Retronauts - 680: Axiom Verge

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Jeremy Parish and Diamond Feit chat with Tom Happ and Dan Adelman about origins, design, and 10th anniversary (it's retro now!) of the indie metroidvania tour-de-force, Axiom Verge. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This week in Retronaut's axiomino questions, I'll tell you no lies. and 80, and that introduction was a lie. We are going to axiom mini-questions. We are going to axiom these questions to the creator of Axiom Verge. And we're also going to talk about other things. Yes, this is the 10th anniversary of Axiom Verge, the phenomenal indie game created more or less by one person that has been kicking around for a decade, believe it or not. That was like a lifetime ago for me. And I'm sure for creator Tom Hap, it was even longer ago. I don't know. Please introduce yourself beginning, yourself, beginning with Tom, of course. Hi, I'm Tom Hap. I'm the aforementioned developer of Axiom Verge. And I'm Dan Edelman. I am Tom Hap's valiant

sidekick on all things, kind of business and marketing related. So I try to help out with everything that doesn't have to do with actually creating Axiom Verge. And finally, joining us to round out the conversation we have. Hello, this is Diamond Fight, and can I offer you a gentleman a nice egg in this trying time? I have so many eggs. Oh, wow. Eggs, eggs of plenty. Amazing.

You must be a million. We don't have eggs here in the U.S. Yeah, I know, right? This is being recorded about a month ahead of the actual publication of this episode. So who knows what egg prices will look like that far out in the future. But I can't imagine it's going to be anything that we want to be happy about. So let's talk about happier things. We can talk about the eggs that bring life, that bring you back to life.

Or do they? That's one of the questions that underscores Axiom verge. what happens when you die and come back to life in a video game? There's a deep philosophical conundrum with both Axiom verge and its sequel. The question of identity is integral to both of these games. So we'll talk about that, and we'll also talk about how it's just cool to run around and shoot stuff and glitch out the world and do other interesting things like that. So to begin with, I think people know my bona fides pretty well and Diamond's bona fides,

but would the two of you, Thomas and Dan, mind introducing your, like, not introducing yourselves, but giving us a little bit of background about yourselves and kind of how you came to be involved with Axiom Verge, whether that was, ah, I thought up the game, or, hey, I saw this cool game and wanted to be involved. I'd like to hear the backstory. Tom, why don't we start? with you. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so I was a game developer before working on Axiom Verge. I worked as variously an animator, technical artist, and an engineer for different game companies, including a company called Red Eye Studios, another company called Hypnotics. I worked for electronic arts for a few years, and the last place I worked at was Petroglyph Games.

And it was while it was there that I started diddling around with Axiom Verge in my evenings and weekends. And that's kind of like where it started. About four years into that process, I was able to procure the Indy Pub Fund from Sony. and I think, I don't know, I've always wondered if maybe Jeremy had something to do with that because that was Nick Sutner, and I believe you worked with him at some point. Yeah, Nick and I worked together at one-up,

and indie games were always just his passion. I mean, that's why he left to join the indie game fund with Sony. He just, he was really, really enthusiastic about that, and eventually I think realized that he could do more, more for developers by actually getting out there and helping them to, you know, find the funding for their games than he could by writing about them. So I can't say that I really had any influence whatsoever on Nick's work. But, you know, I guess it just shows that above, above everything else, we are all good eggs who believe in good games. Yeah. So that was, I guess,

the main thing that, you know, propelled it from being a hobby, kind of wishful thinking to an actual thing that I was going to have released within the year. And so this is, oh, sorry, I was going to introduce myself, but you feel free to follow up with Tom because he's way more important. No, I was just going to say, I'm trying to remember exactly when I came across Axiom Verge. I thought it was at E3 one year. Weren't you displaying at the Sony booth at E3? Yeah, the 2014 E3.

Okay. That's right. So if you were at the Sony booth, I'm assuming you'd probably already worked out the details of the Pub Fund by that point. Yeah, that was actually part of what the Pub Fund did. They didn't just offer money. They offered marketing opportunities like being at E3 and other shows that Sony appeared at. Yeah, at the time, games that looked and played like this were still pretty uncommon. So it definitely stood out at the booth and, you know, just the specific aesthetic that you went for definitely caught my attention.

So, Dan, let's hear your side of the story. Yeah, so my back story is that before I worked with Tom on Axi and Verge, I was actually, I've been, as a very, right now in 2025. I've been in the games industry about 24 years or so. My first tour of duty was at Xbox. I was part of the launch team of the original Xbox and helped launch the original form of XBLA. And that was like my first taste of like working with smaller games. And then I went over to Nintendo and I worked at Nintendo for about nine years. And I spearheaded their indie games business there. So we wear, DSIware, eShop, et cetera.

And the longer I was there, first of all, the more repetitive that side of the business came to be. And it was, you know, no more challenges. We kind of knew what to do. And the more developers I spoke with and got to know, I was just always envious of their lives and, like, working on individual games that just I felt really passionate about and, you know, not kind of seeing, you know,

hundreds of games each year from a 10,000 foot level, but really working very closely with the developer and, like, how do we, how do we, you know, speak to the audience of this game? How do we, you know, make sure that all the platforms are excited about it? How do we, you know, translate that excitement into, you know, an actual business? So I made an announcement with actually very little in the way of plans to, you know, I hadn't signed any games. I hadn't, you know, Tom and I hadn't spoken about working together yet. I was just kind of, I just decided I'm going to leave my job at Nintendo and I made an announcement. And I said, if there are developers who would want to work with me and I can, you know, do the business development and marketing and I'll still kind of figure out what it is I can contribute.

but that's kind of the thing I'd like to do. And very fortunately, Tom reached out to me and just said, I don't know if I need someone like you, but it's intriguing. We should talk. And the more we talk, the more it just became apparent that it was a really good fit. He was working on clearly a very amazing game. I was able to get a glimpse of that before the general public, of course. And so I got super excited about what I was seeing.

and playing. And also the fact that Tom really wanted to focus on making the game and wasn't quite as passionate about going, you know, speaking with the public and going to these events and, you know, doing business deals and things like that. So I figured, all right, that's, that's a burden I can lift off of his shoulders and he can focus on making Axiom Verge the best it can be. So we might as well just go ahead and make the rounds. How did you first discover Axiom Verge, since everyone else has told their tale? Oh, I haven't played the game yet.

I'm just really excited to be here. No, I'm sorry. Sorry, no. Ah, a little jest there. No, no, no. I don't recall when I first heard about it, but in my case, it was electric when I saw it, when I saw it in motion.

I couldn't believe what I was looking at. You know, as I recall, shovel night was out around this time. I want to say shovel night was like 20, 14. So I was, you know, this wasn't the first like, oh, we made a new game, but it looks like a old game. You know, that, that, that, that territory had been breached. But the fact that it was, you know, moody and it was extremely Metroid, you know, not, I, I don't want to, you know, I realize that it's not a, it's not a property that anyone here owns, but we can't have this

conversation without saying the word Metroid a couple times. So I'm just going to say it, Metroid, Metroid, Metroid. You could even say Vania at the end of that if you want. Scott Sharkey's not here. I don't want to get him riled up. But in looking at the game, but even so, yeah, I know, even, yeah, at that point, I wouldn't say we had a lot of games that were in that spirit. Not that many.

You know, I feel like if you look around today, especially, you know, I write a monthly column on Retronauts.com for our website, and I feel like every month. there's like one or two or even three different indie projects that are like, hey, we want a Metroidvania where you're pixel art, you're exploring this deep, deep dark dungeon or a cave. So at that time, you know, 10, 11 years ago, we didn't have that many of those things. And Shovel Night is certainly not one of those things. It's a retro game, but it is not that kind of retro game. So to see this game, and then eventually when I got to play it, I was like, oh, my goodness,

this is a loving, a loving tribute to Metroid. And, you know, at 2014, 2015, like, at that point, Nintendo had basically fallen out of the Metroid business. I mean, other M was, what, 2010? And we wouldn't get the Samus Returns remake until, what, 2017? So. Wow, this Federation Force erasure cannot stand. Yeah, exactly.

That's what I'm saying. There were Metroid games coming out, but they had Metroid on the box. And if you played them, you're like, this isn't, what are you doing here? Get this away from me. And, you know, Action Virgin instead, it was like, no, no, no, this is what you want. I'm here for you. And I don't know if I'm expressing the emotions correctly, but it was a very powerful emotional moment for me playing this game and realizing, oh, this is what I want. And even though there are a lot more games that are embracing this sort of aesthetic and mood and hustle and flow, if you will, I still have a very strong attack.

attachment to Axi and Verge in particular, and then later on, there was another AxiVirge that I liked a whole lot. Yeah, and I can speak a little to that sentiment of, and it's kind of hard here in 2025 to imagine that like, oh, indie Metroidvania, what a novel concept. Like, we've been waiting for one of those. It's like now it feels like every other game is an indie style Metroidvania. But you're right, in 2015, it was novel. And even, I would say, even today, there aren't, you know, to the extent there's a spectrum between Metroid and Vania. This one has that dial set very much on the Metroid-y side of things. And there are a lot more games more on the Vanya side of things, I would say.

And when I was at Nintendo, which was, you know, literally just months before I started working, working on Axiom Verge, maybe within a month, I think, is when Tom reached out to me. I would get contacted by developers all the time saying, like, we want to remake Super Metroid. You know, could we get the license to do that? Or, you know, do you have an in with the second party team at Nintendo so we could pitch them this concept for a new Metroid game? And it was just like, you're not going to be successful. There's just no appetite for that. Every time I try to breach, you know, broach the subject, it, you know, nobody was responsive to that.

And I think eventually seeing the success of a lot of these games, you know, probably Axiom Verge being the first of those successful Metroidvanias that really kind of got the genre back on the map. I will say, you know, Guacamale is another one that I think Guacamayle one came out before Axiom Verge won. But certainly that was, I would say, you know, with that being more melee combat, that's more, I guess, on the Vania side. It was also its own completely different thing. But the idea of exploring a map and getting power-ups that enable you to explore different areas, that was there. But, yeah, I think Axiom Verge, I like to think Axiom Verge reinvigorated that genre. And, yeah, that's the reason. in Nintendo started making

Metroid games again. Can you imagine, I'm just kind of reeling from the arrogance of presuming, like going into Nintendo and saying, I would like to remake Super Metroid because I could do it better than you did.

No, you can't, you can't. It's just, like, that's one you just don't touch. But that's the thing about Axiom Verge is that it didn't attempt to recreate Super Metroid. The thing that really struck me was that by, you know, 2014, 2015, when we first started seeing this game, we did have a lot of, a fair number of indie Metroidvanias that took deliberate cues from

the Metroid series, but they overwhelmingly looked to Super Metroid and took its structure, it's kind of like educational recursive design and its weapons and concepts and its gating, and they built off of those. Like Guacamayle, you mentioned before, it straight up takes the colored doors of Super Metroid. And instead of using power bombs to break through in super missiles, you use like, you know, backdrops and, you know, uh, wrestling attacks. Yeah, things like that to get through. But it still uses that like, hey, you've got a weapon. Now you can go through a new door and let us show you how to use the weapon because you can't get out of this room unless you do that. And it's all very much

queued from Super Metroid. And I really think that Shadow Complex kind of kicked that off. Like I actually was kind of harsh on Shadow Complex when I first reviewed it back in the day. I was like, I've already played Super Metroid guys. You added cover fire.

But I, like, it's still like, I've done this already, you know? It's nice graphics. But I've kind of come around to it and said, oh, this actually kind of sparked in entire wave of game design. But the thing about Axi and Verge is, again, it didn't, it didn't really till the same soil that everyone else was working on. It said, actually, Tom said, basically,

let's look further back into the roots and then kind of extrapolate from that. What if Super Metroid hadn't come along? What if Metroid continued to be kind of this eight-bit experience? I don't know if that was necessarily the design thinking that you were working with. But it reminds me a little bit of what the guys at Nigoro have said about the design philosophy, like the technical philosophy they used for La Mulana, which is, what if the MSX platform had stuck around and they kept iterating on that? So you had the MSX, then the MSX two, and then you had like successors to that. Like, we wanted to create a game that was built around what? what we think, what we speculate, like subsequent MSX computers would have been like.

And I really enjoy kind of exploring that alternate timeline of game design. And I think Axiom Verge really, it's like NES in high definition. And it's, it just, it had a really unique style, you know, even compared to shovel night at the time. It just felt really distinct. Like it really captured the atmosphere and the moodiness of, of those kind of, somber old eight-bit games where they're so stark and alien in a way that very few other people have. Hey, everyone, it's Jeremy interrupting this podcast for another advertisement, but this advertisement is about me, and not just me, but the retronauts in general. We're going to be

at Midwest Gaming Classic again this year, and we're going to talk to you if you come to see us. Things are a little weird with international travel right now, so reppping retronauts this year at Midwest Gaming Classic will be myself, Kevin Bunch, and friend of the show Brian Clark. But what we lack in numbers we're going to make up for with awesomeness because we are talking about Chrono Trigger, the greatest RPG of all time, asterisk, and its 30th anniversary. We'll also be presenting smaller individual panels. Shortly before the Retronaut's presentation Saturday night,

I'm going to be talking about some interesting videotapes, VHS tapes from Japan, from the 80s, talking about video games, showing off video game history. Who knew people cared about video game history back in the 80s? And finally, at some point, schedule time to be determined, we'll all be signing our books in addition to fellow press-run books author Mark Flitman. So come on out and see us, bring our beloved books along, or some money to buy new copies, and have a heck of a good time, Saturday, April 5th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Midwest Gaming Classic. Anyway, Tom, would you say that was in any way an accurate assessment of me reverse engineering or design process, or am I way off there? No, that's very close to it. I mean, like, I, as a gamer, like, I think growing up with games, Metroid came out when I was, like, seven or eight.

and like I kind of went through this maturity process where like I wanted everything to be better like I want when the Super Nintendo came out or I guess first the Genesis came out and I was like oh I'm going to use this and I ditch my Nintendo then a Super Nintendo came out and I stopped playing Genesis games and I remember like thinking with Super Metroid that like oh it's still tile based like one day they'll find a way to make it not tie up not be tiles and it will be like artistry and eventually it got to be the point where you know as things evolved like tiles completely went by the wayside and it was totally possible to have a game just look like it was animated by artists you know like traditional animators um and once we had been

in that realm for a while i started actually realizing like i miss those old days like you know we kind of ran right past this era of game design. And like one thing that always stuck out to me was I had a co-worker at PetroGlyph who was playing Shadow Complex. And he was saying like, I'm having a hard time judging where I can jump to because I can't count like how many tiles high I can jump. And, you know, that's a thing that's very, it's like intrinsic, intrically telegraphed to you in, in those tile-based games, things like the distance between things and how high you can go and what's interactable or not because, you know, probably there's a tile for the things that are interactable and you know the properties of that tile. Whereas in modern games, around whenever that was 2010 or something, they tended to try to cover that up as much as possible and make a beautiful scenery. And if something was supposed to be interactive, they shadow complex put a golden glow on it so that you would know. And like I think I started noodling around with Axiom Verge shortly after then.

I think it was like 2011 or so, and that was definitely one thing that I was thinking, like, you know, what would have been if somehow we had been forced to stay with these old engines and we just kept on improving them or, you know, maybe there was like an NES 1.5, you know, and we worked with those old mechanics and tried to take advantage of all the things. that we had discounted as being retro and, you know, old school and no longer of the mode. So, yeah, I think your description was pretty accurate. Yeah, I think there's something to be said for, you know, tile-based games, games that operate on a grid. Like, not all games have to work like that, but I appreciate that, you know, there are some games that just work better that way because the thinking behind. them works that way. You know, even in 3D, the original Tomb Raider is very much like that. Like, when you are trying to line up Laura's jumps, it's really about like you take,

you know, three steps backward and then you run forward and then after, you know, two steps, you jump and you know you can make a long jump or something along those lines. And the Metroid games, the latter day metroids in 2D, have continued to not just use tile-based graphics, but to make it an intrinsic part of their design by, you know, building passages and secrets and objects into the grid of the world. And rather than trying to obscure the artifice of that, they've just embraced it and said, you know, this is a video game. And so we are doing video gamey things. And I think there are some quarters of the audience, that have trouble accepting that, especially as graphical fidelity grows.

And I don't think there's any shame in it. I think, you know, sometimes it's good to just say, I am making a video gamey, video game, and that's what I want this to be. And, you know, I think something that's, that is appealing about Axi and Verge for a lot of people is that it kind of peels back the graphical fidelity to, you know, to kind of resemble an older generation of games where that feels more natural. But at the same time, you still have all kinds of effects in there that could not have happened on an NES, you know, like the glitch effect and things like that. Like that's just, you know, even the particle effects. They just wouldn't

happen on NES. But even there, you've kind of built this clash between what was possible an 8-bit and what is sort of overlaid on top of that world into a component not only of the game, but also of the story. And so I just feel like there's a real thoughtfulness that permeates the game and kind of defines it. And, you know, it kind of gets back to the way the story concepts are so deeply tied to the way the game design flows and works. And actually, that's something I want to, Dan, you're raising your hand, so I can come back to that in a minute. I mean, Diamond? Sorry, yeah. I just, going back to something I think is very important, at least for me, as a as a player, is that, you know, Guacamale is a fantastic game.

It's, like, I don't want to, I don't say this to disparage Guacamalee, but it definitely throws back to some aspects of games like Metroid in a joking way. Like, there are literally chosen statues in Metro, in Guacamale, and you break them to get the items, and, you know, it becomes a whole running gag. What I love about Axiom Verge is that there's no, there's no call out in that sense, but when you play it, it's more of an atmosphere. And the glitching thing is a big part of that. Because Metroid, you know, as a video game, as a piece of software,

Metroid is kind of just barely hanging together. Like, if you play Metroid, I'm not talking about speed running. I mean, like, if you are a casual player of Metroid, and you open a door and you walk into a new chamber, there's like a 50-50 chance that the colors will be all wrong, or that an enemy that's supposed to be there won't be there, or it might spawn in the wrong place, and it'll spin in the air.

Like, there are a lot of things that are much sure that can just go wrong and break. And what I love is that axing verge when it comes to a point is you get this glitch gun and the glitch gun allows you to literally warp the environment and the enemies and then the effects, you don't know what's going to happen.

You know, like obviously there's a visual, you know, there's an immediate visual impact which is, okay, fine, it looks funny now. But some surfaces will warp and you can get through them. Some enemies become stronger. or some enemies become weaker. I mean, there's one enemy that I think in particular

that, like, normally they start spawning like little missiles and they attack you, but if you warp them, they literally just pump out health refills. It's like, oh, I love you now. Thank you, please. Like, you actually start seeking them out and, oh, yes, I'm here to glitch you. And also with the drill bit.

I think the drill bit was another exciting addition because in the original Metroid, there's tons of little walls and secrets you can uncover, but the primary way of doing this was you're shooting into them or you're bombing into them and like it takes a long time especially if it's bombing because you have to drop the bomb roll away see if it blows up

if it does okay go back in there put another bomb whereas X-Mvirge like no no here is a special weapon that is all about drilling into hard surfaces and sometimes we will show you the bricks that can drill and sometimes we won't show you the things but if you want to find the secret ones all you do is you pull out your drill

and you start drilling it some random areas and you'll see right away oh this is a spot I can hit don't worry about it there's nothing here and compare to something like a Metroid game or many of the old Zelda games where it's like you're literally just shooting fire everywhere

it's like I hope one of these bushes burns down God I need a health heart container please I really like how Axiom Verge just kind of funneled it into yes we want you to find secrets here are your secret finding tools don't worry if you can't find something in this room there might be something in another room

It's okay. Here are the tools that you want. Go nuts. But we don't want to waste your time. I really like, I really appreciate that part. Yeah, earlier, Dan, you called out the sort of spectrum of Metroid de Castlevania. And I do feel that they exist at kind of different extremes of this game design philosophy,

where Metroid is very much about mobility and just kind of integrated strength, growth of strength, whereas Castlevania tends to be much more about, like, precision and thoughtful action and being very deliberate in everything you do. I mean, that kind of blurred when you get to Symphony of the Night. But, you know, when you look at things like Salt and Sanctuary or Dead Sells or, you know, hollow night, you're starting to get these games that are very much about, even if you can kind of move freely, are very much about, like, be precise, don't make mistakes, be very, very careful with what you do, be very thoughtful about what you do. do. And I feel like one of the things that makes Axi and Verge immediately appealing is that

it pushes in the other direction and kind of embraces not only the Metroid style, but also says, you know, to Diamond's point, you get the drill bit and it's basically like you can do all the cool Metroid stuff that you liked, but there's so much less BS around it. It's much more liberating. And it just kind of, it like it sparks something for people who grew up playing Metroid because it's like, oh, it's that game that I love, but now it's, you know, much more accessible. Like, it is, in a way to Metroid what Symphony of the Night is to Castlevania 3, where it's just so much more fluid and liberating, and you don't have to, you know, sit there and, you know,

even just like hammer on enemies to get health refills because you start the game with 30 points of health out of 800. You know, it's just little details like that that are. are, they just feel thoughtful and very much about, like, let's get to the business of telling this story and exploring this world. So yeah, I'll just add a little bit to this. And this may be a whole separate discussion. But one of the things that immediately appealed to me about Axiom Verge when Tom first showed it to me was I went in a little bit expecting, okay, this is going to be just like Super Metroid. And like, I would see like, oh, there's a little pathway here. I'll

a morph ball or like I would see like someplace I couldn't reach and I was like well I'll bet there's a double jump coming and like all of these expectations that I had that kind of are part and parcel of the genre Tom continually defied those expectations with you know it you don't get a morph ball but you do get a drone that can sneak into different areas and that drone has totally different abilities than you know than a morph ball it's not just a change in the appearance of it it actually has different functionality. It has its own health bar. It has, you know, you can switch positions with it later. You know, spoiler alert. There are so many things that it does that you couldn't do before. And also, like, you know, instead of a double jump, it's, you know, maybe not quite as different like a high jump, but there's also things like you can, you know,

teleport through walls, things like that that were never really part of any other game. And I appreciated the fact that Tom didn't just mail it in and just be like, all right, yeah, I'll just take this idea and wholesale rip it off. It's like, that's a starting point. And he took it in a much different direction. And I think probably the primary example of that is the axiom disruptor, which, aka the glitch gun, which glitched the world and opened up all kinds of possibilities. But I think, you know, all of the different abilities that you get were unique and distinctive.

And I don't think I've seen any of them really in any other game. If I may, I, like, we obviously, we know, and Tom has said as much that this obviously, Axiom Verge drew a lot from Metroid. But I'm very curious, Tom. Maybe you can enlighten us a little bit. I feel like Axiom Verge has a real darkness to it. I don't mean color-wise. I mean, like, everything that you're happening, everything you're seeing has sort of a grimness to it.

Like, you know, like the imagery, you know, we're all looking at the imagery right now of the game, the giant heads that are sort of slowly, like, they're in ruins, you know, they were once these giants that you, that must have roamed this planet somehow, and now they're barely holding together. The fact that the hero's abilities are, you know, yeah, like you pick up a gun and you pick up a lab coat, but like there's a there's an ickness to it like I think you describe the lab code as like it almost adheres to he's like oh it's adhering my skin or you know the drone thing is it's not something you just send out there it's like you launch again my egg joke you spawn this egg and it hatches

and like you have like a symbiotic relationship and like if the drone dies like this of sort of splash of blood so it's almost like a body horror thing like I'm curious as to what made you go in that direction, you know, what's, who hurt you, Tom? Yeah, who hurt me? I think, so what I was going for, in some ways, like, the lower side of things is not, like, really video game inspired. It's more, like, I was a big fan of the author, Alistair Reynolds, and the show, the TV show, Farscape. And those are two examples of things that they depict future societies or alien societies that are different from, you know, they're actually truly alien as opposed to being like Star Trek. Everyone's just like people, but with prostheses.

You know, Farscape, for example, has the ship is alive. there's you know the pilot of the ship is kind of like part of of the ship in a way like his his body like goes I think it like goes all the way down to like sub floors of the ship and is wired in there and like there's a lady in there who's part plant and they have their own bizarre culture each of these these aliens and Alistair Reynolds likewise has all these kind of like transhumanism hints in there where people have, you know, nanomachines in their minds. There's like giant

weapons from ancient wars from before humanity ever existed that talk to you, if you happen to have these things in your head, they'll talk to you and like try and convince you like, oh, I really need to go and like blow up some planets or something now.

And I like that feeling of just it's of it being different in alien. And I think that was a lot of what I was going for with the imagery and what you call the darkness of it. I don't think, I'm not trying to say I think the darkness is better or I think there's nothing but darkness in this world. But it was sort of like just my way of like trying to see if I could share this, these feelings that I have. had with other people, like that there's more, there could be other than like what, what we see around us, you know, there could be a whole completely different world. And, you know, if it hadn't been this way, I probably would have like tried to come up with something else that would be alien in some other way. I like that you mentioned Farscape. I'm trying to imagine

the Rusalka as being created by the Jim Hinson studio of the workshop. I would pay to see that adaptation for sure. Yeah. Well, you know, when it comes to Muppets, like you've got the small ones that fit up people's hands and you have the big ones that people walk around and like, you know, like Big Bird. But yeah, we need a Muppet that's like the size of

a three-story building. Who, Disney owns the Muppets. They have the money. Come on. Do it. Cowards? So I do not want to ask Tom, which came to ask Tom, which came first? for this. We've made egg jokes, but this is not that. I'm curious the narrative or the gameplay and the mechanics. What was the relationship there? Did you kind of design the game and then say, how do all these things fit together? Or did you have a story in your head that you wanted to tell

and, you know, evocative images and that sort of thing and you built a game around it? Or did both of them sort of evolve in tandem? It was definitely things in tandem. Like if I look at my sketchbook from the time, you know, there's pictures of what would come to be Trace kind of like shooting out his grapple. I think I've said before in interviews that like my initial vision was that he had a gun that was somehow going to be the grapple from Bionic Commando, the car from Blastermaster, and like, I don't know, maybe the morph ball from Metroid, and it would sort of be this one unified thing. And I eventually didn't go with that, but

it was sort of, that was in the same sketchbook along with like creepy ladyheads and robots and other things of that sort. I worked on it for quite a while, I think, before I

actually had this idea of the glitch mechanic. And I think, you know, the story evolved and changed. And, like, once I started, like, really thinking, like, oh, yeah, like, glitching could actually be a good game mechanic, and that fits perfectly in there. How do I explain this in the world? I think, you know, I don't think one necessarily came before the other as just, like, in steps, things I would go back and forth between story and game and game mechanic and grow them both as I went along. Well, and I mentioned earlier the question of identity and what it means to be a person in a world where life seems very flexible and almost like a commodity.

So where did that come from? And the relationship between Trace and the final boss, Athatos, like, how did that evolve exactly? Um, I think, uh, it might be, it might be too far back for me to remember. I know like there was a certain part of me that was trying to, uh, make it be a little bit, uh, like retro. Like, there was this cheesy game where the, I think before like metal gear that was like the, the end boss was it like Operation Viper or something or codename Viper maybe. Codename Viper? Yeah, he has a sword and also a gun. Maybe I'm thinking of a different one. That's not Code Name Viper, but I'm excited. Keep going.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Coename Viper does the same Metal Gear thing where it's like, hey, it's me, your boss. I'm actually the final boss. Hello. Yeah. Yeah, there was a game that was like the boss was actually you. And that was part of it. Also, just going from my own personal, like, thoughts about things.

you know, I feel like if there's an infinite number of realities, at least in this Axiom Verge universe, and that was kind of like, I always knew that that was sort of like the setting that it was like in an alternate universe kind of scenario where there are like a multiverse of realities, that there would also be like infinite numbers of traces and infinite numbers of all the other characters. and, like, I eventually kind of coming up with this elaborate plot that was intentionally elaborate at the time, because I was like, well, like, what would a, you know, like, kind of Japanese game developer think coming up with this would probably be like some kind of anime and just very, like, convoluted. You could barely understand it. So that was part of that as well, like coming up with this whole thing, like, well, like, he's fighting himself because I, I think that's interesting, but how does that even happen? And it's like, well, there's multiple ways. Like, you could be a clone of the guy or he could be a version of you from another reality.

And I don't know. I'm not sure how much is really conveyed in the lore, but like it's either or in like different places of the game. Where there's different versions of trace. There's at least three that are alluded to in the first game. And I guess I kind of like that idea of just that we're not just us, you know, like there are infinite varieties of who we are. You know, there's a version of like me that dies of a heart attack, you know, within the next five minutes and then there's a version of me that keeps on going. It might not be exactly that. Maybe more like some kind of quantum explosion happens, but things happen differently.

and, like, Athatos is this guy who, at least probably, like, revealing more than it is in the story. But, like, what they allude to is that, you know, Athatos, something happened to him to make him go a different way and be bad, right? Like, so maybe it's he was in this explosion that blinded him and he, like, thought he was going to, I don't know, like, in Athatos's version, the things, the same things don't happen. So he basically ends up canonically like he's blind or whatever and then something else happens. He, you know, he meets up with these other characters, the Katra Haska, but it's not talked about, just alluded to that they're allies. But you get the sense like, okay, but Trace is, this hasn't happened to him yet. So he, in his mind, like he's still like this young, fresh guy open, you know, full optimistic. sees the good in people still

yeah there's that and there's other layers to it there's the whole layer of you know when when you die there's no game over screen really it's you know he's been instilled with these machines in his mind that basically are his mind they

copy his whole brain and when he dies they just go into a clone of him and then the clone is born keeping all the memories in his place and he comes out again. And so everything the player experiences, he experiences, too, there isn't like, oh, I died and that never happened, you know, even though you remember it happening in most games, like you go back to the beginning of the level. And it's like, that never happened.

But in Axiom Verge, it all happened. And that's, it's kind of like part of, I don't know, kind of the feeling and the concepts I'm trying to get people to think about. And also mechanically, It ties in a little bit with the gameplay because one of the things that I, that's a frustration for a lot of people when playing Metroidvania's is you get to a certain point and you forget to hit save or whatever and you got some power up or you made some progress, but then you die and you have to do it all over again and it's not fun because you already did it. And Axi and Verge, you teleport back to the most recent save point where you, you know, the most recent egg that you hatched from, but you still retain everything that you gain from

the experience that you've had so far. So all of that stays with you. So not only does it work from a lore perspective, but it actually helps out the game mechanically as well. Yeah, it's funny because dying or losing a life or whatever is such an intrinsic part of video games, but so few games take the time to say, hey, what's up with that? You know, you have like Chrono Cross and Zitogears kind of played around the idea of what's up

with these save points. And, you know, a little before you started working on Axiom Verge, you had Crackdown on Xbox 360 where you play as the quote-unquote agent, but you're completely disposable. You're just like a clone. And so anytime you die,

you're just replaced with another clone. and the announcer guy who's giving you your mission parameters is like, well, you screwed up again, get out there and get going. And like it's just, you know, kind of speaks to the cheapness of life in that universe. But you don't really see a lot of games that stop and say, I actually died, you know, like let's find some meaning to this. And that's something that Axiom Verge addresses right from the start. And, you know, it's also something that carries into the sequel, you know,

given what happens to the protagonist in that game. And, you know, you start to getting kind of like the Thomas Riker question. And, you know, what does it mean to have multiple versions of yourself, which one is the real you? And, yeah, it's kind of an unexpected philosophical twist that sticks with you a bit after you play the game. Like, the game itself is great. But then, you know, if you let it, it kind of plants these seeds of doubts. and questions in your mind that, you know, they're very intriguing. And it's interesting to see the way that it's explored differently in both of the games.

Like the relationship that Trace has with his world and his other selves is different than what you see in the sequel. One thing I really enjoyed about AxiVor is that, you know, at the start of the game, you don't really question any of it. You know, the play character wakes up in this weird sort of chamber is like, Where am I? He doesn't know. And, you know, for me, as a game player, it's like, okay, I've played a dozen of these games. Like, okay, we're going to start. We'll start exploring. We'll find some stuff. And if you, you know, you'll die, like, oh, well, I go back to the last, the last pod I came out of. Okay, fine. And as the game gone, you actually start to talk about, oh, what are these pods? Why do I keep coming out of the pods? And in kind of a very sort of dark moment later on, you like find pods that have things in them. And they're not in good shape. And, you know, the at robot's like, yeah, that clone didn't work out so well, you should probably just kill it. And it's like, what the hell are we doing here? And then I think, is that the same part where the robot actually just kills you remotely? Like, it's, you know, there's a lot of moments of the game that actually, they hit harder because you don't, you know, it fits perfectly

in with the mood of so many games, but you don't even question it. And this game actually makes you question. It's like, well, hey, what's, why do we keep going on these pods? What are the pod's doing, why am I, you know, and that what sort of makes the ultimate revelation that the last boss is essentially a version of you or you're a version of them. Like, it all fits together perfectly because, oh, yeah, well, we've been, we've spent this whole time wondering where we're coming from. I'm like, well, there we go. There's one of me sitting in the end of the, in the game in a glass box, and he's, he's in the worst shape of all. Yeah, it's, I don't think it's a coincidence that one of the most memorable and successful sci-fi films of the past decade or so was

Edge of Tomorrow, which literally is just saying, hey, what happens when you die in a video game, but let's make it into a movie? And, you know, everyone comes up with their own answers. And I don't know that we've seen necessarily, Tom, your definitive answer to all of this within the games. But you've certainly raised a lot of questions, which, you know, that's no small feat to do that in a game with such sparse text, honestly. Yeah, the text is pretty sparse. At some point, in an early stage, I can't remember if it was, I sent someone a demo. I think it was a journalist at GameSpot that played the demo, like he streamed the demo. And people in, what was that?

There was like a chat site that it wasn't 4chan, but it was some kind of like game related forum site that was really popular at the time. NeoGaf? Yeah, NeoGaf. And they kind of eviscerated the amount of dialogue that I had in there because it was originally like, Trace, you know, he comes out and he's like, what is this place? He sees a monster and just like, why are there monsters here? And in those forums, they're like, why is he saying all this stuff?

The player is already thinking it. And that kind of like put into my head, you know, actually, you know, that's a good point. Like, the player is already thinking that. But even more so, you know, maybe the character knows things that the player doesn't. Maybe he figures things out because he's supposed to be a scientist and, you know, it's himself. He knows things or could possibly remember things that the player doesn't know. And so I kind of used that like minimal dialogue, I think, as efficaciously as I possibly could, you know, try to make the most of it while also not boring people with, you know, stuff they don't want to see. And I had people complain, too, like that there was any story, you know, like, why is there any story in this? So for them, I think that, you know, that was kind of a selling point that there was, at least it was skippable and there wasn't too much of it. Yeah, sparse dialogue is not a criticism. And, you know, one of the great things about video games as a narrative form is that you can tell a lot of story without necessarily using a lot of words. I mean, you can just look to the end of Super Metroid and you've got kind of like the ultimate video game pantomime right there. And it's really successful and it sticks with you. But, you know, what I'm saying is that, you know, having cut back on the dialogue in the game, I think you made really effective use of it.

to sort of raise interesting questions and kind of, you know, paint the world. And I think it really serves the story and the mystery a lot that the giant heads you meet don't always, you know, throughout much of the game can't even speak complete sentences. They struggle because they're falling apart and, you know, their systems aren't working correctly. Or whatever it is, like whatever it is that kind of powers them and motivates them. It's not all there. And it just makes the world seem that much more decrepit and mysterious, which, you know, really works to its advantage, I think. Yeah. And in terms of narrative, there's also the notes that are sprinkled throughout the world, which for people who really do want to kind of fit together the whole puzzle

of what went on in this world, like they can take all these disparate notes. And I've seen like some really interesting YouTube videos of people who are like, all right, here's my theory of what's going on in Axiom Virgin. Like, here's, you know, my telling of the whole lore. And they do a really good job of piecing it all together. And then there's also one thing we haven't talked about at all is Tom, Tom, I don't know if you keep updating your blog, but for a while, you had a blog where you were writing a lot about the philosophy of, like, identity in terms of, like, you know, multiple realities and which identity is the true one. And I'll be honest, I started reading it and then I started to tune out because it was like, wow, this is really deep,

heavy stuff. And I'm going to go back to playing the game. But for people who were really into that, there were ways to explore that more deeply for people who wanted to, which I thought was a great option. So I will say that while you trimmed back on the amount of dialogue from your initial plans, it doesn't seem like you necessarily trimmed back on the number of weapons.

Like one of the things that really stands out about Axiom Verge is that there are so, many weapons to choose from, and so many ways that you can face a given scenario. And each weapon has its own advantage and benefit, but they all seem to have drawbacks, too. Like, one might have really great range or a really wide hit box, but it might not hit as hard as something that's more piercing. And a lot of them have utility for navigating the world. You know, like early on, you get the weapon that you can kind of detonate, and it, you know, has a splash effect that opens up gates and can break through things and hit enemies in spaces where you can't reach with your normal shots. Was that like, I don't know, the number of weapons that are

included in Axiom Verge, did you actually cut back from some of your original plans? Or was it just a case where you were like, oh, this would be kind of cool. We can throw this in. And, you know, because it's optional, it doesn't hurt to have it there. I think actually what that sort of came from, a little bit came from like Super Metroid. One of the things that there's very little that you can like really criticize about Super Metroid, but one

thing that I did was that the missile upgrades, like eventually you have so many missiles, you've got enough, but the only reason to go find the missile upgrades is just to like complete it. And so I

was trying to see if I could have something else. that you collect that's more interesting than just more of the same thing. And so that that was a large part of why there were so many weapons was that, you know, I didn't want it to be, you just get another upgrade and you have more missiles or more bombs now. You have a completely different thing. And I think I just came up with a number, like, however many there are 20 or something

like that. And I remember I just spent a couple of weeks just doing one weapon. and after the other, and, like, making a note, like, now I finished eight weapons, now I finished 16 or something like that. And then, like, going through and I think I might have been, like, near the end of the game, maybe end of developing when I did that. And I just fleshed out all the areas where there wasn't a secret with, you know, I hit one of those weapons in there. Are there any, is there a favorite weapon for you within, within the entire collection of the entire arsenal.

Is there one that you think like, this is it, this is, this is my baby. I'm so proud of this one. I don't know. There's a couple that I like that I don't know if other people feel the same, but there's one that I can't remember the name of any of them really, but it was like a spinning one. It spins kind of like the drill does, but then as you hold it down, I think it spins wider or faster.

And then actually, it's mapped to the train. trigger maybe? I don't know. And, no, I think it's just as you hold it. And then when you release, it fires, shots. I remember liking that, like making that one a lot. And there's one that's kind of like RIGAR's disc armor. Is it called it? Disc armor.

Yeah. And that one I like, I think just because I like Ryegar, but I think it was kind of too powerful because it just had such a wide, like, area. of attack, that I had to make it be like an extra thing. I think you have to play the game several times before you can get it. I mean, there is a reason that Rigar just uses that as his one weapon. It's just so good. Yeah. Well, I also kind of did people a disservice because when I was playtesting an earlier build of the game, I got the flamethrower somewhere, like Tom put it just somewhere where you could just happen upon it. And that, I felt, was really

overpowered. Like, it could go through walls. You could just hold down the trigger and it would just destroy everything in its path. And so I told Tom that and also made the final boss trivial because you could just hold that down and destroy everything. And so Tom wound up putting it in like one of the hardest to reach points of the game. Like, you don't get the clue for it until right before the final boss and then to go get it, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the game and then it's like hidden super deeply. And so I was like, oh, but on the one hand, yes, it was overpowered. But on the other hand, I wanted more people to be able to play around with it because it is a lot of fun. So I should have had to be an earlier

thing up for sure. Yeah. Because yeah, you don't get, you don't, you didn't get a chance to really have that, I'm a powerful god with my, you know, shooting through walls, flamethrower weapon that can get anything. That feeling, it's not fun, like, if you're already at the end of the game. Right, right. So one of the things that I've never actually experimented with in Axiom Verge is the randomizer. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Like, how does the game randomize itself?

I mean, is there like a seed of, Axiom Verge where you could get the Flamethrower earlier, or does it kind of keep things in a sequential order so that you're not getting stuff that's way out of depth and way out of range early on? So the vanilla Axiom Verge doesn't

really have, doesn't randomize the main game that much. I think like there's a different special weapon that you can find within those randomized there's like these randomized mini dungeons in there. And

the weapon that you find in that changes after every three play-throughs. So there's three different weapons you can get one on your first, one on your second, one in your third, and then I think it repeats. Then there's also the randomizer that was made posthumously by fans of Axiom Verge that basically decompiled it and went into it

and added their own code to it. and it was originally, you know, an extra patch that they had made on their own. And eventually we got together somehow, maybe it was Dan who got together with them and were kind of like, well, we could actually put this into the main game and make it be part of it. So I think on the PC, it is in there. I'm not, I don't think it was on consoles just because they had already like, shipped and the patching process was prohibitively difficult for me to do that once a year or so had passed and their like my SDK was no longer valid.

And does that include the switch version? Because that's how I've played it. And that would have come along later because, you know, the switch wasn't even around in 2015. Yeah, it might be in the switch version. Yeah, I honestly don't recall either. But to answer your original question about my research. To answer your original question of, is there a randomizer mode where you could happen upon the flamethrower earlier, the answer to that is yes.

The way they did it, and I have to give them credit because Tom really just all he had to do was give his blessing and they designed this thing. But what they did was they recognized that to get past certain parts of the game, you needed certain tools. that will open gates. So, for example, there's one part in the main game, in the original game, where you need, and I forget the name of all the weapons now, but it's basically the shotgun that's like, it does this burst of lightning, the lightning gun, and it can go through walls, and you can open it from the opposite side, basically. And so they knew, okay, to get, you know, we need to have it randomized, like, what weapons you get where, but we also know that before you get to this point, at least one of those weapons has to be something that can

go through walls. And so, and there are a few things like that. So they had these criteria of like, and some constraints about how things could be randomized. So, so you go through, and all of the item locations are the same as the original game. The map is the same as the original game. It's just, you know, where you might have found one weapon type, you now find a different weapon. So it's kind of like you're not sure what you're going to get. And sometimes, like, in order to get that thing that will pass through walls, you really have to know the original game super well because sometimes, yes, technically it is in that area before you get to the gate where you have to kind of open it from the opposite side. But it's hidden super deeply that most people

never find it on their first couple playthroughs. It's only if you've 100%ed the game and you know the hiding locations of every little thing, you know where to find all these weapons. So it's definitely challenging to play that way. But yeah, you could be lucky

and, you know, one of the weapons that goes through walls is the flamethrower. So I've played some levels of, you know, some versions of vaccine or I guess some seeds where you get that super early and then it's like, well, I don't need anything else for the rest of the game because I've got this baby now. Or also, sometimes you might get the

third trench coat super early because, you know, technically it has to happen before, you know, that last section of the game. But it could come earlier. And so if you get like the flamethrower in that third trench coat, you're good to go. I personally referred to that weapon you describe as the broccoli gun because to me it looked like you were just shooting out a big head of broccoli from the weapon, and I thought that was funny. Nice. Oh! I will say that, you know, finding these items and knowing where to look is much easier now that there is a really excellent official strategy guide from Prima books available. Well, it's actually not available anymore, but it's out there.

It's out there floating around. Now, I didn't write the strategy guide, but I did lay it out. and organize it, and it really gave me an appreciation for how difficult it must be to put together a game this big and with this many interdependencies for tools and environmental details and weapons and things like that. Just trying to lay out this book and organize the information in a way that made sense and was, you know, visually coherent and also mentally coherent for readers to be able to find things and quickly reference things was really, really challenging. And I'm curious, like, what was the process, Tom, through which the world of Axiom verge evolved?

And, you know, how much iteration is involved in fine-tuning? and testing and so forth and figuring out like, what is the best flow? Where's the best place to put this tool? What's the best place to add this, you know, this gating technique and so forth without breaking it so that you accidentally put something way too early in the game where someone can bypass it and just skip over big chunks of the adventure? That seems really tough. Yeah, well, I did cheat a little bit when it comes to my initial draft of like figuring out where everything thing would go and that was by basically

looking at another strategy guide that one being for Super Metroid and while you may have noted that I didn't none of the weapons are the same as Super Metroid, none of the bosses or anything are I did pay

very close attention to all the various key points that are in that game and the places where you use the items you get And, like, essentially what I did was make a new map and make it so that flow chart-wise, I began with just saying, you're going to get an item here. I would label that on the map. And then I would label in smaller, like, where on the map it would be used.

So, like, you get the drill and was drilled, I think, no, you get the exploding, the detonating one, the Nova. That's the first thing you get. That would be labeled one. And then anywhere do you need that, I put a one on it on the map. And then the drill is two. And I'd put a two anywhere on the map, it should go. And so that was a way for me visually to look at the map and be like, okay, this is, you know, where the player can get to at this point. If they have, you know, if they're up to item five, they can do these things.

But I did this before having any of the items in mind. I just had numbers on the map. And then it was kind of like, what should I fill in those numbers? should the drill be first or should the Nova be first? It was questions like that. And then as it went on, then it changes from there. I'll be playing it and I'll be like, you know, it really doesn't work that I had this section take so long. You don't get any items in there. So I've got to like maybe move an item from later to halfway through this section so that, you know, there's like a mini loop in there where you find. this new item and you need that to get through, you know, halfway through the section and get, do something else. And that happened over and over again. So it wasn't something, I don't feel it's something that you could plan for. I know, like, there's a lot of software engineers in game development that believe that you should be able to plan the entire game in advance and, and it should be ready. Like, you know, they might do it NASA with a rocket or something. But, um, So many things are just, you can't know until you play it. And then you're like, this needs to be different. And, you know, that was, that was one of them where it's just always kind of morphing and changing as I was going.

And the map would change how it looked over time. But it did begin as sort of like just a basic, almost like a flow chart, empty map with numbers on it. Now that you mentioned that, I do think that was in the files you shared with us when you, when we did the, you know, the strategy guide and the maps and stuff for a limited run. So I need to go back and look at the files you shared, because I think there was something that had those notations in there. And that does seem like a really smart way to just kind of create like, you know, the basic skeleton of a game, but then to flesh it out through iteration and experimentation,

a good combination compromise, you know, of approaches. Diamond. This really surprised me, Tom, because I, you know, you mentioned earlier, on that you sort of had this, you had an idea for the Bionic Commando style grapple early on in the process. But I feel like you don't find that until you already played the game for a while. And me personally, like, when I found that item in the game, I was like, oh, oh, it's all, like, it's on now. Like, oh, I'm swinging. I'm swinging. I'm swinging. I love it. So, and it's, I guess it's what else that I played the game myself, is that a necessary item or is it something that's very useful. Is that something that is strictly

necessary to complete the game, or is it just sort of like, it's fun, but you don't absolutely have to have it. I think there's a part in there where you are trapped in the pit and you need it to get out. Okay. Which is very Metroidvania thing of me to be.

And I've had people complain that it didn't have enough utility other than to get out of that section, which kind of, I kind of agree that maybe there should have been more grappling hook only parts of the game to make that

that item more useful well I mean it's a grappling hook it justifies itself like if a game that has a grappling hook is better than a game that has no grappling hooks so it's like you don't have to justify it like oh it's a grappling hook it's everyone loves grappling hooks

you know it's like jetbacks come on but you were you're saying that it surprised you it surprised me to find out that so like you had you had thought of it so early because in the game you don't find it to relatively late And in my mind, I wasn't even sure if you needed it to complete the game.

So, you know, like, in my mind, when I think about games of grappling hooks, I think about games that are built around the grappling hook. So if you said you thought about a game of the grappling hook at the start, I would have figured, oh, so then he had a lot of grappling hook ideas. Like, no, no, no. He didn't get it till late in the game. And it's kind of only, like, specifically useful in the certain spots. But once you have it, it's super fun to use.

So, yeah, there's kind of like an alternate. school of like indie game mentality that seems to be to just have one kind of item or movement mechanic and have the whole game be based around that one thing. And I think like, you know, Bionicamando is that. It's all about the grappling hook and it's awesome. But I, I wanted this game to be more like there are there are other things to do. It's not just about the grappling hook. It's not the grappling hook game. You know, there are so many things that I wanted it to be like any one of those things could be their own game, but you're kind of feeling like you're getting a whole bunch of games in one game because each item does so many

things. Yeah, the grappling hook kind of works like the space jump in Super Metroid in that you get it pretty late and it's essential in a few spots, but mostly it just feels really good to have this newfound liberation of movement. Like I said, you know, the Metroidvania spectrum. Metroid is much more on the mobility and, you know, kind of freewheeling freedom of movement into the spectrum versus the Castlevania precision side of the spectrum. And I feel like the grappling hook really plays into that. And when you start combining it, chaining it with, you know, the ability to teleport and things like that, it just, yeah, like, it's always nice to play a game where you just want to explore the world because it's so damn fun to get around.

That's always a good sign. Eventually, when you get enough powers and you start using them together, I forget the exact order of things, but I remember finding, figuring out this thing by my, I think I figured out myself. I'm sure other people internet did too, but I don't think I read about it. I think I stumbled onto it, emergent gameplay, if you will, where like if you launch an egg, like a drone egg, and then hatch it and then swap it, you can quickly launch another egg. And like, if you repeat this quickly enough, which isn't easy because you've got to push a lot of buttons like in certain orders, you can actually, like, launch yourself super, super high in a Maps, and I always felt like I was maybe, I was maybe going places I wasn't supposed to be, but I wasn't sure if that was something you designed or if that just happened. Like, am I a genius or am I, did I stumble on something you put in there because you're the genius? Which one of us is the genius, Tom? I don't think there's, I'm definitely not a genius, but I think that it was intentional because part of like my, my full. philosophically was that I wanted it as much as possible to feel like you were breaking the game. Because I, and, you know, like you said, how the original Metroid was kind of like held together by string, right?

Like, one of my greatest joys as a kid was wall walking. You could like kind of repeatedly jump up through a door and like it would take you into a glitched out room if you were in the right spot. And I didn't know what that was as a kid, but I loved the feeling that I was doing something I wasn't supposed to and that maybe there were something there. And so as much as I could, I tried to get anything like that that was fun to keep it in there. You know, a lot of games would put a restriction. Like later Metroid games made it so that you couldn't infinitely bomb yourself up to higher levels. like after the third bomb or something, it makes a pause so that you have to wait

and you can never build yourself a tower of bombs. And I guess with that one, I was thinking, well, it really isn't a reason not to let people do this because you get those fairly late in the game and it's not the easiest thing to do. And I can make it so that there's things up, you know, high up in the screen for you to find as well so that they're,

could be a reward for it. So that's, that was philosophy behind that and other things like that. Yeah. And I was just going to, you know, mention that as well that, uh, yeah, one way to know that it was in fact, uh, designed to be in there is, yeah, there are a few items that if you want 100% the game, you kind of have to master that technique. And, and it's, it's not easy to get to some of those areas. But, um, but, but yeah, once you kind of get that rhythm down of, uh, of launch the drone, swap out, launch the drone again. And I think you also have to, like, you also have to, like, shoot your weapon because that will reset the drone launching capability

because you can't just go back into trace form and then launch again. You have to, you have to, like, use the drill in there as well. Like, there's, like, four things you have to do. But, yeah, there are a few things. One I can think of in particular that I am not aware of any way to reach that high up. in the map without this technique. So, yeah, Tom's the genius. Well, relay to that, though, I must say, because in order to refresh my memory,

I did watch a speed run of Axiom Verge before we started recording. And when you watch a speed run of the game, you see people do stuff like you mentioned, Tom, where, like, if you get into a door somehow, you can, like, launch the character, like, three rooms away into a space you're not supposed to be. And so, like, when you see that, is it exciting? Or is it like, oh, geez, I left the hole? Like, what does that hit you with? I feel like super exciting.

Like, if it was someone, you know, if it was like someone just playing the game for the first time and that happened, I would be pretty upset. Like, you know, this person probably has no idea what the heck is going on. But when it's, you know, a speed runner, I think actually you are genius for thinking of that jumping thing because I think I was. taught that by speed runners now that. Yeah, and that I chose to keep it in there.

Because, you know, it's such an advanced thing, a lot of these. And I don't know, I think it's so much fun when a game breaks in a way that you can use to your advantage. And I feel like in the Axiom Verge universe, like, it fits in. Like, it would, you know, I can't put dialogue in it because I can't predict what's going to happen. But it seems like something. that it would happen to trace and he would totally just be like, this fits in with everything else I've seen. I'm just going to go with it.

I will say... I feel like... I was sorry, go ahead. I was going to say it did make some parts of releasing the game a little challenging because we had some playtesters and especially with the axiom disruptor, the glitch gun and a bunch of other things. It became very difficult for people to tell,

is this a bug or is this intentional? because it's a fine line, whether it was supposed to be in there or not. And the ultimate guide in those cases was just, does it make the game more fun for people? And will it ruin the experience for other people? Like, to Tom's point, if someone might do it on accident and be confused by it, that's not a good thing. But, yeah, those bug reports, we'd get bug reports all the time and it would be like, No, you just found the axiom disruptor. That's the way it's supposed to work.

I feel like you have, Tom, a really pretty healthy relationship with your player base and your community. Like, there seems to be good back and forth between you and fans of the game. And, like, you, I don't know, the impression I've gotten is that you really enjoy kind of seeing what people come up with and what they manage to deduce. and something we've talked about in recent episodes has been how creators can sometimes be too precious about their work and kind of jealous about their ideas and their secrets. You know, like a great example is Game of Thrones and how the creators, the adaptation creators,

sort of threw the series on a grenade because people started figuring out some of the plot threads that they had laid. I don't feel like you've done that. I feel like you, I don't know, my impression is that you're kind of energized by what the fans come up with and, you know, the fact that they try to deduce the mysteries of the story and so forth. I'm curious how much of that fed into the radical changes you made with Axiom Verge 2

and what a wildly different game that is from the original. I mean, it's, you know, set in more or less the same world and has a very, exploration-focused style, but the way you actually navigate that game, the way you engage with the world is wildly different. And the way it tells its story is very, very different, too. How much of that was, you know, kind of you building on what you took from people's experience with your game, your first game, and how much of that was just you wanting to build something new and different for yourself? I feel like it was about 50% wanting to make something new and different for myself

because, you know, just doing the same thing, again, would be very tedious for me. But there was also 50% of it was because I knew that if I made the same kind of game, say I made the sequel and I just made there be different weapons or, you know, something else I improved just the graphics, but else otherwise it was the same. I would be creating this expectation that that was always what it was going to be for this whole series of Axiom Verge always means that it looks like, you know, Dan's background screen. He has right now, he has Elsa Nova with the chamber she's in and all the tiles. And it's very dark. I didn't want there to be a situation where, like, one day I am like, I want to make something totally different.

And then, like, people are like, oh, man, Axiom Verge 4, really, like, that was the worst Axiom Verge because it just felt, didn't feel like Axiom Verge at all. Axiom Verge 1, 2, and 3 were all, like, dark dungeon explorers. And then Axiom Verge 4 was like, you know, all of a sudden, I don't know what it is, you're in space. I don't know. And so I was kind of like. I've got to make something that's as different as I can make it be and still have it still be Axiom Verge was sort of my intent there to kind of capture this whole breath and be like, now you know what to expect because you know that you can't really expect always the same thing, but it'll be like within this spectrum.

Yeah, so we're still a few years away from being able to talk about Axiom Verge 2 as a retro game. But you did mention Axiom Verge 4. So is that something that's actually in the works already? you? I just have like kind of outline. I have more outlined for like prequels and stuff like that than I do for what happens in the future just because I, lore-wise, I just wanted to make sure I didn't get my wires crossed anywhere. So I came up with, you know, all these background stories for the different characters. And the foreground story of like what happens, it's a little bit nebulous, but I'm going to try and make it so that after three axiom verges, it's sort of like a beat. You can be like, oh, like, there was some kind of resolution. And then it continues. And I know, like, where it's going to continue after that.

And that it kind of needs to continue to really convey the whole overarching story of it. But that whole overarching story hasn't been fully revealed. Well, I was, I was just thinking that if we're doing pre-concings, I just hope that you include Axiom Verge, but you make the O is zero, so that way we know it's prequel, please. Axiom Verge zero. Axi zero and verge. Yeah, yeah.

Put numbers in the word is what I'm saying. The internet demands it. Yeah. So, yeah. So the only thing I'll add to what Tom was saying about, you know, Axiom Verge 4 is he'll have to do Axiom Verge 3 before he gets to 4. And we've deliberately not been. That's linear thinking, Dan.

Yeah, I know. I'm too traditional in my mindset. You're pretty good ideas into my head now, though. Like, what if we do start with four? So I've kind of admonished Tom whenever he gets too far off into, like, talking about future games. Because it's like, you know, let's figure out how we want to approach this, how we want to talk about it, when the right timing is. Because, you know, we don't want to run into a situation. that, like, you know, some games run into where they announce way too early, and by the time

the game actually ships, people are like, oh, is that still in development? I thought that shipped years ago, and, like, I just lost track of it. And so I'd like there to be a proper time when we, you know, officially start talking about the third game. So all I think, I personally feel comfortable saying is Tom is working on another game. And that's all I'll say. Tom, I guess, you know, obviously it's your game. You can feel free to share a little bit more on that if you want, or we'll just wait until it's really time to start talking about it.

Yeah. I will just kind of reinforce what you said and say that it kind of sucks, like, because there are developers out there who will just stream as they're developing their game. So everyone knows what they're doing because they're streaming it. And, like, there are some developers. that I've never seen them release a game, but they have like 100, 200,000 followers on Instagram all watching them develop the game. And that kind of feels like, oh, yeah, that could be a lot of fun to me.

Like, I could get feedback. But also, if you do that, then, like, Nintendo isn't going to want to put your game into their Nintendo direct announcing that it comes out if you've already announced it and everyone already knows about it, you know? they they Nintendo Sony and Microsoft wants to be the first ones to ever speak about anything new that you have to show and like that will be seen by millions of people so it kind of puts you in this spot where like I guess I shouldn't say very much because they're going to want that secret to be there you know theirs to reveal fair enough I really appreciate you saying that Tom because honestly as someone who cares a lot about video games, but also is not on the side of making or publishing them. I, for one, I'm always baffled at the sort of air of secrecy that seems to overshadow everything. Like, we're recording this a few days after Blubert Team and Konami announced,

oh, Silent Hill 2 remake sold millions of copies. So we're here to announce another game. No, we're not saying what it is. Like, okay, well, you make a lot of horror games. Might it be a new Silent Hill game? No. tell us that. Okay, you're going to make us wait for months or maybe even years to find out what that is. And now, hearing your perspective is like, okay, they want people to know other than the

game's coming, but they don't want to say it because they need to have, they wanted to make a special. And I guess I understand that from a human being standpoint. Right. Because they're thinking, like, it'll be an announcement on the game awards and all these people will see it. And if they, you know, if they just make a press release, then it could just be completely missed. Thank you. The teaser for the announcement, for the trailer for the game. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's all kinds of thought processes behind it. I think for me, what it comes down to is, you know, because I've been on the other end, you know, as a player just being like, oh, man, when is this game coming out? I've been waiting for so long. And then, you know, and then you almost start to get resentful. Like, why is the dev team taking so long? Like, how dare they? Just give me the game already.

And, of course, knowing a bit more about how the sausage is made and what it takes to actually make a game, I know, like, Tom is working as hard as he can on the next game. And so I don't want to put any more fan pressure on him. Like, you know, I look at, like, Silk Song as an example. Like, you know, and you could argue that announcing it so early actually worked in their favor because, like, it almost became a meme at this point where it's like, whenever there's a Nintendo direct, it's like, Is there going to be Silk Song news? But on the other hand, I just got to imagine that the team, Team Cherry, is probably so sick of hearing people just demanding that game

when they're working as hard as they can, I'm sure, making it. So there will be a time when all the ducks are in a row and we can say something meaningful about the game and hopefully people will be excited about it and they'll fire up Axiom Verge 1 and 2 and replay those games in anticipation of, you know, remind themselves of what's going on in the story. And so, yeah, so when the time is right, there will be plenty of time to talk about it well in advance of launch.

We're not going to like just drop it and be like, here it is. You didn't even know we were working on it. I would hate for Axiom Verge 15 to be just a rebranded Axiom Verge versus 13 because you got overly ambitious and announced to her. let's not do that. But no, I am looking forward to whatever shows up down the road, whether you skip three and go directly to four or what. I've really enjoyed the first two games

and love how different they are, but still feel like part of a cohesive whole. That's a rare feat. So I'm looking forward to seeing how you follow up on both of those and where the third game lands. But in the meantime, I do want to let, everyone go and get about their evening or if you're in Japan, you're morning. And just say, thank you both Dan and Tom for your time and for giving us a few more insights into the origins

of one of the best indie games of the past decade. So thanks for 10 years of Axiom Verge. And please tell us where we can find you on the internet to follow more of your work and hear. your teasers and philosophy and so forth, Tom. I'm sorry. I blanked there. I thought you were monologing, and then it sounded like at the end, you were asking me a question.

Yes. Do I monologue too much as that? Do I need to come my dialogue too? So the question was, where can people find you on the internet and if they want to read also your blog and things like that. So maybe we could cut the dialogue and you can start your answer here.

It's actually very funny this way. Okay. We'll just leave it. Oh, yes. Leave it in. I'm generally on blue sky these days. I'm just at Axiom verge. I think it's like ataxiumurge.

Or something, they have a URL for your name. But it starts with at Axiom verge. And to a lesser extent, I still, am on Twitter. I kind of, you know, that platform has fallen out of favor with me a bit, but I still occasionally check it. And then from there, I do have a Facebook page that I check rarely. And if you're clever, people have figured out that they can email me, like, at the

support and press links and stuff like that that are somewhere on the website. And for me, I've actually deleted. Twitter from my phone and removed it from my open tabs. I still have an account, but I don't check it. I am on Blue Sky. You know, speaking of 10-year anniversaries, my blog at Dan Edelman.com, I think we're coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the last time I updated that site. So you could check out my thoughts on the gaming industry as of 2015. So, yeah, actually, don't look at that site. It's woefully out of date. But yeah, just probably blue sky is the right place for me.

And Diamond. Well, you can find me around the internet by looking for my name Fight Club. F-E-I-T is my last name. C-L-U-B is a weapon that is not an Axiom Verge, Tom. There's no clubs in that game. But yeah,

you can find me on Blue Sky and many other services or my website, which is fightclub.combe.m. It's a website I made myself. So it looks like it's been sitting idle for decades. But no, it just, that's just how it looks. Although I haven't actually updated in a while, so I probably should do that. And finally, you can find me, Jeremy Parrish, on Blue Sky. I do have a Twitter account, but I only use it to see what the Nazis are saying about me today. You can also

find me at YouTube as, that's right, Jeremy Parrish. And I'm also here on Retronauts and doing stuff at limited run games, which you'll sometimes find if you buy cool deluxe editions or just books, such as Axi and Verge 1 and 2. Oh, right. And also, Retronauts. This is the whole thing, the whole Kittenkaboodle. You can find more Retronauts on your favorite podcatcher or download platform of your choice. We have hundreds and hundreds of episodes that you can enjoy. And if you really enjoy us, you can subscribe at Patreon. That is how we pay for ourselves to continue. to exist. Patreon.com slash Retronauts. Subscribe for three bucks a month. And you get

every episode, no, every weekly episode a week early and a higher bit rate quality with no advertisements. Five bucks a month. You also get all kinds of bonus content, including weekly columns from our friend Diamond Fight here. That's right. But whatever the case, thank you for listening. Thank you for your support. And please go and Refresh your memory of how good Axiom verges, because 10 years later, it still holds up. Thanks again, guys. I hope to talk to you again sometime in the semi-near future. Who knows?

Thanks so much. Clutch night. All right, 99. Thank you. Thank you.