Why Play Matters | Julia Minamata (The Crimson Diamond)

Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The fact that I was having trouble finding work as an illustrator, it was frustrating. Wondering why it wasn't working and kind of beating myself up over that. I could retreat into this little project of mine and just putter around with it and have complete control over it and do exactly what I wanted to do with it. That's the type of feeling I also wanted to bring into the game where it's a kind of a retreat from you know whatever's happening in the real world. And that and when I was making it, it was a retreat for me about what was happening professionally for me, and which wasn't much, which is why I wanted that retreat.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Hi there, my name is Stephen Lake, and welcome to the Examined Game. Today we're talking with Julia Minimata, the solo game dev based out of Toronto, Canada, made a brilliant game called The Crimson Diamond. It's a text parser adventure, so it's reminiscent of those old Sierra games like the Laura Bo series. Basically, if you want to engage with the world, interact with the characters within it, you have to type in your questions and your commands. I wanted to talk with Julia about this idea of play in video games and also the play that she would engage with as a kid and what she bought from that time into her adult life as a game developer. So there's some really interesting stuff we get into, and specifically around this idea of a game sort of like a doll's house, and that's really relevant within the Crimson Diamonds, since the game is set in this sort of big manor house. Um it's a great conversation. I'm really looking forward to you seeing it. Please check out the game as well. This is the examined game. Thank you very much. So, I mean, I firstly I actually just wanted to jump in and just talk a little bit about the game, obviously, first. That's okay. Again, mainly out of my own sort of just like curious interest. Um, and obviously just a little bit of kind of basic overview about sort of when you started working on it and what was the sort of build-up to making that. And maybe it wasn't a big decision in the moment, you know. I'd be I guess I'd be curious about what how that all kicked off.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I didn't go to school for game development or game design. I don't even think those types of programs existed when I was going to college. Maybe I would have done that at the time had that been available to me, because I had grown up always with a computer in the house. My dad was really keen on on tech and everything. And so we started with a Commodore Vic 20. He he would bring

Discovering Sierra adventure games

SPEAKER_00 2:15

back this huge suitcase-sized compact computer from work and because he can sometimes work from home a little bit or takes I don't know, work from home necessarily, but just take some work home after work and do extra work if he needed to. And there were some DOS games on that, and that's kind of my first, my first exposure to it. And I I was playing games through, you know, elementary school, through middle school probably as well. But then, yeah, when it came to going to college or university, I did apply to some cute computer programming courses or or programs, but I was not really that interested in that aspect. I was more interested in the visual aspect of it. And I ended up going to college for illustration. And I went to school. I specialized in editorial illustration, which is magazines and newspapers, and um I did that. And I graduated and I started looking for work as a freelance illustrator. And it was it was hard to find work. I graduated sort of in the early well, I well, not even really the early 2000s, but right into the a recession in the 2000s. And and print media anyway has been on a decline for decades, even before I graduated. So it was not it was not a very good timing, I would say, to enter that particular industry. But um, I'd always been interested in in games. And I mean, we could talk about when we can get into that, when we get out of the background of time and we talk about the play stuff, we could talk about board games and all kinds of games. But yeah, I'd always been interested in that. And then by the by the time the 2000s rolled around, you know, you had YouTube and you had people let's playing games and and there were YouTube tutorials about how to use advent stuff like Adventure Game Studio, which I found out about, I found out about developers who were making their own games with that tool. And I just started to dabble in it. I wasn't really having any type of expectation that I'd make a game or anything like that. It started from me being an illustrator and remembering the type of art that I really liked from those games and saying, well, maybe can I can I kind of duplicate that style based on what I, you know, all the reference I could pull off the internet at that point. And my first room was not that great, but it was good enough for me to continue just playing around with it. And the second room that I did actually did make it into the Crimson Diamond, which is the kitchen. And I just started to build little rooms here and there. And it was all about it was all about making like a setting. And it still at that point, I was not thinking about making a game. I was thinking about I just want to putter around and make little rooms as a hobby, which is basically an art project while I was still trying to find work as a freelance illustrator, which would be sporadic. Sometimes I'd be busy, sometimes I wouldn't be busy. And as the years went by, and I gave myself nine years. Well, I told myself I gave myself ten years to try to make it as an illustrator because I really wanted to give it a good try. And whoever knows why, why that didn't take off. I think it was just a really challenging, challenging thing to try in the first place. But I was having more and more free time and I was putting more and more time into this little hobby of mine. And yeah, learning about tools like Adventure Game Studio and and doing YouTube tutorials and just puttering around with it. I I don't think if I had started out telling myself that I'm going to make, you know, a full-length adventure game like a Sierra adventure game, that I would have been able to do it. It was something that I kind of fooled myself into learning slowly over many, many years. I mean the the demo for the game came out in 2018, November 2018. I had been puttering around with it for probably seven or eight years before that, just slowly like learning stuff as I wanted to learn stuff and all that. And from 2018 to 2024 is when the actual most of the development happened. The rest of the the game from chapters two, three to seven. And it was a matter of, well, what would I want to do? What would I want to do with this thing? At that point, when I showed the the demo publicly in 2018, I did get some interest and I was very motivated and kind of excited because I was only really doing it for myself at that point. You know, we talk about, you know, you're going to be doing these interviews and you want to talk to people and you're doing it because if it's your own interest. And that made me smile because that's how this started for me too. I I just wanted to make something of the type of thing that I enjoyed playing when I was a kid, and people weren't making that type of game anymore because everyone had moved on and I hadn't moved on. This was my time. That was the the happiest time, I think, when I was playing games was was playing those uh EGA text parser adventure games. Yes, I that's why and also because the fact that I was having trouble finding work as an illustrator was frustrating. And uh I didn't really know what I was gonna do if that didn't work. And I was coming upon the you know, that that tenth year of, well, I'm not gonna try to keep making this work, wondering why it wasn't working and kind of beating myself up over that. I could retreat into this little project of mine and just putter around with it and have complete control over it and do exactly what

Building The Crimson Diamond

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I wanted to do with it. And um and that's the that's how it started. And I'm glad it started that was it was it was a grudge, it wasn't like a big decision, like I'm gonna make a computer game. That that that's not how it started. It started in fits and starts and and very slowly and just built over time until I reached a point, probably uh maybe sometime around in chapter two, where I I realized I now knew everything I would need to know to finish this game. And that was that was really a nice realization to have at that point.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Did you think much about, you know, again, you're sort of you're picking EGA, you're picking text parser, and you sort of know by the nature of those things that for some people that's going to be a barrier to entry. Right. And it was interesting. I think a lot of the reviews or a lot of things people say like rightly or wrongly, they're like, it's it's like a text parser game, but it's okay. You know, they sort of like so they're kind of like saying that's like that's potentially a a tricky thing, but it's actually done really well. So I guess I'm just sort of interested about, I don't know, I guess I'm asking how much you were thinking about that, that there probably potentially would be a barrier to entry for people, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, this goes back to that same impulse of making what I wanted to see more of, making more games like that. And I I totally understand why we don't see these kind kinds of games anymore, at least commercially. I mean, there's still lots of people in the interactive fiction realms that are are creating and releasing these games, but not, you know, not often not really with the type of graphics that I was doing, for instance, or with that particular style of, you know, EGA, that very retro look deliberately. And all those decisions, being a text parser game, using that particular palette, all of those decisions were this is what I want. And that's all I really focused on. And and when I actually showed the game for that first time in November of 2018, and I saw other people playing it, that's when I realized that, yeah, I actually I want to make this maybe something that could appeal to other people potentially, make this more flexible, make this more user-friendly. But the thing is, is those old Sierra games, when you would move around, um, the arrow keys, you tap an arrow key, move in a direction, and then you'd have to tap it again to stop. And that's how the default movement was in the Crimson Diamond when I first showed it. But no one plays a game like that anymore. That's just how I, you know, how I had played it. But then people were really struggling to move around on the screen. And that's why now, if you play the game, the default is kind of like you have the press and hold those arrow keys to move or use the mouse. And that was just another that was one of many examples of things that I decided to adjust based on what I was watching people do. And that was something that was really helpful when I started showing the game at events or watching people live stream it is how are actually people, people who've never played one of these before, because I think it's quite likely that a lot of people wouldn't have played either a text parser adventure or controlled a game like those old games controlled, which is the tap and move tap to move and things like that. And that's one of the reasons that um, well, first of all, the game comes with a handbook. You can open up in a browser in case you get stuck, because I realize text parser, very challenging. It's a very challenging input system. It really asks a lot of people. And not only that, I mean, commercially speaking, I can't sell this on Xbox, right? I mean, I can't sell this on Switch. It's not so from a business perspective, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I of course people aren't c aren't selling, you know, making these games anymore to sell commercially. Because not only can you not really play it on on a console, but to even localize the game would be challenging. The game is 160,000 words, and that's going to be expensive. And and the niche of a niche that I'm targeting, just it it can't, it's not viable to do that. And maybe if I had made a sp a game of that size, but with you know, 5,000 words or something, then yeah, I could localize it to all these languages. So there's so many reasons why people aren't making these. But knowing that that there are will pe be people like me that like this style of game, and then people that might like it that don't have nostalgia for it. And that was the most surprising thing I found when I started to see people play it or when I read reviews of the game, is when people say this is my first game that I ever played using a text parser, and they enjoyed it. And that means so much to me because I wasn't thinking about that at all when I was making it. I just wanted to make something for people like me who who had that fond memory for the thing. But it's it's been really rewarding to try to accommodate those other people in ways such as the ways I just mentioned, but also there's a tutorial that you can you can do to just kind of get the get get you know get your feet under you when you to learn the basic, basic uh commands stuff like that. So I did try within reason because not being someone who is from a programming background, there is only so much I'm able to do with you know nested if-else statements. I don't know how technical you are, but I'm not a technical person.

Why parser games still work

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I just figured out enough. I just figured out enough to make the thing. And when sometimes when people ask me about can you do this or that or the other thing, I'm not able to because I just don't have the knowledge, but I'm happy to accommodate when it's something that is within my power to do so. Stuff like keyboard shortcuts was was easy to do. Just making that the parser more flexible, which is something I don't even really think that those older games had the resources to do in the first place. So being able to expand on that was nice.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

That was my experience. And so so although, you know, I mean I mean I basically spend my life trying to find, and for me it's more just just a little bit further along in the era trying to find point-and-click games that are gonna sort of scratch that like LucasArts kind of uh itch for me. And so actually I'd never, although the one of the uh the first game I ever played on my dad's Amstrad was Hugo's Haunted House of Horror. Yes, which was Textbusser. You know, I remember pick-up pumpkin, drop pumpkin, pick up key. But it was but they actually weren't a big part of my sort of childhood interesting or teendom. So it was interesting, but obviously I was really drawn to your game. Um just because it was enough in that wheelhouse, and just I loved the the the art style that um I I leaned into it and I was like I was surprised, like my experience of of any kind of modern um adventure game, point and click game is that it's it's it nearly scratches the itch, but not quite, and then I'm on to the next one, you know, and and what you did it really it really did, you know, for like those like eight hours, I was totally I kind of felt just like again, and it's not that it's all nostalgia, but I sort of just felt back in in my my childhood.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

I'm really I'm so pleased to hear that yeah, you didn't really have too much experience with a text parser, but you do remember games from back in those times, and you still really enjoy the game, which is I that I'm so proud of that, and I'm so glad to reach people like that because I I think honestly that the text parser interface is one of the most compelling and interesting and imaginative imaginative ways of interacting with the game. It just I know that it is a big ask for people, especially people, first of all, who were yeah were never brought up with it, and also the idea that we need to make everything easier and make everything more streamlined and polish all those edges off and everything that's gonna give even a little bit of friction. We're gonna just eliminate that because we want people to just have no real, I don't want to call it challenge, but no real, not even no, but maybe less engagement in what they're doing, in which in which you have to declare what you want to do. Like you have to generate that from inside you and then put it on the screen. When a lot of point-and-click games, especially when it comes to things like dialogue, you you you're choosing from options. You're being presented by options, and it's very limiting, I find. I still love a really good point-and-click adventure game, but even just playing, you know, comparing my level of engagement when I play a Text Parser game versus a point-and-click game, I I'm so much more into it for sure when I'm playing something that does require me to offer input, that makes me super, super pleased to hear.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

I just wonder if there's a world where it's sort of if even if, again, if you're new to this genre or new to your game, if people have, you know, let's just say I mean there probably are a lot of people that have no familiarity with the fact that this used to be a genre in and of itself, and the idea of people actually perceiving it as a new wave of of approach for for interactivity.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I think it's really the I think the time is really is really right for it at this point. Because I think about all the ways that we are just interacting with text in our daily lives, you know, and there's social media, there's like texting and messaging and everything like that. And we are reading all the time for content and tone and context and all of our communications. And the fact that we're not gaming that way as well is interesting to me. And I really think, you know, we have phones and I have um there's something called Adventure On that you can actually program so you can play like little text parser adventure games in on your phone. And we have this pop-up keyboard. You can play play the Crimson Diamond on your phone, in fact, because there's something called Scum VM that has an iOS app now. And you can you can play old adventure games on it, you can play the newer adventure games like the one that I made in Adventure Game Studio, and it's just it's all there, it's all set up perfectly. And I didn't have to reprogram anything to make it work on mobile, it just worked almost completely naturally, which is which is shocking to me. It's incredible. And that's why I feel like there is there's so much opportunity here to bring back that style of gaming. Well, not even bring back, because like I said, there's always people who are making them, but maybe making it more prominent in people's minds that this is a type of game that we can play. And there's there's something here that we either you haven't seen in a while or you've never seen in terms of I am kind of the person who is going to need to be the motivating factor here. I'm the person who needs to take the initiative, which in a way that we use all the time with language, and this idea of not knowing what the boundaries of that game is because of the the boundaries of language are just so, you know, it's the the scope is so broad and it and language is so deep that you don't really know how far you can go with it. And I love that idea. Um it's it's considered something called system suspense in in games where you don't really know what you can do in a game. And some games do that well by introducing new mechanics into a game. Some, you know, some maybe halfway into the game, a game might introduce a new mechanic or a new way of doing something. But a text parser just naturally has system suspense because you don't actually know what you're capable of and you feel like the limit is your own imagination. And that's the part that I find really exciting.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

It's a brilliant brilliant way of putting it. I guess with that in mind, I'm curious how much you think about new audience, new audiences, not

Designing the game like a doll’s house

SPEAKER_02 16:34

new to like, you know, specific your games, but people that aren't being drawn in from the sort of the stamp, and if that's, you know, if you want to be able to cast a wider net to those people, I'm assuming not not by not diluting down what it is you want to be necessarily doing, but I can imagine that there's a huge satisfaction in bringing those people under the wing of of your games, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yes, absolutely. And and I think about new audience, and one of the things that I like to do that has been a benefit in many ways is I like to stream on Twitch. And I stream game development stuff on Twitch, which means I will do artwork, I'll do some of the pixel art for my game, and I'll stream that live, but I'll also play retro adventure games on my stream. And Twitch is great because I've met a bunch of other people who play retro adventure games or other types of retro games. And there is there's actually a lot of interest in in you know generations that didn't grow up with those particular games to experience those types of games, especially nowadays. It seems that modern times, the way that games are being are being designed or being monetized in a way that is not really friendly to the consumer. When you think about AAA games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, and they need to hit a certain broadness of audience, which means you're not gonna get, you know, weird, neak, singular voiced projects. And I think that indie games and small team games have a real opportunity there to get to show, you know, younger people you can play all these kinds of weird things, and they're not gonna be the most broadest appeal of a game because it doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to make a billion dollars. And if it doesn't make a billion dollars, we're gonna shut the studio down. It doesn't have to be that way when you're when you're when you're solo like me or a small team. You get to have a unique, something unique and a really neat little experience that you can't have with a triple-A game. And also not only that, but a lot of these practices that AAA games really it's almost necessity that they do like stuff like you know, what, uh, game passes and and you know, subscription models and loot boxes and all those things that they need to do in order to make the money back for this project that cost all that money. It took thousands of of hours of labor to achieve it's it, you know, the the uh equation is different completely for for what for what we do. And what I like is those old games that were made like 30 or 40 years ago or or or more, they were made in that same spirit of uniqueness. There was not this idea that it had to make a billion dollars. And also because the medium is so young, they were still figuring stuff out in terms of like their the genres weren't as well defined. And and what you could or could not do with interfaces, you know, there was not a lot of this is how this type of game is made, or this is another type of game that it gets made here. It was kind of all kind of more chaotic, I think, in an exciting way. And so people really, I think even younger people are drawn to older games because what they get is they just first of all, they just get a game and that you don't have to be connected to the internet to play it, or you don't, even if it doesn't have a multiplayer aspect, you don't have loot box, you don't have any of that other stuff. And you get weird, weird, interesting things. And I see a lot of people getting into that type of game that also get into retro adventure games or are there older types of games, and I see people are really a real interest, not even just playing that, but watching other people play those games because some of those games are really hard to get running. First of all, a lot of these games are very challenging to even play in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

I spend my Christmas basically setting up, you know, I was like trying to get the longest journey running on my Mac, you know, things like that. They just to get running.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Exactly. And so sometimes for me, I actually like to when I'm working often I'll have someone playing a retro game on another on a second screen. And a lot of people on Twitch are, I think probably would skew younger. And in that way, they're they're seeing a game. And that's the thing, is another thing. A lot of times developers have this idea of, well, should I, you know, especially when it's an adventure game or a game that's very narrative focused, you know, do I want people to stream my game? Do I want people to see the game and maybe they won't buy my game if they see somebody else playing it? Well, I think it is actually a really good opportunity when when people see a game being played, that's a really good way for them to decide if they're gonna want it or not as well. And I think that's a really good way. It's been a good way for me, I think, to reach maybe, maybe an audience that might not necessarily would have would have appealed to necessarily the game. In that way, Twitch is good. And also another way that Twitch is good is because I stream old games, I am reminded that there are, yeah, all that game quality of life design stuff that I did with the Crimson Diamond based on what had what had come before. I get I'm reminded about stuff like those friction points that I would like to smooth over. And and that was been a helpful design exercise for me, beyond the fact that I just really enjoy not only re-revisiting old games that I played, but discovering old games that I had never known even known about that I get recommended by people who are watching my stream. And that's been a real education too. And it really does keep keep me thinking about how can I improve this experience for people who are going to be coming to what I'm going to be making next.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

And just out of interest, you know, how much in terms of you know, because in terms of drawing an audience, I said I think you know, positioning is so important. And, you know, I don't can imagine very rarely anyone's gonna write about your games without bringing up the word sort of nostalgia or past, right? And I know Ron Gilbert spoke about this when he released Thimbleweed Park because he'd done this kind of retro style art direction. For him, he actually felt a frustration there because he didn't feel like he'd made a retro game, but just by the look of it, that's the sort of box it got put into. And I think it that that was part of the reason why he changed the art style for the last the latest Monkey Island game that he did, 'cause he didn't want to get sort of uh pulled into that. I mean that's just his preference. But I guess I'm just curious for you And maybe this is what's something you can reference with the what you're working on next, you know, what that balancing act is in terms of positioning. You know, how how much does um hit you know it sort of hitting

Interactivity and player immersion

SPEAKER_02 22:10

the nostalgia box help with bringing an audience versus wanting to not get pigeonholed into that too much so that you can sort of be finding these new people? Or again, a bit like you said, perhaps that pigeonholing actually works across the board, you know, and people want to pick up these games that are being perceived as as nostalgia style games.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

When it when it comes to new audiences, what I think about is, and when I even think about old audience, the old audience, when the people who do have nostalgia for the for the type of game that I'm making, I still feel like I've only reached a fraction of those people. There's still, I'm sure, vast numbers of people who have never heard of my game that would love to play the game. And that's why I can continue to, yeah, I'll I'll I'm still on social media, I still stream, I do all that stuff. And I'm pleased when I'm I'm really glad when I hear when someone says, Oh, I've never even heard of this game, because that means that there are people I can still reach with it. I don't, yeah, I I still think there is, there are a lot of people who have not heard of it. Um, and if so I'm happy to continue banging that drum. But yeah, when it comes to this idea of positioning it as sort of like a retro style type of game, like I I don't really have any hangups about it because I genuinely have an affection for the EGA color palette, this little particularly low resolution type of game and the text parts, everything like that. It's not me trying to figure out, well, I'm trying to appeal to specifically the same people who have that nostalgia. It's because I love that color palette. And that's where it comes from for me. I mean, it could be that other people who are trying to make that decision about should I reposition this game more retro or should I change the style of the artwork to make it seem give it a more modern feel and a more modern appeal. It's not really a question that I ask myself because that it's it's just what I like. And so it's not a question of of repositioning what I do. And it's not even a question of, I mean, I'm always trying to find new people, but I'm not gonna try to do that in a way that is going to compromise what I actually want to do with it, which just so happens to be this extremely specific style of game, not only in the visual and in the gameplay, but also even in the music where the music was was composed on a roll and MT32, like a real one. We did that live on stream. I did that with Dan Polycar, who composed the music. We just have this idea of, oh, this is what I like, and it's very specific. And there are gonna be other people who like that specific way of doing things. And I still think that there is something here, and I think of especially with the text parser, there is something here that is not just for nostalgia nostalgia's purpose. I mean, I would talk about EGA. Sure, the EGA, you look at that color palette and it's weird and it immediately places you in the late 80s if you are familiar with that. But at the same time, when I showed the game for the first time, well, the demo for the first time, and I had a big banner that I had I put up by my table, I would see kids come up to it, their faces would light up because of all these bright colors. They didn't care. They didn't, you know, they they didn't remember 30 years ago. They're eight years old. They didn't they loved it though, they loved that look. And they accepted the weird color of the of the people's skin because you don't really have any realistic colors of any sort in that palette. But they they like bright colors, and I like bright colors, and and and the people who have the nostalgia will will get that other bit of out of it. But the fact is that bright colors are fun. And if you put bright colors um on a screen in an appealing way, then it's gonna appeal to people, and it doesn't matter if they have a fond memory about it or not. Same as with the text parser. Sure, it's a bonus if you have a nostalgia for that particular type of user input, but I still think it stands on its own. And that's why that's why I don't think about whether I'm concerned about being retro or not. I'm proud, I'm proud to be a retro do retro-style game, and I'll continue to do it as long as it holds my interest and can continues to compel me. And you asking about my next project, I'm actually working on a small mini maple mystery right now. And it's even more back in time than the Crimson Diamond was. It actually uses an earlier looking earlier version of the Sierra AGI, it's an AGI graphical engine, which means double wide pixels. The pixels were two by one pixels actually to save on disk space at the time. So we're talking 160 by 200 pixel resolution with these, so then the screen is stretched.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Are there any games you could just reference that that were made than that just to paint a picture?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Yes. So Gold Rush was published by Sierra, and it's got it's got this most the most incredible graphics. And also King's Quest 1, King's Quest II, Kings Quest III. These are all AGI games. The first Space Quest, I believe, also. And that's and the reason I'm doing that is I wanted the challenge of trying that other style. Um, because I just again it just appeals to me. Um it it's sure there's nostalgia to do with it, but I just think it it's fun. I think Lorez, Low Res graphics are fun, and the lower I go, the more fun I have a lot of the time because it means it means I can spend less time on everything, which is kind of nice. It's funny because I also did some artwork for um this game called Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and uh kind of a related game called Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator that's gonna be coming out soon. And it's monochrome, it's black, it's black and green. And and no, I've done some pixel art graphics for other projects, and it's always been lower resolution or fewer and or fewer colors than the Crimson Diamond. I did a play date game called Chan's Lucky Escape with uh with the Anna of Galasso Games, and that's black and white as well on a playdate screen, which is not even backlit. These types of limitations are things that sure I have fond memories of, but I I just enjoy and maybe it's only I don't think it's only because of fond memories though. I do think there's something here that it just has that appeal for me. And I've that's the kind of art art that I've always wanted. Even when I was doing um even when I was doing illustration, I was doing um some silkscreen printing, which also is very limited colour, but six to six, six to eight colors is what I would do for silk screen printing. And my

The influence of The Colonel’s Bequest

SPEAKER_00 27:48

and my art was always kind of flat anyway. And I just think it's my naturally how I like to express myself.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Well, just to come back to the you know, you talk about this idea of some eight these eight and eight-year-old kid, you know, in 2025 sort of playing um the game or being drawn to it, and it's like it's like literally just a mirror image of you know me in 1994, you know, again sat at that Amstrad. Although we might have had a PC at that point. So, you know, and that kind of consegue to what it was that I sort of mentioned about wanting to sort of dive into about the sort of the childhood inspiration that I think we get from the sorts of games we play. And again, I don't know about you, but as because I'm just coming from a player perspective, I feel like, you know, and I wonder if when they're marketing games, they're sort of aware of this, regardless of what someone's childhood or version of nostalgia is, you know, because for some kids the nostalgia was gonna be Fortnite, you know. But um as a player, I feel like any spending decisions I'm making are based purely on whether I'm gonna sort of recapture a feeling or a moment that I felt sort of before in a game.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Um you know, and you've sort of talked about it a little bit, but I just kind of want to come back round to it. You know, what was the this idea that you were bringing into existence something that you wanted more of yourself, um, and that you're sort of then able to provide that to others. And I guess what I'm asking is is like how much of um this desire to sort of pull something from your childhood into um present tense existence is sort of driving the you know creative decisions that you're making about where you want to invest invest your time and energy.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

So to answer the question, for me, the thing that I loved as a kid in terms when it comes to play is play sets, doll houses, um, you know, Castle Grey Skull, Snake Mountain, these types of things. Where it creates this environment, this setting where there's all these opportunities with different rooms and different furniture to kind of come up with your own stories. That's what I I loved about play. And when I think about Lego, and I love I was I was someone who loved Lego, and I I kind of had a second phase of loving Lego a second time around, and this idea where, yeah, you can create these environments. And that was what I loved. Those are the sets I like the most, the ones that were buildings. And you could kind of you could reformulate them, you can reconstruct them, you can do your own type of building, you can furnish it in your own way, and just all those little opportunities to create potentials for stories based on the context or the setting. That was a type of play that I would engage in a lot when I was a kid. And it's even with board games, and you know, we played a lot of board games as a family, particularly things like of course Clue. Clue is a huge inspiration when it comes to the Crimson Diamond. Some of the rooms in Clue, like the conservatory and the study, are just lifted directly from Clue. The reason there's a billiards room in the lodge is because there's a billiards room in Clue, stuff like that. And uh that the funny thing is though, is yeah, I we would play that as a board game, but sometimes I would just take it out and play it like it was a playset where I just move the characters around in the rooms. I'd put them in the little chairs. That's the type of stuff that I would I would love doing. And you can actually do that in the Crimson Diamond. You can sit yourself down in a chair, and it's probably just something. Well, it is something that is completely useless in the game. Like you don't need to sit down.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

But why is that so satisfying in games? Like any game, it's like one of the first things I'll try and do. Instead of trying to break, it's like, I want to, you know, and you sit there and you kind of like just for a minute, you kind of you just feel totally immersed in in that space.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yes. Well, that's the thing, right? You feel like you're engaging in that space, you're interacting with that space. And that that is something that I, yeah, I would just from my childhood, just thinking like I would love to do that in these games, is pretend I'm in that space. And it's it's it's fun to do that when you actually, yeah, I'm gonna sit down in this chair and I can just hang out here and be part of this scene now. That's so powerful to me. And I don't really know if I can really articulate why that is, but that's why that's it's in there, is because I felt like I want people to feel like they're in this setting. And I think of stuff like even like stuff like Fireball Island, which was actually this whole 3D map thing that you could move your little character around. And I would play with it more like that than I would actually play the game. And when I started creating the lodge for the Crimson Diamond set, I was I started with these rooms, right? I started with the kitchen and then the parlor, maybe, and then the study. And I was thinking about it like I was building a dollhouse, like I was building a set. And that's why the taps work. That's why you can wash your hands, that's why you can open and close all the cupboards. Because you you wouldn't want to have like a I did have a dollhouse with my we my sister and I shared it, and I love the dollhouse because you could open all these little things. And I had constructed all that. And this is this is how you know that I didn't design this as a game first and as a setting. It was a setting first because you can open up all those things. And I laboriously, you know, did all the sprites and did all the animation for that stuff because I wanted to furnish, I wanted to furnish this house that I was making. And that was where it came, that's where it was first. And then the game idea came later because I started to think about starting uh being an artist uh first, visual artist, I think about the importance of visual reference and historical reference and things like that. And so I can't just put a couch in a room. Like what couch is this? What what design is this couch? What era is this couch from? What, you know, is there wallpaper? What's a you what's a wallpaper gonna look like? I wanted to draw from historical reference as much as possible because I wanted to create a setting

Point and click vs text parser design

SPEAKER_00 33:05

that felt grounded and felt real. And in order to do that, you do have to do all this research. And from that research, I started this story idea started to germinate in terms of wow, what else? We have to say, well, where does this place exist? You know, in the in the world, where does this exist? Who lives here? You know, that's gonna d dictate the type of rooms. What's the history of this house? And from there, yeah, the game started to come together from those elements. And it was so it's kind of like a backwards way to develop a game, I think. Now, now that I'm making other games, I'm starting with well, the well, my design document first. Well, okay, well, here's what I want to happen in the game, and this is these are the assets I'm gonna need for the game. The Crimson Diamond started out assets first. I just built it. And then from that, I started looking. Well, I made a billiards room. I'm gonna need to come up with a reason for there to be one in the game because otherwise people are gonna just feel disappointed that I didn't do anything with this room. And that's all that's the reason why there's a puzzle to that that centers on that room. Otherwise, that wouldn't have happened. And so it was very so from my play, it was very much setting-based, this idea of coming up with these stories based on what was happening in my mind about those different pieces of furniture or those different rooms. That was the basis of of how I even I got started in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

I mean, it's sort of and so it's really leaning on again, just because that was obviously what you could gravitated towards, but the sort of immersion element of it, you know. I mean you just you've created a fully I mean the the the comparison of the doll's house is um is is is I mean I totally see it now actually. And actually I feel like there's a lot of games where you can apply that that too. And but I don't know if it's uh I mean if you know, I think of the whole genre of like immersive Sims and games like Deus Ex and you know it's games like that where you can sort of run the taps and you know, these these these funny little things that make you feel I think about my sort of childhood experience, the exact same as you with like Lego and then board games like playing them, but also um I remember there were I'm trying to think of an example of early games I was playing, not because again I always gravitated towards you know point and click adventure games, but you know, I had a Sega and games like Sonic and there was Mickey Mouse's House of Illusion, and I remember that game, there were these spaces that had no enemies in them. It was in the f I think it was a forest where you were sort of like between levels, and it was those spaces that I always kind of enjoyed spending time because it was sort of like I would roleplay in my head, a sort of an immersive situation whilst in the game. Um and the same with um is it game Wonderboy? Basically any game, you know the the those those old sort of uh you know 2D RPG games, like any point when you sort of get to the village, that was the space that I wanted to hang out in most, you know. Because and it wasn't just because of like the fact that I was frightened of going on to the next thing where I was gonna get more stressed out because of the you know, because in those games there was like an actual threat, you know. I mean I suppose in Sierra games there was as well, but in a different way. It was more like you sort of drown in a puddle, things like that. But uh what am I getting at? I just loved being in those spaces because they they either felt lived in or I project onto them that they were lived in. And I mean, I guess maybe that's what so much of it put pointing click games are, is it's just uh an entire version of that experience. Although, and actually just to say the other element of your game is there's that real-time passing element as well, which I think makes you feel even more like you're sort of living in in that environment.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yes. Uh when I think about why adventure games appealed to me when I was a kid, it was of course this idea that you get to explore this setting. And not only that, but you get to explore the setting with I'm not gonna say no danger, because as we mentioned, yes, CR games are pretty hazardous. But I will say that compared to other genres of games, when I would play them, and and and I it they would be scary where everything's out to get you and to kill, you know, that whole idea is just to survive as long as possible on the screen. That's what most games were early on. But adventure games were not like that. Adventure games, you could just kind of yeah, walk around. You didn't, you know, you didn't have to you weren't f trying to score, shoot as many things as possible or stay alive. You were just you could just wander around, across, go walk across a bridge or something like that. And and that really did appeal to me. And not only that, but this idea that, well, in early games, there was not really the idea of time passing so much. That idea. But the idea that you were setting your own pace when you're playing an adventure game. Because when I think about arcade games, obviously, you know, stuff is coming around at you really fast and you have, you know, you're the one reacting to stuff. And I like the idea of an adventure game as you know, again with text parsers, like you're taking that initiative to engage with the world. And if you don't, then the game is patient and the game's waiting for your input. It's not out to get you, it's not rushing you, it's not telling you to hurry up and you need to do something. I don't like that feeling. Just in real life, I don't like that feeling either. And when you when you know, when when I did the time passage mechanic in the Crimson Diamond, I wanted to be explicit about you being in complete control of when that's gonna happen. And that's why in the notebook, it will have like these all the asterisks around, like, okay, you're done. You can go to the dining room now and then you can advance the story. But if you don't want to do that, you can just not go to the dining room and just feel free to explore and feel free to talk to anybody about anything that you want. I don't like the idea where you where the player would get punished for exploring or trying something. That that really didn't sit well with me. And it's funny because I I I I streamed this game called Mortville Manor, and I'm actually watching somebody else uh stream it as as well to see how he gets around playing it. But that game is a mystery game, and it's a mystery game that when you ask people questions, they'll only let you ask like five questions and then they'll just stop answering your questions. And I found it completely infuriating because this idea is I I'm an investigator, and my way of finding out information is to ask people, so why are you, you know, you're limiting the amount of questions I can ask. Same thing is with, especially with adventure games, when you have an inventory limit, stuff like that. Just that that type of stuff really bothers me because it it kind of stands in the way of me doing as I wish to do. It kind of I mean, some people like that limitation, that that pressure and that logistic element that it does give you, but especially when it comes to a mystery story, I didn't want anyone to feel like they would do something by accident. And I know I know you mentioned that you played the Colonel's book quest a little bit, and that's something that was huge in the Colonel's Book Quest. And some people actually like the fact you can wander into a room and then time will pass all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

And I did not like that about that game, which is why I mean so I couldn't I I played it but just through fully with the walkthrough because I just didn't want to miss a single thing where it's with you.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah, but that feeling is something, yeah,

Solo development and creative pressure

SPEAKER_00 39:41

that's why I find that experiencing or re-experiencing or discovering those older games and playing them is such an education because it it did emphasize, re-emphasize to me the type of time pass mechanic that I don't like. And I wanted my game, I didn't want my game to feel like a movie. I wanted my game to feel like a book where you you can just there's a pause button in the game that I implemented very late in the game because it's not really necessary. There's only one instance in the entire game where something's happening that's out of your direct control. The game is always on pause if you're not doing anything in it, except for this one exception. But people like a pause, especially if there's, I guess, a cutscene or something that they don't want to miss, then you can put the pause on. But yeah, the idea that the game is waiting for you, the a book will wait for you, a book is not gonna rush you through it. And that feeling, it ties into this idea of it being like a cozy mystery. You know, it's very, it's very influenced by Agatha Christie and other types of golden age type of detective fiction. But that coziness of feeling like you're you're, I don't know, like you're being accommodated in a really nice way, in a gracious way, is another feeling, besides all that other stuff we talked about, nostalgia, that feeling of kind of, I don't know, hospitality. I don't know. That's the type of feeling I also wanted to bring into the game where it's a kind of a retreat from, you know, whatever's happening in the real world. And that and when I was making it, it was a retreat for me about what was happening professionally for me, which wasn't much, which is why I wanted that retreat. I wanted to also recreate that for the player, where they can come into this little place where it feels very rich and deep of a setting that you feel like you're engaged in and you're in that place. And it's a nice little kind of a mini vacation for for whatever else is happening, a place where you have complete control. And that's how I felt when I was making it.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Do you think that that's something that is is sort of unique to best games than more? But is that a I uh it's it's getting a little sort of meta-philosophical here, but is there it's is there just like an innate drive in gamers, like taking away the whole like win points, get the goal, kill the enemy, um, to just be in a space, you know, and um feel a part of it?

SPEAKER_00 41:44

I think I think that it's it's always been around that I that that desire and and and that type of game, but I do think it's probably easier to create that type of game now. And also in in contrast to what we've had before, where you we you know I talked about early on with arcade games about how they were very they could be very frantic and they could for me being someone who was never really good at those games, it's kind of frustrating as well and and stressful. And uh the fact that that there was this genre called adventure game that would accommodate that, but now we have games that have those sections, like you say, that can accommodate that desire for this immersion, this relaxed immersion. And we talk about modern games. I've been playing something recently, like that is an RPG that kind of did remove the combat for the most part. I've been playing Caves of Cud. I don't know if you've ever played that one.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

I've just not heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

It is it is kind of like a blend between like a roguelike and an RPG. And it can be very challenging, but the key is they have different modes with which to play it. And this idea of being a roguelike is a game that you know people you kind of play it repeatedly and you die a lot and you learn from each playthrough more about the world and the systems to helpfully, hopefully make you more give you a better chance of survival and finishing the game. And that's the mode of the game that was the first mode of the game that they designed initially, but quite late in development, they they designed a mode called wander mode. And with wander mode, most of the creatures are not hostile to you. And in wander mode, the XP that you can earn is based on knowledge that you would learn in the world, which means that someone like me, who is more of an adventure game person, be in this world, can explore to my heart's content, and I can tick I can level and I can develop my character, but it's not based on conflict, it's not based on battle, because the vast majority of creatures are not going to be hostile to you. And it's allowed me to enjoy this very deep world that I would not necessarily be able to enjoy if it kept being just that one thing. And I think that accommodation is really was really a great idea on their part. Because I do think that people, not everybody, and not all the time, but I think there is this desire for players to to get to be immersed in this completely other place. And I I mean, I'm not necessarily like a person who's super into augmented reality or virtual reality, like that that type of my. I'm not so much into, but just the idea of your mind immersing you in into something. I think also for me, when it comes to stuff like graphics, I like I like simpler graphics, you know, going back to retro adventure games and Caves of Cudd also has low, low resolution graphics. It's the same idea as with a book where you the book doesn't a lot, you know, they're not illustrated everything that's happening in a book. You kind of there's room to breathe and there's gaps for your own imagination to fill in those spaces. And I think low resolution graphics give you that opportunity where it does feel it can feel more like a book, where you are interpreting what you know, the feelings of the characters, for instance, can be more ambiguous, or what you're actually seeing on the screen can be more ambiguous. Like maybe not for Crimson Diamond, but for other very low-resolution games, it might describe a scene to you. And you get some cues of what is where, but you're filling in the rest of the blanks based on the text that you're being supplied. That type of feeling I quite like as well. People have said that Nancy Maple's face is very blank, and they will project their own types of feelings on what they think her face is doing. And they, you know, depending on what the situation is around her, they'll she'll be feeling a certain way. I mean, she does have a speech portrait because sometimes you'll get to see up close, you'll see what her face is doing. But yeah, for the most part, just her little sprite has like, I don't know, it's like 30 pixels or something her face. And that idea where you're projecting yourself onto onto Nancy or how you're feeling onto her is something that I I find quite appealing. And when I think about Laura's pixel art, when I think about Lego as well, where a lot of it is up to interpretation in terms of what a brick is going to represent in context with the other bricks, based on its color. You know, you can get a yellow brick that could be gold or it could be grain or it could be any number of things, the fact that it's yellow. And when when I talk about play and going back to play, the fact that I I loved Lego so much as a kid was that it had that ability to change its meaning based on the context of what else was around it. And and the shapes were so basic, but I you can use your imagination to kind of flesh it out in a more detailed manner. And that that with the type of art that's in the Crimson Diamond or other low rest pixel art games is something that I really that appeals to me a lot. I I like the lack of specificity. Of course, you know, going back to the the historical reference, like yeah, there's m there's some amount of specificity, but it it doesn't have to be necessarily um visual, really, all the time. Like there can be visual cues, but it doesn't have to be completely

Working as an illustrator while making the game

SPEAKER_00 46:18

and artily detailed because that's a lot of labor when you come when it when it comes down to it. And I think when for me as a solo develop developer or small team development, you know, you don't want to spend a month on a chair, for instance. You know, it's just it's not the like the amount of labor required to just make a fully fleshed out, you know, that's the reason these games cost millions of dollars. And that's the reason why they have to be, you know, safer or broader in scope. The fact that I can make a chair that, yeah, fine, this isn't you know a Victorian chair because I put like a type of leg on it, like a particular leg, but it's a very low rest pixeler, and it's gonna take me an hour to do, versus someone who's modeling that and beautifully, you know, lighting it, and then the texture artist has to come in and do it. That part of that part appeals to me as well is the fact that I can do it myself. I can do it relatively not so much labor, comparatively speaking, and also the player has some freedom in their mind to also construct what's going on or the feeling of what that place is.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

And I guess do you again what you were pulling from the idea of that sort of doll's house and sort of building the space first and the environments and then going building from that. I mean, do you think that that sort of like is the reason behind why you think the game has been sort of if you you got a sense of why you think people really resonated with it and why they've gravitated to it? Because it to me it sort of feels like quite a success for this type of game. Like it, I'm sure you you like you were saying there's still more people to reach, but I'm I'm usually finding games through I mean the algorithm's gonna sort of put a game like this in front of me, probably through YouTube, but most of my reading is in kind of mainstreamish um gaming sites, which this which is how I got exposed to this one, right? And I guess I'm just wondering if you you know, well like rock, paper, shotgun, I think, did some coverage of it, which was they wrote about really, really well about it. Yeah, I guess I'm just interested if if you think that you sort of to a degree bottled something that again might be hard to sort of explain that that people were drawn to in terms of it coming back to that sort of raw play, and it's almost like the the video game equivalent of moving the pieces around the the Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Um I I think I do think it's part of part of it. I do think that's that's part of the appeal. And because I did do a lot of research and reading about all aspects of the story and and and the characters, people have said that yeah, the the the setting feels grounded in reality, and it's because it is, and there's there are things that were aren't even directly addressed in the game that you know, like geographically specifically where it is like I know where Crimson would be had it been a real place, because the the mineralogy and the geology is realistic for that region of of Ontario, for instance. Like we did have a diamond mine in Ontario that was in operation for I don't know, maybe about 10 years or something. So they're there. Those diamonds are there, and it's just a matter of, well, they just weren't found in Nancy's time, but they could have been, which is kind of a tantalizing prospect as well. But yeah, the the setting I think I love. Um it's kind of like a niche of a niche of a shove genre. This idea of having adventure games based in houses, stuff like you know, Maniac Mansion, Deer the Tentacle, you know, the Colonel's Bequest. Like this idea of this house um metaphor, it's not even really a metaphor, but the house setting is super appealing because it kind of gives you like expectations of what you could do in certain rooms. Because we are, for the most part, everyone's familiar with what a kitchen is. Like, well, there's gonna be a refrigerator, there's gonna be a, you know, a stove. And can we do things with those things? And are there gonna be uh opportunities to do stuff with that? So it kind of sets up expectations of what you might want to do in those rooms, or even subverts certain expectations of what you might see in those rooms. And that that idea of coming into something with this idea of what something's gonna be like. And that's not even down to the setting, it's also down to, you know, genre. I did, you know, when I was kind of marketing the game, I was marketing it as a cozy mystery, kind of like Agatha Christie. So people have a set of expectations for that as well. And so there's this anticipatory factor of, well, you know, who's is someone gonna die? Who's gonna die? And that gets them also engaged and expecting things that might happen in in the story. And they'll see this grand room where there'll be, well, there's a dining room, what's gonna happen in the dining room, or is something gonna happen in this bathroom? All that, all that type of setting up these little mini expectations, I also think engages people in in it. But I do think there is an appeal to the setting of a house, a mystery house, which is something, you know, literally a game called Mystery House. I mean, that that I think is is something, at least for me I know, appeals, and I do think that other people feel the same way about it.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Yeah, you're so right. I mean, there's something about a contained space as well. You know, I mean it makes me think one of my favourite games is um the Last Express by Georgian Mechner, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

And again, that was a game I replayed it recently, very stressful because there's so much you're missing, like you know, and I just like but um you know, it's contained to these however many like four carriages on a train, and it's incredible how much depth. And it's it's actually interesting. I'm just realizing we've spent a lot of time talking about the immersion of the game, but we haven't really touched on sort of story or character or all these other things that are that are primary core elements that you've got nothing if you don't have that, which of course, again, I think you achieved so so well because I was just like firstly so drawn into to our sort of protagonist, you know, and then the uh the the sort of the tropes of the various characters around her as well. I guess I j I I just like to ask about that, I suppose, and how much if you again you start with the rooms, the environment, the the immersion, the space, and then when did the uh character development start to come in and how much time did you have to spend on that and how organic was that process? Was the fact that you built the spaces for them to exist in? Did that kind of help?

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Did

Nostalgia and retro game design

SPEAKER_00 52:03

it it it did in a way, because also like the it's a lodge, it's also a hotel. So I had to come up with a reason why why would people want to come to this area in the first place? And I had the benefit of this being my first game. Um, I had the benefit of just taking everything that I was interested in and like kind of putting it all in one thing. I've always been interested in rocks and geology and mineralogy, and I I was collecting rocks before I started making the game, and I've kind of gotten even more into the hobby now that I've kind of learned more about it by virtue of the fact of doing all the research for the game. That was something where um Canada, well, first of all, I knew I wanted to set it in Canada because you don't see a lot of games set in Canada. And it's of course where I grew up, and I'm that's where I'm most familiar with. I knew Canada would be it. And in Canada, especially during that time, and the reason another thing is like, yeah, where is it gonna be? When is it gonna be? Those are the two big questions. And I eventually settled on 1914, this idea of turn of the century, because it's an era that I quite enjoy the art and design of, stuff like, you know, Art Nouveau and moving into Art Deco, and also this time, this period of time in Canadian history where it was this idea of the you know, so-called frontier where people are moving out into these northern Ontario or fur or further out, and there not being this rule of law necessarily, and you know, not having like CCTV and not having telephones and not having all the other tools that make it really hard to commit crimes and get away with them. I like the idea of setting something for that reason, for practical reasons, and also that aesthetic reason of just liking that particular era and the type of you know decor and art that you would see at that time. That that was where it started. And yeah, the character, so I knew I wanted to have it based on natural resources because a lot of the driving factors in in you know Canadian pioneers being motivated by the government to go and settle in those areas was this idea of natural resources, like lumber and minerals, mines and things like that. There were an abundance of that type of development happening in that time. And uh, because of my own fascination with with with rocks, I knew that I wanted that to be the kind of the thing that would draw everyone to that area with their own interests. I wanted there to be a main, really compelling reason for everyone to go there. And this idea of this diamond being discovered was was was a really nice way, knowing that it would work geologically with with the region. Also people just find big gems really compelling. And thinking of the types of different reasons people would want it. Um, that was a really good starting point for developing the characters. And knowing and knowing that there'd be an interest of not wanting to reveal this potential diamond find, who wouldn't who would want to keep that a secret and who would want to exploit it. And that's how the characters evolved just from that one thing. And of course they've started to take on more aspects, but that was the main kernel of each character is what how did they feel about the situation and what do they want out of the situation? And then you start thinking about well, who would ally with whom and what would their opinions be about other parts of the story? And it was a nice way to kind of play off people's different motivations. And then when they everyone kind of meets up at the lots and people are scheming and coming up with plans on the fly, that that'll happen way later. But just that that kernel of why are we all here, what do we all want, was and how far are people willing to go to get those things? Those were all the m the major questions, and that's how all the characters um developed. So for someone like I I don't know if we want to go, I mean, we're not gonna really go into spoilers. This is not really a spoiler, but um, a character like Kimmy, Kishiro, the birder, I actually wasn't sure if I would would keep her on because she has a lot less to do than a lot of the other characters. But um I eventually decided to keep her because I do think she offers a good counterpoint to the other characters. And I like to think, well, I don't like to think, I'm kind of afraid that if I had been in the same situation um in the g of the game, I would probably be more like Kimmy than Nancy, where I would probably just stay in my room and mind my own business, and I don't want to get into any confrontations with anybody. So she was, I think, a nice counterpoint for that. And a lot of this when I think about developing characters, is yeah, what are those counterpoints like? And how are they gonna oppose each other and and and the and the rest of it? It was really fun and it was really rewarding to write because I it was my first story that I'd written since school when they made you do it, and I had never taken any type of creative writing classes or anything. So I like to tell people that the best and easiest way to flatter me is to tell me they like the writing in the game, because it is something that I just kind of did by instinct, and I don't have any training in that. It was just a matter of because I think the way I think naturally kind of made me a decent writer because I'm always thinking, but well, what if this happens and what if that happens? And it's just in my general life. And and and sometimes that's a bad thing because it can it can skew you to toward being maybe more of an anxious person who kind of expects the worst things to happen. But when you're when you're writing, it's actually really helpful because you start trying, you I mean, you never really think about all the eventualities, but it does put you in that mind of all the different possibilities that you can come up with. Well, what if that happens? What if this happens? What happens then? And and those types, that type of thinking, that type of systematic thinking, I think is really good for writing in general, and maybe even particularly writing

EGA graphics and imagination

SPEAKER_00 57:25

for a like a mystery story where there is some type of element of logic to what's happening. Like you want it to make sense. That was really important to me, that it didn't feel random, it didn't feel chaotic. There's there are a few pup puzzles that people have a little bit of a problem with, which I which I I totally understand because it was my obviously my logic's not going to be the same as everybody's logic. But this idea where it has to pass muster, at least with me, like this has to make sense. People's actions have to to make sense, even though even in the real world they don't. Um but I try to hold myself to a bit of a standard when it comes to that, and that the story should be discernible and it has to be discernible by people who are paying different levels of attention to. And that's something else I wanted to address is that you know, sometimes people just want to get through the game. They don't want to, they want to see the story, but they don't want to like really dive deep into what's going on. And that's fine. I want them to have a good experience with the game. I also want to reward people who are going to be paying more attention to what's going on and reading very closely and asking the right questions based on their close reading of what's happening, up into including what the ending might be like for them. I did want something saved for those people, especially at the end where there is kind of like a debrief thing where you kind of get get these hints about what you might want to revisit. There's no need to really. I I don't know if this would be a spoiler. If it is, you can just get rid of it. But it was really important to me at the end of the game that no matter how you did in the game, no matter if you whatever conversations you missed, whatever decisions you made, none of that actually matters when it comes down to getting the good ending or the bad ending. There's basically two endings. And it was really important to me that no matter how the player did, I wanted to thank the player and reward the player for taking the time to even get through it. And it was important to me that they wouldn't just get a bad ending because I they didn't do well or whatever. Like I wanted that to be an actual choice that they could sit down and say, Yeah, here's here's their choice. I'm gonna say yes or no. If I say whatever, then I will get an ending that I will have some satisfaction with. It might not be the perfect ending, there might be things that you might would have liked to have changed and go back and play. But overall, I wanted to, in conjunction with the hintbook as well, like I want people to get through this game without getting completely stuck and just dropping it because they're frustrated. And also, if you're gonna take that time, then I think you deserve to be satisfied with an ending you could receive.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Yeah, well, I think that was definitely my camera's sort of bugging out at this point. Um, that was definitely what I got to experience, and without going into much detail, but with the sort of the recapping at the end, I'm a sort of like 60, 70% attention to detail sort of person, you know, like I'm not, I'm not and that's fine. And again, that that's that's probably where you know it's interesting once I start reloading saves or playing some of The Last Express because I feel like I'm missing things, and it it was quite a satisfying thing having the recap to sort of perceive and pick up on or hint at these things that I had missed. But exactly as you were saying, it didn't feel sort of like like punishing, you know. It was a very it was a very satisfying ending, you know, and I was I was sort of I was I was so pleased for her ending as well, you know. Yeah, which is which is always nice, you know, because sometimes you can see a game into completion just because you've gone that far. But to have it kind of wrap up for you is um is always sort of a a bonus, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:33

It's actually funny because you say you're seven 60 to 70 percent paying attention. I'm probably less than that actually when I play adventure games. I'm not I don't think in general I'm good at any type of game really, but even with something like an adventure game, you know, like I said, I've been playing a lot of these old ones. I get frustrated really quickly, and I will go to a walkthrough really quickly. But what's what's fascinating to me is when I see people stream the game and they're so patient and they have so much attendance to do. I saw the streamer play it, and she got like a really good ending. It was her first playthrough, and I watched her do it, I was amazed. These some people, I I'm not that person, and I think that's actually not necessarily a bad thing as a developer because I have my eye on who, you know, the 50% paying attention person. I want them to have a really good experience with this because that's where I would probably be with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:21

Or less even. But then, yeah, the fact that there are people who they'll notice like a line of text will be they'll play it maybe twice or multiple times, and they'll notice that a single line of text has been changed based on a flag that they had tripped or like way earlier that almost no one's gonna notice it. They'll notice that stuff. And I love the fact that they can appreciate that difference that I did put in the game, but I certainly don't expect people to notice all that stuff that I did that I put in. And I'm fine with that too. It's just it's it's nice that when it does get appreciated, because I know I'm not really that type of gamer either.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

But I think it's interesting, you know, that idea of frustration, because again, that's the thing that'll that'll kick me out of a game, and it's not usually it's not not that the mechanics can do that, but more often than not, because of like my own impatience, you know. And again, this fear of missing is stuff, and it's why when I tried to go back to some of those older text pass games, I couldn't couldn't get on with them. And so I think, and again, maybe that's the sort of the dollhouse element of this game. I felt like I could be immersed in this space and I wasn't picking up everything, but actually there was a kind of a satisfaction around that because you knew if you're in this room and then this was going on over here, and you sort of once you lean into that, you're sort of immersed in it and you can kind of bathe in it and just be like, Well, I am sort of a fly on the wall, and if I'm thinking realistically, I can't be in all places at at once, you know, and and that's okay, you know, if you don't have that sort of completionist mindset.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Yes, yes. And also just having the other characters move around in the house and they're doing different things, all all that stuff to make it feel like a lot an a live place. I I did want to put I wanted to put the mechanic of her making a cup of tea for herself, which would have been totally useless, but it's another one of those very cozy things that I want to do when I'm in a house. I love drinking tea, so this would be I didn't get around to it, but it yeah, that type of thinking where and that's what you get to do when you're yeah, solo, small team, you're working for yourself. I self-published my game. I didn't have any time pressures on me, and I didn't have to make any compromises, which is which is good and bad because it means I can indulge all these these you know not not germane desires in terms of game design, where this is you know, the washing the hands and you know, flushing the toilet, all those things, they take up time and they take take up labor. And if I had to talk to a producer or a publisher about this, they might say, Well, don't do that, because it doesn't really have anything to do with the game. So we're gonna you stay in budget and not do those things. I didn't have to rationalize any of my decisions, which was great, but also it can be not necessarily a good thing because yeah,

Cozy games and slower gameplay

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

you can just find yourself being super self-indulgent about all the stuff you're gonna add to your game, and then you never finish it. So there are times when I think an approach is required where I did say to myself, I guess I'm not gonna let Nancy make a cup of tea in this game. Which which I'm a little bit sad about. But then also the this thing of, well, people might think that's for a puzzle too. And it's you know, the idea that they'd go through that entire process of making a cup of tea and then not having to do anything with it might be frustrating um from a different perspective.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

That's a good little behind-the-scenes insight about the cut content. Well, this has been brilliant. I just love the conversation. I think it was exactly what I sort of wanted to get in. I just love hearing the full role around so much of it.