Ep 665: Jonas Kyratzes Returns

Ikea presenterar Ljud av förändring. İzlediğiniz için teşekkür ederim. Välkommen till IKEA. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host, you seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention?

You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with LibSynads. Go to libsenads.com, that's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com today.

And welcome to another edition of the Movie Crypt. I'm Adam Green. I'm Joe. This conversation that you're about to hear, you ready for this? This was actually recorded way back last year. Uh November seventeenth, two thousand twenty five. Now we like to save like we we like to bank episodes. This is some safety deposit box shit. Yeah, this one we banked uh for a reason. Uh our guest My pizza. Keep going.

Jonas Carasis, who's been on the movie Crypt before. In fact, uh, it was like five years ago, so his classic crypt. Ran in like Two months ago. Um but Jonas is somebody uh that we have both worked with multiple times now and you're gonna hear all about that in this episode. Isn't it weird how fateful that like that one casting thing that I did at Side that day you know turned into all of this? Yeah, and that's so fucking crazy. That's all in this conversation.

But what is really exciting about this is it's not that often that we get to talk about other sides of entertainment. Uh in this case, video games, all that goes into producing them and making them, writing them, and an audio drama that you're gonna be hearing about in this. You're even gonna be hearing some clips from it. I you know what's funny? I heard you editing the episode like a couple weeks back. I didn't hear any of the episodes the things that we are gonna be talking about.

until you were playing it. Yeah, at the time that we recorded this we didn't have it. And I'm fucking stoked, man. Holy shit. We pulled it off. The audio drama is called Azatoth. Blues. Really rolls off the top. It it does, but it is available now at the time that this episode comes out, wherever you get audio books and audio dramas.

Uh you'll hear what it is and and more about it and all that went into it. But the reason we had to record this way back in November is because Jonas is from Greece, but he happened to be here in town. where we were doing new voiceovers for the video game Talos Principle 3. Both of us were in Talos Principle 2. We're both gonna be back in three. I think we say that in the episode, so that's okay. No spoiler. Uh and recording newer stuff for Azatoth Blues, even though the original uh

didn't come out until like this week, meaning the week that this episode airs. It's like uh Battlefield Earth when they would like announce the s the two sequels before the first movie came out. They're like they're we're s we're that confident that this thing is gonna be a fucking mm juggernaut. I I'm putting it down now. Well w whether it is or not, uh that's really up to the audience. But uh we wanted to wait and and run this episode when you could instantly go and check out Azetoth Blues.

If you've never played the Talos Principle games, there's two of them that have been released so far, all kinds of extra DLC content as well. And a third one is currently in production as you now know. So we're gonna shut up while you listen to the this is a really fun conversation too. This is n yeah, this is a fun conversation. I love Jonas. Uh like he's he's been a great collection. She should have been, god damn it. Um

But yeah, like we're really proud of this uh this thing that he brought us onto. Uh we're really proud of Jonas for everything he's done. And uh it's just a great hang. Yeah. So enjoy our conversation with Jonas.

Okay, so our next guest is someone I'm No no no no no no no that that that's that's not convincing enough. Come on. Like do it like you can actually speak English. Wow. He's our director now. All right. All right. Take two. All right, here we go. So our next guest is someone that I'm really excited to have. I I think of myself more as a new co host. Wow. So this is gonna be a good one.

This is getting this is going off real well. This is uh getting off to a great start. Well, you know what, why don't you do the fucking intro? Okay, welcome to the movie Crift uh Crift, sorry. Cript I have no No no no no no no no no It's called the movie Crift now. Um welcome to the movie Crift with me, Jonas and

These other guys, I don't know who they are. Me, Jonas. You know what? We know what's gonna happen at the end of this episode. I think we're all gonna agree it's like you know what, you now are the new Arwen. If you remember back in twenty twenty one Uh, Jonas was first on the podcast. In fact, at the time we're recording

this part of the conversation'cause we're recording this part back in November. Way back in November. Because Jonas is in town. The Epstein files haven't been released yet. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Um that is Unbelievable. Yeah. At that point. That's weird. Joe was Sam. One of the characters in the video game. Yeah. He was not Sam. But he was in he was in it. He was Kenny. Yeah. Um I'm Kenny. And Kenny the Hardy McFly wannabe. Talus Principle One was out.

Right? Yes. And then Talus Principle Two, we didn't really talk that much about it. We didn't know we were talking about three years last year. I don't think we'd we'd even I mean we m maybe we're working on it a little bit, like it was in our heads, but I don't think we'd even like started proper production yet. But when you did tell us Principle Two, Joe was back as one of the characters, I came in as Yakut.

And then uh at the time that we're recording this, we're about to record our stuff for Talos Principle three.

Yes. But then there's also something really special which wait, why don't we play a taste of it first? This meeting will be tape recorded as will all further meetings. I'm Captain Donovan. Please state your names and ranks for the record. Harrison Crane, detective. Susan Danton, detective. Benjamin Wade, also detective. Detective. Now you were wondering what you're doing in this uh charming little basement.

The answer's simple. Due to your excellent work in each of your respective precincts, you've been assigned to the Unified Cold Case Task Force. Oh fuck. What? I was in the middle of a case. All your open cases have been reassigned. You will be working exclusively for the task force from now.

I knew it. I fucking knew it. Mr. Crane, if you could contain yourself. You know, I thought this place was a rumor, but no, I do my job, and this is what I get. Reassigned to the murder dungeon. Wait, this is the murder dungeon? You're that, Captain Donovan? Yep. Welcome to hell, Benny Boy. But we didn't do anything wrong, did we? Did I mess up somehow?'Cause I can someone please explain Quiet. Now listen to me.

Yes, you've heard the stories. Crazy old Captain Donovan and his filthy stinky murder dungeon where they send you to work on unsolvable cases till you lose your mind. And yeah, everything you've heard is true. The reason you're here is because they want to fire you. But Wait, why would they want to fire me? I haven't done anything wrong.

Except for whatever reason they can't fire you. So they send you to me and I put you to work on the cases that nobody wants. Till you get tired of smelling each other's farts and do everyone a favor and quit. Okay, so what was that from?

Okay, that's from a new audio drama that we're doing with the two of you and a bunch of other wonderful people. Uh and my collaborator Chris Christodulu that people know from Risk of Rain. Uh and it's called Azithoth Blues and it's a Lovecraftian detective audio drama thing that goes quite weird after a while. And I think it's gonna be very, very, very interesting. What else could you even

Compare it to and then I want to get into how we recorded it'cause it was very interesting. I don't know. I I know where we can I I can throw something out there because Um, you know, d it's been what, two years since we recorded or a year? A year and something a year and a half, yeah. There was a movie that was on my brain the whole time we were recording and I don't no one remembers this movie. Yeah. It was called It's the the answer is never

Ice Pirates. Ever. Unless it's what's Ron Perlman's worst movie. No wait, no, actually no, that's not true. I love Ron Perlman, but I do. But not not ice hearts. There was a there was an HBO movie that came out in like the the early nineties called Cast a Deadly Spell. with Fred Ward. It was a Lovecrafty and noir movie that just disappeared. It fell through the crack Of of Cthulhu. And then last year I found it at a video store, and Becca had never seen it before. I hadn't seen it in years.

And it's fucking great. It's set in the fifties. It's a it's a detective noir, but it happens to have Lovecraft involved. And it's fucking that's probably the closest I've ever seen it. And then you come along with this and it's like

A perfect mashup. But we only even knew it was Lovecraftian because you told us because we only got the it's how many episodes is it? Ten. It's ten episodes, yeah. Ten episodes. So you only sent us the script for episode one. Yeah. And then so we knew how things started, but had no idea where it was going. But then you did something that I thought was super interesting and that definitely works best with something like an audio drama.

where you didn't let us see any of the other scripts until we were doing them. Yeah. And like we'd always go back and do a second take now that we were like familiar with it. But we were figuring out the story as we were performing it, which Uh at the time that we're recording this conversation, we still haven't heard the finished thing. Um but when this episode comes out.

you'll be able everyone will be able to hear it. Um I thought this was gonna be a moment where you're like, guys, just want to let you know you've been recast. We've completely true because as soon as we finished recording this episode, we're walking over to uh another studio nearby to record more. A bit more, yeah. But it was still not done. So exciting'cause we'd go home each night

And then you just couldn't stop thinking about it. Like, well, where where is this going? Where is this? And then watching faces discover it. Obviously you knew what was gonna happen, but seeing us all realize at the first time, like, wait, what? What? Since then you're adding score with live musicians, all kinds of sound design. Like this is a produced thing. Yeah. So why an audio track?

Okay, why an audio drama? Well, Okay. I wanted to work a lot more with actors again. That was my first motivation. I write For the human voice. That's what that what that's what I love, right? Uh I I uh th that's that's that That's what makes me happy in a way that I think video game writing doesn't always make me happy. I love video game writing. But when I only sit in front of a complicated spreadsheet all day, I get a bit tired of it.

And it's just funny to hear you say that because when you think like Tal's principle obviously has been very successful, there's a third one coming. But that is a cast of robots. Mm-hmm. But your direction was always no no no no no. Like you're hum you don't yeah. You're a robot, but you don't think that. No, in fact in Thomas Principle too, one of the main philosophical points of it is that they consider themselves to be human beings. They are continuing human civilization, humans are extinct.

And the game always argued, um, well, what makes us human isn't biology. Yeah. Right? It's our culture, it's our ideas, it's our beliefs. um and uh you know we exist as material beings and if we existed in a different material form we could still be human in a in a meaningful way. So it was it was always about the humanity of the characters and about

That's also why we cast you, right? Like the casting in Tal's Principle too is kind of unusual because the the standard thing to do is you get voice actors to do a lot of video games. These guys are great. This is not a c criticism. They are amazing. They are sometimes almost too good because they are so used to just doing like gigantic just pages and pages and pages.

of uh of lines, sometimes with very little context from uh from the company. And So they're incredibly kind of smooth and and almost too perfect. And w we when we were casting we're often thinking, okay, we want we want this to have a kind of warmth and humanity and we want to have different voices. You also have a tendency in video games to get very similar voices. Again, not a criticism of the actors.

Some of these actors are incredible in how they can vary their voices. But you do get a very specific range of of of people who work a lot and are great. And and we were thinking but you're also and and not interrupt, but you bring up a really good point.

when we were doing Sirius Sam and I came in to just direct the auditions, everybody then and I'd been doing a couple of years of um of audio work, whether it was the dubs or doing, you know, um voice assist stuff. Um, you're right. A lot of times even though the actor might not be the same, they know that you're looking for a very particular cadence. Yeah. That fits the algorithm, that, you know, does does well for the the the audience or whatever. And when you went what if you auditioned

I was like, what the fuck? Like why wouldn't you go with like the five or six people who came in who just all the time? Bitch, I'm offer only. Uh I don't audition. I look, I was just happy to you know, to be there to begin with'cause, you know, inside LA at the time they had really good lunch. Um so I was like, Oh, I'm getting a free lunch out of this. They have a really nice bathroom too. They do have wonderful bathrooms. Also the coffee pods are great. Anyway.

Um, but you had even said you were looking for something a little less polished and it made sense to me. At first I was like, fuck you bitch. But then I was like well, I was like, fuck you, bitch. You know, I'm trying to be smooth. Um that W I think with with the audience knows when they hear something that feels uh I hate to use the word AI, but you're right, too polished. Yeah. And and like some of these people would come in, like I've been doing dubs, you know, for the last

six years. And you're right. A lot of times they don't come in with any context. They probably have four other sessions that day. They go, What are we doing? Oh, okay. And then they they're just programmed in a way and you're right, not a not a slight, but when you're not given any context at all, you kinda have to be hit the ground running, and that sometimes produces something that feels a little less human.

Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's because they've adapted to to how video games are often made. I think that this happens and because they are very talented and these people can also save your life, right? They can come in and just knock out a whole character like this. Oh my God, how did they do that? Fantastic.

But it doesn't always um especially if if the writing is a little bit more unusual, it doesn't always work. And with you, for example, the reason we cast you was because you got the humor, right? You understood why this was funny, because you appreciate kind of pulp humor and and that sort of thing. So you're not just reading it so it's correct, but you're reading it

So that you feel it because you you get why this works. And and with Tano's principle, that was kind of the same thing. We wanted people who could. understand these characters and what made these characters human and bring them this kind of warmth and humanity. That's why we got the uh wonderful guys from the H P Lovecraft Historical Society who are also in Azeth of Blues

um uh who who who just delivered such wonderful performances. You you've never heard them in a video game before, I think, but um they just they just bring so much and and of course in the case of of Yakut, it was It was so important because he's one of the main team members uh in the story and and you need like a guy who can be like a likable ordinary guy. who's not like the visionary like Byron or or the the grouch like Melville, but who is a person

And it was very interesting watching um players respond because at first and and I heard this from a lot of players, they were like, What is this? Wha why does this guy sound like that? He's like He's so insecure. Like he does he it does he not know how to like is is this an acting issue, right? When you were directing me that way, when you were like, No, no, no, I like that. Do more that.

Like when I asked her out at the end, spoiler, um and I did it I did it the way basically the way I would play Adam and Hollis. Yeah. Yeah. Kinda nervous, bumbling, not cool, not and you were like, Yeah, that, that and I was like, How is this gonna work in a video game?

But then when you started sending me the respon the reviews and the reactions, I was like, Oh man, he really knew what he was doing. It's it's working. Yeah, exactly. You you just you you find the humanity both in the writing and then also in the performances. Like in the writing you find

For me you often find the messy things or the flaws. Like a a a detail that I love is Intel's principle one, there's this project to save humanity and to create these robots and so on. And in the end it ends up having two titles'cause they can't agree on what to call it, so it ends up just having both. And that's just so stupid but so human. This is the kind of thing that would really happen. And you don't th this kind of tends to get

kind of uh streamlined away sometimes in writing this kind of humanity and and it was all about putting it back in. So a lot of the casting was about that. And we also wrote specifically for actors. So a lot of the parts were written specifically with some of the Oh I felt it on mine. You know, it was it was with you, it was with Hugh, it was with Peter Wingfield of Les Byron, it was uh with Sean Brani, uh all these people, it was written specifically for their voices

Um b because to me that's also kind of what you do when you kind of write and direct. You're like you have an actor's voice in your head and you're you're It's almost like an instrument and you're kind of imagining how would he say that and you're writing specifically to that and then sometimes you have a character and you hope you can find a voice that can do what you just wrote, which is

terrifying sometimes. Like we had a character called Melville who was uh so like grouchy and funny and weird in Towers too and she's so great but until we found Rachel who played it we were like, Oh my god, how is this gonna work?

Um and then it works because you you you find someone. You know, we we talk about this kind of film for this kind of three-tiered process for filmmaking where you're rewriting the story three times in the script phase and the production phase and then in the post phase.

Does that workflow fit for gaming as well? No. And the reason for that is entirely production related, which is that. Producing video games is very complicated. And I can't get over it. The our friend Ruben, um, he works on a lot of big games, God of War, things like that. The amount of years that go under this. When he would talk about his deadline, he's like, Oh yeah, my deadline is y next May and I'm like

Dude, I would be like totally chill. He's like, No, we're freaking out right now'cause May is impossible to I'm like and this was back in last May. But for Grand Theft Auto to push a year?

Yeah. Oh they have the money. They have the money. Sure. But people expect the game to be perfect when they get it. They never are. There's always updates being added. They're fixing things for for years sometimes as they go. But Something the average video game player takes for granted is you know, whether it's open world, open world or just open room where you can explore the room and break things and

Every option has to be thought of before you're gonna do it and animated. So if you're gonna kick that box and it's gonna break into pieces, it has to look right. It can't the pieces can't suddenly be half in and out of the wall. Um and but people I I don't know if they skip the credits. I see, I always watch the end credits when I reach the end of a video game. And I'm not like the world's biggest gamer, but

I can't get over like the thousands of names. And like sometimes the credits are over ten minutes long, I think it feels like. And you're just like, Holy shit, all these people worked in this for so long just for someone to pick it up, maybe only play it once. Or just like with like the Call of Duty games, they just care about the multiplayer online, which I have no interest in. I only do the campaigns, which is why

It's kind of sad these days because they don't put as much into the campaigns as they did. But it's still a ton of fucking work. Uh our friend Milo Ventimilia is the lead in the in Call of Duty Black Ops 7. I he never said anything. So I didn't know until I started the game and I'm like, guys sounds like Michael Rooker's in it. But I do love seeing friends as video game characters and it's really exciting. But with Talos

in particular, I hadn't even seen what the robots looked like when we recorded. You showed me that some time after I think the D L C I think I showed you some some videos from it and stuff, but we didn't even Which was also awesome that for anyone who doesn't know there's like downloadable content. that gets released afterwards sometimes. So it's like new maps suddenly available or a new mission. In our case, entire stories. Like our DLC is enormous for both ga for both Tales One and Tales two.

It's like essentially a sequel. Yeah. We put so much work into it. And so uh Yakut got his own story in one of those uh DLCs that you put out.

And it was actually harder, I thought, as an actor, to do that one than the first one. Really?'Cause the first one I had a lot of um not monologue monologues, but like You know, and and Jonas would explain, This is what just happened, this is what's happening, this is what you're thinking, you know, just like being on a movie set and I'm listening and I'm and you were in Greece and I was in LA and for doing it remote and I I've been to those sessions as well.

Like you're so incredibly prepared but you're also patient and you're also you know exactly what you want because you realize the person knows exactly what they want, you just Let go. You just trust. All right, tell me what you want, and I'm gonna try to do that as best I can and not keep second guessing it. Because I think some actors do that. Like, well, I don't want to look stupid. Why would I do that? That would you know what you want?

But the second time around there was a lot of not necessarily these words, but there were moments that you needed that were more like, mm, not that way. I don't think so. You know, things like those little like one liner things. And I'm just giving different versions and then you would hear what you wanted.

'Cause I could couldn't see the game yet. But like like I just finished a Blum House game that was a first person shooter um and I did the directing on the voices. And on that one it was interesting because

Every single line had eight variants, eight different versions of it. And it was like frustrating in a way because like I get it in certain cases with a game, you know, you wanna have all the branching versions so that like if somebody makes a choice here, it's a sliding door situation, well that you know, the line would change a little bit there.

But this just felt like they were throwing everything at the wall. And I rem and it was also its side and I remember turning to the engineer and I went like, God, I missed Jonas because he knew exactly what he wanted. And if there was a little bit of a deviation, great. But it wasn't like

Give me seven versions of this line and we'll figure it out later. No, that's I mean, if there's one thing I'm very proud of in terms of when we direct It's that we always come in knowing exactly what we want and we've heard that from a lot of actors.

that they usually get, um, can you do the line, Oh, I'm so sad that my son is dead. Can you do that in a happy version so we have it? And like why would I be happy about it? Just do it. Just just in the And it only becomes more frustrating for the actor because they don't have a trajectory and You know, when you cut out a sense, you know, like we're just doing the voice. Yeah. And there not only that, but like and I deal with this on dubbing, at least with Dubbing you're seeing the scene unfold.

So you know what it looks like, who the actor is, you know, like uh other for us, other than seeing a little bit of the design and maybe a little bit of gameplay, we're kind of running blind. We're we're putting our faith in you. Yeah, and the thing is, and that actually goes back to what you asked me earlier about uh what the process is like. Some of that stuff is probably not even done yet. Like and and because of that Okay, here's the problem.

Um localization is our nightmare. So uh a game that has uh a lot of dialogue and has say a hundred thousand words of dialogue or something, takes a long time to localize into all these various languages and it also costs a lot of money and publishers are not very happy about that. I will also say that the way in which localization is done is usually idiotic and horribly handled, in my view. And we often get very bad results.

I would much prefer to work with like indie translators who I can trust and I know but it often goes to big companies. And then like three translators are good and one guy's doing it with Google Translate. And you can't tell that he's doing that'cause I don't speak, you know, Chinese or Spanish or whatever.

Um you're putting your faith in those people. And they and honestly, and having done this many times, they don't give a shit. When's the first I remember the first time that that I realized that'cause I just always assumed that I n obviously I always knew movies are released in different countries and different languages, whether they're dubbed or subtitled, that somebody must have a copy of the script and a copy of the movie who speaks both languages and they're the ones doing

But when uh when I was in Sitches w uh with Hatchet One And I'd seen the movie all over at this point and certain jokes, no matter what country you were in, they they worked. And nothing, nothing was working. Nobody was left. And the dude next to me leans over and goes, Hey, just you know these subtitles are all wrong.

'Cause he spoke Spanish and it turns out it was Scott Glosserman from behind the mask. Like that was how we met after uh over a year of our movies doing festivals together, but we never got to meet. Um but You could show me them in advance and be like, see happens subtit I don't know. Yeah. I've always been very aware of that because I obviously grew up in Greece where everything is subtitled and occasionally you just see subtitles where you go

fuck are you on? Like that's so that that makes no sense. I mean that word maybe means something similar in a different context. But you clearly have not watched the movie at all. It was one of the more uh subtle, if you can even use that word, jokes in the diary of Van Frankenstein.

But that whole thing where every now and then like something comes up where you're like there's no way that's what you know, it's the translation has to be wrong. Where Hitler's yelling about something and we added soccer hater. to it. Like what soccer in the middle of like instructing, you know, what to do or whatever and he's soccer hater. Um no one has ever said anything about but I think one person

Like it had oh and I was signing something like can you write soccer hater? I'm like, oh you caught that because nobody's ever said anything. But you're right, like sometimes you're watching something and if it is in your language, you're like, What? What did that say? I don't think that was right.

Um I I love that movie very much as I've told you before, but have I ever told you that in German the last sentence when he says um I'm such a shitty actor I'm just a shitty actor is actually just the subtitles just say I am just a shitty actor like they because it's German so they're like, Oh no, this th this subtitle is wrong.

So they just put in the German the correct German. So the joke is kinda lost. Because Joel didn't know that's what he was saying. Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. It it really uh it really bothered me. Um but I love that. Uh Uh yeah. Well okay. So So just just to finish that thought what I was trying to explain, because people really don't get that and it's maybe an interesting thing to uh to understand is that we have to finish the text

so far ahead of time just so it can be localized that usually the game isn't finished. Like, um, so that creates a lot of problems. Now if you had a very big company that has, you know hundreds of millions to throw at it, yes, they're gonna, you know, go do it at the last second and fine. But for us we're like a mid sized company, right? We're like forty people.

i very frequently uh w we have to finalize things so far ahead of time that this affects the entire schedule, which means I also can't easily go in and and make any revisions later. So when you play a video game

And you're like, why is that guy talking about something that's not like that in the game? Why is he saying, you know, shoot the snowman but there isn't a snowman, there's a Yeti and it's like, uh oh yeah, it's probably because they changed it and and they just could not You know, change the the The VO. Um it feels like you pull that pin out.

Like a like out of a Jenga piece, yeah. Everything falls. It's not so easy to just go like, Oh yeah, we can fix it in post or we can just go back and just kind of make a little tweak. seventeen different there's a ripple effect. There's seventeen different things that will now happen if you just go, Maybe we should change that word. Yeah, it's it's very it's very difficult to to edit anything in video games. It's it's a it's a huge challenge and And also they're just so enormous, right? Like

One dialogue in a video game can contain as many words as an entire movie. Like especially if it's branching a lot. Taos principle two, as you notice. sometimes branches eight times per node, uh m you know,'cause you can say so many different things to express different philosophical ideas in these conversations with the characters. So it just it explodes in in content. Also it's really hard to track for us, right? 'Cause how do you visualize this? Like we have a spreadsheet and it's like

Sometimes even I who wrote a lot of it and who I I'm like the lead writer, I'm supposed to be in charge of it. I'm like, wait, this isn't in what context he's saying this why? But you know, you try to prepare as much as you can

for the recording session and and uh it's like the old choose your own adventure books like I don't remember exactly when those came out. I'm assuming it was the eighties. It was the eight like l l very late seventies, early eighties was when they were really kind of big. But it was when you were a kid and you got one of those

It was the most exciting thing ever. Of course I'd always pick what what's the most dangerous answer I could give where I think maybe you're supposed to err on like trying to live like I would always die like Constantly in those but I would keep my finger in the book or something, like keep the page marked. Just in case I didn't like the choice I made and where that was gonna go'cause I wanted to get killed by the monster and bla whatever.

But when you're writing a game, especially something like Talos, because sometimes the player can choose how they want to respond out of like three options or something. Or eight. Yeah. Yeah. And you now need the effect to the cause of what answer they're gonna choose.

Not knowing what answer they're gonna choose. So you have to have everything thought of. And I have to it has to be scripting so that it remembers the variables so it goes, Oh, you said this to Yakut. Well, later Yakut is gonna his character's gonna check If you said this, then he's gonna do this. In in talent's principle too, At first people didn't realise how much of that's going on in that game because the characters can end up with very different

kind of ideas about what to do. They can suddenly flip opinions because you something else happened. Which is great as a as somebody who who buys the game and plays it, you could then start over and make different choices and play a different game. Yeah, and it also it makes the characters feel like they're your friends. Like the the number one thing that we always hear about Talos too is like, oh these guys feel like they're my friends. Like I spent

like, you know, thirty, forty hours with this little family of people and now I'm gonna miss them when it's over and and that's partially because they do respond to you. I mean some of them won't change their opinions because they're just the kind of personality that does not, you know, does not budge.

But they still remember what you said, they still respond to it in little ways and and that's what makes them human. That's what makes them lovable. And and we put a lot of effort into trying to maintain that as as as much as possible, especially in that game. which kind of really is about coexisting with other people and the necessity of coexisting with other people. It's a game about the fact that you can't run away from society.

Um so it really, really, really needed that. Principle one. came out. Mm-hmm. Were were you hoping There were gonna be more because you already had those kind of figured out and you knew what y where you wanted to go, or was it a surprise to you when it's like, wait, we're gonna do another one? Uh no, I came up with a plan near the end of writing the original one.

Um and I wasn't the sole writer. There was also Tom Schubert, my co writer on that one, uh who also worked on on on two, uh as well as my wife. But I came up with a plan for a trilogy of stories, which really was one big story of humanity i you know, into the future, uh with with the each game being kind of this turning point in their in their history. And um

Yeah, so I I kind of worked that out, which is why you'll notice that Talos Principle one if you play it, has a lot of foreshadowing of Talos Principle two. There's a lot of little threads, there's a lot of little symbolic things that set up two and that also then echo into into three. Now I can't

At the point that this comes out we've almost certainly properly announced House Principle Three. We have said that we're making it, there's no real announcement. Soft announcement. Yeah. There might even be a trailer out by that point. I can't guarantee that because I don't know entirely how this is gonna go. Um But um but yeah, things get set up and lead from one game into the other so that you can at the end look at the whole thing as one big kind of

humanist epic about, you know, um the development of humankind into the future via this kind of, you know, robot society. So if the third one is as successful as the second one, you're still gonna end it there or you're gonna keep going? Um I mean, it's a good thing. Talents two did very well critically and did okay financially, especially in the beginning. Right now, as you guys probably know, the entire video game industry is just in this deep crisis. Um, for many stupid reasons. Um

So, you know, Talos is not the most successful thing in the world. It's not like a failure. But it is an indie thing. It's a gamers game. It's not the most main it's not Call of Duty, right? I mean a philosophy puzzle game isn't gonna be Call of Duty. But even if Talos three does really well, and I think it um it will do well, like it it'll do it'll do solidly, for sure.

It will end there, yeah. Because the story's over. Now we might do some kind of small spin-off somewhere, something that's set in the world of the Taoist principle. But the series is done, the story's done and I r I'm gonna fight for that. Like if I know maybe someday someone you know, we don't own the rights, obviously, you know, Devolver might one day be like, Hey, well why not, you know, assign this to some other company?

Although I don't know if it's big enough really for that, right? Because it's kind of It's kind of a niche game. Um but I'm I I will always fight for it being done because it is a complete story at that point and you don't get that much in video games'cause in video games you're always getting pushed for another sequel, another sequel.

And so many series just end on a cliffhanger somewhere and you're invested and then it just never goes on anymore because it didn't make when they closed the company or, you know, some predatory giant company bought it and stripped it for parts.

Um and that sucks and I I believe in storytelling. Like that's why I'm here, right? I'm I'm I don't I it it's not just'cause I want to make video games, it's cause I I think it's a fascinating format in which to tell stories. And stories also need ending. One thing I noticed uh I just again at the time we're recording this, uh Black Ops 7 just came out.

And so I played it for a little bit yesterday. And um There was one of the uh maps that you were on, and this was part of the campaign, was a boat that had been in a previous Call of Duty game, a m multiplayer map. From I don't remember which one it was. I can't I again I'm not the world's biggest gamer, but it was at least ten years ago, if not more. maybe fifteen years ago and I instantly remembered where everything was where and I'm like, how do I how have I oh wait, I've been here before.

But now it's at night, but this is so when you said sometimes a bigger company will buy something, strip it for parts or whatever, this was definitely more of a wink to fans of the series for a long time that they would know, oh, that's the boat from that one. But um it is nice when you have a plan to end something because you can end it on your terms. And not have it Even if it does, like you're saying,

It's for some reason a few years later they're like, you know what? We we should do a new town. Like, you got to tell your story on your terms. Yeah. So I'm assuming it's g well, I don't wanna assume anything, I guess. Oh I was saying I'm assuming it has a happy ending, but even with the other one, there's different endings. There's different endings, yes. Yes. But but I mean it is a

an optimistic view of the human condition. That that's what defines these games, right? They are pro humanity games. So And you can see that in the response from players how much they appreciate that, especially during a time period that seems never ending where it just most people are pretty not happy with the state of the world. That's honestly I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Um'cause I don't start from the point of view of like I want to

sell people a message or something. I think as an artist you start by what inspires you. But at the same time you realise over time that there are certain themes that you're drawn to, there are certain ideas that you care about that just recur in your work and then maybe you go, Okay, well maybe that's what I am all about and

I kind of have started thinking of it as kind of a humanist counterculture because we live in a in a culture that is so anti human and which we're constantly told that it's kind of all our in fault inherently that we're all bad and that th you know it's it's su you know we shouldn't blame like systems or people in charge. We should all kind of hate ourselves for for you know

And and things can never get better, which of course means nobody ever has to try to make anything. Unless it's an election year. Then everyone's got a plan to fix it. Of course, of course. But don't expect too much, right? Don't expect too much from that either. Like w we're not those bad guys. We're not gonna fix all your problems. We're just not those guys. And you know, like we're we're we're told not to dream of anything bigger. We're not

You know, w w what happened to the idea that th there's a future and that human beings can achieve something and that we can build something and that we can make life better for everyone and all of that stuff. That's kind of just Gone, right? Like I'm not gonna get super political, but but I I would say that you you will notice in every country on earth that you've got like

A party that will tell you, Yeah, we're gonna like destroy everything and then you get another party who're like, We're gonna keep everything exactly as fucked as it is right now and you're like, Those are your options. Where's the option to actually make something better? Well, until Until they can figure out a way where there's a reward for parties working together.'Cause I think the problem, at least in America

is that it's there's a two party system and once which it's decided which one's gonna be in power for those four years, the other one just does everything they can to stop them from accomplishing anything. Or they just will completely take an opposite side even though when they were running that's what they were saying to. But you know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a little counterpoint there. I think the purpose of a system is what a system does.

I don't think that this is a coincidence. This is just how things don't get done, which benefits a lot of people. Right. And you s you see this in every country. It's not an American thing. It's just everywhere. They just take turns. Mm-hmm. And we go like, Oh, these people suck, get the other people. Oh, they suck too. Ah well vote for the uh American people. That's genuinely I I I know American politics is

Terrifying. And uh unfortunately the rest of the world often has to suffer the consequences of that because America is an empire. But at the same time it's it's it's it's the same thing everywhere. It's the s it it doesn't really change. Like people always think everything is just like in their country, but it sucks in exactly the same way everywhere.

And that's actually in a way that's also good because that means it's not just one culture that is bad. It's just a much bigger systemic thing that's happening. But that does that also means that it can be solved. But your characters in talos are looking

at like they're kinda looking back on mankind in a way. Yeah. And they're very analytical but also because the programs that created these robots, they're very human. They're also they're sympathetic to it and trying to figure out, well, why? Why why do that? And it sometimes it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Meaning people aren't bad. I don't think people are bad, generally Systems can be bad. We we've reached a point where it's become so toxic.

That if someone didn't vote the way you did, they're now your enemy. And like this that shit's gotta stop. Like for sure. I mean, it's funny because I feel like I I both agree and disagree with you in the sense that I fully agree that we need to stop we're always at each other's throats. Everybody's at each other's throats over nothing. But we all kinda want the same things, maybe not the same way.

Yeah, yeah, but we also at the same time don't realize that we do have enemies, but like that there are th people who benefit from this. But again, even then it's not the people as individuals. That's always the thing that I'm trying to stress. with these games as well. It's you have to look at how things work on a systemic level because

Simple question. If you remove a lot of these politicians, you put other people in their place, is are you gonna get the same result? Yes, because we've seen that, right? You get rid of these people, other people come in, oh they do more of the same. Well

That's because it's not that these people are uniquely corrupt and horrible. I mean some of them are. This of course y you know, a system w of this kind will tend to, you know, elevate certain people. But the point is that a lot of it is just in house structures in societies economics and all of these things, how those work.

And if you understand that, you can be a lot more sympathetic towards human beings, right? Because human beings are born into the system. It's like, for example, you get that with environmentalism where people go, Oh, we're all so awful and look, why aren't we doing enough? And it's like, no, lots of people understand that. things aren't going quite right. But how do you exercise power? It's not that easy.

Um w we live in a world that that strips power from us. We we we don't really live in democracies because you can if you see what people want and a lot of people agree on wanting the same things, but they have no way of getting them because no matter what you vote for you get the same result. That means it it's not just that people are bad on an individual level, it's that we're born into history. You're born into specific moments in history. You didn't choose for it to be this way.

You didn't even choose like the ideologies that you're like born into, right? People are telling you stuff like these guys are your enemies and these guys are your friends and you have to trust these people. From a young age. You're just constantly told all of this stuff. And and uh uh that's what a lot of talos is about, is also looking back and going like, Okay, why did it go so wrong for them without blaming the individuals and also saying, Okay

How do we rescue this human heritage? Because it's good to be human, right? That's like one of the last sentences it was good to be human is one of the last sentences of Tal's Principle One. It's kind of the the the theme of the entire thing. It's good. All of this is great. J just how we are forced to exist and how the how everything is kind of malfunctioning now is really bad.

But humanity is a very good thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's the best thing that's ever happened on this planet because Look at what we make. Look at all the art and all the philosophy and and love and all of these things that we have. Um so for me a lot of what I'm I'm trying to write about is is exactly that. It's understanding that that you can have enormous love for humanity while also looking at

how we exist currently uh systemically and say, you know, this is terrible. This cannot go on. But blaming the individuals for that is missing the point, saying this one bad guy caused this. Why is that one guy in I mean to take a current example, why is that guy in power? Like what produced that?

Right? That doesn't just come out of nowhere. There's th th systems produce all of these things and it's difficult to think that way. We're very trained to hate people. We're trained to say, oh this person individually caused this. And I mean usually they didn't, right? They just Well there has to be enablers uh I mean if if you're talking about government there's gotta be uh people around them who are gonna try to carry out what they want or have their own

ideas that they're gonna try to use that person to con like it it and the thing is like th this is what it why I'm saying like it doesn't just apply to one side. Like this is a universal thing, unfortunately. And what's sad is you would hope anybody who wants to be in power.

goes into it with the right reasons, you would hope. Where they're like I want to make life better. I love people. I love my community. I want to serve my community, my country, and I want to make this better. But it ends up changing. Like th this is such a bigger conversation we won't get into, but I do appreciate that with Talos it is a very optimistic view on what humans are and and can be. And uh you wouldn't think going into a game where you have robots and puzzles and

travel and all this stuff. That it would be a reflection on our humanity. But you there's a good feeling left with you when you get to the end where you're like, man is like I don't hate everything, you know, and I think uh it that's a good thing. Not that I'm gonna give up.

aimlessly shooting at robots or bad guys whoever they are on Call of Duty anytime soon. No, but why would you? I mean that's a totally different context, right? You're not gonna give up chess'cause you're anti war. Like I hate war, but chess is about why ca come on, these these things are not related. I love an action movie. I'm not gonna go oh no, I I hate action movies because in the real world uh shooting people sucks. Like, you know, there's a fantasy element there that's that's

Perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. Like that just you know, also I think uh it's not just Call of Duty, it's pretty much every game. Uh and of course I'm speaking generally here. It's not every single game, but usually it

the person we've been working for is actually the bad guy and they've betrayed us or somebody on my team who was my best friend, they're in on the whole thing and now they're trying to I don't I don't play always like that. I haven't played a lot of games in the last couple of years, but is teabagging still a thing? That was more of a Halo thing. Okay. Um, I'm sure it still is. I don't it's you know I have one more question too but go ahead. But speaking of teabag.

That's how we like to start every morning. Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course. If there's anyone out there who's not a gamer and doesn't know what it is, it I could be totally wrong. Again, not trying to claim I know everything about games. But I remember learning about it, I think it was on like Halo 2 when I learned about it, where after you would kill uh another player, you would run over and just keep squatting up and down, up and down over their face, as if you're teabaged.

And it sounds funny, but when like twelve year old kids are doing it to you and talking shit on the headset the whole time, it gets frustrating fast. Yeah. But it's been God well over a decade since I've even turned any of that stuff on. If I'm playing with friends, which I don't

really do anymore because everyone has other priorities besides playing a video game late at night. Um but uh I you can set it up where you can just talk to your friends. You don't hear the other noise, they don't hear you. But kind of like a precursor to the worst of social media. I remember there was a time back in Halo Two, Halo Three, Call of Duty, um where the second the screen would load and the room would be full of who's playing in that match, people would just start yelling the most

Disgusting, racist, awful shit. Yeah. And then you'd have to sit and go through and mute this one and mute this one and report this one. And it doesn't do anything. But why they couldn't have set up a system? 'Cause these were I don't again, could be wrong. I don't ever recall hearing adult voices do that. It was always kids. And those kids are not paying for their Xbox or or PlayStation memberships. Their parents' credit card.

So there should be a way with modern technology to send an email that says uh they were reported for this and that. Here's the clip of what they said. And watch how fast that shit would stop. Cause parents would be like, no, you're not playing with it anymore. Why did you say that word? Why would you call somebody that? Where, I don't know, I was just talking shit.

Cool, now you're now you're shoveling shit in the backyard'cause you also'cause this person in my fantasy lives in a on a farm and c someone bail me out of this. I don't know why uh shoveling shit. Getting very elaborate. But my point is that sort of

took me out of that. I didn't really game as much as I used to and then it going back to like twenty twenty was when I first really started pulling back on social media and my life's been better since because it was m starting to taint the way I viewed other people. But I'd be like Fuck is that really what

This person thinks or what they said or the and once you realize look, I'm all for it man. If you have a cause and you're passionate about something and you want to scream from the rooftops, do it. That's your right. That's your first amendment right. But if you think the person who thinks opposite from you because they saw your post on social media is gonna now rethink

everything and be like, Oh shit, I think you're right. It's never gonna happen. You just everyone's yelling and then you have the echo chamber that just approves. Yeah, I think that way too. And then you have the other side that's just like fuck you. Like it there's so much better shit to do with your time.

So maybe go have like real relationships, maybe go speak to people, maybe g go to go to the movies. Even if you maybe you want to venture out, but you don't really want to venture out, go to the movies. It's a commun it's a passive communal experience. Yes, and I think people have forgotten maybe not the concert scene so much. I think that feeling is still of camaraderie, is still very much there, of like, hey, we all love this.

this artist, this band, this music, whatever it is, and we're all here enjoying it together, it's such a good feeling. It feels like, oh man, I'm here with all my friends. I don't actually know these people.

But we we're all cool here. Um, I just it it's getting lost and the fact that your your series of games uh shines a light on the good of humanity through robots, not through peep human characters just, you know, being heroes and always staying and doing the right thing, but robots analytically looking at what's left and trying to figure it out.

It's a it's a very I I can't think of another video game like that. That's so i I like idealized in a way. Yeah. Gives us hope. Yeah, I mean uh it's rare. And and this whole multiplayer thing is That gets into a very complicated conversation'cause there is an incredible negativity in kind of online video game spheres also in but I mean which which is really just a a a a a smaller part of the overall internet insanity that that we live with now. Um

It's not just exclusive to video games. It's very bad there, I think partially'cause you've got so many kids. You've got so many s very young kids like Sometimes I'll go and I'll try to talk to people about stuff and I'll realize, oh God, he's twelve. Yeah. Like I I crazy. I cannot have a serious conversation with this person.

Because he has no frame of reference for anything. He's just yelling stuff he heard on YouTube. Um and that is occasionally very frustrating and it does affect me too. Like w because I try to like I try to be very reasonable. I sometimes go to like the Steam forums, which are probably the worst place on earth, and I try to talk to people and but you get such negativity and then sometimes I snap and I go, Oh, go fuck yourself. Um

But that's the other reasonable thing. I've I've I've just I've pulled back quite a lot. I used to write a lot on the internet and I'm I hope I'm gonna do a little bit more of it again in a more analytical kind of context of just writing an, you know, a an essay or something. It's the same thing with with critics and reviews where when once I heard the phrase uttered to me by a far superior and older filmmaker than myself who said consider the source. And they're like, Why did you send it to uh

Eat my ass 76 for their opinion. I'm like, well, I didn't. I don't even know who that is. Right. It could be an eight-year-old who never even saw your movie. They just want a a reaction. And so they're just gonna say w like so don't you c you gotta let it go. I think what we all do, it is important to get audience feedback. It is important to hear what people like.

maybe don't like about what you're doing'cause you're gonna do more stuff and you you do kinda take that in, but you do have to consider the source. Like I personally don't care if a six year old like my frozen because they like the Disney one better. It wasn't for you

I love the Disney one too. Enjoy it. I I prefer yours. Uh right, but you're not six years old when you're not going to be able to do No, no. I I would have liked it as six. Uhhuh. But I was weird. Um All right, so speaking of and this'll this will be the last one before we move on, um speaking of passive communal experiences, uh just today they just announced um or they just revealed the first uh pictures from the live action Legend of Zelda movie.

Which is fucking mind blowing that that's it it's taken that long and they've been talking about it for years. Do you remember that was the first Nintendo game where you could save your game?

Well two was link was. The first one you couldn't. The second one you could. Oh you're right. Yeah, you're right. The gold uh cartridge and the fact that there was a little battery in it and there was a way that you could save your like fucking mind blowing. Yep. But the the it seems like in recent years video games have s or s certain filmmakers, certain creatives have cracked the code on creating a passive experience from a a very

um I guess uh integrated experience. Like when you're making choices in a game and then all of a sudden now you have to just sit there and watch someone else's choices. Minecraft, Last of Us, obviously Zelda. Um there's been a lot of like Mortal Kombat. Um If and and knowing you now not just as, you know, a a writer and a director of games, but also as someone who just made this somewhat passive experience with Azeroth. Um

Would you ever be would you ever want to do what like Neil Druckman did, which was to integrate himself completely into the creative process like he did with Last of Us? Or would you rather have someone kind of take over from there? Um I would love to just Say right. for television. Mm-hmm. I love that. I mean I love movies very much. But I think if I could choose one thing to do I would do television actually. I would do I would I would try to do something more like

traditional television, like a more episodic. I mean with an with an o with an arc, but not not this thing where it's an eight hour movie. I would love to do that. But to me that's not related to video games. So I don't want to take the things that I've done as video games necessarily and make them into movies or make them into something else. Now people have talked to us about a Talos movie at times and go anywhere.

I have thought about how to do it and I figured out a way how to do Talos as a movie, kind of. It was interesting. It could work. It would be a very different sort of thing. It has to be translated for me into something else because

Some of the things that then, you know, get successfully turned into a a a movie or TV show, they're they were kind of a movie or TV show to begin with. And that doesn't really interest me. I when I write in a medium, I am trying to write to that medium, right? So with uh Azithoth Blues, it works as an audio drama and it's really built into it, right? It's about recordings and recordings inside of other recordings and and

Uh y it could work as a TV show, but it has to have a certain type of storytelling. Um other stuff that I've done they did a previous audio drama called Gospels of the Flood that's so internal that can only be an audio drama. You're hearing someone's thoughts. It doesn't work as anything else. Uh and video games in the same way for me, um, you work towards the strength of the medium, which is that

you are in it. Um it's not just the interactivity, it's uh what I've talked about a bit w sometimes when I try to explain this to people is how it's structured. Uh it's not it's not just that it's that you make a choice in the story, right? But it's that you can distribute story in in in a in a spatial kind of way. So you go through a world and there are elements of story everywhere

Instead of, you know, you watch a movie and one thing happens and then another thing happens. And that's a very unique way of of of storytelling, right? Because you're creating a story out of lots of fragments. Lots of nodes that all interact with each other and you can read something here, you can read something there, you can do it in different orders. A classic example is you play Skyrim.

And you can go to a to to like a library and get a book and just read a book and it's a book. It's not as long as a real book, but there's like Quite a few pages somebody has put effort into creating that book. Nothing no other medium has that experience. You can't you can't create the experience of There's a book on the shelf and if I go I can just read it. It was like the only thing close to that was like when you'd have branching things like when um

Twin Peaks had the diary of um Laura Palmer. You'd have to go out to get that book, then read it, but you're then now you're not in the world. Exactly. You're not in that world. You can you d you don't just go into someone's house or your own house in the game you're like, Oh I'm gonna read this now. So that way of structuring things is so unique to games and to me when I make a video game I I don't think uh

here's a story that would work for a movie and I I'm just gonna push it into a video game. I'm I I'm not interested in that. If I'm gonna make a video game I wanna make something that works specifically with what makes it a video game. The same way if I at some point Let's hope so I get to do a T V show or something. Um

I don't want to make an i eight hour movie because I'm making a T V show, not an eight hour movie, right? Like it's well the problem is is that the like then the last couple of years the event series where there's usually not a second s season. It has become the kind of the easy way out. It is, it is. But even if you do that, write it.

So that it consists of chapters that have distinct identities inside the the bigger structure with a beginning, middle and end so that when the episode ends you go, Yes, and you don't go Oh, it just kinda ended in the middle of a scene and I guess I have to watch the next episode now, you know, which is kind of designed to make you keep going. Keep going, but it doesn't give you the pleasure of a great ending and a great TV show that you know uh

I don't know. I mean lost that I love. Many people have issues. Well look at Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad was made in the model of AMC weekly distribution whereas it became big when it hit Netflix.

But unfortunately Netflix's model from House of Cards on was we wanna make sure that the second that the one episode ends the little spin thing and it will just and that's where showrunners that were working on Netflix shows were working towards those unsatisfying endings because they know they just want to catch you into it's not even about cliffhangers.

It's literally stopping in the middle of a scene and then it picks up again and there's nothing that is as satisfying but when you watch an episode of like breaking better, even better calls off. Glad you just brought that up. It it feels like these chapters.

But as somebody who watched Breaking Bad as it aired, you know, you'd have to wait each week. Uh I I can go both ways on this because Like, it must be so nice to be somebody who just discovers Sons of Anarchy, or Breaking Battle uh Battlestar Galactica.

uh from the two thousand It was a special thing that when certain episodes stopped and dropped cable and then started again. But for the most part you wanted things that felt self contained. Yeah but I I don't want it to be fully self contained. That's the thing. The golden age of television for me is late

nineties, early two thousands. Really? When you're transitioning gradually from the old model, we do twenty episodes and they're completely self contained to we're telling an overall story but we're telling it with many episodes. So you can have an episode that's kind of things happening and then you can have an episode that wham changes the entire plug something huge happened. And because you've had the setup of all the other stuff, suddenly it feels like, oh my.

God, what is happening? They feel like side quests. And they could do that then because at least by that point most people had VCRs. and had a way to record things if they were gonna make it. That noise, that was the most annoying. But when you go ever back to the seventies and eighties, that didn't exist. So the episodes kinda had to be standalone. Same characters and stuff, but like Yeah, yeah. Uh

It couldn't be the t n and of course they would have like previously on or Yeah and British television managed it kind of a s more similar model to now, I guess. But I'm envious of somebody who's like, you know what? Fine, I'm gonna finally watch Breaking Bad. I've heard all this stuff about it. And to be able to just do next, next, next, next and keep going as opposed to what the fu and having to wait a week or months?

And the other thing while we're talking about this, that the issue I have with streaming is that it's sometimes it's years in between seasons. Like stranger things. Yeah. And like It's stranger things at the time we're recording this. the final season or at least the first section of the final season. Comes out next weekend or something. And I don't rem I've seen all of'em, don't remember a

fucking thing. Yeah. Last time I watched episodes was th three years ago when we were in we were shooting suitable flesh. I don't remember any of that shit. And it I was like All those actors have retired by now. They're like eighty. Uh I'm I'm like, I'm gonna go back and watch it all again j before this final season just to make sure

I can appreciate it for I I don't have time for that. Nobody does. Um well I'm sure somebody did, but it's anyway, let's go to uh uh Azahoth. Azethof. Azethoff what's I use it as a Roth, which I think is the setting of World of Warcraft.

Um Uh it's it's fine. It's fine. It happens all the it happens to the characters in the show, right? Uh Yes. It's it's not easy. That was something that we can kinda came up with while we were recording'cause doesn't my care I don't know if it made it in, but I would say things wrong and get frustrated because I didn't understand it.

That was me. There was a few like whatever fuck you's and things like that. That did make it in? Oh good. Um I just remember having such a good time and then again we don't want to spoil anything'cause it's it's coming out at when this episode drops it's

either out or out very, very soon. Um but there's this one thing you did in the writing that blew all of us away. Uh I'm just gonna Yeah, you gotta dance man. I know. Uh'cause we don't want to give anything away but There was like a repetition type thing.

that came back'cause we were like, Oh, is this a mist oh no, it's not a mistake. Holy shit, he had already thought of this. But all of us in that room looking around, being like nodding and like you know it's the same thing on a set. You know when something just happened that you're excited about. Where you're like, oh, this this is gonna be good. This is gonna be good. So uh Audio dramas not usually the path where people are like, I wanna be a billionaire. I'm gonna create audio dramas. Um but

Joe, uh maybe not audio dramas so much, but audio books. Like that's the your choice. Oh yeah. Your preference, I should say, between holding a book and I don't know I'm reading Joe Hill's King Sorrow. You always give me shit that I don't know how to read. It's more because I can't read and drive at the same time. And those are that's the only reason why is free time. Yeah. I don't sit here and go like I'm gonna ponder life and read books and learn.

Lick my finger every five minutes. He does that. He sits there in his fucking recliner and he looks so comfortable and so relaxed. I go, I can't fucking do that. I gotta sit on the four oh five for forty five minutes. That's how I'm gonna be able to consume. Mm-hmm. No, it makes sense. Uh I finished uh The Devils, by the way. Finally. Yeah. And uh'cause I read ten books in between when I started it and finished it. Fucking great.

It just took you forever to do it. But holding a nine hundred page book like King Sorrow and being like, Oh man, this is fucking heavy and even trying to hold it open and stuff. So I get it. It's a beast. But when you're like, I'm gonna do this audio drama w were you originally th thinking series, movie, whatever and then you're like, fuck it. I'm not I don't want to wait around for permission. I'm gonna do it this way. I know how to do

That that's part of it. So I'm gonna go back a little bit to Gospels of the Flood, which is the previous thing that I did with Chris. So I was coming out of a whole bunch of projects that were Exhausting, let's say.

where although I liked some of the people I worked with, I didn't like some of the other people that I worked with and it wasn't always a great experience. And I was I mean, if you listen to the last episode that I was on,'cause CSM four was a very rough project. I love Croteam. I've been working there for twelve years now. Um I love everyone, but it was a very rough project.

I am dead and my wife. We're both. We just sound dead throughout the entire thing. We're zombies. Like I think a couple of times the recording was awkward just because we were just staring into space trying not to die and and um So so I came out of out of several projects in a row, I was in a v very bad shape. I've had gained a lot of weight, which I still have unfortunately,'cause I I just I was writing so much and I was h it was not always very pleasant.

And I was just like eating just to be able to write for another two hours. Um, I was exhausted. And I got uh a bonus. from Phoenix Point. Um a game that was also a very rough project, although I love Julian Gollup who was uh who's an amazing designer and created XCOM and is a very cool guy. But the project was rough. There were some unpleasant people for me on that. And Um I literally at one point like had really severe physical problems just from the stress of working on that.

Okay, so I'm out of that. I have say I have uh I have a little bit of money from this bonus. Not a huge amount, but money that I can spend on something. And I'm like, I wanna just make something. I wanna make something where I work. at the level that I am capable of working at, which I almost never do, right? I this is something I I I also I I'd love to discuss with you guys as well.

Don't you feel that you can do so much fucking more than you're doing? Of course. And that's the problem with budgets is w I don't care what the story is. Every filmmaker not only can think so much bigger than that, but they know how to do it. But then the reality is, right, but these are your resources and this is the time. So what version of it is this? And this is we this just came up recently. Um the why I'm uh uh I'm harder internally on studio movies than indie

'Cause I know how fucking hard it was to get the thing made. Yeah, okay, so it's not perfect or like that didn't look great or that I don't I'm not gonna like throw the movie out because of it. I'm still gonna appreciate it. And we get shit. so often, usually from people who don't religiously listen to this show, but like, those guys fucking love everything. They're kissing everyone's ass. Everything's o first of all

The people who don't like us for different reasons say, It's so negative, it's all about the struggle and the fill. I don't want to hear that and then you have other people but We the point of the show is to champion people. Don't give up. Like everybody's got it hard. Everybody no matter what you're doing in storytelling or entertainment. It's always a different path. It's a different story. And everybody struggles. Everybody has it hard at some point. And it's so easy to lose focus on that.

when you see somebody win some big award or make all this money, you're like, well they're set now. Not necessarily and you don't know what the story was to get there. Every overnight success usually wasn't an overnight success. Um but I know what you're saying of like this is something I can do this to my best ability the way I want to do it. I don't have to answer anybody else. I'm just gonna I'm gonna tell the story because I want to.

Exactly. So so for me that was the moment of I'm I'm just gonna die if I keep doing this and I need to do something that feels meaningful. So um and I'm gonna I am a good writer. I am at this point, I know that I'm a good writer. It's taken me a A long time to go

be able to do what I can do now. Like I feel like it has taken me twenty years to be good enough to write the sort of thing that I wanna write, but I can. And um so I I I I I I said I'm gonna I'm gonna write something and I'm just gonna write it the way I want to write it. Um so I write the story in seven episodes of a pre who loses his faith and he's looking for God while the world is sinking under the waves. It's just an a an unexplained apocalypse is happening and just everything is sinking.

And there's this man who is looking for God. And it it has this again humanist angle and it looks at the idea of religion from from different angles, v via different characters, who are all struggling with their faith and and and what to believe. And Um, in my head I'm writing this for a particular actor, Peter Wingfield, who was in the old Highlander T V series, who was Mythos, uh he was kind of the the the guy who you know, stole every scene in that show.

I had loved him since I was like a teenager watching this in in Greece. uh back in the day. And I always thought this guy's amazing. Why isn't he bigger? Like he's in every kind of genre T V show there is, but he can do so much more and I love his ability to to just, you know, bring life to something.

And uh he has such a great voice too. So I'm writing it f kinda for him in my head, but I'm like, Yeah, but I can't get this guy. There's no way to do that. Who the fuck am I to to to get this actor also?

He is now a doctor and he doesn't really do much acting anymore. He's actually actually completely crazy story'cause he went and became an anesthesiologist. Like he fully trained to become a doctor. He's like a proper, really good doctor and I was like you know, goes and consults and does stuff and it's actually hard to get time with him because he's such a good doctor.

Um he was smart. Yeah. Yeah. And and and he did this I talked to him and he did this partially because he he also wanted to do things that felt meaningful that he would contribute to to people because Sometimes acting doesn't feel that way, right? You can sit around on a set and you feel a bit stupid. Um and he you know, it it was something really um that mattered to him. Anyway, so

I'm like, hold on, wait. I've I've been directing actors professionally now for like years with Side and other other companies and projects. I'm like, I could just reach out and be like they'll reach out to his agent and we'll make this work. And I did and and they sent him like uh the script. He asked for the script, he read it, he really liked the script, he came in, performed the thing, we did like four sessions. And then I worked with my friend Chris.

Chris Christadulu is he's very successful as a composer for video games. He did the soundtrack for Risk of Rain, which is like a huge thing. Uh it's kind of the defining almost like a huge part of the identity of that game. And um he agreed to to do this with me. He's a he's a very old friend of mine.

So we made this elegant, beautiful thing. I I I think Gospels of the Flood m might still be the best it might be the thing that's always gonna be the best thing that I've done. Like even though I love as a Felth Blues, obviously, and I'm super excited about it. But it's this perfect little thing, you know, you made it and you're like

Yeah, I I c that cannot be better. It's exactly what I wanted it to be, right? There's it has no flaws. Um we released it, for n we didn't charge, we didn't advertise, nothing. Was it a huge hit? No,'cause it's super niche about a priest who's you know looking for God. But people are listening to it. People are still listening to it. Like it has an audience and it continues. We get long emails from people about it and so on and and that really made me it gave me this this breath of fresh air.

And it matters to people. The just last night, uh and it's funny, I n I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever taken it for granted. I just don't talk about it that often. But somebody I was tagged on something on social media inst inst Instagram, um, where uh it was just somebody reposting the Odorus' big scene from season two where I wanna quit and he gives me the speech about not giving up.

And the Kurt Cobain speech. Yeah, the Kurt Cobain speech. And that was like out of everything in Halston, like that moment meant the most to me when I wrote it. And I'm like, I hope I hope somebody hears this when they need to hear. And over it's God, it's been twelve years uh more. Um, the amount of people who have that tattooed on them, the amount of people who come up and have something to say about it, or where they were when they heard it, or just getting tagged on social media and knowing

Look, Halsen's not Seinfeld. It's not the biggest thing in the world. Most people don't even know how to fucking watch it. Um but to the people who it did matter to, it me it mattered. And then and I looked at my wife and I'm like, I just wanna say out loud

how much this means and all it was was a clip from the show that somebody was posting because that they were feeling it that day. Yeah. Yeah. But when you hear feedback from so especially something like what you're talking about, where you're like, I just made this'cause I wanted to make

And we gave it away. And maybe people enjoy it. Maybe I don't know. And then to still be hearing about but now everything else you do, that's part of your legacy. And anyone who falls in love with what you do is now gonna wanna know what else and you

Ten years from now that might end up being like the most popular thing that you've ever done. It's entirely possible. A lot of a lot of gigs I've gotten over the years, jobs on projects and whatnot, have come from something I did ten, fifteen years ago and someone was like

Oh, I really loved that. And then I realized ten years later that I could actually hire you to work with me on something. You know, so some some great games that I've done have come from Someone enjoying something I released as freeware when I was nineteen. You know, the the the c the Crow Team job comes from me making a freeware game when I was nineteen years old. over, you know, a bunch of uh connections, I ended up with kind of the job that has defined a huge part of my life.

So that it would exist, right? Um and and and Gospels was that. And then I had the connection with Peter. Uh we wrote Byron and Tales Principle two for him. I was like, I gotta keep working now that now that I've got this, you know, I gotta keep c keep going here. I can I can do so much with this actor. And then I started thinking, okay, what else do we want to do? Right? And Chris, um

Maybe he regrets this now, encouraged me, go go go bigger, go bigger, do something bigger. And I was like I went Okay, I'll do something huge. Um So I wrote this gigantic thing which is Azatoth Blues, which has an enormous cast of people. I mean, you are the leads and and Casey obviously who is fantastic. Yeah. And then there was one other actor who was there briefly. Mm-hmm. But so we only know what we did. Like there's so much more that you're you've been doing.

Since we recorded that stuff like a year ago. Yeah. Um so uh yeah. Wait. Uh well we'll play one more clip from it. uh at at the very end. But as we're starting to wind down. Now normally the final question is always what was the point where you wanted to give up and and how did you not? But because you've done the show before, um As somebody who has made stuff.

Simply for the love of it and put it out into the world to kinda like see what happens with Um what advice would you have for somebody out there right now who's hearing this who has a story that they feel they want to tell and but who is getting sick of the rejection, people passing on it saying they don't know what to do with it. They love it, but they're not gonna finance it. They don't know how you do it. Blah blah blah blah blah.

You live in the middle of nowhere, you don't have any connections, but you have this thing, and that's your dream, is to just just to tell that fucking story. What would your advice be? First of all, try to find other people to work with. I think that's my biggest regret in my life.

that I did find a very great group of people to make games with. And your wife who writes with you. And my wife who who works she didn't work on Hazethoth Blues, but she we work on a lot of things together. And that's that's great. But was that her choice or did you say like you know, No, it was just my project. It was just you know sometimes it's

Together sometimes and it's just like it's it's uh Yeah there's plenty of writing teams that do that. This is one we're doing together, but then this one's gonna do their own thing. For this it doesn't mean there's like yeah No, no, no. It wasn't like an issue or anything. It's just this is my thing, this is what I was interested in doing. Um so so it was just that. But um so what I do regret is I never went to film school. Now that's partially because

I am very allergic to European art house movies and the crowd at these film schools and what was kind of expected of you I found so off putting even when I was like nineteen that it just it it made me insane. I I feel like

I do dislike a lot of what Hollywood does when it becomes like very flat and propagandistic and this and that. But I also cannot stand the European art house bullshit. And to me always the the pleasure is when you When you make a movie'cause you're making art, you're not just making a product. But you also want to make something entertaining and well structured and fun, right?

th all the really great movies are that, right? All the and a lot of them are from like big Hollywood studios. I mean, not so much now, but in the past, certainly, right? All the directors that we really love. I mean, why is Spielberg so such a well loved director? Because he is a Perfect at um entertaining. Yeah.

I walked past the television and it was just like one frame of a Spielberg movie. It was like, Oh it's a Spielberg movie, and I didn't even know why I knew. It was just like oh it just looks like a Spielberg movie. You're watching Always and going like Oh there it is I like always. I don't know why people bag on it. I just don't know he has he has something magical, right? But But beyond that, it's because those movies are about something, but they're also tremendously

entertaining. And and that's what kind of Hollywood at its best was that. It was s movies that were about something That's why I love John Carpenter so much, right? because his movies are they have real themes, they have real ideas, right? Like a big influence on on Azathoth is Prince of Darkness, which is a movie full of crazy ideas. And one of the scariest concepts ever. The idea that they all keep having that dream and somebody's trying to warn them.

Yes. There's way more ideas than a movie of that caliber should have. That dream is like the main inspiration for As of Uff Blues, I think. Just that sequence, just that that fucking video The fuzzy VHS, the the the uh the grates of the fence go by and then you zoom in on that weird

shape or something the dream goes a little further with somebody starting to be revealed in that doorway. Exactly. And it that is creepier than anything I've seen in any movie, I think. Just that. Yep. Um So anyway, so I I I was trying to get back to the to the original point, which is that I regret that I didn't maybe do something that would give me

an opportunity to meet more people because I also very much love film and I would very much I want to still move into doing things in that medium as well, right? I am someone who wants to do a lot of different things. Like I also Finished writing a book this year, which doesn't have a publisher yet or anything, but I did write it and I've got a What a feat though. How many pages?

It's about a hundred thousand words right now. I don't know how what it what it is in in in pages, but it's it's a couple hundred pages. It's like two or three. It's it's it's not it's not small and it's gonna be a bit bigger when I'm finished editing it. It was very complicated to to write, but I'm I'm very happy to that I did it and I'm

Let's say I'm fairly confident it'll be published. It took me a very long time to develop the skills and to find the right voice and the concept to do this. I've rejected a lot of other things over the years. So I'm fairly confident this one actually turned out well. Anyway, my but my m my point with all this is that finding the people is is a very big thing. But if you have trouble finding the people

then still try to make it your own way. Try to find some way of doing it. Try to try th there's always some approach to create something. Um and I think you Ideally, use the limitation. Right? You work with what you have. It's like I can pay one actor, but I can find one good actor, write a big monologue. Uh and then don't do a story that's meant to have twenty actors in it as a monologue. Do something that only works In that way.

you know, you uh uh uh use the resources that that you have and the limitations that you have as an advantage. You're in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, right? Okay, uh, you wanna make a movie? Well make it there because maybe nobody's made a movie that that's there, that looks like that, right?

Um you're in a you're in a country that that usually doesn't have a film scene. Yeah, okay, but that also means that probably nobody's ever shot there, right? Um so use that to your advantage. Just always try to find um w what you can use about the situation that you're in and then just fucking go for it because in my opinion

Increasingly we live in a system that does not give a shit about art, it does not give a shit about making anything. Like everything is now owned by companies that only care about shareholders. And it's our product. And and th the problem is that it's n it's not even product. Because you used to have the basic concept of we are a studio that makes movies. We want to make movies and sell them and if they sell well then we're gonna make more movies. Now it's like

Do the shareholders feel good today we have more money? Do the shareholders feel bad because they saw a squirrel that they didn't like? Oh now the economy's in the toilet. There's no connection anymore. I've never seen a squirrel I didn't like. But but you understand what I mean? Like it's so disconnected, it's all financialized.

meaning it's so hot in any medium. I'm not talking about just movies. Everything has ki everything is kind of decaying in this way. And while I don't believe that the answers to that decay lie in art, they lie in politics and You can't solve political problems with art. I don't believe that. I I believe art is for art and politics is a separate responsibility you have as a citizen.

and a an a and a human being. So you have to engage with that on one level. But as an artist, you're nevertheless in this now as an artist, you should fight back inside of the art in inside of art as well. And I'm not just talking about politics, I'm just talking about like Creating the things that you believe in even if the system that we live in doesn't want to support you anymore in any way. You still you fight for this idea of human creativity, of storytelling, of of

Making things that are beautiful and meaningful. And sharing human experiences. Because a lot of times people wouldn't even know. unless they saw it in a movie. They wouldn't they wouldn't know that that person ever existed or what their struggle was or what they went through or what it's like to be

that person or that community or whatever it might be. But it's I mean, when you go back to cavemen sitting in a cave around a fire, it was storytelling. It was share like that's the human experience. Um, which kind of answers the part two of that.

So before we play one more clip, um w again I know we're recording this way in advance, but this should be out on uh Spotify and wherever people would get uh all the usual platforms for podcasts. Um check the description of this episode because by the time we're gonna run it, you'll know for sure. You can also go to Azathoth Blues dot com. There'll be just all the links that you need there. Don't know if it'll be on YouTube because there's a lot of swearing in it. Um

But uh did we adlive that swearing or was it in the script? No, it was i it was in the script. You added a bit here and there, but but Joe probably did. I didn't. I would never do that. Don't blame it all on me, you fucking fuck face. Fuck you. Fuck you. That's that's also pretty much what the show sounds like. Um It's not that bad. It's not a Joe Bigas movie, Jesus Christ. And we're not saying um and you know or real quick. That's that's when you know it's scripted.

When there's n there's no ums in your nose. There's the occasional um in the actual script though. That's so um then it's intentional. Yeah. It's not us going like my brain don't work well. Exactly, exactly. So uh look for it there, you can find it, I think, uh everywhere pretty much at that point. I mean And yeah.

At some point there might be a Kickstarter or something like that for season two. We'll see. Uh just you know keep an eye open for for something like that because uh we just made this with our own money. Uh we just poured like a a lot of money into this. To make it It might be nice to, you know, make some money back. It's not about making money, it's about just about financing more of it. But there will definitely be a season two.

Uh as well. And uh kind of a feature length episode that goes in between that we're gonna record today. And we should have done this right up front. But you know, how every script or movie there's always a log line, like in a sentence or two. What is it about? It's about three detectives in a big city who start Noticing that something is very, very wrong.

And it unravels from there. It's it's greasy and grimy, it's a bit uh you know, kinda eighties New York, uh Did the Did the three detectives know each other before getting assigned to work together? Um don't give too much about it. That's all we'll say. That's all we'll say. But that was one of the more interesting things as someone performing it, learning it as we went. Yeah. So I hope it's a big success. I hope people check it out and enjoy it.

'Cause fuck would we both love to do more with you and what an honor to be asked not just once but twice between Talos and this and it's just it's one of those things It wasn't on my bingo card. I'm like, I'll make it in a video game. That's not even something I'm thinking about. And now to be a character in a video game is incredible. But then what we did in that studio around the corner. That was one of the most proud things that I've done.

I'm not just saying that'cause you hear. No, it but both were like that felt like good work'cause when it's your thing You never you don't know. You know, you're always like, Well, this could I don't know and I still have to do this and but okay, maybe that went well, but you know this part's gonna go wrong. Like it's hard, but when you're there to do a a job and you trust the person you're working for

Very fulfilling. Very fulfilling. I have to say that those four days that we recorded that.

probably the happiest I've been in a long time. Like I just felt really good. Yeah, everyone's just laughing and smiling. Not that the scripts are funny. And there was some major shit going down. Like before and after the each recording, but for those few hours every day it like you immediately and I think this is what is gonna be indicative of the sh of the series itself, is that if we could get sucked up into it And and you know, we're it's all unfolding to us.

Almost in real time because we don't know what we're like almost not gonna know what we're saying next. Hopefully the audience feels the same way because for those few hours, man, I was completely transported. That's that's that's awesome and that's what I needed. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted. I wanted us to experience it as it happened.

And I'm it was a huge risk for me. I was really scared. I I felt that this was the right thing, but I was like, have I gone insane? Are these people like who are like, you know directors or do cool stuff that I like. They they they wonder they got stuck with us. I think anything that I'm insane because this is not the normal way of working, right? And and um but it paid off and I'm I'm so happy with it and thank you.

Appreciate when you veer away from formula. You know, like when you try different things. Actors, maybe not. Producers? Definitely not. But directors are always trying to think of like what's a fresh way of not even just like as a gimmick, but what's a fresh way to elicit a better uh response or better performance or a better edit or shot or whatever. Like we're always wanting to and it's not competition, it's more

what's different what's a what's a different path? And you took a path that I I think both of us and uh all of us who were involved admired Immediately because it was like, huh, that's different. Well, you know what? I trust him, so let's go. And we did some great shit. Yeah, I think we did. What is the website one more time? Azithothblues dot com. And how do you spell it? Good luck. Good luck. A Z A T O T H A Z A T H O T H as a Thoth. A Z A. T H Oza Azatho.

It'll be it'll be in the description. Type it into Google and it'll find it. Get over yourself. Um yeah, well um okay. Now I I no I since I'm directing this as well, I think we should end in a more art house way by being very awkward.

What you know what we could do is just sort of be like trying to come up with something and then play the uh play one more clip for everybody. So Oh you know what I was already playing awkward, sorry. You brought up something really important before, um that venereal disease you U C C T Denton speaking. Hey Blondie. It's Harrison the little Benny. Please don't call me that. Any news?

I found a stamp on one of the documents that suggest the case was handled by someone from the seventh precinct. That's weird. Shouldn't it be the sixth? It should. But sharing cases is not exactly unheard of, especially since the sixth is notoriously understaffed. What is strange, however, is that the investigating officer one Victor Lamont had only been transferred to the seventh two days earlier and was transferred again two weeks later. Wait, did she say Victor Lamont? Yeah. Why?

I don't I don't know. It it sounds familiar. Do you know where Lamont is now? No. He seems to have vanished after he retired. Ooh, ask her if there's anything in the files about a magnetic tape labeled as a m as of Azatoth. Whatever fucking A magnetic tape? No, nothing. Apart from the body, no evidence was recovered. But I have another lead. You remember the victim's father, Sherman Perry? Yeah, the press blamed him, but he couldn't have done it. Is it about the dad? I knew that was important.

I've said that if Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her. It's the movie, Krabs!