Video Gamers Podcast - Grit and Valor - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh and John are joined by Luke and Scott from Milky Tea studios to chat about Grit and Valor - 1949. Releasing TODAY, Grit and Valor is a dieselpunk, real-time roguelike set in an alt-history WWII where you command insane mechs against overwhelming odds. We get an inside look into the development, art, learn what game jams are and a whole lot more. It’s an incredible video game packed episode that’s a ton of fun! All the gaming news you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! 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 Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: 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

To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot-ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. The beauty of gaming is it's held back by only the imagination and determination of those that make the games we play. Gaming is an incredibly varied passion and it's always amazing to see the different games that studios create for us.

Today we're going to be taking a look at the very soon to release Grit and Valor 1949 with two of the people that helped create it. But first some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh and joining me, if he had a grit level, it would be fine because he's a softy. It's John. It's too early to reply to that. I don't know what,

I don't even know what you mean by that. A little sandpaper humor early in the morning? Come on, man. Okay, I'll take the sandpaper. I'm not sure what to do with the softy part of it. John, there were four people that understood that reference, man. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Love it. And joining us from Milky T Studios, they're faster than a dragon, more durable than a thunderhead, smarter than the command vehicle. It's the ironclad duo of Luke and Scott. Another one. Little Gr little grit and valor mech, you know, references. Yeah. I appreciate it.

Yeah. You did a great job, man. That was, I think you plugged every possible reference from the demo into that, into that intro. I've done my work. I've done my work boys. Luke, Scott, how you guys doing this morning? Very, very well. Thank you guys for joining us, man. Uh, you know, we, we got to play your demo.

We actually talked about this game in, we did an episode on some of the steam next fest games, uh, that we came across and grit and valor 1949 was absolutely one of those games. You know, we started talking about it. We mentioned it in the episode. A lot of people from our community tried it out. We got some very positive feedback from them as well. And so we thought, man, this is one of those games that's absolutely on our radar.

We really would like to know a little bit more about. John reached out to you guys and you both graciously agreed to come on this podcast and talk about it a little bit more about. John reached out to you guys and you both graciously agreed to come on this podcast and talk about it a little bit more. So we're gonna get into that here in just a second, but I gotta start off guys. Grim Fowler releases in five days from the date that we're recording this. First of all, congratulations.

Second of all, how are the nerves holding up? Yeah, I mean, definitely from our point of view, we're having a nice spot where we're sort of playtesting the game, trying to find any bugs, any good bugs, a dead bug. But yeah, I mean, honestly, having people notice got. Yeah, I mean, it feels a bit surreal still. I think when you're so close to a project like this and you spend so much time working on it, you talk about this release date, like it's a mythical thing that one day it will appear. And so the fact we're just a few days away is very, very exciting.

Yeah. And I think the games are in a brilliant place. I couldn't help but notice when Josh was saying how close we are to release date, like, uh, Scott goes, Yeah. Yeah. At least what I think you've been staring at it for so long, sort of, you just want to make sure all the niggling, all the details and that kind of stuff

want to get sorted out. Um, yeah, I think we've got a good amount of times or towards the run up to release sort of get a lot of that stuff sorted. So Luke, you're an artist, right on the game. So are you the artist? Is there a team of artists that have worked on this? Uh, like what, what, what do you kind of do for the game, I guess, and for, for Milky T studios?

Um, yeah, so I'm, uh, I guess my first role on the project is the lead artist. So we've got a fantastic team of nine people. A couple of them have gone with the other projects. We're working on them as well. But yeah, a hugely devoted sort of art team that have worked on this for a few years now. And I just sort of help be opinionated and talk too much about the art. And then Scott, you are a designer, if I remember this correctly. And so what, like, give us a little bit of, because like, you know, we, everybody knows like the word designer, but when it comes to a video game, like, what does that actually mean? I always find it really hard to explain, I think.

It's just, it's being able to craft the experience, right? Obviously the art is very visual and it's what you see and feel, that tangible stuff and the code just makes it work. So we wouldn't be able to live without that. But I think the design is about figuring out exactly what players are going to find fun, challenging, exciting, what's going to keep them coming back to the game. So it obviously stems across the entire game. But yeah, you're just trying to nail down exactly what experience you want players to

have, I think. So is that like the overall, like just the overall feeling of the game? Like is it more like making sure that like we're staying within this like idea that we we had initially for Gritten Valor? Is that like, you know, just making sure we kind of stay within these ideas for something? I kind of stay within it, but I think you're constantly trying to push those boundaries as well and figure out what's like the craziest thing you can do and what's what would be really overpowered, what doesn't work and you're constantly you're trying to stay within those pillars that you create initially but also find new things and exciting things as you develop in the game as well.

Especially when we have because you had a few demos and sort of releases as well so getting feedback the community has been really good. Um, all the steam comments and that kind of stuff. So you want to keep the process a bit malleable, um, just so that you can see what people are really engaged with and what they want to see more of and try and do more of that. Yeah. So that's really interesting to me because, you know, I played, you know, I,

I mentioned it before we started recording, but I, you know, I came across this demo and we play a lot of demos, man. I mean, as a gaming podcast, it's one of those things where, you know, our one of our goals is to put games in front of our listeners and say, Hey, this was something really fun that we came across. I liked this game. I tried this one. I didn't like it so much. Like we are honest. I don't know if you guys know this, but gamers are opinionated. We definitely like to tell people what we think about stuff, but I think I put five hours into the demo for grit and valor. I mean, like legitimately, this one caught me off guard. And part of that was just the kind of that cohesiveness. Like I knew right away what kind of game this was, you know, and there's definitely some inspiration

from like other games. So, you know, one of the things, and I've seen this mentioned a lot of times is Into the Breach, you know, that there are some similarities to Into the Breach. You guys are both nodding, so I'm assuming that you guys are familiar with that game. Very, very popular game with a lot of gamers as well.

I mean, it's done fantastic. It's, you know, it's very favorably viewed, but I just, I absolutely loved the kind of twist on that and the evolution of that because it's like, it's real time, which I like, I love chaos and action in my video games. I love a good challenge. John is probably the opposite of me where he just wants something more chill to kind of relax and play with. But

I kind of loved the direction that you guys went with this with saying, Hey, here's something that should feel familiar with people. But we're gonna give you something you haven't really seen before, at least I haven't. And like I said, I've been gaming a long time, man. How would you guys like, I generally try to, you know, we're a podcast, right? We do a video but it's one of those things where, you know, we try to do a good job of like explaining what a game is or the kind of vibe or the feel to a game. How would you guys

describe grit and valor to somebody that's never heard of it before? It's what we call a real time tactics game. Again, as you mentioned, you don't have that turn-based type strategy. It's more real time. You're in the moment. You're reacting to it. And it sits more in that sort of tactics genre. It's not like a big, vast strategy game in terms of the level to level experience. All of our levels are set on these very small sections of environment, which is just a matter of tiles. So we see each level almost like as a little puzzle that you've got to approach strategically. So we take a lot of influence, as you said, from games like Into the Breach. We all absolutely love that game and played the hell out of it and were super inspired by it. But also just taking elements that we like from RTS games, from other strategy games as well,

and combining them. And I think over the course of development, it just naturally became something a little bit more unique as we, as we took those different ingredients from those games that we like. Yeah. I think it's generally got a sort of like a much more moreish kind of gameplay loop, um, because those small little compact areas as well, where you're not stuck in this multi hours or campaign that you're sort of slugging your way through or anything like that. stuck in this multi hours or campaign that you're sort of slugging your way through or anything like that.

So guys, I have to, I have to ask when I, we talked a little bit briefly offline before this episode about, about Warhammer. Uh, when, when I was growing up, like you basically created the cheat code to get John interested in a game with this. Like you melded sort of like World War II kind of like feel with mechs and like Exo Squad was my favorite cartoon growing up. I've been playing Warhammer for 30 years. I, you know, my favorite game growing up was this, it was probably the first real time strategy game called hurts on why I put hundreds and hundreds of hours into games like command and conquer. And before this episode, you guys, you know, Scott, uh, for, or sorry,

Luke, for, uh, the listeners, he's got a shelf with a couple of, uh, Warhammer 40,000 armies into it. Scott mentioned he's got a box right off screen. I mean, This had to have been like a dream project for you guys, right? Yeah, for sure. Um, I mean, it, for me, maybe one day I'd make a Warhammer game. That would be amazing. Um, but to be able to kind of have our own spin on some of those elements is quite interesting as well. Um, obviously we can create our own max, we can create our own mechs, we can create our own lore and things and explore a lot of those influences in quite interesting ways.

So it definitely, we took a lot of reference from that Warhammer world, especially the, a lot of the setting for it, that more dark gritty to use the words. Cause I think you've got different types. And valorous. Yeah, definitely valorous. You have different types of mechs, right? You know, you've got Gundams, which are a bit more sleek and sci-fi looking. And we wanted to go down that road of having something that felt more. Chunkier.

Yeah. Chunkier and smoggier and a bit grimmer. Um, so that's where that whole kind of World War II theme came in as well, which was another big thing for us. Cause I think we were all very interested in that side of things historically. And, uh, this initially it started as a bit of a World War II game. And then we, we weren't really finding anything too unique about that, that we were too excited by.

So we eventually stemmed into what if we had mechs to it, what would the world look like if World War II continued with mechs? And then it just went from there really. So how long have you guys both been with Milky T, if you don't mind me asking? For me, it's almost nine years now. It's been a little while. And Luke? Yeah, I think I'm about a year. So I'm a relative old comparatively a new addition. So did you guys like, how long, how do I phrase this? You mentioned that this game was intended to be a,

just sort of like a World War II game, and it evolved into this more mech kind of like, gritty pseudo sci-fi sort of like a world war two game and it evolved into this more mech kind of like, you know, gritty pseudo sci fi sort of setting. Did you guys have influence in pushing it in that direction? Or how does, how does that work? How does the game evolve from sort of like one genre and style to another like this? So for us, all of our previous games have come from game jams. It's something that we do occasionally, especially in between projects. We'll spend a week or two doing some game jams. It's very much just focused on what is a cool idea in terms of gameplay,

but also some visuals that we could push. So yeah, this game started where we tried to make some sort of real-time, quite quite small scale strategy game. And I think naturally we lent into the World War 2 side of things just because it sounded interesting. It was something that we thought was quite cool. But we're always flexible, so we're always testing the game. And I think everyone on the team has a decent say in what that game is going to become. And maybe in those early stages it wasn't quite exciting

everyone enough. We weren't really seeing where it was going and you compare it to other World War Two games and we're a bit like, I don't know. So I don't know exactly where the idea came from, but at some point it was like, hey, what if there's mechs in this world? And what if we control those mechs and maybe the enemy have them? And yeah, things just went kind of crazy from there. So it was just a case of trying out really, and it started getting a lot more exciting quite quickly. So we just went into it after that.

I think once you become a mech fan, you're kind of forever a mech fan. That's never enough mech-based content that you can get your hands on, I think. Yeah, I was going to say gamers, we love mechs, man. I mean, you know, whether you like mech games or not, you know, like Armored Corps is famously one of, you know, people love the mechs in that and it's very Dark Souls-ish and things like that. But it's, I don't know what it is about mechs, just piloting these giant things and the power behind them. And it's like, dude, I can take, this is amazing. Yeah, we vibe with mechs for some reason. I already, the everything cinematic to Dawn of War. If you guys played,

Oh, yes. Rednaught right at the beginning, just absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was such a sort of iconic sort of memory for me from those, like those kind of games and that stuff. Oh, then you see the saw blade on the one arm and you're like, wait, you can change out the weapons? Like, this is great. Then you start just imagining things. I like, I'm gonna, you know, age myself a little bit, but I remember being a kid in, you know, in class and doodling on, you know, with pencil and paper and trying to come up with all these different

like design ideas. And I'm like, what if this one had like a laser cannon and this one had a saw blade? I mean, I think part of the beauty of that is, is that our imagination kind of comes into play there and we start going like, oh, this would be a wicked blade. I mean, I think part of the beauty of that is, is that our imagination kind of comes into play there and we start going like, Oh, this would be a wicked combo, you know, that kind of thing. And it's neat because in Grit and Valor, I love that the design of the mechs is so different. Like you can tell just by looking at them, that they are vastly different from one another. And

I love it, man. Like I remember, I don't, you know, unlocking the Thunderhead in the demo and I was like, oh, well, this thing's cool, man. This thing's like a big slow walking tank. You know, like this is super neat. So I love that variety and yeah, mechs are just cool, man. It was a big sort of objective of the, when we were designing the mechs as well, to try and get that differentiation and get the, what's this thing going to behave like from just the visuals? One of my favorite ones is the cluster storm. During the research, there was these, I mean, awful, but bombs that the Nazis used to drop down on, and they had these spinners on them. like bombs that the Nazis used to drop down on and they had these sort of like spinners on them and they were, we were looking for something to do sort of AoE damage and clusters

and sort of taking the idea of how would you go about launching them. One of our concept artists has sort of an engineering background. So with all our mechs we tried to make them feel sort of tactile and sort of actually feasible if you know technology did go that way. So kind of leaning on his kind of engineering his engineering background and a little bit of suspension of disbelief, but also real world things that we found and were experimented with during that period of war. There's so many crazy things that people tried and new tank designs and that kind of stuff that we could bring of bring into these, each of these.

So try to do that a little bit with each of the mechs as well as sort of hit like a shotgun mech is your standard big chunky mech, big guns. So try to appeal to sort of like your mech warriors enjoyer and your World of Tanks enthusiast kind of person. Yeah. So this is, I got it. Cause since we're on the topic of the mechs here, I'll be honest, like somebody, I forget where I saw the term diesel punk, you know?

And this kind of perfectly describes that blend of like these mechs, but we're in the World War II era. These are not running on nuclear power or, you know, futuristic Protoss technology or something like that. These are not Tesla mechs, man. These are diesel. Yeah, and so we love the term punk. We've heard cyberpunk.

We've heard dieselpunk. What's the other one with the people where... Cyber. No, there's another one with people wear the gears and the goggles and all. Oh, steampunk, steampunk, yeah. And it's like, I had never heard diesel punk in my life, but then I'm playing Grand Valor and I'm like,

dude, this just makes complete sense to me. Like these things look like they are running off of diesel, you know, they're spewing out smoke and again, you know, like you get that feeling of that you are in world war two on that. And so like, here's the thing, Luke, you're an artist. You're, you know, you said, Hey, you're the lead artist on this. And is like, I guess my question is like, I am not an artist at all. Like I have zero artistic ability whatsoever.

So like when, when somebody comes to you and says, Hey, we want you to design diesel punk, like, do you just go like, what is that? Or is this like right up your alley where you've been doodling diesel punk stuff forever and you're like, Oh yeah, man, I love diesel punk. Yeah. I mean, sort of, uh, well, luckily it's all you sort of ended up wandering across a lot of other cyberpunk and cyberpunk and steampunk and that kind of stuff. So I think someone initially sort of described diesel punk as the pessimistic cousin of what steampunk is, where Steve is like, it's clean energy and is looking forward

to a bright future. Diesel punk is we're mired in war and everything's on fossil fuels. So that's kind of like the flip of that. And yeah, sort of the mechs are a bit banged up and they're rusty and they're made for, there's a strong sense of practicality over aesthetics with some of them as well. But I think they look, I think part of that is what makes them look so good and sort of what gives them that kind of more unique feel about them? They're not supposed to be sort of sleek, like Gundams are or anything like that. Right. Things are, we need this thing to get survived getting shot at.

So, yeah, yeah, it's interesting too, because, uh, that carries. I mean, what we're talking about, we're talking about little tiny mechs that are an inch or two on your screen, depending on the size of your screen, obviously. But even, even at that scale, because of the way they're designed, every mech, every footstep feels like it has so much weight where you're like, oh my God, you know, that just big clunky thing that was made out of the thickest steel that they had available in these times, man. It's so cool that the aesthetic is amazing, guys. It really is. It's one of those things. I am a self professed like graphics snob.

You know, I love just graphics that just wow me. It doesn't mean that a game can't be amazing without really good graphics, but the visual style of grit and valor was honestly very impressive. Like it really kind of just gripped me right away. I knew the world that I was in. I had that vibe right away. Like even, even in like after the missions where you go back to kind of your home base

and you see the layout for all the different buildings and stuff, like the vibe of this game is absolutely just spot on. So I mean, kudos, Scott, you know, you said as a designer this is one of those things you kind of try to keep everything cohesive and kind of together. And you know, Luke being an artist on this and actually being, you know being the person that helps create

these visuals and stuff like that too. I gotta tap into this artist thing one more time, man, because I view art as somebody that doesn't have any creativity at all. Musicians are like artists, right? But if I went to a musician that prefers playing classical music and said, Hey, man, I need you to, you know, come up with this heavy metal riff for me, you know, kind of thing.

Like that guy might be like, that's not really my style. You know, like maybe I can, but I don't know, man. Is it the same with an artist? Like if somebody, you know, with diesel punk, for instance, if they come up to you and say, hey, we want you to design this Diesel Punk and make sure that you keep this vibe together, if that's not really your thing, is that more of a challenge?

I'm getting the feeling this is Luke's thing. Like Luke was probably pushing for this from the beginning. They're like, World War II, and he was like, oh, well, how about Max guys? I mean. It's probably because of both. This is probably, yeah, I mean, I've, a lot of my background's

in mobile stuff. So probably going very, I mean, like classic mobile style. So being able to work on something like grip is much closer to probably my more personal tastes and preferences and that kind of thing as well. But I'm sort of, I'm in my bow town army. They're brightly colored, but they're still in this grim dark future, which kind of mixes these two things together. But yeah, I'm sort of to your point, trying to make the visuals all consistent as well. Yeah, I think it is everyone on the project has a sort of, because it came from a game jam, everyone very sort of bought in and they've got a lot of skill in the game in terms of how much they care about this project. So from the UI feeling kind of clunky

in that same way, even though it's all sort of hand painted, that feeling sort of tactile and you're pushing big metal plates in place to sort of trying to keep the clarity on those small maps and everything like that. I think everyone's been really invested in sort of trying to preserve that. And Scott, you can talk speak to try to balance things looking visually impressive enough, but also on those little maps clear enough to even tell when everything starts exploding, what's going on.

Yeah. So, all right, so Scott, I have to kind of toss this to you because one of the things that we always do is when we play a game or especially if we review a game and we're talking about it, we always like to point out like every game has that kind of special something to it. We call it the hook, right? And you know, in some recent games that we've talked about

like Astrobot, so you know, last year, amazing game. We played it, We loved it. It kind of took the world by storm. But the one thing that stood out kind of over and above everything else was the sound in Astrobot. I mean, again, incredible game. The gameplay was awesome. The graphics were awesome. But it was like the sound was the thing that you were just like,

oh, my goodness, split fiction recently. Like we played that the variety in split split fiction, just that constant pacing of changing the way that these games felt and it felt like 30 different games pulled into one. So when we talk about what's that hook, that thing that stands out over and above everything else, and it doesn't mean that everything else is bad, it just means this is the thing that like,

when you think about it, you go, man, I don't know why, but that's the first thing I think about. What's the hook for grit and valor to you? I think it's definitely a mixture of things, but some of the key elements, I think we spoke about that real time tactics gameplay, we've got quite a unique take on it in that we've got these small levels that take three, four, five minutes to complete. And that's a pretty intense challenge that you've got to focus on for those few minutes. But then you come out of that and you think, okay, well, what's the next one going to be? And the demo obviously covers the first region, which is British Isles. And that kind of introduces you to some of those mechanics and the style of gameplay.

But then we go into other regions and each one is completely unique. It's got a totally different look of course, but we tried to add different challenges in there and different things for the player to get to grips with and master as well. So I think in terms of the gameplay flow, the way that it works, we are controlling this squad in a real-time setting across these small levels is really cool. And then the other thing that I've not really seen too much is our command vehicle mechanic. So it didn't exist of course in the game initially, we just had these units and it was quite offensive so you were going out and having to take down the enemy and then move into the next level.

And again, we were kind of like, I don't know if this is quite working. It's not really got that hook. So then someone just had the idea of what if you have this unit that can't actually attack, but it's absolutely crucial to the mission. And then you have to defend it at all costs. So that kind of flipped the game around to the point where now you have this unit that you're in control of that you have to think about where's the line of sight, who can attack this unit, do I need to get in front of it and defend it. So I think this idea of defending the command vehicle as you're trying to take down the

enemies has a really unique spin on that strategy gameplay. It's, it's, oh, go ahead, John. Well, I was going to say, so as I get older, you know, we're all busy adults here and we have other projects, especially as working adults outside of like our podcasts and our gaming and stuff. And something that, again, you guys kind of like, it's almost like you designed this game for me. It's heavy mechs, it's World War II, it's real-time strategy, and then it's displayed in such a way where you can play it in short digestible play times and every single time have a meaningful experience out of it. Like that, the amount of variety that you guys were able to pack into this is awesome.

And as Scott was mentioning, like you have these maps that you're able to basically see the whole map in one screen without having to like scroll all over the place and you can rotate it and get different angles on it so you can see where enemy deployments and stuff are coming from. And it's just such a unique and refreshing take on this. I wanted to go back to something. You guys have mentioned a concept called a game jam a couple of times. Is that, am I getting that right? Yes. Yeah. up called a game jam a couple of times. Is that, is that, am I getting that right? Yes. Yeah. Well, can you explain what that is? I guess the idea comes from like, if you're in a band and you've a jamming to figure out what

your next track was going to be or what your album was going to be. And it's, it's kind of, you almost throw a lot of the ideas and pressures out of the window a little bit, start from scratch. And just in our case, we'll usually do a few game gems together. And we split off into really small teams where there might just be, say, a designer, a coder, and an artist. And we'll just be given some random themes. So it could be a dieselpunk theme, it might not even be a theme, it might be a genre like a racing game or something. And then you've just got two days to make a project with that sort of theme or setting in mind.

So it just creates this scenario where you really focus on what is a cool gameplay loop or what is an interesting, unique setting. And a lot of those game jams, obviously, we might not get something that quite works. It might be a bit too silly or it might just not have those hooks. But I think because of that nature of just thinking, well, it's not a big problem if we fail this.

It's just two days that we've spent doing a set of game gems, we might learn a lot from it. So I think we generally get some really cool ideas. And you learn what doesn't work too. Exactly, and that's just as important. So yeah, we've done tons of game gems where it's not quite worked, but you then learn, okay, well that mechanic's a bit weird.

Are these playable or is it just the idea? Is this like the concept of a game or you actually have something like interactive that comes out of these two days? Yeah, it's playable. That's kind of the crucial thing is like. That's impressive. In two days?

I mean, they're not necessarily always the prettiest. Right, yeah, I mean, I get it. These are probably just polygons or maps of something maybe, but that, I get it. These are probably just polygons or maps of something maybe, but that's incredible, man. I think it's something about trying to find the fun. Yeah. For example, with this game, I can't remember what the very first game-gen version looked like, but let's say you take away a lot of the art because we don't have time

to do much of that in two days. So it's this very rudimentary, rudimentary kind of square environment that you can control some units and some of the units come in. And then we'd maybe try out a few weapon types. And that's kind of where we're at two days in. And that gives us a good indication of what it plays like, because I think if you just design a game on paper, it might sound absolutely brilliant, but when it actually comes to trying to do that in engine, you might have something that just is very difficult or you start making it and it just doesn't quite work.

So I think getting something that you can actually get your hands on and play is really important. It's something that you mentioned that I really like from this concept. So like, I'm assuming that sometimes somebody will bring kind of like a more fully fleshed concept to the team and go, Hey, I think this is the game we should be making. And then you kind of test it out. Whereas I don't remember if it was Luke or Scott who said this, but you made a remark of something like, because this came out of a game jam, everybody was sort of already bought in. So it's more like, like there's these kind of like general concepts

that are floating around. And then through joint effort, a, a more singular crystalline concept is manifested and everybody now is like, oh man, we all had a part in making this. We all had a part in imagining it. And now you have this great game that came out of it. So, but you mentioned that you're like, the focus is finding the fun. Do you also go like, how do we have a unique voice in this space? Like, was there an intentionality behind going, okay, well, we want to do real time, but like, how can we do it unique? Or like, you know, and then that evolves into this more short, short digestible level format. Or can you, can you explain how that evolution goes?

I think a lot of those things luckily started quite quickly from the Game Jam. So the idea of having these small level formats was something I think we had from day one. But the majority of the game was obviously developed over the last few years of development. But I think obviously that Game Jam team is quite small initially because we're all working in these little groups trying out different ideas. But as we've pulled more people onto the project, I think everyone's got that understanding that they can shape the game a little bit in their own way. It's not just kind of, I've heard exactly what the game is. Do this, make this.

It's like, you know, try this out if you want. And let us know if you don't like it or you think it could be different. And I think that's the benefit of having quite a small indie team is that it's very agile and quite malleable. So across the whole of development, really, people have been able to have a say in things. And, you know, we can take a step back sometimes and say, okay, this style isn't quite working, or we need to add a bit of something to this or that. It kind of goes back to the me questioning Luke on the diesel punk thing, where it's like,

if you don't like something, it gets much harder to work on it at that point where Luke's like, dude, I hate diesel punk. I don't want to do diesel punk. And then it's like, well, I mean, you got to, man, this is the direction we're going kind of thing. So, all right. So let's, you know, we're a little bit silly. We like to say we're kind of doofuses. We like to have fun and, you know, just kind of ask them. Yes, you are. You're with us, John. You're a doofus. So we wanted to kind of get into some like fun style questions for you guys. I mean, you guys are very familiar with it.

How long have you been working on this game? I can't remember. I'd say about that long. It's been a long time. I was working at the company. Maybe three years. Okay. I mean, honestly, that's not bad.

We hear games talk, it taking, you know, eight, nine, 10 years sometimes anymore. It seems like it's getting harder and harder to develop games. So we're going to ask a couple of silly questions for you guys here just to kind of get your thoughts on something. So if you were a pilot in Grit and Valor, what Mech would you choose to pilot and why? I'll let you go first, Luke. I mean, I'm going to have to say Clustrosaur just cause it looks the goofiest. And that's why I like it. It looks like a tin can with some legs and, uh, like a rocket launcher.

If you guys haven't seen it. But yeah, I mean, the smart choice would be the sniper, but yeah, I think I'd have to go with my tin can with legs just because I prefer things that look a little bit more silly. All right. I like it. Scott? So this change is kind of day to day, but I've been playing the game a lot recently

just as we're leading up to release. So this change is kind of day to day but I've been playing the game a lot recently just as we're leading up to release. I've just fallen in love with the Steelhawk mech which is the sniper one that Luke's alluded to so it's kind of got spider looking legs to ground it and it's got this giant cannon like a big oversized tank cannon. So it fires these big projectiles, but it's quite slow. So it's powerful, but has a low fire rate. But I've been running some builds recently where I just try and stack the fire rate as much as possible.

So it ends up looking quite silly, but it's so powerful. So I'd choose that one. Did you have one, Josh? I like the, see, I've always appreciated just speed and agility. I play a rogue in almost every game that lets me play a rogue because I like being mobile. I like being fast and harassing people. I don't know why, but that's just kind of my jam. So for me, the dragon would be, I liked how fast it was. And again, I only played the demo, so I don't know why, but that's just kind of my jam. So for me, the dragon would be like, I liked how fast it was. And again, I only played the demo. So I don't know about these kind of later on mechs.

And now you guys got me intrigued because I'm like, there's more. I assume there was more, but again, I only saw the kind of first three. So for me, the dragon is the one because I love being able to just kind of zip around the map really fast. And there is absolutely a purpose and a strategy and a need for some of the

slower max, but like sometimes I'm like, hurry up, get out of the way. Like the artillery is coming. And then this guy's really slowly walking over there. Where's the dragon. I'm just going wherever I want kind of thing, which I like a lot. So that was probably mine too. Plus I tend to favor like the Bernie and it's a lot in the games. Just seeing the poor little infantry melting in front of you is so cool.

Yeah. Oh, so did you guys, I'm assuming you went through a round of play testing? Yeah. Or several, several rounds maybe. Yeah. We've been quite keen on from early on in development is doing a lot of internal playtesting, obviously with the team.

But then as early as we can, go on. What was your favorite moment during playtesting? Is there a moment that stands out? So we did our first public demo last summer. And I think that was just on Steam and anyone could access it. And, you know, this is like, we've had a few little closed tests, but this is the first time we've let people go loose on it, and we kind of encouraged them to stream and stuff like that. So over those few days, we were just keeping our eyes on players and seeing the way that they were playing the game, which is hilarious to see like the way that people approach it. And I think it was in particular reaching the first boss and seeing the different ways people

tried to take it down. That was just so cool to see because I thought I knew the boss inside out, but then suddenly I've got people approaching it completely differently and teaching me things. So that was pretty cool. It was when people started streaming as well. Um, the first time people have like the mortars fire on them or the, or the bomb plane, um, that was my favorite cause no one's really, that was like, Oh, they think they're kind of got under control. And then suddenly, I really like that part loop too, because it's the first time where I went,

there's going to be a lot more to this than what I think there is. Like you kind of get used to the different mechs at first, you know, we talk about that rock, paper, scissors kind of, you know, where, you know, certain types are good against other types kind of thing. And it's like, okay, cool. Like I've got this down and then all of a sudden the mortar start dropping. And that's where I went, Oh, Oh, this is real time. Like I gotta, I gotta move these guys out of the way. And then that for me was the, Oh man, there's so many things these guys are going to throw at you, you know, later on in this game.

And it really kind of brought, it kind of opened that what I thought this was into like a much broader view. So as something so simple, I'm kind of with you on that where it really kind of got my brain going. I don't think I know what I'm in for. I mean, not to give too much away, but hopefully you'll find a little surprise with each region you get to. Yeah. Yeah. And you enjoy it. See, I love that, man. I love that. All right. So another question for you guys. I asked you about the Macs, but what's your favorite pilot or skill that the pilots bring to the Macs?

Because that's a neat little thing there where depending on which pilot you put in a Mac, you get an ability for that Mac that's like a triggerable, you know, you can activate that ability. And so for you guys, what's your favorite pilot or the skill that they bring? Well, you guys, what's your favorite pilot or the skill that they bring? Well, you guys first. I think the, the jump jet ability, or it was called the map jump in the demo thing. So you basically launched through the air, like a hundred, 200 foot in the air,

leap down onto a chosen tile, and then you deal a load of damage to everyone around that tile. And that's- You got to do that with the ironclad in the demo, yeah. Yeah, it just feels so cool and it sounds cool. The VFX are cool. Yeah, it's pretty impactful. Yeah. It's also quite good. Impactful. You can use it offensively as I said to deal damage to enemies, but also you can use it to get out of scenarios quite nicely as well.

If you get a little bit trapped or some mortars are going off, you can escape with it, which is cool. Yeah. What about you, Luke? Yeah, I think this is something that you'll maybe find in the further release, but we've got a, uh, one of the huge pilots, uh, I think like a little RC car with a, with a bomb on it. Um, I love it. Yeah. I, I, I found myself using the mines more often than not, because I like the ability to just say like, here's a choke point, you know,

like you're not getting through here. Uh, with you Scott, that the jump jets were the fun, like, oh man, like there's nothing like a, like a 4,000 pound mech just leaping down on somebody and crushing a little squad of guys or something that's coming up. So satisfying. Yeah. I think we got a slow mix as well to get out and dodge when you're just in a bad situation to leap out there as well to get out of dodge when you're just in a bad situation to leap out of there as well. Yep. So.

Uh, so, um, do you, a lot of times you were saying that like when you're doing these game jams, for instance, that like nothing really comes out of it because that whatever, uh, ideas just turn out to be insolvent or whatever. Is there like a ridiculous idea that almost made it into the game that you guys ended up scrapping? Like something that just was like hilariously not workable. We've got this mechanic, the high ground mechanic, so obviously it's all tile based. If your unit is above a target unit, an enemy,, it'll deal additional damage. So it comes into play in the later regions as well, where you can get additional high ground because there's a lot of verticality.

And so we had this idea of what if some of the mechs are just really tall? So they've got this kind of built in high ground advantage. So we tried making these mechs that were like the size of one, two, or three tiers of high ground, but then quite quickly realized that they still need to be like one tile wide to actually fit into the levels properly and be able to walk around. So we had these mechs that were just these giant like skyscraper looking things, um, and we tried with them, but

they just looked so silly. So it didn't quite work out, but it's something we kind of learned from. And then eventually the bosses that we've got now are absolutely, some of them are humongous because we were able to create a specific boss level and have them, you know, if that boss is giant, then we know we can get it to move around because we've made the level for that boss. Um, so we kind of kept the idea a little bit, but the original tall max were just stupid. Do you still have some of that concept art somewhere? I would love to see that, man. I don't know. Maybe. I haven't seen it.

I think we've got the prototypes of the tool mechs, which are kind of the most legit mechs we have, but we've just made two of them. Just really long legs on them. If that's shareable offline or something, if it doesn't breach some sort of NDA or whatever, like offline after the episode, I would love to see those. That sounds really funny. Yeah, it was a fun one to play around with. Yeah, one of the crazy ones I can remember is each of the regions have kind of themes.

So the British Isles trains and like train rails, the themes are that. We really wanted to try and work this train boss in where you go off and come in and you fight these carriages which have different things. The problem is that as a mech game, you kind of want to fight other mechs. So how can we turn this train into a mech? And then we had the idea of we'll put legs on it. So we had this kind of like centipede train thing. And I think there's some in the art book that's with the deluxe edition, there's like some of the concepts for the trade and that kind of stuff in there. But yeah, the centipede train was definitely sort of the, yeah, probably it, but we've gone too far with this one. That's amazing. I love it. Oh my goodness guys. We're quickly running out of time here. I

Talking about this really tall Mac and the you know, the the kind of ideas behind that it did get me thinking though So I gotta ask like do you guys ever like argue or disagree on certain things? Like, you know, if I'm there and I'm like, dude, I love the tall Mac Like this is a great idea and somebody else is is like, nah, man, this is a terrible idea. Like, you know, do you guys like argue sometimes and kind of go like, you know, like butt heads a little bit? Is it somebody just, you know, Scott, I imagine this is kind of up your alley with, you know, being the designer and stuff where you kind of go like, look, it's fun. It's just not working. We're going to scrap it, sorry. But I imagine especially with the creativity involved, the ideas for games, what one person finds fun

and another person doesn't find fun, that kind of thing, that a lot of times there's going to be a little bit of conflict. So does that happen? Yeah, I mean, I think that literally happened with those tall maxis very much like, these are very silly. And then other people are like, no, these are awesome. So I think, I think we're quite lucky. We've got a very good team that all know each other very well. And

we kind of know if, if you've got something, if you disagree and then we, we can tell each other stuff and shout at each other a little bit without it getting out of hand. So yeah, we've got a good rapport and I think in certain cases it's just a case of maybe just proving why some of it might not work. When you put it into gameplay, sometimes you might put it in and sit with it for two or three weeks and kind of prove it that way and say, look, it's been in the game a little while it's clearly not quite working. So a lot of our ideas start off as prototypes so if we want to put a new mech in the game it's a very rough prototype that we haven't fully committed to yet and then we'll spend a few weeks with it and see whether it actually works and if it doesn't it's spend a few weeks with it and see whether it actually works.

And if it doesn't, it's, you know, it's not much work lost. Um, so yeah, I think we kind of would get around it that way. Yeah. I think pitching when you have pitching multiple ideas, you know, you obviously have a favorite in there, but on balance and where it sits with everything else and it'd be prototype it off and we see one with that. Yeah. That doesn't really shake out how we thought it would. It does avoid a lot of those kind of points of conflict.

Awesome. Hey guys, I've got a couple of like sort of rapid fire questions for you guys. Where in the world are you guys again? Remind me, you're on- In the UK, in England. In the UK. What is the best part of an English breakfast?

Black pudding. I was going to say black pudding. Yes! That is such an underappreciated part here as Americans, man. Like it sounds weird, black pudding, black pudding or whatever. Dude, it is so good. I say streaky bacon is great, but like, yeah, you gotta have that

with black pudding and beans and stuff. Yep. What's the worst part? He's thinking real hard. He's like, I love it all, man. Oh, dude. I don't know. The first time I went to the UK

and somebody served me like a trash can lid sized breakfast with basically every, every possible thing you could have on it. It was like my Nirvana, man. That's, that's, that's my top meal. I don't know why you need taste with that. Cause you're just wasting space on all the other good stuff. No, no, no. It serves a very practical purpose. It's like once all the, once all the other food is gone, there's the grease and you use it to mop up the grease. once all the other food is gone, there's the grease and you use it to mop up the grease. What about, uh, who would win in a fight, a war bringer mech from grit and valor or a redemptor dreadnought from warhammer 40,000?

How far away are they starting? Oh, that's a good question. Let's say they start at, uh, let's give some range like 200, 200 yards. Meters. You got to know meters. Sorry, meters. I still think there's too many cool stories about dreadnoughts, unfortunately, that I think, you know, that pull some sort sort of Mary Sue, Spapen, rubbish. They have plot armor, yeah.

Yeah, are they named Dreadnaught? Have they gotten like a title and everything? No, no, no, no, no. Just your run of the mill successor chapter, like, you know, less epic Redemptor versus like your best mech. I mean, just on sheer scale, it's gotta be Redemptor versus like your best mech. I mean, just on sheer scale, it's gotta be a Redemptor. I'm not really gonna sell our game well here by saying that. They're a lot older.

That's interesting. Warhammer fan. Yeah. That's interesting you say that. I feel like the Warbringer would have a size advantage on the Redemptor, don't you? But also our mechs are from 1949. So it's kind of like a share.

Ah, versus. That's true. Yeah. The spiritual like grandparents of all the other mechs. That's, you know, that's the rule. Fair enough. That's, that's like saying Muhammad Ali versus, uh, you know, Mike Tyson or something. It's just two different eras.

Yeah. That's okay. Last eras. Yeah. Okay. Last one for you guys. What game that is coming out this year. Are you really excited for besides the obvious? Yeah. Grimfalla. So many, I'm really excited for the new Doom game.

Oh, yes. Doom the Dark Ages, that shield. Oh, yeah. I'm with you on that. Pure testosterone game. Luke, you got one? I think it's another indie title. I think recently, I think it's coming out this year. He is coming and it's like a real pixel art, Roguelite, super simple graphics, almost ASCII stuff. But it's just got really nice sort of combinations of all the Roguelite elements and items that

you can have. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good one to watch out for. I'm a fan of roguelikes. That's a genre I really like resonates with me as well. So I'll have to look that one up because I have not heard of that one. But now you got me curious. He is coming. Yeah, I think that's what it's called.

I'm checking that one out as soon as this is over because I'm curious now. If it looks real old, then you're on the right track. That's the right one. Okay, that's the right one. Awesome. Well, guys, that and we are at the end of our time on this. Scott, Luke, thank you guys so much. I mean, number one, for coming on the show.

But number two, I am very excited for Grit and Valor. I mean, honestly, again, I have to give you guys credit on this, because I played a lot of demos from the Steam Next Fest, and this is one that absolutely stood out to me. And I will be picking this up because I think that this game is going to be amazing. I love the pacing.

We talked about the hook early on, and I kind of, you know, I saved mine. But for me, the hook in this one is the pacing of the game because I love that ability to just sit down as a dad and with a full-time job and with a family and stuff. I love games that let me just sit down for 10 to 15 minutes, play around, and then I can save it. I don't lose my progress and I can go do whatever I need to do at the same time. I love that the map- This has Steam Deck written all over it, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly. So thank you guys, number one, Deck written all over it, man. Yeah, yeah, like honestly. So thank you guys, number one, for coming on the show, but number two, for the work that you guys have done on Grit and Valor. We get really excited for fun video games and to have these experiences and stuff as well. So it comes out March 26, everybody. By the time this episode releases, it will be out.

So make sure you pick up Grit and Valor 1949. This game is going to be a lot of fun. So we are highly recommending this to people at this point. So that's gonna do it for this episode. Scott, Luke, thank you both so much for your time on this. We're pumped for the game. We can't wait to play it. And we appreciate you guys. for your time on this. We're pumped for the game. We can't wait to play it. And, you know,

we appreciate you guys. We appreciate the passion that you both have for this as well. Thank you so much guys. Thank you guys as well. Yeah. Absolutely. So that's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Until next time, happy gaming. Toodaloo! ["Skyrim 2.0 Outro"]