November 1, 2024 • 59 mins
Join us for another episode of Low Five Friends as we venture into the dark, pixelated world of gaming with Adam Birch, also known as -IZMA-. This session, we unravel the eerie layers of Deadeus, a horror game ingeniously crafted for the classic Game Boy.
Hear from Adam about the artistic and gaming influences that shaped Deadeus, the technical challenges of Game Boy development, and the surprising journey to indie gaming acclaim. We'll also get a glimpse into Adam's broader creative pursuits and his future plans in game development.
Discover the chilling narrative of Deadeus for yourself—available for free on Itch.io. You can also purchase a physical copy from incube8 Games.
Music for this episode provided by Stoo Bubsy, featuring the tracks "Introduction" and "Gift of Life (Ode to Deadeus)." You can buy Deadeus Original Soundtrack by Stoo Bubsy on bandcamp.
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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.
Alex (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Low-Fi Friends, a companion
podcast of Lo-Fi Gaming.
The fellow I'm talking to todayis a special guest, adam Birch,
known to many in the gaming andart communities as Isma,
probably best known for thehorror game boy game, deadius.
Thank you, excited to betalking to you, man.
(00:59):
Like I was saying it's, it'sbeen kind of cool like being
able to kind of watch some ofyour artistic journey, kind of
watch the game grow over thelast few years and it was really
fun for me to.
I host low five gaming with mybrother, luke and we played,
played your game recently andhave a mainline episode coming
out and then as well.
But it's just, it's just like arad, rad thing, man.
It's rad to uh, to have playedit has played it twice, you know
(01:21):
or to come up more than twice,I guess but to come, come around
and kind of like I was sayingsee, it's it's growth and it's
staying power, it's it's it'simpressive, dude, and it's.
It's funny to me to hear youknow I was doing some reading
prior to our talk and then alsoto just hear you say that it was
.
It was almost accidental in away, like not accidental in the
sense that, like you know, itwasn't deserving, but it's.
It's interesting to hear that.
(01:43):
You know something that I wouldsay is like it's, you know,
it's a top tier, like, uh, indiegame boy, like you know, for
the folks making game boy games,and in today's age, this is
going to come at the top ofeverybody's list.
Like it's, it's right up there,man, which is which is cool.
IZMA (01:59):
I think it's super cool it really does mean so much, uh,
to hear people say that and andyou know that people still enjoy
it.
Uh, I'm really happy to be hereand talk with you as well.
I I love talking about thissort of stuff and I'm always
happy to do uh, uh things likethis yeah it's.
It's kind of crazy to see thatit keeps going like every now
(02:19):
and then I like uh, there's ayoutube channel I like with
triple jump, which is I've justbeen a fan of for ages, and uh,
they talked about it the otherday and it it's almost like it
jumpscares me, you know.
Oh, okay, there it is again.
Alex (02:34):
Um that's pretty rad.
One of my, one of my buddies,uh Keith he was.
He used to run a podcast calledthe main quest podcast and he's
super into horror games and andyou know, retro games.
He ran a retro video gamepodcast and he I can't remember
the name of the publisher rightnow.
But there's this really coolcompany that does like uh, their
coffee table books essentially,and they do these big
compilations or of like the n64,the game boy or whatever, and
(02:58):
he was.
He was uh reading this big oneon horror games that was put out
not too long ago.
You probably you, I mean, youwere in.
It is what I'm driving at, soit's uh which is cool, man.
IZMA (03:08):
Yeah, the bit my book stuff.
Um, that was a really nicesurprise as well.
And you know, as you've seen it, that book is insane.
It is like if you dropped it onsomeone you do some serious
damage, uh, and it is full coverto cover of you know, the best
of the best of horror games andeven have been asked right a lot
to me.
You know like, yeah, you know,my thing is still it's just baby
(03:31):
itchio thing involved.
Alex (03:35):
It really does mean a lot, you know yeah, I was reading um
and we don't have to like gosuper into your numbers,
everything but I was like I waslistening to a podcast you did a
while ago.
Uh, you had mentioned and this,this was, I think, right on the
verge of you putting the gameon a physical cart and I think
your itchio numbers were like10,000 downloads or something
and it's been.
I bet you that's skyrocketed.
(03:55):
I bet you that's.
IZMA (03:57):
It has and it's been the most successful thing I've ever
done.
Alex (04:12):
Yeah, but you're still young man, you got time too.
God, I'm not that young.
Yeah, we got, we got plenty oftime, bro, uh.
So I'm curious though.
So I mean, you know from what Iwhat I learned is that you may
be.
So you created deadius as partof a um, a game jam, so it kind
of came like naturally out ofthat, uh.
But I'm curious, I'd love toknow a little bit more just
about your, your relationshipwith with gaming and like what
games like?
Are you a gamer, do you playgames, or are you just making
games like how does that work?
IZMA (04:32):
oh yeah, yeah, I uh it's like one of my deepest passions.
It's always been since I was alittle kid.
I think you know that's a storyfor a lot of people, you know.
But, uh, I just for as long asI I've been about, I just wanted
to make games.
You know, and for a long time Iwasn't making games like it was
like I could draw pictures, andthen, you know, I didn't uh get
(04:55):
into the games industry forabout like 2014, 15 ish okay
yeah, uh, so about 10 years now,but I mean that's, that's later
in life, for sure, uh for me uhsure, but yeah, it's, it's uh,
it's a huge part of my life,like I, I love it as a medium.
I love the kind of uh, themassive wave of indie right now,
(05:17):
like we had that first big wave, uh, around the xbox 360 with
the live arcade really openingup and obviously steam and itch
and it's just growing andgrowing and growing and we're in
like this really cool timewhere I feel like it's the same
thing for, like, art, books,music, like there's these
avenues for anything creativeand it's it really is the
biggest it's ever been right nowand it's only going to get
bigger.
Yeah, it's really cool to be alittle piece for you know yeah,
(05:40):
I would, uh, I don't know how.
Alex (05:42):
I mean, obviously I'm a podcaster so I must love it if
I'm spending my time talkingabout these things.
But I guess I'm a connoisseurof sorts it's a weird term to
give to yourself but I've alwaysenjoyed video games, ever since
I was a little kid andeventually wore my parents down
or snuck them into the house inone way or another house in one
(06:05):
way or another.
And that's actually probablywhere my love for game boy comes
from is.
It was the first actual systemlike gaming system that I had,
aside from I don't know ifyou're familiar with, like the
tiger electronics, like littlelcd screen deals.
I had a couple, a couple ofthose.
But um, the game boy was likethat, was like oh man, this is
great and it's not somethingthat my parents bought for me,
that I bought with my own money.
It was something that, like, bythe time I got a hold of one,
it was like some homies in theneighborhood or whatever, like
(06:26):
we're like sure you could playwith my old toy, like you know,
but it was great and I thinkthat, like, deep down, that's
probably fueled a lot of my, mylove for game boy and now as an
adult, it's it's fun to see,it's almost like a full circle
thing where these there's thesenew games bringing new life into
this thing and it's it's fun.
But I'm I'm interested.
From my understanding, you kindof fell into creating videos
(06:48):
for you know, out of this gamejam and then on the game boy,
because of game boy or GB studio, which is like a cool platform
for creating game boy gameswithin, and you're kind of at
the forefront of like jumping onthat platform from my
understanding.
But I'm curious, before we talkmore about that, like jumping on
that platform from myunderstanding, but I'm curious
before we talk more about that.
Just, uh, your history with thegame boy, you know, you take my
story.
It's like, well, I just lovethe game boy so much I I'm gonna
(07:09):
create this game boy game whichI did.
Go look at gb studio.
Dude, it's not as easy as theymake it sound on their website
well, I'd be happy to helpanytime you fancy it.
IZMA (07:20):
After this right on um, yeah, I so I.
I never.
I don't think I ever had a dmgone as a kid like the original
original game boy.
But every time um toy dayyou're in the us, right I am,
yeah, yeah, in the uk we hadlike toy day, uh, one day of
every I don't know term inprimary school, little little
(07:42):
school okay, one of the kidswould bring in their Game Boy
and I remember playing like theStar Wars game and Kirby the
Kirby and just loving it.
But I didn't actually get a GameBoy till my lime green Game Boy
color.
Oh cool yeah, I was, like youknow, pokemon Blue, pokemon
Yellow, pokemon Silver and thatwas like tunnel vision on that
(08:06):
and it more spiraled out fromthe game with color.
End of things which I think, Ithink would surprise a lot of
people looking at all this um.
But right from the beginningthere was a.
You know, even seeing thatoriginal it was like a mythical
thing, you know, like there'salways one kid that had one and
uh, whenever I could, I alwaystried to get a go on it.
Unfortunately, as a young'un, Inever had one.
I've got one now in mycollection and I love it to
(08:27):
pieces I've got several nowthanks to all this craziness, I
bet.
Alex (08:35):
It's cool, man.
We live in a cool time too,with the whole modding scene
around the Game Boys and thesebeautiful screens.
I still have that DMG.
To be honest, I don't even knowhow it ended up in my.
I'm like I don't remember whichfriend is the one that was like
yeah, you can have my old gameboy, uh, which is a little.
I should try and figure thatout, but, um, I still have it
and there's like the, you know,with screen degradation and
(08:56):
everything.
It just doesn't like.
It doesn't.
It's not as fun to likeactually play it.
It's a cool like relic, it acool piece to have in my
collection.
But I have other newer GameBoys or other cool platforms to
play these old games now too.
And man having a backlit screenor one of those being able to
see these games pixel perfect,it's a super nerdy thing but I
(09:17):
love it, man, it's so cool.
IZMA (09:19):
I'm right there with you.
It's so good to be able to goback and see these games in a
whole new way.
I've been lucky enough to besent it for you and I've got one
that's like a green light onthe back and then black and
white over the top so you cancycle through colors.
And they sent me a modifiedGame Boy to look like Dead Ears.
(09:40):
So black and green with thegreen light.
It's such a cool way to see allthese games again.
You know, like that, um, yeah,it's, it's a really, really cool
time for that.
Like it's almost at a point nowwhere you see it's more common
to see a modded game boy thannot a modded game boy.
You know, right, like, uh,gaming markets and stuff.
You see like rows and rows ofthem.
I love the uh standard gray andI've still, like I said, I've
(10:04):
got one here, but seeing all thecraziness with the
customization stuff is reallyreally cool.
And then, like going as far,going as far as like the analog
pocket and seeing what they'vedone with the screen.
Alex (10:13):
Yeah, I was.
I was lucky to get a the firstrun of analog pockets.
That's where I most of my likeactual like playing game boy
games, is that now?
IZMA (10:26):
and the screen on that?
Bad boy, it's ridiculous.
Like, uh, I can't say enoughnice things.
Alex (10:29):
I, I've played a lot of these sort of like emulator
systems and all this and there'sjust even in the the nice
modded sorry, I'm pointing at mygame but even in the nice uh,
modded um the nice spottedscreens, as amazing as they are,
nothing, nothing's touchingright pocket right now and, uh,
I'm a big shader user, so, likeI love the shaders that are
included in the analog pocketand for the most recent
playthrough of your game, Iactually switched all the way
(10:52):
over to the.
I forget what they call it,it's like a pinball.
I don't remember what they callit, but it's the red.
And black.
IZMA (10:58):
Oh yeah, the Matrix.
Yeah, you got it.
Alex (11:05):
And that was a really nice look for, for, you know, for a
horror game especially, I thinkit's supposed to mimic, like the
um, the virtual boy the virtualboy I.
IZMA (11:11):
I always thought it's like um I that that's a good shout.
Alex (11:16):
The uh, those pimples, the old pimple screen ah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, that makes moresense actually, hence the naming
of the Beatle Matrix, orwhatever.
IZMA (11:27):
This might be a tangent, but it's on my mind.
I haven't got a way of doing itright now, but I saw that
there's a Virtual Boy emulatorfor the 3DS now.
Alex (11:34):
Oh, cool, yeah, right on.
IZMA (11:37):
The Virtual Boy never came out in this country and I've
played one for about fiveminutes when I lived in the
States, but I've not properlydug in on it.
And they are so cool and to seethat someone's modified a 3ds
to that, I um, this is like sortof.
This month I found out aboutthis and I really want to chase
that down, yeah.
Alex (11:57):
I haven't seen that yet, so I'll have to look into that
as well.
Like virtual boy is like ahomebrew kind of thing.
Okay, cool, cool, but it lookedcool.
Yeah, virtual boy is one ofthose things that, like I did
get the opportunity I think oneof my buddies rented one way
back when and he brought it overand we played it and got some
headaches, but like no, it's.
But it is such like it's justnintendo kind of being ahead of
(12:18):
their time and doing some funstuff.
Uh, it's um it's.
IZMA (12:22):
It's almost alien to right because, like I say, it wasn't
really a thing in the uk.
And so, um, my partner's, uh,brother's, got one that's how
I've seen one now at all andjust to see it on the desk it's
like what is, what is this?
And the controller?
I really like the controller.
Uh, right, double d-pad thething, uh, and you know, I keep
seeing a really cool game show.
(12:43):
I think it's like horror firstperson dungeon crawler type
thing.
I'm now, yeah, a wario game onit and then like a mech sort of
beam up yeah yeah, all of itlooks so cool.
I really want to dig in on thatnow.
Alex (12:55):
Then it is, it is dope.
So I'm curious, you know we'vetalked a little bit about the,
the game boy stuff and you knowthe virtual boy and so you, you
mentioned you've always had apassion for gaming.
I'm curious, if you I'm goingto put you on the spot a little
bit and I'm going to go withfive, which is a kind of a big.
It's a big number for your,your top fives, but if you had a
list off just top five games ofall time, what would yours be?
oh, that's a tough one um andthey'd be personal too, not as,
(13:19):
uh, it doesn't have to be likewhat the you know everybody
would say.
IZMA (13:22):
I'm curious to the I'm curious to know what yours are.
Yeah, um, you know, I alwaysthink it's better to go with
your personal choice anyway, youknow, rather than the objective
one, and my, my number one isalways, always going to be, uh,
resident one, the original okay,cool you know the gamecube
remix really, really good, but Imean the base, base version,
(13:43):
yeah, uh, it was the first gameI ever saw as a kid that didn't
have levels.
Uh, it was just like one longadventure and I mean it wasn't
the first to do that.
I know now looking back on it,but it was the first one I ever
saw and uh scared me for years.
But it was such a, at the time,different game to anything I'd
(14:04):
seen which as a kid, was likemario and sonic.
You know things like that bug onthe sega saturn cockat night,
um, and then this nightmare gamefor a young'un uh came out and
everything was different, youknow right um, and in the years
since, like, obviously the wholefranchise means a great deal to
me now, as it does to so manypeople, and most people would
(14:29):
say Resident Evil 2 is theirfavorite, some 4, and now the
remakes and all that, but theoriginal one to me is still so
perfect.
I really love how it's designed.
I know it feels like peoplealways make fun of like the uh,
the voice acting or the?
Um, you know, it's just uh,it's, it's a lot simpler.
Oh, the basement theme, sorry Ithought that my brain, the crazy
(14:51):
music, um.
But I really love how that gameis like, quite like a simple
small space, it's a house and itslowly opens up over time, like
you find a key and it opens twomore rooms, you know and then
it's like puzzle box.
Uh.
And yeah, there's other areasof course in the house, but that
idea of having a fixed spacethat slowly unravels over time,
(15:12):
um, it's directly what inspirededius, you know uh, having a
small, the small area that youcan eventually do more with.
I have completed that game moretimes than I can tell you.
I just, I absolutely love it.
So number one, always, always,always, that one.
Outside of that, I really lovethe game Fez.
(15:33):
I don't know.
Alex (15:34):
These are out of order now .
Yeah, no worries.
IZMA (15:40):
And going across like not just retro.
I really love Fez.
I really love a little indiegame called Lisa the Painful my
favourite games ever.
It's like both the funniest andsaddest game ever made.
I think there's too many.
I don't know which of the Soulsgames to pick, but it's
probably Dark Souls, I think,touch and go between that and
(16:03):
Bloodborne.
And let's go with a Game Boygame for the sake of the
conversation.
Mario Land 2, if I had to pickone from the platform, is
probably my big one.
It certainly is the Game Boygame I've probably finished the
most amount of times.
I think it's the best looking,one of the best looking Game Boy
(16:24):
games I've probably finishedthe most amount of times.
I think it's the best looking,one of the best looking Game Boy
games.
I love that game to pieces itis great.
Alex (16:29):
It's funny.
I broke co-host and brotherLuke into playing that one for
the pod because it's animportant game in my gaming
zeitgeist, you know, with theGame Boy and everything, and at
first he kind of grumbled.
He's like, oh man, why are youplaying this old shit?
But he, like he came around toit, you know, which is cool,
because it is like it is a greatgame on that platform.
Uh, I will say that the thefinal castle, like wario's
(16:51):
castle.
IZMA (16:52):
Pretty hard dude oh yeah, it's a nightmare.
I, uh, I can't.
It wasn't that long ago.
I was gonna say I can'tremember when it was, but I went
back to it again recentlybecause I I I'm a little less
knowledgeable about the warriorland stuff.
I played a lot of them.
I finished four a ton of times,but I don't want to play the.
You know one, two and three, alot more.
And so I was like, well, I'llgo through the whole franchise,
(17:14):
um, but you're, you're right onit's.
Uh, it's a bit of a nightmarethat last, but for sure it is.
Alex (17:19):
It's like it.
The difficulty spike is it'sjarring's like oh man, how did
this get so hard?
But I don't know.
It's fun, I'm into it.
It's still one of my favorites.
IZMA (17:30):
Yeah, everything in that game is so big and noticeably,
even now the sprites are hugethat warrior sprite at the end,
weird warrior balls, everythingis so big and bright and full of
character.
You compare it to Super MarioLand 1.
(17:50):
You know is debatably unfair,right, like how tiny the sprite
is and not compared to theinsane jump in just the sequel
right, I think it's interestingtoo.
Alex (17:55):
In super mario land too, like you, you're right on with.
The sprites are being so,they're so large and it.
But it just works like whateverthey did with the, how they
contained everything in thescreen.
It works really well.
So I think it's like the gameboy color.
It's super mario, super mariobrothers dx or whatever they
call it.
So it's like the, the port ofthe original super mario
brothers game and that, like it,just doesn't work as well with
(18:17):
the square screen, like it's youknow because everything's kind
of like blown up and it's justlike you can't see everything
that's going on.
But uh, but that's not the case,which is kind of an amazing
feat, that they're able to usesuch large sprites and still
have it contained in that area.
In super mario land 2, yeah,pretty cool, but uh, so I didn't
notice there's a theme, I meanone.
You made a horror game.
Uh, you, you named off a coupleof your, your all-time
(18:38):
favorites that are horror gamesor have horror elements.
So I'm yeah, I have to assumethat you're a horror fanatic you
know, uh, that's all right, Iabsolutely love it.
IZMA (18:49):
Uh, it's, like in most things, my favorite genre, you
know, um yeah we're applicable,yeah and I mean that's
definitely present in videos.
Alex (18:58):
So you know you went out and you made a horror game, but
I think you picked some like I'djust be.
I'd be interested to know aboutlike how that love for the
genre like influenced your game.
Like I don't want to put wordsin your mouth, but as I'm
playing it I see certainelements.
IZMA (19:11):
So I'm just curious in your words, like how how that
passion for horror and your,your love for that genre, uh,
really influenced your game yeah, at the time when I was making
it, which again was like 2019I'm hesitant to say it was the
first because I don't think itwas before I say this but, um,
at the time, you know, we werelargely dealing with the actual
(19:34):
release games and then mostlyrom-coms and then some.
There were obviously anyprojects, but there wasn't a lot
of horror at the time or likeactual horror.
There was like sort of uh, youknow, themed like there's a
frankenstein game and adam'sfamily game, you know, but not
anything trying its best to be aa horror game.
Uh, and it kind of bummed meout looking at it you know, I
(19:55):
was like I want to try and dothat or see, see what you can do
.
You know, um, and it'sdefinitely a silly thing, like
I'll be the first to admit thatlike tiny little 160x144 thing
is going to struggle to be scaryat the best times.
I don't know how much I nailedit, but I like the idea of
(20:15):
giving it a go, and that waslargely a thinking on that.
It occurred to me at the timeof making it that you had to
lean on the writing.
You know there are certain likeum twists and reveals and things
like that that I really had tolean on because you don't get a
lot of leeway with the visuals.
(20:35):
You know it is very simple inthe way it looks for most of the
game, um, so that was a funchallenge with the medium, for
sure, but in terms ofinspiration, like, obviously the
resident evil one was thebiggest one.
A lot of people pointed outZelda.
Majora's Mask is an obvious one.
I've actually never finishedMajora's Mask still to this day,
me, neither man.
Alex (21:00):
That's funny.
We had an episode on it recentlyand I still got to a point
where I decided not to finish it.
And it's not because I anepisode on it recently and I
still got to a point, like,where I'd like decided not to
finish it.
I mean, it's not because Idon't love it.
I love that game, I love thelegend of zelda series, um, but
I don't know, I guess, forwhatever reason, I'm just not
going to push through to the end.
I still still.
You know this is great, butit's just kind of funny.
IZMA (21:19):
I've uh finished ocarina of time.
You know got on everything somany times in the past, but
Majora's Mask I've alwaysbounced off it a bit.
It's my little brother'sfavorite game in the franchise
as well, so I'm sure he'd tellme off for hearing this.
But, yeah, I think it's, you'vegot to call it out.
That idea obviously inspiredthis Lovecraft.
(21:44):
Obviously the thought of thislike ever-present being larger
than than comprehension, uh, youknow, if, if you've ever read
any lovecraft you can, you cansee it's clear influence all
over this thing.
Alex (21:59):
sure, sure, sure yeah, and I think it's interesting you
mentioned too and then you knowit's I mean in today's world and
you know people making things.
It's hard to say if it's thefirst, but it may be maybe if it
wasn't the first, but it'sdefinitely at the forefront of
you, especially on GB Studiocreating games and horror games
there, and it's such aninteresting platform for that.
(22:19):
I think it's evolved over thelast couple of years.
But especially at the get-goyou're limited by what you're
able to do in that software gbstudio software and it has like
a certain, like a lot of theassets that come with that like
almost give a pokemon vibe togames, like just because of the,
just the way that it looks orwhatever, uh, which I think is
(22:41):
like an interestingjuxtaposition to creating a
horror game, to have that likefamiliar look of these like you
know pokemon sprites or thecharacters anyways, uh, not the
pokemon themselves, but thepeople and that top down, like
you know look of going through atown or whatever.
I mean you're still creating butand then and uh, but I think
where you really nail it andwhat's really fun for me to see
(23:03):
is the interjection of like I'lljust call them cut scenes.
I don't know if you can callthem a cut scene on a game boy,
but like that's where some ofyour pixel art and some of your
illustration really like itreally elevates the horror vibe
because like something willhappen in the game where you
know you'll do something andit'll, it'll cut to one of your
illustrations, it'll be like alittle pan or something like
that and it's just like, uh,it's, it's fun to see the game
(23:24):
boy pushed to those boundaries,you know.
Another thing that I think isis fun around your your comment
of being, you know, at theforefront of putting out horror
games like it's.
I had the opportunity to talkto another indie developer,
marco, recently, who did thegame Pine Creek, and when he was
talking about his inspiration,he actually named you, which is
like it's pretty coolyeah, so it's so like he uh, he
(23:47):
tried your game out.
You know, I don't know exactlywhen, but he had the opportunity
to play and that was like Ithink he was.
You know, amongst otherinspirations as well, but I
think it's one of the thingsthat he mentioned like put him
on the path of being like thiscould be something really cool,
which is which is another kindof like crazy thing dude like
that's a the dead system, andthen you have, you know, dead
substitutes, yourself likeplaying these things.
(24:08):
You got dudes like me playingyour games and then you're
you're not, you're not just, youknow pulling inspiration from
you know, like these game boygames that were made 20, 30
years ago.
But you also have folks that,like your game came out in 2019,
as you say, I mean like almostimmediately had an impact on
another artist and anotherdeveloper, which is kind of a
cool thing man, yeah, I, Ididn't know that.
IZMA (24:30):
Uh, I love you know, the loveliest thing in the world to
hear because my freak's prettycool, you know.
So, um, yeah, I guess it.
It's been really, really coolto see the explosion of gbcdo,
like you know.
Uh, there's a ton of stuff nowand I look at almost all of it
now and I'm like man, I can'tkeep up to any of this.
(24:52):
I don't know what I'm gonna donext.
Like there are geniuses workingon it now and, uh, it's really
like amazing to see for sure.
Like, especially, you know, I'vespoken to some people who are a
little bit like, oh, it's agame boy game and it's, like,
you know, games, the game is thegame.
You know, people are puttingwork and effort into these
(25:13):
things and to see it sort ofrapidly take off, you know,
publishers starting to crop upleft and right and it's, it's
all gaining like a bit oflegitimacy.
Like I no point in my brain didI stop and think, oh, I'll make
this physical one day, becauseI mean, at the time I made it, I
didn't think that was a thingto do, even.
Um, yeah, it's changed sorapidly and in such a good and
(25:37):
big way.
You know, it's a terrifyingthought to try and keep up with
it.
Alex (25:41):
Sure.
IZMA (25:43):
Yeah.
Alex (25:44):
And I was.
I don't know if it was one ofthe interviews I was reading
that you were in, or perhaps itwas the.
You were on a different podcasta while back and you were
talking about.
One of the reasons that youtook this particular game in the
direction you did is you weresomewhat limited to, uh, you
know what GB studio could do andyou're mentioning that.
You know GB studio has, like,really it's expanded and what
the you know what, what's what,you know what the capabilities
(26:08):
are, um, but it's interesting tohear you talk a little bit
about, like the, the growth andthe, the audience growth, and I
think that's been a naturalthing.
Uh, but an interesting thingthat I picked up from just, you
know, doing a little bit ofbackground research, is that
there was a time a few yearsback where you were, you were
asked about a sequel.
I think that's you know, folksalways want a sequel to
(26:28):
something that has, you know,some success, and you you had
mentioned I don't want to putwords in your mouth, I'll
paraphrase though you hadmentioned that you were
interested in possiblyapproaching bringing this game
to the 3D realm to give it to awider audience, and I'm
wondering if that's somethingthat you're still working on or
still playing around with thatidea.
IZMA (26:48):
The idea is always in my head.
My day job I work in UnrealEngine.
I'm still very early on inUnreal Engine, but it's a 3D
engine, obviously, and I alwaysthink about in my head Dead Ears
2 is a 3D game and has alwaysbeen a 3D game and I think about
(27:12):
, if I make the sequel to a gamein 3d, it's just to most people
has just cropped out of nowhere.
You know, like more people havenot played the game boy game
than have you know.
It's always bothered me tothink that like a lot of people
would have missed out on thatfirst piece.
So I always think aboutremaking that first one, because
I've got the whole frameworkthere in 3d, uh, and that's not
(27:34):
necessarily say pixel art.
I I would still need to spendsome time working out the style,
but I like the idea of bringingit into the 3d realm and then
making the sequel, uh.
So that's been on my mind a lotand that was the thinking for a
long time and you know wehaven't had a sequel because of
that being in my brain.
Uh, and at my last studio, um,one of the teammates played the
(27:58):
first game and you know I wastalking to them about it and
they were lovely about it andthey went well, why don't you
just make the sequel on game boy?
And I was like, weirdly enough,that thought never crossed my
mind.
Oh yeah, damn, maybe I shoulddo that, uh, so that's on my
mind a lot now as well, likemaybe doing, uh, I think it
(28:19):
would be a game with colorsequel, because right the
sequels.
It's all done and written.
I I know what it is.
It's just a case of making ituh I said in interviews in the
past, like the sequel wasactually written way, way, way
before that first one.
Um, it's just a case of doingit and right now it's sort of
like blocked by a few otherthings, but I would love to jump
(28:40):
on that game boy color versionand make it yeah, I love that.
Alex (28:45):
That was something that I was reading too is that you know
you've had it's almost likethis idea you had for videos
like it.
You fit it into like the youknow out of the game jam.
You're like, okay, I'm going totake this idea you had for
videos like it, you fit it intolike the you know out of the
game jam.
You're like, okay, I'm going totake this idea that I have and
I'm going to kind of mold itinto this game boy game, which,
which obviously worked.
But I'm curious, like is it?
You know, do you haveaspirations to to bring that
(29:06):
story that you know is, is, isin your mind, uh, outside of the
game boy realm, even outside ofthe, uh, the video game, even
outside?
IZMA (29:14):
of the video game.
Realm Illustration has been mybiggest thing, arguably bigger
than games all my life.
It's what I went to school for.
I always wanted to be a comicbook artist.
The story was always planned tobe a comic.
The thinking was that all thesestories would spiral off from
(29:35):
Dead Eos being the centralcharacter.
You know like how it affectedall these other characters.
And the reason that that GameBoy piece sliced off so easily
is because it was one of thelittler stories you know.
And that always was the case.
So it's always on my mind ofhow best to do this next.
You know, the thought of itbeing a comic has sort of died
(29:56):
off a little bit more with thesuccess of the game.
It seems easier for me to writeand create a game than it is to
I don't know why but write anddraw a comic.
I don't know how to explainthat, but that is the case.
Alex (30:11):
I mentioned my love for the the zelda franchise, you
know, not too long ago and it'sone of those like I do think
that, like I don't know you'retalking about this just kind of
sparks this like um, like Ithink it, I think something like
this idea and especially withyour, your illustration, like
prowess I know you mentioned,like it's easier for you to like
imagine this into the game.
(30:32):
And I bring up zel Zelda,because there's been so much
artwork and so much media that'sbeen built around that concept
and like I think that that, likeI could see that being
something that you could pursueat some point whenever you are
ready for it, like to have likea graphic novel, that or
something like that that worksoff of this.
Um, you know, this idea, thisstory, which I just think is
(30:52):
cool Because it's one of thosethings where I wouldn't say at
first glance that I would noticethis game in itself.
This story is maybe a slice ofthis greater idea, but you
saying that there's so much youcould do with that, I'm excited
to see what could become andwhat will become of the project
and it's kind of an excitingthing for me to hear that this
(31:12):
is just a sliver of the greateridea that maybe has been kicked
around in your brain for a longtime yeah, uh, for the last, I
think I've done five of them now.
IZMA (31:21):
Uh, inktober comes around every year during every day of
the month of september and thelast, um, the last few have all
been tied to Delius.
Like 5% of it is the Game Boygame stuff that people have seen
it's.
All these illustrations it'shalf me getting to the edge of
(31:43):
the diving board and being likewhat, drawing all this stuff in
the characters are always rightthere in my head of just.
I just need to get and do it.
Like I say, there's a fewthings blocking the sequel at
the minute, uh, and I'm sort ofdiverting that into other gaming
stuff at the minute.
But uh, I think it'll come oneday right on, I think it's.
Alex (32:05):
It's interesting too, like just going through your
background and stuff, and Idon't know how much you're
working on it now, but at leastnot too long ago you were
working on some vr stuff,correct?
IZMA (32:14):
yeah, that was um.
So I worked with code sync,another studio here in the uk,
and they are primarily a vrstudio.
So there was, uh, the questgame, drastic world aftermath
that we worked on over there.
I was a ui artist on that andthere's a few other similar
projects I thought it came outof them that I had hand on.
Vr is one of those things thatI think that and there's a few
other similar projects that cameout of them that I had hands on
.
Alex (32:34):
VR is one of those things that I think that like as a
platform, it's suited reallywell for horror and I'm sure
like translating this game intoa VR world.
Like that's a can of worms, I'msure, but it's another place
where it's like when I was kindof looking through and playing
this game and kind of learningmore about you, know your, your
background, like man, could youimagine like a horror game like
(32:55):
like this, like in, like as a vradventure?
That'd be nuts.
I know like there's some likewith vr itself, like is it going
to catch on to the mainstream?
I don't know, I like I don't.
I don't personally have the vrset, but like I do think that
it's a matter of time beforeit's in more households and it's
just like there's somethingabout the horror genre that like
I think suits itself very wellfor for that I mean, a lot of
(33:17):
folks probably won't try becauseit may be too scary.
IZMA (33:20):
But it goes right back to like the early days of it, like
um.
I remember like the first sortof vr thing that came to my
household was um googlecardboard, which was like oh yes
, I think the earliest version,you know, and even that when I
came out a lot of the games, ofhorror games, you know, uh, I, I
think you're exactly right, youknow, it lends itself so much
like being immersed in it.
It's like shooting games andhorror games are like the top
(33:42):
two.
Alex (33:43):
It feels like you know it's a story that a lot of
developers have is, uh, there'sscope creep.
So it's like you know, you havethis idea, you're working on it
and then you're like, like Isaid, with the vr stuff, almost
like, no matter the platform,that's always a can of worms.
It's like the next thing, thenext thing.
But I'm wondering, like beyond,you know, scope can be one of
them, but I'm wondering ifthere's any other challenges
that you face, like becauseobviously you took this beyond
(34:04):
your game jam.
I think there was like a 30-daything, uh, and then you know it
took more time and then, withthe inherent difficulties of
making sure that it was beinggood to go for for a physical
release, like I'm just wonderingif some of the other things
that you ran into and thenbasically how you overcame and
pushed through and got it towhere it is today, which is
(34:25):
beyond a physical release,multiple releases, and then
there's also part of this isprobably because of your
fantastic work as an illustrator.
There's some really coolcollector's editions.
I guess the question is, canyou tell me about that path?
How did you push through someof these challenges to get it to
where the game is today?
IZMA (34:49):
I've always said and this isn't the best advice before I
say it but if you want to findout what's wrong with a thing,
the fastest way you'll find outis by putting it on the internet
.
So many messages of like, hey,this, this and this is broken,
and obviously I wouldn't suggestjust chuck your thing online
and have it torn to pieces.
(35:09):
But it kind of goes back towhat I was saying of it being.
You know, the fact that Ichucked it up in such a bad
initial state is just atestament as much as any that I
didn't expect anyone to evenplay it, you know, uh.
And then, as I was hearingstuff come in, because I didn't
have any qa it was, it was meand my friends were playing, I
(35:30):
said it to, you know, a coupleof friends said, hey, do you
like this?
Um, but I would hesitate to sayanyone was like a qa on it, you
know.
And so, as the comments filledup on uh, itchio, or if I got a
message back, I'd jump in andfix it.
And because of how that works,I just updated the file on there
.
So it was like, you know, 1.01or something, uh, and it.
(35:53):
It got fixed as it went, whichis not the best way to do game
development, but that's how thathappened.
But then when it came to aphysical release, my God, the
amount of stress.
But knowing if anything hassnuck through it's permanently
committed to that PCB, that waspretty bad stress-wise and you
(36:20):
had to test everything to thenth degree and make sure it was
okay.
There was one issue that was inthere that got caught by a few
people, where if you mashedbuttons on the Game Boy and I
don't know what the deal was butif you mashed buttons, it would
just the character to zero,zero on a random screen and then
if they walked off the screenit would walk them to anywhere
(36:42):
else and people were gettinglike 20 second runs of the game.
Uh, like it was the 12th endingit had broken everything and, uh
, there was, there was someonewho noticed that bug, and
anywhere where my name is, youcan quite often find that one
person writing about that bug,which, oh no which became its
(37:05):
own little joke, I suppose but,um, it didn't look like we were
going to be able to fix that.
Uh, because it was a site thing.
Not to shirk blame, but it wasnot a program error.
It was on the engine site and weweren't sure if there was any
way to fix it.
And then I think it was theweek, or even a couple of days
(37:27):
before it was due to go out.
The amazing, amazing, cannotthank him enough.
Chris Maltby, who created theGVCDR engine, had a fix and
fixed it.
I thought we were going to haveto ship it with that error in
it, so that was a relief and Ithink the game's pretty clear
now.
(37:47):
So it's definitely stressful.
I think that's a long way ofsaying it's definitely stressful
.
I think that's a long way ofsaying um.
And whilst I'm on the point, Ithink you know from the bottom
of my heart and everyone else inthe scene right now, we owe
like a massive debt to chris uh,chris, for making this thing.
You know, I I tweeted him lastweek saying he's a madman for
doing so much for everyone forso little.
(38:09):
You know, um, I I certainlywouldn't.
No one would know who I was ifI hadn't made a thing with his
engine.
You know, um I I certainlywouldn't.
No one would know who I was ifI hadn't made a thing with his
engine.
You know, um, and I think it'sreally important to call that
out.
You know um.
I owe everything to chrismulvey, so that's very cool.
Alex (38:25):
I mean it's it's one of those things.
It's like he, you know, gave alot of folks the keys, almost as
you know, to be able to be ableto drive, and it's like that's
what I love is, as playing thesethings is like just seeing, you
know, when I, when I had thechance to talk to marco, like
seeing how much of himself heput in there and even talking to
you and learning more about you, is like the amount of you know
(38:45):
, your passions that ended up inthis game.
So, as you take this, uh, youknow, like you were given the
keys and you and you, basically,you know, interjected all these
cool things, like all you knowI mentioned earlier, like the
horror inspiration, but thenlike your illustrative work and
all that it's it's honestly dude, like this game has probably
got the coolest like actual cartartwork out of any of the games
(39:05):
I have.
Like the back of the pcb's gotlike some really cool, like it's
like guts or whatever, and it'slike it's just rad, it's cool,
it's like, and it's um, you know, it's really fun to see and, as
I like a collector and a gamer,it's like, uh, it's a fun, it's
a fun piece to have, it's a funpiece to play yeah, I also
appreciate it yeah, yeah, ofcourse, dude and I, I also want
to bring up too, like, uh, I'lljoke often, like I fall into
(39:26):
this trope of like I'm I'll.
Whenever I'm doing a playing agame, like I, I end up taking
the honorable route most of thetime, like if I'm like red dead
redemption 2 or whatever, likemy, my meters all the way to
like you know the the good sideor whatever, versus like the
evil side, uh, or if I'm givenchoices in a game, like I'll,
often, you know, just by natureof who I am, I'm like, oh, I
(39:46):
gotta do the good thing and whatI thought was really
interesting I don't want to giveaway.
You know there's 11 endingsthat's pretty well known of your
game and I don't want to giveaway any of this because that's
like part of the adventure, isis exploring that and I want
folks to play this.
But I, I want to bring up thefact that many of the endings
that you know that you madepushed me as a gamer to be like
okay, let's, let's test, seewhere I can go with this, and
(40:09):
like and like there isdefinitely, I would say, a more
honorable path.
But uh, you know, when I gotthat one.
I was like all right,interesting, like what else can
we do?
And it like pushes you to dosome different things.
So kudos to you for for gettingreally creative and and I would
say I'm trying to skirt aroundlike, uh, spoilers, but um, you
know, pushing and that's, that'spart of the horror tropes,
(40:29):
right?
So if you, it's almost like andI don't want to speak for you,
but I, I I would say that, asconsuming this piece of content,
I felt like you leaned into alot of really good horror tropes
that you kind of invite the,the player, to take part in.
Does that, does that registerwith you?
Does that make sense?
IZMA (40:45):
yeah, I think so, uh, to, to just take a step back, uh, on
that.
The one of the key thinkingpoints on it was I wanted to
create the space and then letthe player pick what they wanted
to do.
And that was the thinking.
With a lot of it I was like,well, what if they do this?
And I wanted something tohappen.
It's still a Game Boy game.
(41:07):
You can't do absolutelyanything in the world.
But a point of contention,right and hey, just to bring it
back to resident evil as well.
Everyone's always like, well,why don't they just leave the
house?
And I said, okay, okay, butthere wouldn't be a game.
But in the game you can justleave the village.
Because they say, well, whywouldn't they just leave the
village?
And some people get reallyupset that you can do that.
And I'm like, well, that's Iwanted it to be, that you could
(41:30):
do whatever you wanted to do.
And that was that initialthinking of, hey, design around
what they might do and make itcool in that way.
Alex (41:43):
There's some games where you go around and I'll poke
everything where it's like.
I'll go to every bookcase andsee if it has something to say
or whatever.
But I think what's interestingabout this game is that there's
a bit of that.
But I feel like the way thatyou developed it, you invited
people to poke every NPC and tosee what you can maybe do with
(42:04):
them, and I think that'ssomething that elevates it,
because there's some stuff thatyou can do with some of the
different characters that willbranch off into some of the
different endings.
IZMA (42:18):
It's like wow, like right on, you know.
So there's a few things likeI'm pretty proud of.
In that regard of like um, Ireally love the film and it was
pretty popular a while back.
But the original film, battleroyale, the japanese film.
I haven't seen that one, but ohso good, uh, and almost directly
responsible for that genre okay, yeah but, uh, a cool thing I
like about that film is, eventhough some of it's just for a
(42:41):
little bit, you have a momentwith every character.
And there's a lot of characters,you know, but you see something
to do with every single one ofthem and I watched it again
recently and you really do.
It's something that the sequelkind of loses, but in Darius,
one way or another, you're goingto talk to absolutely everyone
you know and I'm kind of proudof that as a little point, you
(43:03):
know it.
It sort of forces you to knowthese little people who don't
really even have faces, but youknow who they are and where they
are and how to find them, andI'm proud that that worked out
as well as I'd hoped that itwould.
But another thing that I reallylike is it's full of moments
that almost like a slap to theface when you realize what's
actually going on.
One of my favorite moments Isaw there was a Spanish streamer
(43:28):
played it speaking entirely inSpanish and I can't speak
Spanish so I couldn't understandwhat he was saying.
Uh, he was like live streamingon twitch.
I was watching and he washitting some of those moments
right and despite the languagebarrier, you could see that it
had shocked him and I was like,oh, it worked.
And it's little things like, uh, figuring out and entering
(43:52):
certain rooms in the game whenpeople, people, work out how to
get there.
I've seen a few people play init where they'll just pause for
a minute and be like, oh, thatactually worked.
Oh, my god, I'm really pleasedthat those certain moments hit
as much as I wanted them to hit.
I will say, to be fair to it,there are as many that don't hit
(44:14):
as I had hoped they'd hit, likethe very good ending sitting on
the mountain.
I think if that had, if I was afilmmaker rather than a Game
Boy creator, you could give thatthe beats and the weight that
it has in my head that itdoesn't have Sure, so sure.
(44:35):
It was a very, a very commonthing of when people buy into
them, going oh, that's theending, and they're incredibly
valid to say that you know, ofcourse.
And it.
To me it's just a sign that itdidn't quite catch as it does in
my head.
Alex (44:49):
So so my limitations of the hardware, I suppose stuff to
learn for the next one.
You know, uh, but you know thetwo extremes of that problem, uh
, like the most rewarding, Ithink totally tell me a little
bit about um, your path, becauseI mean, you know, there's
obviously the, the initialsuccess of you know having it
out on itch, uh, getting outthere so people can play
(45:10):
digitally.
And then, when you you know,there's the physical cartridge.
But I think what's really coolabout your game, in particular
when I look around this, thisscene, is that there's been
additional, like um, the specialreleases where it's like you
have not just the, you can get,you know the, and it has so much
additional of um, of likepieces of your artwork, whether
it's stickers, etc.
(45:31):
I'm just curious a little bithow you went down that path to
having some of these specialeditions and some of the work
that you put into them.
IZMA (45:41):
Yeah, it's been an interesting long journey up to
this point, ups and downs, leftand right.
It feels like when I first putit out, I say never had any
intention of of a physicalrelease and I didn't even know
how to address that if nothingcould happen.
(46:02):
And uh, a publisher reached outto me, you know, a couple of
months in and was asking for allthese things that at that time
I couldn't do.
You know, gb studio couldn't doat the time either.
And I was lucky to be workingwith a uh, an ex-member of
vicarious visions, someone who'dworked on the gba ports of tony
(46:24):
hawks games and stuff oh cool,someone who really knows the ins
and outs of programming notusing a visual script,
programming for the game boy andhe couldn't work out what this
publisher was asking me to do.
Oh, interesting, you know thatended up going south because I
was like I can't hit what you'reasking me for.
And then after that I movedback to the UK because I was
(46:46):
living in the US at the time andI Spacebot, who's another Gb
Studio developer.
He reached out to me and he waslike hey, why don't we do this
physically?
And he wasn't, you know, he waspublishing games, but he wasn't
a publisher, it was justSpacebot.
And he said look, here's how wecan do it.
(47:07):
Do you want to do it?
He, I cannot say enough goodwords about him.
You know he's, I still talk tohim every day.
I cannot say enough good wordsabout him.
You know he's, I still talk tohim every day.
I talked to him just thismorning.
Nice, I love the guy's piecesand he helped put that first
edition together.
You know there aren't many ofthem out there in the world now
but the Spacebot edition of thegame has a little Spacebot bar
on it and it's got some littlelike, some little unique pieces
(47:30):
to it that some people havefound and some people haven't.
But if you can find a space botversion, that's that's my
favorite.
So that happened.
And then the thing of that andI'm sure you wouldn't mind me
saying is it, it really reallywas like a one man and his
family operation of he.
You know, he folded and gluedand assembled those cartridges
(47:53):
all himself.
I was feeding him the artworkand he was showing me pictures
of just all the stuff in hishouse and there was hundreds of
them.
So infinite gratitude to thatman for doing that.
It got to a point where he waslike I can't be doing this all
myself.
And that's where Incubator camein, which was the current
publisher, and we did thestandard edition, which is the
(48:17):
same cover art just with theIncubate banner on the side.
There is a special edition withthe alternate art which I
commissioned one of my favoriteartists for years and years and
years.
An artist who goes under thename Witness the Absurd, who has
just released Slave Zero zero x, a cool new indie game, um.
(48:37):
So that was cool to get to, towork with them, uh.
And then there was the bigcollector's box which has the uh
, you know, the art book andmusic and all that in it.
Um, we got to do anotherrelease of the music, um, which
the amazing stew buzz, to be oneof my best friends on the
planet, did all the music.
And we got to do a cd releaseof that collector's edition, um,
(48:59):
which was very cool.
Uh, yeah, it's sort of like allalmost come.
Naturally, it feels like, uh,you know, these things seem to
find me somehow and, uh, it's,uh, just a case of making it as
cool as we can, you know I lovethat totally.
Alex (49:18):
That's that's.
That's a lot of fun to hear it.
I think it's um, you know, asan observer, it's really easy to
just assume that, uh, you knowthat that journey wouldn't be as
as personal as you described.
You know, like that, you like,okay, like I, I didn't, I didn't
know.
I I've followed a little bit ofincubate, um, not incubate well
, incubate as well, but spacebots, you know his his journey a
(49:38):
little bit.
I did miss out on that firstrelease, so I won't be able to
look at my shelf and see whatyou're talking about.
But but now I'm very curious.
Uh, I do remember, though, likewhen that came out I was just a
little slow on, you know, Ithink I was.
It was around the time when Iwas like more into my collecting
journey.
I just fell back intocollecting a little bit, but it
was one I just missed out on.
And then I was happy when I wasable to get a physical version
(50:00):
from Incubate.
But it's cool to hear that verypersonal journey.
And then I read and heard aboutthe collaborations you did with
your buddy to be able to makethe music, and it's just like,
and that sounds kind of cheesy,but it's definitely an instance
where you're an indie dev, it'sa solo project, but it, you know
(50:21):
, it still took.
It still took your village man.
It's like it's kind of fun tohear that, as opposed to being
like, oh, I don't know, I justhad this idea and you know, the
suits came and they bought itfrom me and told me this is is
what we're doing, so that's cool.
IZMA (50:35):
One of my favorite stories of it.
I've told this before but I'lltell it again.
Stu Busby is a machine, thecomposer for the game.
I used to be in a band with himin my teenage years, back when
I had hair.
When I was doing that game jam,I reached out to him and I was
like hey, I'm doing this thing,Do you think you could do music?
(50:57):
Can you help me out with themusic?
And he made these sixincredible tracks for the game,
but they were made in a fileformat that couldn't be used in
GV Studio, Because back thenit's different and I've got to
be honest, I don't understandall the ins and outs of the
music side, but there was somespecific way of setting it all
(51:20):
up.
I was frantically doing my sideof the game jam.
It was becoming more and moreapparent that those six tracks
that Stu had made, he was like Idon't know if this is going to
work.
I don't think this is going totranslate, I might not be able
to do it.
I was like that's fine, man,this is all for fun, which again
it was.
At the time I was like don'tworry about it, I really
(51:43):
appreciate it.
You've made six amazing trackshere.
I appreciate that it got downto the deadline.
He went hey, how about this?
He sent 20 tracks perfectly inthe format, and all of you know
there's there's a ton of musicin the game and it's all here,
right, and uh, you just told meyou couldn't do six and there's
(52:04):
more than double that of thisincredible music and he's like I
can't do six, but I can do 20and that's that's stew to a t.
The man is amazing.
I I don't have enough goodwords and I just love that story
.
Perfect sort of example of him.
I'm really grateful as wellthat we did a cassette release
with Spacebot and we did a CDrelease with Incubate, and those
(52:25):
tracks are on.
I think they're on both ofthose formats, so nothing went
to waste.
Alex (52:28):
Oh, very cool.
IZMA (52:30):
Yeah, that's one of my favorite bits of working on it.
Alex (52:39):
Whatever I work on next, I hope that it gets steve
involved, because I love him.
Is there anything that you gotcooking?
Is there any?
Do you have any ideas whetherthat's uh, you know, uh, that he
is two, or something else likewhat are you playing around with
these days?
IZMA (52:46):
so that is two.
Currently is on the back burner, although it's it's.
Everything's been written downand planned.
When it's when it's time to hit, to hit that.
I'm ready to go on it.
Right now I haven't talkedabout it too much because I was
keeping it kind of quiet, butI'm working on a new Game Boy
Color game and I think it'sgoing to be exclusive to the
Game Boy Color called.
Ceramica.
It's going to be another horrorgame, but we're going for body
(53:11):
horror and slasher like 80s onthis.
I think there was a massiveinflux of horror now on the game
boy, but it's a lot ofpsychological horror.
There's not a lot of straightup video nasty 80s blood and
guts and I'd love to see if Ican hit that.
(53:31):
You know to be the next thingof like, hey, let's push this
down the line, you know.
Alex (53:34):
Yeah, I'd love to see if I can hit that you know to be the
next thing of like, hey, let'spush and start on the line.
You know, yeah, I'd love to seeit.
Man, I know that, um, you knowI mentioned earlier in our talk
that I've been following you oninstagram for a while now.
So every once in a while you'llpost like uh, because you're I
mean, you're not lying dudeyou're into the horror genre, so
you like there's some likevideos.
Like you posted some like uh,different, like um, you're
watching whatever movie and I'mlike what is this crazy stuff
that he's watching?
But, man, I would love to seethat translated into your next
(53:57):
game.
It'd be a lot of fun.
IZMA (53:58):
Well, let's hope it all works out.
Right now I am activelydeveloping it.
It's what I'm going to dostraight off this call.
Alex (54:06):
Oh cool cool.
IZMA (54:08):
In my head I could see this being something really cool
.
I sent the story off to anotherdeveloper I'm close friends
with this morning and he's theonly person who's heard the
story and he seemed way into it.
So I'm like, oh Very cool.
I don't often like to share whatI'm doing.
You know, if I'm honest, I'membarrassed about my writing.
(54:30):
I've never shared any of itbefore Deadious.
But that's another shot in thearm of let's get this done
Totally In terms of what thegame will look and feel like.
Right now I'm playing aridiculous amount of Mega man
Extreme on the Game Boy Color,trying to work out how they've
(54:51):
done all of that.
Alex (54:52):
You're a masochist.
IZMA (54:54):
That's going to be the big one, a platformer game.
I'm going to try and have ithave as much story as Dead Ears
did, but with more cutscene artin it.
Alex (55:04):
Very cool.
IZMA (55:07):
I look back at Dead Ears now and it was a fast, Like I
said, Game Jam is quite fastmade.
I think there's a lot more Icould do you know like uh, if I
went whole hog on the thing andin color.
Um, so I'm excited.
I hope I can do it.
Uh, the I was working on thegame a little while back.
Uh called severin and it kindof it fell apart.
(55:30):
The final hurdle and that waswas an embarrassing blocker on
that, but Ceramica comesdirectly out of it.
Anything I took from that gamethat did work really well is put
straight into this and thethings that didn't work have
been cut out.
It's an organic way of movingforward, like a lateral step and
keep going on.
Alex (55:50):
I was excited about it.
Yeah, you got me excited.
Man Ceramica.
IZMA (55:56):
I hope it works.
I've, uh, I've been so likedripping, uh, I'm trying to give
it like a you know all the boxart, manual art.
I think I'm going to try and dodigital painting, like hit it
in a style I've never reallydone before and, uh, I hope it's
.
It seems like it's going to belike a fulfilling thing to to
make you know I don't want totake too much more of your time.
Alex (56:17):
I want you to get working on this game.
So, but, uh, but thanks so much, adam, you know.
Thanks for for joining me today, uh, to talk a little bit about
, about your journey, and andfor detius, and then also for
you know, for you know where yougot, where you got cooking, and
uh, if you could just quicktell us where listeners can find
your game and where to followyou online you find the game for
(56:37):
free.
IZMA (56:38):
Uh, hio uh is my hio, I think it is.
Um, I'll send you a link tochuck anywhere.
Instagram, uh, izma is myhandle, uh, and then I'm on
pretty much everything else.
I am currently trying trying tokeep a Patreon going.
I'm updating every three days,no matter what I'm working on.
(57:00):
I'm keeping a decent log of it.
The most recent post I put onthere was how I keep on top of
my projects and sort of be myown producer on games.
So I'm trying to fill it withexactly how I do, what I do or
what I've been up to.
I'm sort of also working onthat.
But yeah, if you search IzmaI-Z dot M-A, you can find me
(57:24):
pretty much anywhere.
Alex (57:25):
Right on.
Well, thanks so much, man.
Again.
Appreciate your time truly, andalso for all the love and work
you put into this game and superexcited to you know follow your
journey into the next game itmeans the world to me to hear
that, uh, it really does.
IZMA (57:41):
it means a lot, it really does, thank you, bye.
Thanks for watching.
Welcome to another episode of Low-Fi Friends, a companion
podcast of Lo-Fi Gaming.
The fellow I'm talking to todayis a special guest, adam Birch,
known to many in the gaming andart communities as Isma,
probably best known for thehorror game boy game, deadius.
Thank you, excited to betalking to you, man.
(00:59):
Like I was saying it's, it'sbeen kind of cool like being
able to kind of watch some ofyour artistic journey, kind of
watch the game grow over thelast few years and it was really
fun for me to.
I host low five gaming with mybrother, luke and we played,
played your game recently andhave a mainline episode coming
out and then as well.
But it's just, it's just like arad, rad thing, man.
It's rad to uh, to have playedit has played it twice, you know
(01:21):
or to come up more than twice,I guess but to come, come around
and kind of like I was sayingsee, it's it's growth and it's
staying power, it's it's it'simpressive, dude, and it's.
It's funny to me to hear youknow I was doing some reading
prior to our talk and then alsoto just hear you say that it was
.
It was almost accidental in away, like not accidental in the
sense that, like you know, itwasn't deserving, but it's.
It's interesting to hear that.
(01:43):
You know something that I wouldsay is like it's, you know,
it's a top tier, like, uh, indiegame boy, like you know, for
the folks making game boy games,and in today's age, this is
going to come at the top ofeverybody's list.
Like it's, it's right up there,man, which is which is cool.
IZMA (01:59):
I think it's super cool it really does mean so much, uh,
to hear people say that and andyou know that people still enjoy
it.
Uh, I'm really happy to be hereand talk with you as well.
I I love talking about thissort of stuff and I'm always
happy to do uh, uh things likethis yeah it's.
It's kind of crazy to see thatit keeps going like every now
(02:19):
and then I like uh, there's ayoutube channel I like with
triple jump, which is I've justbeen a fan of for ages, and uh,
they talked about it the otherday and it it's almost like it
jumpscares me, you know.
Oh, okay, there it is again.
Alex (02:34):
Um that's pretty rad.
One of my, one of my buddies,uh Keith he was.
He used to run a podcast calledthe main quest podcast and he's
super into horror games and andyou know, retro games.
He ran a retro video gamepodcast and he I can't remember
the name of the publisher rightnow.
But there's this really coolcompany that does like uh, their
coffee table books essentially,and they do these big
compilations or of like the n64,the game boy or whatever, and
(02:58):
he was.
He was uh reading this big oneon horror games that was put out
not too long ago.
You probably you, I mean, youwere in.
It is what I'm driving at, soit's uh which is cool, man.
IZMA (03:08):
Yeah, the bit my book stuff.
Um, that was a really nicesurprise as well.
And you know, as you've seen it, that book is insane.
It is like if you dropped it onsomeone you do some serious
damage, uh, and it is full coverto cover of you know, the best
of the best of horror games andeven have been asked right a lot
to me.
You know like, yeah, you know,my thing is still it's just baby
(03:31):
itchio thing involved.
Alex (03:35):
It really does mean a lot, you know yeah, I was reading um
and we don't have to like gosuper into your numbers,
everything but I was like I waslistening to a podcast you did a
while ago.
Uh, you had mentioned and this,this was, I think, right on the
verge of you putting the gameon a physical cart and I think
your itchio numbers were like10,000 downloads or something
and it's been.
I bet you that's skyrocketed.
(03:55):
I bet you that's.
IZMA (03:57):
It has and it's been the most successful thing I've ever
done.
Alex (04:12):
Yeah, but you're still young man, you got time too.
God, I'm not that young.
Yeah, we got, we got plenty oftime, bro, uh.
So I'm curious though.
So I mean, you know from what Iwhat I learned is that you may
be.
So you created deadius as partof a um, a game jam, so it kind
of came like naturally out ofthat, uh.
But I'm curious, I'd love toknow a little bit more just
about your, your relationshipwith with gaming and like what
games like?
Are you a gamer, do you playgames, or are you just making
games like how does that work?
IZMA (04:32):
oh yeah, yeah, I uh it's like one of my deepest passions.
It's always been since I was alittle kid.
I think you know that's a storyfor a lot of people, you know.
But, uh, I just for as long asI I've been about, I just wanted
to make games.
You know, and for a long time Iwasn't making games like it was
like I could draw pictures, andthen, you know, I didn't uh get
(04:55):
into the games industry forabout like 2014, 15 ish okay
yeah, uh, so about 10 years now,but I mean that's, that's later
in life, for sure, uh for me uhsure, but yeah, it's, it's uh,
it's a huge part of my life,like I, I love it as a medium.
I love the kind of uh, themassive wave of indie right now,
(05:17):
like we had that first big wave, uh, around the xbox 360 with
the live arcade really openingup and obviously steam and itch
and it's just growing andgrowing and growing and we're in
like this really cool timewhere I feel like it's the same
thing for, like, art, books,music, like there's these
avenues for anything creativeand it's it really is the
biggest it's ever been right nowand it's only going to get
bigger.
Yeah, it's really cool to be alittle piece for you know yeah,
(05:40):
I would, uh, I don't know how.
Alex (05:42):
I mean, obviously I'm a podcaster so I must love it if
I'm spending my time talkingabout these things.
But I guess I'm a connoisseurof sorts it's a weird term to
give to yourself but I've alwaysenjoyed video games, ever since
I was a little kid andeventually wore my parents down
or snuck them into the house inone way or another house in one
(06:05):
way or another.
And that's actually probablywhere my love for game boy comes
from is.
It was the first actual systemlike gaming system that I had,
aside from I don't know ifyou're familiar with, like the
tiger electronics, like littlelcd screen deals.
I had a couple, a couple ofthose.
But um, the game boy was likethat, was like oh man, this is
great and it's not somethingthat my parents bought for me,
that I bought with my own money.
It was something that, like, bythe time I got a hold of one,
it was like some homies in theneighborhood or whatever, like
(06:26):
we're like sure you could playwith my old toy, like you know,
but it was great and I thinkthat, like, deep down, that's
probably fueled a lot of my, mylove for game boy and now as an
adult, it's it's fun to see,it's almost like a full circle
thing where these there's thesenew games bringing new life into
this thing and it's it's fun.
But I'm I'm interested.
From my understanding, you kindof fell into creating videos
(06:48):
for you know, out of this gamejam and then on the game boy,
because of game boy or GB studio, which is like a cool platform
for creating game boy gameswithin, and you're kind of at
the forefront of like jumping onthat platform from my
understanding.
But I'm curious, before we talkmore about that, like jumping on
that platform from myunderstanding, but I'm curious
before we talk more about that.
Just, uh, your history with thegame boy, you know, you take my
story.
It's like, well, I just lovethe game boy so much I I'm gonna
(07:09):
create this game boy game whichI did.
Go look at gb studio.
Dude, it's not as easy as theymake it sound on their website
well, I'd be happy to helpanytime you fancy it.
IZMA (07:20):
After this right on um, yeah, I so I.
I never.
I don't think I ever had a dmgone as a kid like the original
original game boy.
But every time um toy dayyou're in the us, right I am,
yeah, yeah, in the uk we hadlike toy day, uh, one day of
every I don't know term inprimary school, little little
(07:42):
school okay, one of the kidswould bring in their Game Boy
and I remember playing like theStar Wars game and Kirby the
Kirby and just loving it.
But I didn't actually get a GameBoy till my lime green Game Boy
color.
Oh cool yeah, I was, like youknow, pokemon Blue, pokemon
Yellow, pokemon Silver and thatwas like tunnel vision on that
(08:06):
and it more spiraled out fromthe game with color.
End of things which I think, Ithink would surprise a lot of
people looking at all this um.
But right from the beginningthere was a.
You know, even seeing thatoriginal it was like a mythical
thing, you know, like there'salways one kid that had one and
uh, whenever I could, I alwaystried to get a go on it.
Unfortunately, as a young'un, Inever had one.
I've got one now in mycollection and I love it to
(08:27):
pieces I've got several nowthanks to all this craziness, I
bet.
Alex (08:35):
It's cool, man.
We live in a cool time too,with the whole modding scene
around the Game Boys and thesebeautiful screens.
I still have that DMG.
To be honest, I don't even knowhow it ended up in my.
I'm like I don't remember whichfriend is the one that was like
yeah, you can have my old gameboy, uh, which is a little.
I should try and figure thatout, but, um, I still have it
and there's like the, you know,with screen degradation and
(08:56):
everything.
It just doesn't like.
It doesn't.
It's not as fun to likeactually play it.
It's a cool like relic, it acool piece to have in my
collection.
But I have other newer GameBoys or other cool platforms to
play these old games now too.
And man having a backlit screenor one of those being able to
see these games pixel perfect,it's a super nerdy thing but I
(09:17):
love it, man, it's so cool.
IZMA (09:19):
I'm right there with you.
It's so good to be able to goback and see these games in a
whole new way.
I've been lucky enough to besent it for you and I've got one
that's like a green light onthe back and then black and
white over the top so you cancycle through colors.
And they sent me a modifiedGame Boy to look like Dead Ears.
(09:40):
So black and green with thegreen light.
It's such a cool way to see allthese games again.
You know, like that, um, yeah,it's, it's a really, really cool
time for that.
Like it's almost at a point nowwhere you see it's more common
to see a modded game boy thannot a modded game boy.
You know, right, like, uh,gaming markets and stuff.
You see like rows and rows ofthem.
I love the uh standard gray andI've still, like I said, I've
(10:04):
got one here, but seeing all thecraziness with the
customization stuff is reallyreally cool.
And then, like going as far,going as far as like the analog
pocket and seeing what they'vedone with the screen.
Alex (10:13):
Yeah, I was.
I was lucky to get a the firstrun of analog pockets.
That's where I most of my likeactual like playing game boy
games, is that now?
IZMA (10:26):
and the screen on that?
Bad boy, it's ridiculous.
Like, uh, I can't say enoughnice things.
Alex (10:29):
I, I've played a lot of these sort of like emulator
systems and all this and there'sjust even in the the nice
modded sorry, I'm pointing at mygame but even in the nice uh,
modded um the nice spottedscreens, as amazing as they are,
nothing, nothing's touchingright pocket right now and, uh,
I'm a big shader user, so, likeI love the shaders that are
included in the analog pocketand for the most recent
playthrough of your game, Iactually switched all the way
(10:52):
over to the.
I forget what they call it,it's like a pinball.
I don't remember what they callit, but it's the red.
And black.
IZMA (10:58):
Oh yeah, the Matrix.
Yeah, you got it.
Alex (11:05):
And that was a really nice look for, for, you know, for a
horror game especially, I thinkit's supposed to mimic, like the
um, the virtual boy the virtualboy I.
IZMA (11:11):
I always thought it's like um I that that's a good shout.
Alex (11:16):
The uh, those pimples, the old pimple screen ah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, that makes moresense actually, hence the naming
of the Beatle Matrix, orwhatever.
IZMA (11:27):
This might be a tangent, but it's on my mind.
I haven't got a way of doing itright now, but I saw that
there's a Virtual Boy emulatorfor the 3DS now.
Alex (11:34):
Oh, cool, yeah, right on.
IZMA (11:37):
The Virtual Boy never came out in this country and I've
played one for about fiveminutes when I lived in the
States, but I've not properlydug in on it.
And they are so cool and to seethat someone's modified a 3ds
to that, I um, this is like sortof.
This month I found out aboutthis and I really want to chase
that down, yeah.
Alex (11:57):
I haven't seen that yet, so I'll have to look into that
as well.
Like virtual boy is like ahomebrew kind of thing.
Okay, cool, cool, but it lookedcool.
Yeah, virtual boy is one ofthose things that, like I did
get the opportunity I think oneof my buddies rented one way
back when and he brought it overand we played it and got some
headaches, but like no, it's.
But it is such like it's justnintendo kind of being ahead of
(12:18):
their time and doing some funstuff.
Uh, it's um it's.
IZMA (12:22):
It's almost alien to right because, like I say, it wasn't
really a thing in the uk.
And so, um, my partner's, uh,brother's, got one that's how
I've seen one now at all andjust to see it on the desk it's
like what is, what is this?
And the controller?
I really like the controller.
Uh, right, double d-pad thething, uh, and you know, I keep
seeing a really cool game show.
(12:43):
I think it's like horror firstperson dungeon crawler type
thing.
I'm now, yeah, a wario game onit and then like a mech sort of
beam up yeah yeah, all of itlooks so cool.
I really want to dig in on thatnow.
Alex (12:55):
Then it is, it is dope.
So I'm curious, you know we'vetalked a little bit about the,
the game boy stuff and you knowthe virtual boy and so you, you
mentioned you've always had apassion for gaming.
I'm curious, if you I'm goingto put you on the spot a little
bit and I'm going to go withfive, which is a kind of a big.
It's a big number for your,your top fives, but if you had a
list off just top five games ofall time, what would yours be?
oh, that's a tough one um andthey'd be personal too, not as,
(13:19):
uh, it doesn't have to be likewhat the you know everybody
would say.
IZMA (13:22):
I'm curious to the I'm curious to know what yours are.
Yeah, um, you know, I alwaysthink it's better to go with
your personal choice anyway, youknow, rather than the objective
one, and my, my number one isalways, always going to be, uh,
resident one, the original okay,cool you know the gamecube
remix really, really good, but Imean the base, base version,
(13:43):
yeah, uh, it was the first gameI ever saw as a kid that didn't
have levels.
Uh, it was just like one longadventure and I mean it wasn't
the first to do that.
I know now looking back on it,but it was the first one I ever
saw and uh scared me for years.
But it was such a, at the time,different game to anything I'd
(14:04):
seen which as a kid, was likemario and sonic.
You know things like that bug onthe sega saturn cockat night,
um, and then this nightmare gamefor a young'un uh came out and
everything was different, youknow right um, and in the years
since, like, obviously the wholefranchise means a great deal to
me now, as it does to so manypeople, and most people would
(14:29):
say Resident Evil 2 is theirfavorite, some 4, and now the
remakes and all that, but theoriginal one to me is still so
perfect.
I really love how it's designed.
I know it feels like peoplealways make fun of like the uh,
the voice acting or the?
Um, you know, it's just uh,it's, it's a lot simpler.
Oh, the basement theme, sorry Ithought that my brain, the crazy
(14:51):
music, um.
But I really love how that gameis like, quite like a simple
small space, it's a house and itslowly opens up over time, like
you find a key and it opens twomore rooms, you know and then
it's like puzzle box.
Uh.
And yeah, there's other areasof course in the house, but that
idea of having a fixed spacethat slowly unravels over time,
(15:12):
um, it's directly what inspirededius, you know uh, having a
small, the small area that youcan eventually do more with.
I have completed that game moretimes than I can tell you.
I just, I absolutely love it.
So number one, always, always,always, that one.
Outside of that, I really lovethe game Fez.
(15:33):
I don't know.
Alex (15:34):
These are out of order now .
Yeah, no worries.
IZMA (15:40):
And going across like not just retro.
I really love Fez.
I really love a little indiegame called Lisa the Painful my
favourite games ever.
It's like both the funniest andsaddest game ever made.
I think there's too many.
I don't know which of the Soulsgames to pick, but it's
probably Dark Souls, I think,touch and go between that and
(16:03):
Bloodborne.
And let's go with a Game Boygame for the sake of the
conversation.
Mario Land 2, if I had to pickone from the platform, is
probably my big one.
It certainly is the Game Boygame I've probably finished the
most amount of times.
I think it's the best looking,one of the best looking Game Boy
(16:24):
games I've probably finishedthe most amount of times.
I think it's the best looking,one of the best looking Game Boy
games.
I love that game to pieces itis great.
Alex (16:29):
It's funny.
I broke co-host and brotherLuke into playing that one for
the pod because it's animportant game in my gaming
zeitgeist, you know, with theGame Boy and everything, and at
first he kind of grumbled.
He's like, oh man, why are youplaying this old shit?
But he, like he came around toit, you know, which is cool,
because it is like it is a greatgame on that platform.
Uh, I will say that the thefinal castle, like wario's
(16:51):
castle.
IZMA (16:52):
Pretty hard dude oh yeah, it's a nightmare.
I, uh, I can't.
It wasn't that long ago.
I was gonna say I can'tremember when it was, but I went
back to it again recentlybecause I I I'm a little less
knowledgeable about the warriorland stuff.
I played a lot of them.
I finished four a ton of times,but I don't want to play the.
You know one, two and three, alot more.
And so I was like, well, I'llgo through the whole franchise,
(17:14):
um, but you're, you're right onit's.
Uh, it's a bit of a nightmarethat last, but for sure it is.
Alex (17:19):
It's like it.
The difficulty spike is it'sjarring's like oh man, how did
this get so hard?
But I don't know.
It's fun, I'm into it.
It's still one of my favorites.
IZMA (17:30):
Yeah, everything in that game is so big and noticeably,
even now the sprites are hugethat warrior sprite at the end,
weird warrior balls, everythingis so big and bright and full of
character.
You compare it to Super MarioLand 1.
(17:50):
You know is debatably unfair,right, like how tiny the sprite
is and not compared to theinsane jump in just the sequel
right, I think it's interestingtoo.
Alex (17:55):
In super mario land too, like you, you're right on with.
The sprites are being so,they're so large and it.
But it just works like whateverthey did with the, how they
contained everything in thescreen.
It works really well.
So I think it's like the gameboy color.
It's super mario, super mariobrothers dx or whatever they
call it.
So it's like the, the port ofthe original super mario
brothers game and that, like it,just doesn't work as well with
(18:17):
the square screen, like it's youknow because everything's kind
of like blown up and it's justlike you can't see everything
that's going on.
But uh, but that's not the case,which is kind of an amazing
feat, that they're able to usesuch large sprites and still
have it contained in that area.
In super mario land 2, yeah,pretty cool, but uh, so I didn't
notice there's a theme, I meanone.
You made a horror game.
Uh, you, you named off a coupleof your, your all-time
(18:38):
favorites that are horror gamesor have horror elements.
So I'm yeah, I have to assumethat you're a horror fanatic you
know, uh, that's all right, Iabsolutely love it.
IZMA (18:49):
Uh, it's, like in most things, my favorite genre, you
know, um yeah we're applicable,yeah and I mean that's
definitely present in videos.
Alex (18:58):
So you know you went out and you made a horror game, but
I think you picked some like I'djust be.
I'd be interested to know aboutlike how that love for the
genre like influenced your game.
Like I don't want to put wordsin your mouth, but as I'm
playing it I see certainelements.
IZMA (19:11):
So I'm just curious in your words, like how how that
passion for horror and your,your love for that genre, uh,
really influenced your game yeah, at the time when I was making
it, which again was like 2019I'm hesitant to say it was the
first because I don't think itwas before I say this but, um,
at the time, you know, we werelargely dealing with the actual
(19:34):
release games and then mostlyrom-coms and then some.
There were obviously anyprojects, but there wasn't a lot
of horror at the time or likeactual horror.
There was like sort of uh, youknow, themed like there's a
frankenstein game and adam'sfamily game, you know, but not
anything trying its best to be aa horror game.
Uh, and it kind of bummed meout looking at it you know, I
(19:55):
was like I want to try and dothat or see, see what you can do
.
You know, um, and it'sdefinitely a silly thing, like
I'll be the first to admit thatlike tiny little 160x144 thing
is going to struggle to be scaryat the best times.
I don't know how much I nailedit, but I like the idea of
(20:15):
giving it a go, and that waslargely a thinking on that.
It occurred to me at the timeof making it that you had to
lean on the writing.
You know there are certain likeum twists and reveals and things
like that that I really had tolean on because you don't get a
lot of leeway with the visuals.
(20:35):
You know it is very simple inthe way it looks for most of the
game, um, so that was a funchallenge with the medium, for
sure, but in terms ofinspiration, like, obviously the
resident evil one was thebiggest one.
A lot of people pointed outZelda.
Majora's Mask is an obvious one.
I've actually never finishedMajora's Mask still to this day,
me, neither man.
Alex (21:00):
That's funny.
We had an episode on it recentlyand I still got to a point
where I decided not to finish it.
And it's not because I anepisode on it recently and I
still got to a point, like,where I'd like decided not to
finish it.
I mean, it's not because Idon't love it.
I love that game, I love thelegend of zelda series, um, but
I don't know, I guess, forwhatever reason, I'm just not
going to push through to the end.
I still still.
You know this is great, butit's just kind of funny.
IZMA (21:19):
I've uh finished ocarina of time.
You know got on everything somany times in the past, but
Majora's Mask I've alwaysbounced off it a bit.
It's my little brother'sfavorite game in the franchise
as well, so I'm sure he'd tellme off for hearing this.
But, yeah, I think it's, you'vegot to call it out.
That idea obviously inspiredthis Lovecraft.
(21:44):
Obviously the thought of thislike ever-present being larger
than than comprehension, uh, youknow, if, if you've ever read
any lovecraft you can, you cansee it's clear influence all
over this thing.
Alex (21:59):
sure, sure, sure yeah, and I think it's interesting you
mentioned too and then you knowit's I mean in today's world and
you know people making things.
It's hard to say if it's thefirst, but it may be maybe if it
wasn't the first, but it'sdefinitely at the forefront of
you, especially on GB Studiocreating games and horror games
there, and it's such aninteresting platform for that.
(22:19):
I think it's evolved over thelast couple of years.
But especially at the get-goyou're limited by what you're
able to do in that software gbstudio software and it has like
a certain, like a lot of theassets that come with that like
almost give a pokemon vibe togames, like just because of the,
just the way that it looks orwhatever, uh, which I think is
(22:41):
like an interestingjuxtaposition to creating a
horror game, to have that likefamiliar look of these like you
know pokemon sprites or thecharacters anyways, uh, not the
pokemon themselves, but thepeople and that top down, like
you know look of going through atown or whatever.
I mean you're still creating butand then and uh, but I think
where you really nail it andwhat's really fun for me to see
(23:03):
is the interjection of like I'lljust call them cut scenes.
I don't know if you can callthem a cut scene on a game boy,
but like that's where some ofyour pixel art and some of your
illustration really like itreally elevates the horror vibe
because like something willhappen in the game where you
know you'll do something andit'll, it'll cut to one of your
illustrations, it'll be like alittle pan or something like
that and it's just like, uh,it's, it's fun to see the game
(23:24):
boy pushed to those boundaries,you know.
Another thing that I think isis fun around your your comment
of being, you know, at theforefront of putting out horror
games like it's.
I had the opportunity to talkto another indie developer,
marco, recently, who did thegame Pine Creek, and when he was
talking about his inspiration,he actually named you, which is
like it's pretty coolyeah, so it's so like he uh, he
(23:47):
tried your game out.
You know, I don't know exactlywhen, but he had the opportunity
to play and that was like Ithink he was.
You know, amongst otherinspirations as well, but I
think it's one of the thingsthat he mentioned like put him
on the path of being like thiscould be something really cool,
which is which is another kindof like crazy thing dude like
that's a the dead system, andthen you have, you know, dead
substitutes, yourself likeplaying these things.
(24:08):
You got dudes like me playingyour games and then you're
you're not, you're not just, youknow pulling inspiration from
you know, like these game boygames that were made 20, 30
years ago.
But you also have folks that,like your game came out in 2019,
as you say, I mean like almostimmediately had an impact on
another artist and anotherdeveloper, which is kind of a
cool thing man, yeah, I, Ididn't know that.
IZMA (24:30):
Uh, I love you know, the loveliest thing in the world to
hear because my freak's prettycool, you know.
So, um, yeah, I guess it.
It's been really, really coolto see the explosion of gbcdo,
like you know.
Uh, there's a ton of stuff nowand I look at almost all of it
now and I'm like man, I can'tkeep up to any of this.
(24:52):
I don't know what I'm gonna donext.
Like there are geniuses workingon it now and, uh, it's really
like amazing to see for sure.
Like, especially, you know, I'vespoken to some people who are a
little bit like, oh, it's agame boy game and it's, like,
you know, games, the game is thegame.
You know, people are puttingwork and effort into these
(25:13):
things and to see it sort ofrapidly take off, you know,
publishers starting to crop upleft and right and it's, it's
all gaining like a bit oflegitimacy.
Like I no point in my brain didI stop and think, oh, I'll make
this physical one day, becauseI mean, at the time I made it, I
didn't think that was a thingto do, even.
Um, yeah, it's changed sorapidly and in such a good and
(25:37):
big way.
You know, it's a terrifyingthought to try and keep up with
it.
Alex (25:41):
Sure.
IZMA (25:43):
Yeah.
Alex (25:44):
And I was.
I don't know if it was one ofthe interviews I was reading
that you were in, or perhaps itwas the.
You were on a different podcasta while back and you were
talking about.
One of the reasons that youtook this particular game in the
direction you did is you weresomewhat limited to, uh, you
know what GB studio could do andyou're mentioning that.
You know GB studio has, like,really it's expanded and what
the you know what, what's what,you know what the capabilities
(26:08):
are, um, but it's interesting tohear you talk a little bit
about, like the, the growth andthe, the audience growth, and I
think that's been a naturalthing.
Uh, but an interesting thingthat I picked up from just, you
know, doing a little bit ofbackground research, is that
there was a time a few yearsback where you were, you were
asked about a sequel.
I think that's you know, folksalways want a sequel to
(26:28):
something that has, you know,some success, and you you had
mentioned I don't want to putwords in your mouth, I'll
paraphrase though you hadmentioned that you were
interested in possiblyapproaching bringing this game
to the 3D realm to give it to awider audience, and I'm
wondering if that's somethingthat you're still working on or
still playing around with thatidea.
IZMA (26:48):
The idea is always in my head.
My day job I work in UnrealEngine.
I'm still very early on inUnreal Engine, but it's a 3D
engine, obviously, and I alwaysthink about in my head Dead Ears
2 is a 3D game and has alwaysbeen a 3D game and I think about
(27:12):
, if I make the sequel to a gamein 3d, it's just to most people
has just cropped out of nowhere.
You know, like more people havenot played the game boy game
than have you know.
It's always bothered me tothink that like a lot of people
would have missed out on thatfirst piece.
So I always think aboutremaking that first one, because
I've got the whole frameworkthere in 3d, uh, and that's not
(27:34):
necessarily say pixel art.
I I would still need to spendsome time working out the style,
but I like the idea of bringingit into the 3d realm and then
making the sequel, uh.
So that's been on my mind a lotand that was the thinking for a
long time and you know wehaven't had a sequel because of
that being in my brain.
Uh, and at my last studio, um,one of the teammates played the
(27:58):
first game and you know I wastalking to them about it and
they were lovely about it andthey went well, why don't you
just make the sequel on game boy?
And I was like, weirdly enough,that thought never crossed my
mind.
Oh yeah, damn, maybe I shoulddo that, uh, so that's on my
mind a lot now as well, likemaybe doing, uh, I think it
(28:19):
would be a game with colorsequel, because right the
sequels.
It's all done and written.
I I know what it is.
It's just a case of making ituh I said in interviews in the
past, like the sequel wasactually written way, way, way
before that first one.
Um, it's just a case of doingit and right now it's sort of
like blocked by a few otherthings, but I would love to jump
(28:40):
on that game boy color versionand make it yeah, I love that.
Alex (28:45):
That was something that I was reading too is that you know
you've had it's almost likethis idea you had for videos
like it.
You fit it into like the youknow out of the game jam.
You're like, okay, I'm going totake this idea you had for
videos like it, you fit it intolike the you know out of the
game jam.
You're like, okay, I'm going totake this idea that I have and
I'm going to kind of mold itinto this game boy game, which,
which obviously worked.
But I'm curious, like is it?
You know, do you haveaspirations to to bring that
(29:06):
story that you know is, is, isin your mind, uh, outside of the
game boy realm, even outside ofthe, uh, the video game, even
outside?
IZMA (29:14):
of the video game.
Realm Illustration has been mybiggest thing, arguably bigger
than games all my life.
It's what I went to school for.
I always wanted to be a comicbook artist.
The story was always planned tobe a comic.
The thinking was that all thesestories would spiral off from
(29:35):
Dead Eos being the centralcharacter.
You know like how it affectedall these other characters.
And the reason that that GameBoy piece sliced off so easily
is because it was one of thelittler stories you know.
And that always was the case.
So it's always on my mind ofhow best to do this next.
You know, the thought of itbeing a comic has sort of died
(29:56):
off a little bit more with thesuccess of the game.
It seems easier for me to writeand create a game than it is to
I don't know why but write anddraw a comic.
I don't know how to explainthat, but that is the case.
Alex (30:11):
I mentioned my love for the the zelda franchise, you
know, not too long ago and it'sone of those like I do think
that, like I don't know you'retalking about this just kind of
sparks this like um, like Ithink it, I think something like
this idea and especially withyour, your illustration, like
prowess I know you mentioned,like it's easier for you to like
imagine this into the game.
(30:32):
And I bring up zel Zelda,because there's been so much
artwork and so much media that'sbeen built around that concept
and like I think that that, likeI could see that being
something that you could pursueat some point whenever you are
ready for it, like to have likea graphic novel, that or
something like that that worksoff of this.
Um, you know, this idea, thisstory, which I just think is
(30:52):
cool Because it's one of thosethings where I wouldn't say at
first glance that I would noticethis game in itself.
This story is maybe a slice ofthis greater idea, but you
saying that there's so much youcould do with that, I'm excited
to see what could become andwhat will become of the project
and it's kind of an excitingthing for me to hear that this
(31:12):
is just a sliver of the greateridea that maybe has been kicked
around in your brain for a longtime yeah, uh, for the last, I
think I've done five of them now.
IZMA (31:21):
Uh, inktober comes around every year during every day of
the month of september and thelast, um, the last few have all
been tied to Delius.
Like 5% of it is the Game Boygame stuff that people have seen
it's.
All these illustrations it'shalf me getting to the edge of
(31:43):
the diving board and being likewhat, drawing all this stuff in
the characters are always rightthere in my head of just.
I just need to get and do it.
Like I say, there's a fewthings blocking the sequel at
the minute, uh, and I'm sort ofdiverting that into other gaming
stuff at the minute.
But uh, I think it'll come oneday right on, I think it's.
Alex (32:05):
It's interesting too, like just going through your
background and stuff, and Idon't know how much you're
working on it now, but at leastnot too long ago you were
working on some vr stuff,correct?
IZMA (32:14):
yeah, that was um.
So I worked with code sync,another studio here in the uk,
and they are primarily a vrstudio.
So there was, uh, the questgame, drastic world aftermath
that we worked on over there.
I was a ui artist on that andthere's a few other similar
projects I thought it came outof them that I had hand on.
Vr is one of those things thatI think that and there's a few
other similar projects that cameout of them that I had hands on
.
Alex (32:34):
VR is one of those things that I think that like as a
platform, it's suited reallywell for horror and I'm sure
like translating this game intoa VR world.
Like that's a can of worms, I'msure, but it's another place
where it's like when I was kindof looking through and playing
this game and kind of learningmore about you, know your, your
background, like man, could youimagine like a horror game like
(32:55):
like this, like in, like as a vradventure?
That'd be nuts.
I know like there's some likewith vr itself, like is it going
to catch on to the mainstream?
I don't know, I like I don't.
I don't personally have the vrset, but like I do think that
it's a matter of time beforeit's in more households and it's
just like there's somethingabout the horror genre that like
I think suits itself very wellfor for that I mean, a lot of
(33:17):
folks probably won't try becauseit may be too scary.
IZMA (33:20):
But it goes right back to like the early days of it, like
um.
I remember like the first sortof vr thing that came to my
household was um googlecardboard, which was like oh yes
, I think the earliest version,you know, and even that when I
came out a lot of the games, ofhorror games, you know, uh, I, I
think you're exactly right, youknow, it lends itself so much
like being immersed in it.
It's like shooting games andhorror games are like the top
(33:42):
two.
Alex (33:43):
It feels like you know it's a story that a lot of
developers have is, uh, there'sscope creep.
So it's like you know, you havethis idea, you're working on it
and then you're like, like Isaid, with the vr stuff, almost
like, no matter the platform,that's always a can of worms.
It's like the next thing, thenext thing.
But I'm wondering, like beyond,you know, scope can be one of
them, but I'm wondering ifthere's any other challenges
that you face, like becauseobviously you took this beyond
(34:04):
your game jam.
I think there was like a 30-daything, uh, and then you know it
took more time and then, withthe inherent difficulties of
making sure that it was beinggood to go for for a physical
release, like I'm just wonderingif some of the other things
that you ran into and thenbasically how you overcame and
pushed through and got it towhere it is today, which is
(34:25):
beyond a physical release,multiple releases, and then
there's also part of this isprobably because of your
fantastic work as an illustrator.
There's some really coolcollector's editions.
I guess the question is, canyou tell me about that path?
How did you push through someof these challenges to get it to
where the game is today?
IZMA (34:49):
I've always said and this isn't the best advice before I
say it but if you want to findout what's wrong with a thing,
the fastest way you'll find outis by putting it on the internet
.
So many messages of like, hey,this, this and this is broken,
and obviously I wouldn't suggestjust chuck your thing online
and have it torn to pieces.
(35:09):
But it kind of goes back towhat I was saying of it being.
You know, the fact that Ichucked it up in such a bad
initial state is just atestament as much as any that I
didn't expect anyone to evenplay it, you know, uh.
And then, as I was hearingstuff come in, because I didn't
have any qa it was, it was meand my friends were playing, I
(35:30):
said it to, you know, a coupleof friends said, hey, do you
like this?
Um, but I would hesitate to sayanyone was like a qa on it, you
know.
And so, as the comments filledup on uh, itchio, or if I got a
message back, I'd jump in andfix it.
And because of how that works,I just updated the file on there
.
So it was like, you know, 1.01or something, uh, and it.
(35:53):
It got fixed as it went, whichis not the best way to do game
development, but that's how thathappened.
But then when it came to aphysical release, my God, the
amount of stress.
But knowing if anything hassnuck through it's permanently
committed to that PCB, that waspretty bad stress-wise and you
(36:20):
had to test everything to thenth degree and make sure it was
okay.
There was one issue that was inthere that got caught by a few
people, where if you mashedbuttons on the Game Boy and I
don't know what the deal was butif you mashed buttons, it would
just the character to zero,zero on a random screen and then
if they walked off the screenit would walk them to anywhere
(36:42):
else and people were gettinglike 20 second runs of the game.
Uh, like it was the 12th endingit had broken everything and, uh
, there was, there was someonewho noticed that bug, and
anywhere where my name is, youcan quite often find that one
person writing about that bug,which, oh no which became its
(37:05):
own little joke, I suppose but,um, it didn't look like we were
going to be able to fix that.
Uh, because it was a site thing.
Not to shirk blame, but it wasnot a program error.
It was on the engine site and weweren't sure if there was any
way to fix it.
And then I think it was theweek, or even a couple of days
(37:27):
before it was due to go out.
The amazing, amazing, cannotthank him enough.
Chris Maltby, who created theGVCDR engine, had a fix and
fixed it.
I thought we were going to haveto ship it with that error in
it, so that was a relief and Ithink the game's pretty clear
now.
(37:47):
So it's definitely stressful.
I think that's a long way ofsaying it's definitely stressful
.
I think that's a long way ofsaying um.
And whilst I'm on the point, Ithink you know from the bottom
of my heart and everyone else inthe scene right now, we owe
like a massive debt to chris uh,chris, for making this thing.
You know, I I tweeted him lastweek saying he's a madman for
doing so much for everyone forso little.
(38:09):
You know, um, I I certainlywouldn't.
No one would know who I was ifI hadn't made a thing with his
engine.
You know, um I I certainlywouldn't.
No one would know who I was ifI hadn't made a thing with his
engine.
You know, um, and I think it'sreally important to call that
out.
You know um.
I owe everything to chrismulvey, so that's very cool.
Alex (38:25):
I mean it's it's one of those things.
It's like he, you know, gave alot of folks the keys, almost as
you know, to be able to be ableto drive, and it's like that's
what I love is, as playing thesethings is like just seeing, you
know, when I, when I had thechance to talk to marco, like
seeing how much of himself heput in there and even talking to
you and learning more about you, is like the amount of you know
(38:45):
, your passions that ended up inthis game.
So, as you take this, uh, youknow, like you were given the
keys and you and you, basically,you know, interjected all these
cool things, like all you knowI mentioned earlier, like the
horror inspiration, but thenlike your illustrative work and
all that it's it's honestly dude, like this game has probably
got the coolest like actual cartartwork out of any of the games
(39:05):
I have.
Like the back of the pcb's gotlike some really cool, like it's
like guts or whatever, and it'slike it's just rad, it's cool,
it's like, and it's um, you know, it's really fun to see and, as
I like a collector and a gamer,it's like, uh, it's a fun, it's
a fun piece to have, it's a funpiece to play yeah, I also
appreciate it yeah, yeah, ofcourse, dude and I, I also want
to bring up too, like, uh, I'lljoke often, like I fall into
(39:26):
this trope of like I'm I'll.
Whenever I'm doing a playing agame, like I, I end up taking
the honorable route most of thetime, like if I'm like red dead
redemption 2 or whatever, likemy, my meters all the way to
like you know the the good sideor whatever, versus like the
evil side, uh, or if I'm givenchoices in a game, like I'll,
often, you know, just by natureof who I am, I'm like, oh, I
(39:46):
gotta do the good thing and whatI thought was really
interesting I don't want to giveaway.
You know there's 11 endingsthat's pretty well known of your
game and I don't want to giveaway any of this because that's
like part of the adventure, isis exploring that and I want
folks to play this.
But I, I want to bring up thefact that many of the endings
that you know that you madepushed me as a gamer to be like
okay, let's, let's test, seewhere I can go with this, and
(40:09):
like and like there isdefinitely, I would say, a more
honorable path.
But uh, you know, when I gotthat one.
I was like all right,interesting, like what else can
we do?
And it like pushes you to dosome different things.
So kudos to you for for gettingreally creative and and I would
say I'm trying to skirt aroundlike, uh, spoilers, but um, you
know, pushing and that's, that'spart of the horror tropes,
(40:29):
right?
So if you, it's almost like andI don't want to speak for you,
but I, I I would say that, asconsuming this piece of content,
I felt like you leaned into alot of really good horror tropes
that you kind of invite the,the player, to take part in.
Does that, does that registerwith you?
Does that make sense?
IZMA (40:45):
yeah, I think so, uh, to, to just take a step back, uh, on
that.
The one of the key thinkingpoints on it was I wanted to
create the space and then letthe player pick what they wanted
to do.
And that was the thinking.
With a lot of it I was like,well, what if they do this?
And I wanted something tohappen.
It's still a Game Boy game.
(41:07):
You can't do absolutelyanything in the world.
But a point of contention,right and hey, just to bring it
back to resident evil as well.
Everyone's always like, well,why don't they just leave the
house?
And I said, okay, okay, butthere wouldn't be a game.
But in the game you can justleave the village.
Because they say, well, whywouldn't they just leave the
village?
And some people get reallyupset that you can do that.
And I'm like, well, that's Iwanted it to be, that you could
(41:30):
do whatever you wanted to do.
And that was that initialthinking of, hey, design around
what they might do and make itcool in that way.
Alex (41:43):
There's some games where you go around and I'll poke
everything where it's like.
I'll go to every bookcase andsee if it has something to say
or whatever.
But I think what's interestingabout this game is that there's
a bit of that.
But I feel like the way thatyou developed it, you invited
people to poke every NPC and tosee what you can maybe do with
(42:04):
them, and I think that'ssomething that elevates it,
because there's some stuff thatyou can do with some of the
different characters that willbranch off into some of the
different endings.
IZMA (42:18):
It's like wow, like right on, you know.
So there's a few things likeI'm pretty proud of.
In that regard of like um, Ireally love the film and it was
pretty popular a while back.
But the original film, battleroyale, the japanese film.
I haven't seen that one, but ohso good, uh, and almost directly
responsible for that genre okay, yeah but, uh, a cool thing I
like about that film is, eventhough some of it's just for a
(42:41):
little bit, you have a momentwith every character.
And there's a lot of characters,you know, but you see something
to do with every single one ofthem and I watched it again
recently and you really do.
It's something that the sequelkind of loses, but in Darius,
one way or another, you're goingto talk to absolutely everyone
you know and I'm kind of proudof that as a little point, you
(43:03):
know it.
It sort of forces you to knowthese little people who don't
really even have faces, but youknow who they are and where they
are and how to find them, andI'm proud that that worked out
as well as I'd hoped that itwould.
But another thing that I reallylike is it's full of moments
that almost like a slap to theface when you realize what's
actually going on.
One of my favorite moments Isaw there was a Spanish streamer
(43:28):
played it speaking entirely inSpanish and I can't speak
Spanish so I couldn't understandwhat he was saying.
Uh, he was like live streamingon twitch.
I was watching and he washitting some of those moments
right and despite the languagebarrier, you could see that it
had shocked him and I was like,oh, it worked.
And it's little things like, uh, figuring out and entering
(43:52):
certain rooms in the game whenpeople, people, work out how to
get there.
I've seen a few people play init where they'll just pause for
a minute and be like, oh, thatactually worked.
Oh, my god, I'm really pleasedthat those certain moments hit
as much as I wanted them to hit.
I will say, to be fair to it,there are as many that don't hit
(44:14):
as I had hoped they'd hit, likethe very good ending sitting on
the mountain.
I think if that had, if I was afilmmaker rather than a Game
Boy creator, you could give thatthe beats and the weight that
it has in my head that itdoesn't have Sure, so sure.
(44:35):
It was a very, a very commonthing of when people buy into
them, going oh, that's theending, and they're incredibly
valid to say that you know, ofcourse.
And it.
To me it's just a sign that itdidn't quite catch as it does in
my head.
Alex (44:49):
So so my limitations of the hardware, I suppose stuff to
learn for the next one.
You know, uh, but you know thetwo extremes of that problem, uh
, like the most rewarding, Ithink totally tell me a little
bit about um, your path, becauseI mean, you know, there's
obviously the, the initialsuccess of you know having it
out on itch, uh, getting outthere so people can play
(45:10):
digitally.
And then, when you you know,there's the physical cartridge.
But I think what's really coolabout your game, in particular
when I look around this, thisscene, is that there's been
additional, like um, the specialreleases where it's like you
have not just the, you can get,you know the, and it has so much
additional of um, of likepieces of your artwork, whether
it's stickers, etc.
(45:31):
I'm just curious a little bithow you went down that path to
having some of these specialeditions and some of the work
that you put into them.
IZMA (45:41):
Yeah, it's been an interesting long journey up to
this point, ups and downs, leftand right.
It feels like when I first putit out, I say never had any
intention of of a physicalrelease and I didn't even know
how to address that if nothingcould happen.
(46:02):
And uh, a publisher reached outto me, you know, a couple of
months in and was asking for allthese things that at that time
I couldn't do.
You know, gb studio couldn't doat the time either.
And I was lucky to be workingwith a uh, an ex-member of
vicarious visions, someone who'dworked on the gba ports of tony
(46:24):
hawks games and stuff oh cool,someone who really knows the ins
and outs of programming notusing a visual script,
programming for the game boy andhe couldn't work out what this
publisher was asking me to do.
Oh, interesting, you know thatended up going south because I
was like I can't hit what you'reasking me for.
And then after that I movedback to the UK because I was
(46:46):
living in the US at the time andI Spacebot, who's another Gb
Studio developer.
He reached out to me and he waslike hey, why don't we do this
physically?
And he wasn't, you know, he waspublishing games, but he wasn't
a publisher, it was justSpacebot.
And he said look, here's how wecan do it.
(47:07):
Do you want to do it?
He, I cannot say enough goodwords about him.
You know he's, I still talk tohim every day.
I cannot say enough good wordsabout him.
You know he's, I still talk tohim every day.
I talked to him just thismorning.
Nice, I love the guy's piecesand he helped put that first
edition together.
You know there aren't many ofthem out there in the world now
but the Spacebot edition of thegame has a little Spacebot bar
on it and it's got some littlelike, some little unique pieces
(47:30):
to it that some people havefound and some people haven't.
But if you can find a space botversion, that's that's my
favorite.
So that happened.
And then the thing of that andI'm sure you wouldn't mind me
saying is it, it really reallywas like a one man and his
family operation of he.
You know, he folded and gluedand assembled those cartridges
(47:53):
all himself.
I was feeding him the artworkand he was showing me pictures
of just all the stuff in hishouse and there was hundreds of
them.
So infinite gratitude to thatman for doing that.
It got to a point where he waslike I can't be doing this all
myself.
And that's where Incubator camein, which was the current
publisher, and we did thestandard edition, which is the
(48:17):
same cover art just with theIncubate banner on the side.
There is a special edition withthe alternate art which I
commissioned one of my favoriteartists for years and years and
years.
An artist who goes under thename Witness the Absurd, who has
just released Slave Zero zero x, a cool new indie game, um.
(48:37):
So that was cool to get to, towork with them, uh.
And then there was the bigcollector's box which has the uh
, you know, the art book andmusic and all that in it.
Um, we got to do anotherrelease of the music, um, which
the amazing stew buzz, to be oneof my best friends on the
planet, did all the music.
And we got to do a cd releaseof that collector's edition, um,
(48:59):
which was very cool.
Uh, yeah, it's sort of like allalmost come.
Naturally, it feels like, uh,you know, these things seem to
find me somehow and, uh, it's,uh, just a case of making it as
cool as we can, you know I lovethat totally.
Alex (49:18):
That's that's.
That's a lot of fun to hear it.
I think it's um, you know, asan observer, it's really easy to
just assume that, uh, you knowthat that journey wouldn't be as
as personal as you described.
You know, like that, you like,okay, like I, I didn't, I didn't
know.
I I've followed a little bit ofincubate, um, not incubate well
, incubate as well, but spacebots, you know his his journey a
(49:38):
little bit.
I did miss out on that firstrelease, so I won't be able to
look at my shelf and see whatyou're talking about.
But but now I'm very curious.
Uh, I do remember, though, likewhen that came out I was just a
little slow on, you know, Ithink I was.
It was around the time when Iwas like more into my collecting
journey.
I just fell back intocollecting a little bit, but it
was one I just missed out on.
And then I was happy when I wasable to get a physical version
(50:00):
from Incubate.
But it's cool to hear that verypersonal journey.
And then I read and heard aboutthe collaborations you did with
your buddy to be able to makethe music, and it's just like,
and that sounds kind of cheesy,but it's definitely an instance
where you're an indie dev, it'sa solo project, but it, you know
(50:21):
, it still took.
It still took your village man.
It's like it's kind of fun tohear that, as opposed to being
like, oh, I don't know, I justhad this idea and you know, the
suits came and they bought itfrom me and told me this is is
what we're doing, so that's cool.
IZMA (50:35):
One of my favorite stories of it.
I've told this before but I'lltell it again.
Stu Busby is a machine, thecomposer for the game.
I used to be in a band with himin my teenage years, back when
I had hair.
When I was doing that game jam,I reached out to him and I was
like hey, I'm doing this thing,Do you think you could do music?
(50:57):
Can you help me out with themusic?
And he made these sixincredible tracks for the game,
but they were made in a fileformat that couldn't be used in
GV Studio, Because back thenit's different and I've got to
be honest, I don't understandall the ins and outs of the
music side, but there was somespecific way of setting it all
(51:20):
up.
I was frantically doing my sideof the game jam.
It was becoming more and moreapparent that those six tracks
that Stu had made, he was like Idon't know if this is going to
work.
I don't think this is going totranslate, I might not be able
to do it.
I was like that's fine, man,this is all for fun, which again
it was.
At the time I was like don'tworry about it, I really
(51:43):
appreciate it.
You've made six amazing trackshere.
I appreciate that it got downto the deadline.
He went hey, how about this?
He sent 20 tracks perfectly inthe format, and all of you know
there's there's a ton of musicin the game and it's all here,
right, and uh, you just told meyou couldn't do six and there's
(52:04):
more than double that of thisincredible music and he's like I
can't do six, but I can do 20and that's that's stew to a t.
The man is amazing.
I I don't have enough goodwords and I just love that story
.
Perfect sort of example of him.
I'm really grateful as wellthat we did a cassette release
with Spacebot and we did a CDrelease with Incubate, and those
(52:25):
tracks are on.
I think they're on both ofthose formats, so nothing went
to waste.
Alex (52:28):
Oh, very cool.
IZMA (52:30):
Yeah, that's one of my favorite bits of working on it.
Alex (52:39):
Whatever I work on next, I hope that it gets steve
involved, because I love him.
Is there anything that you gotcooking?
Is there any?
Do you have any ideas whetherthat's uh, you know, uh, that he
is two, or something else likewhat are you playing around with
these days?
IZMA (52:46):
so that is two.
Currently is on the back burner, although it's it's.
Everything's been written downand planned.
When it's when it's time to hit, to hit that.
I'm ready to go on it.
Right now I haven't talkedabout it too much because I was
keeping it kind of quiet, butI'm working on a new Game Boy
Color game and I think it'sgoing to be exclusive to the
Game Boy Color called.
Ceramica.
It's going to be another horrorgame, but we're going for body
(53:11):
horror and slasher like 80s onthis.
I think there was a massiveinflux of horror now on the game
boy, but it's a lot ofpsychological horror.
There's not a lot of straightup video nasty 80s blood and
guts and I'd love to see if Ican hit that.
(53:31):
You know to be the next thingof like, hey, let's push this
down the line, you know.
Alex (53:34):
Yeah, I'd love to see if I can hit that you know to be the
next thing of like, hey, let'spush and start on the line.
You know, yeah, I'd love to seeit.
Man, I know that, um, you knowI mentioned earlier in our talk
that I've been following you oninstagram for a while now.
So every once in a while you'llpost like uh, because you're I
mean, you're not lying dudeyou're into the horror genre, so
you like there's some likevideos.
Like you posted some like uh,different, like um, you're
watching whatever movie and I'mlike what is this crazy stuff
that he's watching?
But, man, I would love to seethat translated into your next
(53:57):
game.
It'd be a lot of fun.
IZMA (53:58):
Well, let's hope it all works out.
Right now I am activelydeveloping it.
It's what I'm going to dostraight off this call.
Alex (54:06):
Oh cool cool.
IZMA (54:08):
In my head I could see this being something really cool
.
I sent the story off to anotherdeveloper I'm close friends
with this morning and he's theonly person who's heard the
story and he seemed way into it.
So I'm like, oh Very cool.
I don't often like to share whatI'm doing.
You know, if I'm honest, I'membarrassed about my writing.
(54:30):
I've never shared any of itbefore Deadious.
But that's another shot in thearm of let's get this done
Totally In terms of what thegame will look and feel like.
Right now I'm playing aridiculous amount of Mega man
Extreme on the Game Boy Color,trying to work out how they've
(54:51):
done all of that.
Alex (54:52):
You're a masochist.
IZMA (54:54):
That's going to be the big one, a platformer game.
I'm going to try and have ithave as much story as Dead Ears
did, but with more cutscene artin it.
Alex (55:04):
Very cool.
IZMA (55:07):
I look back at Dead Ears now and it was a fast, Like I
said, Game Jam is quite fastmade.
I think there's a lot more Icould do you know like uh, if I
went whole hog on the thing andin color.
Um, so I'm excited.
I hope I can do it.
Uh, the I was working on thegame a little while back.
Uh called severin and it kindof it fell apart.
(55:30):
The final hurdle and that waswas an embarrassing blocker on
that, but Ceramica comesdirectly out of it.
Anything I took from that gamethat did work really well is put
straight into this and thethings that didn't work have
been cut out.
It's an organic way of movingforward, like a lateral step and
keep going on.
Alex (55:50):
I was excited about it.
Yeah, you got me excited.
Man Ceramica.
IZMA (55:56):
I hope it works.
I've, uh, I've been so likedripping, uh, I'm trying to give
it like a you know all the boxart, manual art.
I think I'm going to try and dodigital painting, like hit it
in a style I've never reallydone before and, uh, I hope it's
.
It seems like it's going to belike a fulfilling thing to to
make you know I don't want totake too much more of your time.
Alex (56:17):
I want you to get working on this game.
So, but, uh, but thanks so much, adam, you know.
Thanks for for joining me today, uh, to talk a little bit about
, about your journey, and andfor detius, and then also for
you know, for you know where yougot, where you got cooking, and
uh, if you could just quicktell us where listeners can find
your game and where to followyou online you find the game for
(56:37):
free.
IZMA (56:38):
Uh, hio uh is my hio, I think it is.
Um, I'll send you a link tochuck anywhere.
Instagram, uh, izma is myhandle, uh, and then I'm on
pretty much everything else.
I am currently trying trying tokeep a Patreon going.
I'm updating every three days,no matter what I'm working on.
(57:00):
I'm keeping a decent log of it.
The most recent post I put onthere was how I keep on top of
my projects and sort of be myown producer on games.
So I'm trying to fill it withexactly how I do, what I do or
what I've been up to.
I'm sort of also working onthat.
But yeah, if you search IzmaI-Z dot M-A, you can find me
(57:24):
pretty much anywhere.
Alex (57:25):
Right on.
Well, thanks so much, man.
Again.
Appreciate your time truly, andalso for all the love and work
you put into this game and superexcited to you know follow your
journey into the next game itmeans the world to me to hear
that, uh, it really does.
IZMA (57:41):
it means a lot, it really does, thank you, bye.
Thanks for watching.
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