April 15, 2024 • 62 mins
Strap in for the inaugural episode of Low Five Friends, where we geek out with Marco, the visionary behind the retro revival hit Pine Creek on Game Boy Color. Marco pulls back the curtain on creating a game that strikes a perfect balance between heartfelt nostalgia and fresh creativity, all while staying true to his Latin American roots.
Join us as Marco recounts the challenges and quirks of game development, shares his personal insights on cultural representation in gaming, and even debates the ultimate taco. He’ll also tease his next project, a monster-battling adventure set against the backdrop of a mythical Mexico.
Check out Pine Creek on Itch.io, buy the digital or physical copy at incube8 Games, or get immersed in its 3D update on Steam.
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Visit us at LowFiveGaming.com.
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Email us at hello@lowfivegaming.com.
Low Five Gaming is a Studio Low Five Production.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, welcome to Low5Friends, the new companion
podcast to Low5Gaming, where weget to chat with the creators,
players and voices that definethe games that we love.
My name is Alex, your host, andin this inaugural episode, I
had the great pleasure ofinterviewing Marco of Carmelo
Electronics.
Marco is the developer of PineCreek, a Game Boy Color game
(00:20):
that was released in 2021.
That's right, 2021.
We got people out heredeveloping video games for the
Game Boy.
Still, that's wild, and I'mabsolutely here for it.
So much so we have a mainlineepisode on Pine Creek as well.
(00:41):
I do encourage you to checkthat out if you haven't already.
Luke and I get into it.
On that one about the game, ourexperience with it, we do enter
spoiler territory.
We let you know when that'sgoing to happen so you can, uh,
either fast forward or you takethe time to play it.
This one's a shorty, you know.
You put about three hours intoit to beat this one, but, that
(01:02):
said, in this, uh, in thisepisode with Marco, we avoid
spoilers, so you're safe fromthose.
I do encourage you to check outthe game.
You can find it at incubatecomas well as itchio.
Go out there and support Marco.
He put a lot of you know puthis heart and soul into this one
and you can really see it.
It's a real treat to play.
I'll slap some links in theshow notes for you, but without
(01:25):
further ado.
My interview with Marco.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Your English is great , by the way.
It's very.
You're doing great so far, man,and it's better than my Spanish
.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, thank you, I've been practicing, that's great
man.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did you learn English in school or are you learning
it on your own?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, here learning English is mandatory from a
young age because it's anecessity to work.
But it kind of got better afterI started working with
international artists, so Ineeded in order to work with
them.
My English gradually becamemore fluent and better Never.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It was worse before.
Well, I mean, practice makesperfect man, and it's funny.
I lived in Spain for a whileand I got to practice my Spanish
and all my friends that I madethere.
They would tease me because I'mfrom minnesota in the us, so I
have a midwestern accent, myenglish has a midwestern accent,
(02:50):
but then the spanish we learnis mexican spanish and the
spanish people are a littlepretentious, yeah, about their
language.
So they would tease me becausethey'd be like what is that?
What is that dirty Spanishyou're speaking?
But you know, whatever, it wasfun.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, that's a whole subject.
It's kind of a fight aboutwhat's the true Spanish.
Totally, it's actually harder Ithink it will be harder to
learn Spanish from Spain youwill say the original Spanish
than Mexican Spanish.
I think Mexican Spanish iseasier to pronounce.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I tend to.
I tend to agree.
So when I was in Spain, I wasin um, I was in southern Spain,
so like Andalusia they, they saywith like a instead of a, you
know, so it's like there'salmost like a lisp to it.
So I had to get used to that,like if I was saying gracias, it
was like man, it was just tough, but you know it was, it was a
(03:52):
great experience and you knowit's.
I think languages are importantand cool and I think it's, you
know it's, it's awesome to tolearn other people's languages
and to just have anunderstanding of it, and so I I
commend you on your english, man, you're it's, it's really quite
good thanks, yeah, some, some,some movies from spain.
I have to watch them withsubtitles yeah I bet that will
(04:15):
tell you about the difference inaccent, of course well, today
we're we're talking about yourgame, pine creek, which is an
adventure game focused onexploration and investigation,
and it was released not too longago, actually in October of
2021.
So about three years ago.
But the reason that I find thatreally interesting is because
it was released for the Game Boyand the Game Boy Color, which
(04:38):
are old systems, so it's a newgame on an old system.
But before we get into talkingtoo much about the game, marco,
I'm curious.
Here in Minnesota in the pastfew years, birria tacos have
made their way up north andthere's a fun reference in your
game to tacos al pastor.
And I'm curious which do youthink is better?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Tacos al pastor.
Or what kind of tacos did yousay, yeah, birria, do you have
birria tacos?
Oh, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Tacos al pastor, or what kind of tacos did you say
yeah, birria Do you have birriatacos.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Oh, that's a tough one, that's a tough one, I'd say
tacos al pastor.
Right on Because you can eatthem at any hour in the day.
Birria tacos here you usuallyjust eat them in the morning.
It's kind of breakfast here.
Oh, interesting, it's not.
(05:33):
You eat that in other hours ofthe day, but tacos al pastor do,
that would be my pick.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I can dig it, man, I think another favorite taco of
mine I really love Tacos deLengua, so the tacos are quite
good.
You can't really go wrong withTacos Al Pastor, so you're onto
something there when you'regetting them.
Do you have a favoriterestaurant?
Do you make them at home?
I know that's probably a littledifficult to make at home
because they are done on a spit,so where do you get your tacos?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh, I usually go to the taqueria, just as I put them
in the game.
These are just restaurants thatserve only tacos, al pastor,
and they use this, how they callit, rosticeries.
It's.
They're called trompos here,where they put the slices of
(06:28):
meat in a stick and they cutthem in slices and uh and it's,
it's a, it's a fun experience.
Uh, it's a kind of a heartfeltthing.
Uh, I don't know what's theword, but it's like, it's like
comfortable to me.
I'd say, uh, like going toMcDonald's the word, but it's
like, it's like comfortable tome.
I'd say, like going tomcdonald's or something.
(06:48):
Mcdonald's or something.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I love it so I love that inclusion in your game
.
There's actually in pine creek.
There's a lot of differentareas where you've interjected
pieces of your life and yourculture in fun ways and you know
you mentioned earlier when wewere talking, that it's.
You know there's definitely alot of dark themes or adult
(07:11):
themes in the game, but I thinkthat you balance that in a
really interesting way, one withthe visual style of the game,
but more so even with just thecomedy that you interject in the
dialogue and some of thoseheartfelt pieces of your own
life that you can see in thegame.
Like that inclusion of theTacos Alpha store.
(07:33):
I thought was really cool.
Yes, which is fun, man.
It's like for a Game Boy game.
There's a lot of layers anddepth.
But I do have a few questionsabout the Game Boy.
I was doing a little diggingand I read on the Internet and I
have to assume that you made agame for the Game Boy, so you
must be a fan of the Game Boysystem.
Yeah, so can you tell me alittle bit more about that?
(07:55):
Like, when did you, when didyou first start playing the Game
Boy?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
The Game Boy.
As far as I can remember it wasan obsession to me.
I saw it advertised on TV andmagazines and as a kid I just
thought it had the perfectdesign.
I still do think it has aperfect minimalistic design,
(08:23):
particularly the Game Boy Color.
It just looks so pretty.
I just love the hardware andits design and also the software
.
The games were fun and easy topick up, with cute graphics, and
I remember that it's probablyhard to understand how much of
(08:50):
an obsession the Game Boy was tome as a kid and my parents
couldn't afford one, so I justread about the system on
magazines and games before Icould get one eventually.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I love that man.
That's similar to my experience.
My parents, I mean.
You can see my background.
I have a lot of games now in myadult life but as a child, you
know, growing up, I didn't haveany video game systems until I
was a bit older and I didn'thave the Game Boy and I knew
about it.
I had friends that had it andthey would let me borrow theirs.
So a lot of my firstexperiences with the Game Boy
(09:32):
was the neighbors would let meborrow their Game Boy systems
and I would play them at myhouse for a few days before I
had to return them.
But very similar man.
And then then like looking atthe, the different magazines in
the united states, in the inminnesota we get the newspaper
that would come and there was asection that I would have all of
(09:52):
the advertisements for bigstores like target, best buy,
that type of thing.
I would flip through and Iwould look at all the different
video game stuff and just wishthat I had them yeah, we had.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
We have the exact same story, as it seems.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh, that's very cool.
So what are some of yourfavorite games on the Game Boy
other than your own?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Well, I have to say it's pretty.
It's probably very lame, butthe Pokemon games.
I was just crazy about thePokemon series, in particular
Pokemon Crystal, and you cantell in the graphics of Pine
Creek.
It's fairly obvious that as Iplay the games I thought that
(10:40):
world building, thatcontemporary world building, in
an RPG game on the Game Boycould give you so much stories.
Because the Pokemon has not areally great story.
It has fantastic gameplay,fantastic world building.
(11:02):
It's a perfect game for a kid.
But, I thought in my mind I kindof invented stories in the
towns that things that couldhappen to every NPC, and I ended
up doing that in my own game 25years later, doing that in my
(11:29):
own game 20, 25 years later.
So, and also DuckTales I playeda lot of DuckTales A Smurf game
.
Yeah, back then I played what Ihad, what I could, and I was
happy about it.
So I didn't have much games topick my favorites, the Ninja
Turtles games were awesome.
(11:50):
Those ones I like as well.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
The Mario games are good too.
I think one of my favorites,outside of what you mentioned,
is the Legend of Zelda Link'sAwakening yeah, Link's.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Awakening.
Yeah, that was a great game,and also I was amazed that if
you had the game boy printer,you could print some pictures
that the game took, and Ithought that was exciting, but I
could never get my hands in onein a game boy printer.
And I had a game boy camera,though, and that was pretty fun,
(12:23):
but not the Game Boy printer.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I was reading.
Someone did an interview withyou and you mentioned that you
didn't always and you mentionedhere too you didn't always.
You weren't always able to havethe, the systems or the video
games that you wanted as a kid.
But in your adult life you havegone out and you know whether
it's eBay or whatever andpurchase some of those and I'm
curious what those systems areand why they're important to you
(12:47):
.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, when I started having my own money, I guess the
first or second thing I startedto do was to purchase the
consoles I wanted.
The first one was the Nintendo64.
And I have two now.
One is a clear purple version.
(13:11):
It looks so cool that game withgames like F-Zero and Super
Mario and Pokemon Snap PokemonStadium, smash Bros and uh,
pokemon snap, pokemon stadiumand smash bros.
Uh, I, I got lucky to to getthose classic games because
(13:31):
right now they're so expensivegame collecting is getting
expensive.
Yeah, yeah it exploded in thesecrazy prices right now.
The second one I got wasGameCube, because I think the
form factor is pretty good.
It's so pretty as well.
(13:53):
Nintendo consoles are so prettybut they were so expensive.
Nintendo products have alwaysbeen so expensive here.
They kind of don't adjust theprices for the economy here, so
(14:13):
it was kind of a commodity forthe middle class.
Sure, and after that I got aDreamcast.
That's another fantasticconsole.
It has great games.
I love that.
They are so colorful and withgreat music.
(14:35):
The controller, I think, isvery pretty, even though it
lacks another thumb stick, andthe Vue Mew.
The Vue Mew is, I think that's.
That was a great idea and it'sso sad that the Dreamcast failed
(14:58):
at the end as a console and Ialso have a PlayStation 3
because it had so muchexclusives that you couldn't
play Aisle Square Right, youcouldn't even emulate those
games.
So I had to have the realconsole and the games which they
(15:19):
were very cheap a few years ago.
I think they are still verycheap the PlayStation 3 games
and yeah, yeah, those are theconsoles I have and portables.
I have a new 3DS because Ineeded to check that 3D effect
and a couple of Game Boys, andthat's it, and a PSP.
(15:42):
That's the other thing I got.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's a good collection, man, a lot of good
games on those systems.
And I agree with you there'ssomething you know Nintendo.
They made a lot of really coolsystems that look cool and
they're fun to play.
And I agree with you too withthe Dreamcast.
It's sad that that was the endof Sega's.
You know their hardware tenure,but they had a lot of cool
(16:09):
games on there and it's a funone to have now tenure, but a
lot of cool games on there andit's it's a fun one to have now.
So I noticed that you'recurrently working on a new game
and I'd like to talk about thata little later, but you
mentioned that you you'reputting a lot of effort into
representing very niche aspectsof your culture in this new game
.
You mentioned that you realizenot a lot of people understand
the references or the jokes, andI feel like that essence was
(16:32):
also present in pine creek.
You did some of the same, maybenot as much, but it was
definitely there and it'ssomething that I really loved
about pine creek.
And even when I didn'tunderstand the jokes or the
references, I thought it wascool because I could see that
you were putting them in thereand I would just love to know a
little bit more about uh.
Why do you think you findyourself doing this in your
games?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, first of all, it's kind of a natural thing and
also the competition is veryhard out there.
I think putting a lot of mysurroundings and my own life
experiences will make me, willmake my work, stand out from the
rest, because, uh, each one'slife experience and worldview is
(17:22):
unique and, uh, that will makeit stand out from.
From example, uh, ai generatedbullshit and so, and game
(17:46):
development is, it's an artresult.
For first world countries, it'sreally hard to do games like
here in Latin America or inother poorer countries, so
that's why you see a lot offirst world cultures represented
(18:08):
in games.
I just see a lot of Vikinggames, samurai games, games
based in the US, games based inEurope, but you don't get to see
much about Latin Americanculture, my culture.
I never get to see cities likemine, streets like where I live
in, food stands that look likethe places I go to visit, and
(18:33):
themes, conversations that I seein my life, my daily life, and
I think I can.
You can make so much fun stories, so much fun games based on
that.
That.
That's what I want to do,that's what I want people to see
(18:55):
that there are much stories,there are much culture here that
are fun as well or interestingor very interesting, and it's a
huge continent, it's a hugeculture with many, many colors,
and it's sad to me that most fewdevelopers here in mexico just
(19:19):
talk about pre-hispanic cultureslike the.
If they make a game, they makea game about the aztecs or the
or the mayas or something.
But I think right now theculture, the contemporary
culture, can give you so muchmore content, so much fun
(19:42):
gameplay ideas, so much funstories or interesting or dark
or thoughtful.
So that's what I'm trying to dowith my games and I think
probably that it probably is noteasy to sell, uh, that,
probably that will not make merich or commercial, but it will
(20:07):
make me stand out and it's funfor me.
I have fun doing this.
I don't know if that answersyour question.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
It does.
Yeah, no, for sure.
I think that's a beautifulanswer to the question.
Playing Pine Creek, I thoughtit was really cool and
interesting how you interjectedflavors of Mexican culture, but
it seemed to me that Pine Creeklikely took place in, like the
United States or somewhere thatwasn't Mexico.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, it's weird because it started in the US.
It started like a story basedin the US, but I couldn't help.
I just I couldn't help puttingstuff from my own life.
I didn't cut that content, Ijust left it.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I'm so glad that you kept it in.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, and people kind of find it weird, but nobody
has an issue with it and I Ithought it was a relief.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, no, I loved it.
Man, I think that was some ofuh, that was some of the
favorite things for me.
Maybe I'm a weird person, Idon't know, but I thought that
was really cool and it was.
It was a lot of fun to.
You know, there's so muchtalking to the different NPCs
within this game.
You know you can, once youfigure out how the game works,
you can maybe streamline andskip certain conversations, but
(21:39):
I had a lot of fun going eachday in the game and talking to
everyone I ran into becauseeveryone had something fun to
say and that's, I mean, that'syou, that's you writing that
stuff.
And I think that, like you know,when you go to the taqueria and
you talk to, there's a womanthere who has, you know, she's
telling her story about how,like she's from Mexico and she,
and that's when they tell the,that's when you tell the story
(22:00):
about the tacos al pastor, Ithink.
But it was just like it was funto have those little bits in
there and to have like littlepieces of Mexican culture in
this game that takes place in,you know, the United States and
Pine Creek or whatever.
Honestly, that's, that's trueto the experience here in the
United States, I would say, justbecause you know, in the United
States and Minnesota especially, but all over we have a lot of
(22:22):
Mexican immigrants and a hugepart of our culture here is that
, that influence from Mexico.
So I thought for me it wasactually pretty natural to see
that type of thing in the game.
So I'm I'm really glad that youincluded it, because for me it
really it gave the, it gave thegame a lot of life and a lot of
heart, which I thought was wasreally cool.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, thank you so much, that's.
That's really nice to hear anda relief.
Yeah, I was surprised how manyAmerican players already know
tacos al pastor and already knowlike birria tacos, and some
(23:02):
people say that in LA they gotbetter tacos than here.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Someday I'll try to prove that, You'll have to give
it a test.
That's funny.
When I was in high school, backwhen I was about 17, I had the
opportunity to go down toNogales and learn about the
border in Mexico and Arizona.
While I was there, I stayedwith the family and they they
(23:33):
introduced me to chorizo tacos,which I still love to this day.
Yeah, another favorite, yeah,the son of that family.
He took us out to get tacosthat night and this was you know
, this is a while ago now, uhwhen he took us to get tacos and
at the time, what we call themhere tacos the tacos that were
(23:53):
everywhere here in minnesota wecall mom tacos, which is like
not the tacos that I experiencedin mexico.
It took a long time for thatstyle of taco to make it up here
.
Mom tacos would be like thehard shells that you get from
the store.
Then you just ground beef andwith some seasoning and and some
sprinkled processed cheese ontop, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but
not anymore.
(24:13):
We finally caught up a littlebit.
The influence has made it uphere.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, they tried to bring Taco Bell here in Mexico.
Oh sure yeah, it just miserablyfailed.
They are their own thing.
They are their own thing.
They call it Tex-Mex.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So there's another question I have about this
inclusion and some of yourtastes into the game.
There's a really fun, reallyniche inclusion that you run
into at one of the arcadecabinets when your character
goes to the arcade and it playsout a scene from my Dinner with
Andre and I was wondering if youcould tell me a little bit more
(24:58):
about that because it was justsuch like I haven't seen that
movie but when I saw that I justthought it was so cool and I
had to look it up and I'm justcurious if you can tell me a
little bit about that inclusion.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, yeah, I included it for two things, two
things.
One, it was a reference to theSimpsons.
I don't know if you watchedthat episode.
Martin is playing the arcadegame of my Dinner with Andre and
it just has one option and onebutton, which is tell me more,
(25:33):
and the characters keep playing.
Yeah, it was a reference tothat.
And the other point is because Ilove the movie and it's a movie
just about two people talkingand it sounds like the most
boring movie ever, but thethings they talk and the way
they talk, I think it'smarvelous.
(25:54):
It's a classic to me and alsohas some pretty deep quotes that
resonate to me as an adultright now, like one from the
protagonist that says, like whenI was young.
Protagonist that says like, uh,when I was young, I thought a
(26:18):
lot about music and art, and now, as an adult, the only thing I
think, the only thing I thinkabout, is money and and it's sad
, but at the same time yourealize that it's a thing
everybody goes through at somepoint in their life.
(26:40):
That's why I included thatmovie.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I love that.
I don't know if I've seen thatparticular Simpsons episode.
I'm going to look it up.
Know, if I've seen thatparticular simpsons episode?
I'm going to, I'm going to lookit up.
And uh, just reading a littlebit about the movie, I very much
want to watch it now, afterafter being introduced to it in
the game, and I'll have to lookat, I'll have to find that
simpsons episode too yeah, watchthat episode.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You'll crack a laugh in that scene I like it another
fun inclusion.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
That happens in the arcade, but also right away when
your character wakes up in hisbedroom.
There's a like a little supernintendo there that you can go
play, and the game on there thatstarts up is uh, heroes of
peristokia, I believe, orperistrokia perestroika.
I don't know the russianpronunciation, but both me and
(27:30):
my brother and co-host Luke,when that happened in the game,
we loved it.
I texted him and he was likethis is I think the character
says something about this gameis terrible or something.
And Luke, he messaged me.
He's like I don't know whathe's talking about.
This game is awesome becauseit's fun and it's a.
It's a mini game, but I reallylove that inclusion and it
mimics.
It mimics like the Pokemon game, right when you have it's like
(27:53):
a Russian feel to it.
That's very like a communist.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It's like a communist Pokemon mini game and I'm just
wondering if you can tell me alittle bit more about that.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's funbecause it's it's so stupid.
It's so stupid.
(28:19):
The idea of a bureaucratic,communist Pokemon battle game I
don't know why it occurred to me, it just happened and it's the
idea of communist history andthe USSR history is kind of.
It was kind of fresh in my mindbecause in my parents' and
uncles' libraries there are alot of history books and
(28:44):
communist books and books abouteverything.
But yeah, it a very uh full oflefties, uh revolutionary time
in the 70s here in mexico.
So they have a lot of booksabout that and that's.
And I I read uh kind of a lotof that, those books, when I was
(29:06):
teenager, a teenage, and uh,that's why it was fresh.
I had a lot of that in my mindand a lot of Pokemon in my mind
that it was just natural to putthose things together in a kind
of a stupid mini game.
Yeah, so that's why it was sosuccessful that I'm in uh
(29:34):
developing that idea further inthe next game oh, no way, I love
it.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, that's awesome, man.
I think that's it's it is.
You're right, it's like thisdumb, stupid, like, but fun
thing that you've included.
But I also think that that goesback to what we're saying about
how there's there's pieces,there's pieces of you in this
game and I think that's reallybeautiful and I think one of the
the most apparent.
Besides, like some of theseobscure references, one of the
(30:01):
most apparent parts of you beingin this game is, I'm pretty
sure you've included yourself init as an npc at towards the end
of the game, because you, canyou can talk
to someone and it's uh, it's adeveloper talking about the, the
hardships of their craft, thehardships of developing an indie
game, and also a little bitabout the turmoil in the world
at the time.
Uh, because I have to assumethat you were developing this
(30:24):
game.
It was released in 2021, soyou're probably developing it
around 2019, 2020, which wasright around when the pandemic
started.
Yeah, and then also there'smention of the George Floyd in
this conversation that the NPChas, which was, I thought it's a
really cool inclusion Because Ithink that, one, it shows
(30:47):
you've interjected yourself intothe game, which is, I think,
really awesome.
But two, it also makes it it'slike a time capsule of sort.
You know, it shows folks thatare playing like.
It gives people an idea of maybea little bit what was going on
in your life and the world atthe time, that that this was
making.
And I think that's even moreinteresting when you consider
(31:09):
that this game is made for theGame Boy, the Game Boy Color,
which is an old system, but it'snew software, a new video game
on an old system, and I justthink there's everything about
that.
I just really, really enjoyed.
And for me, we have allexperienced a pandemic and we
all experienced George Floyd inour own ways.
(31:30):
But it really hit home for mebecause I'm from Minneapolis,
where George Floyd was from, soit was just really cool to see
that included in your game.
So, one, I just want to saythat was cool.
And two, I want to say thankyou.
Thank you for having that inthere.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah, I included myselfas a way to take things out of
my chest.
I really thought the world wasending back then, and also my
world, because in money terms itwas a shit time.
(32:11):
So making games is hard and youdon't make a lot of money about
it.
And then the pandemic startedRight Right before I was about
to release a game, there wereriots for what happened to
(32:34):
George Floyd and the world felttoo serious.
Yeah, very, very serious.
At the time, like that, I was,yeah, kind of scared.
I thought it was the end of itall.
Kind of scared, I thought itwas the end of it all.
(32:57):
So, yeah, it was a verypersonal experience working on
that game.
I don't, I don't think anyoneexpects that kind of game for
the game boy.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
No, that's why I think that's one of the reasons
I really enjoyed this game somuch is because it it, uh, it
challenges much like the GameBoy.
I love the Game Boy and I lovegames that were made during the
Game Boy's reign, like when itwas first released, you know.
But but they're typicallypretty light.
A lot of them are prettyarcadey.
(33:25):
There are story driven gamesfor the Game Boy, but they're
less so than some of the morearcade type games that are on
the Game Boy, just by nature ofthe what the system is, that's
like.
One reason why I think that PineCreek was really fun for me is
because it is a story drivengame that interjects.
You know a lot of things thatwere happening in the world and
then you know some very darkthemes, which is something that
(33:47):
you don't necessarily see onoriginal game boy games.
You know the games that weremade 20, 30 years ago.
Yeah, it's all very interesting.
So I'm curious with thedevelopment of pine creek, what,
what kind of, was yourinspiration to start working on
the game, like why, what led youto create pine?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
well, I saw the announcement of a new game
engine for the Game Boy calledGB Studio, and I tried it.
I saw a couple of games thatwere being developed for it,
like Deadeus Deadeus I don'tknow how people pronounce that
game and I thought it was apretty cool game.
(34:30):
People pronounce that game andI thought it was a pretty cool
game and uh, I saw it was kindof easier to make a game there
and, uh, I I loved the system.
I had the system.
Uh, I I already had someexperience with game engines.
I just thought that this is it,this is what I want to make
(34:51):
right now, and just got to work.
Uh, I thought I thought I willmake a, a very short game, a
very like game jam style gamethat will take me a couple of
weeks or months, but uh, tooktook way longer than that.
But yeah, that that was mainlythe reason I saw the opportunity
(35:13):
to do it and I did it you knowit's interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You know the gb studio.
There's a you and um, I thinkis his artist name is isma, who
does I'm also not sure how topronounce it, but I say dadeus.
So that's another cool game.
There's, there's somesimilarities, I would say,
between your game and his game,and part of that, I think, is
the themes, and then anotherpart of that, I think, is the gb
(35:38):
studio system me getting intosome of these uh different games
that have been made morerecently on gb studio.
I was interested to see how gbstudio works, so I did download
it to check it out.
It's marketed as somethingthat's very and it is probably
easier than writing code fromscratch.
I can't deny that.
But it's not as easy as Ithought it would be.
(35:59):
No, it's not, it's really hard.
So, so kudos, I know it's.
It's kind of marketed as thislike, oh, you easily make your
game.
But I got in there and I waslike, nah, my, I'm not gonna,
(36:19):
it's not gonna work as easy asI'd hoped.
No, yeah, it's not that easy,right, right.
So you mentioned the days, butdid you have any other uh games
in mind as inspiration, or didyou kind of like start from
scratch with pine creek?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
uh, yeah, uh, first of all, uh, I think there are
many new kind of horror games,uh, for the system, because, uh,
it's not that they're uh easy,but they are.
It's like.
It's like movies, horror moviesor slasher movies.
(36:50):
You need less of a budget tomake them and you can have a
greater impact with lessresources doing horror stories.
But I don't know what genre toput really the game, because it
also has detective elements.
It's horror.
(37:11):
But someone said that it's realhorror, not like supernatural
or fantasy horror.
It's real horror, which is akind of different subgenre.
But what was the question?
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I'm a pretty scary person sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, I was just wondering what kind of games you
had in mind and what kind ofinspiration to start the game.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Oh, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know.
So I think that the horrorgenre and then, yeah, I also had
Shenmue.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I had Shenmue really fresh in my mind, I was playing
it a lot Interesting.
I had Shenmue really fresh inmy mind, I was playing it a lot.
Ah, interesting, yeah, and thatkind of game structure.
I tried to imitate it in thegame.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Ah okay, I can see that.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Cool.
Yeah, I'm sure if you try tosee it you'll see it very
clearly how Shenmue inspired thegameplay.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I'm curious.
The characters, you knowthere's a lot of.
There's the main characters inPine Creek and then there's a
lot of NPCs.
Each is very unique andengaging.
Each has a special personalityand I'm just wondering if you
could share with me a little bithow you develop these
characters and their stories.
You know, like, what was yourprocess and what kind of things
were you thinking about when youwere creating dialogue for each
(38:34):
of the npcs?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
well, for the npcs, there are like three kinds of
npcs the, the protagonists likeuh, atzo, cassidy and karen uh
they're based, theirpersonalities are based on
probably shouldn't say this, butpeople.
(38:57):
I know as a writer youeventually do that.
You project your own life onyour fiction and not not, uh,
not exactly like people.
They mixed and also real peoplewith uh characters from series
(39:19):
or movies.
Like the name cassidy, I took itfrom the comic book series
preacher, okay yeah I, I, I likethat, that, that it has so much
personality, even though it's adick.
Yeah, that's what has a littlebit about me, if that's not a
(39:40):
bit obvious, but obviously Ididn't uncover a huge conspiracy
.
Also, the other NPCs, the kindthat follow the story, are based
on series like Twin Peaks or orpolice stories.
(40:03):
Some other characters likeJaime from Salmon Crack, the one
that's watching UFOs thatcharacter is based on a popular
TV personality here in Mexicocalled Jaime Maussan, which is
famous for being a UFO watcherand UFO specialist.
(40:26):
It's very popular here, verypopular here.
These are very, like I said,very niche, very niche topics,
characters and also for the NPCsin the city in Apricot City,
those that don't have anyrelation to the story.
(40:48):
They have their own characterarcs.
I include them because I alwayswanted NPCs that had their own
lives, their own stories.
I think that will make ourworld richer.
But it's really hard to do.
(41:10):
It's really hard to givecharacter arcs and personalities
to 50 plus NPCs and it was acool idea and also a stupid idea
because I spent another fourmonths writing dialogue for
those NPCs.
It was really, really painfulin the development but it paid
(41:35):
well at the end and I think Iwill replicate that in future
games, even though it's reallyhard and unnecessary in gameplay
terms.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I mean, the thing is, I think one of the reasons that
I love your game so much isbecause you put that time into
it.
There's a lot of games out therethat you talk to an NPC and
it's boring.
I don't need to talk to themit's, I'll just skip it.
But for me, when I played PineCreek, your game I wanted to.
I wanted to talk to eachcharacter, because every single
(42:10):
of those characters whether it'syou know, around 50, all of
them had their own personality.
So the time that you put inthere, it's, you know, is quite
the challenge, but in there,it's, you know, it was quite the
challenge, but I think it paidoff, in the sense that I think
that's something that I reallyloved about Pine Creek is that I
could have went through towhere I could maybe figure out
what I was supposed to do next,but I didn't care to do it right
away.
I wanted to go talk to everysingle person that I could that
(42:32):
day to see what they had to say,because it was usually
something that was like engagingor fun, and not a single
character in that game is thesame.
So you did a great job ofgiving each of those NPCs that
personality that you were tryingto give them so great job.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Thank you so much.
I think I did it also because Ihate filler in games.
I hate filler in games likeUbisoft games, boring side
quests and and boring npcs anduh, just content that doesn't
make sense.
And this ai generated bullshitis just adding to the to my
(43:12):
horror in right in seeing uhhollow content is I hate that.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
You mentioned, you know, obviously, creating all
this dialogue for 50 differentNPCs.
That was a big challenge thattook months to do.
I'm wondering about what aresome of the other challenges
that happened while developing,you know, for the Game Boy, and
how you overcame them.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Well, code is hard and also limitations boost
creativity.
I agree with that because itmakes your mind come up with
creative, new, fun ideas.
But also the process ofdebugging code and having to
(44:04):
redraw backgrounds, rewritedialogues and bug testing.
Bug testing is a nightmare andI guess that's why the companies
have huge Q&A teams and gameteachers, because it's a whole
(44:25):
job by itself and it takes a lotof time from the creative
process.
It's dull and painful andboring, but you have to do it
and some people just keep it andthen that gives us a result a
very buggy game.
(44:45):
I understand that because bugtesting is really horrible.
But yeah, that that was theworst part about making a game
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So pine creek covers some you mentioned earlier and
it's apparent even at the get-go.
There's a warning when the gamestarts, just saying that pine
creek covers some more heavyadult content.
And I think that this isinteresting not only for the
story, but it's also especiallyinteresting considering the
medium of the game boy, justbecause you know I was speaking
(45:19):
a little bit earlier how thatwhen the Game Boy was first came
out, the games that were madefor it were typically lighter.
You know you have like yourKirby's and stuff like that,
which is very like you know it's.
It's there's not a lot to it interms of it's a fun little
platformer, but that's all it'smeant to be.
And I'm just wondering you knowwhat inspired you to take this
(45:42):
route and how you think thosethemes work in the Game Boy
ecosystem.
So, like, what kind of reallymotivated you to dive into that
real horror aspect of Pine Creekand how do you think that
benefits the game in the end,being that it's on the Game Boy?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
I don't know, maybe because it's a dead system,
maybe because Nintendo doesn'tcare anymore about what is
released on it.
I felt safe to do it andbecause I didn't have an
audience, nobody was expectinganything from me.
I didn't know if it could be asuccess, if I could make money
(46:25):
about it, if anyone will play it, so I felt so free doing it
that I just did it.
It was kind of like writing abook that you don't plan to.
You don't have any expectationsout of it, so that gives you
(46:46):
freedom to do whatever you want.
So, yeah, that was basically mythe reason to feel free to talk
about those subjects, becauseif I was doing a game for a I
don't know the Nintendo Switch,or for a publisher, I would have
(47:06):
felt constrained for censorshipor not hitting sales numbers,
which also happened because whenIncubate Games reached me to
publish the game, they asked mefor some small changes.
(47:26):
It had way more swearing in the1.0 version than the Incubate
released version.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Oh, that's interesting, I played.
I played it.
You know I bought it viaincubate, so I'm I have that
version.
I'd be curious to see it's.
It's funny that you knowpublisher would decide to do
that, because maybe it's just mebut like I'd, you know the
swears that were in there.
It's just, it's stuff that Ithink adds to that world
building that you're doing so.
But you know that's that's mypersonal philosophy, is that
(48:03):
swearing isn't maybe so bad, butyeah some, some people just
don't like.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Some people are turned off by swearing or uh
right, yeah, and it happens.
So I thought it was real in mymind.
I was writing and dialoguesthat did happen in real life.
I guess some people don't likereality, that kind of reality in
(48:31):
fiction.
They want a reality in fictionthat's not so close to the real
thing.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So did you write this in Spanish and then have it
translated to english, or didyou write it in english?
I know that when you start thegame, you can.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
You can play it in either, uh, spanish, english or
portuguese, I believe yeah, Iwrote it in English to practice,
cool, and then I translated itto Spanish and it's localized.
Because some things can betranslated exactly as they are
(49:12):
Right and because the JV Studiodoesn't have a way to export
translation sheets with all thelines of dialogue, you have to
do it manually in engine,element by element.
(49:34):
It's a really hard process, butthat gave me the option to I
don't have to stick to the samenumber of lines.
I can write more dialogue in adifferent language or less
dialogue for the sameconversation to adapt to.
(49:58):
They probably say differentthings in each language, but
that sounds better and makesmore sense to a native speaker
in their culture.
So it was harder but also gaveme freedom to do that.
I don't know if I can explainmyself.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
No, that makes sense.
I think I might have to doanother playthrough in Spanish
and kind of brush off some of mySpanish skills and see if I can
pick up some of thosedifferences.
That'd be fun.
So let's say Pine Creek were tohave a crossover event with any
video game character, who wouldyou choose and why?
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Wow with any video game character.
Who would you choose and why?
Wow with any video gamecharacter?
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, or franchise.
So if there was going to be,like you know, like a multiverse
Marvel type thing, a crossoverevent where you'd have
characters from, I don't want togive you answers, I want you to
answer.
But you know you can choosefrom any character in any video
game that would appear in yourworld that you created in Pine
Creek, or to have yourcharacters appear in that world.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
That's a very nice question, very interesting one.
Probably anyone from Night inthe Woods, even though they are
animals, but I think the tone isquite similar.
Yeah, it's kind of aninspiration.
(51:27):
That wasn't that obvious, butyeah, the first thing that comes
to mind is Night in the Woods.
I love that what do you thinkit could happen?
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That's a good idea.
You might need to write thatdown.
I could see it, though.
There's similar vibes going on.
I think it's a good one.
I think it's a great answer.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Marco, you're an indie developer making games and
you mentioned a couple gamesthat you played in the past.
Do you still find time to playfor fun as I get older?
Mentioned a couple games thatyou played in the past.
Do you still?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
find time to play for fun.
As I get older, I find itextremely harder to to find time
to play games.
I've been playing persona 5 forthree years already and I'm not
even halfway through it.
And I've been a year alreadyplaying Grandia and I just don't
see an end to it.
(52:22):
But also JRPGs are way longerthan they should be Right.
So right now, to relieve stressfrom daily life, I tend to play
more arcade games, like I'vebeen playing a ton of Dod on
patchy lately.
(52:43):
Oh, that game's so good I lovethat game and also, yeah right,
I've been playing racing gamesand something that I can just
pick up and play for 20 minutesessions and do something else.
That's why I mainly do rightnow I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I mean it's fun to do some of those big story games
and when you can find the timeit's great.
But it is harder to do and theway that I play a lot of you
know it depends.
But you know I do tend to findmyself playing a lot more of
those arcade games, like youmentioned, just because you can
play for 20 minutes and then goon to do whatever else you're
doing.
And that's one of the reasonsthat I actually love the Game
(53:27):
Boy so much is that so much ofthe game works so well, like to
play in 20 to 30 minutes timeand then you can you know you
can save it, or maybe it's thetype of game that you don't need
to save, like it's a morearcade type game.
Even with Pine Creek, you know,you can, I think it it took me
about three, four hours to beator finish the game and then when
I did my second playthrough,because I was curious about
getting a slightly differentending, uh, you're able to do it
(53:49):
in a couple hours and you knowthat's.
To be able to do a full gamelike that in just two to three
hours time is something that Iappreciate and I've always
appreciated and I I think thatit works really well on the Game
Boy system.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah, thanks.
I wanted to make a game thatplayers can finish.
They can actually enjoy theending, because the ending was
important.
So that's why it was, by design, a short game, because I wanted
players to don't lose thethread of the story, don't lose
(54:26):
the interest I wanted to enjoy,if not like a movie, maybe a
mini series or something,something quick, something they
can keep the interest fresh.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
I love that.
When I was reading a little bitmore, when I was trying to find
more articles about you and thegame, I found that you dabble
in a little bit of musicproduction as well.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
Yeah, I still have a band with a friend, it's a duo
called we make.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Syncwave, it's called night runner.
Um, yep, yeah, we ah fun.
I saw in the in the thumbnails,because you did a 3d remake of
pine creek for for steam on onpcs, and I noticed that one of
the characters has a night wavet-shirt.
So that's a that's a funinclusion right.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
Yeah, it was shameless self-promotion.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Yeah, I think this year I turned 10 years working
on that project, so yeah, I'vehad some time working on music
production.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Right on, music can have a big influence when you're
working on your, your stuff, uh, your games.
Are you listening to musicwhile you do that?
Is that any particular album,artist or genre of music that
you that you listen to while you, while you work?
Speaker 3 (55:53):
uh, I mostly listen to ambient music because that
helps me focus while I'm codingor writing dialogue.
It doesn't distract me, ithelps me with concentration.
So I have a lot of playlistsfrom a lot of artists and
probably sometimes, if I'mstressed out, I mix the ambient
(56:17):
music with a little of ASMRvideos for extra relaxation,
because coding is reallystressful to me.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Sure yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, so that's what mainly I listen to, but music
with lyrics it's distracting tome while I'm doing that.
So that's the reason to pickinstrumental music.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
I'm the same way.
I listen to a lot of lo-fimusic when I'm working or trying
to focus.
I love music with lyrics, butit can be difficult for me to
focus as well when I'm trying tolisten to lyrics and write
something or do whatever I'mdoing.
Tell me just a little bit aboutNightwave and that project and
the music that you're makingnight runner band night runner.
(57:07):
I'm sorry, yeah, yeah don'tworry.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Well, we, we released a couple of albums these past
10 years.
Uh, we even had the opportunityto collaborate with uh Sexbank
from I forgot the name fromNinja Sex Party.
My memory gets worse.
(57:31):
Every year we released ananimated music video with him.
Oh cool, we reached a couple ofmillion plays on Spotify.
It was a fun time working onSynthwave, but I kind of got
(57:55):
tired of it.
I think I had more things tosay here um making games.
I think I already dideverything I had to do in the
music reel, so I just thought itwas it was time to move on to
(58:17):
other, to other endeavors.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Sure, can you tell me a little bit about any upcoming
projects that you have forcarmelo electronics or stuff
that uh fans like myself canlook forward to?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
oh yeah, I'm working uh sequel to pine creek.
It's not not really a sequelbecause they are the same
protagonist, but in a wholedifferent adventure.
It's more like a road trip,coming of age, a monster
battling game.
Oh, interesting, this time it'sset in Mexico, in a fictional
(58:53):
Mexico, and you'll see, it's away bigger game but I having a a
ton of fun with it.
I'm planning to include a lotof different music genres using
uh, using my music productionexperience and also I'm learning
(59:13):
to, to draw better, to makebetter 3d art, to, to improve my
writing, my coding.
I'm putting my best in thissequel.
I'm still working on the titleof the game.
I don't think Pine Creek 2 willstick.
I'll have to come up with abetter title for the game, but
(59:39):
it will be a fun game.
That's the word.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
I'm excited.
Will that be for PCs, or whereare you releasing it to?
Speaker 3 (59:51):
I will release it for PC.
It will be awesome to have iton more consoles, but that will
depend if I can get a publisherthat helps me with the, with the
ports and everything.
It's still a few years away frombeing released, since it's a 3D
(01:00:13):
Unity game and right now I'mdoing it mostly myself, so it's
still it will take a while.
But as my design philosophy, Iwant every bit of the game to
have meaning and be fun or beinteresting, so I try to stay up
(01:00:39):
to my quality standards.
Yeah, so you can expect thatfrom the sequel of Pine Creek.
Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Excellent, I'm super excited.
Tell you what, marco.
I want to thank you so much fortaking the time today to talk
to me a little bit about justPine Creek and then your
experience creating Pine Creekand just a little bit more about
yourself.
We didn't get too much into theactual story and that's kind of
by design.
I want folks to to go out thereand play your game and
(01:01:10):
experience it for themselves.
I think it's quite worth it andthey can.
Listeners you know the folksthat are listening.
You can.
You can check out Marco's game,carmelo Electronics on itchio.
You can buy it either thephysical or the ROM version, the
digital version on IncubateGames and I believe there's also
a 3D remake of Pine Creek onSteam available as well.
(01:01:33):
So a lot of different placesfolks can get a hold of your
game and play.
Okay, Thank you so much Totallyman, Unless there's anything
else you wanted to to get inthere.
I think you've answered all myquestions.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Thank you so much for for inviting me and it was a
pretty fun conversation, andthanks for having patience with
my English and the time I taketo come up with the words.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
You were perfect man, your answers were perfect and I
think that you know I really doappreciate your time and you
coming on here.
Thank you.
Hey there, welcome to Low5Friends, the new companion
podcast to Low5Gaming, where weget to chat with the creators,
players and voices that definethe games that we love.
My name is Alex, your host, andin this inaugural episode, I
had the great pleasure ofinterviewing Marco of Carmelo
Electronics.
Marco is the developer of PineCreek, a Game Boy Color game
(00:20):
that was released in 2021.
That's right, 2021.
We got people out heredeveloping video games for the
Game Boy.
Still, that's wild, and I'mabsolutely here for it.
So much so we have a mainlineepisode on Pine Creek as well.
(00:41):
I do encourage you to checkthat out if you haven't already.
Luke and I get into it.
On that one about the game, ourexperience with it, we do enter
spoiler territory.
We let you know when that'sgoing to happen so you can, uh,
either fast forward or you takethe time to play it.
This one's a shorty, you know.
You put about three hours intoit to beat this one, but, that
(01:02):
said, in this, uh, in thisepisode with Marco, we avoid
spoilers, so you're safe fromthose.
I do encourage you to check outthe game.
You can find it at incubatecomas well as itchio.
Go out there and support Marco.
He put a lot of you know puthis heart and soul into this one
and you can really see it.
It's a real treat to play.
I'll slap some links in theshow notes for you, but without
(01:25):
further ado.
My interview with Marco.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Your English is great , by the way.
It's very.
You're doing great so far, man,and it's better than my Spanish
.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, thank you, I've been practicing, that's great
man.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Did you learn English in school or are you learning
it on your own?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, here learning English is mandatory from a
young age because it's anecessity to work.
But it kind of got better afterI started working with
international artists, so Ineeded in order to work with
them.
My English gradually becamemore fluent and better Never.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
It was worse before.
Well, I mean, practice makesperfect man, and it's funny.
I lived in Spain for a whileand I got to practice my Spanish
and all my friends that I madethere.
They would tease me because I'mfrom minnesota in the us, so I
have a midwestern accent, myenglish has a midwestern accent,
(02:50):
but then the spanish we learnis mexican spanish and the
spanish people are a littlepretentious, yeah, about their
language.
So they would tease me becausethey'd be like what is that?
What is that dirty Spanishyou're speaking?
But you know, whatever, it wasfun.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, that's a whole subject.
It's kind of a fight aboutwhat's the true Spanish.
Totally, it's actually harder Ithink it will be harder to
learn Spanish from Spain youwill say the original Spanish
than Mexican Spanish.
I think Mexican Spanish iseasier to pronounce.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I tend to.
I tend to agree.
So when I was in Spain, I wasin um, I was in southern Spain,
so like Andalusia they, they saywith like a instead of a, you
know, so it's like there'salmost like a lisp to it.
So I had to get used to that,like if I was saying gracias, it
was like man, it was just tough, but you know it was, it was a
(03:52):
great experience and you knowit's.
I think languages are importantand cool and I think it's, you
know it's, it's awesome to tolearn other people's languages
and to just have anunderstanding of it, and so I I
commend you on your english, man, you're it's, it's really quite
good thanks, yeah, some, some,some movies from spain.
I have to watch them withsubtitles yeah I bet that will
(04:15):
tell you about the difference inaccent, of course well, today
we're we're talking about yourgame, pine creek, which is an
adventure game focused onexploration and investigation,
and it was released not too longago, actually in October of
2021.
So about three years ago.
But the reason that I find thatreally interesting is because
it was released for the Game Boyand the Game Boy Color, which
(04:38):
are old systems, so it's a newgame on an old system.
But before we get into talkingtoo much about the game, marco,
I'm curious.
Here in Minnesota in the pastfew years, birria tacos have
made their way up north andthere's a fun reference in your
game to tacos al pastor.
And I'm curious which do youthink is better?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Tacos al pastor.
Or what kind of tacos did yousay, yeah, birria, do you have
birria tacos?
Oh, that's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Tacos al pastor, or what kind of tacos did you say
yeah, birria Do you have birriatacos.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Oh, that's a tough one, that's a tough one, I'd say
tacos al pastor.
Right on Because you can eatthem at any hour in the day.
Birria tacos here you usuallyjust eat them in the morning.
It's kind of breakfast here.
Oh, interesting, it's not.
(05:33):
You eat that in other hours ofthe day, but tacos al pastor do,
that would be my pick.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I can dig it, man, I think another favorite taco of
mine I really love Tacos deLengua, so the tacos are quite
good.
You can't really go wrong withTacos Al Pastor, so you're onto
something there when you'regetting them.
Do you have a favoriterestaurant?
Do you make them at home?
I know that's probably a littledifficult to make at home
because they are done on a spit,so where do you get your tacos?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Oh, I usually go to the taqueria, just as I put them
in the game.
These are just restaurants thatserve only tacos, al pastor,
and they use this, how they callit, rosticeries.
It's.
They're called trompos here,where they put the slices of
(06:28):
meat in a stick and they cutthem in slices and uh and it's,
it's a, it's a fun experience.
Uh, it's a kind of a heartfeltthing.
Uh, I don't know what's theword, but it's like, it's like
comfortable to me.
I'd say, uh, like going toMcDonald's the word, but it's
like, it's like comfortable tome.
I'd say, like going tomcdonald's or something.
(06:48):
Mcdonald's or something.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I love it so I love that inclusion in your game
.
There's actually in pine creek.
There's a lot of differentareas where you've interjected
pieces of your life and yourculture in fun ways and you know
you mentioned earlier when wewere talking, that it's.
You know there's definitely alot of dark themes or adult
(07:11):
themes in the game, but I thinkthat you balance that in a
really interesting way, one withthe visual style of the game,
but more so even with just thecomedy that you interject in the
dialogue and some of thoseheartfelt pieces of your own
life that you can see in thegame.
Like that inclusion of theTacos Alpha store.
(07:33):
I thought was really cool.
Yes, which is fun, man.
It's like for a Game Boy game.
There's a lot of layers anddepth.
But I do have a few questionsabout the Game Boy.
I was doing a little diggingand I read on the Internet and I
have to assume that you made agame for the Game Boy, so you
must be a fan of the Game Boysystem.
Yeah, so can you tell me alittle bit more about that?
(07:55):
Like, when did you, when didyou first start playing the Game
Boy?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
The Game Boy.
As far as I can remember it wasan obsession to me.
I saw it advertised on TV andmagazines and as a kid I just
thought it had the perfectdesign.
I still do think it has aperfect minimalistic design,
(08:23):
particularly the Game Boy Color.
It just looks so pretty.
I just love the hardware andits design and also the software
.
The games were fun and easy topick up, with cute graphics, and
I remember that it's probablyhard to understand how much of
(08:50):
an obsession the Game Boy was tome as a kid and my parents
couldn't afford one, so I justread about the system on
magazines and games before Icould get one eventually.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I love that man.
That's similar to my experience.
My parents, I mean.
You can see my background.
I have a lot of games now in myadult life but as a child, you
know, growing up, I didn't haveany video game systems until I
was a bit older and I didn'thave the Game Boy and I knew
about it.
I had friends that had it andthey would let me borrow theirs.
So a lot of my firstexperiences with the Game Boy
(09:32):
was the neighbors would let meborrow their Game Boy systems
and I would play them at myhouse for a few days before I
had to return them.
But very similar man.
And then then like looking atthe, the different magazines in
the united states, in the inminnesota we get the newspaper
that would come and there was asection that I would have all of
(09:52):
the advertisements for bigstores like target, best buy,
that type of thing.
I would flip through and Iwould look at all the different
video game stuff and just wishthat I had them yeah, we had.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
We have the exact same story, as it seems.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh, that's very cool.
So what are some of yourfavorite games on the Game Boy
other than your own?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Well, I have to say it's pretty.
It's probably very lame, butthe Pokemon games.
I was just crazy about thePokemon series, in particular
Pokemon Crystal, and you cantell in the graphics of Pine
Creek.
It's fairly obvious that as Iplay the games I thought that
(10:40):
world building, thatcontemporary world building, in
an RPG game on the Game Boycould give you so much stories.
Because the Pokemon has not areally great story.
It has fantastic gameplay,fantastic world building.
(11:02):
It's a perfect game for a kid.
But, I thought in my mind I kindof invented stories in the
towns that things that couldhappen to every NPC, and I ended
up doing that in my own game 25years later, doing that in my
(11:29):
own game 20, 25 years later.
So, and also DuckTales I playeda lot of DuckTales A Smurf game
.
Yeah, back then I played what Ihad, what I could, and I was
happy about it.
So I didn't have much games topick my favorites, the Ninja
Turtles games were awesome.
(11:50):
Those ones I like as well.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
The Mario games are good too.
I think one of my favorites,outside of what you mentioned,
is the Legend of Zelda Link'sAwakening yeah, Link's.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Awakening.
Yeah, that was a great game,and also I was amazed that if
you had the game boy printer,you could print some pictures
that the game took, and Ithought that was exciting, but I
could never get my hands in onein a game boy printer.
And I had a game boy camera,though, and that was pretty fun,
(12:23):
but not the Game Boy printer.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I was reading.
Someone did an interview withyou and you mentioned that you
didn't always and you mentionedhere too you didn't always.
You weren't always able to havethe, the systems or the video
games that you wanted as a kid.
But in your adult life you havegone out and you know whether
it's eBay or whatever andpurchase some of those and I'm
curious what those systems areand why they're important to you
(12:47):
.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, when I started having my own money, I guess the
first or second thing I startedto do was to purchase the
consoles I wanted.
The first one was the Nintendo64.
And I have two now.
One is a clear purple version.
(13:11):
It looks so cool that game withgames like F-Zero and Super
Mario and Pokemon Snap PokemonStadium, smash Bros and uh,
pokemon snap, pokemon stadiumand smash bros.
Uh, I, I got lucky to to getthose classic games because
(13:31):
right now they're so expensivegame collecting is getting
expensive.
Yeah, yeah it exploded in thesecrazy prices right now.
The second one I got wasGameCube, because I think the
form factor is pretty good.
It's so pretty as well.
(13:53):
Nintendo consoles are so prettybut they were so expensive.
Nintendo products have alwaysbeen so expensive here.
They kind of don't adjust theprices for the economy here, so
(14:13):
it was kind of a commodity forthe middle class.
Sure, and after that I got aDreamcast.
That's another fantasticconsole.
It has great games.
I love that.
They are so colorful and withgreat music.
(14:35):
The controller, I think, isvery pretty, even though it
lacks another thumb stick, andthe Vue Mew.
The Vue Mew is, I think that's.
That was a great idea and it'sso sad that the Dreamcast failed
(14:58):
at the end as a console and Ialso have a PlayStation 3
because it had so muchexclusives that you couldn't
play Aisle Square Right, youcouldn't even emulate those
games.
So I had to have the realconsole and the games which they
(15:19):
were very cheap a few years ago.
I think they are still verycheap the PlayStation 3 games
and yeah, yeah, those are theconsoles I have and portables.
I have a new 3DS because Ineeded to check that 3D effect
and a couple of Game Boys, andthat's it, and a PSP.
(15:42):
That's the other thing I got.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's a good collection, man, a lot of good
games on those systems.
And I agree with you there'ssomething you know Nintendo.
They made a lot of really coolsystems that look cool and
they're fun to play.
And I agree with you too withthe Dreamcast.
It's sad that that was the endof Sega's.
You know their hardware tenure,but they had a lot of cool
(16:09):
games on there and it's a funone to have now tenure, but a
lot of cool games on there andit's it's a fun one to have now.
So I noticed that you'recurrently working on a new game
and I'd like to talk about thata little later, but you
mentioned that you you'reputting a lot of effort into
representing very niche aspectsof your culture in this new game
.
You mentioned that you realizenot a lot of people understand
the references or the jokes, andI feel like that essence was
(16:32):
also present in pine creek.
You did some of the same, maybenot as much, but it was
definitely there and it'ssomething that I really loved
about pine creek.
And even when I didn'tunderstand the jokes or the
references, I thought it wascool because I could see that
you were putting them in thereand I would just love to know a
little bit more about uh.
Why do you think you findyourself doing this in your
games?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, first of all, it's kind of a natural thing and
also the competition is veryhard out there.
I think putting a lot of mysurroundings and my own life
experiences will make me, willmake my work, stand out from the
rest, because, uh, each one'slife experience and worldview is
(17:22):
unique and, uh, that will makeit stand out from.
From example, uh, ai generatedbullshit and so, and game
(17:46):
development is, it's an artresult.
For first world countries, it'sreally hard to do games like
here in Latin America or inother poorer countries, so
that's why you see a lot offirst world cultures represented
(18:08):
in games.
I just see a lot of Vikinggames, samurai games, games
based in the US, games based inEurope, but you don't get to see
much about Latin Americanculture, my culture.
I never get to see cities likemine, streets like where I live
in, food stands that look likethe places I go to visit, and
(18:33):
themes, conversations that I seein my life, my daily life, and
I think I can.
You can make so much fun stories, so much fun games based on
that.
That.
That's what I want to do,that's what I want people to see
(18:55):
that there are much stories,there are much culture here that
are fun as well or interestingor very interesting, and it's a
huge continent, it's a hugeculture with many, many colors,
and it's sad to me that most fewdevelopers here in mexico just
(19:19):
talk about pre-hispanic cultureslike the.
If they make a game, they makea game about the aztecs or the
or the mayas or something.
But I think right now theculture, the contemporary
culture, can give you so muchmore content, so much fun
(19:42):
gameplay ideas, so much funstories or interesting or dark
or thoughtful.
So that's what I'm trying to dowith my games and I think
probably that it probably is noteasy to sell, uh, that,
probably that will not make merich or commercial, but it will
(20:07):
make me stand out and it's funfor me.
I have fun doing this.
I don't know if that answersyour question.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
It does.
Yeah, no, for sure.
I think that's a beautifulanswer to the question.
Playing Pine Creek, I thoughtit was really cool and
interesting how you interjectedflavors of Mexican culture, but
it seemed to me that Pine Creeklikely took place in, like the
United States or somewhere thatwasn't Mexico.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah, it's weird because it started in the US.
It started like a story basedin the US, but I couldn't help.
I just I couldn't help puttingstuff from my own life.
I didn't cut that content, Ijust left it.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I'm so glad that you kept it in.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, and people kind of find it weird, but nobody
has an issue with it and I Ithought it was a relief.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, no, I loved it.
Man, I think that was some ofuh, that was some of the
favorite things for me.
Maybe I'm a weird person, Idon't know, but I thought that
was really cool and it was.
It was a lot of fun to.
You know, there's so muchtalking to the different NPCs
within this game.
You know you can, once youfigure out how the game works,
you can maybe streamline andskip certain conversations, but
(21:39):
I had a lot of fun going eachday in the game and talking to
everyone I ran into becauseeveryone had something fun to
say and that's, I mean, that'syou, that's you writing that
stuff.
And I think that, like you know,when you go to the taqueria and
you talk to, there's a womanthere who has, you know, she's
telling her story about how,like she's from Mexico and she,
and that's when they tell the,that's when you tell the story
(22:00):
about the tacos al pastor, Ithink.
But it was just like it was funto have those little bits in
there and to have like littlepieces of Mexican culture in
this game that takes place in,you know, the United States and
Pine Creek or whatever.
Honestly, that's, that's trueto the experience here in the
United States, I would say, justbecause you know, in the United
States and Minnesota especially, but all over we have a lot of
(22:22):
Mexican immigrants and a hugepart of our culture here is that
, that influence from Mexico.
So I thought for me it wasactually pretty natural to see
that type of thing in the game.
So I'm I'm really glad that youincluded it, because for me it
really it gave the, it gave thegame a lot of life and a lot of
heart, which I thought was wasreally cool.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, thank you so much, that's.
That's really nice to hear anda relief.
Yeah, I was surprised how manyAmerican players already know
tacos al pastor and already knowlike birria tacos, and some
(23:02):
people say that in LA they gotbetter tacos than here.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Someday I'll try to prove that, You'll have to give
it a test.
That's funny.
When I was in high school, backwhen I was about 17, I had the
opportunity to go down toNogales and learn about the
border in Mexico and Arizona.
While I was there, I stayedwith the family and they they
(23:33):
introduced me to chorizo tacos,which I still love to this day.
Yeah, another favorite, yeah,the son of that family.
He took us out to get tacosthat night and this was you know
, this is a while ago now, uhwhen he took us to get tacos and
at the time, what we call themhere tacos the tacos that were
(23:53):
everywhere here in minnesota wecall mom tacos, which is like
not the tacos that I experiencedin mexico.
It took a long time for thatstyle of taco to make it up here
.
Mom tacos would be like thehard shells that you get from
the store.
Then you just ground beef andwith some seasoning and and some
sprinkled processed cheese ontop, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but
not anymore.
(24:13):
We finally caught up a littlebit.
The influence has made it uphere.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, they tried to bring Taco Bell here in Mexico.
Oh sure yeah, it just miserablyfailed.
They are their own thing.
They are their own thing.
They call it Tex-Mex.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So there's another question I have about this
inclusion and some of yourtastes into the game.
There's a really fun, reallyniche inclusion that you run
into at one of the arcadecabinets when your character
goes to the arcade and it playsout a scene from my Dinner with
Andre and I was wondering if youcould tell me a little bit more
(24:58):
about that because it was justsuch like I haven't seen that
movie but when I saw that I justthought it was so cool and I
had to look it up and I'm justcurious if you can tell me a
little bit about that inclusion.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Yeah, yeah, I included it for two things, two
things.
One, it was a reference to theSimpsons.
I don't know if you watchedthat episode.
Martin is playing the arcadegame of my Dinner with Andre and
it just has one option and onebutton, which is tell me more,
(25:33):
and the characters keep playing.
Yeah, it was a reference tothat.
And the other point is because Ilove the movie and it's a movie
just about two people talkingand it sounds like the most
boring movie ever, but thethings they talk and the way
they talk, I think it'smarvelous.
(25:54):
It's a classic to me and alsohas some pretty deep quotes that
resonate to me as an adultright now, like one from the
protagonist that says, like whenI was young.
Protagonist that says like, uh,when I was young, I thought a
(26:18):
lot about music and art, and now, as an adult, the only thing I
think, the only thing I thinkabout, is money and and it's sad
, but at the same time yourealize that it's a thing
everybody goes through at somepoint in their life.
(26:40):
That's why I included thatmovie.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I love that.
I don't know if I've seen thatparticular Simpsons episode.
I'm going to look it up.
Know, if I've seen thatparticular simpsons episode?
I'm going to, I'm going to lookit up.
And uh, just reading a littlebit about the movie, I very much
want to watch it now, afterafter being introduced to it in
the game, and I'll have to lookat, I'll have to find that
simpsons episode too yeah, watchthat episode.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You'll crack a laugh in that scene I like it another
fun inclusion.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
That happens in the arcade, but also right away when
your character wakes up in hisbedroom.
There's a like a little supernintendo there that you can go
play, and the game on there thatstarts up is uh, heroes of
peristokia, I believe, orperistrokia perestroika.
I don't know the russianpronunciation, but both me and
(27:30):
my brother and co-host Luke,when that happened in the game,
we loved it.
I texted him and he was likethis is I think the character
says something about this gameis terrible or something.
And Luke, he messaged me.
He's like I don't know whathe's talking about.
This game is awesome becauseit's fun and it's a.
It's a mini game, but I reallylove that inclusion and it
mimics.
It mimics like the Pokemon game, right when you have it's like
(27:53):
a Russian feel to it.
That's very like a communist.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It's like a communist Pokemon mini game and I'm just
wondering if you can tell me alittle bit more about that.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's funbecause it's it's so stupid.
It's so stupid.
(28:19):
The idea of a bureaucratic,communist Pokemon battle game I
don't know why it occurred to me, it just happened and it's the
idea of communist history andthe USSR history is kind of.
It was kind of fresh in my mindbecause in my parents' and
uncles' libraries there are alot of history books and
(28:44):
communist books and books abouteverything.
But yeah, it a very uh full oflefties, uh revolutionary time
in the 70s here in mexico.
So they have a lot of booksabout that and that's.
And I I read uh kind of a lotof that, those books, when I was
(29:06):
teenager, a teenage, and uh,that's why it was fresh.
I had a lot of that in my mindand a lot of Pokemon in my mind
that it was just natural to putthose things together in a kind
of a stupid mini game.
Yeah, so that's why it was sosuccessful that I'm in uh
(29:34):
developing that idea further inthe next game oh, no way, I love
it.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, that's awesome, man.
I think that's it's it is.
You're right, it's like thisdumb, stupid, like, but fun
thing that you've included.
But I also think that that goesback to what we're saying about
how there's there's pieces,there's pieces of you in this
game and I think that's reallybeautiful and I think one of the
the most apparent.
Besides, like some of theseobscure references, one of the
(30:01):
most apparent parts of you beingin this game is, I'm pretty
sure you've included yourself init as an npc at towards the end
of the game, because you, canyou can talk
to someone and it's uh, it's adeveloper talking about the, the
hardships of their craft, thehardships of developing an indie
game, and also a little bitabout the turmoil in the world
at the time.
Uh, because I have to assumethat you were developing this
(30:24):
game.
It was released in 2021, soyou're probably developing it
around 2019, 2020, which wasright around when the pandemic
started.
Yeah, and then also there'smention of the George Floyd in
this conversation that the NPChas, which was, I thought it's a
really cool inclusion Because Ithink that, one, it shows
(30:47):
you've interjected yourself intothe game, which is, I think,
really awesome.
But two, it also makes it it'slike a time capsule of sort.
You know, it shows folks thatare playing like.
It gives people an idea of maybea little bit what was going on
in your life and the world atthe time, that that this was
making.
And I think that's even moreinteresting when you consider
(31:09):
that this game is made for theGame Boy, the Game Boy Color,
which is an old system, but it'snew software, a new video game
on an old system, and I justthink there's everything about
that.
I just really, really enjoyed.
And for me, we have allexperienced a pandemic and we
all experienced George Floyd inour own ways.
(31:30):
But it really hit home for mebecause I'm from Minneapolis,
where George Floyd was from, soit was just really cool to see
that included in your game.
So, one, I just want to saythat was cool.
And two, I want to say thankyou.
Thank you for having that inthere.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah, I included myselfas a way to take things out of
my chest.
I really thought the world wasending back then, and also my
world, because in money terms itwas a shit time.
(32:11):
So making games is hard and youdon't make a lot of money about
it.
And then the pandemic startedRight Right before I was about
to release a game, there wereriots for what happened to
(32:34):
George Floyd and the world felttoo serious.
Yeah, very, very serious.
At the time, like that, I was,yeah, kind of scared.
I thought it was the end of itall.
Kind of scared, I thought itwas the end of it all.
(32:57):
So, yeah, it was a verypersonal experience working on
that game.
I don't, I don't think anyoneexpects that kind of game for
the game boy.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
No, that's why I think that's one of the reasons
I really enjoyed this game somuch is because it it, uh, it
challenges much like the GameBoy.
I love the Game Boy and I lovegames that were made during the
Game Boy's reign, like when itwas first released, you know.
But but they're typicallypretty light.
A lot of them are prettyarcadey.
(33:25):
There are story driven gamesfor the Game Boy, but they're
less so than some of the morearcade type games that are on
the Game Boy, just by nature ofthe what the system is, that's
like.
One reason why I think that PineCreek was really fun for me is
because it is a story drivengame that interjects.
You know a lot of things thatwere happening in the world and
then you know some very darkthemes, which is something that
(33:47):
you don't necessarily see onoriginal game boy games.
You know the games that weremade 20, 30 years ago.
Yeah, it's all very interesting.
So I'm curious with thedevelopment of pine creek, what,
what kind of, was yourinspiration to start working on
the game, like why, what led youto create pine?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
well, I saw the announcement of a new game
engine for the Game Boy calledGB Studio, and I tried it.
I saw a couple of games thatwere being developed for it,
like Deadeus Deadeus I don'tknow how people pronounce that
game and I thought it was apretty cool game.
(34:30):
People pronounce that game andI thought it was a pretty cool
game and uh, I saw it was kindof easier to make a game there
and, uh, I I loved the system.
I had the system.
Uh, I I already had someexperience with game engines.
I just thought that this is it,this is what I want to make
(34:51):
right now, and just got to work.
Uh, I thought I thought I willmake a, a very short game, a
very like game jam style gamethat will take me a couple of
weeks or months, but uh, tooktook way longer than that.
But yeah, that that was mainlythe reason I saw the opportunity
(35:13):
to do it and I did it you knowit's interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
You know the gb studio.
There's a you and um, I thinkis his artist name is isma, who
does I'm also not sure how topronounce it, but I say dadeus.
So that's another cool game.
There's, there's somesimilarities, I would say,
between your game and his game,and part of that, I think, is
the themes, and then anotherpart of that, I think, is the gb
(35:38):
studio system me getting intosome of these uh different games
that have been made morerecently on gb studio.
I was interested to see how gbstudio works, so I did download
it to check it out.
It's marketed as somethingthat's very and it is probably
easier than writing code fromscratch.
I can't deny that.
But it's not as easy as Ithought it would be.
(35:59):
No, it's not, it's really hard.
So, so kudos, I know it's.
It's kind of marketed as thislike, oh, you easily make your
game.
But I got in there and I waslike, nah, my, I'm not gonna,
(36:19):
it's not gonna work as easy asI'd hoped.
No, yeah, it's not that easy,right, right.
So you mentioned the days, butdid you have any other uh games
in mind as inspiration, or didyou kind of like start from
scratch with pine creek?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
uh, yeah, uh, first of all, uh, I think there are
many new kind of horror games,uh, for the system, because, uh,
it's not that they're uh easy,but they are.
It's like.
It's like movies, horror moviesor slasher movies.
(36:50):
You need less of a budget tomake them and you can have a
greater impact with lessresources doing horror stories.
But I don't know what genre toput really the game, because it
also has detective elements.
It's horror.
(37:11):
But someone said that it's realhorror, not like supernatural
or fantasy horror.
It's real horror, which is akind of different subgenre.
But what was the question?
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I'm a pretty scary person sometimes.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, I was just wondering what kind of games you
had in mind and what kind ofinspiration to start the game.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Oh, yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
You know.
So I think that the horrorgenre and then, yeah, I also had
Shenmue.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
I had Shenmue really fresh in my mind, I was playing
it a lot Interesting.
I had Shenmue really fresh inmy mind, I was playing it a lot.
Ah, interesting, yeah, and thatkind of game structure.
I tried to imitate it in thegame.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Ah okay, I can see that.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Cool.
Yeah, I'm sure if you try tosee it you'll see it very
clearly how Shenmue inspired thegameplay.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I'm curious.
The characters, you knowthere's a lot of.
There's the main characters inPine Creek and then there's a
lot of NPCs.
Each is very unique andengaging.
Each has a special personalityand I'm just wondering if you
could share with me a little bithow you develop these
characters and their stories.
You know, like, what was yourprocess and what kind of things
were you thinking about when youwere creating dialogue for each
(38:34):
of the npcs?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
well, for the npcs, there are like three kinds of
npcs the, the protagonists likeuh, atzo, cassidy and karen uh
they're based, theirpersonalities are based on
probably shouldn't say this, butpeople.
(38:57):
I know as a writer youeventually do that.
You project your own life onyour fiction and not not, uh,
not exactly like people.
They mixed and also real peoplewith uh characters from series
(39:19):
or movies.
Like the name cassidy, I took itfrom the comic book series
preacher, okay yeah I, I, I likethat, that, that it has so much
personality, even though it's adick.
Yeah, that's what has a littlebit about me, if that's not a
(39:40):
bit obvious, but obviously Ididn't uncover a huge conspiracy
.
Also, the other NPCs, the kindthat follow the story, are based
on series like Twin Peaks or orpolice stories.
(40:03):
Some other characters likeJaime from Salmon Crack, the one
that's watching UFOs thatcharacter is based on a popular
TV personality here in Mexicocalled Jaime Maussan, which is
famous for being a UFO watcherand UFO specialist.
(40:26):
It's very popular here, verypopular here.
These are very, like I said,very niche, very niche topics,
characters and also for the NPCsin the city in Apricot City,
those that don't have anyrelation to the story.
(40:48):
They have their own characterarcs.
I include them because I alwayswanted NPCs that had their own
lives, their own stories.
I think that will make ourworld richer.
But it's really hard to do.
(41:10):
It's really hard to givecharacter arcs and personalities
to 50 plus NPCs and it was acool idea and also a stupid idea
because I spent another fourmonths writing dialogue for
those NPCs.
It was really, really painfulin the development but it paid
(41:35):
well at the end and I think Iwill replicate that in future
games, even though it's reallyhard and unnecessary in gameplay
terms.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I mean, the thing is, I think one of the reasons that
I love your game so much isbecause you put that time into
it.
There's a lot of games out therethat you talk to an NPC and
it's boring.
I don't need to talk to themit's, I'll just skip it.
But for me, when I played PineCreek, your game I wanted to.
I wanted to talk to eachcharacter, because every single
(42:10):
of those characters whether it'syou know, around 50, all of
them had their own personality.
So the time that you put inthere, it's, you know, is quite
the challenge, but in there,it's, you know, it was quite the
challenge, but I think it paidoff, in the sense that I think
that's something that I reallyloved about Pine Creek is that I
could have went through towhere I could maybe figure out
what I was supposed to do next,but I didn't care to do it right
away.
I wanted to go talk to everysingle person that I could that
(42:32):
day to see what they had to say,because it was usually
something that was like engagingor fun, and not a single
character in that game is thesame.
So you did a great job ofgiving each of those NPCs that
personality that you were tryingto give them so great job.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Thank you so much.
I think I did it also because Ihate filler in games.
I hate filler in games likeUbisoft games, boring side
quests and and boring npcs anduh, just content that doesn't
make sense.
And this ai generated bullshitis just adding to the to my
(43:12):
horror in right in seeing uhhollow content is I hate that.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
You mentioned, you know, obviously, creating all
this dialogue for 50 differentNPCs.
That was a big challenge thattook months to do.
I'm wondering about what aresome of the other challenges
that happened while developing,you know, for the Game Boy, and
how you overcame them.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Well, code is hard and also limitations boost
creativity.
I agree with that because itmakes your mind come up with
creative, new, fun ideas.
But also the process ofdebugging code and having to
(44:04):
redraw backgrounds, rewritedialogues and bug testing.
Bug testing is a nightmare andI guess that's why the companies
have huge Q&A teams and gameteachers, because it's a whole
(44:25):
job by itself and it takes a lotof time from the creative
process.
It's dull and painful andboring, but you have to do it
and some people just keep it andthen that gives us a result a
very buggy game.
(44:45):
I understand that because bugtesting is really horrible.
But yeah, that that was theworst part about making a game
that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So pine creek covers some you mentioned earlier and
it's apparent even at the get-go.
There's a warning when the gamestarts, just saying that pine
creek covers some more heavyadult content.
And I think that this isinteresting not only for the
story, but it's also especiallyinteresting considering the
medium of the game boy, justbecause you know I was speaking
(45:19):
a little bit earlier how thatwhen the Game Boy was first came
out, the games that were madefor it were typically lighter.
You know you have like yourKirby's and stuff like that,
which is very like you know it's.
It's there's not a lot to it interms of it's a fun little
platformer, but that's all it'smeant to be.
And I'm just wondering you knowwhat inspired you to take this
(45:42):
route and how you think thosethemes work in the Game Boy
ecosystem.
So, like, what kind of reallymotivated you to dive into that
real horror aspect of Pine Creekand how do you think that
benefits the game in the end,being that it's on the Game Boy?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
I don't know, maybe because it's a dead system,
maybe because Nintendo doesn'tcare anymore about what is
released on it.
I felt safe to do it andbecause I didn't have an
audience, nobody was expectinganything from me.
I didn't know if it could be asuccess, if I could make money
(46:25):
about it, if anyone will play it, so I felt so free doing it
that I just did it.
It was kind of like writing abook that you don't plan to.
You don't have any expectationsout of it, so that gives you
(46:46):
freedom to do whatever you want.
So, yeah, that was basically mythe reason to feel free to talk
about those subjects, becauseif I was doing a game for a I
don't know the Nintendo Switch,or for a publisher, I would have
(47:06):
felt constrained for censorshipor not hitting sales numbers,
which also happened because whenIncubate Games reached me to
publish the game, they asked mefor some small changes.
(47:26):
It had way more swearing in the1.0 version than the Incubate
released version.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Oh, that's interesting, I played.
I played it.
You know I bought it viaincubate, so I'm I have that
version.
I'd be curious to see it's.
It's funny that you knowpublisher would decide to do
that, because maybe it's just mebut like I'd, you know the
swears that were in there.
It's just, it's stuff that Ithink adds to that world
building that you're doing so.
But you know that's that's mypersonal philosophy, is that
(48:03):
swearing isn't maybe so bad, butyeah some, some people just
don't like.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Some people are turned off by swearing or uh
right, yeah, and it happens.
So I thought it was real in mymind.
I was writing and dialoguesthat did happen in real life.
I guess some people don't likereality, that kind of reality in
(48:31):
fiction.
They want a reality in fictionthat's not so close to the real
thing.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So did you write this in Spanish and then have it
translated to english, or didyou write it in english?
I know that when you start thegame, you can.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
You can play it in either, uh, spanish, english or
portuguese, I believe yeah, Iwrote it in English to practice,
cool, and then I translated itto Spanish and it's localized.
Because some things can betranslated exactly as they are
(49:12):
Right and because the JV Studiodoesn't have a way to export
translation sheets with all thelines of dialogue, you have to
do it manually in engine,element by element.
(49:34):
It's a really hard process, butthat gave me the option to I
don't have to stick to the samenumber of lines.
I can write more dialogue in adifferent language or less
dialogue for the sameconversation to adapt to.
(49:58):
They probably say differentthings in each language, but
that sounds better and makesmore sense to a native speaker
in their culture.
So it was harder but also gaveme freedom to do that.
I don't know if I can explainmyself.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
No, that makes sense.
I think I might have to doanother playthrough in Spanish
and kind of brush off some of mySpanish skills and see if I can
pick up some of thosedifferences.
That'd be fun.
So let's say Pine Creek were tohave a crossover event with any
video game character, who wouldyou choose and why?
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Wow with any video game character.
Who would you choose and why?
Wow with any video gamecharacter?
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, or franchise.
So if there was going to be,like you know, like a multiverse
Marvel type thing, a crossoverevent where you'd have
characters from, I don't want togive you answers, I want you to
answer.
But you know you can choosefrom any character in any video
game that would appear in yourworld that you created in Pine
Creek, or to have yourcharacters appear in that world.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
That's a very nice question, very interesting one.
Probably anyone from Night inthe Woods, even though they are
animals, but I think the tone isquite similar.
Yeah, it's kind of aninspiration.
(51:27):
That wasn't that obvious, butyeah, the first thing that comes
to mind is Night in the Woods.
I love that what do you thinkit could happen?
Speaker 2 (51:42):
That's a good idea.
You might need to write thatdown.
I could see it, though.
There's similar vibes going on.
I think it's a good one.
I think it's a great answer.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
Marco, you're an indie developer making games and
you mentioned a couple gamesthat you played in the past.
Do you still find time to playfor fun as I get older?
Mentioned a couple games thatyou played in the past.
Do you still?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
find time to play for fun.
As I get older, I find itextremely harder to to find time
to play games.
I've been playing persona 5 forthree years already and I'm not
even halfway through it.
And I've been a year alreadyplaying Grandia and I just don't
see an end to it.
(52:22):
But also JRPGs are way longerthan they should be Right.
So right now, to relieve stressfrom daily life, I tend to play
more arcade games, like I'vebeen playing a ton of Dod on
patchy lately.
(52:43):
Oh, that game's so good I lovethat game and also, yeah right,
I've been playing racing gamesand something that I can just
pick up and play for 20 minutesessions and do something else.
That's why I mainly do rightnow I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I mean it's fun to do some of those big story games
and when you can find the timeit's great.
But it is harder to do and theway that I play a lot of you
know it depends.
But you know I do tend to findmyself playing a lot more of
those arcade games, like youmentioned, just because you can
play for 20 minutes and then goon to do whatever else you're
doing.
And that's one of the reasonsthat I actually love the Game
(53:27):
Boy so much is that so much ofthe game works so well, like to
play in 20 to 30 minutes timeand then you can you know you
can save it, or maybe it's thetype of game that you don't need
to save, like it's a morearcade type game.
Even with Pine Creek, you know,you can, I think it it took me
about three, four hours to beator finish the game and then when
I did my second playthrough,because I was curious about
getting a slightly differentending, uh, you're able to do it
(53:49):
in a couple hours and you knowthat's.
To be able to do a full gamelike that in just two to three
hours time is something that Iappreciate and I've always
appreciated and I I think thatit works really well on the Game
Boy system.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Yeah, thanks.
I wanted to make a game thatplayers can finish.
They can actually enjoy theending, because the ending was
important.
So that's why it was, by design, a short game, because I wanted
players to don't lose thethread of the story, don't lose
(54:26):
the interest I wanted to enjoy,if not like a movie, maybe a
mini series or something,something quick, something they
can keep the interest fresh.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
I love that.
When I was reading a little bitmore, when I was trying to find
more articles about you and thegame, I found that you dabble
in a little bit of musicproduction as well.
Speaker 3 (54:50):
Yeah, I still have a band with a friend, it's a duo
called we make.
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Syncwave, it's called night runner.
Um, yep, yeah, we ah fun.
I saw in the in the thumbnails,because you did a 3d remake of
pine creek for for steam on onpcs, and I noticed that one of
the characters has a night wavet-shirt.
So that's a that's a funinclusion right.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
Yeah, it was shameless self-promotion.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Yeah, I think this year I turned 10 years working
on that project, so yeah, I'vehad some time working on music
production.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Right on, music can have a big influence when you're
working on your, your stuff, uh, your games.
Are you listening to musicwhile you do that?
Is that any particular album,artist or genre of music that
you that you listen to while you, while you work?
Speaker 3 (55:53):
uh, I mostly listen to ambient music because that
helps me focus while I'm codingor writing dialogue.
It doesn't distract me, ithelps me with concentration.
So I have a lot of playlistsfrom a lot of artists and
probably sometimes, if I'mstressed out, I mix the ambient
(56:17):
music with a little of ASMRvideos for extra relaxation,
because coding is reallystressful to me.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Sure yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, so that's what mainly I listen to, but music
with lyrics it's distracting tome while I'm doing that.
So that's the reason to pickinstrumental music.
Speaker 2 (56:44):
I'm the same way.
I listen to a lot of lo-fimusic when I'm working or trying
to focus.
I love music with lyrics, butit can be difficult for me to
focus as well when I'm trying tolisten to lyrics and write
something or do whatever I'mdoing.
Tell me just a little bit aboutNightwave and that project and
the music that you're makingnight runner band night runner.
(57:07):
I'm sorry, yeah, yeah don'tworry.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Well, we, we released a couple of albums these past
10 years.
Uh, we even had the opportunityto collaborate with uh Sexbank
from I forgot the name fromNinja Sex Party.
My memory gets worse.
(57:31):
Every year we released ananimated music video with him.
Oh cool, we reached a couple ofmillion plays on Spotify.
It was a fun time working onSynthwave, but I kind of got
(57:55):
tired of it.
I think I had more things tosay here um making games.
I think I already dideverything I had to do in the
music reel, so I just thought itwas it was time to move on to
(58:17):
other, to other endeavors.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Sure, can you tell me a little bit about any upcoming
projects that you have forcarmelo electronics or stuff
that uh fans like myself canlook forward to?
Speaker 3 (58:30):
oh yeah, I'm working uh sequel to pine creek.
It's not not really a sequelbecause they are the same
protagonist, but in a wholedifferent adventure.
It's more like a road trip,coming of age, a monster
battling game.
Oh, interesting, this time it'sset in Mexico, in a fictional
(58:53):
Mexico, and you'll see, it's away bigger game but I having a a
ton of fun with it.
I'm planning to include a lotof different music genres using
uh, using my music productionexperience and also I'm learning
(59:13):
to, to draw better, to makebetter 3d art, to, to improve my
writing, my coding.
I'm putting my best in thissequel.
I'm still working on the titleof the game.
I don't think Pine Creek 2 willstick.
I'll have to come up with abetter title for the game, but
(59:39):
it will be a fun game.
That's the word.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
I'm excited.
Will that be for PCs, or whereare you releasing it to?
Speaker 3 (59:51):
I will release it for PC.
It will be awesome to have iton more consoles, but that will
depend if I can get a publisherthat helps me with the, with the
ports and everything.
It's still a few years away frombeing released, since it's a 3D
(01:00:13):
Unity game and right now I'mdoing it mostly myself, so it's
still it will take a while.
But as my design philosophy, Iwant every bit of the game to
have meaning and be fun or beinteresting, so I try to stay up
(01:00:39):
to my quality standards.
Yeah, so you can expect thatfrom the sequel of Pine Creek.
Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Excellent, I'm super excited.
Tell you what, marco.
I want to thank you so much fortaking the time today to talk
to me a little bit about justPine Creek and then your
experience creating Pine Creekand just a little bit more about
yourself.
We didn't get too much into theactual story and that's kind of
by design.
I want folks to to go out thereand play your game and
(01:01:10):
experience it for themselves.
I think it's quite worth it andthey can.
Listeners you know the folksthat are listening.
You can.
You can check out Marco's game,carmelo Electronics on itchio.
You can buy it either thephysical or the ROM version, the
digital version on IncubateGames and I believe there's also
a 3D remake of Pine Creek onSteam available as well.
(01:01:33):
So a lot of different placesfolks can get a hold of your
game and play.
Okay, Thank you so much Totallyman, Unless there's anything
else you wanted to to get inthere.
I think you've answered all myquestions.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Thank you so much for for inviting me and it was a
pretty fun conversation, andthanks for having patience with
my English and the time I taketo come up with the words.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
You were perfect man, your answers were perfect and I
think that you know I really doappreciate your time and you
coming on here.
Thank you.
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