Video Gamers Podcast - Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and AceofShame are back with an INCREDIBLE episode. We sit down with the lead developer and Co-Founder of Odd Bug Studios to chat the recent release of their hit game Tales of Iron 2. Ever wondered what goes into the making of a video game? How about the pressure and thrill of a game release? Want to know what games the people who make games play? We get the inside scoop on it ALL. It’s an episode like no other, filled with an inside look at indie gaming, game development and video game chat from the Video Gamers Podcast! Check out Tails of Iron 2 here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2473480/Tails_of_Iron_2_Whiskers_of_Winter/  Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Tales of Iron 2 is a gritty, dark, fun and challenging game with a beautiful art style. But how did these rat heroes and frog villains come to be? As gamers we often wonder, who thought of this? And today we're going to find out about that and a whole lot more about the game. But first some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh and joining me, he may have big ears and he's hairy, but he's no rat.

It's Ryan. Always with the ears, man. Always at the, at least he didn't call me Dumbo. I actually looked this up. There is a Dumbo rat. I was looking up different species of rats before the show and, and literally there's a Dumbo rat. And then I went, I don't think anybody is going to know what I'm referencing there.

So I just went with the, all right, give me a sword. Give me a sword. I'm ready to go. Oh man. Uh, and joining us, he's the guy that set the world record for most mentions of tales of iron two over a span of six months. It's ace of shame. You know, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should got an advertisement cut at some point, like it's like, write me in, write me in.

Oh yeah. I mean, I got people going in left and right at one point. Hey, I know you got John to pick this game up and then John fell in love with it. So that's, that's at least one extra sale right there for ACE. So, and joining us, he's the man who helped found odd bug studios, the splinter to our teenage mutant Ninja turtles, the one, the only Jack Bennett. Hey guys, thanks for having me.

It's fun to be here. Thank you so much for joining us, Jack. So for everybody that is listening, Jack is one of the co-founders of Odd Bug Studios, the fine men and women that brought us Tales of Iron and Tales of Iron 2, Tales of Iron 2 just released in the last week or so, and we are going to be diving into all things related to that. So Jack, thank you so much for

giving your time to join us today. No worries. I love being here. I spent my life talking about Tales of Iron, so I've got to enjoy it. Yes, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. So we just wanted to start off by saying congratulations on the release and the success of tales of iron two. We can only imagine what that anticipation, the excitement and probably the anxiety that goes into working so hard on a game. And then finally just saying, here you go world. It's ready for you.

I mean, as gamers, we'd love a little bit more insight into that. So if you could, what's that like, man, is it scary? Is it exciting? Like, do you sleep like the night before the game releases? Like, what is that like for you? It's a, it's, it's a strange one because like our studio is all remote, right? So we're not in an office of like, we're all there like stressing and nervous. We're just there at home and and the game's done like two three weeks because you have to send it off to all platforms. So you're basically just done with it. So until that actual day beforehand, you're like, it's out of my hands. You hear it, you hear it kind of always gone off to journalists and journalists

are reviewing it now and you get these bits of it. But there's like almost like a month period where you're just waiting, you're just waiting for it, you know, for the day. So like, yeah, like if it's nerve wracking the day before, but before that is kind of just a numbness, you know, you're like, I'm done with it. There's no more I can do. I've just got to wait until that moment and see how people react. But then when it comes out, that's the big like, you don't know what's going on. You're just waiting for those first reviews to come in. You're waiting for people to like tweet about it and that sort of stuff. So it's like a roller coaster of emotions that day. I guess this is a really good question. And it's not something that

I think we think of a whole lot. As gamers, we absolutely leave reviews for games. We tout games that we love like aces, like I said, we joke, but this is absolutely true. He's been telling our community for months and months and months how excited he is for this game. I mean, from the time it was announced to up to the release and then after the release, playing it and things like that. So it's like, you know, gamers absolutely will tell people when something is great. But what we also tend to do is tell people when we don't like something.

You know, and so you mentioned kind of that preview period where you send the game out to people and say, Hey, you know, this is play the game. And then there's a review embargo usually. And then, you know, people get to kind of start saying, well, here's what I think about the game. What is that like for you guys? I mean, you can't please everybody, you know? And so, you know, you're going to see the good reviews that you go, yeah, we did it, man.

Like this is great. People are loving this, but like, how do you handle the negative reviews at the same time? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's whenever you create anything, whether it's games or music or film, whatever, there's going to be, you probably get reviews on the podcast as well. There's always going to be someone that doesn't like something about something. Like you say, you're never going to please everyone. But as developers, that negative feedback is actually quite useful to us because we can see what maybe we can

patch in and fix later, later day or things that people haven't enjoyed that we can move away from in other games going forward. So although the negative reviews on the day are like a knife in the heart, and they're not enjoyable to read. They're actually very useful. So once the emotions got out of it, and you come back to it, like in a couple of weeks time and you you reach for it, it's good to get that, that feedback and positive reviews are great to hear, obviously, like, but most of the time, we, we get so many of the positive reviews, we know what the good stuff is.

It's getting the negative reviews and like, again, negative reviews can sometimes be a load of swear words and nothing that you actually get useful, but negative reviews that actually explain what they didn't like and what they, you know, what they found hard or difficult or different. That's really useful to us as developers. Yeah, we get a look at that. I mean, as a podcast, like you said, we get reviews and it's, you know, the positive views make you feel good about what you're doing. But sometimes that constructive criticism, I'll call it, is how you get better.

Yeah. You know, like you said, if somebody's just trashing it, okay, maybe it's not for you at that point, you know, but, but yeah, I do think that there's definitely some feedback that goes along with that. It's gotta be tough as a studio to filter out some of that noise though, you know, to say, listen, everybody's got an opinion on something, but this is our vision. This is what we want to move forward with. Maybe it's not for everybody, but I think that I don't know how you guys filter out like gamers saying, Hey, you should do this. No, no, you should do this. What if you guys did this instead?

Well, like where are souls like, so we kind of expect quite a lot of that rage induced negative. I can, I can see myself in that situation being like, this is broken. They've done this deliberately. It's so unfair. You know, like just when you're hitting your head against that wall. So I understand where that point comes from. But going getting enough negative reviews together, you can start to pinpoint like, this is a recurring theme. This is something that whether whether they've liked saying can like something different. They've both said that they don't like this. And this is something that we can focus on. and then depending on how core it is to the gameplay loop, it's something we can work on patch and update. Yeah. Yeah. What, what is that process like? Like the game's been out for,

I think a little over almost two weeks, a little over two weeks by the time this episode releases, but you know, you talked about the kind of calm before the storm leading up to the release where you guys kind of go, we've done everything we can do, like, you know, and then it releases to the world. I'm sure there's just a flood of activity, you know, talking with us right now, you know, about like saying, Hey, we've got to like promote the game, um, you know, and, and, and, you know, looking at those sorts of things, the response to the game, and all of that that goes with that.

But now that we're two weeks later, I think as gamers again, we think, well, they're just spending their time fixing bugs at this point. It's all about the bug fixes and that kind of stuff, that immediate response to the release of a game. But is there more than that? I imagine there's some PR work, obviously, because you want people to know about the game and to tell their friends about the game and stuff like that. But where does the attention turn kind of within that two weeks to maybe a month post release? Yeah, you see where it is. He's sick. That's what it's celebrated. That's

celebrate. No, like, like you say, a good portion of it goes to bug fixing, like, no matter how hard we test the game, there's five of us. And I think the QA team is probably another that's 10 people playing 15 to 20 hour game. Literally day one, there was a bug that people were getting that we'd never seen before that opened an endgame crypt within like two hours of the game started. Oh, no, no. So like literally, bugs coming out that you're with all of the best intentions we've tried to find. They just happen because once you go from 10 people playing it to 1000s of people playing it, right, it's just the law of averages, you know, you're eventually going to get something that we've never seen. So yeah, a good portion of it goes to bug fixing just to like stabilize it and make sure we're not because again, like we briefly

touched on steam is driven by reviews, right? So like if you're not in that very positive, you're disappearing into the the annals of steam disappeared gone. So you want to be in that 80% and above. So you want to fix those bugs as quick as possible to keep that very positive review. So that's actually something really interesting. I don't think I didn't realize this anyway. And obviously, you know, review scores matter, but is there actually like a threshold where you go, hey, as long as we're over this number, we're good? I mean, obviously obviously everybody wants to be in the, you know, that 97% overwhelmingly positive kind of thing, but that's a fantastic like thought there is, is 80% kind of the, as long as we're above this, like we're good. But if we're under

that, Oh no, Steve, shoot you down. Yeah. I mean like there's, there's backwards, there's like, you know, it's not perfect science, But as long as you're in that mostly positive, which I think is 80% of stuff, then that is kind of what keeps you popping up for people and keeps you in the algorithm spaces is a our 10s galore on steam. If you're not an AR 10, then you're you're something else, you know, you're not there. So you're better off if you aim for the stars, you know. So yeah, going back to that point, we fix those bugs to try and keep that that good percentage, then other things are like quality of life. So people, for example, with Tesla, two people were saying they would like the to scale the subtitles, because sometimes in different languages,

the subtitles were slightly too big or covered areas that they didn't want to cover. So, you know, we can add in quality of life things like that. A big percentage of it goes to, you know, PR stuff, like you say, like talking to podcasts, journalists, whatever. And I mean, I say that lightly, but there's five of us on the team. So maybe it is like, it's a fifth of the team just gone. It's like, yeah, there's nothing but in reality is different. And then, obviously, the rest of the time is spent on what's next, which is, you know, that as an indie dev that is what you're in that precipice, you know, like your games doing well, but you might not have got the you don't get paid out straight away from your royalties, because you know, business, business, business, that's

how business works. And then, uh, so you're in that bit where there's no money coming in and you need to be making something so that you can get money coming in to keep everything ticking over nicely. So that's the next stage is like, Oh, that's why I love it done. Here's what we're making next. That's awesome. That is that's wild. And the kudos to you guys five five man team to make what you've created is is pretty stellar. That's always incredible to hear. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's when you when you when you break that down the five, there's five of us which is like, one is like a combat

designer, character designer, animator, then there's environment artists lighting, then there's two coders and then there's me doing like level design, quest design, story writing, production. And then we have a team in Italy, or three guys that just come in and do the audio with us but they're like a separate team of themselves. Nice man. So I mean, we love to get one thing we love to do is kind of get that Uh, who is the the dev who is the person behind the game? You know what what what kind of makes them tick?

Have you always been a gamer? Are you a gamer? Is there you know something that that's kind of what brought you into this world? Yeah, I mean like I've had every Nintendo console has ever been From this to switch I've had everything Nintendo console has ever been like, that was, that was my, it was like from this to switch. I've had everything, you know, so that, that, I, I would argue that Nintendo is the good, the best entrance into gaming because it always teaches you the fundamentals first. You're not going to Mario will give you everything you need to know to go onto any games. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. The two buttons, you start with those two buttons and then you go from there. You know, now we got 12 button mice and keyboards and all this stuff. Yeah. Um, so do you have like a favorite game that you've played over the last few years? I mean, there's loads of games that I've played and I loved, but like,

I'd say I'd break it down into like AAA and indie games because I, yeah, they're two different worlds, you know? So absolutely. Like in, in indie space, the game I always, always come back to is kingdom two grounds. I love that game. It's, it's so simple. It's literally, it's like a 2d tower defense game. Basically, I love tower defense.

Have you guys played it? Have you seen it? No, no, but now you got me interested. So it's, it's published by raw fury. It's like, um, you build like a little village side on and you have to venture out to bring villages back to become towers and that sort of thing. And then every night you get attacked. So you're like trying to build out your village whilst you're getting attacked. It's super simple, but it's like that game I can jump into and play like 30 minutes and get my hit and you know, I'm done. Yeah. I

mean like carrying on down that line. I like, I like Hades as well. Like I've been playing Hades as well. Yeah. Cause another game that still I've not beaten it, but I haven't. And I've played it a lot and I've just never beaten that final fight. I get to Hades like, like I've been there like three times now. And every time he just wipes the floor with me. I'm like, I know I'm going to do it someday, but I'm like, I'm Elden Lord. I've beaten millennia and I can't beat Hades. Yeah. So I'd say they were like the, the Indies. I keep coming back to it because they give me that, you know, that hit of game when I, when I finished work and I could just play and go to bed and I've done, I've got my little, little hit out of it. But in like, in the

AAA space, I'd say God of War's probably been my, was like, yeah. Is it something about us bald bearded men? You know, it got a whore is one of my favorite games of all time. And that's the blades of chaos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say like we've got a war. It was like, I played the originals back in the day, you know, PlayStation two and that.

But this just felt like that maturing of the IP, you know, it was it was a whole new world, a whole new angle on the game. And it just blends gameplay and story so well, like those characters you're attached to in a completely different way. Yeah, that that game loves I love and it again, that was an influence on us. Like, obviously God of War uses the tells on attacks, you know, the reds, the yellows, the whites. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's where we got it from for Tales of Iron, because we was like, yeah, love that combat. So are you a Souls like fan? Yeah, yeah, I like souls like like I play.

Would you call it sort of sanctuary love? So I love that one. Yeah, yeah, that one. I played a lot like when we was when we used to have an office, we played sort of sanctuary law. I've played Dark Souls, but I'm not great at them. That's I mean, I take a team is like diverse in the way we like games. So like I come into games with a story aspect of it.

I like challenging combat, but I'm not there for like the hardest of hard hit in my head against the wall. Whereas other members of the team are there for that. They couldn't give a yes, that's exactly how Josh and myself are. I love part of the reason I loved God of War so much. You still had that combat, but the story was so engaging and you felt a part of that world.

And Josh will just go fight millennia 400 times. Which I can't do. You can't put somebody in front of me and. Which I just can't do. You can't put somebody in front of me and then say, you can't beat this guy. Cause it's like, it just drives me man. Where it's like, I will absolutely beat this guy. But then again, I just said, I never beat Hades. So now I know what I'm doing later tonight. You got this Josh. So Jack, um, we want to move a little bit into kind of what it's like to be a game designer.

But I do have one more question on the gaming front for you is now we know that you've had your hands full. So if you don't have an answer for this one, that's OK. But is there a game coming out this year that you have on your radar that you were just like, man, I cannot wait to get my hands on this game. Yeah. Most. Monster Hunter. We've seen that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And the end of the month is going to be pretty, pretty sweet. Yeah. Yeah. We've seen that a lot. It's weird because I played Monster Hunter World was my first kind of foray into the Monster Hunter games. And I love those boss fights like that, the stalking them and

tracking them. And then the seeing them and the engagement and stuff like that the stalking them and tracking them and then the seeing them and the engagement stuff like that is second to none. I had a hard time with like the all the subsystems there I felt like there was 50 different subsystems in the game and it's like with the pace that we have to cover games you know sometimes it's like I don't have the time or patience to learn all that, but Monster Hunter Wilds looks really good. Well, the crazy thing that I like about Monster Hunter is it feels, I know it's a triple A game, but it feels that 30 minutes I'll go in, do a hunt, kill this thing. Nice one. It gives me that little loop that I can just play and put it down. Whereas like God of

War does not give me that God of War is like, I need to know exactly what's going on. I love you know, good two three hour gaming session, but there's something to be said for a game that you can just pop in for 2030 minutes play a little bit like you said, get that hit and then go out, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, when you're working late late nights and you're like, I haven't got the time to put in and I won't remember what Kratos has just said. Death can have me when it earns me.

Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I think as we get older, especially it becomes the, do I have two or three hours to dedicate to this or do I have 30 minutes to dedicate to this? And more often than not, it's like, I have 30 minutes, so I'm going to play this game versus this one. There's still that awesome, like, I'm setting aside a Saturday to really dive into this game kind of thing. But that's more often the rarity nowadays than it is like the, this is my standard here. So, Jack, one of the things that we've been doing lately is kind of a series on the people behind the games. Um, we've talked to voice actors, animators, you know, you as a, as a game designer now

and a co-founder for a studio. Um, and so we've kind of love that kind of peek behind the curtain because I think again, as gamers, we romanticize a lot of these things and we have a certain thinking about what a lot of these jobs are like in the industry. But more often than not, we find out it's not, I mean, yes, it can be a dream job, but it also is work and that comes at a cost and not every day is a great day at work and things like that. Can you give us a rundown on, you know, and this doesn't have to be super specific if it doesn't need to be, but like, what is being a lead designer

like? Like when it comes to creating a video game, like what is your position like in that? What do you kind of oversee or kind of do on a day to day basis? Yeah. So I'll caveat this with we're an indie team that's never worked in a AAA studio. So the way we do it is not necessarily the current way. I love that, though. That's what I want to know. Like, what is it like?

Yeah, a team of five people. Like, what's that like? Like, we literally all came out of university and just started a studio. So we've never had any like industry experience. You know? I love that. I love it. It's real. and just started a studio. So we've never had any like, industry experience, you know, I love that. I love it's real. So I would say my role specifically is like, I'm the person that sows everything together. Like, we have we have one person making the environments,

we have one person doing the characters and getting the combat work. And so then I come along and I've written this story and I make the quest and I make the levels and I plot their artwork in here and I put their character in here and I get that all working and then we have Dan then comes through and does like the balance pass on top of that so I would say I'm the person that sows it together but that's an abstract way of saying it so like the easiest way to explain what like my day to day is like, you know, what a flowchart, you know, like, you come in, yes or no, this option. That's what I look at, like, 20 hours a day. Like, if I tried to explain, if somebody had to come

in and do my job, it'd be like, right, here's the layers of the onion that is this game. Because the way that tells a buy in works is like, every encounter is an encounter graph. So there's a graph saying this guy turns on and does this attack. And then once you killed him, this happens once you get this happens quest complete, encounter complete. Then above that, there is a quest graph that says once this encounters completed this encounter turn on, then you pick up this item and blah, blah, blah. Once that's done, this quest is complete. And then above that, there is a game graph that says once this quest is complete, these things turn on and these things turn off. And then there's another quest here and that quest here.

And then once that's done, that's game complete. And then there's a Tows of I2, there was another graph on top of that that said, when this monster has been defeated, it will appear in this part of the world once this month. So there was like four layers of depth to this. I mean, I don't, I share it. My screen and I can take you in. Oh, I'd love to see this. I have a feeling it's going to look like the world's biggest bush but brain is melting already.

It's funny because I think I know what you're talking about with these kind of branching if this then that things, but it's like looking into the matrix. How it leads so far along to, you know, to something else. That's Oh, wow. So this is just the quest graph for the opening quest of tales of iron two. Oh my gosh. Okay. So listeners, it's, it's like a highway of almost like, like, you know,

text bars look like circuit boards of like a computer flowing stack on stack on stack. So green square, green squares got to be something good. Yeah. That's connected items. Yeah. I know loot when I see it. Green square green squares got to be something good. Yeah, that's connected items. Yeah That is like just the the one graph but then each of these is Individual graph like that. Oh my goodness. That is a quest and then on top of that

I mean my PC might not open this right now whilst trying to stream it as well because Even when I'm not streaming this graph is a laggy because this is the graph that's on top of all that that says like each green square here is a quest basically. So this is the set. How do you keep this organized? Like how do you, I feel like I would get so twisted up in knots and then be like, wait, wait, where does this green line go again? Yeah.

So when I started game development, I had hair down past my bum. So take for that when you want to. Oh, man. Once they've shared my screen screen something that you might find interesting. This, this is not my role, but it's a an interesting way that I think we develop games and not a lot of people do develop games in that way. It's because our games are all like 2d right, they're all side scrolling, right? And then they have that intense like parallax of moving assets and that sort of thing.

So the way that works is every single asset in the game is actually an individual piece, an individual asset that's placed in the Z. So for the listeners, we're getting a look at a 2D screen right now that is being zoomed in and rotated to actually show you the layers of depth, even though it's 2D, it's like you have the foreground, the background, and you can place items and things like that from anywhere in the foreground all the way to the back. So it's 2D, but it's not 2D. It looks, it's like a, it's like a shadow box, like where you can see, like look at the straight reference.

Yeah, there's all the layers behind it that stack up and then create that level that is so awesome to see. Yeah, this is great. That's all like, in place in their individual 2d assets, but then like, we, uh, I don't know if I can show you, I don't know if I can find it. But basically what we do in the game is, you know, like, here, what I'm showing you is the main hub, hub you know this is the area you keep coming back to over and over again so we we do all sorts of crazy things where we're like switching out assets in here things are getting destroyed we're changing time of day so although it looks like a single individual scene we're actually you know smashing pieces up and adding assets in yeah so it So it gets, it gets pretty hectic in there.

Wow. Yeah. This is, this is literally like, imagine if somebody took seven layers, you know, and then, and then, you know, you put them together and you look at them from one angle and they look like they're 2D, but there's actually seven layers there. And then you can actually put assets and things between any of those layers. So this is awesome, because I've never seen this. I always just bought 2D game. And we see this a lot more nowadays, right? Where you're seeing these kind of 2D games

that have depth to them at the same time. And personally, I love that style, because I think it really enhances that 2D aspect. But it's really cool to kind of get that glimpse. Uh, you know, like, like we said, behind the curtain, I had no idea that this was what a game looked like, uh, you know, for somebody that's actually working on it, which is like, so like that, that this would be more part of my job is I've built all of these. When you look at what I do, it's a lot less interesting to see. That's what I see most of the time.

Is that a door? interesting to see. That's what I see most of the time. A door. So there was a picture of a door. So that's what I see most of the time. But then I hook all these levels up, you know, you set characters in them and that sort of thing. Because like, something we do that is, again, I don't know if every player does this, but we actually animate within unity. A lot of studios will probably animate outside of unity, but we, we, we rig everything and animate within the software. So like, right, for example, this is Arlo, the main character.

And here with him, we can, you know, we can do whatever we want to move, moving him around. Everything is in, in this app, you know, this actual. We've been basically, that is awesome. Wow, that is so neat. Yeah. So he's got other main character and he's kind of making them dance and do a jig right now. But, uh, that that's so interesting to see how that once that character is created, then you can do all the effects, you know, this way. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, it's the same thing with him, right? Like we, we, we have to crush it down a little bit, but he is all like individual separate pieces that are like 2d assets that we've squished down.

Let me see if I, this is really cool. This is awesome. Yeah. We're kicking out right now. You can see what he is underneath. Oh yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah. I've turned up his body. You can see what he is underneath. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't know.

There's like layers on layers, man. Look at this. It's separate so you can put different hairs and things on him, you know, and so is this how you because this is always really neat. And one of the things I love in a game is, you know, when you get gear that the gear is reflected on your character, right? I don't know why it's like it's maybe it's just my brain, but I hate it when I'm playing a game where it's like, I get a new fancy piece of armor or something. And then it's like, but it

doesn't show up, you know? And then it's like, but that kind of takes away from it, man. I want to see it on my guy. And so this kind of design is what allows you to place other assets like on a character design at that point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, with towns of iron two, I think there's close to a thousand individual weapons, armors and helmets and things. Yeah. There's a lot of that's that's awesome. So Jack, man, I could look at this stuff for really, really, really, I do want to kind of talk about because you're in the unique position and we, to be able to chat with you about this, is not only are you a game designer, but you're also a co-founder

of a studio. And I think that's just fascinating. As gamers, we hear news stories about, hey, so-and-so left this company to go found their own studio. And they're bringing a team of people. And they're going to, this is going to feel like a classic game that everybody loves or something like that.

But, and then sadly, we also hear about the closure of a lot of studios as well, which as gamers, we hate. Legitimately, it just, it sucks to hear that things didn't work out for people and stuff like that. Um, and I know that you mentioned that the five of you kind of came out of university, but like, how does one go about founding a studio? Like, did you guys all just sit around and say, you know, one night having beers together or something and say, we should make a game.

They looked, they looked over next to the campfire and they went, that's an odd bug. Say that again. I wish it was that simple. So yeah, me, Dan and Martin, we all went to university together. And then Matt and Nathan, the two coders, they went to university together at a separate university. Um, but me, uh, Dan and mine, we all we graduated. And then there

was a competition in Scotland called dare to be digital, which is like recent graduates or last year students go there and they have like two months you make a game. And then at the end of it, like people from industry come around and view markup and give you awards and that. So we made a little random game there and then people from Sony X dev actually came and looked in there's like we don't like this game but we want to see what else is from the end and dad had his final major project from uni which was called the lost bear and then they really liked that and they gave us funding for that so we made a demo in six months for the lost bear which was going to be a 2d cinematic platformer then that got picked up and then for a series of events which is long and sad

and miserable became a 2d VR platformer that we made in like a year and a bit and then that came out and then from there we got funding for towns of iron and you know just kind of like snowballed on from there so yeah it's it's it's a it's a like it's a tough road to walk yeah, it's it's, it's a, it's a like, it's a tough road to walk if you're is, I guess it's the same as every business, though. It's like making the continuous supply of money is hard to come across. By 2050, new cancer cases are projected to rise by 77%. It's why the Princess Margaret is reigniting our commitment to transform cancer outcomes

in a quest we call Carry the Fire. But we can't achieve this alone. We need your help. Together, let's carry the fire for a world free from the fear of cancer and give every cancer patient brighter tomorrows. Donate to the Princess Margaret Cancer foundation at carry the fire.ca. All right. So let's get into tales of iron two itself. Like, you know,

and this is where I, I know ACE has a lot of questions for you guys. Cause like I said, he has, he has a hundred percent of the game. He's been talking about this game since you guys first announced it. He played Tales of Iron I, was a huge fan of that. I'm not exaggerating when I say this was one of his most anticipated releases of the year. And so we're going to hand it over to Ace a little bit

to just learn a little bit more about some of the ins and outs of the game itself. So Ace, I know you got a lot of questions and don't worry we'll let you ask about the were owl fight a little bit later. But so yeah what's you know what's something that you want to know about the game itself or a question there? Well like you said we'll get to the to the were owl fight. I will want to know what hurt you jack But I'd like to know what was your favorite boss fight in tales of iron 2 Personally, I think the bit that's really cool about tells of iron 2 is that when you come back to the rabbits and the necromancers

There he brings back like the leader of the rabbits. He has the that I like that bit from a story perspective I think that's that's really cool fun but I think actual combat wise I really like the spider I think the the difference of like being able to swing around and he puts the poison out but then he digs and comes up I think the spider is quite like a unique fight and you fit you get him quite early on but I also quite like the chameleon as well. There's this Sneaking around. Yeah, he was cool, too. I was answers all of them I was a fan of pretty much any boss from short tongues questline. Like they were

Really? Yeah the the ending of that as well. So like we did did you get the two references references? We did like the new Llorian like they were meant to be like Jabba the Hutt and the Mandalorian. Yeah, I love that. I thought that was so cool, man. That whole part is so neat. And that's the bit where it is like actually a fully unique boss to the side, the side quest as well, which is enjoyable. Oh, dude, it was so cool. I loved every bit of that. So you guys are fans of rats. Like you like rats. Yeah.

How do y'all feel about the fact you animate them getting horribly slaughtered? I mean, I guess, I guess in the same way I hope the people that like Georgia are mine likes humans, but he still like, I hope it's a similar feeling. I hope he's not like angry about it. But no, we try and keep it fairly cartoonish in the in the murder. But killing. But yeah, that is that is a really interesting point about towns of likes. I think a lot of people see it like, Oh, this is so cute. So lovely. It's like, it's like Redwall. And then they start playing and you're chopping the heads off frogs or stabbing, you know, bats through the stomach. That's quite a nice and interesting moment where people are, Oh,

it's definitely what I remember from the first game. I was like, Oh, it's that kind of game. Yeah. Like when we showed the game at games calm and because of German rules, you're not like if it's an 18 or a 16 plus, you're not allowed to have screens facing out because it's because kids walking around. Yeah. So, uh, because it tells why two is like a 16 plus we had all the screens covered in a parents becoming up just like why why can't the kids come in and play this? Well, actually, there's a lot of things going on here. That's why they can't come in. Yeah. Oh, man. That's funny. Ace, anything you want to know more about the were owl fight before we move on?

Not quite the were owl fight. I do want to know what made you guys change protagonist from the first game to this one? So with TOWS of IRON we don't see it as like a single game. We don't see it as like, oh this is the TOWS of IRON games. We're seeing it as a world, as a universe. Like I just said about like G of Thrones, we want to show all of the perspectives of that world, you know, and just to constantly show Reggie and like, he's he's coming from a super privileged position in life, you know, to see that perspective every time is not as interesting to see in like, how Arlo maybe approaches it or how another person

would approach it from a different angle. And to see how the different parts of the world then kind of connect with each other. To us that was way more enjoyable than to be like, here's Reggie again, he's in the Crimson Keep, and there's something drawing him out of the Crimson Keep. Because, again, things that we really like to do is show, or something that's enjoyable about tells about is showing the different parts of the world, showing the different races, because that's a great moment in Tales of I won right when you're playing the game and suddenly

these like Russian moles come out of nowhere with the electric and communism and that sort of thing. That was something we enjoyed in tales of I too was being like, here's these owls that have got like a parliament and they make rules that they can't even meet and like all of this sort of stuff. So like creating these small little civilizations and introducing you to them is like the really enjoyable part of it. And I think by showing different protagonists, you get to experience that in different ways to like, Oh, we know how Reggie is going to respond to this. And we know how, you know, he's going to act in this situation. I think that's an enjoyable way in the future would be interesting to see what happens in if anything happens, who knows? I have one more real quick, Josh. I want to,

with obviously, you know, you have the rats and, you know, rabbits and frogs, you've named all these these different types of animals, does using animals as as the characters and the enemies, Does using animals as the characters and the enemies lead to more almost creativity and ability to kind of branch out and expand to just kind of wild crazy places? Yeah, so like when we first started creating Tales of Iron, we wanted to make like our own version of like the classic fantasy game. But we didn't want to be locked in with like this is what a dwarf does. This is what a elf does. So like we basically assign the races to the different types of animal but then try and, you know, trade it around. So like, the rats are the humans, right? They're

the basic standard Knights castles, that sort of thing. Our version of dwarves was the moles, right? Yeah, they live underground and they dig, but they've got electricity, they've got an arena of like wrestlers that fight over to the death. They've got this they are our wolves, but they're not actually dwarves like yeah, in towns of iron to the owls were meant to be our elves like yes, they do have laws and are governed in a more civilized manner. But they also make rules that are completely against their own like instincts and nature and that sort of thing. So it's interesting to play within those different aspects. And like you say, giving animals make, gives us an easy way to make it feel different

to the classic. I love that. It just allows you to be more creative. It kind of takes away those barriers of saying we have to kind of stay within this groundwork, so to speak, and then now we can kind of do whatever we want, but we still have kind of a foundation that we can reference if we need to. I think that's great. So one of the things in Tales of Iron 2, and you kind of mentioned this, is that you kind of look at this almost like a universe, right? And so when you're going, I should say when you're planning the kind of story of Tales of Iron 2, you have Tales of Iron 1, it's canon, so to speak. Did you have an end in mind as far as like,

okay, we want to get from point A to point B story-wise, so as long as we know this is where we want to be, we can figure out how to get there. Or is it more of like an evolving, like, here's the start of this story. Let's see where this thing goes. And oh, wow, we wound up here kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, we knew where we wanted to, what we wanted to do. We knew like, we want this, this, and this, and this is where we're going to start. This is where we're going to end. And this is what the middle is going to be. But like the the the bits that happen around that may be changed depending on mechanics, depending on, you know,

things that we want to do or bits that happen in the world. That changes as we're going along. But we always had plans for like, this is what the games are going to. We've even got plans of like. What we'd like to do if there was like an animated series or a graphic novel, you know, I'll eat that up. Without giving spoilers, you know, like that end scene of the game. There's a lot of explaining that could happen between that and wherever the future begins, you know, so that would be a nice

space for like, a little ranger situation, a little Aragorn situation maybe going on, you know, that would be, that would be an interesting situation. So yeah, we had all these plans for like things that we want to do. It's just the minutia of that change is slightly dependent on other circumstances, you know. Oh, that's awesome. So like speaking of, you know, uh, animated series and other kinds of things you can go into that all falls into the look of the game. I absolutely love the art style you guys decided to go with. It is. It is something that you don't see a lot, but when you see it and it's done the right way and it's done well, it's just kind of stands alone. What what led you guys to kind of choose to design the game that way?

Yeah. So Martin, the environment is he's from the Czech Republic or Czechia now. And they're like big thing is like block printing. I mean, everywhere in the world does it. But they're quite well known for it. It's like, you know, you carve the word you ink it up and then you stamp it and you get like an image from that. So that's why all of our artwork has like these black borders to it, like the thick black lines that cover everything. And because of that, that led us down this fairy tale route, this storybook route. So that was kind of the concept of like the art direction of it. But then that informed other things, right? Like, oh, we want a fairy

tale sort of feeling to the game. So we want as few words as possible to make sure that story's simple But still like endearing to the player So we only had a narrator no no animal like talks in words to each other that also then led to the speech bubble Situation where everything's trying to be like spoken through images rather than through text So it kind of like led itself through but that that basis was like the block print in concept or the artwork. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, you guys did an amazing job. It's absolutely beautiful.

It is really I am not I have no artistic bones in my body like at all. And it's funny because my wife and kids are all artists. So I just look at them and I'm like, I don't know how you guys do that. So I'm always super impressed when I see something. And then I just go like, how did somebody's brain just like poof this into existence? You know, it just, it absolutely baffles me, but yeah, I, I gotta give you guys credit, man. The art style in this game is beautiful. I mean, it's one of those things, especially with indie games, you know, we do see a lot more of like variety of art styles and stuff like that. But I am a huge fan of the art style that you guys

have come up with in this. I, it really just is impressive to me. I like that it has this kind of dark nature to it, but there's so much detail in it as well. Like when you take the time to actually look at it also. So yeah, I mean, kudos to all of you guys for that because it's very impressive. So that kind of leads us into, you can have an amazing looking game. You can have a game with an incredible story, but if playing the game isn't fun, then, you know, and so, you know, with Tales of Iron 2, the combat, you guys have kind of upped the combat and the gameplay for this. And I think that's one of the things that really stands out with Tales of Iron 2 as far as Tales of Iron 1 is that it really just feels much more refined and expanded, especially

with like the elemental system and stuff like that. Like what's the process on like when you, when you go from, you know, Tales of Iron one to Tales of Iron two, how do you come up with that? How are we going to improve the gameplay? Like, do you guys sit there with a whiteboard and just say, oh, it'd be really cool if we had this, you know, and if a boss fight, if they had this mechanic, like that would be really fun. I mean, you mentioned that you guys are gamers. So I imagine you kind of have that ability to say, what's fun for us. I mean, it initially starts,

we was in a unique situation because with Tales of Iron 2, we had all the feedback from Tales of Iron 1. So we had people that said, I like this about the combat, or I don't like this about the combat, or I'd like this to happen or that to happen. So we knew like people loved the basis of the combat. They just wanted this to happen or that to happen. So we knew like people love the basis of the combat. They just wanted it to be like a deeper situ like a deeper form of combat, not just like responding to like tells basically. So we knew we needed to go deeper with that. So

it was a way of us being like, how can we keep the basis of this but make it a more interesting system basically. So yeah, that then comes down to like, we're a gamer. So we're like, Okay, what what can we relate this to? And that kind of led us down that monster hunter sort of elemental system of like enemies have weaknesses and resistances, you have weaknesses and resistances depend on the arm as you're wearing. And that felt like a natural fit to us where like you are fighting these big creatures, but you can give yourself this buff by practicing ahead. And you know, that kind of lend itself because we were big fans of the Witcher as well. That let

yourself into the witcher, you know, with the pastry and the poisons and all that sort of thing. So it kind of just became this like, oh, we could take this from here, and this from here and kind of merge it into what we want for our combat system, which will then in turn, fix this feedback that we've got of like people want a deeper system. So, something I wanted to ask about was, you have a little crossover armor in there for Lords of the Fallen. How did you guys land on that? Yeah, so United Label is actually owned by CI Games.

CI Games make Lords of the Fallen. So they're based, they're basically our publisher once. Okay. It was just like in-house stuff. Basically we were quite friendly. I guess it's almost like an Easter egg in a way, you know, and I know like gamers love just that kind of discovery. And when you notice it, you notice it. And if you don't, there's, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, Hey, this doesn't affect anything for, but for the people that see it, this is a nice little thing. And it kind of jumps out at them. Yeah. If we, if we had the time, it would have been nice to go and do like go into the umbra and fight some monster from the North of the colon to get the armor armor piece, but they just didn't have the time for that. Unfortunately

Yeah, and speak speaking of time too. I just got one more. Um like from from day one when it starts and you're like, okay, we're making tales of iron 2 is It just non-stop crunch time the whole way through is it is it to the pressures on or is it kind of ups and down and Lulz as you kind of develop things or how does that whole kind through? Is it is it to the pressures on or is it kind of ups and down and lows as you kind of develop things or how does how does that whole kind of bird's eye view process look? I would say when you're starting to develop the game you're in that concept phase of like this is what we'd like to do that tends to be less crunch intensive because you get to you can only squeeze the lemon so much there's no lemon juice left you, we have to like take some breaks and like hide or hide away in the darkness. Come back. So like

that's less intensive. But when you're sat there and it's like, I've got to get this level made, I've got to get this quest done today in order for people to be able to play it and test it and see what they think of it. That's when it becomes more crunch, but more intense the amount of work you're doing, because you've got deadlines that are more structured. Whereas, you know, when you're in the concept phase, you might, you might spend two days talking about mechanic and then the next day you're like, actually, this isn't going to work. It's wasted time there, you know, you're not going to, you're not going to get everything right straight away. So that, that initial periods are a lot looser and free flowing.

I'd say that's awesome. I feel like that's the fun period. I don't know why, but my brain goes the coming up with the concepts and the ideas is like the, you know, this is where a lot of the excitement is this kind of like, Oh, this would be great, man. If we're going to have this. And I love that you mentioned, like sometimes you go, nope, nope, that's not going to work. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. It is so hard to explain. But even you can be like, right, this

is going to be our crafting system. And then even the smallest little minutest change over here, you're like, oh, well, this just removes everything that we've done over here. That makes no sense. I mean, for us anyway, I think games are basically a house of cards, like designs are house of cards. And the minute you move this card, this all falls down. You just gotta make sure you're putting bits in the right

place the whole way through. Yeah. Oh, well, Jack, this has been, this has been awesome, man. It, I mean, number one, this has been a blast to just talk to you, kind of get an idea of what this is like. I personally learned a lot today, which I think is fascinating. I'm sure our listeners are going to love this as well. So really just wanted to thank you again for taking time out of your day to hop on with us and hang out with the guys and talk, you know, gaming and Tales of Iron 2. I mean, you know, especially, you know, us getting to know you a little bit more as well. Um, so, you know, before we go, we, we kind of touched on this, but,

you know, we did mention like rats and frogs. Like, I really just that much of a fan of rats that when you guys went, Hey, we gotta have something that this is, this is what we, we went with. And did you have to sell that to your four partners? You know, or was this just everybody was in right away? They're like, yes, we're doing rats and frogs. So all of the rats in, in tales of iron one are based on Dan's actual pet rats. They were real rats. Oh my God. Like they're actual real rats and they had names and their characters are kind of loosely based on their real life characters. So it wasn't, it was less of a, um, I need to sell the rats to people.

It was more like, what are we putting these rats in? I love it. He shows up to the office. He's like, all right, guys, hear me out. I love it. He shows up to the office. He's like, all right guys, yeah. I mean, it was more of he turns up to the office and throw his rats around. Fight fight battle. Oh man. Well, listen, once again, thank you for your time for everybody out there. We have, we, we preach this all the time, support indie developers. You can tell the passion that you

guys have for this. You can tell that you love just gaming in general. Obviously, there's a business side of things to any business, but we always say that indie devs are the passion, the creativity behind the industry and support indie devs. Tales of Iron 2 is an awesome game. I mean, it's one of those things where we have seen many people in our community talking about it. Ace, maybe more so than others, but again, our partner John has picked it up and played through it and had nothing but good things to say.

So for everybody out there, take a look at this. Tales of Iron 2, Oddbug Studios, I mean, support the devs that are doing the good work in the world. So thank you, Jack, and to everybody else at Oddbug Studio for just taking, you know, you guys gave your lives or parts of your lives to make in this game so that as gamers, we can have that enjoyment as well. So just thank you from all of us for what you guys do. And again, for taking time to hop on the show with us as well. So thank you for, I mean, thank you for talking about it. Like this equally us making it and no one talking about it is, you know, this is the other side of the coin. So right. You know, thanks for having us on. Awesome. Yeah.

It's been our pleasure. So we'll listen everybody that does it for this episode. Again, check out Tales of Iron 2, support these guys. They are awesome and that will do it for this episode. So thank you everybody for joining us and until next time, happy gaming. See ya. I will never forgive you for the were owl jack. forgive you for the were owl jack. I made it especially for you.