Overview:
This week, Sean Sanders from Bit By Bit studios joins us to discuss his path to independent game development, his experience designing the hit mobile game Fiz, and what we can all look forward to with his new game Thirsty Heroes. Be prepared, there is a lot of grunting in this episode.
To find and connect with Sean use these links:
Contact us at yondercast@gmail.com
Episode Agenda with Time Stamps:
Credits:
Overview:
This week, Sean Sanders from Bit By Bit studios joins us to discuss his path to independent game development, his experience designing the hit mobile game Fiz, and what we can all look forward to with his new game Thirsty Heroes. Be prepared, there is a lot of grunting in this episode.
To find and connect with Sean use these links:
Contact us at yondercast@gmail.com
Episode Agenda with Time Stamps:
Credits:
Ep.14: Thirsty Heroes with Sean Sanders
[00:00:00] Patrick: I wish we could go back in podcast time and show in like our setups from the very beginning. my kids had this like place structure thing that you could like set up. I had broken down the small pieces of that and set up a mini play structure over my keyboard and mouse.
So it would cancel out the noise. Cause my clicks were so loud on. Before I got like newer gear. You could have seen me with this, like blanket over my hands and keyboard and everything else. It just looks so weird.
yeah, Patrick, I remember in the early recordings, I was like, when Patrick bought his keyboard, did he like order the one with like extra click sound? Like, cause it was so loud.
I remember you saying that and I heard one of them was like, oh my gosh, I better stop.
[00:00:40] Ian: I think your Mike's just position better. It's isolating your voice a little better now,
too. So
[00:00:45] Patrick: Sure.
[00:00:48] Ian: Well, thanks Sean. Thanks for upgrading your microphone. I hope that wasn't just for us.
[00:00:52] Sean: no, like I said, I've been live streaming and stuff, so, and then I'm probably going to try to, record some like, they call them effort sounds for the characters in my game. That's coming up. Like I need some like, and
sort of things,
[00:01:05] Patrick: If you need people to do that, you could
[00:01:07] Sean: oh yeah,
you guys, you guys have the gear actually.
That would be pretty cool if you're up for it.
[00:01:13] Ian: Okay. Let's do it right now.
[00:01:16] Sean: I'll pay you the union rate for voice actors.
[00:01:19] Patrick: do it for free.
[00:01:20] Josh: I was going to say, I would do it for free.
[00:01:23] Sean: well, I don't, I'd have to insist on paying you, but,
[00:01:26] Ian: well, let us audition for you and you can let us know whether or not we actually get the job.
[00:01:30] Sean: yeah, we might actually have to do that. That would be cool.Okay, Patrick, give us some effort. Sounds.
[00:01:36] Patrick: Oh, like, do I need like a context setting or I just given like a good
[00:01:41] Sean: Yeah, I can, I can tee you up if you want.
you just swung a one-handed broad, uh short
[00:01:48] Patrick: Okay.
[00:01:50] Sean: Oh, th that was wow. You're hired.
[00:01:55] Josh: you been training for this?
[00:01:56] Patrick: This is my one moment I've been waiting for forever.
That first one was like right out of a video game.
[00:02:04] Sean: now you're trying to cleave a, a Kobold with a, uh, fire hander.
[00:02:09] Patrick: Is this still me or should we go to somebody else?
Patrick, I wanted to compare it to your broad sword.
[00:02:14] Patrick: Gotcha.
[00:02:16] Sean: It's a, it's a big sword to hander.
okay, so we're going deep, deep.
[00:02:22] Sean: there you go. It doesn't swing as fast as what I was thinking. That's great.
[00:02:28] Ian: Okay. I want Josh
[00:02:30] Josh: oh, no, this is actually like raising my anxiety. This is a lot of pressure.
[00:02:35] Patrick: dude. You
[00:02:36] Sean: Josh, you just got hit by a fireball.
[00:02:38] Patrick: yes.
[00:02:42] Sean: Nice. and you just collected 50 coins off the ground.
[00:02:46] Josh: Ooh.
[00:02:47] Patrick: That one's making it to the game. know it.
[00:02:54] Ian: Oh
[00:02:55] Sean: Okay, Ian, let's see. The bartender just told you that your favorite drink is out of stock.
and then they just told you, oh, wait, I have one left. Here we go.
[00:03:09] Ian: Oh,
[00:03:10] Sean: Nice. Wow. You guys are all hired. This is great.
[00:03:16] Patrick: what's it called when they make all the sounds and stuff for like the footsteps and all that and like move it. Yeah. If I could, I'm not going to quit teaching, but if I could quit teaching and have one dream job, I think that would be it. If I didn't have
to worry about hours, pay whatever.
[00:03:29] Sean: saw at Disney world where they, they would play like the movie clip and then somebody would be in the studio doing live
fully. And I was like, this is a job to like bang rocks together and like build weird contraptions out of metal that you can hit with sticks. this is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Yeah. I love fully art.
[00:03:46] Ian: Patrick, you sent me a video a while back of like them making some of the, Diablo sound effects. And it was like
guys out in the desert with a torch, waving a torch around in the air.
[00:03:57] Josh: That's cool.
[00:03:58] Sean: Yeah. I love that stuff.
[00:04:00] Ian: I
was actually gonna say, Sean, that if you are planning on releasing any sort of like bonus content, you know, a Kickstarter stretch goal or anything like that, I had an idea for. The year, first DLC, Yonderquest.
[00:04:16] Sean: ah,
[00:04:17] Ian: I was thinking that it could feature, I don't know why I came up with this, but I was thinking it could feature like a handsome redheaded Knight rides on this Valiant, talking Patricorn
and is followed by his humpback assistant.
Josh
[00:04:36] Sean: I like
[00:04:36] Josh: Okay. Why do you have to say that when I'm leaning like this.
[00:04:41] Patrick: It's improv, dude, he's going to do what he sees.
[00:04:44] Sean: I've got a pledge tier just for you at the Kickstarter, but it's pretty pricey. It's, it's one of those ones that I would never pay for myself, but maybe someone out there has more money than sense and would like to give me a thousand dollars to design their own quest in the game.
[00:04:58] Patrick: I need to work on my unicorn. Sounds.
just getting to. Try some Foley sounds for you was involvement enough for us.
[00:05:05] Sean: Well, I'm, I'm serious. Maybe we can put you guys in is like, you know, hero two and hero three, as far as the voice packs go,
[00:05:12] Ian: It wouldn't be so fun.
I've actually been, thinking I have like way too many hobbies and I can't really take on more, but I have been thinking about like, trying to maybe do some volunteer, voice acting or something just to like, see what it's like.
[00:05:25] Sean: Yeah, that'd be cool. This could be your first video game.
[00:05:29] Ian: Yeah. Start building the resume. I'd love it. Win-win.
[00:05:34] Sean: I think that's the biggest thing is breaking the seal. You know, getting, getting your foot in the door, even though this is a very, very small project, but
[00:05:41] Ian: Well, I am super excited to talk about your projects. And I think that we should enter the formal Yondercast. Yondercast show all about science gate. And whatever else we feel like talking about. My name is Ian lake and I'm joined this week as always by the half of the cast that I don't know, half as well as I should like Patrick
[00:06:06] Josh: Oh, no.
[00:06:08] Ian: as well as the other half of the cast who I dislike half as well as he deserves Josh Baltzell.
[00:06:14] Patrick: That was a great little call back there.
[00:06:16] Ian: And for this episode, we have a very special guest with us. He is half of Bit By Bit Studios and indie game development studio. He created the hit mobile game Fiz and has a new game called Thirsty Heroes coming to Kickstarter soon. Sean Sanders, welcome to the show,
[00:06:32] Sean: Thank you very much for having.
[00:06:33] Ian: Sean. We're really excited to have you. And I think first, I, and our listeners would like to know a little bit about you, and how you came to be a independent game designer and driven.
[00:06:45] Sean: yeah. so I I've been a game developer in some professional capacity since 2007. So going on the, what is it? 20, 22 now. yeah, almost 15 years. It'll be in, in June. I think. So that's boy, that makes me feel old, but, yeah, I, I grew up playing video games and loving them. I just never really quite realized that actual people make them.
I kind of assumed they just appeared out of the ether and, When I was in college, I was studying computer science, which is just programming basically. And, I liked it, but I also liked a lot of different subjects, like film and screen writing and, art, music, all sorts of things. And then I had a project in college where we made a video game and one of my programming courses, and I ended up dropping two of my other classes just so I could focus on my game more.
And I was doing all the things I loved. I wrote a story for it. I made music for it. I did artwork for it. I programmed it. And I thought these are all the things I love in one discipline. So, I realized that yes, you can get a job making video games. So that was my goal. and I got my first credit on a, a wii game, a tomb Raider underworld, out here in Oregon, with a little company called Buzz Monkey Software And then when I graduated college, I ended up getting a full-time job with them. So, I worked full-time with a, medium sized studio about 60 people. but our projects would be anywhere from like eight to 12 people at a time, or sometimes 20 or 30 when we worked on bigger games like Tony Hawk or, this other franchise called army of two.
And then that company was eventually acquired by Zynga, the mobile giant, who themselves were just acquired actually. But, I digress, when Zynga acquired my former company that I worked at, that's when I made my jump into indie development back in 2008. 12. So, I had been thinking I wanted to make my own games because it's really fun to work on games in any capacity, but when you're one member of a larger team, you're, you're kind of, you can become kind of a, a cog in the machine, which is not, I don't mean that negatively.
It's great to be part of a big, you know, something larger than yourself, but, it can also be a little creative, creatively stifling because you have a very defined role. Like, I, I was usually a gameplay or a tools programmer, which means I, I did not have any input on what the game was or how it played or how it sounded or anything like that.
So, My dream was to be able to realize that vision that I had back in college, where I was doing everything myself, except for the artwork, some terrible at artwork. So I have a, I have a partner, a business partner, and she is probably the world's best artist. I would say she wouldn't say that, but she's phenomenal.
And, so we work together on games and we've been doing it off and on and taking contract work and doing other things since 2012. That's a really long winded explanation.
[00:09:40] Ian: No, that's perfect. I was not expecting some of those, credits that you said, like, Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk and Army of Two, like, those are games that I've played.
[00:09:50] Sean: yeah. Yeah. It was pretty exciting. I, when the tomb Raider first released, that was my first credit. I went to a best buy and just stood next to it on the rack and waited for somebody to come and buy it. And then, yeah, when, when this poor unsuspecting young gentlemen came up, I was like, like very excited.
And, but trying to keep my distance, I was just watching like a creep from like an aisle over, I didn't say anything to him or anything, but I was like, my name is printed in that manual. Inside that case, it was a, it was a very cool feeling. I still somewhat unbelievable, really.
[00:10:25] Patrick: that's
[00:10:26] Sean: I said, I, I never, I never realized actual people made games.
I just thought, you know, it was kind of something that happened, but it can be a very mundane process. Like a lot of, a lot of people sitting at a desk for a long time, but it's, it's pretty cool though. What you, what you ended up.
[00:10:42] Patrick: I remember I was actually in computer science my first year at Oregon state, before I got into like pre vet then into teaching. And I remember sitting there making some of these like very elementary level games, like just getting something to pop up, move a character across a screen.
And I just remember like, being like, this is one of the coolest things ever. it didn't end up getting into it, but again, it was one of those things that like just seeing a vision going into the computer and then coming out of the computer and your own eyeballs is like kind of a surreal experience.
We're almost like, oh my gosh, I am the person creating the game. It's almost like a
[00:11:14] Sean: yeah.
[00:11:14] Patrick: to have.
[00:11:15] Sean: Absolutely. I it's kind of addicting that, that feeling. That's what I've learned about myself, between my job. And then my hobbies is that I just really like creating things. and I, I, I imagine you guys with your podcast and your other pursuits are similar, it's, it's really cool to, to create something from nothing that, that wouldn't be there without your effort or your ideas.
It's, it's pretty, like I said, it's, it can be addicting.
[00:11:39] Patrick: Hm.
[00:11:40] Ian: Yeah. So you said in 2012 is when you kind of made the move to, to work on your own independent projects.
[00:11:47] Sean: Yeah. June this year will be our ten-year anniversary, which is way too high, a number for the limited amount of games
[00:11:55] Josh: Yeah.
[00:11:55] Sean: released.
[00:11:57] Josh: Quality over
quantity.
[00:11:58] Patrick: yeah, I was going to say if it's like AAA games that takes nine years to release one. So I think you're doing pretty well.
[00:12:04] Sean: Yeah, this, I mean, I I've, I've taken a meandering path, since getting married and having, getting a house and having kids and stuff. And I've, I've taken some time off. I took about a half a year off to renovate the house we bought and,took some time off when my kids were born and things like that.
So, and I've taken contract work here and there. So I've had one project that I worked on for a year and a half that got shuttered, which is a typical story for a game developer. I'm lucky. That's only happened to one of my projects. So I have some friends who worked on a game for three years and it never saw the light of day.
So that, that I've avoided that largely. But, yeah, I, I don't feel too terrible about having released only one game, but I certainly would like to have released more if I could just snap my fingers and make that, so that.
[00:12:49] Ian: Well, you are a man of many talents. This is something that I know about you. In addition to designing games. You, like you said, I remember, you and your wife got a house and you like built an entire structure out back and you like did all of these interior renovations and like redone spaces and like tons and tons of work.
[00:13:11] Sean: Yeah, thanks. It's it's been fun and I've had a lot of support. Obviously my, my wife is the champion breadwinner for us, so, it's all, it's all. Thanks to her. I get to play around in the woodshop, renovating the house because she's working hard. So.
[00:13:25] Ian: And I think you, I think this was the last time I probably was over at your place. It was like I said, years ago. you made incredible pizza. You had this like amazing pizza process down and you had a whole beer tap, coming through the wall, set up that you had. For your own beer that you had brewed yourself.
And I'm sure that we'll talk more about that when we talk about, your game fizz. but yeah, you've got a lot of stuff that you do.
[00:13:48] Sean: Thanks. Yeah, that's probably why it takes me so long to finish a game.
[00:13:52] Ian: So were you working on fizz in 2012 or was it kind of like you decided I want to do something and then you came up with that idea after that fact and started working on that.
[00:14:03] Sean: I had a, I have a notebook that I've kept for a long time, that I jot down all sorts of ideas. and, and, fizz is literally a one sentence, like nine word entry in that notebook. And, it was beer, a lemonade stand game, but with beer, and that was basically the idea. And it came to me when I was at a brew Fest down in Eugene.
I was like, it would be so cool to own your own brewery. but then I learned that brewing is 98% cleaning, like manual labor cleaning. And I was like, it would be so cool to design your own brewery in a virtual world and not do any real work. So. but yeah, that I hit the ground running once I left my job because I needed to, I didn't have a lot saved up.
I went into a little bit earlier than I had planned on because the timing with that, the company acquisition, I was basically able to make a clean break. Most companies in the games industry have some pretty nasty non-compete clauses. And so if you leave them, sometimes they can prevent you from working in that space for a certain amount of time.
[00:15:11] Sean: Typically six months to a year,
[00:15:13] Josh: Oh, with the, with the acquisition of my former company or the company I worked at, it wasn't mine. But with that acquisition, I was, I was released from all sorts of legal agreements. And then if I were to take my new job with the new company, I would have had to resign all those things.
[00:15:28] Sean: So it was kind of like. Get out of jail free moment. And I, I took the jump a little earlier than I planned, but, so yeah, I, I hit the ground running and, the first two weeks I released a tool that other game developers used to, to build their games with just because I saw, a niche in that, in the market for, at that time.
And then that helped pay the bills while I started getting the ball rolling on fizz, which is a game I thought would take six months to make. And I ended up taking me 18. So I'm horrible, horrible at estimating. But, game dev is tricky because it's not like I kind of like to use a metaphor. It's it's not like putting together Ikea furniture, and just following instructions and then it'll be done.
It's more like assembling a, found, fossilized skeleton, where you have to dig and find things first. And so you're creatively digging and trying to find your way, like what, what is this game? Exactly. what's fun. What's not, and you try different things and you're like, oh wait, that doesn't go here.
That's a femur and you move it over here. So, yeah. And then once you really have a clear idea, once you've got everything laid out, then you can assemble all the pieces and then it changes again, 20 more times. So it's, it's quite an iterative process.
[00:16:43] Ian: So at what point did you have all of your femurs in a row? That's how anatomy works, right?
Like it's, skeletons, just a
row of
femurs.
[00:16:50] Patrick: Line them
[00:16:51] Sean: All seven of them were in perfect place.
[00:16:54] Ian: so like at what point did you, I guess I'm kind of curious about the development process, like you said, it was 18 months, so like, does the game look different in its finished state than you thought it was going to look at the variable.
[00:17:06] Sean: oh,yes, yes. Strongly. Yes. we, we ran a Kickstarter midway through development for our last game fizz and, it was successful. It was fairly modest. We were trying to raise $7,500. We raised 8,000 and change, which, which was like 80% friends and family. So we owe the world to them. But, yeah, just looking back at the marketing materials that we generated for that Kickstarter, you know, it's frozen in time.
I can see this video and it just makes me cringe. I, I, I, we, I think we all sort of, view our past work that way with kind of a harsh lens, but, yeah, it's, it's completely different. and same thing for the current game I'm working on. Typically I think,Uh, naughty dog, the studio that makes like the uncharted series and a crash Bandicoot back in the day and that sort of thing, they they're some of the best in the industry.
And they have a pretty good philosophy that the 90% of what makes a game magical is done in the last 10% of development. And it's, it's things like, I mean, naughty dogs, insane. Like they they'll have a cut scene where like, a garage door is closing in the background and they're like, it's closing a little fast to be too it's that's not realistic enough.
We're going to, we're going to go change that. Even if it takes, you know, costs us $10,000 worth of development, we're going to change that. So they're, they're insane attention to detail. It adds up over time so that it makes that whole experience more immersive and special because every time you notice a hitch or something and no game is without bugs, but naughty dog is an example of, that philosophy where you really reach for.
Solving all the small details. And when they come together, it really is greater than the sum of its parts. So I like to subscribe to that philosophy too, if I can afford to, which is probably one of my games take too long.
[00:18:54] Ian: Well, I'm kind of curious about, the aesthetics of your games. cause you mentioned that you don't do art. You, you have an artist who does the artwork. so I'm just kinda curious, like what is your process for, for bringing in the visuals and bringing in the music and the sound effects and all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, like at what point do you start developing that? How does, what does that look like? I have no idea.
[00:19:16] Sean: , it's an iterative process. So you start with like bare bones. , if you're working in 3d, they call it gray boxing where you'll just create level geometry and just have gray on textured, cubes everywhere. And, and then artists will come along on a bigger team. They would come along and.
modeling that into like shapes, like cliff side, for instance. And then another artist will come along and start texturing those models, which is just drawing a, a two dimensional, image that gets wrapped around a model. and then you've got effects, artists who come in and add, you know, like, we call them God rays, but that's like, I forget what the actual term is, but it's when you know, sun beams helping out science teachers.
[00:19:59] Sean: What's that called? When it comes through clouds, it's like diffused, I
[00:20:03] Patrick: Um, there's the Tyndall effect, which it actually goes through like a colloid or something that'll they'll disperse the light throughout. So it actually looks like a shining Ray rather than just light passing through nothing,
[00:20:14] Sean: Okay. Yeah. That's so it must be that. So yeah, we, we call them God rays. And so, you know, you got someone coming in and adding the God rays and the rain particles and things like that. so yeah, it's, it can be a pretty involved process, especially on larger projects and 3d games and stuff.
But my company, we it's just two of us and we stick to two D games. So, it can be, you know, pretty quick to get from a prototype to something that looks, passable and then lots of minor cosmetic upgrades as you go. So, for an example, on fizz, I started the project on my own and then my partner Kelly, she joined me later on once she left the company and, I kind of had art direction, to myself there.
So I was thinking like, okay, what are some of the, my favorite games from the past with like a simplified color palette and things. And I kind of settled on a 16 bit like a super Nintendo era style of,it's called sprites in 2d games. Each image is a Sprite. So I really liked the sprites from like the final fantasy series or especially in my favorite game, probably of all times Chrono Trigger.
And, if you're familiar with Chrono Trigger, you might notice some, if you look at characters and Fiz, they are, they're pretty similar. I mean, in style and that they're completely unique and in actual, depiction, but their, their style and their frame rate and everything is kind of similar to how characters appear inChrono Trigger.
[00:21:40] Ian: well, I feel bad because when we've gotten this far in the interview and we actually haven't really introduced your game Fiz, like we have mentioned it, but we haven't kind of like talked about what it is. So give us a quick, like rundown, you said it was your inspiration was like lemonade stand game, but with beer, but kind of what is the game?
[00:22:00] Sean: Yeah. It's a it's so simply put it. It's a game where you manage and run a, a brewery. so the genre would be like simulation blight. You're not actually designing specific recipes and things like that. Although the original version did have that, but in our game, you're, you're running a brewery.
You start from your garage, you sell like 20 bottles at a time. You make it a modest profit, and then you use that profit to hire employees. And to upgrade your equipment so that you can make more, a higher yield each time you brew, you can sell more, you buy, w rights to sell it different marketplaces and attract different types of customers.
And then you can perform market research to see, you know, what kind of gaps there are in the market, maybe over in the market, on the east side of the city, nobody is selling IPA, but the customers say they really want IPA.
[00:22:55] Patrick: for that.
[00:22:57] Sean: yeah. So you would brew a, an IPA and, and put it over there to try to gain profit.
And then there's a story that, runs through the game that you fall along. You have a rival brewer who was trying to, through various, nefarious and otherwise methods trying to slow your progress down. So, yeah, that's, that's how it goes. It's a mobile game on Android and iOS. And it's I think it's pretty good.
It's it's gotten, some good ratings, usually like 4.5 out of five, and it's been played by approximately like 300,000 people. So
[00:23:32] Josh: It's super
addicting.
[00:23:34] Patrick: fine.
[00:23:34] Sean: oh, thanks. You've you played.
[00:23:36] Patrick: Oh
[00:23:36] Josh: I think we all played. yeah.
[00:23:38] Ian: yeah.
[00:23:39] Sean: oh, great. Wow. Thanks guys.
[00:23:41] Ian: It was
[00:23:41] Josh: Oh, it's fun. Thank you.
[00:23:43] Sean: sure. I'm glad you liked it.
[00:23:45] Ian: I am.
Really bad at it.
[00:23:49] Josh: Same.
[00:23:50] Ian: I had so many batches of beer that like expired before I actually got them sold or I like mispriced them and they didn't sell. And I was brewing beer for things that closed before I could, I was just really bad at the time management aspect.
[00:24:05] Sean: Yeah. You know, there there's a lot of things I learned from making it. I could've made quality of life, easier for the players. There's a, there's a few quirks to it, to like the scheduling and stuff there. It would be nice to have like a nice calendar page laid out where you can see your windows of opportunity instead of it's kind of, it kinda hits you when it's open and you gotta, you gotta go or look up.
I mean, it's kind of like an old school game where you got to look up a strategy guide online, if you really want to be, at the, at the top tier, I think. But, yeah, it seems to have resonated with most players, but that's, that's a very common thing to, to need some tips. And there's a couple quirks to the way, the way the sales, algorithm works.
doesn't account just for price. When a customer is shopping, they also account for more. And that's kind of a weird technical necessity that I had, but it's not the best design because you know, real shoppers in the real world don't generally care how much something is marked up. They just care what it costs.
So that throws new players sometimes. so one tip I'll give you is markup is more important than you think.
[00:25:10] Patrick: Hmm. Yeah. I definitely feel like I needed a lot of information going into it and I love that aspect of it. Like I couldn't just pick it up and start playing and be like, oh, I'm succeeding. I'd be like, what the heck? Like, why wasn't this selling? And I started to look into it a little bit more and reflect, which I thought was interesting because I felt like sometimes, and I, from my own experience, you're just gonna brew it.
People are gonna like, it you'll sell it you'll make money. And then you move on. Like, it just seems so simple. When in reality, the brew process is quite complicated. You ruin a lot of batches, which I appreciate didn't happen within this. Right. All of a sudden you're like, oh, this is awful. You can't use it.
You lose all your money. I like how you said that almost needs a strategy guide for it. Cause I felt like I'm the type of person to buy into strategy guides and watch videos and tutorials and all that sort of stuff. And this time I didn't, and I really paid the price. Right? Like the other people have been saying, we get destroyed by it early on like, wait, I'm three years in and I've made $5, but what's happening here?
Like why, why can't I do this? So
[00:26:05] Sean: Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed the, the difficulty curve. on our next game. I've added some code that kind of smooths it for you a little bit. cause I I've heard a lot of players also, approach that cliff and, and give up. So I'm trying to toe the line between both where if you want it to be more challenging, you can't.
If you don't, you can cause that's, you know, that's part of accessibility. I think people should be able to choose their own difficulty to it, to a degree, as long as it doesn't, you know, spoil your vision for the game.
[00:26:36] Josh: The only part that's almost made me rage quit is the rats. I am not
fast enough to click those rats. I love the rats, but
[00:26:44] Ian: That's one of
[00:26:45] Josh: keep up with them.
[00:26:46] Patrick: Yeah. That's a great addition.
[00:26:48] Sean: I have a, cheat code for you, Josh. If you go into the extras menu and, and promo code section and type in slow mice, they will go slower.
[00:26:58] Ian: Whoa.
[00:27:00] Josh: life.
[00:27:01] Ian: That's a
yonder cast exclusive everybody.
[00:27:05] Sean: I added that code for a particular user. It's really cool. Getting to, have your game out there amongst the audience.
Somebody wrote me and said they were motor skill impaired and they really liked the game, but they can never catch the mice. And if they, if I wouldn't mind making them slower, I said, oh my God, of course not. So that's, that's really cool. And that's, you know, one of those lessons I learned just like, I need to make a little more accessibility options, available to the users when, when making my next game.
[00:27:35] Ian: That's
[00:27:35] Patrick: How did. How did the mice thing come up? Like that's such a fun little mini game because obviously there's a little bit of wait time to brew a batch, like in real life too. Right. You're going to wait a long time. And so it was just an interesting little tidbit to add. I'm like, wait, what? There's mice and you click on it.
I'm like, oh, sweet, like recipe ideas, sweet money. So it's on those things. Like the mini game. You want to have fun and exciting every time, but not get like tiring. But I thought that was fun every single time. Or I guess if you're
[00:28:02] Sean: I'm glad.
[00:28:03] Patrick: time, but
[00:28:04] Josh: well, no, I loved it. Those mice have saved my life because I've had like, not enough money to stock my brew. And so I'm like, come on mice. I just need like 10 more coins,
[00:28:15] Sean: Yeah, well, they're your coins. Anyway. They must have taken them from you. I don't know where else they got them so
[00:28:21] Patrick: oh,
[00:28:21] Josh: mice.
[00:28:22] Sean: them back.
[00:28:23] Patrick: the backstory comes out.
[00:28:25] Sean: Yeah. But that, that's one of those mechanics that, yeah, it came out of necessity. Like you said, Patrick, because it can be kind of boring to wait a minute and just stare at your screen.
And then if I were trying to aggressively monetize the game, I would make you wait and say, click here to spend, you know, five diamonds to make this timer go away. And, I just really don't like playing games like that and I don't want to make games like that. So, I made it, I just added a mini game instead and shortened the time yet.
[00:28:54] Patrick: That's awesome.
[00:28:56] Ian: I just, it makes me laugh every time because you know, you're like click on a mouse and it's like $50. And you're like, how did that mouse have $50 on them?
Or especially the, the, recipe ideas. And it's not, they're not even recipes. They're fragments of recipes. These mice are the actual master brewers. Like they have the secret to perfect beer and you have to like catch them and like listen to their little mouse secrets and you can probably pick piece together, their mouse wisdom.
It's just such a fun, little
[00:29:26] Josh: There's
like a weird lore.
[00:29:29] Sean: yeah, you might've stumbled on a spinoff where like, it's like behind the, the mouse version of the game, like where, what are they doing? Why do they ha it's like a secret of Nim level, world of detail where like, there's this old wise owl who's teaching the mice, how to brew ale cause he's been around since 1820 or something.
[00:29:46] Patrick: I love this idea.
[00:29:48] Ian: I'm not a, not a game developer or anything, but that would be, it'd be kind of like Ratatouille the game. But if it was like a, it was a management type game, kind of like fizz. but the style of management was that you were like sending my. To like put the right ingredient in front of the chefs.
So they're like, oh yeah, I'll add some of that. Or like, you know, go change the timer so that they don't over cook the steak or something like that. You know what I mean? It like Metta kind of like secret management of fun.
[00:30:17] Sean: Yeah, I like it behind the scenes. Unsung hero management.
[00:30:23] Ian: I also, you mentioned, the villain in the game, which I really enjoyed is you're talking about, I keep messing up his name, brow
[00:30:31] Sean: Has his name's Gary Blau. he's named thusly after the villain and the original Pokemon.
[00:30:38] Patrick: Hmm.
[00:30:38] Josh: Oh,
[00:30:40] Sean: uh, Gary, yeah, blue. And then, in the Lord it was Garry Oak. I think he was professor Oaks, nephew or something. So yeah, we made, like a Pokemon style over the top jerk, antagonist and, yeah, he's, he's great.
he's got his own Twitter account that I made for him. And when, when the game first came out, this was the game released at the, at the end of 2013. So it's quite an old game at this point, but, back when it first released and, and had a lot of brand new players, I would basically search Twitter for people mentioning Gary Blau.
[00:31:13] Sean: And then I would tweet at them from as Gary Blau and antagonize them more, which was so much fun.
[00:31:19] Ian: He's just like, yeah, such a character you love to hate, you know, like the very first time you meet him, he's just so overly confident. stand them,
[00:31:27] Sean: Yeah. He's he's the worst. I'm glad you You've found him to be so
[00:31:32] Ian: And he insults your beer immediately and you're like, I'm going to prove this guy.
wait till you see what he does later in the game. It's he's very that like,paper thin archetype of just a bad guy just for, he is a jerk. And there's really not a lot of depth to him yet, but you know, if there, if there's a SQL and I hope there will be, he might make an appearance and, and, you might understand him a little more or something.
[00:31:55] Sean: I thought it'd be funny to like, yeah, yeah. Without giving too much away there's a point in the game where your fate is intertwined with his, and you have to, you get to decide whether to do something benevolent or not. And, it's pretty fun. I have, I have analytics on what people choose at that point.
And most people choose to not be benevolent with them.
[00:32:20] Ian: We're not going to find out that like Gary is actually the pied Piper and all of the mice that have like been helping you throughout the whole game are actually mice that he sent to help.
[00:32:30] Sean: Yeah. I don't know if, if he's a misunderstood, animal communing genius, and he wants to help, but it, his ego won't let him, so he does it through his mice minions or something that would, that'd be a clever, I got to jot some of this stuff down for the SQL here.
Mice love Gary.
so I really want to talk about, your upcoming game. to transition into that a little bit, I want to know. Looking back on fizz years later and kind of in the process of finishing up your second game, what are you, what do you feel are like the biggest lessons and what are you most proud of from that first.
yeah, there's, there's a lot to expand on that. Possibly. some of the big lessons from fizz, is one, it takes three times longer than I thought it would to, to finish it. So I thought it would be six months. It was 18. This game I'm currently working on. I thought it would be maybe one or two years, it's approaching seven.
[00:33:28] Sean: So, but like I said, lots of time off in between development and contract work. But, so yeah, the biggest lesson that I didn't learn is you just should reduce your scope of your project. If you're a game developer, like start small and then go even smaller than that. And then if you have some success, you can expand on it post-launch or with a SQL or something like that.
But, that's one of the key lessons. And then like I touched on earlier, adding a little bit, I I've gotten better at, quality of life features they're called, which is based on. Mechanical things that make the game easier to play for the player, like reduce the obstacles between experiencing what the game is and, and trying to do what the player wants to do.
So I would, you know, in a, in a perfect world, a person would interact with your game purely mentally. They could just think something and it would do what they want it to do, you know, but, there's always going to be friction. So I've, I've gotten a little bit better reducing that friction and then making the game more accessible to a wider audience is important to me.
So I focused on that in this new one. And then, as far as what I'm proud of, I guess it's, it's definitely that fizz is, let's see, eight years old, it was released December 12th, 20, or, yeah, December 12th. 13. So it's eight years old and it's still selling copies. people are still playing it. I probably get, I don't know about a thousand new players every month.
so that's really special. I get emails about it still. Every time I get an email, it makes me really, I got one yesterday that someone just join my mailing list and said, looking forward to your next game. I'm a big fan of fizz. So that's really cool. Especially when you, the thing about working in D and I, I, I think most people know this now after living in pandemic conditions, but working remotely isolated can be pretty lonesome.
[00:35:31] Sean: So getting your product out to people is really invigorating. so every time I actually hear from, cause I never get to watch people actually play it. But every time I do get to experience that or be reminded that someone out there is playing it and enjoying it. That really makes me feel good.
[00:35:47] Ian: That's fantastic. It's got to feel good to like, have, have that piece of art that you've put out there. And like, it, it really has an audience and people are really, really enjoying it. It's like the ultimate kind of gratification.
[00:35:59] Sean: Yeah. Thanks. It is. It was a life dream and, I could, I could die happy now, but I rather I'd rather continue making more and also raising my children and things like that.
[00:36:12] Ian: So your next title is thirsty heroes. It's a really intriguing, name. Can you give us and all of our listeners, like, I guess like an elevator pitch, you know, what, what is this new.
[00:36:25] Sean: Yeah, thirsty heroes is a game. I call it a dungeon crawler management game. So you take the position of quartermaster of the kingdom and the king has tasked you with filling the Royal vault with more treasure, but you're not a fighter. So you hire people from the local Tavern to go fight for you. So you're managing a stable of heroes that you recruit from the Tavern, and then you're also a.
Managing where they go and what they do. And, and then you disperse the treasurer. The king of course takes most of it. you get some left over to improve your facilities, train your heroes. and then meanwhile, you're also running the Tavern. So you're, you're serving drinks to the heroes and keeping them happy so that they'll be willing to work for you.
[00:37:15] Josh: That is so cool.
[00:37:17] Sean: Thanks. Yeah, it's it's kind of, similar in many ways to fizz my, my other game, the brewery management game, because basically. Your product is your heroes and then your marketplaces are these Dungeons. And so instead of researching a marketplace and finding out which beer is going to sell effectively here, you're researching Dungeons by scouting them and, and using, you have a magical sear who she performs divination to tell you what's inside the dungeon.
And so say it's a bunch of skeletons. Then you will send Bruno the skeleton basher and not leave the cobalt Slayer in there.
[00:37:57] Patrick: Yeah. I feel like this game is for sure right up my alley, like fizz was great just because I've done home brew and done all of that. But business side of things isn't necessarily my forte, but you bring in this like fantasy aspect of it and dungeon, crawling and sending people out to do my bidding and all that sort of stuff.
And then having a strategy element to it too. And like, the music is great. The artworks rate, like I loved fizz, but I feel like this one could be like a better fit for me. And I maybe it's just because I've played a lot of fantasy style games in that, but I mean, it just looks incredible just from like the gifts and the videos and all that, that I've seen so far
[00:38:33] Sean: Thanks a lot. Yeah. definitely Patrick, listening to the podcast, I've identified your Diablo fandom and I am right
there with you, man. I'm a, I'm a hardcore Diablo player for a long time. And, this is basically me making a game for myself to play where it's like, I get right to the meat of the dungeon crawling experience where there's no labyrinths to navigate.
the Dungeons are linear and then, the sessions play sessions can be very short or very long because you actually, when you're doing your scouting, you you're determining how long you want the dungeon.
[00:39:11] Patrick: Hmm.
[00:39:11] Sean: And so it's kind of designed for where I am at, in my life busy with parenthood and, and in a relationship and my work, I don't really have as much time as I wish to play a game like Diablo anymore, as much as I used to, which would be all day every day.
So, yeah, it's kind of like if I could play Diablo for seven minutes on my mobile phone or at my computer, that would be great. And, they haven't released a mortal yet, so, hopefully this one will scratch that itch for people. And then it's a little more laid back too. I think it it'll hopefully invite players who are new to the genre in, because, you know, instead of like eight or nine equipment slots, there's three and instead of managing, five different stats, there's three things like that.
So it's kind of a paired down version.
[00:40:01] Patrick: I love that idea of like cross-platform play and stuff like that. I know you can do it on mobile. You can do it on PC because I mean like all of us, we have busy lives and children and other things going on. So like that, that 10 minutes, that 30 minutes, or if you have an extended period of time to actually sit down and segment yourself away on your computer, it's really cool that you can do that.
Like, I don't know if that's possible in a lot of games, but I feel like that feature alone can entice a lot of people maybe wanting to do it. Cause I mean, honestly I have Diablo on my switch and my PC so I can have cross regression. Right. Like if I wanted to pick it up for 15 minutes, And I play for a couple of hours.
I have that ability, which I think is really cool.
[00:40:41] Sean: yeah, I'm I'm right there with you. I find that, at my, my current phase in life, my gaming is disparate it's sometimes it's in the kitchen for 10 minutes sometimes. And my office, very rarely it's in my living room anymore. So it's nice to be able to like bounce around and get what you can when you, when you can get it.
[00:41:01] Ian: I just have to ask, is there a, is there a loot system in thirsty?
[00:41:06] Sean: Oh yeah. That's, that's the main, one of the main draws that you can always find something a little bit better from one of your heroes. so each monster drops flute, and you can even equip items that increase the chance of getting loot or
[00:41:21] Patrick: Yes.
[00:41:22] Sean: You find
[00:41:23] Patrick: Magic find.
[00:41:24] Sean: Yeah. It's got the classic dungeon finding or a dungeon crawling mechanics, like finding loot, selling it, upgrading it, crafting it, all those things are our presence. crafting.
oh yes, pretty basic crafting so far. Although if we hit one of our stretch goals in our Kickstarter, I'll, I'll be expanding the crafting system,
[00:41:45] Ian: That's after the yonder quest stretch goal. Right.
[00:41:48] Sean: Yes.
Yes. The yonder request stretch goal. I don't know. I wasn't having, I didn't have mounts yet. So to add the Patrick corn, I'm gonna, I might, it might need to be a longer delay on
[00:42:01] Patrick: Oh man. Mounts. That's great.
[00:42:04] Ian: I did, I generally did want to know about the loop system, but mostly I just wanted to see Patrick's amygdala explode.
[00:42:10] Patrick: Yeah, I'm literally this sounds, I mean, I don't know how it sounds good or bad, but I've like scrolled through this multiple times watching things, just like kind of excited to see like what it looks like, because like, I can only see like a tiny little snippet of it. So my kind of brain's going off and under it's like, I wonder what this is going to be.
I wonder what that's going to be like. It's just cool to think about. Cause I know, I literally don't know anything really about it.
[00:42:33] Sean: it's really fun. I, as a longtime dungeon crawler fan, it's really fun to work on. I always wanted to work on one, but I thought they're so challenging to make there's so much work to be done. So I'll pair it down. And, instead of having like active combat we'll have turn-based combat, which is a little, well, I, I naively thought was easier to develop, but it isn't necessarily the case.
and so yeah, I'm doing all of the design work. That's required for such a game, but not quite as much of the artwork and engineering work, but honestly, it's, it's a lot, I bit off, a little more than I should have on this one, which is another reason it's taken a long time, but we're, we're getting pretty close.
we're in a playable alpha right now and, and moving towards the beta here, for our Kickstarter launch. And then we'll also be participating in a, festival on steam at the end of February called next Fest where they, promote demos from upcoming games. So we're going to have a demo live at the end of February for anybody to try for.
[00:43:37] Ian: Oh, what is your timeframe like kind of, when are you,you don't have to give away any company secrets or anything like that, but you know, what are you thinking in terms of your Kickstarter? You said it's coming soon. If you've got
a demo coming out in February.
[00:43:53] Sean: the, the Kickstarter's going to launch February 9th, barring any catastrophe before then, but it's all ready to rock. I think so. that's coming out on the ninth and then that'll last until the 16th of March. And then the next Fest, happens at the last week of February on steam.
So I'm trying to synergize those two so that hopefully some of our demo players, like the game enough to join our join NRA on our Kickstarter.
that's the immediate release plans for, for the demo. And then depending on how the Kickstarter does, I'm not sure how long the rest of the game will take, because we add some features in based on the amount of funding we raise so that that could determine things. But, I'm aiming for some time in 20, 22, but there's a lot of work to be done still.
So, and I've been wrong 90% of the time when I've ever announced a date. So, I'm trying not to put an actual date on it anymore, even saying 20, 22, I feel like I jinxed myself and it's not going to work, but I think I'll probably have to, like, I don't know, if I don't release it this year, I have source control where you, you manage your, all of your assets and your code, and you can look at, the revision history on it at are everything. And the first source control check-in for this game is November, 2014. So I would really like to finish it this year.
[00:45:14] Ian: I'm really excited. And I do, I think that you have hit on a really a really great market. I really like what you said about how you can kind of choose how long the runs are that you're doing, to fit different people's schedules. but also I was looking at the website for the game and you have a frequently asked questions.
And one of the questions is like, is this a rogue? Like, or is this a roguelike game? And the answer is kind of like, well, you're doing runs, but you are definitely continually improving. and I really liked that idea, cause I like roguelike games.
I like going in and doing a run, but I want to have a reward that I keep from that, you know, so I'm excited for that
[00:45:49] Sean: yeah, I'm with you. I like to say that a rogue likes are fun. they're like one night stand, like it lasts, but then it's over and I'm ready for commitment. I want, I want a long-term relationship with my dungeon crawling game and, but I also want it to be like pick up and put down, capable.
So that's kind of what, what you get with this is, The idea. So, yeah, I, I, I'm glad you identified with that. That's that's what I'm trying to communicate.
[00:46:16] Patrick: I did notice a little bit that there's still like the time-based system in it. And I'm just kinda like curious in general, like why implement like years and days and weeks and all that sort of stuff. Like, it's just kind of something that I've found interesting. Cause there's obviously like in games that have day cycles and things that only happen, like quests like happen at certain times of the day, like just thinking of like the Witcher, for example, like you can only fight certain monsters at night or those sort of things.
So I was just kind of curious, like what's the thought process around having like a time frame on games and if there was one or it was just some way to keep you feel like you are going through time.
[00:46:51] Sean: yeah, I think it's a little bit of all the things you mentioned. it allows for some, design space to play in with. Time of the year or that sort of thing. in our previous game, there marketplaces that are only open during the summer and marketplaces that are only open during the winter, for example.
so the there's some things like that in, thirsty heroes. And then, it's also kind of the, the challenge, bringer of the game, where the king is expecting a certain amount of profit from you, every year. And so you're compelled try to perform, up to his expectations. I haven't decided in a design aspect, whether I don't think there's going to be a lose condition.
[00:47:30] Sean: I think he could maybe punish you. and, and most management games, like if you can't meet payroll, your staff will quit. but then you're left with the bare bone staff of volunteers or something like that. So we'll probably do something similar in this game where if you can't keep your heroes happy, they're going to leave, but there's going to be that one that always sticks around with you.
So you can dig yourself out from the hole. But, it's definitely not there to, reduce any enjoyment in the game. You know, sometimes time mechanics are used as a gate that can be overcome with purchases, which is a viable model. And I don't begrudge games that do that. I think, you know, people probably know what they're getting into largely with that, but, again, I don't really appreciate playing games like that myself, so I don't want to charge people a fee.
To get back to enjoying the game. So, That is much appreciated.
Yeah.
Thanks. Yeah. I'm glad you agree. so there's going to be a function to skip time when you want. So if, one of the, the stats that your heroes have in our game is speed, which if you send them out scouting for Dungeons determines how long it takes them to get back and give you your Dungeons.
So it's kind of like brewing and fizz. Are you waiting for two minutes or one minute? and in this game, the more you increase your speed, the faster they come back. But if you want to just skip forward in time, those two minutes, you can do that, but it also skips forward in time when your, your rent payment is due, basically.
So it's a set of rules, but it's not, ever a constraint on how you're playing. It's just a constraint on your strategy or what you must do to succeed.
[00:49:08] Patrick: I also love the idea of the managing of the staff. Like keeping them happy. I'm always wondering if people like revolt or fight back or say no, or if there's like this good and bad side of things, almost like you become like a more negatively associated person versus a positively associated person will draw more people in or push people away.
I thought that was kind of an interesting aspect of this one.
[00:49:29] Sean: Yeah, it doesn't, you know, some games like, like the mass effect series, for instance, you've got characters with a long memory of who you are or dragon age. the, this one is it's a little bit like that. Not quite as in depth, but, you have basically when a hero enters the Tavern behind the hood, Six or seven different personality traits that slide on a scale from zero to one on a decimal scale.
And that dictates how they behave in conversation. And before you can hire any heroes in our game, you have to converse with them at the Tavern to see what they're about and if they'll trust you. And so, in the demo, for instance, you've, you've got three heroes who start out in the Tavern and one of them is very, Curt and not really responding.
And if you try to be too friendly, they'll just leave. And then the other one is an overshare and she is like, no matter what you say to her, she's happy to talk to you. And then there's another one who's kind of egotistical. And, and if you stroke his ego, he'll agree to work for you. But if you don't then he'll get upset.
So we have those different personalities. And then, there. They can be randomly generated too, because when you get like five or six different, stats to slide around on a scale from zero to one, each different combination results in a different path down like a branching structure. So it's pretty cool, but it also requires me to write basically 27 conversations with each person so that you can experience, what, you know, depending on what their personality type is like.
So I think that's kind of a neat aspect of it. It's a little more cerebral than, just hacking and slashing.
[00:51:12] Josh: That seems to be one of the most popular trends right now is being able to customize how something develops over time and making it very, very individualistic depending on how a person wants to level up things or alter a character. So that's
exciting.
[00:51:31] Sean: I agree. There's, there's some amazing games, especially in like the like farming simulator space where you, you get to completely control your own world or all the relationships in that world, which I think is pretty cool. in our game, it's kind of, we basically present you with a lot of content and you, typically won't see it.
but every person will experience something different. So I think it'll be neat. when players play and say, oh, I really like this quest where I helped that guy find his lost horse or whatever. And people like, I never saw that one. What are you talking about? Where, oh, you had to compliment this other characters baking and then you get introduced to that other character, that sort of thing.
[00:52:14] Sean: So it, it's pretty cool. It's, it's a very fertile playground, but it's also dangerous because you have to have the discipline to limit your scope. So you can actually finish the game, which I'm very bad at. I, I, I suffer from it's called feature creep and I'm, I am a feature creeper for sure.
[00:52:31] Patrick: I would probably be the same way for sure. I'm curious a little bit on like, so you have all these pathways, like let's say we three play through the game. We're all talking about our experiences and we have different ones and I don't know, it says endless play, but does that mean there's like an end to the story, right?
So if like we three play and have these different pathways through the forest, we all end at the same place of the forest. Like I'm thinking like early walking dead, right? Where you talk to different people, you have different experiences with different characters. This is the telltale game. Not like the show, but like at the very end, you pretty much have the same.
Result in a way. is that kind of a vision along with this, like we have these different experiences, but ultimately, and at the same thing, or is it really, truly there, there is no end and you just keep experiencing as is.
[00:53:14] Sean: well, there, there is an end to the main story. So then the main story has, has a plot and it, and it comes to a close, but, how, how you get through it is variable. So yeah, like you said, it's. you've started the same path and it's, it's kinda like snakes and ladders. You know, you start at the same place you end up at the same place, but how you got up there is different, but the endless play, comes from That doesn't mean you have to stop playing the game. You can still keep improving your heroes and be challenged with more difficult monsters because they, they scale everything in the game as a math formula. So it scales infinitely, in, in theory. And then, with success, if the game's popular, we'll just keep adding content and new stories.
We've got, I mean, we already cut three. We cut all the water levels from the game, on the initial release.
So I've got an expansion. Yeah. Oh, I always hated the water levels. I was like, cut them anyway, but, we've got an ex expansion idea where it's this, you, you meet a whole new. class of people and, and, you go through a sunken temple and come out to this other side and there's this whole new area of the game.
So that would be something, you know, we could add if, if the game successful.
[00:54:28] Ian: That's so cool. very excited for this game.
[00:54:32] Patrick: Yeah, I am too. Like I'm, I'm excited to just like, try and play it. Like I know it's going to be a while till it actually comes out, but like the idea of seeing this vision of, and like talking to you about like what you want your vision to be, it's like really cool having background behind the background almost, right.
Like we can, we have this idea of what this project wants to become and how it should be like received. Not necessarily like you want every person to experience the same thing, but I'm kind of excited to play it and it'd be like, oh man, I wonder if I'm wonder if the vision's coming to life and how it feels like exciting almost.
[00:55:08] Sean: Thanks. That means a lot. Yeah. I hope you guys like it you'll get a chance to play it at the latest February. I think it's 22nd is when the demo goes, live on steam next Fest. So,you, you can try, try a condensed version of it and not as quite polished version. I imagine I was just working on the demo last night and I was, I had a list of like six bugs to fix.
I fixed two, an added eight, so
walking backwards right now, trying to, trying to get everything ready in time.
[00:55:38] Patrick: I will easily find as many bugs as I possibly can playing that the problem is
going to be like not having an end point of like items and stuff. Cause I'm like one of those completionist it's like the endless play thing could just be the death of me. I just
[00:55:53] Sean: Right? Well, there will be a limited set of achievements, so you can count, you can know you can 100%
through achievements that way. Yeah. That's, that's actually what I mostly get emails now on fizz is there's a achievement to collect, 65 recipes and people get stuck at 64 often. And so I get emails like where's the 65th one, man. And, uh, so I always have to profusely thank Those people who write in about that say, well, thank you for getting to 64 in the first place and playing our game. But, yeah, it's, it's an honor. Every time anybody plays the game, I really feel.
[00:56:31] Josh: Is the sixth
65th recipe, like, you have to email and then you'll send them the recipe.
[00:56:38] Sean: no, I give you, I give you special cheat codes if you email, the, the achievements are achievable without my intervention, for sure. But you can get some bonus ones if you email.
[00:56:51] Patrick: good.
for instance, if somebody reports a bug to me, I give them a promo code called bug stomp, where it changes the bison to bugs and then you get to, tap bugs instead of mice when they're running around.
[00:57:04] Josh: Oh, I'd rather the mice, the bugs would freak
[00:57:06] Sean: Yeah. They're a little bit bigger. So they're easier to tap though.
[00:57:11] Josh: Oh, that's nice.
[00:57:12] Ian: Does the health code score for your brewery? Go down
[00:57:15] Sean: Yeah, I think thankfully nobody ever comes by to look at it. There's that guy that comes through. I don't know if you've seen him yet. He's a member of the V HSA, the virtual safety and health administration. He's, he's looking out for safe working conditions, but, not healthy ones. He's not a health inspector.
So,
[00:57:32] Ian: Was there anything else that you would like us and our listeners to know about thirsty heroes? Anything that we forgot to ask about or any major features or fun story?
[00:57:42] Sean: yeah. I, I think we've covered it pretty well. It's I'll just reiterate that it's a, it's a dungeon crawler management game, aimed at people who are familiar or not with the simulation or dungeon crawling. And it has a turn-based combat instead of active combat. So it's a little more relaxed take on a game like Diablo with a mix of the Sims in there.
And it's aimed for people who want to play when they like, and for however long they like without being subjected to ads or micro-transactions
[00:58:12] Ian: And it's going to be this one's going to be available on three different platforms, right?
[00:58:16] Sean: yeah, it had released we're we're gonna launch on iOS, Android, and then on steam, on, on PC for now, just PC. But, hopefully, I mean, my dream would be to put it on the switch eventually. So we'll see, if it, if it's market viable enough, if, if I can get the word out well enough, I'm pretty confident.
It's a fun game and people will like it. The question is if I can market it well enough to get people to even know about it. So in that regard, I really appreciate you guys having me on.
[00:58:45] Ian: Oh, yeah. Oh, it's been great. We'll do what we can. Yeah. And if anyone is listening, all like link, the websites for Fiz and for thirsty heroes in the show notes. So you can just click on those and I will do my best to remember when the Kickstarter launches to come back and edit the show notes and add in the link there.
So if you're listening to the show in the future, you can access everything you need to.
[00:59:07] Josh: Hello people from the future.
[00:59:11] Sean: Did the Kickstarter go well?
[00:59:15] Ian: I think I just have one final question for you. I don't know about Patrick and Josh, but, I'm just wondering, you've mentioned some of the things that you have played in the past, some of your like influences and things like that, but as a game designer, I'm wondering who you are as a gamer.
Like what kind of games are you attracted to? What are your, favorites or your biggest influences?
[00:59:34] Sean: Oh, yeah. I always love the, part of, I love every part of your guys' podcasts. but the game section is pretty great. Cause I like to live vicariously through what you're discussing, but, um, yeah, I, I'm a pretty big gamer in spirits and these days a little less so in practice because, staying busy.
But, man, I don't know. I, I am attracted to so many different types of games, pretty much. Every type of game. I, my, my least favorite is probably puzzle games generally. I find them a little less relaxing than I'm looking for mostly. And when I go for a game and I don't know if it's just because I do poorly at them, but, I really like games with story.
especially lately I've really loved probably the best game I've played in the last couple of years. And I haven't gotten to play that many, but, and Ian, if you haven't played it based on your naughty dog fandom, you should check it out. They're not naughty dog, but they're also a top tier PlayStation developer it's guerrilla games.
[01:00:28] Sean: They made her horizon zero Dawn. Have you heard of that
[01:00:31] Ian: Yes. Yeah. I played through that whole one. I think Patrick did
[01:00:34] Sean: Oh, okay.
[01:00:35] Patrick: Oh, yeah.
[01:00:35] Sean: Yeah, that game is absolutely phenomenal and forbidden west is coming out soon,
so that'll be exciting. I have a large backlog. I play a lot of indie games right now. just cause I'm working in that space. It's always good to keep in touch with what's going on and everything right now, the one everyone is talking about is inscription.
I don't know if you guys have heard of that.
[01:00:57] Josh: market players
[01:00:58] Sean: so yeah, I'm, I'm envious. this is a solo developer who released this game. he published it with a publishing company called Devolver digital, which they, they put out fantastic games and they just announced it's crossed a million copies sold and everybody online and in my like game dev circles, everybody's just freaking out about it.
It's it's a groundbreaking game and apparently really well done. I'm I'm trying to avoid playing it until I finished this, Kind of intense period I'm in until the end of February, but Even my brother called me yesterday. He's like, have you heard of this game inscription? I was like, yes.
And then he's like, oh, I wanted to just try it briefly. And I ended up playing it for 10 hours and then it blew my mind, like, ah, so inscriptions at the top of my list. and then, I like RPGs. SIM games are fun. I'm really getting into cozy games or wholesome games. I don't know if you guys have dabbled that much.
There's this one by like four German students, called door for romantic, which is, I happen to speak German. That's just, it means village like romantic village or village romanticism. And it's this game where you just place hex tiles on like a seemingly infinite. And when you connect certain types, like the tiles change, but it's kind of like a, it's kind of like, an interactive toy.
It's, there's really not a hard objective. You're just kind of building out this little map and it looks so pleasant and there's nice music and there's little animations and windmills moving and stuff. It's fantastic. And then, the other game is a townscape, which is not necessarily a game either, but it's kind of this little like art toy where it's just a, plane of water and you tap or click anywhere you can get on PC or mobile now, you tap and a little, building pops up.
It's like this little cute house. And then you tap again and it gets taller and you can change the color and you can change the lighting like at the time of day. And it just looks beautiful and the sound effects are so. satisfying. I don't know. There's something very simple about it. That it's, it's a runaway hit two and it's, you know, it's one of those games where it's like, just this cute little cozy toy.
And, everybody loves it so far that I've, that I've heard play it. And then I'm really going off one more.
[01:03:14] Patrick: So yes, he is a gamer.
[01:03:16] Sean: yeah. There's this game, but this the thing I haven't played half of these, there's this other game called unpacking, which looks so cool.
really changes your tastes as you get older, I guess, but, I think anybody would like these games though. They're just so nice. They're these cozy games? it's like a, it's like a candle and a warm drink in a game form, but, unpacking is a game where you've got like a bunch of boxes and an empty room that looks like a little dire drama.
[01:03:42] Sean: Have you seen it, Josh?
[01:03:43] Josh: oh yeah, no, I've been wanting to play it so badly. You're
[01:03:46] Sean: Yeah.
[01:03:48] Josh: right now.
[01:03:49] Sean: Yeah. Oh, that's I love that sort of game. there's publisher labels like that publish indie games based on wholesome and cozy games. exclusively. So, I know it's got me thinking, like I want to put the swords and magic wands down and I really want to make a cozy game next, but I think I'm going to have to make a sequel because that way I don't have to dig up the skeleton all over again.
I can just, add on to the one I already assembled.
So that's a very long to your question.
[01:04:17] Ian: No, that was excellent. I want to play all of those games there'll be good time fillers until thirsty heroes releases.
[01:04:23] Sean: Yeah, that's the nice thing about game dev is, you get shared success, you know, it's, it's not a zero sum game by any means. So it's, it's always nice to see other people succeeding. Like I said, I have to be a little bit envious when a solo dev, smashes a million copies in a month. And, you know, one, 1% of that success would be phenomenal with thirsty heroes.
So we'll see.
[01:04:45] Patrick: I think only have one maybe question. And that
was, have you seen mythic quest?
[01:04:50] Sean: I haven't yet. I know all about it. Cause I'm, I'm a fan of, it's always sunny in Philadelphia and I listened to Rob McElhaney his podcast with
[01:04:58] Patrick: Yeah,
[01:04:59] Sean: he's in that. Right.
[01:05:00] Patrick: yeah. Yeah.
I'm just curious your take on it just cause it's about game development and obviously
it's a little bit bigger than Indy, but I was just curious if you thought that was funny. Is that even accurate at all? Is that
[01:05:10] Sean: I can't comment on mythic quest, specifically, but like a, an older movie, like grandma's boy, I don't
know if you are familiar with that one, that one where like the villain steals the one CD rom and he's like, that's all of my game to them. Like that is ridiculous. You deserve to lose it all if you had it on only one disc.
But, yeah, I usually, it's pretty pretty, artistic license, you know, I, I probably wouldn't be very thrilling to watch actual game dev or the drama behind it, which is probably why my Twitch streams only get about one or two viewers. But, We'll share that out. You might get more
yeah, maybe, I'm still learning, but, yeah, sometimes, sometimes it can be a little tough to watch those things because.
Yeah, the suspension of disbelief is a little harder for me sometimes, but I generally, I like them. I think, other ones who've done it. Like I enjoyed grandma's boy, but I did have to roll my eyes several times,
but so I, I imagined I'd like mythic quest. I like their humor. And, generally I like their humor, so I think I'd like it.
I gotta give it a shot. I'm basically on a video game and show diet until my project's finished.
[01:06:20] Patrick: that's a good way to put it.
[01:06:22] Ian: Well, I think it's time for us to wrap up the show and this has been a really fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today.
[01:06:28] Patrick: Yeah. Thank
you.
[01:06:29] Josh: Yeah. Thanks
[01:06:30] Sean: Thanks for having me. I hope I didn't, overrun time too much. I imagine this might be challenging to edit.
[01:06:36] Ian: Not at all. This is probably a shorter, recording session than a lot of ours. And, no, it was fantastic. no time wasted whatsoever.
[01:06:44] Sean: Cool. Well, it's, it's fascinating for me to peek behind the curtain to, you know, as a listener of yours and a long-time podcast listener in general. It's cool to see the setup and everything.
[01:06:53] Josh: The original clunkiness.
[01:06:56] Ian: Yeah,
[01:06:56] Sean: Yeah, no, it's nice. It's nice to know that, we're all just out there doing our best and making stuff.
It's cool.
[01:07:02] Patrick: that's gotta be the tagline.
[01:07:03] Ian: hopefully like a year, a year and a half from now. We'll have to have you back and get an update on how everything's going with, you know, the new game and. the next project. If there is one, I mean, you know, there'll be lots of talk about again.
[01:07:16] Sean: that'd be wonderful. We could play, uh, some sound effects of you guys in the game with your efforts.
[01:07:22] Patrick: Oh man. I'm so in for that, I can't even tell you how excited I am to possibly do that.
[01:07:28] Sean: I'm serious. Let's do it. I'm drawing up my list of, all the different oohs and AHS and grunts that I need recorded. But, uh, yeah, I'll be in touch.
[01:07:37] Patrick: Yeah. If you give me a scouting report of like the different weapons, what you're going for, like my height fell, that sort of stuff. Backstory I'll I'll get into it, like for
sure.
[01:07:46] Josh: He's method acting.
[01:07:47] Sean: I was gonna say, I don't know if my voice acting budget is quite that high, but
[01:07:51] Patrick: Like I said, I'll do this for free I'll Daniel Day Lewis this all day for free. This is just, I might have to tell my wife that this is happening. So she might be like,
what the heck is going on upstairs,
[01:08:00] Sean: worn something before you start screaming, combat sounds in your home.
[01:08:04] Ian: Patrick's
going to like lose 30 pounds and like smoke a pack of cigarettes a day just to do one grunt
[01:08:12] Patrick: My students, like
what is going on?
[01:08:15] Sean: I'll be like, oh, I'm sorry. I signed you to be the library. He's really clean. Cut and
quiet.
[01:08:21] Patrick: I can do it. Just give me a couple of months. I'll be there.
[01:08:23] Ian: well to all of you out there. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Yondercast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please rate and review us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on, and you can always submit your questions using the form linked in our show notes or by emailing yondercast@gmail.com to find Sean, you can find Bit By Bit Studios on Facebook or go to thirstyheroes.com.
All of those things. I will link in the show notes of course, And once again, Sean, thank you so much for joining us.
[01:08:51] Sean: It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
[01:08:53] Ian: All right. Take care, everybody. You can say bye to Sean.