Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
John (00:00):
This episode is dedicated
to the people in Ukraine
currently being invaded by Russia.
There are a bunch of devs that I've workedwith directly or indirectly in and around.
And while I'm on the other side of theworld and doing what I can to raise
awareness as to what's going on, shoutout to a few of the other shops who've
taken proceeds from their game sales andselling them to the relief efforts or
families in need out there to particular11 bid studios taking over $800,000
(00:24):
in from sales of this war of mine.
Now hit my music.
On episode 28 of the game, developerspodcasts out of play area as GDC 2022
kicks off live for the first time.
Since all of this madness started,we welcome Alan Blaine, a good homie
in a principal technical designer atBungie whom I had the great benefit of
(00:48):
working alongside of down at rockstarSan Diego on red, dead redemption
one and two, as well as GTA five.
Big shout out to employed you for gettingthis one cleared in time to promote his
talk for GDC going live this Wednesday, Ibelieve entitled 1000 hours of difficulty,
how destiny builds systemic challenge.
You know, we're going to getinto it and break down how he did
(01:11):
whatever it took, whether it wasprogramming, writing important.
Breaking down systems to call andscratches way into the industry at
Z axis, where he worked on Thrasher.
Then when he went over to Westwood, whenit became part of EA where he worked on
earth and beyond, and then getting in atrockstar where he worked on the warriors
in Toronto, we'll definitely get intoit and talk about what life is like at
(01:32):
punchy as a principal tech designer.
And of course get into thecraft that is tech design and.
Please welcome a neighbor out herein Seattle by way of California
Allen brain less fall out.
Catherine (01:51):
Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome
to the out play area podcast, a show
by video game devs for game devs,where the guests open up one-on-one
about their journey, their experiences,their views, and their ideas.
No ads, no bullshit.
Join us as we venture far outof the play area with your host
seasoned game designer, John Diaz
Alan B (02:15):
My game time for non destiny
games is like o'clock to eight o'clock
in the morning, drinking my coffeefinished up my daily chores and animal
crossing my wife and I have notmissed a date animal crossing since the
pandemic started and the game came out,
I visited family last August and mywife stayed here to deal with the cats.
(02:35):
she played those threedays for me in the morning.
I've done to the point where I'm justharvesting fruit and doing my Nick
miles chores and then every month orso we replaced a villager with another
villager and but like every single day,like did not have a streak like that.
Even when I was heavy into ourEverQuest where I play every
day for a year and a half.
Almost two years.
It's closing in on two years,
(02:56):
it's closing on two we've got it in likea, I think March 25th and March 26th.
Because I grabbed it going like,Hey, I bet my wife might like it.
She doesn't normally playa lot of video games, but
might connect with who boy thatshe connected with animal crossing.
John (03:08):
Ah, damn Nintendo where
Alan B (03:10):
Yeah.
John (03:11):
So that's a game that you guys share
I know you're a big board gamers together,
it's nice that she has adigital game that you guys share
equal responsibility on,
Alan B (03:21):
more than equal responsibility,
she spends way more time up houses and
doing all sorts of stuff like that.
in it for like the shared feeling, butI'm like, if I dress properly every day.
my dress style and animal crossing iswhatever the villagers, give me as gifts.
I'll just throw it on right away.
And I don't have an actual style So endsup being a mish-mash of random things and
(03:42):
random colors that they happen to give me.
John (03:45):
What are you drinking?
Alan B (03:46):
I am drinking?
View Carre new Orleans, 1930s cocktail.
Ry Coniac sweet vermouth.
bitters, some Benedictine.
John (03:56):
Benedictine.
Alan B (03:57):
it's a real nice drink.
It's got some spice to it.
A little sweet.
John (04:00):
I remember when we were rolling
around the Gaslamp district, you were the
guy that put me on to like old fashions.
I think I had my first old fashionsrolling around with you and it like
a nice evolution in that direction.
Alan B (04:12):
back then, that was
like 20 12, 20 11, 20 13.
That timeframe my cocktail palettewas still just starting to develop,
John (04:21):
yeah.
Alan B (04:21):
I mean, I still enjoy a good old
fashioned and whatnot, but like now I'm
like, I can probably make drinks everyweekend and probably not make a duplicate,
year, right?
Like I've got a well-stocked barn canup all sorts of interesting cocktails.
We got into making someinfused gin over the holidays.
So I have about a half a bottle ofcranberry view's gin sitting in my
storage to make and winter he drinks,
(04:43):
obviously now it's getting a littlepast the cranberry time, but yeah.
It's good stuff.
John (04:47):
Coming off of beers
that was kinda what we did.
Right.
Hitting up the street anddrinking, whatever was on draft.
Alan B (04:53):
my beer intake these
days is pretty minimal.
I discovered I had anallergic reaction to hops,
so I've, I have be a real carefulabout, heavily hopped, like anything
like over like an IBU of like 30 or 40.
I can maybe have a half abeer and I'll be all right.
but I have to really like go Okay.
if I'm going to have a full IPA,
I have to, be like, that's allI'm bringing for the nine brick
(05:13):
and water the rest of the night.
And like, that's just all I'm having.
otherwise my stomach is not happy at all.
John (05:18):
That's a hefty price, man.
It's messed up.
How the body betrays us after the years,right after so many years of abusing it
in our twenties and early thirties,
it decides to fight back,
Alan B (05:28):
I suspect there's a lot of stress
that we went through in those days.
Cause you know, day in, day out, lotof stress, the body, like Mary, is
that feeling of stress with thoseflavors and those tastes right.
And goes like, here's what I'm gonnastart negatively, reacting to those
things that you were adjoining those timeswhen you normally felt stressed and go,
like, not going to have those anymore.
Like I don't want those anymore.
John (05:49):
your body makes these connections.
do the same that somebody put outthere and it's kind of really resonated
with me, was like, drink, not tofeel better, but drink when you're
already feeling good kind of thing,yeah, I think that would have kind
of alleviated that, but it's crazy.
Cause you know, when you, when you'restressed, there's this kind of connotation
of like, let's blow off some steam,
Alan B (06:06):
Yup.
John (06:06):
let's go unwind
Alan B (06:08):
Right.
John (06:08):
we choose to.
Alan B (06:09):
Depending on the situation
you're in there is like what it takes
to get through the day sometimes.
Right.
John (06:14):
Yes,
Alan B (06:15):
it's not good.
Like, you know, and I, I thinkwe're both in a much better
mental health wise than we were back then.
but sometimes you just got like,this is where I'm in right now.
I'm not, you know, I'm notin a place where I can do
anything about the situation, so
I just need to get through it.
yeah.
John (06:29):
ago, mental health
wasn't even really a notion.
It wasn't out there in media publications.
People weren't really talking about
this.
Alan B (06:37):
we certainly didn't
focus on it the way we do now.
it's definitely good that we do.
It's been a huge learning experiencefor me, trying to figure out how to deal
with day-to-day and having good mentalhealth and good sort of work-life balance.
John (06:48):
Hmm.
Alan B (06:49):
cause you know, we have
a great work-life balance, right?
Like we did some fun stuff on thenights and the weekends, but you know,
it was also a lot of, work, hard hard
John (06:56):
Yes.
Alan B (06:57):
Which doesn't always make
for a good work-life balance.
John (06:59):
talk to me about taking time and
being able to put together a GDC talk.
We got to
a 20, 21 panel together talkingabout tech design, which was awesome.
I had a blast helping to put it together.
wouldn't have been anything if youdidn't participate in that with
a few of the other people on thepanel, that seemed to light a bug in
Alan B (07:20):
hell yeah.
John (07:21):
now 22, what's going on.
Alan B (07:24):
Yeah.
I definitely think I'm goingto be trying to put together
talks for GDCs going forward.
This talk grew out of an internaltalk I gave, essentially.
we, we built the difficulty systemfor night falls and raids and
loss sectors over the last fewyears continually iterating on it.
But it was mostly me doing the work dayin day out a lot of the early part of it.
(07:46):
Anyway.
And as we started bringing more andmore people online, to having to
really formalize the design philosophyaround the difficulty system.
Whereas I had, internalized it andI could talk with people about it,
but I'd never written it it down ina way that somebody could use as a
guide without interacting with me.
Right.
So like, it was sort of thetribal knowledge and we documented
the what but not the why.
(08:08):
so then, as we started handing it over tothe more people to extend, need to know
the why is not just the, what, so theycan make intelligent design decisions that
maintain the core pillars going forward.
Right.
So I need to basicallywrite down the core pillars.
At the same time I saw a lot ofdiscussion in our community about.
What we're doing and why we're doing it.
And tell me the informationwas like, spot on.
(08:29):
And some of it was like,wildly speculative, like, Okay.
they actually don't understandwe're going for with this.
And so it was just I wanted to getit all down in front of me and go,
here's the entirety of the system.
And here's all the inputs,here's all the outputs.
And here's why we do these things.
Which is what I'm giving a GDC, which islike, let's just lay out the whole system
for people that aren't internal and talkabout the decision making process and
(08:51):
the development process that led us tofocus on various aspects of it at launch
at the cadence we did and then sortof tips and tricks on how to do that.
And, it's kind of funny becausein the talk, there are a couple of
avenues that I don't go down whereI go, like, I can walk you down this
avenue, that's a whole nother talk.
I could walk you down this avenue, butit's a whole nother talk and I'm not the
person that give either of those talks.
(09:13):
Like these are people that I work withthat provide me with, a whole swath of
new and interesting things to talk about.
But those aren't mine.
John (09:20):
What's the name of the talk?
Alan B (09:21):
thousand hours of difficulty,
how destiny build systemic challenge.
John (09:25):
that's a
great
name, right?
Like it's like what thousandhours of difficulty?
Like, how the heck do we scale that?
Alan B (09:31):
Right?
years ago some of the halodevs from Bungie gave a talk
called 30 seconds of fun.
And so it was a play off of that30 seconds of fun of like all of
halo and destiny built on liketaking that 30 seconds of fun and
stretching out the full missions.
So lot of the destiny missions orstrikes your rage, your Dudgeon
and stuff like that are really fun.
This talk is about how we take thisreally fun activity, which uses all the
(09:53):
principles about encounter design andactivity design to make one, you know, 15
minute, 30 minute, hour long experience.
Amazing.
And how do we go, like, how do we buildfour or five versions of that with the
starting data in a way that doesn'ttake, hundreds of hours of dev time in
a way that takes like hours of dev time,
John (10:10):
Yeah.
Alan B (10:10):
right?
That's what we're looking for.
We're looking for something thatpeople can play for, you know, a
hundred thousands of people can playit every week we spent hours total.
because we already had a reallysolid first activity, then how
do we transform it into somethingthat is engaging over the long run
over multiple difficulty levels.
So, you know, you canchoose what you're, for.
What's accessible to you right now, whatyour gear level is at all the different
(10:33):
things that boil into it, who you canget on the, plane with you right now.
we want that kind of set up.
So you have multiple levelsof difficulty to play.
And that's where the thousandhours of difficulty came from.
John (10:43):
I remember studying, it was around
2004, 2006 around probably, I don't know,
halo three Thomas, something like that.
And yeah, that 32nd game playnugget or the core game combat loop.
That
Alan B (10:54):
Yup.
John (10:54):
was something that at least
some of the teachers I was with
at the time, really latched on to.
Right.
And it's yeah, this is thething that game just builds.
of at least gameplay wise.
Right.
like this 30 seconds and then player theend, the out and let them repeat this
and master this and make this engaging.
Right.
Alan B (11:10):
you can still see that all the
way through stuff you see in destiny toot
that's, you know, command, which queen
you can still see that 30 secondsof fun that DNA of bungee is
through all the way throughfrom the last 20 years what we
put out, like every months now,
John (11:24):
years, man.
That's a good
Alan B (11:26):
now,
John (11:27):
now under the Sony
umbrella for from Microsoft, then inthe, or kind of partnered with Activision
Alan B (11:35):
Yup.
John (11:36):
is on the Microsoft.
And then you guys are partnered with Sony
Alan B (11:39):
Yeah.
John (11:39):
times, man, wild times.
Alan B (11:42):
It's, pretty wild.
Yes.
Like it's pretty wild.
John (11:45):
which queen, which Queens coming
or which queen is out by the time?
This, episode airs.
How
was that?
Alan B (11:51):
which is going to be fantastic.
I am like stoked about the narrative.
is building up a confrontation with thevillain that we've been building up for.
I don't know how many years, herbrother was the main villain in
the first expansion of destiny.
and so there's been indications thatshe's been a lot of strings and a lot
of the narrative beats over the lastfew years about what's going on and
(12:13):
she's finally in the forefront now.
And so like actually having tocontend with her is absolutely
amazing because she's queenof lies, she is trickster God.
And so like having to deal withher after all the things she's been
in, disguise, walking among us, allthat stuff, it's really fantastic.
But of course my team does some workon anything related to the story or the
story missions or anything like that.
(12:33):
So I get to see it halfway in asa dev and halfway in as a fan.
I'm, really looking forward to it.
John (12:40):
that's a good segue.
you are today, a principaltech designer, apple and GE.
Talk to me about what aday in the life is like.
Alan B (12:48):
So principal tech designer is
the, IC branch of how you move up, right?
So at a certain point in your developerlife cycle, you have to make a hard
decision about whether you want to be amanager or a person that checks stuff.
Right.
And certainly you can hybridizeand it always gets uncomfortable.
Certainly at rockstar.
I was doing both.
but you struggle with it, right?
And so as you get higher and higherup, as the projects get bigger and
(13:10):
bigger, if you're going to manager orcreative leader role you're going to be
doing less and less sort of daily work.
I'm in a position where I can
do 50% creative leadership,50% IC which is nice.
Depending on that, depending on the weekI might be fixing bugs or looking at a
new tool to build, or sort of aligningacross the studio with what we want to do
(13:32):
for trials of a Cyrus, our PVP offerings.
Right.
So I'm consistently a hybrid.
My first job in the industry, Iwas a designer slash programmer,
like on my business card.
So I've pretty consistently been hybrid.
I sit uncomfortably in that, like,I need to be creative leadership.
But I don't want to onlydo creative leadership.
I need to be working on like day to day,like having meetings with other designers,
(13:55):
figuring out what the workflow should belike, but I don't only want to do that.
And so I kind of, do both, so.
It really depends on the week this lastweek I just spent most of the week working
on our our internal sort of newsletterthat we put out every week called the
twat or this week at Bungie where webasically talk about upcoming stuff.
We went into a significant amount ofdetail about the rework of gambit,
(14:15):
one of our PVE VP game modes do.
And so I was working with communitymanagers all week long sort of
working on like, Hey, here'swhat we want to talk about.
How do we tell people about it?
What do we need to show?
How do we, how do we goabout talking about this?
Right.
There was a bunch of timeworking on that, which is full-on
creative leadership level stuff.
like.
the work that we did on itwas months in the past, right?
(14:37):
checked the last thing and threemonths ago, but it's coming out.
So we actually have to talk about it now.
we have a community summit every once ina while where we members of the community.
show them things that arecoming up in the game.
Like not stuff That's coming out nextweek, but stuff to be coming out three
months or six months from now, get theirfeedback on it, talk them through it.
You know, it's an easy way to sortof really get some feedback from
them on how players are going toreact to this, what we need to do
(15:00):
and what changes should we make.
and so I spent an hourtalking with community members
just to talk to them and go, like, if wedo this, what are the important things
that you want to hear as a player?
So for example, gambit, we have donea community summit for gambit before,
and I was like, I laid out like all thedesign goals and then all the iteration,
all the things that we're going to do.
And each one they'll have questions aboutit same thing will happen when we put
(15:24):
the game out, people will do this andthey'll post about it on Twitter or Reddit
or forums and give feedback that way.
This is just a way to get thatfeedback early so we can go actually,
maybe we should make a change here.
And that's where thereal valuable stuff is.
We can actually make changes beforethe game comes out based off of
what the community thinks about it.
I spent a bunch of time workingon, PowerPoint deck showing,
(15:45):
all the stuff getting pictures,getting screenshot to show it.
It might be like that kind of stuff.
John (15:49):
cool.
I mean games, right?
The necessary evil of interactive withthe community and listening to them
and taking their feedback in.
Alan B (15:56):
I love the community.
I really do.
Like I spend a bunch oftime every day on, Reddit.
Looking for community reactionsand stuff that my team is
working on the general game too.
Right.
Cause if you hear, sometimesyou hear grumblings about stuff
that people aren't happy about.
And you might have some control overlike pushing to get something done.
Definitely don't hit me up.
So I'm not changing the thing.
If you, if you DM me on Twitterthat I'm not that's not the right
(16:19):
avenue I need to, process what Iread and sort of think about it.
John (16:22):
Yeah.
I imagine you guys have some type ofmechanism for community engagement,
right?
Like getting you all that informationand metrics where you don't have
to kind of individually go and
Alan B (16:32):
I'm reading it to try to
grab like the vibe of it, but we have
amazing player support and communitymanagers that do most of that work.
I'm just have you everseen clockwork orange John?
Right.
I like reading Reddit.
I'm like, I'm like, you know, holding myeyes open, just letting the waterfall of
like of information kind of come through.
that's why I feel like sometimes so, youknow, normally when we give feedback in
(16:55):
the studio, we try to give constructivefeedback, even if we're something, even
if we're like this, isn't good.
We kind start talking about why it'snot good and how you can approach it
and how you can fix it stuff like that.
And It's should be a real positive,constructive conversation,
right?
John (17:08):
When you say constructive
feedback, what do you mean by that?
Like, Feedback in any nature, right.
Is like, I don't like somethingor it sucks or it's awesome.
Alan B (17:16):
So constructive feedback a lot of
times is you start with the assumption
that somebody is to do their best.
You what I'm saying?
Like that is the base assumption.
So if you always come from that placewhere you're, you're making that
assumption that somebody is earnest.
what they're trying to do.
You can have a discussion aboutyou didn't like specifically.
(17:38):
of times you don't want to come from the,like, I didn't like this one aspect, but
like, I didn't like how it made me feel.
Right.
So that, so you got to bringin sort of like, not the thing
itself, the emotional reaction tothe thing that it sparked in me.
Right.
Because you don't know why theyput it in You have to assume
they did it for a good reason.
So there's a reason they did something.
And so you want to just saylike, Hey, when this happened,
(18:00):
this is how it made me feel.
If you can do that, and I'm notgreat at always doing this sometimes
I'm way too blunt in my feedback.
that's where it starts, becausethen you're talking about the
intent of it the thing itself.
John (18:11):
There you go.
Alan B (18:12):
And so like, this thing that
you did, I'm open to that thing.
Even if I don't like it rightnow, as long as it doesn't trigger
these negative, reactions from me.
Right.
but I'm not going to hold something.
Like, if you don't change this,
I'm going to being angry at it, which I'venot always done very well in my career.
I've gotten way better at
that's where I start is I have to like,think about not the thing itself, but the
(18:35):
thing and the reaction it provoked in me.
then maybe a suggestion for how a thingthat would have solved the problem for me.
Right.
if you would have done this,I, that's not always necessary,
but there's always a nice thing.
You can go.
like, this is the solution, but like,if it had done this instead of this,
your goals, like this would have madethat problem that I had with it go away.
And as a design lead, you have
(18:55):
go, like, I'm happy to hear your goals.
And but you know, a feedbacksession, isn't the right place
to solve the problem usually.
Right,
John (19:01):
That's a great line
in the sand to draw, right?
It's where were you about solving andsolutions in another forum or medium?
This one is just about gettingall the sentiment and everything
Alan B (19:11):
right,
John (19:11):
out.
I like that in this role as a techdesigner, what I heard you say is that
you get to still live in documentationand putting pictures together and
Alan B (19:20):
Yup.
John (19:20):
and in there interacting
with the community, as well as the
things you would imagine a techdesigner is involved in, right?
Alan B (19:26):
Yup.
John (19:26):
tools and pipelines and
Alan B (19:29):
Hmm.
John (19:30):
And then, you know, on
top of that, there is an area
of management and leadership.
So you're pretty well coveredand spread out into all these,
quadrants the design umbrella.
how do you go about protecting your time?
Right.
So to allow you to do allthese very important things
Alan B (19:47):
as a manager.
I basically have a half-hour synconce a week with all my reports.
weekly half-hour sank.
in the, before times, When we allmet in person at the office we would
do hourly once every two weeks.
But I've found that the more oftentouching base and lighter touches,
so it's less stressful if you missa week, it's not that big a deal.
(20:08):
If you, if you're doing only every otherweek and you miss a week, it's really bad.
Cause when you're a month beforesort of having a sank, but yeah,
lighter touches more often,and that helps B react quicker.
If something is going wrong and I needto, I need to jump in and help out.
that's worked really well.
And I try to schedule them for youknow, before the start of the Workday,
essentially, you know, like 9, 9 30 know,I mean, breakfast, let's just have a chat.
(20:29):
Like it's not a big deal.
It's like, what are you thinking?
What are you working on?
are your problems?
Like, what's stressing you out.
How are things going at home?
How are things going in your life?
especially during COVID,people's struggle for
John (20:39):
Yeah.
Alan B (20:40):
of good reasons, right.
sometimes don't have anything todo with your day-to-day at work.
Right.
but sometimes if you can find away to help your reports have an
easier time at their job because oftheir stresses at home day-to-day or
something's going on in their life.
always a good thing.
So I always want, I tryto touch it touch base.
And so that's protected time.
for my IC time, I have a three hourmeeting from three o'clock to six
(21:02):
o'clock blocked out five days a week
John (21:04):
Hey,
Alan B (21:05):
is called the IC time.
And so nobody can add, orit is hard for people to add
meetings right in those times.
it's often not icy time, butit is time that I can work on
whatever needs to be worked on.
So sometimes it's bug fixing andadding features to the tools.
Or sometimes it's like, no, Ireally needed to work on this
PowerPoint or this documentation.
John (21:24):
Heads down.
Alan B (21:25):
three to six every day.
because if you don't, it gets eaten up bymeetings and then you'll have like half
an hour and then another being a halfan hour and another being, and you can,
you can't get anything done in a half an
without that focus time, you have to take15, 20 minutes just to start focusing.
And then you're in anothermeeting by the time you get there.
John (21:40):
Yeah, it was a great call, right?
It takes some time to rampback up to being in that zone.
Right.
Alan B (21:45):
Yeah.
John (21:45):
kind of best work.
I like that, man.
I'm going to definitely plus one thatto people listening is out your time.
Don't feel bad about it, protectit, throw it in the calendar.
So people know, especially whereeverything is a meeting and
it's virtual and I'm with you.
I find that to kind of ease into the day.
Right.
Get all the meetings out of theway and all the hypotheticals and
(22:06):
conversations and one-offs, andthen kind of hit your stride after
you've had some lunch or whatever.
And this guy, let me focus on some things.
Alan B (22:13):
can always tell people
that like, I'm struggling
finding a time to have a meeting.
You can be like, justdo it at four o'clock.
Cause you know, like youcan, you can give them that
but they're not allowed to scheduleit without your permission,
which is what I like.
Right,
John (22:25):
forced them to reach out to you.
Alan B (22:27):
Otherwise between 10,
10 to three and actually two
to three has played test time.
So it's really tended to,
John (22:32):
Do you guys do daily play tests?
Alan B (22:34):
Well, we have a pretty
strong playtest philosophy.
My team is running play tests onwhatever content we need every
day, but Friday two to three.
so if that's a PVP play test orwhile sector play test, or what
have you, we have lots of differentstuff that we have play tests?
for on my team that we're responsible for.
But we, we have that timeblocked out basically.
John (22:54):
That's awesome, man.
I love seeing that.
I love seeing a healthy gameplay slashdesign team and whatever culture, right.
That it kind of has this mechanism whereevery day people are going through the
cycle of latest and greatest, getting itloaded and just kind of everybody knows
like, Hey, this time playing it together.
I think that's a great cultureto have at any development house.
And it always surprises me when Isee places that just get very far
(23:17):
removed from the game that they'renot actively installing it, but oh,
I haven't sunk in or so, or, youknow, I've been crashing forever.
So I just kind of haven't touched much,you know, I've been focusing on this.
kind of flag to me.
I mean, there's places that still thrivelike that, but I like to hear frequent
playtests and it's part of the team
Alan B (23:36):
one of the things that
our game director last year Joe
Blackburn did, was put a meeting oneverybody's calendar from 10 to noon
on Fridays.
That's like retail playtime.
Like we have a
service.
And so everybody at the company,and obviously some people go
like, I don't need to play today.
I didn't got to have a
John (23:51):
yeah.
Alan B (23:52):
people are playing and we
have active like teams, channels,
where people are looking for groups ofstuff to do on Friday retail playtime.
And that's a really great thingwhen you're running a live service
game, give people time to playthe game live like a player does.
Right.
You will get better ideas and betterresponsiveness out of those people.
If they're given some time now, you know,I, I play a lot more than that, like
(24:15):
those two hours, I, play those two hoursevery week It's really important time.
For everybody to play as a lead you needto always try to exhibit good behaviors.
And if I'm skipping that playtime andpeople understand that I'm skipping
that playtime, then they'll feel morepressure to skip that playtime also.
John (24:31):
Yeah.
Be a good role model.
People will copy you whetheryou intend to or not.
But Hey, my leads are not in there then.
I guess the expectationis that I'm not in there.
I'm working on something.
Alan B (24:42):
Yep.
this is something that I usedto do all the time especially
for the first year or so.
The pen DEMEC I basically would tell her,tell everybody on like a social change.
And my team, I came out for the nightat six o'clock when I logged off, you
know, cause I work from nine to six,take an hour long break, but I try
to keep very strict, eight hour days.
John (25:00):
Yeah.
Alan B (25:00):
like I log off at six o'clock and
I want people to know I'm logging off six.
O'clock like, you'renot expected to be here.
not like your lead is staying untileight or nine o'clock every night.
And so everybody's like,are we allowed to leave?
Obviously, whenever everybody's workingfrom home, it's not quite like that,
John (25:13):
Yeah.
Alan B (25:14):
I want to exhibit good behavior.
And so I'm, I stopped doing itbecause didn't feel like people were
responding to it socially, is fine.
Like, I wasn't getting thatfeedback of like, Hey, can I
talk to you later or see you
tomorrow?
But then I heard from some producersthat they missed that, they felt
like that was a huge positive.
So I started doing it again.
Like basically didn't want togo like, Hey, I'm logging off.
here's my work-life boundarysix o'clock I'm logging off.
(25:35):
And I'm telling you, I'm notdoing any more work tonight.
Right.
And so it's okay if you do that too.
what the boundaries are.
Like, not expected towork ridiculous hours.
in COVID times when everybody's athome, sometimes it's nice to know that.
Cause it's really easy
sort of rabbit hole.
Then end up working untileight or nine o'clock at night
without realizing
John (25:52):
That, that bit mean
the book in the first year.
Right.
And it's like, wow, why doI feel kind of burnt out?
And I'm at home and I wasn't puttingthose boundaries and I like also,
because especially on large teams, youown dedicated portions of the game and
you're only kind of ever looking at that.
Right.
(26:12):
So having these play tests,especially on retail, I love that
you called up that it was retail
Alan B (26:16):
Yeah,
John (26:17):
you most likely are guaranteed
to learn about something you
didn't even know was in the game.
Right.
Alan B (26:22):
totally.
John (26:22):
aspect of it.
Alan B (26:23):
when you're doing internal
play tests, you're like, Hey, I've
got a vault full of every single pieceof gear in the game and I can add
whatever I can do, whatever changes it.
When you're playing retail, you don't getto like, change the power of your gear.
You don't just get togo give yourself stuff.
Like there's nobody in our game thathas that level of power on retail.
So it's great to be like, okay,I'm actually forced into the
same restrictions players are.
John (26:44):
Yeah,
Yeah,
Alan B (26:45):
unlike the rest of the game
where you're like, if I had the best year
in the game and I do this as hard as,as easy, I don't know, obviously some
players have the best gear in the game,
but most players don't actually havethe best gear in the game or they
might be the thing you're doing ofas part of their step ladder up into
getting the best gear in the game.
John (27:02):
I mean, any game
that we work on, right?
it's easy for the speed of iterationof doing the thing that we're in God
mode with the most powerful weapons orinfinite animal or whatever, ghosting
through walls and things like this.
And then you lose touch with howactual players are playing the game
and then you're tuning somethingbased off something very disconnected.
Alan B (27:21):
Right.
John (27:22):
it
reminds me of some of the rock stardays where we had to have those
conversations, be like, yo guys, stopplaying with all the dev hacks and the dev
cheats, like play this from endto end, like a normal player would
Alan B (27:33):
I actually think that was one
of the most valuable things I learned at
rockstar was the philosophy of when youstart up a red, dead, or a GTA as a dev,
just dropped in the world like a player.
you're not in a special dev worldwhere you like have a physics thing.
You're like, you're put in the open world.
when you go, like I'm going to startthe game as a dev, you're just dropped
in the world and then you have to menu.
(27:54):
You have to like, figureout what you want to go do.
there is no, like I'm doing it to dothis special thing I'm doing like any of
those pathways, let you skip all of thatfeeling of what it's like to be a player.
is that almost every dev starts as aplayer the time they boot the game up.
They're a player immediately.
Even if they're going to hit a debugmenu and go watch this mission over here,
they get popped into the game as aplayer, the same thing the player does,
(28:17):
and that it starts exposing all of the.
Pipeline the issues that you don'tsee if you never play the game,
like a player, it starts exposinglike, load times is the one thing.
But just like how it is, if you'relike, I got a call for a horse or
a car or whatever it is, like youstart having to develop those tools.
Like if I'm going to play in thisopen world game I want to think like a
player on a field, like a player at alltimes, I shouldn't be running in some
(28:37):
special world where unless you're doingphysics programming or animation tuning
or something like that, where you needlike some specific things, everybody
else should be like, this is the world.
And if the tools are slow, the process isslow for doing that speed, the process up.
John (28:52):
totally.
can attest to working on a system andliving in a dedicated gray box gym.
Right.
That is completely isolated fromall the other gameplay systems.
And there's the big danger of whenyou go into the full game, that's when
the first time you're seeing all thesystems kind of interact with each other.
Right.
Which is the magic of a lot of thosesandbox games at rockstar games.
Alan B (29:13):
A lot of that magic comes from
the fact that the people doing the work
actually are doing most of that work,in the full sandbox and like sort of
iterating, not iterating in that graybox, but iterating in the full world.
John (29:23):
Totally.
There was so many timeswhere I'm interacting.
I remember just being an emission.
I don't know, man.
Like I shoved a pet on the floor andthen boom, I wanted already and I'm
like, gosh, how do I turn this off?
I'm not, I got to escape and get cleared.
So everything works together.
But then it reminds you to kind ofbuild that into, but all right, do
I need to be kind of an ankle space?
So I had to kind of change thedesign of the flows so that players
(29:45):
don't run into this and it kind oftakes them out or is it intentional?
Should i trigger a mission failureor should i now add it to the
mission objectives so that youhave to lose your wanted that will
be for you complete the mission
Alan B (29:57):
From the person that
developed all wanted systems and
red dead, if the designers arehaving problems with it, they
what they did wrong orthey don't understand.
Like they don't have the rightUI is for certain, the players.
Aren't gonna understand that.
And so that's feedback to me.
Like if you're having problems, evenif you just don't have the tools to
turn it off or do the right thingat the same time, you can give me
the feedback in real time, you don'thave to have a plate test to do that.
(30:18):
You can just be like, Hey,this happened, this happened.
And I go like, Hey, maybe Ishould write a bug up for that.
I can fix that.
All right.
All right.
Give me a week.
It's gonna be a hassle for a week,but then, but then I'll fix it.
John (30:29):
I don't know how you felt
about it, but I thought that the
culture the rockstar, San Diegodiff floor was pretty fluid, man.
Like it was easy for anybodyto just kind of throw their
hands and be like, the fuck?
You know, like, why is this happening?
Right.
And they're like, let'sgo have a conversation.
You know, like we, we were very andraw about it, but I think, you know, it
Alan B (30:48):
That's,
John (30:48):
to some great iteration
and great conversations.
Alan B (30:51):
it was certainly organic.
It was organic,
John (30:54):
That's the best word for it
Alan B (30:56):
it.
was very much you could very easilyspur a design position by standing
up and started yelling something,
John (31:02):
It was great.
Like that's the one time that I sawthat half cubicle open floor plan
really be conducive to the production.
when I first got there in, early 2009,
Alan B (31:14):
Yeah,
John (31:15):
a bunch of rooms and the
floors were much more split up.
And by
Alan B (31:19):
yeah,
John (31:19):
of production, like all
those walls came down and would
just kind of one big open floor.
Alan B (31:25):
yeah, yeah.
Trying to think of whatwould have changed.
So I
John (31:29):
I think rage had its
Alan B (31:30):
rage had its own room, right.
So they're doing theengine stuff for GTA four.
And they sort of gotmorphed into everyone else.
John (31:37):
Yeah.
Alan B (31:37):
there was still
midnight club stuff going on.
John (31:39):
Dan.
Okay.
That's what it was.
It was more that we woulddo in multiple projects.
And then eventually when it was like
one
Alan B (31:45):
into one thing, right?
Yeah.
It's coalescing the red dead.
And then everybody, moves over frommidnight club, one to red dead.
And that was a pretty big cultural shocktrying to like incorporate all the,
other great designers onto the team.
You know, after we'd been sort ofinsular working on our own little
thing for so long, like we pulled inlike Ben and all the table tennis crew
early on.
(32:05):
And then we pulled inmidnight club people later.
And pretty soon it was like theonly thing going on at the studio.
John (32:10):
You have a interesting
journey you know, California, Vegas,
Toronto,
back to California,
Alan B (32:18):
yup.
John (32:19):
up to the Pacific Northwest.
Alan B (32:20):
Yup.
John (32:21):
But you studied computer science and
Alan B (32:24):
Yeah.
John (32:24):
I understand it, you broke
in, was it as like a tech artist?
Is that your first gig in games
Z axis?
Alan B (32:31):
depends on how, how
far back you want to go.
You can go back before theaccess, even the access is my
first true gay men industry job.
John (32:38):
Okay.
Alan B (32:39):
before that I had two
jobs, I was an intern at a little
company in mountain view called CGSC
and they did a lot of, there weresmall business, military contractor,
they did a lot of stuff for likethe army and Navy stuff like that.
So I was working on, I started workingon textures building textures for like
this SIM, like this is like 94, 94
John (33:00):
what do you build the textures in?
Alan B (33:02):
Photoshop.
John (33:02):
Okay.
Alan B (33:03):
We built some tech to like
take satellite photos of real terrain
you know, steps in Russia and likejungles and all sorts of stuff.
Like top down textures for fight hymns,
John (33:12):
Yeah.
Alan B (33:13):
like take a photo,
from a satellite and cut it up
in such a way that it tiles.
So you don't see that tile.
Right.
Cause that's like, that's
a big deal and this is like backin, like the mid nineties, when it
was just like
real basic level texture there's thereweren't any of the multiple channels.
I mean, the stuff we can do now, it waslike real, like big polygon texture,
polygon texture, so that you could havea flight Sam look like it's jumbled
(33:35):
train look like it's real jungletrain, not like an artist idea of
jumbled train but real general trains.
So that's how I got started as anintern after my third or fourth year in
college as a summer job, essentially.
And then I, that morphed intoworking on level design for
were working on a location-basedlike a mech warrior style game.
I don't know if you remember the mechwarrior, like places where you go into
(33:55):
the pods and it was like, like pseudo VR.
John (33:58):
yeah, you're talking about
like in those big physical arcade
Alan B (34:01):
Yeah.
They called
John (34:02):
Yeah,
Alan B (34:02):
is location-based entertainment.
John (34:04):
yeah, yeah.
You say that in to takes me back toNew York city and they had a big arcade
called laser park in times square.
This was kind of like post Disney,Mickey mouse, thing of time
square, the Giuliani cleanup.
And yeah, that was kind of likesome of the best Hangouts was going
to laser park and doing laser tag.
And then I think for the sameamount of money that it costs to
play laser tag, me and a bunchof friends, can jump in the mix.
(34:26):
warrior.
pods and
run at each other and shooteach other and things like this.
Alan B (34:31):
so this would have been a game
that we, you would have done the same kind
of thing, except it was more like a sport.
It was actually more like ifyou're playing rocket arena, but
you had airplanes playing rocketarena, kind of what it was like.
It was a little weird.
Yeah,
John (34:43):
Yeah, no, no.
that's a strong Patriotthere that sells itself.
Alan B (34:46):
So I, I was doing level
design for that like building the
building, sort of the landscapethat's all took place because
you're flying the planes over there.
sort of like doing level designfor a Quidditch in Harry Potter.
Like, it was sort of like, here'sthis going on goals at the end, but
like, that's all this stuff goingaround on the outside, but you're
mostly flying through the air really
to make flying safe at all.
(35:07):
There can't be a whole lot of stuff in theair that you're trying to Dodge around.
John (35:10):
yeah.
Alan B (35:11):
Right.
So
I ended working like that.
So it was like designing the Youmight duck down into the canyon
John (35:17):
Okay.
Alan B (35:17):
and then, and then jumped back up
John (35:19):
are you doing that with
like static meshes or some
type of like white boxing tool?
Just a primitives or something.
Alan B (35:24):
We were using primitives
and like landscape tools and like
3d studio max, like a long time ago.
Like it was just like build some geo,like we would start with an image
and then we'd extrude the image up.
a gray scale and then start adding detail.
John (35:37):
I've stared at you do your
job, whether you knew it or not.
I never saw you in Photoshopwe will all kind of
Alan B (35:42):
Yeah.
John (35:43):
for red dead, but like, if I was
to look at your resume and I was to
see Photoshop and max, I think like,oh yeah, tech artists, here you go.
Alan B (35:51):
lot of the stuff I did
early on, you would consider.
I wrote level designtools to solve problems.
I was running into a level design.
I would write like exportersto build new characters,
stuff like that.
This all problems I was running into in mypersonal projects, in my school projects.
on the first game I worked onThrasher on the first actual game.
I wrote like a Whiting export.
(36:11):
we didn't have lighting in the game.
And
so 3d studio max had like vertex basedlighting on their political levels.
And I was building like,a third of the levels.
and we needed the lighting causewe needed some nighttime scenes and
we used some interesting, scenes.
So I'm like I can get the lighting valueand plug that into the PlayStation and
sort of our techs lighting and like Thetool to do that as a part of our export.
(36:32):
that's a, like a tech art job,
but sort of,
it was what needed to be done at the time.
John (36:37):
Do
whatever it takes.
Alan B (36:38):
Nielsen going to do it
John (36:39):
you're going to blow my mind.
If you told me that you alsowrote the Maya exporters on
red that
Alan B (36:45):
Yeah, I did.
John (36:46):
motherfucker.
Alan B (36:47):
All, the, stuff for the
designers that don't interface where
you could like set up everything.
Yeah.
That
John (36:50):
Yeah.
shit.
Oh,
never knew that.
I got to say
thanks.
Alan B (36:55):
I sold the UI
from the artists, right?
Like they, the UI panel layoutsystem, they had, I liked just cut
and paste it because, you know,
anytime in code, almost all ofit starts out as a cut and paste
from somewhere else and you
John (37:05):
Yeah.
This Is importing this.
Yeah, let me just modify it.
Even if you've opened up fortnight'screative mode, we extend.
And those same key terms onto.
The controller triggers L two and R two.
So when you're doing.
Layout and design it's still the same.
Concepts.
Cut and copy and paste.
Alan B (37:22):
before red dead, I
had never used Maya before.
I had never used Mel the Mayascripting language before.
And so I'm jumping in, I'm going,like, I'm just going to grab this UI.
Okay.
I don't like this.
Don't like this don'tlike this, delete it.
delete it, delete it.
Okay.
Here's the level loading section.
Okay.
Now what I need to do is write someimporter code here and like, okay.
(37:43):
So here's, here's how we limitpeople, how they author stuff
and here's how we import stuff.
And like, just, it started from there,
It was like, I remember workingwith Christian and Tom on this
and we were swapping over tolike a script-based system
John (37:56):
Christian kind of
Alan B (37:57):
kind of essay.
Yeah.
Like we were, yeah, we were, we wereworking on like switching over from like
very different sort of author and systemto a script-based author system where
like everything would be done in script.
if you want to create an actor,you would type, create actor.
And then describe all theparameters of the actor.
you want to create a volume you'dtype, create volume and describe
like what all the different aspectsof the volume and how are you
(38:19):
gonna use all that kind of stuff.
John (38:20):
I could see the script today.
I remember I think it was spit outlike, here you go, here's your header
add all your functions.
So you just copy paste that in, orit's already in the right directory
Alan B (38:30):
chapters And your mission.
John (38:32):
Yeah And I just
Alan B (38:33):
one.
John (38:34):
call it Nick chapter one
and it would set, Create volume,
create flag, all that stuff.
And
Alan B (38:39):
Yeah.
John (38:40):
even had the peds.
Right.
We would position.
I remember the little, likeVihara polygonal meshes
Alan B (38:46):
You're dropping Maya.
John (38:48):
the, companions or your
enemies or even the player.
Alan B (38:52):
So the hard work of all that
was done from like a Thursday morning,
until like a Sunday afternoon wherelike Tom and Tom and like Christian
had like, and I like crunched onall that stuff over like a weekend
to get it all So be readyto check in on Monday.
Yeah.
just like here's the philosophy.
And like, there were no likechapters, a lot of the stuff
that, you know, in there now.
We just had a base thing whereyou would spit out function.
(39:15):
That was a description ofall the things in the file.
And you just go book and I would writeall the script commands that would
create all those things in the game
John (39:21):
Yeah.
Alan B (39:22):
your mission
John (39:23):
Yeah.
Alan B (39:24):
no extra stuff.
And right.
So all the other stuff that wedid later, that was all like, once
you have that first function, youhave like, that's the hard part is
getting everything in that format.
Now you can go, actually, we want tosplit it up by chapters, in your mission.
We want to split it up by types ofthings quick, this squad, great.
This squad, great.
This squad create the flag atthe volumes of chapter one.
You can call, then you give thepower to the designer to call
(39:44):
it whenever they feel like it
Just call this one function.
We'll do it all for you.
that's kind of where we landed.
Like we give you a base function,it would do everything, but then you
don't have to call that function,call something else and you could do
it by hand to be like, I don't wantto create that group of enemies yet.
I want to wait a minute, right.
To
enemies and just holdoff on doing that stuff.
John (40:02):
I'm sorry to jump
around, but this is
Alan B (40:04):
Yeah,
John (40:05):
for me.
to this day out, even whenwe're working in the real,
we're going to afford not being.
I've been in a lot of tools, right.
I've been on frostbitehave dabbled in unity.
I've worked in lumberyard now known as.
3-d E.
I always look back to the damnrage tools and I'm like, yo, the
power that we had to iterate ongames and, and second to none, man.
(40:25):
And I always look back and Idon't know what if there was just
behind those things, what type ofconversations you guys had or, or
was there a philosophy behind it?
Alan B (40:35):
the philosophy that we used
was, expose as many things in engine to
design, as you can, and then write alayer so that it's easy to use without
having everything exposed to you.
Right.
that's what I tried to build.
So I I would have to dealwith all of the functions.
And like all the different waysit could be used and misused.
And I would try to build a mainlineuse cases for somebody else that
(41:01):
covered 95% of their day-to-day uses.
They wouldn't have todelve into the details.
95% of the time.
Sometimes you go, oh, I need thisspecial case thing up front of
the special thing on this mission.
If you don't have that power to do thatat all, then the mission is a waitlist.
Cool.
you have the power to deal with it, butyou don't normally deal with it you can.
And it's a little harder if you're notused to sort of that level of granularity,
John (41:25):
Yeah.
Alan B (41:26):
but that's a one-time cost.
if we didn't build that layer in between,everybody would be paying it all the time.
Right?
So it's a mistake to have somethingwhere it's hard to actually get
something in the game the first timeyou want to make it as easy as possible
to get something up and running.
John (41:41):
Yes.
Alan B (41:42):
Right?
And you want to make it relativelyeasy to continue iterating and you
only want to make it hard when theyhave an edge case where they're the
only mission designer that needs thisfunction I worked this way, right?
Like, that's when you can make it hard,it can be like, here's a special case.
But 95% of the time, you'llnever need to do this.
You don't need to dig into thisdocumentation here, but like this
(42:04):
one time, and you're like, oh,I'm in the third, pass my mission.
And we want to do a special thing.
go like, oh, here's how youdo this one special thing.
And he's actually spent some time on it.
but you know, most remission doesn'tneed that only this one part of this
one mission needs that extra detail, butyou've done all the work for the rest of
your mission, not dealing with any of thelike hearted actually actualize details.
(42:24):
So it's gone quicker too, right?
Because you don't have to,you can iterate quicker,
you can iterate faster becauseit's high level for you.
John (42:30):
I don't know whether you realize
it or not, but I believe you just
core essence the value and the keycontributions of a tech designer
right in there is worrying aboutmaking the tools, exposing as much
power to designers and then alsoputting in the safeguards for the
things that would get those one-offsinto trouble and things like
(42:53):
that.
Alan B (42:53):
be really hard if every
designer has to do everything
the hard way all the time.
Like you never want that.
I know we talked about it in the talk,but like, I think about it very often as a
tech designer and as a design lead I hatesomething to somebody else to do that.
I wouldn't do myself hate
Right.
this workflow is such a pain that Iwould, I wouldn't want to do it myself.
(43:16):
I had to do this myself, would Iactually spend the time building
a tool to make it simpler?
John (43:21):
Yeah.
Alan B (43:22):
my instinct is I just want
to build a tool to make it simpler,
John (43:26):
Yup.
Alan B (43:26):
Before I hand it to somebody
else to build because I'm like, I
know you know, 20 years ago, I didn'tknow, but now I have the wisdom
to go most of the, and be right.
Most of the time, not allthe time, most of the time,
John (43:36):
Yeah.
Alan B (43:37):
to be like, I can see this is
going to be a pain point right here.
I can feel this.
This is a pain point.
Just talking, just like readingover the description of something.
We're talking about howit's going to be built.
I mean, that's going to be a pain point.
We want to solve this problem.
let's do it this way.
This one time.
And write up a bug right up user story fora supporting engineering team can actually
build better function here or tech designto build us a better workflow for this.
(43:58):
But like it's okay to do somethingThe hard way, the first time it's not
It's the hard way
the first time even,you know, for anybody.
But you want to identify that stuff?
The stuff I hate is when I hear abouta a team that's been building it wrong
the first time for the last two years
and haven't spoken up because at there wasnothing ready for them that first time.
And so they just started doing itthat way and they're like, well,
(44:21):
this is how I know how to do it.
might as well just keep doing it this way.
if You know, it's a painthat First time, right.
That bug, you might haveto do it a second time.
in a live service environment, there's allsorts of different priorities and things.
But like, I hate that like two yearswe've been doing it the hard way.
for two years.
like if we're doing it thatoften we should build something.
that's a better support for that.
John (44:42):
I like that.
Right.
Having those mechanisms andfeedback opportunities, right?
Like you have weekly one-on-onesI love weekly as a cadence.
Right?
Like, especially since we're we'reat home, we don't get to have those
kind of by chance wa pass eachother in the hallway to raise it up.
Right.
You don't have to be annoyingabout it, but be vocal,
Alan B (45:01):
Yeah,
John (45:02):
know that this is a problem.
And, and at least is a bug oruse a story in the backlog that
enough people have heard about it.
And there will be time.
Right?
Like, and there will be time afterenough people saying something like,
Hey man, we gotta do something about it.
Or, oh, Hey, we have head count.
We can tackle this now.
I also hate, hate being pulledoff of something without having
(45:23):
had the chance to really divein and understand how it works.
And then.
Be able to pass it off with somesort of structure or upgrade plan.
I mean i get it you knowsometimes depending on
priorities shit gets ripped away
Alan B (45:37):
Make sure it's
on somebody's backlog.
especially if you're interested in it,check back regularly with the team,
that's going to be working on it.
Right.
Where the teams assigned to.
Right.
Even if they don't have time thisquarter or next quarter, if you
check back every quarter, they'll getit prioritized for you eventually.
Cause you'll
them back.
If they, if you keep checking back,understand that it's important.
even if they don't workwith you every day, right?
(45:58):
Because you keep checking backabout this, then whatever the
bug is, whatever the feature is.
If you keep asking about it, it's notthat you're being annoying as you're
going like, no, no, this keeps coming up.
I need this feature built, this costus this amount of time or because
it's not built, it is stopping us frompursuing this avenue of creativity.
Right.
And that's that I think is often themore, especially on a live certificate
(46:20):
service game, often the more.
Likely candidate.
You know, we have lots of stuff wedo and it's efficient or inefficient.
Right.
And like, so it's, but it'sbuilt into our schedule.
It's the features that are stoppingus from going, like, we can't even
start moving down this path we getthis first feature, guess what?
we're already a successful gameit's already doing well, we
don't actually need the feature.
(46:41):
Right.
So that's always gotta beprioritized against so things.
Yeah.
John (46:44):
love talking about design with you.
It's easy to go down the rabbit
Alan B (46:48):
Yeah.
Sorry.
John (46:49):
I gotta give the shameless
plug for anyone that hasn't
seen or once a little more.
Right on the GDC vault.
If you look up, avoid an identitycrisis as a tech designer,
Alan B (46:59):
Yeah.
John (47:00):
see a panel.
Alan's a big part of that.
I'm on there moderatingit and we go deep, right?
We go high level tech design, and wego deep and talk about this stuff.
And if you don't have access, you candefinitely reach out to us so we can more.
It's a young role comparedto all the other disciplines.
But it has matured a lot.
And it's in big part.
Thanks to just experiencein hindsight, right?
(47:21):
To be able to learn from the utilityof having a dedicated team or
group worry about building theselayers and enhancing the tools for
designers to make some sweet content
if we could go back to you atThrasher, building tools, doing the
things that just needed to be done.
this is where kind of, you hadconnected with rockstar for
(47:44):
the first time in your career.
Alan B (47:45):
Yup.
Yup.
So Thrasher was actuallypublished by rockstar.
It didn't start out that way.
It was started out being publishedby BMG, you know, I think was
the precursor to rockstar.
John (47:55):
Through music, right?
Alan B (47:56):
yeah.
So you know, Sam Hauser was the,producer on it and we had meetings
with them all the time theydisappeared for a couple of months.
And they came back and they hada big rolling stone spread where
they'd formed rockstar games.
It was really a big thing.
okay.
That's I understand where they'vebeen for the past couple of months
where they've been, haven't beenlike, chatting about the game.
So I worked pretty heavily.
(48:17):
Day-to-day finishing that with someof the crew from rockstar Jamie king,
Toronto, Berrera some of the old schoolrock star crew, like finishing that up.
And so that's where I got to know them.
Right.
I was like working with them all the time.
I help man.
The booth showing the game to people.
That was the competitiveV3 where 20 Hawk was at
John (48:33):
Wow.
Alan B (48:34):
and Thrasher
both at the same
John (48:36):
You will go against Tony Hawk.
Alan B (48:38):
They came out
about a month ahead of us.
John (48:40):
Wow.
Alan B (48:41):
or six weeks, something like that.
It
was like, there's going to bea skateboarding game that comes
out and it's really popular.
It's going to be one of these two games
John (48:50):
Damn.
Alan B (48:51):
we made the SIM.
John (48:53):
There you go, there's
always room for that.
Right?
The arcadey versus a simulation, right?
Like the GranTurismo or the forest tothe forest horizon or the midnight club
or the Mario cart.
Alan B (49:04):
I played the hell out
of EA skate when I came out,
I was like, this is if we continuebuilding Thrasher with that same sort
of Attitude and, and design goals.
like, it's very muchlike in that direction of
like, here's what it feels like.
We're actually trying to like, bereal about the actual sort of where
your foot is and like how skatingactually happens mechanically.
John (49:26):
which feels rockstar.
It feels very rockstar, right?
Like their pursuit of realism yet fun.
Like high-level Polish
Alan B (49:33):
it's not necessarily realism it's
you feel Like you're doing the same thing.
It's not an arcade.
it's smooth if if it's going to behard in real life, make it hard.
So you feel like you'redoing the same thing.
Like make the details actually matter.
So, you know, that like a Nali versusNali is actually like an important thing.
And like how you would do it asdifferent, you have to hold different
(49:54):
buttons and you have to do something.
Yeah.
John (49:56):
Another fun fact that I'd
found out talking to you about this
was that were an electronic artistwhen you were at Westwood in Vegas.
Alan B (50:05):
I was, Yeah.
after the access.
I started at Westwood about sixmonths after they got bought by EA.
I left about a year before theydissolved Westwood and like morph
everybody into the other EA studio.
So I saw it like I was in therefor like the middle portion.
I
John (50:20):
Yeah.
Alan B (50:21):
they were part of EA and I wasn't
there they finally dissolved everything.
But yeah, I was there for agood, A couple of years there.
I was working on earth and beyond there,there was a scifi MMO that they're working
on that I was one of the designers on.
John (50:33):
Saifai MMO.
Alan B (50:35):
Yeah.
So it'd be like you're world ofWarcraft, but spent you know, taking
your Oracle warrior and runningaround the ground, hunting, you know
trolls or whatever, or a frog blocks.
You're in a ship running aroundasteroids, hunting, aliens and
pirates and stuff like that.
John (50:51):
I'm sure that that experience
had to help a lot on what you do today
Alan B (50:55):
Yeah.
John (50:56):
destiny, I always knew
you to be a fan of him and Mo
Alan B (51:00):
yeah.
started playing Ultimaonline back in the day when
John (51:04):
wow.
Alan B (51:05):
with some buds and we played
that card for nine months or so.
I did not start playing EverQuest right.
When it came out, I playeddabbled in it a little bit.
And then I went hard when thefirst expansion came out and you
could create a lizard man monk.
And I said, I played a lizard, redmonk, and I requests a few years.
Like my Guild.
Like we ended up of people.
I worked at Westwood all had aGuild together with, you know, then
(51:27):
extended friends and stuff like that.
And we played EverQuest for four years,pretty much consistently until, Wao came
out and then we all transitioned to wow.
And like we played for another five years.
And the same to my, you know, andI played other stuff along the way.
Asheron's call and shadow baneand Lord of the rings online
and Dungeons and dragons online.
And like there's a Conan game,lots of stuff, but none of them.
(51:50):
Dark age Camelot, I thinkcame to the closest.
of them stuck the way Irequested world of Warcraft did.
Definitely part of that wasbecause my clan was planned.
Right.
And so it was like you have ties to those.
Some of those that I would pullpeople over from the clan over into
dark edge Camelot, we'd play for twomonths and then be like done with it.
And we work back to EverQuestand, continue rating over there.
John (52:10):
that's something interesting
that you touch on, right?
It's kind of that like socialdynamic of, even for live games
and the people who work on thesegames to keep in mind, right?
Like where are people sticking to?
You know, you may get one player here orthere, but they're eventually going to
go where all their buddies are, right.
Alan B (52:27):
Yeah.
It's always a trick of if you'retrying to take down a big, existing
product, like world of Warcraft,everybody's had existing relationships,
distinct clans, not only that,but like they have five years, 10
years, 15 years of content built up.
And so like, if you're going to launchsomething new, you're going to be
missing features that they don't have.
You know what I mean, losingcontent they don't have and all
(52:48):
their social contacts over there.
there's a reason why
Been very few lead changes over the last20 years in whatever the top MMO is at a
John (52:56):
yup.
That market share.
Alan B (52:58):
reason, right.
John (53:00):
of related just because
I'm seeing all the press that
Amazon lost Ark is making waves.
Alan B (53:07):
Yeah.
John (53:07):
know, I haven't
Alan B (53:08):
Yeah.
John (53:09):
I want to check it out, right.
Like, but making waves in thatfree to play MMO RPG space.
And it's
Alan B (53:16):
Um,
John (53:16):
intrigued.
Right.
Just because I don't know if it's theads or the marketing or whatever, but
I got to throw in a couple of hours.
My problem is that for MMOs, you gotto invest a good amount of time in
to get to that point where it's like,you feel you're, you're hooked in
Alan B (53:30):
sure.
From what I, I haven'tplayed Los dark yet.
I understand it's a more Diablo,like, so maybe the action part
it, she, a little earlier,
that's sort of, one of the problems ofespecially early ever requested UO you're
really not very well powered againstthe stuff that you're going up against.
It doesn't feel really cool to play.
John (53:49):
yeah.
Alan B (53:50):
Gets around that and
their early tutorials pretty well.
Or at least they did back when Iplayed what are you still felt a
decent amount of power versus whatyou're going up against right there?
Yeah.
I haven't played loss aren't yet.
I'm interested.
I wanna play it.
John (54:03):
I'm always interested to see how
developers evolve, how they come and
go towards products that really kindof engage your creativity or force you
to think in ways you weren't used toin thinking who you are working on.
MMO.
It's obviously a big part of your lifein terms of what you enjoy playing, which
Alan B (54:20):
Yeah.
John (54:20):
for the social
aspect of what have you.
And then eventually you find your wayback to on another development team.
That's making one of the biggestyou know, when you, you guys coined
the term shared world shooter,
Alan B (54:30):
Yep.
John (54:31):
that's a
Alan B (54:32):
Yeah
John (54:32):
better identify with destiny
as opposed to just calling it an MMO.
Right.
Because it doesn't have the same playercount in an instance kind of thing.
Alan B (54:39):
if you think about MMOs in
a broader spectrum don't know how
much you follow Raph Koster who'swas the of star wars Galaxy's Ultima
online, or one of the design leads.
He had, he's been, a MMO He's done alot of writing and thinking about it.
and I remember, you know, I follow himon Twitter read a lot of his stuff.
(55:02):
and I believe like his currentthinking is that Fortnite is like
the current sort of MMO hotspot,
even though Fortnite is not anMMO in any traditional sense.
John (55:11):
Yeah.
Alan B (55:11):
if you think about the
MMO more of as a world that
people gather and do stuff in,
John (55:17):
Yeah.
Alan B (55:18):
as a world where
people gather to slay dragons,
a world where gather to socializeand do stuff and the slaying
of dragons or the shooting ofaliens in the face is secondary.
Once you're there, it is moreabout doing stuff together.
That's the important part.
something like fortnight really islike, there's All sorts of crazy stuff
(55:41):
in Fortnite that I can't even dream of,you know, there's concerts in Fortnite,
Like the metaverse already exists.
I don't care all these, companiesthat you want to keep trying to
make it like Fortnite pretty muchis the metamours at this point,
John (55:51):
yeah.
I'm still working in slowly, couple ofhandful of weeks in, I think a month
still trying to wrap my head around allthe different threads behind that beast.
got to look that guy up.
What was his name?
Alan B (56:02):
wrath.
Koster.
John (56:03):
Raph.
Koster.
Alan B (56:04):
Yup.
John (56:05):
definitely is helpful
for me to help verse myself on.
Right.
Alan B (56:09):
Yup.
John (56:09):
I would tell you that mmol
was always an area that I have
lot more to learn about and alot more time and investigating
behind the scenes on that and, andunderstanding more about how people
approach it and what makes them tick.
But it's interesting, right?
Like, you break it downto saying a place where.
You congregate or hangout with your buddies
Alan B (56:28):
Right,
John (56:28):
you do stuff
Alan B (56:30):
right
John (56:30):
that you go do stuff.
Then
that makes thing it distillsit nicely to go, oh yeah.
I can see, I have played a memorialsand it is for that same reason.
I'm like, Hey, I just wantto hang out with my buddies.
And then it's secondarywhat we happen to do.
Alan B (56:45):
I've played some Fortnite myself.
And I have lots of younger relatives.
Kids have friends who play a lot ofFortnite or have played a lot of Fortnite.
when I watched them play and I talkedto them about what they do, not going
for the chicken dinner like, that'snot even a part of their play style.
Right?
Like they might occasionally do.
it.
They're doing all sorts of other stuff.
(57:05):
Like they're not trying to actually winthe game as the rules say, They've got a
completely different purpose in the game.
And that's, of the flags of you mightactually have like an interesting
world to exist in is when people spendmost of their time doing stuff that
has nothing to do with the rule set.
That's been laid down
by the designers.
Right.
They're finding otherthings to do in that world.
(57:26):
And I think you know, yourMinecraft's that really well.
Right.
Fortnite does that really well?
all the memos have over the yearsgotten more gamey, not worldly.
And so there's actually lessopportunity to sort of be creative.
and that's always, big struggle in theMMO world is like, are you more of a game.
(57:46):
Or are you more of a world?
and like, how do you balance those two?
And what's important to you and, andMMOs have traditionally gone more
gamey over the years because peoplewho play MMOs tend to be and be
loud about it tend to be more power,gamey, and want to kill beggar, better
dragons for bigger and better swords.
And so anytime you do that, likegame rules come into it and destiny
(58:09):
falls in that same category, right?
Like we are in the, like, we wantto put bigger and better dragons
out there for bigger and betterswords, even though they're not
all swords and they're all dragons.
that still falls in that category of it's.
It's not like it doesn't fall into themore worldly category where of like
Ultima online or some of the other ones,like second life where they're trying
to basically simulate a set for a worldmake it much less about like objectives
(58:34):
to give the player something to do.
John (58:36):
that gives me a lot of food
for thought to think about, right.
Like approaching it from, Hey,building a world and then giving
you things to do within it or fromthe other side building a game.
Right.
And then, and then having a game that'sbig enough for people to, for everybody
to have something to do in it as partof a clan or a team or something like
Alan B (58:55):
Right.
And to circle back around to what you saidwas bunch of originally coined the term
share shared world shooter and not an MMO.
When it originally came out atnight, that's what his DNA is, right.
It is about shootingaliens with your friends,
John (59:07):
yeah,
Alan B (59:08):
it's a shared world shooter.
And like a lot of stuff in the game is, issort of built around those core, tenants
and like bungee is real big on sort ofcore values and like really having like
design, pillars, and core pillars andcycling back with your design decisions.
if you're having a stroke, ifyou're struggling to make a
design decision, look at how itintersects with your design pillars.
(59:28):
Right.
And like use those as your guidelinesto make your decisions and like, and
decide what new features should bethere and what shouldn't be there.
John (59:37):
Totally great call out for any
product or any, anything you're building.
Definitely in game design, having somecore pillars to fall back on or build
out your game or your design and, thatas that guiding light or that razor
to cut against when you're Corettaimpasse, or having discussions, it'd
be like, how do we proceed forward islike, we'll fall back on your pillar.
(01:00:01):
That can be like play orfirst or something like that.
Right?
Alan B (01:00:05):
Yeah
John (01:00:05):
does this make the player,
does this put the player first
Alan B (01:00:08):
Yup.
John (01:00:08):
on from there, Working
Westwood on earth and beyond what
type of design were you doing?
Alan B (01:00:15):
I did a smattering
of design there.
So I did some system design.
I did some content design, like Idesigned a lot of the drop tables.
there was a race of hillbilly spacepirates draw up, like, you know, a
cassette deck with Leonard Skinnerin it and all sorts of silly, like
sort of just like narrative fluff.
Right.
It wasn't worth anything.
(01:00:35):
we're trying to get across likewhat their culture is by what
they drop when you kill them.
when you sift through their ship,the records of the ships, like
what you find, we're trying toshow off what their culture was.
John (01:00:45):
the narrative.
Alan B (01:00:45):
yeah.
so I, I built a lot of the droptables for a lot of the enemy races.
I did some quest design, I thinkI did the gen quiet Explorer
like upgrade path quest series.
I was in charge of doing all the scriptscript reviews before people checked in.
Like once we went into beta.
So I like basically I reviewedeverybody is checking on the design
department for check-in new scripts.
(01:01:06):
every team, Tuesday and Thursday I'd belike here, my whole afternoon is blocked
off so I can review scripts and makesure we're not checking in any bugs.
I did, like, I did some craftingdesign, like we had at earth
and beyond had a really Cool,crafting system, really unique.
And I don't believe that anybody's everdone anything quite like this yet where
every, item in the game was craftable.
(01:01:26):
So of your, your MMO like drops off ofyour bosses and stuff like that craftable.
Right.
if you knew the recipe, how you gotthe recipe was by taking the drop that
you got from the boss and dismantle.
John (01:01:39):
okay.
Alan B (01:01:40):
you get the recipe.
Now you can make more ofthem, but you don't have the
original item to use anymore.
Like if they destroy the item
to get the recipe and you have no ideawhat the, what, like the, the components
of the recipe are usually the componentsfor the high level of stuff was like
going and killing the boss and getting thecommon drop might drop like the circuit
board that you need to, to make the gun.
(01:02:01):
if, once you get the gun, thenyou can destroy the gun, get the
recipe, and now build more guns.
And so, like, it was designedaround that philosophy of
everything in the game is craftable.
If you have the recipe, but likeyou have to go destroy the stuff to
get to the recipe and destroy thestuff to get the component parts.
And so Like you can destroyeverything, make it better,
learn the recipes, get the parts.
(01:02:22):
It was the right designedaround that philosophy.
We
wanted that.
interesting choice of when you gotthe awesome new gun, you use it
John (01:02:30):
Ooh.
Or
Alan B (01:02:31):
or do you or do you break it.
and get a chance atlearning how to make more.
And we felt that was like an awesomelike decision that players could have.
And in fact, if you're like in a raidand so that's, that's not just a, you
John, as a player decision, that's adecision for your whole guilt because
your whole Guild had to work that gun.
But if you, if you learn therecipe, you can now make some
(01:02:52):
for everybody else in the Guild.
So it's very valuable,
You know, you might notalways learn the recipe.
You might not have thestuff to make the guns.
So it's a risk, right?
It's always like, w where do you,how much risk tolerance do you have.
John (01:03:02):
that's a steep price, especially
if you got your buddies forcing you
to give up this sweet weapon that
just got for the greater good.
Right.
And you'd
Alan B (01:03:10):
Right.
John (01:03:11):
this will help us out.
Damn.
Alan B (01:03:13):
Maybe.
Maybe.
for the greater good.
You might get nothing.
John (01:03:17):
Wow As you were talking
about that, I'm thinking of
like breath of the wild and the
way that I can just burn amazing piecesof food in the hopes that it's a great
recipe or it turns into like monster mush.
Right.
And they're like, damn it.
You know, now I gotta gofind this other thing.
the difference being Zelda,being a single player game versus
Alan B (01:03:35):
Right
John (01:03:35):
you have the peer
pressure of your team.
Alan B (01:03:39):
Everything.
And maybe if you're a game that has alot of commerce, you can not make them.
other people, right?
Like there's all, there's allsorts of aspects around like
that cycle, that gameplay loop.
that I, I think it was reallyinteresting earth and beyond didn't
really live long enough to reallyexplore like where that ended up.
It wasn't didn't give a epicenough, user based push on it.
(01:04:00):
They canceled it after a couple years.
would love to see Mmoo sort oftake that and run with that, but
I, and maybe somebody has, I'm justnot, I haven't really played an
MMO since like I stopped playing.
Wow.
stopped playing.
Wow.
When we were shipping red,dead, I that's the last non
destiny MMO I've really played.
John (01:04:15):
Maybe someone out there picks
it up and evolves it into the 2020s
or
point out if other games use it or have.
Alan B (01:04:24):
Yup.
John (01:04:25):
This would have been around the
time that GTA three or vice city came out
Alan B (01:04:30):
Yup.
John (01:04:30):
and wonder what if they were on your
Alan B (01:04:32):
Um,
John (01:04:33):
this time, or were you busy?
Cracking out?
Alan B (01:04:35):
They were a little bit, I'd been
hearing rumblings when I was in Vegas.
But I definitely remember headingback to the bay area for Christmas
to hang out with friends andthey were like, yo, yo, yo.
Your boy said, rockstar totallyhit it out of the park, man.
They did it.
I'm like, what are you talking about?
Like GTA three is really good.
You got to come over and play it.
at the time I was more startingto get more into consoles.
(01:04:57):
But I was like a PC gamer all throughthe, like the eighties and nineties.
So yeah.
we went over to my buddy's house forthe weekend and basically blast it
through GTA three common like couchco-op you get to go until you die.
And then you hand the controlover you rotate around.
You can go do jumps in the city.
You could play a mission, whateveryou want, you die on the control over.
(01:05:18):
that was like a whole weekend of likeplayed out three in the morning, fall
asleep on the couch, wake up at 10,get some coffee order, some pizza
keep going all weekend long overChristmas break was like GTA three.
And I remember nothing aboutthe story at this point.
Like played through all thestory missions, we beat them all.
I don't remember anything about it.
That was just like this blur of likethis just amazing physics engine and
(01:05:42):
cops and like seeing how far you couldtake your start and how long you were
surviving against when the tanks show up
John (01:05:48):
Oh, yeah.
Alan B (01:05:49):
up at you.
Like actually were there helicopters in
John (01:05:51):
Yeah,
Alan B (01:05:52):
five city
with a couple of steps?
John (01:05:53):
it was the tanks where
the tanks would kind of
Alan B (01:05:55):
Yeah.
And hook up show up at.
John (01:05:57):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:05:58):
But there weren't even
motorcycles or anything like that.
Like compared to like what wehave now in GTA five, like it was
like real bare bones, mechanics,
bare bones, guns.
Yeah.
I, yeah, like it was realrough, but it was so much fun.
Like we did not care.
It was so great to just explore thatworld and understand like mechanics
(01:06:20):
of the cops, the mechanics of thecars, the physics, the gunplay,
exp exploring the world to get
packages and jumps.
Just everything.
Absolutely perfect.
Like that was like the perfect weekend.
it was a magical time.
It was totally magical time.
. John (01:06:35):
I'm sure you would have had a
blast by yourself, but it's compounded
by the fact that you're with your buddiespassing off the controller, right.
Just seeing what's
possible or having your eyesopened by what someone else is
doing or the fact that you guyscan play it in different ways.
Alan B (01:06:50):
Right.
you learn a lot when other peopleplay the game and you can watch them.
And I think that's a thing that we'vemissed with the couch co-op has gone
away mostly in the last 20 years.
Right?
Like that's not as common And I thinkyou lose that watching other people
play and telling other people, tips,and tricks for single player games.
John (01:07:09):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:07:10):
When you have a multiplayer
game, know, a Diablo where you're playing
while they player or destiny or MMO whereyou're playing with other people, like
there's a little bit more of a communitybuilt up around like sharing that stuff.
But you're just playinglike a game by yourself.
I don't want your couch.
Like, it's easy to get frustratedwith something that your buddies like,
no, no, no, you don't have to do it.
(01:07:31):
Like if you're playing a couch, co-op,you'd be like, just because you got
frustrated, give me the control,all show you what you did wrong.
I was watching you
and I saw something.
I'm gonna show you how to do it.
That's a great sort of feedbackloop that really gets into it.
If I'm playing like a world adventure gameby myself, there's no feedback loop there.
And have to have some sort ofmotivation to get through it if I'm
(01:07:51):
struggling with something, right.
Like if
John (01:07:53):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:07:53):
bloodborne or I guess
by the time this comes out,
it'll been ring will be out.
And like I'm with something.
Right.
I need some sort ofmotivation to get through it.
Or I might just go like what pushesyou to actually like do the hard part?
Right.
am stuck on the final bossof Metroid The new Metroid
John (01:08:11):
The dread.
Yeah.
Alan B (01:08:12):
so hard.
I can't, I won't have thereaction time for that anymore.
I have a boot it up since they didthe story mode, like, I, Beat my
head against the brick wall, thatgame all the way to the final boss.
some of the boss fights.
I probably failed 80, 90,a hundred times just as I'm
like, I want to beat this game.
This is so cool.
Such a great 2d game.
the boss beat me.
I had to stop playing.
(01:08:32):
I'm like, I can't do this.
My hands are cramping up.
Like, I can't do
this.
I have, too old for thisMetroid dread has beaten me.
John (01:08:39):
love games that have kind
of a, Adaptive difficulty.
Alan B (01:08:42):
yeah.
John (01:08:43):
max Payne had at one wonder Fred
dead had it, I think you were a big part
of that is kind of building that like,Hey, you've died a bunch of times you can
just skip to the next checkpoint kind of.
Alan B (01:08:51):
Yes, build that.
So I personally don'tlike adaptive difficulty.
I am okay with the question saying,would you like to ratchet it down?
John (01:09:02):
Yeah.
Give you the option.
Alan B (01:09:04):
to say no, are you trying
to tell me I'm playing poorly?
John (01:09:08):
That's bad feedback.
Yeah.
Alan B (01:09:10):
no, I mean, that's good feedback.
If they're saying, Hey, wesee you might be struggling.
If you can do it in agentle way, it's fine.
But that just makes me angry at the game.
Like, now I've got to prove a point to thegame that I'm not as bad as I bed plan.
I was just experimenting.
It wasn't really that I was bad.
John (01:09:23):
You like directly
cursing the designers, right?
Like what do you meanI've hit that trigger.
Alan B (01:09:29):
But now it's trying
to do it behind my back.
Like slowly,
John (01:09:32):
Hmm.
Alan B (01:09:33):
noticing if I don't
notice, I'll probably be like,
I totally mastered that section.
John (01:09:37):
Yeah
Alan B (01:09:38):
me.
If I do notice now I'm reallypissed off because I wasn't given
the choice to like, make it easier.
John (01:09:43):
it's a fine line.
Alan B (01:09:45):
it's a real fine line.
hate the idea of it, but I'm probablyfine with it as long as it's subtle
enough that I don't know this.
John (01:09:51):
I wish more games went
down the route of that, Twitch
play integration, right.
As we talk about couch co-op you know,streamers have people watching them,
but they don't really get to interface.
Right.
They'd be like, Hey, pass methe controller, let me help you.
Or here's how to get past that part.
Dead cells did somethinginteresting, right?
Where watching the stream coulddirectly influence the gameplay.
(01:10:14):
Right.
They can like
Alan B (01:10:15):
Wow.
John (01:10:16):
the drop, but like, Hey,
we're going to drop youa chest that gives you a
power up or some things.
And I, feel like it's untapped.
And again, please let me know if I'moff the mark and other games have
doubled down on this and pushed it over.
But to that missing feeling ofcouch play and having people
share that experience, even thoughit's a single player game, right?
Like, let me show you what you did wrong.
And let me help you with that.
(01:10:37):
I think is an untapped area in thisvirtual connected world we're in.
Alan B (01:10:42):
think there's a
level of trust, right?
There's a circle of trust that youneed to be in for that to work.
Right.
Twitch Twitch and streamers are Iwould say it's probably like you can
join somebody stream without any idea.
Like, so by default, likethat's a low trust environment.
Like those people that are watchingyour stream and making comments unless
you know them by their username,you have no idea who they are.
(01:11:03):
And my impression from followinga number of streamers on Twitter
that backseat driving, or letme show you how to do that.
Isn't kindly looked upon it's not helpful.
John (01:11:13):
I hate backseat driving, man.
Hate it.
Alan B (01:11:15):
But like, if you have that circle
of trust, if you're in a high trust
environment, like you are sitting on acouch or if you or I were playing it,
if we, if we booted up destiny rightnow, we're playing something and you
saw something new, like, while we wereplaying, you're like, Hey, why don't you
use this weapon that said this weapon,like, that's a high trust environment.
Like I know you personally.
And like, there's, there's no likeI understand where you're coming.
(01:11:37):
I understand, I understand whereyour feedback is coming in from.
and if you're telling me, I mustbe doing a porn of job, that it.
rose to that level of you actually havingto tell me to my weapon or I'm firing at
the wrong enemy or something like that.
Which is fine.
I enjoy that level of feedback.
if you think it's bad enoughI will trust your judgment.
And like, let's give it.
a shot.
But don't know that any streaming platformI've seen genders or, or even strives to,
(01:12:02):
that level of trust between the streamerand the viewers, it's much more of a
I don't want to say television, causeit's not, it's more interaction than
that, it's not couch situation, right?
very, It's very, much a peopleat a sporting match in the crowd.
And then the people on the field playingthe game level of interaction, right?
(01:12:22):
Like, you know what, it costs you,your, you, you paid five bucks for
that ticket to the minor league game.
the minor league player out there on thefield does not want to listen to you, tell
them how to play, even if you're right.
if you're right.
He doesn't want to listento you, tell them how to
how to catch the or hit theball or swing or whatever.
Right.
People still yell it.
that's totally fine.
John (01:12:39):
That's the value of the money
you pay for the ticket, lets you
Alan B (01:12:42):
Yeah.
You get to, you get go havepeople that are playing.
John (01:12:45):
working on or from beyond at
Westwood and something crazy has to
have had happened you up and leave thesunny desert and you Hightail it to
the border across the north in Toronto.
Alan B (01:12:58):
Yeah, we, we shipped earth
and beyond and they cut the live
staff way down and I was on the, Iwas on the wrong side of the line.
John (01:13:04):
All you on the chopping block, Al.
Alan B (01:13:06):
got chopped.
Yeah, me and a number ofmy friends got shopped.
And it's like one of those unfortunatethings, that's the only time I've
ever been chopped and sucked.
I like had to deal with it.
Like, that was probably the thirdtime in my life or it actually
failed something I wanted to do.
John (01:13:20):
Oh, wow.
Alan B (01:13:21):
Right.
So I, I still struggle with failure evennow, but like at the time I was in my late
twenties and I just sort of needed a fewmonths off before I did anything else.
Just sort of process actually failing.
I think I wanted to do, andI very seriously considered
like, not making games anymore
because I'd
John (01:13:39):
It was a heavy that's huge man.
Like, why did you takethat also personally?
You weren't the one developer
on the game.
Alan B (01:13:48):
why don't I take it personally?
It wasn't that I took it personally.
It was that I had failed.
It wasn't that like the game.
had failed
John (01:13:55):
Hm.
Alan B (01:13:55):
I had failed to be good enough
to stay, which is different, right?
John (01:13:59):
okay.
Meaning like, why weren't you, oneof the ones that got picked to stay.
Okay.
Alan B (01:14:05):
Yeah.
Like why was I not good enough?
Am I not good at my job?
There's that cycle of depression andquestioning and, imposter syndrome, right?
Like
John (01:14:13):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:14:14):
good, like, that
was only my second game.
John (01:14:16):
True.
Alan B (01:14:17):
like four or five years.
Like a lot of people burn outin the first four or five years.
so I took some months off luckily I hadenough money saved up and I had enough
money from severance from getting, let gothat I could afford to take months off.
And like actually you know,moved back in with my parents.
that a spare house or aspare room in another house.
So like we live, I grew up on a farm.
(01:14:39):
And so like I lived out on the farm, notin the same actual building of my parents
for, you know, six months before I like,started to pull it back together again,
because I needed to figure out like,do I need to actually change careers?
Like, is this a different thing?
Like, I've been meaning todo this for a long time.
I did it once.
It seemed to go pretty well.
I did it a second time.
I totally failed.
even though I didn't totally fail, likeI have the perspective now that natural
(01:15:01):
and normal thing, but like at the time it
was
pretty intense feeling of,
like, Is this somethingI want to keep doing?
I want to put myselfout there to fail again?
And I think that's what that's akind of that a lot of people have
to go through, not just in theindustry, but with everything, right?
Like as you're up in your twentiesand figuring out who you actually are
and like, what are your priorities?
And what's important to you.
(01:15:21):
and that was me, like trying tofigure out, like, in college anymore.
I th I was cruising from collegeand did my jobs, and now I'm like,
now I'm at a point where nothing isanchored and I can do whatever I want.
And so like, what doI actually want to do?
what are my priorities?
John (01:15:36):
thanks for sharing that
hour.
You know, as a game developer,consider yourself fortunate.
If you haven't been on a canceledproject or a shutdown studio, or laid
off in the middle of a game whereyou thought you would do in good work
right there, all the feedback wasyou're doing a good job, keep going.
And then you get the pinkslip or severance package.
(01:15:56):
You're pulled into a meeting
and there's times where an entireproject or team, but there's other
times where in that instance, it soundedlike half of the team or a percentage
of the team or a fraction of the
Alan B (01:16:08):
it was a percentage of the team.
And they did it in the worst way possible.
Every Friday, for a monththey let a chunk of people go.
And so everybody, like for a month,everybody was like, am I going to be
on the chopping block for this Friday?
Like, it was very like regular.
It was like yeah, it was reallyunfortunate timing on a lot of stuff.
(01:16:28):
I think I was like on the last Friday.
John (01:16:30):
My goodness.
it's like getting picked foryour team or whatever, like
Alan B (01:16:34):
yeah.
John (01:16:35):
it past this week, I'm good.
Alan B (01:16:36):
Yeah.
And, and the real kicker wasthe launch party for the game
because it was a live game.
Right.
Was like the weekend.
I was one of the firstdesigners on the project I'd
been there the whole time and I
like the week before the launchparty that we, before the launch.
And I didn't even get to like, havethat joy of like the game launched
and everything is going great.
And you're fixing bugs and it'slike, you're dealing with launch date
(01:16:57):
pressures and all that, like that cycleof excitement and like terror and all
the stuff from the learning alive game.
I was like, ready to go and then poop.
so I was dealing with thatlevel of process, like, how do
like not getting picked to even do that?
Because like, that's the element wherelike, I'm actually really good at that
level of in, day out, debug stuff likestuff's going live, how do we fix it?
(01:17:21):
What's the quickest way to
John (01:17:22):
Okay.
Alan B (01:17:22):
the right way to fix it.
Like dealing with all those problemsand juggling all that stuff on.
Like, I felt like it was aboutto be like my perfect scenario.
And then it was like,Nope, Nope, nevermind.
John (01:17:31):
Holy cow.
Yeah, you put on all the hard work toget to the point where it's like, all
right, now I'm going to ride this out.
The game's going to go live.
I'm going to be able to kindof tune it, live with the team.
And then looking forward to that, youbuild up this expectations and then
it's kind of pulled out from underneath
you and you don't even get to goparty and celebrate with the team.
Right?
That's shipping a game is one of thecraziest and also rewarding things
(01:17:54):
you can do in this industry, right?
Being able to party or celebrate withyour team at a, at a launch party is,
easily one of most memorable momentsin a project or a team or in life
Alan B (01:18:06):
yeah, it helped instruct
me after like lots of reflection
about to help manage a team.
Like what makes peoplefeel valued on the team?
Even the smallest thing.
Like if you get to be together with yourteam, make it make you feel a lot better.
Right.
So there's like argument for like, canwe delay this kind of stuff a week, two
weeks, three weeks, in reality if theywould have kept myself and the other
(01:18:28):
people, they let go on an extra two weeks,three weeks to get to celebrate, would
that have cost them significant amountof money in the long-term probably not.
Right.
And so I've been an advocate for thosebumps It does come up in the industry.
Like there's nothing you can do about it.
But easing those transitions so thatpeople don't feel native in a way
(01:18:50):
that doesn't have have to happen.
Right.
John (01:18:52):
It didn't have to happen.
Alan B (01:18:53):
anytime you lose a job people
leave, there's going to be like
some level of negativity, Mike, butwhat can you do for people on your
team to ease that transition right.
To make it so that like, yes, you'renot going to be here in two weeks or
three weeks, whatever it is, but like,do you get to celebrate with your team?
Do you get to have that last hangout with your team before you
Like there's, there's all sorts of stuff.
(01:19:14):
that's really important about thesocial connections you have at work.
the industry is still relatively small.
I never quite understood it withwhen I was at rockstar because of
insular rockstar is in a lot of ways.
It wasn't a huge game developmentcommunity in San Diego
that was there, but
John (01:19:30):
a big factor.
Alan B (01:19:31):
but rockstar itself, didn't
ever like spend a lot of time going to
GDC and doing all that kind of stuff.
Right.
Like it was relatively insularas a development community.
but since I've been at Bungie andI've seen all of the people and
like people that leave and then comeback and we have a huge, backlog
of people that have left Bungieyear, two years, and then come back.
And I love seeing that it'sbecause, they were treated well,
John (01:19:54):
Hm.
Alan B (01:19:55):
left.
And then they learned what theyneeded to learn to come back.
if you treat your employees well youcan let them go out to the world,
get even more knowledge
and then bring that back and thenstart folding that into your DNA.
John (01:20:06):
That's wonderful hour.
I think, there's somany things to touch on.
You've been doing this for a long time Ilike the path that we're on right here.
Talking about people who get, letgo, how that's handled making a huge
difference in the perception of thestudio, the publisher, whatever, and,
and, and that dramatically affectingwhether people want to come back and
(01:20:27):
work for you ever again, and leadingto making you a better leader, right.
To know what not to do yourteam the importance of it.
Right?
Because it is a small industry
and no better compliment of yourleadership or your, team's culture than
to have people that leave and come backlike you said, learn what they need
to learn, try things out differently,scratch an itch, try a different
(01:20:51):
hat, and then find out that missingsomething or they're ready to come back.
If you want to call out the homie Ryanparody, he leaves as a lead and then
comes back and gets to be a director.
Because he learned what he needed to learnand, and, was ready to kind of bring that
back and then push his career forward.
Alan B (01:21:09):
I've worked with Ryan since
2006
and so I was
I
John (01:21:13):
fresh out
Alan B (01:21:14):
Yeah,
yeah.
I was really disappointing whenhe decided to leave bungee.
I was disappointed whenhe had to leave rockstar.
Then of course I followed him,
but bungee a a couple of years later.
And then he left a coupleof years after that.
But he came back, Hecame back, Ryan came back
John (01:21:27):
He did it to you twice now.
Oh, that's awesome.
buddy's back, right?
Is it
the
prodigal, the prodigalson, parable or whatever.
Alan B (01:21:35):
And of course I, of
course I had never seen him.
I, I worked with him.
Like I get to have a meeting withhim, like once every three months.
John (01:21:40):
But it's nice to know you
can hit each other up on the,
what do you guys use teams or
something like that.
Alan B (01:21:45):
We can.
I get him up on teams whenever andthese, uh, he's having his wedding
anniversary right now, I think in
John (01:21:50):
Shout
out to him and Laura,
Alan B (01:21:52):
yeah.
and Laura, and Mary?
John (01:21:54):
the Mt.
Dives is something happy 10 years.
Woo.
Some
good pictures that I seen.
Shout out to them.
what is it like putting a GDCpresentation together to what we did
last year, where it was all completelyvirtual, we practiced a bunch together.
It was a panel, right?
You had of less to talk about a week.
(01:22:14):
practice it so well.
And again, we had a chance to, it was pre.
And then everything of the fact thatI think, you know, I don't know about
you, but I was pretty damn of what
put together
Alan B (01:22:26):
it was, fantastic.
I am more worried about the, like, Iknow I can put this together and then
I'm up on stage in front of betweenfive and 200 people, depending on how
many people show up when you're justtalking on video, it's super easy.
You're just like, Hey,it's John and Alicia and
And, and we're just talking to each otheras the person recording, even though we're
giving a talk to all these people thatare gonna watch it, it's still just us.
(01:22:47):
And we've been chit chattingand stuff like that.
My experience with this talk so far,except for the couple of sessions I have
with Osama has been like me working onthe deck myself and talking to myself in
my head about how this is going to soundneed to start getting feedback from it.
I got good feedback from Osama butlike, I need to be like a talk, doing a
version of this, talk to like designersor bungee in the next few weeks where
John (01:23:09):
yeah
Alan B (01:23:09):
here's my talk, I've
got two weeks to fix it.
What's wrong with it right now.
We don't have that because whenwe did the panel, was all of
us giving feedback and right.
So
you're going down the wrongdirection, somebody can call it
out and you fix it right there.
But I'm just working on it from, youknow, 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM every morning,
like doodle doodle, doodle doodle.
Is
it bad?
Like, I think it's good.
my intuition does, this is good, but like
(01:23:31):
It's a couch co-op thing again.
It's
same exact.
John (01:23:33):
You've done a version
of this talk internally
Alan B (01:23:36):
Yeah, well
on video.
video, on video,
right?
So this will be my first version ofit, where I'll be doing it live in
standing up on, and I'm alreadylosing weight because I'm
like, oh shit, I got to get up.
John (01:23:52):
You gotta practice, man.
I hope,
Alan B (01:23:54):
I know
John (01:23:54):
way to practice
Good luck brother.
I think you're going to kill you.
I think you're goingto have a packed house.
It's going to be awesome.
It's gonna fly by
Alan B (01:24:02):
Yeah.
John (01:24:03):
the size of the industry
is something we don't get
to talk enough about it.
You hear it.
I want, I want people tounderstand that listening to
this is you now work with Mayling
Alan B (01:24:11):
Yeah.
John (01:24:12):
I worked with when I was
at Warner brothers in Montreal
Alan B (01:24:15):
Yep.
Okay.
John (01:24:17):
ago.
And so you guys never worked with.
And now who you are, she's at Bungie.
You guys are working together.
a one degree of separation nowwhere like, through me, you
guys are connected or whatever.
Osama is
Alan B (01:24:29):
Yup.
John (01:24:30):
former colleague from WB games,
Alan B (01:24:32):
Yup.
John (01:24:32):
And now here he is, he's on
like the GDC board you guys are
connecting and talking put in, putin the content to get the food GVC.
So it's a small industry, burned bridges.
You're going to see each other,you know it or not, you're
Alan B (01:24:47):
Yup.
John (01:24:47):
other again or connect
through somebody that knows
somebody that knows you.
Alan B (01:24:51):
Yeah.
if you're a bad actor,that will get around, it,
might take awhile, but it
and like, will not get hired forjobs that you want to get because you
burned a bridge here and you didn'trealize, like I worry about like,
have I accidentally burned a bridge?
I don't even know.
I burned
by saying the wrong thing,in the middle of crunch.
And you know, like don't even realizethat I've done something poorly.
(01:25:12):
That's always one of those things, right?
The noodles at you inthe middle of the night.
And you're like, did I make
20
John (01:25:17):
cold sweats,
Alan B (01:25:18):
a, did I make the wrong comment
in the middle of that Plato session?
To that person?
They probably don't remembernow, but I know I do.
John (01:25:25):
I think the culture of
openness and feedback, right.
Having those one-on-ones and, allowingpeople to be open with each other, right.
Like you said, like it's easyenough that you guys are frequently
talking and talking about life.
It's not just working.
It's not just bad news.
Right.
It can be whatever, hopefully puts thewalls down where people can be honest
(01:25:45):
and, that way you don't have to spendso much time, second guessing a worrying
and waking up in the middle of the night.
Alan B (01:25:51):
I've definitely had some We'll
call it learning exercises, learning
moments, moments where I was able togrow, like over like three or four
years, the last three or four years sinceI've been a bunch of I've grown a lot.
and I, and I can take feedback.
There was, there was a moment whereI got really upset at somebody.
But like, it was at a time where likeI personal stuff going on, realize
how much it had been affecting me.
(01:26:13):
But somebody grabbed me in a room andsaid, like, I don't like, that was
a really weird reaction you had withthat, that other person, like, sure?
And in the moment I waslike, yeah, God damn right.
I'm sure.
But
John (01:26:25):
No
Alan B (01:26:25):
over the next hour, I was like,
oh shit, I really overreacted before.
Because of stuff goingon in my life at home.
And I need to go like,apologize to that person.
And I grabbed them in a room and Isaid like, Hey man, I am really sorry.
Like taken time to reflect on it.
I overreacted.
Like all of my emotional, nerve endingsare totally wired all the time right now.
And I did not mean in a normal situation,I would not have reacted like that.
(01:26:48):
I'm actually, you know, goingto be going to grief therapy,
stuff like that to like try and
John (01:26:52):
yo
Alan B (01:26:53):
th I didn't, I didn't
mean to react that way.
And I'm really, really, really sorry.
I did.
John (01:26:57):
wow.
Alan B (01:26:58):
It was not great.
It's hard to do that stuff,but I'm super happy that the
person that pulled me aside and
John (01:27:03):
Yeah,
Alan B (01:27:04):
I think you overreacted.
John (01:27:05):
yeah.
Wait, wait to be an ally.
Ally ship is a big elementof a team just being better,
right Like in the heat of a moment, therecan be an antagonizer and an antagonistic
knee or The giver and the receiver and.
Those people were in it.
And it helps to have a third partybe able to neutralize it or come up
(01:27:26):
after the fact and be like, you okay?
Something's up there?
how do we help that?
big shout out to that ally for being brave
Alan B (01:27:36):
Yeah,
John (01:27:36):
good teammate.
Right?
Cause he's
you and the person that wason the receiving end of your
ire.
Alan B (01:27:42):
and they didn't know, if I just
overreacted to somebody, they didn't know
how I was going to react to them either.
right So
they're actually puttingthemselves out too.
They don't know how I'm gonna reactto them, giving that feedback.
But luckily I was in that place whereI didn't overreact to them giving
the feedback, even though I didn'twant to receive it well, immediately,
John (01:28:00):
right then and there,
Alan B (01:28:01):
me some time to
really reflect on it.
But I was still in thatplace where I could listen.
John (01:28:05):
That fight or
flight is real sometimes.
Right?
Alan B (01:28:07):
Yup.
John (01:28:08):
you're just not listening
to anything coming at you.
Alan B (01:28:12):
Yup.
John (01:28:12):
good for you.
Rather being able to listen to that honestfeedback in the, in the heat of a moment
and making some changes off of that,
Alan B (01:28:19):
Yeah.
John (01:28:19):
That is the definition
of girlfriend evolution, man.
long you've been doing this,that we could always be better.
Alan B (01:28:25):
I mean, I've been doing it
for years the point where I'm like,
oh, we're talking about stuff atEA or stuff at like, on Thrasher.
I'm like it doesn't feellike a lifetime ago.
It feels like multiple lifetimes ago.
Cause it was so long ago and I've grownso much and I've learned so much and
I don't do stuff like work amountsof hours and that kind of stuff.
Yeah, it just, it feels like so long ago.
(01:28:48):
Sometimes I've, I've hard time.
Like actually, are youremembering all the details?
Cause it was so, cause it feels likeso long ago you're like, oh Yeah.
that was a, is that adifferent person that, that
to,
John (01:28:57):
life is different Allen.
Alan B (01:28:58):
yeah.
John (01:28:59):
a, another universe, Alan, for sure.
You're ready to go into the final
round of wrap this up,
let's do it.
All right.
What's the last game you finished?
Alan B (01:29:11):
Spirit fairer.
It is a, like a 2d or.
Ship management, like community managementruled exploration game no combat, you're
just going around people's problems.
Like the conceit of the game you're takingover from Karen, basically taking people
that have died and like taking their souls
(01:29:33):
to like their final resting place.
Right.
But a lot of times the souls have openproblems and things they need to work out.
And so you're there to help them workout all of their problems you basically
send them on to their just rewards.
but like you, you're on a ship andyou're like managing the ship and
you're like putting buildings onthe ship where you can make, like,
there's a whole crafting system.
And
(01:29:54):
collect cheap and, and harvest fruit andwater fruit, and go around and fish and
you take your boat from place to place.
the vibe is absolutely amazing.
Yeah, that's the last game I finished.
John (01:30:05):
How much time you put into that?
Alan B (01:30:07):
25 hours
like everything.
John (01:30:11):
Okay Okay.
You a hundred percent at it.
Alan B (01:30:13):
you know what, I,
didn't a hundred percent of it.
Cause there are things that you'd haveto like start a brand new game to do.
Like
where like, if you don't
by the time you send them on,like, you don't have a chance
to get that achievement.
John (01:30:23):
on everything.
It's on windows.
Stadia,
PlayStation X-Box
switch.
Alan B (01:30:27):
game pass.
If you don't
have
game pass, don't get pat
Yeah.
John (01:30:30):
is the golden ticket man.
Alan B (01:30:32):
the last game I, a
hundred percent did was stable
also on game pass.
It's also a non-combat game.
That's also about world explorationas a sort of primary mechanic.
It's got an amazing story andamazing vibe, amazing art style.
it's a coming of age story where you're,a member of a nomadic tribe wears
masks based off of the job they do, andbased off of who they are in the world.
(01:30:55):
And so you're basically sent out onyour gliding, they call it, does he
have like a special magic thing whereyou can glide everywhere to essentially
find yourself, find out what mask youwant to wear for the rest of your life.
And so you can explore the world as longas you want to, until you come back.
And when you come back, you have aceremony, you have to pick which master
you're going to want, what to wear.
So you're like solving people'sproblems, finding new masks.
(01:31:16):
a crime section where you'retracking down, like who committed
a crime and where they're at.
but it's mostly about sort of figuringout the backstory of this world.
. John (01:31:25):
They sound awesome.
They look, they have a great aesthetic.
definitely want to try both of these.
Thanks for that recommendation.
Alan B (01:31:31):
two other games that
I want to shout out before
we go on game pass recently.
So a forbidden city
John (01:31:38):
Oh, want to get that guy on here.
I want to get that
guy.
Cause that development tail was crazy.
Alan B (01:31:43):
oh, really?
What happened with.
John (01:31:45):
He He was like, a lawyer.
was like a lawyer for his full-time job.
And like he quit to go makeforbidden city and everybody
was like, what are you doing?
You crazy?
And he did it and he stuck it out.
And now he's a developer now.
And it may made a bunch, youknow, it's every, nobody,
everybody loves this experience.
I haven't played it.
I want to play it.
(01:32:05):
It's got this kind of like missed or whatis it that something of the OBOR then like
solve this mystery and you could tackle itin different ways or fix everybody's world
or
Alan B (01:32:16):
there's a mystery
and you go talk to people
it's a Groundhog day game,
John (01:32:20):
yeah.
Alan B (01:32:20):
it is a
John (01:32:21):
Or edge of tomorrow or,
Alan B (01:32:23):
fail, you restart over from
the same spot with the new knowledge
and specific items, you keep along with
right?
John (01:32:29):
it's got like that.
Haiti's feel to it as
Alan B (01:32:32):
Yeah.
John (01:32:32):
there's that level of persistence.
Alan B (01:32:34):
but it's a lot
of like conversations.
Right.
And so you basically, it gives you away to like cut the conversation short.
If you've already had thisconversation that basically you
go like, trust me, trust me.
I already know what you'regoing to tell me how the
me?
Well, you'd never believe me, butI'm a somebody from the future.
And I'm traveling back intime every day to do this.
And they're like, what thehell are you talking about?
John (01:32:53):
Nick Pearson.
hit him up through Twitter or something.
I was like, yo, you gotto come on the podcast.
And he's like, super busy, maybe one day.
And I,
Alan B (01:33:02):
yeah,
John (01:33:02):
I
don't, blame him.
He's like one person doing thisthing, but the cool thing is he's
able to do it full time as opposedto having maybe regretted leaving his
law degree.
Alan B (01:33:12):
yeah.
I actually have a good friend That wasa game developer and then went back
to law school and is now a lawyer.
So folks at around
John (01:33:18):
I mean, that makes sense.
Right?
Like
Alan B (01:33:21):
yeah.
John (01:33:22):
the lawyer profession for
everything, prestige access,
Alan B (01:33:26):
being a game designer is actually
a lot like being a lawyer sometimes.
Right.
And you're setting up like rulesfor a system and interpreting
those rules and setting up rulesso that people can exploit them.
And how do you deal with peoplethat it like explain the rules?
Like there's a
in game designer And lawyer.
A lot of similarities,
John (01:33:43):
and being clear paper.
Right.
and,
Alan B (01:33:45):
right?
John (01:33:46):
and the letter of it something
that's meaningful and can be followed
Alan B (01:33:51):
Yup.
Yup.
John (01:33:52):
on
Alan B (01:33:52):
The last game
nobody saves the world
It's from drink box studios up in Toronto.
They did a guacamole.
I don't know if he ever played
guacamole.
Like,
John (01:34:01):
love . It's like that.
Metro Venus.
Uh, I never played the sequel.
I think, I guess the
Alan B (01:34:05):
yeah.
John (01:34:06):
co-op or
Alan B (01:34:08):
I had another, had
another, a Luchador that you could
swap between them and stuff.
did guacamole LA their art directorI work with at rockstar Toronto.
so I've been, always been likegrabbing their games it's like
a style, like Dugin brawler.
Like that's what the game is.
But the core conceit is that youcan change forms You're like
(01:34:29):
just a nobody, and then you canchange it to a Knight or ranger.
And then as you level up your rangerskills, you complete questions like
that to level up your ranger skills.
You now open up other forumsand you open up other forms.
And like that's sort of the coreconceit is as you level your leveling
up your core character, and thenyou're leveling up from, you know, an
F rating all the way to an S ratingon each of the different forums.
(01:34:50):
And as you level them up, those unlock newabilities for your form, you unlock new
abilities that other, every form can use.
And then you unlock new forms thatwhich have new core abilities and
then unlock new abilities for them.
And like it just cyclesand cycles and cycles.
There's so much gameplay there, butit becomes a point of like, you're
like, yeah, you have a core, core formwhere it has a couple of walked things.
(01:35:10):
And then all the other stuff has mixand match and there's damage types.
And there's like shields that you have tobreak on the enemies and the Dungeons are
randomly generated and yeah, like it'sjust, but it's got this cool Zelda style.
Overworld yeah.
it's I I've been
I had to stop playing it to workon my GDC talk in the morning.
John (01:35:28):
I could just see the spreadsheet
fighting itself on the scans.
That's the thing that scares me.
Cause I've done wake up, play games beforework and it's always beat me in the ass.
It was just like, oh shit, Igot to jump into this meeting.
Alan B (01:35:41):
yup.
John (01:35:41):
want to go one more time.
And so I've had to kind of know myself
Alan B (01:35:45):
Yeah.
John (01:35:45):
myself from games in the morning.
So love to hear other peoplewho are able to do it.
Alan B (01:35:50):
a bump at six every morning.
If I'm lucky, sometimes it'searlier no alarm, we have cats.
So the cats wake us up every
John (01:35:57):
Your natural alarm.
Alan B (01:35:58):
So I'm up at animal
crossing takes me 20 minutes or so.
And so I, give myself an hour to playwhatever after animal crossing and I'll,
if I'm playing nobody nobody's savesthe world or spirit fair or whatever.
If I've got something going on indestiny, maybe I'll pull up destiny.
but it's usually at that time of themorning, it's still kind of dark outside.
I don't want a heavy combat game.
Right.
And so destiny, and nobody says theworld, they're a little too heavy combat.
(01:36:20):
Like
John (01:36:20):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:36:21):
I couldn't play,
Metroid during that time.
Like it's early, like coffeehasn't started working yet.
Right?
Like I want something a littleslower, little less combat
focused, maybe some story, somegood vibes, a little exploration.
But I set myself up an hour.
And so if I, if it's like, if it'slike six 30 seven 30 then I work
out, so I got my bike or I could doring fit adventure on the switch or
(01:36:45):
whatever.
John (01:36:46):
I'm about to get
my ring fit back on.
I just got my joy cons fixed
Alan B (01:36:49):
Yeah, man, I it's really good.
So I, so I, I give myself aboutan hour to exercise before work.
Now we're to exercise then grab breakfastand jump on for a meeting or whatever.
John (01:37:00):
how do you, unplug from the game?
That's what I need to know.
Like how do you
unplug from the game toget into the exercise?
Alan B (01:37:06):
So spirit fair
broke that for awhile.
I wasn't doing very well here.
Like you're always at that point whereyou're like, I could craft this one more
thing or like this fruit tree needs, likewe're on the ship going to somewhere else.
And
fish.
So that, that broke mewith anything with levels.
It's a little easier to be justlike, I'm going to constantly
check my phone or have an
John (01:37:26):
yeah.
Alan B (01:37:26):
goes off and says like,
you need to put it down right now.
I mean, luckily with X-Box now, likemost games are like quick resume.
And so
John (01:37:33):
Yeah.
Amen.
For quick resume.
Alan B (01:37:35):
just turning the X-Box off.
Sorry, I shouldn't.
Now that we're part of Sony, Ishouldn't be talking up awesome.
X-Box features anymore.
John (01:37:41):
It's okay.
There's room for every console now.
Alan B (01:37:44):
quick resume is a lifesaver.
It's really good.
So yeah, so a lot of it is just like,Hey, I might be in the middle of
something, but I just need to turn it off.
If I, if I don't feel like I could endthis in five minutes, I just need to
power it down, get my daily workout done.
And I'll come back to it tomorrowmorning and I'll pop it up and
I'll be right where I left off.
Didn't use to be able to do that, right.
You wouldn't be like, I'm inthe middle of this active.
(01:38:05):
Like if I stop right now,I just lost a half hour,
John (01:38:08):
Yup.
That.
Excuse.
That's my favorite Abe.
I can't pause.
I'm online as Fortnite or something.
What is the last book you read?
Alan B (01:38:17):
This was a book called
riot baby was essentially is Saifai
novella about a kid who was bornthe 1992 Rodney king riots in LA
John (01:38:30):
oh, shit.
Alan B (01:38:31):
And so because he was
born during that time was imbued
with effectively magical powers,but he still lives in our world.
Like he's not magical like in that way.
And so like he's basicallyin prison, right?
Because he's like very differentin ways that other people are
super cool, super powerful.
So that's what I'm reading right now.
I let me check my, becauseI track all this stuff.
(01:38:52):
If you don't, if you
don't Uh, I know I use the storygraph that isn't Good reads.
alternative that's has alot more cooler features.
John (01:39:02):
what words Do you have for an
aspiring developer, someone on the
outside, looking in, wanting to comeinto this crazy industry as a, a veteran
who has been in here for 20 plus years.
Alan B (01:39:13):
It can be a hard job.
It's definitely worth it.
That's what you want to do,like if, if you want to make
experiences, entertain people likeit's a hard, but rewarding job.
Like even when you're not workingridiculous hours, it's so hard creatively,
creative work can be very hard work.
John (01:39:31):
Totally.
Alan B (01:39:31):
you're trying to get
in make games, like, that's the
number one thing to do, right?
if you want to entertain people,you will entertain people.
If you want to do things, if you wantto build experiences for people, it's
a board game, if it's a video game, ifit's an RPG, it's like you like people
that have that, like sort of internalneed to do that, find ways to do it.
(01:39:56):
like, and so if you feel like you dothere's plenty of resources online.
It's actually easier to startbuilding your own game right
now than it ever has been,
with unity unreal.
finding an engine, is easiernow than it's ever been.
John (01:40:08):
Yup.
Alan B (01:40:09):
just start building something even
if it's dumb, here, I'll tell you this.
The first thing I everbuilt that was game-like was
learning how to program basic.
And it was in seventh grade and I builta survey slash dating, match up, like
you're matched up, like give everybody inthe class, like this thing, fill it out.
(01:40:32):
And then we're going to match you withthe person that you're the most like,
like that was the first thing I Did that.
I, I, I wanted to like provide thisexperience for other people just because I
liked one of the girls like in the class.
John (01:40:44):
Did you have like a hard match every
time?
Like if, if name, he goesthis match with Alan Blaine
kind of thing.
Alan B (01:40:50):
I wasn't, brave enough to do that.
I wasn't brave enough to do that, but itwas like, I wonder if one of the questions
will like actually make this happen.
you can find ways to do dumb things.
When I was in college, I made anenemy that was like, you know,
they talk about like an enemy.
That's really like to have this thing.
in a trench coat or whatever.
I made an enemy that was actuallythat, where they would fire a rocket
(01:41:10):
launcher and it would blow them back.
And if you, you could like,then they would separate.
And they were actually two enemies,
like totally dumb, likesilly, silly, silly stuff.
But just start making it, makethings that entertain you, start
showing off like what you want to
John (01:41:23):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:41:23):
And like, that's, that's
how you do it, right from there.
most people that get in the industrywill not have a job making the
thing that they want to make.
Not for a long time, like the only jobI've had I was actually doing the thing,
creatively that I got in the industryto do in the first place was red, dead.
Like that was the game.
Like, I actually really got lucky.
(01:41:44):
I got to make, the game that I gotin the industry to make years in.
And I wasn't the creative leador anything like that on it.
But like that, like I was in college,I'm like, why am I making games?
I want to make the greatestWestern never been made.
Like that was like a thing that hasbeen on my list for a long time.
I got really lucky that I got to do that.
You know and then since then,it's just about like finding
(01:42:06):
your joy day to day, right?
Finding a place That's good.
finding a work place.
That's good Finding things youwant to do, but like like figuring
out what you want to make andyou don't always get to make it.
That's fine.
I almost never do, Find ways tofall in love with things that you
don't even like all that much.
John (01:42:22):
That's
a good one.
Alan B (01:42:22):
I, was leading designer
on a skateboarding game.
I had never skated inmy life prior to that.
I learned how to all lead by the time thegame ship, because I would do a lot of
my about the design and the bug fixing,like, you know, when you have to take
that break to think about like how tofix a bug and get away from the computer.
I was like skating around the parkinggarage at the axis, at 10 o'clock at
(01:42:45):
night, thinking about how to debugsomething, stuff like that, just like and
giant oval was like around the parking
John (01:42:50):
Yeah,
Alan B (01:42:51):
in a while, I'd be like,
I'm gonna try to Ali right now who,
oh, I got two inches off the ground.
Yes.
I got two inches off theground that all it was sweet.
John (01:42:58):
that's huge, man.
If anybody that's never triedto flip their board, man.
That's huge.
That's huge.
Alan B (01:43:04):
So Yeah,
like I had to work on a game awhile.
It was the access like find thething about what you're working on.
Even if like the core concept, isn'tlike, what you want, what you'd prefer.
If you can't find something to loveabout it, to really pour your heart into,
like you're going to have a rough time,
John (01:43:23):
Yeah,
Alan B (01:43:24):
find something about it that
is just like, you can invest in,
they feel good about investing in,
John (01:43:28):
totally.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
Like love the thing and thenyou can break it down, right?
Design something, build somethingoff of the thing you love and
see how far that will take you.
And you it'll quickly be apparentif this is what sparks joy
and lets you flourish.
Or maybe there's a different aspect ofit, but it's especially, like you said
(01:43:50):
today, there's nothing holding you back.
Granted, if you haveinternet and a computer,
Alan B (01:43:57):
right.
John (01:43:57):
you can put something together.
Alan B (01:43:58):
that's always the problem, right.
Is that we assume we mentallyassume a similar level of access
that we had when we were coming.
And there's a lot more talent in therethat even though the level of access
has left, the bar has dropped betweenwhat you need to be able to do to start.
it's still higher than itneeds to be but there's a lot
John (01:44:18):
it could only be bear.
Alan B (01:44:19):
out there.
That's totally untapped right now that
John (01:44:21):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:44:22):
a chance.
John (01:44:23):
I'm a fan out there again.
Right.
A learning in this world of fortnightthat it even has a creative mode
and all these other games aroundit that I didn't even know about.
I'm learning about roadblocks.
I'm learning about dreams.
Alan B (01:44:36):
mm.
John (01:44:37):
core mantle core is a thing as well.
Alan B (01:44:40):
I don't even know what that is.
I heard of all the other stuff you
talked about manta or was that,
John (01:44:43):
core is crazy.
I think core is built off of unrealand this kind of this middleware,
or I'm going to butcher it.
Please go fact, check it.
Yeah, look, look it up.
it has an editor that works off ofunreal that lets you build assets and
logic and put it up in the world forother people to consume or even purchase
Alan B (01:45:05):
right?
John (01:45:06):
it.
Am I, am I doing it?
Justice?
Alan B (01:45:08):
Yeah.
John (01:45:09):
Yeah.
Alan B (01:45:09):
I'm wondering what the
business oh, it cost you credits to
play did to buy credits through them.
Okay.
John (01:45:14):
Yeah.
And so, so.
Alan B (01:45:15):
at what their actual model
John (01:45:17):
Yeah.
It's like you UGC user generated content.
Everybody gets a cut.
Of course they get a big cut andthen and then, or content for them
that other people building bringsmore people into the ecosystem.
Yeah, man.
It does.
Yeah.
So like you said, the barrierof entry is lower given.
If you have a computer and someinternet man, or even in this
(01:45:38):
day, you could be on a console.
Like the damn grandma's boy vision that Ialways hated in my heart that killed me.
It's like, yo, you don't make gameson a console with a controller
that doesn't fucking exist.
It's actually, it's actually coming.
It's getting it's coming true.
Yeah, man.
Hey Al,
this has been a pleasure brother.
(01:45:58):
I'm sorry to have kept you longer.
The good thing is you don't work tomorrow.
I fucking have to work tomorrow.
Goddammit,
Alan B (01:46:05):
man.
John (01:46:05):
but it's all good.
This is a blast.
This is a pleasure.
Alan B (01:46:09):
Yeah,
John (01:46:09):
the fact that we known each
other, I get to go back and say,
Hey, we shipped red dead together.
We shipped GTA five together.
We got to go to the littleship parties and award shows.
But I still to this day, like thisshit, I get to learn things about you.
I didn't even know.
And so I love being able to breakthat apart, share that with the rest
of the world, for their benefit.
Alan B (01:46:30):
sure.
John (01:46:31):
Tradition of the show,
my friend, you know what it is.
If you had a good time falling out ofthe play area, is there anyone that you
would nominate to fall out behind you?
Alan B (01:46:43):
Yeah.
So if you really want to get aninteresting conversation, you?
can talk to the design lead that hired me.
And it gave me my first job as the access.
he goes by the name of Gordon Bellamy.
I don't know if you're
John (01:46:54):
Oh yeah.
No Gordon Bellamy.
He's been on a bookhe's on like high score
Alan B (01:46:59):
Yup.
John (01:47:00):
and, and a bunch
of a bunch of content.
He was, he was on Madden.
No.
Does he do
Alan B (01:47:04):
Yeah.
John (01:47:05):
back in the day
Alan B (01:47:05):
start.
So he got to start on Maddenin the early nineties.
John (01:47:08):
now he's like a, a professor as
well on a
Alan B (01:47:12):
at USC, I believe
John (01:47:14):
yeah.
Alan B (01:47:14):
was the president
of IGA for quite a while.
But Yeah.
Gordon hired me back of the late nineties.
John (01:47:21):
I would love to connect with Gordon.
I feel like I've spoke to him onceor twice, but this will give me
a chance to dive deeper and putsome border on that relationship.
This is exciting.
Cause I would love to pick his brainand be like, what did you see in
Allen that made you give him a chance?
I got.
Alan B (01:47:38):
so number 2:00 AM or two.
John (01:47:40):
Oh to,
oh, hell yeah.
To,
Alan B (01:47:42):
I got a second one.
It gets you in case.
Yeah.
Steph Goulay.
He is the art director at drink box
on nobody
saves the world.
The glaucoma.
John (01:47:48):
oh,
Toronto.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
I love connecting with myCanadian homeys up there.
Al thank you, brother.
I look forward to connectingwith these people.
Good luck on your GDC presentation.
I look forward to watchingthat and pointing everybody
to it on social media and
learning about the system on destiny.
(01:48:10):
Do you have any closing words forthe listeners out there before we go?
Alan B (01:48:13):
I had a real great
time out of the play area, man.
This is really great.
don't know that I have any extra wordsother than already said a lot of words.
John (01:48:21):
we left it all out there.
So that's a good one to handle.
And I like to hear it that I orextracted everything you had to give.
There's nothing left for you to give myfriend that's an achievement in my book.
I know a bunch of y'all are heavydestiny players out there who have
there is not currently in Elvin ring orhorizon and diving into the witch queen.
(01:48:45):
Alan is one of the people Iknow who's been doing this tech
design thing for the longest.
And I consider myself very fortunateto be able to call them a peer and a
homie and have worked alongside him atthough one studio that I've spent the
longest time in my career in one placeat when I was at rockstar, I brought
so much damn gameplay to life from.
Inception using that scripting, API.
(01:49:07):
That really up until now.
I didn't know the full scope ofhow much he contributed to that.
If I did, man, I should've beenmore in his ear and at his desk.
making up for the past, I try to makeamends and get him out on GDC panels.
And now he and Ann and other panelistsare two principals doing the damn thing.
(01:49:28):
So at least I can say that I now havea blueprint on where I can go next on
my ascent up that ladder of successescalate a style to quote the notorious
B I G another note worth calling out.
You know, this is another case of howsmall this industry can be, where we now
live within a short drive of each other.
We both had no clue.
(01:49:50):
We would both eventually find ourselvesup here in Seattle after crossing
paths so long ago in San Diego.
But I mean, depending on who youask, if you're in games or tech, odds
are pretty high, that you will bumpinto each other out here in Seattle.
Even if it's not what usedto be at the annual package.
I'm super hyped to have adiscussion with Gordon Bellamy.
(01:50:11):
I know very little about him, andhe's definitely interesting individual
that I want to get to know more abouton episode 29, about a play area
debuting in two weeks after GDC onMonday, March 28th, we'll sit down with
another fellow outlaw to the end anda programmer and software engineer and
a fellow full sail alumni in Jason.
(01:50:32):
You're ready.
A lead software engineer at visualconcepts who just released WWE two K 22.
He's been at all the majorplayers, including blizzard
EA rockstar, big, huge games.
And we're going to get into hisfull journey and learn about all
the insights he has to offer andmore, you know, how we do so.
(01:50:54):
make sure to follow us so that youdon't miss out on that episode.
Thank you for listening, Deb.
If you found this episode informative,I ask that you pay a link forward to
a developer to help grow our listener.
If you're a game developer with astory you think could help a fellow dev
out, please go to out of play area.comand click on the Calendly link at
the top to meet up, please make sureyou get approval from your manager
(01:51:17):
or studios, PR HR team beforehand.
Out of play area, the game developers,podcasts releases, new episodes every
other Monday on all the major players,including Spotify, apple, and Google.
Please make sure to follow us, to seewhat developer falls out of the play area.
Next time.
I'm your host John Diaz untilnext time devs stay strong.
(01:51:37):
Stay true.
Stay dangerous.
Mega ran.
Bring them home.