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Welcome to The Game Maker's Notebook, a podcast featuring a series of in-depth one-on-one conversations between game makers, providing a thoughtful, intimate perspective on the business and craft of interactive entertainment.
The Game Maker's Notebook is presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, a member-driven organization dedicated to the recognition and advancement of interactive entertainment.
You're making me laugh.
You're making me laugh.
I'm not even looking at you.
I know.
All right, Johnny Galvatron, welcome back to the Game Maker's Notebook.
It's great to be here in Vegas.
It is great to be here in Vegas.
By the time this comes out, people will probably be able to see the talks that you did here at DICE this morning, which were
Incredible.
I needed that.
I needed that in the morning.
I needed that in the afternoon as well.
I mean, I think everyone kind of needed that.
Thank you.
No one else would have really let me do just 20 minutes of power jokes, you know?
I mean, you don't really see that kind of stuff at DICE, so it's a good thing.
It's a good thing.
I was coming in with fear.
I was worried that it was going to be the wrong crowd.
But I had people yelling out and stuff.
Oh, man.
I mean, the crowd was definitely into it, I can tell you.
I was sitting in the back and paying very close attention to...
Because I knew what we were in for.
But I knew that other people may not have been introduced to you yet.
And it was great.
Thanks, man.
Do you know what?
I did make a Phil Spencer joke.
And there he was.
And he was backstage.
Yeah.
Luckily, it was a very, like, in fun joke.
It was a good joke.
It was a good joke.
It was a really good joke.
And I mean, the fact that you actually backed the joke up with actual photos of the joke.
With photos.
From a real life experience.
And Phil's a good egg.
He's a good egg, yes.
So...
We're here talking about Mixtape today, which I'm a huge fan of.
Thank you.
I've been playing this game for about a year now.
Yeah.
You've played a few different versions.
I've played a few different versions.
And I was sold the first time I played it, and the second and the third, and I
I think maybe it's five times now.
Right.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Um, and it's just gotten better and better and better.
Um, and there's a lot to talk about with this game.
Um, from the music to the really relatable story and characters.
Um, there's a lot here and, I've got a lot of notes, sick, a lot of notes.
Um, but I think it's worth, reminding people how you got here.
If you haven't, you're listening and you haven't played the artful escape, that's a must.
And yeah, What I notice about mixtape is a very obvious maturation of what you do so well, although there's nothing mature about any of this.
And I mean that in the best possible way.
I know, absolutely.
So...
Mixtape, for those listening, is this incredible new game by Beethoven and Dinosaur.
And it's essentially a really soulful and powerful kind of coming of age tale set to music in a way that have never seen before.
Yeah, in a game and that's the main conceit of the game, which is this game is told the story and the experience that players have is told in chapters, and each one of those chapters is a very handpicked yeah, and well-known song, a soundtrack, a mixtape, if you will, that's right.
And um i wanted to talk about because you know you've already been in the on the podcast before, so if people want to kind of like understand how you got into games which is something that I do in my episodes they can refer back to that one.
We're just going to talk about mixtape today.
Cool.
Um, so when did you get the idea to do mixtape and, and the conceit of the games as chapters?
Yeah.
Well, I've always wanted to do a coming-of-age story and I'm a big John Hughes fan and my music that I wrote back in the day in the Galvatrons was very influenced by John Hughes in that period of time.
And I love this kind of John Hughes linchpin of building a story around a moment where things change, where things will never be the same.
I think that's just such a powerful thing to write around.
So I've always loved having that kind of leaving school, leaving college kind of concept that I've wanted to write about.
And then the music is like all of my favorite music.
It's just my favorite track, starting with Devo.
That's Good, which is my number one favorite track in the world.
And that's how the game begins.
And we lay this huge there's like 27 songs in the game and we'd lay them all out and we would see what story they told and then we'd rearrange them.
How does that feel?
How does that flow?
Is there a different hold on a second yo?
Did you just really say that?
What so?
So the, the chapters and the music were fluid In terms of how you were.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The music was the first thing we put it down.
And then we were like, what story does this tell?
So you really actually made a mixtape.
Yeah.
And then the game came from the mixtape.
Yeah.
I did not know that.
Yeah.
And we built and this is if you don't know much about game dev it's like you would build a vertical slice of a game.
Couldn't really build the vertical slice of mixtape because it changes so much.
Every song is a different kind of gameplay or a different kind of scenario.
So we built a horizontal slice.
We built the game end to end in a really shitty way, with each song and with me doing all the voices, and then we had this huge horizontal slice that we could show and say this is going to be the whole game start to finish.
This is how it ends.
This is the beginning.
Um, these are where the songs are going to be.
This is how they relate to the narrative.
And here's a really crappy baseball game that you play here.
Do you know what I mean?
So, and then we could rearrange that and see how that changed.
I've got some notes about that.
Yeah.
Some more notes.
I'll tell you after the podcast.
Um, And it wasn't like we got it right the first time.
We did change more than this by Roxy Music right near the end of the game.
It used to be in Stacey's room. right at the start of the game.
And now it's far better and has far more emotional impact when it's at the tail end of the game.
So it was built from the music.
We built the horizontal slice from the music and it was always what was driving the narrative and the flow and the dynamics of the game.
That is...
Super mind blowing.
I had not heard that.
And it's weird that I hadn't heard that based on all of our shared accomplices.
And it's kind of blowing my mind a little bit, because that is not the way to do it.
No, it's not, is it?
It's not the way to build games, it's not the way to prototype games.
Um, it was, but in a way i would say actually, maybe you're right to do it that way, because there is no like.
It's not a game in the sense of like.
Here is this mechanic that you're going to master over time and then we're going to introduce new ones.
It's like, here's this mechanic, and then maybe you never see it again.
Yeah.
Which is fun and really cool, and they're really well done in this game.
I think it's interesting to kind of try and explore what... is betrayal as a mechanic.
Can you convey that?
Yeah.
Can you convey that quickly in a mechanic?
Can you convey teenage freedom?
And some of these things are these little fireworks that you can give to people, that give them this rush, but they're not, they're not.
You gotta be there for a good time, not a long time, you know.
And I think it's a momentary experience.
Yeah.
And they happen within, you know, three minutes and 30 seconds.
That's how, how it works.
So I think designing around, knowing that you were going to kind of come in and come out, gave you so much freedom and, as we can do these crazy little things, that doesn't we don't need to worry about how long the loop is going to go, we don't need to worry about the skill tree.
What we need to worry about is the player feeling like their best friend betrayed them.
You know, and yeah, it's interesting because um, those kind of one-time, one-off mechanics are really well done and they really work within the chapters of these.
You know, the chapters that make up the game.
And you mentioned, like John Hughes, in the, you know, when we were talking a second ago and and I noticed some of those characters appeared in your um batshit PowerPoint presentation this morning.
Crazy PowerPoint presentation.
Yeah, that is a good catch it on the, on the dice website.
Um, at some point it's a must watch, yeah for sure.
Um, they're gonna make me put a different song in wayward son, so they don't get copyright strikes.
So i'm just gonna send them some some benny hills, but just so you know, the wayward son bit that was electric, it was legendary.
Um, i so so the idea of I mean, we're jumping all over the place, but who cares?
Who cares?
It's just us.
The idea of revisiting this.
Leaving school last night, the last night, we're all together, kind of thing.
What's interesting about that is Pretty much everyone's had that experience.
So you're already involving the players in something they're uniquely aware of and they've had their own unique experience, probably with their own music, which is what I think makes this experience so novel, but also completely relatable.
Um, so your choices of songs are, i mean, they're so good, like they're really good.
Um, and you know, you mentioned you mentioned the devo song.
Like The opening sequence of this game is an all timer.
Thank you.
I'm really, I'm stoked with the start of the game.
Yeah.
It's like, and we're not, nothing's getting spoiled here.
Yeah.
You know, people have seen it already in some form, but it's magic.
Thank you.
And that feeling of that kind of carefree magic.
That's a thread that goes through the whole game, but it's punctuated by peaks and valleys of yeah, you know with, with our.
You know, our three main characters are like, you know, they're really relatable in in a very original but also familiar archetypical way.
Thank you very much.
Um, and we're talking about Stacy Slater, Sandra, a really fun, um, unique mix of, of friends.
Yeah.
I hope you feel like you knew that like those kids, you know?
Yeah, I really did.
And, um, My experience growing up and being in high school.
I didn't have that type of Different type of friend mix.
Yep, but It doesn't matter because I knew other people who did and it was completely relatable.
Yeah.
I think that's actually part of the mixtape, because there are so many mixtape elements within the game.
Is that you know the music is a mixtape?
The mechanics are a mixtape.
But even these characters are a mixtape.
They're not even exactly from the same period of time.
Slater is almost like 1988, whereas Stacy is probably like 1991.
And then Cassandra is probably like more 1995.
You know what I mean?
So it's like even some of the technologies you see around the bedrooms as well are not exact.
But we know they're not exactly right.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, but I think that's like the unique world that's been built.
Because one of the other things is like this town that the game takes place in.
Blue Moon Lagoon.
Blue Moon Lagoon is completely relatable yet also impossible.
Yeah.
Right?
Like... the sequence when you're, when everyone's skating downhill forever.
Yeah.
Like that's impossible.
No one would build a town like that.
Right.
However yeah, it obviously works for the skateboarding, but also there is a um, very melancholy, um vibe about every single thing, but it's not like dripping with it.
It's just like you get these hints of like these, these pangs of like oh it's it's, it's the last night yeah yeah, and it feels like i think that there is that, that somberness and sweetness to it, where it's like It is a good – you think it's like the greatest hit show, but it's like the goodbye show.
It's like the last show.
Yeah.
And each song, each memory is through that lens of it being –, of it leaving, of it being of a previous time.
Yeah, and the mechanic of – the mechanic of Stacy's character, what she wants to do with her life and how music is the important part of that and how she's made this playlist, this mixtape, important for that night and the way she's um, i don't want to draw the same comparison, but there is a very um uh, american psycho, huey lewis absolutely absolutely like yeah, like overt knowledge that might be obscure to most people but it's important to music people and i think music people are going to freak out on this game because of that, because the other part that's very universal about this game is obviously music is very important and integral to the fabric of every person because everyone has their own experiences through their own music and it's important and it outlines their life.
But that kind of narrative mechanic that leads our gang through the story with the songs is quite well done and I think I think people are gonna really appreciate the way the chapters are presented in the beginning with the yeah you know, do you know?
I'll tell you one thing was like what that was tricky is when we laid out everything.
The problem was the transition How to make it flow in and out and how to get in and out of these memories.
I think that was actually one of the big challenges of making.
The game was like we have these unbelievable sections, but you have to have, You have to be really tight on the polish and the cinematography and the way the atmosphere comes in and the way the music comes in for him to seamlessly get in and out of these memories without it feeling juxtaposed or jagged, which is, I think, something that we're quite proud of.
Well, that's the art of actually making a good mixtape, right?
Totally.
It's the transitions of the song.
Yeah.
So you've kind of stitched this all together in a really like impossibly perfect way.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
That is.
It's a really fun experience and it's been sitting with me, you know, for you know, more than a year i guess at this point and um, my family has has seen me play it a couple times and they're that's one, that one that they kind of sit down on the couch as they're passing by.
You know they don't stop for call of duty, which they should, yeah right um, but You know, because they're drawn in for all these Again, the universal aspect of kind of every part of this is really cool.
So you've had this amazing brainstorm, I'm going to make this game called Mixtape.
Yeah.
And did the... I mean, you must have had the name right away.
It had to come right away.
Yeah, it was like the...
The code name.
Yeah, yeah.
It just became the name.
So let's get into the songs.
Sure.
Right?
I'll say at the top that I was worried about making something with all my favorite songs.
It's like... starting a business with your friends.
You know what I mean?
Like, are you going to be able to coexist and come out the other side still friends?
And I tell you, I just love these songs even more.
Every time I hear Devo I, like people, can tell in the office when I'm starting a new playthrough, because I'm just because to be to be like, to be given that you know what i mean.
Yeah, to be like yeah, to be given these precious all-time pieces of art and then, and then being allowed to build your own art on top of it.
What a privilege privilege is is probably a really good word because um, I mean, you've worked towards this point, but not everyone can make this game because they wouldn't have access to the music, which is a testament to also your publishing partner, Annapurna Games.
But man, there's just...
I mean for a certain age of person, or a certain person who likes a certain type of music, a person of a certain age.
This this this, this playlist is epic.
It's, it's, I can't believe what we got.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's never been, I'm, except for maybe guitar hero or rock band.
Different sort of thing, isn't it?
Much different but like there's never been a bespoke game, I think with the absolute like banger quality of of these songs.
I, I, we used a company called a do it or do it music.
And um That first interview I'm like.
What I want to do is make the greatest video game soundtrack of all time.
And it's about a girl who wants to be a musical supervisor.
And the musical supervisors are like, yes, yes, we can do this.
We can make this happen.
Yeah.
Absolute benefit.
Yeah.
I mean, you walked into that meeting with a, you know, loaded gun there.
Absolutely.
Um, but you know, I'm not going to go down the whole list, but, uh, that's good by Devo.
Obviously we've talked about that.
Just like honey.
Um, my wife actually was a huge silver chair fan.
No way.
Huge.
I am a humongous silver chair fan.
When I was on, We have a rock and roll quiz show on TV in Australia called Rock Whiz.
What?
You're from Australia?
Yeah.
So much new information here.
And I was like, if you're one of the musical guests, you get a special topic.
And mine was silver chair.
And they grilled me on silver chair.
And I remember being in – and Daniel John's a singer on my wall.
I'd seen them a dozen times, which is hard in Australia because there's just not that many shows.
If you don't know anything about Silverchair, they were a younger band that kind of came in the wake of Nirvana from Australia and they were massive nirvana in pajamas, massive.
They were known as yeah, that's good um, and stunning band and became uh, extremely eccentric with their music and avant-garde and and yeah, because when they started they were just like little kids.
They were little kids and in australia, like daniel john's, you know to my generation, is a God, you know he was the rock star and just amazing.
And if you ever listened to the album diorama it's, it's one of the greatest rock albums ever made, I think.
And, uh, I remember just sitting in the studio one time, I'd just been recording vocals.
And I was just drinking tea or something.
And he just walked out of the toilet in front of me.
And that's just no way to... It was too much.
It was too much for me, Adam.
And I think I said... He was like, hey, man.
I was like, I love you.
I love what you do.
That was what I said.
And he was like...
We're going down to the bar to do tequila shots.
Do you want to come?
And I was like, more than anything, Daniel.
And so we went down to the bar on the corner and Daniel's quite famous.
So there was paparazzi out the window within about 10 minutes, you know, and I'm just like sorry, Daniel.
They find me everywhere.
Um, and it had shots with Daniel and that was like you know, I sometimes will just sit there and still think about that.
That was like childhood rock and roll dream.
Really amazing.
So I love silver chair and stoked to get them in the game.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Um, have you seen her like amazing?
Yeah.
Monochrome by Lush.
Oh, one of the first bands to be called Shoegaze.
Yes.
Produced by the Cocktail Twins.
Yeah.
Heaven or Las Vegas is all-timer.
Isn't it?
It's just such a seminal album.
And that...
And I think that kind of also leads into the Smashing Pumpkins and stuff like that.
I mean, that was next on the list.
Yeah.
We've got Smashing Pumpkins.
That guitar tone and that distorted smoothness.
Is that the way to kind of, how do you describe shoegaze?
It's just like. it's like a river of distortion almost as opposed to a punctuation.
It's like a rap pedal turned all the way up or a big muff turned all the way up and then probably the neck pickup, and it's that smooth, super saturated.
Yeah.
It's beautiful.
This turned into a guitar podcast now.
Um, And yeah, that leads into Smashing Pumpkins, who I think have the greatest guitar tone.
Let's talk guitar tone.
Yeah.
I think, you know, Siamese Dream and Melancholy are like the peak of guitar tone for me.
Just like that squealing.
It's almost like it's out of control.
It's like.
It's like a ribbon in the air.
Do you know what I mean?
It's out of control, but it is graceful and beautiful and heavy.
It's just such an incredible sounding album.
There's this famous story that Billy Corgan tells where he had the opportunity to go interview Edward Van Halen at 5150 studios.
And you know Billy Corgan is is known, as you know, the kind of wizard of.
You know guitar tone and absolutely you know, obviously we've got two wizards in this story.
Um, and you know, he goes in the studio and and he, he sees, you know Frankenstein, it's the whole rig.
And he's like, Oh, can I play it?
It's like, sure, sure.
And he said, he picked up the guitar and he said, I couldn't control it.
The volume was the loudest thing I've ever heard.
And I sounded like shit on this guitar.
And he realized that none of it matters.
It's your hands.
Yeah, wow.
And Edward Van Halen has always said, the tone is in your hands.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter, because he could pick up any guitar and play it, and it sounds like him.
It would be singing.
And Billy Corgan tells that story a lot and he's like that was such a pivotal moment of understanding for me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, And it also makes the sounds that Billy Corgan gets even more magical because of that realization.
Yeah.
I mean just the, the squeal, the way everything is just.
It's an absolute symphony of, of guitar, especially the, the melancholy.
Um, do you know, we tried to get Van Halen to play on?
I do.
Do you know that?
I do know that.
Yeah.
Um, I'm sorry.
That didn't work out.
That's fine.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We tried to get him and he was like, we didn't know at the time he was quite, he was quite ill.
Yeah.
And he, but he was like, you can cut up my riffs.
And I was like, oh no, it doesn't kind of work that way.
But thank you.
Thank you so much.
Imagine.
Yeah.
Yeah, imagine you can just cut up my riffs.
Yeah wow, here's unchained all cut up.
Yeah, that doesn't work.
Um, there's a really pivotal um moment with the song shine by david gray.
Yeah, i also love That actually accompanies a really original and unique one-time-only game mechanic, which is trying to move this couch around, which was
Really interesting and makes a lot of sense thematically and narratively in that moment.
It's really well done.
Yeah.
And then there's some songs on this mixtape that I hadn't heard before.
Yeah, right.
So I had never heard Yesterday's Hero.
I was unfamiliar with that song.
And now I love it.
Isn't that song a belter?
Yeah.
It is incredible.
And I don't think, because it's by the guy who sings Love is in the Air.
Yeah.
And, um, he was trying to, he was doing this big comeback and, and I feel John Paul Young.
Yes.
And man, I don't want to be yesterday's hero as, like you know, a failed rock star trying to like like, find my art again.
Oh man, that hits me right in the heart, that song.
But it's also very prescient for the story that you're telling.
Exactly right yeah yeah, um.
And that's another one of those ones where i just like i could listen to that track every day like top 10 chorus, that i don't want to be yesterday's hero.
What, what an amazing line.
And to know his kind of story.
He was like on Young Talent Time, which is a show on Australia, and he was young and very famous in Australia and then dropped off and then came back with this album with Lovers in the Air and Yesterday's Hero and stuff and Australian icon.
Yeah, and you have arguably a four-song album.
Run at the end of this game that is unimpeachable.
It's silly, isn't it?
I mean, more than this, Roxy Music, Candy, Spellbound, Suzy and the Banshees, Joy Division, Atmosphere, and then ending with The Cure.
How could you not?
I mean, I'm so kind of blown away by the ability to acquire these songs for this game.
Yeah, me too.
It must have been really, really difficult.
I've heard various stories about it and various stories about which artists are.
You know, I've heard so much inside Goss that I just loved because I love that.
I love Hollywood stuff.
I love like hearing about these musicians.
Like one of the rights holders from the cure was on a mountain and they had to send someone to the mountain to find this guy because there was no communication.
And And then someone was trying to get us to use Taylor's version, this other, newer version of the song that they'd recorded.
Absolutely not.
And I'm just like, no, I can't.
I'm so sorry.
I'll pay a bit more if that's okay.
Yeah.
But do you know what?
The thing is, I think, with a lot of sync rights is you know a lot of it's for advertising and stuff, but you have to present you know where it's going to be in the game.
Does anyone talk about the song?
And so all these bands are getting this bit.
It's in this game.
It looks really cool.
The character turns to camera and says how rad your song is and why it's.
No one says no to that.
And they were very, you know.
I'll just say they were all very generous with their licensing for mixtape.
And that's the only way that we could do it.
And it's the only way the game is possible.
Exactly.
Like, you actually set yourself up for, I can never make this game if this doesn't work out.
Yep.
And that's why being on a publisher like Annapurna can be creatively very freeing.
And you know the cats there, Havana Perna before and after.
All quality people.
And they're all quality people.
I think maybe sometimes people have ideas that publishers are like record companies, which have this idea of messing with the art.
I mean, some are.
And some are.
Some are.
The people I have worked with have always just been a library of people that I could check out and use to my own advantage, whether that was like business or art or story.
But the games that you make and your company makes couldn't exist on a traditional publisher.
They couldn't.
We're all very lucky.
We're a very lucky team to be there.
Well, we're all lucky because we get the output of that.
Yeah right, it's great to have.
You know there's, there's a bunch of them now, um of these, these indie powerhouse teams that bring weird art and special art into the world.
I think it's just a wonderful time to be part of the medium.
Yeah, i mean games.
The, the landscape of games, because of people were talking about and others, has changed dramatically over the last few years and it's a very obvious, purposeful shift because you know we need your games, we need games from from other creators that you know we can't just have AAA sequels, right?
You can't do it.
Yeah, that's right.
And there's going to be more and more people who come in from all walks of life.
That's what's interesting.
Especially now.
Yeah.
As games get easier to make, as they become more accessible, with things like Unreal Engine and stuff like that.
But also because there is an entire generation of people starting studios now, because our industry is caving in on itself in some ways.
Yes.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of talented people out there making all these.
They're all popping up and they're all making weird, cool shit.
Yeah.
And yeah, it feels a bit like nature is healing.
Yeah.
I mean, it's really noticeable.
Like I get about a text conversation a week from someone.
Hey, i just had this crazy idea, so let me run it by you and it's like the craziest idea.
Yeah, you know, and i'm like yeah, do that.
Like yeah, definitely do that.
Feels like there's room for a lot of lynches.
You know yeah, in film not a lot of room for There's one lynch, you know, and then Cronenberg's off there, but like, but yeah, it just feels like there's that's.
That's my quote of the day.
Video games feels like there's room for a lot of lynches.
Good one.
Yeah.
All right.
So we've talked about like the influence of like John Hughes type stuff.
That's very evident in the characters and the story and the writing.
Uh, so we've talked about the kind of influence of that and the obvious influence from the music, but like i don't feel, like i've heard you talk about your gaming influences for mixtape.
Yeah, so you know, walk me through that because Again, this is a very unique experience.
Yeah.
And it's hard to be like, it's like this, isn't it?
It's very hard to be.
I mean, it's not.
So what's very hard is to be up your own ass and say it's not like anything.
You can't say that.
It's totally unique.
Every local band.
Oh, what kind of music do you play?
Oh, it's kind of hard to describe.
You play ska, dickhead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But like, you know, there are reference points of things, but like what, what were they for you?
Yeah.
Well, I think this game.
Yeah.
You're, you're.
Just a collection of your experiences, aren't you, really?
I don't think there's any one thing.
I think people compare it to Life is Strange a lot, just maybe because there's not a lot of games about teenagers hanging out.
Yeah.
But it's not like Life is Strange at all, really, in tone or gameplay.
I think Kentucky Route Zero is a big influence to me.
The way it's written, the way it moves, that's just a big formative game to me.
Absolutely.
Insanely good game.
Yeah.
Journey is obviously, I'm sure you can see some little DNA of Journey in there.
That's a hugely formative game for me.
Finch.
There's Finch, obviously.
If there was one game that you would look at, it would be Finch.
Yeah.
What Remains of Edith Finch.
Annapurna game, all time classic all time of the year, all time.
Um, and and just, I always sometimes, when I close my eyes, I'm in that um, that room uh, that has all the uh black light paint.
Beautiful production design.
Um, So yeah, they would be the main influences there.
And you can see kind of some of that freedom from journey and some of that writing from Kentucky route zero or some of that arrangement from Edith Finch.
Yes.
Cause like some of the mechanic game mechanic, it's hard to even say that.
Yeah.
You know, but, It's a descriptor, so we'll roll with it.
Some of the game mechanic sequences.
The mechanic is so wonderfully expressive and intimately tied to the thing that you're talking about.
I'll talk about a couple of them.
Like just the joy of skipping and flying through the field, yeah right, like that was so hot, what else would it's?
It's like.
It's like how would you think of that?
I mean, i'm thinking as a designer and creator myself.
Like yeah, how would you think about that?
And then, how would you not think about that?
Because once you think about it, it's like, of course.
And and what's happening in the story in that moment is there.
There are characters are all caught up in these various neurosis of of this last night.
That's not quite panning out.
Yeah, you know the way it's supposed to.
And then there's this moment of just like absolute release and just like bucket, you know like, and i think that's really actually true to adolescence.
Yeah right, It's very, it's very up and down.
Yeah.
And because you know, like I have a five year old and they like cry and scream at one minute and then they're joyous the next.
And then you still haven't by the time you're like 16, you're still not at the end of that.
By the time you're 17, there's still things are still just so big.
So emotional to be able to show, like teenage freedom when you, when you were like when, suddenly you were with your friends and you had no supervision.
How are we going to show how that feels?
You know, and it has to be opera.
It has to be this grandness of.
The world has opened up to you.
And then that level was just so hard to get right because it's very hard to make this joyous flying thing that's seamless and can't break and goes to the music.
And you've got to get to the lake when the saxophone starts.
So it's like I love those challenges of like how can and how can we do this song right? it was always like a bit of a mantra going through yeah i mean and there's there's a bunch of other sequences like that and they all kind of involve this um joyous um movement the skateboard yep the shopping cart yeah flying yeah the convertible yeah right yeah i think do you know what i think it's that um i'm always trying to in this game but but the it's everyone's leaving yeah everyone's moving on yeah yeah Exactly.
And I think that Artful was very about yeah, playing music, and this was more about listening, and this is this is how music makes me feel.
You know, this is and this is how I tied it to when I was young, and you know, music still feels that way to me, and probably to you as well.
But I just remember, you know, when you were a teen and just what melancholy what melancholy did to me, did to my brain.
You know what I mean.
It's just um, to try and express it in the most ballet, the most operatic way, because that's what it is to me.
Yeah.
I mean, that's, that's music, right?
You've managed to heighten the experience of those songs by them existing in these interactive moments that make the song obviously more meaningful in the game but also, in a weird way, more memorable now.
Wow.
I hope so.
I hope we've done well by them.
I think, like we agreed, it's such a privilege to have this music.
And it's intimidating when more than this is sitting there.
And my dad showed me that song.
My dad's around, by the way.
There's no sad story.
I took him to the sphere.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Was it great?
Yeah, it was great.
It was weird.
It was weird.
I kind of way.
I heard it was great.
It's great.
I've been to the sphere twice.
Yeah.
Sorry, three times.
Did you say fish?
No, I saw U2 three times.
Oh, how was it?
I went three times.
That place is like one of the seven wonders of the world.
Yeah, it's incredible.
Yeah, it's... I mean...
It's so hard to even describe to someone.
Let's talk about the sphere for a second.
Yeah, okay.
Because, first of all, U2 was, like, opening night.
Yeah.
Yeah, I went the first night.
Sick.
And it's really hard to describe the scale of this thing when you're inside it.
Yeah, you can't.
Nothing does it justice.
Yeah, and I didn't know, do I get a seat or do I go on the floor?
I got a floor ticket the first thing which was cool because I ended up standing like less than 10 feet away from the edge the whole time.
Yeah.
Not the edge of the stage, the edge.
I got it.
Okay, young kids, he's called the edge.
You probably don't know anything about this band.
And that was amazing.
But I lost... I didn't get the effect of the dome.
Because I was also 10 feet from the wall.
And it goes up hundreds of feet.
But then I went and saw...
The concert from the seats, which was... Better?
Religious.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's better.
It's way better.
I was on the top shelf, too.
Way better.
I was looking for the seams though, because everything's kind of cut out and has to be replaced because, Oh sorry.
Everything's cut out and has to be replaced, because you can't edit much on a screen that big, because every time you edit it's a big yeah thing, so you have to kind of like bring in, like cut out the characters from different edits and put them.
So it's more of a static scene, because i felt like the refresh rate was not great when the like within there was big sweeping, but it's like it's perfect when it's kind of still and there are things moving within it.
Yeah, i mean like i didn't see a film exactly exactly, but you two had this uh desert scene with a single flag plant in the middle of it.
That's when it's like, it was awesome.
But what was really cool was when you're standing around waiting for the show to start.
This is only happened with you too.
I can't speak for, uh, dead and company and backstreet boys or whoever else played.
Yeah, all of which probably would have been cool to see.
Yeah, eagles also eagles yep um, they actually had a projection on on the screen that made it.
It was like concrete, like like blocks, like it was, and then when the show started, the blocks started disappearing and like putting up this whole world.
Yeah.
And it was just so in on believable in wizard of Oz.
They make it look like a little old theater.
So it's like you can see the curtains and stuff down the front.
Oh, wow.
It's like the uplit rows of a theater.
Wow.
And then it all goes into the – It's like the most Vegas thing ever.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
It's filthy.
When you can see it like from the hotel window.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's – I mean, imagine what it's like having, like an apartment or an office where you, the sphere, is like always there.
That must be so insane it's.
It is one of the most insane things i've ever seen.
I'm glad it exists.
Yeah, it has to exist.
There's a smaller sphere in burbank.
Oh yeah, in la.
Oh, what's this called?
Is this where they show the Matrix and stuff?
Sphere, I think it's called the Sphere also.
But I think it's more like private-y or corporate, but it's the same people.
I think maybe they test stuff there.
Yeah, right.
I don't know, but it's there.
Sick.
Anyways.
Sphere.
Sphere.
Thank you.
It was awesome.
Okay, so we were talking about...
I don't remember what we were talking about.
More Than This.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so your dad showed you that song.
Yeah, dad showed me the song and then you have it there and now I'm going to put it to this scene, where a car and you're exploding fireworks and stuff, but it's like a reliquary.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like this precious forever thing and, and you know, it's like the gift of music.
You mean yeah well well, just like these songs, these i've heard them my whole life and they and i worship them.
You know, i worship the smashing pumpkins, i worship silver chair and then suddenly you're in, you're in charge of one of those songs for this little thing, you know and uh, i'll always just remember how amazing that was.
So what in the game, in the narrative, in the characters, what's you?
What did you take?
I mean, probably in some form, all of it yeah, but like, is there anything specific in the game that's like?
That happened to me?
Oh yeah, that and worse.
But the um, do you know?
I remember just seeing this photo of this girl dancing at a concert with her eyes closed and i just was like oh, i remember when i was that kid.
I remember when I would follow the bands around and I would sell their t-shirts and I would draw posters for them and they would use them in their things.
And I would get, you know, meet them side stage and stuff.
And there is.
You know, you will not meet a more innocent, sweet bunch of kids than kids who are really into some kind of art form.
Oh yeah.
And they make the best communities.
They're great kids.
And I was one of those kids and then, when I got to be in a rock band, those kids that next gen of kids came up to me and they sold my t-shirts and I love what the game ended up becoming about was like.
Remember when you defined yourself by art.
Remember when you were, your idea of yourself was so purely defined by art.
And there's something really wonderful about that.
So I think those kids you know who would follow bands around there's just so much of them and those people that I met in this game
And then all the trouble that I got into um, and we used to.
You know, stacy judges people completely by what music they listen to, and i was absolutely that person as well.
Jenny fucking goodspeed, jenny fucking goodspeed.
Um, all right yeah, this actually seems like a good time to talk about the characters.
Um, let's talk about slater.
Yeah, We all know Slater.
We all know Slater.
He is an incredible character.
Definitely my favorite.
Thank you.
I think he's going to be a crowd favorite.
Yeah, definitely a crowd favorite.
And also the best mechanic in the game.
Oh, the video story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, come on.
Yeah, the video story is very fun.
I made those videotapes, all of them.
There's like hundreds.
Yeah.
See, if you do the video, I think lots of people have wanted to do bits in a video store.
Yeah.
But, like, you can't just – you've got to make all the tapes.
You've got to make the covers.
Otherwise, it's not going to be cool.
So I made like 200.
We've all played a game where you go into a bookstore or a library or whatever and it's like there's five books.
Yeah.
And it's like repeating it everywhere.
I get it, but I got it down to a thing where I could, like those games, always have like 150 people working on them.
So I never understand that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I figured out that I got it to a point where I could make a a cover and export it in like a minute 35.
So I was like, pumping out these different covers and stuff because it had to have that many.
They're fun.
There's a lot of fun covers in there.
Back to Slater.
So Slater was, do you know what?
It was really hard to cast Slater, because Slater has this.
He's almost like – there's a bit of a caricature of him of kind of a Wayne's World Bill and Ted kind of guy.
But also he's like – Soulful.
So soulful.
Oh, man.
You have to believe him.
And he has these great ideas about music.
And I love his kind of – that Stacey Rockford wants to leave.
And he's like no, I kind of want to stay here and like appreciate my own little garden as he talks about.
Yeah.
In the game.
And yeah, we found Max Corman.
He was just like I'd gone through hundreds of auditions and I rang him up and he's just the sweetest guy.
And he had, he could do both.
He could do that somberness that we needed when he was talking to Rockford.
But he could also be this like guy who was like charge, you know yeah, he had, it was like that really like rounded somber thing, but also the absolute comic relief that is absolutely needed in that in that trio.
Yeah right because um, you know you've got, you know stacy who's you know got the plan.
Yeah.
She's, she knows what she's doing.
Yeah.
And Sandra, who absolutely doesn't, whose plans are made for her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I you know what I love about the trio and this is.
This is going into, should we say I'll go into spoilers of the ending.
Yeah.
Um, Uh, I would say, you know, I love that the big goodbye is Stacey and Slater.
Yeah.
The oldest friends and they're always there, and Slater is always there, and their relationship is so healthy and so positive.
And there is this kind of clash between um cassandra and stacy and it's almost, it's possessive, it's almost like it's the bad part of a romantic relationship leading into, like of into a platonic yeah friendship.
But there's always that friend in the group or on the periphery that like needs it more than you could really understand.
Yeah.
And that's that possessive thing.
Yeah.
You know it gets.
It gets mixed up with feelings of And I'm not talking about romantic or sexual, but the desire of belonging to a group and being part of it.
And wanting to have, like, that's my best friend.
Yeah.
Which is also funny, if you think about it, because...
I don't know if you're the same way.
I bet you are.
But like, you know, I get possessive of bands.
Yeah.
That's my band.
Yeah, you know, i've been on this band for a while.
I think i've dropped.
I've dropped now that i have like really young stuff and i have they, i go, you know, they go apocalypse now.
Now no no, i've never seen it.
And and that's the time to be like encouraging yeah, you know, and be like and be like because you want to go oh, my god, you haven't seen it.
But yeah, that's when you have to be like Oh, I'm going to teach you.
It's really interesting.
You should watch these films.
And I love I like, you know, I was definitely in that horrible rock and roll gatekeeping.
And I feel like my old age.
I've become someone who's very willing to to to spread as much music as I as I can, and or as much films as I can.
Yeah, that's the way to be because everyone needs Apocalypse Now in their lives.
It's the greatest.
And not the director's cut, like the original theatrical release.
We don't mess with the director's cut.
You get that whole French plantation bit.
I mean, Kurtz.
I mean... You do a... That's a very good late-stage Brando.
And then you end up, like, falling asleep.
Anyways, back to the game.
Oh, yeah.
Sure, sure.
Yeah.
So, the ending of... With Stacy and Slater... Mm-hmm. most people wouldn't have done that.
Most people would have like the three riding off into the sunset.
And I felt like that was such a awesome choice, especially with the Cassandra character, um, kind of not really figuring it out, but like finally, like, getting her moment yeah i was really really powerful and the way it wasn't like typical john hughes hollywood ending no it's a bit different isn't it yeah so like what was the impetus there um i always wanted to i had an idea for a previous game where they were they were riding home on bikes and through the suburbs and each, each time a friend was peeling off into a different street.
Oh man.
And I was like, that's, yeah, yeah.
I was like, that would be a cool way.
And then, um, we wanted them to fly in.
So we have, you know, we have, we drop off Cassandra and then they have their moment.
And then we came up with the, the idea of the um hold at the end, and we're like that's just too powerful we need.
We wanted to end on that.
Um, i just think don't let go, don't let go, and um, i think it's just.
It's just one of those things where it's like i think that's a great use of the medium, it's not difficult, it's not, It's not intricate, it's not long, but you could only do it that way.
And that's the little things that I like to explore when making games.
What's funny about that is that when we're talking about these kind of chapters and vignettes and these mechanics that kind of go with the story, there is a a real character and story growth from the um French kissing tongue, mouth mechanic in the beginning to not letting go of this.
Know, we've grown yeah, we've.
We've been through this experience and we've grown yeah um, from this, this story and um, it's just a really like wonderful arc of of that where it all kind of ties together.
Um, so i feel like you know, I feel like this game's going to really resonate with people.
So when that happens, what do you want people to take from it?
That when we're teenagers, that when we're young and when we're all very similar, we're all confused, no matter the era.
Yeah. that it's the things that you attach to, that's what will make you who you are.
So pick nice art.
And good music.
That's right.
I think probably next year at this time you'll probably be here again, but probably not for podcasts, but maybe because this game's definitely going to get, i think some, some nominations.
It's quite good, appreciate it, thank you.
It's quite good and i'm really looking forward to everyone playing this.
Yeah, when it comes out, because i think i think um, i think people are gonna talk about it excuse me back to that i think people are going to talk about it because of its kind of universal nature and i think it it's definitely going to melt some hearts.
I hope so.
I played through it, um the the hand in build the other day and i'll tell you what was.
What i really enjoyed about my last playthrough was just like playing through and then I could see this little tower in between two trees.
That was perfectly placed and I was like Harry put that there.
And then I could see this little illustration. that's just tucked away somewhere.
And I'm like Arden put that there, you know.
And then this is.
There's a little NPC.
Does this little funny?
Look at the camera in one of the scenes.
And I think of Anne-Marie who did that animation.
So, when you know, not only did these songs mean so much to me now even more than they did like to play through and to see the all of your teammates there in the art, a very special and unique experience.
Well, i i wish you nothing but the best.
I'm excited for this, like almost like it's my own, because it's so great and uh um, you know, i'm excited for people to check this out.
I'm sure you are too.
I'm very excited for people to play it.
Thank you for talking to me about smashing pumpkins, guitar tone.
It is always a joy.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Thank you for joining us for The Game Maker's Notebook.
For more information on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, our podcasts and our other initiatives, please visit wwwinteractiveorg.
And I'll see you next time.
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