Chris Bourassa | Design Director @ Polyarc | Ep 30 - Out of Play Area

Episode Transcript
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John (00:01):
Congrats to the poly arc homeys, whom including this episode now account
for one sixth of the interviews doneon this young podcast for shipping
their second game mosque to on VR.
I've picked up my copy and urgeanyone with a PSVR to do the same.
This episode goes outto the new homey chin.
Hey fellow tech designer atepic working out of Shanghai.

(00:24):
Who's dealing with another lockdown.
It's been two damn years that COVID hasbeen altering the way we work and live.
And this still may just cities outthere trying to contain this thing.
He helped me wrap my head around theparticularly tricky redirect flow.
That I would have still beenbanging my head against the wall on.
Episode 30, I'm a closet numerologistwho geeks out about patterns and base

(00:47):
powers of five and tens, even an odd.
And so for these DECAsolds, yeah, I made that up.
It's my show.
I do.
And say what a want.
I make it a point to bringon someone whom I have a deep
rapport with in and around games.
And personally.
10 was Danny Bulla.
20 was Ryan parody and 30 is CRISPR rasa.

(01:08):
We've seen some shit together.
I hope you enjoy this one.
I know, I enjoy putting it together.
With all that said.
Hit my music.
On episode 30 of the gamedevelopers podcast out of play area.
I sit down with Christopher rasa, agreat homie fellow outlaw to the end
that shipped red, dead redemption, onealongside of fellow full sail, 2006 alumni

(01:32):
and now design director at poly Ark.
We break down his contributions onthe first VR title Moss And walked
into the combat and AI design.
We also talk about the responsibilitieshe's currently facing as a design
director and then walking throughwhat led him to full sail his
first VR internship on unreal.
What it was like breaking in a rockstarSan Diego To work on midnight club LA,

(01:55):
we talk about the power of networkingand share tips on interviewing We
talk about the hard lessons learnedworking in mobile and at startups.
And more.
Please welcome by way ofHaverhill Massachusetts.
Now residing in the Emerald city.
That is Seattle.
Chris Bourassa.
Let's fall the fuck out.

Catherine (02:19):
Bienvenido Bienvenue Welcome to the out of 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

Chris B (02:43):
Definitely try to like Friday logoff, go upstairs, see the family and
it's like, I gotta turn everything off.
And then it's like Sunday night, you startremembering what you were doing on Friday.
Stopped being like right.
This bug is still open.
you know, I was like, I'lldeal with that on Monday.
And then you just turn it off.
And then Sunday night you'relike, oh shit, that's still there.

John (03:02):
like you shove it into the closet and you open the closet.
Oh, that goober waiting for me.

Chris B (03:07):
Sometimes the closet doors just bust back, open doesn't
even wait for you to open it.

John (03:11):
Kool-Aid man style.
Oh yeah.
I'm still here.

Chris B (03:16):
And then some of them you're like, you still going to be there too.

John (03:19):
You shove it back in like, yeah, I'm going to put you all to
like next sprint or next milestone.
You like a C book.

Chris B (03:25):
You might actually ship with the game back in there.

John (03:29):
You put a little, a pretty little bowl.
You do the hair just right.
You'd be like, look nobody.
Nobody's
going to notice this now yourfeature now you're nicely dressed.
You're ready for the wide world.

Chris B (03:41):
As long as you don't embarrass me, you can, you can come to the show.
Congratulations onmaking it to season two.
I know you said like, what
was it like episode nine was supposedto be like the podcast turtle.

John (03:55):
yes.
like more, a lot of them die at nine,like 80% of them don't get to 10.
And so that was the hump.

Chris B (04:00):
and now you're like, screw it.
I'm past that.
So I got seasons now.

John (04:03):
We get to say whatever we want,
however we want.
you know, you just got to worryabout your family hearing it.

Chris B (04:08):
yeah,
I don't know, I am happily employed, sothere are I have to answer to some people,
so

John (04:14):
yeah.
And you're like part owner, right?
You have like equity and stuff.

Chris B (04:17):
we do yes.

John (04:18):
So your interests are aligned.
One-to-one with your employer's interests.

Chris B (04:23):
Very much so.

John (04:23):
Which seems to be going good.
I actually been called
out.
I've
been called out for showing toomuch favoritism to poly Ark.
Cause you will be the fifth polyarc employee on my podcast out of,
I don't know we're going to be likeprobably almost in the thirties.
and
to that I say, my friend, it's not like
I go to poly arc and I'm like,yo, I want you guys on my show.
I go to my homeys and Isay, I want you guys on my

Chris B (04:46):
we just all happen to
work
there.

John (04:47):
You all happen to work there?
That's all it is.

Chris B (04:50):
Right.
I mean, it's just, showingof networking right.
And a lot of your network happensto be a poly arc right now.

John (04:56):
I hear it's a pretty special place, man.
They, treat you guys well over there.

Chris B (05:00):
it's been a lot of fun, super collaborative.
I can honestly say it isthe best place I've worked.

John (05:07):
What was it
like?
Cause you were like employee10 or something like that.

Chris B (05:10):
No, I was 14.
we did Moss one with 15employees and I came in at 14.
I made it in right before the doorsshut before we were like, Okay,
it's time to make this game.

John (05:22):
They brought in the big guns to help close this thing.

Chris B (05:25):
We can call it that chair.

John (05:27):
I was watching a recent, dev reacts on IGN and it was you and Danny.
Danny was on episode 10 and you guyswere reacting to a 43 minute speed run

Chris B (05:37):
Yup.

John (05:38):
and I thought you set the previous record

Chris B (05:40):
I had the studio record, absolutely unofficial.
Cause I was like timingit myself and all that.
But dude, I was only at 47 minutes in theoffice, which was still I thought great.

John (05:50):
Hell yeah.
that game took me a handfulof hours to get through

Chris B (05:54):
average players finish around four hours.

John (05:56):
Yeah, that sounds about right.

Chris B (05:57):
Yeah, no, his, his speed run was great.
it's funny.
Cause that was like thesecond one of his, blitz.
VR is the guy's name.
he had posted one on, Twitterand I like watched through it.
I was like, it was tight.
And then him and I talked a littlebit, cause I was like, I think here's
some spots where like I got sometricks that you didn't didn't pull off.
I mean, he had so many that I didn'tknow about but there was a few

(06:18):
that I had in my back pocket thatwas like, you should try these.
And you know, he was like, ah,I think this is way it's faster.
And I mean, the dude holds the record,so I just have to accept that he did it.
right.
but I've officiallytranscended into gamer dad now

John (06:32):
um, so that record was set before gamer dead.

Chris B (06:35):
my speed run time was before gamer dad.
And now I'm like, I watched that speedrun and I was like, I'd love to try, but
I know, like I know the effort that heput in and I know what it would take there
and I just don't cut that time anymore.

John (06:45):
I feel you.
I know you well, butfor the audience who may
not know you, I would describeyou as one of the most competitive
developers out there in the land.
at least pregame with dad.
I would argue that that still
exists deep down in your soul
and your
blood is

Chris B (07:00):
competitiveness didn't go away.
I just know that I don't havethe time to, I know when I have
to walk away from challenges.

John (07:05):
That's the thing.
I think that's the new skill you'veunlocked in your skill tree is to
accept when, Hey, I can kick yourass, but I'm not going to put in the
time I'm going to, sit this one out.
you're going to invest in your progenyand level them up so that they can come
back and beat down on their progeny andbreak the skills for the next generation.

Chris B (07:24):
sounds about, right?
Yeah.
We'll go with that.

John (07:26):
How does that feel?
CB?
Cause I
know I struggle with that myself.
It's like,
Hey, I made the game.
I know the ins and outs.
And when I don't know the ins and outs, I
got
a tester or a producer nearby ordesigner direct access to be able to
tell me the hacks, tell me the exploits.
we
know the insides and outs.
And to see someone out therein the wild, find something you

(07:46):
didn't know about or teach you.
some things like how, how how's thatfeel for a competitive soul such as you.

Chris B (07:53):
I mean, you kind of love it, right?
It's myself and Mike Jensen.
when our artists, he was my competitionin the office when we were speed running,
we raced a couple times and then.
He was like, okay, you've got thedexterity, but I've got the tricks.
So he, a lot of the tricksthat I used in like the speed
run, Mike actually found them.

(08:14):
And I was just better aboutstringing them all together.
So, so, you know, being competitive, youalways love someone taking you to the
next level and finding that next trick.
Right?
Because once, once someone findsthat trick, everybody's time can
get better once they learn that.
So then you've got to find that next one.
So it's like the natural progression.
And I think through both of ourcareers, you know, you get the game

(08:36):
out to the masses because a test teamis only so big and Pauly are from OSS.
I was the test team.
we were all the test team, right?
Like we had a whiteboard and everybodystarted taking sections of the game.
And one of the downsides of beingthe speed runner in the office
is when we had to do full sweeps.
logically, it took methe least amount of time.

(08:56):
So I by the end, I was runningMoss two or three times a day.
I just go sit in the big office.
cause we were trying to do youknow, testing achievements.
And one of them was to getall the collectibles, right.

John (09:10):
Yeah.

Chris B (09:11):
And all the tier two collectibles.
And you need to know.
Which I, I had implemented all of thatstuff, so, but I couldn't remember how
many you're supposed to have in each room.
So James would just sit in the room behindme with the chart that had what my break
points were supposed to be at each room.
And every time I pass aroom, I pause real quick.
He check the number.
It'd be like, okay, you're good.

(09:32):
Keep going.
Just like

John (09:35):
Nice.
it's a temptation that we havedevs to like maximize the day.
Right.
And, utilize those level skips and Godmolds and all those cheats to just make
sure that this one part of the thingyou're trying to fix works in all these
different cases or you run it in a smokemap or a test gym or something like that.
but it's super important to play thesethings continuously in game, right?

(09:56):
what I want to say about that ishow vital that is to development
and how it's tempting to just putit off to the end when you're like,
you know, ready for alpha beta.
But I always emphasize to do this.
From the beginning, play it in context.

Chris B (10:11):
for sure.
not only I would say getting it incontext, but it's really easy to,
depending on what you're developing.
Tino, play it on your PC, right?
Like in the editor orwhatever you're doing.
something that we did is we were able to,get bills to like the PlayStation store
right around probably like our beta.

(10:32):
So we had it, you know, set to go.
So I was able, I was running allof these on the PS4, production
ready bills that we were testing.
Right.
So I didn't actually have accessto a lot of the cheats, which was
great because, you know, it's realeasy to want to start, you know,
teleporting to just get across the map.
this is how you find those crazycollision bugs and everything.

(10:55):
you just gotta like force yourselfto sit down and play them.
And it's just real easyto, just want to use them.
Cause like you said, Ihave other things to do.
And sometimes taking the time to justplay it like a regular player, you
seems like you're, you're potentiallywasting time, but that's actually
the most valuable is because you canfind like the hidden gems, right.
That aren't the obvious like, oh, letme run through all the, the smoke tests.

(11:17):
Let me run through all this.
It's like, you have that to catch it.
But at the end of the day, sometimes youjust gotta like put the time in, right.

John (11:23):
you hit it right on the head CB, instead of saying that, Hey, I'm
taking the long way.
I'm spending more time to
verify the state.
No, it's actually, you'reinvesting your time correctly,
you're seeing it the way thatplayers out there in the wild.
You're gonna see it
before you get to check it off,

Chris B (11:37):
and it is nice if you have the luxury, you know, getting like outside,
tests or people that aren't as familiar.
Because even that said, I guarantee you,I ran it the same way almost every time.
Right?
Like it's, that's one of the things that
is hard to do.
Right.
It's you know how to run it.
Like, even though I'm not usingcheats or whatever, unless I'm like
mentally making sure to like, try tothrow it up, you're just kind of go on

(12:00):
autopilot and you're doing these things.
we actually like early, like oneof the builds, Rebecca, came in,
cause she was like, I wanna play.
I want to try.
So we got her all set upand I went back to my desk.
Like she'll do the sectionin the game of Visy.
She

John (12:13):
Has she played VR before or
Mohs
before?

Chris B (12:16):
that was this, her first time in VR.
And you know, she plays games.
So I wasn't worried about, but immediatelyshe comes back, she's like, I'm stuck.
And I was like, okay, cool.
Like what happened?
I look, she is literallystuck in the wall.
I was like, what did she
do?

John (12:30):
how did you get here?

Chris B (12:32):
she is the scrub, the wall type gamer, which I was like, great.
We are going to have you test all these.

John (12:39):
I think that comes to me from like old ass J RPGs where like, there was no
feedback for things that you could pickup and then randomly you hit the interact.
One is like, you foundthis ultra Phoenix down.
I'm like, yo, how would you knowthat that was there if you weren't
matching up against the

Chris B (12:55):
one of her favorites is final fantasy nine.
So yeah, that falls right in likesquare, we're starting to get
better about it then, but it wasstill, everything was so hidden.

John (13:05):
Yup.
So
what were you responsible for on most one?

Chris B (13:08):
I did quills combat, the AI enemies and achievements, collectibles.
And then one of mylevels made it in there.
That's all right.
the dev name for it is town 23.
It is the once you make it to the, rundowntown, you see the century the first time

(13:29):
and you like, you shut the door on him andthen this next room, century's incentive.
The Roman it's this whole puzzleabout like playing hide and seek with
the century.

John (13:37):
So this is what you have to face.
the century is now an obstacle.
When you wait, you haveto, as part of the puzzle,

Chris B (13:42):
That one was mine analytics say that is the third,
most dangerous room in the game.

John (13:49):
it's the first one that like the beginning water
wheel.

Chris B (13:52):
is waterwheel, which, that is a bit of a failing on our part.
The most deadly room in the gameis within the first 20 minutes.
So people like, oh, thisgame's on, there's no enemies.
There's not supposedto be any like danger.
It's supposed to be this fun puzzle.
And it just murders people.

John (14:09):
there's a lot to be said for the utility of like invisible, protective
collision in these platformerswith like Def drops off the edge of
the map and

Chris B (14:18):
the whole point of the room is to like introduce people to VR and
get used to like reaching in and likerealizing that you can affect the world.
And there's this waterwheel that isprobably spinning too fast period.
Right.
For what we want it, we justneed to make this stupid
things spins slow because Yeah.
you're supposed to grab it andyou can like influence it and you

(14:39):
basically pump the brakes on it.
So Quill has time to maneuver andpeople just jump on this thing.
Girl just goes flying off the

John (14:46):
It's so heartbreaking.
I know every time, every time she falls,
no, you feel like a failure.
So the combat, tell mewhat you liked about it.
What you wish you could havedone what you left on the
cutting room floor, the enemy AI
and then her combos.
And the biggest thing waslike, what do you guys call it?
Possession.
all that, flowed pretty, perfectly.
I would say, when the, how long ittook to get there, lessons learned

Chris B (15:10):
I'm glad you think it flowed perfectly.
Cause if you watch the AI,they walk over each other.
So the thing that like I reallywanted and I shot for, and this was
my first time using unrealistic, AI.
The baby tree.
stuff.
I tried to get them to KungFu circle, around Quill.
if you Like to stand there.

John (15:28):
a little battle.

Chris B (15:29):
Yeah.
they'll stand there and they, theytake turns, they know who's attack.
Like they, they markthemselves as who's attacking.
So they straight up kung-fu style,like only one swings at a time.
And

John (15:39):
that's super helpful by the way, man.
Like not to not overwhelm players.
Right.
Especially if they're like, oh, I canattack, but I can also grab in, right?
Like that, that dual wielding kindof thing is it can be overwhelming
and having to manage more thanone person swinging on you

Chris B (15:53):
yeah, there was, an interesting, we had to put a bit of a delay on it.
Cause what would happenis because they waited.
If you got.
They waited long enough that, youknow, when you're in hits done,
we give you some invincibility.
But because they didn't all attackat the same time, they would
actually time their hits perfectly.
So they could just chain you.
So we had to put a bit of a delay, sothe, uh, the chaining didn't happen.

(16:16):
but the complete circle for the mostpart didn't really work the best.
So like, it would have been coolerif that worked a little nicer.
but the thing I'm really happyabout is yeah, animation canceling.

John (16:28):
with the dashing.

Chris B (16:29):
yeah, so myself and Rick LICO our lead animator, spent a lot
of time and he's also like a reallyhardcore, like third strike player.
So you got two guys that love fightinggames and we're like, let's talk
about animation frames and what,
like
every,

John (16:45):
you three

Chris B (16:47):
yeah, we talked about, um, like the dashes have invincibility.
all of quills attacks and they're like
true to like,
guilty gear supers that framesone and two, you were vulnerable.
And then from two to six or whatever,you know, you're invincible and then
you had your recovery out of it.
So they had a chance to hit it.
So we just have a lot of fun, doing thoseand then building, building the enemies

(17:08):
was a lot of fun with Rick as well.
what's really funny andI really appreciate it.
Cause this is, the first time I workeddirectly with an animator this first
time I put characters in the game, youknow, I was, I mostly did like car games.
And then when we worked on red dead,I was just, you know, doing the
online stuff, but never actuallylike creating any characters.
So we were talking about quillsattacks and how, how do I envision,

(17:31):
like, what do I want her to be doing?
Or what do I want the enemies to do?
And I was trying to explainit to Rick and he just looked
at me and was like, acted out.
I was like, what Ineed to just like do it.
So I'm on the dev floor.
And it was just one of those things,like, what do you want to see in the game?
Right.

John (17:43):
Yeah.
Animator.
Right?
They like study emotion and

Chris B (17:47):
sure.
It

John (17:48):
physiology and everything.

Chris B (17:49):
is like, I hear you, but just like, have some fun with this.
Let me see what you want.
I was like, okay, cool.
Let's do this.
And then all of a
sudden, I mean,

John (17:58):
props or something?

Chris B (18:00):
imagine the sword and you don't want me swinging a sword around.

John (18:02):
I do, but you know, I guess you coworkers don't

Chris B (18:07):
Rick is fastest animator I've ever worked with this guy is
the Tasmanian devil of animation.
Like I walked away and I swear,by the time I got back to my desk,
he was like, what do you think?

John (18:16):
damn

Chris B (18:17):
Yeah.

John (18:18):
you, shout

Chris B (18:19):
And yeah, it was, it was tight.
So I think that was probably my favorite.
My favorite part of.
What like for everything I did withMoss is just like Rick and I iterating
on like quilts combat and the enemy,like attacks and stuff like that.

John (18:34):
That's special, man.
I think you got away with it.
Pretty cheaply too.
Like you didn't have to jump
in a mocap suit or anything.
You just like, all right.
Here's what I'm thinking.
Swinging uppercut, whateverslash, and then he just kind
of, did he record you at all?
He just kind
of
visually captured.

Chris B (18:49):
most of it was just visually captured.
I think a couple of timeswe did a few recordings.
I know I recorded him a couple of times.
We did like for our like holiday,gifts and stuff that we did for
Twitter, he acted out Quill and Idid like the animation of like the
camera, just so like, cause forthose, he's also animating the camera.

(19:10):
So I was kind of driving where likeit should zoom and stuff like that.
So that was a lot of fun.
also it's really nice.
having someone that plays in a fightinggames, I looked at him and I was
like, yo, I just want a Bookie's dash.
And he was just like, say no more.

John (19:24):
That's pretty sweet.
That's almost cheating.
I think that's the benefit of havingsomeone who you guys play similar games,
there's no shortage of an advantage inthe more games you play as a designer,
the mortgage that you have in your toolbelt, to be able to kind of provide
that reference for people to kind ofgo down the checklist and be like, I'm
just going to keep naming games untilyou played one of the ones of naming.
Right.

(19:44):
And then that's it, that's it right there.
I love gameplay design more than anything.
And in particular,
working with animators tendsto be the most fun, right?
cause you're thinking of things ordescribing things they're writing
down and then they kind of bringit to life and show it to you.
Like, is this what was in your head thatyou were trying to vaguely describe to me.
Yes, or kind of change this,change that, and then you see it in

(20:05):
game, like pretty fast, especiallywith like unreal iteration.
That shit is crazy.

Chris B (20:09):
Yeah.
the biggest takeaway working with Rickand the thing that I love when he always
asks us, you know, cause I'm like,cool, I want her to do this slash right.
And it's just like, why, what do you mean?
Why is it an attack?
It's like, no, who is Quill?
Why would she do this?
Right?
Like, is she able to do this?
Like the idea like Quill, Quillis like in an adolescence, right?

(20:31):
Like she's a novice, it's like, no, she'snot throwing sure you cans and stuff.
Like she should not be doing that.
Like it needs to look a little sloppy.
It needs to look untrained.
so it was interesting, making sure beforeyou ask for things, get in the mindset
of the character that you're creating
and what, what would they do?
Not what not, What do you wantthem to do, but what would they.

John (20:54):
what would it look like?
Yeah.
For someone getting to own a characterand build out the choreography
and move set for the protagonist,there's a lot to learn there.
I think that's a great piece of advice isto get into the context of the character.
So I hate what would it looklike if she was to do a show?
And then what would that mean forsomeone of this age, this skillset,

(21:15):
this first time wielding a sword or

Chris B (21:18):
yep.

John (21:18):
on an adventure and all that.

Chris B (21:20):
when I had joined Quill as a character was, you know, really
well-defined like we referred toher kind of combat style and the
type of players that we couldhave as like, Swashbucklers right.
Like crow's not the strongest.
Right.
We want her, you know, movingaround and repositioning ourself.
the idea for Moss was that, you didn'thave to be the most dextrous to win a

(21:43):
battle and Moss and actually a one Vone and Moss it's essentially unlovable
because you, as the player can justget involved and like hold them.
still.
Right.
so we always wanted toemphasize it's about like quilts
positioning and using that.
Smarts instead of just likethese crazy, like timing windows

John (22:02):
And.

Chris B (22:03):
which there's some of that they're like, it's there for the
players that want to, you know, gofast and do like crazy stuff in between
like the enemies it's all there.
But for the average player,that's just kinda wants to
like walk through the combat.
we tried to set that up,
And.
that was one of the, actually theother big learnings that we had in
the second most killing room was,right at the end of the ruins.

(22:25):
We had this big like climactic scene.

John (22:29):
my God.
Is it like damn near 20Beatles in the fucking room?
And then you have like theexplosive self detonating

Chris B (22:36):
this is before the exploders show up, but there was, it was a combination
of, we had the Scorchers, which were therange guys that come in and shoot at you.
and if you remember how I said thatthe enemies take turns and mark,
when they're attacking, after we shipfound a bug, uh, speaking to the dude
that busted out of the closet, thesecharacters didn't respect that at all.

John (22:58):
They fire on their own timer.

Chris B (23:00):
Yeah.
if they said they could go, they could go.
And we were spawning too manycharacters because, and this is.
I think an interesting lesson for leveldesigners or combat designers out there,
kind of assess your skills and understandthat you are very familiar with the game.
And my current rule for Moslems is if Ifeel challenged in the room is actually

(23:26):
probably too hard, it feels weird tosay that because you're like, oh, you
know, you don't have this feeling.
And then you have to remember, people arenot playing this game seven hours a day
every day for years, putting it together.
And you build up this second nature.
And I think that's whathappened to ruins 100.
because of that, that was actually oneof the biggest, like drop-off points.

(23:47):
People will get to that.
And it's like this game that we're tellingyou, isn't about a combat difficulty and
everything, all of a sudden, boom, there'sa wall that says, Hey, this skill that we
didn't tell you, you needed to be greatat now need to be great at good luck.
Right?

John (24:02):
I know.
I fall into that same trapCB, where I spent so long
massaging iterating on anencounter and experience that
I'll get bored and I'm like, oh, I
need to make this moreinteresting for myself.
And, and that's the trap, right?

Chris B (24:15):
I'm so guilty of that.

John (24:17):
That's the trap.
then you're kind of looking atit for your team's approval to
be like, oh yeah, this is cooler.
Now I'm not bored anymore.
But you fall into that trap of like,Hey, now this is, challenging for you,
which is probably too hard for the gate.
The average player who's going tocome into this kind of pretty fresh
and only played a handful of times.

Chris B (24:35):
I think that's where the like disciplined veteran designer steps in.
And, you know, we've talked about this.
Danny is incredible at this to a likefrustrating level he can turn off Danny
Bula, the gamer, Danny Boulud, the designdirector, and he can just become Danny.
Bulla the average game player thatcan see the flaws in the game and

(25:00):
ask the frustrating questions thatyou're like, no, you know this.
and as soon as you get past, like,this is your coworker and they know
this thing and you look at it, he'slike, no, he's actually someone off
the street that doesn't know why, whyis your combat so much harder now?
Why is he getting overwhelmed?
Even though you can dispatch four of theseguys, and it's not a problem, but all of a

(25:21):
sudden now players having these problems.
that's an incredible skill to learn isto like, be able to step out of your
shoes and step out of your body, right?
You have to become somebody new I'mstill struggling, real hot like that.
I'm trying to learn thatskill to be able to turn off.
And it's hard like that competitive edge.

(25:41):
It's hard to be calm.
Like I know it's not becausetechnically it's working.
It's fine, but I can't get overthis like mental thing of like
this vulnerable, like, oh, I lose,

John (25:50):
I will not lose to something I created.
Fuck that.

Chris B (25:53):
I don't want to do that.
And it's like, it's selfish on mypart and I need to be able to, do that
because it'll create a better product.
And at the end of the day,that's how you win, right?

John (26:05):
it's crazy to have these expectations of like, Hey, not only are
you writing the test, so you know, allthe answers, but then you have these
expectations on other people to be like,Hey, you helped me write the damn tests.
You know, the answers, why is this hard?
It's like, no, no, no, but thisthere's a world of gamers that where
they're going to the curriculum.
Right.
And we we're stepping them through.
We want to make sure that theyunderstand this and feel powerful.

(26:26):
there's something he said.
I remember he, Danny, he mentionedon that react, speed run.
That was pretty cool.
When you guys weretalking about the alleged
jump and the little scramble that youdo, where it's like, Hey, if the player
comes close and intends to make thisjump, kind of give them that little
boost,

Chris B (26:42):
Yeah, we have markups, That wherever you see the scratch
marks or alleged grabs that Quill,you know, that's how she climbs up.
But also, they work as stumble.
So as long as she, as long as sheis in the air, when she catches that
we just cheat you forward, there wasactually a really great GDC talk,
that the guys that did, deciles, theyactually showed a video cause they do.

(27:07):
I think it's kind of like just likea popular trick, with platformers,
but they showed what dead cellslook like without their affordance.
And if you didn't make the edge, God, thatgame, I mean, the game's already brutal.
in like the best way I love that.
Saul's such good game.

John (27:21):
And the little Twitch interaction are pretty sweet.

Chris B (27:25):
yeah.
but without that affordance, justlooked like a worst game, right?
Like, because giving, like, making theplayer just feel like a bad-ass like the
games like close enough, you made it.
You're awesome.
Keep going.
you want the game to challenge the player.
You don't want the player to befighting with your like input mechanics.
You want them to fightthe enemies you gave them.
The controller shouldn't be in.

John (27:44):
liked that the controllers should not be.

Chris B (27:47):
I mean it's essentially, was it, it was more a motive that said it, right?
It's like when you pressjump, you should jump.

John (27:53):
Immediate feedback, I like that, man.
These are, these are gems, CB gems fromthe mind of a veteran, a game designer,
15 years in the game now wearing adesign director hat Congrats on that,
bro.
well-deserved
well-deserved before we getto that, I just want to wrap
up this gameplay loop thing.
When you're talking about Fordinsists and you're talking about VR,

(28:16):
you know, it's a whole new genre, awhole new world for a lot of players.
Mosque was kind of that first dive fora lot of people and curious two things.
When did possession come intoconversation or as a mechanic in the game.
Did that break the flow that youwanted to create with the combat?
Did that kind of create opportunitiesthat weren't there before?

(28:37):
Speak to me about possession.

Chris B (28:39):
possession.
was there from day one,
far as I know.
So ever since I touched them OSS, Iplayed Mosman jumping wasn't in the game.
but possession was one of the core pillarsof the game because Masa is a VR title.
Right?
So one of the most importantquestions that we asked whenever we

(29:01):
would talk about the game is why VR?
Why is Moss VR, right?
What makes it not just flat game, right?
That you could play on anXbox or PS4 or whatever.
Right.
And you being able to reach inand affect the world was one of
like the core tenants of the game.
And not only is grabbing enemies,supposed to be for combat, but

(29:27):
they're also your tool belt.
Right?
So we.
You know, it took a lot of inspiration,from like Zelda, Dungeons and puzzles
and, you know, link has his bombs.
He has his hook shot.
He has all this stuff.
Well, we didn't have, orwant an inventory system.
Cause we wanted to be like anice streamline, like simple
game for people to play.

(29:47):
So your enemies were actually yourtool belt to use for your puzzles.
a lot of the times you would see thatthe rooms would show up and the pattern
would be you'd encounter a new enemy.
You would fight them to learn howthey react and you get to beat
them up and see what they do.
And the very next room you use,one of them on what their, function

(30:09):
as the, as the puzzle bit is.
And then it's like, Okay.
cool.
Let's go do some other things.
And now here's like a real test.
Do you remember how these guys work?
Do you remember like what we wanted youto do, but now it's not straightforward.

John (30:22):
that's a good point.
I'd never really thought
about that.
That your enemies wereyour Zelda items, right?
like,
it's like, Hey, I'm going to pullthis beetle to this place that I can
access so they can hit the lever or
I'm gonna use the beagle that shootsbecause I don't have a projectile or
I'm going to blow up or I have the bomb.
Right.
I'm
going to go move the bomb over here.
And that's going to unlock the passageway.

(30:43):
that's sweet and minimal.

Chris B (30:45):
They're all there.

John (30:46):
Amazing.
so I guess for combat, itwas just, an acceptance.
It was just like, Hey, thisis part of your tool belt.
If they use it, combat is easier.
And that's okay.
Because combat is not mainpart of the experience.

Chris B (30:59):
the one thing that actually did kind of change and I
felt bad for the AI a little bit.

John (31:07):
you can just tie them up and be like,

Chris B (31:09):
actually you used to be able to, and this is something,
that we, we found out that weneeded to be really conscious about.
one, the AI used to have faces,the way their, their helmets are.
Like, you can kind of see their eyes, butthey used to have expressions and it felt
awful mugging these dudes, you felt bad.
And then on top of that,you could actually possess

(31:30):
something and beat them up.
So they couldn't defend themselves,then made Quill feel like a bully.

John (31:38):
Yeah.

Chris B (31:39):
what we ended up doing is you can only hit them once when they're
possessed and then they break free.
You do double damage.
If you remember, Danny talking aboutthat feature that we hooked up and snuck
in there, you get, you get your crit,but to make it fair, on the backend.
I put in that if the AI getsbroken out of possession, by damage

(32:00):
immediately reset their attacktime, or they get a free swing.
So as soon if, if you're justwailing on them and you break them
out of that and you don't Dodge,they get to hit you back for free.

John (32:11):
Gotcha.

Chris B (32:12):
Which, I mean, it's fine because there's ways to manipulate it.
But for the people that just want to mashon it, it actually makes it feel more
like a fight instead of them just smoking.
It's like, Yeah,
they get the first hit, they get asecond hit, but then they get hit back.
Right.
And it actually feels likea fight instead of you're

John (32:26):
it does.

Chris B (32:27):
stomping these guys.
And you're the bully.

John (32:30):
That's interesting.
Again, going back to like, who is Quill?
What type of character is she?
Right.
How do you want players to feelwhen they're, maximally, optimizing
everything that the game allows forthem to do and cool is not a bully.
It's not
what she
is.

Chris B (32:43):
is.
not a bully.

John (32:44):
Going back to CRISPR rasa, the design director at poly arc.
Now, how does that feel?
What's your day to day?
Like what's changed from director date.

Chris B (32:54):
there are days where it just feels awesome, in a sense of
like, it's not that different thanthere are other days where you're
like, oh, I'm responsible for.
So much more now.
And I think that, I think thebiggest change is I'm effectively
doing less, but also doing more.
the best, analogy is, you know,you play like an RTS, right?

(33:15):
play some StarCraft, right.
I used to be just the space Marineand I was down in the trenches getting
stuff done, and I loved it down there.
you know, was my comfort zone and nowI'm actually zoomed out and I need to
be more mindful of not just my littlearea, the things that I control.
It's not just, the AI, the combat, it's,how's the whole experience flow together.

(33:36):
now I'm starting tohave to about staffing.
What is, the project look like two yearsfrom now, what are we going to need?
so it's not just specifically,game-related, you know, it's a bit of like
operations stuff that goes along with it.
there's a whole new skill set.

John (33:53):
How do you look ahead?
far out into the development cycleof like, where are we going to be?
What are we going to need?
Making those types of calls?
What are some tricks?
Tips, lessons learnedso far in the journey?
we're in that director hat.

Chris B (34:05):
it's a good question.
I'm still trying to learn thoseanswers, myself, right now, honestly,
I am fortunate to be surroundedby more experienced directors.
so I'm kinda, looking at the designand like we're talking through stuff,
but also we get into like our leads,like director meetings and stuff.
And I kind of just try to sit there andbe quiet trying to start seeing what,

(34:28):
our audio director, our engineeringdirector are talking about and seeing
how they think about these problems.
And so I can start trying to applythose same things to design, really
a lot of it right now is just likeunderstanding scope, work back from,
okay, this is where we want to be.
This is where we want, topotentially ship something, right.

(34:48):
These are the feature sets we need.
When do these need to come onlineby, and then just, get rough time
estimates, guests, and then put it ina chart and it's like, does it fit?
then you start getting to the, like,even before you start doing things,
it's like, what gets cut Right?

John (35:06):
cut
early cut often.

Chris B (35:07):
yeah.
if we come back around or there's a DLCpack or something, it can come back.

John (35:12):
I think that's so powerful.
You know, a lot of peoplecan feel pressured to have
to fake the funk or speak up.
And I love the fact that you feelcomfortable in this environment on
that awesome team where it's like,
Hey, I'm at the director table.
I
trust my teammates.
They trust me.
I'm going to sit, listen, and learn.
then speak up, ask questions, learnmore, bring it back noodle, come back.

(35:34):
Right.
Get
better level of learn from the peoplearound you that have done it before.
I think that's extremely valuableinsight and advice for any of us, right?
Like rising into a new
role, being promoted, feeling like,alright, day one, I got to act like my
new role and it's like, well, still,shut up, listen and learn and then go.
Right.

(35:54):
You'll get it.
There's no need to rush.

Chris B (35:56):
one of the bigger differences, right.
Is getting buy-in from the team.
A lot of times in the principal designrole, I was told what to be working on.
Right?
Like we, as a design team would belike, Hey, you know, there's XYZ
rooms that need to get made, orwe need to make this many weapons.
Right?

(36:16):
brassica take care of the weapons.
Like these are the three we need arethere, abilities, things like that.
let's just get themimplemented and do that.
Now being at the directorrole, we apologize.
Like It is a very,collaborative environment.
And the last thing any of us want isto feel like someone is just kind of

(36:37):
being like, we're doing it this way.
Right.
I'm the designer we're doing that.
Right.
Pauly, Eric is very good about, designersbeing like the shepherds of ideas.

John (36:46):
Shepherds of ideas.
Okay.

Chris B (36:48):
you know, those can come from anywhere, but it also helps to kind of
like start the conversation I've beendoing a lot more doc writing you know,
we're going back full sail, was a GDD
day one.

John (36:58):
yeah,

Chris B (36:59):
I spend a lot more time in confluence.
now, getting these pages together andjust like having meetings, you know,
socializing ideas to get buy in, notonly, to kind of get people on the
same page, but also to like check myideas, get them pushed, poke that.
cause a lot of times, what I'mproposing as the starting point.
And you know, you need everybodythat has different views, different

(37:22):
ideas, things that they wantto get it to that next level

John (37:25):
it's funny, right?
Because documentation is somethingwe'll talk early and then you come
out of college thinking like, allright, the way to design is write the
Bible, you know, however long it is.
And then you put it in front of the team.
And then this is how the game gets made.
And I don't know about you, but Iknow for me, it was not that at all.

Chris B (37:41):
I haven't done it until like four months ago.

John (37:45):
even though you don't use it until 15 years later in
your career, you will use it.
Documentations are effective.
It is super important, especiallywhen you're guiding a team and sharing
a vision to a big group of people
to.
shepherd?
everybody has an ideawhat this game can be.
you're kind of taking those firststabs at creating a box of like,

(38:06):
all right, these are the thingswe're going to play with it.
And we've talked about.

Chris B (38:09):
so we're working on an unannounced project, right?
and we're growing the team size and havingthese documentation there for onboarding
is probably the most valuable forit is because as people come on,
you know, you can point them and belike, look, here's this here's that.
And, Using like decision docs andstuff like that, you can be like, look,

(38:30):
here's actually the list of things.
We, discussed through why we went withone over the other and it really helps
people, that onboard to the team,understand the team's mindset you spend
the time writing these docs and thenyou get that time back on the ramp
up of every new person that joins theteam actually saves you time because

(38:52):
you'd be having these conversations.
If you didn't have the docand while you're still going
to have these conversations.
And I think it's very important to havethem cause it's still, you know, it's
good to check in challenge the idea,you know, talk through, maybe there's
some stuff that new, fresh eyes springthat you're like, oh actually the rest
of the team didn't think about that.
You know, that's actuallynot that hard to slot in.

(39:12):
this is great, but you skip over a largechunk of the same question that gets
answered in doc and everybody reads that.
Like that makes sense.

John (39:22):
yo, 1000000000% CP 1000000000%.
The time you spend now willpay for itself, it was scale
up and squared, right?
Like for each person that comes behind
you know, it's like having a FAQthat you kind of keep building on.
saves a bunch of time.
And then
it gives people an entry point to
ask a question like, Hey, I readeverything and nobody asked this
question.

(39:42):
Have we thought about this?
And oh shit, we haven't.
And that's one of the best ways that youcan onboard is to spend the time, when
people are not around or not available,cause that'll happen in what we do.
we'll be locked up in meetings.
We'll be on some trip or on PTO orhaving a kid or something like that.
And you're not readily accessible.
That's a great opportunity foryou as a new person on the team.

(40:05):
Read through the docs, seewhatever videos or presentations
get up to speed verse yourself.
So you can have deeperconversations when you do have that.
One-on-one time with thedirector, the lead, whoever.
that's a sign of age and experiencewriting documentation, having to get
good sharing the knowledge, not justkeeping it only on your shoulders and

(40:27):
be like, Hey, you need to answer it.
Just come to me.
It's like,
you're not always going to be there.

Chris B (40:30):
Also put funny gifts.

John (40:33):
Images.
Yes.
Images and videos.
you don't need a million wordswhen a gift can sell it for you.
Right?
Absolutely.
I want to take a step back.
You went to full sail.
We all kind of went around that sametime to get our game dev education,
to get work in this industry.
I'm curious.

(40:53):
What, was it for youthat inspired this craft?
This calling was it a
certain game?
What

Chris B (40:59):
Well,

John (40:59):
led you to full sail?

Chris B (41:01):
I got an intense when I was three.
my aunt got it for me and myparents always tell me that, my
aunt apologized to my mom becauseshe thought she ruined my life
because
that's all I did.
Right.
Like I got an Nintendo.
I got super Mario, got theteenage mutant ninja turtles game.
That is way too hard fora three-year-old to play.

John (41:22):
oh man.
The one way, like get inthe turtle van and you're
in the sewers and stuff.

Chris B (41:26):
It wasn't until like watching a, like, AGDQ run dude.
It's random.
You have to go like intorums and like find stuff.
and rockets and it's random or whatever.
I just, as a kid, I played thefirst three levels and got into
the turtle van and turned it off.

John (41:39):
Yeah.
I don't think I ever got past that.
Cause I couldn't fucking find the rocket.
I was like, how do I getthrough this obstacle?
I don't, I don't know.

Chris B (41:46):
yeah, it was just, I played that.
And then, duck hunt, use thecheat, put the gun on the TV.
So you couldn't miss it.
It was terrible tracking back then.
It's okay.
I just always played games.
it's all I ever really wanted to do.
I guess it was like trying to figure outhow I could just play video games all day.
at the time I wanted to get into gamesprogramming Twitch streaming and stuff,

(42:11):
which actually I am super grateful.
I was born when I did cause dude, 10 yearslater, I'd be trying to be a pro gamer.
I know it I've been trying tomake the NFL for video games.

John (42:20):
yeah, me too.
Me too, man.
This was an option.
This
wasn't available for us.
There was only, Hey, you want to playgames and make money, make good money.
You better learn how to make them.
That's pretty much what it was,

Chris B (42:31):
from an early age, wanted to do that.
And what's really funny.
And I'm glad that I had thatfigured out from an early age.
Cause me and my buddyto is in high school.
We played midnight club too.
And we played the out of that game.
We think we're the best.
And there's no way to prove it back then.

(42:52):
know, there's no leaderboards,there's no nothing.
So what did we do?

John (42:56):
Remind me again, your hometown.
What was your like local hometownunbeatable champ of like, uh, what

Chris B (43:01):
Haverhill, Massachusetts.

John (43:03):
Avril?
Massachusetts

Chris B (43:04):
we know where the best and we're like, we need to go find, better players.
Right.
So we got basic HTML skills.
So D builds us a website.
I think we were like, SRS, likespeed race, and set some super
cheesy whatever clan name.
we put this up and we're like, you,you want to come race in our league?
Like we were trying to organizelike, race nights and stuff.

(43:25):
So we could like have point standingsand like, dude, we were into it.
one of the rules was, if you wantedto join the league, you had to
race us and beat us right right.
So we get, just a messagefrom these two guys.
And they're like, yo, we wanna,we want to join like whatever.

(43:46):
Okay, cool.
and I'll never forget, weloaded up and, you know, we were
racing in, in Paris or whatever.
And one of the things is like themotorcycles in that game were so touchy.
If you touch them, you can justdump people off their bikes.
So you just never racedwith a motorcycle online.
Cause you're
you're a fool.
Right.
And these two dudes roll upto the line with motorcycles.

(44:07):
Right.
And me and D are just laughing like yougotta be kidding and we go off the line.
We go to.
You know, we're playing cutthroat, right.
Dump them.
They just Jack the brakes, we miss them.
And then off they go andwe never saw him again.

John (44:20):
Oh

Chris B (44:21):
that was coming So we get smoked.
Right.

John (44:24):
yeah.
The fast
acceleration is

Chris B (44:26):
you know, once they're
gone, we don't touch them.
And afterwards, so, you know, wetalked to them and they're like,
yeah, you guys totally can racewith us and come to find out.
The two of them were developers atrockstar that worked on midnight club.
So rockstar find out about ourwebsite and these dudes are like,
yo, let's go stomp on these guysbecause they think they're good.
Right.

(44:47):
luckily, 15, six year old me had enough,like wherewithal and forward thinking that
I, have the guy's contact information.
Right.
So I hit them up and I'm like,yo, I want to make games.
what do I do?
And his name is Devin hammock.

John (45:02):
Yeah.
Shout out to Devin,

Chris B (45:03):
You know, I told him at the time I wanted to go to Japan.

John (45:06):
which was like
the only,
video game school in existence.

Chris B (45:10):
it's the only, game school they knew about at the time.
and he's like, that sounds great.
And he was like, yo, justgraduate and hit me up.
And it was one of those things, like,what else is the guy gonna tell me?
You know, I'm just some kid, whatever.
And it was just like,yeah, just hit me up.
When, when you up.

John (45:24):
get that paper and then hit
me up.
Get that golden ticket.

Chris B (45:27):
instead of going to Japan, I ended up going to, full sail,

John (45:31):
How do you learn about full sail?

Chris B (45:32):
so I was taking night classes at, the community college.
cause my high school didn'thave like a programming course.
So I was learning Java and it was sofunny, there was a student in our class
and like I showed up to the lab early andhe was just playing unreal tournament.
Right.
So sit down and he had likea bootleg disc, so we just

(45:54):
put it on all the machines.
Right.

John (45:56):
That's how it starts.

Chris B (45:57):
I started playing on real with him and, you know, I told him,
I was like, yeah, you know, I'mgoing to, I'm learning to program.
They're like make games and stuff.
And he was like, have you heardof this place called full sail?

John (46:06):
Wow.

Chris B (46:08):
I was like, no, what is, this?
Right.
And so he told me aboutit and it was, yeah.
look it up.
I never saw this dude again.
I don't know.
I'll take, my lucky chance,my divine intervention.
What is the hero's journey yet?
It's like the divine intervention,

John (46:22):
yeah.
Yeah.
It's like the help frombeyond the whatever.

Chris B (46:25):
Yeah.
I'll take it.
It's my help from beyond, youknow, what everybody needs
it, it's, part of the journey.
and he told me about it,

John (46:31):
it's

Chris B (46:31):
I looked it up
for real, my parents were.
Way more excited about megoing Florida's closer.
My grandparents live down there,Washington was so far away and scary.
so it just worked out that, you know,they looked at it and this seems good.
got accepted to full sail.
And so we went there.

John (46:50):
This person, this, specter from another dimension is probably
like future you from the worldthat didn't become a game.
Developer
came back as like, what wasthe turning point in my life?
It's like, hi, I'm going to comeand tell Chris about full sail.
And then this is goingto change the trajectory.
His life

Chris B (47:06):
yeah.

John (47:07):
about full sail
and
it was on the east coast.

Chris B (47:09):
I locked out best fail of my life.
was I failed programming too.
So full sail is interestingbecause they're, their
curriculum is month by month.

John (47:18):
Yup.

Chris B (47:19):
And so when you fail a class, you just repeat the class,
but the group that you joined with.
Leaves your ass behind, and thenyou just joined the ranks of
whatever groups coming through.
Right.
so I fail programming too.
retake programming too.
And I end up in Danny Bullis class.

John (47:37):
Danny Bula, who is director at poly Ark.
Interesting.

Chris B (47:41):
yeah, funny how that, works.
you know, him and I become friends,we make it through, we get out
of full sail and the, the careerplacement at full sail was fantastic.

John (47:52):
Yeah,

Chris B (47:52):
Rob Coldwell was setting, everybody up.
And I remember I went into hisoffice and he was like, Chris, I
don't have a job for you, but Ihave a paid internship in Hawaii.

John (48:05):
my goodness.

Chris B (48:06):
I was like, Rob, that Sounds like a job.
even like, it's not permanent.
It's only six months.
And I was like, but I get to go to Hawaii.

John (48:13):
Fuck.
Yeah.

Chris B (48:15):
Right.
And he's like, Yeah.
So I'm 20 out of college.
He just told me I'm going to get paid.
Not only did I get paid, you know,they paid for my apartment in a high
rise in Honolulu that shit's expensive.
I was a 15 minute walk from Waikiki beach.
It was awesome.
so we go there, and I'm just working.
Actually.
I was working in an unreal engine, onVR Atlanta cyberspace was named the

(48:39):
company And they were doing VR tech andstuff for companies, using unreal three.
So my career actuallykind of started in VR

John (48:49):
and on unreal

Chris B (48:51):
and on unreal

John (48:52):
what the hell did VR even consist of at the time, man?

Chris B (48:54):
Oh dude.
it was,
like those big, like the Octo, likethings that you put the in takes like
three generators to run used to onlysee them in like science centers and
stuff.

John (49:06):
okay.
Okay.
For sure.

Chris B (49:07):
Yeah.
We had like two of those in theoffice, which is funny, cause we
would put people in them and thenwe would just play shooters and it'd
be like people on keyboard and PCversus the people in the VR sets.
And they'd just get smoked.
You can't, you can't compete with keyboard
mouse.

John (49:19):
still true to this day, man.
People won't control the of peopleon keyboard and mouse, people on
touch screens versus and mouse.
Yup.

Chris B (49:26):
Yup.
as my internship was, finishingup, I remembered, I was like, all
right, I gotta find a real job.
I was like, yo, where'sthat dudes contact.
Right.
And I was like, it's time to hit Devin up

John (49:38):
Yeah.

Chris B (49:39):
hit him up.
I was like, yo, I graduated.
I'm just finishing up my internship,can I send you my resume or send
rockstar
my
resume?

John (49:47):
long was this?
By the way, this islike 16 to 2021, right?
So it's like five, four or five years.
And a lot of people I don't knowabout you, man, but at 16, I
wasn't really good about storingpeople's contact information, man.
I'm curious to like whereyou put this thing, how

Chris B (50:00):
Shout out to AOL instant messenger,

John (50:02):
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
So like you had a screen name

Chris B (50:06):
I had a skin name and AOL was still in Vogue, luckily enough,

John (50:10):
what was your screen name back in the day, man, if you don't mind me asking.

Chris B (50:13):
gaming addict.

John (50:14):
Clean, simple, straightforward.
I like it.
So you got ahold of him through aim.

Chris B (50:18):
yeah, I got ahold of him through aim.
and he was like, send me.
I shit.
You not the next day I had aphone call from rockstar, HR
wanting to set up an interview.

John (50:28):
Was it a Sarah Shaffer?

Chris B (50:30):
yeah.
Sarah called me and wanted to set upan interview, but this dude straight
up just got my resume, walked intoher office and was like, call this kid

John (50:38):
That was a special time.
And from what I recall, rocksoff San Diego was tight knit.
They all knew each other and it was
no
bullshit.

Chris B (50:45):
angel studios,

John (50:46):
was angel students at the time.
Right.
So they were
like, it was pretty flat.
Everybody just had that easeto just open doors, walk up and
tell people, Hey, call this dude.
Yeah, no problem.
Let's do it.
Let's get a hold of.

Chris B (50:58):
Yeah.
So I got that call didthe phone interview.
I was interviewing as anetworking UI programmer.

John (51:05):
will you particularly strong in those classes at full sail?

Chris B (51:08):
I made it out of networking by the skin of my teeth.
It's so not at all, actually, but I knewenough to get myself a fly-out interview.
and so I get to rockstar and man, letme just tell you the hilarity of going
out to California, San Diego, right?

(51:28):
it was like in December.
I had my nice interview stuff.
And then the rest I'm just wearing shorts.
I'm coming from Hawaii.
I'm going there.
It was the coldest fuckingDecember on record.
So I'm in the hotel that they have.
I have the heat crank to 80.
I'm freezing my ass off, which Slater'strying to get ready for this interview.

John (51:47):
Yeah,

Chris B (51:48):
so you know, the, the van comes to pick me up because the
camera in the car, cause I'm only 20.
and it takes me to, to rockstarheadquarters and we get in, you
get into that, that front lobby,it's got the rockstar logo.
And at this point, the fan boyin me is just losing it, dude.
I don't know about you, butvice city was the shit for

John (52:09):
Um, my goodness.

Chris B (52:11):
midnight club too, but then vice city was awesome.
like I'm in a rockstar building

John (52:17):
dude, the games don't get any bigger.
I think, only compare themto like a Nintendo, right?
Like that's where they sat for me.

Chris B (52:25):
for sure.
And so Sarah's like taking me backto the interview room and as I'm
walking by, You know, I'm tryingto look around and see whatever.
And as I walked by, I just see whatlooks like cars, race orange street.
And I was like, yo,they were her on Newman.
That club.
I was like, if I get this job, Ican work on a new midnight club.

John (52:41):
You make that connection instantly.

Chris B (52:43):
I'm like, that's what we'll play in for today.
And so they sit you down in the wrongman, and I'm sure as you remember
rockstar interviews along, you know,we were there for a full day you know,
I'm sure every place is different.
but for people that are, wanting to get inthe industry or they're interviewing and
like the process and stuff, I think thebiggest thing that you need to remember on

(53:06):
interview stay calm because the questionsare going to continue to get harder
until they find something you don't know.
And then we're going to see how you,especially For junior positions.
right?
Imagine like as more, more veteransstuff like the tests kind of go away,

John (53:27):
Yeah.

Chris B (53:28):
once you've made it 10 plus years in an industry where like all
you probably, you probably got this.

John (53:32):
Yeah.
We're looking for other thingsin our senior leadership
principal directorial level, right?
Like more of the soft skills.
How do you work?
You know, how do you handle conflictand all the shit and the junior level?
Yeah.

Chris B (53:44):
Oh,

John (53:44):
basically, we're trying to figure out what are your strengths
and what are your weaknesses?

Chris B (53:49):
So I actually, like, I flew through like the networking portion of
it, like basic programming was great.

John (53:57):
Are you wiped any of
this?
Are you pseudo coding?

Chris B (54:00):
we're whiteboarding all this?
like writing it out, whichhonestly is terrible.
Cause I have awful handwritingand I'm on a whiteboard and I'm
nervous trying to remember syntax.
and
just like it was,
so in comms, Ted Carson

John (54:13):
Ted Carson.
Yeah.

Chris B (54:16):
and Ted just start asking me math questions, we didn't even
just straight, a guy andhe's very good at it I'm not,

John (54:25):
at valve now, right?

Chris B (54:26):
uh, I think so.
but yeah, he just started asking questionsand then we just got into vector math

John (54:33):
it's always going to get to vector
math,
always

Chris B (54:37):
it's a very important skill and one that you would have thought
I would have, looked into more,

John (54:42):
out to

Chris B (54:44):
for real.

John (54:44):
What type of preparation did you do before going into the interview?
Anything you touched up on research

Chris B (54:51):
yeah, it was just like, you know, Like the C plus plus, primary, you know,
like my polymorphism, you know, all, allthe basic like data structure type stuff.
I was mentally prepared for,you know, programming stuff and
networking, like all that.
And, you know, I had my basic math skills,but I probably should have brushed up

(55:12):
on them a lot more because I will saywhat felt like an eternity in that
room was based on these math questions.
And it was like, finally hit a question.
I Don't know the answer to cool.
Let's talk through it.
We start talking through it
and then Ted's kind of likeslow playing it a little bit.

(55:33):
luckily, Michael Carrington
also there,

John (55:36):
So it was Ted and Mike with a
tool like

Chris B (55:38):
10 of Micronet.
Yeah.

John (55:40):
Nice.

Chris B (55:40):
and Mike throws me a bone.
And kind of gives it like
hard push

John (55:45):
what about the

Chris B (55:47):
something straight up obvious.
Right.
It's like put the key in the door.
he kind of gets me up my way.
And then from there on out, honestly,it was like, terrorize me a question
and the mic would work through.
It with me and dude, I thoughtI failed the interview.
I was
done in my

John (56:04):
but I thought, you got through it.
I

Chris B (56:05):
we made it through,
but it was a tool assistedvideo at that point because

John (56:10):
it's not officially sanctioned.

Chris B (56:12):
yeah, no so was the end.
so we finished and then I wentback, I thought I was done, dude.

John (56:18):
There was no design portion.
You were coming in as an engineer.

Chris B (56:21):
yeah, it was an engineering position.
and so I went back to Yand I was like, whatever

John (56:27):
you didn't feel good about it.

Chris B (56:28):
I did not, I did not feel good at all.
just based on that lastportion, everything, up to
that point, I felt great.

John (56:33):
Talk to
me about like cope with that.
Talk to me about like any selfcare, any self self-medication
afterwards?

Chris B (56:40):
I went back and one of my roommates at the time we just sat down and
we just played a shit ton of gears of war.

John (56:47):
Ooh.

Chris B (56:48):
Yeah.
We just sat down and were like, nah,we just need to chainsaw some people.
And we just, like, we just played,like I affectively was like, okay.
whatever.
I remember waking up tomy phone ringing and.
I actually didn't think anything of it.
Cause I was like super tired.
It was like a couple days later.
Right.
It was like over the weekend.
So it was like a Tuesday

John (57:09):
you interviewed on like a Friday?

Chris B (57:11):
It was like a Thursday.
I flew home Friday.
yeah, so my phone rang like whatever.
And then like my brain, like thecircuits finally like fired and dude,
I sprung out of bed and leaped grabbedmy phone, picked up and it was Sarah.
And she was like, Hey, we'dlove to extend you an offer.
I was just like, yes.
don't do that.

(57:32):
Don't say yes,

John (57:34):
It happened to my ass too, man.
When I got that midway offer,
I was like, yes, not here in anything.
Not countering.

Chris B (57:43):
I didn't even know what they offer.
I said yes,
like,
don't don't do that.

John (57:47):
don't worry about any of that shit.

Chris B (57:49):
they paid for moving.
They were, they were good about that.
I didn't get myself, out of that.
Yeah.
So got the job and was like, yes.
And then it Was all right timeto get my ass out of Hawaii.
get there, figure out howto get my car from Florida.
Cause I left, the carwith the grandparents.
Cause not gonna need it in Hawaii.
how.
To California, where am I going to live?

(58:11):
Like all that whirlwind and then
start working at rockstar,

John (58:15):
Was it midnight club?
Three

Chris B (58:17):
for minute club LA,

John (58:18):
midnight club LA.
Oh my gosh, man.
Midnight club LA was fantastic, itjust felt so good driving in LA.
It looked good.
like you felt.

Chris B (58:28):
the craziest thing about it is I mean the map and the game scale.
It's not one-to-one but the streets,everything, it's absolutely correct to
the point where, you know, my sister cameout to visit cause I was in California and
she's had never been out of Massachusetts.
So she came and we went up toLA, I started driving around
and I just knew where to go.

(58:50):
Like I had never driven in LA before that.
And I'm like, yo, this racestarts here and it ends here.
And as long as I don't go drivingthrough the park, we should be okay.

John (58:58):
Yeah,

Chris B (58:58):
it was crazy.
How much of my, because thisis all I was doing all day is
just driving around LA testing.

John (59:04):
You grew up in Massachusetts, went to school down in Orlando,
lived in Hawaii, and nowyou're in Southern California.
You're in Carlsbad, California, youknow, what's life like at this point,
you know, like what do you noticeanything about the people you're around
the people you're working with, youknow, compared to what you grew up
around people, you went to school with

Chris B (59:22):
the west coast is way more relaxed.

John (59:23):
Compared to the east coast.

Chris B (59:25):
West coast is way more chilled out.
I was maybe a little high strong,when I was still new into California,
it definitely like chilled me out.

John (59:33):
Which would mean was

Chris B (59:36):
I don't know.
I think it's on like a toggle

John (59:38):
okay.

Chris B (59:39):
on all the time.

John (59:40):
Okay.
That's true, man.
It's been a long time, man.
So you get to come in and contributeto midnight club LA after being
a big fan of the franchise,
eventually your on the red dead redemptionteam, man, and you putting those
networking skills to the test once again.
But I think you were alsoin a design capacity.

Chris B (01:00:01):
So I came over as a technical designer and what's really funny
is, by this point, Danny is now at,
rockstar.

John (01:00:11):
you got him in

Chris B (01:00:12):
at that time I had been there enough, Danny was looking
for a new job or whatever.
So I got his resume and I walked in
to Sarah and I waslike, yo, all those guy.

John (01:00:21):
the cycle feeds itself, right?
History repeats itself.
And

Chris B (01:00:24):
Yup.

John (01:00:25):
turns.

Chris B (01:00:26):
So Danny had gotten hired and he got hired to work on red dead.
And at the time we were finishing upmidnight club, we were working on the
south central DLC and then we wereworking on an unannounced racing game
project that never saw the, light day.
but while we were working on that, therewas kind of like a shift in the studio

(01:00:46):
of people still staying to work on that.
And then if people wanted to go on red,dead, and Danny came over and he was
like, yo, you need to work on this game.

John (01:00:55):
Mm,

Chris B (01:00:56):
Cause I was like, I was hardcore man in a club.
I was staying on that teamthrough and through it.
And Danny's like, get on this team nowand when your homie tells you something
with that much conviction, listen.
So I was, like, yeah, I'dlove to help out with that.
And they're like, great.
we need, designers towork on the networking,

John (01:01:14):
who do you have to approach out of curiosity?

Chris B (01:01:16):
Mike Harrington.

John (01:01:17):
Oh

Chris B (01:01:17):
yeah.
which was great because

John (01:01:19):
He's your boss.

Chris B (01:01:20):
yeah, he was my direct report, at the time.
honestly, through out thedevelopment of midnight club,
he was absolutely my mentor.
you know, he sat right behind me.
like, I told him that Iwanted to Do gameplay.
I got a job as a networking UI programmer.
Cause I need to get in the door.
I do anything.
to get in the door.
But once I was there, I was like,yo gameplay is what I want to do.

(01:01:44):
And you know, we talked about itand I was just banging through like
networking UI, through my tasks.
And we got at one point it was lowand we needed, you know, a game mode
for the online, for midnight club.
And I was like, I can writethat here's some ideas for it.
Like, I'd love to do this.
And Mike was like, go right ahead.
You know?

(01:02:04):
And I slowly started to like transitioninto gameplay and doing that stuff.
And so, you know, he knew thatthey needed people on red dead.
And I was like, I'd love to.
You know, do that.
And the skillset of like doing the online,

John (01:02:16):
yeah,

Chris B (01:02:17):
know, a weapon balancing the online action area, like all that stuff,
Mike was like, perfect, go, go have

John (01:02:22):
we'll help them out.
Go knock it out, man.
Shout out to Mike for empoweringyou letting you control your own
destiny, Danny coming through and belike, yo, you need to come on this
project, you listening, you asking.
Right.
And just having thatrapport and getting on.
And when you got on, what did you see?
What did it feel like?
Talk to me about yourimpressions, your learnings.

Chris B (01:02:45):
man, it was so different.
just because like
the way the,
the red team was probably atthis time already twice as
big as the midnight club team.
and I was used to thingsbeing pretty isolated, in, in
like what I was working on.
And so they're like, okay, you know, wegot to take a look at the multiplayer.

(01:03:06):
You know, we, we need to bring overthese weapons while at the time, like
multiplayer really was just getting going.
So there was only thesingle-player tunings
for the game and theweapons for single player.
Like our OPO is shit asyou get later in the game.
Right.
Cause they should because the AIscales and everything like this.
So I remember one of the first things I.
Was went in and just ripped,open the Excel sheet and

(01:03:27):
just rebalanced the numbers.
Right.
And I was like, Yeah.
it's fine.
It's just like, for themultiplayer thing I was doing that
wasn't even thinking about it.
And Alan blamed comes over andhe's like, what are you doing?

John (01:03:39):
Senior systems designer, Alan Blaine.

Chris B (01:03:41):
And I was like, you know, I'm just trying to like hook
this up for that.
He's like,
you realize that's for the wholegame, including single-player right.
And I was like, I do not, sir.
I was like, oh, good.
Off to a great start over here now.

John (01:03:54):
that's something amazing about rockstar is the amount of freedom
and unlocked accessibility that anydeveloper has to make crazy changes to
the entire game is kind of unheard offor how big these games are and shout
out to you learning that the hard way.

Chris B (01:04:14):
I mean, not only that, but it for awhile that I, found out that
designers didn't have access to code.

John (01:04:20):
Oh, but you did.
Yeah.
Cause you're coming over.
You have all your engineering
permissions.

Chris B (01:04:26):
Yeah.
They never revoked that from me, whichwas both a benefit and a detriment.
cause you know, sometimesI had too much power.

John (01:04:32):
What would you say to somebody in the similar, in the similar shoes?
Right.
They're comfortable from engineeringbackground makes the transition design
is used to just making the changeson their own, not check with anybody,
not asking permission, just doing it.
would you say to that person?
Right.
That's like, I can code, so I'm gonnajust do it versus like, all right.
I have to shift thinking and go throughthe process, go through the pipeline.

(01:04:55):
Like.
I always encourage people to, Hey,if you're comfortable in cold,
here are the keys to the kingdom.
but guess, like you said,there's pros and cons.

Chris B (01:05:03):
I think, and this is something that I don't think just
is for new people because I still dothis, cause this excitement, right.
I'm going to, I'm going to preface thiswith like excitement gets all of us
and an idea hits you and comes overand there's this important step?
What is this going to touch?
I think a great way to Like, put itis the longer the compile is the more

(01:05:25):
scared you should be of your change.
Right.
You compile this thingin a compels instantly.
Cool.
You mess with like two files.
If you go to lunch, when youcompile you better, get a very
senior person to come look over
this change,

John (01:05:39):
Yes.
Like, hold on.
why is the linker taking this
long?

Chris B (01:05:42):
rock star, we never really like peer reviewing at
least for what we were doing.
Wasn't really like, I don't everremember really doing that, like on
the nightclub or working on red dead,no one ever peer reviewed, unless we
were like really close to shipping.

John (01:05:58):
when it really became hardcore,
everything was peer reviewed.

Chris B (01:06:02):
even, at the direct role, now, if I touch code, I have like
the game play engineer, you know,we peer review it together just
cause I now know what I don't know.
Right.
And I'm
like, let me get an, I, I think this isfine, but let me get an extra set of eyes.
Just like, can I do this better?

John (01:06:16):
I liked that you call out peer review CB because I'm a huge fan man.
And I find that it helps otherpeople know what's going on in case
you're absent or missing or moved onto some other project or whatever.
It gives someone anotherset of eyes to call up.
Oh yeah.
I know how that works.
I can go fix it or something like
that, but,

Chris B (01:06:36):
it was like.
My fourth day on the midnight club team.
And I ran into a crazy crash,Like I was doing something
with like, whatever it was.
And I managed to crash the game sobad that Like cause I told Mike and it
was some very low level wherever theyactually went and grabbed Dave Etherton

(01:06:58):
to come to my desk.
Who is the, like thestudio, like lead engineer.

John (01:07:03):
isn't He
like
head of rage?

Chris B (01:07:05):
Yeah.
The head rage emerges from his den.
Right.
And comes I'm fourdays into having a job.
And I'm trying to sit there ashe does things with a visual
studio editor that I still don'tknow what happened in this day.
And I'm trying to pretendlike I understand.
And then we start seeing assemblyand I was like, no, no, we've gone

(01:07:26):
over to I do.

John (01:07:28):
were too low with too deep.
How do we come out of here?
I don't even know what file that is.

Chris B (01:07:35):
one of those, like, figured it out and just left.
I think he said hi and just like peasy.
There.
was like a smoke bomb andhe was gone, it was so
intimidating.

John (01:07:43):
I love that.
The 10 stories, man.
I love his emails.
I love his manner ofspeaking communication.
He's the guy that makes me think thatit's like yo as game developers, we never
really have to grow up If we're good.
If you're good,
there was a recent Twitter conversation.
That was an awesome thread aboutmoments on a game project that you
loved and you cited developing.

(01:08:05):
Stronghold for red dead redemptions.
Who was it?
I don't know what doc it was.
I don't
know if it was

Chris B (01:08:11):
liar, liars and cheats DLC.

John (01:08:13):
and cheats DLC.

Chris B (01:08:14):
third one.

John (01:08:16):
Cause the first one was like
the free co-op mode that like blew
people's minds.
Like what?
This is free.
That's amazing.
Talk me through getting to design acompletely unique game mode for the
online multiplayer, from scratch.
Malik is owning this thing.
Like what, what was that like?
How did it even come to be?

Chris B (01:08:31):
this kind of blew my mind, right.
Because.
A lot of the stuff that we were doingat the time, or that I was doing was
like, just setting up AI, basicallybuilding out like missions in the, the,
the free realm area, stuff like that.
and then it came time.
We were like, yeah, we want a new game
mode, And, Sri Pam was busyworking on more co-op stuff.
Troy was building out multiplayer maps.

(01:08:53):
So Chris Roberts looked atme and he was like, see you.
And I was like, okay, cool.

John (01:08:58):
Which when the game

Chris B (01:08:59):
we actually got a little bit of extra designer firepower and Danny came
along and was like, cool, let's do this.
So

John (01:09:07):
it's your boy.

Chris B (01:09:07):
yeah, we finally get to work together.
cause he's been on singleplayer doing missions.
I've been on multiplayer.
We do not interact at allthrough in a work capacity,
through the entire development.
And we finally were like, all right,let's make a game mode together.
And we walked into one of theback kinda like rec room areas.
We shut the door and we're like, we'renot leaving until we have a game mode.

(01:09:31):
And we just started talkingthrough what would be cool.
what did we play when we were growing up?
What did we like?
Right.
we talked through a lot ofthings, was it unreal tournament?
2001 had attack and defend.
Right.
And it was like one of my favorite modes.
And it was like, what if we did it?
Like, what does attack anddefend look like in red, dead.
And then we were like,it's really different.

(01:09:52):
It's a neat idea.
I think people really like it.
So we wrote up, like what wewanted, like what the type of
objectives were going to be.
Right.
And then we wanted to have like thatprogression, just like you have in
the mode that it's like, you know,you get like your checkpoints to
push along and then you flip and theother team plays and that decides it.
It was a long mode.
Like you played for a while.
If you locked into a stronghold match, you were in it

(01:10:12):
for quite a bit.

John (01:10:13):
Can you tell me the, the objective that's like, kind
of territory control, right?
Like ABC, I think it was five, some app,and then you kind of are attacking, try
to control and the defenses are trying tostop you from grabbing the spot and then
once you grab them, you can't flip them.
Right.
Like it's
kind of a

Chris B (01:10:27):
they were kind of different, but it was, yeah.
You either had to hold,um, hold some spots.
You had to crack a safe.
So you had to get to get a player onthe safe and you had to like, you know,
wild west is one person carrying thesafe, everyone's just like covering fire.
TNTs flying around.
And then.
Yeah, the last one finished offwith, it became, I'm trying to

(01:10:49):
remember it to become like a
death match where like the, the last one,they only had like X number of spawns
and you had to push in or like everyonelost lives or something like that.
we ended up putting that together.
and then it was really funny becauseDanny also was going to help out
with networking, for the game modes.
Cause we got horse racing online.
Cause you could only dothat in single player.
So the liar and sheets we broughtthat new game mode, brought the

(01:11:11):
horse racing and then we brought allthe gambling games to multiplayer.
but Yeah.
Danny started working on the horseracing and then they needed him for some
single-player content for other stuff.
So I got to work on my horse, racing to

John (01:11:22):
from what I can recall, game modes and pitching a
rockstar is very different, man.
It's you just kinda like run it byit's at all, or you just kind of
put it in and then people play itand then like, all right, please.
Good.
Keep working on it or

Chris B (01:11:34):
Looking back at it.
It was interesting.
I don't feel like I shouldhave had that much autonomy.
I really don't like looking back at it.
I could do whatever I wantedand people just kept checking
in on it and like, Yeah.
things are working.
It's fine.
But like, almost to like a detriment,there was no, like I just made these

(01:11:55):
actionaries it's like, what's your plan?
I was like, I don't know.
This feels cool.
And like, well, that's not thebest way to develop things.
It worked out.
But Yeah,
I really, I just ran everythingby Chris Roberts and Tom shepherd.
if they said it was fine, it was in right.

John (01:12:11):
It's amazing.
I think people would killfor that opportunities.
Days may be like, yo, I canwrite gamers for GTA online.
Just like that.
Like what, like was Josh Nudleman?
Did he have a heavy hand in kind of, uh,shepherding this across the finish line?
Or you're just kind of the sanity check,

Chris B (01:12:27):
Yeah.
Nina was, uh, the Sandy check.
Like, at that point, everythingkind of went through New York.
Like once the game shifts, we wentthrough New York, but yeah, I don't
think like started to get looked atuntil like the last three months.
like, oh, we should probably, uh,you know, have like Sam, Dan, like
do some multiplayer play tests

John (01:12:44):
which, were amazing.
I remember some rowdy,rowdy matches in the office.
These were some of the mostamazing times in developing
red dead that I can remember.
It was just like the mandatory networking.
Playtests right.
And you would get Sam on your team,Dan, on your team, you'd be on a team.
I'd make sure I was on the opposite team.
You were on.
Josh would be there.

(01:13:05):
And it was just so much fun, bro.
There was

Chris B (01:13:06):
Yeah,

John (01:13:07):
talking.
You wouldn't be on the line thatway we were playing these games.

Chris B (01:13:11):
I mean, there wasn't money on the line, but we
shipped red dead and New York QA

John (01:13:17):
Oh, that's

Chris B (01:13:18):
thought.
They were thought they were good.
And you know, all through thething, we were testing stuff.
I mean, and to be honest, thenetwork, like the New York QA
team, fantastic team, and which isalso why, I, I appreciated them.
They want to talk a little trash, wantedto say how their team would smoke us.
It was like that's fun.
Let's ship this game andwe're going to settle this.

(01:13:39):
Right.
so it was us and a couple Diego testersversus New York, QA eight V eight.
We played a race to five in game mode.

John (01:13:53):
Yeah.
Cause you could do like playlist thatjust kind of randomly gave you game.

Chris B (01:13:56):
Yup.
And what's really funny is ChrisRoberts, like through all of our, our
playtests and everything, Chris Robertswas fine at the game, not that great,
but he purposely always handicappedhimself because if you remember red
dead had, the little auto assist, like
you could soft flock onto somebody.

John (01:14:14):
you're like lock onto the body and then
like flick the
stick and

Chris B (01:14:17):
they had allowed online, which, you know, whatever.
Chris Roberts never played with it.
Never turned it on.
And of course abused the shit out ofit whenever we were testing anything.
so New York QA is like auto snapoff and just start laughing.
I was like, okay, this is fine.
Chris Roberts has been in the hyperbolictime chamber, training with this mode.

(01:14:38):
And all of a sudden the guy that isusually at like mid to bottom of the
scoreboard is just smoking people.
So nothing changed for him.

John (01:14:47):
He's like, oh, why are we playing the same game that
did I break
something?

Chris B (01:14:50):
I think the final score was, San Diego, five New York.
I don't remember the score,
but I don't think they got more than two.

John (01:14:57):
You know, my hometown is New York.
Right.
But I was signed to San Diego, bro.
So you guys always made me proud.
In fact, pretty muchwhatever team you're on.
Wasn't good hands, man.
Even Troy, Troy was solid.
The whole, the whole multiplayer team.
Right?
You
guys.
Yeah.
You guys day in, day outworking on that shit.
Getting good.
we had some good times there you an ICBwe developed, we got pretty close there.

(01:15:20):
we brought like Streetfighter to it.
We, we built a little team.
We had fight nights at each other's cribs.
We had cross studio rivalries where we

Chris B (01:15:28):
Oh,

John (01:15:29):
belt across over to THQ wonderful times,

Chris B (01:15:33):
I mean, just, just touch on that real quick, because I don't know
about you, but in my head, it's thecoolest feeling like in the world, but
if you were like a bystander on thestreet, it probably looks so dumped.
So we were playing streetfighter four I'd come out.
and we played basketball onFridays with like high noon and
THQ and word got around that.

(01:15:56):
We had a solid fighting game squadand THQ was like, yo, do too.
Or like, great, we'regoing to settle this.
So I just remember we got off work.
We load into Sri pans, minivans.
Right.
And the seats are like rippedout in the back of this thing.
like, we're going to war, weroll up Sri pans going a hundred.

(01:16:17):
He's really doing the speedlimit by my head is way cooler.
Right.
And the van door slides open.
And in my head, we justlike, dude smoke comes out.
We're like
amazing.
And it's just like,

John (01:16:26):
Our music

Chris B (01:16:27):
well, we got entrance music.

John (01:16:29):
music.
or
NWL pick, pick your squad.

Chris B (01:16:32):
the sheer, like, what are these nerds?
What are they carrying?

John (01:16:36):
our rockstar leather jackets.
You know what, our lastnames on this shit,

Chris B (01:16:41):
Oh my God.
It
was the
corniest in the best way.

John (01:16:44):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
At their house,
in this studio, in this suite playroom.

Chris B (01:16:51):
Man.
Their play room was awesome.

John (01:16:53):
it was.
Yes, it was, like you said, competitionmakes you better, the better the person
you play against the better you get.
So you always, definitely made me better.
a lot of people cansay, rockstar hard work.
You know, you put in a lot oftime, it goes right into the game.
This is a game that's touchedby millions of players.
So, you know, what's a proportionaltime investment to the legend.

(01:17:13):
That is the games that rockstar makesand having our names be on them.
somehow to balance this out, wewere pretty good with our like four
o'clock, four 20 breaks to go and

Chris B (01:17:24):
Yeah.

John (01:17:24):
We had like a main cabinet
in the, in the, game room and therewas a lot of street fighter CE

Chris B (01:17:29):
Oh, championship edition holds a very special place in my heart.
That game is not balanced atall, but oh, do I love it?

John (01:17:36):
we found with look to be like NBA jam before NBA jam
was a thing before like magic

Chris B (01:17:41):
Hoops.

John (01:17:42):
street hooves, which looked to be off-brand knock off.

Chris B (01:17:47):
three on three.
And man, it wasn't a good day.
If we didn't get to playsome street hoops and CE

John (01:17:53):
you felt it, you felt it right.
Like something was off that day.
It's like
Pence up.
You go home and take it out in your home.
You.
it was something I lookforward to every day.
and it was a great reset button, you know?
like you stuck in some shit, someshit is not compiling, or you
can't figure out this damn a bug.
it was so nice when you wouldstand up for me desk, give me the
nod, yo it's time or vice versa.

(01:18:16):
And I'm like, fuck, I really wantto figure this out, but, oh, I'm
so happy to step away from this.
Right,
And then forget everything, andjust enter the arena with the homie
win, lose, or draw, back to the deskand be like, oh, that was awesome.
What the hell was I at?
Oh, this, this is easy now after

Chris B (01:18:34):
right.
it's funny.
Cause if you listen to what youjust said, you know, you have
this, no, I want to finish this.
I'm like right there.
And then you forget what you were doing.
And if we stop right there,that sounds terrible.
But then when you come back, whatactually happens is, yeah, you
did forget everything you weredoing, but it wasn't working.
So you forgot all the wrong stuff.

(01:18:55):
Right.
And now you force yourself to re gothrough the problem because you've got to
remember where you work has legitimately.
You do forget where you're at, butin taking those steps to get back
to that point, there's a chance.
That you don't get stuck becauseyou go left instead of right.
In retracing, your steps, andthen you blow past the problem.
I mean, there's totally a chance thatyou take all the same steps and you have

(01:19:18):
the same problem and you're like, shit.
still stuck.

John (01:19:21):
Yes.

Chris B (01:19:22):
that reset and like not banging your head against
the wall really important.

John (01:19:28):
Hell yeah.
Dude.
They bring in that fresh perspective.
Taking that

Chris B (01:19:32):
And also it feels like a game studio.
When you get to go play some games plusthat row, that room on a Friday, man was
always, a party cause I mean, rockstartable tennis rockstar San Diego made that.
And because of that, you had killers
that could play table
tennis.
I mean, my table tennis skillsare because, Rafael Phillips,

(01:19:53):
I taught, him guilty gear.
He taught me table tennis

John (01:19:56):
I got to get him on the show.

Chris B (01:19:58):
absolutely do
you think I have stories?
RAF has stories.
but that room yet.
And then you had foosball.
I mean, people were realcompetitive in foosball

John (01:20:07):
that's right.

Chris B (01:20:08):
you're trying to play on the main cabinet.
You're trying not to getspiked with Aaron, ping pong
balls flying out and you gotthe foosball guys just yelling.

John (01:20:16):
Yeah.
That was a good time, bro.
Good times.
Eventually you get an opportunity from ahomie and you make the decision that it's
time for you to see new opportunitiesto take your skills elsewhere.
How do you arrive to that point?
What's the thoughtprocess going into that?

Chris B (01:20:34):
We made it through red, dead, and at the time we were working on GTA five
you know, Dana and I talked about it Youknow, rockstar talked to us about crunch.
We got like a nice longbreak, everything like that.
And we're like, cool.
If we start seeing this happen again,I think we need to look elsewhere.
Right?
we're seasoned at this point.
So you can kind of see thewriting on the wall a little bit.

(01:20:55):
Danny got an offer, went off the bungee

John (01:20:58):
made the move to Seattle before any of us.

Chris B (01:21:00):
yup.
And then, My Currington,
approach.

John (01:21:04):
current person, who was your mentor
boss and

Chris B (01:21:07):
Okay.

John (01:21:08):
tech interview.

Chris B (01:21:09):
Right.
Uh, came and approached me andwas like, Hey, a couple of the
old midnight club guys are leavingand we're starting up a studio.
We want you to join us.

John (01:21:19):
Oh, wow.

Chris B (01:21:20):
And I was like, I don't know.
And I called up Dannyand told him about it.
And he was like, youhave to leave right now.
He's like, do not miss this opportunity.

John (01:21:29):
Yeah, bro.
Yeah.
I mean, I would say that thetype of opportunity that you
don't even have to think about.
Right?
Like you, you kind of know you'rein good hands with a mentor.
That's kind of showing you a lot.
You can continue to learn fromin, uh, it was it kind of a
startup, you know, would they
talk like, how

Chris B (01:21:45):
It was, uh, it was a startup.
we were trying, and I will say youabsolutely should always think about it,
because spoilers studio got shut down.

John (01:21:53):
The security of like a big
studio

Chris B (01:21:56):
rockstar still pumping, right?
Like
it's going
it's going,
nowhere.
it's that making quality games.
yeah, we started up a studio

John (01:22:02):
was tiny.
Giant.

Chris B (01:22:03):
tiny.
Giant.
at the time, we're going to bring AAAquality games to Facebook and mobile.
Yeah.
I remember Facebook gaming.
That was a thing.
And what that taught us is that, if youdon't understand how micro-transactions
work, your game's not going to be great.

John (01:22:17):
This is what it took to survive that
wave, right?

Chris B (01:22:20):
Yup.
we made cars tracing, which we werelike, what if, my club was more cartoony
and had like, did it Congress and power
ups?
it was a fun game.
it wasn't the best, but it was also madeto be played in like Facebook sessions.
It was like, you could play networks.
It was great for the time, butour like problem there is, Nobody
wanted to micro transact, anything.

(01:22:41):
Cause they were like, whatever thegame is fun and then they're just done.
And so then we put it onmobile, and we let you play.
with the first two vehicles, youcould choose one of the two and you
could play only the first two races.
And then you had to pay2 99 to unlock the rest.
Right.
Except for the fact that

John (01:22:57):
Yeah.

Chris B (01:22:58):
you play online and people will like, I don't need to upgrade shit.
The game is so fun.
I'll just play with the base shitAnd just play online with people
and that's all anyone ever did.

John (01:23:06):
you still get the core game experience,
but you got you guys weren'trunning ads or anything like that.
There was no, other monetization.

Chris B (01:23:12):
this was all, super new.
This was before, Zyngasingle was quick on the take.
They pioneered how likemobile gaming worked and like
they understood that stuff.
We came at it from avery gameplay focused.
yeah, we just want tomake like a, a great game.
Put it on mobile and people will buy this.
no they won't.

John (01:23:28):
so that was your first foray into like mobile gaming.
a tiny, giant imploded.

Chris B (01:23:35):
Yeah.
We were around for two anda half years, three years.

John (01:23:38):
a solid run.
That's a solid run.
And you're back on the market.
You're a free agent lookingfor work and you go through the
gauntlets and evolve the offers.
You ended up taking a sweet offer to makethe move up to Seattle at fifth cell.

Chris B (01:23:53):
Correct.

John (01:23:54):
Talk to me about what fifth cell was like,
what was, what were you doing?
What was the role?

Chris B (01:23:59):
yeah, so I went up, to facil as a technical designer.

John (01:24:04):
Rockin TD
hat.

Chris B (01:24:06):
Yeah.
At that point, it was aninteresting transition.
I think at the time when we allstarted to scatter from rockstar,
technical designer was becoming amore like accepted industry role.
you know, your designers, have programmingchops, they like understand these things.
And that, that's whatI advertise myself as.

John (01:24:23):
So anytime you saw a tech designer role, you're like, all right, that's me.

Chris B (01:24:26):
or I would just apply for a game plan engineer or to
apply for a they play designer?
And be like, I know you kindof said this, but about this?

John (01:24:33):
Hey a good tip.

Chris B (01:24:35):
sometimes it works.

John (01:24:36):
Yeah,

Chris B (01:24:36):
people like this, isn't what we're looking for.
And I was like, okay,

John (01:24:39):
that's
a great tip.
I think a lot of people today get caughtup in the job role, the name of the
script, you know, without even readingit, the descriptions and lose out, right.
They're like, oh, that's not me.
That's not what they're looking for.
So I like what you're doing.

Chris B (01:24:51):
Let them say no,

John (01:24:53):
Let them say no,
Yeah.
Make the, make the application,your resume in the door, author it,
however you need to author it so thatit matches what they're looking for.
But you know, advertise your skillsthat are answering the problems that
they're look.
Yes.

Chris B (01:25:08):
don't.
Don't tell the things, causeI'll tell you right now, you'll
get found out real quick.

John (01:25:12):
Well, what I mean by tailoring is, Hey, if they're looking for a gameplay
programmer and you come from a tech designbackground, but 90% of the things they're
asking you to do, you can do right.
If you're like, all

Chris B (01:25:24):
Right.
Right.

John (01:25:24):
I'm a gameplay programmer, right?
Like,

Chris B (01:25:27):
Sure.

John (01:25:27):
and make sure you know, your victim math, when you go into those
interviews, that's all you need to do.
Yeah.

Chris B (01:25:32):
so yeah, I, I get a job at this cell I'm working there seven
months into fifth cell studio startshaving some problems and it's looking
like the cell might not make it.
I'm starting to feellike I'm the harbinger.
of death for studios
now.
Cause I just left the studio that shutdown and now I just joined another

(01:25:55):
studio and it's kind of a little Rocky.
luckily for me, I end up, one ofthe lead engineer there was talking
with some people and starting upa, another studio and my cubicle
mate was going to go work for them.
But he decided that he didn't wantto leave or didn't want to like

(01:26:17):
work for them for whatever reason.
But he was like, Hey, talk to Chris.
He can do what you're looking for.
you still need somebody.
And he talked to me and was like,do you want to, you want to do this?
And I was like, sure, this sounds great.
Like, let's try this again.
So we go.
to startup a number three now,or I started up number two.
so we went there and we weredoing mobile games again.

(01:26:41):
So, you know, had some experience there.
and that lasted for like two years.
And really like, honestly, the, the wholepoint of like this at that time, You
know, after tiny, giant finished, Dannywas like, you'll find a job in Seattle.
He's like, I can't hire you right now.
I don't know when I'm going to beable to hire you, but if you live in
Seattle, it's going to be a hell of a lot

John (01:27:02):
um,

Chris B (01:27:03):
And so the, the idea was just to be up and around and like,
the vibe is much different inSeattle than it is in San Diego.
Cause like you throw a stone, you'regoing to hit a developer up here.

John (01:27:14):
100%, man.
This is one of the biggest hubs, if
not the
biggest hub.

Chris B (01:27:18):
it's easy to just meet people.
Like either just like randomly are justtalking to people, you find out that
developers or, you know, like Dannycircle, whatever, like you just start
hanging out with other developers.
So it was always good to just be around.
And then Yeah.
when NC two's kind of finishing upat that time, Danny was like, Hey,
to come interview a Polytech now?

(01:27:38):
And I was like, yo,

John (01:27:40):
Yeah.

Chris B (01:27:40):
on.

John (01:27:41):
You just had to bide your time.
damn CB.
It's a wild ride brother.
we definitely got so many morestories to share with the masses.
And I don't want to rush the magic.
we'll call this chapter oneof the CB stories and there
there'll be more to come for sure.
The beauty of, of our friendshipis exactly that, right?
Like I know you and, and you get tocome on the show whenever the hell

(01:28:03):
it makes sense with your schedule.

Chris B (01:28:06):
So.

John (01:28:07):
give me the signal and we'll hit the lightning round.

Chris B (01:28:10):
lightning round.
Let's do it.

John (01:28:11):
What is your favorite game of all time?

Chris B (01:28:14):
Guilty gear, accent core.
just because, played an Evo bunchwith it, ended up 17th at one point.

John (01:28:21):
17th in the world that evil.
Hell yeah.

Chris B (01:28:24):
I mean, it was just a side tournament, so I don't know
if all the killers were there,but still, it doesn't matter.
It counts it's in the record books.

John (01:28:31):
Who's your character

Chris B (01:28:32):
I played Potemkin, the burly man that had way too much damage and
way too much flexibility and combos,
but I mean, everybodywas broken in that game.
It was great.

John (01:28:41):
What's the last game you finished?

Chris B (01:28:42):
that's store,
and it's going to be gameof the year, this year.
I'm calling it
now

John (01:28:46):
It now game of the year
2021,

Chris B (01:28:48):
it.
Yeah.
20, 21, death store ismy game of the year.
It was magical from start to finish.
I don't think there's one thing I couldsay that they did wrong in that game.

John (01:28:57):
how would you pitch it to someone who's not familiar with it?

Chris B (01:29:01):
a slightly more hardcore Zelda.
It has all the key beats, all the funelements of his older game with like
a soul's like not as punishing, butdefinitely harder than Zelda's combat.

John (01:29:17):
Okay.

Chris B (01:29:18):
you know, just like RPG, upgrade mechanics and stuff.

John (01:29:20):
Working from home.
never thought I'd do this shit.
I never thought it'd become aregular thing in the industry.
What's the favorite partabout working from home CB?

Chris B (01:29:29):
Oh man.
No commute.
I hate driving

John (01:29:31):
bro.
That's like 10% back to our day, man.

Chris B (01:29:34):
it's great.
Because time to go to work, I walkeddownstairs time to be done for the day.
I walk upstairs, need a breakin the middle of the day.
I walk my ass upstairs and chillout on the deck and hit that reset.
And it's so easy.
Also like the flexibilityin scheduling become.
So much easier as well.

(01:29:55):
Like Paulie Eric is really, reallygood about allowing employees to
like flex their time and stuff.
So, you know, Rebecca has appointmentsand someone has to watch Amelia.
It's easy for me to be like, Hey,I need to be out for two hours.
And then once she goes down for bed,I just walked back downstairs, hop on
the computer, work for a couple hoursand then go into the, like the den

(01:30:17):
and just watch TV before we go to bed.
Right.
Like just the flexibility is so nice.

John (01:30:22):
hell yeah, man.
Speaking of flexibility and themagic of that 4:00 PM break makes
me wonder if I need to get on yourcalendar a little 15 minute play break.
Every 4:00 PM.
Jump on some online streethoops with some madness.
Like this man is some CE Ineed to make that happen.
You've been warranted.

Chris B (01:30:39):
what's crazy with that is the director role.
I'm probably in a meeting then it'slike, like it's so much harder to
like work these things in because youknow, you put these, say flexibility.
It's like, we then have tolike juggle meetings around

John (01:30:52):
Yeah.

Chris B (01:30:53):
to set up appointments on these days.
It's like, I know I don'thave meeting these days.
This is when you should try toschedule all your appointments.
But if we can please shoot hoops online,
we've gotta find.

John (01:31:01):
What kind of fund it.
that's a good call out man directors,you know, a big part of that role
and job is what do we call it?
Calendar Tetris.
Right?
Like
where do you fit in these meetings?
Like the blocks of fallen, right?
Where are you going to
slot them

Chris B (01:31:15):
at the Google, everyone on the Google Helter has different colors

John (01:31:18):
Yup.

Chris B (01:31:19):
Keller Tetris.
I like that.

John (01:31:21):
It that's it, man.
That's what you're makingthose big books for.
so imagine, you poly our contract orexpires or whatever, and you're up for
free agency and you can go anywhere, playfor any team on any project, work on any
IP franchise, whatever do you resign?
Where would you go if youcould, what would you want to be

Chris B (01:31:41):
I think, um, without shadow of doubt in my mind, I'm resigning, you
know?

John (01:31:45):
you're going for the three-peat you going for the back-to-back

Chris B (01:31:48):
Yeah,
technically we never, we lost out gameof the year to Astro bought, so we're
still looking for the first ring.
Uh,
we would call us.
We were at, we were at the dance.

John (01:31:59):
You made it to the finals.

Chris B (01:32:00):
no, man, I'm, I'm having so much fun.
Poly Ark, honestly has been thegreatest place I've worked in my career.
I love my coworkers.
I love flexibility that the studio givesme and like the trust that they've put in
me, there's no reason and I can't think ofa reason why I'd want to go anywhere else.

John (01:32:20):
Hell yeah.
That's awesome to hear, bro.
I'm glad you find your place.
Finally, after being the, angel of death,just closing now, startup after startup,
man, I'm surprised they gave you a shot.
Geez.
We're in that Scarlet letter, hardcore,but I'm glad they took the chance, man.
It seems like it's paying off.
if you weren't doing this, ifyou weren't a game developer,
what would you be doing, man?

(01:32:41):
What else would you bedoing to make money?

Chris B (01:32:42):
Oh, so being a streamer sounds exhausting and I actually
don't think that'd be great.
the other backup, growingup, was going to be a lawyer.

John (01:32:50):
Oh yeah.
I could see you arguing to death, Nice.
Yeah, dude.
I could see you and a court and,and, stringing a jury along.
You fight for the good guy.

Chris B (01:33:00):
I think it's smarter that way.
Just like, as long as they don'tend up like Harvey den, right?
Like you gotta be like, there'slike a line, like I'm not trying
to take two high profile cases.

John (01:33:09):
That's a different look for you, man.
But I like it.
It's an alternate dimension Barrasso,but it still be as intimidating as like
fighting game tournament, Bourassa.
I'm sure

Chris B (01:33:19):
ask the question.
What if,

John (01:33:20):
what if yeah.
Yeah.
You watching that by the way.

Chris B (01:33:23):
yeah.
We're, we're a little behindtrying to get caught up the night.

John (01:33:26):
Something people either don't know about you or would be surprised to know

Chris B (01:33:32):
I would say, and this is something I discovered about
myself, of my lovely wife.
I like musicals way more than I would havegiven myself credit for anyone That has
met me would believe, but I love musicals.

John (01:33:45):
That was a great discovery.
My friend, that was afunny, funny discovery.
When, when that happened, whenyou met your lovely wife you're
like, yo bro, I'm about the wicked.
I'm about, well, what are
you, what are your,some of your favorites,

Chris B (01:33:57):
I think Wicked's top.
Hamilton's good.

John (01:34:01):
word.

Chris B (01:34:01):
why are all the dice quicks dying was a really funny one.

John (01:34:06):
those are some great recommendations to somebody it's like, all right.
I want to get it to musicals.
I want to

Chris B (01:34:10):
yeah, if you want to get musicals, go.
watch wicked.

John (01:34:12):
That's the one I like like book of Mormon

Chris B (01:34:14):
I still haven't seen it.
We were supposed, we were supposed to go,
uh, and then COVID happened.

John (01:34:19):
What's the last book you read?

Chris B (01:34:21):
man versus baby.
you know, baby on the,way, I was trying to figure
figure this parenting thing
out.
Cause yo they don't come with instruction
manuals.
And this was like, I was like a superhighly rated book because It was nice
because it wasn't written in a wayof like, Hey, this is what you do.
It was just this guy recantinghis experience of his first

(01:34:41):
two years with his child.
It was just very funny.
I really enjoyed it.
but yeah,

John (01:34:46):
easy to read relatable to for
any person.

Chris B (01:34:48):
honestly don't read too much.
Like reading books for enjoymentis not necessarily what I do.
Like I will read strategy guidesor like frame data from reading
something for games, but

John (01:35:00):
Scroll Reddit forever.
Yeah.

Chris B (01:35:01):
Yeah.

John (01:35:02):
Hell yeah.
No, it's a great book.
Great recommendation.
appreciate it.
Right.
There's a few of us out there that areentering into that full Ray eventually.
So that's a good book to keep in mind.
Name for me.
Three dinner guests you would love tohave over and they could be dead or alive.

Chris B (01:35:17):
interesting.
So I think I gotta likespread the like areas around.
Right.
So I'm going to bring, I think I'llbring someone like industry related.
I'm going to bring like an entertainmentrelated and then I like sports,
so I'll bring like sports related.

John (01:35:33):
plan.

Chris B (01:35:34):
So, I think Morimoto gets the to come industry-related right.
Like
we just got.
it's like the godfather, right?

John (01:35:42):
And D he is

Chris B (01:35:43):
entertainment wise, you know, I'm a huge Tom cruise fan.

John (01:35:47):
top gun.
Huh?

Chris B (01:35:48):
yeah.
so we'll get, Tom cruiseand sports related.
Oh, we'll bring in Tom Brady.

John (01:35:55):
Brady.
Bam solid.

Chris B (01:35:57):
I got 20, I got 20 years of solid football, bragging rights right there.
And you know, at the page it'sgonna be for the next 20 years.
It doesn't matter.
the prime time I had it

John (01:36:07):
Yeah, you did, man.
Yeah, you did solid.
All right, brother.
last one of this segment,then we'll wrap it up.
What's something that you wouldgo back until young Barasa.
If you can go back in timeand give yourself any words
of wisdom, what you know now,

Chris B (01:36:22):
slow down,

John (01:36:24):
slow down.

Chris B (01:36:25):
I think.
And honestly, I probably received thisadvice from like high school teachers and
throughout my life, I've probably heard.
And just didn't listen.
So I don't know if I'd even listento future me, but maybe because it's
future may I'll listen, but Yeah,
I think slowed down, be intentfulwith what you're doing, understand

(01:36:50):
all the things that you're doing.
Don't just do things to do them.
Right.
Like be really like slowdown and be in tenfold.

John (01:36:55):
That resonates, right?
Like, uh, when you're young, you'reyou're trying to like grow up.
Uh, can't wait to get my license.
Can't wait to be an adult.
Can't wait to get my own place.
Can't wait to get the hell out of here.
Things like this, right?
Like so slowed down.
I guess the west coast is good for that.

Chris B (01:37:10):
Yup.

John (01:37:11):
If you had a good time falling out of the play area, is there
anyone you would nominate to fallout of the play area behind you?

Chris B (01:37:19):
for selfish reasons would love

John (01:37:22):
the best

Chris B (01:37:23):
to have you, sit down and interview Mike

John (01:37:27):
Mike Currington.
I definitely love that nominationbecause there's so much, I
don't know about that, man.
And he's an old G he's beenin the industry since what?
Like he worked at rare, right?
He did like, did
he come racing killer instinct?
That guy's got racing games,fighting games, open world games.
Jeez.

Chris B (01:37:46):
It's Done at all.

John (01:37:47):
Done at All love that recommendation.
you go, is there any last wordsyou have out there for the audience
or where can they reach you?
Where can they connect with you?
Where can they see what you're working on?
What's coming out next,

Chris B (01:38:00):
if you want to reach me, listen to me, complain about guilty gear
balance or whatever shows I'm watching.
You can find me at at Barasa 86.
other than that,
just keep playing games, fun.
You know, talking about the importanceof networking, like keeping those
contacts, you know, remember andremembering who you work with, people
down the road, it's always good tobe, to be friendly to everybody.

(01:38:23):
Right.

John (01:38:23):
don't burn your bridges.

Chris B (01:38:25):
make your work, speak for itself, but then also be personable.
Rule number one, Don't be a Dick.

John (01:38:30):
Don't be a Dick.
Yeah, my bed, I was being a Dick, bro.
That's it just be nice to people with,even at work, man, it tempers arise as
pat will be passionate about an idea ora feature and you get defensive on it,

Chris B (01:38:44):
Yeah,
Learning to respectfully disagreethat one and like, to not take things
personally, that's tough, it's important.
Right.
At the end of the day,everyone is on the same team.
Everyone's passionate about things

John (01:38:56):
that's the thing,

Chris B (01:38:57):
it's okay to disagree.

John (01:38:59):
the thing.
That's the thing that always, youcan always hold back on, right?
It's like, Hey, you all want theproject to be the best that it could
be you're are on the same team.
It is in everybody's interests thatthe game is the best that it can be.
so the fuck what?
That, it's not your idea, right?
Like, yet deep and profound.
That's how I would sum it up.

(01:39:20):
Hell yeah, brother.
Thank you so much CB.
It was a blast having youglad to finally do this thing.
Bring you
the hot

Chris B (01:39:27):
about it for awhile.

John (01:39:28):
for a damn wild man.
we barely scratched the surface of thismassive iceberg underneath the water.
you know, that, that's how it goes, man.

Chris B (01:39:35):
Yeah.
Oh, this is, this has been fantastic.
You know, thank you?
for having me on I'm anavid listener, so it's Cool.
Cool.
To get to finally be on the show.

John (01:39:44):
There'll be more to come in the future.
Thank you, man.
Could you tell it was having a bittoo much fun kicking in with Chris.
These are the best theseinterviews where you just.
Forget about the fact that it'san interview and we're both
just having a conversation.
I knew most.
Most of his details.
There's a few details therebefore I met him at rockstar.

(01:40:07):
On his intern.
Internship his time at full sail.
Getting that interview.
And then even.
When he was doing up here in Seattlein between getting to Polycarp.
It's special to meet people who knowexactly what they want to do from an
early age and are just able to kindof put the blinders on and will not.
Not be deterred by sheer force ofwill to bring their dream to light.

(01:40:27):
Talk about the power ofcommunity and networking.
He and his.
His boy D putting the work in to makea community around midnight club to.
Actually attracted the developers.
Whom gave him.
That key contact in Devin hammock thatwould eventually be responsible for
getting his resume in front of the hiringmanager at rockstar San Diego, Sarah.
Shaffer at the time.

(01:40:49):
I mean these days, there's thiscords for damn near every interest.
That you can rest assured have.
People that know peoplethat can help put you on.
If you come to them with thatpositive energy, looking to help.
In addition to that, I.
I thought a helpful nugget wasthe bit about taking breaks.
Stepping away from your desk, going out toclean head, getting some air reconnecting.

(01:41:09):
Stepping away and the power that it hasto help you come back with some fresh
insight to solve a problem that may be.
Be kind of stressing you out.
That and the way I miss takingthem for 20 breaks, throwing down
one-on-one on street fighter, CE.
We are street, oops.
Or.
What have you, right.
It could be ping pongor something like that.
Speaking of I'm ready forthat street fight is six.

(01:41:31):
And seeing if that Laura's myold fight club, homie's back on.
On the sticks and online to throwdown and establish that pecking order.
Once again.
How many of y'all have played Moss one.
How many y'all picking upMoss too, or planning on it.
On episode 31 about a playarea debuting on Monday.
Monday, April the 20th, fifth, wesit down with Ben written an AI and

(01:41:53):
encounter designer working at hanger 13.
He, and I crossed pathsback at midway Austin.
Where we both worked on criminalbefore midway went under.
Since then he's gone on.
On to do some amazing things aroundthe industry working on damn near
every type of game to where he istoday make sure to follow us so that
you don't miss out on that episode.

(01:42:15):
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
or studios, PR HR team beforehand.

(01:42:38):
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.
Stay true.
Stay dangerous.

(01:42:58):
Mega ran.
Bring them home.

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Chris Bourassa | Design Director @ Polyarc | Ep 30

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chris Bourassa | Design Director @ Polyarc | Ep 30