Get Played - Video Game Writing, Helldivers 2, & Ledgerbound with Russ Nickel

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Writer of Helldivers 2 and Game Director of Ledgerbound (out now!) Russ Nickel joins Heather, Nick and Matt to talk about writing video games! Check out our merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For our exclusive show Get Played DLC, ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? episodes go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hey team. I'm sorry I'm late. And sorry to start things off in a weird note. But Heather, Matt, ranch, here, you've been served. What the fuck? Wait, I've been served. Yeah, I'm pressing charges against the three of you and get played LLC.

What? Hold on. Let me take a look at this. This is, what is this? Certainly erroneous. What, wait a minute. It says here that you're suing us for physical and emotional damages over the course of the last few years. That's correct.

All these suffering from a physical and emotional standpoint that I have endured at the three of your hands. Okay. It says here that I pushed you off your bicycle. I don't remember this. Like, I don't think I ever pushed you off a bike. Heather, it's in the lawsuit. And my lawyer wrote that. So it's, it happened.

It says here that I gave you an atomic wedgy so hard that your butt cheeks basically like ripped in half. Yeah, that was traumatic. That's the kind of physical and emotional distress I'm talking about. Also, my lawyer wrote that too, so that's legal. Yeah, that's legal ease. What is this part where it says I only kiss Matt? Like, how is that? That's emotional damages?

I feel excluded. I don't kiss Matt. Nobody's doing any kissing. Yeah, I'm not kissing Matt. Nobody's kissing me. The fuck is this. That's getting a lot of kisses. This is going to get thrown out of.

Of court, there's no, none of this is going to pass discovery. We can settle this lawsuit in a timely and of illegal manner if we just, according to statutes and it says here I refused to watch you drink a milkshake in the nude. Right. I was, I was drinking. I would have been, I would have been naked that one. So I'm just going to say, so that's not creepy. I'm saying I'm the naked one drinking the milkshake.

Yeah, that one actually is fine. That one's fine. not fine because it didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. No, no part of it happened. Which if you see according to civil ordinances and legal, Judge stuff, Judge stuff.

That you got scared. Order and order. You aren't the judge. You just handed us these subpoenas and these lawsuit. I have a hard time believing that you got scared by the sound of my piss hitting the bowl. Objection. Objection. I did get scared.

You can't sue him for that. That's something that happened to you. Why are you listening to me piss? I don't know. I didn't I didn't know see where Heather was. Maybe she was in there kissing you. It says I wasn't kissing Matt.

It says you're... Nobody's doing that. Nobody's fucking kissing anybody on this fucking show. It says you're upset that I didn't call you by your chosen nickname. Little Lepricon? What the fuck is this, dude? I'm a leprechaun. Kind of feels like cultural appropriation, if I'm being honest.

It feels like a lot. Oh my God. Ranch said it was okay. Ranch. That's fine. What? Wait, Ranch, you're part of the law. I thought you were suing her too.

She's part of the lawsuit against. She's on my team now. We added. Unfucking believable. Yeah, our councils did a sidebar and they decided that we're going to merge our lawsuit. I have an idea. I have one. Just go to the legal umbrella.

What is it, Matt? You suing me? What? You're suing me? Yeah, I'm suing you. What the fuck? I'm gonna sue your ass. Yeah, we're gonna sue you.

That's right, we're gonna sue the two of you. I'll sue you, I'll see you in court, bitch. That was for Nick only. Can he do that? Yeah, I'll sue you. A counter sue you. Yeah, he's counter suing. I'm throwing your counter suit out of here.

What the fuck? Can he do that? I think he can. Fuck! And you know what? You got served again. No! God, fucking damn it!

What's it say? It says I'm too cute. Well, I think he's gonna win. that lawsuit. Yeah, guilty is charged. I guess lock my ass up. Let's all go away if you guys just called me a little leprechaun. All right, fine. Yeah, little leprechaun.

That's me. Okay, now do it like a little leprecha. That's a me. What? We build out flowcharts and create endless Malts for Ow, as we discussed the craft of video game writing this week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Nick Tiger Wager, along with our third host, Mr. Games himself, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week someone has made the mistake of joining us. That's right. We have a guest who I want to get to in just one second, but first, we should address something. Uh-oh. It's very hot in the studio. It's so fucking hot in here. It's outrageously hot. And this is the thing. It's usually a little bit toasty in here anyway because, you know, podcasting being what podcasting is in 2026, we have to make fucking video clips.

Yeah. Yeah. We're all thrilled about. We love that. We love making the video clips. I love to be perceived. I love to be seen. And I love when clips breach containment and then the first thing is that somebody who's never seen me before decides, you know what, I'm going to comment on what this guy looks like. It's our favorite. But what this means is because it's very hot in here, Heather came in a warmer, like, like, sweater.

I came in so stylish today, guys. I was demoing a new shirt. I was so psyched. And often, you know, there's enough AC in here that will be a little cool. It'll be nice. It's not always this hot in here. It's unusually for some reason. As such, you asked if a ranch asked on your behalf, asked me on your behalf, if there was any spare doughboys merch sitting around that you could change into, you are wearing that merch.

Yeah. You are wearing a Sherlock Crumbs t-shirt. Yeah. Now, you have no context for what that is. Well, I know it's a very good and very popular segment. I did sort of prepare her. So you told her. Yeah.

I was going to say, I don't want to tell her. I was like, it's a segment and people really. really like it. Enough for a fan to have made Sherlock Crum shirts and we have some of them. That's great. It's one made shirts.

Well, I'm always happy to support our sister podcast, Doe Boys. I do think it is funny just full stop. Like, I think it's fun. I like the segment. I think the segment is good.

Oh, thank you, Matt. You get the dirtbag hat on the Long Beach State baseball team. That's right. Wrepping our hood and repping the one sport that I seem to enjoy baseball. Wait, wait, why don't you enjoy other sports?

It's just, there's too much going on. Okay. I can't do all of it. I would love to be a guy that there's like all sports, I'm in. And I think I kind of am. When I'm watching one, I enjoy it. I just can't really keep up with, like, I can't claim to be a fan of, like, say, like, the Los Angeles Rams.

I've never even been to a Rams game before. How about this? Off the Cuff. Sports tier top five. Top five. Because you got baseball in number one. Let's get our guest in here because I think our guests may have a take on this too. Our guest, very, very excited at him in here. A writer whose credits include Hell Divers 2.

The great Hell Divers 2 and his new game, hybrid tactical grid battler slash dating sim ledger bound. Russ Nickle is here. Hi, Russ. Hi, Russ. Are you a sport-o? Do you like sports? I have no sports in my body. Great.

So your tier list, like, everything would just kind of be like F tier. Yeah, yeah. Baseball number one. Just to try to 30. Okay, okay, great, great. I kind of feel like it's one of the easier ones to get behind. But are we saying, like, are we doing a collective score? We're doing individual.

That's catastrophic every time we try it. I think your top five sports in order, like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, or best sport to worse sport, whatever you want to do. All right, let's start with Matt. I'm going baseball number one. I'm going hockey number two. Hockey number two. I used to love hockey when I was a kid. Wow.

Probably partly because of the Mighty Ducks films and stuff. But for a lifelong Southern Californian, hockey is that high up there. You know, there are a lot of L.A. King's fans or a lot of Houndstuck fans. I guess I should be aware of that at least, but acknowledge that at least. But still, it's usually it's a cold weather sport. It's a cold weather sport. We were a duck's house just because I think proximity-wise. But there was also a team in Long Beach called the Long Beach Ice Dogs.

Oh, I remember them Ice Dogs. They were fucking awesome. Ice Dogs are cool as hell. And they would play against the San Diego Sharks, and that's when we would go because they were their biggest rivals. As opposed to the San Jose Sharks, which is the NHL team. This is my only game. Maybe there are San Diego, maybe I'm conflating the team names.

But maybe they were the San Diego goals, I think, like the Seagulls. That's fun wordplay. Goals and goals. Hey, I do like that. But we liked to go watch them because they would just kick the show. shit out of each other. It was almost a hockey game second. And the ice would be pink at the end of the fucking, because we were teenagers and we were just like watching these guys almost kill each other. It was great. It was really fun. I would say then after that, you know, I went to my very first

basketball game earlier this year, you know, a couple, maybe last month. So basketball, I saw the Los Angeles Sparks to support the W. So that's three. I guess football fourth and you know what, NASCAR 5. Nice. So we're not saying just team sports. It's sports. Any sort of sports. Sports.

I do kind of think I could get there with NASCAR because I do like going, I like when cars go fast. And I like when cars go room. Maybe F1 instead of NASCAR. That's what I'm just saying. It feels like F1 is maybe a little bit more zeitgeisty. F1 also has a little less of a sort of certain political stank on it, I think. I was a juror, like last year, I had jury duty. I got on the jury.

And the judge on day one was like, now I may need people to speak up and repeat things because my hearing got kind of blown out this weekend. I was at a NASCAR race. And I was like, I know this trial is going to go. That is actually insane. And you know what, if you're the judge in that situation, you've got to take yourself out. That is so, that I think is an obstruction of justice. That is not okay. I can't fucking hear shit. What do you say guilty?

That's crazy. Okay, I go basketball, soccer, baseball, boxing, F1. Is basketball because of the Chicago Bulls connection primarily? I know you also played basketball. Not just the Chicago Bulls, but I also played basketball. Basketball is my favorite sport. And also, also, nothing in sports is, sporks, nothing in sports is cooler than a dunk. A dunk is the coolest shit you can do. I got to change one of my answers.

I got to change one of my answers. Skateboarding. Skateboarding is really cool. It's baseball, skateboarding. Hockey's out. It's baseball, but I like hockey, actually. It's baseball, skateboarding hockey. basketball, right?

Basketball, and then I missed one. Well, you had football in there previously. You also had F1. It's got to be, I think I'm going to go basketball, and I'm going to keep F1 on it. There you go. I like that. Football's out.

Rust you care to craft a top five, even as someone who doesn't like sports. Sure, yeah, that's what I'm here for. Russ is like, this is a nightmare. Don't worry. We're going to talk about. We're going to talk about food for 40 minutes. Okay, perfect. Baseball because I played baseball.

What you did? Yeah. What position? A pitcher. You were a pitcher? I was a pitcher. Wow. I know.

I'm so fancy. What was your best pitch? Knuckleball. Okay. Wow. I mean, maybe not my best pitch. With a knuckle ball? Yeah.

Wow. I know. It danced all around. Wow. Did you play? Like, how, what was the highest level you played? Just high school. Hey, high school, baseball.

That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's fun. Little League, World Series is going on right now. And I'm missing it. You can be watching. Long Beach one of twice. So baseball? Baseball.

Table tennis. Nice. Good answer. Great pick. Yeah. Paddle, which is the sport that like, because I lived in Sweden for a while and it took over there, it's like a glass enclosed mini tennis and it like bounces off the walls and stuff. And it's crazy.

This is starting to be a trend in the U.S. At the Century City Mall, there's now a paddle court there. No way. Yeah. It's really. It's wild to see. And it's right by the fucking big ass AMC. So you're like,

like, cued up for a movie. You can look over there. You guys just like going at it with bouncing balls off the glass. That's awesome. Century City Mall's fucking good. It's a good mall. It's fucking good.

That's the outdoor one? Number one mall. Century City Mall. And then I have to pick two more sports. Yeah. Okay, well, number five has to be F1. Nice. Got it.

So that I'm part of it. That's right. And then four, what are the other sports that exist? Basketball, football, high-ligh. How about, how about, I'm going to throw one at you? How about golf? Yeah, how about golf? Oh, yeah, I like golf.

There you go. I'll take it. All right, great. You're out in the sun. What's not the way? Yeah. I would say my top five, basketball is easy. Basketball number one with a bullet.

After that. No, Nick, is that because of the Los Angeles Lakers? It is because of Los Angeles Lakers. And I have a bullet related question, but I'll ask you about it later. What? What? I couldn't craft quite what I mean. So I'm going to just, I'm just talking.

Okay. Lakers and the Bulls, when I was a kid, played each other in the NBA finals. Yeah, they did. And the Lakers lost, and I was very sad. Nope. So everything was similar until that point. That'd be a shame. Basketball one, soccer two.

I'm into proper football now. I'm on straight up soccer early. Proper footy, eh? Yeah, that's right. I go Aston Villa That's my squad Oh Okay so

What's after soccer Boxing Boxing's pretty good So fucking good man Boxing is pretty good But it also like Makes me a little bit anxious to watch

Yeah that's part of it I am very impressed By anyone can do combat sports I just sometimes it's like It's like I know every I know these guys are getting concussion Is the thing That makes you anxious

Is that these people are then experiencing irreparable damage to their brains. I think that's part of it. That's part of why I fell off watching the NFL, though apparently the NFL has gotten much better

with the safety and concussion protocols. At least, or at least they're lying. Well, the balls have less air in them now, so it's not that crazy. Is that a deflategate reference? It's like one thing I know about football. I'd say basketball,

soccer slash proper football. After that, it gets tricky. I might say baseball next. Okay. I think I probably would still would throw American football in my top five but maybe that goes at number five number four

I'm gonna throw out something crazy track and field Hey track and field is cool I like watching them run around It is cool When they're going fast Yeah

It's good And talk about when someone can like throw a javelin really far I'm like how that guy do that? That is really cool Yeah previously he had it right here Yeah Now it's all the way fucking over there You watch pole vaulting is like I can't do that shit

Yeah no no way Ranch, you got a top five sports. Soccer. Great. Love that. You played. I played. As you told us.

Your team captain and yeah, you're almost killed. What? Ranch's head almost fell off playing soccer. It's okay. Yeah, it's Ranch Lord. Skating. Hell yeah. Ice?

Skateboarding. Oh, skateboarding. Baseball. Three. Bowling. Oh. Moly's a good one. Who do you think you are?

I am. and minigolf. Yeah, mini golf. Nice. Nice. More of a leisure activity, but you could make it, you can make it competitive.

We're saying all sports. So yeah, this is fair. Yeah, you can play a mini golf for. I like when the mini golf, what, level?

Yeah. Sure. Has like a big thing going on. Like you're not just hitting it into like a obstacle from a hole. I like when there's like a, maybe like a windmill or like a, a castle or some shit.

I like that. Remember we watched that horny golf anime, birdie wing for Get Animated? And then there was like another season and Heather vetoed watching it. It's interesting that you describe it as horny because it was definitely not horny enough. It could have been horny.

That was one of my notes. Tremendously boring. But if you want to listen to back episodes of that show and more, you can subscribe at patreon.com. slash get play. Yeah, our DLC format is more general now,

but we have a Get Animated Archive. You want to hear us talk about a bunch of different anime series. But right now, let's talk about Ledgerbound, because that's why you're here, Russ. Congratulations. I mean, first off,

just describe the game for people because I think a lot of our listeners are maybe going to be learning about it from this episode. Right. Yeah, well, it's a game where you play as a fantasy insurance adjuster.

So standard hero. Right. And her job is to replay battles where heroes have died to prove that they died due to their own incompetence so you can deny their insurance claims and give their grieving families nothing. It's great.

Is Luigi a character? That's come up in I think perhaps 100% of the interviews that I've done. So I'm getting better at dodging the question, I think. So you're saying DLC is coming. What is it?

Because you were kind of have to send over some codes for the game. I've yet to play it myself, but I'm excited to dig in. But the, I'm curious, like, what was the genesis for this idea, beyond our just, like, utterly, you know, apocalyptic, late capitalist health state? The genesis for all good things. Honestly, like, it sort of morphed and evolved as time went on. At first, it was a little more of, like, a standard fantasy game, but I just knew I wanted it to be funny. And then one year at GDC, I was just sort of pitching different ends. Like, the world became more and more bureaucratic

as the hellscape of reality leaked into the universe of the game. And I just, like, started leaning into this insurance adjuster bit during GDC and people were laughing. And I'm like, oh, good, people are laughing. That's the thing that fuels me. And so just it was during, like, a three-day, like, conference where I just, like, sort of rewrote the whole intro premise of the game based on, you know, what made people laugh.

So you were kind of, you had, you were pitching the game when you, when you were doing this conference or how does, what do you mean like that it evolved as you were talking about it? Oh, just like during all, you know, the networking slash every time I had another drink, I'd be like, I'm going to make the game weirder next time I tell someone about it. And then it just got weird and weirder until it kind of locked in. That's awesome. My favorite fantasy type is the, is fantasy with bureaucracy. Like if Brazil, the movie had swords and magic, it would be 100% my jam.

Yet you didn't like Violet Evergarden. Jesus fucking Christ, dude. Violet Evergarden was an anime we watched for Get Animated. Again, patreon.com slash get played. And it was about a woman who worked in a letter writing service. Yes. A little girl. A little idiot girl.

Hold on. A former war machine turned letter writer. Yeah. The problem was there wasn't enough bureaucracy. Like if it had been about, if it had been about adjusting claims or if it had been about like real estate or deed legalization. Like anything where she was like having to go up, listen to people's stories. And instead of like turning them into like sort of sappy letters, if she'd been like, I'm so sorry, but it sounds like you don't have a claim. to this piece of land.

That would have been great. You're describing what the thing we love about the movie Shin Godzilla, which is like just, it's a Godzilla movie, but it also is about like the government's response

to what would happen if a Godzilla thing happens. Yes. And if you haven't seen it, it's incredible. But it is just like a lot of guys in border rooms just being like, what the fuck don't you do? Yeah, it's like Godzilla shows up

and you cut to a board room where you spend most of the rest of the movie. And it's guys being like, well, this is parks. Parks is responsible for this because it's a public area. So Parks is who has, it's just everybody passing the buck constantly while Godzilla like slowly walks towards the city in the background. So many just conference rooms. So many just like chairs, like people just like sitting in chairs to having conversations.

But it does come from a culture, like a very different culture where they have a belief in government working. Yes. as they do, like, eventually, just in an American version, would be much more cynical. It sounds like your game is pretty cynical. Just from the description and from what I've read about it, it's like, it feels like it has some ancestry in Lucas Pope's great game,

Papers, please. I mean, I imagine some, because that's a game that's also very steeped in bureaucracy, a very different tone, obviously. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. Yeah, but I don't know if you want to speak to any inspirations, other games that maybe led to this.

Yeah, well, and Brazil definitely is an inspiration. Sure. And Papers, please. But I think we're like only halfway cynical. It's like we have this because then you have to like leave the office behind. You end up having to go save the world yourself in order to deny the insurance claim. So really you're trying to just like save the company. But in order to do that, like you have to prove that the world was savable.

So along the way you sort of go on this character journey as you realize like, Maybe this isn't necessarily the best thing that I'm doing. And you get a sort of like D&D party of characters who join you and stuff. So all the like emotions between people, I think, can be a little bit heartfelt. And then there's this layer of cynicism throughout the whole thing that like if someone joins your party, you have to fill out the onboarding paperwork and that burns you out, which makes you a worse fighter. And like if you want to romance someone, you have to do like, you have to do sexual harassment training because they're your co-worker, which also burns you out. So, you know, halfway in between. What was, so if I'm not mistaken, this was this, the sort of the genesis of this game did come about during Hell Divers 2 in some format or some fashion.

Can you, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, definitely true, because that burned me out. Through no fault of anyone's but my own, like no one asked me to do anything. But I was just pulling like rampant all-nighters because I just wanted it to be. good and you know so I was just writing all the time and taking you know more of my Adderall than I was supposed to and so by the end I was just dead to the world and so this game is sort of a response to that where I was like I want to make something that deals with someone who's a perfectionist who wants to do a really good job at their job and then you know can we

make burnout a literal mechanic in the game which did help create like the bureaucratic aspect and making it all feel like it's the office job version of saving the world. Can you talk a little bit about the protagonist of the game? First off, what do you see of yourself in her and then what of her is not at all like you? She has much better hair. But also a perfectionist. She's just like definitely a neurotic perfectionist who doesn't have that much of a life outside of her job, which I'm working on.

But, you know, she, like, works weekends and stays late and just really wants to be the best employee that she can possibly be, I think, because she has just loves doing a good job, but also has bought into the whole, like, increased value for the shareholders. The shareholders are these literal, like, the more money you get in this universe, the more magic power you have. Great. Because it just literally, you are able to, like, control reality. by being wealthy. Yeah. And she just is trying to, you know, help increase shareholder value,

which is something I found myself doing too often. But now I'm the shareholder. So I'm increasing my own value. Well, I'm not successfully yet increasing my own value. I haven't paid myself. But one day I hope to increase my value. What kind of games like just, you know, it seems like so much your time has taken up by developing games,

which I think is like the thing that happens with a lot of people in creative fails. Remember, when I were, worked in video game development. I had barely any time to play video games myself, and it kind of drove me nuts. But when you do have time to play games, what do you gravitate towards?

That's a great question. I think I love, like, I definitely love story games at the most. You know, like Disco Elysium is maybe one of my, and Ballard's Gate 3. Those are my favorite games ever. Yeah, Baldur's Gate 3 is my number one game of all time. And Discoleesium is the only game that's on all three of our top 10 of all time. Oh, right.

Yeah, so good. But then if I am like sinking way too many hours into a game, it's probably like a auto battler or roguelight deck builder kind of thing. Just like do another run. Yeah, sure. Wait, what are you saying, like what have you gotten into in terms of roguelites or auto battlers lately? The thing where I've played way too much time is the bizarre. Okay. I don't know if anyone's heard of that one.

Oh, it's so good. Yeah, I've played way too much. I think last year I think I played 600 hours. Holy shit. A lot of hours. I get what you mean, though, like run-based games, and I don't play auto-batallers as much, but I do gravitate towards, like, you know,

action RPGs or, you know, like, card games. It's what I, like, Slay the Spire 2 and Blotro. I, like, I put countless hours into those. Because it is something of just, like, I'm just playing this to play it. I'm not playing it to try to get towards some sense of finality, some larger thing. I'm just playing this to have some fun for a bit.

Oh, man. Nick, don't ever look at the bazaar. It looks exactly like your kind of game, dude. It's like Slay the Spire was my most played game ever, and then I found the bazaar, and it was bad. I'm looking at the bazaar right now. Oh, man.

And it looks a little horny, too. It's so good. Ah, this looks pretty good. All right, I mess around with it. No, what have I done? We'll never see Nick again. Yeah. Wait, this looks sick.

Yeah, it's like all the different items on your board. Yeah. You know, have these interactions. So it feels like a deck builder, but it's just like the shiniest deck builder of all time. There's so many animations and just like it's candy. Like the way this game board animates, even it has like like like this, this sort of texture and tactility to it. That's a really cool art style. All right, I'll check this out.

I'm so sorry. No, no, no, don't apologize. Please. Yeah, you need something to live for. New distraction will do. So, okay, so you get into game writing. We'll save your history as a game writer for a little bit later. But like, do you have any favorite game writing that, you know, you mentioned Baldersgate 3, you mentioned Disco Elysium, but like, like, that you observed recently or any game writing that, like, influenced you when you were younger or you were like, like, this is.

is like kind of the field I might want to explore getting into. Interesting. Yeah, I think, I mean, I'm definitely always getting influenced. Like, Father's Gate 3, I think, very directly influenced Ledgerbound. But, you know, like The Witcher, I wasn't super young. Maybe, I don't, you know, like college age. Yeah, sure. But absolutely loved The Witcher and like the Mass Effect, you know, wearing my

Mass Effect shoes. Nice. Yeah. You can clock those. Oh, those are awesome. Oh, yeah. You know, just the stuff that, like, tells a real story and I don't know, I'd love getting to go on the character journey and especially when you have choice and, like, there's real

repercussions. Right. You know, like, what other characters do is based on your decisions and you just feel like that Witcher thing of just like, you can't do anything right, it's always going to be bad and you're just going to, like, sit with it for days. Yeah. Definitely that element is also in C. Project Red's

Cybertpunk 2077. That was the thing, regardless of how that game launched and ultimately it eventually got into shipped up and a chip shape. What's the expression I'm looking for? Ship shape. Ship shape.

Ship shape. It got into ship shape. Oh, yeah. It went from shit shape. It shaped up. It went from shit shape to ship shape. It went from shit shaped to ship shaped. Because it shaped up.

That's the expression. It was shaped up and shipped up. But it didn't ship shape. It didn't ship and ship shape. It didn't ship and ship shape. so it didn't chip and chip shape but then it's shaped up but like the level

the quality of writing was all was there from day one as someone who played that game at launch yeah it's I'm I'm really like intrigued about the because the games that I worked on I never got the opportunity to really work on like branching

and so we'll get into that in a little bit but optionality and just like controlling for contingencies that's the shit that that really blows my mind about effective game writing when that's all implemented well. August is the perfect time to hit reset before the autumn rush begins. And honestly, I can't think of a better place to start than my closet. I'm going to get back in the closet.

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Get played 50 off at factor meals.com. See website for more details. I do have one more question for you, Russ, and this question is also for, I guess, the whole room. I guess anyone can weigh in on in this. And this question is a question that gets asked every week. What are you playing? What are you playing? Hi, it's me the resident and he will merchant.

And I love it when we got a guest. How you guys doing? We're doing great. Yeah, this is Russ. This is our guest, Russ Nickle, he's a video game writer. Are you familiar with the band? What? Russ.

I think you're thinking of the band Rush. Yeah, do you mean Rush? What? The Canadian power trio? There's an H. Yeah, there's an H. It's not just Russ. It's not Russ.

No, if you're thinking of the band I'm thinking of Gettie Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Purton drums. No idea who those guys are. Tom Sawyer, the song, their big hit. Y, Y, Y, Z. Wait, are you asking me? That's Toronto's airport code. How fun is that? That is fun.

I do like that. I like how deeply Canadian they are, actually. Yeah, it's great. Gentle boys. Yeah, they seem like sweet guys. So you do you know who they are? Who? All right, well, so I got some updates.

Oh, great. I'm excited. Found my cat. One, didn't know you had one. Two, didn't know they were lost. Yeah. I would have helped you. Oh, really? Yeah.

I put up flyers. Found a cat alive. Don't give me that look, Matt. I didn't give you that look. Reunited with briefcase. Oh, you can't say it's briefcase. My cat's name is briefcase. Got it.

After my favorite thing to see people do. Yeah, yeah. That is sweet. Yeah, that is sweet. That's adorable, actually. Very fitting. Yeah, can't say everything's turning up pretty well for the resident evil merchant.

I'm glad to hear that. Excited about the movie. Still waiting on a call from Zach Kregger? Do you think that the movie that's coming out? I think next month has time to reshoot scenes or add additional footage of you for the movie. I think I either to tell you that movie's wrapped of a production at this point. It's probably as long. Yeah, but I don't know if you read this.

Hollywood is over in the late last minute reshoots. I've read of films changing special effects up to two weeks before they released. That does happen. So you're hoping to get kind of sneak in there for a late camera. Absolutely. Is that Krueger, if you're going to hear this? I'm ready to go. I would be like a fun little, you know, a bit of fan service to see you in there,

our old pal the Resident Evil merchant. A full 30-minute sequence where I sell items to the main character. That probably wouldn't happen. Why would it be that long? That's a little too expansive. That seems like it's a third of the runtime. Also seems longer than that transaction in the game itself. Yeah.

Wait, I'm helping. Can I get a line from you? Yes, you go, what do you want? Hit me with a, what are you buying? What are you buying? That's pretty good. Why would I fail at that? I'm just trying to get the audio out there

so when Craigard listens to this, he can realize that he made a huge mistake that I'm putting you in the movie. What are you selling? Yeah, that's good. What are you buying? Maybe I'll buy that for a high price. I'll buy that for a high price.

Pretty good. Pretty good. Maybe I'd do this one. I love you, Janie. Who is Janie in this scenario? I don't know. I'm assuming some things about the film. It's going to be a romantic arc.

for your character in the reshoot of this fucking thing? Yeah, I'm coming in the last minute. Throw me a little mini arc and then I'm ready to go. Anyway, I know a lot of people are finding this segment

exhausting, so I don't want to stick around too long. I don't find you exhausting, I'm fascinated by... Only those who listen in bad face. Man up or ducca, do you brain all right look

look look look it's a it's a tricky time of year for games it's a I'm sort of uh in a in a you know I'm in a mood I'm in a bit of a mood you know I have some exciting

I have some titles that I'm looking forward to next month that are like games I've been looking forward to all year also from the last year as well how do I feel this how do I fill this time what do I do I've been playing Kingdom Hearts 3

Wow I have not finished Kingdom Hearts 3 I have not finished Kingdom Hearts 3rds I love Kingdom Hearts 2 It's my favorite game of all time I've played all of the side ones Except the mobile games and the rhythm one And I finished all of them but one

And I got to get back to the Dream Drop distance for the 3DS That is I will I will clean that up too By the time the Kingdom Hearts 4 Comes out next year which Tetsuya Namura said we're not delaying this thing and it's coming out end of next year which is a shot called yeah that is fucking crazy because next year they also have they have kingdom hearts four they have uh the third part in the uh final fantasy seven remake trilogy yep and there's another thing i think

there's another expansion for uh final fantasy 14 coming out next year also incredible it's how do they do this it's a big big year for square eunuchs harkening back to the uh the golden era when they would bring out a final fantasy game like every other year. It's crazy. The two things that are coming out next year that don't seem possible to come out next year are they're scheduled, they're slated to, are Kingdom Hearts 4 and the New Simpsons movie. Yes. Which is like, I don't know, it seems like the fastest and animated movie has ever been made. Yeah, but they've been working on, well, they have all the drawings for Bart already.

They do have all the drawings for Bart. So they can just reuse that. The movie's basically already done. They have all the drawings already. He's got to put them in a different order. Right, right, right, right. They just got to rearrange them. That's how animation works. I'd be shocked to find out that that movie's going out next year. I'd be amazed. But here's the thing. I'm there opening night, baby. Oh, I'm going to see it. Matt.

Yeah, but I think we have a better shot at Kingdom Hearts 4 coming out because that's been in development for a lot long. Yeah, of course, of course, yeah. Matt, I know that this is on the text thread that we all share, but I feel like we should share it with the audience that there is a ongoing theory that Kingdom Hearts 4 is Tetsu Nomura's revenge on square enix for the extinction of Final Fantasy versus 13. And the new piece of information that lends credit to this theory is that in the new trailer,

the soldier characters in the quadratum area are wearing the exact same soldier uniforms exactly, not interpretations, exact same soldier uniforms from the original Final Fantasy versus 13 trailer. Look, I'm gonna, I need to sit down and just really do some learning.

Yeah, you got to learn. Because I wasn't there for Final Fantasy versus 13. I didn't know anything about it. I want to, I want him to get out whatever petty grievances he has. Me too. I love that. I love that more than anything. I do too.

Cojima putting a fucking solid snake character in Death Training 2 Fuck yeah Absolutely Go off my Petty King Do it I can't wait to see if that's true I can't wait to see if some of these speculated

Worlds are true They did announce the Coco World And I did say in our group chat That they did this because I'm Mexican I was like they did this for me Because I'm Mexican

I agree I agree And I saw a lot of of funny comments they're like Mexicans confirmed in Kingdom Hearts. They exist in Kingdom Hearts. Very funny. I like that, but I'm excited. You know, I'm having a fun time playing the game.

I actually looked at where I left off previously. I basically almost finished it and just kind of fell, just stopped playing it. I got all the way to the Big Hero Six world and was like, you know what, I'm good. I think I'm done on this. When I basically had like one more area to do after. after that. I'm in the tangled world right now. It has the thing about these Disney worlds in this one is that I actually don't care about

any of those Disney worlds. Like even the toys, I like the Toy Story movies. I don't, but I was like, I don't really need them in this. They, but like tangled and like frozen and Big Hero 6 are not ones that I grew up with.

So I kind of just care about them a little bit less. But, and also the, there's the, in the combat, they have these things called attractions where you can basically summon a ride, like, from Disneyland. Yeah.

And I think those are all dog shit. I think they, they, I think that sucks, actually. Okay. It's like a bridge. It's a capitalistic bridge too far, kind of, when the whole enterprise is that. But like that to me, it's like, now the fucking rides are in this. I don't know. I've got to summon a Disney cruise.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's so crazy to me. But, um. Here comes Bob Iger. Yeah, fucking Bob Iger's a summon. he just writes you a check and you're just like, okay, sure. Yeah!

But, uh... New owner of the Lakers. Sorry, go on. You can... Is that true? With Josh Krister. What the fuck's going on? I don't know.

You can... I don't like the attractions in the, um, in the game. Right. But you can, you can turn off the opening animations for these things. It sort of like stalls momentum in the fights. So like when you turn off the opening. animations. It shaves off like a full five or six seconds from you getting back into fighting, which I actually appreciate. So like that stuff's fine. Story stuff. I'm like I don't actually

know. This one I will say had clearer recaps of what was going on than I remember. There's like a full like Riku like explaining what the fuck they were up to like section in it that I that I appreciated. But I, this has to be the playthrough that I finish, where I finish the game. It has to be. So,

because I can't start this game for I think a third time. Right. This is my third time starting it. So I can't, I can't do it again. Right. So I will finish this playthru of Kingdom Hearts three.

That's what you, I love this. That's what I'm playing. I'm the finisher. You are the finisher. Yeah. One of your many nicknames. And I'm not some Kingdom Hearts tourist, okay?

I play Kingdom Hearts games. I played a lot of them. I played all of them. Yeah. Not the mobile ones. I'm sorry about that Instagram comment, Matt. I shouldn't have made it. It was rude of me.

If that was you, I'd be choking you like Homer Tchop Smart. They have drawings of that. Yeah, those are all ready to go. They don't have to do any of the action sequences. No, it's okay. I don't got to blow anybody's ass up on here. I'm going to light anybody's ass up. I'm playing the fucking game, okay?

I'm glad you're doing this because I think that you're such a, you're such a Kingdom Hearts fan. I think the it probably would beheaves you despite it being a flawed experience to see this one through the completion. I will say it looks fucking great. It is a gorgeous game.

It's like a really gorgeous looking game. Like I'm shocked a lot of the time by how good it looks. But I just maybe I have to just see it all the way through to give a final assessment but King of Hearts 2 is my favorite for a reason. Yeah.

Russ, are you first off as someone who likes like branching narrative so much and you seem to glom to a lot of of, you know, so-called Western RPGs.

Are there any JRPs you've ever responded to? Like ones with a more linear, you know, kind of like, like set narrative. That's a great question. Do fire emblems count? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, why not? Yeah. Absolutely. I've played so many Fire Emblem games. Wow. I love Fire Emblem. Which is, I guess that's probably

why we ended up making a tactics RPG. Yeah, I was going to say, the tactical aspect that feels like maybe another, you know, spiritual ancestor. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Are you someone who finishes games? Because I am not as good as mad about it, but I do try to see games through to the end. I'm going to finish me to the hollower to follow up my own pledge.

But I'm like, I'm curious, like, are you someone you dip in, you dip out, or do you like to see things through to the end? I definitely dip out. Just especially the more I've worked in games, the more I feel like I have to play games for research. So then I like, but so then I'm playing way more games than I ever used to play. So it's more like I probably finish just as many games as I used to, but it's only the ones that I really love that I finish versus like playing a few hours and then saying, okay, I think I got it. I don't know why this is kind of like a light bulb moment for me, but I'm realizing that's also happened in the course of this podcast where we all are playing a lot more games than we'd normally play just to kind of be comprehensive ever just be like, hey, we're going to do an episode on this thing because it's in the news. and so we're all playing it as maybe not a game we'd normally play. Yeah, all right.

That's why we played high March. High guard? High guard. Yeah. Remember when we did that? I sure do. Heather, what are you playing? Well, brief update on Fortnite.

Fortnite's a previous season came to an end as of record on today. Today is the start of the new season, which is video game themed. Last season was all about sprites Go ahead We don't have to do it every time We always make a joke when Heather brings up sprites About drinking She's talking about the soda

She's trying to make us Go on front of press But now it's kind of like I kind of less I don't really do stuff like that anymore You've changed I'm not really in that I'm more of an artist now I don't really do stuff like that

You've grown up Yeah yeah So there were 117 sprites released in the course of last season I caught all of them What is it? there it is there it is

I caught all of them or was traded them by members of our discord very cool so thank you so much I got all of the sprites and mastered every single sprite

thinking there was a big show made of like they're making a sprite garden and I was like I gotta get all these guys so they're gonna be running around in my sprite garden

as of today the new season launched that Sprite garden is nowhere to be found what a waste of my fucking That's fucking crazy. But the new season is video game themed.

And in the center of the map is a, well, all scattered throughout the map are big cartridge installers. The cartridges fall from the sky like Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo cartridges. They snap in, you get to them, and you can override the code of Fortnite to change the way the game is playing. So if you're somebody who really likes movement, you change movement. you change movement for everybody on the map or you change gunfire for everybody on the map. Whoa. It's a really cool concept

to like make the game a little bit more personalized for you in some way. Also Sonic the Hedgehog is like the main showcase item of the battle pass but they've also announced let's see who's coming. Sora from Kingdom Hearts. Sora.

We've got Joker from Persona. Looking cool, Joker. Looking cool. Morgana's going to be a sidekick. Tails is a sidekick. Mega Man's coming to the game. It's a video game themed game for this season. But that's not the game I've been playing this week.

What? The game I've been playing. What the fuck? What the fuck? I've played it. I've played it, obviously. Talked about it. This came out today.

But the game that I've played the most this week, and I mean a sincere acreage of hours here, is near automata. Wow. I'm shocked. And guys, this game fucking rules. It fucking rules. It looks like shit. Yes.

You're playing it on Switch? No, I'm playing it on PlayStation 5 Pro. It's a PS4 game from 2017. It looks like an early PS3 game. It looks like just dog shit. But my God, does it play well? play so good as by Platinum games of bayonetta, of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance,

or whatever the fuck that game was called. You got it. Yeah, you got the insane title. The philosophy, so there's two philosophies I want to talk about. One is the game is philosophical. There are characters named after Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre. Like, it's an existential game that gets into like some pretty big themes. but the philosophy of the way you play the game

is you start the game as a ship in a schmup. Yes. Right? And you're firing and learning how a ship and a schmup would work, right? They show you like four modes of how those kinds of games play. One is you got enemies in front of you and you're moving back and forth on bottom of the screen. Then you're unlocked from the bottom of the screen

and you can move in all directions. Then your guns are untethered from movement. So you're moving one way. and you're shooting the guns in another direction, then they add sword fighting to the ship. So you're flying around these guys who are blasting you with bullets and you are swinging a sword at them

while you're a ship while also targeting them with your guns. Then you stop being a ship and you're like, oh, they just taught me how to think about the combat in the game. Don't think about it as I'm a person running around on this screen. Think about managing the combat

as if I'm a ship. moving around the periphery of these things. It's as if they take the screen and lay it down in front of you and now you are looking at the enemies in three dimensions instead of two. It fucking rips. It is so good. This story is compelling. I've heard my least favorite thing about a game is when you finish a game and they're like,

actually, it's not the end of the game. I've heard that this game has the only way you can actually find out what the game is truly about is to play it something like four times with branching paths of the story that reveal more. If the game is too similar when it starts on the second playthrough, I'm checked out. I won't do it. But if it's different, this might be my homework for a while, guys. Wow.

I'm really enjoying myself. The music is so good. The main character is so horny. She's like just a living fucking fetish. There's no reason for me. her to look the way she does. You see her panties constantly. She's wearing a blind. I put her on my wish list. Jesus Christ. Nick punched a hole in his computer. But it's really, really good, and I'm really enjoying it. And that is what I've been playing. I can't wait to finish this podcast. And I'm

going to go home and not play Fortnite, but instead play near. This is a game that is one of those because all of our overlapping tastes and spheres of knowledge tend to be, we encompass a lot, but there are odd gaps we have. And Nir Automata as a game, I think, that is for all of us that none of us have played. Yeah. And so I'm glad we have someone on the beach. Right. Well, when we were at the Square Enix Cafe, we talked about that.

Right. I was like, none of us know what Near is. And there are enough people in Discord are like, hey, somebody's got to play Near. And so I took up that mantle this week and it fucking rules. This is heroic of you. Yes. Thank you very much. And I'm excited to hear more as you play through it.

Nick, what are you playing? Thank you so much for asking. You're welcome. I promised last week an update on Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls. And here's my update. I returned it on Steam. Wow. Now, despite the patch, the PC version still has DRM and easy anti-cheat and Sony's SDK slow

in performance down. And then I saw it, but it was playing decently. You know, I got a 40-70. I got a good, I got a good rig. It was, it was fine. But the cracked version removed the DRM, and that that improved performance I was reading. And I was just like, well, if it's the DRM that is, like, really challenging my rig or at people's PCs in general, I just kind of just don't like that. You know, I kind of hate it when PC games do that.

So we returned it more on principle than anything. And then not sure what statement I'm making by doing this, I re-bought it on PS5. because the thing is it is really fun and it is gorgeous it is like maybe the best looking fighting game I've ever seen and I like that it's someone who's wanted to get into fighting games and is not really found my on ramp but I you know I love the fighting game community I love watching a you know high level fighting game you know like a high level fighting tournaments I love I like that this game is kind of for babies. by fighter standards. Like everything's a little bit simplified. For instance, one bit of simplification as someone who doesn't usually connect with tag fighters, and this is a four by four tag fighter, it's all one health bar. So it's like, you know, you don't have to worry about like I'm swapping my guys in

and out to heal someone up a little bit or whatever. Like it's just, it just streamlines things a little bit. Also, the training mode is really comprehensive. And I think they had a, they had a sense that, hey, the player base for this, you know, ArcSys who developed this was like, is probably going to be a little bit more casual just because of the Marvel IP. And so I really like that that's in there, again, as someone who doesn't really know what I'm doing. Also, the story mode is pretty good. And I know the bar is very, very low for fighting game story modes, but I don't know. It's got really cool motion comic

manga art cutscenes, structured around separate campaigns for the five prescribed pre-built foursums. So there's like the samurai outwriters, for instance, which is Blade, Deadpool, Ghost writer and Loki. They're, they're all just kind of clustered like that. Um, and it's simple, but I don't know. It's like, I like that they put some effort into it, you know? Yeah. Deadpool, speaking of which is very deadpooly, uh, with a lot of fighting game references like, you know, for instance, he'll pop up in the corner saying toasty, you know, I mean, like that sort of shit. Yeah. Um, and I would just say, like, even if you're not going to play the game, I would tell people to look up a Deadpool references video, uh, because they're, they're fun. They're just kind of fun to go through them and see all the ones that

impact in there. He does like a Dragon Ball Super, right? Yeah. Like from the Dragon Dragon Ball fighting game? He has so many things. Like he has like the Naruto run. You know, it's all, it's all, it's fucking all in there. And I it's fun, even if you don't like Deadpool, which I don't. Also, I will say the voice acting in this game is very good.

For instance, Deadpool is voiced by Nolan North. So it's, you know, but it's a lot. It's like a very quippy game with that kind of MCU tone. Yeah. And I find, I just find that a little bit grading and overwhelming. And so as per friend of the pod, Morris, one tip, you can toggle the voice acting to Japanese, which is just like,

also, preserves the anarchy of it, but, you know, you're not having to deal with hearing the same quips again and again, provided you don't speak fluent Japanese, which I don't. I will also say Penny Parker in her mech suit, maybe the single biggest character I've ever seen in a fighting game. She's so fucking big. Whoa. Just like takes up like, like, you know, it feels like a third of the screen. And I don't usually respond to big characters, but she's really big.

And also reminds me of Tronbon for Mega Man, which I like Tronbon. So I'm trying to learn her. Her suit also animates so rad. I was going to show some footage, but I don't know where my tab ended up going. I was just looking. I'll be honest,

total blind spot wasn't tracking this game. Yeah. When you said it was gorgeous. I looked at it. It's gorgeous. It's really, really pretty. It's fucking gorgeous.

Yeah. I wonder how you'd like it as someone who likes fighters, like, because I think there are some people who have been complained about, you know, just again, how relatively simple.

it is to something that is a little bit meaty or hardcore. Maybe I'll give it a shot in a minute, but for right now, I'm locked in on NIR. Okay, great. When you finish NIR, hop on and beat the shit out of me online. I'm definitely more into this in the riot fighting game, 2XCO that I best around with earlier and talked about, I do wish, I will say, and this is a critique of Marvel in general in the MCU era, I wish it was a little hornier. But I just think it's pure fun.

And I'm absolute shit. I'm having fun with it. And I'm hoping this will be, like I said earlier, my gateway to getting into a proper fighting game. Russ, what are you playing? What am I playing? Not that much lately because the real game has been crunching on making a game. Of course. Before that, well, yeah, so I played like the first five hours of Death Stranding.

Oh, hell yeah. So that was exciting. Oh my God. The first one? Yeah. Oh. I loved it so far. It's great.

And then I haven't touched it since. We all love Death Stranding here. And also we met Kojima. What? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, we went.

Yeah, we met him. We kind of met him. I met him. We met him. We met him in Japan, actually. Wow. And then we kind of, we did a thumbs up in the photo, and then he did a thumbs up. Yeah, yeah.

I never put my thumb down sense. He didn't seem to indicate that he thought any of us were strange, which I would also consider a victory. So good. Death Stranding one, I like more than Death Stranding, too, but that's in part because I feel like the ways in which it is. unrefined are more like they speak more to like this sort of

autour nature of the game itself there's I don't know if you dug into the emails that you receive in Death Stranding like in the in the sort of back OS the pause screen whatever you get emails and they are just lengthy treatises on why a character might like a specific song from a real band and it feels strange and authentic

in a way that I feel like all that was kind of smoothed out of the second one. Like, people were like, hey, we don't need to keep writing these emails about motorcycles doing. I liked it. But tell us about your impressions. Like, you played through five hours. You enjoyed your time with it? Oh, yeah.

I love it. And I just like, anything, you know, that's trying to, like, say something, if I'm not playing some auto battleer, then I'm like, oh, I want to be changed. And it's, like, already so much about how humans need each other and connection. And I'm just like, yes, I'm ready for them. message feed it to me. It's still wild to me that that came out a few months before COVID. Like what, for all the things where people talk about how prescient Kojima is about where

the future is, it felt so alarming to be playing that game during COVID. It was crazy. Yeah, totally, totally wild timing. Yeah. I hope that you continue to play it because I want you to play Death Stranding 2 because I think I'm more of a Death Stranding 2 guy if I'm being on it. Totally fine. I like both of them, but like the story, I mean, I think the emotional beats in two hit harder,

especially if you, after playing one. So I hope that you continue all the way through and spend 80 hours in this world. Because I think they're just absolutely gorgeous experiences. Yeah, and the music is top notch. Have you liked Kojima games in the past? I think this is my first one. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah.

Another blind spot, so, you know, finally getting there. We all got them. There's too much stuff to do There's too much content There's too much good things to do There's too many There's too many individual experiences People can have

Yeah We all just need to do I'm pitching the human instrumentality project We all just need to Or being a pluribus We always need one thing We just merge And then we can all be

Total cinefiles Total bibliophiles We can know everything Yeah You know everything. You know You were just talking about how, you know, it's about connection, Death Stranding so thematically so much about that.

And any recent game that came out, we talked about the podcast, Big Walk is very much about that. Well, Rochelle, you finished Big Walk. Do you want to talk about that experience at all? Yeah, I finished it last night with a couple of friends. And I don't want to give any spoilers, but the last part of this game, which we were not expecting to finish last night, was like a euphoric experience. Wow.

Wow. Just like with the music and sound design and stuff. After this like big journey, big walk, I just got like super emotional. I don't want to say more because I think you guys should experience it. You think this is a game like for like us or perhaps anyone listening out there who just like messed around with it a little bit? You think it's worth seeing through the end? I think so. And it's not like the longest game in the world.

I think specifically you guys should play it together and see it third. and see it through because it's like a very nice bonding activity. Wow. Oh, boy. Heather is. Not happy about that. No more bonding. I have this great idea. I think we could do it.

Start on an off day, 8 a.m. Just go all the way, just play all day. Just clear day for it. Like clear a Sunday? Clear a Sunday. We could do it. I think I could dedicate that to you guys. Yeah, I could do that.

Yeah, it'd be easy work for us. Will we start from scratch? No. Are we starting from where we are in our country? I think we'd start where we are. I kind of think we might have to start from scratch. Because one, getting this on the books, going to be a pain. Two, I kind of really forgot everything that was going on.

Unreal. Great. But I think we could do it because I can think, like, I think it's like a 10-hour experience all told. But I'm like, us three Brainiacs? 30 hours. It would actually be devastating to carve out an entire day and not finish. Right.

Well, because Nick would be kicking the fucking bit off a mountain into the distance. Oh, my God. I only did that twice. Jesus Christ. Get out of my back. Big Walk, Maine plus Extra, which I think is probably the most trustworthy metric on how long to beat has it at a 12 and a half hours. It might be a little too meaty for one session. Yeah.

Unless we're really, really just dedicated. Look, eight to eight, a couple, maybe a little snack breaks, lunch. And we all order whatever we want. I like this. We can order whatever we want for lunch. Part of it. But we all have to pay for it ourselves. Okay.

That's fine. Great. That's the part you're really excited for. And it has to be really expensive. Fucking rib-eyes at lunch and dinner. Remember, man, we were in Japan. We were in Japan and we went to, we talked with the, for people who haven't heard this episode, and I think that includes Russ.

We went and talked. to the Mario cast when the Super Mario movie, a Super Mario Galaxy movie came out earlier this year. After that day, which was an exhausting day of like, it was like fucking a 12 hour day of media. Like physically and mentally exhausted. Like it was just like it was tough, maybe less physically, but like, you know, we were up all day.

Yeah, we're up all day. And so we just went to the bar in our hotel because like everything was closed, but they were still serving food. We went there and Matt and I are sitting there and just like big piece of shit. We're just like, should we just order rib eyes? And we both ordered sticks.

They weren't ribized. They were T-bone steak. That T-bone steaks. Which is crazier. We ordered T-bone steaks. And they were not good. They were not good. But it was fun.

It was like a very satisfying end of day, sort of like, hey, you know what? We did a crazy thing. We're here. Let's treat ourselves to some T-bone steaks. Some subpar tea-bon steaks. Hey, buddy. When we were kids, Summer meant freedom. No homework.

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Rules and restrictions may apply? Let's talk about video game writing. Russ, so I, from background for me, I have a couple of video game writing credits from my career as a game designer many, many years ago. They're there, I believe, I believe the, I might have a full writing credit, but I definitely have a couple additional dialogue credits. And those were Fuck Bunny's Bowling. Yeah.

Fuck Bunny's Bowling Christmas. No, these were, but these were licensed games. I worked on Fantastic Four games. I worked on a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean games. So I had a lot less leeway in terms of creatively in terms of what could be done. But that's my background. Heather, you were a games journalist, which I was a little orthogonal, but it is games writing. Yeah.

In one of the interludes in my life, I was a video game journalist and was subjected. to E3s and Tokyo game shows and all of the press events and the times when Ubisoft would try and sell the fact that they were reusing assets from the Assassin's Creed games across all other media platforms as some kind of like thing that I should be really excited about. And then I had to pretend to be excited about it in order to maintain access to those people. It was a very strange time, but one that I look back on with deep, deep fondness. If you ask me to trade what I do now for that world at the same exact price point, I would say go fuck yourself. But it was still, like I wouldn't trade what I did in the past for anything. It was wonderful. Hell leverage, too, is such an awesome piece of writing as a video game.

I mean, I would just say, well, like, we're all big fans. and I'm curious about your process of working on that game as a writer, but more generally, like, how did you get into video game writing in the first place? Nepotism? Full stop. No. That, I mean, that is true. Well, first, I did a little bit of it right out of college because some of my friends made

a couple, like, small games and knew I was a writer. So I had a little bit of writing history. And then my cousin, who I co-founded this company with for Ledger Bound, was working on Hell Divers. And they were used to just writing everything themselves because their previous games had been so much smaller. So they really didn't have any idea of like the scope that the writing would take. And my cousin kept being like, we really need to hire a writer. We have to hire a writer. And at that point, I had published a bunch of sci-fi stories and written scripts in the genre and stuff.

And so I was like enough of an established writer that he's like, well, you know, my cousin's a writer. What if we just like have him do a little bit? And they didn't really, they're like, okay, sure, because they didn't really want to hire someone. And then as soon as I got in, they're like, oh, this is so helpful. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you just keep doing it. So that's how I like stuck my way in kind of. That's awesome.

Because I, like, I will say I've worked in development and this from the standpoint as a designer. and the primary writers are not necessarily people who come from having any sort of games background. You know what I mean? And I'm saying, you know, I know you're writing for other media as well, but it's like you're clearly such a huge video game fan. You have such like a knowledge of it. So like that has to be such an asset from a creative standpoint

when you're doing writing and narrative design. Yeah, yeah. I ended up doing so much more narrative design than I ever anticipated too, because there just, there wasn't a narrative. team. I was the whole narrative team basically. So it was kind of like, well, the character should probably say stuff during missions. And I was like, okay. So then I'm like, I guess I'll design all the points when they should yell things out, you know, which I had never done before, but no one

was doing it. So it got to work with like the audio designer. He's like, oh, we should have different states for how stressed they are. And I'm like, okay, great. And then I just had to be like, here's the different stressful situations. Here's the kind of stuff. They'll show. So, like, yeah, there was a lot more figuring out of that and, like, figuring out the missions and all kinds of stuff that I was not prepared for. And you moved for this job, correct? Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about there aren't a ton of people in the world who have the opportunity, like you'll hear about it, but very few people have the opportunity to suddenly uproot and go truly somewhere else in the world to work on something and then return to their home like a typical hero's journey. So what was that experience?

was it a hard choice to make? And did you ever reject the call? Yeah, exactly. No, I think I accepted immediately. So I completely ignored standard story structure. The only part that was hard was I had just started dating my current partner. And I was like, well, I'm going to move to Sweden for a couple years. So we'll see if we make it through that, which I guess we did.

But yeah, it was amazing. Like, Sweden is so incredible. I absolutely loved it. My commute to work was I rode a scooter through along the water past like geese and got to the office. And it's so different being here in a car in Los Angeles. It's just like everything was so calm. They all take a month off every summer. It's very strange.

You get like a year off for paternity leave and maternity leave. Same with Holland. You get like a month off in the summer. It's nuts. Yeah. Wrench gets a New Year's day off. So that's nice. Unless an episode of ours comes out.

If an episode's coming on on New Year's Day, she does have to work. But she's a trooper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to hear her. What was a Swedish food that you miss? This is the part where we talk about food on the show. Yeah, that's true.

When I lived in Holland, I loved French fries with peanut butter and mayonnaise and onion. I never thought it would be something I would enjoy. Now it is one of my top foods in my life. What is a Swedish dish that you tried while you were there that you were like, God, I wish I could get that. Oh, man. Not a dish, but I just miss Hulumi. Did you have Hulumi over there?

Oh, Hulumi is like a cookable cheese. So, like, you can grill it and it doesn't melt. So they put it all over stuff. Yeah, they make, like, Hulumi burgers. It's so good. Yeah, I have had Hulumi, but in the state, so I'm sure it's nothing like having it. Sweden. You're like, because I hated it.

No, I enjoy you quite a bit. Yeah, Hulumi. And then also like shrimp skagin, like a toast with a mayo shrimp mix on top of it. Wow. So, so good. That sounds good. So where in development was Hell Divers too? Like how far in advance of when this game finally releases or how much, or I guess

the other way to say it is how many years into development was it when you got brought onto the team? I think it was like five or six years in. Okay, sure. Yeah, so, you know, no words had really been written all the way. Like, they were just so focused on making the gameplay really fun. Which they did. Yeah, absolutely.

Right. Just to like, all right, now fill in narrative stuff. So you're mostly there in the home stretch. Can we ask about the opening cinematic for this game, which is just like, of course, our buddy past guest, Craig Lee Thomas is so great in. But, like, how did that come about? Oh man, that was so fun You know, that is pretty similar to It was just like the crazy version of the one from the first game

So we just were you know turning it to 11 But I'm sure he already talked about this But it was so crazy like writing the draft of that Sending it off and then no one Said anything about it And then they're like oh yeah it's filming next week Do you want to be on set? And I'm like it's filming next week Like this is a

I don't know what the cost was, but some insane amount of money. And I'm like, no one ever ran anything behind me. Because I got to do all the casting for Livers also. So like for all the voices and everything. And I'm like, did we cast someone? What's happening? And then they're like, yeah, we cast this guy. You know, it's some guy who lives in Sweden who's going to act in it.

And I'm like, what? Like, there was no casting process. You just picked whoever. and I watched it and I'm like, yeah, he's good, but like he's not like this Mr. America, like make fun of America situation. I was like, we have to cast someone new. And they're like, well, we already told you it's filming in literally seven days. So I was like, can I get someone?

And they're like, if you can get someone to Sweden from America, like cast them, get them here by Monday, yeah, you can do it. And we managed to make it happen. It was crazy. That's insane. That is really insane. So you've written this script. And it just was, it just, that went often to avoid for a bed. Yeah, like I wrote it months and months before.

And just like, because there was no narrative team per sure, like it just goes to, you know, like, Johan or someone. And then like, yeah, it just disappeared. So you had, you had say in casting Craig, did you know him before or was that just like a like, how did that come to be? I had, we found out that we technically knew each other because we met at a film festival. Oh, awesome. But we had forgotten. Yeah. But just I was texting my friends who are like voice actors in LA being like who would be good for this part because we don't have time to do real casting. So just like send me anyone you know who you think would be good.

It's crazy to think of somebody else doing it because it's so obviously him. He fuck he he knocks it out of the park. He's so good and so funny. And watching him now to appear at events as John Helldiver is. Is the gift that keeps on giving. I love that he's named now. Yeah. So good. The community just decided. John Helldiver. It's so good.

What about casting the other voices? Like, because, you know, Ray Chase is one of the playable characters. Because there's, I believe it's, is it two male and two female voices? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got it. So that process, was that also kind of just like, you know, voice actors that you were a fan of? You wanted to get into the game? That was all just really true.

traditional. That was traditional casting. Just traditional casting. Listen to the auditions. And it was just whoever was funniest, basically. Right. Which was great. So I actually was totally not hooked into the VO community at all.

So I had no idea that I was casting people who were that famous. Wow. You know, it's like, oh, that Yuri Lowenthal guy seems pretty funny. Let's get him in there. That's great. But then like Craig's in your new game, though, too. Was that like, like, hey, let's get this guy back? Or was it just like a coincidence sort of?

It probably wasn't a coincidence. No, he had to get him back. I mean, playing his most iconic role to date, the derpy pug flying pug dog that only says its own name. Which we actually forgot to tell him that we cast him as it. We had him tempt the voice for the demo we were making. And then he was so funny just saying MIRP in a bunch of different ways that were like, great, he's hired.

And we never told his agent. And then we announced it through social media. And he's like, oh, I didn't ever audition for that or agree to this. But I guess I'm Mirk now. And then he couldn't back out. Yeah. Well, if you can get him to do something, you got to get him to do it. He's great.

So good. I have a question about the, like, one of the, to me, for my one of the best jokes, individual jokes in any game, which is Super Earth. I didn't play Hell Divers One. So I don't know if that's from Hell Divers One. as well. But like, like, how did Super Earth come about? It's definitely not from Hell Devers One. It's definitely something I invented. Yeah. No, I think, you know, luckily it is already such a fun universe that I got to play in. I think they just were like, how do we ratchet up

American exceptionalism? You know, we'll just tack Super on in front of everything. Right. Because everything is so ramped. Everything is so, like you were saying, taken to 11 and in Held divers too. And yeah, I mean, it's such a great, you're using that as a starting point, but just really amplified. It's really, it's really, you're really, the script is really effective at doing that. Let's talk about ledger bound, because this is a very different. I do have a quick question, if I can't.

Sorry, because you did so much work on the game, did you ever, did you like get, did you get in the mix? Did you, did you defend Super Earth? Were you, like, playing the game a lot? Or is it, like, not something that, not one of your games that you would normally gravitate toward? I defended Super Earth a lot before it mattered. Sure.

Oh, sure. You're in the early, yeah. I have like hundreds of hours of early build defense before, you know, Joel was there. So it made no difference. But then by the time it finally came out, I was just like, I'm free now. Yeah, yeah. I saved the galaxy. It's just cool that like it's still, I feel like it has a long tail.

Because there was like there was a recent update. Yeah. The fucking recent update that came out the same day as Ledgerbound is the top selling game that day. Sorry, can continue? It's cool that like something like that is still like, that people are still into it and still like doing it. But they should actually move on to Ledgerbound,

which Wager was just about to ask about it. Yeah, I'm curious about Ledgerbound because this is a very different process instead of this being a thing that you're brought on too late in the game, you're working at it, iterating on it over the years and kind of crafting this, you know, from the story. from the ground up. What was the process

for writing this game? Yeah, it was like, it was crazy. We started with the game, and so it was sort of similar where we didn't have

the narrative yet, and then we had to, like, jam the narrative on top of it. So I think, you know, the story, it was all about, like, how can we make it as funny as possible,

as opposed to necessarily, like how can we tell the story with the most twists and turns or like dramatic reveals or anything so that's why we kept layering on like the bureaucracy and just like it was really a layering process I think as opposed to like a through line process but we did get to kind of do whatever we wanted so it was me and the lead writer just kind of riffing like who do we think would be the funniest character in this universe, funniest slash most datable, horniest character. And just, you know, it was a lot of drinking, a lot of, we went on a lot of trips where we would

just like go to Big Bear or whatever and, you know, just sketch stuff out for a million hours. And we even like, like for the pillars, which I don't know how much you talk about pillars or like game development, it was like pillar one comedy. We just have to make people laugh. That's the only thing that matters. And then pretty quickly we realized like Horniness was a pillar And I had to give a studio wide presentation on like

What does horniness mean to us? Which was very surprising. I never expected to make it. And we'd be like, you know, probably, I wonder we might have even talked about near. There was some game where I was just like, this person's naked and it makes no sense. But this person's naked and it makes a lot of sense.

You know, like Aphrodite and Haiti. Yeah, she's right. She's the goddess of love. It's totally character-driven as opposed to like some hardcore, yeah, some hardcore, like, soldier who, like, cares about doing well in war would wear armor. But someone who, like, goes invisible all the time wouldn't wear any clothes because they have to be invisible. Hmm, this makes sense. Let's do that. Right.

Like, why does Nier need her panties to be showing all the time in order to achieve her machine-based goals? Right. Except her name is 2B. Toby. Two B. Her name is two B. Her name is two B. As in two bobs.

Part of her character. Nice mnemonic. That's true. And that's true. That is verifiable information. That is true. Her full name is two boos. How big was your development team?

It grew and grew and grew. By the end, I think there were like 40 of us or something. Okay. Yeah. So pretty decent sized. And although about half interns. So they could have overthrown us at any points. Right before this game, I was a screenwriting professor at Chapman,

and we got like one intern to join, and they were amazing. And they're like, you know, my whole friend group is like game devs majors. They all want to work on it. Wow. And we're like, they all want to work on it. In between sandwiches at Bruxie? Hey, you know. I know the area.

Chapman, very good film school. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about your actual writing workflow here because, you know, it's the thing when you're dealing with player choice, with branching, you know, contingencies, like, I mean, like honestly, at a base level, what software are you using? What are you working out of? Yeah, we worked out of a combination of just Miro and Google Docs. Got it. And then we used a plug-in called Yarn Spinner, which like puts all the text into the game. But yeah, basically we brainstormed everything in a Miro and we worked out of Notion too. So Notion was our internal wiki where we had, I'm sure this is very interesting for everyone.

No, I'm really interesting. Yeah, so we had a notion where we had like a huge internal wiki. Like the first six plus months of the game development for me was just world building. Just figuring out like what is this universe, what kind of flora and fauna are there? like all the bureaucracy stuff, what sort of different fantasy species are there. And then developing all the characters, had huge breakdowns of what are they like,

what are like sample lines to give them tone, all that stuff. And then we brought on our lead writer, Carly, who's incredible. And I worked with my screenwriting partner for a while too, but then he was more expensive than we could afford. So we switched him out for Carly,

who was cheaper. But, But then we brainstorm the whole story and the way the game works is like you have a battle and then in between battle you have a corporate mandated break and you have a limited amount of time you get to decide how you want to spend that time. Do you want to like do more work or try to relieve your burnout or do you want to hang out with your companions and romance them and have a sort of more like work life balance? So every break all the characters are available for like conversations.

So then we would brainstorm every single one of those conversations together. and then she would go off and write a draft of one of those scenes and then I would revise the scene or give notes and then she would like do a revision then I would do a final pass and then it gets handed over to an intern and an intern has to put it into a script for VO and then also start implementing it into the game via yarn spinner

because you have to like type in every line to display it and you have to showcase which character says it and then like you have to pose the character anytime one of their emotions changes then we would play it in the game do another revision, finalize the script for VO, record the VO, you have to put in all the VO. So, like, to get a single scene in the game

was like a 15-step process that took so many people, which is like our narrative team, ended up being huge just for like the implementation side. Yeah, it's not like the Simpsons because you didn't have all the drawings. We didn't have the drawings, yeah. Well, what I remember for my time working in development,

from writing standpoint was we were working a lot in, first off, you know, sometimes having to work with actual scripting languages. I mean, I did. I was also a designer. So I was like, I was using scripting. I was scripting anyway. But also working a lot in spreadsheets where it's just like, yeah, because, you know, you think of like a script. Like, you know, Heather and I work in TV writing. And it's like, that's a linear document.

That's just, you know, like a bunch of pages in order. But if you're dealing with like, again, possibly a, a, essentially navigating a flow chart, or even just for the standpoint of like, hey, we've got this has got to go, got to be reformatted for different languages. So this data has to live somewhere. Like having that be a cell in a spreadsheet is just like a much more efficient way to do it. Yeah, that's honestly maybe one of the most satisfying changes of going from Hell Divers to Ledgerbound was the reduction in spreadsheets.

Right. Because Haldiver is doing so much of the design myself. Like every time I wrote a line, I would have to specify, like, this line will trigger when they're within 30 meters of this object. You know, so there's like so much metadata. It was like 25 columns for a single line that I had to fill in. And then this game, we wrote them as scenes in Google Docs. And then the interns had to do all that work. So I got to read them as scenes, which I also think is so important as like a.

a narrative comedy game to be able to actually just read the scene through and like sense the timing and the jokes and everything. No, for sure, because it can get very, can feel very atomized if you're trying to work directly into a, in a spreadsheet, which we very often were, just for efficiencies sake. How do you, what is your process for placeholders? Because like, I'm, that's another thing of just like, hey, this thing is, this is a temporary name. This is going to have to change or whatever.

or, you know, like, just anticipating that sort of thing might happen. Do you have a special way to demarcate that something is, like, definitely not final? Hmm. We should have a better way because things end up final that you didn't mean to be final. And then it's a real fight to, like, get the team to let go when you're like, no, this doesn't make narrative sense that we're calling at this. You know, like, this doesn't fit in this universe. Partway through, we started just naming everyone placeholder. So that helped because no one gets attached if it just.

as like placeholder conversation or placeholder name. Right. No joke today. First, on launch day on Fortnite, because as you may have heard, they've fired an enormous number of their team. It's an incredibly buggy game. And today, one of the effects, the graphic that comes up on screen is image placeholder in a black square.

And it's like, how the fuck that's launched like this? It's Fortnite. Yeah, we would never launch. with things like that still in the game. I do think that's better though, because like the, when we did our first Steam review, in addition to them being like your game is too horny, they also said like one of your pieces of art is like the one ring and we're like, oh yeah, we forgot to take that out. So it's so much better if it just says placeholder because then you don't get sued.

And like then players are like, hey, this is really bad. You should change it immediately. So they actually catch it. Wait, explain to our listeners what Steam review means in this context. This is something you're doing with Valve as part of like a certification process. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So you have to submit your game to Valve to get it approved to be on the actual store.

And our game actually came out two days late in part because the game was so horny that they had to take time to review it to make sure it wasn't actually a porn game. That's interesting because I do, I think I've heard from people, from like some people that there's fucking sucking and fucking games on Steve. Oh yeah, you're allowed to be a porn game. Being a porn game is great. They're all for it. But then you just have to be in the 18 only category. They're like, I just got to spend a little extra time reviewing. Yeah, exactly.

By the end, they were just like, yeah. just put a content warning on it like then you'll be okay. Yeah. Warning, you might want to jack on. Exactly. So you're,

the previous game you're working on is kind of like the, the dialogue, the writing, the story, like all of it is basically kind of like a like a coat of polish that's being put on something that's being developed from a different, like,

you know, from a different perspective. It's being developed from like a pure gameplay perspective. And then this is just almost like a cosmetic. Here, the script, the narrative design is like endemic to what the game is. Like, what is it like to kind of invert that process? Really fulfilling. As a writer, a narrative person, it was just so nice to be like, I'm in charge of this game. I get to make a narrative game where the actual narrative has like repercussions in the gameplay. Because I just love when those

things are intertwined. As we all like disco Elysium, like I just love. the way they made, you know, the CRPG elements were so, like, tonal. It was awesome. And like the fact that your tie, oh, wow, I didn't even think about this. I just had a light bulb moment, which is our main character, her talk to, she's so much of a workaholic that, like, everyone leaves the office. And her best friend is just the hat rack that sits there. And, like, Hatrack is one of our voiced characters who she has this really toxic,

relationship with, and I didn't realize that that's sort of disco-elisian mask. That's nice. But yeah, it's just so cool, again, to, like, get to have burnout be a mechanic so that, like, the more of a perfectionist she becomes, the more burned out she becomes. And so, like, players, we've had some, we've had a lot of pushback. Most of our negative reviews are people being like, I don't want to deal with this. It's crazy that, like, I have limited time and everything I do gets, makes me burned out. But we've had some players and like press reviews that are like I'm such a perfectionist and I save scum and I reload and I want to like get everything perfect and our whole like theme of the game is that you can't do that.

Or if you do it'll be because you like ignore all your friends and people are because we have a very controversial like auto save feature so you can never reload. So like every decision you make is set in stone and you're stuck with it and you have this limited time and you have to to choose how to spend it. And like some percentage of people are like, it was so freeing. I learned to let go. Like I actually experience the themes firsthand, which I think is something that gaming can do

that like other forms of media can't do. 100%. Yeah, I mean, like that was a thing, a thing I really liked about Mugenics, which came out earlier this year. You know, I didn't connect with that game from a tonal and aesthetic standpoint, but just like the permanence of things happening.

And yeah, I think the audits. save, you're right, the word freeing is is correct, or is well characterized. I also like that, I mean, like, a very different kind of game, but like, you talk about the persona content

and Fortnite earlier, Heather, like, persona 5 is so much about, like, time management, metaphor refantazio, the same sort of thing, and it's just like, there's only a limited amount of time to do the things that I need to do, and I, I, I, I love making those decisions. I think that's like a super, I

just think that's a super engaging part of of a design. Major's mask? Major's mask, yeah, sure. That damn moon. Well, yeah. That damn mood. But, but yes, the idea of limited time and the thing's perpetually moving forward and just

having like a, having that be a resource because it is in real life, you know. Exactly. So, okay, so here's a, here's a question for you as someone who is like entrenched in this field. A lot of people want to get into. video game design, want to get into narrative design, want to get into writing specifically. Do you have anything you've learned in your career where you're like, I wish I'd known this when I was earlier in the industry? Definitely.

I think the big one I learned during the time at Hell Divers is just like not, it's not to say no exactly, but it's to understand. and your own limitations and push back on things. Because again, it's not like people were demanding that I do stuff, but they'd just be like, this would be a cool feature and I'd be like, if I just work hard enough, I can make that happen. Yeah, yeah.

And so I was just really destroying myself to try to make the perfect thing. And if I had been more experienced, I would have known how to be like, what is actually the scope of this requirement? or this feature and I would have taken time to, because there was also no narrative producer specifically for a long time. So one, always have producers to help you scope things.

But two, just like knowing, oh, this is a big ask. I only have so much time, like, based on the priority order of things, I won't be able to get to that and still, like, be a real person. Yeah. And just that that's okay. And, like, I think now that I'm in a more leadership position, I love when people beneath me push back and are like, you've asked for four different things, what do you really want me to work on? I can't actually do all those things.

I'm like, thank you so much for telling me because now I can make a decision or I can like hire an extra person or like find a way around that. So just like knowing your own limitations telling people instead of trying to just like make it happen. Was there a feature or an arc like a chunk of narrative? that you were initially going to get into the game that survived late and survive for a time in the game and then eventually you're just like, we just got to strip this thing out, this just isn't working?

Yeah, absolutely. Tons. Like the last couple of months was just strip stuff out, strip stuff out like crazy. But, you know, what's sort of nice to you is then you can put it back in eventually if it fits. But there were whole, we just kept cutting like story arcs because we'd be like,

there's no way we're going to get this game done. Could we remove this entire beat? It's a bunch of levels. We cut whole characters. And some of them we had already advertised. So like in our Discord people would be like, who was that really hot character who never made it in? Ooh, sorry. That's the people

if you make a character too hot and you take them out, people are going to notice. Yeah. What happened to that? I already Yeah. So maybe DLC. But yeah, just tons of content. And you know, like we wanted more branching than there is. But

But, you know, maybe we'll find a way to, like, get more branching endings in some update or something. So it's, we're still, like, working on it. But, yeah, a lot had to go. Some writers hate having to cut stuff. I love getting to cut stuff. I love being like, oh, I got to cut this page countdown. Hell yeah. Like, here we go.

You're sort of like, these are my darlings. One hundred percent. Yeah, up against the wall. I had a, this is, this is many years ago. but like I had this job for I got hired to write this there's no way anyone has heard of this streaming service ABCD this was ABC short-lived streaming network I got hired for an ABCD project that was it was the actual people in it like it was it was it was it was with type Relle who's great and some some other friends and I thought the actual concept of it was was was fun and and I'm happy with with what we were able to do. But there was like, I got brought on just basically,

like, they were like, here's the premise, write this thing up. These are going to be eight, 10 minute episodes. I was like, great, sure, yeah, no problem. Turn in like essentially like an 80-page script. And then they're like, hey, so the budget got cut and the director got fired.

This is actually going to be like four, five-minute episodes. Can you cut this down? I was like, yeah, are we fucking, go. It's just a matter of just like pull it like whatever, just tripping something down to bare bones. It's it is kind of that that that anecdote aside. I think the more general thing of like I'm curious about how you feel about this, Heather, like like with like because editing is such a strong part of writing. Like how do you go about streamlining something? How do you go about getting rid of stuff that maybe you like as as a you like on its own but is maybe

subtracting from the hole. The only thing that I, so I fucking hate cutting. Yeah. I'm the opposite. The only thing that is super easy for me to cut is when you do a watchdown and joke doesn't work, I have no, no connection to a joke that doesn't work. Like I'm like, get that the fuck, get that out of there. Like the less people are not laughing when they're supposed to be, the happier I am

watching an episode. But for story beats, like, I will be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. that he needs to do this he absolutely i will i cannot i can't do it like that's for me the hardest part of writing um in part because my experience of writing is not surgical in any way my my wife loves to rewrite she says she she she wishes that the first draft would happen on its own and she wouldn't have to think about it and then she could get into the true writing of the thing and like the reshaping and the the boiling down, the caldroning of the thing, I'm the opposite. When I'm writing, I'm watching an episode in my head as it's airing and I'm transcribing the

episode. So when people are like, hey, can we change this? I'm like, no, because I've already seen it. Like it doesn't, that is what the episode is. And so the rewriting process for me is grueling and brittle and difficult. And the only part of it is if I'm watching the episode in my head and the joke doesn't work, I wish that it had been cut by the director, who is me watching the episode? So I get to make that choice. Does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. I mean, as you're saying this, I visualize things in the same sort of way, if I'm writing for TV or film, which is just like I write a lot just going out on a walk and then just in my head, just kind of like storyboarding it out and thinking how it's going to play.

But what is your process, like, what is your process for actually when you're not doing the physically typing part of writing, which is only part of it. Like if you're just, it seems like so much of your, it's a big part of it though. Typing is involved. I'm not going to say there's no typing. I'd say it's maybe one of the bigger parts. Yeah, but I mean, you're right.

Matt, that's fair. If you're not typing at the end of the day, you're not writing something. But when you're, the writing that's not typing, and in particular, any time you're trying to crack something individually, like, what is that process for you? That's a great question. I think I am such a like extrovert co-writer person. For me, it's usually just like bantering, trying to figure it out. So I'm pretty bad at working on my own.

I also, this is funny hearing you talk about visualization. Like, do you know about A Fantasia? No. I have A Fantasia, which is you can't see images in your brain. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So I also have that.

Oh, yeah? And I don't have an interior monologue. but still I can kind of like, I don't know how to describe this exactly. Like I can kind of see it in front of me, but I just, even though I can see a 3D representation of what I'm talking about, even though it's just like complete blackness. You know what I mean? So it's like the idea of it? Yeah, I can just kind of exist there in a semi-tangible way.

And I love brains. They're crazy. Yeah. But yeah, I think. Have you guys heard real, real fast, real fast, anthropological little bit. right? So you know how like the line of homo sapiens you have like this Neanderthals are kind of you know mixed in a little bit but we both come from essentially the same initial branch of like an evolutionary tree that kind of splits off. There's some intermingling and then we

fall down at the bottom as homo sapiens. The problem is there's 20% of our DNA that isn't sort of rectified by that causal chain. And they think that there was another far earlier complete split-off branch that also evolved and that the missing link is not a link in between us and like a monkey farther up the tree, but rather that we interbred with an entirely different branch that was perhaps a more cognitive branch and took on the genes from their thinking brains and adapted them into our own sequence. So there was like perhaps an incredibly smart, but perhaps very weak or less aggressive branch

of evolved thing that we interbed with and then probably killed off. Yeah, it sounds like we beat the shit out of them. Yeah. I'm telling you right now, my family doesn't got that. We don't got that one. It's some paper that came out like a few weeks ago. I thought anyway, that's it. That is so interesting.

Yeah, yeah. I love that shit. But sorry, I interrupted. I don't even remember what we were talking about because I was so excited to talk about monkeys. Well, you were talking about A. And you were also talking about just like it is a collaborative process with your studio.

Like it is because also I work in TV and a lot of TV writing is spent in a writer's room. And that is super collaborative. But then there's also the part when you're off on your own, like, you know, thinking things up and then typing, Matt. Thank you. You know, there are people who have, you know, like, degenerative wrist diseases and they're speaking their scripts.

And they aren't physically typing. And, you know, shout out to those guys. They're still writers. Hey, hey, I don't care how you do it. Typing's typing. Typing is typing. Characters on and some sort of. of software. That's right. Yeah. Oh, man, I love software.

Did you bring a gift for Nick? Is that what this box is? It's a gift specifically for Nick. It's specifically for Nick. Wait, really? Why is that? Because Nick, you're the guy. I'm the guy? You're the box guy. I'm the box guy. Yeah, you're the guy. I'm the box guy. Yeah. What? What do you mean? What's happening? No, it's just a gift. It's a gift for you. We talked before the show and he was like, I brought something and I was like, oh, Nick should get it. Because I thought of the people on the show Nick would appreciate it the most because he's the guy. I thought even he doesn't know how to open a box. Oh, right.

That is the thing. He doesn't know how to open a box. This is what you, this was a trap set up for me. I can open this box. Hold this full glass of water while you're at it too. I can open a box. I mean, I don't have any tools. So that makes things a little trickier.

Why? Because we gave you a knife. Wait, you did? Not today. I was starting to think Nick is that missing link. We did give him a knife Well, yeah We's doing a lot of heavy lifting

You gave him a knife I just kind of don't want anything to do with it You did give me a knife It was very kind And then I said I'm going to start Carrying the knife around And then you both told me not to do that It could be a knife guy

I think you can be a knife guy While Heather is bringing me a butter knife That's not who did that That's ranch What did I say? You said Heather You said Heather It was ranch

Sorry to both of you It was ranch It's okay Somehow he almost spilled the water I saw that. I also hit my microphone into my face. All right. Wow.

Here we go. It's stuff. I haven't seen this stuff. This is a ledger bound. Oh, Heroes United Life Group. This is like a recruiting or this is a welcome to the Heroes United Life Group family. So this is like if you've joined the insurance company. That is so fun.

It's really fun. This is a physical. I should say. This is a physical envelope of some kind. Is one of you one of you want to open this? Sure. I'll be the envelope guy. I got this, no problem.

Oh, wait. This is for, this is specifically for Heather. I want to pass that one over. I got, hey, a certificate of promotion awarded to Heather Campbell for my tireless performance and dedication to company. May my productivity continue to benefit shareholders everywhere from the Ministry of Certification. That's fun. I like it.

I like it. This is addressed to Heather. Congratulations and welcome to the Heroes United Life Group. As our newest employee, we've assembled this complimentary Hulg, Welcome Kit, H-U-L-G, filled with exciting company-approved merchandise designed to support you on your first officially sanctioned quest. We got a whole bunch of stickers here. The nice sticker sheet.

The one I really like here is one that just says, HR is your friend. And then a calendar. and this calendar is pretty horny. This is great. This calendar should be. Yeah. If you want me knowing what day it is, you better be a little horny. It's Thursday.

Jack off. Every single day. It says it on there. I like this one. I'm going to have so much fun punishing you. Whoa. Jesus. It's a horny game.

We also sent this calendar to Valve. That's why they were busy. This is great. This is very, very kind, Thank you so much. Congratulations on the game. It's so cool. Is there anything else you would like to add before we were wrap up this portion of the show?

Oh, about the game. My CEO said if anyone finds it from this podcast, that the best thing you can do to keep us employed is to leave an honest review. So he said, say that. Hell yeah. Leave an honest review. Leave an honest review. And tell them get played sent you.

Yeah, exactly. Shall we do a segment? Let's do a segment. Guys, it's my turn to do a segment. And I don't often bring segments to the show, but I did. This time, I did the segment. This time, Heather did the segment. This time, Heather did the segment.

So I don't know if you've heard, but lately eating has become a dangerous game. In the unregulated landscape of the United States, what you choose to put in your body could be a power up or it could be a death sentence. So today's segment is a little game I like to call, why can't you eat this? I will name an item of food and you tell me first, whether or not you can eat it. Great.

So you'll ring in and you'll say your name, ring in and you'll say, yes, you can eat this or no, you cannot eat this. You get a point if you get that right. However, if you then can tell me, why can't you eat this, you'll get three points. it's a game called Why Can't You Eat This? So if it's something you can't eat

If the answer is no you The correct answer is no you can't eat this Right Then there will be a follow up Right so if so if I said You know, sun kissed oranges And you said no you can't eat this I go okay

Why can't you eat this If that was correct If that was correct And I would say why can't you eat this And you would name why you can't eat this And then you would get points based on whether or not you were right And should we just buzzing with our name Yeah buzzing with the name

Ranch would you keep squire Thank you so much. So up first, as a sample of how the game works. I like that Heather's excited about the segment. I'm excited about it too, but I'm very excited. I'm more excited that Heather's excited that she put this together. As far as I know, it's always like that. So up first, give you a sense of how the game works.

Yes. I'll name a food. You say your name if you want to ring it. Taylor Farms shredded iceberg lettuce. Matt. Okay, great. Matt. You cannot eat that.

That's correct. You cannot eat that. That says one point. It's been infected with the cyclospora virus. I believe it's what it's called. That's right. The cyclospora parasite. Parasite.

That's four points for Matt. Wow. That's how the game works. Okay. All right, great. Those don't have to count. Up next. Wait, did that one count?

It doesn't have to count. No, that counted. That counted. All right, Matt's got four. I got four. Four points. Up next. Walmart tomato soup kits.

Wygar. Nick. Yes, you can't eat that. That's incorrect. You cannot eat Walmart tomato soup kits because of Listeria. Can I suggest something? If you get it wrong, can someone else get the opportunity to ask cancer? But you only get three points if you...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Great note. I love it. Great. I don't do the segments very often. Yeah, Nick, she doesn't do them that often. I wasn't critiquing it.

I was just like, you know. Okay. Cheshire Lakes frozen strawberry. Whyger. You're up. No, you can't eat it. That is incorrect. Okay.

Okay. I did think there was a chance they were all going to be things you couldn't eat. That was what I was just then baking on. Now I understand it. Combo breaker. Okay, great, great. Oma's Pride, frozen dog food. Russ.

You can't eat it. That is correct. That's one point. Why can't you eat this? It's for dogs. Well, that is also good. I think you should get three points. I'll give it to you.

I'll give you three points. But why can't a dog eat it? Well, can anyone guess? Why can't a dog eat it? I'm going to say it has glass in it. That is incorrect. Incorrect. It is salmonella.

Salmonella. Salmonella. All right, great. Dog should be able to get the same diseases people can get. They should be different diseases. Yeah, doganella, you call it. So I know what's the total?

The salmon changes to dog. We've got Matt with four points. And then Russ with, is that a full four points, zero? Full four points. Okay. Yes, the joking. And Nick was zero.

Okay, great. Beef from Argentina. Weiger. Weiger. Yes, you can eat that. That is incorrect. Anyone else? Anyone else?

Argentina famed for its beef. I thought that might be good. It has been recalled. Wow. Anyone know why? Oh, gosh. It certainly couldn't be something like mad cow disease or something like that. No, it's a little bit broader than that.

They failed to inspect any of the beef. Well, it might have been fine. I'll roll the dice and some uninspected Argentinean beef. But above that. Up next. 50-50 at least. Greenwise. is frozen organic blueberries.

Weiger. Weiger. No, you can't eat that. That is correct. One point for Weiger. Wyger, why can't you eat this? Okay, they're frozen blueberries. They're the wrong kind of berry.

That is incorrect. Anyone else want to guess? Wait, hold on. What do you mean? Like, you open it up, it's actually blackberries. And so you can't eat it? I can't eat this. I don't know.

It's trying to take a different angle. They got unfrozen. in at some point. That is also incorrect. Matt, do you want to give a guess? I think berries were affected by cyclospora also, but I don't remember it being this brand. But I'll toss out cyclospora again. That is incorrect.

These berries have E. coli, also known as the poop problem. They call it the poop problem. Doctors will call it the poop problem. Okay, great. Doctors call it the poop problem? Poop problem. Up next, gusto group shrimp paste. Uh-huh.

Gusto group shrimp paste. Uh, Weiger. Wiger. No, you can't eat that. That is correct. That's one point for Wiger. Why can't you eat this? Shrimp paste.

Um, it has a foreign and edible material. Do you mean to be more specific than that? Yes. Uh, it is filled with, um, ground up yoga mats. Okay. That is incorrect. Anyone else want to take a guess why you can't eat the, the shrimp paste? I kind of feel like it has to be a little more exciting than glass because it's often glass, right?

Yeah. Maybe it's like razor blades or something. Is it razor blades? It's not razor blades, but it's incorrect. Russ, you want to take a guess? They left all the shell on. That's also incorrect. Guys, this one was recalled because it has lead in it.

What? What? It's crazy. It's not ideal. We've got three more, three more. Still anyone's game. Outshine fruit bar. Okay, Matt, I do know this one.

You cannot eat this because there is glass in there. Correct. It was going to be glass at some point. Yes. But I read that, I think, literally today. Wow. That recall is new. Two more.

Those are good bars. Are they real? They're really good. Sourdough. Grand Central Bakery sourdough. Russ. You can eat it because otherwise there was only one that you can eat. That's incorrect.

Dang. You cannot eat this. Does anyone want to guess why you can't eat this? I'm going to guess, hmm, it's the wrong kind of bread. Incorrect. Matt, do you want to take a guess? Oh, fuck, it's Pumberdickle.

I'm going to be sick. The shock of the wrong bread. Can I sidebar with my fellow? Yeah, go ahead. Do you use eggs to make bread? I mean, yeah, you can. Often. Yeah.

I'm going to say that the eggs that were used to make the bread were bad. Okay, that is incorrect. Kind of an interesting guess. The starter is classified as sentient. That's also incorrect. Grand Central Bakery Soutreau was recalled because it has got palate nails baked into it. Palet nails. Jesus Christ.

This is all so much worse than I imagine. Final question. Final category. Kind of on theme for the game. honestly. There needs to be, this is proof that there needs to be bureaucracy. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.

Organic living, healthy truth, life nuts. Wyger. Weiger. There's no fucking way you can eat this. Hmm. I'm sure. So I got it right here. You can't, Mr. Peanut Allergy.

I'm sure you don't want to try. Eating it? Actually, does look kind of good. Organic living, healthy, true life nuts. Why can't you eat that, Weiger? Can I look at the packaging? Yeah.

Matt, touch that sum bitch this way. They look fucking good. Hey, that was a pretty good catch. That was a pretty good catch. That's a pretty good catch. It kind of started with my outfit. This is my new favorite sport. Raw kosher keto.

I believe they're also ranch flavored. Whoa. Yeah, these are buffalo almond and ranch cashews and I shouldn't eat these. Well, that's what you said. I'm going to say they were soaked in toilet water. There's toilet water in here?

The answer is you can't eat those. They're just a gift for the podcast. Oh, that was nice. They seem really good. But it's scary now to eat anything, right? It is really scary to make anything. That's why I only drink Coke zero. What was the final score on that? Nick with three, rest with four.

Matt wins with eight points. Eight points, Matt. You know why you can't eat this on the game we like to call. Why can't you eat this? And that's this week's Get Played. Our producers, Rochelle Chen, Ranch, Twitch.tv slash yard underscore underscore Sard. Stream at anything, Ranch? Bioshocks.

Where are you in Bioshock? Not very far. Godspeed. Our music is by Ben Prunty. Ben Prunty Music.com. Our artist by Duck Brigade Design, Duck Brigade.com. Get Played merch at kinshipgoods.com and a bonus episode every Wednesday on our Patreon, Get Played, DLC. Matt, what are we doing this week?

This week, we're doing something a little bit new. We're doing something that we're going to call Launchpad, and we're going to review the launch lineups of console launches or handheld launches and things like that. And the first one we're digging into is for the Nintendo DS. So we're going to dig into everything surrounding the launch of the Nintendo DS. So be sure to check that out. Subscribe over at patreon.com slash get played.

And hey, go check out ledgerbound. Russ Nicol, thank you so much for being here. What a treat. Please go ahead and plug away with a plug the game again. Plug the game again. Ledgerbound. The only fantasy insurance horny game out there right now. Awesome.

Appreciate it so much, Russ. And also, I am. I am, it's now the point in the podcast where I tell you that you got played. I did? Yep. Yeah, you got played. Oh, no. What does this mean for me?

That was a hate gum podcast.