Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Blessing Hosted the 'Secret Level' NYCC Panel - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Thanks For The Support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Blessing’s NYCC Secret Level Panel - Ads - An Interview w/ the Fear the Spotlight Devs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30, aka. What is the sweatshirt? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? It's the end of October. I had this whole conversation with Tim about like when it's too early to start celebrating Halloween. And he's like he's sick of the fact that we have starting at the beginning of October. We have like the intro for KGB. Yeah. What's wrong with we were seven days away from Halloween. Can I not wear the sweater? It's just so out of character

for you. Like I know you got these sent free four years ago for a bit on the... I like to switch up the tire. I saw you earlier you weren't wearing it and you come in with your shit eating green wearing it. Something's a foot bear. Something is a foot bear it. My liege, how are you doing today? No, we're not doing anymore. We got rid of the bit. We got rid of the bit over there.

I just like the sweater. I never have a chance to wear it. So I'm looking for a chance to wear it. Fair enough. That's fair enough. All out. All out. So what do you consider? This is going to be a dumb question, but stick with me. What do you consider Halloween week? Because I was having this conversation slash argument with my friend Katie because we're like, oh, we got to go out for Halloween. Yeah. And I was saying that we got to go out on a Friday night. And she was like, yeah, we'll go out next Friday night. But Halloween is Thursday. So like. Yeah, Halloween, you have to go out before Halloween. Which is what I was saying. The weekend before Halloween would be Halloween weekend, unless it falls on a weekend.

So I'm like, we had our wires crossed because I was like, oh yeah, we'll go on Friday, yada yada. And then like way later in the conversation. You were on November 2nd? That's what I was saying. I was like, we're not going to go out on November. Yeah. Nobody wants to celebrate Halloween. That's the only day you go.

Yeah. Although what now? All Saints Day. All Saints day. My Catholic school, we didn't dress up for Halloween. We dressed it up for November 1. On All Saints Day and you came dressed as your favorite saint. No way.

Yeah. You didn't have a favorite saint. Oh, no. I mean, you want to. Like, there was like 19 St. Francis's. You know what I mean? So you had to pick one. They're like, all right, I'm going to dress up as this guy.

Well, I mean, Poe is always St. Patrick, right? Drove the snakes out of Ireland. You know, it's like the only claim to fame. This is a very packed show. We don't have time for this. I'll get you through all of the rigumor roll really quick. Remember this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every weekday. We come to you with the biggest topics in video games.

Whether they be reviews, previews, or just things that are happening in the video game world, we discuss them with you live on Twitch.tv.tv.com slash Kind of Funny Games. YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. And later on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with a Kind of Funny membership. You can pick one up on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny or YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games. If you're watching live, use the YouTube Super Chats to be part of the show.

Housekeeping for you, it's a jam-packed day because we're all about live talk shows here. You already got God of War TV news on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Immediately after us, in about 50 minutes, you're going to get us reacting to the Fallout broadcast. Is it just Fallout 76? That'll make me happy. Is it something more? that would make me very happy. And then after that, it's an NVIDIA-sponsored stream of Alan Wake 2's DLC, The Lakehouse,

with me and Andy. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way in the afternoon. Chat, let me know what I should talk about. I still haven't recorded it, so it could be anything. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, and Delaney Twining. Today, we're brought to you by New World Eternal, Phasmophobia, Marvel Snap, and Shady Rays. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show.

Blessing! Greg. Last week we lost you in the second half there. You had to fly to New York City to go to New York Comic Con and host the secret level panel. Level. I screwed up level. Let's keep moving. The secret level panel.

Yeah. What was that like? It was really cool. Yeah. Of course, shout out to the kind of funny about friends that came through and we're in the audience because there were quite a few of you. It was fun to like, you know, go up there. Obviously, I'm introducing to Miller. introducing Dave Wilson, the creators of the show, right?

And like, I forgot to even, like, introduce myself because I'm like, everybody's here for them. Yeah, yeah. And I sit down and like, into my first question, I was like, I should say who I am. So like, you know, in a transition, I was like, by the way, for those who know me, you know, my name is blessing. I'm kind of funny. And then like, as soon as I said that, there were cheers.

And I was like, oh, snap. I didn't realize that there was like a handful of people that are here to, like, you know, support you. Yeah. I don't care about Tim Miller. Yeah. And so that was really cool. The panel went really well.

Like I this was the panel that for me I think cemented that you know I really love hosting panels and I really love like being in front of a live audience. That's honestly where we're going today is we're talking about your panel experience. But I do want to talk about the art of the interview what it's like for you doing it at this part of your career. And then of course show an interview we did yesterday with the fear of the spotlight people in a sponsor stream because obviously I'm going to talk about interviewing as well. Barrett, can you throw up the first tweet I have in the doc if you have the dock open, which is bless on stage with the panel. because you know you were really good about your social media and I see you at the experimenting you're still doing the Twitter but you're over there on the threads are for your nonsense thoughts I feel like Twitter you're putting up there

Twitter Twitter is just for the retweets if there's any official thing I'll retweet it on Twitter yeah that's course of course of course but you put up this tweet where it is you on stage with the panel I should even say you didn't do this this isn't even you right you retweeted this is from the secret level account and I guess we should also blessing what is secret level oh yeah secret level is the upcoming TV show coming out from Blair Studio being 15 episodes right. Yeah, 15 episodes is an anthology series, anthology animated series.

Every episode's based off of different video games. They're getting like different short stories. Of course, throw it back up there. Sorry, Barrett, as I walked over, getting it up there. You put up this. You look like a natural. This is from the official secret level count, right? They're clicking through. They got all these great shots. It's just the three of you on stage, which is always not intimidating, but cool.

I always like an intimate panel versus getting up there and doing an interview with 15 people in the entire cast or whatever, because then it's like, well, there's not even time for me to ad-lib anything. there. But then I appreciated this thread you put up, which is basically about imposter syndrome. It's the next link there, right, Barrett, if you can toss that one up, where you're basically like,

I can't believe or you can't believe they let my awkward ass host secret level, cyberpunk, and Disney slash Marvel panels in front of a live audience, LMAO. Yeah, which is like legit to high feel, right? The fact that I don't know what these

folks see in me, that makes them be like, oh yeah, let's have him host a thing. That is high stakes isn't the right word right because like it is i guess like important panels or like panels that feature you know people that are high up in their field that are doing these really cool creative things especially when you talk about disney marvel that felt high stakes right i'm like i don't want to miss a beat yeah but like you know for secret level and i think for yeah cyrpunk actually i can't remember with cyrpunk but for secret level it's not like that's being streamed live or whatever that was just for people in the room yeah so what if i trip over

the stage and fall off like what somebody's going to tweet about it that's about it but um you Yeah, like it's still like a mind-blowing thing that people are willing to like reach out to me to do that. And it's really cool because one, I do, like I mentioned, I really enjoy doing it. And then also like, especially coming off the secret level one, it does feel very natural for me. And I think that comes from a lot of what we do here. Of course. And I think the opportunities you're getting from being here to do it every day at ad lib, do you know how to talk in a way most people don't, let alone work an audience. I mean, it isn't in the room, but it is the chat and this, that, the other.

But yeah, I appreciate it so much that. you put up this tweets and then one of the things I heard you say in the office, I think you're talking to Raj. Yeah. Was just like, fucking killed it, man. Like, I'm good at this.

Like, you're the fact that you aren't still like, oh man, I don't know. Can I do this? Can I not? You understand how to do this now and you're good at it. Yeah.

So how do you approach something like secret level that every panel is different. I've hosted dozens in my career. Sometimes it's a giant binder of questions. Other times it's like, here's a microphone. Do whatever you want. What was the breakdown for this one? Yeah.

So it's been fun now doing multiple of these where it feels like the way that PR and the people producing the show handle it a bit different. Some of them are very hands-on. Some of them can be very hands-off. Disney Marvel, for example, they're very hands-on. Very hands-on, I imagine. And that was, well, I guess that you did the panel, right? But there was also the time you did like the presentation. Yes, and it was all

connected, right? So I did the, you know, the Disney Marvel showcase and then that was connected to a D-23 panel that I hosted. That didn't go live. There were clips of it. But for the most part, that was again for the audience in the room. And for that, there was legitimately a teleprompter. And, like, I had notes and notes of things that, like, every single thing they

wanted me to hit. Granted, I went off script a lot. Hell yeah, you did. That's what I do. That's the Greg Miller special. Yeah, because I'm like, a lot of times I'll look at the questions and I'm like, I got better questions than these questions. This one for the Secret Level panel was very interesting because I felt like they were more hands off. Like, they had suggestions and things like that.

But for the most part, like the way I did it was they sent me screeners for the show, probably about eight episodes. I only watched about, you know, six or seven of them just due to time. Sure. But watching through each of the episodes, I then started taking notes on things that like I wanted to ask our episode specific but also maybe wouldn't be spolery or whatever

yeah after that um they actually set up a meeting just to do like a you know hey let's chat before the panel make sure we're on the same page and yada and as we're doing as they're doing that they're like oh yeah here's a document of like suggested stuff that you can ask but you don't necessarily need to that's the best partner for the i'm always a fan of people hiring us knowing what we do and so especially for me again having done so many panels like i'll come in and if it is they very like this is what we need to do let's do it but like i i think of my last one was the packs uh west uh for access panel right for sieve where it was like hey here's all the stuff we have here's what we'd like to hit in this order but if you don't get to it because the conversation's flowing i think

that stick with that that's better yes for me that's always the thing is like the key to a good interview whether it's on a podcast whether it's interviewing somebody for the paper whether it's being on a panel with people right is actively listening and stopping people oh that was really interesting, wait, come back to that, or I'm going to come back to that. And let's see, like, pulling things from what people are saying rather than having a list of questions or at the very, the worst situation of having a script, right, where it, I've never had a panel where they're like, you have to say verbatim, all this stuff. But it is like, this is what we want to say and how we want to do it. Yeah. And essentially, I formed my questions

and I formed my, like, run of show based off of the questions they gave me, right? Because like, at the end of the day, obviously there are different kinds of interviews you do in the industry. if we're doing a panel, especially one that's being paid for, right? Because they approached us, they're like, oh, we'll pay you to have us come through and like, you know, host a panel, do all that stuff. I'm like, hey, I'm here to do whatever you need to do. You're the client at that point. And that's me

talking to them. You're the client. What do you want? Yeah, which is way different than like if somebody was to come to us. Like Phil Spencer came to us for that Xbox, for Xcast, right? And it is, all right, we are talking to you because we want information. This is editorial. This is editorial, right? We're here to, like, you know, gain information and figure out

what's going on with all this. Whereas for this, this, it is the thing of, hey, I'm here to serve you in whatever way you want. Like, you're paying me, you're doing this. So, like, whatever I can help you. That's a host job. It's a host job, right? And so, like, I am forming the questions based off of what they gave me, but also forming questions based off

of, I think, things the audience would be excited to hear. And then also, like, things I'd want to know and all this stuff, right? But I'm not putting a weird job, right? That's why it's a weird job. And it's been interesting to see you grow into it so naturally of, like, you know, you look at yesterday's we did the camouflage stream, right?

two hours of Batman in the morning with Ryan Peyton all that jazz, right? Yeah. That's meta, a pretty big company. That's a pretty big game for them. And they've, they know kind of funny. They know the kind of funny audience. It's why they wanted to work with us. And so there was literally zero talking points.

Nobody said or did anything from meta or camouflage side. It was like, oh, you're going to play the game and talk to Ryan? Okay, cool. We've seen you do that for free a billion times. This time, obviously we want to use it and use the Twitch front page and use that kind of thing or whatever. And the nice thing about our job and, like, like us every single day, you know, doing KFD, doing games cast, having the run of show and all that stuff, right? Like, the way I formulate it is like an episode of KFTD where I have like,

there are like an episode of any podcast we do, right, where I have segments and I'm basing it off of what they're doing. So, and they had a few beats for me to hit. We had like four different clips to show. Whenever there's a clip or an asset, right, that's always the most important thing of it. If you can get to the asset, make sure you're getting to the asset. Yep. And so like, literally I have it of like, all right, what is a secret level for 10 minutes? Talk about, like, you know, ask about the trailer and the cast and all that stuff, right? Like, I am formulating them and I have bullet points that are questions underneath all these things. But then when I'm actually in the stage, it is free flowing. I am like skipping note cards because I'm like, oh,

man, I need to get to this other question because this is a really great jumping off point based off of what they're saying. Yeah. And it is on a panel like that, making sure that the panelists are getting as much time as possible to like talk about the interesting things. Because sure, like maybe some people are there for me, the, you know, vast majority of people that are in that room are here to hear about secret level. And specifically the Concord episode. Yes, which is funny because... Did you ask?

I didn't ask, but there was somebody, we had, like, the last 10 minutes where the Q&A. And somebody did ask about the Concord level, a Concord episode, which is really interesting because I was like, all right, like, I wasn't going to ask it, but I'm really curious to see

what you guys have to say about it. And, like, you know, they, Tim Miller gave a really good answer of like, hey, you know, like, we're not involved in the creation of that game. Like, you know, we want the best for those developers. we've been in those people, all that stuff, right? But, like, you know, episodes still happening, like, all this stuff, right?

And, like, I got to, like, chime in and be like, yo, out of the screeners, I've seen, like, I've seen that episode and kind of, like, give my thoughts on a little bit in the room. I'm not going to spoil it. Thumbs up or down. Okay, okay. Like, strong thumbs up. From the ones you saw overall, secret level thumbs up? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And this thing is, like, and I'm, I'll say this as a person that did the panel, and this is me now reporting on a thing that was said during the panel. It's all say here, right? And again, I was paid to do. this panel. Yeah, take it with a grain of salt.

Like Concord episode, my favorite episode. Wow. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And so, that's hilarious. Yeah. I was like,

fuck, it was good. God damn. What the fuck? Rock out of the game be this good or whatever. Yeah. And so,

yeah, really enjoyed doing it. And I would say, like, every one of these, I'm also learning new lessons. Like coming off of the cyro punk panel from packs, right? Another really good time.

But it was the thing of, I think learning from you and watching Snowbike Mike of how he gets an audience hype. And being like, how do I channel some of that? Do you do the thing? Because, like, you know, one of my, my trademark is I come out and I say, what's up, everybody, blah, blah, and I'm like, real quick, who's been to a panel before?

And then people raise their hand inevitably. And I point at them, and it's a giant room. I'm not simply a person. I'm like, if you raised your hand, you've been to a bad panel. Like, panels are about energy and they're about excitement. So these people here made a game. They did a movie, whatever it's going to be, right? I'm like, they need, they will feed off of what you give them.

So we need to practice. I'm like, so when they say something good and I'll, you know, the release day or whatever, you'd cheer like and then the audience goes crazy and then I always say and now if it was like you know when I've had like celebrities on the panel before I'm like and now if I had to come out here and tell you of course the bad news that Stanley couldn't come today right you'd and they boo or whatever and I'm like I'm just kidding and they cheer again I'm like all right you're ready and you bring them out like yeah to stoke that fire so people people actively listen and it's the same thing we talk about with our meeting our audience right where we meet

so many kind of funny best friends and they tend to just sit there and be quiet and listen to you. And you're like, are you okay? Like, oh, I just, I don't know how to talk to you. Like, so it's like, you know, it's just being an audience, you're not sure if it's supposed to be clapping or listening or what it's supposed to be. And that's my thing is I didn't do the whole preamble, but I did do the thing where, you know, I walk out first, introduce the panelists and I come out.

And I'm like, what's up New York Comic Con? How's it going? They cheer a little bit. And I'm like, listen, I know you guys can get better than that. Like, how's going to New York Comic? Like, I'll do like that extra. Hey, let's get excited. And as soon as I hear that level excitement that I like, I'm like, all right, now it's time to

introduce people. Yeah. And like after that, they were just, you know, they were hyped the whole way through, especially when we're introducing clips and stuff. And so, yeah, it's been fun, like learning each panel, like getting better at each panel. And I really hope I continue to get to do these because there, for me, is this some of the most fun stuff we get to do here? I'm going to kick it to ads in a second here. But do you get nervous? Because that was something that I don't know when I lost. Again, I've done so many panels and so many interviews, but I distinctly remember MomoCon 20, 15, maybe even 14

where I was hosting the last of us panel with Troy and Ashley and it was just us and it was like the pack biggest room and Ashley backstage was like aren't you nervous? Because she was like freaking out. I'm like, no, why? This was the one where I'm like,

oh, I officially just don't get nervous anymore because I had a lot of things working against me also. My fucking note cards that I had were sticking together because the tape I used. I thought there was going to be a clock. There was no clock and I had to hit certain beats at certain times. So I was like, all right, I don't.

have that. It was a handheld mic, which is like, I know that sounds like, of course, but, you know, lots of times there's not, there's a podium. Yeah, lots of times it's like, you know, I'll have like a, I forget what they call it, but the one that you put on your head. Oh yeah, yeah, the Madonna mic. Yeah, you have the Madonna mic, yeah, exactly. But to do you note cards with a handheld mic, not as easy as you think when they're sticking together and all this shit. And so I'm balancing all these things and I'm not nervous whatsoever. Hell yeah. Yeah. I'm proud of you. Thank you. It's awesome to see how far you've come doing all this. Appreciate it. CJ splits on before I go to ad says, I'm surprised actually

Johnson said that she's been in TV since she was a kid. She has and what happens in TV? There's no live audience and there's a script. Whereas when you're out here doing this. And you can take it over and over again. Doing this. You can do whatever you want. Just like I can tell you, we couldn't do this without you. Thank you, of course, for getting a kind of funny membership

to get all of our shows ad-free. But since you're not using your membership, here's a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Phasmophobia. The Genre Defined Horror Game. is finally coming to consoles on October 29th, 2024. What did you see?

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No questions asked. Exclusively for y'all, Shadyrays is giving out their best deal. Head to Shadyrays.com and use code Kind of Funny for 50% off two or more pairs of shades. Try for yourself the shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Again, Shadyrays.com, use code Kind of Funny for 50% off two or more pairs of shades. As I said, Bless. I've been proud of you watching you come to kind of funny grow into this role as not only a host here but then off off going off and hosting panels like you have and of course i think you've seen me do that

a lot over the years and do a lot of interviews and stuff like that and i still love it to this day and so we know we wanted to partner uh your piece with something from us right and it was one of those that yesterday uh we did a sponsor stream of fear the spotlight and afterwards we had cozy game uh the devs come on over here uh cozy game plays uh they're a husband-wife team brian and christa just two of them they just put out this game right that they actually already put out once before and then took down and then Blumhouse. It's a whole crazy story of, I mean, Brian being at naughty dog and working on last of us, working on Uncharted, and then being like, you know what, let's quit our jobs, make this game.

Oh, we're having a baby. It's a crazy story. And so, like, again, we're talking about this whole gig of interviews and how you interview. And then, of course, also gigs where we do stuff for it. And this is another great partnership, right? Where they approached us about doing the stream. And I was like, well, there's stories so interesting from SGF. Could we do that?

And again, nobody told me what to ask, what to do, whatever it was just to go out there. And it was an active listening conversation from two developers. They're incredibly talented, just made a really cool game. So without further ado, here's our interview with the developers of Fear the Spotlight. As I live and breathe, cozy game pals. Welcome to the show. Krista and Brian, how are you? Good, man.

Great to be here. How, I met you guys at SGF. Had a great conversation. Loved the game then. Love the game. This is a little bit of an interesting time warp. We're live recording this on Twitch and YouTube right now. However, it's then being inserted in the kind of funny games cast tomorrow.

So I can see the live chat over here. Gamescast people tomorrow. Hello. How are you? How's the future? We just played it. We just did an hour. Nick and I am so happy that the horror elements I loved in the preview are still here and even better

maybe at launch being a part of this. But one of the things I found so. interesting about Fear the Spotlight was your journey to making it. Brian, do you want to start the conversation there of how this game came to be? Oh, man. Yeah, it's been a roller coaster. So, Krista and I, this is our first game. Before this, we worked studio jobs.

I worked in games and like, like I worked at Noddy Dog. So I was making Last of Us and Uncharted. So when you say it's your first game, you mean it's your first game where you weren't working on a AAA industry defining title got it, I understand. Yeah, it's like a first time making our own game. Krista was working, she was an art director at Nickelodeon

so she didn't work and make games at all. She was doing 2D art before this. And, you know, we're always working on someone else's project and we always dreamed of like, you know, one day doing our thing. And then this, there's this thing that happened. It was like called the pandemic.

Oh, I've read about that in history books. Yeah, yeah. So everyone was like asking themselves like, what is life and what do we do? And so we decided to give it a shot, like finally do this thing we kept talking about. Well, our dream life was let's start a family. Let's try to make our own project.

So we did both of those things at the same time. We had a kid and we quit our jobs. And then we're like, all right, let's do this. Let's figure it out. Yeah. No stress. It was easy. We had two years of savings.

and a baby. And we decided to figure out, like, we didn't have a game idea to start, but we're, like, huge horror fans. Chris has been, like, a lifelong horror fan. And, you know, she introduced me to horror. So it felt really natural for us to, like, want to make a game that we can kind of share with all of our friends and family

that aren't really horror fans yet. And so we spent two years making a version of the game that was completely self-funded. And we even released that version of the game last year. That's when we thought we were finished with it. And Blumhouse found us. And they reached out and they said they really liked it and asked if they could help in any way. It was pretty open-ended conversation from there.

Our first thought was like, we need to find an audience because we don't know what we're doing. So maybe they can help us get it on consoles or get into more languages. languages and they said like of course but what would they asked us what would we do if we had more time to work on it as well and that got us brainstorm storing more ideas like we hadn't really considered it we knew how much money we had and how much time we had and when we had to stop working on it and we were super proud of it too so we kind of didn't want to mess with it at first but once our brain started getting going with ideas of what we could do, what we could add to it. We found some stuff that we got really excited about.

So for the last year, we've been adding to what was the original version of the game. And yeah, what released today is our newly expanded version that we've been working on with Blumhouse. So then, Krista, what is the expanded version for you when you're trying to, like, I also have questions, I guess, if I bought it back then, do I get this version for free? or do you consider this a new version or how does that all work? No, that was something that we really cared about because we had like, you know, a passionate fan base when we did release it.

It was only released for like three weeks when we did our initial release. Gotcha. And so we made sure that in our contract with Blumhouse, like anyone who bought it before would get this upgrade for free guaranteed. But we see this as like pretty much the full version. We got to expand on the story. The most exciting thing that we could think of to do with the game, especially if we had to take it down for fans who already played it,

was to add more gameplay. So that's what we did. And we feel like the story is finally complete with what we released today. Yeah, it's super weird going back thinking that we used to think the game was done. But now that we see like the whole picture, it's like I couldn't imagine it without the new stuff that we added. So one of the things we have done here is we dove in, we're talking about it.

We're coming off the stream. But for people who are watching the games cast, Brian, what is the elevator pitch for Fear the Spotlight? Fear the Spotlight is our selfish love letter to horror. It's all the things we like about horror. It's like slow, creepy atmosphere, very silent hill inspired, very much based on our nostalgia for the games we grew up. The horror games we grew up with.

So it's got like a PlayStation inspired look. It's very Resident Evil inspired very much in the genre of like survival horror. but not really action-y. It's more accessible than that. Because like I said earlier, we're really just trying to get our friends to play more horror games. So it's a little more inviting,

a little bit less gross than some horror games can get. Even though we like that stuff too. It's like a little too hardcore for like a newer player. Yeah, so it's everything we like about horror. So, Krista, you introduce him to horror. how do you go about introducing him to horror bringing him up to speed on this a genre i love so much

just you know by force yeah we're around each other and like these are the movies on my list are you interested in watching these and then i start getting a sense of what he's into so i start catering those lists like oh okay you're into the james juan movies okay that's oh that's smart okay but i'm watching like anything and everything like you know yeah for me the first time horror like really clicked in my brain was watching The Conjuring. Just like Nick, Nick just talked about that in the stream. That's what they brought him. It's so scary.

It's so fun. Yeah. It feels like a roller coaster ride. And I think we really try to capture that feeling in our game too. Like even though it's like a slow atmospheric methodical game, there's always like a new place to discover or new, like we're always trying to keep it fresh. Like the puzzles are different constantly.

the locations are different, the story's always moving. We try not to just ever fall in a rut where you're just doing the same thing over and over. And for a small team, like just two people. A small team. Like literally the second to last smallest it could be. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it's like you usually don't see that from a small team

because it's like we're making content that you see once and then move on from. Usually from a small team, small indie team, you'll see like very replayable games. They're smarter than us. Yeah, they're smart. They're not, yeah,

they don't just throw away work once you've seen it. So it's, it's very ambitious for us to do it, but that's kind of what we love about horror is not really knowing what's going to happen next and always having something new appear. Sure. Having the player be a little bit insecure

about how to approach what they're seeing. Well, I think that's what's interesting about playing it is. Yeah, like you can see the homages to everything you're talking about, whether it be Silent Hill or Resident Evil get this to open this to do that. But like when Nick and I got to the fuse box puzzle

and made a bunch of fools of ourselves there of amperage and whatnot, like that was not what I was expecting based on what I had played at SGF, right? What I had seen in trailers, the fact that you're going through and keeping it that loose, I think it's pretty impressive. But a question I want to double back to is about how you guys work together. Because of course, Brian coming from naughty dog and working all these amazing games, okay, you're the development side.

Krista, you're coming in from Nickelode and art, I get that. But how does doing 2D art then come over to being, making a video game for you, Krista? I guess is it concept art and then Brian's making it happen or are you all actually in there building the assets? No, I'm actually building everything in 3D. I'm doing all the characters. I think because we are learning to work together as much as like, you know, any other team, like we are figuring out what each other can do. And so we end up taking up roles that we wouldn't have thought that we would have initially.

So I did a lot of level design and puzzle design initially and a lot of the writing. And Brian did a lot of the art, like the animations and the cutscenes were all hands. Well, we do a lot of back and forth. And yeah, Brian does a lot of the implementing and getting it done. But we both have a hand in everything. Yeah, when you're this small, you just have to do anything you can. And it turns out Chris does like a shockingly good game design. designer. And so she has these hands on building the levels, learning 3D modeling for the first

time. And yeah, it's, she wrote the whole story. A lot of people are really resonating with the story. She, I would say she wrote like 95 plus percent of the story. Well, to jump in right there, too, I think the reason it resonates so much is that again, it's doing so many great, not horror movie tropes, right, but horror movie setups of like, we all remember high school. You know, me and Nick talk about that picnic table we ran into where it's like, I've sat at this tick, Nick table. I know what that is.

And so to be in there and be playing with ghost, Ouija, board spirits, you know, tragedy and then have it wrapped around at high school. Like,

that's easily approachable stuff, especially for horror, for Halloween, for this spooky time. Yeah. Yeah, we love like supernatural horror stuff too. So,

yeah, ghost and Ouji board. Like, all that stuff is just like up our alley. And like the school, that's the kind of school we grew up with. So it's really just like our reference points and the things that we really remember

being scared of. Yeah. So, you talk about this being, you know, this thing, you're learning to work on different things together, learning new systems and all that. Was there ever, did this test your relationship? That's where I'm going with this. You know what I mean? I think of all the things my wife and I go through and have gone through and new experiences and, you know, we're a parent to a three-year-old and how that's changed the relationship and evolved in the different ways.

I can only imagine partnering up to make a game to find challenges to be like, oh, this is how you work. I wouldn't have thought you did that because I've never professionally been. with you this way. So you don't want to spend more time with your wife? No, I do. I just know that she's very, here's the Asana board. Here's the task. And I'm like,

oh, I got it done. I wrote it on a piece of paper. I'll do it over there. Yeah, there's a little bit of growing pains. But like, no,

I think because we're both like, we're in similar creative fields. Like we both get excited. You know, we're already think similarly, like getting to spend more time with Krista. Like, that has been the dream.

You know, that's why we quit our jobs to try this. because we always wanted to do it. And like, I don't know, hopefully this game does well. And we got to keep doing it and get that dreamlike, you know? Yeah, we've been lucky, too, that before we did this, like, dropped everything and do it full time. We were doing like smaller game jam. So we could kind of see little glimps of it.

Like, oh, let's test the waters. Let's do something a little bit bigger and then a little bit bigger. And then I think we got acclimated to it as we've jumped in fully. Yeah, to be honest, it's actually easier to work with Krista. than at a studio because I can be more raw with her. Like if I'm going through something emotionally, I can't like in a meeting in a professional setting say, you know,

my feelings were really like hurt because, you talked over me during that meeting and it was not nice. It's like, okay, you got to be a little more professional and I don't know. I told Neil Drucker me hurt my feelings once. He never looked at me the same way again. So yeah,

I know what it's like. I know what it's like. Yeah, it actually worked out in our favor, I think. That's awesome. I'm glad it did. And I'm glad the game seems to have been,

working out your favor, the fact that you're like, well, we had two years of savings and we jumped in to do this. That's a crazy thing to say that you saved that for two, you had two years. Like, what was your plan if the game didn't hit? And also, like, you launched it to a smaller fan base. You were talking about a fervent fan base that was in there. Like, was that enough to make it a success to make it that you were like,

what was the plan before Blumhouse enters the conversation? Well, so when we quit our jobs, There was a thriving video game industry. Remember those days? Remember those days? Remember that? We had savings and we were thinking like, oh, we'll just give it a shot and try it.

And then we can go back to find jobs again. Sure. So that was always the plan. We really wanted to do it just to see if we could, like to see what would happen. And so when we released it the first time, yeah, we had a passionate but small following. And we were ready to go find jobs again.

Like we were, we were like, that was fun. It was like, we're glad we did it. You know, we don't regret a moment of it. But now it's time to go look for work. And then that's when Blumhouse showed up. How has it been working with them? And how was it for them entering the pitch to do this? Because again, you heard me on the stream talk about it.

You've seen beyond the SGF coverage or whatever the thing was. I always, I always think, was it best you have where it was like they came out, they made the announcement. I'm like, this is such a great idea as a horror fan. I want smaller, weirder games. Like, what was the pitch for? from them originally? They were just, they came to us as genuine fans of our game.

And like I think them just wanting to support things that they really resonate with and are really a fan of, I think really shows. But yeah, really no pitch. It was just an offer, like a really open-ended offer of like, we like your thing and we would like to work with you and how can we make that happen? Yeah, we're in the same boat as you. Like we're horror fans. We're Blumhouse fans.

And so we're excited about what they were doing. I guess before they talked to us, all we knew was what they were getting into games. Like that's all anyone knew. Sure. And then once they started chatting with us, they started telling us that like, yeah,

they're just supporting small indie teams and like anything that's creative that they're excited about. We just kept getting more and more excited about what they're doing. Like as fans, as fans of horror. Yeah. So then have their band conversations

about what comes next? I hate asking that question for the record. I know it took every ounce of your being to get to this point for a release day on this game. But like, I assume you're noodling ideas. I assume you're enjoying being independent. Is that the plan to stay there? That's a dream. Yeah.

Like we've been, I think our plan was always to not stick to one genre. Like we're huge horror fans. But I don't think we want to do as much as we, I think Blumhouse would love us to pitch them another horror game. We grew so close to that team. There are people there are amazing, like genuinely, truly amazing. Like, every individual person there is a superstar. They're small and scrappy. We have, like, just so much shared DNA between our team and their team.

It's been a dream to work with them. But, yeah, we're throwing out ideas sort of in passing of, like, what genre we might be interested in or what kind of game we might play or want to make. Like, we think about this game as the dream game for, 13-year-old Krista. So right now we've been asking us ourselves, like, what would be the dream game for 13-year-old Brian? What is it, Brian? What do you think? You know, I grew up playing, like, action games and multiplayer games with, I have three brothers. So we make like a perfect halo team. So I'm like, you know, just thinking of like, what would be a cozy game pal's take on

something that a younger me would have liked? So, you know, we don't have any ideas yet. Sure, sure. That's kind of the area where we're starting to talk about. How hard was it to come up with that name, cozy game pals. And then is it a joke that like, again, your game is not cozy. Your first game is a horror game. Like Krista said, we used to do, you know, weekend game jams. And those games were actually cozy. And then I think the more we started like digging into our taste and like exploring

all of our tastes. But that's when we started to see how much variety and taste that we had. And I think in a way, this game is still a bit of a cozier approach to horror. Oh, yeah. I don't know. It's still a horror game, but I think because it is more entry level and more inviting, it does feel cozier. Yeah, it's like, I think it's surprisingly wholesome.

Like by the time you get to the end of the game, you'll see that they're, you know, we're not cynical people and we have some heart. And I think hopefully it shines through in the game. Well, for sure, I think one of the things, you know, as Nick was talking about out there, right, the nostalgia we all have for the 90s, to have that with the aesthetic of the game, the art of the game than obviously being 90s related to the story like i feel like that while scary and survival horrie is also hey guess what that is pinging on what you remember and what you love and you know nick was like oh man even though we have the fog machine in there he's like you know

imagine playing this you know at night with the lights off and it's like yeah i think about that in the glow of the television set and i think about me in high school playing games with my PS1 right sitting there and doing that uh yeah one thing i didn't ask you and i show of and I apologize. Krista is we're talking about the art style being very PlayStation 1. Like that's what it was looking for. Why did you choose that? Is it strictly because your horror games you think of are PlayStation 1 related?

And then how hard was it to make a modern game that looked like that? And I'm very not technically savvy. But the way the screen moves, it moves in a way that is like not smooth. It's not ugly. It's by design not like, oh, this looks like it's running at 120. frames per second. Yeah, I think every design decision we make is very intentional. So the art

style was chosen. One, again, because we're a small team, like we thought that that was an art style that we could achieve and make a lot of assets, original assets for. So like, because I'm making and painting every texture and every model by hand. So what's a fast way to do art? Low Poly. we're again like growing up on these horror games when I was a kid that yeah it was like such a touchstone like oh that's like a great inspiration I think

we were seeing too we're like huge like indie horror games fans so we're just like on itchio like all the time and we see we see like certain games like oh wow that's really fun that's the thing that people are doing and remixing it becomes inspiring so I think because we're just in the general atmosphere of what indies are doing

we're getting like inspired and you know by trying things out. I think there was also some intentionality of like at the time we started making this game, there's a lot of indie horror games being inspired by like PT and amnesia, like all the first person atmospheric things. So partly we, you know, just practically we wanted to separate ourselves a little bit from that.

So we started looking at our other horror inspirations and that's where like the PlayStation games came up. And I think we also still try. try to capture some of like the first person physical feeling setups that you get from like an amnesia or amnesia inspired game with our like first person mode for clicking and things yeah I think one thing we're just like mixing a bunch of our inspirations together yeah we're talking about visuals we've talked about the story

the one thing we haven't talked about I would say are both voice acting and sound effects I think when I talked to you at SGF I asked you who the voice actors were because they sound like a bunch of different people and they're awesome. But then today getting to play it in the comfort of our own lab, like the sound effects are so off-putting in a good way. And the way you're using on the dual sense, right, the speaker to have it be the shrieky noises and the locks and the squeaks and stuff. Like, talk to me about that because I feel like you can,

you guys have the stuff to make the game, make the environment, make the art, but that's performances and sound effect library. How did any of that work? Well, we got so lucky with our voice actors. Like we, again, we're doing all this for the first time. And we're seeing like, okay, how do people hire voice actors? And like, make up casting call on Twitter. Is this a Google?

Is this what you did? Did you Google like how to hire? We did exactly that. We googled it. And yeah, we put a casting call on Twitter. And our main leads applied for our casting call. And we just chose what we thought were the best ones. And they were completely amazing.

Wow. It's how many talented people are out there when you just like ask. Like, hey, you guys, if you want to do voice acting a game, like, we were really sifting through just dozens of, like, really great actors and trying to find what, not who's the best actor, but who just fit our game the best? Like, what was, like, the tone that we were looking for? And, yeah, we just were so, so lucky to find the actors that we did.

Like, they were also pretty, just aligned in, like, like with us in terms of attitude like they're new to their careers and they haven't really done games before and so it's like we're all in the same boat of trying this trying this for the first time and it's awesome this has been amazing yeah

so you talked about you know this starts from a little time in the pandemic and obviously we've been going for quite some time did you were they recording this in like their closets and sending you audio files? Oh yeah they had home recording booths because they had worked on other projects and did voice acting before

Yeah. But yeah, we just did like remote like video record sessions and like ask them to teach us how to direct them. Like what do what do you do? What is a director do? They really stepped us through the whole process. And it was yeah, it's really helpful. We learned a lot from them. Yeah. And then yeah, such a nerdy question. But what so did you sign up for one of like the the sound catalogs of effects? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just found a bunch of like catalogs like some for um, we actually used a lot of sound libraries for like movie trailers and movie scores and stuff. And then we kind of tried to dynamically like pull those into the game. So we're triggering like trailer, scary trailer sounds in the middle of our game. And some of our monsters are just like whatever weird noises we can find. And like, as long as we can remix it to the spot where it feels right to us, like, again, we have no idea what we're doing. So the best we can do is like throw something in there and iterate.

Like if it sounds bad, try again. And if it sounds a little bit better, move more in that direction. If it sounds worse, move in the other direction. Yeah, all the sound was Brian putting it all together. I think because he's putting the gameplay and how it feels on the controller and how it feels with the sound, he's trying to marry all these ideas together. And he does such a good job making it cohesive. Yeah, it helps that I'm like, I'm a coder and a designer.

And so because I know, like, from a technical perspective, when is any, like, gameplay event happening, like a finger move, which means like some progress is made in the puzzle, or an enemy becomes aware of you, or enemy appears on screen for the first time. Like, I already know what the code is keeping track of, so I can just hook up sounds to every possible piece of

I can think of, and then it just ends up. You just really start adding and adding and adding until stop sucking. Well, I don't think it sucks. I don't think you have to worry about that. I mean, even the, animation in that where we were opening the fingers to get the rose. Like that, enough was creepy and it was just peeling back fingers of a statue.

So you're doing just fine on being creepy, let alone anywhere you want. Thank you. And I think... It's so weird. We don't know what's creepy anymore. We've been sharing at this thing for so long that, you know, we just have to trust that at some point we thought it was cool. So that leads me to my final question before I want to just ask you if there's anything

you need to talk about. What does today feel like? You know, you are a two-person development team. You left your jobs. You did this thing. You decided to have a kid in the middle of it too. You had the savings. And then like Blumhouse comes in and this very, I would say,

and correct me if I'm wrong, unheard of story of you publish the game. And then they're like, yo, we like this game. Can we actually publish, give you more money to make it better and publish it again? Like you are finally at the end of this journey. Like what does today feel like for you launch day?

Where everyone can go by and they should right now if you're the spotlight. It's surreal, man. Like yeah, today is launch day. I don't think it's fully sunk in yet. I think like you said, we've been, you know, working to the last minute to try to get anything we can done for this game. And yeah, now that people are discussed, like, I still don't believe it. You know, people are saying good things about it and the reviews are positive.

And like today, Shuhay Yoshida changed his profile to be the spotlight and his manner and stuff. Like the best. We didn't ask him to do that. He just did it. Yeah. It's crazy. I don't believe. Yeah, it's so weird.

It's really weird. Shoes the man. Then before I let you get back out there to bask in your reviews and, of course, probably check for bugs and do anything else that people are reporting. Krista, is there anything you want to say? Is there any question that people in all the interviews you've done haven't asked you that you want to talk about? And Brian, I'm coming to you with the same question. Oh, the things that we haven't talked about. I don't know.

I think people have been pretty great at asking questions. I think I'm like a very nervous person. I never know what to say. Oh, you're been great. Thank you. I think like if you are unsure about playing this game, I think it's for people who might not think that they can play a horror game. So if you've never played a horror game before,

I think this would be like a really great first horror game. If you like horror movies and you don't really play a lot of video games, I think we try to make this experience for those people. I think if you're a scary cat, please try out our game. Brian? Yeah, I think, I don't know, I get really excited when people actually play the game because it gets fairly personal. Like when we made the first half of the game,

what is now basically the first half of the game before Blumhouse jumped in and let us make, you know, we basically doubled the game after Blumhouse showed up. That gave us a lot of confidence to get a lot more personal with our writing. So when people actually get to play it and respond to the characters and their conversations and stuff, that's just like my favorite part. When people get to talk about what's going on with the characters and what they're thinking and feeling. And the fact that like the reviews and people who have played it so far are actually responding to that has been wild. Like that's been like the most fulfilling thing.

Well, awesome. Congratulations to you both. And thank you for taking the time out of launch day to come talk. to us. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, this is a real joy. I've been a long time fan. Anytime. Oh, real. Well, thank you. Hold on a second. Thank you. I'm kidding.

If you're the spotlight, everyone is available right now. It is on Steam. It is on PlayStation. It is on Switch. It is on Xbox. Which means you should pick it up wherever you would like to, even though we know PlayStation has trophies. So you should probably pick it up there. For now, again, Time Warp. We're going to kick it back to the games cast in the future for people

to enjoy. And we're going to say goodbye, right now to our Twitch slash YouTube live viewers and remind them that they can go watch right now the happy hour, which we're doing over on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny, but I digress. Until next time, here's the Gamescast. I was so young. I was so impossibly young back there.

And thank you all for watching this episode of the Kind of Funny Gamescast. We're going to end abruptly, kind of, because of course, we're going to react to that fallout stream in four minutes. So you can go watch that live reaction later on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or, no, that's where you watch it. If you're watching live, stay on Twitch.

YouTube, there'll be a new link. Of course, podcast services around the globe. We'll be back tomorrow with the biggest video game topics on the Kind of Funny Games cast. But until then, it's been our pleasure to serve you.