Think Like A Game Designer - Matt Fantastic — The Indy Game Ethos, Punk Rock Designs, Navigating Success Beyond Sales, Collaborative Dynamics, and the Power of Empathy in Game Design (#45)

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Matt is easily the most punk rock game designer I’ve ever interviewed, and it’s no wonder because their professional life is rooted in collectivism, art, nerdery, social justice, and DIY punk rock. He is the Creative Director of Forever Stoked Creative, a studio they founded over a decade ago. Matt also owns Elm City Games, a game shop/library in New Haven, Connecticut. They founded the New Haven Game Makers Guild, organized Fantasticon, and do consulting across the game industry as well as for corporate, NGO, and institutional clients like Netflix and Yale. In this episode, we discuss the world of indy games and have a fantastic time! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry, with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. All right, before we get to today's episode, I want to highlight something I'm really excited about. And that is our upcoming Kickstarter for Ascension Tag. Inferno. For those that don't know, Ascension Tactics, we ran a huge Kickstarter for it back in

2020. Thanks to all the fun of the pandemic, we had to take a little while before we were able to deliver that to retail, but we finally got the game into retail in 2022. It's won a bunch of awards. People have been super excited about it. It's been in a lot of top 10 lists for the year. I'm super passionate about it. If you want to learn more about that, you could actually listen to my previous episode with Ryan Sutherland. We talked about it in detail. But Ascension Tactics Inferno is a new standalone expansion coming that has all of the fun of deck building games, all of the badass miniatures and tactical excitement of a tactical

battling game, and over 50 new miniatures, maybe even more, depending upon how well the Kickstarter goes, an entirely new center deck of cards, having a new terrain, new story, new campaign. You can play it competitively in 1V1, 1V2, 2V2. You can also play it solo or cooperatively. We have a new mode that lets you play cooperatively with up to four players, playing through a campaign, an all new storyline, all kinds of fun stuff. It takes all the cool characters of the Ascension brand, takes it to another level. It's something I'm so, so excited about. And I'm sure I'll talk more about it and dig into some more of the design lessons and insights in a future episode.

But I just wanted to give you my podcast audience a teaser. We're going to have an exclusive day one reward for everybody that backs the project on day one. We'll tell you more about that. But if you want to make sure you find out what happens, you can go to stoneblade.com. That's s-t-o-n-n-e-b-l-a-d-de-com. If you've been listening to me for a while and you don't know how to spell that, then I've probably done a pretty poor job here. But that's okay.

We're sharing it anyway. You can click on the links there. They'll take you to be following the Kickstarter, join our mailing list. You'll be the first ones to hear it. I'm going to get us back to the lessons and the insights here. But if you want to see how I do this work, right, following along with the Kickstarter, you can see how I build the marketing campaigns. You can see how we design what it's like to design an expansion for a game like this.

There's lots of cool insights you can get by following along, whether you back or not. And of course, I always appreciate it if you back and share. But I just am so excited about it. I want to share that enthusiasm with you all. So stay tuned for more information. I can go to stomblade.com to find out more in the short term. And now let's get to today's guest. In today's episode, I speak with Matt fans.

fantastic. Matt is one of the most interesting and fun people that I ever get to see at Gabe Conventions. He and I always have awesome chats. He is really the epitome of the kind of indie mindset. And I will tell you just at first as a warning, there's a lot of foul language in this episode. Matt does not censor himself and I didn't think it was appropriate to censor him and frankly talking to him made me censor myself less. So if that's not your couple of of tea, then maybe this is an episode to skip. But if you're willing to get past that, there is a ton of great insights here. Matt is most known probably as the creative director of Forever Stoked Creative, where he is able to build a team that has no real official leaders

and is a collective, both in making group decisions and in the financial rewards, but he talks about the distinctions between that and having clear creative leads for a project and how you balance those two things. His games have crazy ridiculous titles like everyone else thinks this game is awesome, glamazons, the curse of the chain mail bikini and more. But don't let this indie punk style fool you. Matt has also been a consultant and worked on games for the Marvel brand, for Netflix, for Yale, and for a variety of other really high-end institutions and projects. Matt is a quintessential independent and creative. And this episode, in addition to the game design and game industry insights is going to give you a lot of philosophical insights. And we rant about that

stuff for quite a bit. And so there's a lot of really great things about what it means to be a creative, what it means to be an indie, how you should think about your work and life and how all of these things come together. We talk about Matt's music career and his singing and all the other creative fields that he's been involved in, publishing books and vinyl records and all the weirdnesses that come with that. So it's a really fun episode. I really enjoyed it. I like to bring you a lot of distinct, unique voices that show you the range of possibilities to live a creative and make a living as a creative. And Matt Fantastic is absolutely one of those voices. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. And without further ado, here is Matt Fantastic.

Hello and welcome. I am here with Matt Fantastic. Matt, it's fantastic to have you here. It is fantastic to be here. Yeah, man. So, You and I have been friends for many years. We see each other at conventions. I'm pretty sure you're just at every convention. It doesn't matter where, when, how.

I feel like I've seen you at every single one. And it's clear there's an incredible work ethic, but also this deep punk rock indie ethos that you just exude in everything that you do. You break so many of the conventions and norms and the expectations. And yet you have a, deep creative wellspring that I'm really excited to tap into here. Like you and I, you know,

we chat all the time, but we've never gotten to really dive deep into your background and, and pull out some of these lessons. So I'm very excited to kind of get this, get this ball rolling. Yeah. I mean, you know,

thanks for saying that. You know, I mean, I think there's so many things to unpack and what you just said that are, that are interesting, you know, one is the grind, which I think we can get to,

you know, a little further on. But, but, you know, the punk rock thing, I think is, is something.

that, you know, is, you know, has defined my career in the game industry in a lot of ways, right? And that, you know, I came up in kind of the DIY punk and hardcore and indie scene. I played in bands and toured and did a label. And I booked lots of shows. We used to book shows at my mom's house in the basement. You know, and I'd book like a knitting factory in New York. And then I'd be like, okay, do you want to play my mom's basement, though? That is amazing.

So your mom was clearly supportive in this, or it sounds like, or else she was really, I don't know which way this went down. Yes, we live with my mom and my grandparents, and they were just very cool and supportive. Yeah, my mom especially got sort of like DIY punk and the vibe and attitude and energy of the community side of it, like really, really well, right? So I just want to unpack that a little bit because DIY punk and sounds really cool. And then from knowing you, I can kind of, I can pick up what that is. And I have my own ideas of what that is. If you had to define that to someone who'd never heard that phrase before or understood that term before, how would you define it? Yeah.

Well, so, I mean, I think it falls under the, I think the DIY is the aspect. It's interesting, right? Because we can sit here and spend 40 hours doing a podcast about what, is and isn't, you know, quote unquote punk. But I think it's less a music and more of an energy and attitude. And I don't mean like an attitude like the queen, whatever. That's terrible. This is some great audio again here.

I love it. It's more of an emphasis on the DIY aspect, right? Which is the, which stands for do it yourself. And it was an attitude that really came forward more in the early 80s than in that kind of like earlier years of punk. Although there was a lot of it then as well. But this idea of, you know, we are outside the mainstream and we are going to do our own thing and we're going to do it the way that we want to do it. And, you know, record label doesn't want to put out this music. Fine.

You know, these clubs don't want to, you know, book our bands. Great. We'll start our own spaces. Yeah. Yeah. That ethos clearly is something that's powerful and carries on. And as you sort of the story you already told about this, you know, okay, we're going to run, we're going to do it. We're going to create our own label.

We're going to host shows in mom's basement. We're going to bring in these different acts. And so that idea of whatever it is, we're going to do it ourselves and we're going to figure it out. Clearly, that that's a powerful ethos to carry over into any whatever creative thing you're going to do, right? This, what I would call an action bias. I'm not going to wait for permission. I'm not going to wait for a gatekeeper. I'm going to just start doing whatever it is that I can do and figure it out as I go along.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that is, and it's interesting because, like, you know, talking about this stuff in, you know, sort of my adolescence and, you know, sort of like young adulthood career doing stuff, it's so normal, right? Like, it's so normalized. It's so just like, of course you have a label.

Like, everybody has a label, right? And you'd go to a show and there'd be like five different people with distros like, you know, set up with, you know, a bunch of records that they'd traded with other bands and, you know, and all this and that. And then you move into games. And it's interesting because I feel like way back there was a lot of that sort of ethos around the same time frame of the kind of, you know, like, yeah, we're making these weird games. It comes in a Ziploc bag, right? You know, awful green thing from outer space. You know, Steve Jackson game from the 80s came in a, you know, VHS, you know, case and stuff like that. You know, so I think that's interesting.

that there was actually a lot of it in sort of the earlier days of games. And, you know, when I, the kid, I would see that stuff and didn't really make the connection until I was a little bit older, right? Because games are definitely much more commodified, you know, as an overall thing. You know, it's really interesting to get into what is and isn't in indie games. If you'd like to go down that road, I have lots of opinions. Yeah, well, it's, it is interesting because it is something that, it's a term that gets thrown around, and, you know, much like punk, I suppose you could find a lot of different ways to define it and argue who is and who is an indie. But do you have a specific definition in mind since you're bringing up?

What is that different? It's less that I have a definition of what it is, but more that I think it is really interesting when we talk about it in games, because in a lot of ways, and I think this might be true in a lot of things outside of games. with games is really where I have the most experienced games of music um indian music is is kind of um i don't want to say lifestyle but it's a broader uh broader thing it's an ethos it's an attitude it's a scene that you might be a part of or various scenes that you might be a part of um just because you're not uh you know so i talk a lot about you know so if you think about music right there's bar bands bar bands are not indie bands, right? They know negative thing towards bar bands,

but, you know, they're like playing covers, they're maybe playing a few originals, some of the most talented musicians, but they're just doing their thing, right? They're just not particularly successful or they're not particularly interested in pushing. In a lot of cases, they're just not really interested in pushing themselves

into the things that you need to do to kind of like grind it out to try to make a career. Whereas in games, you know, indie is almost interchangeable with not successful. And I say that not in a, or I guess defining success is a complicated thing, right? But let's say not as successful as someone would like to be typically. In a lot of cases, it's, oh, no, we're like an indie company. And it's like, no, you're just a small company that aspires to be a bigger company,

but you're doing the same kind of stuff, right? Like you're making a family, you know, strategy game that you aspire to have on the shelves in Target, right? And is that or is that not indie, you know, like, I don't know, I don't want to try to pretend like I'm some sort of arbiter of what is and isn't various things. But it is interesting, the dramatically different way I think we use the term and talk about sort of like the indie game scene in games. Yeah, so there's a couple threads that are interesting to pull apart there, right?

So there's one, there's this clue, there seems to be a certain threshold. of success, beyond which you can't call yourself indie anymore. I don't know what, obviously, that threshold is fuzzy, but there's a certain degree of mainstream adoption to which there's a clear barrier of indie, not indie. And then it sounds like you're pulling another thread here, which is this attitudinal approach towards I'm doing things that maybe are not intended specifically towards this growth and this mass adoption. They're intended towards appealing to a smaller audience or to my own aesthetic instincts more so than trying to do the thing that you think is going to be the most successful or the thing that will allow you to grow the most.

There's this sort of approach of almost, it's just as a pretentious way to say it, but like almost a kind of creative authenticity or a niche market focus over a kind of mass market growth focus. Is that? Yeah, I think niche market. I think niche market is a great way to put it that doesn't sound very pretentious. You know, for example, you know, I primarily, you know, sing in hardcore bands is typically what I would do. And, you know, I'll plug the most recent record we put out a couple years ago.

Savage World, we're not popular that particular band, but it is up on, I gave you my worst is the name of the record. The band's Savage World. It's up on all the major streaming platforms and all that. I sing in that band. And I don't know if your podcast is such where you play. clip very briefly. So you can see what singing actually means. Well, if you've got a short clip to play, it's like we do whatever we want. So I'll listen to it. Well, so great. So so so that is clearly not something that we are aiming to be

on the radio with, right? Yeah. And it's not to say that we're success averse, right? I mean, I can talk about that in the years of, you know, am I too punk to do X, Y, or Z when I was much younger. But at this point, it's definitely not a successive verse thing, but it's just, well, the music that we're making, the stuff that we're doing, the stuff that we're sort of being inspired by and aspired to is not something that the mainstream is going to be interested in, like, at all, right? And it's not that we're too cool. It's not that we're anything. It's, you know, no value judgment at all, but it's just, it's just not something that people want to listen to. Well, well, I want to, I want to highlight something that you just said there, because I think

it's really important, right? Because sometimes indie is a shield to protect your ego, right? The idea that I'm, no, no, no, no, it's, I'm not successful. It's not because I can't be successful. It's because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, there's this, like, attitude of like, you protect your ego by saying, no, no, well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, that, that, that sometimes it can be a, trap that to say, okay, no, I'm going to serve this niche audience. And these are the people for whom, you know, their judgment matters and I'm going to be able to take feedback and iterate, which is like the core of the creative process in many ways. That that is a different thing than saying, okay, well, I'm going to just, I'm indie, therefore I don't need to follow these basic business practices. I don't need to, I can just ignore your feedback. Whereas, yeah, of course, you can ignore people who are not a part of the audience you're trying to serve. But you, you know, you need to figure out who it is that you're trying to serve and make sure that you are, you know,

growing and, and putting yourself out there for that. Like, I think that's a, it's a really important and subtle point that, that you can be punk rock and indie and all of those things, but you could also be using those things to hide the, the, the, the, the necessary hard work of putting your creative work out there, feeling it, get criticized, realizing you need to improve and continuing on that path. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I think like, you know, thinking about the music thing, like, I mean, I just assume that 90, 8% of human beings are like, well, this sucks. So in terms of like, you know, putting yourself out there, right, and accepting criticism,

and I'm not saying people even being jerks about it necessarily. I mean, people are jerks. But like, even just more in a sense of like, yeah, this isn't for you, right? You know, somebody, you know, there's some games that I look at and I'm like, yeah, this isn't for everybody, right? Dungeon Degenerates that Gublenko puts out. Sean is incredibly talented, does really cool stuff. another sort of like punk rock weirdo, super, super cool.

Nate Hayden did Cave Evil and Mushroom Eaters and stuff like that. And those are things that, you know, you show it to the typical family that's buying ticket to ride or whatever. They're going to be like, what is wrong with you? You think I would be interested in this. Yeah. Well, and so I'm not familiar with those games. So I'm happy if we want to pick apart some of those specifically or, you know, to kind of use

this is a segue back into your game, your career in the game industry because you know, you've, you've clearly selected a lot of these projects. And, you know, I see, I see you, know, hawking things like shitty werewolf. And it's like, okay, well, that I would have thought to put that product out there. But it's like awesome. And it's like, draws people in and it has its own charms. Like, what has, what led you down this path? You mentioned these other games that you saw growing up or, you know, the kind of cheap ass game style things. Yeah. Yeah. I love. I don't know. I don't how this career path for you. Yeah. James Ernest is another very sort of inspirational, you know, cheap-ass stuff is definitely somebody that I looked at and was like, man, this is great.

Like I love this energy, this attitude, just the approach. I mean, for me, it's funny because a lot of people, even, you know, good friends, you know, see the, see a more limited side of the work that I do. Or because it is the work that's the most out there people think about it the most, right? So like shitty werewolf, I just had this funny joke vision and wanted to make this goofy thing and did. And then it turned out to be way more successful than I thought it was going to be. I mean, still not, you know, still not like make a career successful or anything. But, you know, I legitimately thought I was going to sell, you know, 50 copies or something to, you know, my friends that think it's funny. You know, and so I do projects like that where I have

this kind of like artistic vision or whatever you want to call it. I mean, artistic and maybe stretching, stretching the term, but, you know, just kind of have this vision of what it is that I want to do. But then at the same time, you know, like, I'm working on projects with Disney. I'm consulting with Netflix on, you know, some of the stuff that they've been doing with interactive media. I am, you know, working on a lot of big licensed stuff in general. We do a bunch of, the studio does a bunch of work with Marvel. You know, so we are, I'm kind of all over the place, right? I mean, I think what's really exciting to me personally about where I am in my career is that I have gotten to the place that I'm in, being entirely myself, doing work that interests me and am at a point where my body of work, my experience, my whatever connections, etc., have reached a point where I can, you know, make shitty werewolf and then also, you know, give a copy to, you know, people at my,

meeting with Hasbro or Mattel or whatever to talk about stuff. Right. And so I know that I know those parts, disparate parts of your career and your work, but I don't know how to connect those dots. So I really want to know that. And I'm sure now we've intrigued enough of our audience, you know, both as to what the hell is shitty werewolf. Also as to how someone can make both of that and be making games for Disney.

Right. Let's just dig into the story a little bit. Talk about how you want to go from punk rock in your basement to consulting for Disney. Yeah, well, so I mean, like I grew up in a gaming family, which is a huge advantage, I guess. And, you know, it was a big deal when I got to join the family D&D game that my uncle DM'd when I was a little kid. And so I've been playing D&D since the mid-80s. And, you know, we, we, of course, played, you know, classic mass market games growing up, but also had stuff that, you know, we had like the TSR kids board games and stuff.

We had, you know, deeper cut. You know, my poor mother, you know, was the, what is it got, the overlord? It's not called the Dungeon Master. In a hero quest, you know, she had to. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had to do the DM and a lot of Hero Quest in between D&D games, right? And so, you know, so games was a big thing for me growing up.

You know, I remember getting final, the first Final Fantasy for the NES blew my mind because I could play D&D without everybody else having to be there, right? I could do fantasy adventures. And so, you know, just being a fan of games was a thing since, you know, basically as long as I could remember. And so, yeah, so I was in a gaming family. And, you know, you're a fan. You start going to local conventions or, you know, you hear about stuff and you, you know, you're just intrigued.

I remember. So the first person I met in the industry was Kurt Covert, who owns Smirk and Dagger games. just put out Boop is like his his big hit right now and he had like he had designed like his first game basically and he was playtesting it at this local

convention that there were like maybe a hundred people out or something you know and and so he's local and you know I met him and he was like I'm a game designer and I was like my mind was blown that like just I don't know you know it's one of these things that you don't really think about the people that make the stuff right

you know somebody makes games. And now we know that, but you know, at the time it was a very like, oh, this guy just makes games, I guess, sure. You know, once I started looking at it, there was a really obvious analog to that kind of DIY

punk, like indie sort of like, yeah, we're just going to make stuff. Like, why? I don't know because I want to make it, right? And that's kind of been the, from there, it's been that through line of, well, you know, I want to make stuff. And some of it is aligned with what may or may not be more

commercially successful, and some of it isn't. But I think for me, what drives me is doing interesting stuff, things that intrigue me, things that I find some interesting angle at, right? I mean, I think for me, it's not a question of, you know, my artist, you know, I definitely have those kind of like artistic vision things, but, you know, for me solving a problem of how do I make a game that hits this spec that, you know, whatever client is interested in is a really interesting problem to solve creatively as well, right? So I'm, I find interesting problems, right? Every game has an interesting, interesting thing because I think we're trying to do something so big and weird and complicated when we approach a design, right? Right. Well, yeah, you're trying to craft an experience for

your players, right, for your audience. And then, you know, you're working in a variety of interesting different constraints every time, right? They're obviously a constraint of, I need this to be, you know, including Disney characters and fit in a, you know, $40 retail box versus, okay, I really want to make something that I can draw by hand, right? Very different constraints. And both provide interesting new opportunities and challenges, right? Constraints breed creativity. And so, so, you know, what I hear from you is this basics of, okay, you're following things you're passionate about, and you have a core DIY ethic and ethos. And then, you know, the sort of subtle but relatively common point of, hey, you just showed up at a convention, right?

You surrounded yourself with the people that do the thing that you love. I'm sure you went to a music concert before you started performing and you went to a game convention before you started designing games. And so it's one of the easy little hacks for people, right, to go where the people are that do the things you, love to do and you'll find more ways to get involved and make that more career option, whatever path it goes. Yeah, I mean, one of my really brief little bits of advice that I just tell everybody is that, you know, ultimately so much comes down to luck, right? It's, it's luck at the end of the day, but hard work is how you create the most opportunities for that luck to happen, right? You mentioned that I go to all these conventions and a huge part of my career, especially early

days, I think was built on just being there, right? Was showing up, working at a booth, you know, showing up early, being, you know, being one of the first people there, helping, you know, move boxes, being one of the last people there, helping load the truck, and just, you know, being around, being open to talking to people, to meeting people. And, you know, I was my peak year, I did 236 days on the road for conventions. And it was nuts. And I'm glad I don't do that anymore. But, I mean, I made so many, you know, chance encounters. turned into things.

But I also think at the same time, you know, I am genuinely interested in talking to people and meeting people and hearing them talk about stuff they're passionate about and just kind of being around that stuff. And so I think, you know, for me it was also more successful because I didn't come into conversations looking for a transactional kind of like, well, where can you get me? right? What can you do for me? It was it was more right. Well, I'm going to be here and I'm going to talk to people and then after talking to somebody for an hour, I'm going to realize, oh, shit, like you're you're that guy? Like, oh, man, cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's a, that's a key distinction point between, you know, quote unquote networking and the, you know, putting yourself in environments and adding value to the communities you care about and finding who you genuinely connect with and the projects that genuinely interest you and where your curiosity takes you.

Like very, very important distinction. You could see two people in the same room that look like they're doing the same thing. And it's actually a very different experience when one is transactional and the other is genuine. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, and I think for me, you know, in the game industry, I'm just, I love games, right? Like, I mean, I genuinely just, I love games. my, you know, I joke that my, you know, my primary hobby is doing a weird version of my day job. So like shitty were, you know, I look at the shitty werewolf is just like a fun hobby kind of thing, right?

Like, and, you know, what do we do on days? Well, we play games on days off, right? Like, we, we, I just, I love games. And so being around people that are also passionate about games, it just is, is a natural, you know, way to have these conversations and to connect with people. And, you know, other people are generally there because they love games, right? I really, really hate the, there's no money in games energy that some people like to bring. I think that that's just, A, just absolutely false, like just at the face of it.

And also just very self-defeating and similar to like what you were saying about, oh, we're indie, so we're not successful. And, you know, it's like, no, there's a lot of. of money in games just because you didn't make it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, right? And if you're saying, oh, well, there's no money, so then your lack of financial success, at least, isn't your fault. It's the fault of the industry or whatever. But I lost where I was going with that. Oh, that's okay. Because I actually think, I think this is a really fun connection point or, you know, important connection point between the two things that you just said, right? So there's this idea of you can't control,

like luck, you know, luck is a part of it for sure. Every story, somebody has a break or meet somebody key or like every story and there's something that happens there, but that your hard work can get you more opportunities or you put yourself out there and have more opportunities for luck to hit you. And this, then you talk about the attitude shift between the, oh, there's not money in games or or the one we talked about earlier where it's, it's okay, I'm indie, so of course I'm not successful. That the ego shift of saying, yes, of course, that there's luck involved. Of course, the work is hard to do well. But I still am going to behave with the attitude that I have control over my faith, that I have

things I can do to make this better or worse. Like my own, just a tangent to a brief story of my own, right, I started in the game industry as a pro magic player, right? I started playing competitively and got into the world. And I will tell you that the key distinction, there, you know, the number of times I've lost games because I got unlucky. or he drew the card he needed or I lost the card, you know, whatever, right? Countless. But I and all the other people I know that were successful took the attitude of they didn't look at the bad beat, the bad break, the bad, whatever.

They looked for, okay, what could I have done differently? How could I approach this in the next time so that I couldn't, that bad thing couldn't happen to me or that I could learn from it and be able to react to it better? And that is the thing I credit the most with my success in the industry. And I think it's a similar narrative and throughput for you. Like, you're going to figure it out. You're going to take the next step. You're going to do it yourself.

and whatever it takes you're going to keep moving, that I think is a really important distinction. That's almost a contradiction, right? Accepting that luck is involved and you don't have control over the outcome. But behaving as though you do and approaching every situation like that is a really powerful frame. Yeah, I mean, I think it is exactly like you said, right? It's what do you do with the luck, right? It's how many opportunities do you make to get lucky?

And then what do you do when you have that lucky moment, right? because there are a lot of times where I've seen people get that break and then sort of not follow up or not, you know, not, you know, whatever it is, just not approach it in a way that that is going to be leading to more success, right? And not and then not bouncing back from that, right? You know, like you said, every, I mean, I guess this is kind of a thing, you know, where I think being coming up in sort of like the D.I. Y. Y. Punk scene because similarly, like, you know, everybody's grumpy about everything all the time, right? So you get a thick skin pretty quick. And so, you know, I think that's been really helpful. You know, and also just, you know, like, DIY punk definitely does not have money, right? I think that that is, that is actually, like, relatively true, right? You can, you know, there's crossover and there's money we made, of course. But I mean, like, there's definitely, like, you know, bands that you think, are that you that you think of and heard of, you know, they're still driving around in a van, right? Like, um, there, the music industry is,

is a lot more brutal towards creatives than the, than the game industry for sure. Um, and so, you know, I came up, you know, eating peanut butter sandwiches, sleeping in a van, driving around, uh, you know, playing, you know, uh, the, the, the FW hall and whatever, right? And so this idea of, of grinding it out of not, immediate success of people on the outside looking in and being like, what do you even do, right? That energy, it's like, you know, games is a cakewalk, right? Comparatively.

Well, yeah. And that's another, that's another superpower that you uncovered there, right? Like that ability to, to live on very little, right? To have very low overhead, gives you an enormous amount more freedom and more time to do the things that you want to do, right? Like, that's a, it's a trap and a very common and difficult thing. Now, I'm a saying, I want to be the guy driving around in the van. I don't know that I have that. I don't know if I have that level, but I have learned. I'm happy.

I'm not in my own. Yeah, yeah. It's glad, especially as you get older, right? Like, that's another superpower that you uncovered there, right? Like that ability to live on very little, right? To have very low overhead gives you an enormous amount more freedom and more time to do the things that you want to do, right?

Like, it's a trap and a very common and difficult thing. Now, I'm not saying, I want to be the guy driving around in the van. I don't know that I have that. I don't know if I have that level, but I have learned. I mean, I guess, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's glad. Yes, you can,

I guess I should amend my statement because, you know, my days of grinding it out, you know, on the road in the game industry, we're very similar. I mean, they're still similar, right? I still, I still cram as many people into rooms, you know, like, I don't get rooms by myself, right? I'm always on an angle for, like, who can help me out with a room at this show. Who can, you know, the best part of it, too, is that, like, I've, I've never really had a, is this something we should circle back to you when we change. topics, but I've never really had a boss in that sense. So I've generally always had to sort of

like scrap and, you know, get through and figure it out and try to make it work. But something that I think is huge, building off what you said there, is the priorities that we put in our life, right? And the sacrifices that we're willing to make, the changes, the ways we're willing to live our lives, right? I don't really care about money very much. And I don't have a bunch of it and I'm not driven by it and you know and that's that's fine and so I don't need money to pay for a fancy car and a big house and you know whatever and I don't have kids I don't have any interest in having kids you know I mean I think you you know in in different ways right like you you are very on that digital nomad life right and that requires it's really great to look at it from the outside

and be like oh it's so cool you do all this and that and it's amazing and it is but it's also like yeah but like a bunch of shit that's really important to the person who's looking at what you do and saying, wow, that's so amazing. I'm so envious. You know, you're like, yeah, but like I don't have a kid. And that's like really deeply meaningful to whoever, right? And again, no value judgment. But not having kids allows someone to do a bunch of stuff that they wouldn't be able to otherwise, right?

And it's a question of priorities and what you want in your life. And the sort of, you know, the way you want to spend your time on earth, right, is, is do I want is is is a family important to me is going to you know on these extravagant vacations important to me is you know whatever important to me and I think mindfulness around that is the biggest thing that I run into when talking to people especially mid-level career people where you know they're like oh I mean like I want to you know do XYZ and it's like well yeah but like you also why only have X number of days off I have to go you know that's for vacation and it's like well I mean, you could also use those days to go grind it out at a convention somewhere, right?

And not saying that you need to or that you have to or that it's good or bad. But, you know, if you're like, yeah, well, I only have so much vacation time, I got to go to Disney and then I got to go here and do that. It's a question of priorities, right? Right. No, and that's now we're getting into some really deep. This is the real, no, it is. It's a real secret, I think, you know, particularly of midlife for most people, but throughout life because it changes. Your priority has changed.

But that society is going to tell you to want certain things. The entire industry of marketing is designed to make you want. And your job is not to judge things as right or wrong in general, but to decide which things are the priority for you. And exactly. You mentioned, you know, and that's why I love to surface the sacrifices and the kind of underbelly of what it takes to be successful in this industry for a lot of people, too, because I want people to be conscious of it. You know, you mentioned the digital no man thing. I don't think I've talked about on the podcast, but I'm in Medellin, Colombia having this conversation. I last two years.

I sold all my stuff traveling all around the world. And I get to tell these amazing stories about what I'm doing. But also, yeah, I don't have kids. I don't have pets. I don't, I have like, there's a lot of discomfort and challenges that come from traveling or making sure the internet's going to work or not having the things you, exactly the way you want them. Right. There's a lot of stuff that comes with that that people don't realize. And so they just see my, you know, my social media post of the cool thing that's going on or they see my successful game launch.

but they don't understand the grind that comes behind it. And so this is the stuff that you're surfacing that I think it's just, it's important because I wouldn't trade it for the world, but it doesn't mean it's right for everybody and it's definitely not. So people need to decide and that I want them to have a full picture of what it takes and what the tradeoffs potentially are. And then that exactly what you serve is being conscious of it. Like what is it that's important to you?

How do you define success, right? I try to have people on this podcast that are all different degrees of quote-unquote successful from the like multi-billion-dollar games right to the just indie developer that just does stuff on the side and still has a day job. Like all of those things can be defined as success depending, but you have to be conscious and take ownership of defining that for yourself. Yeah. Well, so it's like taking, you know, some of the principles of game design and applying it to life, right? I mean, one of the things that I tell students all the time and I'm always talking about, you know, new designers is what is your design goal? And those goals can change.

They can evolve over time. you can find the fun in a different direction than you were expecting, whatever, but at all times, you need to have a design goal, right? You need to think about what it is that you're trying to do so that you can see how well you're doing it, right, and how you can try to get there, right? You know, and I'll put a little asterisk that, of course, there's the kind of like total just exploratory, like, I don't know,

just kind of figure stuff out, you know, that I think is an interesting and important part of the creative process. But overall, you know, you need design goals, right? And be mindful of that. And mindful of design is a thing that's really important to me. But I think that's an outgrowth of my overall kind of emphasis on mindfulness in life, right? And so we need to have design goals for our lives, right? You can apply those principles to what it is that you want to do, right?

Like what does success look like for you? What is the dream life that you want to have? What are the people whose lives you sort of aspire towards doing? And, you know, yourself, myself, we both have lives that are, you know, very appealing. to people that are, that are, you know, kind of looking in from the outside. And I think, you know, same as you, like, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I feel like the luckiest, you know, I feel so privileged and lucky that I'm, that I have the life that I have. But yeah, like, there's a lot of stuff where it's like, well, yeah, that's because I'm meeting the goals

that I've mindfully worked towards, you know, the things that I'm doing in my life and the things that I'm doing with my career. And, and that there are choices. There's a lot of forks in the road, right, that you can go down and thinking about those forks, right? You brought, you brought up marketing and sort of what we're supposed to want. And I think that's something that DIY punk in particular is just exploded for me, right? Is that very, you know, whether it's, you know, the degree of which it is kind of like hypocritical, corny, angry kids versus, you know, deep philosophically things. I mean, I think there's a mix, right? But, but. Of course, as with everything. By consumerism, anti-authoritary kind of, you know, energy, you know, I don't want what the mainstream wants.

I'm not interested in conspicuous consumption or, you know, or just the general question authority, question what it is that you want to do, be thoughtful about the things that you're doing, have those conversations, you know, with your, with your band, with your, you know, collaborators, your family, whatever. And, you know, so, so, so, you know, not falling into this, you know, you hear these stories all time about these, you know, the people that are like the, you know, they turn around and they're, you know, 45 and like don't have, and they just look at their life and are like, what am I even doing? Like, none of this is what I want, right? Yeah. And not even, and people that are, that are quote unquote successful, too. Like, I'm not saying, like, you know, the massive amount of people that are just ground down by it's sort of like capitalism destroying the sort of working class. But, you know, people that you would look at on paper and be like, wow, you're really successful. You have this like, you know, nice big house and, you know, 2.5 kids or whatever and all that, you know, that kind of a thing. And then they're just like, yeah, but this isn't actually the life I want. Like, this isn't interesting to me. This isn't exciting. There's, there's things that I do like about it, right? Like, I love my kids or whatever. But, but, you know, that the life that people have built is not. not something that they mindfully pursued, right?

Yeah. And so it's that I like the way that you put it before. And I absolutely think of things this way, right? You apply the game design process to life. And that's that sort of iterative loop. You make an explicit hypothesis or inspiration or kind of design goal of here's what I want, what I think I want. And then you create the sort of parameters that you're going to work in.

You try experiments to see if you're going to get there. Then based on how well that's going, you know, reflect back, test it, reflect back. then you circle back. Okay, is that still the goal I really want? Did I achieve it in the way that I wanted? And then you, you know, reevaluate. And any step of that process can change as long as you're sort of mindfully going through it. And, and I want to use the, you can respond to that if you'd like, but I want to use this to circle back to more of your story because I'm really interested to dig that in. You know, that we talk about forks in the road. And you mentioned you've never had a boss, right? There must be a lot of forks. I mean, I've had a lot of jobs. I mean, I've had a lot of jobs. I've, I've had lots of jobs. I've bounced around a lot. I thought I wanted to do this, I thought I wanted to do that, right? And, you know, when I say I've never had a boss, I mean more in the game industry, generally speaking. And it's definitely more of a, you know. Right. So walk me through, walk me through how you move in the game industry specifically to, again, connect the dots from me till you're consulting for Disney and Netflix, which for a lot of people is totally unreachable. And I don't know that I've had anybody, I've had Disney, people

worked for Disney on the podcast. I don't think I've had anybody that worked for Netflix on the podcast. So I'm curious how you get from here to there. The extent of what I can talk about with Netflix is what I've already said. Well, fair enough. Lots of NDAs on stuff. Well, can you talk about, I would, I totally want to dig into, because I, some of the stuff that's publicly out right now for Netflix. I don't know if you're able to talk about that.

I mean, I can talk about that stuff's really interesting and cool and that I have a shared interest in some of the stuff that they're doing from the outside. I also don't want to oversell it, right? Like, I'm not, to be clear, I'm not like some sort of like, constant regular sort of important consultant there or anything. I've just been brought in on a few things to mostly, you know, help people think about stuff. But again, I just, I want to, you know, even we can take this piecemeal. We don't have to draw the complete line. But I like when I say you're a creative consultant for one of these companies, how does that come about? What does the

role look like? You don't have to use Netflix if you're in under NDA and you can't talk about specifically Netflix. But that type of path is not one that I've like unpacked a lot on this podcast. So I think the listeners will find it really interesting. The, I mean, the Netflix thing is, is specifically just pure luck, right? Like just right place, right time, you know, creating an opportunity. But, you know, somebody, basically somebody hit me up and was like, hey, are you interested in this? I, you know, I'm familiar with some of your stuff and whatever. And, you know, I just said yes, right? So, okay, so not luck, but you put out quality work consistently, and people thought that was interesting, and they reached out to you to work for them. Like, that's like the opposite of luck to me, but okay.

So what I think is actually more a factor, honestly, than the work that I do is, and I'm going to sound very conceited and full of myself, and I really apologize, but I'm talking about this academically and sort of trying to be self-reflective about it. But, you know, what I talk to people a lot and a lot of students, you know, so I teach game design. I don't know if we, that's ever come up. I'm an adjo. Yeah, you mentioned it and I want to unpack that too, but yeah, go ahead. But, you know, some of the advice that I get students, advice I give on panels, advice I give to, you know, to mentees, I do a lot of mentoring stuff, is work on your soft skills, right? Whatever it is that you want to do, work on your soft skills, right? Which is your interpersonal stuff, right? And ultimately what I think a lot comes down to is, you know, second place is,

is somebody that could do whatever it is that first place does, right? Like, there's not really a question, right? You brought up competitive magic, right? You know, top eight, anyone in the top eight can win, right? Like, anyone in the top eight could be the champion. There's no, there's not really a huge distinction between. It just, it just works out, right? and so for me a lot of my career I think has been you know showing up doing the work of course

you know being there like one of the first people there one of the last people out right that kind of stuff being willing to help with whatever pitch in but also I mean I think being being a personable and this is the conceited bit like I don't know I think well a lot of people don't Like, plenty of people don't like me in my vibe. But if you like me in my vibe, like I'm personable, right? Like people enjoy having a beer with me, right? People, people, uh, yeah, well, I, I don't have to be conceited. I could say this for you.

I said at the beginning of the podcast. You're like, one of my favorite people to hang out with. Like, every time we see each other, it's like, it's just awesome. We always have a blast. Yeah, we always have a blast. So I can, I can vow, you don't have to speak for yourself. I will speak for your personal skills and it fun, you know, the sort of just, you, you radiate a genuine enthusiasm and excitement and, like, authenticity.

and the things that you do. And so it's a great core. And so it's tough to, it's tough to put that out there as like something that you train to do, right? Because I, like you said, I am genuinely just excited and interested in people. And, you know, I think a nice person overall. You know, I think I'm very mindful. You know, I mean, I guess we can get in real life philosophy just being very mindful, putting out kindness in the world. Right. And right. But I do think that those are, those are trainable skills, right? So I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that are listening. you and I are both pretty extroverted by nature, but there's plenty of people out there that are not that way by default. And that doesn't mean that you're trapped here, right?

You can trade yourself to be more in those circumstances, to be able to have a conversation. And it's really, really hard at first and it's really uncomfortable at first. And even I would have that when I would first talk to some of the people who I looked up to in game design first had my approach to my first conversation I had with Richard Garfield and now we work together on projects. You're like, there's these moments you feel this tension and you have to just, you know, you try.

yourself over time to work through that and then, you know, do inner work to help you get over the things that hold you back, right? Those, those negative self-talk and the things that let you tell stories that, oh my God, they're all looking at me. They're all judging me. Pro tip. Nobody is looking at you and judging at you. 99% of the time. People are too worried about their own stuff. So if you get out of your head, you can move forward. We can say that. I don't know, maybe you're more advanced at this than I am, but you know, like I can say that to everyone all the time. And then, like, you know, of course myself. I'm like, oh, everyone hates me, right? No, no, no, this is all the office syndrome is done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, so for me, a lot of it really comes from the, you know, who do you want to work with? Who do you want to have to be on meetings with regularly? Who do you think is going to be kind of like fun or enjoyable to interact with, right? And there are other people that are unquestionably better, smarter, more talented, you know, than me. Unquestionable.

right um i i don't um and this isn't even me being down on myself just you know there are people like do i think i'm the best game designer in the world like of course i don't right um and but you know it's it's am i uh the person interested in doing the thing that is the most um you know viving with the person that's hiring or viving with the person that would be collaborating well it's this combination of skills i think i forget who did did this quote but so I can't give credit to it. But if you want to be successful as a contractor, there are three things, right? Do good work.

Do we work on time and be good to work with. If you can hit two of those, you will have a career. You don't even have to do all three. The fact that people are so, it's so rare, like that those ability, you know, that hard work, that work ethic, doing what you say you're going to do, being like enjoyable to be around are as important as the quality of the work you do. Now, if you can do all three of those things, that's where you hit really, really high success levels. But it's just it's those other pillars are just as important as quality.

And so that ability to just be like, okay, cool, like you're, I want to have you around. If you say you're going to do something, I know you're going to do it. You're going to be the first one in the room. You're going to be the last one to leave. Those things matter. Yeah. And at risk of getting political, because obviously I'm not interested in politics despite, but, you know, I mean, we look at it in the real world, right? And, you know, George W. Bush, right? One of the major things that got talked about a lot during the election cycles he was part of was literally, well, he's a guy I'd like to have a beer with. Sure.

Is he the smartest guy? Is he the most, you know, whatever? And again, I don't want to go down the road of like, you know, George Bush is stupid, all this and that. Right. I actually, I, listen, if you,

you, you could, you could, you could plausibly analyze every major presidential election by the, who would you more like to get a beer with?

And you would hit the right answer most of the time. Like, vote the winner most of the time. So it's not a, it's not a, not a trivial point. And Bush is particularly interesting because, you can listen to,

you know, I was working on, so I have a degree, one of my degrees is in political science. And, and I was in school. And one of the, one of the,

one of the things that's really interesting is you can look at speeches he gave when he was the governor and he is articulate and, you know, verbose using a lot of kind of like higher, you know, academic type language, you know, higher concept stuff, right? Then when he ran for president, he consciously, him, you know, Carl Rove, the team that they were working with, consciously made a choice that he was actually going to kind of dumb himself down. You know, regardless of whether we want to talk about, oh, he was a C student at Yale or whatever, like, sure. But he unequivocally saw that one of the roads to success, certainly as a, the time and place that he was and the base that he was going after was, well, if I'm too ivory

tower, if I'm too academic, that's actually going to hurt me, right? Especially when you look at him versus Kerry, right? Carrie was so, you know, detached actually weird, right? Well, yeah. And so I'm going to, I'm going to veer this back a little bit towards more games on. But no, well, I, I, I had this, as a problem to personally for a while. Like I, there was a, when I was younger, you know, I really liked to prove how smart I was to people. And my conversation reflected that. And nobody likes that. Like, It's a very, when you're communicating, your goal should be to add value to the people you're communicating with or to learn, right? If that's, that's it. And so the using, you know, a $10 word when a 50 cent word will do is not serving anybody.

And I think that how you choose to communicate with people, and I think it ties back into the, you know, again, the ego and those trying to protect yourself and saying, okay, well, they can't judge me if I'm using this esoteric language. And, you know, even why I do this podcast, right, I try to deconstruct this, like, mythical, mysterious thing that people think like, well, how could you possibly make games? Like, you must be a genius. There's like, nope, it's very basic stuff. It's a simple process that requires consistent work and, you know, the ability to self-reflect. If I were going to put it in a nutshell. And so the ability to take those things and includes the styles that you communicate as you're training these things, like all that stuff really matters. So I'm curious, how does this show up for you when you're teaching design?

Well, here's a weird fork off that conversation is that I think the best designers are the most empathetic. And that there is a very real crossover between those soft skills, you know, because that's ultimately in a lot of ways empathy. And I think that sort of mindset is a huge part of design as well. In most, in many cases, especially, you know, when it's like sort of a one person or two person, design team that, you know, we're creating experiences, right? You said earlier. And so the ability to put yourself in other people's shoes, the ability to think about things from other perspectives, from the perspectives of people that are going to be interacting with you or with the game that you're making, I think is just a huge, huge thing. And so, you know, I think developing that

empathy is going to serve you well, in everything. Well, in everything. I mean, you're going to a better human being, right? But, but, but they focus on career and design specifically, you know, really, really working on your empathy, really working on being interested in other people, really working on thinking about how other people think, not just the way you think. And that is going to, you know, that's great for getting hired. That's great for making the best stuff. Yeah. No, that's a great, that's a great insight, really powerful because absolutely, like the cash value of what we do as our careers is, experiences we create in other people.

And so you need to be able to predict how your actions, how the rules you create, the games are great, the things you do are going to, how there's, are going to create those experience in others. And you need to be able to read those things too, right? The other soft skills, right? Like when I'm doing play tests, I do listen to what people tell me, but that's like 10% of the value. I want to see how are they reacting.

Are they leaning forward? Are they talking, you know, are they talking what they're doing? Are they looking at their phone? Are they like, you know, like the nonverbal cues and the things that you see are, are infinitely more valuable. And so training those skills as a designer is absolutely critical. So it's a great point. Way to segue us back to a really valuable court lesson.

I mean, from a practical sense, right? We're talking about play testing. The only value I get from listening to people tell me what they do and don't like is that they're more willing to playtest again in the future because they feel like they're being heard. Sometimes there's an interesting insight there, but I think that that's more of a trade-off that we largely put up with. I mean, I guess that sounds more diminishing, but it's really what drives design

forward with playtesting isn't so much if someone did or didn't like it because you're an individual. You may or may not like something for reasons that have nothing to do with the design, right? I think it was Mike Selinker who had said the question, the only question he asks is tell me what you did. And I think that's a really, really, you know, I think I asked me, maybe a little bit more than that. But I do think I keep it really short. And it's more observational, like you said. Observation of what's happening is by far more interesting to me than talking to people about it after. But when you ask somebody what they did, then you're getting it sort of like a filter. Really, you're getting that empathy, right? Because it's not, did you like it? Did you like it?

You're like, oh, well, you know, I was thinking about this. And so I tried this strategy. And it's like, okay, that's really interesting now, right? Now I'm getting a better, you know, what I'm trying to do when I'm talking to somebody during playtesting is empathy, empathize with why they're making the choices they're making, why they're having the experience they're having, and not the sort of like what that, what their perception of that experience is.

It's more, you know, what is going on in their heads that they're doing this, right? Yeah, yeah, that's, I think that's right. And I think there's another, Another piece that I find valuable from sort of verbal feedback is later on in the process. I'll actually take some of the things that people say about the game and use that to craft the kind of marketing and messaging for it. When people think the things that the common phrases and the ways that your players describe the thing is often there's a lot of gems in there because that's how they talk and it's how

the people like them talk. And so you want to pull pieces of that out. but that's a much later in the process thing, but something I've noticed more recently in my career that there's valuable gems there. Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't really thought about that from the marketing perspective. Yeah, that's great.

Because what you think is great about your game and how you want to describe it is not necessarily what other people think. Like I've had, this has been really driven home for me with Soul Forge Fusion, the project I did recently, because it's got so much going on, you know, algorithmically generated, cards and things are uniquely named numbered and your shuffle building decks and it scans it online and it's got all these cards level up as you play like i have an infinite list of things which in many ways is a problem because it's so much you can't you that you lose your elevator pitch right

you can't just say something quickly and get somebody in so you've got to know what is the thing that's going to hook this particular type of player and then let them discover the rest over time and so it's the the the you know i often tell people like you need to to pair things down and whether that's both in true of your game design but also in true of how how you market. And I found the players, the customers, the people themselves will give you the, they'll tell you the answer if you're able to listen to it and get out of your own head. Something I just thought of that I want to make a note of, because I thought of it is if you are one of, if you're a designer, because there are a lot of designers that are very spreadsheet

oriented, right? And less comfortable with the empathetic stuff. And I think you can build that like we said, but I am a huge fan of design partnerships and collaboration. And if you are a designer and you're like, I have no idea what people think. This is insane. I mean, like, work on it. I think that you can make a concerted effort to be better at that. And it may take time and it's hard work. But, you know, don't be shy about partnering with somebody who's less spreadsheet oriented, but more empathy oriented. I've found some good success because I'm definitely a little bit less spreadsheet oriented. I've had to become more and more over the course of my career, but I'm definitely more of the social, empathy, kind of, you know, think about people, energy.

And so having partners that are a little bit more design oriented or spreadsheet oriented, right. I'm going to shout out Andrea Pinckham, who is works or is a partner in the studio now. We updated. So now we're a worker co-op or we're in the process of converting. So Andrea no longer works for me. She is a partner in the studio. But her and I have hit it off super, super well over the last few years working together because she is a much more logical running dice simulations and things like that. And our skillsets complement each other really well, right?

And we know how to talk to each other. We know how to vibe with each other. We're certainly both capable in the other domains. But it is huge to have someone. that complements your skill set there. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, that's true in game design. It's true in, you know, building a company for, like, for sure.

I mean, that's one of the most important things. It's kind of weird, to a certain extent, the first time you sort of realize it's like there's the things that you hate doing. There's somebody else out there that loves that. Like somebody else loves that part. And if you find that person that you guys can work together, you go, girls, guys, whatever, you can work together. It is, it's magic.

And so that's a, it's a really important realization. And yes, when it comes to some of the fundamentals, like we've talked a lot about communication, empathy, your ability to communicate, spoken word, written word. I don't care what you do. You need to work on that. It is one of the more universal set of skills that will apply no matter what career you're in, no matter what aspect of the career you're in. However, if that sort of stuff and speaking on stage and being the person that's the front

man is not appealing to you, find someone that does love that because that person is there. And vice versa, right? the spreadsheet detail person. You still need to work on spreadsheets. I don't know any game designers that don't work in spreadsheets, at least some amount. But you can certainly find the person that really, really loves them and you can, you know, work on your skills on it over time. Yeah, it's writing cards.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. You don't need formulas and stuff. But yeah, that's where your card files are. That's where everything lives. I think I do, I actually track my time on everything. I use an app called Rescue Time to track like how much I spend in each thing and documents and

spreadsheets by far the most things that I spend my time on. So just be prepared everybody out there. That's the life of a game designer. My actual time spent playing games way smaller. I think that's a really interesting thing to unpack as well is being aware of what you do. So I don't track time currently, but I did for, I don't know, six months or something. you know, it's not really the way my mind. My mind doesn't work in that way. I don't want to think about that stuff. That's just not interesting to me and it's just kind of stresses me out. But, you know, I did six months of tracking stuff because that gave me insight into what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I'm spending my time on and how much time I'm spending. And I was able to use that data to kind of think about what it is that I want to be doing. Right. And again, to help set a goal, right? Am I spending more time? that I want to doing X, right?

What do I want to be doing with my day-to-day career, right? And I think that's really, really useful, even if you don't want to do it over time or consistently, just do it for six months and see what you're doing. Yeah, it's important. Like, it's surfaced for me. You know, you think you know how you spend your time, but you do not. I promise you, if you've never gone through this exercise, whoever's listening, if you've never gone through this exercise of actually time tracking, you are

are going to be shocked by what you find. And so for me, I realized I was spending like three hours a day in email. Like three hours a day in email. Like what? In God's day, that's not why I'm here. That's not my biggest value at. And so I really refocused. Okay, I'm going to block off certain times for emails. I'm going to make sure that I'm like really cutting that part out and making sure I did carve out more time for doing design work, carve out more time for the things that I, that did matter. And so then being conscious of, okay, what are the things that are your superpowers, right? The superpowers I define as the area that's between the I'm good at this. I enjoy this and this is useful. Right. Like there's some center of that Venn diagram. That's your superpowers. And typically,

most people, you want to focus on, you know, two or three that you're really your superpowers and you want to maximize your time spent in that zone. And so I realized I was not doing that. So I was, I shifted. And so it's, it's a very powerful tool for those out there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what's been, what's been really interesting for me as the studio has grown is, shifting myself and accepting that biz dev is something I actually really enjoy and am pretty good at. And that if I, especially, you know, like I said, the studio growing, we have more people, you know, like I don't need to have creative control over everything we do, right? I can let some stuff go. And I can bring in, you know, clients or projects,

or opportunities and not be the one that does it. And that that's crazy for me. But like you said, it's a thing that out of the team of us working, like I'm pretty good at. And turns out I enjoy it because I like talking to people. And, you know, and it is a great value ad for the company because we can bring in a lot of stuff.

And, you know, that surfaced really because of more time tracking and being really mindful and reflective of what it is that I'm doing, what it is that I'm spending my time on what it is that I'm finding myself sort of like passionately pushing at, right? And it turns out that that is a thing. Yeah. Yeah, if you were going to, if you were going to pick, so I, you know, so biz dev, some people may not understand that, that terminology.

And so part of it is what you've, some things you've already talked about, right? You go to conventions, you put yourself out there. You have conversations with people. They approach you with stuff. Is there anything else that you would say that is a key part of successful business development, biz dev? I mean, I think approaching it, for me at least, I mean, I think there's like the kind of like, you know, dark side of it or whatever that it's just totally not interesting to me, but I don't want to say, don't want to pretend like that's not sometimes successful. But for me, so much of it is not approaching it like a quote unquote sales guy, right? It's someone has a problem, right?

Someone needs help with something. And it's trying to figure out how we can help solve that problem for or with them, right? And a lot of really good biz dev is knowing when you should pass or knowing when you don't have something to offer, right? It's really about that longer-term relationship building. one of my favorite bits of advice for people that are pitching is my goal whenever I go into a pitch meeting is to be invited back to another one. That's it. And going in with that mindset, especially I think, you know, in the case of pitching games in the game industry, it's right place, right time. You know, people turn down incredibly successful game.

They're a game that go on to be incredibly successful all the time, right? and right place, right time. And you can have the best thing. And it's just that the company is like, this is amazing, but it just doesn't fit into our schedule or whatever, right? And so when you go into a sort of like business development situation, whether that's pitching or, you know, talking to a client about maybe getting hired to do, you know, work for hire project or, you know, we do a lot of graphic design stuff as well. So things like that is isn't, oh, I need to close this sale. It's, hey, help me. I want to help identify what your issue is.

I want to talk about ways that we can help you with that issue. And if it syncs up and we like, you know, vibe together and feel like it's going to be good, then great. We're going to do it. And if it doesn't, then that's also fine. you know it's it's when somebody says no i don't think it's going to work like just accepting that right because it might work in the future um and you got a long game with that stuff right yeah no the number of times the people i've talked about this in the podcast before but like the you know somebody will pitch a game and it's be like yeah i don't think it's for us and here's some things i think i would

look to improve you know give him feedback they start arguing with me yep and just like like it's happened so many times like do not argue with people you're pitching to. That is never the right answer. You may not agree with the feedback. That's totally fine, right? But listen, take that feedback in. And if you do agree with it, great.

Bring it back and adjust it and show them. People love it when you listen to them. People really think that their ideas are all great even when they're not. So or just that's not the fit. Move on. I don't think I do consciously, but it is something that I'm very aware of when I think about it, is that as soon as you give someone a little bit of ownership over a thing,

they're in. right and yes in in regards to that pitching you know and this is this is not the way i approach stuff generally but it is true that if you're pitching and somebody's like yeah but like what if you try this mechanic and you come back and have done that and like are very like draw that through line like hey we have this meeting you suggest that i do this it's and it works out great you know and it has to work out and do the thing but like i tried it it's great look what we've done like your your advice was invaluable, that company is, you know, exponentially more interested now in, in potentially doing that thing together. Right. Well, it's like, it's not, it's not from a dark side perspective. Like, it's just,

you know, it's a part of human nature. Like, and A, they feel ownership, which is true. B, you've shown you're the kind of person that listens to feedback and can not, not be the ego driven. Like, no, my way is the right way. Like, so they're more likely to want to work with you, right? It ties into that piece. And similarly, I would, I would draw through lines. from that to the other thing that you were talking about, which is giving up creative control to your team, right? Like that was very hard for me to do because that was just my role, right? I'm the designer. I know what's up. I'm going to do the things. And then it was only when I realized how much I was, how corrosive that was, both to myself, because I wasn't able to shift other things. And then to my

team, because I wasn't letting them shine. I wasn't letting them do their thing that I realized, no, actually, my stepping back is way better. Let them take ownership of it, give up that some of that control and then your people are more excited. Your team is more excited. They're doing better work. And oftentimes, as hard as it is to admit, you realize, oh, you know what, maybe their ideas were actually better than Biden. And you learn and you grow. It's interesting when we think about that stuff, right? Because, you know, like hire who was some corporate guy, you know, hire people that are smarter than you. Like that's right. And, and, and, you know, if I hire somebody, I think they're really smart and talented. So, you know, what is my ego to be like, well, I know better than you?

Well, like, I have certain levels of experience. I have certain, you know, knowledge, things like that. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm hiring people because I respect them and think they're talented and smart. And so if I'm trying to control every little thing all the time, like, that's not actually manifesting why I would hire somebody, right? If I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I don't trust someone to do things or to be smart or that their opinion or their take on something is, is really valid and worthwhile, well, then like, why did I hire them, right? Um, um, and, and I think that, that, you know, working with people, you know, working with someone, just collaborating with somebody. Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not collaborating with people that I think are dumber than me and like less talented, right. Yeah. Well, let's let's let's let's break down. Let's break down. Let's break down. that this collaboration piece and this company growing piece, right? Because you've got a very interesting take. You talked about becoming a co-op, that there's no bosses in your company.

But I think we both believe this and definitely correct if I'm wrong, but that, you know, the creative process still does need, you know, some kind of lead and arbiter in it. Yeah. You want, of course, listen. And so how do you, how do you navigate that? What is your, what is your company growth and structure look like to handle that? Yeah. Well, so some, you know, kind of bouncing around. on those thoughts. A bit of advice that I got from Eric Lang a long time ago was in the very early stages of a project to decide who is creatively. And that way, when there are these disagreements

that are both very reasonable, you know, you can have very, very reasonable forks that you're both right, you know, but somebody needs to make that choice, right? And so for us collaboratively, there is usually a kind of, okay, well, like, when there is, when there's, when we need a tiebreaker, you know, we've established who that, that person's going to be, right? And I'm trying to be less of that. But at the same time, you know, structurally, I am still creative director of the studio. And as such, I frequently am kind of the final sort of word, I guess. I'm trying to, I'm trying to do less of that. And I think that's cool. But yeah, but I think there's creative process lead and then there's like business and everything else lead, right? And, and I think that,

you know, for us, the co-op is less about no leadership on creative work and more about a cooperative approach to decision-making and especially sort of like finances, right? That's what that's what drives me the most in terms of the co-op model is I'm really not a fan of, you know, a concentration of wealth, right, of my contribution is more and I deserve more money and I am, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, I'm much more interested in kind of like worker-owned co-ops and, you know, the people that are creating the value, you know, sharing in that value that they've created, right um i don't think that my role is i think my role is crucial and and important and the things i do are are are valuable um but you know it takes everybody to do that and if i could just do it all myself

i would right uh so uh you know it's it's it's to me it's a lot about sort of like fairness in in terms of approach right um i'm just not uh interested in being this kind of like authority kind of tell everyone what to do and keep all the money and how much how little can I pay someone not it's more how much can I pay someone is is has been the conversation a lot more than how little can I pay someone to do sure yeah so that that ethos of of collective benefiting from the company and collective some collective decision making around some financials and in challenges and direction but you would still have and support kind of authority on creative decision. Yeah, and it's come back to bite me a few times to some degree.

But I think it's getting back, accepting that over the long haul, that's the life I want to live. And I am looser with co-design credit, right? I'm looser with sharing royalties. And, you know, sometimes it has been something where, you know, in retrospect, it's like, oh, that was really kind of dumb, I guess. It didn't really work. That didn't really work out, as I'd hoped. But at the same time, so many other things have worked out explicitly because I've been very chill

about that stuff. And also at the end of the day, right, it's game design in particular, creative work, like what we do in particular, right? Like somebody can playtest a thing and say two sentences and crack the whole thing wide open that you've been working on for a year, right? And like what what does that mean, right? You know, like, you know, there was a game that we have coming out that theoretically coming out, I guess it's been in the hopper for a while. But, you know, somebody that was part of our local design group were playtesting it said, you know, it's a game with like five rules and said something that made, you know, two of the five rules, basically, right?

You know, extrapolated into this thing. And I was just like, great, you're a co-designer on this now. You know, like, and I don't think that people should go in. The person giving that advice shouldn't go in with that attitude. I'm very big on the, you know, like, what do you want out of this playtest? What do you want out of the feedback I might give you? Are you looking for collaboration? Are you looking for, you know, what's your situation?

But, you know, for me, it was like, well, there's five rules. Two of them are the result of you, you know, having a brief conversation with me after playtesting it a couple times. And great. And now that's a person that, you know, I think is a really talented, awesome person. And it's exciting to see their career grow. Corey Muddhman, he did, his studio did on porpoise. They did tricky dicks recently, you know, just really, really smart over under

ostrich, just really smart, weird, creative people. And, you know, they were very early in their, you know, career of making games. And for me, it felt very natural to say, hey, like, you're part of this. This is great. And for them, I think, you know, it's a nice little boost, right? So, you know, it works out great a lot of times. Sure. Yeah.

And, yeah, that's, I think the other key piece of there, you know, when you're playtesting or you're giving feedback, you're involved in the design process. you know, it's important. It's great to be explicit of who's doing what and what the roles are. I play test my friends games all the time, and I'm happy to give free advice and, you know, rule suggestions and whatever. And I don't expect anything in return, you know, if it's something where they want me to put in significantly more work and I'm going to, you know, write a design file or do something more substantive, then, you know, I'll be very explicit about the conversation. Okay, are we co-designing here? Or are you what is it, what is it that you want? So just being explicit about that stuff's important. And then, of course, if you want to feel like

somebody who was just a playtester added so much value, you want to give them more, that's a great, great thing to do. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's something this is, I think, just general business advice with, you know, contracts and all that kind of stuff in general is have the, have the hardest conversations when you're in the best mood, because that hard conversation isn't only going to get much harder, right? And is this a code design? How do the finances work? It's stuff that we do. I mean, I personally hate all of that stuff, right? Like, I hate that kind of awkwardness. I hate financial approaches. I hate all of it. But we're going to talk about that now because I don't want to have a misunderstanding later where like, oh, God, now we have to deal with

this thing or that thing. Or, you know, it's, and it's also about checking in on that stuff, too. I had a conversation with a collaborator that I love and trust and we've been doing a ton of stuff together lately. And we were talking about an upcoming project and we were talking about some of the royalties involved in some of the money stuff. And I was just like, listen, like, this is, this is a, a deal that I typically wouldn't take. It's, it's not this particular deal. It's licensed stuff. It's whatever. You know, and I was saying that, you know, like, this is, this is a lower sort of

deal than we would typically go for that we would typically, you know, advocate for for ourselves. But I'm really excited about the project. And I think it is an egalitarian financial approach, because they're not making a lot of money, right? You know, there's a license of office, whatever. So, but I also felt it was really important in this conversation where, like, to be clear, 100% great. I'm super fine about it. But I felt it was important at that when we were first, when it first kind of came up for

me to bring up the fact that this is, this is how that contextualizes within, in our, you know, the way that I'm typically doing stuff or the deals that we have right now. because what I didn't want to have happen was a year from now, we're having a beer and, you know, talking. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I mean, that deal kind of is like kind of out there, right? And then that person feels like, you know, because it's someone that I know and trust and, you know, really, really like, that they might feel hurt that I, you know, didn't bring it up, you know, or that it might get awkward.

Yeah, surface hard conversations early. That's just like a good rule. rule for life also for business for everything right there's a lot of conversations you really don't want to have you want to assess what's going on for you right to check in yourself why do I feel this way what's happening and then make sure that it's something that needs to be addressed even if you don't want the situation changed like the case you're talking about right like I've accepted this deal but I want you to feel hurt I want you to understand where I'm coming from here and I want you to know that and then you can move forward right and so that's I think that sort of stuff's really powerful

I want to because we're getting close on time here which makes me a sad because I'm having a lot of fun in all the life philosophy discussions too. Yeah, that's true. I love it. Or, you know, next time we're together

we can have this conversation over a beer. That's it. I think, so, you know, you teach game design. We've hinted it a couple times here. And so we've brought, we've serviced a lot of key lessons,

but I'd love to just like open the floor a little bit for sort of other lessons for people that are, you know, just starting out, that I really want to kind of get, get their first designs done or get, move forward. What are some of the key lessons or any of the things you'd want to impart to somebody out there that's really looking to get started?

So these days I mostly teach intro to game design classes. And I really, really like it. The two, I have two major goals when I'm doing it. And I think this is, this is huge, if you're interested in kind of breaking into game design. One is to stop thinking, about games as a consumer. It's just huge. Think about games as a piece of craft, right? I think especially aspiring hobby designers have a lot of opinions about what is and isn't good. You know,

what all these things, think about it as a piece of craft. Think about the component parts that are making up an experience. I primarily teach in digital programs or programs that are people going on to digital. So, you know, stuff I like to bring up is sound design, because that's just so specific and narrow and can be a huge, huge factor in a game. And so think about games in that way, right? What is it about Gloomhaven that is really connecting with people, right? Oh, Gloomhaven's fun. I really like it.

I don't care, right? So thinking about games as a piece of craft, thinking about games, not as a consumer, as someone who is looking at it as work, right? Is it the fact that it's a, you know, very expensive game and you have that, you know, the fancy wine effect, right? Well, it's very expensive, so it must be very good. So therefore I love it, right?

Is that a factor? How much of a factor is that, right? That has nothing to do with if the game is good or bad, right? Is it the graphic design? Is it the art? Is it the rules or the rules written really well? Is the onboarding good or bad? Is the legacy components, whatever?

you know, thinking about all the different things that go into making that game, because you're going to have to be the one that does that, right? We don't make games fully formed as a thing. We have to think about all that stuff. And then the other really big thing is trying to force people to be creative on demand. Because it's really easy to, you know, take this kind of, oh, I'm an artist, and, you know, I'm going to have an inspiration and, you know, whatever. And I think that happens, and that's great.

And you need to be open to that and kind of, create environments for yourself where that is possible. But you also need to be able to just make stuff up, right? And I don't know, maybe I should do it again this year. For years, I would do concept a day, right? And so I personally would come up with a concept a day. Sometimes it was two sentences. Sometimes it ended up being two pages because it just became a thing, right?

Some of some games that I've done started as these things that I, like, wrote in bed at two in the morning when I I remember I didn't come up with a design today. And then it turned out to be cool. But for every one of those, there's hundreds of bad ideas, right? And so I made students, all of my students every week have to come up with three concepts. And I do not care if they're good. I do not, they don't get graded on if they're good or bad. They just have to have, you know, demonstrate that they thought about it for, you know,

they didn't just describe Pokemon or whatever, right? Right. That's one of the exercises in my in my book too. That's like just every day. I actually I want 10 game concepts a day. Right. Like the higher number of forces you to get past this idea that they have to be good. Holding onto your ideas is precious. This fetishization of ideas is a is corrosive because they're so you need to just get yourself in the habit of creating it. So it's great advice. And so as is as is the other piece. And I don't want to interrupt if you've got more because I think I just want to highlight both because they're both great. understanding the craft of design and doing the work of design and training that creative muscle. Yeah, I mean, those are the two biggest. I mean, the other thing is just building on that iterative, right? It's kind of building on the, have a bunch of ideas. It's like, we'll make a bunch of stuff, right?

And accept that it's not all going to be great, that it's not all going to work out. And if you're starting out, your first game is probably not going to be great. And that's fine. Your first 10 games are maybe not going to be great. And that's fine. But every time you make something, you get better. at making stuff, right? I look at stuff that I put out years ago and even things that I'm, like, really proud of, and especially was proud, you know, very proud of at the time,

and still work that I'm proud of, excited about. I still am like, oh, my God, I would pick that apart now. Like, oh, my God, right? Like, what, you know, I just feel like I'm so much further in my career and thinking, right? And that's always going to be the case, right? Like, when is a game done? Like, well, when it ships, right? Well, you're out of time. When you hit the deadline. But that's, you know, the answer is simultaneously never and when it ships, right? Yep. That's right. And, you know, I mean, I think that's part of it too is, you know, it's not that I'm not

thinking of focused on the work that we're doing now, but I am also thinking about whatever's next, right? And there's going to be a next and that whatever, this one may or may not work out, right? And not everything you do is going to be a hit. Not everything you do is going to be successful. You're going to have less successes than you do big. successes, generally speaking. And even people that have a really high percentage hit rate in terms of what comes out,

what we're not seeing is all of the stuff that they started and we're like, well, this isn't going anywhere, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The iteration loop, the number of times that you can get through those iteration loops is going to be way more predictive of your long-term success than how much time you spend on your prototype or any given.

Yeah, that's just constantly be doing and making and pushing forward, right? And, you know, similar to like in your book, you know, it's a lot of exercises, right? And that's, I think, a really important thing is just do things, right? Make a dice game. I don't care. Is it good? Is it bad? I don't care.

Make a dice game. There you go. No matter where you want to end up, like just making things, getting through the practice of making things, even if you want to make, you know, AAA video games, getting through that, you know, I always tell people to start with basic physical games. games, dice games, card games, whatever, because you get the iteration loops are so much faster. You learn a lot very quickly, and then you can start iterating in, you know, even when you want to make the digital games, can you iterate on a paper prototype first? How much do you need?

Can you mod an already existing game first? To like test your core assumptions and like move through and iterate faster, all that stuff is just so, so critical. So those are great. You pick three pretty phenomenal core piece of advice here. Just drop it a lot of value for anybody that sat through this whole podcast. They get the gems. Since we're both very personable and smart and talented, obviously people could not, you know, turn away from this. How could they turn away? How could you want to listen to anything else? Well, all right. So everyone that has been so impressed with how personable and smart and talented you are and they want to find more. This hour and a half or whatever is not enough. Where do they find you? Where do they find you?

Where do they find your stuff? How do they get more, more Matt fantastic? Yeah, so the studio is Forever Stoked Creative and you can go to Foreverstokecreative.com. And that's, I don't really do

social media stuff. I have an Instagram that I post mostly political anti-capitalist memes to every couple months. Buyer beware if you want to join in on this one. Yeah, all right.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, send me an email. I'm very, you know, I just, I don't, it's complicated, but, you know, I just, I probably would benefit from doing more. But I got a LinkedIn. You'd be proud of it. I got a LinkedIn like a month, a month and a half ago. I got a LinkedIn before unplugged this year.

So, you know, I should get a link. That would help. Nice. Look at you, professional person. We didn't get into it. it's not super relevant to a lot of these people, but we're moving into doing some more advertising type stuff, you know, doing, doing activations and things like that, which is, you know, so LinkedIn is, well, because again, it's just a problem, right? It's experiential problems, right? It's, it's, you know,

thinking, you know, and I find that stuff really interesting because we're thinking about, you know, ultimately we're trying to drive behavior, right? My, my fancy thing that I work on is motivational systems design. And so that's, that's a, that's my $10 word. for what I do when we do some of the corporate consulting type stuff, right? Motivational systems design. I like that. I like that. So, all right.

Well, now we're going to go over because I really, I don't want to just let that go. So this is basically what I hear, what I hear, I apologize. I think it's this is what I hear from this is that, you know, you're just basically the same thing as game design, right? Where I'm trying to create experiences and create rules that drive certain behaviors in the game to craft those experiences. So you're doing this more broadly. Does that mean it's like a physical activation,

like an alternate reality game thing? Does it mean it's like what other, what's in the scope of this, this relational systems design? So, I mean, that's something that I came up with more recently to get paid more as a consultant. The $10 words are useful for that effect.

Yeah. I put with them earlier, but they do have value. Your synergistic cross-hybridges. strategy systems are yeah great well the thing is a lot of people are really interested in gamification right and i don't think that that is actually what people are interested in and i think a lot of people when they think about gamification are thinking about it in a really low um not sophisticated way and not to say that people that are saying that are not smart or super talented or incredibly you know amazing people but just it's it's it's that that's not actually what it is right we're not

to make a game. We're creating a motivational system to drive behaviors, right? And so I just worked for a while on this product called R-O-A-R-O, and it is basically a box in an app for your phone to help you sort of like physical space. There's a whole bunch of psychology stuff behind it. I read a lot of books. It was actually really, it was a really fun thing to work on. But it's about, using your phone less basically. And so they originally were like, well, we're interested in gamification for the app. And I was like, I don't think you actually are.

I think what you're interested in is how do we make this sticky? How do we help people do the things that they want to do, right? You know, people come in wanting a thing and they, how do we do that? Right. And so for me, it wasn't making it a game. It was looking, it was applying the principles that we use in, game design of creating experiences and shaping behavior. And then how do we do that to get people to,

especially something like that they're struggling with being on their phone too much and just that automatic response of a phone. And that's why there's this box. And it's a whole thing. But, you know, how do we help people do a thing they want to do? How do we motivate those people to continue with a behavior? Right?

How do we get people comfortable with it? How do we help build habits? You know, and that stuff is just super interesting to me. and it is ultimately really building on what I do as a game designer, but it's really not gamification, right? Oh, I'm super passionate about this sort of stuff. Again, I'm pretty sure we could talk for another hour and a half of this,

but I don't know if you ever give you a copy of the level up journal that I made? No, no. Yeah, so I basically made a little pocket handheld journal that uses these same principles to help you build better habits and have more gratitude and get things done in your life. And like, you know, the simple things, you just check off boxes, and earn little points for yourself, but using it to motivate you in real life. And I do work with the Wharton School business on being helping to teams to ideate better and like work together better in groups, like this sort of stuff.

Yeah, we're going to have to have a part too, because this is going to take too long. But I think it's a fascinating, entirely different like subset of the same skill and craft of what we do that I'm very passionate about also because, you know, you're taking these skills and you're directly applying them to make the world better. Like how do people work together better in teams? How are you able to build the habits and the lifestyles that you want? How are you better able to, you know, kind of move yourself forward to these goals that are intrinsically valuable as well as the ones that are sort of set up for the premise of your

given gamer experience? Yeah. Yeah, no. And, you know, to circle back to something that I said earlier, you know, like, I'm just driven by stuff that I find interesting, right? Which is what a privileged, wonderful position to find myself in at this point in my career in life. But, you know, I just, I really, I find this stuff fascinated.

And yeah, it just, it crosses over so much. And so, you know, my career is in a lot of ways, been following what I find interesting because then the work that I'm doing is, you know, better work. I'm working harder because I'm just interested in it. You know, I'm reading a bunch of books about psychology and habit building and, you know, all this, all this kind of stuff. And it also is making me a better person, you know. Right. Yeah. Studying these things has this knock on effect of, hey, this works.

I use my journal now and I've adopted the principles that I learned and I've helped myself be better. And so it's like, yeah, this is not only am I'm a president. I'm also a client, right? Oh, that's a dated reference. I think a lot of our audience is going to get that one anymore, but I love it. All right, man. Well, well, there's no better way to end it, I think, than that, right? We are driven by our curiosity, the things that we're passionate about, the things we love talking about and learning more about. That's exactly what's happened today in this conversation, as it always does when we get to chat. I'm really glad we got to do this, glad we got to share some of these insights with the audience. And I'm very much looking forward to the next time, whether that be another chat like this or one in person over a beer. So I can't wait, man. This has been great.

Thank you so much for coming on. Like you said, I mean, I love talking to you as well. And so this has been great. And we have not seen each other as much lately for sort of obvious reasons as well as just being busy. But yeah, no, this is great. Thank you so much for having me. And if you made it this far listening, thank you so much for listening. And if you want to talk about this stuff, it's just, yeah, Matt at ForeverstokeCreative.com.

I like talking to people and talking about games and, you know, much like yourself, right? You put your phone number and think like a game designer. So, you know, I'm a similar, I want to help people get into the industry. I want to help people grow. I want to do that. So, you know, if you thought anything I said was insightful or helpful. will hit me up. Yeah, awesome.

All right, then I can't wait to hear what people send you, and we'll share some of those stories next time. All right, awesome. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platform, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on.

Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community, and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast, Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com or wherever find books or something.