MK Schmidt is an indie game designer, fine artist, and father of 7 lovely children. Here we discuss his experience releasing his latest title Cyclopean: The Great Abyss coming off the the success of his previous title Islands of the Caliph. We also talk through his journey breaking into the world of fine art, learning to sell yourself, UAPs, spirituality, and everything in between.
nbstrong
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Books Mentioned
Chapters
3:20 Inspiration Behind the Game
7:24 Lovecraft's Dreamland Cycle
21:01 Designing User Interface
29:50 Artistic Expression in Game Design
47:27 Choosing Lovecraft's Narrative
56:27 Power Dynamics in Lovecraftian Horror
1:01:34 Archetypes and Inspiration
1:38:23 The Coffee Dilemma
1:42:51 Art Shows and Recognition
2:00:20 The Video Game Market
2:09:56 Promoting Indie Games
2:22:37 Understanding Negativity in Reviews
2:48:22 The Value of Constructive Criticism
3:18:42 Game Design Decisions and Player Influence
3:24:45 Reflections on Human Experience
Transcript
Music:
[0:00] Music
Mike:
[0:30] I think it's been my most solid release in terms of just functionality.
Mike:
[0:37] Like the game is working, more or less. Which I'm very happy about. So almost all the feedback has been gameplay stuff rather than bugs and things like that. There's been a few, but nothing major.
Tyler:
[0:57] Yeah.
Mike:
[0:58] So I'm happy about that.
Tyler:
[1:00] I remember, I think I was still in Tucson, so this would have been prior to October when you gave me a build of this to play, maybe even before that. I immediately fell in love with this game. I legitimately would wait for everyone to go to sleep and then stay up all night while playing this game for several days. Uh and it even it even got me to stop playing baldur's gate all night and i was just excited like interesting this is fun and addicting and and there's something here i mean it was still a little rough around the edges at the time yeah
Mike:
[1:40] And it all it always will be.
Tyler:
[1:42] Yeah that's kind of your thing it's a it wouldn't be escape it an authentic schmidt workshops game if there weren't some you know little little fun ui things that are like oh odd choice or whatever but yeah i mean hey that's that's what i like about indie games is that you can afford to take risks and do different things and you know like not you're not necessarily always going for like mass audience appeal what's the best thing for everybody but maybe what's what's uh you can do things you can do things that are not approved by some corporate guy or some uh marketing dude who's like no no no you should do the way that it works for most people or test audiences test audiences were uh were vetoing this one or right right
Mike:
[2:32] I think there's there's a i learned something really important from an art teacher i had once, uh who said basically you should have a vision and a strategy and the vision is all the things that are not negotiable about your art and the strategy is everything else so you know if it's user-friendly and it's, easy for people to understand unless that goes directly against the vision of the game I'm happy to do those things but I do have limits I'm an artist, I'm not so much a programmer I'll be the first to tell you, I do what I can and then I stop but.
Tyler:
[3:20] What has the inspiration for this game? When did the idea pop into your mind?
Mike:
[3:28] I think this game has been brewing for decades, to be honest. An RPG in a Lovecraftian environment has always been lingering in the back of my mind. I just never really knew how to make it. So then, after working on Islands of the Caliph, it was like Sorry, it wasn't even that. There was a game jam, Dungeon Crawler Jam, in 2024. And it said you can reuse stuff that you've already made for this jam. As long as you say so. As long as you made it or you paid for it and you are upfront about it. And I entered that jam with three days left.
Mike:
[4:23] And that was the original Cyclopean. It was a roguelike 3D dungeon crawler. You just had to escape the vaults of Ninh with the ghasts and the gugs. And you had to rescue as many cats as you could on the way out. And it was just a very simple idea. And I reused all of the assets from Mylands of the Caliph. And i just turned them green to to get the aesthetic of the apple 2 monitor that i grew up with and that was it it was very three days i did what i wanted to do i accomplished you know, my basic goal there and it did pretty well it got like 11th place in the game jam which i was happy with and uh.
Mike:
[5:08] It was when I saw that it got 11th place, I was like, okay, this had to become a game. I mean, 11th isn't the best, obviously, but that was high enough. It was like a couple hundred entries. Wow. That's actually surprising. Yeah. And I knew if I had spent more time on it, I might have ruined it. But three days was perfect because I knew I had to make it really simple. And each day i just posted the progression i was at and those three original games there's one per, day of development you can still play them but uh after i saw that it got 11th place i was like okay this is this is the idea that i've been thinking about and i can make this into something more you know more enjoyable and more uh sort of deeper uh in terms of the gameplay and the lore and the mechanics of it right.
Tyler:
[6:12] And this came from like the lovecraft's dreamland cycle
Mike:
[6:17] Yeah that's a big thing that keeps i i feel like people are not as familiar with the dreamlands, and the dream cycle as they are with his cthulhu mythos stuff and i kind of have to explain you know cthulhu's not in this there's no deep ones here in the dreamlands you know which is fine, uh because there's such it's such a different vibe than his other work i think there's a lot of stuff that kind of carries through, Some of the concepts are very similar. And you have some people like Pikmin. He exists in the Dreamlands and in the Waking World in the other story. So if Lovecraft was creating a single sort of Lovecraftian universe,
Mike:
[7:17] which had been argued about whether he was or wasn't, whether these were standalone stories or not uh.
Tyler:
[7:24] Definitely not i
Mike:
[7:27] I don't think so either um but some of them aren't 100 consistent you know like there's an in smith mentioned in cellophase i don't know if i'm pronouncing that correctly it's one of the dreamland stories yeah but it's.
Tyler:
[7:40] Anything that resembles the idea that he started with like i'm gonna make one whole universe is total retcon like that's there's no way but he
Mike:
[7:50] Ended up doing it whether whether it was fully intentional from the beginning or not is obviously a different story but yeah I think he ended up there you know.
Tyler:
[8:02] It's the same as yeah anything that's a retcon story like you know doom or whatever you know all the stuff that gets the we start off with an idea then we created iteratively over time and then later oh let's find a way to tie it all together I mean of course yeah that's did he create a consistent somewhat universe and do so consciously yes did he sit down at the age of 20 and say for the rest of my life I'm going to do one thing which will be to create this yeah I doubt it there's no way um
Mike:
[8:41] But yeah, the Dreamlands, I think it's a rich fantasy, sort of horror fantasy environment that hasn't really been explored a lot in video games that I've seen. If I can put enough caveats on there that I am aware of. So I felt like the time was ripe.
Tyler:
[9:03] I think it's really cool. I've had a lot of people comment to me even like, oh, wow, it's like set in the Dream Cycle stuff. It's like that's different you know you don't see that all the time um which is funny to me because i wonder how many people have literally read all of lovecraft and don't even realize that there are multiple different kind of like universes so to speak like because i just assumed for the longest time this is all tied together and unless you go looking at scholarly stuff about lovecraft it doesn't necessarily come up if you're just reading the books in order as they come in uh like said the compendium i have it doesn't say and here's where he changed it to the dream cycle or right what part of it it is just another story you
Mike:
[9:45] Can you can get sort of a different vibe though from the what what they now refer to as the dream cycle stories they're they're more obviously dreamy right um they're not usually as scary and and horrible uh for the protagonist, um and but yeah i think uh the dream quest is kind of the culmination of all of that in a way where he really made it.
Tyler:
[10:14] One of the cool things about like you as a game designer in general is like kind of seeing how you've evolved not just from this point of view of designing a game which we're going to probably touch on but like as a storyteller how you have gone from like say like star explorers was like really simple premise yeah it's just you know all you know humanity has got to find a new home there's not a whole lot right explained about this there's not a whole lot of lore to find it's like all kind of iterative and made up to to something like this where you're sort of like revealing more information to the player as they play like you talk to You read a new book or you talk to a different character and then there's all this lore that comes along with that.
Tyler:
[11:00] So it's all a little bit more hands on. And I thought that was really cool. I think Caleb was really, from my perspective, where you cut your teeth with like the more direct storytelling.
Mike:
[11:11] Yeah, for sure.
Tyler:
[11:12] Yeah.
Mike:
[11:13] I had a lot of text. This one doesn't have nearly as much. I'm still adding stuff. I'm planning to make it a little bit more, you know, deep. I don't know if deep is the right word and just more words, and kind of explaining to the player the one thing I really enjoy about this one is, um the action log i'm using it in a way where it it explains how to play the game as you play it so it's kind of like a retroactive oh if you want to do more damage it'll tell you exactly how the damage you just did was calculated so you know okay i need to this is so obvious it's not even something that requires explanation but i need to raise my strength if i want to do more damage because I can see right there my strength did X amount of damage.
Tyler:
[12:11] As someone who did not grow up playing games that did such things with action logs and all that stuff, I will tell you that while I'm playing this game, I'm not reading that shit.
Mike:
[12:21] Yeah, it's fine.
Tyler:
[12:22] It took me a long time, like several hours, to, oh, there's something going on down here.
Mike:
[12:29] Words. And I think it's a perfectly fine way to play it. You don't have to read it. right um and in fact there's a the game i'm borrowing that from very heavily is the path of acra uh by ulf sire i don't know if you're familiar with him it's like a roguelike and it's not the first it's not the first game to have a detailed action log but it's it's definitely the first game that i've played where i, really got into the action log yeah and that you know the first many many hours i played that game i didn't look at it but then i would i would remember like i died suddenly it was like huh what what just happened and like oh i can i can see exactly what just happened and i can scroll through this thing and see okay this kind of enemy uh i don't have any resistance to their fire attack for instance so i was taking way more damage than i needed to and it killed me much faster than i expected it to and now i know when i face those guys i should make sure i have some fire protection just stuff like that uh and there's not like there's a big manual that explains all these things you just kind of learn it retroactively as you play and i really liked that i thought that was an excellent way to tutorialize the gameplay itself um.
Mike:
[13:57] The unfortunate part it's like you're learning it after the thing happens but i think that kind of goes along with the the theme of the game as well like it's a whole new world to explore and, you're not supposed to know what all these things are and how they operate but that's half the fun and i think people who've read the story and are familiar with it will benefit from that knowledge because i i always go back to the book when i'm making gameplay decisions like um and i'm just reading and rereading this story dream quest as i'm making this game and i keep finding stuff like oh i could i could totally make that into a game mechanic like uh when when uh randolph carter.
Mike:
[14:49] Gets the help of the ghouls and the night gods towards the end of the story and it says the ghouls kind of helped him uh.
Mike:
[14:59] You know negotiate and communicate with the night gods and i was like that that sounds important you know that sounds like a i could mechanic i mechanize whatever mechanize that as a gameplay feature so i i have this sanity meter and some people really don't like sanity meters but i like it because i'm using it a little differently than has been used in other games in lovecraft games so the sanity meter you can kind of you don't always have to be taking sanity damage from stuff you can kind of balance it by having like for instance cats in your party they kind of give you sanity back and if you're if you have night gaunts and ghouls as allies the ghouls will, absorb some of the sanity damage that the night gaunts are doing to you so you're taking damage while you have them as allies, but you can also recover that damage, and kind of balance it out so that you don't go crazy. And if you do go crazy in this game, it doesn't kill you. It kind of sends you off on a little weird adventure where you end up waking up somewhere you weren't expecting. And you kind of have to figure out your way back to where you were. You might have lost an item or two. but it's not it's not a game enter.
Tyler:
[16:25] I really like about the sort of you know just always experimenting with different ideas um especially in smaller indie stuff even like the more solo you are the more you see experiments happen i think where it's just you know no one's gonna like default back to like no one's there to tell you like hey default back to like something that's already tried and true and proven right um so it's just like kind of purely like whatever's influencing you or come into your mind and i do like that but um like the the sort of meta strategy that you gain from paying attention to those little details that come up in the in the log or whatever versus versus the opposite which i would say is like immersion you know anti-meta storytelling where it's just only from the perspective of the player uh so i can give like an example i recently and everyone should try out this demo for uh divine frequency i'm hoping to have developers of that on pretty soon and that was
Mike:
[17:26] That the doom the doom engine game.
Tyler:
[17:29] You wouldn't know it was the doom yeah yeah yeah you wouldn't know no
Mike:
[17:35] It looks amazing.
Tyler:
[17:36] Either look it up or hit the console button while you're playing because it's so it honestly like made me look at like some stuff that i've done doom engine was and be like Man, I feel like a child right now. You know, I feel like I've just been outclassed.
Mike:
[17:55] Fair enough.
Tyler:
[17:57] But, I mean, you know, that's great. And I'm happy that it exists and the influence that it's going to create amongst a lot of other developers. But even they, I think, took a lot from Total Chaos, for folks who remember that. Which is now becoming a standalone game and being published by Apogee. So very proud of uh wattaholic or sam for doing that i need to have him back on uh at some point to just kind of catch up on everything since turbo overkill has come out and now total chaos is becoming a standalone game but point being divine frequency takes a lot out of the the page of you know making a doom engine game not look like doom at all uh like really really impressive graphics considering what engine it's in and also the UI design. Most Doom Engine games, even Heaton, Shrine, all that stuff, they still kind of have... You can tell it's GZ Doom when you open up the menus and stuff. You wouldn't know. It's amazing. It's totally immersive. There's no UI on the screen, really, while you're playing it.
Mike:
[19:02] Okay, yeah, fair.
Tyler:
[19:04] Checking your stats, it's very much like an immersive sim, similar to you know system shock in fact i as i was playing the demo i wrote to the team i was taking notes like i did for you as well and i'm like oh dude like somebody here played system shock a lot and we're gonna be best friends because i'm gonna wear my my shock t-shirt right now oh it is yeah it's one of the shock 2 is like one of the best games ever but to me anyway i
Mike:
[19:30] Finished that last year sometime did you what did you get i just, uh it's it's good it reminded me of some games i've played before but it was it was pretty unique, um and it was one of those things where uh i kind of just got used to just the action side of it first then slowly realized oh there's other things i can be doing that are actually really helpful, but it took me a while to kind of accommodate that i was i was but you realize slowly like you kind of have to do you get it you have to get into the research side of things you can't just blast your way through everything which.
Tyler:
[20:17] That's what i enjoy about it
Mike:
[20:19] Is yeah yeah directly.
Tyler:
[20:21] Opposite of you know reading a detailed log about like what just happened
Mike:
[20:25] Yeah you.
Tyler:
[20:26] Know this yeah this particular enemy affect this one and me or what are these two factions think about each other from reading a book it's like in the world which is not right or wrong it's just a totally different style of doing things but uh yeah that was a really long tangent to just say you have uh at least for me opened my mind up to a different way of thinking about like how do you how do you direct the player to make different choices and educate them on how the game works
Mike:
[20:54] Um yeah that is probably one of the most challenging parts of designing a game, I think.
Tyler:
[21:01] Yes, especially when you don't know how people are going to use it, right?
Mike:
[21:06] Right, for sure. And I think I'm just kind of copying things that have worked for me. And then the path of Acra again. I really appreciated that information appearing where it did and how it did and why not use that? That would make sense in this context because they're, they're not similar games so much outside of their they're both turn-based you know uh, turn-based uh action or combat turn-based combat type games but um i haven't played a lot of roguelikes and i haven't played a lot of uh even crpgs since the 80s to be very honest, i did that all the time up until like the nintendo entertainment system came out and then it was action games and platformers and then fps games so i haven't really revisited crpgs modern ones so i'm kind of just stuck in the 80s a little bit uh which is i think fine i.
Tyler:
[22:22] Think it's cool because we're sort of at a stage where if you do something that was only you know that was common practice in the 80s it's like new to a most gamers now like most
Mike:
[22:32] People so and and i don't know if this is gonna be an advantage or not but i've noticed that even in the retro rpgs coming out there nobody's really done the um the thing where there's a 3d dungeon and a 2d overworld which is something i that i was so used to that like that was common practice back then and yeah, maybe it went, by the wayside for a reason, but I also think it's kind of a neat thing that got forgotten and, we'll see if it, catches on again.
Tyler:
[23:12] I think it's really cool. The first time that you walk into a dungeon in the game and you realize that's going to be, unless you read the manual which guess what I totally didn't.
Mike:
[23:23] Yeah.
Tyler:
[23:23] Yeah it's just like oh wow okay something different here um as opposed to in the completely different from the way you did with star explorers where it is all you know consistently all
Mike:
[23:35] First person yeah.
Tyler:
[23:35] Um yeah same with islands of the caliph although i wouldn't you know there's not really like dungeons in the same way yeah
Mike:
[23:42] Yeah but i mean they were dungeons when i made them but then i realized i replayed some of the older dungeon crawlers like bard's tale and you the dungeons in Islands of the Caoliff are very lightweight dungeons, right? You're just taking one trip through this thing. You don't have to delve and come back and resupply and go back in. And that's kind of where I wanted this game to go. Where they're a little bit tougher, a little bit longer and not something you can just jaunt through in one trip. Yeah.
Tyler:
[24:21] And the options that you give to a player for how to play the game, quite literally, you know, using your mouse to click forward, side, strafe. It's very different than what most players nowadays are going to be used to. They're, you know, staring with their mouse and all that kind of thing.
Mike:
[24:38] Right, for sure.
Tyler:
[24:40] It's like you want to use your keyboard, do you want to use the on-screen menu.
Mike:
[24:45] That was a that was a direct sort of feedback from Islands of the Caliph where I went keyboard only and I went keyboard only for very technical reason which is, it was a technical reason based on an aesthetic decision that I had made early on which was to keep the game in a low resolution window and instead of, and I don't even know if I have the right words to explain this, Instead of making a bigger window and scaling up the graphics, I just scaled the whole window up, which is a thing you can do in the game engine I'm using. And it automatically scales everything in the window up correctly so it looks pixel perfect. And the problem is it's just like a zoomed in version of the window. So when you move the mouse across the window, it still thinks it's a very small window. And the mouse speed goes up really fast when it's in the window. And I couldn't resolve that when I was making Islands of the Caliph. So I just left the mouse out. And I thought, eh, nobody will care. But yeah, people cared.
Mike:
[25:59] And I saw how much people cared. And I thought, okay, the next game I will include mouse support. Because exactly the reason. when I played all of the dungeon players I've ever, dungeon crawlers I've ever played, I played them before computers had a mouse. Right? This was the Apple II days for me. And there was no mouse back then. And I didn't like when they included a mouse, because it messed up my sort of flow. I remember trying a few games out and that kind of was what turned me off of them later. And put me towards more action games at that point. But, Yeah, I thought, okay, I can make this compatible with keyboard only, mouse only, or controller only, or any combination you want to feel comfortable using. And I thought that was a good, healthy sort of balance.
Tyler:
[27:00] I think that in the world of making games, the three truly unsung heroes of game design that get taken for granted the most are like, I mean, sound designers, QA testers, and user interface design. Because the
Mike:
[27:19] Money we made.
Tyler:
[27:20] In games really does come down to user interface. Like, it's like... Take Baldur's Gate 3. This is like cutting-edge, modern. They have the best of the best working on it. If you plug a controller in, the entire user interface of the game changes to accommodate the fact that you've just done that.
Mike:
[27:41] Oh, well.
Tyler:
[27:42] It completely changes. Interesting. The work in that format. And it's not something you see every day, but it's just, yes, having options is huge for gaining a lot of audience because so many different people are going to have different preferences. Like you preferring to play a game that is something that you're used to, which is playing with a keyboard. That's great. And there's nothing wrong with making a game where you're like, I want to serve the audience of people who like that but there's also if I have the option to play the game how I like to play games with the mouse and keyboard with a I don't know using my eyeballs to direct things around and sensory detection and all that stuff whatever works because you could find that people a enjoy it in a different way but also they are you know they're I'm struggling to find words for this A whole new group of people may like a game that otherwise would not have tried it.
Mike:
[28:44] Yeah, yeah. I think that is a valid, absolutely valid thing. The reason I struggle with it still, and I still question whether it's the right choice for me as a designer, is I'm not very good at that. UI design is hard. And it's a huge area where bugs and stuff can sneak into your script. And that's all time I could have been spent making a more interesting game but for this game for sure I'm sticking with what I've got now, it seems to work, I'm going to have these three modes of input that the player can choose from and, I think I'll probably use that going forward in my game since i've accomplished it once it shouldn't be too hard to do again in the future but it was definitely
Mike:
[29:44] a struggle to get it to that point um yeah.
Tyler:
[29:51] For me i just really like like what do i bring to the table for the design of a game for the reason why i got into business was because i want to be able to tell the stories i want to tell and not have someone else tell me how to do it right so i am primarily concerned say when someone plays stellar dockery with the story like how do i get to tell this story to the most people possible and that i could have probably made different choices as to what engine to use and all that kind of thing if i was really concerned about mass digestion that's not really the idea but just i want i want people to enjoy this story How do I get them to do that? So I would not, and maybe the designers that are working with me would, but I wouldn't make a choice that limits that, if that makes sense.
Mike:
[30:44] Well, I mean, there's definitely a choice I'm making about that limits the audience, which is I am not making this for consoles. A lot of people have asked. I don't have the bandwidth. I don't have the knowledge. I don't have the skill set. I don't have anything to do with consoles. So if I did try that, I think the game would cease to... Uh exist basically the game itself would stop developing it would all be about getting it down to the consoles and i think if i hit a game that that really strikes a nerve with an audience and and it makes enough money right then i can worry about that and that might be a self-defeating attitudes i don't know.
Tyler:
[31:36] I don't think it is i think it's as you said like you need to be able to digest and put out what you're trying to make and if it's too much you know to worry about you it may slow down the entire process to the point where you're not making anything um right there's always going to be pros and minuses to having other people involved because i mean for me i am really comfortable delegating to as long as i trust the person i'm delegating to right yeah this
Mike:
[32:03] Is a skill i do not have yeah you know.
Tyler:
[32:06] You and i think jason smith from cultic he had a an appearance on another podcast where he was talking about how like if i if i were to work with a team by the time i have explained to them what i want in my head and they've come back to me and i've given feedback and all that kind of shit i might as well have just done it myself yeah and i totally totally get that
Mike:
[32:27] My situation is not like that at all i think i probably spend longer but i i'm in love with the process of learning how to do these things and, i don't know if i don't do it i don't i don't see it as my game like i was an artist a fine artist painting sculpting for the first 30 years of my life, well maybe not the first five or six but after that i was full-time artist uh so i was in my, mid-30s before i started game design and i get that game design is often a group experience, but all of my art making had been an individual experience i did i have yet to understand how, to let go of part of it to someone else imagine.
Tyler:
[33:27] You're making it sculptures yeah and you're used to doing it by yourself and then you get very ambitious to the point where you want to make mount rushmore
Mike:
[33:38] Yeah there's.
Tyler:
[33:40] Just no chance of you doing it
Mike:
[33:41] Along yeah yeah i'm not denying that it it happens in fine arts it never happened in my i was never that ambitious i like to be able to sit in a quiet place and work on stuff like it's it's a very, uh personal kind of uh expression i guess you'd call it um i.
Tyler:
[34:06] Feel you i i just like it when everybody in the team has their own channel to do that yeah so instead of it being the whole game to me it's like i i want to write the story and i want someone who's better than me to design the user interface and i want someone who's better than me to draw the monsters and and so then like kind of everyone's collective talents have their own lane and as long as you can keep that all you know consistent with each other then that's i mean to me that's how the best things get made
Mike:
[34:39] I i don't deny that and i i think theoretically you're absolutely right and i agree with it i just haven't figured out how i fit into that yeah although i did do i did do a game jam yeah with a small group of people um, i wasn't very happy with the results uh it didn't get to the level where i would have felt comfortable releasing it so i'm not going to tell you where it was or what happened to it, um but i thought that was at least a good step outside of my shell, and i think i'll probably do it again like maybe once a year i'll do a game jam with with a different group of people or the same group of people and see what happens because i do think you're right as far as things can happen uh faster and bigger and more interestingly when you're with a group, um of like-minded people like-minded is important i think yeah yeah for sure group.
Tyler:
[35:49] The culture of the group and that's all important. I've definitely been my fair share of teams that did not work because like people have totally different ways of looking at something or, and that's okay too. Yeah. I mean, you wouldn't want a soccer team where, you know, there's a goalkeeper who does not want to do, you know, conform to the game of soccer because he's like, I'm more of a, more of a hockey player and I don't really care about that. And that's okay.
Tyler:
[36:18] You just need a different person on that team. and for that guy to go play hockey. No problem. Um yeah i think that you've your way of doing things is perfectly valid it's it's in the in the strict sense of it being art of games design being art you're doing the right thing the the only part of question is you know is that what's sustainable as a business such that you can continue to do it and that's pretty much the my job is having that conversation yeah yeah for sure so like i i have no interest in compromising anyone's artistic way of looking at things or their expression what i'm interested in is like how do i get you to a point where you can do that and it's your job like if that's what you want or at least that it's sustainable enough that you're going to keep doing it and not decide well i have to go where the money is because like the money could be here if you are willing to not necessarily it's that's the other big thing is Not necessarily to compromise your vision, but just to be open-minded to new solutions that will make you more, hopefully more money or reach more people. Accessibility is a huge thing. Just designing your game so that it can be easily translated into other languages is a huge thing.
Mike:
[37:39] Yeah, that's true. And I'm working on that right now with Islands of the Caliph. Right because i i did set it up so i thought so that it could easily be translated but it turns out um most of the other languages on earth are not english or latin, well you need a special kind of text file to display the characters in a lot of other languages, Yeah, I didn't know that.
Tyler:
[38:11] That's for having a guy who's dropped that disconnect.
Mike:
[38:14] Well, so what I've managed to do, I managed to convert the text files, you know, that's a K-Lift to this, I think it's a 16-bit file versus an 8-bit file. And that allows for the other languages. So it does have that capacity now. And just today, I just took it out and was kind of troubleshooting it a little bit because there was some weird text that was showing up. I figured out, as far as I'm aware, all of the weird bugs that happened when I converted the text files. So now it's basically ripe for translating. This is a whole other issue. I don't know how to translate things. I don't know who to talk to to translate things. Do I make this a community thing or go and just hire someone. I don't have funds necessarily to do that. So it's like, it's not like it's going to happen this weekend.
Tyler:
[39:14] Right?
Mike:
[39:16] But it's definitely something I'm interested in and I'm working towards, you know, on a very slow basis. And I'm interested in how it turns out.
Tyler:
[39:29] Yeah, I think the caliph being, if it were translated directly into Arabic even, it would just be huge.
Mike:
[39:35] Arabic and Turkish and lots of those Middle Eastern languages.
Tyler:
[39:39] I don't know how much Iranian people play video games.
Mike:
[39:42] I don't think there's any one. I don't either.
Tyler:
[39:43] Yeah, but it'd be interesting to know.
Mike:
[39:46] Yeah.
Tyler:
[39:46] How would you sell it to them even if you could? That's a big question too.
Mike:
[39:52] I mean, people can always pirate my games. That's true. I'm not advocating that. I also understand that that isn't necessarily bad for me as a game designer. There's an immediate sort of loss of a sale, for instance, but the logic of it is that person wouldn't have bought it anyway. And yeah, so I don't put these copy protection things for that reason. A because it's it's a whole headache that i don't want to deal with and b i don't want my game to eventually be like locked up behind some copy protection thing and no one's able to play it because i died and there's no one to be able to go in and figure out how it works uh i'm sure the, you know the cracking guys figure it out eventually but uh.
Tyler:
[40:56] Why bother why bother they really want it they'll get it but yeah yeah i mean what's interesting about piracy is that it's almost universally a it's not necessarily the behavior of a kleptomaniac it's the behavior of someone who otherwise can't access it
Mike:
[41:14] Yeah the first reason.
Tyler:
[41:16] Someone's gonna pirate a game is because they can't get it by an easier method you know or they don't have money but then to me i'm like okay if you don't have the money to purchase what i have it's not that i don't want you to have it it's not that i need you to go sell a kidney to buy my game i would rather you have it and then tell other people that you know how great you think it is and then them potentially buy it and the more people are playing it the better for everyone and more people are enjoying your artwork um
Mike:
[41:45] I agree with that i agree with that i do have a secondary side note to that which is if you really can't afford, my game you probably should focus on your career.
Tyler:
[41:57] That's pretty cheap like give
Mike:
[42:00] It some effort.
Tyler:
[42:02] I'm thinking in the case of like a some fucking teenager in bulgaria absolutely you know or argentina or somewhere like that where it's like i don't want you to not be able to access right
Mike:
[42:10] It's gonna be like 900 for them or something we don't want that either.
Tyler:
[42:15] All right marketing side like you generally speak in like first order of businesses to make your game scale to other countries economies so like argentina and turkey are the two biggest pirating countries that are at least that are currently tapped in the market and the reason for that being because most of the time people put their shit on like sale and then it becomes dirt cheap like it costs nothing in those two countries because you know i've
Mike:
[42:44] Seen it happen.
Tyler:
[42:45] Yeah uh me too like trust me yeah um that actually happened i don't know if i can talk about this but i would do it anyway with um when ion fury's sequel came out aftershock yeah i think there was an incident where it was like i don't remember who's i don't blame anybody but just like it went on sale and then the price was super low so like it sold a shitload of copies in turkey yeah and then it was like oh like think of all the sales that we lost because of that and i'm thinking like no they weren't gonna buy the game anyway they're just gonna take this and sell it on gta in a lot of cases for more money than they just bought it for and that that's true but it wasn't like we didn't you didn't lose a sale on that in fact you just gained a bunch of sales at a smaller price and that's it's interesting it's
Mike:
[43:34] True i did end up raising the price on one of my games for that reason because it um, yeah anomalies that's my first that was my first steam release still.
Tyler:
[43:46] One of my favorites of yours i still open it up and just play with it sometimes
Mike:
[43:50] I am still using the music from there much to the chagrin of many of the people who saw my youtube video uh.
Mike:
[44:02] But i like it um it's not negotiable uh i it was 99 cents for a while it originally was $3.99 that lowered the price I thought this is not really, a game that I should be trying to sell for profit it's more of a fun little, gadget kind of thing but I saw like 2,000 sales in Turkey or it might have been Argentina I can't remember, I was like ah that's not fun that's not enjoyable to see because there's someone else like profiting off of that, and they shouldn't be you know that's that's the kind of piracy i don't i don't think i can get behind i'm not i would never advocate piracy in general this is like i would, actively try to stop it so i just raised the price um.
Mike:
[45:00] To 399 again because that's where it started off and i haven't seen that kind of stuff happen and i think the reason that game got targeted because it has the steam cards and it has the i think it's the seam cards that's the thing not every game has them because when that came out there was no, you could start the game with them right and then later they added a limit you had to sell a certain copy number of copies first then you get act you get access to the steam cards um i've.
Tyler:
[45:34] Bought a few games off of profit from selling all my steam cards because i oh wow zero interest in some digital trading card right like i'll just what like whatever the recommended prices on steam i just raise it to like the maximum and then people buy them i don't know why and then you know next I know I've got like three or four bucks to go buy. There you go.
Mike:
[45:56] But yeah, I don't.
Tyler:
[45:58] I don't understand why people value those things, but they do. And there's a market in it. So for sure, people will try to get ahold of them and then just do exactly what I just said with them. Yeah. And yeah.
Mike:
[46:09] And if you just bought 2000 copies of anomalies for six bucks or something.
Tyler:
[46:17] So much more work than it's worth, man. Like I don't, i'm sure it is steam accounts like or managed passwords for them like who has the time but some people do yeah
Mike:
[46:27] There must be some benefit people are seeing that justifies it but.
Tyler:
[46:32] Or they're just insane which is a i feel i feel like uh we hit you got to leave room for crazy people people seem to forget this nowadays they're like oh yeah well there must be some rational reason why they think this or feel that way and i'm like some people are just fucking crazy we used to all agree on this.
Mike:
[46:50] I mean, it might sound it might sound profitable but, you know, at the macro level, sort of. But once you get into the nitty-gritty of it, are you calculating the amount of time and effort involved? Maybe they just have bots. You know, they might just have robots doing all the actual work.
Tyler:
[47:12] Yeah.
Mike:
[47:13] So I have no idea what they're doing with these things.
Tyler:
[47:19] None of my business. Yeah.
Mike:
[47:22] I don't want to encourage it that way. So. it happens it happens in.
Tyler:
[47:28] The in the game itself you have uh obviously sourced a lot of the storytelling from the the original short story by lovecraft yeah um how did you choose which short story by lovecraft
Mike:
[47:42] To use well i know it was going to be the dream quest of unknown cadeth um i read that when i was in high school and you know there was no internet back then there was nobody telling me lovecraft was racist and this and that if i had read the stories more carefully i would have realized that i i realized now in hindsight but back then it was monsters and it was demons and it was you know cthulhu and it was i wasn't looking at the the undertones of his work back then but that was 30 years ago 40 i think almost 35 years ago the stories have stuck with me like that's what, I feel like that was so formative for me and who I am what my identity is even to a degree what my beliefs are I don't know, it just has to come out somehow that that that whole kind of thing had to form some kind of expression for me because the imagery the the concepts all of that worked their way deep into my brain a long time ago.
Mike:
[49:10] You gotta work it out somehow and this is my way of doing that but i love the dream class and subsequently being on lovecraft forums and stuff and talking to other people that's not one of his most liked stories by any stretch uh what i've seen is it's like, it's like talking to people about the first rush album a deep cut yeah it's a deep cut and there's you know or even like the some of the later 80s rush albums where they were more keyboard driven there's a whole part of that community that's just like, no way, that's not for us that's not our rush, DreamQuest is that for the Lovecraft community so many people are just like, what is this stuff this is not his writing but I read it again, I'm a teenager, I don't have this critical thinking I can see why people say that about it, but I love it, it's so amazing to me still because you've got.
Mike:
[50:19] It's just such a different fantasy sort of realm that I've never seen anywhere else it's not high fantasy with elves and dwarves and orcs it's not cyberpunk it's not, it's not any of the trope sort of genres that we have that are explored to the nth degree, uh it's really something i feel like it's unexplored i've only seen one or two video games that really look into it and even the cthulhu side of lovecraft that that's, i don't want to say overdone because i'll probably do another game like that too but, it's a lot more explored than the dream quest side of things the dream the dreamlands um, at least in video games that i'm aware of i'm putting the caveat back on there, and it's such a totally unique uh thing and uh realm sort of to explore it has this mystical quality that i've never encountered before, thought i would like to share that with the world.
Tyler:
[51:34] I really enjoy, have you ever read that book, the, the war of art?
Mike:
[51:39] Yeah.
Tyler:
[51:41] So that way of kind of thinking about how ideas emerged to people where, whether you believe in a metaphysical muse or not, just the metaphor of like, that's how an artist of any kind finds inspiration is like it, whatever you, whatever you're looking for, just sort of presents itself to you when you're in the right mindset. Yeah. So like, some people may approach this completely differently where they're well i want to make a lovecraft influence book but i want to use something that people haven't really like dived into like i want to get away from the cthulhu thing so they're flipping through the book and they're like oh this okay that's different and then they start from there as opposed to this was just something that you read and enjoyed as a kid and then you're like oh i really like to do something with that that could see the potential in it and sort of the the statue is already inside the marble it's your job to just bring out the statue of David that's already in there sort of mindset and I love that I try to actively just let things be that way as oxymoronical as that may be
Mike:
[52:47] I think that's the, the game is what happens when you're making the game, You could say that about any art form, but I worked on this game. It was very rough. When I first showed it, it was basically just the rough sort of outline of what I had in mind. And I'm really happy I went with early access, actually, because I'm getting great feedback from players. And I play the game. I am enjoying the game, but it really helps to see what other people are experiencing. And their ideas will spark an idea in me which will make me put something new in the game and which will inspire some idea in them and it will kind of, there's almost like a cadence of different concepts going back and forth like bouncing back and forth and some of them are just misses like they'll tell me, I'll just put this out here like there's a certain build where you can align yourself with the moon beasts and the men of Leng, which in the story, they're villains. They're the bad guys. But I just put it in there as an option. You can become a bad guy if you want to. But they're enemies with the cats, who are arguably the good guys or on the good side.
Mike:
[54:14] And you might end up fighting and killing cats in that case. And I didn't really think about the implications of this when I made that mechanic. But one person was like, I don't like the sound of the cats when I kill the cats. Can you make there an option to turn off the sound? And was just like, hell no you can't what are you talking about you should.
Tyler:
[54:43] Feel you should feel guilty when you kill a cat
Mike:
[54:46] Yeah like what are you talking oh man i.
Tyler:
[54:50] Want to be able to but i don't want you to remove the part that makes me feel the emotions that come with that
Mike:
[54:55] Yeah there's certain things that i have to draw a line uh maybe i should have drawn the line before i allowed the player to kill cats, maybe there's an argument there for sure but it is a lovecraft story there, the cats were in in fights in the story you know there were battles uh i i'm sure, some of the cats were you know uh defeated in this situation i don't think he described that to be honest maybe all the cats lived i don't know but uh i don't think the cats are like immortal or impervious to damage or anything like that so, I wanted to have that as an option, where the player leads sort of, the dream life that they want to but then there's definitely consequences and, a lot of people were not ready for the consequences in like Islands of the Caliph when I, allowed you to release the djinn from the bottle, but i warned the player like don't do it don't do it.
Mike:
[56:11] And this is one of those things that you can do it like you said in an indie game that would never make it into the into the uh you know mainstream because.
Mike:
[56:27] Uh i don't think people are expecting that i think people like to have that power fantasy and Lovecraft is not a power fantasy. If anything, it's the opposite. It's a horror game. It's a horror story. There is a time in this story where it feels like he's getting really powerful and really influential and really he's got this whole army of ghouls and nightgons and all that. But ultimately, on the quest he's on, that served very little except maybe towards getting him a little further than he could have gotten on his own. Those things couldn't protect him from the powers and the adversaries he was up against. That's kind of where I'm hoping to take this game in a way where you might think you're.
Tyler:
[57:33] Really cool but you're not i like the the psychedelic aspects of this any anything to do with lovecraft in general but the way that the way that these sort of like weird metaphysical ideas are presented and that happens in all kinds of like especially fantasy games yeah you know you got to have some kind of openness to like the magical part of this universe but like i'm thinking of you you turned me on to uh dreams in the witch house yeah
Mike:
[58:08] And oh the game yeah yeah yeah.
Tyler:
[58:10] I'm i'm really i've been working on it for a long time i'm gonna get adam brain games on the show oh yeah cool sometime hopefully in the near future not sure exactly but i fell deeply in love with the visual storytelling of that game like how when you go into the dream world he uses all the sort of like resicrucian and freemasonic uh imagery to you know do that what what's the other world and the you know the universe on the other side of the door stuff like it that's amazing that was so smart and i think you know the vast majority of players who are not like initiates i'm doing air quotes for that are not going to know what these things mean but they'll probably recognize it from seeing it in other places like twin peaks that kind of thing right the cardboard floors and all that. See, if you've never been inside of a Mason's lodge, you know, these are things you may not know. Okay. But the, but the subconscious association with certain symbols and metaphysical thinking, I think is incredible. It was so smart. I would love to know how he came across that information. You know, it could be that he's like a Mason, you know, for all I know,
Mike:
[59:20] But I honestly didn't recognize the things you're talking about when I played it.
Tyler:
[59:25] It may be completely by accident.
Mike:
[59:27] Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me, but I took it like he, from the story, he describes these geometrical, shapes and stuff that happen when he's entering this dimensional portal or whatever he ends up going through with the witch. And I just took it as that. That was his understanding of what Lovecraft described. But if it's referencing other metaphysical things, yeah, that's an interesting take for sure.
Tyler:
[1:00:00] It could be that Lovecraft himself was referencing other mystical things. Or my pet theory that He's channeling information that he may not have been privy to, and the coincidence of it being that is interesting.
Mike:
[1:00:14] He was a pretty avid reader, so I wouldn't be surprised if he encountered a lot of those things.
Tyler:
[1:00:20] Especially during the time that he was alive You have especially Crowley's work Being publicized And going all around the world And talking a lot about the Just general Esoteric order of the Golden Dawn information That was floating around the world at the time It's totally possible Lovecraft himself Was influenced by that But being that it is a description in a book And not a visual representation of that the the the way that it's shown in in the game is incredible like the and it says like weird geometric shapes the choice of what weird geometric shapes to show interesting very very smart and potentially also by accident could be that your influence and intent and in tandem with whatever the muse is telling you at the time of creation that's so interesting to me i i the more the older I get the more open-minded to this kind of stuff I've become where it's just like where does an idea come from what is a thought yeah What does life, man?
Mike:
[1:01:35] You're making me think about another Lovecraft story, which is the case of Charles Dexter Ward. I don't know.
Tyler:
[1:01:44] Great one. Yeah, love that one.
Mike:
[1:01:47] How many times have you read it, Ty?
Tyler:
[1:01:49] Once.
Mike:
[1:01:50] Okay. I've read it a lot, and there is something in there, and i'm sure lovecraft was very intentional about this he's talking about different people, being raised back from the dead via their essential salts and he makes all of these very interesting hints at who this person is that finally comes up at the end and kind of, help actually helps the protagonist and but it never says who that person is by name, but there's all these hints and it's just it kills me because i don't know enough about this sort of occult type stuff it's not something i'm really that interested in going and exploring too deeply uh but i'm sure if someone were to do that they would be able to figure out who he was talking about and a lot of people say it was merlin and maybe it was and i just don't have the requisite background knowledge on merlin to know that that is in fact who it is but, i haven't found a really solid argument for any particular.
Tyler:
[1:03:13] Having read the story only once in a long time ago, I feel like there's an art to the fact that it could be left open to interpretation, and there's also an art to the fact that the archetype that he's pointing to has many names and many different iterations throughout time. So it could be Merlin, but if you decide it's Merlin, you could also say it's like Hermes Trismegistus or something like that. Or you could say it's Thoth from Egyptian time.
Mike:
[1:03:39] So these are sort of recurrences of the same archetype?
Tyler:
[1:03:43] Yeah, the archetype of the wise bringer of knowledge to the hero in the story. Okay, okay. Yeah. I mean, if you read, I mean, no, I mean, I don't mean literally go read them, but I mean information on the emerald tablets of the Atlantean from Egypt. A lot of this stuff is like kind of the beginnings of hermetic philosophy.
Mike:
[1:04:08] Okay.
Tyler:
[1:04:08] Um and that permeates throughout all of middle eastern religion which is why it's still part of the zeitgeist today even if you don't recognize it by the name that was originally used you know hermes uh being thoth being uh mercury being it gets a little bit more diluted the further away you get from the source but i mean that idea so in the story of arthur the arthur himself is sort of a is the hero in the story which in biblically could be many different characters but they themselves are sort of that as well like recurring okay you know here's the hero of the story be that abram be that abraham later in life right or elijah or whoever there's the the the source of knowledge that gives them like hey you need to know this stuff and merlin in this particular context is the hermes or in the jesus story you could say it's john the baptist the initiator okay yeah but that's just how i read it i mean yeah yeah yeah i'd be literally he was just pointing to some very particular character i don't know that's
Mike:
[1:05:25] What it seems like to me but again i, What you just said sounds very feasible as well.
Tyler:
[1:05:34] At least so. I just find that so fascinating, just the whole concept of how does one come up with the ideas that they present. And as I said, I try to think about in my own life, for instance, if you don't mind me disclosing this information, You and I had talked a lot about working together on this game and then ultimately decided now is not the time to do that. And I was actually like going into January, like, well, time's kind of of the essence here. If we're going to do this, we need to do it, you know, or shit or get off the pot kind of mindset. Right. And I'm not going to lie to you. I was a little bummed out when we didn't go forward, but I had to like, you know, go through that mourning process and then accept. In my mind i'm thinking it's meant to be something else is going to come up like the the thing that's gonna you know occupy my time this month will occur if i just stop worrying about it and then of course something came along now i'm doing that everyone's happy so the the the it just seems like things just kind of like manifest in that way yeah and whether that's just a it seems that way because that's how humans are meant to think about things, fine. But just approaching it from that mindset seems to help make people not miserable.
Mike:
[1:07:03] This is, it's almost, I mean, it's reminding me of something in my life and it's maybe slightly different, but right along the same lines, which is when I've seen opportunities come up, They never come individually. Almost always there's one opportunity, and then at the same time, there's another opportunity, and I have to pick.
Tyler:
[1:07:35] Branching paths.
Mike:
[1:07:37] It's so obvious to me. Oh, there's these two things. Now I have to choose. And I'm like, I wish I could do both, or I wish I didn't have to choose. It's a test, right? I see it as a test. And I have to pick the right one, to the best of my knowledge. And just go with it and forget about the other one because obviously you can't do two things at the same time in these situations. So I don't know if that's exactly what you're talking about. It seems like almost another facet of that same part of reality where once you choose something, the things that happen because of that choice will start coming in, you know, they'll start flooding in and you have those additional opportunities or whatever they are. But yeah, it certainly feels intentional somehow to me on those occasions. It's not an accident. It's like, yeah, this was destiny coming. Here it is.
Tyler:
[1:08:52] Yeah i sort of feel like you know if you even if you like choose a path and you walk down it halfway and then you like sometimes you'll have like a feeling like i don't know if i'm doing the right thing and then you get down there's a tree that falls in front of you on the path and you're like well i want to keep going down the path i've already chosen so i'm going to climb over this tree and then another tree falls and it's like then you know then there's a wolf in the road and it's like maybe i maybe i should just cut my losses and go back to the other to the fork in the road and choose the other.
Mike:
[1:09:20] Yeah, for sure.
Tyler:
[1:09:22] Or do you commit to the journey you're on, which is also fun?
Mike:
[1:09:27] It depends. Well, for me, I would go to the religious side of things and think, you know, what is the, what is the lawfulness of this choice? If this is something I'm absolutely sure is a right thing, I will be the.
Music:
[1:09:47] Music
Mike:
[1:09:52] At falling, I'll be like, maybe better to go back. You don't want to be too brave, with some of your choices.
Tyler:
[1:10:04] The question is, who are you being brave against? For what reasons?
Mike:
[1:10:11] This was something I learned a very, very long time ago. I'm sure it's out there. The definition of evil, which comes from overreaching which I always felt like wow that's like that's almost, hard to swallow because I was always told like you can do whatever you want you can be whatever you want you can accomplish anything you want if you put your mind to it, and but I think there's also limits to that there's a balance and if you set your sights a little bit too high, you've got the story of what is it, Daedalus and Icarus and flying too close to the sun and all that. You know, these stories are there from our past for a reason also. Like, you can... You can get pretty high on the knowledge you have, but there's going to be a ceiling that you're going to bump into at some point.
Mike:
[1:11:17] And it can take generations for people to understand how those limits can be overcome. Like if you just think about space travel, for instance, which I do a lot. You know getting up and flying was a huge hurdle and although it didn't take that much longer to get into space if you look at the whole history of humankind it did require a heck of a lot of effort.
Mike:
[1:11:50] To overcome those those that barrier right it was once people realized they could fly, now you have investment now you have people spending full time there's the whole physics departments and fuel research and all this science-y stuff happening that allowed people to get then into space but the amount of effort put into it was, way more I think, than it was basically the people hobbyists figuring out how to fly, on their weekends. I don't want to undermine what Wilbur and Orville Wright were doing. I'm sure it was harder than that. But they were bicycle shop guys. So this was like a... You didn't have NASA back then.
Tyler:
[1:12:49] I think there's a lot to be said for just... The the the influence of the will to change things and collective will seems to change things more than individual will you know yeah to a greater or lesser degree depending on like that maybe the the amount of will you have or power or whatever but like you know whether or not nasa as an institution is a better innovator than say spacex which is you know this is like one dude surrounding themselves with a bunch of other dudes in business who have the same goal yeah right and there's a part of that that's like the skill and the science and the application and the availability of resources and the ability to make a decision without having to go through bureaucracy etc yeah and there's also just like what nasa brings to the table is that like the american nation all together has a mission to get to the moon or to mart or whatever and all of the people being behind the idea money or also being a factor in this makes it happen um yeah so there's a there's a bit of a magic to that as well uh
Mike:
[1:14:02] Yeah i kind of like the the i'm going to use this word in its original sense uh the socialist approach to space travel uh i'm not saying communist i'm not saying authoritarian autocracy i'm saying socialist in the original english usage of the word which is where public money was used for the social good.
Tyler:
[1:14:31] Correct which
Mike:
[1:14:32] Is something that happens in the united states a lot that we don't normally appreciate i didn't want to go political but i just i'm using the word as i understand it and hope that people can understand it as well that it doesn't have to be linked to, for you know um anti-american concepts it's like no we're pooling our money here for something that we all want and i think i think i like that approach to space travel specifically just because, yeah, it kind of affects... We're one world when it comes to that. We could be one sort of people if we are the Earthlings, you know? And it's way too fast to... We're still so divided as a world that it's ridiculous to talk about it like that. But that doesn't mean it can't happen in the future when Star Trek comes.
Tyler:
[1:15:36] What's interesting is that the... You used the word evil, meaning overreaching, you know, before. And on both sides of the good or evil coin, there comes a point in the story where the hero or villain makes a decision against the will of the people that's what's best for everyone. And so, you know, like, are you the executive decision to be like, well, maybe everyone doesn't agree that we should be putting our money towards space. But since I've decided it's what's best for the group as a whole and they'll get you'll get used to the idea over time, that's what we're doing. And, you know, and that could be perceived as an evil. You're doing something against our will. It's not what we want, you know, so we need to focus on this or that or whatever. Our money would be better spent here or the other way around. And that's that's also interesting because you never really can tell who the who the heroes and villains are until the end of the story when it's all written in history. And even then it's going to be richly debated over the course of eons and all that kind of thing but there's also like a the journey we're going on as a human species is we're getting off this planet or we're all dying one way or the other so I like that there are multiple competing ways of trying to do that I like that you know there's a socialized aspect of it and there's also like crazy people who were like we're all going to Mars and we have millions of dollars ourselves oh yeah
Mike:
[1:17:02] Yeah I'm not against private efforts i just think the the public efforts need to be there yeah to kind of balance it out.
Tyler:
[1:17:13] I was going to say this earlier on your you know fork in the road aspect but i me and gilmo always like because we're we're we're similar but we're also like diametrically different in so many ways and i think that's what makes us complementary as business partners and you know creative people but you know we'll we he and i will get into these sort of rich debates about what's the right thing to do and then inevitably we always after wasting a lot of time discussing the benefits of the two options we say something like por qué no los dos and then we're like that was the answer all along why do i have to go down this path or that path let's just clear cut right through the middle of the woods and see where we land um at the best of both worlds so to speak maybe we'll come out between the two cities that the two paths released and then we can develop a relationship it with the village people in the middle and then you know by doing that we'll get a better idea of the politics of the two potential you know the big city castles you know like this king likes that this one doesn't like that that's why they live so far apart but the people in the middle are all the same and we'll have more information and we can choose who and how to court them and that happens in you know fantasy storytelling video games all the time i love that right i like that approach and uh i think that's why we've been in business for so long together is just like
Tyler:
[1:18:33] It's talking about teamwork earlier, important to have multiple perspectives to arrive at new ideas like there's your idea, there's his idea, and then there's the idea that happens when you put them both together. And then there's also neither, which I also like. There's option three, you know, what's behind door number three? I like that, too.
Mike:
[1:18:57] There's an argument there that a good brainstorm should have at least three people. Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:19:04] Well, even people like you who work in relative isolation, you know, you have your confidants that you go to and you're like, hey, what do you think of that?
Mike:
[1:19:12] And I think early access is a really good vehicle for that, too. Yeah. Because you're getting feedback.
Tyler:
[1:19:20] And you're getting feedback from people who are already invested in it. They're like, you know, they got skin in the game. Literally. Yeah. But um uh I guess I wanted to ask so we've talked before about your childhood and how you know you kind of hey people if you're listening to this right now you also have like four or five other episodes to go back and like get fully up to speed on the conversations between me and Mike but you talked about how you know you were influenced early on by like your mom kind of rewarding you for pictures you drew and putting them on the fridge and that kind of thing oh yeah But we never really talked about your career as an artist. So you studied art in university.
Mike:
[1:20:05] I did.
Tyler:
[1:20:07] And then you knew at that point, like, I'm going to be a fine artist. When you started university or did you tell me all about that?
Mike:
[1:20:14] Oh, yeah. When I went to college, that was definitely my intention to be a full-time fine artist.
Mike:
[1:20:25] And this was an interesting thing because my whole life it was just like oh you're a great artist, you're good at art you're going to win these awards in school and this and that and in my mind all of that meant that being an artist is a legitimate career choice, like there was nothing to push back until like way late in like high school so it was kind of like you know, people don't really make any money doing that. I was like, oh, it's too late now. I'm on the trajectory now. And then there's the thinking of, well, I'm going to do it. I'm the exception. I can figure this out. And, of course, there are those exceptions. So you have those examples of people.
Mike:
[1:21:19] And, yeah, I kind of went with it. So, studying art in college was really interesting. Because I was kind of doing more of my own art, even in college, than whatever they were asking me to do for the classes. I was like, oh, these classes are asking me to draw such and such thing in such and such way, or paint, or sculpt, or whatever. I'm going to also spend most of my time in my dorm room carving Dungeons & Dragons figures.
Mike:
[1:22:01] So i'm not saying this is a recipe for success or anything at all this is probably not but, because of those little dungeons and dragons figures i was sculpting in my dorm room i got a job at uh it was basically my dream job which was ral partha, i don't know if you're familiar with ralpartha nope they make dungeons and dragons figures they're like the company you want to work for if you're into dungeons dragons figures and i just sent the.
Tyler:
[1:22:37] Coast but i don't
Mike:
[1:22:39] Maybe now but this is the 90s so right back then ralpartha was still you know a big name on the block i just sent a few of my sculptures their way and they They were like, come for an interview. I went to Cincinnati and they hired me and I quit school. And like just as the summer was ending, I got a call and they're like, well, we don't have the budget to hire you. I'm sure it was presented to me better than that.
Tyler:
[1:23:17] And the tree falling in the woods in front of you.
Mike:
[1:23:19] This is how I remember it. Right. Yeah. I'm not here to malign Raoul Partha. I'm sure they made the right decision business-wise for the investors and all that. Anyway, but for me, it was devastating. But I ended up going and moving to Chicago with a friend. We moved in together, a little apartment, and I got a job at a nut. It's called Nuts on Clark. It's a nut-packing, you know, little shop where they sell nuts and pretzels and other things that come in little bags. And I was just, like, packing the things into the bags. But that didn't last very long because I found another job, which was sculpting. And it was just, like, looking through the phone book. There was no internet at this point. There may have been an internet, but it just wasn't, like, the internet we know and love now. I didn't even have access to it. So I had an Apple II computer still at this point with no modem. So...
Mike:
[1:24:30] Going through the phone book i found like a i don't even remember what the original company was that i called but they had some kind of job that would involve sculpting and he said that they weren't hiring but he knew a company that might be hiring and he gave me the number for this toy company and i called them and they're like how did you get this number and i told them, and i'm like i just i do you know sculpt figures and stuff and they're like why don't you come down show us what you got and they gave me the job which was very nice uh yeah so that was that was my first sort of i wasn't graduated but i had a job in the field that i was studying which was sculpture at that time um and it wasn't fine arts but it was it was art it was sculpting little figurines it was something i was interested in uh and and we we actually did a lot of, jobs for like we did marvel back then uh we did like keebler uh there was some sesame street, uh we did the mcdonald's like there was a lot of the mcdonald's was like for disney actually it was a.
Mike:
[1:25:49] McDonald's Happy Meal with Disney, Tarzan Disney characters in it so there was a bunch of these pretty big corporations involved, I wasn't involved at that level, I was just a sculptor I wasn't making the deals or anything but definitely got a lot of hands-on experience in sculpting miniatures and stuff, um
Mike:
[1:26:18] But what I saw was kind of the wake-up call there was we would get a lot of jobs where we were sculpting things and, you know, making them in clay and then wax and then plastic and then, you know, painting them as basically we did the prototypes. But then there were jobs coming in where the prototype was already made and it was 3D printed. This is like the early to mid 90s where 3d printers were not something you could go buy, at target this was like major industrial level stuff but we saw it and it was coming in shipped to us and it was like this thing that would have taken hours for some human being to to work on, and that's that's the starting point for us so we were just kind of sanding it and painting it and sending it and those jobs were starting to become more frequent and i was like oh boy.
Mike:
[1:27:22] Uh what are we gonna do and at that point i started getting into computers, uh that was like the mid 90s i started just i had i had a computer i was playing computer games but But I didn't really use any software other than Daffledraw. But by then Photoshop was out and I started working with that. And that kind of got me into computer graphics. And then I ended up getting a different job working on graphics. Which was just it wasn't as glamorous but it was more like.
Mike:
[1:28:12] You know making the little graphic icons for internet sales pages you know like this product, i take a picture of it i you know adjust the color get rid of the background right and that was the product page you know uh image and things like that and that was like i said not very glamorous but definitely um a viable thing in terms of work that i didn't see getting replaced too soon and.
Tyler:
[1:28:49] You're like sort of like learning yeah sales and marketing
Mike:
[1:28:55] I i wouldn't even say i was learning sales or marketing i was just learning how to do computer graphics interesting yeah yeah yeah um i'm still way it's too way way too early for sales and marketing for me, although my mom to bring her up again i remember going into college as an artist she was like you should take some marketing classes and i'm like you're crazy lady i'm not gonna need that very.
Tyler:
[1:29:27] Wise wise yeah the the crone in the story the the wise old woman with the with the knowledge the initiate the high priestess i like it yeah
Mike:
[1:29:37] But um so getting into computers and stuff and then, Yeah, I did a bunch of different things like that. Mostly freelance at that point. You know, brochure, design, any kind of graphic design stuff. But I kept trying to do more illustration and drawing work. But that's harder to come by. It was for me, anyway. um and but then, if you want to know how this transitioned into game design i.
Tyler:
[1:30:25] Just want to know your whole story
Mike:
[1:30:26] Okay yeah i mean having access to the computer at that point was really important obviously as a game and game design is something i've always been interested in just theoretically i would draw pictures of game designs and stuff and levels for Castlevania and Mega Man bosses and all these different things but I didn't really know how to practically do that but now with a computer with Photoshop, I could at least produce graphics and stuff and I remember using Slash to make, very rudimentary games like Myst kind of, where you just click on the image and it will bring you to a different area. So I kind of started working with some 3D softwares back then and just taking, screenshots, basically, to make my game.
Mike:
[1:31:25] And then GameMaker was the big one for me. Because I had no programming knowledge at all. And GameMaker said, you don't need it. Basically. Uh and so it was just that easy to use drag and drop system they have and they had the tutorial games and you could just kind of take one of those and change the graphics and you have a game, um but when you do that you're going to be i think the natural thing is like well i want the game to do this other thing that it doesn't do right now and then you start you know getting into the programming and understanding how to change things and uh how to make things happen and that became, really really interesting to me um and so i made a few games in game maker, uh and then my brother i remember he sent me 3d game studio which was like the unity of back then, early 2000s. There was no Unity yet, but this was like a complete 3D game package with a level editor, a script editor, and a model editor. And I started getting into that, and that's where I'm stuck.
Tyler:
[1:32:53] But all the while, I just want to rewind a little bit serious. So you had these different jobs where you're making figurines and taking pictures and making sales graphics and figurines.
Mike:
[1:33:06] Yeah, yeah.
Tyler:
[1:33:06] As your primary income, but you're also painting and sculpting your own things in your own time and selling these?
Mike:
[1:33:15] Or um not yet okay not yet only we went to england in 2004, okay and why uh well um the job i had i had resigned from right and there was an opportunity A guy I knew was making a street vendor food truck type thing in England.
Tyler:
[1:33:52] You're already married and how many kids?
Mike:
[1:33:55] I'm married. I have kids. One, two kids. Wow.
Tyler:
[1:34:01] And moved to England with the whole family.
Mike:
[1:34:03] Yes. Man. And you know the secret. Or you know the secret, maybe. I don't know. The secret of moving to another country.
Tyler:
[1:34:11] To get someone else to pay for it
Mike:
[1:34:13] Well if you can do that that's great uh is buy the tickets.
Tyler:
[1:34:20] Oh i did do that buy
Mike:
[1:34:23] The tickets everything else happens automatically.
Tyler:
[1:34:26] Yes that that is i i moved to denmark without a visa i did not i had to apply for the visa okay and then i was growing antsy waiting for it to happen and then i was invited to go to germany for gamescom and then we go to denmark like basically where we're going to shoot it like gamescom one week shoot realms you know within a couple of weeks after that so just come stay until we are finished with realms deep and then you know go back home until your visa gets here and i bought a one-way ticket and i just paid until my visa came and then i went like shortly like very shortly afterwards uh like within a week or so i think uh guy named fred not fred schreiber another fred okay walked up to my desk and handed me he's like hey your visa came in today and i was like awesome and then we went and found me an apartment and i just stayed and i was there but yeah you're 100 right and it's the same way coming back also okay Like, um, well, I was so overwhelmed with like, I know I have to go back home now, but like, God, it's a lot. And then I just set a date, bought the tickets and then I'm like, oh, I have this amount of time to make it happen. So, well, that's, that's, I think that's true with all decision-making, but that's a very extreme version of it, but yeah.
Mike:
[1:35:46] It is. Once you're committed.
Tyler:
[1:35:47] To the path that you're walking down.
Mike:
[1:35:50] You have a date, you have a monetary commitment that you obviously don't want to lose.
Tyler:
[1:35:56] Right.
Mike:
[1:35:57] And yeah, you kind of just automatically will do the other stuff.
Tyler:
[1:36:01] So you take the wife and the two kids to England in 2004.
Mike:
[1:36:05] Yep. And then I worked with this hood truck for several months. And I was doing graphic design, designed the logo. I did some brochures and things like that. But then I was also working in the truck.
Tyler:
[1:36:23] You went to Manchester area?
Mike:
[1:36:26] No, this was up in Leeds. This is Leeds.
Tyler:
[1:36:29] You're like Geordie speaking kind of folk.
Mike:
[1:36:32] It's hard to understand them. i'll be very halfway between.
Tyler:
[1:36:36] Scottish and english yeah yeah there's a wrestler named pack who is from that area that's that's what i associate with it
Mike:
[1:36:44] My my wife is originally from england so this was one of the big factors she was born she was born in england makes.
Tyler:
[1:36:51] A big difference
Mike:
[1:36:51] So our kids are british citizens and this just was great because we got them their passports and you know basically um verified their britishness uh i'm not a british citizen but i am a permanent resident as long as i'm still married uh so i got that through her um but i think that was a big factor like if it was some other country probably we wouldn't have done it you know but this was where she was from so uh so the working in the food truck i'm also you know serving coffee and sandwiches and stuff like that and driving this is a fun one driving the truck like it's it's a trailer so you have to drive the pickup truck i have with the trailer attached to it and you have to kind of on the wrong side of the road the stick shift and and having to having to back that thing into the right position right i still don't know how it ever got done like i would do it every morning i don't know how it's just like you try it like this didn't work try it like that didn't work try it oh okay close enough so but the reason i left that.
Mike:
[1:38:13] Is because it shut down and i'll tell you exactly why it shut down and if you're listening.
Mike:
[1:38:24] When you make coffee for people, people have a particular kind of coffee they want right like this isn't just like yeah coffee whatever it's like i want a latte or i want a cappuccino or i want it was all it's all espresso drinks in england you don't they don't have a lot of the drip coffee there which was another whole story but when you make an espresso for someone.
Mike:
[1:38:54] If you make it a double espresso that's not that's not something most coffee drinkers will just automatically be like hey i got a double espresso wonderful it's like really really strong if you put two shots of espresso in there and i don't think the people liked that and i found out like they gave i bought i got a coffee from our own thing once and i was like god this is terrible this is so strong like what did you do and the guy's like oh i put two in i'm like you can't do that that's not how this works i remember calling the boss and you can't and he's like it's fine anyway it wasn't fine the thing shut down i'm pretty sure that's why uh so i'm out of a job again in england and um i ended up getting a job at the same place i was working for back in the states they had a branch over there and i'm working for them for a while and then the boss from the States comes, for a visit, and he's like, what are you doing here? I guess no one told.
Mike:
[1:40:05] And I'm like, I'm working here, and he's like, you're coming back to America. Well, that was my England adventure.
Tyler:
[1:40:17] How did that tie into the art?
Mike:
[1:40:21] I'm still doing graphic design, and basically yeah basically uh, stuff for catalogs and websites, and some product packaging, stuff like that. But while I was there, I did produce several paintings, and I felt like, okay, these are different, and these are pretty good, and I'm going to go and see if anyone in London likes my paintings. So I went to a bunch of different galleries. And this one gallery was like, yeah, we'll put them in our next group show if you want. I'm like, sounds good. So there's a thing called group shows. This is like where.
Tyler:
[1:41:11] People bid on art pieces on display?
Mike:
[1:41:15] No, not bidding necessarily. People can buy stuff. But basically, you don't have to earn the whole gallery and fill it with your work. You can just submit one or two pieces, and there's like 20 artists doing that, so they fill up the gallery with a bunch of other artists' work, along with yours. and.
Mike:
[1:41:37] I think it's a pretty common thing but this was my first experience even approaching galleries since I had lived in Chicago when I got zero interest back then, when I went on my attempts to reach the gallery system in Chicago, but in London they were just really friendly about it was weird it was like oh you're from america okay that to them was enough of a selling point where in america they're like you're from the suburbs get out of here kids, when you're from london oh yeah we have a space for you so it would have been different um so yeah i think that's that that was an interesting thing so i i gained a little confidence and when i came back i joined an artist's guild which is just like a bunch of artists that put on their own shows every month or every few months right um and that really that was a great thing for me uh in terms of fight nerds um.
Mike:
[1:42:52] Forgot where I'm going with this. And I won a few of those shows. And actually, one of my pieces got the best in show. And it was a really interesting experience for me. Because I was new to this whole art scene.
Mike:
[1:43:12] They were announcing the winners. And they were like, honorable mentions, third place, second place, first place. And it wasn't my painting and i was like oh well you know better luck next time and then they said and best in show and it was my piece i didn't know there was a best in show i thought first place was first place like who knows this until you're actually in it there's a thing called best in show which is better than first place so that was really exciting for me it was like the second show i participated in and i got best to show i was like this is the best thing ever uh this is not a money-making thing yet at all um but then my piece was the best in show so it went to like a regional there's now like a bunch of different artists guilds and they're all taking the best, in show pieces from that year and they're putting them into one big show called The Best of the Best. And my piece got third place in The Best of the Best. And I thought that was pretty neat.
Mike:
[1:44:29] And then I started getting little solo shows. Like there was a coffee shop in our town and they just put up my work for like a month or two. And that's when I sold my first like, major sale i think that that's kind of where sales happen more often than not, it was for me anyway and i remember selling a piece and it was, it was the first time i sold a piece for the amount i was asking for that's interesting yeah, usually and it's it's kind of like that overreaching thing like, i i would base the price on how long it took me for instance that seemed to me to make sense but in the art world that's not how art is sold right the price is very much arbitrary, if you look at how many hours went into that piece some artwork may have taken hundreds of hours but it's it doesn't sell for that much and some artwork could take very small amount of time but it can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's.
Tyler:
[1:45:47] Very much a type of thing that the value is not the work put in it's the final product and of course then there's
Mike:
[1:45:55] The name yeah yeah a lot to do with the name and but to build your name you have to know what you're doing you know it's not I'm not dismissing this at all right it's it and I'm not saying it's fully arbitrary it's like it's it's complex is what it is and to the casual observer which to be very frank I'm a very much a casual observer of the art world like I'm an artist I make lots of fine arts but I'm not, participating in that world, in the way the.
Tyler:
[1:46:31] Best Artists or actually just anything are the people who don't participate in the bullshit.
Mike:
[1:46:41] You kind of have to if you want to make a living at it though.
Tyler:
[1:46:44] I think you can be like peripheral to it like you don't have to immerse yourself into look if you make up your mind i'm going to be a fine artist and i'm what i'm going to do is just fully be immersed in like you know the politics of art yeah yeah okay you could sell your pieces for more money and stuff but like right does that make you a better artist or does just make you like one of the assholes who's doing the political stuff and i'm not saying they're all bad it's probably great people who do that but you know it's the same thing with video games like i got too close to the the son of the corporate machine of video games and then i don't want this i don't want this at all
Mike:
[1:47:27] The the same teacher that taught me about vision and strategy that i mentioned very early on in this discussion also talked about there's no art world it's it's a bunch of art villages.
Tyler:
[1:47:40] Yeah and
Mike:
[1:47:42] Yeah i'm not participating in the the mainstream art village of galleries and museums and and all that and academia.
Tyler:
[1:47:53] Lovecraft wasn't participating in the exactly either yeah um
Mike:
[1:47:58] And so to me, it does seem arbitrary how things are priced and how, but I'm sure there's logic and reason to it within that scope of that world. But blimey, I have no idea. And trying to get into that sort of academic and and you know gallery culture is something i wasn't particularly good at or and something i wasn't even willing to to try very hard at because i i saw it as, and this is not a dig at the art community it's more uh it didn't align with what i wanted to do, right for me it had a lot to do with how you talk about and how you explain your art to people, and, i was just kind of adamant like the best way to learn about my art is to look at it like i'm not going to be able to put into words what i was doing because the thing i was doing was that right.
Tyler:
[1:49:17] Like if i if i was gonna if i if i if i could explain it in words i wouldn't have painted it i would have right
Mike:
[1:49:24] Right exactly and that doesn't cut it yeah that's.
Tyler:
[1:49:28] That's how i feel absolutely
Mike:
[1:49:29] 100 true but it doesn't cut it in that why.
Tyler:
[1:49:33] Did you write this song it's like well if i could have just told you the idea i was trying to convey to you i wouldn't have written a song.
Mike:
[1:49:40] On the good side, I was selling work. It wasn't necessarily enough to go full-time at all, but it was like, oh, I'm getting decent money for these pieces, and if I could sell these maybe once a month or twice a month, I could do this full-time. But that, amount requires a lot of, It sounds so dumb, but it would require more time than I was able to commit to it, right? So it's kind of a... You would have to divide your time up between making the work and selling the work in a way that wouldn't work. Because the amount of time I spent on a painting was a lot. It was months. These weren't things I could make in a week or a bunch of them in a few weeks. It was like each painting was a very different thing.
Mike:
[1:50:49] And when i was done i was like done i didn't have another idea i'd have to think and you know look through my sketchbooks and it was like a big process for each one and i noticed the artists that were selling a lot tended to produce work in a in a body and this was one of the advices they gave like don't think of a painting think of a body of paintings think of a whole show worth of paintings and i hated that like i wasn't good at that and i didn't want to do that i i wanted this one painting to be the best painting ever you know yeah until it was done and then the next painting would be the best painting i couldn't do that with paintings where oh these these paintings are all about this topic whatever there's nothing wrong with that it's just not how i operate it and, I couldn't make it work financially to sustain what I was trying to do and although I could sell art I had to be in front of you with the work, and I could convince you to buy my painting if you were standing there with me in front of the painting that works but that takes a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of.
Mike:
[1:52:17] Persuasiveness you know and it just sucked me dry i'd come home from those things and be like i never want to talk to another person as long as i live just lock me in a room and just, whatever and i went into writing books children's books and illustrating those, and it was pretty much the same thing. I had a bunch of books to sell now. I didn't have to produce each book individually. You can make one book and print a thousand of them uh but it was still the same dynamic i had to be there i had to be explaining to people why this book was important and they would buy them, but it's like i'm not a salesperson i am not a salesperson i.
Tyler:
[1:53:09] Learned coming
Mike:
[1:53:10] Back to me.
Tyler:
[1:53:12] I learned a lot of valuable salesmanship skills that i have used later in many different aspects of my life like i think back to like going to game conventions and working the booth and like showing people you know these are the different games we have and they're like overwhelmed by all the choices and i'm like you know but then you see a guy and you're like you look like a wrath guy you like to put a wrath on a ruin and he's like i don't know what that is i'm like trust me it's what you want yeah i'm gonna take i'm actually gonna sneak you through the back to the computer because there's one free but you know all these other people you know they're they're rip out guys but you're you're a wrath guy and uh presenting it in that way is often really good but where i learned this from was i worked in this sandwich shop when i was like 16 until i was 18 i think until i was 18 i think my 18th birthday is when they went out of business so
Tyler:
[1:54:06] That was fun right after my 18th birthday something like that but you know people would come in and they look at the menu and they would be like it's just I know I want a sandwich but I don't know what kind of sandwich I want and I just
Tyler:
[1:54:21] You you're a ruben guy i can tell you know over time i got good at that or it's like you know what you are you're a you're a chicken panini guy i can just tell i know and then most of the time suggestion works yeah so let's just say i was at an art show and i i'm not you i didn't make the art but i would be like you know i'd see somebody coming by and if my goal is to sell your art you know i'd see them looking at something else i'm like you know that's really nice but what's really interesting is this the schmidt painting over here and then you know you like get overwhelmed by talking to so many different people but i would be like just look at it for a second i have to go do something and then go away see what they make of anything you're going to get a lot of people that like get disinterested or embarrassed or whatever there's always going to be the one that's like that you i think you really you really awoke something in me with this like uh how much do you think he's going to sell it for? Well, I'll tell you a secret. He'll probably go lower than the listed price. But this is a, there's a lot of other people here, you know, today that have, you know, they've been thinking about buying this and I just don't know. If you offered him more than the listing price, I bet you he'll just, just part with it. Like, but you probably want to be quick about it.
Mike:
[1:55:38] What you're pointing out to me is something that just is absolutely true, at least for me yeah because i did i did sales at different companies i did some retail we would do conventions and i i could sell stuff i could have these conversations but when it's my painting, or my book i am a wreck i am uh and i could do it i could work my way through it and sell those things but.
Mike:
[1:56:08] Drained me in a way that selling other people's products didn't you know like oh yeah i just sold 200 with the videos i don't care that didn't elevate me at all i'm still getting paid the normal price that i get paid or oh they don't want these i don't care they don't have to like that i don't particularly like that either maybe i don't know but when it's my painting oh you don't like it okay crying like i'm crying why don't you like it i wouldn't ask them but inside i was eternally in this turmoil and yeah what i noticed with video games is i don't have to be there i don't have to tell you why you it's a good idea for you to buy a video game interesting video games, people want video games right it's a thing people enjoy.
Mike:
[1:57:11] And with a painting people do enjoy art but.
Mike:
[1:57:21] I don't have to explain why it's important or why it's beneficial for that person, if they're going to like it or they're not going to like it that's fine yeah i don't have to tell them beyond just describing the game i don't have to be there that the store page does that like there's a market there's an active, huge market for video games that just doesn't exist for the fine arts.
Tyler:
[1:57:48] You know hypothetically it could but what's interesting about the video
Mike:
[1:57:54] It doesn't exist but it's harder to get into that world where other people are selling your art basically.
Tyler:
[1:58:02] I feel like uh the trouble with video games is someone's walking into a video game store to buy a video game obviously they intend to leave with a video game yeah you know or a movie gallery or something like that you know they intend to leave with something uh of entertaining value it's not so much getting them to buy a game like if you're the shop owner steam they don't need to convince you which game to buy right yeah valve is going to get a paycheck as long as you buy something and you will um yeah but it's getting your and you know we'll use the analogy your painting amongst all the other paintings in this gallery of millions of paintings to be the one that they leave with today yeah um yeah i was listening to i think it was quentin tarantino and another gentleman who was a director and friend of his i can't remember his name right now but they were talking about working in the in the video store in la um and they there were like the the mom and pop shop and there were other like larger you know blockbuster style places around but people came to them because you know they'd come in they're like i know i want to watch a movie and You kind of get to know the clientele, like, what do they like? Right. And they're like, well, I want to, you know, Top Gun looks good, but they're like, well, rented out all the Top Guns already. But here's something else. It wouldn't have to be the newest thing. It would have to be something that's new to you.
Mike:
[1:59:25] Right.
Tyler:
[1:59:26] So they knew all the movies. They're like, yeah, well, have you seen, you know, this? And the person is going to leave with a movie. Like, that's the deal. To watch. To rent. Whatever.
Mike:
[1:59:42] What was that one? It was pre-Top Gun. It was like one of these fighter jet movies. Top Gun kind of took the fighter jet movie genre into the mainstream.
Tyler:
[1:59:58] I think I know exactly what you're talking about, but I got to look up the name real fast. So obviously Top Gun's number one. we're going pre-Top Gun good lord it's not Iron Eagle is it
Mike:
[2:00:18] Yep it's Iron Eagle yeah yeah.
Tyler:
[2:00:21] Iron Eagle comes to mind Iron Eagle 2 I think was
Mike:
[2:00:25] I don't know if it's actually pre-Top Gun.
Tyler:
[2:00:27] And then there's the greatest fighter hit movie of all time Independence Day
Mike:
[2:00:34] Okay I don't know if I would call that a better jet movie but.
Tyler:
[2:00:37] It is it's just the enemy's different it's a fighter jet movie but they're not fighting the ruskies they're fighting the um I
Mike:
[2:00:49] Would include helicopter movies in this genre.
Tyler:
[2:00:52] Black Hawk Down
Mike:
[2:00:55] I was thinking like Blue Thunder.
Tyler:
[2:00:57] Okay yeah Blue Thunder which was
Mike:
[2:01:00] TV but still yeah but yeah Was Iron Eagle before Top Gun? Is that my memory accurate here? 86 for Iron Eagle.
Tyler:
[2:01:15] Top Gun was 86 also.
Mike:
[2:01:20] Interesting. Right around the same time.
Tyler:
[2:01:24] Yeah.
Mike:
[2:01:27] I think the big difference for me, and this may be different for other game developers and different for other artists and different for other children's book authors. But for me, I didn't have to be there to sell my games. And for me, that was the sign. Like, this is what I need to be doing because I can't be in a life where I have to sit there and convince people that what I'm doing is important. That is soul draining to me.
Tyler:
[2:02:01] Right, you need to outsource that job to someone who likes doing it yeah yeah yeah Just, I mean, like, imagine how many more games you would sell if you put in the same amount of effort as you did with selling a piece of art. You know, considering that you sell games without trying.
Mike:
[2:02:21] Well, it's not like I'm swimming in money either. It's just...
Tyler:
[2:02:26] That's what I'm saying. Yeah.
Mike:
[2:02:29] But I think going to a game convention, I did go to PAX East in 2023. Three and i didn't have a booth or anything but the the booths at these things are outrageously expensive for for a solo developer.
Tyler:
[2:02:47] Um so
Mike:
[2:02:49] It's kind of a.
Tyler:
[2:02:50] Yes kind
Mike:
[2:02:52] Of a that's a different challenge and i don't know if i'm up for that challenge to be honest but uh.
Tyler:
[2:02:59] Do exactly what you did with the art guild and it's to get a bunch of numbers together to rent a large table or area and then put several laptops out or the um excuse me another example of that would be to have a publisher who does that for you which is basically a same thing it's a guild of developers working together to be able to afford in its ideal format you know yeah yeah but a bunch of developers who are making similar enough games who pull their money together under the leadership of the publisher themselves to do exactly just that yeah
Mike:
[2:03:37] No that's really good i would i was just having a conversation with a friend who talked about and i can't remember the terminology he is but it's like, it's like a group of small businesses that pull together to buy products yeah at the wholesale sale prices that a huge company like walmart might buy them at so they can be competitive, and i never knew that existed but yeah that could be.
Tyler:
[2:04:03] Yeah that
Mike:
[2:04:04] Could be done in gaming as well yeah i.
Tyler:
[2:04:09] Try to do that with podcasts too it's like you know if there's another podcast several other podcasts and a network together when you're making ad sales you don't need to sell the viewership of any individual podcast you could say this is how many different people we as a network.
Tyler:
[2:04:24] Uh you know reach that's great so it's not just about like getting your product on the joe rogan show for a lesser price you could be on all of these different shows with different people who you know different things uh with the same exact ad or or even personalized to each individual
Tyler:
[2:04:42] Audience but you know for one price right right and yeah i think that's wicked smart i think that's super cool yeah i find that at conventions like for instance if i if i don't want to fork out the money to go to you know a convention with a booth and like i've seen all the way from the indie guy who rented a arcade machine looking thing you know in the gallery of those to thq nordics booth you know with a wrestling ring built in front of it and a loft with like you know lighting and everything and security personnel and just you know literally forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars on a booth for a convention but that mean that stuff works for a reason there's a reason why they can do it um yeah and i would just say like honestly just walking around and talking to people engaging in conversations and being like you know hey here's a here's a business card with the q code for my game on it because when you leave the convention like when a person They're going to have the memories and the things that they saw and everything, but it's so much that when they get home and they empty their bag of all the shit they got, and your business card is in there with a QR code that they can scan and then engage with it at their own pace, that is more likely to translate into a sale.
Mike:
[2:06:04] Um yeah that makes it i did go to that pax east i had a bunch of business cards printed i handed exactly one of those business cards to one person in that whole thing the.
Tyler:
[2:06:18] Move is to buy pins or lanyards or something like that even if it's not cards but flyers or to um get like give something of value that is low cost to you and free to people because they want lanyards they want pins they want speakers that kind of shit it's yeah
Mike:
[2:06:36] It's different because i've been at conventions where i have a booth right not gaming conventions though so yeah in milwaukee there was one actually but it was very small and you know it didn't really translate into the same kind of environment as as the pax east did but i just was not i just wanted to get a lay of the land i was just kind of looking around like kind of dumbfounded. I didn't have a booth, so I didn't feel like I can be handing people my business card. That's not my job. I'm a visitor. You know, like in my head, I was not able to, correspond those two things like i'm a visitor i don't have a booth how can i give you my business doesn't make sense so.
Tyler:
[2:07:25] I'm always always hustling dude i would be you know i would go to like a wrestling show and then just be handing people like hey have you heard of this fucking game phantom fury like that same you know concerts whatever wherever people who buy games which are most people especially young people are you know and it's even even you could make the argument it's more novel to have the one and only video game booth at a music festival it is to be one of the 10 000 ones at uh gamescom or at uh you know pax or something like that right so and then you know the people are there like to check out music and they're gonna be like whoa a video game i like video games let's go check out that one video game well you know and if it's like a shooter or something you know doom kind of shit it's like man this is metal bro i love i'm here to see Slipknot and I want to shoot some demons now like yeah totally works I
Mike:
[2:08:20] Could see that working.
Tyler:
[2:08:21] Yeah um it's interesting man like just the the psychological aspect of making sales and and I totally get your your point of view of like uh put getting yourself in the right mindset I would just be like sitting at a pub somewhere you know and then see a group of people walk in younger men usually and i'm like hey you guys want to buy some video games i've got it i've got no i've got cards and everything and then the next thing you know they're all moving to your table and you're like this guy makes video games i'm like yeah man i mean we got a whole bunch of them like here's five different business cards give them to your friend here's a stack of 20 i bet you what i'll buy you a drink i'll buy you guys all around if you pass these out to everyone in the bar like yeah but uh that's a personality type too and i feel like that that to me that kind of stuff isn't draining because it's kind of naturally where i see myself you know i enjoy that kind of thing but if you're not an extrovert yeah that is draining to you so oh yeah and that's the other thing if
Mike:
[2:09:28] I'm if i put myself in this same kind of situation where i have to talk about my games, in an effort to sell them right it's different than like you're asking me questions about my game this is a natural conversation i don't find this draining at all but if my goal is to sell you something that that creates that conflict that i can't,
Mike:
[2:09:53] haven't been able to tolerate for very long.
Tyler:
[2:09:56] Just a reminder to our listening audience right now cyclopean available currently on steam and early access it is an amazing game i really enjoy it and you should buy it for the low low price of 9.99 9.99 do you think you could get a better game than this for 9.99 think again uh best value of 10 you will spend anywhere anytime this month I promise. Or, well, I can't say where your money back. Or, write me an angry comment on the YouTube. Write an angry comment on the YouTube.
Mike:
[2:10:32] There's a free demo.
Tyler:
[2:10:34] Yes. There is a free demo.
Mike:
[2:10:36] There's a free demo. Yeah. I like the free demo.
Tyler:
[2:10:39] Don't even buy it. Don't play the demo. Just buy it.
Mike:
[2:10:42] Yeah. For sure.
Tyler:
[2:10:44] Yeah. Don't play the demo. Don't try it out. Pay the $10. Support your local indie game developer
Mike:
[2:10:53] I do like the demo idea though because i.
Tyler:
[2:10:56] Do too i do too
Mike:
[2:10:57] It's just i i think a lot of people buy it without bothering with the demo but it's sort of just an extra security net there psychologically like, i think the game is good enough that the demo can kind of sell it so if you do try it and you don't like it, obviously you don't have to buy it. But I think most people who have tried it tend to enjoy it.
Tyler:
[2:11:28] But you'll be happier if you buy it. You will feel better. You'll sleep better tonight if you buy this game.
Mike:
[2:11:34] And you can transition your demo save directly to the full game save.
Tyler:
[2:11:39] That's actually really nifty. I think the interesting part about demos is that they oftentimes ward away potential buys, but they tend to ward away bias from people who are going to complain about the game. They're like, oh, this isn't what I expected. Whereas if you brought it to the demo, you would have known that, and you wouldn't have bothered me with this information.
Mike:
[2:11:59] Yeah, I think that's a good point. And the goal, like with Steam at least, is to get those positive reviews. That's a major factor in the visibility of the game. Negative reviews, obviously, you don't want. So the demo kind of, helps shield the game from negative reviews in a way.
Tyler:
[2:12:24] You know what's harder than getting people to review a video game ironically is getting them to leave five stars on a podcast on whatever app they're listening to currently i have had a lot i got i was for the longest time doing the show i didn't like to because every podcast has like that remember to like scrub and all that kind of thing and i was so uncomfortable doing that because i'm like if you like it you'll like you'll you know you'll do that and it turns out no you won't
Mike:
[2:12:51] Because no people don't.
Tyler:
[2:12:53] Well also it's sort of a passive thing it's like you know a podcast is just playing potentially on your phone or in another window on your computer while you're doing something else and it's like yeah it's and then the next thing automatically starts and you're like oh i really enjoyed that so like incentivizing someone to like be in the moment for a second hit five stars on the thing and for me more importantly click the share button and tell that friend that likes it that also would be interested in this topic to listen to the show also. That's the most important thing. I think that's the same with video games. So many people are just quietly enjoying things by themselves. Don't enjoy it by yourselves. Climb to the rooftop of your building and shout to the world that you love this game so much.
Mike:
[2:13:43] Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:13:46] That's difficult. That's getting people out of their comfort zones.
Mike:
[2:13:50] Yeah, because now you're going public with an opinion, and that opinion can be scrutinized. Right? And that's an uncomfortable thing for some people. And I'm even uncomfortable with that with some games I might like and be like, do I need everyone to know that I like this? I don't know.
Tyler:
[2:14:10] I like it. I've never written a bad review in my life.
Mike:
[2:14:13] Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:14:14] I just don't review it if I don't like it. that's the punishment you get for me not liking it is that I didn't review it. If I like it best review ever. Five stars.
Mike:
[2:14:23] I like to write negative reviews of games that I legitimately didn't like but are otherwise so overwhelmingly positive that I know mine won't really make a dent. Like I don't want to put a little developer who has ten reviews out of business. Like that's not my goal. But when there's a huge popular game I do want to provide an opinion that might not go with the mainstream.
Tyler:
[2:14:49] When you have safety in numbers, that's when you feel good about, you know, it's like being on a firing squad for you.
Mike:
[2:14:55] I don't mind saying that unpopular.
Tyler:
[2:14:57] It's the one that killed them.
Mike:
[2:14:59] Yeah, I don't mind saying that unpopular thing in that situation, because I don't think it's going to harm the developer who's already made millions and millions of dollars. But it's an observation that might, I don't know, maybe I'm just being a jerk. I don't know.
Tyler:
[2:15:25] I just, I don't know. I just don't like being negative. Like I will tell someone like if I don't like something, but I don't see the point in like adding to that on the internet. First of all, I mean, if I'm going to put my time and effort into something, it's not going to be tearing anything down. I don't really care. But like, I'm not going to go write a negative review of doom eternal because, but just cause I don't like it. But I feel like me writing a review is me saying, I recommend this. Like i think this is good it's worthwhile you know and even if it's not like the rating system is difficult for me also because i kind of feel like the question i'm trying to answer is not how much will you like this game because ultimately a lot of people are going to filter sales by four stars and up or whatever you know right so i'm not like i'm not trying to tell you how much i think you're gonna like it i'm trying to tell you this is worth your time you know like this is this is a buy and this is a don't buy like yeah yeah the why can come you know through i also i guess i'd also have a podcast to put my opinions out there and i don't feel the need to do that on steam okay
Mike:
[2:16:39] That's fair i've also been the the on the receiving end of negative reviews so i feel like i should be able to do that too.
Tyler:
[2:16:46] I think a negative review that's like credit like criticism, like, I think these things need to be this one way, or whatever, but I genuinely have read some nasty reviews.
Mike:
[2:17:01] No, no, mine are I try to stick with the facts, and it's usually only if the game does not do what it promised. At least, or what it seems to promise. And I try to explain it as clearly as I can, why I didn't get and, the joy out of this experience that i was that most people have right and i don't know, i don't know what else to do with that information like i played this game for an hour two hours i have an opinion what do i do with that opinion there it is it's the review you know i.
Tyler:
[2:17:44] Just think of people who leave negative reviews like not like not criticism in the good way. But I mean, just anything that's just a this sucks, uninstall, don't play. I just think those people are losers. Yeah, for sure. You're a loser.
Mike:
[2:18:07] They're looking for rage bait. It's rage bait.
Tyler:
[2:18:11] You're causing damage to someone trying to do something with minimal effort. And that I can't stand. like i really don't like it um like someone here is trying to do something you know if you're leaving like you said earlier like if you're leaving a negative review on something that like totally lied about what it is like it's like this is a lie or if they promise this this and that it doesn't work it crashes as soon as you open it i understand that but yeah otherwise you're just being a dick you're a loser you know do something go outside you know plant a tree or something get a hobby that isn't this
Mike:
[2:18:49] I've as a developer i've like i said been on the receiving end of some negative reviews.
Tyler:
[2:18:56] What's the worst review you ever got well
Mike:
[2:18:59] I always read them and if it's a negative review and it if it gives me information i find that actually super helpful, I really wish people would go into the forum and post a discussion topic instead, but that's fine, because I read those too. But the negative review is there, and I have been able to turn some around by addressing the actual issue. Because if there's an issue, I want to know what it is, and if it's something that doesn't go against the vision of my game, I do want to fix that. I do want to address it uh and a bunch of those people i'd respond and say look that's actually really good feedback um here's what i'm going to do uh would you consider reviewing your review, Something like that. And a bunch of them have been very kind and did change their negative to either they removed it or they put a positive, which is nice.
Tyler:
[2:20:01] I think that's a good practice that not enough developers actually engage in. It's just like saying like, hey, I fixed that. Could you?
Mike:
[2:20:08] Right.
Tyler:
[2:20:09] Even if it's not now positive, at least change it to reflect the fact that I have fixed that. And honestly, most people who are doing that negative asshole thing where they're doing their own purpose, but maybe they do have a nugget of information that is useful to you in there, as soon as they are directly engaged with the fact that there's another person over there, they usually crumble. Where they're like, oh, I've heard...
Mike:
[2:20:35] There's two breeds.
Tyler:
[2:20:37] Right, right. Or they double down. There's a breed
Mike:
[2:20:39] That will respond and say, okay, actually, this is what I didn't like about it. Because a lot of times the negative review is just like it's just negative there's no there's no takeaway there's no nugget it's just like this sucks i hate you and i'll be like why do you hate me and they'll be like oh okay actually i hated it because blah blah blah i mean okay actually that's really good thank you for that information sorry you didn't like the game have a nice life and then there's the people who they don't respond they leave the review as is they don't respond, they don't care they don't want to engage, I don't know why they're there to test us, They're out there, man.
Tyler:
[2:21:26] I just respond with, like, I hate you. That's interesting because I love you. Like, I really love you a lot.
Mike:
[2:21:35] Okay. So don't engage with logic, but engage with emotion.
Tyler:
[2:21:42] I think so.
Mike:
[2:21:43] Maybe. I haven't tried that. I honestly haven't tried that.
Tyler:
[2:21:46] Yeah.
Mike:
[2:21:47] I don't know why I have a relationship with that person.
Tyler:
[2:21:50] Bully in high school who was like you know being a being a bully and he's just like why are you looking at me like that or whatever and you know like what are you gay or something and I literally just like stood up looked him right in his eyes and I said you have beautiful eyes and that's why I'm looking at you never spoke to me again I believe that that same guy went to jail for stabbing his friend with a spoon later but oh damn he never spoke to me again after that the spoon yeah yikes not gonna say any names but yeah that's all it took was just like you know basically like giving him the equal like same level opposite input
Mike:
[2:22:35] I can see you saying that and getting away with.
Tyler:
[2:22:38] It um I just you know like most of the time folks that are being shitty and negative is because they're miserable and it's like you know make their day a little better like oh you're miserable that's sad tell me about it what's wrong what's going on with you yeah how's your dad how's your relationship with your mom it's usually something like that like well you know hey hang in there buddy it's gonna be okay i believe in you maybe no one else does but i do so you can do it just take that review down please it's really it's not nice does it remind you of how your dad talked to you
Mike:
[2:23:17] I'm going to think.
Tyler:
[2:23:18] About it. Yeah. Yeah. You don't clean the toilet seat because you saw your dad treat his toilet seat like that, right? He just peed all over it and didn't put the lid down.
Mike:
[2:23:40] I have no response.
Tyler:
[2:23:46] I feel so seen. I feel like someone finally understands me. In the comment section of an indie game on Steam. Amazing no um and then there's how much effort you really put into that too but i yeah i really i really do like the game like i genuinely loved playing cyclopean all the way through i felt bad because by the time i reviewed it i had already played it and so like i think my like i left a positive review on steam and then it says like zero hours oh right so i had to jump back in and play more just to get that that makes sense yeah you
Mike:
[2:24:24] Can also explain the played prior to release or something helps. Because there's a brand of internet person who will find these things and comment on them. This guy only played 20 minutes.
Tyler:
[2:24:45] If you only played 20 minutes and you had something negative to say, how could you say it was bad if you only played 20 minutes? And honestly, this game takes more than 20 minutes to like for me anyway to like get to understand what's going on right because i went i went a long time not understanding very fundamental things about the game and then being like oh and i'm not used to playing roguelike maybe
Mike:
[2:25:08] If you'd read the action log.
Tyler:
[2:25:10] Right maybe if i played the demo and all that stuff i didn't i didn't i didn't get mad at the game or the designer i was like that's one of the most fundamental pieces of advice i've ever heard about the games is that When something wrong happens or when someone dies or whatever, it should be in such a way that they blame themselves and not the game. For sure. And that's a good principle to work off of. It's like if they're pissed because at you for something they did ignore them but if they're pissed at you because of something you did all right well that's that's fair criticism that's critical feedback for sure right that's good yeah so i feel like you know if you if you die in this game i don't think oh the game designer screwed me i think i need to get better at the game i need to figure out what i did wrong so that i can do it again next time um and usually usually I mean crashes exempt yeah what makes people mad is when they've made a lot of progress and then they're dead and they do it all over again that's okay avoiding that as much as possible for at least for me is like it's pretty big like I don't want I don't want someone to be mad at me because they didn't know how to pre-save or to quick save for instance yeah
Mike:
[2:26:28] Yeah this game has manual saves only right now.
Tyler:
[2:26:31] And I don't like that but I noticed i
Mike:
[2:26:35] I was originally going to have an auto save lot and it was causing some issues, but i believe i've resolved those issues i think the design because i found out that those issues happened not only during the auto save but if you saved and then loaded and saved in a different slot it was anytime you're using multiple slots that's when those issues happen and i was able to fix that so now i should be able to reintroduce the auto save so people don't have that, tons of progress and then dying and then having to redo stuff because yeah i don't i don't want to do that either to people.
Tyler:
[2:27:20] When it comes to like tutorial teaching people how to interact with the game and think about their interactions for the game like i this is one of those things where i kind of I do sort of look at the great examples of like this works every time and like for instance stellar Valkyrie I'm I'm very much thinking you know i've thought about this game for five years at this point like i want it to be presented in such a way that a child could pick it up or someone who's never played a video game could play it which is interesting because being in the doom engine you know it does have a if you just pick it up with no tutorial it requires that you have played another first person shooter probably like doom at least once before so that you know ease interact etc without us telling you that um so what we did was we had gelmo's mom play it so we just found an old an older lady who's does not play video games at all hand her the demo and be like what do you think of this
Tyler:
[2:28:23] You know you just just play it and you know and gelmo's like writing down everything she does as she's good you know okay this she didn't understand this that or whatever and then i'm like okay and this is how i'm going to i am going to make the tutorial around what someone who's never touched a game before like this would do so i think about like donkey kong 64 like stuff that i played as a kid where when you walk into a new area you know it like i'm not saying stellar valkyrie's gonna do all of these things but you know it stops and it's like okay hey this is what you need to do and you know zooms in on an object like the goal is to get here and you know you need to collect all the coconut whatever it is or mario 64 where it's like shows you where the star is like that's the goal you need to do this to get that and it could not necessarily in like a handholdy way but just in a in a way that foolproofs misunderstandings right right um i like i like that style i i like kids games a lot like and maybe it's because i'm expecting one but i was just thinking more and more about like what you know what are the things that i enjoy that i'm going to be able to easily share with my kids that don't require all this you know initiation and such um will be very interesting and be be
Mike:
[2:29:41] Ready to become infuriated at how games are targeted towards children.
Tyler:
[2:29:47] I'm already infuriated
Mike:
[2:29:52] That that's a whole chapter.
Tyler:
[2:29:54] Of candy too Yeah. And also how things are targeted at mothers.
Mike:
[2:30:02] Mm.
Tyler:
[2:30:03] Irritates the hell out of me. Yeah. Because that stuff is just so crazy. Can you maybe give an example of what you're talking about?
Mike:
[2:30:16] Oh, we used to get the Jumpstart games for our kids. And it would be like a single CD or DVD.
Tyler:
[2:30:26] Mm-hmm.
Mike:
[2:30:26] And they could play the game. And that was that. It was a nice exchange. I give you money, give me the CD, done. And this isn't just kids' games, obviously. But I remember we got a jumpstart. It was like a 3D jumpstart for one of our hits. I was excited about it because it's a new jumpstart. And they're exploring this kingdom. And then my kid's like, oh, daddy, I can't go into the castle. Like, okay, just, you know, figure it out, you know, all the puzzles, do your thing. And they're like, no, no, no, we can't go into the castle. I'm like, what is it? I come in the look and it's like, you need to subscribe to the monthly online version of Jumpstart if you want to go into the cast, to like strangle somebody at that point yeah I can't say that that is infuriating because this is I bought the CD, I bought it I paid for that and they're like oh, they're not giving me the thing that I paid for.
Tyler:
[2:31:52] World of Warcraft like, was the best and worst thing to ever happen to gaming in that regard.
Mike:
[2:32:00] I understand World of Warcraft though, and this is for adults people know what they're getting into there's no bait this was bait, I bought bait yeah like, I bought it and I handed it to my kid. I'm not going.
Tyler:
[2:32:17] To tell my kid that you can't go into the castle.
Mike:
[2:32:21] Oh, no, no. They didn't go into the castle. Right. That was the end of that.
Tyler:
[2:32:26] There's no castles. No more jumpstart for that.
Mike:
[2:32:28] I was like, this is not happening in my house. You can play any one of these other many, many games that we have. Right. Because you have to nip that thing in the bud. You can't let that sort of thing happen. I can't.
Tyler:
[2:32:50] I just, yeah. I just really like, I like when you buy something, period, in any aspect, and you get the thing.
Mike:
[2:33:00] You get the thing you paid for.
Tyler:
[2:33:02] End of the transaction.
Mike:
[2:33:03] Right. Yeah, that's hard to come by these days.
Tyler:
[2:33:07] Yeah, yeah.
Mike:
[2:33:08] And that's definitely one of the guiding principles in my game design. I do not have any microtransactions or monthly subscriptions.
Tyler:
[2:33:23] I think an add-on needs to be an add-on. It needs to add value to the product, not make good on the promise that was originally promised by the product.
Mike:
[2:33:33] Right, right, exactly.
Tyler:
[2:33:36] I've gotten more money out of you. and there's also a degree of like the transparency of that like if it was like well if we you know if we make enough sales we'll be able to design the rest of the city sure but let that be reflected in the price and clearly communicated and such yeah if it said like castle not yet developed because we're going broke over here at jumpstart right i might feel different then just
Mike:
[2:33:59] Don't put the castle in.
Tyler:
[2:34:00] Right yeah
Mike:
[2:34:01] Don't make it a a, manipulating your child without your knowledge.
Tyler:
[2:34:10] One of the more interesting things i've heard was about um like articles that would come out that would say things like um studies show that kids um participating in athletics actually benefit from eating uh candy like m&ms or something afterwards to replenish their sugar and the thing is i mean there's other ways to do it for sure but the subliminal message of that is like when the mother is or father whoever is standing in the grocery store line and the kid's like oh i really want the m&ms they feel iteratively over time slightly less bad about saying no because there's a little nugget of justification all right as to why that would be okay and they they do this on purpose like this is a known thing in the Jon Hamm's Madden side of the movie or whatever. So for sure, that's pretty screwy.
Mike:
[2:35:10] Yeah. Especially with Sugar, which is such a, health issue that we've all been kind of hornswoggled on over our entire lives, uh and salt man i'm just i'm trying to cut my salt i don't know if you can see it but my eye has a red blotch, which is because of a raised blood pressure and then some kind of event will trigger it like I think I sneezed you.
Tyler:
[2:35:49] Just need to have a bowl of honey nut Cheerios every morning
Mike:
[2:35:51] Yeah well even the sugar in that is a lot but.
Tyler:
[2:35:56] Clinically proven to lower cholesterol
Mike:
[2:35:58] Yeah I think if I go with the real original Cheerios maybe that'll help but, i am making efforts to cut salt but it's it's like you're so used to it and it should never have been there in the in the quantities it's it's there it's like what are we doing man yeah.
Tyler:
[2:36:21] I was reading a book last night that was talking about um you know like how for instance like people in south america that chew cocoa leaves yeah fine but then when you purify that down right like cocaine it becomes a problem saying the difference between a glass of merlot and a synthesized gin like you know and the the moral that was being made by the author was basically like if the plant is still alive you can make friends but if you have to kill it in large quantities to make the product we're not friends anymore same thing right and everything else yeah
Mike:
[2:37:04] Um one thing i've noticed though is unsweetened and unsalted foods actually taste good, We're just, our taste buds are so overwhelmed by the salt and sugar that we're not able to recognize the good flavors that exist without that stimulant.
Tyler:
[2:37:22] My wife is addicted to hot sauce, specifically like Cajun hot sauce.
Mike:
[2:37:28] Louisiana red.
Tyler:
[2:37:30] Yeah, good stuff. It is. But to me, I think I have a tendency to think about like, okay, this dish is, I'm the cook primarily, like I really like to cook. Yeah so if i make like something that's like oh this is italian you know and then she puts cajun spice on it i'm like wrong and she gets mad she's like why do you care what i eat or you know if i think it would be better with hot sauce or whatever i'm like that's not the point i'm like okay if i make you mexican food put mexican hot sauce right right but it is that same deal where it's like you know you just you your taste buds your psychology even associated with it gets condition too i've
Mike:
[2:38:11] Been on kind of a hot sauce kick and now i'm i'm.
Tyler:
[2:38:13] Ending it because
Mike:
[2:38:15] I looked at the label this is way too much sodium and man look at soy sauce too i don't know if you've partaken of soy sauce.
Tyler:
[2:38:25] Lots of soy sauce but you know there's no harm in getting the the low sodium green label so yeah it's crazy it's just as good And a lot of these products, you know, like food products in general, like that are extreme in those values were sort of invented and designed with the poverty mindset. So like refried beans being the act of making beans and then refrying them in lard made sense for someone who's otherwise going to starve and needs as many calories and as much fat as possible to live. But every single time you go to a Mexican restaurant to eat a giant burrito with a side of refried beans, it turns out that doesn't translate in quantity.
Mike:
[2:39:16] Another factor.
Tyler:
[2:39:17] It is delicious.
Mike:
[2:39:18] I was talking to a doctor who is of Indian-Pakistani heritage. And Indian-Pakistani food has a lot of oil and fat and stuff in it. And he was saying this was great for the people who needed it, who were working the fields, and they had physical labor jobs, and this would sustain them and give them the energy they needed. And we're eating it today. We're so sedentary, and it just kills you. It's like yeah i'm not putting down the in the indo-pakistani food industry but because it's not it's not limited to that industry that was just the conversation i was having but yeah like i noticed that if i eat certain foods not just indo-pakistani food i am miserable the next day a lot of the times depending on what what particular dish um and especially like a lamb Lamb is so fatty that my body just doesn't know what to do with it. It's like, get this out of me. Get this stuff out of me. I don't know what to do with it. But yeah, video games.
Tyler:
[2:40:32] No, not necessarily, because we're getting near the end of what's going to be this total conversation. So I need to, unless you just want to talk about video games, I need to know what you think of all these drones and UAP sightings and such over the last several months.
Mike:
[2:40:48] Oh, like in New Jersey?
Tyler:
[2:40:51] All of it. And to Arizona, too. Ironically, this started happening in Tucson and New Jersey right after I left Tucson. So I was like there a week later, I was here and that's when I'm like, I missed it, you know, like so angry, but obviously they were communicating with me and waiting until I was out of the way before they started messing with people because we're friends.
Mike:
[2:41:17] I think, I think the explanations, the logical, physical explanations are there. They're, they're drones.
Tyler:
[2:41:27] Right.
Mike:
[2:41:28] So i i'm not too from well okay yeah from a security side i assume someone's looking into that maybe i'm wrong but um my ufo mind is not intrigued at this point by what i've seen it's like okay these are probably drones i don't know who's doing them yeah that's definitely a more security type concern which, that's that's not something that i necessarily have a lot of, opinions about i guess okay i mean i understand the interest and the concern but uh, I'm not the right person to ask about it.
Tyler:
[2:42:22] Your answer is that you do not think that they're likely to be extra-ultraterrestrial beings of any kind out there.
Mike:
[2:42:33] I haven't seen anything that would suggest that they are.
Tyler:
[2:42:36] Yeah. There's some interesting stuff in that regard. I mean, I'm Occam's razor also on the whole thing. But then there's a few things that are like, okay, what are they looking for? You know, and why aren't they talking about that? And I lean towards national defense more than anything.
Mike:
[2:42:57] I mean, certainly it could be, right? I mean, we've got at least the Pentagon saying that they've got these UFOs on tape and that they defy explanation at this point. There was a very interesting, that one that the Pentagon released, I think it was in 2020. There was a very interesting youtube video about it that did explain the pivotal movement of that thing and it was in terms of the the camera itself was on a gimbal and the shape we were seeing was actually the lens flare not the shape of the object and that totally explained why, that pivot was happening on the film. To me, I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense, and I'm ready to just say goodbye to that one. But... You know um.
Tyler:
[2:44:01] But then it's there's there's that and then there's also the times when it's like they just give the worst possible explanation for something ever or just like yeah for sure deny things and that that's what i think what fuels the fire of like the perpetual skepticism
Tyler:
[2:44:17] Yeah and then there was like when the drones happened like the the u.s government didn't say shit they were like let's just ignore that and then uh interesting now president was like they know what it is they're just not going to say anything and then of course we're going to tell you as soon as we get in the office and then the next thing that comes up with the statement that got made a couple weeks ago was like they're ours that's about it no more talking about it so um i feel like i feel like it's a national defense thing the best possible of all the explanations i've heard people throw out there is that they are sniffing they're they're being used to detect radiation so then there was likely to have been maybe a threat of some kind that they did not want public they send out the drones to sniff around and then they take care of business without making a big show of it because that would be bad if they did um okay you know that that makes a lot of sense to me i i can i can at least buy that that's part of it another way of looking at it is that there are there's a mixture of things up there where it's like you know there There was an actual, not explainable UAP, and these are government ones that are looking for whatever that was and chasing it down to combat it or whatever.
Tyler:
[2:45:34] And maybe they didn't have time to spin up the public on this new technology we have or whatever when the threat became something they needed to go after. Right
Tyler:
[2:45:48] Unlikely that it's Chinese or Russian I don't know who else Iran perhaps I don't know North Korea doubt it
Mike:
[2:45:56] Is there a reason it can't be, domestic like civilians it.
Tyler:
[2:46:05] Would be interesting to figure out what civilians who they are who can operate this many drones of that type you know that long without losing any of them in interesting in concert in a concentrated area in multiple different areas uh near a military base undetected the it's a it's pretty far-fetched i mean i'm not saying it's not possible um but You know, there's like this whole thing with like all of the people who are undocumented in the country right now. Leave people's opinion about that to themselves. I don't care. But the thing is that like, who knows what intentions they may or may not have had and what they're bringing in with them, who they're communicating with outside the country, etc. And are they coordinating something and therefore there might be a good reason to sweep the area for potential weapons or whatever it is that they're looking for
Mike:
[2:47:05] I have a wide range of different interests and, I'm not really someone who can speak on national security stuff, that's just not my, purview I don't know what I believe you're absolutely right that there is a concern and, I wouldn't know what to make of it. I kind of assume the people in charge are dealing with it if it was a real threat. But yeah, I mean I guess we'll find out. But yeah, the whole drone thing has blown open UFOs in a way that It's really hard to... Like, I believed stuff before more than I do now. Now I'm way more skeptical. Like, that could be a drone. That looks like a drone. Yeah. Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:48:07] I just tend to think that there's probably multiple things happening at once. Yeah. Sort of the age-old, you know, aliens being in a, you know, nuts and bolts metal ship.
Mike:
[2:48:22] Right.
Tyler:
[2:48:22] And then there's, like, the question of, like, is there a, you know, a transdimensional aspect to it, like, like beings or whatever in some of the... The change from UFO to UAP actually makes sense. An aerial phenomenon is not necessarily an object. It could be a ball of fire. It could be just something you saw in the sky that doesn't have a physical form. Um there's all you know all kinds of conspiracy to this like yeah you know is it is it angelic is it demonic is it you know are they all in concert are they operating in the same space from different time frames or from different you know are there multiple races of aliens people have gone all the way down the david ike rabbit hole of you know the archons and the reptoids and the and the grays and the nordics and all this sort of thing and like maybe they're all there maybe that's all part of it i don't know to
Mike:
[2:49:18] Me i'm i'm very open-minded about this stuff and as you know from our previous conversations and i that's that's something that i've been thinking also recently it's just like the universe is so big it's so vast that why not why not millions of different alien species you know they see earth they see oh there's lights let's see let's check it out, right like that could be happening it's impossible so far to prove that that's happening it's also impossible not to disprove that's happening but like on a case by case basis, when there's a.
Mike:
[2:50:06] Reasonable explanation or description of what could be happening i tend to go with that also i have that skeptical side which is just like yeah that's probably exactly what this person is describing it you know so but i i don't like the skeptical outlook that just dismisses it all either i think there has to be a balance because the amount we know about this universe is it's got to be minuscule in comparison to the amount of, actual knowledge that's there we have a tiny, drop in the ocean you know, and I think you have to keep your mind open and our tendency is to want to know, and to want to be in the know so we'll jump on one bandwagon or another usually depending on who our friends are right, and we'll just stick with that and then all of our effort is into defending that side that we've already chosen, And I don't think that's necessarily healthy. I think it's okay not to know the answer. And that's kind of where I stay on these things. Like, I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't. Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:51:29] Are you familiar with the Chris Bledsoe case? Pretty recent. So he has, you know, like a book out and stories and stuff, you know, of his life and everything. But he basically like had a UFO encounter in 2007. Okay. and then he so he's like uh of the opinion that he interacted with something angelic and that he continues to be visited by something that is uh divine in nature um and describes them as like orbs and then also like childlike small glowing creatures that you know like can only be perceived by someone who is you know allowed to that they they have the ability to like read your thoughts and to like control who does and doesn't see them and who they manifest to yeah and while i'm not necessarily like 100 sold on his story he's very convincing don't get me wrong but i mean you know same as always like okay who can corroborate this yeah
Mike:
[2:52:34] Yeah that's the tough part.
Tyler:
[2:52:35] No apparently nasa and cia are all over this guy too like like doing tests on him and like actually interested in him so there's part of that too but yeah like he just the the point of view that these glowing orbs that people see for instance are you know not necessarily like visitors from outer space but visitors from a higher dimension yeah i i find that to be extremely fascinating it goes from like a science fiction thing to a like a nearly like spiritual you know religious point of view it's like well testing the the belief systems of a lot of people like if you're you know i believe in angels you ever seen uh what's that movie that's on every christmas jimmy stewart
Mike:
[2:53:24] Um the wonderful life.
Tyler:
[2:53:26] Yeah it's a wonderful life where they're sitting in the in the pub and he's with the angel and the guy's like talking openly about what they're doing and all that kind of stuff and then he's like hey maybe you ought to be quiet in here and he's like well don't these people believe in angels and he's like well i mean yeah they do but he's like well then why should they be surprised when they see one so it that's what i find interesting about it is like the skepticism from people who do have these belief systems um tucker carlson is pretty open about like he he's like oh i think that there are angels and demons i think that's what we're witnessing okay like that's interesting too and
Mike:
[2:54:04] I am i am fully on board that that is one possibility.
Tyler:
[2:54:08] Yeah uh
Mike:
[2:54:10] You know my my belief is that that There are angels, there are devils. Do they manifest themselves publicly on cameras? I don't know. That might be the case. There's definitely stories from tradition that suggest that they do appear as lights and stuff.
Mike:
[2:54:40] I don't want to say I'm of two minds because I definitely believe in that but does that translate into the phenomena we're witnessing or people are claiming to be witnessing I don't know. Again, I'm okay not knowing um i haven't had those experiences i've had other experiences that, most people would dismiss as dreams but i don't think dreams necessarily need to be dismissed i think their experiences regardless of how they come to you and those experiences led me to believe things, right? And I think those are valid as long as a, the thing about religion is I don't think you can prove it or disprove it. I don't think it operates at that level. But I also think it shouldn't go directly against things you can prove or disprove, right? So I try to understand my religion in a way that matches what I see in the world and what I experience in the world.
Tyler:
[2:56:05] As above, so below.
Mike:
[2:56:09] If you will, yeah, I guess. So the existence of God, is that something I can bring out on a lab table and cut open and demonstrate? No, I can't. But neither can the scientist or the skeptic or the atheist bring out the absence of God. That doesn't make it true. I get that. But it also doesn't make it not true, right? It's something we're going to... Either find out or not.
Tyler:
[2:56:42] I find it really interesting because i think the whole debate in in the layman debate that comes about this there's going to be apologists and you know theologians and and religious leaders and such who have done a lot of work one way or the other right um but there's also like just the the logic of how the conversation is approached like a question like can you prove god exists it's like the first question is what is it that i'm trying to prove to you that exists like if if you're asking me can i prove to you that there's a man in the sky which i'm not even asserting right right right
Mike:
[2:57:22] What is your definition of that word.
Tyler:
[2:57:25] Is is there a highest potential principle that all things fall underneath the category of undoubtedly that seems to be the case i mean like that's interesting too like it's just a matter of like how do you define that like do you want me to believe in your you know in like like your description of something where it's like there no there's a thing with a goat's head or whatever that does this and it lives in this place that you could go to if you could just get there and And I'm like, well, not necessarily, but is there good and evil in the world? And do they continually play out in certain patterns throughout time and space? Yes. Or no. Maybe. It's an age-old debate.
Mike:
[2:58:17] And that's why it's going to come back to your beliefs. It's a different belief. Belief doesn't just mean you think something is true. I think it's a deeper concept than that. It's the things you actually act on.
Tyler:
[2:58:36] Right. But potentiality and action, you know, are two different things. Will you give me like three minutes? I'm gonna go grab a book and come back and read you a passage. Yeah, yeah, sure. Interesting. Okay. This is gonna be fun. My wife's gonna be mad because we'll be late for dinner, but I don't care.
Mike:
[2:58:51] Okay. I'm late too, so we're good.
Tyler:
[2:58:55] Right so there's like the the idea that scientifically you need to be able to do the same experiment and come up with the same results right yeah yeah and then there's the point of view that there is no two people that have the same point of view you know two people look at the moon standing right next to each other or even standing in the same spot and then like you're not seeing the same thing because your brain is manifesting memories that you have of different things that add up to this and how you perceive it um or even just the fact that time has changed and therefore your position in space has changed like you're looking at the moon standing in the same spot i'm looking at the moon standing in the same spot we're actually thousands of miles maybe millions of miles displaced in the space-time continuum between those two things happening right so you're not having the same experience so you really can't prove anything there's objective truth which is like we can repeat it and get the same results and maybe uh you know in a containable scale it's possible but you can never truly have the same experience twice fair right um but
Mike:
[3:00:07] The problem with relying on that and you have to rely on that for stuff like physical things like science and running experiments and even making things in the world like products and all that. But there's things that you cannot reproduce. By their very definition, they're not reproducible, which is what a human being, for instance, experiences after death. You cannot reproduce that, at least based on the technology we have right now. There's going to be a limit to whatever this science of ours can accomplish. But that doesn't mean those experiences are invalid. They're just hard to, define and objectify, which is why you have to go back to beliefs at a certain point.
Tyler:
[3:01:16] There's the idea that we sort of exist within a four-dimensional world that we at least that we can perceive right so there's like one dimension two dimensions which is flat three dimensions being a physical object that takes up three you know points in space that are not in line with each other and then there's time and then physicists at this point are saying there's something like many more than that yeah so this was just like an explanation that i read of potential higher dimensions than the ones we had starting with zero um so i'm going to try to start from a reasonable place and go from there if you don't mind no
Mike:
[3:02:08] I don't mind.
Tyler:
[3:02:08] Okay to one must formulate the thesis if there is anything except nothing it must exist within the boundless light within the space within this inconceivable nothingness, which cannot exist as nothingness, has to be conceived of as a nothingness composed of the annihilation of two imaginary opposites. Thus appears the point which has neither parts nor magnitude, but only a position. So nothing, but also something.
Tyler:
[3:02:45] But position does not mean anything at all unless there is something else, some other position to which it can be compared. One has to describe it, and thus the only way to do this is to have another point. And that means that one must invent the number two, making possible the line. Yep. Okay. But this line i'm with you yeah does not really mean very much because there is yet no measure of length and the limit of knowledge at this stage is that there are two things in order to be able to talk about them at all but one cannot say that there are near that they are near each other or that they are far apart one can only say that they are distant in order to discriminate between them at all there must be a third thing you must have another point one must invent the surface, and one must invent the triangle. In doing this, incidentally, appears the whole of plane geometry, and one can now say A is nearer to B than A is to C. But so far, there is no substance in any of these ideas. In fact, there are no ideas at all except for the idea of distance and perhaps the idea of betweenness and of angular measurements so that plane geometry, which now exists in theory, is after all completely inchoate and incoherent. There has been no approach at all to the conception of a really existing thing.
Tyler:
[3:04:04] No more has been done than to make definitions all in a purely ideal and imaginary role. Then comes the abyss. So one cannot go any further into the ideal. The next step must be the actual, at least an approach to the actual. So there are three points, and there is no idea of where any of them is, and a fourth point is essential, and this formulates the idea of matter. So now we have a
Tyler:
[3:04:31] Three-dimensional object, starting with zero, right? So the point, the line, and the plane, and the fourth point, unless should happen to lie in the plane, gives the solid. If one wants to know the position of any point, one must define it by the use of three coordinate axes.
Tyler:
[3:04:48] It is so many feet from the north wall, and so many feet from the east wall, and so many feet from the floor. Thus, there has been developed from nothingness a something which can be said to exist. And one has arrived at the idea of matter but this existence is exceedingly tenuous for the only property at any point is its position in relation to certain other points no change is possible and nothing can happen one is therefore compelled in the analysis of known reality to postulate a fifth positive idea which is that of motion this implies the idea of time for only through motion and in time can any event happen and without this change in sequence nothing can be the object of sense it is to be noticed that the number okay i'm just going to skip over this part because it's just talking about something that happened already in the book this is the
Tyler:
[3:05:37] Traditionally consecrated to the great mother and in this womb in which the great father who is presented by the letter yod which is pictorially the representation of an ultimate point and it moves and begets active existence that's uh citing hebrew i didn't spell that out there is now possible a concrete idea of the point and at least it is a point which can be self-conscious because it can have a past present and future it is able to define itself in terms of the previous ideas and here is the number six the center of the system self-conscious and capable of experience. At this stage, it is convenient to turn away for a moment from the strictly Kabbalistic symbolism. The doctrine of the next three numbers, to some minds at least, is not very clearly expressed, and one must look to the Vendanta system for a more lucid interpretation of the numbers 7, 8, and 9, although they correspond very closely with the Kabbalistic ones. The Hindu analysis of existence, the Rishish, I apologize in advance if I'm pronouncing things wrong, just reading books.
Tyler:
[3:06:42] These are sages, postulate three qualities, sat, the existence of being itself, chit, thought, or intellection, and ananda, usually translated as bliss, the pleasure experienced by being in the course of events. And this ecstasy is evidently the exciting cause of the mobility of pure existence. It explains the assumption of imperfection on the part of perfection. The absolute would be nothing would remain in the condition of nothingness therefore in order to be conscious of its possibilities and to enjoy them it must explore these possibilities one may here insert a pair a parallel statement of this doctrine for the document called the book of the great auk to enable the student to consider the position from the standpoint of two different minds all elements must at one time have been separate that would be the case with great heat Now, when the atoms get to the sun, we get to the immense extreme heat, and all of the elements are themselves again. Imagine that each atom of each element possesses the memory of all of his adventures in combination. By the way, that atom fortified with memory would not be the same atom, yet it is because it has gained nothing from anywhere except this memory. Therefore, by the lapse of time and by virtue of memory, a thing could become something more than itself. Thus, a real development is possible.
Tyler:
[3:08:06] One can then see a reason for any element deciding to go through the series of incarnations, because so and only so can he go, and he suffers the lapse of memory which he has during these incarnations, because he knows he will come through unchanged. Therefore, you can have an infinite number, individual and equal through diverse, each one supreme and utterly indestructible.
Tyler:
[3:08:28] And this basically like comes back around to the number 10, a 10 base system being the addition of one and zero that once you've like established all of the numbers up to that point, that's all of the dimensions. And then you build another layer of dimensionality on top of that, which is how our number system works. I found that to be like super weird. I don't know if it means anything.
Mike:
[3:08:56] It's bringing to mind two very specific things.
Tyler:
[3:09:00] Cool.
Mike:
[3:09:02] The first is it sounded for a while like you were reading directly out of the Dungeons and Dragons Immortal Rules book. I'm not. Because they had the exact same explanation of why higher dimensions have to exist.
Tyler:
[3:09:21] Okay.
Mike:
[3:09:22] Which was very compelling for me at the time. And then the other thing reminds me of a book by Rupert Sheldrake. He's a British scientist. And the book, the title of the book was Set Science Free. And he talks about i think it's 10 different basically assumptions that we have uh that scientists have that need to be questioned and they're not being questioned, and once we question those assumptions there's a lot of extra science that can happen right like these things can be, dug into. They may very well turn out to be absolutely true assumptions, but they're basically just assumptions at this point. And.
Mike:
[3:10:27] One of the things he pointed out was that, and the evidence, I'm not a scientist, I can't, you know, reference all the evidence he had in that book, but it was why crystals form in certain patterns, and that certain crystal forms have been known to form in different patterns, right? But at a certain point in time, they started all forming in this other pattern that we know now, which is just kind of crazy to think about. But what he said is called, the way he defined it is called a morphic field. And it's like the atoms remember something. And once they've learned a thing, like this is just the only way you can define it is kind of in human language, because we don't really know the workings of it yet. But once they've learned how to assemble themselves, then they all do it. And this is just my very layman's version of what he described in much more rigorous terms but I think that really opened my mind to things.
Mike:
[3:11:51] It's not, all known right a lot of the stuff we just take for granted are just actually not known at all uh how they actually operate and there's a lot of mounting evidence that goes against what is commonly held to be true but it's all kind of dismissed as oh that must have been a you know bad measurement or this or that like for instance the speed of light, speed of light has a specific number but that number has actually changed, several times over the history of people knowing and talking about the speed of light and the assumption is that we're just getting more accurate but actually if you look at the evidence it looks like the speed of light might change right because it.
Tyler:
[3:12:46] Is in the or it is asserted to be
Mike:
[3:12:48] It's not always exactly the same i don't know i can't answer that question maybe it is always the same maybe it's not but to him that's an interesting thing that we could research right right and doing a really find out what.
Tyler:
[3:13:05] Is the square root of negative one you know for instance or pi
Mike:
[3:13:08] Yeah like.
Tyler:
[3:13:11] We don't really know what pi is
Mike:
[3:13:12] All the way not all the way right and yeah so.
Tyler:
[3:13:17] Like every every single like equation that inserts pi anywhere is an estimation by definition right um or you know using an imaginary number to calculate something is like well it's imaginary yeah it makes predictions and it does so well and therefore we postulate that that's you know at least it's useful it's it's
Mike:
[3:13:37] Useful yeah you land planes with it right practical.
Tyler:
[3:13:40] Science yes but does it explain the nature of the universe and the answer is I don't want to. Not to me. Right. Not yet. Right. Yeah. It's so compelling.
Mike:
[3:13:52] Good stuff, man. What is that, by the way?
Tyler:
[3:13:55] That is the Book of Thoth on the Egyptian Tarot by one Alistair Crowley, which I'm reading right now.
Mike:
[3:14:02] Oh, okay.
Tyler:
[3:14:03] Yeah.
Mike:
[3:14:04] I'm sure the Dungeons and Dragons guys read some Crowley.
Tyler:
[3:14:07] I'm sure that they were reading him, and he was reading I Ching and Kabbalah and lots of other things, and probably threw his own magic in there, too, to a large degree. But i just yeah like any anything like that where it's just like you know like a thought experiment you know how do you think about higher dimensions what are they um and this particular book it is explain it's just trying to explain how to think about the tarot and how it uh overlaps with the cabalistic tree of life so i
Mike:
[3:14:42] Think there's a lot to be found in the older spiritual traditions that are taken kind of as myth, but they actually end up describing things that we are now witnessing through our scientific sort of apparatuses.
Mike:
[3:15:04] And whether that indicates a previous, civilization more advanced than ours or approaching the same level of advancement that got lost, or whether it's a divine revelation of some sort, or whether it's more an intuitive thing people thought up and it turned out to be kind of true. You know, all of these are possibilities, but it's, that's really fascinating to me because it's kind of the intersection of spirituality and scientific thought. And I'm adamant that those things don't have to go against each other. They can be understood in a way that's congruent with one another. If you make the effort, if you're not just trying to win an argument, you can actually understand things from both of those viewpoints as a cohesive whole. I don't see the harm in doing that I think that we should be making the effort to do that that seems like something like a noble effort that needs to be, driven for rather than trying to use one to shine the other kind of thing.
Tyler:
[3:16:33] So what do you make of the fact that you yourself have created real existing worlds that you know have things in them that have consequences that you were talking earlier about a guy playing the game and wanting the cat removed with the sound of the cat dying to be removed and such and you decide what the morals are in your world and how the avatar, maybe you can't influence how the soul on the other side of the computer feels about it, but what their avatar can and can't do and how they can influence it and all that. I think game design is, to me, that is one of the most interesting things about it is that you are the god of your own little world when you make a game.
Mike:
[3:17:21] I would never put it in those words because that would be kind of an insulting to me I wouldn't want to say that about myself sure.
Mike:
[3:17:35] Designer yes fine, but yeah I think I think I try to make sure that the games I make line up with, the beliefs that I have in some way. It's not always a one-to-one. Islands of the Caliph was more one-to-one. This is my religion. I'm kind of just, here it is, kind of thing. But in Cyclopean, it's a little more abstract. And it's also influenced, for sure, by other things I've read and understood in the past outside of the framework of religion, which is a weird thing to juggle, but I also think that there's a lot of ideas that are compatible, right? And I'm trying to emphasize those. Yeah, it could make it about, like I could make a Lovecraft game about black magic and witchery and all these things like that.
Mike:
[3:18:43] That's a valid sort of approach to working with his material as a source but that's not the game I would want to make with it.
Mike:
[3:18:56] So yeah it's it's as far as the design process, it's all about making decisions right i have to choose, which players to listen to if if one guy's saying the tent needs to be earlier in the game because it gives you this safety zone and another player is like this tent is way too powerful and it should be limited i can't i can't incorporate both of those both of those feedbacks i have to choose one or the other prayers or or find the middle path between the two right yeah yeah um, am i am i creating a world no i don't think i'm i don't think of this as creating a world, it's it's designing a an experience right for people in the world what.
Tyler:
[3:20:02] If that's how the big G thinks about us what if we're not a world what if we are just an experience
Mike:
[3:20:10] Um I mean there's an argument there there's an argument to make there that we, our interactions are somehow illusory and I don't go into that because, it would kind of imply that I don't see how that would benefit me to think that way.
Tyler:
[3:20:42] I think that's a valid way of looking at it too. Like, does this serve me? Um, one of the most interesting things I've heard someone say was, uh, they were talking about like astral projection and like remote viewing and, uh,
Tyler:
[3:20:58] Claim to have basically had a conversation with some other beings in the universe. Outside of this reality okay and they came to the conclusion that like amongst all of those souls that exist out there in the universe whether or not they pass through this one that being human is like an impressive badge of honor because not all souls do that run that experience because it's like why would you choose to limit yourself to three dimensions like that's great you know and then like so the ones that have lived this life and graduated up to the next one or or whatever that is and they're like you know talking about like well you know what all have you done what all have you done is like well for a while i was a human they're like oh human interesting what did you learn from limiting yourself to three dimensions and living that whole life where you don't even get to remember that you're a perfect beautiful soul of light and they're like well honestly i think i'm a better perfect beautiful soul of life for having lived that experience that's interesting it was very interesting it was a crazy caller who called into like art bell's hotline right some but right still there's like all these little nuggets of just profound ways of thinking about things that i find endlessly fascinating
Mike:
[3:22:25] Yeah. I tried astral projection once.
Tyler:
[3:22:32] Okay. I got a little bit more time.
Mike:
[3:22:36] I probably should cut it after this. I've got some kids upstairs.
Tyler:
[3:22:43] Just tell me the...
Mike:
[3:22:45] I'll tell you the gist of it. I don't know.
Tyler:
[3:22:47] We can save it for another episode if you want to.
Mike:
[3:22:51] I opened the door, so I wouldn't want to deny it.
Tyler:
[3:22:56] Run an ad right before this
Mike:
[3:22:59] We had these time life books about mysteries of the unexplained and they described it in there and I went through all the steps, and my experience whatever you want to call it dream reality something in between the two. I don't know. My experience was that I, emerged from my body. I looked around my room. I saw myself lying in the bed through the mirror, like I could see myself in the mirror. And I got the hell scared out of me. And i went back it was not a comfortable joyous experience for me it was, what the hell am i doing sorry for my my language i that's the only word that keeps coming out of that experience this is like.
Tyler:
[3:24:12] Yeah this
Mike:
[3:24:13] Is not good i don't need to be here i need to go back into my safety of my body and stay there.
Tyler:
[3:24:19] Maybe you flew a little too close to the sun maybe that was off limits for you i
Mike:
[3:24:23] Didn't even leave my bedroom so.
Tyler:
[3:24:25] Maybe that was the tree falling in the forest telling you like yeah or no further down this path yeah good where you're at man thank you for making experiences that i uh continue to enjoy i really appreciate it
Mike:
[3:24:38] I hope to be able to continue to do that while i am in this plane of existence.
Tyler:
[3:24:45] I hope i get to see you out there in space and we can talk about well man remember we were human bro right that was wild we were like telling each other stuff we already knew isn't that weird um yeah man uh seriously like thank you so much for for being uh still number one most occurrences on the show definitely gonna do it again sure it's
Mike:
[3:25:11] A record to beat now, thank you for having me as always it's a pleasure and I love your questions and the exchange of ideas we always have.
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Tyler:
[3:25:34] All-time favorite guests as always he was uh incredible so make sure that you are following him on all those social mediums and whatnot and go right now and don't just buy cyclopean the great abyss don't just buy that game buy all of his games right now star explorers amazing paradox vector awesome islands of the caliph incredible anomalies great use it to make soundtracks for your game if you want to you totally can uh yeah just thank you to all of our wonderful patreon supporters shannon and michael fred brett y'all rule if you're not already in the patreon you should consider joining you get access to all kinds of cool things links in the show notes and on our website in the keep.com yeah i love you god love you stay Stay in the keep. Keep going. Keep trying. Keep working. Keep pushing.
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