's his name? The king. I can't even remember his name. You know, it's like, you sure I'd beat that that guy. Um but nothing, you know, I I wouldn't even remember him. So King uh souls a lot. Um yeah. Sure. I have another one here that

kinda sorta pairs with another one of mine, but um but it was you uh r relating the story of assassinating I think it was a pair of twins or two targets anyway, by jumping back and forth on the bed and morrowent I that was that mug that Mark made on the funny. Oh my god. That was such a funny moment because it

You know, we we talk it I mean, you know, the of course I've worked on one of those games, but the Bethesda games in general just can lead to such comical moments. You know, and games can generally like just lead to stuff where like, well, it turns out you can abuse the system or Or just like the way things come together, you know, there's just this funny, you know, moment where

Okay, this shouldn't work, but it totally did. Um and uh and I I'll just say the other one that I paired that with because it, you know, I don't really have anything else to say about it, but just like it pairs nicely with the idea of knucklehead stealth. 'Cause that is a knucklehead assassination moment, if I've ever I've heard one. Um and uh, you know, and for me, um, I think it's one of my favorite coinages of the whole

You know, and it was early'cause I think that's from Hitman, right? Silent silent assassin or whatever. Uh Hitman two. Yeah. how you play a game by like kind of running around and then ducking under you know ducking ducking behind a crate and being like, Well now I hope they don't find me. Um but you were a total bozo and it's just because of the way games, especially early stealth games work.

um that you're not, you know, that you can do that, you know, and just behave like a total idiot. Um and then everything goes back to normal, you know, after a couple of minutes. Um But uh but yeah, your that assassination story was extremely good. So I remembered that looking back through the list. That was a fun yeah, that was a funny. Um yeah, Knucklehead Stealth's a good one. I should have thought of that one too. I mean I play as you know, I'm playing a lot of Hitman these days. Yeah. Um

Uh and kind of trying to master the thing. Clowning around as it were. Yeah, exactly. But then but you know, every time I go off, you know, I guess I'll say off book. Um uh Off plan, I immediately think of the term no

Mm-hmm. I'm like, okay, I'm in Knucklehead Stealth territory now. You know, and then it's like and then it's like, you know, no holes barred. I'm just gonna punch people, I'm gonna do whatever I need to do. Yeah. Right. Uh because I know the game well enough to know how reset um so I can fool around as far as as long as I want to do it.

Yeah, it's a it's it reminds me of something um Clint Hawking talked about in his he did a GDC talk once about players understanding the depth of s of systems And he had an example from one of the splinter cells, probably too, um, where somebody knew exactly what a guard was gonna do and how they were gonna react and what the voice line was gonna be to set up what was effectively an extremely funny Pratt fall.

you know, because the you know, he goes, he examines the door, he says the line. Well I w I don't remember the line, but it and it just was like You can do these things in these games like the assassination, like the knucklehead stealth, like you playing in Hitman, uh, the world of assassination or whatever now, where you understand the systems pretty deeply. And you can use that.

you know, to your advantage, even against the sort of purpose of the game. You know, so you're like just kind of breaking the game in a way. Um, you know, because you know, you know what's gonna happen, you know how you'll recover and all that. So Yeah. I mean, I had a just a little bit of a bragging moment to that on a recent example in Hitman and I guess a a little bit related to the podcast'cause we played Hitman too, but um

It was but it was a memory. And we as a bonus played the hitman. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but it was a it was like uh it was not not an artorious moment, but it was a I made a plan. This might work. I was streaming it, so it is it is out there. And I needed something to happen and because I knew this could work, um, and then it did, and I was definitely I didn't stand up and cheer, but inside I was like

I felt like I could, you know, that I w I was cheering inside because it was like, Oh, I need to separate this AI from the target. I threw a screwdriver behind him just at the right time. It distracted him. And it you know, kind of cheesed out the you know, the the padding a little bit and then it the person following him. So it was just yeah. Oh, you love that stuff. Yeah. When you're like, I know exactly how this AI will snag on this other system. Uh yeah. Yeah. It's it's

It's one of those joys. It's when you find a game you love, you know, and you can do those things, that is that is a gaming moment. Yeah, in and of itself. Like Spelunky. Like a spelunky. Oh my god, Spelunky is the you know generates I'm Far Cry too. you know, they said was the chaos generator or whatever. Um but Splunky has that in spades. Yeah. Uh go to some others of yours.

And they're very obvious as uh but they're they were vo both very memorable memorable for And I had some a little bit of like warning, but I to your credit, for Fez, you did a good job at not spoiling it for me, which was impressed because I didn't I knew something was coming, but I was like, I couldn't even imagine what it would be. And I'm talking about, of course, when you kind of finish the game first. And then you gotta go into the real you know, toward the real ending. Um

I guess spoilers? Should I say it? I guess I have to say it. Spoilers. Why not? Yeah. Skip ahead thirty seconds or a minute. You don't want this spoiled for Fez, yeah. And it's similar to Symphony of the Night,'cause there's a similar what the heck moment there too. um where the you know the context for the whole world changes and both of those games Totally blindsided me. I was like, I did not see it coming. So with Fez, it's it's going first person. And

And you were kind of alluding to, oh, there's a thing that happens after you finish it the first time. I was so trying not to didn't want to overdo it. Uh yeah. Yeah. And that's like And it's not n let alone the sequence before you get to that moment because they just that's this the sort of like psychedelic kind of section, the the two thousand one section, I'll call it. Um

Uh and then with Symphony the Night of course a very similar thing when when the world uh turns upside down. Yeah. Um uh and so You know, video games. I it's just those those are two great moments where th you know it and they're gonna be memorable for me because

Because it's like they plays plays upon your expectations. Yeah. You know. Um and with Symphony of the Night, it wasn't even just and again, this is a very obvious one. Everyone's like, Yeah, duh, you're you're like thirty years late to the party on this one or twenty five or whatever. And I and I get it, but um It wasn't just like a moment. It was like, no, the rest of the game is gonna be like this. The whole level design had to accommodate this. Yeah. It's just like what the of

that's a classic game because they took risks like that. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean yeah, I mean whenever you whenever you discover that something is A whole new way to look at the whole game. Yeah, yeah. Those are those are huge moments, you know, and in a way, like that's kind of the flip of Dark Souls, which has like lots of like oh moments throughout. that are like about the connectivity and things like that. These are like here is this one thing.

this one connection you didn't know was there. Um and it's revealed at a great moment, you know, at the end of Fez, for example, or um, you know, ca I guess basically midway, you know, in in Castlevania. Um yeah, and that's like Yeah, I guess it's thirty years. What is ninety s hm I don't wanna say'cause now I'm like, huh, what year was that? Um I feel like it was nineties. But um ninety six six more like ninety eight or something. Yeah, it's it's it's sort of late in PS one almost. Um

Anyway, uh okay, I have one more. Um it's not uh it's not it related to a specific game. I guess it was with a game series. Um but it is um getting Tim to saying his Metal Gear things. Uh brother. I mean, I also have the s the snake style in that whole thing. I mean, for people who haven't been listening for a long time. I used to do these singer reviews and Tim was always like, This is his thing. This I you know, whatever.

Um and I you know, for whatever reason I just kinda stopped doing them and we didn't we stopped getting as many and you know, I even had a couple that I I was holding back. But um Uh, but I wrote you a I wrote a fake email with my name anagrammed with lyrics that I had half written and half was written. I was streaming at the time. And so like my

you know, I I know Calamity was in there, um, and uh and others. And we came up with some rhymes and stuff to go along with uh Fi My Favorite Things and got Tim to sing that on the podcast. And at the end he's like You know, are you there? I was laughing so hard at my computer I could

I couldn't turn on the mic'cause I didn't want him to know. Uh oh my God, just top tier. And that is on my personal uh Twitch, I mean uh YouTube channel. So if you wanna if anybody wants to hunt that down, it's it's out there. Isolated uh with uh with uh a bunch of clips from uh Metal Gear games. It's uh it really goes together well.

Nice. Yeah, it comes up from time to time still. Yeah. And so I think it's appropriate. And that was that was master class as far as like tricking me into it. Like I had no No idea. I mean please, Tim, for Snake. Yeah, yeah. That was appropriate too. Yeah, for sure. Well you got you. Holy cow. Yeah. That was a good one. Yeah. Uh I didn't actually I had forgotten or I didn't know that you'd written it on stream like

folks too. That's makes it even better. I must Yeah, I finished it off myself, but um But we were just kind of riffing, you know. Yeah. And uh and definitely I remember Uh the thing about Old Snake's butt was something I think Calamity came up with and um and May Ling I think. Yeah, like just you know, it was it was definitely a group a grip effort, uh for sure. Um some some real gems in there.

Uh do you I think you might have one more, is that true? Yeah, I wanted to mention it. You already mentioned it, um, and it's actually pretty much the same one. Um is is I w I was also t uh caught off guard by Deadly Premonition. It's kind of it's not necessarily a a specific moment per se, and you had kind of given me a little bit of a hint about what what was going on with that game.

But I I went into that you talked about that game for years. Yeah. And I went into that game other than we played it for Halloween, so I kinda knew the tone and I knew about the Twin Peaks kind of side of it. But I was very unprepared for what that game Yeah. Um I was I guess thinking it was like just a Resident Evil clone or something. I don't even know. What I actually don't think I had. And so when we started playing it, I definitely was like, what the

Heck is going on here? What is this game? Yeah, and then and then as we got deeper, like you said, a similar moment to you of like, oh wait, this is all simulated and this is all you this is a this is a living, quote unquote living world. So that was a that that was one that was I maybe would put in a more in a bigger bigger surprises category than a memorable moment. But yeah. Um that yeah, and that that was a that was a delight to to realize what

Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, that's yeah, and that's a lot of why I wanted to revisit that game. Um I think I talked about that on the on the first episode or whatever, whenever we talked about that aspect of it, was just like, I actually want to start this game from the beginning with this in mind. Um since I discovered it fairly late, I think when I originally played it, I was like, wait a minute.

I could have gone anywhere at any time. Like I was very much thinking of it as a sort of a horror Twin Peaks adventure game, you know, more than a Yeah, with some dungeons basically that were more like Resident Evil, you know, like going into the factory or whatever it is. Um, but then when I discovered that I was like, Oh my god, this is you know, there's a lot of stuff here. Um anyway. Okay, back to trivia before we go to another section. Uh okay.

By the number of episodes, what was our longest series? Well, the this maybe was spoiled because I was looking at the list today for preparing. Uh huh. Um but I was I don't maybe I didn't see it, but the one I did see that I was like Why the hell did we do that many episodes on that? Was uh the Castlevania series. Uh uh. It is not that in fact. It is not that one. There are seven episodes. That is not the top four, my friend.

What? Yep. For oh my gosh, then I have no idea. Jeez, let me okay, let me guess then. Yeah, take take a guess. It's serious. A it ha yeah, it's a series. So it's one game. Uh I will I will give you a clue. There is an interview. And that's part and that's included, you're saying that's included. Yeah, I always include the any bonus. So there if there's an interview then I was gonna say JRPG, but then that that wouldn't be the case. Hmm. No, I can't even get it. It was in fact a J R P G you wanna

With that information, does that help then nine, Final Fantasy nine. Nope. We were much more disciplined back then. Oh so six. Six, yes. Six was ten episodes. Uh we had Seb uh listeners were probably happy about that. Yeah, we we had Sebastian Deakin, I think is his name, uh on to talk about the music. But then we had three that were nine episodes. Can you guess any of those three? Um Chrono trigger? Nope.

Final Fantasy nine. Nope. Oh my gosh, what were we doing? I know. Uh it was early on, so anything that's really early is like four or five episodes. We were really like Yeah. This is our format. We're gonna try to stick to a month basically a game, you know. Uh so those early ones, no. Uh no, I have no idea. Okay. Two of these games have come up tonight and one has not. Uh so the three that had nine, at least for me checking and I

Yeah, so I think I got'em all. But Legend of Zilla, Ocarina of Time was nine. Interesting. Interesting. Eight episodes on the game, and then we had Landy Lum uh on. Right, right. Mora wind. Which was nine just of us talking about the game. Um and then there is one that we had a lot of interviews with and actually only three about the game. That is a big hint for the other nine.

Oh, a lot of interviews. Oh, Republic Commando? Yeah. Republic Commando. Oh yeah. We had six episodes of interviews. Uh yeah. Yeah. Including one that had the two of us interviewing each other. So Uh yeah and that actually weirdest episode of all. That is definitely that is definitely a weird one. Um okay, so that leads into the second trivia question of this block.

How many interviews have we done? You can either give me the number of interviews or the number of interviewees. And again, I'll I'll give you a leeway of of five. Um I'm gonna say seven We have had 56 interviews with 64 interviewees. Um Okay. So some some have been we've had two people like uh yeah Tim of Legend and Dave Grossman and uh Leonard Boyarski and Tim Kane and um

Uh Randy and Greg for Thief. I'm trying to think of which other ones. But you know, we've had a handful that's been like Yeah Sean and yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Sean and Zach. Um so we've we've had a handful of those. I guess four. We might have just enumerated most of them. Um, but yeah, fifty six interview episodes. So there you go. Um I will come back. We have two more trivia questions.

uh that will come a little bit later. So we were just talking about interviewees. Let's talk about some interview moments over the last ten years. Um We have had I just want to preface, we've had so many great interviews. I was looking at, you know, the list today and just like, we've had legends on. I mean, we've had nuts and bolts folks, you know, we've had every department. represented um I mean so many

So many great interviews. And I, you know, really go back to our like end of year episodes, which I should have make a separate list somewhere. But our interviewer episodes where we kind of recap the year with the through the lens of the interviews, um, are some of my favorite to do. They're a pain to produce, but they're they're so fun to like reflect on and re listen to just as a like, what would I take from this? So I just want to just throw that out here now.

you know, almost an hour in. Maybe should have done it at the top. But like, so good. And I know a lot of people love the interviews and they tend to be some of our most listened to episodes. So I know I know that I'm beating a well beaten drum at this point. But um but yeah, anyway. Uh yeah, people yeah, people care more. Yeah, they don't care as much about us than they do about the yeah. I think some people only listen to those. Yeah. Uh yeah.

Um yeah, so so go ahead and give me any uh just one of your interview thoughts. We'll kind of bounce back and forth a little bit. Yeah, the first one, um was because it's a series that's near and dear to my heart, um, Janish Floschler, uh was a was one of as our second interview I think. Uh Yan's somebody I worked with in the past and and I really respect and he told the story about

um about sort of the genesis of the hitman kind of backstory and relating it to Daedalus the the the myth, I believe. Um and that was just a For me as a nerd, you know, as a hitman nerd and as a lore nerd. Yeah, just like when that was I saw that in your notes, I was like, Dale, don't. Doesn't ring a bell, but okay. Well and you know, the th and it's it's one of those funny moments from a development standpoint when when there is no world where I would have thought of

Mm. You know what I mean? Like it only can come from one of the creators of the franchise, you know. Yeah. Where they're like, Oh yeah, we were taking you were sitting there, you know, and it and also from the sort of Scandinavian perspective, um Uh I believe uh Yanosh is Hungarian ethnically, but he's lived in Scan. So um most of his life. So professional life. So he's I he's a very he's is you know, thinks very Scandinavian like I think. And it's just it's just one of those kind of like

Huh. I would never have guessed that's where the hitman lore comes from. Yeah, that reminds me of like Sam Blake. He's like that too. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. That it it all comes from a deep underground like Yeah, you know. Yeah, it's a cultural I think it's a cultural sort of uh sensibility to how you know how to think about those sorts of construction. How to think about creatively. Yeah. So that was one that come came to mind and I think about often as sort of like one of those

Wonderful behind the scenes tidbits. Yeah. I will also go back to a really early one. Um, it is a it is uh just a snippet of a quote that has stuck with me for literally ten years as of two days from now. Describing System Shock Two as a grotty fish stew elements. That we could not have started better from an interview standpoint for me because that was such a like

Such a I mean, it's kind of the opposite of of what you were just discussing. It's like, well, we stuck a bunch of this stuff together and it worked, you know. Like he was talking about it being a blue base, but it's like, you know, it's really b a bunch of like kind of rotting fish. um that just happened to be okay together. Um and I just I always

I always think about that, you know. Um, you know, and it actually ties into one of my takeaways from later uh in a way. Um, but that is that quote was just like I I may have even it might have been in my year end for that year, but like that just like Grottifish stew has lived rent free in my head for a decade and probably for like At you know when I'm on my deathbed, I will be asking for Buyabase um as as a result. So anyway, that that image

has just always stuck with me and of course he's he's got that voice, you know, that Ken Levine has. Um anyway. So I think it's a good description of of um immersive Sims as well anyway, you know. Yeah, absolutely kind of where the gen where the What do you put in? Like what do you what do you decide to add? Like what are the things that you care about enough, you know, to put in your simulation is a big question for an interactive sim. And uh yeah, I don't know. That's uh that's

That's what happens, you know. It's like you end up with magic. You threw in a bunch of stuff that you were like, I don't know, you know, like, well put this in there, I guess, and uh and you It ends up working. So and it's hard to know. I mean, I remember reading an article ages ago now about um about building a sim and how like you don't know if it works until everything's in it.

And then it either works or it doesn't. And I will put the I will put um I can't the name isn't coming to me right now. I actually know that have met this person. And like I get uh oh it's so close. So the name's right there, but I can't can't get it. Um

It'll come to you. It'll come to me. And uh and he wrote an article about that, or maybe even a series of articles about it for I think Skulls of the Shogun, which was a sort of simulated two D strategy game for maybe the Xbox Live era. Um And uh he talks about that and um

You know, and that's kinda and that's some of the magic of game making, especially early on, you know, where it's just like we're cramming everything in as fast as we can. Um, you know, et cetera. Anyway, so that was that was one of mine.

Um the the next two are pretty quick. The the the next one I'll combo with two different very similar stories and they were really just like The reason they're memorable memorable to me is that as a developer, it they were good reminders about the fragility and chaos of game development and how even some of the classic games, you know, have

stories like that. Interesting stories, weird stories, hard stories, you know, like um and so Tim Kane and Leonard Boyarski and um and Julian Gullah both uh both had a similar story to Those game fallout and XCOM both flying under the radar, but then also coming in hot and yeah. And kind of like the, you know, they they both had, you know, those games are so beloved and had and were so, you know, genre forming.

But then the reality of actually the creation of them is so different than what you think. You know? And it is just are those are always those always those two, you know, illustrations that they both shared with us. uh on those f at the f for those phases of those develop those developed games. Um always stuck with me because it's just it it's a good reminder

to me as a developer uh about that, you know, that it's like, yeah, cha from chaos and all of those sorts of phrases we could use. But um I wanted to yeah, those are the ones two two that stuck to mind that were almost identical stories. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a great one. And it I think we may have even referred to that in our sort of after talking about one of them, we probably talked about how uh Republic Commander was kind of incubated in that way. Like

Yeah. Trying to stay under the radar for exactly that reason, you know, that that's kind of where sometimes the magic happens. But it but it also is it points out one of the things that you always say or or said, especially back at that time, was The player doesn't care about how you got to what you have. Yeah.

or choose your representation. But basically like there are tons of stories about how the how it got to be the way it is. It doesn't matter. If it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel good. It doesn't matter that it feels better than it did. Um, you know, and a lot of the games that have had success just happen to get lucky with their second or third iteration, especially in this earlier period of games where there wasn't tons of time for iteration on on features.

Um, not that there always is anyway. I mean games get bigger and it's like, well, you still don't have tons of time to iterate. Um But uh but I thought uh yeah, I I you know, I really appreciated that and I I thought back to that kind of time for us of like, Oh yeah, you know, you just You have the time that you have, you know, and you you get it in and hopefully it works. Um and I totally remember the dynamic difficulty of uh Julian Gallup being like

I want to say like two days before they sent it off. You know, it's like, yeah, this'll probably work. And they just like, yep, we added that. We didn't really play it all the way through with that in mind and you know, like, whew, uh talk about talk about the cowboy days. Yeah. And I and and I think in both cases they they they all admitted that they didn't know what they had either, right? So putting in something that significant two days before ship, they're like, Well

At least for shipping. They didn't know what they they didn't know they had XCOM. They just were shipping a game they thought was pretty good. Yeah. And I mean willing to take the risk. Nobody ever really knows. Yeah. So you

You know, uh I wanna I wanna offer a different example. So in the case of Starfighter. We added the ability, like on the last day of Alpha, to allow the player to play the levels with a bunch of different ships. I don't know if you remember this, but like you could sub in the I don't know. I want to say like the Sith Fighter. I don't remember what it's called, but like there's a dark Sith Fighter thing, you know, and and a bunch of other ships that you could be like.

If you had a cheat code, or maybe it was something that we enabled, maybe it was a reward, I don't remember, but like you could go in and it's like now I'm just gonna play with this other ship that plays differently or plays a little differently. And we put that in it, you know, and it was still like six. six weeks to three months out from actual gold. Um and we were at the time I remember getting a lot of uh

Uh let's just say feedback from Andrew Carmsy about that. You know, because I went in and did it. I was like, you know what we could do is we could just like store this little bit of information and when we load the player ship, just load this different player ship, which of course could totally change the memory. I mean this is a PS two, a very memory constrained system for us.

Um hey well, just you know, just play the game with a different ship. Uh and how he was not particularly happy about that. Um But uh Darren liked it so it stayed. So um yeah. I don't remember that. Oh yeah, it was uh Yeah, it was a total thing. Um I I don't even remember what the Oh, we had Next Wing, I think, in there as well that you could play the game with an X Wing maybe. Um or play levels with an X Wing. Uh I had speaking of Star Wars, uh defeating Darth Vader.

Uh by Darren, that's a good one. And uh and Reed. So this is uh Reed and Darren were we're a QA. Um CoQA with you at the time, I think. That was pre me actually. Yeah. No, I know this game was pre U, but this was Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we all did work together. Yeah. Yeah, okay. That's what I thought. Um But uh but for TIE Fighter, which is another maybe year one game that we played

the story of of Darren figuring out that you if you d if you were really good, you could chip away at Darth Vader's health and um Discovering I mean we referenced that, uh the infamous Lord British Death when we talked about Altama. Yeah. Um, and this was basically that, but somebody in QA found it. Um, which is honestly the people who play your game the best. They work for you. They're called your QA department. They will probably be among the best in the world. Uh, Lucas Arts was was

Um, I mean they invested in it and the department did it itself and all kudos to them. It was a world class I mean, literally other studios came to LucasArts to say, How do you do QA? because of how good our QA department was Uh really we were really fortunate. We were really fortunate. And that was a great example of

that sort of thing, you know, that uh and nowadays I think QA d QA is generally quite good. So uh but at the time it really stood out. Um, especially with LucasArts being very committed to not having what we discussed last week, A bugs, which are stop progression bugs of any kind, um, logical or crash or whatever.

Um but it was great to hear a story of like, turns out if you're really, really good at the game, you can do this uh moment from from Darren was was fantastic. And I I've remembered that ever since'cause I I didn't know that back in the day. Um, so sometimes even when we interview people again that we've known for thirty years, uh, we are learning things. And uh that was a great example for me. So

Yeah, there was a competitive there was always a competitive streak in QA when when we were all there and it was sort of like finding the weirdest bugs or the hardest bugs or the most bugs or whatever. I'm sure that's That was a that was a legend. I know when I entered he had already done that by the time I had entered the QA department and you you always heard you know rumors of it, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Um I think you might have one more. Yeah, the only last one I have that that we don't even probably need to talk much about. It was pretty recent, but I had to mention it. Oh yeah, of course. Um was Kim Swift's story about Pitching portal to valve.

Yeah. Um as students, right? Um Yeah, as twenty years old. Yeah, right. Just coming on. Whatever, twenty one or whatever they were. I mean, just Well, I guess they weren't technically pitching portal. They were They were pitching portal, but that story that she told was

That's another sort of like side of the coin for me of like how games are shipped and then also how games are pitched and how do they get you know, how do they come to be. How do they get the green light? Yeah. Yeah, green lights and all that, you know, and and and there's been so many different versions of that for us over. Um, but that particular one, you know, one one of the most legendary games of all times and how it got greenlit and it a weird company that does its own thing.

As as young young developers just getting going. Yeah, so definitely listen to that one. It was I think in our in in Yes, it was. Yep. It was pretty recent. Yeah, for sure. It was I mean, it was a great moment. And um yeah, we kind of I and I kind of remember hearing a little bit about it, but not like, you know, from the from the uh horse's mouth as it were. Um so it was great to hear hear that perspective from from Kim.

Okay, we've we've come to the last uh trivia block. Okay. This is so the f the question one, what is the game with the most mentions on the podcast? Oh, come on. Is it am I gonna be surprised by this? Um I'm I'm just putting it out there. Uh well I mean I'm gonna say Dark Souls. That's okay. Yes, yeah. I really only put that in there. I actually don't know. I put that in there just so that if we hadn't mentioned the game already

I would have a timestamp in which I could say this was the first time you mentioned Dark Souls. Okay. So that was not a real trivia question. Your show notes would probably tell us. Yeah, do you know how many years it would take me to sort the show notes? Can't you write a Python script if you can I could not.

I could not do that. Um I don't actually have all of them like just in text format, so I'd have to like actually copy them. I'd have to extract them and I don't have them all I mean'cause I've done it on different machines over the years and it was I didn't have Dropbox in the first several years or whatever. So Um Somebody's gonna use the thing that will not be named and do it that way. Yeah, please please don't. Um I don't wanna know that we've been training that. But of course we have.

Um anyway, the second the actual trivia, the only remaining trivia question is how many community episodes have there been? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, that's our next section. That's why I thought I would put it in. Yeah, there's more there's more than um more than people realize. I I think I wanna say there's like ten or Twelve, maybe.

Oh, that's that's a good guess. It's funny that you're saying maybe not that many. It's been fifteen, Tim. Oh wow. Good job, everybody. Good job. That's great. So thanks to thanks to all those. In fact, as we go into the community section I'll actually start with that. Um, we have fifteen episodes, you know. In the early days, you know, before I stopped worrying about such things, um

I would rerun interviews, you know, in weeks that we were off for whatever reason. I mean, the the famous helicopter trip. Uh I don't think I was doing them anymore. But um but early early on there were weeks where it's like, Yeah, we just haven't got our act together, you know, it was our first year or two doing it and we're like, I don't you know, we're not ready yet, um, to do our next game for whatever reason. Um, you know, vacations and and whatnot.

And I would run I would rerun episodes. I I actually had forgotten, but I went and looked on the the actual feed and I was like, Oh yeah, we re ran, you know, the Ken Libyan one. We ran we ran the the Yanish uh one as well. Um But in the last couple of years, three years. Um we have had episodes from the community interviewing each other, talking about streaming, talking about games, having a game club episode, you know, from the community as I I recall. Um

You know, I didn't go look at all of them in particular, but like it was all of that stuff. And that was uh Uh it is nice to be able to take a break in that way and Um, you know, nowadays I'd probably if we didn't have something to run, I'd be like, Okay, no episode this week and you know, it's fine and and no big deal. But uh it is really nice to be able to just be like, you know what, we're taking three weeks off in December. uh after portal and

We're covered. Um, and that's uh that's really wonderful. So thanks to everyone to who brings that together. In particular for the twelve no thirteen of them. I guess twelve of them, um, Biostats and Calamity Nolan. So I I'll throw that out as one of my

Community things uh to talk about. Yeah, good segue. Yeah, those um those are amazing uh and it is nice. You know, we as as we said many times, we we don't there's no ads, we don't have a Patreon, we don't get paid or do any you know, so um that's kind of a nice way for the community to support us in a different way, I guess you could say. Um Yeah, this is all this is all on our

Oh this is a side side thing. Yeah. Uh so my first. It's just a side. Yeah, we don't even get anything from us, and that's why I didn't say hustle. Uh the my first one is gonna be fairly obvious, but um for anyone who who knows knows what's going on in the community, but I wanna I I have to mention the Minecraft server, which we we played Minecraft for the uh for the podcast.

Um and you know, that's the kind of game where you can barely scratch the surface when you play the way we play. So we you know, we got the basics in there. But for Minecraft to really be done, you know, done justice, uh, the you really kinda needed a server to pop up. And so Brett, I think, has been graciously Uh still still paying for that, which I'm happy to t take it over anytime you want. Um I'm sure even community. But you know, Lost Lake and Moores and Kaon and others.

Mr. Mr. Gip and his and his daughter, yeah. Um, it's I haven't been in as much as I would really like, but we have we have done like raids together that they have set up. Um That was fun. That was fun. You know, there's a lot of content I would never see in that game. that I have seen because of the community, as well as like the things you can make. Um

Crazy. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And and they're they're they're doing some of the higher end, you know, more complicated stuff. There's a whole rail system. People are all over. Moores is mapping the whole world. It's a gigantic map of the world. Yeah, with like yeah, with like cat uh, you know, uh catwalks and everything are uh And then you go look at my humble like deep hole in the ground, you're like, Wow, Brett really likes to dig and he put stairs everywhere. That guy's weird. Yeah.

Uh yeah, it's like it's like seeing the the errors of history in a civilization game. That's right. Yeah. You and I are like still smacking rocks together and then

They're off there making building spaceships. Yeah. Yeah. Farming diamonds or whatever. Yeah. Um anyway. Yeah, so that that and then And as a as a s quick anecdote for that one specifically, like I enjoyed the Minecraft movie more because of that that community uh you know, server and and community time because we did we did a raid of the Woodland Manor? Woodland mansion? I forget. Whatever it is, yeah. Yeah, the woodland thing that we did as a kind of a raid as a community event.

And I didn't even know what those were before we did that. And then I watched the movie afterwards, and that's a whole big plot point. and see in the movie. And I'm like, I know what that is. I know what that's not a movie I'm gonna see, but you know, it was good. It was fun. It was it was really funny. Yeah. Anyway, um so anyway, so that was a lot of things.

I'm far I'm far too snobby for us to do a movie podcast. Oh my gosh. No, don't. I would never do a movie podcast with you. Yeah. Uh I will do one that I know we have shared. Um And then I'll throw back to you and we we can talk about this together. But but obviously the the big one is the uh the the defeating games for charity event. Um it is wonderful to see a community come together around

shared values, I'll say, I guess, um, in terms of, you know, preserving games. I mean, it it benefits the uh video game history foundation and has, I guess, for three years, um You know, we just had it about a month ago. Uh it is a I uh if you had said in twenty sixteen, a bunch of people who listen to you talk every week are gonna get together um and stream to raise money for this thing that, you know, undergirds kind of the values of uh you know, broadly speaking of what you do.

I would have said, come on, you know, us You know, where you you mean more than just our family members are listening to this. Um But uh they have one. Not even my family members. Yeah, I'm not either. Um but you know the uh I I just was like it's just kind of astonishing uh that I have another one that's somewhat related, but it's it's

Uh I figured I'd throw this one in there. Um because the other one is just kind of a broad thing. But specifically that, uh and I know it's I know it's in your list too, so I thought I'd throw over to you. Yeah. Yeah, I'll piggyback off that. Yeah. And and you know, there's the It's uh it's a great event. It's like you said, it's great to see the community members taking ownership and leadership.

Um, I went to their sort of debrief this year for the third year, um, one that just happened. Um And uh one of the things that I, you know, shared with them that I was happily kind of thinking about and surprised by this year was this sense of it kind of taking on a life of its own and this thought that, you know, maybe defeating games for charity is something that is bigger than the podcast and should live on, right? You know, and become its own thing.

And it it's at that caliber I'd say, right? That organization how smooth it is and how fun it is. And I really I I look forward this this year that just passed that we just did it. I was really looking forward to it. It's a grueling weekend if you wanna watch everything. And but'cause they you know, there's a lot of streaming happening. Um But it's uh yeah, it's just a really amazing event and and I still am flabbergasted that it came.

from uh this podcast initially. But again, I think that In a few years there was like, you know, there the the the tides will

What is it? The the table will b the tables will turn. Will turn. Yeah, tables will turn. Yeah. Tables will turn. Tides will shift. Tides will shift. Yeah. So you know, um but yeah, that's that's a great example of how the community Surprise and also just just uh um heartfelt thank you for you know taking taking things into your own hands, so to speak, you know, for for good cause.

Yeah, I mean I would this might I don't remember if this is on your list. I will I will kind of I didn't actually have this in my l initial list, but one of the things I think about with that is that Back in the time of the of the I mean sort of a little bit before the pandemic, well into the pandemic. Um'cause I know I I did it while I was in Bainbridge, we actually did it together. But streaming and having, you know, not a huge audience obviously is not something I'm gonna give up um

you know, work for. But having an audience of people who would come by and chat, you know, because I was playing something often for the podcast or sort of related or sort of in that in that ballpark. I mean often the stuff I play is is older anyway. Um you know, not something that came out last week, but something that maybe came out in the last few years.

Uh, it was it was really nice to have a built in community just to say, Hey, I'm streaming, you know. I really just wanted at the time to check it out be because it has become such a big part of the broader you know, games community thing. Um, that I was just curious about it and what is that like? You know, uh it's not a thing that I Like, you know, I grew up in uh pre internet isolationist times of, you know, like w why would you do that? You'd play the game yourself, um, kind of thinking.

So I was really kind of curious, like, just what is it, what does it feel like and what also what is the structure behind it, you know, on the Twitch side, um, to do this and how, you know, how do they incentivize it and all those sorts of things. I was just kind of curious about all of that. And because we had this community, um, I could say on the podcast, hey, I'm gonna be streaming this week.

People subscribed, people would show up, you know, and I would be able to chat and have I mean, I wasn't like somebody who has a crazy amount of followers where you can't keep up with your your chat and you'd need mods and stuff. But I did have sort of like, okay, I can sort of see where this goes. And that was actually really useful and im important to me. I mean, it's not

you know, it's not something I've continued. I was curious about it. It did definitely, I will say, in the pandemic, help to have like, Hey, I'm gonna go hang out with some people Monday night or whatever. Um Online but uh But yeah, I I I do appreciate having that, um, you know, from the community and that's you know, the the that's kind of re of a reflection of what Defeating Games for Charity is. I mean it's not something I do anymore and I don't want to do it anymore, but um

But it was uh it was fun. We did do it as as well for Portal Two, I guess, but uh but that's your thing. So Well we'll we'll we'll do a Spelunky run anytime you want to. Oh I'm aware. So you just name name it. Um Yeah, that was on my list too. Um You, you know, you were the first one to do to take the plunge and and kind of, you know, introduce me to what what it was. And for similar reasons, I think both of us were like, what is this? We should know about this because of our business.

Uh etcetera. But it was really the the community around the podcast that got me into it as well and encouraged Um and then still do and still teach me um how to be better at it, right? And and And, you know, no matter how many viewers I have on, also not, you know, not large, but it's always engaging. It's always fun. I I didn't really think I would enjoy it as much as I do. Um because also like Brett said, I'm old and like why would you do this kind of mentality? Get off my lawn. Um uh and so

It's been really yeah, it's been fun to see familiar faces or, you know, familiar people in chat and uh and interact with them and get to know them, right? I mean it If you're if you do it semi consistently and similar, you know, people come, uh you get to know these people through streaming. uh even in chat. So it's yeah, it's been a really that was a big surprise for me that and it did really come from the community encouraged And sometimes

um uh prodding to to do it. So I'm I'm happy I did. It's a commitment and and to be honest, like there's a lot of people in the community that stream very often. And I wish I had more time to watch everybody because every night somebody in the community is streaming. Um and there's you know, they're all of them have their own thing they're doing and, you know, their own personality. their own stream identities and stuff and that's really cool to see.

And it and it often relates to, you know, games we've played on the podcast. So there's even uh not that they're streaming for the podcast, but you know, there's there's like mindedness there is as yeah.

Yeah, my my final sort of broad spectrum uh thing is is It's something I talk about when we talk about making games, but I guess it turned out to also be true of making podcasts, um, which is just this humility of people coming to listen to your thing, but then, you know, there were things that we like streaming that we were not super into, you know, or invested in doing ourselves. So I I remember early on somebody was like, Well, you should have a subreddit. And I was like,

She's I don't know if I wanna I was like again, get off my lawn. But also Discord. Yeah, like I reserve the dev game club Discord and username, it's what I actually use. for the um the community run discord, et cetera. And we just didn't do those things. Um and they just took the ball and ran with it. Um and that's really, you know, it's it's really Yeah. I mean it really touches me that people are that invested and want to

sort of spend time with other people who like what we do. Um, you know, and I I felt that about making games and I've talked about that many times on the podcast about how just like, you know, what that feels like. um and how humbling that is. But it it's also true, you know, it turns out in in making a a podcast. Um so it's it's something I yeah, I throw out there as well. It's just like I didn't I didn't like you said very early on in this episode, I did not expect to be here ten years later.

Um, thirteen years af actually after Tim suggested we do the podcast, but we don't we don't need to go there, I guess. after he already went there. That tracks as far as how long it takes me to do things. Yeah. Yeah. Um anyway, so it's uh yeah, I just wanna to to thank folks in in that regard. You know, I'm glad that uh I'm glad that you self organized'cause it was not something I it's just not a natural thing for me to do. Um and I appreciate that you've all done it. So

Yeah, and it's a welcoming community. I agree with you. Yeah, and I don't I think that's probably a good good place to end that.

That section for sure. Um Uh I would you say you're standing at the Shrine of Humility right now? I I am meditating. I am meditating humility. at the Shrine of Humility and I I have the mantra. But I can't tell you because spoilers, so Yeah. No, totally. Yeah, I totally agree. It's been a humbling journey to get here and still I I I think we both enjoy it and I guess to some degree I mean I would do it if we weren't nobody was listening. Like I mean it's an organized way for us to talk.

Literally, yeah, that's exactly what I was about to say. It's like I think that it i i if i if it wasn't so much work for Brett, we you know, we would just uh uh We would always be talking about it. But it's given us a structure because we would always talk about games all you know. Yeah. You were talking about Reed and Darren recently.

And Andrew, you've mentioned all three of them on this, but I I play games with them weekly, unfortunately for time zone reasons. You're not there. But Yeah, it's hard for me to do that. Everybody does, right? You have your own communities of this, but never Never in a structured way. I've learned so much from this podcast as a game developer coming up on my own milestone. And I still am learning, you know, so it's like

Uh y at the very least it's helping me, you know, and helping hopefully others uh hone their craft or be excited to get into the business. You know, I know we have a lot of new developers or people who want to get into development. Yeah, we have an email that's actually been waiting a while to to that somebody who started listening almost ten years ago.

is talking about how their first game is out on Steam or is you know. So we'll we'll read that soon. Um so sorry for um I don't have that in front of me, but um for whoever set that in, it's coming. Um but yeah, that happens. We have that every you know, happen every once. Well, we were just playing I don't know if you got to, but I played um a Kyle and Errors game. He's a you know uh Yeah, I've started. I haven't gotten deep, but yeah. It's it's amazing. Yeah. It's a crazy game.

another person who, you know, is either as a hobbyist or just, you know, or maybe even in in trying to engage in a career in game development, um, and part of what em motivated them was was us. So that's another humbling aspect. Yeah, and I'm learning from the community all the time too, not just from playing these games and talking about'em on the podcast, but from the Discord, right?'Cause there's a lot of good a lot of good discussion there too. So Yeah.

All right. Uh did you have anything else from the community angle? No, no, I think that's a good place to yeah. All right.

Uh in that case we will go to takeaways. I will start a podcast a week is a lot, Tim. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of podcasts. Um I mean to be honest, I didn't think we'd last. So I was like, uh, let's try a week and then, you know, we'll just quit after a month. Well, I can't imagine like coming and talking about I mean the games we play have so much to them that I can't imagine being like, let's do it do it once a month and have like an hour podcast about one game.

You know, and it's like all of these games, some of'em took, as it turns out, ten or nine episodes. Um, but like There's so much in the games that you can talk about. Um and You know, I I I also just look back and I'm kind of astonished that we've managed like w sure we've had occasional gaps wherever there was one year we were bunna gonna have like a six month gap or whatever it takes you to walk that way. Um And then we didn't'cause thanks COVID, but But anyway, I mean it's just it's

It's a huge body of work, as it turns out. This is I mean it's episode four sixty two, sort of episode four sixty three or four. you know, because of whatever some numbering choices I made early on that were bad. Um and then you know, and then we've got fifteen from the community as well on top of that. So we're we're like at four eighty. We're getting close to five hundred.

And it's just like, wow, that's a lot of stuff. Um, you know, I didn't add up the minutes either. It's another thing I could have done. But if you figure, you know, an hour and fifteen minutes on average, you know, that is you know, you can you can do that math. But uh You know, that's like well over five hundred hours of podcasting that we've done, which is that's a lot of that's a lot of our voices, Tim.

Uh well and the playing, I mean it's no joke. Yeah, I know we've said it many times, but I I don't have a lot of time. Uh, you know, and and uh and I do enjoy playing these games because like I said, I'm not only are they fun, but I'm always learning something new from them. So that even just, you know, to be selfish about it, like that's been really fun. engage or uh enlightening for me but Yeah, I'll have a I'll have a follow up question later about uh the podcast a week.

Oh yeah. How many have I finished? No, no, no. No. No, that's I don't have any trivia about how that would just be that's too mean spirited, Tim. I know it's like three anyway. At least I'm the one that brought it up. Uh so yeah. Uh anyway. Over to you.

Takeaways. Yeah, the the um I don't think yeah, they're not these won't be there won't be much to discuss because in on in all of these cases we've had episodes where we've talked in depth, but I wanted to kind of bring them back up in in a looking back

reflection kind of way. I say keys that aren't keys almost daily. Oh my god. The number of times I've heard him say keys aren't but enough keys. And the thing is is like and this for those who don't know came from our uh Eternal Darkness. Eternal Darkness, right. Um Uh and it's a Miyamoto quote coming from uh

Yeah, Brad. Yeah, I don't I don't remember his last name. It's Brad uh Firminger. I think so, yes, you're right. Good job. Um who is a level designer on uh Eternal Darkness and th that was uh you know published by Nintendo so they My earlier name by the way was Boris Pfeiffer. Okay. Okay. Uh yes, I remember that name now that you mention it. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, so they had to interact with Miyamoto and so you know

famously say there, at least from the podcast, he probably said it to every developer they worked with. Yeah. You know, it's like Eternal Darkness needed more keys that aren't keys. And so, you know, that they had their answer for that. Go listen to that series if you want to hear more about what their answer was. But the concept of that was has had way more of an impact on me than I realized. I thought it was kind of like a cool, catchy

tidbit from an interview that we got. And the more that it keeps coming up, and I realize that really most video games are about keys that are keys. Yeah. Because you have a chal like give video games usually have a challenge of some kind to overcome. which is often something that blocks you from progressing. And so you which is also a door, you know. And it it's just like when you really boil things down, you see where

so many times in my daily life. Um I was I mean, I was thinking last last week, I think you said it's all you know, these are all basically fetch quests. I was like, Wow, yeah, I guess they are. But it's the same it's the same kind of concept, you know, of like

you know, the the skinning around that concept makes a big difference, you know, in terms of like we say fetch quests often, but like that's literally every RPG is like you go to this place, you talk to a person, you go to this other place, right? I mean it's like that's that's the th that's the mechanic, right? You know, and this is another one that's kind of in the same way. Um and really you could think of portal as that way where the keys are more

intellec intellectual and you know, it's like, oh, you've learned you understand this thing, you know, and can apply it. Now you have a key you can apply anywhere, you know. Um it kind of comes out. Yeah, you have a key that that game is about you have a key gun. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. You're just like opening your doors wherever you want to. Yeah. Yeah. Also on the worst, it's borrow it. Pfeiffer, not Boris. Borit. B O R U T. Anyway, I'll put his name in the show notes. Um

I have one that it's another thing you say all the time. And I just wanna say that it it was really reflected in a lot of interviews and I can remember, you know, many times talking about it in our sort of after interview sort of uh outro. You know, like, you know, I really appreciated that this person talked about these other people.

um that were on the team, you know, and I I'd often have to hunt those names down and credits and be like, Okay, well who is like'cause they use a nickname, it's like, well who's that? Um you know, and things like that. So the show notes are sometimes hard to put together. Anyway The point is, A, it's a collaborative medium, but B, the team makes the game, and that sounds so, you know

That is so Zen. So it's like a con. Um, you know, that the team makes the game. But it it really reflects that the game you get is It is a grotty fish stew, as it were, Tim, of all the people who are contributing to it and what they bring to it. And It we are not just square pegs that go into, you know, equally sized square holes. We are all individuals who have our taste. and our preferences and our thoughts and sure we're following vision, you know, and things

you know, and and, you know, certain lanes economic or whatever that are kind of shoving us into a particular direction. Um, but in the end, a bunch of individuals come together to make decisions collectively uh or individually to make the game. And the we've been playing, you know, what did I say, ninety ninety-nine uh great games over the last ten years.

And, you know, I think about all those teams. You know, it's very rare that there's a one person team in anything we've played. Um, there might be none. I'm not sure. Um And you know, it it came up again and again in the interviews. It's something that you say all the time. Um, you sometimes forget that you say it. Um, but it is something that

It's it's what attracted me to game development and has kept me in game development. And it is one of those things that uh I deeply appreciate. It's also why I try to stay in smaller game development. Um because the bigger the teams get, the harder it is to feel that. Um but but anyway, that's uh that's a big takeaway for me.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. And yeah, you you talk about that a lot too. And it's uh yeah, and it's a good reminder. Um, we wish I think we could get many more people on for each of the games we play. should get more a a broader team perspective, but it's just never possible. Yeah. We'll st we'll still try though, you know, you never know. I'm always working on something in the background for guests. Um yeah, that's a great one. So um

Yeah, so my second one I'll say is um is an obvious one that that I've talked a lot about, but again to reflect on. The way I've in I've kind of boiled it down into one sentence this time though is tell them less so they can discover more. And that's one that it that's a takeaway for me that remo that is a reminder for me. Every day at work and reflecting back on mistakes I've made or mistakes we've made or things

we haven't done that the right way. But then even to your original question at the top of the show, you know, what kind of gamer am I? And I realized that, you know, um the games that are much more hand holdy are the ones that I start to bounce off of more quickly these days. Yeah. And I think the podcast actually has had a big impact on that. And of course, Dark Souls.

is the example I would bring up here, but there's many other ones that we've played where, you know, uh I would even put shadow classes in there too. You know, don't don't give them you know, the discovery and the the learning about the game. That's why I try not to use guide you know, uh guides or even read the instructions when we start playing a game. Yeah, sometimes to your detriment, but yeah. To my detriment for sure. Yeah. Um

So yeah, tell them less so they can discover more. And I think the discovery over the course of the ten years. The discovery aspect of these classic games have has has been an un um unexpected joy for me that I'm really trying to think hard about uh as a takeaway data.

Yeah. What is the right balance of that? And there's some franchise I won't, you know, I won't poke on any franchises, but there's some franchises that you and I and our friend group uh dis discuss and debate a lot where I think that they you know they just don't abide by this enough and that's why I bounce I personally bounce off of them so much. Yeah. Um and so it's just interesting to think about that. And I'm glad that games like the Souls games have had such such success.

Um in the light in in in light of embracing this goal. Yeah, and I really like the formulation. Um, because a lot of the times we the way we've put this is like trust the player. Um but um but yeah, this is another another good way to think of it, to to allow them to discover more, you know, because uh you know, yeah, uh games that have a lot to offer

If you point every I mean, I I can remember watching videos of like getting achievements for taking three steps in Doom or whatever, you know, like congratulations, you figured out how to move forward, you know, and a pop up and all that stuff. Um, as a kind of a gag. But there's also a certain hidden you know, that doesn't become a gag because there isn't any truth to it. So it's um definitely something to you know to keep in mind. Um

Uh, I guess my last one is the importance of constraints. I mean I you know, we talk about it all the time and I don't want to belabor it. Um, but you know, we just played a game from nineteen eighty five and the technical constraints, you know, and the limits of what a team can do in the time they had, you know, that's actually a big theme of portal as well and our interviews there, um, you know, and and then subsequent discussions a little bit about Portal Two as well.

you know, like because of course they had a lot fewer constraints in a way. Um anyway, the the whatever limits there were on the team, they're just so important and are so foundational. to creating something really good. You know, we talked about the Fabrija earlier. If it were, you know, could be as big as a room, it wouldn't be all that impressive, would it? Um it's'cause it's so tiny and perfect that it's wonderful.

And those constraints are really important to any work of art and particular uh uh games, you know. Ideally, there are constraints you choose yourselves, or at least constraints you really reflect on a lot as your creator when you're doing them. Uh when you're making your game, because you know

if your constraint is you only have this much time and you kinda don't think about that until it's too late, then you haven't really taken that constraint into account and it probably hurts your game. Um, et cetera. So I don't know, it's it comes out all the time. We talk about it to death. But it is like

It's something I didn't really know about creating stuff when I started in the industry and I came to understand it. Um but I'm glad that it turns out to be true if for all the games that you know, all these great games we've talked about for ten years.

Yeah, it comes up it feels like it comes up every time. Yeah. Comes out all the time. All the time. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and it's and there's always been I think there's always that debate, at least I think since we've been in the industry, of that that chasing that Chasing the well, I'll speak for myself. The every game? Well, chasing the every game and also chasing the game that doesn't have constraints. Right. Like I've worked on some really un un

Just silly big budget games. Yeah. But I won't name the budgets, but it's like, really, is this nest is this really happening? Yeah. And you think, oh, well, this it's because we don't want constraints. We want to be able to do whatever we we can we want to do. And it's like, no, that's not what you want. Um and it's like You chase that, but what if that's not right? You know, and I mean it's what I uh it's what I worry about with the current AI boom. Oh yeah, great point. Yeah.

They're all like, Well yeah, but you could do anything. It's like that is why it's bad. Like if mine you know, I I you know it's and it's with everything'cause I heard somebody you know, I I've listened to a podcast about books and they were talking about like, but I want my book to go on forever and the the host is like, You really don't

It's because it doesn't go on forever that it's good. It would be terrible if it went on forever. Like you know, and and we It happens in film too, right? Like we talk about I mean Yeah, again. There's certain franchises that I also won't name. It's like when the when the constraints were there and very clear and they made hard decisions.

Yeah. And then the ones where we didn't have constraints. Yeah, yeah. I mean that is I mean that's always it is always true. And and people think what they want is I just want a thing to keep giving me the thing I like. It's like you are God I got so bored. Um, you know, i uh in a way our creativity reflects our mortality.

And constraints are really important to that. This, you know, I think it's uh boy, this is I'm really far afield now. But Marcus Marcus Aurelius talks about how there are uh a a man has two lives. Uh the first one begins when he's born and the second one begins the day he learns he's gonna die. Yeah. You know, and that's what constraints are in creativity. It's the same thing. You're gonna have to ship this thing. And the sooner you realize that and are aware of it. And what that means.

Yeah. The better. So Yeah, own it. You own that own that that um limitation of like And and choose one if you don't have one. I mean there's so many products out there that never came out because They didn't constrain themselves. Um, and I you know, we know about some of those and we won't talk about those either. But that's not what this podcast is about. Yeah. Yeah.

So my last one is uh don't make assumptions about what the player, uh what they want the game to do for them. And I have a very specific Uh exactly, yeah. You you might know where yeah. So my very specific one and this one this this one came up. The reason I put this is my last one and and they're all they all I use them. daily probably as much to Brett's chagrin. But this one happened to me just last week when I was playing an a a game I won't name for fun.

And the example that we that my revelation that is silly, that it had to be a revelation I should have known a long time ago was during our careen of time. If that's what you were guessing at. It was, yep. Is it the arts?

The hearts. Yeah. The hearts and I think the community actually, right? We got a mail. Yeah, we didn't I didn't come up with that. Uh that somebody somebody mentioned it. So in the email or in in Discord, yeah. I think it was in the email, yeah. I think going back to the community and its impact on the podcast.

was, you know, they're like, hey dummy. The reason that's you know, the reason that that's like that is for this reason, etc. And it's like I uh when we were doing Ocarina, I was confused about why they didn't just give you the heart after you beat a boss or a dungeon. Or whatever, it's like I'm gonna I want that heart and then you know the revelation of like no give that choice to the player because some players don't want the heart, they want to play the game with one heart. And I was like

mind blown. I was like, holy cow, you're right. That's amazing. That's brilliant. Don't give them. And so just the anecdote was I was playing a game I won't name, that's sort of a a looter shooter kind of, you know, MMOE kind of game with our group. last week and we were leaving the sort of headquarters area and there was a box there where you replenish your gear.

And one of one of the group said, Why don't they just auto replenish your gear for you? Like why do I wanna have to go to this box and replenish my gear? And I immediat I didn't say anything, but I immediately thought to myself You know, everyone's like, Yeah, they should just give you all the stuff. Why do you need you know? But then I thought to myself, No, I don't think that's right. I think you some players may not wanna leave may want to leave the HQ without taking

All the stuff in the box, you know. So Comes up all the time. Yeah, no, it's a good one. It's a good one. I mean and those are those are both about player agency, both of those last two of yours. Um I'm much more about the the creators because f screw the players, but um no kidding. Uh mostly. Um but uh but yeah, for for sure. Uh all right. Well I think that's our takeaways. I do have one

One question for you here at the end. Uh Okay. And that is how much longer you want to do this, Tim? Uh wait, are we like calling it here? Is this on on air? We can No, I thought about doing that, but I couldn't do that to you. That would be that would That would not have been funny. It would have been definite I would have like uh put the mic down. I would have dropped it right here on my desk. I don't you know

I don't know. I don't know. I'm definitely, I mean, I've I'll be fully transparent with with listeners and with you. Like, I think we're probably both feeling it.

Um that's why that's why I almost had the mic drop moment. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's been a it's been a long road. It's definitely a lot of work and you know, there's all the obvious reasons why we would stop. Um I don't you know, I as you know about me and for better or for worse it's it's tr it's true about me, is that I I'm kind of an I know it when I see it kind of person.

Um, and when I feel it and I don't quite feel it yet personally, I would if you say we're done tomorrow, I'd be okay with that. I'd support. But uh for if you're asking me specifically, I don't feel my gut isn't telling me we're done yet, but I don't think we're gonna go another ten. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. So All right. Well I I have an email and then I have another question for you. Oh great. Okay. Okay. So the email is the subject is tenure wishes. It's from someone named Jenny.

And Jenny says, Happy anniversary. Here's to ten years of Tim saying, quote, sorry I can't fill in the blank. I have to play for the podcast. Hooray. Love you guys. XO Um from from Jenny. Oh man, this episode's full of surprises for me. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Um, and so I I have a follow up question, which is Tim, how much longer do you want to do this podcast? Yeah.

I did I did by the way I did text her to say, This is what I'm gonna do now that you sent in this email. Because I knew she wouldn't listen. Certainly not. We're almost two hours in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jenny, by the way, is Tim's Tim's wife for those who are just joining us. Uh yeah, yeah.

Well, maybe I should go ask her this question. How long how much longer do are we doing this? Yeah. Yeah. I mean she knows that, you know, that it brings us a lot of joy and that we've we're proud of it, right? And unexpectedly proud of it, I think for me. It's like, wow, this is actually a thing. Um so yeah, I you know, I don't know, like both of we're we're in a weird place in in a lot of ways right now, right? So I think there's a lot of unknowns. Um

And this is another one of'em. Yeah. Uh yeah, I mean I guess we c i there I also am a believer'cause I I I I love uh love TV. Um I you're more of a movie person. I'm probably more of a T V person. And I'm a very appreciative of T V uh series that know when I was a little bit of a Yeah, that is on the high note, end on the right note. Um and so I I that's another kind of like, you know, takeaway of like, oh I mean when is the right

So I don't wanna call it on this episode, but it it definitely But we'll see if there's one next week. So Yeah, you never know. You never know.

Anyway, that is our talk to Jenny about that. Go talk to Jenny about that. That is our 10-year retrospective. Um, you know, we didn't do one that is for the hosts, but uh I wanna thank you for However many hours this is of good conversation and discussion, um, you also get most of the interviews. I'm not good at that. I'm terrible at actually sending people email.

um or reaching out however I do, you get almost all of them. But uh I do uh I've appreciated so much having this time. You know, like I said earlier, like I would do this just to talk with you every week and the structure kind of really helps us.

actually do it, you know,'cause this sort of thing is the sort of thing that would fall apart if you were like, Yeah, let's talk every week. Um, you know, that would work for six months and then, you know, you'd never talk again uh about the games or whatever.

Um, so I just wanna thank you for, you know, all of these years. I I learned so much in conversation with you. I certainly come with my own thoughts, but like when we're discussing I'll I'll all the time be like, Oh, I didn't I never thought of it that way, you know, or Or whatever, you know,'cause we we each come with our own lens and yeah, likewise. I've appreciated that. So

Yeah, same. You know you know me getting uh uh getting wort teary eyed about things, uh but don't make don't don't make me cry. But uh yeah, I appreciate I appreciate you two. Thank you. Thank you for for doing this. I'm and you do a lot of work, by the way.

I try to thank you but I don't thank you enough. You thank me plenty. Yeah. Everybody knows, just so everybody knows. Yeah. I mean I might I might do some of the stuff like interviews and stuff, but uh yeah, but as far as the production goes. It's all Brett. So yeah, thank you for that. It's definitely mutual. And and I didn't think of this before when you asked me the question, but the the maybe my final comment will be too that Um I don't think we would have s kept going without the community.

To be honest. Like, you know, even getting emails, like, you know, even in the early days we had some repeat folks and You know, and and we you know, thanks for the report. And we got that chocolate that one time. More chocolate, please. Just gonna throw that out there. Yeah, there were some good some good uh There were good gift boxes, yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, I mean when you know when you know there's people out there that that um you know that they're getting something from it, it helps it helps keep fuel, I think, fueless as well. So thank you thank you to the community for that support. But yeah, thanks to you, Brett. It's been a it's been quite Quite a ten years. And you too, Tim. Well, I'll do my traditional outro stuff now. before I get teary eyed like that would happen.

Um you can show us reviews. We love'em. We have lots of email in addition to the one that Jenny just sent to devgameclub at gmail.com. We're on the web at devgameclub.com where all sorts of information for this episode I pulled from. It's all there. You can find it. Uh and if you want to go run a Python script uh to pull out what game we actually have mentioned the most, uh please be my guest. Uh my co-host here Twitch is at twitch.tv slash.

Tim Longo Jr. with the J R at the end, but not this week. Yeah, well, you know, mostly we just it would have been after anyway, but mostly I just include that so you can say Tim Longo Jr. with the J R at the end of the week. Um we have mentioned it uh several times, but we have a community run Discord. There's a link for that in the show notes.

Our intro and outro music was written, performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by friendly cast Aaron Evers, and our logo, merch store, the Discord, lots of stuff, all by Mark Garcia. Have fun looking back on a decade this week and good night. Good night.