5. Chris "CJ" Johnston (User Experience @ Enhance, Player One Podcast)

That was probably the point where I was like, this you know, at that ice cream parlor, even on that game, seeing that secret was the point where I was like, oh, man. Video games are awesome, and I am going to play them forever.

Hello, and welcome to Why Button, the podcast that asks why we care about video games. I'm your host, Kyle Starr. On this show, I interview creators, enthusiasts, journalists, and media personalities about their origins with video games, what keeps them so interested in the medium, and what excites them about the future.

Thank you for having me, Kyle. It's great to be here.

Yeah. We go, I guess, quote, unquote, go back a ways, on Twitter, now Mastodon, just kind of bantering back and forth, liking each other's tweets and stuff, but I've never really had an official, you know, opportunity to to chat. And so I figured why not do it through this podcast? I think you might have some pretty good perspective on why we care about video games and, and so why not have you on the show?

Sure. Well, I'm a lifelong video gamer, and I, back in the mid nineties, got my dream job as a video game journalist at, Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine, which was, like, the dream. It was, like, the top gaming magazine in the nineties. And from there, I wrote about video games. I was the news editor for a few years, got to review games, and then I went into the development side of games and got a job initially doing Flash games at Adult Swim, which which is Turner Broadcasting's sort of Cartoon Network's late night programming block.

I'm gonna dig into some of that, because that I mean, just starting with EGM. It's funny. I the the, episode I did just prior to this one was with Robert Ashley. He runs the podcast, A Life Well Wasted. Are you familiar with the show?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

The first episode of that show is about the death of EGM. And so I find it interesting, and this was not by, design, but I find it interesting time that you were at at the magazine?

No. I didn't. I worked there. I started there in 1994 and worked there for a few months. I was still in high school at the time, and that kinda gives you an idea of where most video game magazines in the mid nineties found their writers, and then went back, full time in 96.

You you mentioned that that shift in I guess, the Internet comes along, and if you're working at a games magazine, you just mentioned that, you know, folks would just post screenshots that are in the magazine. And then, obviously, we transitioned fully, completely, fortunately, unfortunately, to what it is today. But was that sort of an impetus for leaving? Were there other reasons for getting out of EGM?

There were other reasons. I felt burnt out at the time. Like, when you are surrounded by games, even though I love video games, even though I've loved video games for a long time, I felt like I kinda done all that I wanted to hear, and maybe it was time for a new challenge. So, you know, one of my other passions was anime, and video games and anime go hand in hand a lot of the time. Indeed. And, so when when that opportunity came up, I jumped at it. Chance to do something totally new.

Yeah. I think that's important to note too. You you mentioned getting going to EGM to begin with as a childhood dream. I think a lot of folks who were or at least in in our age range, and there may be a a bit of an age gap here, not entirely sure, but I think we're of a generation where magazines gaming magazines were very prevalent to us. Mhmm.

Well, I always loved video games and thought, you know, it'd be fun to do that for work. But I am terrible at programming, terrible at math. I can't draw. I'm not an artist or anything. So I thought, like, what what could I do in this industry?

You're getting ahead of it, though. You're building that resume, you know, so to speak, I guess.

That's right. That's right. And I was just having fun, really. Like, it was fun to get into that scene and and meet people, some of whom are still in the industry today because, like, Chris Koehler also did a zine at the time called Video Zone, and we got to know each other back then as well. So and there are a couple of people who are still kind of peripheral around the industry that that did zines at that time.

You mentioned this again, not by design by any means, but you mentioned video game and computer?

Video games and computer entertainment. Yeah.

Video games and computer entertainment. Hold on one second. I might I'll edit this part out of the podcast, but I'm I'm cure I might actually have a copy. Hold on. Okay.

there you go.

There it is. I do have a video games and computer entertainment magazine. Yeah. Amazing. Do you remember if you had that issue?

I'm sure I did. I think if that's pre 91, that was before my sort of eureka moment. But, but, yeah, I definitely had that that issue.

Are video games getting too gory? From 91. That's hilarious. I didn't look that up when when I had Robert on the show, but I had it in the back of my mind, like, I might actually have one of those. And then you you sort of also mentioned with zines and whatnot, there was a we when I was talking with Robert, and again, when you hear that episode, if if you're listening to the show, well, we go on a a couple tangents about music.

The first one I did was called The Bombardier, and it's because I liked that word.

And every good writer's trick is, I like the word. So I like the word.

I'm using it. Yeah. And we had a Japanese bookstore in the area too that I got, like, an issue of Famitsu from. Famitsu is like their their weekly at the time, it was weekly, video game magazine. And I cut pictures out of it and screenshots out of it.

Oh, yeah.

And I did probably more than a dozen issues of of Paradox, and that lasted sort of into my high school career as well. And I took a printing class in, like, a graphic it was called, like, graphic design and printing. And back then, it was like using desktop publishing. But then also we had printing presses in that area of the school where, you know, we'd work on things like dance flyers or, like, somebody's running for student council, and we'd do posters for them. And then I did a, an issue of Paradox where it was 2 color like, 2 colors on the cover using this sort of, yeah, screen process and actually, like, printed it out on 11 by 17 paper and folded it.

Nice. And what was your distribution like? Like, were you did you have folks that were you were mailing this to, or were you just distributing around high school, around your town?

Initially, just around the town, and then that video games and computer entertainment column had a, an address. You could send a self a self addressed stamped envelope to, this address and get, like, a list of people who did zines, and you could put yourself on that list as well. So I did that. And then people would I I eventually got a write up in video games and computer entertainment, actually. So then people sent me break

right there.

Yeah. It was a big a huge break, and, it was only, like, a dollar was what I was charging people for, for the zine. It was more about it was almost entirely about the enjoyment of putting it together than it was any sort of money making operation, kinda like podcasting.

Yeah. Just like this podcast, honestly. I'm not not gonna make a dime from this, I am sure, but I am enjoying doing it. Yes. Exactly. I got it.

Exactly. And I probably had, like, a a couple 100 subscribers, towards the end of it. Yeah. I got a cease and desist letter from GamePro Magazine.

That's when you know you've made it.

That's that's

the sign.

Yes. We had done, we did a a parody cover of, GamePro for one of our issues, and it was, what if there were Disney characters in Street Fighter 2? So it was like a very similar cover to one of their Streetfighter covers but with Disney characters. And then, that issue got scanned and put in a magazine, and GamePro's lawyers saw it and sent sent through his cease and desist as if we were gonna do that every single issue, try to look like GamePro. Pro.

Nice. To, to fast forward a little bit now, so I I am curious about your transition from from magazines, from, you know, EGM and the anime magazine to actually working at a developer. I mean, you mentioned earlier that you wanted to work in games, but didn't know what angle that would take and writing seemed like to be the the the most, viable option. Not an artist, not an engineer. So you went that route with magazines, but then all of a sudden you do find yourself working at studios and with end game developers

Yeah.

In various capacities. We'll talk about that too. I'm curious what that transition was like for you.

It was actually very natural because working on a magazine, I was used to due dates and deadlines and getting, you know, working with freelancers and getting content in on time and having calls about feedback. And so transitioning into the production side is actually very natural. Like, it was very similar, and we were working with at Adult Swim, we were working with indie devs who you know, maybe it was 1 or 2 people who were doing the game development, and I was I was if we were working with them, I was already a huge fan of their content, whether it was on, like, Newgrounds or or armor games. So I already, like, knew they knew how to make a game. So and when they would deliver builds, I would give them qualitative feedback, like, on the design or control or options or or interface, things like that.

What what was your what was your title at at Adult Swim? You might have mentioned it, and I might have missed it. But

I initially started as a games producer and then eventually became director of games creative by the end. So I was there for 11 years, so did a lot of different things.

Yeah. I asked because this is not Mhmm. But there are a lot of folks that I think might myself included, you know, just to put it out there, who have always dreamed of working in games but don't necessarily understand how they would fit, working in games, other than writing for them. I think that's where a lot of people kind of start and think that writing for, a magazine or or a website is the only way in. Yeah.

Yeah. It wasn't as different as I thought it was gonna be, quite honest. Well, we were starting with Flash games, and I felt like that was, like, an easy way to start. Like, I don't think the transition would have been as easy if I'd gone from magazine editor to working at Microsoft or working at Nintendo. Like, I think that would have been a much different case. When

you were at Adult Swim, were there notable releases that you worked on? Some of your maybe favorite favorite titles that you, worked on or moments at Adult Swim?

Yeah. You know, I got to work with a lot of really interesting folks. I worked with Flambier. I worked with, Maddie Thorson, who's the creator of Celeste, and did a game called Robot Unicorn Attack, which became kind of

a huge That's with the erasure soundtrack. Right?

With the erasure song. Yeah. That was an amazing experience. Worked on amateur surgeon was one of the mobile games that we worked on. Did 3 of those. And, later on, I got to work with Double Fine, which was also a dream on a game called Headlander

Yep.

That unfortunately kinda bombed, but it was a great experience. It was a great project, and, I I loved working with Double Fine. So

They seem like such a cool group of folks to work with. I'm I'm almost finished with the, the large documentary that came out, about Psychonauts 2. And I mean, I sure. I'm sure it's challenging at any studio and you're going to have personality conflicts and all that stuff. But, I mean, on the whole, it just seemed like such a good group of folks, you know, great hearts, great minds, great leadership in Tim and, you know, I can't imagine, like, how cool that experience was.

It was a dream. I had to pinch myself that I was working on a game with Double Fine, and, yeah, it was it was great.

So transitioning now into, your your current work at Enhance. Mhmm. I I think the big right now, actually, you you all are are gearing up for, I think, a pretty big release, coming out in Humanity. That that game looks wild and I, you know, it's no different than I think any of the other games that Enhance has has put out, but, sort of like a Lemmings esque. There's something very dark about it.

I love working at Enhance. I, and this is another I feel so lucky to have had, like, so many dream jobs in in my career. Like, sometimes I pinch myself. Like, I can't believe it that I'm working with such amazing people. And, when the enhanced opportunity came up, I jumped at that.

Did did they come calling for you, or did you go after them?

They did. They came calling, and they were working on humanity. And humanity is an action puzzle game, and it's sort of broken down by stages. And that kind of a game is very difficult to playtest and, like, get feedback on because once you've figured out the puzzle, you're no longer a good tester. Right?

It it that looking at just the trailers of humanity, I haven't played any of the demos or anything like that. It actually came up. Christian mentioned it on the on the first episode of the show. It's one of the games he's really looking forward to and loved the experience. But it seems like looking at it, there's an element of you can play through these puzzles, and then there's also an element of, like, games creation sandbox type of aspect to it.

Yeah. And I wanna say, yeah, it's really hard. Harder than I think the development team even imagined. You know, a lot of that stuff was sort of going on before I joined the company, but they created, like, the user generated content piece of it, stage creator piece of it, were the tools they were using to build levels themselves. So they sort of had something there, the framework of something, and then it took, certainly a massive a massive amount of work to, like, make that something that could be user facing as well, and I think they did a fantastic job.

Yeah. Indeed.

Is way more complicated than we even thought, and especially the user generated content piece, like making a browser that people can look through levels and then moderate that content too because you know people are gonna make offensive stuff. Sure. That's a great point. It's been, like, years of, like, walking through, okay. Well, what do we do if this happens? What do we do if that happens? Like, it's, it's quite an effort.

So that brings us up to speed today. I think on the side too, not not only your professional and you can call it maybe professional too, but you also are the the host of a of a podcast, player 1 podcast. That podcast has been going on since 2006. Y'all are almost at 800 episodes?

Almost at 900 now.

Oh my gosh. Up to 900. Well, thank you for the correction. Jeez.

850 something at this point. Yeah.

Have you been on that show the whole time? Did did you start it?

I started it. Yeah. Wow. I started it with another guy from EGM, Greg Seward. And at the time, we lived in different places in the US. Like, I had gone to Texas to work on the anime magazine, and he was in North Carolina

at the

time working on, Robotech Games. And we would play online multiplayer games together all the time and talk over Xbox live and thought this was this was at a time where, like, one up yours was going on, and there were a couple video game podcasts. And we were like, you know, we could do that. Like, we sit here on Xbox live and chat about games. Like, why don't we just record that and and put that out in case anyone's interested in listening?

That is impressive.

Yeah. Incredible.

Will you keep it going in another another, what, 3 years to hit your 20, 20 year mark? Probably. Gas in the tank? Okay.

Yeah. I think so. I mean, I I think with our show, it's interesting because we're all friends, and we are all former coworkers. And we just use the podcast as an excuse to hop on and talk about games and catch up with each other. So that's really we record it, sure, and we release it, but that anybody's listening is sort of a secondary thing.

Yeah. Well, anybody listening to this can see that you are or here rather that you, you know, are emphatic about games. It's it's something that, you know, has been a massive part of your life since even I mean, from what I can tell so far, and I imagine it's even before then, but, like, high school, pre high school with the zine and whatnot all the way through to today. It is it is your life, more or less. I'm sure.

Yeah. Well, my first experience with video games was at an ice cream parlor called the Purple Cow in on the south side of Chicago, and my family would go there, you know, a weekend, a month maybe. I don't know. Like, whenever there was good grades to celebrate or, like, some someone wanted ice cream, we would go and get ice cream, or there was a birthday. This place did birthdays too, and they had arcade games in this ice cream parlor as many establishments did back in the early eighties.

But, magazine and word-of-mouth and stuff gets around. Did you know you could go behind the go behind this wall and get to level 20? You could save all your quarters.

I know. I know. It's crazy.

And so from that moment and I have to say too, flashing back to the the arcades with trackballs, those things always pinch my hands in the trackball. I hated that. Oh, it was the worst.

Yeah. That was bad.

Yeah. I mean, we've we've definitely bettered our most of our input devices, I think. We don't ever need to go back to track balls.

I don't think so. No. I would not prefer a track ball.

Yeah. So that's your first, like, core sort of memory of of really getting into games and seeing somebody else progress and opening your eyes to what's possible, what's possible here. From Crystal Castles, are there, you know what are maybe a handful of games that you maybe had some of those other moments in, that that moment of awe or just eye opening, throughout your life? Could be when you were a were a kid and getting you into this, into this world or even at a professional level?

Yeah. I think I'll start with Super Mario Brothers, of course. You know, from the time I played Crystal Castles to Super Mario Brothers, the whole video game market crash thing happened. And there was a time where or a couple of years where I really didn't play video games and focused on computers instead. But I saw Super Mario Brothers first at a friend's house.

Yeah. What a cool experience.

Yeah. That was interesting. Yeah. Be at that E3 and play that. And but I think it wasn't until, like, Zelda Ocarina of Time where I really saw the power of what 3 d games could do.

I don't even know if I got past, like, the first the the kid area of, or or the kid portion of the game in the 1st week weekend, let alone month. That's, quite impressive.

Yeah. Yeah. I used to I used to guide.

Okay. I was a book I was gonna ask. That's if you weren't, yeah. If you did hadn't, you were certainly destined to to be in games at that point. That was your

Yeah.

Yeah. Deal.

And then, another big game another big gaming moment for me was when Sea of Thieves came out. I'm a big fan of Sea of Thieves, which is rare's open world, shared world, pirate adventure game, and that game really showed me that video games can be much more of a, like, social experience and also, like, just to you can log in to a game and not know what's gonna happen. And you can go on an adventure with your friends, and it could just evolve from there. And I've met so many people who are now real friends through that game that had never I'd never had that experience before now, and I'd never played a game. So So we're going on 5 years for Sea of Thieves.

Oh my gosh.

It's, it became quite an addiction for a little while. Yeah.

The word addiction, though, I mean, is it is that I mean, is it necessarily a bad thing at that point? I mean, it seems like you're this is fulfilling something for you.

Yeah. I mean, I think it was fulfilling. I think it was an addiction game. And but it also, like, made me think about games as a way to build a community around something. Right?

Yeah. I was gonna ask that about humanity. I mean, that seems like the user generated content, you know I don't know if you would call it a game not games as as service, but like a live service type of game. But you have that that sort of community that's around like, hey. You all build these things and let other players play them and you saw that with, like, Mario Maker and whatnot.

Absolutely. I mean, there is some social sharing that's going to happen within our Discord server, and we're trying to figure out how to make it work outside of that too. You do get a stage ID for something that you create that can be shared on social media, but we are thinking of, like, ways to make that even easier and, like, give you a a thumbnail graphic of your stage and things like that. But

Got it.

It's turned out harder than you'd think to to make that kind of thing happen, like and there are a lot of user generated content games that that don't have that, and I understand why now because it's difficult, and there's no sort of out of the box. This is how you do this thing to, you know, use as a template. So we're kind of we're trying things and seeing what works. And I I do hope we did a we did a demo in March at the beginning of March and had an amazing amount of community creations. Just like I I wasn't sure, like, how many people would really get into it, but we were really surprised at how many folks did and what kind of levels they ended up creating, some of which used mechanics we didn't expect and didn't even know were possible.

So going just quick review of the games that you shared, those moments of awe, those those eye opening games, for you. I I'm I'm counting crystal castles in there because I feel like that's where that's where it all started. Mario 1, possibly Mario 64, but more so, Ocarina of Time for 3 d games, and then Sea of Thieves. And I think all of these have there's a different sort of, appeal to each one of these. Crystal castles being the the moment that you saw what was maybe possible within games, that it's not just that linear experience, that something else can be happening here and seeing somebody else progress in the game.

There's absolutely a through line, and I think it is the social currency of games, like talking about games with other people, like that person who showed me that trick in Crystal Castles, like and watching somebody else play an arcade game at Chuck E. Cheese and looking at the hint book for Ocarina of Time and, like, talking about that with coworkers and with people on the Internet, and then, you know, a game like Sea of Thieves where I've met people in real life now that I would call my real friends. It's it's I think it's all social. You know, having seen Super Mario Brothers at my friend's house and, you know, trading codes back and forth and talking about the minus world, and here's the code to Mike Tyson with my schoolmates. And, like, to me, video games are not only sort of an outlet for, escaping reality, but enhancing reality and, you know, having a social experience.

I it's it's I'm glad you say that, and I think that may not be, a surprise to folks who, you know, are very passionate about games and follow the industry and play a lot. But I think outside of of those walls, a lot of people still see games as a very solitary isolated experience even if it's multiplayer and whatnot. You're sitting in your room or, you know, wherever, hunkered down in front of a TV or or a computer, you know, monitor or something like that. I think there's there you're right. There is so much more to this, that it carries a conversation.

I think so. And I I feel like I'm lucky in that my parents encouraged me to play games. Like, they didn't they limited my screen time, but they thought it was, you know, a hobby. They had hobbies. I have video games as a hobby, so they never discouraged me from playing.

So yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Are you excited about anything, in the future, like the future of games? Is there something that you you're thinking about? Like, maybe it's the social aspect we're talking about here, but, I I guess the question is, what excites you about the future of video games?

Yeah. I so I it's funny. Like, I always look at whenever there's a generation shift, you get the people who are like, oh, man. Games are never gonna look better than this. And I feel like I have I have been through enough of those generational shifts where I don't think I have ever said that actually because I always know that, yes, it's going to look better than this.

That's great. Is it other than humanity, are there games you're looking forward to?

I try to not look too far into the future. Like, I like to be surprised by by games that I don't even know are coming out. But I'm excited about, like, Spider Man 2, And I think that'll be fantastic. I'm looking forward to Tears of the Kingdom in a big, big way as well, in in part because of all of the sort of ways that you can freestyle and create your own vehicles and weapons and things like that. I think that's great.

It's never ending. There's just so much. So much just keeps coming around. I need to play There

is.

Everybody's talking about dredge right now and I haven't touched it. That's like the good thing. I've gotten to

Absolutely. Yeah. Or use, like, Game Pass or PlayStation Plus. Like, what's new on there? And play that. Like, I like to play, all types of games except for sports games. I loved the arcade sports games of the late nineties and early 2000, but since everything's gone, more simulation have kinda dropped out of that. But I find I'm an omnivorous gamer. I'll just play everything. And I don't finish a lot of games, but I still love playing whatever is coming out.

And so many places to play too. That's another theme that comes up on the show quite a bit is the prevalence of, you know, we all have a phone in our pocket, and they're just so much there. There's so much good stuff, whether you're into mobile gaming, quote, unquote, or not. Like, there are amazing experiences on there. It's not just, you know, Angry Birds and Candy Crush.

I love it. I really love it. I think, yeah, there's no better time for games. Like, on EGM, we did, like, a couple different covers where it's like, there's too many games. And I look at that, and it's like you fast forward to now, and there's really now we have too many games. Yes. Like, 98 was a great time for games. Like, some of those years were great, but, man, we are just, like, spoiled for choice on any platform, anywhere you wanna play. There's so much stuff. I I think we're lucky.

Yep. On that note, unless there's anything else you wanna bring up, before we we close out, I I think that's a it's a it's a very positive place to end this, this episode. CJ, where can people find you if they want more, more CJ, in their life or and what should they be looking out for in terms of, I guess, humanity, which is your big your big project right now?

Yeah. Well, you can find me at Super PAC on Twitter, and I'm also at Super PAC on mastodon dot social. And I host the player 1 podcast every week, and that's at playeronepodcast.comorponepodcast on Twitter. And Enhance is EnhanceExp Enhance underscore EXP on Twitter, and then the Humanity account is Humanity Game. Humanity comes out on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Steam on May 16th, and, it's also a VR game. It's a VR optional game. And, yeah, I think that's about it.

Awesome. Well, I again, I really appreciate you coming on the show. It's a great opportunity for us to to finally actually meet and chat. You know, we've been I've been meaning to do that for a long while now. So, again, I appreciate you hopping on, over to Y Button and, and talking to me about why you care about video games.

Thanks very much, Kyle.

CJ was such a wonderful guy to chat with and he's a great follow on Mastodon and Twitter with lots of solid takes and insights. I wish him and the team had enhanced good fortune with humanity. Reviews for the game have been overwhelmingly positive. I still can't get over the idea of creating a self published gaming zine. It goes to show that if you love and want something enough, sometimes you just gotta do it yourself.