Pixels & Patriotism; Matt Patak & Lewis Manalo, Co Founders of Old Glory Studios

Founded by combat veterans and seasoned game developers Lewis Manalo and Matt Patak, Old Glory Studios brings over 25 years of experience in the gaming industry. Our founders have worked on some of the most popular tactical shooters in the world, bringing their real-life experiences into game development. Old Glory's goal is to make combat games that are easy to pick up, but hard to master. Backed by a talented network of developers, writers, and artists, our mission is to deliver games that are accessible to everyone while staying true to the authentic combat experiences of our founders. Matt Patak: Served in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division. Level Designer on Tom Clancy's The Division 1 & 2, Ryse: Son of Rome, Exoborne, and more. Lewis Manalo: Served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne. Worked as an independent film producer before transitioning to video games. Writer on Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise, Dying Light 2, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodhunt, Exoborne, and more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lots. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey, what's going on? This is rad and this is
another awesome episode of soft rep Radio. And today I
have two very cool special guests. You already know who
they are. But before I introduce you to them, I've
got to tell you what. Say it with me. Go
visit the merch store. Yeah, soft rep dot com for
slash merch. Go check it out. Pick up the branded

(01:03):
goods from all of the special operators who have put
it all together and put soft Rep on it. Go
check it out. Tag us all over the social media.
We love to see it and share it. And thanks
for keeping the gas lit by buying the merch. It
really helps us out. The second thing is that we
have a book club, and that is soft rep dot
com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club. If you're new and

(01:23):
you're just joining us for the first time, go check
out soft rep dot com Ford Slash Book hyphen Club.
And those of you that are already a member of it,
thanks and thanks for reading a book. Okay, it's a
big deal. Reading a book. It's a book. You open it,
you turn the pages, you use your eyes, brain neurons,
they all fire. You read it, you feel feelings. Okay,
so read a book. All right. Now, I've got two

(01:45):
cool guests on the show today. We're gonna do this
three way, and we got some video game conversation coming up.
We're gonna talk about some military experiences coming up, but
first let's talk to Lewis Manolo and Matt Patak. Welcome
to SOFTWAREP Radio.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thanks awesome, awesome to be here.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Man, Thanks, and I just want to mention that you
guys are the founders of Old Glory Studios, and I
also want to mention that you're both veterans of the military.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Correct, that's correct, That's right.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yeah, we've also we've also both worked in video games
for like a combined twenty five years, so we've worked
on a lot of popular games, like especially Tom Clancy
kind of franchise.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
So right, like, okay, let's just crack that open, right,
Like Ghost Recon Okay, I remember playing Ghost Recon on
Xbox okay in like two thousand and five, four or five,
and it was like multiicam. They had the scar just
coming out. You know, and my buddy's like, hey, let's
sluff work in the radio industry. I used to work
in radio. He's like, let's go over to my house
and eat lunch and play Ghost Recon. And we would literally,

(02:47):
at like twenty four years old, be playing Ghost Recon
talking about airsoft war games. Yeah, okay, all right at
the same time. Right, So, Ghost Recon, I mean it
really brings out. Let me just kind of just segue
into air Off. How all these loadouts that come out
from Ghost Recon and all of the weaponry and all
of the gloves and all of the styling. It just
plays over into these loadouts air softers go after. You know,

(03:10):
they just replicate it to the to the t. How
do you feel about that when you're involved in a
video game and you know that that loadout, you know,
whether it's the orange watch that everybody wants with the
guy sitting on the looking like Simba looking over the plane.
You know what I'm saying, backpack and his LBT kit
or whatever that it may be. Yeah, wow, let's talk

(03:30):
to me. Who wants to take that? I'd say? And
I love it honestly.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
So, like, uh so I was on I worked on
Ghost Recon wild Lands and Ghost Reecon Breakpoint and yeah,
those players, like even end game especially, like they really
love personalizing everything, and it's something that we really tried
to cater to, you know, you know, we understand that
they're they're they're all different kinds of players, right, Like
some people will go in and they'll just play whatever,

(03:56):
you know, the kind of base character it is, you know,
the one that you're on madically given. But then there
are other people, especially in like especially in games where
you can play as a team, where people like to
really get themselves decked out and like hear that kind
of coordinates, you know, so the whole role play as
if they're like Brazilian boat or something, you know, like
but going right.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
You know, garden gloves and ak and a life preserve bro.
They're like, this is my new loadout, dude, this is
my new load out. It's awesome. Yeah, it's it's awesome.
Like it.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
We were like, I love seeing that kind of involvement
from players into the game. You know, it shows that
they care about it because they also make it their own.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
See and what I do here in Utah, Matt, you
may not be aware I have large scale Airsoft wargame operations.
Sometimes they average two hundred people, you know, and it's
guys like us, guys who've been in, guys who've been out,
Guys who could never have joined because they have asthma. Yep, right.
Or does someone get to shoulder to shoulder with a
guy like Lewis you know, well, maybe Lewis got out
and he's like, well, I'm looking for somebody to team

(04:58):
up with. These guys are doing this Airsoft thing. Let
me go check it out next, you know, he's like,
he's like, whoa, my kid still fits and I need
a little cardio. But no, that yeah fitting? But yeah, right, Matt,
I mean hell yeah, I still got a uniform in
my closet fit in.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
That's like a tight nice see.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
Yeah, you're like, what's up, let's go right, still fits,
But that's about it.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
In the army, baby, Now, let's talk about that real quick. So,
Louis you come from what the eighty second Airborne? I
saw maroon beret? Is that right? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (05:29):
That's correct. I was, uh so, I enlisted after September eleventh,
two thousand and one, and I kinda it was kind
of you know, I went in there. You know, I
did well on my ASVAB, so I kind of had
like my pick of like what I could do. But
then it's like, you know, I was looking at kind
of like intelligence or something like that, you know, because it's,

(05:51):
you know, a war on terror. It's going to be
very much about information, right, this is war and the information.
So I was like, I could probably do some good there.
Then like like after the MEPs and the guy, you
know he's got the paper for me to sign, He's
just like, well, that would be like six months. You'd
have to wait, you know, but we got this spot
in eighty second. As a combat engineer, you can do

(06:11):
that right away.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
All that engineer baby. So yeah, wow, So.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
That's what I That's what I was. And so I
took part in combat combat missions for OEF operation during
Freedom one, two and three.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Wow, so lots you went over a few times, did
some things and a few waves. And so how old
were you when you enlisted in one?

Speaker 4 (06:32):
So I had already graduated college, I was already working,
so I was twenty three. So your grandpa, Yeah, I
really was like it's kind of hard, Like now that
I'm like in my forties, it's it's hard to kind
of conceive of. But like going through airborne school that
because again, like I wasn't like any kind of PT
boss or anything even before, right, So going through airborne
school at twenty three was freaking hard, man, Like, like

(06:56):
I made it through, but you know, not without like
support from my you know buddies there.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Seventeen year old buddies that are next to you, Like, bloh,
you knew what to do at seventeen, man, Like what
was your drive?

Speaker 3 (07:08):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:08):
What about you, Matt, How old were you when you enlisted?
Tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
I was just turned I just suit to be nineteen
when I enlisted, and yeah, and then I hadn't listed.
Yeah about a few months after nine to eleven. I
was in college at the time, like just doing the
basic gen ed stuff and just trying to find my
way saw nine to eleven on TV. I was in
Nebraska at the time, and yeah, I talked with my
mom and she's like, you know, don't take this the
wrong way, but have you ever thought about joining the military?

Speaker 3 (07:33):
I was like, eh, you know, I've thought about it.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
I'd never really given any really seriously you know, consideration.
But now it's like Okay. Talked to some recruiters, Yeah,
talked to the didn't even bother talking with the Navy.
I'm six foot six. There's no way my ass will
fit on a boat or a submarine like screw that.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Uh yeah. I talked with Air Force. I was a
bit too boring, you know, because.

Speaker 5 (07:55):
I always wanted to be in computers in some type
of you know, industry like that. And so she's like,
I'll talk to the Air Force. I'm I was just like, no,
if I'm going to sign up, I want to sign up.
I want to do something right.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
And so the.

Speaker 5 (08:06):
Marines, like I couldn't drink the kool aid to get
that far. That was a bit too much for me.
The Army was that that right Middle Grounds and they
showed me like I wanted to be an Abrams tanker,
but they're like, now you're too tall for that. I
was like, ah, what's the next best thing? Well, you
could fit in the Bradley. It's got an adjustable seat, right,
So it's like I was like, okay, like I could

(08:27):
squeeze in there. It's like they showed me a video
and it was like total like you know, late nineties
prop again, they're like, oh, look at this dope ast,
you know, you know, our infantry fighting vehicle driving through
the water and guys running out of the back. It's like, yeah,
that's cool. I want to do that. So yeah, I
signed up.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
But it bradly has like six wheels on.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
It doesn't it doesn't know it's it's a tracked vehicle.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
It's tracked twenty five millimeter toe toe launcher.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
Wow you can Yeah, it holds, uh holds. I think
eight in the back, six to eight, like six comfortably.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, maybe I'm thinking like very command and conquer here,
you know what.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
Probably, Oh, I think I'm on it, probably thinking like
the lab, the lab twenty five, I think is what
you're thinking of it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, and I'm also probably thinking striker in my head
with the wheel striker.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, totally that's my one.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, but still mechanized nonetheless, right, Yeah, you're a mechanized
yeah warrior.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
I was with the third I D in when I
went to Iraq, so just did one tour operation reckefeed him.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
So don't they call the third I D the fuzzy
TV screen?

Speaker 3 (09:27):
It is?

Speaker 5 (09:28):
Yes, you're right, yeah, the static across the Yeah, you
can see I get the badge right there.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Oh, okay, you do. Yeah, see over my shoulder, you
have my father's SF. My father was a Green Beret. Yeah,
it's the way a long time ago twenty thirteen is beret.
My mom is right next to him in this picture
right here where my pencils at. He's jumping out of
or he's getting ready to land do a peel like
you know, yeah, airborne jump. But nonetheless, yeah, we all
have something cool behind us.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Bro awesome, I love.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah. So, so you guys go in the military. You
guys go and do your jobs, and I know there's
stress put involved with that, you know, and the stress
of you know, combat takes its toll on you. You
guys both have just mentioned you've done like three different
waves of OEFS and OAFS and Operation of Iraqi Freedom
Operation and Dury Freedoms, you know. And for those that

(10:19):
are listening, those are when they send out like waves
of troops back into the country to reinforce the other
troops that are there. Right oefs way one, two, three,
all the way to like seven. I think.

Speaker 4 (10:32):
I don't know when they stopped counting, Actually.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
When did you stop counting?

Speaker 4 (10:36):
At three, right, Yeah, well I got ayt yes. But
so actually, just to clarify, so I deployed twice. But
actually when I went for operation and during Freedom too,
you know, the one hundred and first was still in country,
but they'd actually they something came up, like some high
value target was cited or something, so they wanted to
go in like one more time, right, because not all

(10:57):
the eighty second was back, but the one hundred and
first have already started sending people back, so they'd already
sent their engineers to Germany. So they like knocked in
our door basically like the the Rocissans, you know, one
hundred and eighty seven, they walked on our doors just
like hey, you got engineers. So my Cletine sergeant like
grab us up, and that's how we went on that
last combat mission operation in Jeering Freedom Ion.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
So is that pretty Was it sketchy? Did you guys
get it? Did you get into a firefight or anything?

Speaker 4 (11:23):
No? I mean it was kind of I mean it
was new, right, so it was for us were like
the how many of us was on? There was probably
like five or six of us from from my platoon,
from my squad that were there. So we were like,
we didn't know what the heck to exist, but sorry,
we didn't know what the heck to expect. But these
one hundred and first guys, you know, they'd already gone
through like that early fighting from Operation Anaconda, so they

(11:47):
were just like they're fucking around with us. We were
sitting there like eating lunch and everything, and then you know,
with mrs you can make those little flash bangs. Some
popped one of those off. Of of course we're all
like whoa, and they're just sitting there laughing at us.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
A water bottle and a heater right exactly, But yeah, yeah,
that'll that'll trick you though. Bro. It's like, like, what
is that?

Speaker 4 (12:11):
It was hilarious because I still remember my my squad
leader like jumping up and like you know, bell throwing
is his his body armor, his IBA like tight, and
then like just the other squad leader's just like loud at.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
That would be pretty funny to incorporate that in a
game as like a Easter egg like where you just
have to like get the heater packet and the water
bottle kind of like Duke nukemb takes the leak. He's
like I needed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so Matt, And
so Matt, what kind of you know trip did you
go on?

Speaker 5 (12:43):
You might tell me a little from Kuwait City all
the way to Bagdad. It was D Day, March twentieth,
two thousand and three, so I was one deployment.

Speaker 6 (12:52):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
I didn't know what to expect.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
Man, I was like, holy shit, are we gonna like
hit the beaches of Normandy or what the hell is
going to happen? It was this is just the longest
ride of my life, seriously, Like it was just driving
through the desert non stop. And the only like crazy
stuff that I really saw was when we hit the
Carbala gap. Is like, just saw this whole like a
squadron of like, OHGE fifty eight's just straight from the

(13:15):
ship out with rockets, you know, straight fen the ship
out of Carbala, and it's like this is where if
anywhere we're ever gonna get ambush, it would be here,
because it's like the gap between I think that there's
a Tigris River. I don't know which lake that was,
but there's a there's a big ass lake there next
to Carbala, and there's like a highway that runs between
the town and the lake and that's the Carbola gaps.
Like this is where all the you know, the convoy

(13:36):
would all go through here. This is where they get
all their all their kills. So we were on high
alert there, like we we had the gas attacks every
damn twenty minutes. Like I just like wore my mop
suit through the entire ride, like like because you have
to take it off and then put it back on.
It's like I'm just gonna keep it all on and
just you know, have my gas maskets. I say, oh gas, okay, cool,
you know mask. It was really like a fucking annoying

(13:58):
just can we curse?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
I don't know if yeah, you can say whatever you
want really.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Really freaking ay, there you go, all right.

Speaker 5 (14:07):
Yeah, but it was just like, uh, you were expecting
you like you would like, oh, we're gonna like I've
seen all the war movies. I heard all my you know,
my you know grandfathers and stuff talk about you know,
all this the history and stuff, and you wanted to
be a part of this.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Everyone's surrendering. Everyone just throws up their hands. Uh call it.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
The MP's all right, get these people process, get them
out of here, Like okay, let's just keep rolling. Just
kept rolling and driving. It was like a month of
just driving across the damn desert. I remember driving the Bradley.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
It was like this.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
If you remember two thousand and three, there's like massive
convoys that stretched to the horizon. Yeah, and they had
this according effect and so you'd all come together and stop.
You hit the brakes and you sit there and you
listen to your engine and you're just like it's just
so peaceful. And then suddenly like I heard this dude
stomping on the turret hatch do oh, And I look

(15:01):
at the convoys like on the horizon you can see
the trail lights, like oh shit, And I started going.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's just like it's just non stop, like what could
you do?

Speaker 5 (15:10):
So a lot of boredom out there, but like we
had some situations like holy shit, we might be in something,
but nothing. I was never PTSD, thank god. I think
I brought a lot more positive like I guess, not experiences,
but positive feedback or whatever to the Iraqi people than
I ever took away. So I think I brought yea

(15:32):
more positive than anything.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
So that's good. So it gave you also, like probably
some insight into how they perceived us.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Oh, yeah, it was thumbs up, like clapping, cheering.

Speaker 5 (15:42):
It was like literally that yeah, Like I never understood
why we throw candy from like cars and stuff in
a parade, but this was like literally like it just
triggered me, like this is what parraise are. It's liberation,
Like you're giving people their freedom. And we were literally
just like tossing em ReFood because we just we had
so much Like there was you know, a pack of skills.
Have had like twenty of these today, So you know,

(16:03):
to the kids and stuff along inside the road, they're like,
you know, asking us to throw stuff down.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
I was like, all right, dope, like we felt like
liberating takes for you, Yeah, for you, I'm telling you.
It was actually a really cool experience.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah, but that was that was the again, that was
the first like six months, six to seven months.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Of the war.

Speaker 5 (16:21):
And then I got out of there and went back
to a training battalion and helped you know, train the
new guys.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Basically was like the big brother figure. So I never
got sent back again.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
But what happened in Iraq, I'm glad I never got
sent back because the rack kind of turned into a
hell hole after that, So.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, I had a friend that rode like an
m rap all the time and he had to work
up on the top of it. And he said that
when he'd get surrounded, yeah, by all of the kids
and everything coming up constantly, yes, like they would never
scatter when he had his M four out, no run
away from that, but he'd pull a shotgun out and
they would just.

Speaker 5 (16:51):
Dude, what of our our track? Commander turned the turn
on the kids A twenty five millimeter kid, Like, that's like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Get the hell out of here.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
Like we had to fix it's to kind of keep
the kids back because they would literally come up and
yank on your clothes. Like you just had to like,
come on, You're not gonna stab them, obviously, but just like,
come on, kid, like respect the boundaries there.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
It's like right, and he yeah, the shotgun probably has
a little more like oh yeah, scatter effects. So he's like,
I pulled the shotgun out right and I just rack
it and then they would scattered.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Oh yeah, I was racking. Sound that'll get your.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Your They're like they're not afraid of the cannon. They're
not afraid of the cannon.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
Literally, TC just swung the cannon around these kids, and
they're just like, ah, like they just kind of stepped
to the side.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh. How crazy would that be.
I've done war games in California at Old Georgia Air
Force Base, and these guys they're hobbyists like I am,
and they have armor personnel carriers that we get a
ride in and the whole thing. And I was in
an ambush and I just had this track a right
by me. I was like, yeah, could have just died.
I could have Sure he was supposed wasn't he supposed
to stay on the streets. Why is he cutting through

(17:55):
the neighborhood through the dirt?

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Wait? Wait, you don't really care? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (17:59):
No, right, So I mean.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
That's why we have we can go anywhere, we go
anywhere anywhere.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
That's on YouTube. If you want to go find it.
You can find rat Almost dies by an APC at
A one All right, crazy. I had an M two
three grenade launcher. I was in a bush and I
was just like waiting for it to come by, and
I thought he's coming on my right side on the street.
But in fact, all I heard was I was like,
you see on the dirt, you hear me? In the
video and I go to shoot with my two of
three fail you know, airsoft gas grenades. I mean, come on, baby,

(18:28):
there you go. So so again to transition from the
military side of things, you know, to the wargame side
of things, like what I'm doing, And how did you
guys manage that? How did you manage to go from
being a combat engineer and being you know, in your
position as a Bradley vehicle operator to to video games for.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah, so for me, so again, like I'd actually
gone to college before i'd enlisted, right, so I'd already
actually I went to n ONEU Film School, so I'd
already been working a little bit in film and TV
and doing some writing before I went in. But then
when I got out, it was, you know, like everybody else,
their careers had already their lives had kept moving for

(19:11):
three years, you know what I mean. So it was
a little it was a little bit of a transition
to try to get back into things. But after a
few years, I'd found myself producing independent documentaries down in
South America. Didn't spend a lot of time in the
Amazon actually I saw that, yes, yeah, and then but

(19:32):
I was still writing at the time. So I had
a reading of a play I wrote about a bunch
of soldiers who were stranded on a mountaintop in Afghanistan,
and an old friend of mine came and saw it,
and a few months later he asked me to He
called me up and he's like, yeah, you know, I'm
writing for this video game about these the special operators
who were like having their own like drug war in

(19:54):
Bolivia or something. It's called ghost freakon Wildlands, which you
like to come write for it. So again, so it
didn't really come from you know, my background is mostly
as a writer. I worked with special operations guys in
Afghanistan a lot, as like engineer support, and then I
knew South America. Okay, so at the time, Ubisoft really

(20:15):
wanted some kind of authenticity in their games, so I
was brought in to kind of bring some of that,
and then I had a blast working on wild Lands,
and then I was asked to I've done well enough,
I guess that they asked me to come on as
lead writer when the opportunity came on for Ghostrycome Breakpoint.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
So cool.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah, and then I just I just kind of stayed
in the industry since that's.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Very cool, very cool. What about you, Matt, What was
your segue?

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Yeah, I've always kind of known that I wanted, Like
I said, before even joining, I was at school for multimedia.
It was like the most generic scoring degree ever, but
I knew I wanted to do something with computers. And
I've always I've always been a gamer, like for my
whole life, Like I even got bullied for it.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Middle you know, sonicat I had a big head and
I played Sonic a lot. So yeah, so yeah, it's
like I've always been a gamer. Like It's like it's
always been with me.

Speaker 5 (21:09):
So I when I was getting ready to transition, like again,
I was at that the training battalion, helping the new kids,
like coming in kind of being that big brother figure.
You're in more of a more of an admin role,
and I knew that's not what I wanted. I always
love ftx's field train exercises were my jam or.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
I loved it.

Speaker 5 (21:26):
I was a combat life saver, like I'd even pulled
some medic duty, like you know, I'd just be kind
of jack of all trades out there. But being back
in the admint role just it just killed me. I
just couldn't do it, so I knew, like I wouldn't
want to make this a career. So let's like you
said before, like having that the guys that couldn't join,
I always like wondered, like, you know, the guys that

(21:47):
can't be you know, pilots, but they could play Microsoft
Flight Simulator, the guys that wanted to be you know,
NASCAR drivers as they play you know, you know, ey
racing or something like this, Like it's that living that
experience and how do we do that? And so for me,
it's like I could take my military career make some
type of software or some games and stuff where like
I was even thinking like movies too, like special like
special effects with like saving Private Ryan or you know,

(22:08):
black Hawk Down or anything like this that needed effects
to make it more authentic.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
So that just drove me into.

Speaker 5 (22:13):
Like, okay, games like I could just create a game
in the future that would make you feel like you're
in a you know, in a battalion, in a platoon,
in a squad, like make you feel what you never
could because you just didn't get that opportunity. People have lives, right,
And so for me, it's just like it was just
it was a it was it was.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
A long time coming.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
So I made the push to go for school for
game design and made that transition and found out that
I'm really good at making three D worlds, and so
I got a job as a level designer at cry
Tech and been doing that for the last almost sixteen years.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Did you use your GI bill to accomplish that goal?

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Fifty to fifty? So here's the deal with the GI bill.

Speaker 5 (22:50):
So it's a physical time right, So it's like I did,
like like Lewises was saying, I was like behind the curve.
I felt like I was just I needed to go
because all my friends were like out pacing me. So
I was like, I needed the accelerated program. So I
did a two and a half year school program to
get my four year degree, like I did, no breaks.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Just let's just power through. Let's go straight up.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
But because of that less time length, they pay you
once you're done with school, well, we don't need to
give you GI bill anymore. So it's like, okay, so
I still have, you know, half the bill to pay.
It's like, yeah, I know, tell me about it. But
we're all covered now with our student loan debts and
we're good. But I was left with the half of it,

(23:33):
but yes, there was there was a part of it
that they did cover for sure.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Right, And I just wanted to bring that up because
you know, some of our listeners are you you know
that might be thinking, how do I just go straight
to college, I'll just leave my GI bill or like,
is there other types of schooling that can take my
GI bill to help? Yeah, in the in multimedia, you know,
you know, things like that. So I just like to
hear we'd like to hear that and thank yeah, sharing
that absolutely. Did you did you expound on your college

(23:59):
degree Lewis? Have you moved any more towards it? Are
you pretty good? Where you're not? Well?

Speaker 4 (24:03):
I actually had, like I said, I was older, I'd
already graduated, so I was like working so right, But
then I did actually use the GI but when I
got out there just to take some more business because.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
It's not doctor Lewis today, m D M d ye
Doctor wild Lands. Yes, I love it. No, it's like
so that's very cool. So there's there's hope for a
veteran out there to transition from the military back into

(24:35):
what we call civilian life. Yeah, and and move forward
to be successful and you guys are kind of living
that that dream that is out there. Right someone who's
listening to this might still be just closing out their
D two fourteen and going to get all the signatures
from everybody with matter on the outside. It's like, we
get all these signatures, but I'm gonna be something.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
To hold on to that document. Yeah, it's that thing comes.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
In you'll need it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll get
You'll get discounts at the dispensaries. You get discounts at EGO. Yeah,
we'll just leave it there.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Yeah, come on, we know.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Oh that's so funny. If the recruiter only told you
up front list you can't do it right now. But
when you get out, you're going to have discounts here.
You're gonna have discounts there. You're gonna get fifteen percent
off at the dispensaries over there. Yeah, you'll be good.
You know, go hit the VIA up. Do you guys
use the VA for anything or you guys currently for
home loans?

Speaker 4 (25:34):
This is I kind of a this keeps coming up,
and this keeps coming up. I'm sorry, so when I
ets in two thousand and four, you know, yes for
my listener. Sorry, so that's basically when you when an
enlisted person gets out of the military, it's a process
known as EATS.

Speaker 6 (25:48):
I can't remember exit terms of service right or some
yeah something, Yeah, okay, So but for the when I
got out, there was a period of like just several
months during two thousand and four.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
When basically the basically the VA was just overrun by
all these wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq. They're just like,
if you don't have any medical needs, if you're like
your disability, you're not going to get any VA medical benefits, right,
And so that's the window that I managed to exit, right, So,

(26:20):
like I don't have any VIA medical benefits. I've gone
back to check like over the years and now it's
been like over twenty years.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
So yeah, you have a health provider. So it's like, you.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Know, it's like, yeah, but that's the thing, like especially
when you when I first got out, though, you know,
like it would have been probably nice to have health
insurance those first couple of years.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
It really would have been, and we should we should
be mad about that.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's still kind of annoyed. But but you
see that said though, like the the in service medical
care I've always been like very ambivalent about let's say, so,
so one thing that they had in the eighty second Airborne,
I'm like talking.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Shit now, so spare with me.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
But uh, the dentists there had a quota on the
number of fillings that gave per month. That's because to
be like jump ready, your your dental needs to be
in order or something. So because you know, like you
got to be anywhere in eighteen hours or something as
like in the eighty second, so you don't want to
show up in that after your soldiers to be like
full of cavities. I guess I don't know, but either way, So,

(27:24):
like I went in for to the dentist on my
last dental visit and like I had probably had like
just needed a cleaning, or maybe I had one cavity,
but I ended up leaving with like three or fillings.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
So did they make them for you?

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah? No, they just gave it.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
They were just like, oh, yeah, that that'll be a cavity,
So we're just gonna go ahead and drill it out
a little more and put a filling.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
And you're like, but you're an e three right right?

Speaker 3 (27:49):
Right?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Is the thing? Right? You're like, what about you over here, bro,
and spit and spit and yeah, spit right, you know.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
So that's why I've never really pushed too hard to
try to get via medical benefits.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, I got you, I got you. But I just
want to say, you know, come on now, let's make
sure that everybody that gets them deserves them, gets them.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah. It blows in my mind that he doesn't have them.
I couldn't.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
I couldn't comprehend that part. But yeah, I've used my
via medical benefits and the V loan I bought purchased
his house with using.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
That, so I wouldn't have my I'd be renting today
if I didn't have a VA Home loan. Yeah. Yeah.
The Homeland thing is is great, incredible. So I mean, like, like,
let's just say I am. I am cashing in on
my VA Home loan from nine I got in during
the Obama buy a house, we give you money. Yeah, okay,
Holy yeah, dude. They gave us eight thousand dollars when
we bought our house in two thousand and nine from
the government. It was a grant and then the seller

(28:44):
put a new roof on for us. It was a
short sale. They paid all closing costs and I think
I got something else out of the deal. No PM
I uh you know, my my lenders like, I feel
like you're stealing this, and I'm like, hey man.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
It's yeah, just taking the player.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah yeah I did. He's the house locked in and uh,
you know, here we are twenty twenty five. Fireplace is
still going. So I do give credit to the home
loan and the VA home loan there. But I fancy
I went to physical therapy after I got out because
I got injured, and uh, they put me in a

(29:22):
pool for pool therapy, and it was just a bunch
of old salty seals that were just really barrel rolling
each other in the water and I'm holding over the edge,
just like trying to like do my you know, stretches
with my legs and whatnot, and they're just like coming
up for air, You're good, back down into the water
fighting each other. Dude. I'm like, all right, that's I'm
taking my dath through a VA all my life, you know,

(29:43):
to try to get his health and wheelchairs, long hallways,
my steam mom pushing him her feet.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
You know, what was your dead service? If you don't
mind me asking what was your dead service?

Speaker 2 (29:53):
He was with the nineteen Special Forces Group out here
at Special Forces Airborne, but never really like he always
wore jeans and plaid shirts. You never really you know why,
that's how they are. You know, we'd go hiking into
the mountains and his whole team would out of Layton, Utah.
We'd all go for hikes and you would never know that.

(30:14):
It was just like a whole a team of dads,
you know, hiking training with their kids or you know,
us little kids. They never asked, Hey, why is your
ten year old son tagging along on all these like
maneuvers with us, which I didn't realize we're maneuvers until
now that I'm older. Right out, Dad's like, you're going
up on the mountain with us today, And I was like, yeah,

(30:35):
going up the mountain with with dad, you know and
his guys, all the buddies. So always brought in like
a moguli to that. I was brought into that culture
at such a young age. You know. They would star
drill into a big boulder on top of a waterfall
up this canyon, and they put rebar in that boulder
and they bent it into a hook into the other side.
And so now we just had an immediate d ring

(30:56):
click and then we would just enbolay down this like
forty five foot wall fall. Oh that sounds yeah, So
we just make Swiss seats out of little green ropes,
you know, and it's from those, bro imagine eleven twelve
year old little me and my nuts are just right up.
Dads and guys are like just pulling on the ropes

(31:16):
and just you know, and they just stunded. I think
I think Jerry, one of my dad's guys, Jerry Calwell,
he had a figure eight. It was new. It was
like the latest thing, you know, and so they were
like working with figure eights at that point, but it
was usually just d rings, Swiss seats, and leather gloves.
Due one guy, his gloves hit through the gloves. His

(31:38):
hands turned green from the burn from the rope because
he just did one lead. Yeah, but that's how I
grow up. And now today flash forward and I'm still
hunting my friends in the mountains of Utah with you know,
replica style airsoft guns fully kitted out and you know,
face paint and night war games. We have tracer rounds,

(31:59):
so we have suppressors that go on the end of
our Airsoft rifles. Yeah, and then they have they have
an infrared sensor that every time the bb goes through it,
Strobe lights it and so the glow on the dark bbies.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
That's kind of good.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Find it. You can find it on YouTube. Just look
up Utah Airsoft Night Games. But we have guys with
PVS fourteen's white phosphor thermals. Holy no, Joe. It's like
it's like the US is just like, what's your choice
of gun? You say, oh, ak, here you go, here's
an akh M fourteen, Here's an M fourteen. Yeah, and
then you just get to work with it.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
That's funny, that's all what we're doing it.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
It's so cool and that's and it's like the video
game comes to life for uh those you were talking
about who's driving that I that I Force car or
who DA's car, who's driving the simulators? In fact, I
have a young man fifteen years old is when I
met him, joined the Utah Air National Guard as a PFC,
turning his wafflet packet, became an Apache pilot, has the

(32:53):
full total full system in his front room to fly.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Like yeah, DC combat simulator, the whole thing crazy.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah he is, and he still loves Airsoft. Right, it's
just all video game blending in with you know, real
life and now, and he's gone and done it.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
So what we see here at Soft Rep is like
today's air Softer might be tomorrow's Lewis or tomorrow's Matt
or tomorrow's you know, Navy Steel Sniper Total or maybe
the kid has asthma and he can't join, but he
gets to you know, at least pala around and get
into a pillbox.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
That's awesome. Love that, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, it's just like a video game, right, just go
go crawl, you know, get into a pill box. Now.
I'll tell you something about Rainbow six that's tough for me,
is the teamwork. I'm too loud, I run.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
I'm just like like Siege the News.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Six sis. Yeah. Yeah, the guys were playing it. I
kind of moved away from playing it so much because
you know, when you're playing these other first person shooter
games that are out there, there's just really no rhyme
or reason and you're not like exactly, there's no alert
like a dog's like you know, you're like, oh, I
just alerted a century. I'm gonna keep running. No, I'm
learning all the centuries, and then I go squat by

(34:09):
my guys. They're like, yo, Rad, you're getting us killed,
you know, And I'm like, I hope you know what
I'm talking about here, Ok.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Yes, totally, but it's like, yes, that's honestly though, that
kind of play is one of the things that we're
trying to address with the game designing that we're working on.
Victory's Grave outflank, so where it's straight up you know,
five versus five at this point, you know, maybe maybe
you explain it.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, So we're starting starting as as lean of a
production as we can with like when it comes to
the scope of what we're trying to make, it's just
like something that will be achievable. Like again, your Rainbow
Succeedge is five y five. We can always scale up
from here. But yeah, the idea is to get guys
like you or you know, the other air softre is
to kind of like be able to like implement their

(35:00):
tactics that they've you know done in the like in
US Airsoft session, but in you know, in a virtual world,
and then also come together, Yeah, come together and play
against other teams as well that are kind.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Of outset to do the same thing.

Speaker 5 (35:11):
So we're trying to like exaggerate the realism of what
it's like to be, you know, having rounds fired back
at you. With most most games, like your Call of Duties,
your Battlefields, if you really look at how it's played,
even Rainbow succeede.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
They model the guns on like what.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
It's like to shoot at a range, right, you know,
it's just like okay, cool, Like it's here's how the
site's aligned, this is how the recoil is no problem.
But no one really really does the what rounds do
to you coming back at you?

Speaker 3 (35:38):
And like I think you know you you you.

Speaker 5 (35:41):
Kind of probably feel this with airsoft, Like you know,
you're not necessarily gonna die, so you can take more
riskier moves, right, so you can kind of like do.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Some of these things.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
But in reality, you want to run across this open field,
you know, just you know Leroy Jenkins that you're probably
gonna in real quay.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah you're gonna still real quick.

Speaker 5 (35:57):
But if you know, Lewis is providing some see fire
and covered me and we can bound up together like
literally the correct bound in maneuver like, yeah, it's it's
applied in it it works.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
Yeah, totally so.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
And that's exactly what a lot of us gravitate to.
I remember some of the games like so Calm Navy
Seals bro obsessed with that game. You know. It's like, yes,
I'm under the ladder, got the guy, you know, totally
like that. And you know, we really build our community
here off of Counterstrike, and so in the beginning, we

(36:29):
all were like Beata players here in Salt Lake, and
then we went to like the new version and then
the CS and all that stuff, But it was always
with Mike's we always and what's funny is our team
was based off of those guys in the game. They
started creating a little forum for Airsoft on our website,
and it would always be like the top threads. When
they'd come in to see what was going on with
counter Strike, it was always like Airsoft and they're like, hey,

(36:51):
are you guys playing this outside? Are you guys going
outside from the video game and playing this in real life?
We're like yeah, it's like are you guys geared up
and gear? Are these folk? And pretty soon we went
from like a little section for a form of Airsoft
to like half of it was the Airsoft and the
other half was video games. So we know very well
that it blends and not only bland with Airsoft, but

(37:12):
with like usurrect. You know, United States Army Recruiting Command
loves video games. Oh yeah, they're like, hey, you guys
have this video server, can we advertise in it?

Speaker 5 (37:21):
And yeah, shit, I played America's Army. You remember America's Army.
The first person shooter is a recruiting.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Tool, so good, yes, yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (37:30):
Learned like sports, the slap pole releases, observed like tap,
like the whole thing, Like how did like do Weaponman?
And then even like I heard this story about a
kid in Arizona, I think when I was going to
school there. He was able to provide medical attention to
someone on the side of the road that got into
a car crash because of America's Army told him like
did the little basic training medical like this is how
you apply a turn to kit x Y and Z.

(37:51):
There's an open wound, a sucking chest wound, x Y
and Z. It's like right, he didn't like you wouldn't
know this unless he did it, but he played it,
and it just kind of like, oh, I remember this,
and I could apply in real life.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Crazy need to apply. You need to know what you
guys need to do. You need to subliminally not subliminally,
you need to put into the game homework.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I think they're just like saying right now is like,
if you do it enough and you repetitive enough on
the process, all of a sudden he's like, Oh, there's
a car as in it sucking chest wound. Why is
America's army theme song playing while I'm doing it?

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Totally that it is totally Yeah, And like you said,
if someone's doing the race par stimulator and then they
get into a.

Speaker 5 (38:30):
Race car, it applies the basics into your head and
they just become second nature. Like you just kind of like, oh, okay,
I know that I know how to trail break. I
know I you know, like to feather the throttle, like
to short shift or whatever. Like you can learn these
terms and you learn how like these different I guess
techniques behind the simulator. Then when you get behind the car,
obviously the g forces and you know, the feedback and

(38:52):
the sounds and the smells, that's something you have to learn.
But the basics are there. You understand like how to
enter a corner, how to hit your apexes and like
fly as well, like to whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Like, you know, we say, the safety with Airsoft, nothing
replaces the smell or the real thing.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, yeah, right, nothing's going to replace the the violence
of a gun, okay, which is what it is. But
in Airsoft, you know, the only bad habit we have
is we're, you know, intending to shoot each other all
the time. Ye Peo were like, you got a bad
habit and Airsoft and I'm like tell me the bad habit,
and I'll tell you the bad habit, and the bad
habit is. No, everybody's really disciplined. No one's really like

(39:30):
flagging outside of the game, right, It's like everybody's like
weapons down, the bags are out, safeties are on, all
that kind of flares, you know, don't shoot yourself kind
of thing. But yeah, once the game is on, dude,
we're like we intend, you know. So it's quite interesting
these games. I just I love it so much. You know,
we have players from Call of Duo that come out
and play Airsoft with us here in Utah, full on

(39:52):
load outs from the game that they how do they
do they did great. It was the dude with the
sliced eye. Oh, what's his name? He's the actor, he
lives here and he came and played really yeah, yeah,
I want to say his name was Stitch. But he's
got the wide eyes from Call of Duty Modern or
from a World at War.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
And he's one of the main I haven't played that one.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well yeah, no, and I don't mean to bring up
other games, but.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Yeah, that's working.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Did you bring up did you guys work at Valve ever?
Did you guys work at No?

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Not no, I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Tell me who you guys work with right now? Can
we hear the engines?

Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, Lewis go for it.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
Yeah no, So so what we're working with right now
in terms of our stuff, So we're working in Unreal
engine right now.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Unreal Yeah and the.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
Yeah, so again, Matt's been building a lot of stuff
in there.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
We're right now.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
We have like the first playable prototype done, like we
shipped that like last August, which is just well like
the internal first build of it right just to see, Okay,
is this a game?

Speaker 2 (40:57):
And is this fun?

Speaker 4 (40:58):
So luckily it was a game, and it was a
hell a lot of fun. So now we're working towards
the vertical slice, which is just like making like one
slice of the pie of the whole game, you know.
So like, well, we will be working towards creating one
like full level one, full full battlefield basically and with
all the features that we can that we intend to

(41:20):
have for when we launched.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
So you know, we're.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
Working towards that and a lot of that work now on.
Matt's working on the features and stuff. But we still
need to get like art into the game so that
it doesn't just look like generic you know, Unreal Engine
five town. Yeah, you know, we want to get like better,
you know. So we're also setting our our game and
like an alternate version of the eighties, so like we

(41:44):
want to also get like like eighties text love it.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Yeah, like, yes, yeah, we'll put you in the game, man,
We'll put you in the.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Okay, here I am, here, I am Holy dude. Well hey,
you know, we.

Speaker 5 (42:04):
Gotta get you one of those motion suits and the
t pots like yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
You guys, guys, Okay, you can sleep over already. It's okay,
all right, right, yeah dude, it's totally fine. You kick
it in front of the Fireplaceny we'll put on Nintendo
sixty four. We'll go for it some Bond.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
I'm gonna I'm gonna wreck you in some Bond.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
Man.

Speaker 5 (42:25):
I used to do this all the time, gold night Man,
You're you're, You're through. No odd jobs, no odd jobs.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
No, we'll do paintball mode.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
Yeah, okay, yes, yeah, what was it? What one hit? Kick? Dude?

Speaker 5 (42:37):
All the time. I've done so many midnight sessions with
my buddies. Is back in high school with that ship so.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Oh yeah, dude, it's so great, dude, I love that.
I still to this day. Yeah, song popping up. I've
got like four Nintendo sixty fours downstairs.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
That gong sound gong like whatever. That's in my brain forever.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
The other game I love so much is Twisted Metal.
Oh my, I just Twisted Metal is the one that
I fuck. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, that is like Warthog all day. I'll ram into
you and fire my special Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Sweet tooth, baby, sweet tooth.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, your little specter car thrown. It's a little hyper Yeah,
freaking thermal missiles that means shipped through the walls.

Speaker 5 (43:16):
Incredible. Did you ever play Vigilante Eights? It was like
the competitor to V eight, The Vigilante eight.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
No I have not played.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, it was actually like it gave me.

Speaker 5 (43:26):
Like a lot of inspiration because this was like Nintendo
sixty four era exact same style. Like it was this
you know Battle Royale type game where's with a bunch.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Of cars, but I remember specifically this map.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
You could shoot like uh, some type of aqueduct type thing,
but it would cause like a massive wave to go
down the level and it'd like push the cars that
were inside the city, like inside the the drain and
flip them upside down, so you could use the environment
to kind of fuck with people and stuff. For me,
oh yeah, this has always been an inspiration for me
everything I designed. I want the environment to kind of

(43:57):
tell more stories than one, right.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Like it actually like you know,
you lay on the grass, the grass moves, yes.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
More than that.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
Like it literally you can like have gameplay implications like
you know, the water level rises, now your car you
can't or your player can't cross the river right because
the environment's changed, like or you can.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
See footprints in the grass.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yes, and like oh they're around the corner.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
Yeah, yes, exactly. But the Golden Eyes started all of this.
It started all of this, like this this work in
my head, like, oh my god, this is so cool.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Could you imagine?

Speaker 2 (44:28):
You know. And the other game that really, you know,
since we're all gamers in here, was Red Alert.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yes, so totally conquered Red Alert.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
I mean, I can't tell you how many times we
to play, you know, late night sessions of getting Tiberium
and like you got it, I'm on it. Mission accomplished,
no problem, get it moving forward.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
We'll get you in the sound to voice.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Again again again talking like Stefan over here.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And then.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
By the way, oh that's awesome. Now, now the latest
game that you guys are working on, tell me the
title of that again.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Victory's Grave Outflank. Yeah, it's not out yet. Again, we're
still still pre alpha right now, but yeah, you can
wish list it on Steam if any of you guys
are shopping there. But yeah, so we're like right now,
you know, we're there. We're doing our equity crowdfund. But

(45:31):
if things go well, we'll hopefully be releasing like the
early access version of that, you know, which will be
still be pretty polished, but you know, we still want
to be able to get input from from players. We're
hoping to release that within a year.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
What if what if? What if a veteran is a player,
how would they be able to be a part of
you guys, maybe you know, testing it on them, you know,
maybe somebody.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Has Yeah, we've already been taking steps towards that, you know,
like right now, we're still our tests are still pretty small,
you know, but we're talking with like discords like Regiment,
you know, and we're also you know, we're.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
We're talking with a lot of different groups.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
Like we're also even talking with like the West Points
esports teams, trying and get some of their input and stuff.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
You know. So yeah, like definitely, if there's a high
school team that does esports, can they reach out to absolutely?

Speaker 5 (46:26):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, even if you're on Regiment, like reach
out to join our discord.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Just yeah, ask questions.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
Yeah, and all this, all this stuff, it's all gonna
be on our website, you know, links to all that on.
So it's old Glory Studios dot us.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, I was gonna I have that right here written
down Old Glory Studios. I hold this pencil like David Letterman.
So you think I'm writing things down. But at the
end of the day, yeah, I'm writing things down. Bro's
we got the pencil, throw it at the camera, yeah,
and about it. So, so we should be seeing it

(47:02):
on Steam maybe around the holidays, within the year, about
a year.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
Well again, like so it's listed on Steam so you
can wish list it. But yeah, we're really again, we're
really hoping in about a year. So hopefully before March
of next year we'll have early access release so people
can really get their hands on it. But again, we're
gonna be testing the heck out of.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
It even before.

Speaker 5 (47:23):
Testing is huge, Like the more we can test, the
more we'll know where to fix, what to improve, like
how the features work, like if we're on the right
track or not, and we can make adjustment exactly. You
gotta test all the time.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
One hundred you know, like when we do counter Strike
back of the day, Yeah, you know, it's like yeah,
it's like it's like you can shoot through walls. It's
like is that a good thing?

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Correct?

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (47:42):
We have issues?

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Yeah, yeah, so that like that that's basically the same
as like an early access release now or ye, you
know exactly so but yeah, and honestly, though, like one
thing though that we are we're really trying to figure
out like how to do it, like in a really
in a good way, in the way that's easy for
the players. Is we really want the game to be

(48:05):
free for veterans and active service members just because you know,
like it's one of the like one of our missions
as a studio is to honor you know, veterans, just
to honor service.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
You know.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
So because honestly, like again, like Matt and I we
both come from like these big Triple A like Tom
Clancy games and stuff. But it's we've gotten to a
place where the the authenticity that we used to have
in these games, all these games you know that we're
talking about, it's it's really gone.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Now.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
You play Call of Duty, you can play as a
Ninja Turtle, you can play.

Speaker 5 (48:42):
My favorite CARDI B is jam Fortnite zero, you know
what exactly.

Speaker 4 (48:49):
Yeah, so that's towards that Fortnite kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah, this is a problem.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
But then like there are things that are you know,
more hardcore, Like I'm sure a lot of your airsopts
guys and stuff are playing Arma, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
See the squad Squad.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Yeah, yeah, sand Box, these are these are much more
like like they're great games, but again like they're they're
not accessible as accessible absolutely, you know, these games like
Ghost three, kind of wild Lands or like the Division one.
You know, yeah, like Call of Duty ten years ago
or something. You know, So we want to have that.
We wanted to feel authentic but still be really accessible,

(49:33):
and I don't know, like the authenticity is like in
my experience has always been a struggle, you know what
I mean, like the whole time, like from almost day one,
you know, there's been like, uh, it's always been like
a French or Canadian developer trying to tell me this
is how I'm not going speck ups be you know,
just like nobody calls them specups man.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
You know.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
So so that's the thing. And I think you know,
players can kind of they can see if they can
feel it, you know, when it's not real. And I
think that's a lot of that is also why the
developers are no longer trying to even make it like
seem real. You know, they're like, oh, it's easier we
can make and it'll be easier cash in. We're just
throwing the terminator into the game, and you know, and

(50:19):
it works.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
Yeah, there are.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Plenty of people who love playing it.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
It doesn't work, that's the problem.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
But there's this there's this big gap though, there's this
all there are a whole bunch of people who want
this kind of authentic feeling but accessible game that just
isn't there anymore.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
So, right, It's kind of why people don't want to
see a lit body when it gets shot, but they
want to see it turned into like little pixels.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah that is me the finals, man. You
see them.

Speaker 5 (50:45):
They can turn into coins, right, it's like, yeah, that's right, Yeah,
they turn into money.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Yeah, I have a gun on cod that it's old school,
but the skin is it turns you into little pixel blocks.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Okay, just kind of material.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Exist in saying, dude, somebody shot me once with it
and I was like so mad that my body was gone,
and I was like these little blocks. I was like,
I was like, I have to have that gun, dude,
And so I went and got the skin. I rarely
pay for things on these things, but I paid for it.
I also have a roadblocks. Accounts don't don't fault me.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Yeah, what you gotta do a lot?

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, Like I got stock in the place I was like,
well why.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
You go, I mean that makes sense then you know.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
That's yeah, well what a platform.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
Yeah, but that's what we're trying to look at. Is
this another take on how we handle that sort of stuff.
Like again, this whole like you could be play as
Nicki Minaj or Ninja Turtle, Like this is for the
individual person, like, yeah, you want that gun, no problem.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Our take is is team based. It's team bound.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
If you think like the eighty second Airborne third i D.
One hundred and first will have our individual identities within
the military and like your your airsop squad. I'm sure
you guys have your little cultures too that you're bound to.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Absolutely. So this is like the focus that we're looking
for is instead of like focusing strictly and solely on
individuals and trying to you know, get a dollar from
each person, Well, it's cool, like you will if you
want to set up a team, will start to you know,
revolve the structure around teams and how like they collect
and you know, maintain and progress their characters. So like

(52:19):
if you're on this team, like the eighty second Airborn,
you get this helmet, this glove, this, you know, top
vest this and so then if you're off the team,
like sorry, you either retire, we kick you out, like
your you'r's not good enough. Will you lose those benefits?

Speaker 5 (52:30):
You lose those perks for being on that team, And
like they can have their own internal culture, and that's
what we want to kind of create, and.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Within that internal culture and within that specific unit and
within that specific individual wearing the gear. If you had
a way that we could take the controller ye in
the buildout of the character before we go fight, it's like, oh, hey,
by the way, you can push the button and it
takes you to the shop that has the helmet that
you can buy like a bump helmet, and I correct it,
buy that bump helmet.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
But you buy it for your whole team.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
With the whole team Yeah, but no, but for but
for real having oh.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Yeah, real life there you go.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, yeah, so your character you're sitting there playing around,
You're like, oh, yeah, you already like that kit you've
dressed person up with like the full on Like yesil,
It's like.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
I definitely think that there there is towards that. Yeah,
you know, like especially if you watch like a lot
of Amazon shows, you know what I mean, Like Amazon,
like Fashion Hills will be like, well this dress won
this week, now you can.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Go buy it right right right like it.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
It was kind of a it's kind of the next
logical step, I think.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
So yeah, T Store or whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, hey, the watch
just dropped. You can get over the one hour, thirty
seven minutes and season three.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Special or something.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yes, yes, yes, Like you know, if people would buy
that orange watch from Wildlands, that's Wildlands has that watch.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
That's the Divisions division. That's what division.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
That's me yeah right right yeah that watch right yep, yeah,
my smart smart watch. I got that as like the
the screen, right, I mean, like, how do I buy that?
It's like, oh right here it's for sale, you know,
and you can get your character to have it.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
Well, it's just another way that we're looking at just
to approach from instead of looking at like individuals. It's just,
you know, I feel like it's it's just it's kind
of uh rude to look at players as just you know,
basic cash cows. But again, if you want to play
for these teams, they can customize and build their own
teams and you're not charging the individuals. Like if I
want to own a team, I can be the team
owner and I can buy whatever gear like I can

(54:30):
buy everything. I'll purchase all right, and then my team
has access to everything. If you play with me or
you know, I can like but I you know, if
you're gonna play on my team on a charge at
twenty bucks a month per player to play for me individually,
that's not us as a studio doing that. That's the
team owner and specific. But if you're you know, you're
like a you just hit the lottery or whatever. You
just want to own a team, and you know, just

(54:51):
come play for me. You can play for free. Like
a kid you know that's just has up and coming
talent he but doesn't have the funds to play.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
He could totally play.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
It's like, you know, just he's that gets recruited in
the NBA or the NFL or something.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
It's it's that sort of situation.

Speaker 5 (55:04):
But if I wanted to play in the NBA, they're
gonna charge my ass to like, you know, you're gonna
pay us to play.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Yeah, I didn't think about that aspect. Thing about it
pay to play, bro like, but the teams decide the team.
I thought it would be a draft almost kind of
like hey dude, you're.

Speaker 5 (55:20):
Yeah, yeah, totally, yes, yeah, absolutely, there's they totally be
season stats, like you can make yourself a free agent
become like but you have to like subscribe to a
team for one season, right.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
I guess that, but I mean like to pay to
play because the guy. But then there's a sponsor. I mean,
a sponsor should be taking care of you.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Well that's the whole point. This is where we go.

Speaker 5 (55:39):
As for us as developers, we're getting like it's like
the NFL. The NFL gets paid whether there's thirty two
teams in the league or not. Right, the teams are
paying the league fee. But then the teams can pay
to have players, Like the teams can be sponsored by
you know, Red Bull or whatever, and like, okay, we're
gonna pay this kid, you know, ten grand to play
for us for one season.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Like they can do that, no problem.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Esports work.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
That's totally how esports work. That's exolutely.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
But one of our differentiators at that is that we're
really trying to like we're actually talking with a lot
of people in the esports world right now because we're
really trying to make sure the game can launch with
those kind of team based stretchers that a lot of
people playing esports are like they need to get some
other software added on, or.

Speaker 5 (56:19):
It's designed from the ground up. It's designed to have
that implemented from the beginning.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
And if you don't play, even if you're not thinking
about being a competitive esports thing, it's just more it's
just easier to get your friends together, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Team manager.

Speaker 5 (56:33):
You're not like you just you're not very good player,
but you like like fantasy football types of just manage
your team and like sit their schedules and hey, hey,
lewis you got you got a game Friday night at
three or whatever.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's like, okay, cool.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Right, because you're yeah, exactly, you could. Yeah, you really
can't take it from that yes process of like a
fantasy football and bring.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
It into one hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (56:49):
I just want to manage a team, you know, and
I'm gonna set the lineup, like we have ten players,
but it's a five y five, so I have to,
you know, pick my five starters.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Jeez, dude, I can see my friend Marjan doing at all.

Speaker 5 (57:00):
Yes, there's a there's there's an end for everybody. We're
not just looking at the sweat, you know, the kids
and mom's basement just you know, sweating behind their computer screen.
This is stuff for like guys with like kids in
the schedule, Like you don't have time to play twenty
four hours a day, you can still contribute and you
can still have fun. You can still actually be a
big part of the process.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Because all of our kids are just playing and constantly, right,
I'm constantly I'm a forty computer No, and my twenty
two year old daughter, my sixteen year old son, those two.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Yeah on the games, locked in, like.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Really good at it. Yeah, locked in. And so they're
gonna be stoked that I had this conversation first of
all with you guys, Like yeah, yeah, yeah, I talk
to these guys all the time. It's no big deal.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
One thing too, that that that were that was pointed
out to me, like recently said like it's for younger people,
Like it doesn't make sense to say, oh.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
I'm a gamer.

Speaker 4 (57:52):
That's like makes every much sense of saying is I'm
a TV watcher?

Speaker 2 (57:55):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (57:56):
Everybody does it.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
Yeah, so it's not a flex anymore.

Speaker 4 (58:00):
Yeah, when kids at meet they're not like they're not
like do you play video games? No, it's what game
do you play?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
You know what I mean? Or it's like you play roadblocks?

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah? What type of gamer are you not? If you
are one?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Yeah, that's the question in the Airsoft shop when I
ask a kid that comes in, I'm trying to like
drill down on what they're looking at on the gun wall.
So what game are you playing? And they're like, oh, Siege.
I'm like, oh, do you want the EVO scorpion that
Ella uses? Right? You want that? It's like, what what
do you like?

Speaker 3 (58:27):
You know? Do you want that?

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Wife right in here? Well, I'm doing we're blending right now,
we're blending, and we're blending. Okay, nice, Yes, And you
know I love this conversation and I want to welcome
you guys back to soft rep at any time when
you have an update or any type of a mentor
you create another offshoot of esports going on, whatever it is,

(58:51):
if you guys have something to say, you guys are
always welcome to come on a soft rep and let
our listener viewers know all about it and appreciate. I
loved going down this road and thanks for talking talking
about some of your military history and I know that
is what you were and who you are today is
who you are today. So you know, matter respect you
and airborne up here and mechanized down here. So you know,

(59:13):
if you had something to say to anybody that listen
what they get from this, you know, I'll give you
like a little bit of a closing thing. What would
you say, Hey, thanks for listening. This is what we
want you to hear.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
Yeah, no, I'd say, yeah, thanks for listening. You know,
if if somebody who's in or somebody's transitioning or is
coming out like you know, like it, it may take
time to find your way, but you know, just stay
open and keep trucking. You're gonna find a good spot.
And if anybody wants to find out more about Old
Glory Studios, about our game, about our equity crowdfund right now,

(59:44):
just go to Old Glory Studios dot us. There's also
links to our discord there, so please join our discord.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
You know, regiment right No, no.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
No, that's our own discord, Our own discord.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Oh, our links to our own discorder in there on
that websit.

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
Regiments like the veteran Yeah, it's a totally different one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Yeah, yeah, I got you, I got you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Yeah, so yeah, just just join our discord and then
you know, like like everyone there, that's where the news
we release, any news of our stuff comes out first.

Speaker 6 (01:00:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
And you know, like if you're interested in joining a
play test down the road and probably just a few months,
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
That's the best way, that's the best place.

Speaker 3 (01:00:24):
Yeah. Shoot, is a message for sure, absolutely, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
For sure. I'm gonna go take my two thousand and
six uh Steam account. There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Yeah, a few updates to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Yeah. My son's like that, Oh you're good, You're good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Oh yeah, my son's like, Dad, your account. You know,
it's like, wow, two thousand and six. Yeah, dude, I
don't know if that's good or bad. But relatives there
bredon jack On.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeh all day mg a church bro.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
Yeah go ahead, feeling like the guy and yeah the
Sniper the Tower of Saving Private Oh yeah, bro.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
That's me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Put me within one mile of Hitler, Bro, it'll war
be over boys, that's what's up. Oh see, you guys
are always welcome back. Great vibes, great positive energy. I'm
going to close us out by saying thank you to Matt,
thank you to Lewis, thank you to Old Glory Studios
dot US for coming on the show and talking to

(01:01:28):
us about all their cool uh uh Tom Clancy division,
you know, all of these different Wildlands games that they're
doing and just making moves in the industry of esports
and games. Man, it's so cool to talk to you guys.
So on behalf of myself Brandon Webb, the owner of
softwarep dot com and and my listener. I want to
say thanks so much for being here.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
Guys, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
All Right, I'm with that. I'm saying peace.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
You've been listening to self red Lady h