We're pulling back the curtain on the world of indie game development. Join us as we sit down with the dynamic trio from Daylight Basement Studios — Chris, Mike, and Garrett, the masterminds behind the game, Rightfully Beary Arms. We get an insider's look at the journey that brought these three together, from their initial meeting at IBM to the formation of their gaming studio. Their passion for game development shines through as they share their experiences and the challenges they overcame to bring their vision to life.
Ready to immerse yourself in a universe filled with vibrant colors, impressive graphics, and unique 3D aesthetics? Rightfully Beary Arms does just that, and we dive headfirst into how these elements were used to create a world that can captivate and engross players. And if the immersive visuals weren't enough, prepare to be amazed by the game's charm — from their hilarious dialogues to their roguelike mechanics. And the icing on the cake? Garrett's brilliant music composition that perfectly encapsulates the essence of the game and takes the experience to a whole new level.
Finally, we take you through the final stretch of our journey with Daylight Basement Studios by discussing the challenges and the joy of game development. The conversation with Garrett reveals the importance of understanding the game's brand before composing its music and how he managed to balance various aspects of the project. And as a special treat, we let you in on some of the hilarious lines that had us in splits. All this and more, in one insightful and entertaining episode. Don't forget to check the game out on Steam and visit the game's website. So, strap in and enjoy the ride!
Wishlist Rightfully, Beary Arms: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1928030/Rightfully_Beary_Arms/
Check out Daylight Basement Studios:
https://daylightbasementstudio.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Celia Shilling from Yacht Club Games.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is Stephanie from the Boss Rush podcast and
the Boss Rush Network.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Mark and Keon from Bonta-Affold.
Hey, this is Sebastian withthepronervereportcom and the
Single Player Experience podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, this is Todd Mitchell from Code Right Play.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Salutations.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
This is Mike Carroll from Stroll Art.
Hey, this is Patrick from theBacklog Odyssey.
Hey, this is Rune from RuneitCodes.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Hi, this is Andrew from Spalato Birds.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hi, this is Barry from Premium Edition Games.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hi everyone.
Jill Grote here from the IndieInformer.
Hey, this is Brimstone andyou're listening to Roger
Reichardt on the Gamer Headspodcast.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And welcome to another episode of the Gamer
Heads podcast.
My name is Roger.
This week I have a very specialguest, well, several guests
here.
I have the folks at DaylightBasement Studios, the creators
behind Rightfully Barry Armswith me this week, And I have
Chris Garrett and Mike.
I'll let you all introduceyourselves and tell us a little
(01:09):
bit about yourself and how yougot into gaming.
Hi, I'm Chris.
No, go ahead.
Chris, You start.
Yeah, That's fine.
Okay, I just shoved my way inand here we go.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hi, I'm Chris, one of the game designers on
Rightfully Barry Arms.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, Mike, I do programming, That's my primary
thing different design aspectsand just kind of other odds and
ends.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And I'm Garrett and I do the music for the game.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Nice Well, welcome all to the show.
Glad that we were able toconnect.
One quick question I havebefore we get into the other
questions, Like do you all workin the same studio together?
Do you work remotely?
How does that work for you guys?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We are all remote.
Okay, we actually met Garrettat two packs ago and he joined
on the project and he isn'tactually part of daily basement,
but he's become very close andintertwined with the gaming
design and process, so yeah,Nice, nice, cool, well, yeah,
(02:25):
well, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How did Daylight Basement Studios start and how
did you get into gaming?
It's in creating games, becausethat's, I'm going to tell you,
that is appealing for a lot offolks, but also very scary.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, it actually like the way that we
got into at least the storiesthat Mike and I shared together
of getting into game dev is kindof how it also even started.
So yeah, it started way back Istarted doing.
I got into coding through gamedev because I was interested in
(03:02):
making my own games and I thinkI did stuff in like Game Maker
stuff way back then and ScratchAnd I picked up coding and then
went to school and lost that Idon't know that drive to do game
dev and I wanted to worktraditional software engineering
and I realized how much Imissed that creativity side of
it and doing art and workingwith all these other people.
(03:25):
And during my tenure inengineering I met Mike at IBM
and we talked about how we gotinto game dev and doing all
these different hobby projectsand we never really finished
anything.
And so this is the result of ustrying to finish something.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Nice, nice, nice.
So you met Mike at IBM, that'swhat you said Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah.
So, mike, what about you?
How did you get into this?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So you know, for me, you know, like, i guess,
when I first startedprogramming, you know it was
kind of through, i guess, gamingand wanting to create my own
games and just kind of becreative that way, and actually
started, you know, with, youknow learning basic on a TRS-80
(04:16):
and just kind of working my wayup in different languages and
you know, just kind of doingthese different side projects
along the way, eventually goingto school for, you know, for
engineering and computer, youknow, programming, and then kind
of moving into that as a careerAnd just kind of always doing
these side projects but neverreally getting serious about
(04:36):
them.
And then just kind of, you know,work with Chris and it just
kind of came up in aconversation like, hey, let's do
this, you know, and that'spretty much it.
It's in terms of how we wereactually able to commit to it
and, you know, stay committed toit for as long as we have.
(04:57):
That's kind of a hard, i think,question to answer.
I'm not even really sure howthat happened, but I think once
the gear is kind of going, youknow enough, i think it's kind
of hard to pull away from it.
So but yeah, i think this is,you know, this is kind of our
first real foray into somethingof this caliber Nice.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And then Garrett you it sounds like you met them at a
PAX then and then got pulledinto the, into the studio and
started making music.
Right, you're the, you make themusic for the game.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
So for me and my journey into the game dev world
it kind of started I graduatedcollege for music and kind of
started my freelance musiccareer back in like 2012, 2013,
and was kind of pigeonholed intodoing like jingle writing and
(05:54):
commercial writing and that kindof stuff, engineering for
studios and that kind of thing.
All the while I was, you know,playing D&D with some friends
and the DM and my group started,you know, doing some like
getting some music for sessionsand kind of expanding the kind
of audio world of our D&Dsessions.
(06:14):
So one year I decided to makesome music for like theme music
for each of the characters, andthen that kind of led one thing
into another and I started likeoffering that as a service where
I make music for other tabletopplayers and that kind of led me
to a lot of other creators whomake music for video games, and
then that's kind of how I was.
Like, you know, i should go toPAX this year and then next
(06:37):
thing, you know, here I am Veryawesome.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So, yeah, tell us about the game itself then.
So rightfully, Barry Arms, Whatis the game about?
And then also tell us about thegame.
But then also I want to knowmore about the title too.
Like how did you come up withthe title for this game?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, it's an action should-em-up roguelite, similar
to other bullet hell titles aswell.
I'd say like the gunplay we getcompared a lot to like gunjinn
or nuclear throne.
But a lot of inspirationprobably came from other games
honestly in the roguelite genre,like dead cells and, yeah, like
(07:25):
quite a few I can't even thinkbut And we put a lot more
emphasis on like the planningand the progression part of
roguelites, because we felt likethat was like missing and
that's something that Mike and Ienjoyed within game titles.
So you can actually like planthe dungeons you want to crawl,
plan your possible resourcesthat you can collect.
(07:46):
We still toss in thatrandomness.
That is like really fun inroguelites and kind of having
different builds with likedifferent weapon upgrade builds
and building up your characterand different meta progression
for Barry, the main character.
Yeah, then one unique aspect isyou can actually choose how the
enemy gets upgraded and how thegame gets more difficult.
(08:09):
So you usually see that whenyou die, but in the real game,
as you beat bosses in your run,you're stacking them and then
when?
you die, they clear and then youstart with a new enemy upgrade
that you have to choose.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So yeah, awesome, and in the title, rightfully Barry
Arms.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, so that comes from.
We haven't explored too much inthis story, especially and
probably won't with early access, but the idea is actually Barry
is a teddy bear that a kid isimagining.
they're a teddy bear goingthrough all this different
conflict and things like that,and this kid is struggling with,
(08:54):
maybe, self-concept of who theywant to become, maybe different
anxieties or differentconflicts they want to overcome,
and this teddy bear is theirsource of strength and who they
are, and so the bear themselveswrites to the child and signs it
(09:18):
rightfully.
Barry Arms, the bear is namedBarry.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That's awesome.
I mean I think when we talkedbriefly at PAX, like I think you
mentioned to me a little bitabout, yeah, you're playing as a
teddy bear and it's animagination of a character or of
a kid and his imagination orimaginary character or friend,
but that's really deep, That'sawesome.
I think you should lean intothat because there's not a lot
(09:44):
of games that in this genre thatdeal with a kid growing up with
their own anxieties of what'sexpected of them and where
they're supposed to be and whothey're supposed to be, right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So that's awesome.
I will say that we do want toexplore it more and figure out
that storytelling, but for EA,we're focusing on gameplay
mechanics, trying to get thatdown And we also don't want to
necessarily spoil too many ofthe story elements before 1.0
release, so yeah, Yeah Well, youjust did because you're just
(10:17):
kidding, that's no, we've talkedabout it, so we got some other
stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Oh, that's funny, One of the things just a side note
here one of the things I reallyenjoyed about the game when I
played it at PAX 2 was thewriting behind it And some of
the funny things.
Like I ended up going behindthe Fox character and talking to
him And he had some funny linesto say And I actually burst out
(10:45):
laughing when I was playing thegame.
I thought that was hilarious.
Can you talk about the writingtoo, around the characters and
the dialogue That was awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, so I do a lot of the writing And I think most
of the writing that shows up, ithink, like the weapon pickers
and things like that will havesome writing.
But in terms of, like, actualcharacter dialogue, most of that
currently is just in thetutorial And a lot of it was me
just kind of being literal andthinking like, okay, we have to
(11:18):
try to explain to the player howto do this thing, and I'm just
going to cut to the chase AndI'm just going to say it the way
it is.
And a lot of it came from mejust kind of like this is how I
talk And I'm just going to maybespice it up a little bit In
terms of, like, approaching thecharacter from the back.
I'm not exactly sure how thathappened, but I just thought
(11:38):
like, hey, why not?
Like, if you're trying to talkto him from the back?
you know that's kind of weird,you wouldn't do that in real
life with you.
So I think that that's kind oflike where that comes from And I
don't know.
I can't really think of anyother games where, if you talk
to them from the front versusthe back, you know they say
completely different things.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I loved that And why.
I have to ask, was I had theonly one at PAX that actually
noticed that?
because I don't know why.
I decided I was just likeexploring And I was like, Oh my
gosh, I would say it's prettyfew.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You had a very genuine reaction And at first I
thought something was wrong,like a bad bug, and then I
realized that you were laughinglike a fart joke.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I laughed so hard at that.
I thought that was great.
So one of the things youmentioned in the game is the
unique aspect of the twist onthe rug, like mechanics, So you
have things where your next runyou might have fewer health
drops or the enemies can movefaster.
What were some of theinspirations around that twist
(12:52):
and how many different mechanicsor twists like that do you have
in the game?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah, that came from Wildermyth.
I don't know if you've playedWildermyth, but it's like this
really beautiful, like dynamicstorytelling kind of RPG game
You can play I believe Co-op too, which is kind of neat, so it's
very tabletop-like but in avideo game, and they try to make
the story dynamic And so thingsemerge from it.
(13:22):
And one of the things thatemerge from it is you can choose
how to, like, make the worlddifficult, and I thought that
was a really, really awesomeelement And I was like why isn't
this in roguelites?
That seems like such an awesomeplace for this to happen.
So, in total, I don't know howmany calamities we have.
(13:42):
It's like maybe push in 20.
I don't know, Mike, do youremember exactly?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, 20, 30.
I mean, there's definitelyplans to expand that and do all
sorts of crazy things as wecontinue development.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's such a great like balancing mechanic too,
because it's like you could belike hey, like I think this is a
great way to challenge theplayer And then, if you like,
just straight up implement it inthe game.
You lose a bunch of peoplebecause they're like I don't
like that at all, like thatwasn't fun.
But if you give them a choiceto do it, it's like they can
decide not to, a lot of playerswill take the calamity.
(14:24):
They'll take damage whiledodging, which is so interesting
, because I am so adverse tothat.
I do not want to do that at all.
Yeah, i need to dodge and beable to not take damage.
But some people see that andthey're like, oh yeah, great,
it's a free one.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And I'm like, oh yeah , not for me.
So it's interesting.
Yeah, i found that reallyinteresting too, and just the
fact that that really allows youto play like towards your style
as well And also play with thefact that, hey, i can, i can
survive with like, for instance,i'll take damage if I, if I
(15:00):
dodge, which just means I justwon't be dodging right Like I'm
going to go in with guns blazing.
I thought that was reallyfascinating.
Or like less health drops andthings like that.
I thought those were such acool twist on the roguelike.
So, yeah, that was like astandout for me.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, we really wanted to give players more
choice into things and have itinfluence their play style, just
like feed into your strengths,and your strengths could be
different from run to run.
It might be like for this, forthis run, because we have
certain items and systems in thegame that actually save from
(15:36):
run to run.
So you know, necessarily loseweapons that you collect, you
might lose the weapon upgrades,but you don't lose the weapons.
So you could choose to build acertain way and build the enemy
a certain way, just so youcollect weapons right.
So that sets you up for yournext run to be that that much
better and more successful.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, that's cool.
Was it hard to balance the gamethen with?
with that I mean because youcould really make it balanced.
You know, tip the, tip, thescales towards the player or
vice versa.
Right That it could be evenUber challenging for the player.
They're like, well, this is notfun anymore.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think it's like it's been again.
it's been like a really cooldesign lever to have because you
might find something that'sreally fun.
But it's kind of broken andmaybe in a bad or a good way for
the player.
But it's like just maybe thenmake it a low chance for it to
come up And then, when it does,come up, it's like, wow, that's,
(16:36):
that's awesome, it's like sucha rewarding thing for the player
to have.
And then once, once the playerdies you know there's a lot of
things in RBA that can make youdie Then it just resets and then
it's gone.
So it's not like you had thatsome of these systems forever.
So in terms of balancing, it'sactually even not too bad.
(16:57):
It's been really trying to takethe things that are overly
broken out not too broken.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, i think one of the things you'll
find as you play.
It is, you know.
You may find, you know, like aweapon or weapon upgrade that
makes it almost seem like it'sbroken, in a sense that it
becomes really overpowered.
There's pretty much alwaysgoing to be something that
counters that which could be acalamity or whatever it might be
.
So even though you might thinklike, oh, I have this awesome
(17:28):
weapon that's just like, justyou know, destroys everything,
there's going to be somethingthat almost certainly is going
to come your way, that's goingto just kind of, you know,
cancel that out.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So yeah, that's awesome.
The other thing that I noticedtoo and, Chris, I talked to you
about this when I was playing itat PAX is the lighting and the
art.
I just thought that was soawesome, just like how beautiful
it was.
And you talked to more abouthow, yeah, some of the art is 3D
(17:58):
and some of it is 2D.
Right, Can you talk about theart behind the game and how did
you incorporate the light and inthe different effects that you
did?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, i can talk a little bit about more of like
the art itself, and then Mikedid a lot about the lighting so
I handed it off to him afterthat.
But yeah, originally the gameactually started more of like I
would say, in spirit, a bindingof Isaac clone.
It was top down and the camerawould lock to a room and the
(18:33):
only thing that was a littledifferent is that we had a
little bear running around witha gun that could fire any
direction And the color palettewas chosen to be very.
you have these really coolcolors like the blues that were
meant to signify more goodthings, like your character is
(18:54):
berry, this blue-green, teal-ish, and then the background set to
a yellow, with the enemiesbeing more of the like that dark
red sort of, and I actuallypulled a lot from like Cold War
propaganda.
Yeah, that's interesting to kindof give that like different
(19:15):
look and stuff like that,because, yeah, some some of the
kid is like trying to experience, like how to Reconcile maybe
things that they don't know it'sgoing out and that's outside
their world, right, so it's likewhat's?
what was one thing Americansgrew up with that was really big
and scary Cold War right.
So yeah.
But yeah, and then one dayMike's like all right, chris,
(19:37):
everything's broken, but I made.
I made a change.
It's like I changed everythingto 3d.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I couldn't compile the game.
It was the wreck for a littlebit.
But we worked through it andyeah, i came out like a really
cool, that kind of like PaperMario style almost yeah.
And and then, just over time,we just kept iterating on it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, i think early on, youknow there's a lot of We didn't
fully know what we're making, sothere's a tremendous amount of
experimentation.
I think it kind of came out ofthat.
I just basically, you know, atone point thought it would look
cool if it was, you know, kindof had that, i guess you know
Paper Mario look or basicallyyou know these 2d Sprites in a
(20:22):
3d world, but not overly 3d, i'mjust kind of like a little bit
of a 3d look to it.
And then you know, you get yourreal-time 3d lighting in there.
You do all sorts of kind ofcool stuff with you know
particles and things like that.
And just it was, you know,basically taking that, finding
something that looked more orless kind of what maybe
(20:44):
envisioned, and then just kindof iterating on it.
There's definitely a lot ofplaying around with it because,
you know, i think there's videoson our, you know, youtube
channel When we're still kind ofexperimenting that look it's,
it has kind of the same look,but it doesn't look.
It looks like kind of, in asense, like nowhere near how it
looks now, even though it'salmost exactly the same.
(21:04):
And so, yeah, i think it justkind of came out of that.
Just you know, experimentationphase.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, i just it.
Just you know that artwork justpops with that the 3d effect
and the lighting, everything.
I just thought that was sobrilliant.
And the other thing that I alsoNotice, too, is just the amount
of different characters,different enemies, that you have
in the game.
How many different sprites forenemies do you have in this game
?
I?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
think we're Again.
I think we're pushing 30 rightnow for a which.
Honestly, we might be more now,though I counted a while ago.
But Originally it was going tobe like I think we went a little
bit ambitious with how we weregonna introduce Enemies into the
game and it kind of worked inour favor, because now we've
(21:54):
kind of reworked the game alittle bit to introduce them a
little bit more slowly, but alot of the enemies are born from
puns, and Mike and Garrett'sactually pretty good at this too
.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Now Do some artwork, for it Just keeps going the
pretty good or pretty baddepends on who you ask.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's a new enemy right there.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Nice.
Well, and then Garrett.
The other thing that I noticed,too, is just how awesome the
music is in this game.
Can you tell us more about howthe music was incorporated and
the inspiration around the musicin the game?
Sure.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Yeah, i appreciate that.
So, yeah, the biggest thingwhen I'm writing music is I
Especially when I'm working withlike a collaborative kind of
thing I really want to get asmuch from the collaborator as
possible.
I hate well, okay, i wouldn'thate if someone came up to me
and said, hey, yeah, makewhatever you want.
But usually when people saythat and I make whatever I want,
(23:09):
people aren't as as satisfied,because like well, I was kind of
thinking this would happen.
And so, yeah, no, i, immediatelyupon seeing their game, i knew
that there was already like aGiant sense of character, Just
with, like, yeah, like youmentioned, the art style, just
the different types ofProgramming choices, like how
(23:32):
weighty some things might feeland how like that creates this
juxtaposition with, like thisreally kind of hefty gun game
with cute characters and and itjust You know a lot more than
some other people that I youknow might work with it, really
kind of like Knew what its brandwas before.
Maybe they even said let's builda brand, and I think that's a
(23:56):
really important thing.
And so, when it comes to music,like I would feel all that kind
of stuff and know like whatintention the music should have,
just based off of the intentionthat they're kind of you know
putting out there in every otheraspect of the game.
And so obviously it's notcompletely, you know, intuition
(24:16):
to me, like I did ask them likea ton of questions When we first
started out, really going likedeeper than surface level, just
to make sure that I kind of wasthinking as closely to their own
thinking as I could withoutbeing them pretty much.
And, yeah, asking questionslike you know who is the teddy
(24:37):
bear, like who is the kid?
why?
why these colors?
and and actually you know, evenbefore I asked questions, chris
and Mike sent me like tons andtons of like different artwork
assets and like Like PowerPointpresentations about their intent
with different things, andthat's just like that's a dream
of mine, like yeah, Yeah,whenever.
(24:58):
I'm working on like RPG kind ofstuff.
I always want like a Laura dumpbecause that's just like so
useful to understanding You knowthe tone of what I'm writing
for and so like Not even havingto ask for that is just like a,
you know, a game changer.
And so, um, yeah, the firsttrack I did was the, the title
theme, which was, you know, areally good move because that's
(25:21):
kind of meant to capture the,the whole tone of the game, and
The, yeah, the biggest thingthat I remember typing out to
like as a note to myself is likereally highlighting the
juxtaposition between like cuteand violent and you know like
where to lead into it in whatway.
And, yeah, that ended up kindof manifesting as like Darren
(25:42):
Korb, kind of from a you knowLike Hades, bastion, pire and
all those soundtracks like that.
But plus, i mean what I've saidbefore is if Darren Korb wrote
for Sesame Street, so it's kindof like yeah, yeah, lots of
kazoo's and toy bells
Speaker 1 (26:02):
and then like guitar based drums and yeah, that's
awesome gnarly, but cute.
Yeah, yeah, i love it.
So what were some of thechallenges that you all faced
when creating the game?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Honestly, I feel like at first it was just kind of
scoping it correctly.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
We had just so many ideas that.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
We still want to probably explode the game out,
but I think we're we're honingin on a good loop and a good
formula.
Just really kind of tweaking.
It is what we need to do.
Other than that, it's been,it's been probably balancing
life and Came to have like wewill all work full-time and then
do this part time.
So Yeah, at least that's beenit for me.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, i think that's the the big stuff.
I think another aspect was notknowing, you know, we had kind
of a vague idea going into this,what we wanted to make, but
there was just so many aspects,you know, from a Creative
perspective as well as atechnical perspective, of what
we wanted to do, and not reallyknowing Those things I think I
(27:14):
think because of that, it kindof dragged things on a lot
longer than it probablyotherwise would have.
I think so that was definitelyone of the challenges.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Garrett, anything for you, any challenges music wise,
trying to think I Feel like, uh, it's, they're fun challenges,
but really just like making surethat, uh, you know when, when
the challenge with games isalways having to write something
(27:47):
that doesn't fully exist yetlike right for something that
doesn't fully exist yet andbeing able to adapt to any
potential changes.
And So this game is definitelylike I'm pretty sure I'm maybe
started writing before I had abuild that I could play myself,
(28:08):
but aside from that, it's reallyjust making sure.
Like I remember writing thefirst like piece of music for
When you actually are in adungeon and fighting, i was like
, okay, how do I make it like?
the quote that they always toldme is you want the player to
feel like they're John Wick?
I was like how do I get thatwithout like I I don't know.
(28:30):
I don't want to make it feellike it's sugar rush music.
I don't want it to feel like sothere are so many different
routes to go, so kind of likemaking sure that gets nailed and
That's.
Yeah, they're like I said,they're fun challenges, but it's
a lot of guess and check typeof stuff.
But I feel like that's probablythe hardest part.
(28:51):
But generally, my, my approachhas been Do what I can to leave
it open-ended where where I'd beable to do that, where that
might be like.
If I write a melody for thisdungeon, let me make it so I
could potentially rearrange thatmelody to sound like any other
(29:11):
style of music and Have it beadaptable, because sometimes you
might you know That sometimes amight, a dungeon theme might
not have any melody at all andthat makes it so you kind of
boxed into that music beingparticularly for that purpose.
But Giving it that thatbreathability and room for
variation has made it.
So.
As I've progressed and writtenmore for the dungeons And kind
(29:34):
of gotten a feel for what thethe player experiences, i've
been able to, like you know,give a lot of room for variation
based off of that kind ofconcept.
So I guess, yeah, it's, it'sbeen a, That's been a struggle,
but it's been getting more funof a struggle as we progressed
through it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Garrett's ability to just take word salad and just be
able to digest it.
Like the parameters that Mikeand I gave for the arcade theme.
I think it was just like It'slike Friday night, you should be
thinking like eight-bit.
You should be thinking Kennylogins, you should be, and I was
(30:18):
just like, if I have like,there's no way he's gonna write
something.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Did it almost become a challenge to just say, like
what, what can get right at thispoint?
let's see what he can do.
Just throw a bunch of ideas.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
No, i'm pretty excited because they've already
gone in like so many differentdirections for Dungeon themes,
so like, please give mesomething.
That's like extremely stupid.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
What did you all learn about yourselves, and In
and your studio as well, workingon this game?
Chris, i'll start with you.
What do you, what did you learnI?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Think the big thing that I had to learn, i guess,
through this was just more.
I always felt like in myengineering career I was fairly
good at like, project managementand planning, and this was just
like a whole another level oflike, dedication and motivation
(31:29):
and like, when you're not, youknow, there's just moments when
it's just you know I'll be, i'llbe honest You're just not
motivated and not not reallyfeeling dedicated to this.
You're like why did I decide tosuck up my nights and weekends
with this project?
Like, you know, you make a poston Twitter and respond.
You're like, so you have to.
(31:52):
Like, you know, i learned my.
You know, so it's a.
You know it's gonna sound Umcliche, but it's, it's a.
It's a jog.
You got a jog, jog it.
It's not, it's, it's a marathon, not a Sprint, and just pacing
myself, learning, learning howto do that better.
Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
What about you, mike?
What did you learn?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, i think that's definitely an aspect of it.
Aside from that, you know,professionally I Collaborate on,
i guess you know I would saylike technical visions Of you
know, different products, and Ithink this was a collaboration
on a creative vision And I thinkthat's that was kind of new to
me, you know.
So I may have a creative vision, Chris may have something,
(32:42):
garrett may have something, andkind of putting those all
together and being able to beconstructive, you know, in
different maybe criticisms orDifferent ideas and
recommendations, and being ableto receive and give those You
know from, from a perspectiveoutside of that technical sense.
(33:03):
I think that was the big onefor me.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, that's fascinating, i mean, especially
since you know You both workingon You know in engineering and
working in IT and such you knowyou work on things that are not
Not your babies, right, like youknow it's, it's work, and now
this is stuff that you Arecreating and bringing it to life
(33:27):
, right, and I can see like howthat, just that, just that
feedback loop might feeldifferent than Getting feedback
on some technical specs that youmade for work, right, like
absolutely, yeah, yeah, garrett,what about you?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
I I think I learned that There's a certain type of
collaboration that I'm veryprivy to and and I guess, more
so than I thought before.
And I guess with this project.
You know, oftentimes when I'mworking with somebody, you know
it'll click and like they'll behappy with what I make, but it
(34:08):
won't necessarily feel as evenof a collaboration.
Maybe it'll be like Someonegave me a little bit to go off
of but they're like oh yeah, youtotally like this is this is
what I wanted.
Or maybe they gave me much moreand you know I was like doing
kind of the uh, i the mostcommercialized version of what
(34:29):
they wanted, maybe not somethinggroundbreaking, but with this
type of collaboration it's likeI feel like we ended up talking
to each other more often than Ido with other collaborators And
that kind of builds a lot ofdifferent avenues for thinking
when I approach a project.
And, yeah, it's a veryinteresting type of
collaboration that I don't get alot of And I've learned that I
(34:55):
think I like collaboration morethan I thought I did previously.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Because yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I definitely like being a homebody, being by
myself and working on something,but when I have something to
work off of that is strong onits own, that's like a big, big
motivator, and yeah, nice.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So the game is in early access right now.
Is that correct, or has itlaunched in early access yet?
Not yet July 27th It will belaunching early access.
Okay, awesome, and I know Italked a little bit about this
before, but like so, you'refocused on Steam right now, but
is there any talk about bringingthis to the console, xbox,
(35:38):
switch, playstation?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
It's always something we're considering.
I think right now we're reallyjust focusing on getting that
player feedback and kind ofbuilding the game to be the best
it can be right now andperformance things like that,
And we're keeping an eye on itand trying to explore other
options when we can.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Nice.
How can people find more aboutyou guys and follow the progress
of the game?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah, i think the best way is.
You can head up our websiterbagamecom.
It's got our Discord on there.
Twitter go to our Steam page.
Things like that.
Wishlisting and following onSteam is probably the best.
It helps boost us in Steam'salgorithm and lets us know that
you wanna play our game.
(36:28):
But yeah, Nice.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Any final thoughts?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I'll just add this In terms of checking us all out, i
think one of the big things isthat we definitely want player
feedback.
We take that definitely toheart and we want to make, as
Chris said, we want to make thegame be the best that it can be
And so, definitely, if peoplecheck out either the demo, which
is live now, or early access,if you have any thoughts at all,
(36:59):
any way that you think we canmake it better, definitely let
us know.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
A ton of our Discord feedback has made it into the
game.
So if that's something that youwanna, if you wanna influence a
game in a good or a bad way,we'll listen, And that's
probably our problem, that we'lllisten to all ideas.
Some people will say stuff tome as a joke and I'm like but
(37:26):
what if?
What if we put a butt in thegame?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well, i loved my time with the game at PAX.
I thought it was fantastic.
You guys are doing such afantastic job and I'm excited
for when this launches in earlyaccess, and excited to, as we go
on, have you guys come back onthe show and talk about the game
and what might be coming upnext for you guys, too, in the
(37:56):
future.
So Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I really appreciate you having us Loved your write
up from PAX.
It was so good.
I like to hear a littlesentence or just like talk it
from, or look at things fromdifferent angles or talk to
things from different angles.
I like that little lead on.
Yeah, so good, thanks forhaving us on the show.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Appreciate you having us.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for joining me andlisteners, check them out.
I'll put a link to the Steampage and also to their website
as well, so we can wish list thegame and check it out.
Thanks everyone, bye, bye, seeyou Cool.
Hi, I'm Celia Shilling from Yacht Club Games.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is Stephanie from the Boss Rush podcast and
the Boss Rush Network.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Mark and Keon from Bonta-Affold.
Hey, this is Sebastian withthepronervereportcom and the
Single Player Experience podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey, this is Todd Mitchell from Code Right Play.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Salutations.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
This is Mike Carroll from Stroll Art.
Hey, this is Patrick from theBacklog Odyssey.
Hey, this is Rune from RuneitCodes.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Hi, this is Andrew from Spalato Birds.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hi, this is Barry from Premium Edition Games.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hi everyone.
Jill Grote here from the IndieInformer.
Hey, this is Brimstone andyou're listening to Roger
Reichardt on the Gamer Headspodcast.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And welcome to another episode of the Gamer
Heads podcast.
My name is Roger.
This week I have a very specialguest, well, several guests
here.
I have the folks at DaylightBasement Studios, the creators
behind Rightfully Barry Armswith me this week, And I have
Chris Garrett and Mike.
I'll let you all introduceyourselves and tell us a little
(01:09):
bit about yourself and how yougot into gaming.
Hi, I'm Chris.
No, go ahead.
Chris, You start.
Yeah, That's fine.
Okay, I just shoved my way inand here we go.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hi, I'm Chris, one of the game designers on
Rightfully Barry Arms.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, Mike, I do programming, That's my primary
thing different design aspectsand just kind of other odds and
ends.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
And I'm Garrett and I do the music for the game.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Nice Well, welcome all to the show.
Glad that we were able toconnect.
One quick question I havebefore we get into the other
questions, Like do you all workin the same studio together?
Do you work remotely?
How does that work for you guys?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
We are all remote.
Okay, we actually met Garrettat two packs ago and he joined
on the project and he isn'tactually part of daily basement,
but he's become very close andintertwined with the gaming
design and process, so yeah,Nice, nice, cool, well, yeah,
(02:25):
well, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How did Daylight Basement Studios start and how
did you get into gaming?
It's in creating games, becausethat's, I'm going to tell you,
that is appealing for a lot offolks, but also very scary.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, yeah, it actually like the way that we
got into at least the storiesthat Mike and I shared together
of getting into game dev is kindof how it also even started.
So yeah, it started way back Istarted doing.
I got into coding through gamedev because I was interested in
(03:02):
making my own games and I thinkI did stuff in like Game Maker
stuff way back then and ScratchAnd I picked up coding and then
went to school and lost that Idon't know that drive to do game
dev and I wanted to worktraditional software engineering
and I realized how much Imissed that creativity side of
it and doing art and workingwith all these other people.
(03:25):
And during my tenure inengineering I met Mike at IBM
and we talked about how we gotinto game dev and doing all
these different hobby projectsand we never really finished
anything.
And so this is the result of ustrying to finish something.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Nice, nice, nice.
So you met Mike at IBM, that'swhat you said Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah.
So, mike, what about you?
How did you get into this?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah, So you know, for me, you know, like, i guess,
when I first startedprogramming, you know it was
kind of through, i guess, gamingand wanting to create my own
games and just kind of becreative that way, and actually
started, you know, with, youknow learning basic on a TRS-80
(04:16):
and just kind of working my wayup in different languages and
you know, just kind of doingthese different side projects
along the way, eventually goingto school for, you know, for
engineering and computer, youknow, programming, and then kind
of moving into that as a careerAnd just kind of always doing
these side projects but neverreally getting serious about
(04:36):
them.
And then just kind of, you know,work with Chris and it just
kind of came up in aconversation like, hey, let's do
this, you know, and that'spretty much it.
It's in terms of how we wereactually able to commit to it
and, you know, stay committed toit for as long as we have.
(04:57):
That's kind of a hard, i think,question to answer.
I'm not even really sure howthat happened, but I think once
the gear is kind of going, youknow enough, i think it's kind
of hard to pull away from it.
So but yeah, i think this is,you know, this is kind of our
first real foray into somethingof this caliber Nice.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And then Garrett you it sounds like you met them at a
PAX then and then got pulledinto the, into the studio and
started making music.
Right, you're the, you make themusic for the game.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
So for me and my journey into the game dev world
it kind of started I graduatedcollege for music and kind of
started my freelance musiccareer back in like 2012, 2013,
and was kind of pigeonholed intodoing like jingle writing and
(05:54):
commercial writing and that kindof stuff, engineering for
studios and that kind of thing.
All the while I was, you know,playing D&D with some friends
and the DM and my group started,you know, doing some like
getting some music for sessionsand kind of expanding the kind
of audio world of our D&Dsessions.
(06:14):
So one year I decided to makesome music for like theme music
for each of the characters, andthen that kind of led one thing
into another and I started likeoffering that as a service where
I make music for other tabletopplayers and that kind of led me
to a lot of other creators whomake music for video games, and
then that's kind of how I was.
Like, you know, i should go toPAX this year and then next
(06:37):
thing, you know, here I am Veryawesome.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
So, yeah, tell us about the game itself then.
So rightfully, Barry Arms, Whatis the game about?
And then also tell us about thegame.
But then also I want to knowmore about the title too.
Like how did you come up withthe title for this game?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, it's an action should-em-up roguelite, similar
to other bullet hell titles aswell.
I'd say like the gunplay we getcompared a lot to like gunjinn
or nuclear throne.
But a lot of inspirationprobably came from other games
honestly in the roguelite genre,like dead cells and, yeah, like
(07:25):
quite a few I can't even thinkbut And we put a lot more
emphasis on like the planningand the progression part of
roguelites, because we felt likethat was like missing and
that's something that Mike and Ienjoyed within game titles.
So you can actually like planthe dungeons you want to crawl,
plan your possible resourcesthat you can collect.
(07:46):
We still toss in thatrandomness.
That is like really fun inroguelites and kind of having
different builds with likedifferent weapon upgrade builds
and building up your characterand different meta progression
for Barry, the main character.
Yeah, then one unique aspect isyou can actually choose how the
enemy gets upgraded and how thegame gets more difficult.
(08:09):
So you usually see that whenyou die, but in the real game,
as you beat bosses in your run,you're stacking them and then
when?
you die, they clear and then youstart with a new enemy upgrade
that you have to choose.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So yeah, awesome, and in the title, rightfully Barry
Arms.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, so that comes from.
We haven't explored too much inthis story, especially and
probably won't with early access, but the idea is actually Barry
is a teddy bear that a kid isimagining.
they're a teddy bear goingthrough all this different
conflict and things like that,and this kid is struggling with,
(08:54):
maybe, self-concept of who theywant to become, maybe different
anxieties or differentconflicts they want to overcome,
and this teddy bear is theirsource of strength and who they
are, and so the bear themselveswrites to the child and signs it
(09:18):
rightfully.
Barry Arms, the bear is namedBarry.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That's awesome.
I mean I think when we talkedbriefly at PAX, like I think you
mentioned to me a little bitabout, yeah, you're playing as a
teddy bear and it's animagination of a character or of
a kid and his imagination orimaginary character or friend,
but that's really deep, That'sawesome.
I think you should lean intothat because there's not a lot
(09:44):
of games that in this genre thatdeal with a kid growing up with
their own anxieties of what'sexpected of them and where
they're supposed to be and whothey're supposed to be, right.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
So that's awesome.
I will say that we do want toexplore it more and figure out
that storytelling, but for EA,we're focusing on gameplay
mechanics, trying to get thatdown And we also don't want to
necessarily spoil too many ofthe story elements before 1.0
release, so yeah, Yeah Well, youjust did because you're just
(10:17):
kidding, that's no, we've talkedabout it, so we got some other
stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Oh, that's funny, One of the things just a side note
here one of the things I reallyenjoyed about the game when I
played it at PAX 2 was thewriting behind it And some of
the funny things.
Like I ended up going behindthe Fox character and talking to
him And he had some funny linesto say And I actually burst out
(10:45):
laughing when I was playing thegame.
I thought that was hilarious.
Can you talk about the writingtoo, around the characters and
the dialogue That was awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, so I do a lot of the writing And I think most
of the writing that shows up, ithink, like the weapon pickers
and things like that will havesome writing.
But in terms of, like, actualcharacter dialogue, most of that
currently is just in thetutorial And a lot of it was me
just kind of being literal andthinking like, okay, we have to
(11:18):
try to explain to the player howto do this thing, and I'm just
going to cut to the chase AndI'm just going to say it the way
it is.
And a lot of it came from mejust kind of like this is how I
talk And I'm just going to maybespice it up a little bit In
terms of, like, approaching thecharacter from the back.
I'm not exactly sure how thathappened, but I just thought
(11:38):
like, hey, why not?
Like, if you're trying to talkto him from the back?
you know that's kind of weird,you wouldn't do that in real
life with you.
So I think that that's kind oflike where that comes from And I
don't know.
I can't really think of anyother games where, if you talk
to them from the front versusthe back, you know they say
completely different things.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, I loved that And why.
I have to ask, was I had theonly one at PAX that actually
noticed that?
because I don't know why.
I decided I was just likeexploring And I was like, Oh my
gosh, I would say it's prettyfew.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
You had a very genuine reaction And at first I
thought something was wrong,like a bad bug, and then I
realized that you were laughinglike a fart joke.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I laughed so hard at that.
I thought that was great.
So one of the things youmentioned in the game is the
unique aspect of the twist onthe rug, like mechanics, So you
have things where your next runyou might have fewer health
drops or the enemies can movefaster.
What were some of theinspirations around that twist
(12:52):
and how many different mechanicsor twists like that do you have
in the game?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah, that came from Wildermyth.
I don't know if you've playedWildermyth, but it's like this
really beautiful, like dynamicstorytelling kind of RPG game
You can play I believe Co-op too, which is kind of neat, so it's
very tabletop-like but in avideo game, and they try to make
the story dynamic And so thingsemerge from it.
(13:22):
And one of the things thatemerge from it is you can choose
how to, like, make the worlddifficult, and I thought that
was a really, really awesomeelement And I was like why isn't
this in roguelites?
That seems like such an awesomeplace for this to happen.
So, in total, I don't know howmany calamities we have.
(13:42):
It's like maybe push in 20.
I don't know, Mike, do youremember exactly?
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, 20, 30.
I mean, there's definitelyplans to expand that and do all
sorts of crazy things as wecontinue development.
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's such a great like balancing mechanic too,
because it's like you could belike hey, like I think this is a
great way to challenge theplayer And then, if you like,
just straight up implement it inthe game.
You lose a bunch of peoplebecause they're like I don't
like that at all, like thatwasn't fun.
But if you give them a choiceto do it, it's like they can
decide not to, a lot of playerswill take the calamity.
(14:24):
They'll take damage whiledodging, which is so interesting
, because I am so adverse tothat.
I do not want to do that at all.
Yeah, i need to dodge and beable to not take damage.
But some people see that andthey're like, oh yeah, great,
it's a free one.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
And I'm like, oh yeah , not for me.
So it's interesting.
Yeah, i found that reallyinteresting too, and just the
fact that that really allows youto play like towards your style
as well And also play with thefact that, hey, i can, i can
survive with like, for instance,i'll take damage if I, if I
(15:00):
dodge, which just means I justwon't be dodging right Like I'm
going to go in with guns blazing.
I thought that was reallyfascinating.
Or like less health drops andthings like that.
I thought those were such acool twist on the roguelike.
So, yeah, that was like astandout for me.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, we really wanted to give players more
choice into things and have itinfluence their play style, just
like feed into your strengths,and your strengths could be
different from run to run.
It might be like for this, forthis run, because we have
certain items and systems in thegame that actually save from
(15:36):
run to run.
So you know, necessarily loseweapons that you collect, you
might lose the weapon upgrades,but you don't lose the weapons.
So you could choose to build acertain way and build the enemy
a certain way, just so youcollect weapons right.
So that sets you up for yournext run to be that that much
better and more successful.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, that's cool.
Was it hard to balance the gamethen with?
with that I mean because youcould really make it balanced.
You know, tip the, tip, thescales towards the player or
vice versa.
Right That it could be evenUber challenging for the player.
They're like, well, this is notfun anymore.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
I think it's like it's been again.
it's been like a really cooldesign lever to have because you
might find something that'sreally fun.
But it's kind of broken andmaybe in a bad or a good way for
the player.
But it's like just maybe thenmake it a low chance for it to
come up And then, when it does,come up, it's like, wow, that's,
(16:36):
that's awesome, it's like sucha rewarding thing for the player
to have.
And then once, once the playerdies you know there's a lot of
things in RBA that can make youdie Then it just resets and then
it's gone.
So it's not like you had thatsome of these systems forever.
So in terms of balancing, it'sactually even not too bad.
(16:57):
It's been really trying to takethe things that are overly
broken out not too broken.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, i think one of the things you'll
find as you play.
It is, you know.
You may find, you know, like aweapon or weapon upgrade that
makes it almost seem like it'sbroken, in a sense that it
becomes really overpowered.
There's pretty much alwaysgoing to be something that
counters that which could be acalamity or whatever it might be
.
So even though you might thinklike, oh, I have this awesome
(17:28):
weapon that's just like, justyou know, destroys everything,
there's going to be somethingthat almost certainly is going
to come your way, that's goingto just kind of, you know,
cancel that out.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So yeah, that's awesome.
The other thing that I noticedtoo and, Chris, I talked to you
about this when I was playing itat PAX is the lighting and the
art.
I just thought that was soawesome, just like how beautiful
it was.
And you talked to more abouthow, yeah, some of the art is 3D
(17:58):
and some of it is 2D.
Right, Can you talk about theart behind the game and how did
you incorporate the light and inthe different effects that you
did?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, i can talk a little bit about more of like
the art itself, and then Mikedid a lot about the lighting so
I handed it off to him afterthat.
But yeah, originally the gameactually started more of like I
would say, in spirit, a bindingof Isaac clone.
It was top down and the camerawould lock to a room and the
(18:33):
only thing that was a littledifferent is that we had a
little bear running around witha gun that could fire any
direction And the color palettewas chosen to be very.
you have these really coolcolors like the blues that were
meant to signify more goodthings, like your character is
(18:54):
berry, this blue-green, teal-ish, and then the background set to
a yellow, with the enemiesbeing more of the like that dark
red sort of, and I actuallypulled a lot from like Cold War
propaganda.
Yeah, that's interesting to kindof give that like different
(19:15):
look and stuff like that,because, yeah, some some of the
kid is like trying to experience, like how to Reconcile maybe
things that they don't know it'sgoing out and that's outside
their world, right, so it's likewhat's?
what was one thing Americansgrew up with that was really big
and scary Cold War right.
So yeah.
But yeah, and then one dayMike's like all right, chris,
(19:37):
everything's broken, but I made.
I made a change.
It's like I changed everythingto 3d.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I couldn't compile the game.
It was the wreck for a littlebit.
But we worked through it andyeah, i came out like a really
cool, that kind of like PaperMario style almost yeah.
And and then, just over time,we just kept iterating on it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, i think early on, youknow there's a lot of We didn't
fully know what we're making, sothere's a tremendous amount of
experimentation.
I think it kind of came out ofthat.
I just basically, you know, atone point thought it would look
cool if it was, you know, kindof had that, i guess you know
Paper Mario look or basicallyyou know these 2d Sprites in a
(20:22):
3d world, but not overly 3d, i'mjust kind of like a little bit
of a 3d look to it.
And then you know, you get yourreal-time 3d lighting in there.
You do all sorts of kind ofcool stuff with you know
particles and things like that.
And just it was, you know,basically taking that, finding
something that looked more orless kind of what maybe
(20:44):
envisioned, and then just kindof iterating on it.
There's definitely a lot ofplaying around with it because,
you know, i think there's videoson our, you know, youtube
channel When we're still kind ofexperimenting that look it's,
it has kind of the same look,but it doesn't look.
It looks like kind of, in asense, like nowhere near how it
looks now, even though it'salmost exactly the same.
(21:04):
And so, yeah, i think it justkind of came out of that.
Just you know, experimentationphase.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah, i just it.
Just you know that artwork justpops with that the 3d effect
and the lighting, everything.
I just thought that was sobrilliant.
And the other thing that I alsoNotice, too, is just the amount
of different characters,different enemies, that you have
in the game.
How many different sprites forenemies do you have in this game
?
I?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
think we're Again.
I think we're pushing 30 rightnow for a which.
Honestly, we might be more now,though I counted a while ago.
But Originally it was going tobe like I think we went a little
bit ambitious with how we weregonna introduce Enemies into the
game and it kind of worked inour favor, because now we've
(21:54):
kind of reworked the game alittle bit to introduce them a
little bit more slowly, but alot of the enemies are born from
puns, and Mike and Garrett'sactually pretty good at this too
.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Now Do some artwork, for it Just keeps going the
pretty good or pretty baddepends on who you ask.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's a new enemy right there.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Nice.
Well, and then Garrett.
The other thing that I noticed,too, is just how awesome the
music is in this game.
Can you tell us more about howthe music was incorporated and
the inspiration around the musicin the game?
Sure.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Yeah, i appreciate that.
So, yeah, the biggest thingwhen I'm writing music is I
Especially when I'm working withlike a collaborative kind of
thing I really want to get asmuch from the collaborator as
possible.
I hate well, okay, i wouldn'thate if someone came up to me
and said, hey, yeah, makewhatever you want.
But usually when people saythat and I make whatever I want,
(23:09):
people aren't as as satisfied,because like well, I was kind of
thinking this would happen.
And so, yeah, no, i, immediatelyupon seeing their game, i knew
that there was already like aGiant sense of character, Just
with, like, yeah, like youmentioned, the art style, just
the different types ofProgramming choices, like how
(23:32):
weighty some things might feeland how like that creates this
juxtaposition with, like thisreally kind of hefty gun game
with cute characters and and itjust You know a lot more than
some other people that I youknow might work with it, really
kind of like Knew what its brandwas before.
Maybe they even said let's builda brand, and I think that's a
(23:56):
really important thing.
And so, when it comes to music,like I would feel all that kind
of stuff and know like whatintention the music should have,
just based off of the intentionthat they're kind of you know
putting out there in every otheraspect of the game.
And so obviously it's notcompletely, you know, intuition
(24:16):
to me, like I did ask them likea ton of questions When we first
started out, really going likedeeper than surface level, just
to make sure that I kind of wasthinking as closely to their own
thinking as I could withoutbeing them pretty much.
And, yeah, asking questionslike you know who is the teddy
(24:37):
bear, like who is the kid?
why?
why these colors?
and and actually you know, evenbefore I asked questions, chris
and Mike sent me like tons andtons of like different artwork
assets and like Like PowerPointpresentations about their intent
with different things, andthat's just like that's a dream
of mine, like yeah, Yeah,whenever.
(24:58):
I'm working on like RPG kind ofstuff.
I always want like a Laura dumpbecause that's just like so
useful to understanding You knowthe tone of what I'm writing
for and so like Not even havingto ask for that is just like a,
you know, a game changer.
And so, um, yeah, the firsttrack I did was the, the title
theme, which was, you know, areally good move because that's
(25:21):
kind of meant to capture the,the whole tone of the game, and
The, yeah, the biggest thingthat I remember typing out to
like as a note to myself is likereally highlighting the
juxtaposition between like cuteand violent and you know like
where to lead into it in whatway.
And, yeah, that ended up kindof manifesting as like Darren
(25:42):
Korb, kind of from a you knowLike Hades, bastion, pire and
all those soundtracks like that.
But plus, i mean what I've saidbefore is if Darren Korb wrote
for Sesame Street, so it's kindof like yeah, yeah, lots of
kazoo's and toy bells
Speaker 1 (26:02):
and then like guitar based drums and yeah, that's
awesome gnarly, but cute.
Yeah, yeah, i love it.
So what were some of thechallenges that you all faced
when creating the game?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Honestly, I feel like at first it was just kind of
scoping it correctly.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
We had just so many ideas that.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
We still want to probably explode the game out,
but I think we're we're honingin on a good loop and a good
formula.
Just really kind of tweaking.
It is what we need to do.
Other than that, it's been,it's been probably balancing
life and Came to have like wewill all work full-time and then
do this part time.
So Yeah, at least that's beenit for me.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, i think that's the the big stuff.
I think another aspect was notknowing, you know, we had kind
of a vague idea going into this,what we wanted to make, but
there was just so many aspects,you know, from a Creative
perspective as well as atechnical perspective, of what
we wanted to do, and not reallyknowing Those things I think I
(27:14):
think because of that, it kindof dragged things on a lot
longer than it probablyotherwise would have.
I think so that was definitelyone of the challenges.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Garrett, anything for you, any challenges music wise,
trying to think I Feel like, uh, it's, they're fun challenges,
but really just like making surethat, uh, you know when, when
the challenge with games isalways having to write something
(27:47):
that doesn't fully exist yetlike right for something that
doesn't fully exist yet andbeing able to adapt to any
potential changes.
And So this game is definitelylike I'm pretty sure I'm maybe
started writing before I had abuild that I could play myself,
(28:08):
but aside from that, it's reallyjust making sure.
Like I remember writing thefirst like piece of music for
When you actually are in adungeon and fighting, i was like
, okay, how do I make it like?
the quote that they always toldme is you want the player to
feel like they're John Wick?
I was like how do I get thatwithout like I I don't know.
(28:30):
I don't want to make it feellike it's sugar rush music.
I don't want it to feel like sothere are so many different
routes to go, so kind of likemaking sure that gets nailed and
That's.
Yeah, they're like I said,they're fun challenges, but it's
a lot of guess and check typeof stuff.
But I feel like that's probablythe hardest part.
(28:51):
But generally, my, my approachhas been Do what I can to leave
it open-ended where where I'd beable to do that, where that
might be like.
If I write a melody for thisdungeon, let me make it so I
could potentially rearrange thatmelody to sound like any other
(29:11):
style of music and Have it beadaptable, because sometimes you
might you know That sometimes amight, a dungeon theme might
not have any melody at all andthat makes it so you kind of
boxed into that music beingparticularly for that purpose.
But Giving it that thatbreathability and room for
variation has made it.
So.
As I've progressed and writtenmore for the dungeons And kind
(29:34):
of gotten a feel for what thethe player experiences, i've
been able to, like you know,give a lot of room for variation
based off of that kind ofconcept.
So I guess, yeah, it's, it'sbeen a, That's been a struggle,
but it's been getting more funof a struggle as we progressed
through it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Garrett's ability to just take word salad and just be
able to digest it.
Like the parameters that Mikeand I gave for the arcade theme.
I think it was just like It'slike Friday night, you should be
thinking like eight-bit.
You should be thinking Kennylogins, you should be, and I was
(30:18):
just like, if I have like,there's no way he's gonna write
something.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Did it almost become a challenge to just say, like
what, what can get right at thispoint?
let's see what he can do.
Just throw a bunch of ideas.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
No, i'm pretty excited because they've already
gone in like so many differentdirections for Dungeon themes,
so like, please give mesomething.
That's like extremely stupid.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
What did you all learn about yourselves, and In
and your studio as well, workingon this game?
Chris, i'll start with you.
What do you, what did you learnI?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Think the big thing that I had to learn, i guess,
through this was just more.
I always felt like in myengineering career I was fairly
good at like, project managementand planning, and this was just
like a whole another level oflike, dedication and motivation
(31:29):
and like, when you're not, youknow, there's just moments when
it's just you know I'll be, i'llbe honest You're just not
motivated and not not reallyfeeling dedicated to this.
You're like why did I decide tosuck up my nights and weekends
with this project?
Like, you know, you make a poston Twitter and respond.
You're like, so you have to.
(31:52):
Like, you know, i learned my.
You know, so it's a.
You know it's gonna sound Umcliche, but it's, it's a.
It's a jog.
You got a jog, jog it.
It's not, it's, it's a marathon, not a Sprint, and just pacing
myself, learning, learning howto do that better.
Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
What about you, mike?
What did you learn?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, i think that's definitely an aspect of it.
Aside from that, you know,professionally I Collaborate on,
i guess you know I would saylike technical visions Of you
know, different products, and Ithink this was a collaboration
on a creative vision And I thinkthat's that was kind of new to
me, you know.
So I may have a creative vision, Chris may have something,
(32:42):
garrett may have something, andkind of putting those all
together and being able to beconstructive, you know, in
different maybe criticisms orDifferent ideas and
recommendations, and being ableto receive and give those You
know from, from a perspectiveoutside of that technical sense.
(33:03):
I think that was the big onefor me.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, that's fascinating, i mean, especially
since you know You both workingon You know in engineering and
working in IT and such you knowyou work on things that are not
Not your babies, right, like youknow it's, it's work, and now
this is stuff that you Arecreating and bringing it to life
(33:27):
, right, and I can see like howthat, just that, just that
feedback loop might feeldifferent than Getting feedback
on some technical specs that youmade for work, right, like
absolutely, yeah, yeah, garrett,what about you?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
I I think I learned that There's a certain type of
collaboration that I'm veryprivy to and and I guess, more
so than I thought before.
And I guess with this project.
You know, oftentimes when I'mworking with somebody, you know
it'll click and like they'll behappy with what I make, but it
(34:08):
won't necessarily feel as evenof a collaboration.
Maybe it'll be like Someonegave me a little bit to go off
of but they're like oh yeah, youtotally like this is this is
what I wanted.
Or maybe they gave me much moreand you know I was like doing
kind of the uh, i the mostcommercialized version of what
(34:29):
they wanted, maybe not somethinggroundbreaking, but with this
type of collaboration it's likeI feel like we ended up talking
to each other more often than Ido with other collaborators And
that kind of builds a lot ofdifferent avenues for thinking
when I approach a project.
And, yeah, it's a veryinteresting type of
collaboration that I don't get alot of And I've learned that I
(34:55):
think I like collaboration morethan I thought I did previously.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Because yeah.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I definitely like being a homebody, being by
myself and working on something,but when I have something to
work off of that is strong onits own, that's like a big, big
motivator, and yeah, nice.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So the game is in early access right now.
Is that correct, or has itlaunched in early access yet?
Not yet July 27th It will belaunching early access.
Okay, awesome, and I know Italked a little bit about this
before, but like so, you'refocused on Steam right now, but
is there any talk about bringingthis to the console, xbox,
(35:38):
switch, playstation?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
It's always something we're considering.
I think right now we're reallyjust focusing on getting that
player feedback and kind ofbuilding the game to be the best
it can be right now andperformance things like that,
And we're keeping an eye on itand trying to explore other
options when we can.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Nice.
How can people find more aboutyou guys and follow the progress
of the game?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Yeah, i think the best way is.
You can head up our websiterbagamecom.
It's got our Discord on there.
Twitter go to our Steam page.
Things like that.
Wishlisting and following onSteam is probably the best.
It helps boost us in Steam'salgorithm and lets us know that
you wanna play our game.
(36:28):
But yeah, Nice.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Any final thoughts?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I'll just add this In terms of checking us all out, i
think one of the big things isthat we definitely want player
feedback.
We take that definitely toheart and we want to make, as
Chris said, we want to make thegame be the best that it can be
And so, definitely, if peoplecheck out either the demo, which
is live now, or early access,if you have any thoughts at all,
(36:59):
any way that you think we canmake it better, definitely let
us know.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
A ton of our Discord feedback has made it into the
game.
So if that's something that youwanna, if you wanna influence a
game in a good or a bad way,we'll listen, And that's
probably our problem, that we'lllisten to all ideas.
Some people will say stuff tome as a joke and I'm like but
(37:26):
what if?
What if we put a butt in thegame?
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well, i loved my time with the game at PAX.
I thought it was fantastic.
You guys are doing such afantastic job and I'm excited
for when this launches in earlyaccess, and excited to, as we go
on, have you guys come back onthe show and talk about the game
and what might be coming upnext for you guys, too, in the
(37:56):
future.
So Awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I really appreciate you having us Loved your write
up from PAX.
It was so good.
I like to hear a littlesentence or just like talk it
from, or look at things fromdifferent angles or talk to
things from different angles.
I like that little lead on.
Yeah, so good, thanks forhaving us on the show.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Appreciate you having us.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for joining me andlisteners, check them out.
I'll put a link to the Steampage and also to their website
as well, so we can wish list thegame and check it out.
Thanks everyone, bye, bye, seeyou Cool.
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