January 30, 2023 • 58 mins
Shipheads, meet Anthony and Aaron, VR devs with a new game to show off and fascinating insights into the unique space in which they work. Arcaxer is VR’s first turn-based RPG. We dive into how they came up with such a wild idea, went about accomplishing it, and the trials and travails of trying to market the thing now that it exists. Visor up and let’s see what the next evolution of gaming looks like (spoilers: it involves running on a treadmill and then vomiting).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of One Upsmanship
(00:29):
emphasis on the man ship. We got four swinging, dirty
dicks here today, and I'm the guy who's gonna introduce
each and every one of them to you, not visually,
so don't worry about that, purely through the audio medium. UM,
we'll be talking to these various dicks. I'm one of them.
(00:50):
My name is Michael Swain. I host One Upsmanship. And
there's another dude who hosts One Upsmanship and he's over there.
I'm over here, unwashed. As he said, Adam Dancer. You know,
it just occurred to me that I'm here. It's just
I'm surrounded by a's. That's right. Um. So there's Michael
and Adam, and let's get two more a's in here. Uh,
(01:12):
special guests of the day, can you please introduce yourselves
in whichever order, UH is appropriate given your relative importance.
I just can't first particular order. I'm gonna go first
because I'm bigger, there you go, and cooler. I'm Anthony
with Overrun Games. Uh. And then I didn't get the memo.
(01:33):
I did take a shower recently, but Aaron from Overrun Games,
so I'm not a dirty dick. But I'm here, someone
get that mud clean, glistening dick. Um, all right, well
we're past that unpleasantness. I'm sure I heart loved that
intro they did. Let's uh but thank you Anthony and
Aaron for being here. Um. Very exciting to talk to you.
(01:55):
Wanted to talk to you particularly because your current game,
our Caxer, is in the VR space and we just
covered our first VR game on the show Half Life Alex.
And I assume our Caxer is you know, that level
of budget that kind of similar to Half Life Alex.
I imagine that's what it looks like. Pretty close. Yeah,
so we we will dive into the game. First things First,
(02:17):
I have a question right out of the gate. I
want to point out that we very rarely get to
or I guess, however, you look at a Dane to
actually talked to developers on the show. We usually cover
individual titles. Uh, and so we've we've so we've spoken
to Charlie Cleveland about sub Nautica. That game is called
sub Nautica as in under the Sea. It takes place
(02:38):
under the sea. We've talked to Tyler Maitland about his
game about a Frog on the sea. It's called sea frog.
What does art Caxter mean? It's really bothering me, is it?
You'd neither arc axes or are you in our caxer?
Explain our caxer? Explain it? Uh so, it's a made
up word, obviously, a really cool it's a combination of
(03:01):
the word arcane and hackser arcanecane haser. So that joke
is from the late nineties, so in a way it
could be pronounced our cake sir, or there's an argument
for that is absolutely not our cake sir. Okay, all right,
(03:22):
that's sentence stone from the horse's mouth. But it reminds
me when I was in the grocery store and I
saw those grape flavored apples they made, and we had
a big argument about whether that would be grapple or grapple.
I'm sure this who's we I don't know, another interested
party at the store. I'm sure this is what Aaron
and Anthony wanted to talk about to promote their game
(03:42):
when they came on. No, I we do our bits
and then we get into it. Let's get into it.
I wanna seriously ask um, So for folks who haven't
played Our Cakeser, which is all, I'm calling it from
now on. Uh, it's I would say, craig me if
I'm wrong, But I feel like the hook to me,
or at least what blew my mind when I loaded
(04:03):
it up, was it's a turn based RPG NPR and
you ain't seen that yet? And Uh, I want to
ask how did you arrive at? Uh? And I always
asked this, but it's always such a different answer, which
is great to me. How do you arrive at? That's
the one We're gonna pour our time and resources for
years or however long into that idea versus any other idea.
(04:24):
And there's a new dimension in this conversation because also
why is it in like, why have your game versus
a terrestrial game? How did you arrive at that? That
passion point? First of all, I've never heard the word.
I've never heard of terrestrial before. I like that. I'm
trying to get it to catch up. Well, they used
to call I think it's called terrestrial radio. If it's
(04:44):
not XMA, we call it we call them flat screen games.
But terrestrial has a lot more appeal to me. Their
next game is gonna be called Terrex or so. I
hope you're well the hacks. The hack string will come
in later, but let's start with the RPG element. I'm sure. Um,
so that's a good question. So I got really into
(05:06):
VR around when the Oculus development kids started going out,
like the really early ones. And uh, ever ever since then,
I was just like, this is this is awesome, Like
I want to do just VR stuff now. So ever
since then, UM, I've just been doing like cool VR
prototypes and and uh just been playing around in the
space and eventually I was playing some some classic RPGs,
(05:32):
some some SNS, Final Fantasy Chrono, Trigger, all the hits,
all the classics, and uh, I was like, I I
feel like, um, I want to feel like the drama
of of a slow like turn like a slower paced
turn based battle in VR. Because I really liked the
immersion of VR UM and I felt like putting you
(05:56):
in the shoes of like a like a j RPG
hero would feel really cool. Um, so I wanted to
just emulate that in virtual reality. So that was kind
of the goal, was creating these like, uh, dramatic, big
VR first person battles, but with that like classic s
n S RPG feel. Yeah. One of the things that's
(06:18):
that's really awesome about it. Sorry, thank you. Uh. One
of the things really awesome about I was telling them
this when we're getting set up is that I'm not
a big turn based guy, and the cool thing about
this game is that it's sort of populates the part
of turn base that I always found frustrating, which is
like waiting for your turn. So like, they give you
a VR experience that's like dodging the attacks of the
(06:41):
other of the things you're fighting, and it really changes
the experience in a in a great way. Like I
think that, Uh, it's sort of it populates a kind
of an idea that I wouldn't have thought of, but
now I'm like, yeah, I feel like all these games
should have this component. Now, you know it talks about
this on the Alex episode. But I think one reason
(07:01):
VRS especially impactful to like Crust the older gamers like
us is it's allowing us the added dimension of immersion,
is allowing us to experience feelings that we thought we
could only have for the first time once. And uh,
I think this captured that or like VR applies to
that so well in the sense that it's been really
(07:23):
interesting to watch various devs approach things that I, in
my haughty arrogance, was like, well, they'll never have that
genre in VR because of the nature of the view,
Like I keep taking for granted what VR can be
based on the limited pool of what I've seen it do,
and I go, well, you know, you've got a wiggle stuff,
So how could you ever do, for example, something turn
(07:44):
based that would never work in VR? My brain thinks,
and I never think about it again. And then there's
and then seeing a game like Our Cakes Are uh,
really brought me back to that feeling of oh, I
didn't even know the toy could do that, and unfolded
in a new to mention which I haven't had in
so long, and I keep having repeatedly in VR as
we venture into new genres in VR. UM So I
(08:07):
just think it's really really smart. I'm proud that you
guys got there first. Good for you. It's such a
clever idea. Uh. The other element that immediately pops out
as soon as you start playing it is the sort
of darkly humorous tone that's also meta. And I wanted
to ask about well two games, so Adam, you mentioned
(08:29):
the ability to make the dead time of a normal
turn based RPG active, which is something this game does
very well. Um. That took me back to playing Mario
RPG for the first time, which I feel like, uh
was the first time I experienced like, oh, there's stuff
to do on the enemy turn. Um, and then the
other thing is and Adam's gonna hate this. I got
(08:50):
inscription vibes off of this because of the propensity to
go meta and the way that you actually start talking
in terms of it being a game, and indeed you
introduce not just spells but like hacks that affects the
title of the game, but as well the gameplay and
the you know your enemies and you can like change
the rules on them. So how do you arrive at
(09:12):
this melange of stuff? Like what's your development process? Like
how many of you are there? Is it just you
guys sitting around chatting with a whiteboard? Like how do
you go for It's gonna be a j RPG. It's
gonna be vr it's gonna be uh dark, you know,
like darkly comical, and it's going to break the fourth wall.
This is a very specific set of elements. Take us
(09:33):
through all of them. Plates. Yeah, let me try to
remember at least two of the things. So the jungle.
So first, first of all, yeah, it's it's mostly just
the two of us. I do the programming, writing and
most of the music, and Aaron does all the fancy
three D art and concept art and concept art all
(09:55):
the most of the stuff. You look at the rigging
and yeah, um, as far as the kind of the
story and the sci fi vibe, um, I don't really
know how we can't how we the story and that
kind of dark meta humor is just who we are
as people. Yeah, I've I've always liked, you know, meta
(10:16):
games and uh a RG has always been a lot
of fun. We talk about that kind of stuff pretty often.
What was it, Doki Dokei Literature Club, Yeah, that was
It wasn't in it like an inspiration to arch Actra
because it doesn't we don't get into like editing save
files and stuff. But that wasn't really that was a
game that was at the very least like, oh look
at that. That's that's sure as weird, we can we
(10:37):
can be weird. But as far as like the whole
theme of your So for those they don't know, the
story of the game is that you're playing the simulation
where all the people in the simulation are like generated
from people's like social media information on the Internet. So
like the ideas that, like your Facebook profile, the data
might be gathered and that would create a person inside
(10:58):
of this universe, and most of the people are dicks.
They're called toxins when they're when they're made from rude, shitty,
evil profiles. So yeah, when the when the system gathers
data of someone, it would deem like a toxic person
that makes a toxin and then those are the enemies
you fight. Um. As far as that idea, I think
we chose that originally because, um, we're we were going
(11:21):
to go different than the social media integration aspect. Originally
the game was actually gonna be built for Twitch streamers.
It was going to be a game where you would
like integrate it with your Twitch chat and then your
chatters would be able to like affect the game by
like typing things in the chat to like either like
harm you, make it the game harder or help you. Um,
(11:42):
and that was gonna like tie heavily into the story.
But we ended up going away from that direction because
we figured that was pretty early on and then Anthony
had a lot of really cool RPG elements that seemed
kind of brutal to lock behind you have to be
a Twitch streamer with followers. It was just way too
niche to have, Like this is a VR j RPG
that also can be played by Twitch, but we're we're
(12:04):
gonna have an audience of two people. Well so that's
interesting because you're already kind of doing that by choosing VR, right,
Like it takes some courage or fucket attitude or like,
this is what I want to do, So that's fine,
let's just do it. Um over money, over everything, or
you'd be making some kind of gotcha mobile game. So
(12:26):
what Like So another moment that I keep taking VR
for granted. So for example, when I was thrown into
your dungeon bed at the beginning, I assumed, oh, this
is what the game will be, and then when you
get to the hub over area, you're like, oh man,
it's a real game. Like there's a whole game. Um,
what are some inspirational VR titles that really got you
(12:48):
into it? You mentioned being in it from the beginning,
so to speak, early on, but like, what are some
of the big VR titles for you? And well, let's
start there. I have another question, but I'm meaning to
I'm throwing too much at once. Um. Yeah, favorite of
VR titles are like all time VR titles, anything that
happened to inspire our caccer as far as VR games. Uh,
(13:11):
that's a good question. UM. I would say one game
that I played really early on was called Blasters of
the Universe, which was like a uh, just kind of
a standard wave shooter, but I had this bullet hell
element to it, um where a lot of the game
just involved like bullet patterns coming at you and having
to dodge it with your body. And uh, super Hot
(13:33):
kind the same thing, the same thing, same thing along
the lines of like Super Hot, where a lot of
the game is like kind of moving your body almost
in a puzzle fashion to try to dodge these projectiles.
And we thought like that that would be a really cool,
um kind of enemy attack mechanic for an RPG. I
know Aaron really likes games like Paper Mario. I'm a
(13:55):
big fan of like the Mario and Luigi series where
you have this like kind of active turn bay battle system.
I thought like, yeah, that would be really cool and
VR um and really active to our our game kind
of gives you a workout because we forced you to
move around it. And then there are some really cool
VR games. But a lot of what inspired Anthony's design
(14:15):
philosophy for Archaccer was what isn't present in VR at
the time. When we started. Our first game was was
a wave shooter, so you stood in a circle and
enemies came at you and it was all real time,
and it was it was okay, um, but they were
already like a million of them. So we decided to
really kind of dig down and get into the weirder,
(14:37):
more fun mechanics that we saw in other games and
expand into areas that we hadn't seen before. So that's
what wasn't there. It was really inspirational. That says. On
that theme, something I also wanted to ask was like,
are there genres other than RPG that you think that's
(14:57):
got to come to VR eventually? Or are their genres that,
like me, they where you think, well, they could never
do that in VR, Like now that you're familiar with
how the that space works, is are there limits to
what VR can do? Or do you believe we can
get something as details and epic as like Starfield or
what have you? In VR? Someday. Oh yeah, you can
(15:17):
absolutely make any kind of game you want VR. I
think the main limiting factor right now it is just
the audience. Like you're not gonna get a lot of
these big Triple A studios making big expensive games yet
for these headsets, just because they won't make their money back. Yeah,
it's early on. There were I don't know six or
seven Triple A companies that pour just piles of money
(15:38):
into games that seven people played, and now they're all
pretty pretty gunshy on it. But as far as the
hardware like limiting the kind of games you can make,
I I don't think that's a factor at all. No,
especially now with the controllers and the inside out tracking.
You know the fact that the Quest too is just
it's a standalone unit that you don't need cables or
wires for. It's so user friendly and some bowl mm
(16:01):
hmm does it still I'm looking at getting one of
those quests for Christmas. You still need to plug into
a gaming PC to access Steam though, yeah, or did
Yeah if you're playing PC. Yeah, if you're playing like
PCBR games like Half Live Alex for examples, PC only, um,
you don't have to plug in with the quests. They
(16:21):
have this thing called airlink where you can like wirelessly
connect to your computers. It's not bad. Yeah, you're gonna
get like a little bit more latency that way, but um,
you know, if you don't want to have a wire
coming out the back of your head, that's always a
cool idea. It works a lot better than I would
have expected. Yeah, well, we do seem to be in
this middle place though, where VR games are or a
(16:43):
lot of the ones, especially the ones that are tied
into major properties or i p s, are like an
experience of limited scope, and then other ones are trying
to prove that VR can be full on games, um
like Ascard's Wrath or I feel like our caxster does
some degree like uh in terms of like the depth
(17:03):
of the mechanics, I was like, this was more than
I thought VR could do. So let me ask, is
there what's different about it? Then? If anything? Or is
designing in VR, like, is it just a chain, you know,
mapping it to a new technology and slapping the camera
in a different spot. What's unique about developing for VR?
Do you think about anything in a different way? Yeah? So,
(17:26):
for one thing is, um, you can never force the
player camera to go somewhere where they're not trying to move,
so like, for example, so like I think Resident Evil
for that just got ported to VR is a really
good example of some interesting issues. Um. There are cut
scenes in the game that, um, you have to watch
(17:46):
in third person because there's just no way to like
give you that experience in first person, Like if Leon
gets knocked over on the ground or something like, you
can't force the immediately, so like when when those or
events happened, you get like thrust in the third person.
Now you're just kind of watching this stuff happen to
your character because you know they just they can't do
(18:08):
that to you. Um, So that's like one thing you
have to think of, is, uh, what what am I
gonna do? Like there's some games where you get like
knocked down on the ground, and the only way they
can really like emulate that in VRS to just like
move the camera down, which is weird because you just
feel like your your head is floating through the ground space.
(18:29):
Although it does make me now want a game where
you're fighting each other and every time you take a
hit it causes your VR camera to just like spin
wildly and whoever first loses I was literally going to do.
When I first started working in VR, I'm like, I
want to mess with people so bad. Make a game
(18:50):
that just makes you fall over immediately. Um, I will say, yeah,
I got desensitized to it. But the first time, first
few times, I was like ending on the edge of
a building or something. In VR, my legs shook and
the whole adrenaline rush and flops seat and everything. Um.
I'm almost sad that it wears off, but it did
wear off of it. Now my brain is firmly aware
(19:11):
that I'm playing a game, now that I've get logged
enough hours. Yeah, that experiences um unique when you're first
getting into it. We did designer Anthony design Arc Extra
to really be gentle on first timers. So you know,
in the over world you've always got that fixed horizon,
which is really good for tricking your brain. And then
in the first person in combat, you are fully in
(19:32):
control of everything and there's no jerking or jumping, so
it's really um it's it's really good at easing your
brain into the concepts, which I appreciate. I still don't
have my full VR legs, mostly because I'm working on
a flat screen most of the time. Yeah, I uh,
I preferred the first person ultimately, mainly because especially the
(19:54):
early dungeon environments with like the green glow around the
edges and stuff. Really, being first person in VR really
took me back to like Cesar, which was my local
laser tag place in a good way. I like the
environments a lot. I also think I also think that
when you're playing a VR game, leaving the first person
(20:14):
perspective is a little bit not giving you the thing
you expect. I think in the VR like you expect
the first person experience a little bit every if that's
a change. Yeah, Like when that's the thing for the
first time, I was like, you can't do that. Oh
it does work. I see, Yeah, that is true. Yeah,
it's fun. For the longest time, it was third person
(20:36):
only in the over World, but it was like our
most requested feature to add our first person movement. And
if and if you play in first person, you'll notice
like some things aren't really designed for it, Like when
you started story cutting, it will pop you back in
the third person. Um, because our our first person in
the over World was kind of an afterthought. Um. But yeah,
there were so many people there's like, just just let
(20:57):
me move around in first person. I was like, fine,
yes at the first. At the beginning, the only way
you could be in first person in moving around the
overworld was getting on the skateboard and then jetting around,
which is almost guaranteed to make anyone less than like
a hardened VR veteran involvement immediately. But people were still
doing it and it was they were dedicated. You know,
(21:26):
have you guys getting to the point where you have
to like get testers who are not as seasoned in
VR to know if it's to know if the game
is difficult to ingest. I guess who were your first testers?
Like who did you share this with when I was
still being developed, you know? Or did you keep it
between the two of you early on? Like it was
(21:49):
mostly just friends and family, Like I have my wife
played all the time, and she definitely doesn't have VR legs,
so I know if if she gets sick, then uh,
it's probably there's a problem there. Yeah. Actually, when we
first started developing, we only had the one headset, and
since Anthony was all the programming and testing, I didn't
play it for like a year. Is a VR dev
(22:12):
kit in VR? You know? So like when you're defining
the hit box for an enemy for a spell or whatever.
Are you doing that with a mouse and or are
you doing that in VR with a controller. Yeah. For
the most part, everything you design is just going to
be on on the computer and then you go into
the headset to test it out. Okay, got you, Which
(22:32):
does mean you get to say I'm going in about
a hundred times a day, which never gets less fun.
And uh, there's so much fun stuff with testing VR,
like when you know, you mess up a rigid body
or something and then your camera goes flying into the
air and spins around you. God. I did a at
a VR kade once. I did one where you lie
(22:53):
down on your belly and you're fully supported by this
flexible table and fans blow wind your face that are
just based on the angle you're turning, and you fly
by flapping your arms like a bird and it is incredible,
touching the face of God. It was so majestic. Um,
it can really fool your brain the more stimulus that
(23:15):
they add the layers to Uh. Yeah, but I think
it is so like I'm uh, we're covering no man's
sky either soon or did, depending on the release order,
and I've been going through that again in VR as well.
And uh, I do think we're still at the we're
like at the end of the beginning of VR where
I still want it. I still want the integration to
(23:37):
be smoother and better. I still I am kind of
a hard and VR VET, or at least I like
VR and I play it a lot, but uh, I
can only do two and a half hours and I
still get the upset stomach and have to set it down. Um,
So I think there's I'm really excited for when I
can sink eight hours into a big RPG in VR. Uh,
(23:58):
And I think that will come you. That's a hardware
advancement thing as well. That's just happening over time. Like
I'm on the old school quest and I have big
screen door effect, and I'm sure that's part of it.
By the way, Adam, have you been doing more VR
since we got you that VRS kit? As I told
them because they were asking me before we started recording
a little bit to be honest with you, Uh, it's
(24:19):
it's the I have to get over the idea of
like relaxing when I play video games, Like that's the
idea that yeah, like I don't find VR to be relaxing,
and I it shouldn't be. I think, I think like
that's the thing the VR offers, is like true physical engagement,
and uh, I like being a soft forty year old boy,
(24:41):
you know what I mean? You might like you might
like the Royland one where you're in a chair moving around.
I see, I thought our cacter was fairly uh that
in the sense that relaxing. Well, I mean, you're dodging
and ship. But I still find the fact that it's
turn based and that it's an RPG, like I settle in,
let's do this, um, and I'm excited that there's more
(25:03):
VR games like that, where instead of treating it like
no one's ever experienced VR, here's a two hour roller
coaster ride of special effects reels, actual games. I just
think I'm enjoying the fact that we're getting to real games.
Although our cacter does have a treadmill that you really
have to run on and as they mentioned, a skateboard
that will make you throw up. So like, you guys
(25:23):
aren't afraid to funk with people? Um? What are so?
What are? Where did that come from? You say? It's
just who we are? But can I ask, are there
games that come to mind as far as fucking with
people other than DOKEI DOKEI uh like, what are your well,
you know what brought the whole hacks element into it
for you? Quick side note um for the longest time
(25:45):
we were on side Quests, which is like a sub
distribution platform, and Anthony's profile was I made this whole
games that you play my stupid treadmill simulator jokes on
solve America's obesity epidemic. People love the treadmill though, It's
what I'm saying. I mean, I definitely have been doing.
(26:07):
I did that. We fitness for quite a bit, gamifying fitness,
there's nothing wrong with it, gamifying learning a foreign foreign language,
like gamify everything. I'll take an app for everything. I've
talked about that a little bit. Yeah, with Anthony, I
would really I go to the gym sometimes and it's okay.
I don't hate it, I don't want to die. But
if like I had a fitbit that connected to an
auto battler or something, and I could see my little
(26:29):
guy going through chopping up goblins and getting bigger, it
would make exercise a lot better. Like I literally just
just about an Apple Watch for this purpose, and it
does mentally change how you engage with those activities. Like
I think there's I don't know what it is, but
I think there's a VR exercise app that hasn't been
invented yet that's gonna change what that is for people.
(26:52):
I really believe that there's a we Sports for VR
that is going to really change. Throw of the Fight
one of our friends just love. He loves this boxing
game and really it does get him moving and he
tracks the calories. It's not bad. And then you can
buy risk weights and you can really go nuts with
it if you want to. I'm kind of curious, are
there any like major lessons you've learned as game designers
(27:15):
for how VR is different than designing a game in
some other space like maxims or anything that you've taken.
The advice you would give yourselves again if you could
go back in time to the beginning, Um, that's a
good question. What would I tell myself from what would
avoid the most pain in the ask? Yeah? Like what
would be a good cheat if you could go back
(27:35):
in time? Yeah? So for me, it's pretty simple. Um,
I you know, I mostly do three D art and
the functional differences between flat screen and VR games is
pretty minimal. People always talk about how oh players can
explore everything from every angle, but especially in modern day
that's pretty true. Players are cognizant of how to break
and unwrap and zip and twist and figure out every
(27:56):
single thing in the game. Um. But because is it
is such low and hardware that we're using. I get
to do really low polly models. I get to do
really strongly stylized hand painted textures, which I love. And
when we first started, I wasn't really super strong on
my hand painting. It was pretty weak, and I was
using a lot of crutches from school. So I would say,
(28:19):
you know, figure it out, dummy, Start painting like things
that look good. Don't plan on the system to fix
it for you. You'd be a bastard to yourself. You'd
go back in time. They do better fast. Yeah, because
back then I was smarter and I had more energy,
and I was less healthful, I could work more condition Yeah, exactly,
(28:39):
every crazy little ship you always want to go back
to a nineteen year old and go, you're wasting it,
wasting it. And then what's funny is I grew up
with adults telling me that, and I go yeah, yeah, yeah,
And now I'm thirty seven and I'm like, oh it
is true, and I tell kids that and they're like
yeah yeah yeah. Like that's just an endless cycle. Humanity
will never transcend. That youth is wasted on the young ship. Okay, nice,
(29:04):
Well that's sort of applicable to all fields. Yeah, yeah,
that's very broad advace. Like I was gonna say, I can't.
I can't think of any like VR specific things. I
would go back and change it. But just like as
a designer, there's I grew a lot as a you know,
as a programmer over time. There's just a lot of
like basic technical stuff I would have done from the beginning.
(29:27):
Arch actra is It's a very smooth experience, but it's
been such a good lining experience for both of us.
It is our first like finish your full finished games,
So there was a lot of just general game design
stuff we had to learn along the way. And then
this one's gonna be tough for Anthony, like specific VR stuff,
just because he's been necktiep in VR since uh, but yeah,
(29:50):
he's he's figured out a lot of cool stuff. Have
you developed flat screen games previously? Like for during your
training or at school or anything like that, or have
you been VR from inception? Oh yeah, in school, we
were all flat screened. The big thing when we were
in school was there, like you got you gotta do mobile.
Every everyone's doing mobile now, So that's that's basically yeah,
(30:13):
that's all they taught us. But honestly, as an indie dev,
I don't actually think mobiles are very good. If you're
not a Malaysian sweatshop, you can't make money. There's no
way you're gonna you're gonna break the top games on
Google Play as a two person team with no money.
But we have we've tossed around the idea of covering
candy Crush or something because I talked about it. It's
(30:34):
culturally important, and I guess you could talk for an
hour about what it means for humanity and people in
business and politics. But god, it's like it's just a
It's like a covering slot machines are like you know,
or or like covering your fitbit app. Like it's it's
so simple and uh, and it's really about what what
(30:56):
does it serve in a broader sense than But the
game itself doesn't have that much to talk talk about. Yeah,
it's something more of a video essay topic to really
get into the nitty gritty of lawsuits and buying companies
for I P rights and all that weird stuff that's happening.
I have like a really big dumb question, but I
feel like I always want to know this, Like, Uh,
(31:16):
do you feel like this game is a pretty good
summary of your aesthetic or do you feel like you're
still discovering that? Uh? And if you had to describe
what that game would be if it's your perfect aesthetic,
what would that how would you describe? Yeah? Like, will
your next game also feel basically like this? Or do
you Yeah? This is like this is definitely like our
(31:40):
beta aesthetic. Yeah, this is a firm prototype of what
we want to be, especially in terms of visually. Um,
you might notice a lot of strong, simple shapes and
very bright colors and that's yeah, I like notice that,
And so like if the next game doing to be
that but more. Okay, if somebody had to do like
(32:01):
a triple A budget, would you still want to make
a game that feels and and operates like this? I
would probably return the contract. Unsigned we have to scale
up and get more people and it would be different.
I definitely, I really like working with a few people,
and me and Anthony really work well together in it
(32:26):
truly for the love of the game. I like that.
Uh yeah, because but I will say no offense. But
like while playing our caccer, I also it was like, well,
now that this proves that this works, I would be
very interested in like a triple A Final Fantasy RPG
and VR that. Honestly, with the summons and ship happening
(32:48):
all around you every step of the way, I've been
like thinking, like, when is someone with a budget going
to come in and scoop us? Because like the game
is really cool and it's really neat, and Anthony has
done a lot of good stuff, but like it's not
impossible to figure out how to make this work. Yeah,
I absolutely think we're gonna see like a big budget
like JRPG here, and maybe in a few years in
(33:10):
a similar style. Yeah, we might see a five years
down the line arch Actra, the small game that got
ripped off video essays and yet I mean, but you
can see why see And I think that's what's so
smart about what you guys did. There's not like I
think you targeted for the kind of people who would
have a VR headset right now, right, and the people
(33:31):
like the kind of stuff they'd be interested in, Whereas, like,
you know, if square Enix was like, we're gonna make
this big RPG, I don't think they'd make it for
VR yet, right, there's not people on VR yet. Yeah,
It's it's hard to justify a studio of three people
when um, you might make a million sales. Yeah, but
it's it's it's gotta I feel like it's inevitable. And
(33:54):
yet I'm like, there will one day be a thriving
VR game. I just believe it because it's such a pelling.
Anyone who does try it is like, oh, this is
really cool. Like I've never slapped the headset on someone
who didn't admit that. Even people are like, ah, it's
just a gimmick, and I go like, try this. My
favorite is because it requires no controls, so even people
(34:14):
who don't know video games are cool with it. There's
a simulated ayahuasca trip in VR and it's twenty minutes,
and I always have people do that and they go, yeah,
you're right, that's pretty pretty cool. I haven't experienced anything
like that before. Um, so it feels like we have
to have it someday triple A VR market. But at
the same time, after Alex was such a big swing
(34:37):
that everyone's like, yeah, you did it. It's great. Um,
but we're still not gonna buy a whole headset and
like play it. Uh. I know, I like understandably everyone's scared.
I get it. So even all, you know what, honestly
even more respect for the andy devs in the space
because you guys are keeping it alive basically well and
(34:57):
then kind of sorry looking back on that. This first
game was made on almost entirely nights and weekends and holidays,
and our our next project is actually being funded by
our publisher, which is really exciting. So we're not going
to see the Triple A version of ARC Expert, but
we're definitely going to see the double A version of
ARC Excer, which just so much more. Okay, yes, I
(35:18):
wanted to I always want to ask about this, Like, so,
you obviously get to find a very rewarding working with
each other and doing the creative part, and you found
a good like groove artistically, what is the business side
like to you? How much of your job requires you know, packaging,
marketing business, doing podcasts to promote the game. Uh, and
(35:40):
how much is that a chore? Do you hate it?
Or how much is it? Like no? Or you know
what I mean? Like, because yeah, we definitely have the
stuff we like to do. And then the tedious business
side that's also important. How is that in the game world. Honestly,
the last like year, like just before be released on
(36:00):
the Quest Store was like almost like ninety percent marketing
stuff and calls a lot of yah um. And then
the year leading up to that we were still on
the sub store of the App Lab. I handled a
lot of our marketing at that point. It wasn't horrible.
I don't hate it, but it is not as energizing
(36:21):
as I find three D artwork. It's so making a
fireball hit of Gablin or whatever I would. I would
spend about one day a week just trolling Reddit telling
everyone to go buy the game, finding as many YouTubers
as I could find that I haven't covered our game
or that might cover it again, and trying unsuccessfully to
(36:42):
get in in trade magazines and stuff. Um. But luckily,
in this last year, like Anthony said, it's been all
meetings and polishing we we finally got papa oculuses or
meta attention, and we've been able to to work with
the company and with a higher grade of marketers. You
know what they're doing. Uh. And it's still it's still
(37:04):
rough and tough, but it's it's always fun. Honestly. I
love doing podcasts. I love watching people play the game.
Often when there's a livestream, I'll be in the chat,
like giving advice and tips and tricks, kind of like
navih and I bat one of YouTube covers it. It's
fun to see the finished video for sure. Oh yeah.
Even the negative reviews, which we're getting more, it's it's
(37:25):
nice to see that someone had the energy. Like I
liked the first time we got a negative video, thought
it was kind of cool because it was like that
that meant our game was big enough in his eyes
to like not like it and still make a video
about it. That felt pretty good. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Right.
The obligation of that, right, it's a it's a substantial
(37:45):
enough import that somebody has to shoot on it a moment.
That's a good moment, it really is. You give me
more of those. Okay, I just started. I thought it
bucket um Okay, I had I had one. What did
I want to talk about after the business thing? I'm
(38:06):
giving it too, I'm giving the space. Well, I do
want to understand how you conceptualize thinking about the design
and the mechanics, because uh, mostly thinking about or you know,
when I was at recess or daydreaming about the game
I would design. I always mimic a board game, or
in my mind, every game at base is some versions
(38:29):
of dungeons and dragons or like a table of percentages
and a dialogue tree and a tech tree blah blah blah.
And VR almost always necessitates some level of physics as well.
And of course our cacster has that in the you're
moving your body, you're dodging fireballs, you're dodging spiky balls,
and you're like actually physically attacking with the sword and whatnot. Um, Like,
(38:52):
how do you go about diagramming out what your game
play is? That's what I mean. It's like, what do
your notes look like when you're designing this game? What's
an outline? What's the is a little picture of like
and then the human body will do this and this
is what happened? Like what are you doing? I mean
it's it's mostly the same as like the way you
do with a normal RPG, Like if you break down
(39:15):
the attacks, it's just like you have your sword attack,
you have your fireball, and just imagine those as if
there were no motions involved. But then think about like, Okay,
instead of there being a chance to miss with the fireball,
this instead is just how good the player is aiming.
That's the chance to miss. Now. Um, that's actually super
(39:36):
interesting to me because it takes something that was chance
and makes it effort slash skill based. That's what I like.
Did you have any discussions about like does this unbalance
the game or change the nature of what an RPG is?
You know, one of my favorite things about the final
design for Arc Actra is that it's very Dark Souls
and that once you learn the patterns, once you learn
(39:58):
the route, once you get an idea of what you
want to have, and when you don't have to get
hit anymore. Um and Anthony actually never played Dark Souls
before until elden Ring came out, so that was his
first Souls born. But he still managed to really recreate
that experience and we had a player who finished last week.
He finished his first game through and then he came
(40:19):
in the next day and he's like, I'm on Blue
Mage now I'm halfway through the game. I'm ripping through it.
No one's hitting me, and that that progress is so
cool to see because he started off like, how the
hell do I beat this guy? I'm getting my ask
beat Yeah. Yeah. But and back on the game design, Um,
we so like, for example, the enemy damage we made
very very high. So like in a normal RPG, you
(40:42):
you wouldn't want an enemy attack to do like nine
of your health most of the time. But in this game,
we kind of expect you to be dodging everything, so
the getting hit is like super punishing. So that was
that was definitely a part of like the paper design,
I guess. So it's interesting that it replicates you are
replic htting something that can be done in a flat
screen game, but it is different, like it is changing
(41:05):
the nature of what's actually happening. Um, it's interesting to
me to think of I have different I have mixed
feelings around, like shouldn't an RPG? Well, if you've listened
to the show before, you know I'm the spreadsheets guy,
So I'm like, but shouldn't an RPG? Be rigidly predetermined
chance or like it's it's almost weird to me that
(41:26):
if you get good at a turn based RPG you
could skate through it with never getting hit, Like is
that allowed? It's like when we transitioned in society. This
is how old I am from. Um you have three
lives and then you game over and you have to
start the game over to like save points, and I
was like, now games won't be fun anymore because there's
no challenge because you can save and you don't have
(41:46):
to start the whole game over. And then uh, of course,
six months into that, I'm like, no, this is better.
It's it makes the game more accessible and more fun
to not have to pop quarters into a box and etcetera. Um,
one other, one, other, one other interesting artifact of this
And it's probably not an artiffact to you guys, but
it is to me as a as a consumer. Is
(42:10):
that being able to dodge the attacks means they hit
me instead of hitting my character. So I literally like
so it really feels like not I mean, this is melodramatic,
but it feels like you're on a firing line like
an oldiable battle. You know what. My no that's I mean,
I don't have to say much more, but like, that's
like the thing that was missing for Turn based for
(42:32):
me is that that visceral feeling of that combat gives
you of like it's happening to me and you guys
totally accomplished that. Please say more, whatever you're gonna say.
One of my favorite arch Actra gifts out there is
our friend Tatiana. She runs this YouTube channel called disco
vir and the first time she reviewed the game, the
insect flying buggle that launches itself directly at your head,
(42:54):
she had this, Yeah, she had this outtake gift of
her just hitting the floor. Yep, like hard. I felt.
I felt bad, but like I've also done that myself,
and it's yeah, that visceral moment is always but whole
another level. Yeah, it's great. It's one of the reasons why,
like the first couple of times you play Fallout it's
so awesome because those bugs attack you and you're like,
(43:16):
oh god, you know, like uh, And it's even more
visceral in a VR experience when the line between you
and the game gets fuzzier. So it's really effective like that, um,
and I love it. So I'm sorry, Mike, your spreadsheets
are are dead forever, still very important. The reason that
the game has so much level grinding is because Anthony
(43:38):
wanted a game that wasn't an experience. I use the
word experience with them air quotes as kind of experiences
where a lot of them are right now. For sure.
It's like if you notice every time you level up,
you get a you know, new stats here and there,
new ability points for your for your passive load out,
and yeah, it's a game that you can hopefully grind
(43:58):
and have fun with. So there's still some spreadsheets for you, right,
There's definitely, Yeah, there's definitely spreadsheets, except that the stats
instead of your character getting more powerful making the game
possible to play, which, like you know, in a lot
of RPGs, you just you would have to grind to
beat something. It's more like getting stronger allows you to
make more mistakes. That's interesting, but it doesn't. I mean,
(44:22):
it makes me able to imagine more things that VR
would just up, Like I play SIVE six and VR.
Now that I've played this, it makes me realize, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
looking down from a third person perspective as something is
awesome in and of itself. I don't have to be
the guy. If you conquer an Enemy seven, you get
to crush their city with your god hims, you smash
(44:44):
it on the table. That would be awesome. New pitch.
How do you land on the idea mechanically that you
use your HP to attack? Because that was almost I
don't think I've ever played RPG that uses that mechanic. Yeah, I, um,
(45:08):
I actually kind of regret making that a core partner.
Well I think no. I actually think in a non
VR game, that would have been a really cool mechanic.
The problem I have with it in our game is
that we just have so many people that like will
try the game that haven't used VR before. So like,
not only are they trying to understand this combat system
(45:30):
that's like kind of different than a lot of other
apgs with like spending your health to do mainlee attacks,
but like they're also learning how to use a VR headset.
So like a lot of people. Um, so for those
I don't know, to to hit enemies, you have to
spend HP um when you use your weapons, but using
your hacks cost action points, and when you run out
(45:51):
of action points, it goes the next turn. Um And
The reason why we designed it that way is because
it's there's kind of this whole mechanic around the UM
what we call the adrenaline rush system, which is where
when you take out an enemy, you get action points
back and you can extend your turn, and then if
you manage to kill all enemies in one turn, you
get like a big e XP bonus. So we're trying
to like encourage you to figure out how to take
(46:14):
all enemies out in one turn. And the idea behind
the Maine attacks was that they're supposed to kind of
be a way to finish off an enemy if you're
like running low in action points UM, which is cool,
but the problem is most people just they get a
sword and they go and like, yeah, I'm gonna use
the sword, and they then they slash twenty times and
kill themselves in the in the first battle outside the tutorial,
(46:34):
and then I go, didn't you read anything? I explained
it several times, So yeah, that part is a little
a little frustrating. But like what Anthony said, if you
can beautiful mind it and use just the randomount of
HP to get just the randomount of AP back and
take out the whole room, it feels really satisfied and
that that ebb and flow of combat is really neat.
But so many, so many RPGs also give you a
(46:57):
weapon or a or a spell or something that is
exactly that thing. Yeah, it kind of evolved out of
a Blood Night idea that Anthony was kicking around, and
um it just it stuck around. It mechanical, that strategic
core that you still even though you are physically moving
and using the reflexes part of your brain, there's something
(47:18):
ongoing that makes you have to think strategically, which it
wouldn't be a turn based RPG without if that part
of your brain wasn't engaged. I agree. I think the
strategy component is necessary to achieve the thing that scratches
the RPG itch, so you kind of do need it
for that. Um I'm kind of curious, like, do you
find that the reader reader, the gamer is uh less
(47:42):
willing to read and learn things than you expected? Oh? Yeah,
I think, especially in VR, A lot of people playing
a VR game definitely don't think they're going to have
to read. Um, so I definitely for the next game,
we're gonna have way less tutorial text. Um yeah, way
(48:06):
more pictures, way more three D things showing you motions
and how to do things. Um, because you know, I
think a lot of people playing VR they just want
to have like a physical interaction with your hands. And
that doesn't remind me of the first time your friends.
Scott played and he was like he was testing us
for like an onboarding experience, you know, see what a
fresh player would would get out of it. And yeah,
(48:28):
he didn't read a single goddamn word. But he did
say he found several typos at the state and that
wasn't interesting. Yeah, it was like, yeah, there's lots of typos. Also,
I didn't read anything. Okay, there are two typos though
this process. I think I saw one. I guess that
gives it its slipshot charm. Uh. So I was gonna ask,
(48:49):
like hopes for the future, I do you have ideas
for the next game, etcetera, etcetera. But clearly you guys
already have the next steps ort underway. Can't you tell
us anything about that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, we
have a few things we can say about the next
what's up? What's on the horizon? So the main thing,
the number one thing everybody requests for the first game
(49:12):
is multiplayer. So, like, one of one of the core
features we're building into the game from the beginning for
the sequel is multiplayer because I think VR especially is
like a very social thing and so many people just
want to be able to jump into these battles with
a friend as like a party member if you're if
you're antisocial like me, you can still play the whole game.
But yeah, it's gonna be a good way to integrate
(49:33):
friendships in the party. Yeah, well, yeah you don't. I'm
just kind of cure. Like again, like I just get
more and more sort of curious about the VR audience
because like, who are all these people that have friends
with VR headsets? I feel like I feel like I
know Mike and we both have them because we do
(49:54):
this for money. I just R is still very evangelical.
So you get a headset and it your favorite thing,
and then you badger your friend until they get a headset.
Is kind of a lot of the tipeline for that,
and then you get to hang out with your friend
virtually and do stuff. Um. I used to work at
a comic shop and we sold board games and stuff.
(50:15):
The most important thing I learned there is that people
just want to hang out and do stuff with their hands,
and VR is a new way to do that. Yeah,
I learned that down at the docks and it was
a very different experience. I don't really want to discuss
right now, you know, Like I can see like I
can see a coop cooking game that would do like
(50:36):
really well and cooking Mama or over Yeah, overcooked causes
so many friendship fractures. It's it's great. I love it.
Uh you all heard of lovers in a dangerous spacetime.
It's not adaptable to VR, but no, I haven't dependency
please do. Oh. I also want to ask if you're
Undertail guys, because I get Undertail vibes from this as well.
(51:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, I love Undertail. Anthony's an Undertail guy.
I'm an earthbound guy. I still haven't beat Undertail, but
I respected. Yeah. We definitely like that weird, quirky, uh
dork centric humor. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a sardonic
vibe to Undertail that I that I get. I get
just like a little winking version of it from your game,
(51:22):
and I love it well. Also, Undertail almost has the
flat the same rhythm because the combat involved these mini
games that were reflex based, which was unique for turn
based rpg. Right, so it's almost a flat screen version
of dodging your body around. Uh yeah, that's definitely not coincidental. Yeah,
(51:42):
I just realized, now, yeah, yeah, that was that. That
combat system was definitely an inspiration. I want to tell
the Toby Fox story. Oh yeah, I don't know why
I did this. I thought it would be a funny
marketing stunt if I tweeted at Toby Fox every day, um,
for like a hundred days to try to his attention,
to be fair. The goal was to do it for
like two weeks and then he would reply and tell
(52:03):
us to leave him alone, and then we'd move on.
And I was, I was, I was thinking he just
blocked me or something. Tweet every day or no, no, no, no,
they were different different, wasn't wasn't bought at all. They
were all handcrafted with some unhinged it was. I made him.
I made him pictures. That's true. We made pictures, We
made memes. I made a whole video one day. There's
(52:25):
a I mean, there's a boss fight in the game.
I'm not sure if you guys have got in a
long long horn yet. That's straight up undertail inspired the
dancing Dancing Yeah, um, which I believe we tweeted him
at some point. You never never blocked Anthony, No, he never,
(52:45):
but one day you're hoping for that ship post that
you've really done it. Yeah, I mean we but if he,
if he, if he listens to this, we'll buy him
a headset to get him to play the game. That
would be really cool. That'd be a win for all
of us. That would be a win for all of us.
Uh so is it? VR is a VR bus for
(53:07):
you guys? Like, what's your if you could pick the
next ten years of your career, what would that look
like if you had full control over that. I think
we've kind of found our our niche in VR right now.
So so for now, I think we're definitely sticking with VR.
I also just like uh cool new technology in general.
(53:29):
I also like like a R headsets and stuff. So
I would also be very down to make even an
augmented reality game or a geospatial game like Pokemon Go
or something just anything with new, cool, flashy technology. I'm
a big fan of. Yeah, Anthony is definitely a VR
true believer. Um. I like working with Anthony and you
(53:49):
kind of mentioned that there's not a lot of triple
A weight in this space, which does make it a
little bit easier as a small team to hack out
a living and here some I'm a big fan of
that too because I do money. Um, but yeah, we've
really we've found a really cool game that I've really
enjoyed making, and a really neat community in terms of
the players, in terms of the press, in terms of
(54:10):
the vloggers and the YouTubers. So I wouldn't want to
leave back for flat screen. No, I love the commitment
of that. Uh. I do believe that. I still believe
VR two. I think that even though I'm still new
to it, I think one day the price will get
low enough and the games will be and I think
(54:33):
the headsets will get like lighter, and yeah, I think
there will be something about the hardware getting better will
be important as well, because it really is. It really
is like the moment where you know cars replaced horses,
where it's like, you know, this is replaced them to
the well horses still exists. So yeah, same deal, Yah,
are added to show me a horse. I don't know.
(54:56):
The flat screen games will die. Everything passes eventually, but
I don't know the flat screen video gaming will die
because like VR will kill it, I think it will
be additive. Flat screen gaming will become pills that you
eat that give you a specific drug trip. That's what
I think screen games swallow. God of War. Just one
of the philosophical questions I wrestled with most often is Uh,
(55:20):
it goes like this, maybe one day there will be
an AI that could write a screenplay just as good
as any human can. Okay, well that's fine. I guess
we just have to accept that. Okay, Well, what about
one day if there's a pill that you can take
that just makes you feel like you just saw a
really good movie. Okay, well what if one day we're
all just in pods that made you feel like you
had a life or whatever? And then the question is
(55:42):
is there anything wrong with that? Is that bad? Is
bad to me, but it's actually fine. Person, I'm opposed
to the idea, but as a human, yeah, you could
hook up my brain to a trip of good video games,
and I guess I'd be okay with it, especially if
it's it does arrive at the matrix, which I'm ashamed by.
(56:05):
But that's my deepest philosophical thought, but for entertainment, I
feel like, yes, I think it's okay, as even though
you and I are both entertainers, Like, I don't know
if I I agree that like we'll be able to
sculp complete music or something, or like a hike, you
know what I mean, like just all those things. I
was sure the way nature makes you feel or what
(56:26):
have you. Yeah, the question is would you be able
to do that old day or would you have to
occasionally take like a torture pill to just kind of
balance it out good so that you can appreciate the good? Right?
I mean it is true that you need suffering to
appreciate the good moments, so you'd also have to take
the pill that makes you feel like ship for a day. Yeah. Yeah,
all right, Well we're wildly off topic, so I think
(56:49):
it's time to wrap out. Thanks so much for being here,
Aaron and Anthony. Um, the game is our CACS or
a R C A X E er. Is there anything
else you want to plug or where should folks follow
you or follow the game? Whatever you'd like to shout out?
Now's the time. Yeah. Arc extra dot com has all
of our links are discord if you want to talk
to us as people. We are there, we are available.
(57:09):
You can tell us it sucks. That's fine. Um, it's
the art. It's the over Arc Extra Discord yeah. Um.
And our Twitter is Arc Extra VR, which I run
most of the time. And you can tell me that
we suck there too. The pleasures, it's the only way
they can appreciate the good moments in life that read
(57:32):
us back down right, tear independent creatives down. That's the
stance of this podcast. And I heart media generally. Right. Um,
I've been Michael Swain, that's been Adam Ganzer. Yep. I
think we're done here.
Hey, hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of One Upsmanship
(00:29):
emphasis on the man ship. We got four swinging, dirty
dicks here today, and I'm the guy who's gonna introduce
each and every one of them to you, not visually,
so don't worry about that, purely through the audio medium. UM,
we'll be talking to these various dicks. I'm one of them.
(00:50):
My name is Michael Swain. I host One Upsmanship. And
there's another dude who hosts One Upsmanship and he's over there.
I'm over here, unwashed. As he said, Adam Dancer. You know,
it just occurred to me that I'm here. It's just
I'm surrounded by a's. That's right. Um. So there's Michael
and Adam, and let's get two more a's in here. Uh,
(01:12):
special guests of the day, can you please introduce yourselves
in whichever order, UH is appropriate given your relative importance.
I just can't first particular order. I'm gonna go first
because I'm bigger, there you go, and cooler. I'm Anthony
with Overrun Games. Uh. And then I didn't get the memo.
(01:33):
I did take a shower recently, but Aaron from Overrun Games,
so I'm not a dirty dick. But I'm here, someone
get that mud clean, glistening dick. Um, all right, well
we're past that unpleasantness. I'm sure I heart loved that
intro they did. Let's uh but thank you Anthony and
Aaron for being here. Um. Very exciting to talk to you.
(01:55):
Wanted to talk to you particularly because your current game,
our Caxer, is in the VR space and we just
covered our first VR game on the show Half Life Alex.
And I assume our Caxer is you know, that level
of budget that kind of similar to Half Life Alex.
I imagine that's what it looks like. Pretty close. Yeah,
so we we will dive into the game. First things First,
(02:17):
I have a question right out of the gate. I
want to point out that we very rarely get to
or I guess, however, you look at a Dane to
actually talked to developers on the show. We usually cover
individual titles. Uh, and so we've we've so we've spoken
to Charlie Cleveland about sub Nautica. That game is called
sub Nautica as in under the Sea. It takes place
(02:38):
under the sea. We've talked to Tyler Maitland about his
game about a Frog on the sea. It's called sea frog.
What does art Caxter mean? It's really bothering me, is it?
You'd neither arc axes or are you in our caxer?
Explain our caxer? Explain it? Uh so, it's a made
up word, obviously, a really cool it's a combination of
(03:01):
the word arcane and hackser arcanecane haser. So that joke
is from the late nineties, so in a way it
could be pronounced our cake sir, or there's an argument
for that is absolutely not our cake sir. Okay, all right,
(03:22):
that's sentence stone from the horse's mouth. But it reminds
me when I was in the grocery store and I
saw those grape flavored apples they made, and we had
a big argument about whether that would be grapple or grapple.
I'm sure this who's we I don't know, another interested
party at the store. I'm sure this is what Aaron
and Anthony wanted to talk about to promote their game
(03:42):
when they came on. No, I we do our bits
and then we get into it. Let's get into it.
I wanna seriously ask um, So for folks who haven't
played Our Cakeser, which is all, I'm calling it from
now on. Uh, it's I would say, craig me if
I'm wrong, But I feel like the hook to me,
or at least what blew my mind when I loaded
(04:03):
it up, was it's a turn based RPG NPR and
you ain't seen that yet? And Uh, I want to
ask how did you arrive at? Uh? And I always
asked this, but it's always such a different answer, which
is great to me. How do you arrive at? That's
the one We're gonna pour our time and resources for
years or however long into that idea versus any other idea.
(04:24):
And there's a new dimension in this conversation because also
why is it in like, why have your game versus
a terrestrial game? How did you arrive at that? That
passion point? First of all, I've never heard the word.
I've never heard of terrestrial before. I like that. I'm
trying to get it to catch up. Well, they used
to call I think it's called terrestrial radio. If it's
(04:44):
not XMA, we call it we call them flat screen games.
But terrestrial has a lot more appeal to me. Their
next game is gonna be called Terrex or so. I
hope you're well the hacks. The hack string will come
in later, but let's start with the RPG element. I'm sure. Um,
so that's a good question. So I got really into
(05:06):
VR around when the Oculus development kids started going out,
like the really early ones. And uh, ever ever since then,
I was just like, this is this is awesome, Like
I want to do just VR stuff now. So ever
since then, UM, I've just been doing like cool VR
prototypes and and uh just been playing around in the
space and eventually I was playing some some classic RPGs,
(05:32):
some some SNS, Final Fantasy Chrono, Trigger, all the hits,
all the classics, and uh, I was like, I I
feel like, um, I want to feel like the drama
of of a slow like turn like a slower paced
turn based battle in VR. Because I really liked the
immersion of VR UM and I felt like putting you
(05:56):
in the shoes of like a like a j RPG
hero would feel really cool. Um, so I wanted to
just emulate that in virtual reality. So that was kind
of the goal, was creating these like, uh, dramatic, big
VR first person battles, but with that like classic s
n S RPG feel. Yeah. One of the things that's
(06:18):
that's really awesome about it. Sorry, thank you. Uh. One
of the things really awesome about I was telling them
this when we're getting set up is that I'm not
a big turn based guy, and the cool thing about
this game is that it's sort of populates the part
of turn base that I always found frustrating, which is
like waiting for your turn. So like, they give you
a VR experience that's like dodging the attacks of the
(06:41):
other of the things you're fighting, and it really changes
the experience in a in a great way. Like I
think that, Uh, it's sort of it populates a kind
of an idea that I wouldn't have thought of, but
now I'm like, yeah, I feel like all these games
should have this component. Now, you know it talks about
this on the Alex episode. But I think one reason
(07:01):
VRS especially impactful to like Crust the older gamers like
us is it's allowing us the added dimension of immersion,
is allowing us to experience feelings that we thought we
could only have for the first time once. And uh,
I think this captured that or like VR applies to
that so well in the sense that it's been really
(07:23):
interesting to watch various devs approach things that I, in
my haughty arrogance, was like, well, they'll never have that
genre in VR because of the nature of the view,
Like I keep taking for granted what VR can be
based on the limited pool of what I've seen it do,
and I go, well, you know, you've got a wiggle stuff,
So how could you ever do, for example, something turn
(07:44):
based that would never work in VR? My brain thinks,
and I never think about it again. And then there's
and then seeing a game like Our Cakes Are uh,
really brought me back to that feeling of oh, I
didn't even know the toy could do that, and unfolded
in a new to mention which I haven't had in
so long, and I keep having repeatedly in VR as
we venture into new genres in VR. UM So I
(08:07):
just think it's really really smart. I'm proud that you
guys got there first. Good for you. It's such a
clever idea. Uh. The other element that immediately pops out
as soon as you start playing it is the sort
of darkly humorous tone that's also meta. And I wanted
to ask about well two games, so Adam, you mentioned
(08:29):
the ability to make the dead time of a normal
turn based RPG active, which is something this game does
very well. Um. That took me back to playing Mario
RPG for the first time, which I feel like, uh
was the first time I experienced like, oh, there's stuff
to do on the enemy turn. Um, and then the
other thing is and Adam's gonna hate this. I got
(08:50):
inscription vibes off of this because of the propensity to
go meta and the way that you actually start talking
in terms of it being a game, and indeed you
introduce not just spells but like hacks that affects the
title of the game, but as well the gameplay and
the you know your enemies and you can like change
the rules on them. So how do you arrive at
(09:12):
this melange of stuff? Like what's your development process? Like
how many of you are there? Is it just you
guys sitting around chatting with a whiteboard? Like how do
you go for It's gonna be a j RPG. It's
gonna be vr it's gonna be uh dark, you know,
like darkly comical, and it's going to break the fourth wall.
This is a very specific set of elements. Take us
(09:33):
through all of them. Plates. Yeah, let me try to
remember at least two of the things. So the jungle.
So first, first of all, yeah, it's it's mostly just
the two of us. I do the programming, writing and
most of the music, and Aaron does all the fancy
three D art and concept art and concept art all
(09:55):
the most of the stuff. You look at the rigging
and yeah, um, as far as the kind of the
story and the sci fi vibe, um, I don't really
know how we can't how we the story and that
kind of dark meta humor is just who we are
as people. Yeah, I've I've always liked, you know, meta
(10:16):
games and uh a RG has always been a lot
of fun. We talk about that kind of stuff pretty often.
What was it, Doki Dokei Literature Club, Yeah, that was
It wasn't in it like an inspiration to arch Actra
because it doesn't we don't get into like editing save
files and stuff. But that wasn't really that was a
game that was at the very least like, oh look
at that. That's that's sure as weird, we can we
(10:37):
can be weird. But as far as like the whole
theme of your So for those they don't know, the
story of the game is that you're playing the simulation
where all the people in the simulation are like generated
from people's like social media information on the Internet. So
like the ideas that, like your Facebook profile, the data
might be gathered and that would create a person inside
(10:58):
of this universe, and most of the people are dicks.
They're called toxins when they're when they're made from rude, shitty,
evil profiles. So yeah, when the when the system gathers
data of someone, it would deem like a toxic person
that makes a toxin and then those are the enemies
you fight. Um. As far as that idea, I think
we chose that originally because, um, we're we were going
(11:21):
to go different than the social media integration aspect. Originally
the game was actually gonna be built for Twitch streamers.
It was going to be a game where you would
like integrate it with your Twitch chat and then your
chatters would be able to like affect the game by
like typing things in the chat to like either like
harm you, make it the game harder or help you. Um,
(11:42):
and that was gonna like tie heavily into the story.
But we ended up going away from that direction because
we figured that was pretty early on and then Anthony
had a lot of really cool RPG elements that seemed
kind of brutal to lock behind you have to be
a Twitch streamer with followers. It was just way too
niche to have, Like this is a VR j RPG
that also can be played by Twitch, but we're we're
(12:04):
gonna have an audience of two people. Well so that's
interesting because you're already kind of doing that by choosing VR, right,
Like it takes some courage or fucket attitude or like,
this is what I want to do, So that's fine,
let's just do it. Um over money, over everything, or
you'd be making some kind of gotcha mobile game. So
(12:26):
what Like So another moment that I keep taking VR
for granted. So for example, when I was thrown into
your dungeon bed at the beginning, I assumed, oh, this
is what the game will be, and then when you
get to the hub over area, you're like, oh man,
it's a real game. Like there's a whole game. Um,
what are some inspirational VR titles that really got you
(12:48):
into it? You mentioned being in it from the beginning,
so to speak, early on, but like, what are some
of the big VR titles for you? And well, let's
start there. I have another question, but I'm meaning to
I'm throwing too much at once. Um. Yeah, favorite of
VR titles are like all time VR titles, anything that
happened to inspire our caccer as far as VR games. Uh,
(13:11):
that's a good question. UM. I would say one game
that I played really early on was called Blasters of
the Universe, which was like a uh, just kind of
a standard wave shooter, but I had this bullet hell
element to it, um where a lot of the game
just involved like bullet patterns coming at you and having
to dodge it with your body. And uh, super Hot
(13:33):
kind the same thing, the same thing, same thing along
the lines of like Super Hot, where a lot of
the game is like kind of moving your body almost
in a puzzle fashion to try to dodge these projectiles.
And we thought like that that would be a really cool,
um kind of enemy attack mechanic for an RPG. I
know Aaron really likes games like Paper Mario. I'm a
(13:55):
big fan of like the Mario and Luigi series where
you have this like kind of active turn bay battle system.
I thought like, yeah, that would be really cool and
VR um and really active to our our game kind
of gives you a workout because we forced you to
move around it. And then there are some really cool
VR games. But a lot of what inspired Anthony's design
(14:15):
philosophy for Archaccer was what isn't present in VR at
the time. When we started. Our first game was was
a wave shooter, so you stood in a circle and
enemies came at you and it was all real time,
and it was it was okay, um, but they were
already like a million of them. So we decided to
really kind of dig down and get into the weirder,
(14:37):
more fun mechanics that we saw in other games and
expand into areas that we hadn't seen before. So that's
what wasn't there. It was really inspirational. That says. On
that theme, something I also wanted to ask was like,
are there genres other than RPG that you think that's
(14:57):
got to come to VR eventually? Or are their genres that,
like me, they where you think, well, they could never
do that in VR, Like now that you're familiar with
how the that space works, is are there limits to
what VR can do? Or do you believe we can
get something as details and epic as like Starfield or
what have you? In VR? Someday. Oh yeah, you can
(15:17):
absolutely make any kind of game you want VR. I
think the main limiting factor right now it is just
the audience. Like you're not gonna get a lot of
these big Triple A studios making big expensive games yet
for these headsets, just because they won't make their money back. Yeah,
it's early on. There were I don't know six or
seven Triple A companies that pour just piles of money
(15:38):
into games that seven people played, and now they're all
pretty pretty gunshy on it. But as far as the
hardware like limiting the kind of games you can make,
I I don't think that's a factor at all. No,
especially now with the controllers and the inside out tracking.
You know the fact that the Quest too is just
it's a standalone unit that you don't need cables or
wires for. It's so user friendly and some bowl mm
(16:01):
hmm does it still I'm looking at getting one of
those quests for Christmas. You still need to plug into
a gaming PC to access Steam though, yeah, or did
Yeah if you're playing PC. Yeah, if you're playing like
PCBR games like Half Live Alex for examples, PC only, um,
you don't have to plug in with the quests. They
(16:21):
have this thing called airlink where you can like wirelessly
connect to your computers. It's not bad. Yeah, you're gonna
get like a little bit more latency that way, but um,
you know, if you don't want to have a wire
coming out the back of your head, that's always a
cool idea. It works a lot better than I would
have expected. Yeah, well, we do seem to be in
this middle place though, where VR games are or a
(16:43):
lot of the ones, especially the ones that are tied
into major properties or i p s, are like an
experience of limited scope, and then other ones are trying
to prove that VR can be full on games, um
like Ascard's Wrath or I feel like our caxster does
some degree like uh in terms of like the depth
(17:03):
of the mechanics, I was like, this was more than
I thought VR could do. So let me ask, is
there what's different about it? Then? If anything? Or is
designing in VR, like, is it just a chain, you know,
mapping it to a new technology and slapping the camera
in a different spot. What's unique about developing for VR?
Do you think about anything in a different way? Yeah? So,
(17:26):
for one thing is, um, you can never force the
player camera to go somewhere where they're not trying to move,
so like, for example, so like I think Resident Evil
for that just got ported to VR is a really
good example of some interesting issues. Um. There are cut
scenes in the game that, um, you have to watch
(17:46):
in third person because there's just no way to like
give you that experience in first person, Like if Leon
gets knocked over on the ground or something like, you
can't force the immediately, so like when when those or
events happened, you get like thrust in the third person.
Now you're just kind of watching this stuff happen to
your character because you know they just they can't do
(18:08):
that to you. Um, So that's like one thing you
have to think of, is, uh, what what am I
gonna do? Like there's some games where you get like
knocked down on the ground, and the only way they
can really like emulate that in VRS to just like
move the camera down, which is weird because you just
feel like your your head is floating through the ground space.
(18:29):
Although it does make me now want a game where
you're fighting each other and every time you take a
hit it causes your VR camera to just like spin
wildly and whoever first loses I was literally going to do.
When I first started working in VR, I'm like, I
want to mess with people so bad. Make a game
(18:50):
that just makes you fall over immediately. Um, I will say, yeah,
I got desensitized to it. But the first time, first
few times, I was like ending on the edge of
a building or something. In VR, my legs shook and
the whole adrenaline rush and flops seat and everything. Um.
I'm almost sad that it wears off, but it did
wear off of it. Now my brain is firmly aware
(19:11):
that I'm playing a game, now that I've get logged
enough hours. Yeah, that experiences um unique when you're first
getting into it. We did designer Anthony design Arc Extra
to really be gentle on first timers. So you know,
in the over world you've always got that fixed horizon,
which is really good for tricking your brain. And then
in the first person in combat, you are fully in
(19:32):
control of everything and there's no jerking or jumping, so
it's really um it's it's really good at easing your
brain into the concepts, which I appreciate. I still don't
have my full VR legs, mostly because I'm working on
a flat screen most of the time. Yeah, I uh,
I preferred the first person ultimately, mainly because especially the
(19:54):
early dungeon environments with like the green glow around the
edges and stuff. Really, being first person in VR really
took me back to like Cesar, which was my local
laser tag place in a good way. I like the
environments a lot. I also think I also think that
when you're playing a VR game, leaving the first person
(20:14):
perspective is a little bit not giving you the thing
you expect. I think in the VR like you expect
the first person experience a little bit every if that's
a change. Yeah, Like when that's the thing for the
first time, I was like, you can't do that. Oh
it does work. I see, Yeah, that is true. Yeah,
it's fun. For the longest time, it was third person
(20:36):
only in the over World, but it was like our
most requested feature to add our first person movement. And
if and if you play in first person, you'll notice
like some things aren't really designed for it, Like when
you started story cutting, it will pop you back in
the third person. Um, because our our first person in
the over World was kind of an afterthought. Um. But yeah,
there were so many people there's like, just just let
(20:57):
me move around in first person. I was like, fine,
yes at the first. At the beginning, the only way
you could be in first person in moving around the
overworld was getting on the skateboard and then jetting around,
which is almost guaranteed to make anyone less than like
a hardened VR veteran involvement immediately. But people were still
doing it and it was they were dedicated. You know,
(21:26):
have you guys getting to the point where you have
to like get testers who are not as seasoned in
VR to know if it's to know if the game
is difficult to ingest. I guess who were your first testers?
Like who did you share this with when I was
still being developed, you know? Or did you keep it
between the two of you early on? Like it was
(21:49):
mostly just friends and family, Like I have my wife
played all the time, and she definitely doesn't have VR legs,
so I know if if she gets sick, then uh,
it's probably there's a problem there. Yeah. Actually, when we
first started developing, we only had the one headset, and
since Anthony was all the programming and testing, I didn't
play it for like a year. Is a VR dev
(22:12):
kit in VR? You know? So like when you're defining
the hit box for an enemy for a spell or whatever.
Are you doing that with a mouse and or are
you doing that in VR with a controller. Yeah. For
the most part, everything you design is just going to
be on on the computer and then you go into
the headset to test it out. Okay, got you, Which
(22:32):
does mean you get to say I'm going in about
a hundred times a day, which never gets less fun.
And uh, there's so much fun stuff with testing VR,
like when you know, you mess up a rigid body
or something and then your camera goes flying into the
air and spins around you. God. I did a at
a VR kade once. I did one where you lie
(22:53):
down on your belly and you're fully supported by this
flexible table and fans blow wind your face that are
just based on the angle you're turning, and you fly
by flapping your arms like a bird and it is incredible,
touching the face of God. It was so majestic. Um,
it can really fool your brain the more stimulus that
(23:15):
they add the layers to Uh. Yeah, but I think
it is so like I'm uh, we're covering no man's
sky either soon or did, depending on the release order,
and I've been going through that again in VR as well.
And uh, I do think we're still at the we're
like at the end of the beginning of VR where
I still want it. I still want the integration to
(23:37):
be smoother and better. I still I am kind of
a hard and VR VET, or at least I like
VR and I play it a lot, but uh, I
can only do two and a half hours and I
still get the upset stomach and have to set it down. Um,
So I think there's I'm really excited for when I
can sink eight hours into a big RPG in VR. Uh,
(23:58):
And I think that will come you. That's a hardware
advancement thing as well. That's just happening over time. Like
I'm on the old school quest and I have big
screen door effect, and I'm sure that's part of it.
By the way, Adam, have you been doing more VR
since we got you that VRS kit? As I told
them because they were asking me before we started recording
a little bit to be honest with you, Uh, it's
(24:19):
it's the I have to get over the idea of
like relaxing when I play video games, Like that's the
idea that yeah, like I don't find VR to be relaxing,
and I it shouldn't be. I think, I think like
that's the thing the VR offers, is like true physical engagement,
and uh, I like being a soft forty year old boy,
(24:41):
you know what I mean? You might like you might
like the Royland one where you're in a chair moving around.
I see, I thought our cacter was fairly uh that
in the sense that relaxing. Well, I mean, you're dodging
and ship. But I still find the fact that it's
turn based and that it's an RPG, like I settle in,
let's do this, um, and I'm excited that there's more
(25:03):
VR games like that, where instead of treating it like
no one's ever experienced VR, here's a two hour roller
coaster ride of special effects reels, actual games. I just
think I'm enjoying the fact that we're getting to real games.
Although our cacter does have a treadmill that you really
have to run on and as they mentioned, a skateboard
that will make you throw up. So like, you guys
(25:23):
aren't afraid to funk with people? Um? What are so?
What are? Where did that come from? You say? It's
just who we are? But can I ask, are there
games that come to mind as far as fucking with
people other than DOKEI DOKEI uh like, what are your well,
you know what brought the whole hacks element into it
for you? Quick side note um for the longest time
(25:45):
we were on side Quests, which is like a sub
distribution platform, and Anthony's profile was I made this whole
games that you play my stupid treadmill simulator jokes on
solve America's obesity epidemic. People love the treadmill though, It's
what I'm saying. I mean, I definitely have been doing.
(26:07):
I did that. We fitness for quite a bit, gamifying fitness,
there's nothing wrong with it, gamifying learning a foreign foreign language,
like gamify everything. I'll take an app for everything. I've
talked about that a little bit. Yeah, with Anthony, I
would really I go to the gym sometimes and it's okay.
I don't hate it, I don't want to die. But
if like I had a fitbit that connected to an
auto battler or something, and I could see my little
(26:29):
guy going through chopping up goblins and getting bigger, it
would make exercise a lot better. Like I literally just
just about an Apple Watch for this purpose, and it
does mentally change how you engage with those activities. Like
I think there's I don't know what it is, but
I think there's a VR exercise app that hasn't been
invented yet that's gonna change what that is for people.
(26:52):
I really believe that there's a we Sports for VR
that is going to really change. Throw of the Fight
one of our friends just love. He loves this boxing
game and really it does get him moving and he
tracks the calories. It's not bad. And then you can
buy risk weights and you can really go nuts with
it if you want to. I'm kind of curious, are
there any like major lessons you've learned as game designers
(27:15):
for how VR is different than designing a game in
some other space like maxims or anything that you've taken.
The advice you would give yourselves again if you could
go back in time to the beginning, Um, that's a
good question. What would I tell myself from what would
avoid the most pain in the ask? Yeah? Like what
would be a good cheat if you could go back
(27:35):
in time? Yeah? So for me, it's pretty simple. Um,
I you know, I mostly do three D art and
the functional differences between flat screen and VR games is
pretty minimal. People always talk about how oh players can
explore everything from every angle, but especially in modern day
that's pretty true. Players are cognizant of how to break
and unwrap and zip and twist and figure out every
(27:56):
single thing in the game. Um. But because is it
is such low and hardware that we're using. I get
to do really low polly models. I get to do
really strongly stylized hand painted textures, which I love. And
when we first started, I wasn't really super strong on
my hand painting. It was pretty weak, and I was
using a lot of crutches from school. So I would say,
(28:19):
you know, figure it out, dummy, Start painting like things
that look good. Don't plan on the system to fix
it for you. You'd be a bastard to yourself. You'd
go back in time. They do better fast. Yeah, because
back then I was smarter and I had more energy,
and I was less healthful, I could work more condition Yeah, exactly,
(28:39):
every crazy little ship you always want to go back
to a nineteen year old and go, you're wasting it,
wasting it. And then what's funny is I grew up
with adults telling me that, and I go yeah, yeah, yeah,
And now I'm thirty seven and I'm like, oh it
is true, and I tell kids that and they're like
yeah yeah yeah. Like that's just an endless cycle. Humanity
will never transcend. That youth is wasted on the young ship. Okay, nice,
(29:04):
Well that's sort of applicable to all fields. Yeah, yeah,
that's very broad advace. Like I was gonna say, I can't.
I can't think of any like VR specific things. I
would go back and change it. But just like as
a designer, there's I grew a lot as a you know,
as a programmer over time. There's just a lot of
like basic technical stuff I would have done from the beginning.
(29:27):
Arch actra is It's a very smooth experience, but it's
been such a good lining experience for both of us.
It is our first like finish your full finished games,
So there was a lot of just general game design
stuff we had to learn along the way. And then
this one's gonna be tough for Anthony, like specific VR stuff,
just because he's been necktiep in VR since uh, but yeah,
(29:50):
he's he's figured out a lot of cool stuff. Have
you developed flat screen games previously? Like for during your
training or at school or anything like that, or have
you been VR from inception? Oh yeah, in school, we
were all flat screened. The big thing when we were
in school was there, like you got you gotta do mobile.
Every everyone's doing mobile now, So that's that's basically yeah,
(30:13):
that's all they taught us. But honestly, as an indie dev,
I don't actually think mobiles are very good. If you're
not a Malaysian sweatshop, you can't make money. There's no
way you're gonna you're gonna break the top games on
Google Play as a two person team with no money.
But we have we've tossed around the idea of covering
candy Crush or something because I talked about it. It's
(30:34):
culturally important, and I guess you could talk for an
hour about what it means for humanity and people in
business and politics. But god, it's like it's just a
It's like a covering slot machines are like you know,
or or like covering your fitbit app. Like it's it's
so simple and uh, and it's really about what what
(30:56):
does it serve in a broader sense than But the
game itself doesn't have that much to talk talk about. Yeah,
it's something more of a video essay topic to really
get into the nitty gritty of lawsuits and buying companies
for I P rights and all that weird stuff that's happening.
I have like a really big dumb question, but I
feel like I always want to know this, Like, Uh,
(31:16):
do you feel like this game is a pretty good
summary of your aesthetic or do you feel like you're
still discovering that? Uh? And if you had to describe
what that game would be if it's your perfect aesthetic,
what would that how would you describe? Yeah? Like, will
your next game also feel basically like this? Or do
you Yeah? This is like this is definitely like our
(31:40):
beta aesthetic. Yeah, this is a firm prototype of what
we want to be, especially in terms of visually. Um,
you might notice a lot of strong, simple shapes and
very bright colors and that's yeah, I like notice that,
And so like if the next game doing to be
that but more. Okay, if somebody had to do like
(32:01):
a triple A budget, would you still want to make
a game that feels and and operates like this? I
would probably return the contract. Unsigned we have to scale
up and get more people and it would be different.
I definitely, I really like working with a few people,
and me and Anthony really work well together in it
(32:26):
truly for the love of the game. I like that.
Uh yeah, because but I will say no offense. But
like while playing our caccer, I also it was like, well,
now that this proves that this works, I would be
very interested in like a triple A Final Fantasy RPG
and VR that. Honestly, with the summons and ship happening
(32:48):
all around you every step of the way, I've been
like thinking, like, when is someone with a budget going
to come in and scoop us? Because like the game
is really cool and it's really neat, and Anthony has
done a lot of good stuff, but like it's not
impossible to figure out how to make this work. Yeah,
I absolutely think we're gonna see like a big budget
like JRPG here, and maybe in a few years in
(33:10):
a similar style. Yeah, we might see a five years
down the line arch Actra, the small game that got
ripped off video essays and yet I mean, but you
can see why see And I think that's what's so
smart about what you guys did. There's not like I
think you targeted for the kind of people who would
have a VR headset right now, right, and the people
(33:31):
like the kind of stuff they'd be interested in, Whereas, like,
you know, if square Enix was like, we're gonna make
this big RPG, I don't think they'd make it for
VR yet, right, there's not people on VR yet. Yeah,
It's it's hard to justify a studio of three people
when um, you might make a million sales. Yeah, but
it's it's it's gotta I feel like it's inevitable. And
(33:54):
yet I'm like, there will one day be a thriving
VR game. I just believe it because it's such a pelling.
Anyone who does try it is like, oh, this is
really cool. Like I've never slapped the headset on someone
who didn't admit that. Even people are like, ah, it's
just a gimmick, and I go like, try this. My
favorite is because it requires no controls, so even people
(34:14):
who don't know video games are cool with it. There's
a simulated ayahuasca trip in VR and it's twenty minutes,
and I always have people do that and they go, yeah,
you're right, that's pretty pretty cool. I haven't experienced anything
like that before. Um, so it feels like we have
to have it someday triple A VR market. But at
the same time, after Alex was such a big swing
(34:37):
that everyone's like, yeah, you did it. It's great. Um,
but we're still not gonna buy a whole headset and
like play it. Uh. I know, I like understandably everyone's scared.
I get it. So even all, you know what, honestly
even more respect for the andy devs in the space
because you guys are keeping it alive basically well and
(34:57):
then kind of sorry looking back on that. This first
game was made on almost entirely nights and weekends and holidays,
and our our next project is actually being funded by
our publisher, which is really exciting. So we're not going
to see the Triple A version of ARC Expert, but
we're definitely going to see the double A version of
ARC Excer, which just so much more. Okay, yes, I
(35:18):
wanted to I always want to ask about this, Like, so,
you obviously get to find a very rewarding working with
each other and doing the creative part, and you found
a good like groove artistically, what is the business side
like to you? How much of your job requires you know, packaging,
marketing business, doing podcasts to promote the game. Uh, and
(35:40):
how much is that a chore? Do you hate it?
Or how much is it? Like no? Or you know
what I mean? Like, because yeah, we definitely have the
stuff we like to do. And then the tedious business
side that's also important. How is that in the game world. Honestly,
the last like year, like just before be released on
(36:00):
the Quest Store was like almost like ninety percent marketing
stuff and calls a lot of yah um. And then
the year leading up to that we were still on
the sub store of the App Lab. I handled a
lot of our marketing at that point. It wasn't horrible.
I don't hate it, but it is not as energizing
(36:21):
as I find three D artwork. It's so making a
fireball hit of Gablin or whatever I would. I would
spend about one day a week just trolling Reddit telling
everyone to go buy the game, finding as many YouTubers
as I could find that I haven't covered our game
or that might cover it again, and trying unsuccessfully to
(36:42):
get in in trade magazines and stuff. Um. But luckily,
in this last year, like Anthony said, it's been all
meetings and polishing we we finally got papa oculuses or
meta attention, and we've been able to to work with
the company and with a higher grade of marketers. You
know what they're doing. Uh. And it's still it's still
(37:04):
rough and tough, but it's it's always fun. Honestly. I
love doing podcasts. I love watching people play the game.
Often when there's a livestream, I'll be in the chat,
like giving advice and tips and tricks, kind of like
navih and I bat one of YouTube covers it. It's
fun to see the finished video for sure. Oh yeah.
Even the negative reviews, which we're getting more, it's it's
(37:25):
nice to see that someone had the energy. Like I
liked the first time we got a negative video, thought
it was kind of cool because it was like that
that meant our game was big enough in his eyes
to like not like it and still make a video
about it. That felt pretty good. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Right.
The obligation of that, right, it's a it's a substantial
(37:45):
enough import that somebody has to shoot on it a moment.
That's a good moment, it really is. You give me
more of those. Okay, I just started. I thought it
bucket um Okay, I had I had one. What did
I want to talk about after the business thing? I'm
(38:06):
giving it too, I'm giving the space. Well, I do
want to understand how you conceptualize thinking about the design
and the mechanics, because uh, mostly thinking about or you know,
when I was at recess or daydreaming about the game
I would design. I always mimic a board game, or
in my mind, every game at base is some versions
(38:29):
of dungeons and dragons or like a table of percentages
and a dialogue tree and a tech tree blah blah blah.
And VR almost always necessitates some level of physics as well.
And of course our cacster has that in the you're
moving your body, you're dodging fireballs, you're dodging spiky balls,
and you're like actually physically attacking with the sword and whatnot. Um, Like,
(38:52):
how do you go about diagramming out what your game
play is? That's what I mean. It's like, what do
your notes look like when you're designing this game? What's
an outline? What's the is a little picture of like
and then the human body will do this and this
is what happened? Like what are you doing? I mean
it's it's mostly the same as like the way you
do with a normal RPG, Like if you break down
(39:15):
the attacks, it's just like you have your sword attack,
you have your fireball, and just imagine those as if
there were no motions involved. But then think about like, Okay,
instead of there being a chance to miss with the fireball,
this instead is just how good the player is aiming.
That's the chance to miss. Now. Um, that's actually super
(39:36):
interesting to me because it takes something that was chance
and makes it effort slash skill based. That's what I like.
Did you have any discussions about like does this unbalance
the game or change the nature of what an RPG is?
You know, one of my favorite things about the final
design for Arc Actra is that it's very Dark Souls
and that once you learn the patterns, once you learn
(39:58):
the route, once you get an idea of what you
want to have, and when you don't have to get
hit anymore. Um and Anthony actually never played Dark Souls
before until elden Ring came out, so that was his
first Souls born. But he still managed to really recreate
that experience and we had a player who finished last week.
He finished his first game through and then he came
(40:19):
in the next day and he's like, I'm on Blue
Mage now I'm halfway through the game. I'm ripping through it.
No one's hitting me, and that that progress is so
cool to see because he started off like, how the
hell do I beat this guy? I'm getting my ask
beat Yeah. Yeah. But and back on the game design, Um,
we so like, for example, the enemy damage we made
very very high. So like in a normal RPG, you
(40:42):
you wouldn't want an enemy attack to do like nine
of your health most of the time. But in this game,
we kind of expect you to be dodging everything, so
the getting hit is like super punishing. So that was
that was definitely a part of like the paper design,
I guess. So it's interesting that it replicates you are
replic htting something that can be done in a flat
screen game, but it is different, like it is changing
(41:05):
the nature of what's actually happening. Um, it's interesting to
me to think of I have different I have mixed
feelings around, like shouldn't an RPG? Well, if you've listened
to the show before, you know I'm the spreadsheets guy,
So I'm like, but shouldn't an RPG? Be rigidly predetermined
chance or like it's it's almost weird to me that
(41:26):
if you get good at a turn based RPG you
could skate through it with never getting hit, Like is
that allowed? It's like when we transitioned in society. This
is how old I am from. Um you have three
lives and then you game over and you have to
start the game over to like save points, and I
was like, now games won't be fun anymore because there's
no challenge because you can save and you don't have
(41:46):
to start the whole game over. And then uh, of course,
six months into that, I'm like, no, this is better.
It's it makes the game more accessible and more fun
to not have to pop quarters into a box and etcetera. Um,
one other, one, other, one other interesting artifact of this
And it's probably not an artiffact to you guys, but
it is to me as a as a consumer. Is
(42:10):
that being able to dodge the attacks means they hit
me instead of hitting my character. So I literally like
so it really feels like not I mean, this is melodramatic,
but it feels like you're on a firing line like
an oldiable battle. You know what. My no that's I mean,
I don't have to say much more, but like, that's
like the thing that was missing for Turn based for
(42:32):
me is that that visceral feeling of that combat gives
you of like it's happening to me and you guys
totally accomplished that. Please say more, whatever you're gonna say.
One of my favorite arch Actra gifts out there is
our friend Tatiana. She runs this YouTube channel called disco
vir and the first time she reviewed the game, the
insect flying buggle that launches itself directly at your head,
(42:54):
she had this, Yeah, she had this outtake gift of
her just hitting the floor. Yep, like hard. I felt.
I felt bad, but like I've also done that myself,
and it's yeah, that visceral moment is always but whole
another level. Yeah, it's great. It's one of the reasons why,
like the first couple of times you play Fallout it's
so awesome because those bugs attack you and you're like,
(43:16):
oh god, you know, like uh, And it's even more
visceral in a VR experience when the line between you
and the game gets fuzzier. So it's really effective like that, um,
and I love it. So I'm sorry, Mike, your spreadsheets
are are dead forever, still very important. The reason that
the game has so much level grinding is because Anthony
(43:38):
wanted a game that wasn't an experience. I use the
word experience with them air quotes as kind of experiences
where a lot of them are right now. For sure.
It's like if you notice every time you level up,
you get a you know, new stats here and there,
new ability points for your for your passive load out,
and yeah, it's a game that you can hopefully grind
(43:58):
and have fun with. So there's still some spreadsheets for you, right,
There's definitely, Yeah, there's definitely spreadsheets, except that the stats
instead of your character getting more powerful making the game
possible to play, which, like you know, in a lot
of RPGs, you just you would have to grind to
beat something. It's more like getting stronger allows you to
make more mistakes. That's interesting, but it doesn't. I mean,
(44:22):
it makes me able to imagine more things that VR
would just up, Like I play SIVE six and VR.
Now that I've played this, it makes me realize, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
looking down from a third person perspective as something is
awesome in and of itself. I don't have to be
the guy. If you conquer an Enemy seven, you get
to crush their city with your god hims, you smash
(44:44):
it on the table. That would be awesome. New pitch.
How do you land on the idea mechanically that you
use your HP to attack? Because that was almost I
don't think I've ever played RPG that uses that mechanic. Yeah, I, um,
(45:08):
I actually kind of regret making that a core partner.
Well I think no. I actually think in a non
VR game, that would have been a really cool mechanic.
The problem I have with it in our game is
that we just have so many people that like will
try the game that haven't used VR before. So like,
not only are they trying to understand this combat system
(45:30):
that's like kind of different than a lot of other
apgs with like spending your health to do mainlee attacks,
but like they're also learning how to use a VR headset.
So like a lot of people. Um, so for those
I don't know, to to hit enemies, you have to
spend HP um when you use your weapons, but using
your hacks cost action points, and when you run out
(45:51):
of action points, it goes the next turn. Um And
The reason why we designed it that way is because
it's there's kind of this whole mechanic around the UM
what we call the adrenaline rush system, which is where
when you take out an enemy, you get action points
back and you can extend your turn, and then if
you manage to kill all enemies in one turn, you
get like a big e XP bonus. So we're trying
to like encourage you to figure out how to take
(46:14):
all enemies out in one turn. And the idea behind
the Maine attacks was that they're supposed to kind of
be a way to finish off an enemy if you're
like running low in action points UM, which is cool,
but the problem is most people just they get a
sword and they go and like, yeah, I'm gonna use
the sword, and they then they slash twenty times and
kill themselves in the in the first battle outside the tutorial,
(46:34):
and then I go, didn't you read anything? I explained
it several times, So yeah, that part is a little
a little frustrating. But like what Anthony said, if you
can beautiful mind it and use just the randomount of
HP to get just the randomount of AP back and
take out the whole room, it feels really satisfied and
that that ebb and flow of combat is really neat.
But so many, so many RPGs also give you a
(46:57):
weapon or a or a spell or something that is
exactly that thing. Yeah, it kind of evolved out of
a Blood Night idea that Anthony was kicking around, and
um it just it stuck around. It mechanical, that strategic
core that you still even though you are physically moving
and using the reflexes part of your brain, there's something
(47:18):
ongoing that makes you have to think strategically, which it
wouldn't be a turn based RPG without if that part
of your brain wasn't engaged. I agree. I think the
strategy component is necessary to achieve the thing that scratches
the RPG itch, so you kind of do need it
for that. Um I'm kind of curious, like, do you
find that the reader reader, the gamer is uh less
(47:42):
willing to read and learn things than you expected? Oh? Yeah,
I think, especially in VR, A lot of people playing
a VR game definitely don't think they're going to have
to read. Um, so I definitely for the next game,
we're gonna have way less tutorial text. Um yeah, way
(48:06):
more pictures, way more three D things showing you motions
and how to do things. Um, because you know, I
think a lot of people playing VR they just want
to have like a physical interaction with your hands. And
that doesn't remind me of the first time your friends.
Scott played and he was like he was testing us
for like an onboarding experience, you know, see what a
fresh player would would get out of it. And yeah,
(48:28):
he didn't read a single goddamn word. But he did
say he found several typos at the state and that
wasn't interesting. Yeah, it was like, yeah, there's lots of typos. Also,
I didn't read anything. Okay, there are two typos though
this process. I think I saw one. I guess that
gives it its slipshot charm. Uh. So I was gonna ask,
(48:49):
like hopes for the future, I do you have ideas
for the next game, etcetera, etcetera. But clearly you guys
already have the next steps ort underway. Can't you tell
us anything about that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, we
have a few things we can say about the next
what's up? What's on the horizon? So the main thing,
the number one thing everybody requests for the first game
(49:12):
is multiplayer. So, like, one of one of the core
features we're building into the game from the beginning for
the sequel is multiplayer because I think VR especially is
like a very social thing and so many people just
want to be able to jump into these battles with
a friend as like a party member if you're if
you're antisocial like me, you can still play the whole game.
But yeah, it's gonna be a good way to integrate
(49:33):
friendships in the party. Yeah, well, yeah you don't. I'm
just kind of cure. Like again, like I just get
more and more sort of curious about the VR audience
because like, who are all these people that have friends
with VR headsets? I feel like I feel like I
know Mike and we both have them because we do
(49:54):
this for money. I just R is still very evangelical.
So you get a headset and it your favorite thing,
and then you badger your friend until they get a headset.
Is kind of a lot of the tipeline for that,
and then you get to hang out with your friend
virtually and do stuff. Um. I used to work at
a comic shop and we sold board games and stuff.
(50:15):
The most important thing I learned there is that people
just want to hang out and do stuff with their hands,
and VR is a new way to do that. Yeah,
I learned that down at the docks and it was
a very different experience. I don't really want to discuss
right now, you know, Like I can see like I
can see a coop cooking game that would do like
(50:36):
really well and cooking Mama or over Yeah, overcooked causes
so many friendship fractures. It's it's great. I love it.
Uh you all heard of lovers in a dangerous spacetime.
It's not adaptable to VR, but no, I haven't dependency
please do. Oh. I also want to ask if you're
Undertail guys, because I get Undertail vibes from this as well.
(51:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, I love Undertail. Anthony's an Undertail guy.
I'm an earthbound guy. I still haven't beat Undertail, but
I respected. Yeah. We definitely like that weird, quirky, uh
dork centric humor. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a sardonic
vibe to Undertail that I that I get. I get
just like a little winking version of it from your game,
(51:22):
and I love it well. Also, Undertail almost has the
flat the same rhythm because the combat involved these mini
games that were reflex based, which was unique for turn
based rpg. Right, so it's almost a flat screen version
of dodging your body around. Uh yeah, that's definitely not coincidental. Yeah,
(51:42):
I just realized, now, yeah, yeah, that was that. That
combat system was definitely an inspiration. I want to tell
the Toby Fox story. Oh yeah, I don't know why
I did this. I thought it would be a funny
marketing stunt if I tweeted at Toby Fox every day, um,
for like a hundred days to try to his attention,
to be fair. The goal was to do it for
like two weeks and then he would reply and tell
(52:03):
us to leave him alone, and then we'd move on.
And I was, I was, I was thinking he just
blocked me or something. Tweet every day or no, no, no, no,
they were different different, wasn't wasn't bought at all. They
were all handcrafted with some unhinged it was. I made him.
I made him pictures. That's true. We made pictures, We
made memes. I made a whole video one day. There's
(52:25):
a I mean, there's a boss fight in the game.
I'm not sure if you guys have got in a
long long horn yet. That's straight up undertail inspired the
dancing Dancing Yeah, um, which I believe we tweeted him
at some point. You never never blocked Anthony, No, he never,
(52:45):
but one day you're hoping for that ship post that
you've really done it. Yeah, I mean we but if he,
if he, if he listens to this, we'll buy him
a headset to get him to play the game. That
would be really cool. That'd be a win for all
of us. That would be a win for all of us.
Uh so is it? VR is a VR bus for
(53:07):
you guys? Like, what's your if you could pick the
next ten years of your career, what would that look
like if you had full control over that. I think
we've kind of found our our niche in VR right now.
So so for now, I think we're definitely sticking with VR.
I also just like uh cool new technology in general.
(53:29):
I also like like a R headsets and stuff. So
I would also be very down to make even an
augmented reality game or a geospatial game like Pokemon Go
or something just anything with new, cool, flashy technology. I'm
a big fan of. Yeah, Anthony is definitely a VR
true believer. Um. I like working with Anthony and you
(53:49):
kind of mentioned that there's not a lot of triple
A weight in this space, which does make it a
little bit easier as a small team to hack out
a living and here some I'm a big fan of
that too because I do money. Um, but yeah, we've
really we've found a really cool game that I've really
enjoyed making, and a really neat community in terms of
the players, in terms of the press, in terms of
(54:10):
the vloggers and the YouTubers. So I wouldn't want to
leave back for flat screen. No, I love the commitment
of that. Uh. I do believe that. I still believe
VR two. I think that even though I'm still new
to it, I think one day the price will get
low enough and the games will be and I think
(54:33):
the headsets will get like lighter, and yeah, I think
there will be something about the hardware getting better will
be important as well, because it really is. It really
is like the moment where you know cars replaced horses,
where it's like, you know, this is replaced them to
the well horses still exists. So yeah, same deal, Yah,
are added to show me a horse. I don't know.
(54:56):
The flat screen games will die. Everything passes eventually, but
I don't know the flat screen video gaming will die
because like VR will kill it, I think it will
be additive. Flat screen gaming will become pills that you
eat that give you a specific drug trip. That's what
I think screen games swallow. God of War. Just one
of the philosophical questions I wrestled with most often is Uh,
(55:20):
it goes like this, maybe one day there will be
an AI that could write a screenplay just as good
as any human can. Okay, well that's fine. I guess
we just have to accept that. Okay, Well, what about
one day if there's a pill that you can take
that just makes you feel like you just saw a
really good movie. Okay, well what if one day we're
all just in pods that made you feel like you
had a life or whatever? And then the question is
(55:42):
is there anything wrong with that? Is that bad? Is
bad to me, but it's actually fine. Person, I'm opposed
to the idea, but as a human, yeah, you could
hook up my brain to a trip of good video games,
and I guess I'd be okay with it, especially if
it's it does arrive at the matrix, which I'm ashamed by.
(56:05):
But that's my deepest philosophical thought, but for entertainment, I
feel like, yes, I think it's okay, as even though
you and I are both entertainers, Like, I don't know
if I I agree that like we'll be able to
sculp complete music or something, or like a hike, you
know what I mean, like just all those things. I
was sure the way nature makes you feel or what
(56:26):
have you. Yeah, the question is would you be able
to do that old day or would you have to
occasionally take like a torture pill to just kind of
balance it out good so that you can appreciate the good? Right?
I mean it is true that you need suffering to
appreciate the good moments, so you'd also have to take
the pill that makes you feel like ship for a day. Yeah. Yeah,
all right, Well we're wildly off topic, so I think
(56:49):
it's time to wrap out. Thanks so much for being here,
Aaron and Anthony. Um, the game is our CACS or
a R C A X E er. Is there anything
else you want to plug or where should folks follow
you or follow the game? Whatever you'd like to shout out?
Now's the time. Yeah. Arc extra dot com has all
of our links are discord if you want to talk
to us as people. We are there, we are available.
(57:09):
You can tell us it sucks. That's fine. Um, it's
the art. It's the over Arc Extra Discord yeah. Um.
And our Twitter is Arc Extra VR, which I run
most of the time. And you can tell me that
we suck there too. The pleasures, it's the only way
they can appreciate the good moments in life that read
(57:32):
us back down right, tear independent creatives down. That's the
stance of this podcast. And I heart media generally. Right. Um,
I've been Michael Swain, that's been Adam Ganzer. Yep. I
think we're done here.
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