hello everyone thank you for joining me on today's episode but not just me i'm joined by a very experienced guest and one that i'm happy to be sat not necessarily next to me but still across that of the interwaves and joining us that would be the lovely stewart main designer and writer pleasure to have you here mate thank you for joining us i don't know thank you for yeah thanks for having me it's uh it's exciting to talk design you know um yeah you you kind of do it all day but it's nice to just actually just talk about it for a change yes i think so and also not feel that there is a as we joked
about earlier the the impending fires behind us right yeah exactly yeah there's always something that needs doing and you never get the chance to go oh hang on a minute like let's actually just talk about the bigger picture stuff so yeah cool thanks no man absolute pleasure and for those who are listening instead of watching stewart's wearing an incredible t -shirt i just want to give a shout out here here for it with this star wars which episode is this one by the way or is it just uh this is the oldest one yeah new hopes you know brilliant yeah being old myself we're as young as we feel mate we're
as young as we feel you know and so let's do it mate you've worked on a range of different titles been involved with different projects over many different console generations so i'm just curious on how this all started for you mate instead of a traditional sponsor what i'm offering now is that of joining the mailing list. Social media is constantly changing all the time as we're seeing some people are leaving Twitter others are choosing to remain, blue sky, threads all of this.
So it's really hard to reach out to all of you incredible aspiring and current game devs. So what I'm offering here is that of a emailing list. So if you want to be kept up -to -date with all of the great level design news as well as get your free guide which is my 10 tips towards better level design then please join the mailing list you'll be making sure to get three emails a week with me sharing that of different resources ideas as well as what i've learned through my career and some q a's so if you're constantly looking to improve level design and instead trying to figure out where all this information may be
then look no further than the mailing list check down in the description below to join now and get that of your 10 tips to improve your level design okay i mean gaming wise uh i mean yeah it's ridiculous the first ever console we have was something called a fairchild channel f which was in the sort of 80s and i remember the games being hard because we didn't realize they were color and we had a black and white tv so we're talking way back in the history time but um there was just something about exploring these worlds that was always a thing that got me this these places they always felt bigger
than the screen and that's you know this kind of magical like what's behind there what's over there that was always the thing um and i didn't ever think oh i can't make video games it just never occurred to me they were made by magical people somewhere else yeah uh until i was working at a cyber cafe and i saw bullfrog's web page said you can come and be a qa unpaid for a couple of weeks if you want and so i took a couple of weeks holiday and did qa on uh theme hospital and dungeon keeper yeah and then i was like okay hang on this is the dream now this is it i want to do this for a living um and then
yeah making quake levels was my portfolio because there were no courses you couldn't prove yeah that you could design a game um and so yeah i just sat down and started teaching myself that because i mean i like 3ds max and things were just really expensive and slow and complicated whereas jupan you can 3d and quake you could just make stuff as fast as you wanted and yeah so that was my i sent those off to signosis and that was my uh portfolio yeah yeah well it's amazing to see that and again just how uh as you mentioned like courses have become more of the traditional route right now but i think
uh still regardless of time nothing beats sitting down and making your own pieces for your portfolio oh yeah for sure um i've done quite a lot of university talks and stuff and people are always like how do i get into games and it's to always just make something because there are so many applicants that if you can demonstrate that what you can do and then the magic thing that we always say is you have to finish it yes submit stuff that's unfinished that tells me you can't finish stuff and I don't want to hire people that can't finish stuff it like the end the secret of games the end bit is just
boring and awkward and slow and yes so shipping games is hard and it's the same for making stuff don't submit half finished stuff always finish it even if it's not very good actually if you can say i did this and i learned this that's arguably more important than than being good in the first place because i want that you know i can break down my levels and i can talk about them and stuff like that i think that's a really important point right like what you're saying about talking about this and having it finished because as you mentioned like uh especially when no one's on your back in terms like
production leads like finishing it is a as you mentioned a slog at a certain point like why why yeah yeah well uh not trying to plug the book or whatever but that's one of the things i really wanted to talk about in there because this this kind of definition of success is something that people don't think about like if i'm making something for my portfolio i'd say you want to make it exciting and quick and because people don't have time to play massive ethics yeah whereas if you want to make something that you're going to sell for money then suddenly that's a whole different world yes and if you're
not going to sell it for money then just get it done and get the next thing done and get the next thing done you know just so understanding you know who's this for or what's this for yeah it's kind of a thing that you should think about because it really helps you to say i think i should stop this is done you know otherwise it just keeps going and after a point you're just procrastinating because it's scary you know yeah and i think when you're saying like who is this for as well i think the the other aspects you mentioned about people being able to play it is that's also the reality of sometimes
what i've seen most of the times people won't if you're making say a level in unreal most of the time unless it's a test most reviewers won't be able to play it right because they're getting hundreds of applications and it's more about like as you say well how do you communicate that still even when it's finished whether that be videos gifs and presenting in that digestible manner to still sell the level as best you as best you can yeah absolutely yeah that sort of the walkthrough the breakdown the blueprint the look i tried this i tried this this didn't work but i learned about it and then i
do this and then you can just look at that and go okay cool they're making stuff there are they're able to think about what they're making and they're doing it again and again yeah that's as as important as some epic game you're like okay cool you know um so yeah i would definitely say more rather than big for sure yeah and i guess when you're giving talks at universities and like you said your background isn't through the educational route it is just creating and making do i guess do you find that uh there is sometimes something missing maybe from these these courses right like I can speak for my
personal spirit going through courses like the thing that I found when I was applying is if it wasn't for personal stuff I made my portfolio would have looked pretty much identical to to many of the students on my my course yeah yeah for sure um yeah it's yeah like courses are kind of like a taster that generally really as in you know there's this and this and this and which bit of it do you find exciting what at previous companies what we've always focused on is the people that do the next step which is those kind of incubator programs like um birmingham has one falmouth university have one where you
stay and you then spend a year actually making a game and like sony get involved and people like this um because then we know this person has done it they've had deadlines they've had pressures they've had a publisher say no i'm not having that that's what we're looking for yeah so i recommend that i mean i know it's another year and it's more money and more expense but it really helps because we go that person can come in our studio and start rather than come in and we have to teach them this is actually how you make a game you know like the real world sort of stuff so yeah that's fascinating
with that i wanted to ask me because you they said you worked on a a range of different titles a range of different platforms how has that i guess changed with all the technology right like uh i worked on mobile myself i know you've worked on mobile and like seeing all of this kind of aspects roll out how has that i guess changed some of your design approaches yeah um yeah but yeah i mean you're right that things have changed massively well it's weird that platforms have changed massively they've come and go um fundamentals don't really change weirdly um that kind of thing of like understanding
your audience and um the iron triangle you know that thing of time quality money and you can only pick two that never changes you can be on like i know some old retro computer or you can be on the latest machine and it's still this thing of ah but we haven't got time and we haven't got enough money and which one are you gonna do and stuff like this um but yeah i mean the it's kind of interesting like the triple a space seems not broken but is juggling for sure it's that um i can see why why they're really trying to invest in ais and things because the cost is just astonishing now and you're kind
of betting your studio on these games oh god yes um which is crazy it's kind of interesting as well because i think they're all a bit i mean obviously we're just talking like we're in charge of the game the game industry or whatever but i have this kind of thing that they're all kind of scared to back off because so for example one When we were making Nintendo Wii games, somebody proved that if you spent more money on graphics, it did not lead to any more sales because that audience didn't care.
They didn't understand, and that was fine.
And I wonder if it's the same with the AAA.
They're putting such massive effort into these things that you go, what happens if you would back off?
Would you just sell as many copies?
I don't think anybody's going to go, well, the puddles are terrible.
I'm not buying this game.
You know what I mean?
It's interesting. I completely agree.
i feel that we have almost to a point hindered ourselves right where we are chasing as you mentioned this these hyper realism but does it really translate to a better gameplay experience um i was chatting with a friend a while back and we were talking about like on the playstation 1 resident evil uh 3 i think only took a year development from resident evil 2 and the graphics i think only look marginally better i think but it's the gameplay itself right and yeah i i feel that we have almost exhausted ourselves to the the extent of constantly chasing realism at points and as you said because i think
the saddest thing is is like as developers it's not like we're making millions and we're like oh yes like this is where the money has gone into our bank accounts like it's not it's not that right and it's a question exactly exactly it's the one of the terms I've heard is chasing the unicorn this kind of well this is going to be the game that's going to make us all millionaires and stuff and just as I say gambling an entire studio on it it's not really sustainable and I think that will be this sort of if you said what do you predict like the next 10 years I think sustainability is going to be it
and it's it's the same for indie developers as well yeah there are so many games and so many of them they go nobody bought my game you're like okay did you market it did you find an audience um we have this kind of theory of you can either be a craftsperson or an artist yeah and a craftsperson says well there's an audience there's a gap i'm going to make a game for you what do you want and i'm going to fill it and then the artist says i'm going to make this game and i really hope there's an audience for it and that's fine but if you don't pick one and you don't sort of laser focus you end up with go
i made a fun game and then the world goes so and so they're gonna need sustainability as well like these guys need to come back a bit and these guys need to go forward a bit and i think maybe that's that'll be the future of games i'm not i mean something has to change it's a bit broken at the minute agreed mate and i think especially when you keep looking Looking at, like, you know, there's been a lot of frustration from gamers about that of price increases, right, of games.
And it is the element, again, of, like, seeing both sides, right?
So where, like, yes, this hobby should not be reserved for the few, because it's not meant for that.
It's meant for the masses.
and the other flip side is as we're saying like games cost so much and everything else is inflating how do you start like you can't necessarily stop inflation to a degree but again how do you still make it uh affordable in that sense right and yeah and it is tricky as well because people say well like when i was younger games cost even more than they do now but they weren't yeah like like SNES like Street Fighter was like 90 quid 90 pounds I didn't realize that look at inflation that's way more than 90 now but you and you go okay well that's fair enough but there weren't that many games so you
whereas now the kind of things like game pass and the bundles and the steam sales they kind of devalue games because there's so many and when a game comes along and says I cost this you're like oh well do I need to pay that because I can play thousands of other games for less than that um so yeah it's kind of interesting like i have game pass on the xbox and there's just too many games you just get bored of them and stop whereas before you would have gone no no no i've sunk money and time into this game i'm going to persevere it's fascinating it is mate i think it's uh yeah one yeah we could do
a whole episode trying to figure that out right and uh back to more i guess of your your time uh you know working across all these range of different games when you i guess worked on different games i saw in your portfolio you lead designer on that of the uh the mickey why am i struggling with this one now epic mickey's uh adventure 2 so yeah so um a company called junction point which was war inspectors company they made the epic mickey games yeah and then our studio in england we made the bosses for the second one and also we did the you know they it was a wee game and so we had to convert it
to pc and xbox and ps3 and stuff like that so yeah that was our bit of the game basically yeah and alongside that i know you've worked on other kind of children's game and we're talking about knowing your your audience and that and I guess a lot of people I imagine when aspiring for games right they we have more of the the serious s style games now your last of us all those but when you are thinking about children and are designing for them I guess what things do you have to keep in mind because it is a very different and developing age range right yeah um yes it is true that kind kind of oh do
I want to make licensed games do I want to make kids games there can be a firstly when people are first joining the industry you know um but one of the things we've learned over time if you look on YouTube or whatever every game is somebody's favorite game it's their game that they grew up with um so you think oh this is just some licensed whatever but actually yeah for some kid it's like this game's amazing um but from a design point of view ironically the kids games are often harder than the adult game because you have to teach them stuff and they don't want to be taught and you can't assume
that they can understand what you're saying so you know good level design practice like sight lines and targets and uh guiding attracting players attention that's even more important for kids games because you can't just pop up a thing saying go over there because they're just not you can't assume that they're they're reading it and that they're understanding it so you have to rather with an adult you can be like hey you shut up do this as a kid you can't do that so you actually have to work harder sometimes yeah yeah and i guess with that as well like the more introductory way i guess are you
focusing on how to say uh not necessarily taking away the control from the kids in that sense or is it that element of as you're saying where it's more uh i guess making the tutorials more flashy and engaging in their own own way shall we say yeah i mean we definitely leaned a lot on the sort of the valve and nintendo you know the the triple the three -stage tutorial of show practice yeah prove because um nobody wants tutorials just even adults don't want tutorials so if you can and trick people into learning and um it also the thing of talking about audiences again if you can go the audience probably
knows this so i don't need to teach them it or i don't need to stop what i'm doing and teach them it yeah that's um always useful because you know like if you put a player in a 2d platform game and their little guy's facing right you probably don't need to teach them to go right you only need to teach them if you want them to go left and then suddenly that's a new thing that they're not thinking about so you um it does amuse it's amusing in games where you you're playing and you're some epic hero and they're like you need to duck under here you're like yes i know duck and i know which button is on the joypad
everybody knows that it it's probably fine just pop it up on the screen you don't need to slow stop playing to tell me um and you know because i do a lot of um games writing as well that's always a challenge this kind of you want to start it's called like in media res which is you start in the middle of the action because that's the time but what's the latest point in the story that you can start do that but you also need to teach the people this button jumps and this button ducks and if you stand here nothing will happen and then that breaks the illusion you know when you're playing halo and you're
like oh my god the ship's under control and you're just hopping around in the corner trying to find the keys it's like that it destroys it which is why i always love things like um deus ex the uh mankind divide or is it human revolution the first of the new ones where where it went, you go and save the hostages and you were just faffing around, searching all the offices because that's what you do in Deus Ex. And then they kill all the hostages because you took too long and you go, what?
And that was an amazing piece of design work because from then on, when it told you something, you listened.
That's the sort of thing that you want to do.
You want to teach players there are consequences and then they go, okay, suddenly I'm on board sort of thing.
No, I agree. i think one of the things i loved was it was the um it was far cry uh four i believe the one in more inspired by like a southeast asia and if you just sit there at the start of the mission because it's like encouraging you to jump if you don't he just comes back and that completes the entire game and i thought right yeah there's so much as you're saying about where uh if you turn behind you games are like no no please don't look behind yeah or finding secrets secrets that it's always nice and it really is one of the challenges of making games though is that you can't separate making
them from playing them it's really hard now to get a game that just absorbs you because you're always going oh yeah i know what i i bet there's a secret over there or i would put this here like i love destiny too but yeah the way they have to dogleg their levels levels because you need i don't know if it's memory or frame rate but it's brutal and it's not very well hidden and it always slaps me out of the game to go oh yeah okay of course you're frantically pulling this in or you're shutting that down or whatever yeah it's funny you just can't turn it off it's one of the things you lose it is i
was saying to my to my partner how it would have been i'm still searching for a game that pulls me in right where all i can think about is that game and i don't like you say you're not dissecting it you're in it and it is yeah yeah it does still i mean for me it still happens occasionally like cyberpunk did it because it was so big um and weirdly a game called atom 4 which is rebellion it's a new yes the british in england yes and there's something about it where you're eating a pasty and a guy swearing at you in english and um but that one really absorbed me weirdly because it's such a strange
world and such a low -key british version of the apocalypse that i it just sucked me in that yeah that's it's been a while since it happened that's amazing yeah i've seen it it's on my to do list the never -ending games to play yeah no it looked it looked great And I really liked the British twist Because I don't know about for you But a big impact on a lot of the games I've worked on Always has been It has to be based in America Because sales, a lot more people out there And it's nice to see Other things starting to be Represented And I really appreciate that as well Hey guys Guys, I come and interrupt
our interview to talk about a special announcement that Stu has let me know.
That anyone who uses the link down below and the code LDL15 will get an additional 15 % off his book pre -ordering now.
So make sure to get your discount, get into reading that of Stuart and many other incredible advice about game development.
And use the code LDL15 to get your 15 % off his new book now.
Thank you. and back to the interview yeah yeah and more and more countries are doing that as well now it's not considered weird if it's not in America yeah that's it and I appreciate that and I wanted to ask onto you you gave a bit of a hint a bit of a teaser on your new book mate and I want to talk about that with you kind of the inspirations behind it so if you wouldn't mind sharing the title to the listeners and then we can talk a bit more about it mate yeah i mean uh so uh yeah i mean the title is funny because it's called designing video games and because i was working i was assuming the publisher
there'd be this big back and forth and they said what's it about and i said designing video games and they went okay done and it's oh all right um and then the subtitle was like was it a step -by -step guide to creating great games because they said to me well well can you give me more details and i said that and they went okay done it's like okay yeah that's not how it's supposed to work um but basically yeah i've been doing this a long time and there are definitely way better designers than me but one of the things i have got is a spread you know i've done console and pc and mobile and i've set
up the studio and sold a studio and i've done writing and stuff and i i thought maybe i can get some of the mistakes that i've made or we've made down so that people can not make those mistakes and they can make new mistakes of their own which is much better um and so yeah i it goes through the entire process you know like like we talked about who is this game for and what is when do you know if it's finished and stuff like this um and i kind of wanted to aim it at either people that are looking to get in the industry or just started or making games on their own and that sort of thing the things
that i wish i'd known and actually i approached all the people that i've worked with and got them to write a piece of advice each like what what do you wish somebody had told you and because i have been doing writing and projects and stuff there's some famous people are famous the guy who invented counter -strike and tim willett's you know from id software there's all these people that you've heard of and people that you haven't and they all share their sort of okay this is what you should know sort of stuff um and yeah it's basically an attempt to it's not about the you know some high theory stuff
it's like no no this is from painful lessons maybe you can avoid some of these mistakes sort of thing so yeah yeah and i'm really glad you mentioned that as well because like i know that theory books are bad and i really enjoy some of them but it is as you're saying like theory theory crafting can only get you so so far right and for you to share that experience in general is yeah i mean just an amazing amazing addition with it yeah i mean it's that's the thing you you never stop learning for sure and that's that's it if you can just soak it in and go well you've done this what can I get from you
effectively and we're talking then or what's changed in games but that has never changed you it's always okay find the people that have done stuff learn from them and then you know you say do it do it yourself yeah there's nothing nothing beats actually just sitting down and doing it for sure that's it and i guess with this one this is your second book i guess how has the the process changed from writing from your first book to this did you find it easier for speaking to publishers was that easier to to find more open publishers now that you've already released a book how did that come about for you
yeah so my first one was um i'm too young to die which was a the history of first person shooters for the first 10 years um and then and designing video games at the second and then there's hurt me plenty which is the third video yeah these books are coming out at the same time which is really strange just by coincidence um so the first one was purely a lockdown project basically you know i could during covid times you could still work from home but suddenly i had a lot of free time and so i just blindly emailed a publisher and said hey can i write you a book and then there was a lot of discussion you
know like who are you and can you write a book um the second one yeah for sure is easier because you can point at something say you know yeah i've shipped this um which again for for cvs and portfolios is the kind of the point um it is interesting in the like the second and third time you start to see the story of the book much more quickly much faster you see oh this book's about this and i should which i didn't have any clue on the first one i didn't even know i was looking for a story i was just writing about first person shooters and by the end of it i went oh wait there's a story here like
these games come on the pc and they explode and then the consoles come in and overturn the rules like halo and metroid and goldmine that was the story the first book but i didn't know that was a thing whereas on the second book the first person shooter but you can see that story immediately which is them diverting into massive call of duties and really weird indie games mostly from russia in the second book weirdly wow okay um and then so with the designing video games yeah you can say well what is the story and it was really this these are lessons if you can avoid falling into these pits you're
just going to save time and effort and um and i'm going to go and get other people to tell me their painful lessons and we're just going to share them and you know like if you make a mistake fine but if you make the same mistake that's less fine that's wasting time um but yeah i'm still enjoying it i'm working on a fourth book which hasn't been announced um we were just chatting before the recording that the hard bit is that thing of well i've just done a day's work and there's uh there's an xbox and a switch down there and these games are calling to me like i've got belatro on a couple of devices
now and i have to work really hard because that game is terrifying it would easily soak up every every evening you give it and that's why i've never got into mmos because i'm scared of them um yeah so yeah if you want to do your own projects you kind of have to choose but sleep is for losers basically that old saying you can sleep when you're dead right no and i think you touched on a great point about like making mistakes as i think that's sometimes an aspect of game development that i fear feel is not taught enough right like through just general real education even as you're growing up as a child
everyone's like oh don't make mistakes but like the whole point of games is you never get it right first try iteration is such a crucial part of what we do and even as you know yourself like writing a book as well you don't get it right on the first you know the first sit down no yeah 100 percent uh that's one of the things i loved about the book lessons for writing because obviously you study it as well is when you're reading a book you're like oh this is a really clever story it was not clever when they started they finished it and then they went back and made it clever and you only see and it's
the same with games you yeah sometimes you think you're making game a and you get halfway through you go oh we're actually making game b aren't we we're not making you know yeah for sure and but you need i've worked to i don't know a dozen studios over the time and the ones that i think work best are the ones where it's okay to make a mistake yes yeah to then go all right well what did we learn what can we do better whereas if you are going to get punished for making mistakes then nobody will tell you when they've made a mistake and it kind of breaks down quite quickly agreed i think that is one
of i'm curious on your thoughts as being a lead as well because it's a position i've only recently transition to myself and it's that aspect that I am very much trying to find the balance with in terms of we obviously have, seeing all these great talks on GDC where they're like, just believe in your people and da -da -da -da -da, and like I love that, it's not what I'm saying is wrong, it is, the reality though is we're trying to ship things in a certain amount of time, and when people come up with some great ideas but hey, it's the end of the project where it's like it's too late for this but you're
trying to again not shut them down because you you want to encourage creativity but also like it's it's just not at that phase and it's a very hard balance right and as you said you don't want to stomp down creativity or punish people making mistakes because then it creates such a bad atmosphere yeah i really hear you um when the first time i was put in charge of a project i went well then that must mean it's my project and i must know all and i would shut people down it was really bad it was because they're like you say they're creative individuals they they're better at their job than you are yours
but i i would shut everybody down it was really stupid i learned that lesson so on the next project anyone anybody had an idea i said yeah cool and that project was a mess yeah because that's not how to do it you just end up with this really weird scattershot yeah so finally kind of learned the lesson of like you say for me the way i approach it is i want all the ideas i want all the opinions i want the feedback and i will write it down i will talk to you and prove to you that i've listened it doesn't mean i'm going to do it yes for perfectly valid reasons like time and budget and blah blah blah
but at least you were heard and your argument was taken on board rather Rather than, no, no, no, I know best sort of thing, which, yeah, it's very difficult for sure.
No, that's it, mate.
I think it is that challenge overall, right?
Like, that one where especially, like, that was something I noticed when I first got into leadership.
Like, I joined when we had a deadline in two weeks, right?
So, like, it wasn't even a chance to get to know the team, to be like, oh, yeah, what are this?
this and that was something i really just i didn't like because i've had to come in make some decisions but as you mentioned like i know the team is more educated on the the project than i am because they they've been on it longer and they've contributed more but it's that one also where again it's like oh but deadline wise yeah it's it's on me to make the calls and if it goes wrong it's also on my head if they're the wrong calls right and that's it does yeah it is there's nobody winning in that situation but one thing that experience has shown which is weird is sometimes it is good to have the outsider
come in because they just see the game as it is they don't see the history they don't see what you are trying to do they only see what you've done yes and when we so we worked like um warhammer combat cards which is a free -to -play game and it's been going six years maybe and when we were working on that we actually rotated people in and out of the team because the new people well the old people it was nice to get off of a game and do something new but the new people didn't see the history they just went okay this is a game this is what we're going to do next and how we're going to make it better
they didn't go oh yeah but we tried that and we thought about that and so that kind of outside perspective is actually useful it turns out that's it i think i've read some sort of study where they had said uh again i don't it It wasn't focused on game development, but general development was, like, they tend to find that a team, quote -unquote, delivers the best when the team is made of, like, 60 % industry veterans and 40 % newcomers because, again, they bring in that new perspective to them.
They're not aware of budgets, constraints, limitations, so they're going for all these amazing ideas versus, obviously, others which are focused on, you know, hey, we can't do that because we've learned from these errors, right?
So, yeah. for sure and that when we were talking earlier about university students that is actually what you're there for yeah you don't know it can't be done and therefore potentially it can be done that's it we're not looking for it's really hard because we've like literally just had a new starter at our place and it's his first ever games job and you're like you're not we're not looking for you to prove yourself you don't have to panic what we want you there for is to soak it all in and then just go why don't we try this and we're like oh my god why don't we try that we never would have thought
of that that's yeah yeah that's what um these like you say these people bring is yes energy and ideas and yeah and i think that is a it's a weird thing to say because i don't want people to to take it the wrong way but i think it is one of the hardest things is the older and more experienced you get is not to become jaded and bittered by things because as you know know we talk about the triple a industry right now i'm sure you've seen it as well like companies go under projects get cancelled right and it is uh it's not always a nice thing to be on those sides and it can sadly make you know people
unhappy and rightfully so in many ways yeah um yeah uh it's funny that when you're on a game that game is the most important thing in the world it must must be done yeah you know you've got people going why don't we do overtime why don't we kill ourselves to make this game but after that game there will be another game yes so in a way i think the team the people are more important because like you say you want that you need the bonds you need to trust each other you need to go i know that you can handle this but you'll struggle with this so we shall get you help um and if you're just constantly
bringing in new people like these these companies that fire and then hire that's just really inefficient agreed you need to build up your bonds and your trust and so i really don't like companies that kill their staff to get a game out because you're like well now you've got to do another game and you've just wrecked your team what were you thinking you know that's i think that's such a valid point i think someone had described me at one point the games industry is a giant like farewell party because so many people join game comes out leaves and as you said really you're losing not only just uh
the the manpower but you're losing someone who's trained in the systems and has experience especially if you're looking to make like a sequel or dlc for this it's a it's a real or an ongoing project as you mentioned with warhammer as well that they're vital in that versus having to retrain at times which again is very costly and yeah yeah well even without the skills you lose the trust you lose the relationship so you you know you can just get on with stuff rather than go well who is this how do i communicate with them how what what are they like and so on yeah yeah you for sure need to build
up your people rather than your projects and your reputation as well is everything weird like yep one person has by weird coincidence been my boss four times over you know it was head of design at this studio and then i went away and then we met again and he was headed and you're like okay this is weird and if i had you know messed him around or been bad at my job on the first one i he would never have hired me the other times yeah you're yeah Yeah your people and your reputation and and somebody asked me once like well if you could learn one thing like one skill what should you learn and I certainly
from a design point of view but I think just developers in general you need to learn the soft skills you need to be able to communicate yeah because unless you're going to work on your own which even people on their own use outsourcing and contractors you've got to get it out of your head into other people's head you have to understand and so being able to active listening to go well what are you i know what you're saying but what are you actually meaning what are you trying to tell me yeah and how can i communicate with you emotional intelligence that will never fail you across your career basically
it was interesting i'd uh i'd watched a video on a uh an indie developer breaking down that he'd like opened up and outsourced some aspects to uh to an outsourced developer and he really liked the quality of the work but then when he went to look into more detail he'd seen that he'd created so many errors and the end of the video he goes yeah basically what i've learned is i shouldn't outsource and i should just do it all and i was like no that's you've taken the wrong thing from this and again like it's also very hard to look inwards and it's you know we talked about being leads as well the emotional
intelligent and knowing that every person is different and how you communicate with them how you speak to them in terms of as you said like do you aid them on certain things because you know they this may be a weakness or do you put them on something first because you know that this is the chance to give them creative freedom to fly off and do amazing things it's a as you said it takes time that trust is a really it's a real heavy time investment to figure it out it doesn't come overnight or one meeting as well yeah it's true and it it's really weird like games have grown as in the industry sorry
like we're not we're not very professional really compared to say movies which even they're crazy but they've been around a long time whereas we're still learning as we go yeah and you you always get this thing where people are good at their job and so they get promoted into leads and that yeah where was the leadership training basically just because you're a good artist or coder or designer or musician doesn't mean you can lead other people and yet people get put in that role and then they struggle and everybody else struggles um and that's yeah it's you you don't have okay um you're going to
become a leader of people so i'm going to teach you how to lead people basically that's weird it just doesn't happen it is uh it is a very uh rude awakening in that sense right because most companies you're saying like i've seen where people have been promoted and some do have courses which are great and others don't and even those courses right like you learn in a whole day right like this aspect but like the projects as we mentioned it might be on fire so it's hard to implement what you've just learned because we may be at a different stage where hey i can't as we talk about encourage certain freedom
because we're trying to close a deadline or like hey not the team isn't fully needed yet because we're still early in the development or like figuring out what the game is and yeah it is a uh it's a sad thing that people just think oh yeah here it is there you go figure it out and it is it is a whole different skill set a real challenge you yeah for sure we talked earlier about what's going to change or what might change over time and I do think that sort of professionalism thing will be part of it maybe universities teaching more like I say soft skills, communication skills as well as hard skills
because ironically I'm not sure how your podcast does with swearing it's alright mate you can swear we had pillars or rules when we set we set up a studio good well played and there were 10 of us that set up this studio because we didn't want one person to be the boss we were all going to be the boss which was amazing um and we said what are the rules and one of them was you don't be a dick basically yes because you know it's i can teach somebody to use software x or use the software y but if they're a bad person you can't break that you need them to fit in with you and you need to fit in with them
and such like and so again it just comes down to soft skills and don't be a basically i think especially as we talk about design right where you need to work with all these other amazing devs and every obviously every discipline is looking at what we're making from a slightly different perspective and compromise is needed on all sides and i think that is also something as you mentioned with soft skills really important to learn right like people are suggesting things not to ruin your idea but because they're seeing something that you may not have noticed and yeah that means you may have to change
or remove something but hopefully the plan is is that should make it grow further in another aspect you know yeah for sure um i remember sony doing a whole thing on tribalism which is this idea that if i know you and i trust you then if you make a mistake you're just unlucky if i don't know you or trust you when you make a mistake you're an idiot and so you have to like you say i'm in this discipline you're in a different discipline and you're obviously being unreasonable it's like no no they just have different priorities to yeah yeah design is generally the one that bridges that gap for sure
and i think one thing that helped me learn so when i was younger and a junior i was very hot -headed as well like what do what do they think they're doing and i just learned that hey man everyone's trying the hardest there is no such thing as a as a lazy dev there is no such thing as someone's trying to break the game everyone's trying to make the best thing possible and it is just struggling through it at times and it is yeah it's just hard yeah well i mean if games were easy to make we would just make better games yeah like nobody knows well i'm gonna make a terrible game now yeah for sure it
just comes back down to that iron triangle thing of um is it important that it's done is it important that it's cost this much or is it important that it's good pick two yes that's that's it mate as i'm looking at the time for us man is there anything you want to focus on or any other aspect you'd like to talk about and you've mentioned here stew i mean the book you know we've already got the second one coming out soon then shortly the third and already the fourth so when do you have can you be able to share where to pick up the book and when is it available as well mate uh yeah sure i mean so the two
first person shooter books are by a publisher called bitmap books and you can just go to bitmapbooks .com or amazon and such like um and one is out and being reprinted because it's sold out and the next one is out um in about two weeks time so end of may basically damn okay brilliant uh and then the designing video games that's a publisher called white owl they do a lot of non -fiction stuff and you can go let's say with a white owl or you can go to amazon again um and that's out end of june i believe fantastic yeah and i'm that's the more kind of the one i'm more nervous about because i'm hoping
people people like it and people enjoy it and it's useful whereas the first person shooter one now is a kind of a done thing the first one did well we know that's we hope the second one will do well but in turn there are there are a lot of really good game design books so adding one more is quite you hope it's useful rather than just you know a waste of people's time so yeah i don't think it will be made i'll make sure that we have a link to all of those down in the description below for anyone who's interested i know i'll be picking up the book as well mate so you know they said i really appreciate
not only you coming on the episode but writing these books because again sharing these experiences is uh yeah it's vital man it is really important for all of us to learn yeah it is nice to kind of give back for the next generation for sure but yeah i mean so as i say i work remotely for a company in serbia which is the fact the serbian games industry is quite small and quite young means they don't have senior game designers and that's why they're hiring people remotely to train up the next generation it's cool yeah no that's it and I think especially like when you say for yourself getting into
the industry has changed so much from there and as you said being able to to share that for others is yeah I think it's just vastly important it's just stuff yeah so I'm there so it's cool but uh but it's kind of weird that you know making games is hard and it's stressful and it's boring and it's difficult blah blah blah but it's still after nearly 30 years it's not a real job you know like people pay us to do what it's like people out there do real jobs they teach your kids are they empty bins and they operate on people and that's a real job else is ridiculous and i wouldn't you know honestly
i wouldn't wouldn't trade it for the world and as you said it's uh an incredible you know experience in its own right right and yeah i don't know what i'd do if like suddenly it was stripped away right it'd be a very weird world yeah yeah yeah yeah that yeah it is kind of it's like we talked about you lose the magic but also that it's still there you still have to remember that like holy crap I'm making video games yeah and that's the one and mate if anyone wants to reach out to you and get to know more where's the best places that they can reach out to you um yeah um well like a lot of uh people
are not amazing at social media but um I am on blue sky and uh twitter or whatever they call it now you know um i guess you can we could put some links in the bottom sort of thing of course uh but yeah and i'm always happy to chat to people as i say i've do various talks at places just because like like share share the love basically try and help people that um are just getting started or whatever so yeah i'm always happy to chat to people awesome mate like you said i'd love to to have you on for a second episode because there's so much for us to talk about still and just thank you so much for for coming
on and just being part of this episode mate i really appreciate it i don't know thank you for the invite yeah it's lovely as i say it's really nice just to talk design yeah other people and just uh but yeah it's great i enjoyed it thank you a lot awesome no worries and if anyone wants to get in contact with me you can do so as well twitter and blue sky as well mine is at max pairs the email is leveled sign lobby at gmail .com and if you want to get more level design tips you can subscribe to the newsletter pick up the books thank you all take care and we'll catch you all next time
