Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Making Games in 2018 (w/ Mike Bithell)- Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 162

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

The amazing Mike Bithell stops by to talk about making games in 2018. (Released first to http://www.Patreon.com/KindaFunnyGames Supporters on 03.16.18) For more Bithell follow: https://twitter.com/mikeBithell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the first ever, episode 162 of The Kind of Funny Games cast as always. I'm Tim Geddes joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games. I'm giving it to you. Jared Patti. Doki, and thank you so much, Tim. Glad to be here. And joined for the first time on this show. I think so.

But you've been on, you're a kind of funny family. Mike Bithel, ladies and gentlemen. Hey! I feel like the sweet filling and a friendship sandwich right now. This is really nice. This is going to be a very positive show. if anything that I know these gentlemen has to say about it, because these are two of the nicest people I've ever met,

ever had the pleasure of speaking to, and I think it's going to be a damn good show. For people out there that might not know, Mike, what do you do? I make computer games. Easy. Thanks, everyone. It's been a great show. Tompson's Alone.

Volume. Earth Shape, which was this Google thing that was on one specific phone, so people don't know about. But track it down. Earth shape, I've just said, subsurface circular is the most recent one, which just came out on Switch. There you go.

A little plug there. There you go. Boom. Yeah, and check that out because it's really, really neat. Oh, thank you. That's very kind. It's very kind. Yeah, it's going really well for us on Switch. That's neat. But yeah, so just making stuff. I'm a designer and writer, and I work with a really awesome team who do all the actual work. Very cool. And you're here for GDC, just hanging out.

Just hanging out. Just hanging out. So you went to Vegas for Dice, and then you're decided, I'm just going to stay here in America because GDC's right around the corner. Jet lag is awful. Right? Going home for three weeks and kind of putting up with all that, putting up with that noise and mess.

It's just like, yeah, stay in town for three weeks. So yeah, we've been to Vegas, L.A. and now San Francisco, and we're just having a holiday. So you see a lot of my holiday. I'm on holiday at this very moment. And thank you for coming through. We're seeing the West. We're seeing the West Coast.

Do you do the East very much? I've been to, I went to, I went to, New York for a day to see Hamilton because I'm a nerd. Okay. It's totally true, though. It's awful. I've been to Boston briefly for PACs. But that's the thing is, usually when I'm in America, it's for work.

So I'm kind of glued to a convention center or I'm on, I'm in a, I mean, usually I go to a place, check into the hotel. Next day, go into a room with a console, demo my game for three days, then fly home. Like, I don't really get to see the cities. So it's nice to be able to actually explore. I'm glad you're getting to see some of the country. That's cool. It's nice. Yeah, it's a lovely country.

Lovely country, terrible health care. True. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together and talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. We all have a very good time. You can watch the show live by going to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. And for just $1, you can watch live with us like so many of you are right now.

Or for a couple more dollars, you get to watch the VOD when it goes up on Patreon on Friday. which is earlier than Monday when it's available to everybody on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. And it's worth going on Patreon because you also get the pre and post show that you don't get anywhere else. And it's some real good stuff. It's great content today. I was excited to see it. You had a debate between just talking about Star Wars 7 and 8. Yeah, we're talking about Star Wars 7 and 8.

I discovered I am used to being the person because I liked the movie a lot, but had some criticisms. And I'm used to being the person in the room that's between two people who just zealously loved it. And instead, I was the positive influence on this conversation as somebody who liked it. When Kevin Coelho's in the room. I feel like it falls, it's kind of in that return of the Jedi area where it's a really good movie that fits the aesthetic. This conversation for another time. We're not getting into it. You can't give this away for free.

This is what your Patreon. You got to get to that free show. And speaking to Patreon, shout to Patreon producer Tom Bach. Thank you, of course, for all that you do. But we're going to get right into it. The structure of today's show, we're going to talk about all the games that we've been playing recently. And then we're going to get to the topic of the show that is, Mike Bithel.

Woo! The journey, the future, everything. That's a good topic. The one thing that you know probably better than anyone else is you. Well, no one else cares. It's not just, oh dear, sorry Kevin. It's not that I'm a genius on the subject, it's that no one else has studied the subject. So you are the authority.

You're the absolute authority. I am the world's leading authority on my own life. Well, maybe today you'll inspire somebody else to become the next lead authority. I think it was just like hang some red curtains behind him, put some like candles up, like behind the music. like behind the music and then put a little dramatic lead in and out and to talk about and then everything's changed exactly so let's start with you Mike what have you been playing nothing because we talked a little bit about this and I argued with you I had a little debate you did I think you did play a couple things what were you up to so I went to Disneyland hell yeah you did yeah big Disney

fan um specifically like as a game designer because it is like it is basically a theme park is an open world kind of video game um and and all that world building and storytelling I'm obsessed with. I buy books on the statistical analysis of flow patterns around the parks. Okay. These exist. They're very cool. Really good at parties. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, and so I'm obsessed with how they work and kind of the behind-the-scenes stuff as well. So I have a really good time with it. And the rides are just amazing. That's really interesting you're saying this about how it relates to video games. And you,

as a designer, people that have made games, like, when you're walking around Disney, how do you think you have a different experience than me that's just a fanboy and loves it. I mean, 95% of me is just going, ah, you know, excited. Like, that's 95%. But no, I get obsessed with how queuing is organized. I'm really cool. I hope that's kind of across. I get, you know, the way that they, the way they'll steer you towards stuff.

And it's all the stuff you see in a great kind of uncharted level, right? That kind of light, color, kind of funneled spaces that kind of push you in the direction. The weenies, the things that draw you in And Disney man is so full of that And the way they transition you from world to world Is amazing Like the idea that although Cardinal Sin when I was there

I saw two goofies simultaneously No you didn't I did somebody's getting fired Yeah someone's getting fired They made a goof That's a word Oh you got goofy Oh look at that

Okay you saw two go How did you see two goofies I was not gonna say the day Oh no wait We don't want to get somebody in trouble Yeah But there was there was two goofies one was clearly, have I broken this whole thing.

We're going to need to get up on the mic. Hey. Yeah. So one was clearly like a show goofy. Uh-huh. And one was a walking around goofy. So for those that don't know, at Disneyland, there is a rule for the people that work there that no matter where you're looking, you should not be able to see two of the

same character. Because there's only one goofy. There's only one Mickey. And to like have the whole illusion be real. Those are not employees. Those are cast members. And this is a show. It's not a, you know, and so you can't break that up.

It would be like, yeah, and it was a split moment. Clearly someone had realized what was happened. One of them just got sucked into the ground. You never seen, there's like one guy man handling the second goofy throw a doorway. But it was, it was, that was, but I like that kind of stuff. Like, and Kerry used with me is, she, she works as a prop maker and public maker in the film industry. So she's looking at it from that direction. So to the extent that, you know, the fast passes and all that,

We optimize the fast passes and get as much time as you can. But we went, we went back to Guardians of the Galaxy for the Q after we'd rode it because the queue has all these amazing props. And for the non-British, the Q is the line. Sorry. Yeah, that's all right. That's all right. Yeah.

It's like it's Britain's favorite pastime. It's getting in line. That's a great hitchhiker's got to the galaxy joke about that. Is that? It probably is. Oh, there is in the film. Yeah, absolutely. Nice.

God, I love Douglas Adams. I rip him off regularly. That's fine. No one notices. It's fine. I've gone away with it up to this point of my career. It's good. But you were saying before I interrupted you, I'm sorry. But yeah, so we went back and we went in the queue for an hour

and just kind of enjoyed the theming. And that's the craft of it is why I enjoy it. It's so awesome. It's amazing. But then in addition to that, there is video games in some of the rides. There is Toy Story. The Toy Story ones. There's Midway Mania and then there is the Astroblasters.

So I'm not a big Buzz Light Year. It's a little too old. It's dated. It's aged. No, it has, though, Kevin. No, it has. It has, definitely. It's supposed to compare to Midway Mania.

Like, Haunted Mansion, still a classic. Still incredible. That one, not so much. But, no, the Toy Story one is fantastic. It's amazing. Have you experienced this? No, that's Toy Story one, no. Midway Mania is a ride slash video game where you get in it.

It's a bunch of Midway-inspired games with Mr. Potato Head's kind of like the host of the thing. And it's you and one other person in a pod. And you get this little gun with kind of like a slingshot on it. Yeah, and you're just constantly slingshoting these, these like paintballs. Right. But it's digital in this video wall in front of you. No, it's a lot like the stuff they had a distant quest, I imagine. I've done something very similar in Florida.

It's done by all the same guys as well, actually. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, I'm not sure. Oh, there you go. You got some video there. Yeah, this is probably a lot of... All in 3D visuals. It's amazing.

Pull it up, kid. Oh, okay. Forget it, sorry. Yeah, well, anyways, it's like there's like video wall and there's a bunch of different targets and stuff coming up and then you're just trying to hit with all the paintballs. But because it's video, you're moving physically, in space, but then also you're surrounded kind of by like 3D walls

and it's the whole 3D effect and a bunch of random shit's pop it up and it's just chaos and you're trying to beat the person next to you. And it's so much fun. It's tracking your score throughout. It's lying to you about previous high scores so that you have a good time and feel that you've achieved well on the metric I know is that's fun.

Are you anything good at it? I think I am but the game wants me to think I am. What's funny about it is my friends are addicted to it and love it. Way too much. Go around and around trying to beat their high scores. But there's a game, a video game version of it on Xbox 360.

Oh, okay. And you can practice at home and find all the sneaky, like, extra points and stuff. There's multipliers and stuff, right? That's how those people get the insane scores that you see. Oh, okay. The thing I like about it as well is just from an, it's ironic from the perspective of originally Disneyland was kind of Walt Disney trying to completely do better than Midway. Like that was his whole goal was that this would not be just a midway kind of fairground

attraction. He wanted to do something more. It's brilliant that one of the more recent, one of the most impressive. rides at Disneyland is actually harking back to those things that all Disney was arguing against but yeah it's it's really good we went on it in Disney World and didn't have a good time but we realized that's because we've been queuing for two hours yeah but you queue for five minutes it's a lot more get in line for five minutes yeah they have the fast pass now for it yeah I want to go back for a second

something else you were talking about about how the park is designed and about the forced perspective and things like that can you get an example for for people that aren't familiar with that with with how an design principle for video games has acted out in Disneyland, like a specific example of that that you were noticing? There's so many of them. One that I love is, so in video games, and everyone, I'm sure everyone in the audience knows, has seen this, like where you have asset reuse, where you'll have, where people don't make each crate you see in a level separately, they'll make one crate and populate

around. And then what they'll do is they'll try and be surprising with those uses. There's two really good uses of that in Disneyland. One is between, I think it's between, I think it's Adventure Land to New Orleans. Okay. Where they use the, on the buildings, they use the exact same kind of roof pieces,

but they start separating them more and more towards Adventureland and slowly gradate it over to, so they transition you very slowly. I can't remember. I might be getting the location wrong, but there's like this really simple kind of clean move that goes on. Games designers do that all the time where they'll place props in different ways to incite. The other example I love, I think it's in Disney World in Tomorrowland, where they have the bin that's running for, the litter bin, the trash can that's running for Maya.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, so you have the exact same trash can across Disneyland. It's always the same trash can, and they just change the logos on it and the design. In Tomorrowland, they have one of those that's on a remote control, that they'll drive around, they'll leave parked somewhere. And when someone to put something some rubbish in it,

it'll come to life and kind of run around and it'll start kind of pitching them on the idea of it becoming mayor of Tomorrowland. And so a functioning bin as well. You can actually just put rubbish in it, and it's fine, it thanks you for it and all this. It's actually a cast member just kind of off to the side

with like a romantic troll or whatever. But some of that kind of magic and surprising, breaking a pattern is so crucial in game development is that if you make a game where everything's really predictable, players get bored. But if you can kind of set up a pattern

and then find a moment to kind of magically subvert that, that's what Disneyland does all the time. Like at the end of Mario 2, when every level you've run into the giant birdhead and that meant safety. And it eats you and you're safe. And then in 7-2, you run up to the giant birdhead and it comes after you and attacks you.

And it's amazing. And all it is, it's not actually, when you break it down as a developer, it's not the, I mean, everything Nintendo does is fantastic, but it's not the hardest, almost clever thing in the world. All they've done is they've created. an expectation and subverted it.

I love in the first Halo where the last level is just a race forward. Yep. Super linear in the wardon. Not a technically challenging thing. I'm sure there are interesting technical challenges, but generally like, but it feels so amazing just to be let loose, right? Yeah. Yeah, man, it's worth a sudden special.

Kev, are you, are you prep for that? No, I'm prepping. Okay, let me know, let me know when you. Okay. He's trying to very quickly place blame on you there, Tim. Even if it wasn't, Right now, what have you been playing in the last couple months? I was really surprised by Assassin's Creed Origins.

That was the one that jumped out to me. Did you like, do you like Assassin's Creed? I like Assassin's Creed sometimes. I go back and forth. Origins is really neat. Well, I think I'm similar to you. I was very, so if anyone's played my games, they'll know that the things I love are kind of minimalist graphic design

and I like history and kind of big storytelling in that way. So Assassin's Creed is perfect for me. Like the first Assassin's Creed I was hyped about. I think like everyone, I thought it was really good first game. I've seen Greg refer to the Uncharted One versus Unchide 2. Very much skates with Assassin's Creed, right? The first one was really good, but Assassin's Creed 2 knocks it out of the park. That's the real start of the franchise.

And then I kind of drifted off as a fan, stopped buying the art books, found myself with less Assassin's Creed key rings. I just kind of slowly stopped buying all the merch. And then obviously Black Flag was awesome. but I like those syndicate and what was the French one unity unity yeah um those ones had really lost me and I was I was not in any way excited for origins I think it came out the same day as um Alfenstein so I kind of that was my and my odd Odyssey yeah oh and Odyssey as well which I still haven't played I'm 26 never forget um you're in for a tweet I can't wait I'm saving that one for a rainy day um so I just I played at Assassin's Creed like two weeks after it launched and just was so surprised by it and so

joyful about just how fun it was and how surprising it was to be having fun with an Assassin's Creed game. It felt like I hadn't for a while and it was just, yeah, it's just an amazing experience. What do you think made the difference? I think choice is a big part of it. The fact that it clearly, I mean, it's still, you know, it's still a AAA game. It still has to hold your hand in a lot of ways, but actually it feels for the first time in a while like an open world I can actually explore. I can actually go, I want to go over there and do a thing. I think that's encouraging. I think the RPG, kind of light RPG elements to it kind of gave everything a sense of I'm a sucker for those loops, those content loops and just kind of get the level 28th or get the level 29. So I just,

that's that scratches, that scratches a niche for me. Um, I really like the storytelling as well. Like the actual, the writing and the, the specifically, I think actually the animation, the performance between Bayek and I forget, is it, Anna Allah, the wife in the game, can't remember. But the way they will have a scene and they'll just have kind of a knowing look the way a couple does. You know, when you're talking to someone, you know, you meet someone at a thing and you've, you've been being polite to them, but they've been kind of a jerk. And there's that little knowing look to your girlfriend or wife. It's like, and you both know exactly where you're out on that person, you carry on with your day.

Those moments, I don't think I've ever seen that in a game. And that just immediately emotionally just pulled me into it. So, and also, ancient Egypt's really cool. It is. Right, yeah. That's like that's also a factor. I love Ubisoft for the zaniness that they have. And sometimes it doesn't pay off and they spent 25 minutes talking about a skiing game at the end of their E3 conference.

And sometimes it results in like, you know what, we're going to make a AAA adventure game about Roman Ptolemaic Egypt. Yeah, that sounds good. And that shouldn't exist. And then what it does, it's refreshing and new and wonderful. And that history is so spectacular. And you're like, so well presented. I went out and immediately bought a couple of books on the area. which I've not actually got around to reading it, but that, like, I found myself wanting to spend more time in that world.

The game inspired you to look into Egypt. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I read a bit of history, but not an enormous amount, but that was just one thing that immediately just made me want to. And especially that moment, that clash of Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman culture all coming together right there. It's almost, it's kind of that Flintstones thing of you, you know, these Romans and Egyptians and the Greek all interacting at the same time. Like, you learn the way they teach it in schools. I don't know if it's the same in America, but the way they teach it in schools is very separated. Dinosaurs and cavemen. They never met.

Obviously, they didn't. But this, kind of these periods or these kind of cultures clashing with each other. I mean, how many, if you don't mind me asking it, how much does it stick to the history? How much does it tweak things to make things work? It tweaks things to make them adventurey, but there's plenty. Does it play around? Like, does it bring Cleopatra into an era where she wasn't and that kind of thing?

It bends some rules, but you've still ultimately got, you've got the rise of Octavian and you've got her there and you've got Augustus. It fits well enough. This is actually, this is what I did, my undergraduate and my master's in was this period. So that's something I really, really care about. And it's got an, they do an adaptation. They do what you want in a good movie. They give you enough to go out and dig up the facts and you get to have cool things.

You look at the historical event of something like the Battle of the Nile or Anthony and Cleopatra. And it's already dramatic enough. And so they just, they grab from the best parts of each story, kind of like a good myth writer. would. And they grab the best pieces of all of those, throw them in together. And then, you know, if you want to go up and dig up the history and read your books later on, you're going to find some good stuff there. That's great. That's cool. That sounds about the right level to go for. Because it's not history lesson. Well, actually, it literally is a history lesson now. They added that to the game. There's plenty of history in that game. I mean, there's a lot that they don't fudge. I think people sometimes get a little hung up on the absolute, I mean, people get hung up on it with like fictional properties as well. But like the idea of like absolute canonical fact is something that maybe doesn't matter. as much as I think sometimes we... Entertainment. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, just the idea that you're in any Roman installation and a group of Romans would just run at you once they've detected. That's not what's going to happen. They're going to form a tiny little shield wall in the middle of everything and trap you and you will die. They're going to win. That's what's going to happen. They spent several hundred years.

Yeah. It's been in things that absolutely don't make sense, but doesn't matter because it's fun. Kev, can you pull up the tweet? So, Kit Ellis, who works over at Nintendo of America. Great guy. He does a lot of the PR kind of stuff over there. He tweeted this a couple days ago, and he says, in my opinion,

this is the single greatest piece of video game artwork ever made. All the joy and possibilities that gamers can bring us are right here. And it's the box art of Super Mario Brothers 3, the American version of just the yellow with just Mario with the raccoon tail, just flying, like taking flight. And this tweet really resonated with me.

And I was like, wow, I've never thought about it that way where, I mean, you take a raccoon tail You take a person, you put him together, and he flies. It just made sense to me. I played Mario. I'm like, cool, that makes, I'm not questioning this, but it's like, neither of those things fly. Like, why would this happen? It doesn't matter.

It's fun. And him saying that it's like everything that you need to know about this game and the fun is right there. I was like super taken aback by that. And I was like, I'm busting out Mario 3. I'm playing through it for the thousand time. And I was just like, I'm doing this. And I sat there and it's just that one sitting of just start to finish playing through it. Did you do the long round?

Is it a short route? I did a mix. I didn't do all the warps, but I warped from one, from World One to four, I think it was. You went to Giant World? Yeah, and then I did it from Giant World on. Okay, so you skip the desert, which is one of the best, actually. Yeah, it is definitely. But, man, Mario Brothers 3 is just such a fantastic game.

And the debate between Mario World and Mario 3, we need to settle it at some point, once and for all. Oh, I'm in. I'm in, like Flynn. But it's definitely, there's a question. And I grew up thinking Mario World's number one. And the more that I go back, the more that I think about it, I think I might be wrong about that. No, I think it's Jeremy Parrish who distilled this, you know,

it kind of comes down to, and if I'm paraphrasing here, that you've got Mario 3 is a collection of bite-sized chunks of gameplay. Each level is very short, but does something very distinctive well, whereupon Mario World has a different focus on, they're both about exploration, but very different kinds of exploration. Mario World is about unlocking all the hidden secrets of the map and finding the alternate routes for upon Mario 3 is about kind of doing one thing really well and moving on to the next as soon as that idea is over The Sun only chases you in one level Why is that not a Smash Brothers level? Oh, that's interesting

Why is that not a Smash Brothers level? I don't understand Yeah, the Sun coming down every now and then But I do love what you said about the art there and what Kit said You know Mario 1 when I first saw it it was like it came down from outer space after video games I played before that, the world just went on and on and on and on, never seen anything like it. Mario 2 comes along, it's weird, it's madcap, it's beautiful, it's odd,

I loved it. It scrolls both horizontally in subsections and vertically and others, and you can be different characters, you're kind of floating. Mario 3 comes along, and the message is clear from that art, from all the hype, he can fly. At last year, enemies this entire time have been fallen in the holes. The Coopers are not the enemies.

The Hammer Brothers are not who kill you. It's fallen in the holes. Now you can fly. And the world just scrolls smooth as butter, any diagonal you want to go on. And that was just the ultimate expression of freedom and power in kiddom. Yeah. I love that. That's so good.

I mean, so earlier you were saying that like your dad didn't let you play games when you were younger. My dad would sneak video games in. My parents wouldn't let me play video games as a kid. So my knowledge of games comes in around, yeah, Dreamcast. My knowledge of Mario, I had, I had my, my, My sister had a Game Boy with Mario World 2 on it. Oh. So that's my kind of entry point.

And then I remember, I think I played the, I think I made Mario Brothers three, like maybe in. Was there was like a bundle, right, where it was all the previous Mario games that came on. All stars. Yep. So a friend of mine had all stars. I had one friend who had All Stars. I had one friend who had Sonic. And I would kind of use their consoles.

I just had a lot to be able to do. So you had the greatest video game cartridge ever made. Of all time with all stars. But I did not get enough time on it because that friend. quite liked himself. Yeah. And I would, so I spent a lot of time

watching Marry. That was my experience. But, but yeah, so like, yeah, I come in, I come in as a player

of Mario, like, sunshine. Like, that's late. Did you go back and like, like,

have you played through the original Mario's? No. Wow. Yeah, I need to. Like, that's such an interesting

kind of, especially as, as like, the game I'm best known for is a Mario Ripple. It's a plan. I should probably check those games out. That's cool,

though. I think that's, like, That's so unique. It's unique or uneducated. You could look at it both ways. I'm naive. I'm innocent in my influences.

Do you have your 3DS with you on the trip? I do not have any console with me on the trip, sadly. Oh, that's too bad. You can play all three of those on there. I think you'll be playing them on the road. I should definitely go back and play Mary. I played Sonic a lot, but I still like played the first couple of worlds of Sonic a lot. I didn't actually play anything else.

So I do need to go back at some point and check them out. Wow. I'll just send mine with you. Manube. Well, continuing on the retro flare for a little bit, Jared, what have you been playing this last week? There we go.

Back to the list. You know, we had to trim it down a little bit here. We talked before the show. We talked before the show. You got to get to where it's got to go here. Now, a few things this week. I went back, first off, on Steam, to a game that I enjoyed

and didn't get enough time in. River City Ransom Underground, which I bought some time ago. Arc System Works. You ever played that? It's like an all peachy fighting game? Yep, it's an RPG brawler. Yeah, or a player, no, a fighting brawler.

It mixes all of them. It's really wonderful. It's based on one of the best NES games, River City Ransom, which is a beautiful, just kind of perfect brawler. It's maybe the greatest of all time. But it's also part of a series of games in Japan. There have been like more than 30 of these. The Coonio games. And these characters in each game are just recast again and again and again.

So in one game, they're street thugs, fighting, you know, fighting brawls with rival gangs. And the next one, they're in their high school play, you know, and they're reliving a period piece. And so the whole game is a samurai play that they're doing at their high school. And so they're on stage and that lets you throw these characters back into ancient Japan. It's always the same characters. It's like a kind of troupe of actors. Exactly, yeah. And they have this very distinctive look.

And they do these great, some of the games came to America like Super Dodgewell is very famous, but these incredible sports games. The basketball game is unreal. It never came to the States. It's so good. And they've made games. And it wasn't just NES. They branched out to other platforms.

There's even arcade games based on the series. And or series based on, it depends on how you want to look at it. So what is River City Ransom underground? It's a remake slash reimagining of River City Ransom for four players, RPG brawler combination, beautiful, great mechanics, true to the spirit of the original, but a completely new game. Lots and lots and lots of depth, which you're not used to in brawlers, lots of incentives to go back and new things, lots of characters with unique ability, lots of special movesets you learn, character advancement, fights don't get boring.

It's because you have to engage every enemy a different way. It's great. And I'm so glad to go back to it. And then that got me thinking I had been sitting on my horse, last week we were talking about the Nintendo Direct. And this is attitude I do not completely understand. I get that the 3DS is on its last legs. And I'm fine with that.

What I don't get is ever giving up on any platform that has good games to play on it, especially for the inhabitants of Vita Island that we have here. Yeah. So I don't quite get that. So there's still some good games for 3DS. And one of those that came out not too long ago is another River City Ransom game, River City Ransom rival schools. And so I got my old Axead 2DS out, big ugly. Yeah.

You remember that sucker? Yeah. And got that out and start playing rival schools again. And that is an interesting, different take on River City Rans out. It has a three-day, it's kind of like Majora's Mask in River City Ransom at a baby. Okay. There's a day-night cycle, a three-day timer, incentives to go back to the games, different plot choices that lead to different things happening.

Different stuff can only happen at different times a day. There's a city to explore. It's non-linear. It's really fun. And again, it's a brawler. So that's odd. And it's a kind of game, it feels in a way like Dragon's Crown in that regard. Oh, interesting.

It's fun. There's some things about it that are weird. I can't quite understand. And like you get mocked for some strange things by rival gangs. I met a girl and she's like, I want to be your girlfriend. You're like, I just met you. And then a gang comes along. And they're like, let's fight and you fight.

And then they slap the girl in the face. And they're like, are you upset? We slap that girl. Are you crying because the girl got slapped? You're a wimp. We're going to tell everyone on social media. And then they run away in Luchador masks. So some weird things happen again.

But it's darn entertaining and a very unique. And I really just these are two, I'm talking a lot, but these are two separate imaginings of the same source material, completely different games, both really fun. I love, that doesn't happen much at all.

And I don't know how our system works is making money making these, but they're both worth your time. Well, that's the thing usually is if you're working, because obviously the franchise side of things, like if your franchise is making enough money to justify that many releases, usually you're being very conservative with them

because you want to make sure, you know, that you keep recapturing that lightning in a bottle, right? So the idea of actually having a franchise like just spin out and do lots of weird things. I really liked the Blood Dragon idea from Ubisoft. I kind of got it that didn't have more. I wanted to play Assassin's Creed Blood Dragon. Like I wanted that, that kind of those way maxes.

Yes, right? Cyberpunk Assassins. I think that they tried with trials of the Blood Dragon that didn't really fire, right? I don't think, I don't think it, maybe it did, but it didn't seem from the outside like that one kind of caught people as much. Yeah, it seems like people didn't like that one much.

But I love the idea. right. That's a great idea. I wish people would take more risks with these kind of franchise and IPs and yeah. It's a shame weird. Yeah, get weird. Why not? Why not? Because like look at the Sonic game last year. Sonic Mania. Like they did it. They did it. They did it. They went in a good Sonic game. And they, but they did it by just completely spinning off in a different direction than what their kind of overwhelming strategy was. Yeah. And as an indie developer who's kind of often pitching to publishers and having those kind of conversations, it's, it's really, it's, so hard to get a publisher on board for those kind of ideas.

It's so cool to see that work and for the audience to embrace it. Yeah, and latch on to it. Oh, man, when we get to the Mike Bithel part of this, I can't wait to ask you more about that. I will not be able to tell you anything. I will tell you after we've grabbed on the tape of stories. So Jared, the next game you have on here might be the most Jared Petty thing I've ever seen in my life.

And I'm a little scared, if I'm being honest. I have it down as Oregon Trail handheld. Okay, so I love handhelds. Yeah, I love handhelds. But no, actually, Gary's talked about this too. Target, of all places, we can say Target exclusive, dedicated handheld. It's the Oregon Trail. Have you played the Oregon Trail, Mike?

I've not, but actually it's a dedicated. You're saying it's dedicated? Yeah, it's a simple, cheap little LED screen and a few dedicated buttons. It's actually put together pretty well. It's the one I have. It seems to be pretty durable. and it's the classic MECC version of the Oregon Trail. It's a port.

I don't think it's running through an emulator looking at the graphics because it has some functions that are specific to the handheld. It knows where it is, which is good. Because there's a been, the Oregon Trail originally ran on teletype. Like you played it through a teletype machine. It's that old.

And it's just been remade over. It's not a monitor. It's a printer. Imagine playing a video game and then the output comes out on a printer and then you enter a new command. But gradually it's evolved into many different versions. The most iconic of which is the Apple II version that was at least by Mech, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, which is a group of early educational software makers in America.

And in the United States. Who all died of dysentery. Yeah, exactly. But they, Apple and Mac kind of dominated American public schools in the mid-1980s. Okay. similar to what the BBC did with the BBC micro in the UK. Exactly. Almost exactly the same kind of thing.

And Oregon Trail is, I'm not going to rant too long on it, but it's one of the most brilliant video games ever. It does more thing. I hate it so much. The Oregon Trail was a game. No, the Oregon Trail was a game that it's designed to be deliberately subversive. It's a, it's nominally a one-player game, but it's designed for a one-computer for classroom.

So let's put the names all your friends in and you can all end it because it's served based you can all sit there and decide what to do and you can argue about what's going to happen next But it also did amazing things like you know you could put your you know your friends name in or you could put some other kids name it or you could put the teachers name in and then name them poop yeah or you can name a poop and it didn't stop you from doing that And then you're going down the trail and it's just like hey Tim I'm playing with you oh wait you made me mad And start like putting the pace up making bad decisions. Oh, Tim has typhus. Oh, Tim has typhes. FOID. Uh-oh, we better move faster and I could kill Tim. Or it just would be like, nope, sorry, Tim's dead, ha ha. Orgon Trail as a six-year-old when I first played this game.

It was the greatest trick that teachers ever pulled on us because it was like, hey, look, it's a video game and it got us all excited to play a video. I could not. You had a gun and you murdered endangered species. You shot Buffalo by the thousands and then you learned that you can only carry 100 pounds of meat and so you were wasting their flesh and we're all just laying on the prairie and rot, but you do it again because you're a horrible child. And you'd kill them and you'd help.

I never got that for it. And they get sticking in your head. And there's a million little subversions like that in it. Also the fact that, actually, I'm going to write a book about this someday. There's these things in there where like you, you were playing with a group of people, but it was saved on a floppy disk. If you died in the game, if you got wiped out, and you could all die, which was weird for a kid's game, you could just leave a tomb.

behind and you could engrave it with whatever you wanted it would have here lies that and so you would leave profanities or horrible messages and you put them on the disc and the next person who came along and played it if they reached that spot they would find your tombstone and it would pop up and it could tell so if you use the original docels exactly if you use the fake name you could leave these horrible obscene messages for your fellow kids or jokes or whatever you wanted and some of those because you know school computers lasted for years you'd be five years later and there'd be some kid that had been like five years older

and you leaving this horrible obscenity for you to discover. That's pretty cool. I remember the old drawing programs you'd have on the school computers would always. Pick cross. So much. Not picker. It was so much stuff saying. And they would always have some disturbing imagery in them.

Kids, man. They have imaginations. They're great. And it was designed around that, but because it embraced that stuff and because it was a very well-designed game. And it was actually fun for a million. It taught you about history, but also taught you about,

environmentalism. It taught you a lot about economy. That was a huge deal. It taught you a ton about economics without you realizing it. Yeah. It's kind of spectacular in that regard. So a great game and the handholds are really good faithful version. That's cool. I like it. Target exclusive. Interesting.

So the next time we got Xbox backwards compatibility. So you've been playing dabbing the box backwards compatibility is really kind of like ridiculously well supported. Is it now? I remember I've not checked in for a while. It seems like E3. They always bring out the entire list. Here's the big guns and here's more. But it's like, yeah, in between those months, they just keep announcing stuff. And, you know, I'm not going to go too

far into this because people have heard it, but I recently got the Xbox 1X and checked it out for the first time. And yeah, it's like the amount of games available on both the original Xbox and 360. It's kind of mind-boggling. It's especially the Xbox Live Arcade stuff. I can't believe they're supporting. Want to play that awesome lost 2D Blood Rain game that no one played? Guess what? It still works. No way. What? Yeah, want to play Radiant Silver Gun? Guess what? It's Still works. I shipped a game on Xbox Live like eight years ago

and it's frustrating to me that no one can play it and I especially I want to go back and try it's called I worked on a when I was working a bigger team

called Invincible Tiger the legend of hand down it was the first 3D digital 3D game as in as in stereoscopic glasses Oh, got it

kidding I don't think that's on the list probably not I think it sold like five copies I don't think it did amazingly well Did you still get paid? Hell yeah I did

All right Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, no, but I mean, all the way down to things like Fusion Frenzy, which like I just remember. Also from the studio I used to work out. Really? I didn't work on it. It was just before I joined it.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Did you work in any other? I love that. Horrible demo. I'm trying to think. So I was a Blitz who did. So, like, Xbox 360 era was when I kind of came in just at the start of the Xbox

360 era. So it was Invincible Tiger. We did one of the Dead to Rights games. You remember the cop and his dog games? The Xbox 360 version Had the Test to Kill Which is the single best named That's the best context action

In video game history, I think And then I'm trying to think Why else I shipped on Xbox 360 Not a lot else Lots of like Nickelodeon tie-ins On the Wii and stuff Oh lovely Yeah

Oh that fun Well one of which is now a meme in Brazil A Brazilian meme What does the mean? It's I-Carly Remember the show? Well familiar Yeah

Yeah We did a tie-in game for that and it's a thing in Brazil. I just keep getting messages from Brazil about it. Now, I need to ask, did you work on Corey bringing down the house on the Nintendo DS? That way did not work.

That is a meme. Okay, no, I didn't work on that one. I worked on the, it was the Wii title. It was actually a bit of ahead of its time because you, it was like a little, you could like sequence kind of a bit warrior-ware, but you could kind of sequence different mini-games together, build your own kind of YouTube show before,

obviously it was even called YouTube, but like you could, it was a little head of, of a time. It was kind of a creative toy rather than a game. Oh, I'm flying to like Marky Mark make your own video now. There's the Spice Girls game on PlayStation where you could make music

videos and remixes. Oh yeah. I was addicted to that shit because I'm a sick fuck. So you've been playing Guardian Heroes. Yeah, and this is a big surprise. I'm going to talk about a Sega Saturn game. But Guardian Heroes is redonculus. It's so good. I've been

on a brawler kick lately and maybe that's what got me on it. So Gretti and Heroes looks like a brawler It's extremely colorful The remake is not just competent It's superb It's one of the more loving TLC remakes I've seen on the 360

It moves it to widescreen And the and the transference is great It moves it to HD But you can still get high res pixelated graphics for it Or go into a different graphics mode The controls are perfect You can play as multiple characters All of whom have vastly different

abilities, magic spells, different. And again, it's that RPG mix, level up thing. But every time you play through, you have choices to take you through different routes in the games. You play it over and over and over again. And each way you play it through is a different result. And then it plays a different character. It's different. It's great. It's beautiful. It's one of the brightest, most colorful. It looks like a freaking cartoon. It's glorious. But it can, what makes our and heroes really stand out is that it looks like a brawler, but it controls like a fighting game. When I say fighting game, I mean in terms of like a street fighter style game. There are three planes.

You know, normally in a brawler, you move. Can you pull up Guardian Heroes? Yeah. Normally in like a Ninja Turtle Simpson style brawler, you'll kind of move up and down the screen. In Guardian Heroes, what you're doing is using your bumpers or whatever. To flip between the top between three planes, small, you know. There you go. Okay, yeah, a lot like that.

So you're coming up and then your controls, because you're doing that, that means up is now for you to jump. And so your controls, feel like a fighting game. And you're engaging all your enemies. And you have this huge movesets for every character. And then your enemies have a lot of different movesets. And so you see, he's hopping between planes right now, right there.

Now this is, he's going to beat some barrels. It was very early in the game. And actually kind of a dark level. Most of the levels are really bright and colorful. That's beautiful. This looks really cool, though. No, it's a great game. I love the idea of the different tiers flipping back and forth

instead of the Ninja Turtle style control because I think a big problem in a lot of brawlers, have is it's hard to understand where you're punching. Exactly. I went my 3D depth on this. And with this, it's like, oh, it's clearly one, two, or three. Yeah, see, they're in the forward. Now he's hopping into the middle right there.

And these guys are allies. That dude, right, the way, is a scale. You get this magic sword at the beginning of the game. And you're like, oh, hey, where does this magic sword come from? And you're getting your butt kicked. And then suddenly lightning strikes the magic sword out of your hero's hand. And that dude rises out of the earth behind you and grabs it and screams. You're like, he's going to kill me.

And then he joins you and he's your buddy for the whole game. And it's got a really Oh, it's so good. And that 3D effect on the ground, the, oh, what's name? It's lovely. Yeah, I love this game. It also has a up to six player and it might be even increased.

The Xbox might be all the way up to like 12. I can't remember. But there's this multiplayer like combat like brawl mode as well. So you just hop in with your friends and beat each other up. So but you can play co-op with several players. That looks super awesome. I want to try that. Oh, that's a great game.

I can't believe I've never seen or heard of it. I've obviously aware. of Gunstar heroes, but I didn't know about Garvey. And it's by Treasure. Same folks. Yeah, same folks. Very cool. And then the last thing you got on here is BioShok.

Yeah, as I was working on as hop blip and a jump. Hey, I'm gonna, guess what? Second episode's out. By the time you're watching this, we're watching it on Monday or Friday, for that matter. It's out Friday. But yeah, hop, lip and a jump, I had to do a lot of footage capture for that. I always do. And thematically, it tied into Bioshop a lot.

So I ended up going back and starting Biosec again for the first time and forever. You know what? game still real neat. Oh, yes. There's a lot of rough around the edges, but sometimes I like rough around the edges. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So all I can really say about that is the first half of Bioshock sure is rad.

And then just don't play anymore after the first half. But the first half of Bioshock is really, really rad. Oh, I don't know. I love it. What's the turning point? Why's the point? Right, right after, really everything after Ryan, I feel like is just kind of mop-up. I mean, the level design is still very good, but,

it does it almost feels obligatory sometimes I wish that game had yeah sometimes I mean it's good they put a lot of love into that game for beginning to end I don't want to be too hard on it but I almost feel like ending at Ryan might have made a better game they really just nail you I'd actually forgotten that there was stuff after Ryan

like you know what I mean like there's a lot too yeah there's quite a better game and it's fine I don't want to so but hey mechanically it's a little awkward now and it feels dated but feels I have this thing about the language of controls. You know, I understand that, yes, B shoots and A jumps. That's very important. You can't break that rule.

And likewise, with twin six shooters, we've gotten to the point that everything is codified. But maybe it's good to be brought out of our comfort zones and controls every now and then and be like, by the way, there are different ways to approach games besides the same way we approach everyone. And so when something feels different, that's not necessarily bad. Don't reject it just because it doesn't fall into the language of control that you understand. One of my oldest examples of that is Bionic Commando, which was a platformer where you can't jump. If you played that game for two minutes, you would think it's the worst 2D platformer imagine. Well, you play it for an hour and you realize you're playing an incredible video.

Do you agree? Do you like it? Oh, Bionic Commando, yeah, different level. And so it's, but it's different. And that makes people afraid of it. All right, that's what I've been playing. And there you go, ladies and gentlemen. So Mike, I'm really interested in a lot of things you're talking about there.

You were at Blitz. Yeah, sorry, dude. I can do the hole. Do you want to do the whole? I love, let's start there. And I just want to know, we don't need to do the whole like, and then I did this. I met this guy. He was like, you're going to go far, kid.

Yeah, exactly. And here we are today. But, I mean, so you just put out the game on Switch. And it came out on PC last year, right? Yeah, yeah. And I remember there was something about it that was unique. like the release, like you Beyonce dropped it? We Beyonce dropped it.

Yeah. And that was the, Beyonce, Beyonceing, that was the verb we used internally. Good. Like, we're going to Beyonce this. Love that. And yeah, and it worked. And people liked it a lot. Now it's on Switch.

People can get that. So it's a small game. Anyone who's not familiar with it, it's called Sub-Surfac circular. It's a text adventure game. That's how we framed it. Basically, a dialogue game. Like, kind of like a mass effect dialogue, tree, the game, basically.

all text-based, no voiceover. It was made in four months because we had a gap because we'd, I don't want this to be the bashing publishers show, but we had some, sadly a publisher had let us down with something. So we had kind of this weird six-month gap in our schedule where we had to do something. And it was like, oh, we'll make a little experimental game. And then about, yeah, about a month before we were ready to ship it,

we kind of looked it and went, this is actually quite good. So we polished it up a bit, got it a little, bit more kind of respectable. But there was this fear because it's got kind of a cool visual style to it. It looks, it renders quite nicely because we've got some really good art in there. The artist was fantastic. And I had this massive fear that when you see a screenshot of it, it looks a lot like mass effect. It looks a lot like, I mean, not up to that level, but kind of, it looks like it's the dialogue system from an RPG. And I was terrified about overhype. I was terrified that players would look at that.

And it's only about two hours-ish long. It's a short game. And we price it accordingly and kind of make very clear to the audience as a short game. And I was just very scared of people overestimating what this game was, especially as a sci-fi game. Sci-fi games are very easy to imagine a massive thing in your head. Vast thing in your head.

And we didn't, we hadn't made that. So, yeah, I kind of asked if we could just go, hey, can we like not tell anyone about this? So we just completely went silent, didn't mention it. And yeah, we Beyonce dropped it. We just released it at 6pm UK times, 10 a.m. our time, put it on Steam. We talked to Valve beforehand. They liked it, so they were kind of on board with this, and they liked the idea of an experimental,

well, if we just launched this and nobody knows what would happen. And, yeah, it's done. It's reviewed amazingly well. The player reaction to it's been fantastic. It's profitable very quickly and is now doing its thing. And, yeah, Switch came out, I think, yeah, just last week. And that's now the 10th best-selling game in the UK on Switch. Guys.

It's crazy well, which is still kind of, but you can hopefully tell from my tone, it's like, I still am worried about hype. I don't want to oversell it. It's a small game. It should be taken in that way. But yeah, it seems to have kind of connected. How does that internal meeting work where you say, we're going to make a visually impressive text adventure game?

So the dynamic of Bithel games, there you go, the company, is for a long time it was me. It was just me and like a bunch of awesome kind of collaborators and free. I brought in for each project. And then about two years ago, I brought in a guy called Alexander Slowinski. He used to be a games journalist. He used to work a joystick. And someone I always kind of chatted with and he's a very business-minded person. He kind of got his MBA and was looking to kind of go in.

He was going to go and join the games industry somewhere. And I kind of said to him, look, I need a boss. I need someone who can like come in, make sure everyone's paid on time. You know, tell me not to do stupid things. So that's kind of our dynamic is always kind of, he's the, the logical business person, I'm the kind of, let's do the stupid thing. And that kind of balances out really nicely. And it leads to kind of creative stuff, but creative stuff where the lights stay on.

And this, and yeah, subsurface was this weird situation where, yeah, we had this kind of, this gap of time we had to fill. Or we didn't even have to fill it. It was kind of, we were financially kind of comfortable enough as a studio. We could have spent the time doing anything. And, yeah, I just, I pitched Alexander. I said, look, I feel our games, people like the stories in our games. they like the writing. But one of my biggest problems with our games is they're very linear.

They're very much like, play the game, and while you're doing so, here's Oscar-winning actor, Andy Circus. Yeah, exactly. And he'll tell you a cool story. Here's Danny Wallace doing his thing. And it's like, and that was cool, and people like it. And I love writing and working with those actors. But it does mean that the player is not really telling the story.

So I wanted to play with the idea of kind of choice-based gameplay, non-linear stuff. And I, yeah, I pitched Alexander, like, here's a very small budget game. Because it's just a text adventure game. I'm not going to get Andy Circus is not going to be involved in this one. We're not going to do that. Because for people that don't know. He was a villain in volume. Yeah.

And he was great. And then, yeah, and lots of my games have had those kind of big actors because I enjoy, I enjoy working with them and, you know, just squealing with glee as I try and find out Star Wars. Your life doesn't make sense. Like, this is so cool that you're making these games. Each of your games is so different than the last. Like, to go back to...

I got very lucky. I'm very lucky Where was that point though Like when Thomas was alone Like that being such The hit that it was And that was the turning point So I was very lucky

So the way Thomas So a lot of indie games Are made you know People quit their day jobs And they go We've got X amount money in the bank Let's go and make a game Right

It's very kind of Very dangerous very risky But obviously you can pay off massively I was a chicken And go I didn't go that route I went let's not do that Because I want to like You know pay the bills

So I made a small prototype 24 hour Like game jammy version Thomas was loan and I put it online. And immediately I got in a lot of trouble for doing so because I was employed at a game studio at the time. Conflict of interest. Conflict of interest and all that stuff. Fortunately, they were very, very gracious and said, look, it's about rectangles. We don't have any interest in this. This isn't going to work for us. It seems like a cool

idea though you should keep playing with it in your own time kind of thing. And they wrote a contract for me that said, we don't own this. We'll never come back and claim ownership. Wow. Yeah, which is a really... You made out like a bandit. And I did very quickly. So we, so I mean, so I mean, so I made that game while having a job. And so, so, and Thomas was a loan cost, I think, my time, plus about two thousand pounds. So, what's that, like two and a half thousand dollars, three thousand dollars? Well, the pound keeps going. So, I don't know, it might have changed by the time this goes out. But, but it was very cheap because it was just basically paying for the

voiceover sessions and recording and stuff like that. Okay. So a very cheap game. So we launched the game with no money spent, really, just my time, basically three years of my life kind of, devoted to it. So when it did well, even modestly at the start, that was still massive and awesome. And then, and yeah, I got very lucky. It kind of, it took about six months. I didn't get on Steam straight away. It kind of was building up for about six months. And finally, we launched it in the summer and it was New Year's Eve. It hit the, uh, made enough money that it was a year's salary. And that was the number I told myself, once I've made a year's salary, I'll quit my day job and try this. Yeah. And make another game. And then the following day, January, the first, Total Biscuit,

I did a video of it, which was very glowing. And by the end of that, we could make two-year salary, and it just blew up from there. And that's what that did was that ball. Yeah, I got... And the PewDie Pye eventually making the video? Lots of, yeah, everyone at some point, which was amazing. And just super lucky. Just it was that game that year.

You know, it happened so rarely. And I just kind of made myself a promise that I was going to keep riding that wave and make what I could. And it was five years ago now. What's crazy means is doing different things, because, like, earlier you mentioned that game being the first stereo topic 3D game. Oh, that was going to work at a company

that happens to make it. I can't. But still, but still, there's that. But then when you kind of take that into, okay, you get the platformer of Thomasville's loan,

but they're looking at volume and then you also then dabbled in in VR. Yeah, we do a VR version of volume. And it's like, like that's just for being a small team, it's like you seem to not be doing the smart thing of, we're just going to do it again.

I'm not doing the smart thing. No, and you know what? genuinely, you're right. And this is an ongoing quote, if Algon's watching this, he's going to be laughing because this is the conversation you have very happen.

It's because, yeah, what you're meant to do is you're meant to make a solid 7.5 out of 10 game and then keep making versions of that game and getting better incrementally. And I've chosen a different path where I make kind of 8 out of 10, maybe 8.5 in some cases games, but I jump around a lot. Yeah, in theory, if I was here talking to you about Thomas was alone for, then we'd be, you know, we'd be making probably better games, but we'd be inheriting that kind of knowledge and awareness

and probably making more money. But yeah, my feeling is having worked, so I worked for other people for about six years in the games industry, making games that made financial, logical sense, and, you know, paid the bills. And I'm in this fantastic situation where I can take risks and take chances. And generally, whenever I've played it safe,

it's not gone as well as when I do something like Sub-Surfaced Circular, It's like it's a prototype, ship it, just Beyonce it, we'll send it to 10 journalists and maybe it'll do okay. And it's our most successful games and so on. But it all adds on top of itself. And that's what I love is like, yeah, okay, there is the surefire bed of just sequel, sequel sequel sequel. But when you have that one hit and people are like, oh, Mike Bithel made this. I know that. That's great.

And then you do another one in something so totally different. You have that luxury to do something off the wall and then send it to the right people. And they're going to be like, oh, I'm going to give this a shot. We'll try. Exactly. Yeah. There's a pedigree. We have a reputation.

And that was something, that was a decision that was made very early on was, well, the first of all, the dumbest, cleverest thing I ever did was at a time where I had like 50 Twitter followers, Thomas was alone. I knew games went to have splash screens, but I had nothing to put on the splash screen because it wasn't made by a company. So I just put my Twitter handle at the start. Awesome. Single greatest career decision I ever made.

Because then every version Thomas was alone had, you know, my Twitter handle at the start and that meant that the momentum happened. That's amazing. And then when we started to kind of formalize stuff, we had the internal conversation of like, well, what should we call the company? What should we call the studio? What name should we get behind?

And my best mate, Das, who's done all, does all the concept art for all my games, just said, Mike, put your name on it. Right,

no, but we're a team. He's like, mate, I'd rather make more money. And just have to like, just, just,

my ego can take it. Totally. Let's do, let's lean into this. Welcome to the Game Over Gregory show. A couple of followers. Exactly. Exactly right.

1.4 million followers. There's logic to that, right? Totally. Absolutely. That approach and that kind of, so it's kind of, it was an accidental thing. I was never meant to,

and I hate O'Too theory. I hate the idea of one person being seen as the reason for a game. And yet that's so ironic now because that's exactly how people see the games we work on. And we're trying to work on that. We're building bigger kind of credit sequences

at the start of the games, and we're really trying to kind of broaden that. But yeah, it's something I still have a hang up about. That makes sense. A couple of follow-ups to that. When you're talking about the development of Thomas, you said three, you know, two thousand pounds and three years. Yeah. So man hours wise, I'm really curious.

How much do you think went into Thomas? Still quite, so probably, I still think that if I'd made it in kind of a conventional nine to five way, maybe it would have been a year. Like the reason it took three years was I was working, you know, nine till six or seven at a game studio every day, commuting home, you know, there and back 45 minutes. I was basically able to do like an hour's work every night essentially. and then usually five, six hours at the weekends. Where I got kind of lucky was Kerry, my girlfriend, was working on a movie out of town. So I had kind of no social life for three years.

I was able to kind of just completely devote myself to the game. A lot of indies who've done that kind of making a game in their spare time around a day job. Sadly, unfortunately, that story often involves kind of, you know, a relationship breakup, but kind of a, there's that kind of tragedy to it. And we kind of had one forced on us by circumstance, the men that I had the room to kind of do that game.

And then obviously once I could quit my day job, then became like every other indie and just works all the time. I'm sure it's similar to you guys. Like there is no, you just keep going. You know, it's not necessarily healthy, but it's kind of just how it is. The second question I want to ask you is, we've been asking a lot about the business end of it.

But Thomas is one of my favorite games. Thank you. And very important in my house. hold, my wife, it may be your favorite game. Wow. And I wanted to ask you about the artistic end, outside of the business end knowing you made it. When did you know you had something special? When did you look at that property or any of the other work you've done, for that matter,

and just go, oh, wow, this is really good. About two years after it came out. That sounds like I'm making a dumb joke, but genuinely, I never like my games. I really, I hate, I need to find out who this guy, I keep using this. quote and I need to find out who's attributed to a writer who says I hate the act of writing, but I love having written something. And it's so true of the way I genuinely like don't like anything I'm working on. It's something I have to be very careful with actually working with a team that I'm not like, that I'm not this black cloud over the entire process for everyone

else, but I genuinely, I'm hyper self-critical and hypercritical of the work in particular. So no, with Thomas was alone, I genuinely, for the entire duration of production, genuinely felt like I was fighting to make it okay. You know what I mean? Like just to kind of, and so many of the choices that I get such credit for were actually just kind of practicalities. So things like,

the reason it's got voiceover is because it was originally going to be kind of this motion typography, you know, those kind of YouTube videos like, kinetic, reservoir dog kinetic kind of motion graphic stuff. And that was really difficult and just took a lot of time.

So I was like, well, no, I'll just do voiceover. That's easy, just play an audio file. And, you know, Danny Wallace, the style of the whole thing was because I knew it needed to have some humor to it. So I listened to some of his audiobooks and was like, I'm going to write kind of something in that style. And then got drunk on Twitter one night and sent it to him and said, can you just, can we work together on this kind of thing? So much of it is kind of this chance and happenstance. I think we very much, with any creative work after the fact, we realized why it worked or what we got right. I remember where Thomas was alone, it was a good two years.

after and Unity, the engine company, wanted me to give them some footage of the game. And I hadn't gotten me because I didn't have any footage of the game. So I had to go and play it like you did with Bioshock. And I'd been playing it for about an hour and I started laughing at the jokes. I was like, wow, that's actually, that's quite funny. I knew I'd written it and there was like this weird kind of moment of, oh, it was good. These people aren't, you know, completely, you know, overestimating how good. this game is it actually did work. It was a couple of years after it came out though.

Wow. I've been that way with, I finally like volume. Subsurface Circular, I smiled at a screenshot. Someone posted the other day. I was like, oh yeah, that is a Hamilton reference. So it's quite good. So, but yeah, and I think, but crucially, then this is the conversation I have a lot with the people I work with is, I think that's how I make good stuff. I think if I ever smugly sit there and go, I'm the genius who made Thomas was alone, then. Then I think that's when it's all gone wrong and when the game stopped kind of working. So I'm sure, as you know, very well, Game of a Gregie, Greg Miller himself, really wants everything on the Vita.

And for years, he would talk to you, like, where's the Vita? Where's the Vita? I mean, basically your audience is the primary reason volume came out of Vita. I'm well, well aware. It was just mainly to stop Twitter. I want to thank you for being such an amazing supporter of kind of funny over the years. Like you, one of the, our first major Patreon supporters, yeah, for volume and all that. And that was fantastic. And you helped us.

I noticed the poster's not off anymore, you know. But, man, yeah, no. Thank you very much for all of that. But with Greg joking about the Vita ports, but being serious, actually wanting games on the Vita, that's kind of now been just magnified times a million with the Switch. Oh, yeah. Now it's not just Greg begging everyone for ports. It's the entire world.

being like, but where's the Switch version? And you getting the new game on on Switch. Like, there's, there's, there's, I'm saying a lot of words. What I'm trying to get at is there's that gold rush of we got to get things on Switch. And like from your side of things, like the dev side of things, how does that look right now? So I think everyone's waiting for it to, the gold rush to go terribly wrong. I think that's the, that's when I have conversations with other indies, because it has, you're right, it's been this gold rush. Because I think Nintendo have done it's, there, the parallels with,

the Vita don't just extend to the audience, they extend to the business behind the games consoles as well. The reason Vita had that kind of resurgence in the indie scene was because of people like Shahid and Shoe and other people at Sony who saw this opportunity to make that platform work really well for Indies and reached out to us. These people came to us Indies and said, hey, do you want to come on Vita? To which my response, I remember when Thomas was alone, they came to me and said, hey, you should do Thomas was alone on Vita. And I said, can I do PS4 as well? were like, maybe, we'll see. You know, like to go ahead of yourself.

And they were really kind of, they found that, because Vita was in a situation where it needed games. And I think Switch found itself in a, they knew it was going to be a similar situation at launch because a lot of those kind of those bigger publishers who are now joining the party were not there at launch. And that's worked out really well for Indies on the platform. And we've all kind of benefited from the space there. But yeah, I think there is going to be, inevitably, there's going to be a point where

where the content gets too busy, where there's just more stuff coming out. I mean, we're already a point where there's a lot of games coming out, right? Yeah, every Thursday on Kind of Funny Games Daily, you read out the list, and it's just a ton of stuff with really weird names. I'm stuck up as a circular, I don't think.

It's terrible names. No, I guess that's true, though. I would make fun of that if I was just repeated out on the list. Yeah. No one had said it out loud until the game came out. Terrible name. Terrible name. We'd love to change it. Why would you name it that?

Because it sounded cool. It looked cool in the page. Yeah. And it was one of those things where we just never said it out loud. And it's such a tongue twister. It's a terrible choice. But now the game's doing so well,

we're locked in. I mean, it's funny though because, you know, names for anything, really, for brands, really matter because that's what people latch on to. Oh, yeah. And professionals would have done a really good job

with this and made a better title. But what's interesting is I feel like it having kind of a unique name almost benefits in some ways. It definitely plays into that sci-fi kind of slightly more kind of sci-fi novel, short novel kind of vibe that the game's got. Definitely, yeah. It feels like something Asimov would call a book. It's definitely not Asimov-level writing, but the title is kind of, it's the kind of thing Asimov would use, and that kind of, I think, helps it find that audience, maybe. But I feel like it's that

perfect storm, too, of the Beyonce drop, backed by a credible studio, that being curated by the right kind of journalist and targeted YouTubers and all that stuff. All of that, to the people that are finding out the game from them, they hear it, they go, oh, I don't remember what the name is, but I remember it was that weird. Something weird, robots. Yeah. And they'll find it. Like, they'll seek that out.

And when they see it on a list or on the e-shop or on whatever it is, they'll be like, oh, yeah, that game. And then when they find it, they find something really good waiting for them. There's that element to them. That's, of course, of course. The fact that it's actually good. That's the hardest bit. But it's a gold rush. And, and Indies, I say this often to when I go and talk to, like, students or Indies dying out, you know,

the times that Indies have been. is when everyone else is looking somewhere else. You can absolutely find a correlation. That kind of 2010 to 2012 kind of indie, you know, big jump up in indie, directly correlates with all of the traditional publishers saying, oh, PC's dead. PC's dead. No one's into PC gaming anymore. And Steam being like, well, we need something to release on the platform and a bunch of

indies showing up. Same is true on the Vita with the surge of Vita in these. Same is happening right now with Switch. wherever people say don't release a game there, indies who release a game there and can manage it, that often works enough over. It doesn't always, but it often does. And I think Switch is unfortunately at that tipping point

where it's now common knowledge that like, oh, you should release on Switch, it does really well on Switch, and that's going to flip it over into everyone there. It might be really good to be an indie releasing a game on any console other than a Switch next year because everyone's jumping onto the Switch bandwagon. You know, it's an interesting one. Do you think there's a,

another future where like a parallel universe where instead of that happening just switch owners are become accustomed to i hope so to really buying and supporting indie games well i think the handheld thing plays into that i mean handheld i think as a with a handheld you consume these games really quickly on your own terms it's not i think this is partly hitting my 30s but there is that thing of i have to okay so i have to go home i have to sit down in front of my tv i have to carry can't watch water wherever she wants to watch, I have to have the TV and play it. And it's a ritual thing that you're getting into, whereas a handheld goes with you and fits into your life.

So I think there's a hunger there for stuff, for games that you can play, because it's just, it's something that you've always got with you. So maybe we'll always benefit. And also the size as well, I think we're much better at making these kind of one hour, two hour experiences, whereas the bigger publishers, obviously, are building these epics.

And maybe we're actually a better fit, potentially, for a handheld version of that experience. obviously there are people who play switch handheld or TV or both you know you mentioned mobile development earlier in a game that came out for only one phone I came out for so it was a Google Daydream which was like a Google phone a couple of phones that had like a VR functionality right I remember that thing okay what was the game it was called Earth Shape it was it was it was a gardening it was a game where you traveled between procedurally generated planets

planting and creating your own flowers and fauna. And it was narrated by a comedian from the UK called Sue Perkins who's probably best known in America for hosting the Great British Bake Off for many years. And the only reason she was in it was Alexander, my business partner. When Brexit happened, I was very bothered by that for various political reasons that we were not getting into on the show. But I thought it was horrible.

Terrible, terrible decision. And I needed cheering up. And he was like, watch British Bake Off. It's friendly, it's lovely. It's going to make you feel patriotic from Britishness. And I watched that for like, I watched that like three episodes through. And it was just, and Sue Perkins is someone who like had done comedy when I was, when I was younger. I'd seen her on stuff in the past.

But just seeing her in that contest, I was like, this is, she's the best school teacher I never had on this show. That's great. And I wanted to get her into a game. And it turns out she's a massive gamer. So she was brilliant. Oh, wow. Oh, really? Oh, big Civ fan.

Big Siff band. I'm so excited. I love the Great British. Speaking of your language. So in the States, it's the Great British baking. So same thing. Okay, sorry. But no, no, don't be sorry.

You're, you all invented it. We'll call it, we'll call it the bake-off. Andy's obsessed with it. I love it. Do you watch it? I have not tried it. But learning that Susan to give, that's so exciting. I love that.

We were talking about, she were talking about how many planets and no man sky are named after bake-off situations. She loved alien isolation. She loved, she plays a lot of Sib. Follow her on Twitter. She's great on Twitter. It's freaking fantastic. I'm sure.

So to kind of wrap things up, do you have any final questions for them? Yeah, I know we're headed toward the end here, but this is something I want to ask it, was actually toward that phone. When it comes to mobile development and being a small studio, yeah,

what is the path forward for mobile developers that want to create games for handheld, for the Apple store, for the Google Play Store, and don't want to embrace some of the more predatory nickel-and-dine practice? stronger free-to-play stuff. Yeah.

What is their path forward toward first discovery and second profitability in that? It's hard out there. You don't hear a lot of stories about kind of about mobile, you know, iOS and Android games

that are, they're called premium, but like anything that charges money up front. You don't hear a lot of stories about those games doing well. I will say that I think, especially in Apple's case, they're doing a great deal. They've changed the way they curate.

They're definitely trying to bring that stuff across. they were very supportive. We did a subsurface circular version for iPads, which they gave a lot of love and attention to. It's tough out there. I mean, it is really tough. I think what you're going to see is a lot of people

who want to make those kind of games, maybe moving over to the Switch, maybe moving over to the consoles that are a little bit easier with their processes behind the scenes. The degrees to which you have to go through certification, and I'm sure the audience is aware of certification is something that makes games take away.

world to come out. That's exactly what it is. It's all there to kind of protect the consumer and make sure that the experience is great for them. But it does slow down development and can get in the way. And as a mobile developer, you know, you can, that can be surprising. We, we accidentally released Earth Shape about a week before it was meant to. Before cert. Pull it down. Well, no, there is no cert. Oh, there's no search at all on Android. That's the point is on. I misunderstood. On console or PC, it's very hard to launch for game by accident, but on mobile, you can absolutely do it, you know. And I think if you're a developer who's used to that speed and that cycle, then console is still a little bit scary. So even as a partner, there's no cert. I didn't,

like, if you're working with the curators and, wow. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, so there's, on iOS iOS, there's more. But yeah, it's basically there's, yeah, we're talking a very, very, well, compared to the weeks it takes on console, we're talking a few hours. I didn't know that. That's really cool. It's, it's very cool, but I totally understand why the console guys want to, they want to make sure that when you download a game on PlayStation, it works. That makes perfect sense. That's absolutely fair to the community. But it is a wall to mobile developers coming across,

which is probably its point as well. They don't want everything to come over necessarily. They want great stuff to come over. Rad. I really appreciate the answer to that. I could do this for hours. I love picking the head of people that actually make things. I mean, I love what I do for a living.

You make things? No, I've talked in front of a microphone. I do that at keyboard. You know, it's same thing. Mike, do you have any final things? Like, where can people follow you? What should people be buying? Where should they go?

I'm on Twitter too much at Mike Bithel. I, yeah, Sub-Surfaced Circular is out. Please pick it up. If you're into the, if it sounds interesting to you on Switch, right now we're in this really important moment in the game where it's out, it's doing well. We need to get on that chart. We're on the chart in the UK. We're not in the US.

So if you're thinking I might pick that up in the next couple of weeks, pick it up today. That would be great. But yeah, like, you know, but also read reviews and make an informed decision and please hope you like the game. Other than that, if it's really important to me that everyone who plays my games and pays me likes them and doesn't feel like we've tricked them. Will you personally give their money back here and now if they didn't? If they were here right now, I would. If you turned to me and said, Mike, I did not like subservice.

I would genuinely grab a few dollars for my pocket. Other than that, if you're a game developer, we just released the game dev business handbook, which is a really, cool thing, which is I took some of the money we've made from video games and paid a games journalist to write a book about the process of development guy called Mike Futter, who's been a did business reporter for ages.

Really good book. He's written it. He's interviewed the heads of lots and lots of big studios, all talking about budgeting, talking about man hours, talking about the way businesses are actually run. So if you're an indie, then that's something that I would encourage you to look at. Other than that, yeah, just...

What's the title and where can I purchase this? called the Game Dev Business Handbook. And it's, I think it's, it's either on Amazon or is soon to be. I think we've announced that. I might get in trouble. And, but it's definitely like we're selling it through our own website and stuff. But if you go on my Twitter, you'll see it. Thank you.

I've made a couple of craptastic demos and Dreamer releasing something someday. I'm going to buy and read this. You should. It's, it's a, I'm really happy with how it came out. And I can say that because I didn't write it. So I can be proud of it. Well, thank you very much for joining us. This has been an excellent episode.

We're on a, we're on a roll here, man. I'm a lot of it. time. This guy makes it easy. I gotta say, it's better without Greg. It's better without Greg. Not one cockney accent. Not one cockney accent. Oh, yeah.

Oh, man. It's much better. No, you just said some annoying guys next to you going, actually, it's the great British bakeoff in the United States and it's not a line. It's a queue. It's fine. It's fine because I'm nine times out of ten. I'm that dude.

Oh, no. British people just say it better. Ladies and gentlemen, I love you. Until next time. It's been our pleasure to serve you. It's how you threw me up. My lines, I love you. I'll under there.