Making Myst a World with Rand and Robyn Miller

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rand (00:02):
I think it's from our mom always saying we were great.
And so, you know, we delusivelybelieved her at some level.

Alex (00:12):
That was Rand Miller, a brother to Robyn Miller
and the creators of Myst.
Do y'all remember Myst?
Oh my gosh.

Aaron (00:21):
Dude I remember Myst.

Alex (00:21):
What an impact that game had, on me, came out at such an
impressionable time in my life.
But talking about how, supportof those around you can
have such a transformativeeffect on your outlook, on
the world and what, Whatthe Power of Belief has.

(00:42):
I think that's a,I love that quote.
I love that quote.
Yeah.
I often talk about howmy dad told me to go
get a job when, I told Iwanted to start a company.

Aaron (00:50):
What do you mean?

Alex (00:51):
I, I told you this story.
You know, it's like when Iwas getting outta college and
I was, I was trying to figureout what to do with my life.
I, I asked my dad.
I got this idea, I wannamake a game start company
that I got these job offers.
And he was like, oh, you shouldtake a job, get some experience.

Aaron (01:04):
Who'd you get offered from?
Like Microsoft andthings like that?

Alex (01:07):
No, actually, funnily enough not.

Aaron (01:10):
Did you apply there?

Alex (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.

Aaron (01:12):
But you still got the job like it took like 20 years,
but you still got it, right?

Alex (01:18):
Morgan Stanley.
That was the big joboffer that I had.

Aaron (01:21):
Was that like bank stuff?

Alex (01:23):
This was like in, in there.
They had a, afinancial software.

Aaron (01:26):
Dude, that sounds so freaking boring.

Alex (01:30):
I know, I know, right?
Those were the jobs that I hadinterviewed for programming
jobs at like consultancies.

Aaron (01:35):
Oh my goodness.
What would you bedoing right now?

Alex (01:39):
Probably be rolling in fat stacks of cash.

Aaron (01:42):
But bored outta your mind.

Alex (01:46):
Wouldn't be hosting a podcast, that's for sure.

Aaron (01:48):
Yeah.
Come on- a bank one.
Yeah.
So, money.
Money.
So much money.
Here we go.
0 1 1.

Alex (01:55):
Anyways, I make a joke about the comment.
my, my dad said my parentswere very supportive of, of me.

Aaron (02:01):
Yeah.
My mom too.
My mom is very supportive, dude.

Alex (02:04):
Yeah.
But I think that makessuch a big difference.

Aaron (02:05):
Oh wait, it makes a huge difference.

Alex (02:06):
You know?
It, it makes a difference in,in, Not just when, when you're
young, but even on the gameteam when you're trying to like
make something and that thingdoesn't exist yet, you know,
and somebody's got a visionfor this is what we're making.
Mm-hmm.
A lot of just the motivationto work on it is a belief.
The creativity or resultsin something fantastic.
I've always tried tofind that belief and

(02:29):
projects that I work on.
Try, try to use mypersonal energy to share
that belief with others.
But, similar concept.

Aaron (02:35):
You know, it, you could feel it when it's not there too.
I've worked on projects wherelike nobody believed in it, and
you could, it's like it sucks.
And then when you have to doovertime with that belief sy
like that belief in the vibe,the vibe in the, in the room,
you know, and you can feel that.

Alex (02:50):
Yeah, you're right.

Aaron (02:51):
I did recently.
I, I know we can't reallytalk about it, but the game
you started your littleside project, you know,
and we played it yesterday.
I was like, dude, this is,this is gonna be really cool.
I'm excited about it.

Alex (03:04):
I am too.
We've got some, got a couplemore changes coming that I
think are gonna be, yeah.

Aaron (03:09):
And Mark, Mark is the art director on it from,

Alex (03:12):
Did you meet him at Halo?
On Halo?

Aaron (03:13):
Halo?
No.
Myth.

Alex (03:14):
Hey, we're not really outing, one of my personal
projects yet, but, I amworking on a project and
Mark Bernal, who many ofyou may know, I don't know,
but he was one of the firstartists we hired over at, at
Bungie, worked on Marathon.

Aaron (03:25):
Oh Marathon.
Okay.
I didn't know itwas that far back.
Oh, is I not supposedto talk about it?
I, I'm just talking aboutthe vibe because I felt
it yesterday and I'm like,yeah, like, you need that,
that's a very important,vibe and also their game.
So I mentioned this tothem in the podcast.
I used to work at thisLittle Caesars in Houston.

(03:46):
I think it was my firstlike, real, real job.

Alex (03:48):
Now, come on man.
You told, told story aboutdelivering newspapers
as your first job.

Aaron (03:53):
Yeah.
That was, that waslike, I mean, like, you
know, you're too young.

Alex (03:57):
You had lots of, lots of little jobs when you were
like, that's, that's awesome.
Look at you.

Aaron (04:02):
I'm sitting in Little Caesars and next to it,
there was this Babbage'sand it wasn't babbage.
You know how that, that, thatcompany changed names a lot.
It was like, you know, it waslike Funko land or something, or

Alex (04:13):
For those of you under the age of like 82-

Aaron (04:17):
That's what it was.
It was an Egghead.

Alex (04:18):
These, these would be these changes of sort
Babbage's software, et cetera.
Egghead.
Yeah.
That's where you wouldgo buy your games.

Aaron (04:23):
Yeah.
And I think it was anEgghead first and then it
turned into a Babbage's.
Anyways, they had thisreally awesome setup where
you'd walk in and they wouldalways have a computer there.
And I played Doom there,Doom 2, and 1, on this
computer that they wouldalways, you know, they would
be like a 386 or something.
And, I went in there onceand they had, they had Myst

(04:45):
and it fricking blew my mind.
It was like, holymoly, what is this?
And you could feel thislike magic, this wonder.
And you know, it was oneof those first games when I
first saw it where I like,where you could kind of see
like, this is gonna go places.
You know, you knowwhat I'm saying?

(05:06):
Like this kind of art.
'cause everything was pixelbefore, you know, everything,
everything felt very like, and3D was new, you know, remember
the malls, they would havethese like weird shops that sold
like metal stuff, like metalknickknacks for your desk and
other weird crap, you know?

(05:26):
And they would alwayshave these videos.
They were like these 3Dabstract animation videos.
Remember those?

Alex (05:33):
Are you talking about, are you talking about like,
like the kind of like thehigh-end, stores where
everything was super expensive?
Or are you talking aboutlike Hot Topic kind of?

Aaron (05:41):
No, like the high end, it was like, they would sell like.

Alex (05:45):
Sharper Image.
Yeah.
yeah.
That kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.

Aaron (05:48):
And they always had a TV in their window display.
They was playing these like,oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reanimated weird movie music.
Yeah.
And it was like,like rendered spheres

Alex (05:58):
That was Myst for you?

Aaron (06:00):
Myst was like the first game that kind of
could do something like that,looked like that, you know?
Yeah.
Like 3D-ness, I don't know.

Alex (06:07):
Definitely had a vibe.
And it wasn't just, I meanthe visuals were amazing,
but this, the, the audio,soundscape, the fact that there
was like, it was unpopulated.
The fact that there was no UI.

Aaron (06:18):
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
I didn't know aboutthat, the no UI.
I never thought about that.

Alex (06:22):
Like I said, Myst was very impactful.
And last year I played, OuterWilds and it, it sort of had a
kind of a similar vibe for me.
And I forgot to ask themif they had played it.

Aaron (06:34):
Oh, you could email them.

Alex (06:36):
And we asked our, our, yeah, we asked our Outer Wilds
buddy, [Alex] Beachum, if he hadplayed Myst and he was familiar.
Yeah.
I thought that was funny.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you, what do yougot going on right now?
I'm in Chicago for a little bit.

Aaron (06:51):
I'm going to GenCon.
Oh, snap.
Yeah.
With my two kids, two ofmy kids, two of my 15 kids.

Alex (06:57):
That's awesome.
It's an indie, right?

Aaron (06:59):
Yeah, it's an indie.
I'm really excitedto go this year.
There's a lot,

Alex (07:02):
You've got Comic-Cons going on this week and
Gen Con's going on?

Aaron (07:05):
I think so.
I, I, they, I get emailsfrom Comic-Con and I just, I
don't even open them anymore.
Yeah.
Because I went once to one ofthose and there was so many
people there and it was not fun.

Alex (07:16):
I gotta imagine there's a lot of War
Hammer stuff at Gen Con.

Aaron (07:18):
Oh yeah.
There's, there's WarHammerI'm excited about, supplies.
So there's a lot of like,things to paint minis and
stuff, you know, that Iwanna get while I go there.
Like tools.

Alex (07:29):
Hey, listeners.
Aaron made these supercool minis of our company
mascots, Agoro, Sam, which Istill have not painted yet.

Aaron (07:38):
I haven't either.
It's so big.

Alex (07:40):
But I did, I got myself some primer.
Oh, that, to get started.

Aaron (07:44):
You should get the set I mentioned.
The set I mentionedis really good.

Alex (07:47):
I almost clicked on that link, but I didn't.
All right.
Well, thanks for joining usthis week for our conversation
with Rand and Robyn Miller,the creators of Myst.
this was a, was an interview Iwas really looking forward to.
These guys we're high, highup on my list of, I really
want to reconnect and chat.
it's a good one.

(08:07):
This, I had a blast talkingto these guys and they are
funny to talk to together.

Aaron (08:13):
They are brothers.
They're brothers.

Alex (08:14):
You could tell they are brothers.
So, enjoy the conversation.
We'll see you on the other side.

Aaron (08:20):
See you later.

Alex (08:23):
Welcome to this week's Fourth Curtain Friends, and oh
my goodness, what an episodewe have in store today.
To say I'm thrilled wouldbe a crazy understatement.
You see friends, because backin my glory days, the salad
days of the mid nineties, Iwas taking my first formative
steps into this craft ofvideo game makey, but I was
also in my formative years.

(08:44):
As a gamer, as a player ofgames, and few have had such
a big impact on me as theseguys, Rand and Robyn Miller,
creators of Myst and Cyan,who are sitting right here
on the call with us today.
And let me tell you a coupleinteresting things about Myst.
I know we have a lot of youngerlisteners in our audience.
Maybe you haven't played Myst.

(09:06):
I don't know.
You should.
It was the bestselling PCgame in the nineties for
many, many years untilI think the Sims came.
So it's of that scalebest looking too.
One of the best looking icon.
Yes.
Responsible for pretty much theadoption of CD ROMs pioneered
full motion graphics and games.
It was made in HyperCard.

(09:27):
We gotta get into that.
Maybe it was, maybe itwasn't actually, but
I think it was, yeah.
Basically had no ui.
So it was, for me at least,it really opened my eyes up
to that minimalist designwhere you really had to
think about, what you wereputting on the screen, to, to
guide your player as opposedto relying on, static ui.

(09:51):
really cool.
Had a developer as thecomposer of the soundtrack,
which is really the bestway to do it, in my opinion.
That's a on bagsoundtrack email.
So great to have you.
I've, I've, I'vesaid enough words.
So great to haveyou guys on here.
welcome to the podcast.
How are you guys coming on?
What's happening?

Rand (10:11):
Great, good.

Alex (10:11):
It's been a hot minute!

Robyn (10:12):
Good to be here.

Rand (10:13):
Yeah.
It's been, since, youknow, way back in the day.
Thanks for having us.
This is excitingfor us, you know?
Yeah.

Aaron (10:20):
Did y'all know each other back in the day?
Did y'all know each otherduring the marathon?
Like that era?

Rand (10:26):
We crossed paths, I think of couple times.
That's good way to put it.
Times.
That's probably the best way.
Yeah.
We have, trade shows.
We'll have some storiesabout, marathon marathons
during production, losing,losing valuable production
time because of, marathon.
Thank you very much.

Alex (10:46):
Well, that's good.
That's good.
Let's start off withsomething, where are you guys?
You guys are in the PacificNorthwest is, I think
that's what you said,Washington State, Oregon.
Whereabout?

Robyn (10:58):
I'm in Missoula, Montana.

Alex (11:00):
Montana.
Oh, Montana.
Yeah, that's right.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.

Rand (11:02):
I'm in Spokane, Washington.
So,

Alex (11:05):
well, so, you guys are brothers.
Why don't, why don't we startwith what it was like when
you guys, before you gotinto video games, like what
was, the Miller's householdlike, and when you guys were
growing up, like did you up,

Aaron (11:19):
but it wasn't in the Pacific Northwest, right?

Alex (11:20):
I'm guessing it was Texas where you grew up.

Robyn (11:22):
We grew up all around the place, kind of.
Rand is a bit olderthan me, like he's old.
He's really old.

Alex (11:31):
What is a, is there a big, is there like a big age
gap or Just a couple years?
I'm curious because mybrothers are like seven and
eight years older than me.

Robyn (11:39):
Am I allowed to say how old he is?
I don't know.
Yes, yes.
Am I allowed to say the age gap?

Alex (11:43):
I did the checkbox.
I did the checkbox on the,

Robyn (11:47):
I mean, he's like seven years older than me.
Right Rand?
He tried to beat that.
Okay.

Alex (11:54):
That's, no, that's it.
That is interesting because,you know, sibling dynamics
I think are fascinating.
I have two brothers, they'reseven and eight years older
than me, so by the, by thetime I was in high school,
they were out of college.
So in some ways my, you know,my relationship with them
was very different in sort oflike my teenage years than it
was in my, you know, exactly.
Elementary years.
Right.
And then also nowin my adult years.

(12:14):
So I'm, yeah, you probablyhad something similar.

Robyn (12:17):
Very similar.
So probably so.
when I was, for example,in elementary school, Rand
was to me like an adult

Rand (12:28):
So much wiser.

Robyn (12:28):
He was always coming home with really cool music.
And I would listen to, you know,to the music he was playing.
And that was,really fascinating.
Or he had the stereosystem in the house.
He showed me electronics.
He taught me how to,create electronics,
or put stuff together.

(12:49):
And, he taught me perspective,how to draw a perspective
and Mm. So I really looked upto him and admired him and-

Rand (12:59):
For a brief period of time.

Robyn (13:01):
Yeah.
It didn't last long,

Rand (13:02):
very brief period of time.
All the jokes I knowdo my golden years.

Robyn (13:08):
I'm trying to nice! Because he's really
getting up there, yougetting a little adult!
And I want him to feelgood before he dies.

Aaron (13:16):
Oh my goodness.
Oh my, oh my goodness.

Rand (13:18):
I don't have a lot of years left.
So it's important.
I, I think I'm gonna add inthe book thing, because I was
thinking back, like, I, I just,I started reading sci-fi in
junior high, and Robyn and Ihave talked about this recently.
Rendezvous with Rama, Dune.
Yes.
And looking back, it's, it was,the, the books that influenced

(13:42):
me real early on were worlds.
They weren't stories like we,we've talked about the fact
that Rendezvous with Rama.
There's lot, not like a lotgoing on other than exploring
this other world that's sobizarre and interesting and
you know, I think I passedthose books to Robyn and
we both just loved that.

Alex (14:04):
All right.
Good sci-fi influence.
so, Robyn, were you intosci-fi as well or other stuff?

Robyn (14:11):
I was, I mean, Rand and I were just talking about
this the other day that, thatRendezvous with Rama was the
first sci-fi book I ever read.
And it does relate back tomy relationship with Rand
because he, I was nine or10 when he gave me that book
to, to read and I read it.

Rand (14:32):
I wish you had returned that someday.
Yes.

Alex (14:36):
That it, it's a little, that's a little
bit of like chewy prosefor a, an 8-year-old.
Huh?

Robyn (14:42):
You know, I probably didn't get it all.
Yeah.
I probably didn't understand,but I got enough on it that
I just couldn't put it down.
And I was fascinated.
And it was like I lostmyself in this world.
And we had just moved to Hawaiitoo, so I, I probably, you
know, I did, I know I didn'thave a lot of connection with

(15:02):
peers and, I was totally lostin this place, this world.
And it is the kind of book whereyou lose yourself in a world.
and I just picked it up recentlyagain to read it and I was,
I realized, oh yeah, I didreally understand that book.

Rand (15:23):
it was influential.

Robyn (15:25):
Totally.
Yeah, it was influential.

Aaron (15:28):
What's the title again?

Robyn (15:29):
Rendezvous with Rama.
Yeah.

Aaron (15:31):
Rendezvous with Rama.
Okay.

Alex (15:32):
It's been a hot minute since I've read that book.
I think I'll put it backon my list to read again.
'cause I do, I do remember it.

Aaron (15:37):
I'm gonna add it to my list.

Robyn (15:38):
Yeah, definitely.
You should.
You should.
Yeah.

Alex (15:40):
Listeners.
It's a good book.
You should read it.
Arthur C. Clark, but All right.
So wait, you guys were inHawaii for a little bit, or,
or at least Robyn you were in?
that was that fromTexas to Hawaii.
And was there a lotof moving around or,

Rand (15:52):
well, you really want this long story.
This could go on as well.

Alex (15:56):
It's, well, the form, the formative years are
super fascinating to me.
Yeah.
They're like, did you have avideo game system growing up?
Like were, yeah.
Where were like, what did you,what were your parents doing?
You know.

Robyn (16:05):
Our dad was a pastor.
Our dad was a pastor, and Ithink he just, not because
he was a pastor really, butbecause he liked moving.

Rand (16:16):
he liked to explore.

Alex (16:18):
Okay.
He like to explore.
Explore.
I get that.
I get to explore.

Robyn (16:21):
yeah, he really, he, we, he moved a lot and my mom sort
of went along for the ride.
I, that's my,that's what I think.
I don't know if Rand agrees,but, so we went, I was born
in Dallas, Texas and then weended up at Henderson, still
at a very young age for me.
And then we went toAlbuquerque and then Hawaii.

Rand (16:44):
Albuquerque were formative.
That was formativeyears in Albuquerque.
That was Albuquerque, yeah.
Is a crazy place.
We moved to New Mexicoand it was like, wait,
what is this place?
There's things don't grow here.
And they ask whether you wantred or green at restaurants.
And so, right.
And, and dad beingexplorer, dad bought a Jeep.

(17:06):
And in those days, oh yeah.
We just like rode out intothe wilderness in the Jeep.
Like crazy stuff likegoing into mines and
crossing rivers and Wow.
Driving on Jeep Trailsin the middle of nowhere.
It's, it's like the stuffkids dream of, kind of.

Robyn (17:23):
Yeah.
Well, yeah and evenculturally, culturally, it
was really fascinating too.
I mean, it was a whole new worldfor, well it was one of the
first for me, I was five yearsold when we moved, moved there.
So it was a, a fascinating,you know, environment
for me to be in.
Yeah.
I think there was a lotin that, you know, we

(17:43):
were, we had mm-hmm.

Rand (17:44):
You know, back in the day there was a lot of freedom.
It was free range kidsand dad was part of it
at that point, I think.

Alex (17:50):
Right.
he was a free range kid too.

Robyn (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really.

Alex (17:54):
So, I mean, I could say the obvious
thing, but like, okay.
Moved around a lot, wentout exploring, you know,
immersed in these worlds.
That sounds like theperfect fodder for being
an adventure game designer.
I mean, I assumethat's kind of clicked.
Yeah.
Okay.

Rand (18:11):
Is it just you two or is there other No,
no, two other brothers.
There was, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Wow.

Robyn (18:16):
And at that point though, our, you know, the youngest
of the siblings was not born,so there was three of us.

Alex (18:23):
all right.
So Albuquerque, then Hawaii,and then at, and then at
what point, Rand, were youlike off to other things?
Like did you go to co, wereyou, did you go to college?

Rand (18:32):
I went to a couple years of college.
I started, I went to collegein, in Philly, Drexel
University for one year.

Robyn (18:39):
And I'd like back up a little bit.

Rand (18:41):
Oh, excuse me.

Robyn (18:42):
Yeah, because yeah, I wanna talk about Rand.
I wanna, yeah.
Let me cover Rand.

Rand (18:47):
Oh, great.
We're past the golden years,this is gonna be brutal now

Robyn (18:52):
This is very interesting about Rand in Albuquerque,
because you know, the wholetech computing stuff was really
heating up there in Albuquerque.
Oh.
And Rand would steal time atthe university's computer lab.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, he would likesneak into the lab.
Is that right, Rand?

Rand (19:12):
Well, you didn't have to sneak, in fact,
if you just acted likeyou knew you were doing.
Nobody questioned you.
You know, it'stypical university.
You just walk in, there'sterminals everywhere.
And I, yeah, every day I wouldjust go into UNM, University of
New Mexico's computer lab andspend hours on their big IBM.

(19:33):
I think it was a360 at that point.
It's like a quite a luxuryfor a kid in junior high.

Alex (19:39):
Like a terminal.

Rand (19:40):
Yeah.

Alex (19:41):
And what were you doing?
Like, were you like

Rand (19:43):
I was playing games, like adventure games.
I was writing games.
I was, I learned aprogram on that thing.
And it was, it was amazing.
I mean, that's like, that was.
Quite the drug.
I didn't need meth.
That was addictive right there.
I

Aaron (20:00):
How'd you learn though?
How'd you learn to program?

Alex (20:01):
Yeah, I was gonna ask there was no YouTube.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Like what?
How were you,

Rand (20:06):
this is funny because we had a family friend who
went to UNM who brought methere, and I was, what is this?
And he goes, oh, and yeah,there's games in this library.
And I, you know,that was hooked.
But then, you know, thenext step is, well, I
want to write games.
And so I bought a book of basic,you know, language and, okay.

(20:28):
The funny thing was Idecided I was gonna write
a, tic-tac-toe game.
It was the first thing I,I'm gonna, I'm gonna have the
computer play tic-tac-toe,so I, you know, oh, okay.
If I move here, it moves there.
I kind of, like, okay, well.
how do I, okay, I can print,I can let a variable be
this, I can do all that.
But I went to my friend whowas in computer science at

(20:51):
UNM and said, Hey, I can'tfind the basic command that,
that makes the computerthink, what is that one?
So that it knows what moveto make in tic-tac toe?
And he laughed like,you guys laughed.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, no.
You have to give it every step.
And it was like, oh,the light went on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That is great.

(21:11):
That was, one of thosemoments light bulb moments.
Yeah.

Robyn (21:14):
If only there was ai, if only told it,

Rand (21:18):
that would be a different Yeah, different
answer these days.
Probably

Alex (21:22):
jury.
I think the jury's stillout on that question
right there, Robyn.
There was, but that,that was really, that's
how you got the bug.
Amazing.
Yeah.
That's how you got the bug.
That's, that's funny.
Was Robyn, did you havea moment that was kind
of like, you know, maybe.
Kind of in that vein, like inyour formative years, whether
it was, and I don't know,was your, is your background
more in the sort of the,which is left brain, right

(21:43):
brain, which is the art side.

Robyn (21:45):
Oh, you, oh, you asked me that.
The, yeah.
Are you the more arty or,well, maybe even before I,
I knew it, I started drawinga lot in school and I didn't
understand that my drawingswere good until I had teachers,
tell me, and I was surprised.

(22:09):
We, so I'm gonna, I'll tellstories about Robyn in, in
spite of the fact that ourpastor, that our dad was a
pastor, which normally is kindof repressive or, you know,
causes rebellion, they werepretty open to like doing.
Fun stuff and gave ussome freedom, which I
think is really helpful.

(22:30):
But they really encouragedRobyn with music.
And I remember one Christmashe wanted a a, a an airbrush.
An airbrush.
An airbrush, yeah.
Yeah.
Nice.
So they got him an airbrush forlike Christmas and he, that's
like airbrushed, like he, hedid amazing stuff with that.
But you know who, who gets that?
I mean, he painted his thedoor in his room and was

(22:54):
always doing like, cool stuff.
One color.
Like one color or a pictureWhen you say painted.
Oh, you know, likeI was doing like.
Kind of surrealistic,photorealistic paintings
at large sizes.
And that was the genreor style of paintings
I was, shooting for.
That was in high school.
And by that time I hadrealized, oh, this is my thing.

(23:17):
I would say before that I, Ididn't know or I was kind of
ignorant or of the fact thatI was a skill in that area.
Yeah.
But by high school, Iwas, I was going for it.
I was really pleased,with whatever I was
trying in that area.
Yeah.
It's easy to make a living asan artist too, as we all know.
So it was a great career path.

(23:39):
I will say, I will back upthe idea, the fact that.
Our, our parents, especiallymy dad, he would like drive
me 30, 40 minutes away to getpainting supplies, buy the
painting supplies, you know,he would buy these big frames
and canvases and, completelysupport my interest in the area.

(24:00):
And I think that did everythingto, you know, sup, support
that if we had had parentsthat maybe, I mean, they
could have laughed at.
My interest, you'regonna get a real job.
Right.
But no, I mean, like r said,I painted the door to my room
with this bizarre painting.

(24:20):
It was like a portal, you know?
And it was like aportal to another world.
Right, exactly.
But you know, our momliterally was always the kind
of person who was just, oh,Robyn, that is so amazing.
You, you know.
And so, it just encouraged meto keep going even when the
paintings maybe weren't so

Alex (24:38):
great.
Okay.
So, so super fascinating.
Like you just, your guys'formative years, like how your
dad kind of, sort of taughtyou to explore and your parents
encouraged your, your passionsand interests, and then Yeah,
the connected dots betweenthose, that period of time
and sort of the beginning of,cyan it's, it sounds, and was
Anne sort of like your firstprofessional thing, or were

(25:00):
there jobs in between or other,

Rand (25:01):
you know, well, there was something else that happened
during, like a high, my highschool years, which is, I, I
was very, very interested in.
Painting.
I was doing that full force,and then suddenly I just stopped
not interested, and I decided,no, I'm gonna be a musician.
And I, typical artist jumped.

Alex (25:23):
You're like, Hey, there's one, there's one career
that's even more challenging.
Let's go.
You

Rand (25:30):
can make the real money as a musician.
I'm gonna be a rock star.
I'm gonna be a rock star.
And so I started, learning,you know, as much as I could,
pouring myself into that.
And for me that meant, youknow, I got a piano teacher.
I played, Ipracticed constantly.

(25:53):
I didn't do my homework ever.
And I, started studying onmy own music theory and,
you know, for the next twoyears until I graduated.
That's what I did.
And I don't think Ipainted at all anymore.
Huh.
so that's okay.

(26:13):
From that point onward,I wrote a lot of music.
It was more pop music andthen I never really wrote
any soundtrack until Myst.

Alex (26:26):
Right on.
Would you say that's howyou kind of interact with,
maybe not the world, butyour sort of creativities you
kind of like will go superdeep and focused on a thing
for some period of time?
Yeah, definitely.
And then, yeah.
And then you'll transitionto what, what, what that
leads you to like whateverthe next passion is.
yeah.
I, I, I

Rand (26:47):
will jump from one thing to another, from
one interest to another.
to my own detriment.
Definitely to my own detriment.
I'm, I'm gonna add forRobyn, 'cause it's pertinent,
the, I've just put thistogether, by the way.
This wasn't planned, but theairbrush thing is, is like the.
Like the spark, because Ithink the technology of doing

(27:11):
art and music, he was neverafraid of like a new tool
of, you know, it wasn't somepristine must do it this way.
It was, oh, what's the newtool I could do this art with?
So when I was getting newcomputers, like I bought
the first Mac that cameout, you know, that crappy
little 1 28 K thing?
It was like, yes, this

Alex (27:32):
guy right there.
It's like, I'm getting that

Rand (27:34):
thing.
And Robyn was just, yeah, cool.
Oh my gosh, you can doart with this and you
can do music with this.
And so we, we both like lovedthe latest tech, however it fit
into our other interests andwe're always enamored with that.
And Robyn was, you know, a,a lot of artists wouldn't,
but he was really into that.

(27:54):
Which we probably would'vetold you if, if I let
him say it, but, oh yeah.
I mean, that's a great pointis that I think that's cool.
The, the day Randgot his computer.
Rand showed me, or, or I don'tknow if it was the day, but
Rand showed me the Mac andit was just like, it blew me
away and I feel like I sawthe potential immediately and

(28:19):
started making art of Myst.
He saw the potentialof Myst immediately.
Yeah.
On that I saw Myst on that blackand white screen in my eyes.
Well, it, it is, you

Alex (28:29):
know, so that thing right there, I mean, like,
I haven't thought about thisin a long time, but I similar
had a similar reaction to theMac when it came out, and I, I
don't know that our listeners,I don't, I don't know how many
sort of lived through thatera or, or understand the,
the impact that, that tinylittle, that screen is tiny.
I think the screen, the pixelresolution on it was like five

(28:49):
12 by like 200 or something.
It hardly any datawas one color.
But it fundamentally changed,how we use computers.
Yeah.
And it's been thesame way for Yeah.
50 years.
40, 40 years, whatever it is.
Yeah.
And just, it's it, yeah.
So anyways, but that alittle side, I guess, but

Rand (29:08):
No, it's a, it's a really intriguing side because
it was one of those tippingpoint moments, you know, like,
yeah, that was inspirational.
Robyn mentioned Star Wars.
You know, I was, we wereboth influenced by that.
Like, it felt like anotherworld, like you caught the,
caught the world in themiddle of something and
that, that influenced us.
But I think technologicallywise, Robyn wasn't really

(29:29):
into the computers.
I was the gadget computer guy.
I loved him.
And he was like, yeah, youknow, until the Mac came out
and then it was, wait, thisis more than just a computer.
This is something, it's atool, you know, that he could
express himself with finely,even though it was limited.
It felt that way.

Alex (29:47):
Yeah.
Right.
So how did science get started?
So you have sevenyear age difference.
You got sort like, yeah, I, I'mall in on the, the tech stuff.
I'm all in on music, I'mall in on art, et cetera.
Yeah.
How did it happen?

Rand (29:59):
I was going to, university of Washington and I was
studying, culture anthropology.
Rand was in Texas, andRand contacted me and
said, Hey, you need tocheck out this tool again.
It was kind of surrounding thisidea of a tool, and we didn't
have the idea of starting acompany, but he said, check

(30:21):
out this tool, hyper carb.
Oh yeah.
Maybe we can create a littlesomething for my kids.
And HyperCard thisHyperCard Hyper HyperCard.
I've never heard of it.

Alex (30:33):
Can we, let's, let's un yeah, let's unpack
HyperCard just for a second.
Okay.
Because I bet a lot of people,I, I very much remember
HyperCard at the time.

Rand (30:42):
You know, that's, I didn't know what HyperCard was.
I didn't know what it could do.
Yeah.
And nobody did back then, butyou know, he just sent it to
me like, what is HyperCard?
Robyn didn't evenhave a computer.
He had to use myparrot's computer.
Right.
But he's like, try to explainto me you're gonna like it.
Hyper card's, super easy.

(31:03):
It's like a erector set.
Set.
Now I'm gonna explain itto you in an easier way,
which is it's, it was likea precursor to the web.
Yes.

Alex (31:14):
Yeah.

Rand (31:14):
Local.

Alex (31:15):
It was like a local static web browser, right?
I mean, it was only,

Rand (31:18):
yeah.
On your own computer.
It was not connected to anybodyelse's and super, super easy.
Not HTML craziness.
It was just a, here's abutton and you can link it
to this other card over here.
Like really nice metaphorsand easy to understand.
And the coding was likeEnglish and it was just, you

(31:40):
know, it was really and epic.
Right.
You didn't have to use thecoding for people who were
just being introduced to it.
You didn't have to usethe scripting language.
You could just drag outbuttons, link them to other
cards they were called.
And so for me, opening thisHyperCard up on the first day I

(32:04):
was using it, I didn't even knowthere was a scripting language.
so the first day I, Iopened it on my parents'
computer in their basement.
I started drawing,a manhole cover.
That's the thing.
First thing I drew.
And again, Rand had thisidea like, Hey, maybe we

(32:25):
could just make a littlesomething for my kids.
Like interactive bookis what I was thinking.
You know, oh, you turn the pageand you click on things that
the kids' software at that pointwas like, you know, not great.
So something better forkids would be great.
I'm not even sure we reallyseriously had an idea

(32:45):
of a commercial product.
It was just like I was takingsome time off from school for
various reasons I'm not gonnago into, but I drew a picture
of a manhole cover and thenI was able to, because it
was so simple click, and thenthe manhole cover slid open.

(33:06):
I just spontaneously, okay,I'm gonna click again.
A vine grows out of the manhole.
I mean, drawing all these,he's drawing these images.
He's saying click and avine grows out, but he's
drawing separate imagesthat then link together.
And there was no page turningof like an interactive book.
It was, oh, I'm, I'm in a worldand this is what I would do.

(33:30):
Click on this thingand a vine grows up.
So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I wanted to be in the worldand it, I realized, yes, I
want to be in this world.
Where do I wanna go?
If I were in this world, where,where would I want to be?
And as I was in this world,I just started drawing
my way through the world.
No planning, huh?

(33:51):
And then I thought, okay, ifI want to go up that vine,
where would I want to be?
And I started thenthat's how that first
product started to grow.

Alex (34:01):
So you are describing your guys' first game, right?
The man manhole.

Rand (34:05):
That's the first game.
Yeah.
And that was,

Alex (34:07):
wasn't designed.
It was a you, youcreated it through just
creative exploration.

Rand (34:12):
That's right.
And it was incredibly sloppy.
The drawings look likea prototype of a game.
But I started sendingall of this to Rand.
I think Rand,

Aaron (34:25):
you might want to take it from here.
How did you send itto him, by the way?
Did you put it in anenvelope and mail it?
Yep.
Floppy discs in an envelope.
Yep.

Rand (34:36):
Yep.
I would stick itin the computer.
And, and the crazy thingwas Robyn could make it,

Alex (34:42):
was this like 1990?

Rand (34:46):
no, not even 90, 80, 86 maybe?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't think it was 87.
Even early Mac.

Alex (34:56):
Mac era.
Like so nine.
Yeah.
Just a year or two

Rand (34:59):
after the Mac came out, basically.
Yeah.
Okay.

Alex (35:01):
All right.
All right.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Keep going.
R keep

Rand (35:03):
going.
No.
So, I mean, Robyn didn'tneed me to connect the
pieces of this world.
He'd send me these discs andI'd put it in and I could
walk around the places he wasconnecting it, but as we, as
he went through the world.
It, it was like a,his own tutorial.
He could learn what HyperCardwould do, and he started making

(35:23):
cursors and we started making,buttons that were a little
more sophisticated and, and westarted playing with the sounds.
HyperCard just opened all thatstuff up that you could Yeah.
Play with it.
And so this was almost aneducational process for us.
I, you know, I hadn't duginto all it could do in the
scripting language either,so I was experimenting
with that and figuring outwhat, what it could do.

(35:45):
And we basically then justkind of created this weird
kids' world that you couldexplore the same way Robyn
had built it by exploring.
And as fate would have it,like I mentioned earlier,
there wasn't a lot ofgreat stuff for kids.
So this was pretty amazinggraphics for a kids' game,

(36:12):
and it was very different.
It was a world so.
We went to, Rand says amazing.
I mean, sorry.
Yeah, it was pretty primitive.
Let me think of someother adjectives.
Yeah, it was primitive.
It was cool.
It was just, it stood outat the time just because

(36:33):
there wasn't anything.
But if you look at it now,this was, so we were do,
we did this ourselves.
We're with the, okay,you picture these two,
these two brothers whoput together this thing.
I mean, I literally did itthe day I got HyperCard.
Not ever, you know, Iguess I'm apologizing,

Alex (36:53):
but, but, but let's put this into the, the, the context.
No, these are thecontext of, yeah.
Like what was happeningin 19 87, 19 88.
No, I, you probably

Rand (37:00):
remember some of this, but it was back in the software
days where you get a little,you know, plastic, zip Ziploc
bag and put your disc in it.
And sell it, you know, Imean, it was kind of crazy.
So we did a littlemore than that.
Robyn did packaging andwe had, you know, we had
floppy discs and we thought,but we're like, oh, we're

(37:22):
gonna do this ourselves.
We're gonna sell thesethings, you know, we'll
sell a, some of them.
And, and we, so, so inour infinite wisdom as
well, most people did nothave hard drives hooked to
their Macintosh computers.
It was, you know, floppy drives.
So we made twoversions of this game.
One was very small fiton one floppy disc.

(37:44):
It was called the fire hydrant,and it was tiny, but a bigger
version had five discs and youcould install it on your hard
drive for the wealthy peoplewho could afford a hard drive.
Sounds like I, I don't even knowif we had hard drives, but Yeah.
And

Alex (37:59):
I remember, I remember you would get a game that
came on, say five floppiesand you'd have to like
put it on your hard drive.
And the process of justcopying that game Yeah.
To the hard drive took like15 minutes of just like
putting the disco chunk,chunk, chunk put two.
Yeah.
And it would, you wouldhave to put 'em in
different weird orders too.
'cause it would, I don't knowwhy it would want disc one,

(38:21):
remember, go back and forth.
So just the effort thatsomebody would have to put in
to get and, and, and was itthis, at this point, was this
black and white still color?
Yeah, black

Aaron (38:33):
and white.
Yeah.
This was black and white?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
The cyan worldsexist, like is it?
Or is it just YouTube?
No, no, no fact.
First version.
Version was.

Rand (38:42):
Prologue prologue because I had a little prologue.
I had a little consultingcompany in Texas that I, you
know, made side money on.

Alex (38:50):
Okay.
So this was sort of sidehustle, a little bit.
Definitely

Rand (38:54):
side hustle.
And, and at the time, andyou're like, yeah, yeah, I
was, doing art, illustrationand, stuff like that while
I was going to school tosupport going to school.
So the crazy thing was when wedecided to go to Hyper Expo,
we decided, oh, well there'sthis expo in San Francisco we

(39:15):
should take, we should printup a bunch of these games and
take 'em to Hyper Expo and we'lljust have a table and sell 'em.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I, again, we're, I, Ithink some of what, some
of the reason we're, we'vedone, what we've done is,
well, I'll speak for myself.
I'm a little bit kind of dense.
I'm kind of, you know,some people would be
polite and call it naive.

(39:37):
I call it kind of stupid.
Sometimes I'll justlike do something.
I think it's from our momalways saying we were great.
And so, you know, so,

Alex (39:44):
and you believed

Rand (39:45):
it, delusively believed her at some level,

Alex (39:48):
but, but in this case, right.
Sometimes it's true.
Well, you know, as

Aaron (39:53):
well, every gets is says you're saying really,
by the way, so Yeah, theyalways say like the Yeah.
They're like, we're so stupid.
And they're like, I know.
I'm

Alex (40:02):
gonna say that is a fairly common thread is
a a a lot of successfulentrepreneurs attribute their
first steps to just not knowingenough to be scared off.
Yeah.

Robyn (40:14):
It's somewhat be true.
There's something, there's

Alex (40:16):
definitely something to that.
Yeah.
You know, so we, andpart of that is like, you
know, you're, you wentand tried to do something
you'd never done before.
I mean, like, yeah.
You were into computers, you'rein art, this new tool comes out.
You never really doneanything with it before.
But it was fascinating.
And the idea of selling it,that was like n not really a
thing until you just decided,okay, let's just do it.
Yep, that's right.

(40:36):
That's how stuffhappens, I guess.
All right.
So you end up at HyperExpo, what happens?
Yeah,

Rand (40:41):
we ended up there and we got a lot of attention.
there was some cool stuff, butit felt like we had a product
that was kind of different.
Everybody

Alex (40:52):
there had like databases, right?
They're using HyperCard for like

Rand (40:55):
recipe or database versions of customer

Alex (40:59):
management or whatever.
And you guys had some graphics?

Rand (41:02):
Yeah, so we sold out.
We sold out everything.
And I remember going backto the hotel with like
credit card slips and cashand going whoas of cash.
We a thousand dollars.
Oh my gosh.
Was wealthy forever now.
It was.
And with offers, that was theother thing is that people came

(41:22):
by from companies and they werelike, we want to publish this.
Yeah.
That was weird And mm-hmm.
We were like, wait, what youmean we don't have to do the
work and put stickers on theseboxes and send, duplicate these
CD or these, sorry, these floppydiscs and uhhuh uhhuh and you

(41:44):
send us money, large chunks.
Oh no, no.
Small chunks of money.
Very, very, like, we'll giveyou the, the offers were
very, it was eye-openingas Alex, I'm sure.
You know, it was like,you get 7% and we get 93%.

(42:05):
But you don't have to doanything like, well, maybe.
I don't know.
All right.
Well,

Alex (42:12):
what, what, what, what did you do there?
Like, did you take apublishing offer at some point?
We did.
I think they like, likeit was Myst with, oh God.
Your, this is gonna testmy, was it Broder Bond?

Rand (42:23):
Yeah, it was okay.
But, but the manhole, waspicked up by Activision.
They're the ones who offeredus like a chunk of change.
I think it was like 20grand, $20,000 for the
six months that we bothhad worked on the manhole.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.

(42:44):
You know, details don't matter.
But it was, but it was, it, thatwas a, for me, that was amazing.
That was an amazing chunkof, chunk of change for a
couple people who just kindof put this thing together.
And we formed a relationshipwith Activision,
early Activision.
It was relatively shortamount of time that we
put that thing together.
So it wasn't, it wasfaster than six months.

(43:07):
in my memory.
My memory may not be correct.
Like I said, R older, it tookme two months just to put
these stickers on the boxes.

Robyn (43:18):
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I let, I let

Rand (43:21):
R do all the arduous, boring work.
Yes.
He was like, gomake the product.

Aaron (43:28):
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Back to the show.
When did you guys decide,okay, hey, I know we're kind
of doing this on the side,but like that hyper expo thing

(46:43):
that was pretty awesome andthis Activision deal, like
why don't we actually mm-hmm.
Do this full time as a company?
Like when did that,or did that happen?
Was there a thing likethat that happened?

Rand (46:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
At that point in time, Randand I were still in opposite
parts of the country.
I was in Washington,Seattle and Rand was in,
in Texas, Henderson, Texas.

Alex (47:05):
Okay.

Rand (47:05):
Working at Guess Bank, guessing

Alex (47:06):
Robyn won the, the ro shambo to
relocate to Washington?
No.
Or other way around.
Oh, yes, yes and no.
Yes and no.
No.

Rand (47:15):
Yeah, it was so what, anyway, long story
short, 'cause this gets,this could get boring.
Really?
Yeah.
Quickly I had, I keptmy job at the bank.
And, because we couldn't makeenough money to live Take gets
big enough chances on this.
Yeah.
So gradually weaned myself offof the bank until we thought

(47:36):
we could both quit our realjobs and do this for a living.
And it, in the meantime, wehad created something called
Cosmic Cosmo, which we thoughtwas, and to this day, I
think was really one of thecoolest projects we've made.
We took what we had learnedwith the manhole and cosmic

(47:56):
Cosmo was just, just a,we took a lot more time.
We took a lot more time.
It was a little more likethe drawings were not a
little more deliberate.
We added a little more storyto it because, oh, you can
add story to this thing.
There's a little morehistory behind some of
the things that went on.
And I, and I think yeah,learning tool, but it was,

(48:17):
it was so much better.
There was a little bitmore, planning in it.
Not a lot, but you know, we satdown before we started, before
we, you know, started, beforewe started into it, and we asked
questions about the universeand, you know, it, just the

(48:37):
drawings were more deliberate.
Everything about itwas more planned.
Yeah.
We were really getting intothe depths of hypercar and
figuring out what it could do.
And so

Alex (48:48):
also, also hypercar, but this time instead of like
designing it one frame at atime as you're drawing it Yeah.
You planned out.
Yeah.
A world.
Yeah.

Rand (48:56):
So in the meantime, Activision wants this,
they publish Cosmic Osmo.
We do a CD rom versionof Cosmic Osmo.
And Activision starts to geta little squirrely on us.
I don't know, you know, I'm.
I don't know howmuch we can say.
Never heard

Alex (49:12):
that sentence before.
Magic I, oh

Rand (49:17):
boy.
You could have a lot of peopleon this show that would have
that same sentence, althoughI'm putting it probably mildly.
We could do a wholepodcast on that.
Yeah, they, let's justtalk about that for
the rest of the show.
Yeah.
Let's, I'm gonna startnaming names, frankly.
one name in particular, anyway.
Votes.
No, I won't do that.

(49:37):
So, we're not getting royaltychecks from Cosmic Cosmo.
We just not, and as Chance wouldhave it, we sent a letter that
said, no, the rights are back tous 'cause you haven't paid us.
And they went bankrupt and wewon, got the rights back and,

(50:02):
yeah.
Moved on.
So.
Okay.
We didn't, and I would like topoint out at some point here.
Yes.
Robyn here.
There is a cyan, so,oh yeah, we changed the
name Definitive Cyan.

Alex (50:15):
And where, where did the name, where
did the name come from?
Yeah, where didthe name come from?
Like what, how, how, how didyou come up with that as a name?

Rand (50:21):
I'm not sure.
I, I thought, I think I thoughtit was a cool word because
I, you know, found out itwas a color and it seemed,
I, I think one of the things,taking credit for the name.
Yeah, taking credit.
It's probably me.
but one of the things Ithink Robyn and I didn't like
were when companies would.

(50:41):
Would name their company assomething that would limit them.
Like Southwest Airlines.
Like, well, you knowwhat, if you want more
than the Southwest.
So That's true.
Yeah.
Rather than, you know, kidsMedia Incorporated, we decided
let's do something that kind of,if we need to pivot, we could.
Okay.
The CY is very, youknow, open-ended

Alex (51:02):
one once again.
Not sure Keeping that bank job,keeping that name got abroad.
I got it.
That's right.
We

Rand (51:08):
could move into fashion if we wanted to.
So you're the careful,

Alex (51:11):
cautious one.
Yes.
Yes

Rand (51:15):
indeed.

Alex (51:16):
Okay.
Hey, when, when, the whole thinghappened with Activision, no
royalty checks, Hey, we gottasend 'em a letter because we
gotta get the rights back.
That's the kind of thingthat sounds like maybe that
could have been a moment foryou, guys as a company, like,
yeah, what are we doing?
Should I call the bank back?
Like, was it, did you havea moment like that where
it was like, yes, is thisgonna be a thing now or

Rand (51:36):
Right.
Yeah, it was thatI felt that way.
Yeah.
Those issues with publishersare just, you know how it is.
I mean, I, you could havea story after after story.
Yeah.
But at

Alex (51:45):
this point in your journey and Yeah, I don't
know how old you are exactlythen, but you're much younger
obviously, like mm-hmm.
Did you, like, how wouldyou even know that?
I mean, would you, wouldyou be like, eh, this, this
happens all the time, solet's just power through.
Or we like, ah,the sky's falling.
This is horrible.
What are we doing?
No.
Have I mentioned

Rand (52:00):
that I'm kind of naive.
little stupid.
And so, okay.
It's kind of like, oh,well, that, we'll just
get the rights back.
And Robyn was working on,I think you working on
Phelan Robyn at that point,and so I was actually.
We, we did some crazy stuff.
I, I don't know.

(52:21):
You know, we're just, I'm kindof oblivious about stuff, so
I we're getting calls aboutCosmic Osmo and people wanting
to bundle cosmic Osmo on CDROM drives because we had,
it was pretty good product.
And while the court casesgoing on, I am like, sure,
the rights are back to usand we're gonna assume it.

(52:41):
And we talked to an attorney andI, but I don't know how much.
And so, anyway, long storyshort, yeah, we did a couple
bundling deals that reallysupported us that we couldn't
have made it through, andin some ways paid for later
on what would become paidfor part of the Myst money
so that we could build that,what, you know, which was

(53:02):
just a glimmer in our eye.

Alex (53:04):
Yeah.
Randy, you describe yourselfas naive, but really that I
think you're pretty savvy.
Like all of those rulesright there, there, yeah.
I think Rand

Rand (53:11):
is, I think Rand's talking not.
Maybe honestlydescribing himself.
I think he is savvyand he knows it.
I often think justhow naive I am.
So naive.

Robyn (53:25):
Yeah.
Isn't it like, sonaive is humble.
That's a sad, really smart

Aaron (53:30):
people do.

Rand (53:30):
Very It worked.
Look at you guys all singingmy praises right now.
Yes.
Worked like a char.
Right.

Alex (53:40):
It's interesting though, like back in those
days it was like, there werejust fewer games, you know?
And there were, right.
I think higher demand pergame, you know, today, right?
Like everything's digital.
Everybody can make anything.
So there it's, it, I don't,like you're just talking about
the bundle thing, you know?
Yeah.
It's like, 'cause I rememberone of the best parts of
our business at Bungee wasthe, the relationship we

(54:00):
had with Mac Warehouse.
They would put Marathonin everything they sold.

Robyn (54:04):
Right.

Alex (54:04):
Literally everything.
Wow.
And they'd pay us like almostnothing per unit for it, but
like they moved a lot of volume.
Yes.
It was just, and that was, wedidn't have to, it was just
a check we cashed, you know?
And that.
I don't know that there'sthat kind of oppor,
you know, as many asopportunities like that today.
Maybe there are, but you kindof have to hunt and find them.
Yeah.
But the fact that you wereable to, and I'm gonna say

(54:26):
the word pioneer, a deal likethat, because if this was early
CD ROM days is super savvy.
Yeah.

Rand (54:32):
Yeah.
It sounds

Alex (54:33):
like it really helped bridge you guys to get to
what really broke out foryou, which was missed,
which was what, game four?
Is that the fourthgame that you guys?

Rand (54:41):
Yes, game four, kind of.
But because we made somedifferent versions of
things like Cosmic Osmo,which we kind of counted
as, you know, separaterelease, separate releases.
I will say though, when itcame to SPIs, which was.
Kind of a failure.
We counted, we didn'treally sell many of them.

(55:04):
I was considering likeWell, there's a story
behind that too, though.
Well, I'm just saying itfrom my point of view.
Yeah.
I was considering like, Idon't like your point of view.
This is it.
This is the end of the company.
I'm gonna have to go find a realjob now, you know, a job that I
don't enjoy as much as this one.
So this is over.
I'm, I'm, you know, I'mgonna go finish school

(55:27):
and, or, or whatever it is.
This is Anne's over.
And so that was done.
so I don't know what Rand'sperspective was, but I felt
like we had conversations likedecidedly about cyan ending.
I was naive, did Imentioned that and or savvy.

(55:49):
I was like, no, I'm,I'm not going back to
working at the bank.
No way.
Make this work.
So, I felt like then itwas a rescue from this
Japanese company, likealmost at the last minute.
when they came to us andsaid, Hey, we want you to

(56:10):
do this game for adults.
And I, it was unexpectedand oh my God.
Whoa.
Okay, great.
We can continue doing games.

Alex (56:23):
Sweet.
Well

Rand (56:24):
there's a big jump there.

Alex (56:25):
Was that what?
But was that whatkicked off Myst?
It was a big jump.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's what kicked off Myst.

Rand (56:32):
Yeah, we stopped with Activision.
I'll fill in a coupleblanks real quickly.
We stopped with ActivisionSpeed Links, came out with
Broder Bunn, so we'd made arelationship with Broder Bunn
and loved Doug Carlston's.
Great.
And that wholecompany was great.
We had really great experiencemoving on with them.
Although, and thisis a, this is gonna.
A little bit interesting.

(56:53):
Spi, we gave them spi, 'causewe did it in HyperCard, handed
it over to them it, and said,here you make the PC version.
And they said, you bet.
And we'll sell a bunch of those.
'cause everybody had PCs andnot a lot of max or whatever.
And a year later they cameback to us and said, we're,
we can't really, this is our,we can't convert this to a pc.

(57:14):
This has taken our programmer,it's like way too hard.
And there was never a PC versionbecause Hypercar was so easy.
We did it ourselves.
And they had hired a bunch ofprogrammers and it was like.
It's taking too long and it'stoo much money and we're just
not gonna do a PC version.
We were like, oh, okay.
Oh, well.
So that's to Robyn's point, whySpeed Links didn't do real well.

(57:38):
It was only everjust on the Mac and,

Alex (57:41):
and it was this still just the two of you at this point?

Rand (57:44):
Yeah, their

Alex (57:44):
title in

Rand (57:45):
just the two of us.
And we ended up doing, youknow, a color version of
Sphe ls and we ended up, oh.
This is, I don't know ifyou guys ever moved from
the publisher model to theaffiliated label model.
Did you guys ever experimentwith the affiliated label?

Alex (58:05):
okay, so affiliate label my right, my memory is
like, okay, you, you actually.
Do like the publishing work,but then like the publisher that
they'll just ship it around.
Is that, is that, yeah,they, they distribute

Rand (58:17):
it and you're in charge of marketing and all this stuff
and the payout basically flips.
It doesn't, because youknow, the publisher model was
90 10, but this was 70 30.
We would get 70, they'd get 30.
It was more in line withlike, you know, digital
distribution model.
But we tried that for alsolike, well, we can market
this thing, let's try it.
That was with speed lunch,which was only the Mac version.

(58:39):
It was fun.
We made mugs and coolthings, you know.
But

Alex (58:44):
you made mugs check out.
I've got a mug for Yes.
Mines real dude.
See old habits, diehard.

Rand (58:50):
Yeah.
So then, then Rudy Bun.
Okay.
In the meantime, Robynand I know that as much
as he's painting as like,can we keep doing this?
We also knew that the naturalprogression was leading us to
something for an older audience.
And we had done these kidsthings and we knew adults
loved it, but wouldn't itbe cool to do something

(59:11):
for an older audience?
And we, we came up with thisidea for a gray summons,
Robyn, remember that?
And, and actually ditch it.
But that was back withActivision much year,
many years earlier.
Well, we pitched that with,to several companies, not
just Activision, a fewdifferent media companies.
That's not what I'm remembering.
We're gonna have a bigargument right now.

Alex (59:35):
Public arena.
There, there's a, there, there,no, there's a fa fascinating
threat here about how just thetwo of you make three games.
Yeah.
Together.
Commercial games.
Have a publisher withActivision, you kind
of go through a breakupwith your publisher.
Third game, underperformsyour guys' expectations.

(59:55):
You have a, a Denu maof like, are we still
gonna do this or not?
And that is the lead upto the most successful
PC game of all time.
So that's like.
That's prettyfascinating right there.
Isn't it crazy?
Yeah.
We do need to get tothe genesis of Myst.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:00:16):
Sorry.

Rand (01:00:17):
There can be a lot of editing on

Alex (01:00:18):
this

Rand (01:00:18):
podcast.
No,

Alex (01:00:19):
no, no.
Word for word.
It's all gold.
Like, like and I never heardof this part about the Japanese
company, so like who's theJapanese company involved

Rand (01:00:29):
here?
Well, they, it because ofthem we, we may Myst Suns
sot of Japan, but by the wayRobyn, sorry I'm interrupting.
But Suns sot wasintrigued with us as a
company from the manhole.
Mr. Yida saw the manholeand said, we need to get
in touch with this company.
And Activision would notgive them any contact
information to, to us boy.

Robyn (01:00:51):
And

Rand (01:00:51):
so it took them years to kind of find some
way to get ahold of us.

Alex (01:00:57):
They should have just gotten the Hyper expo that you
would've been the right thing.
We were, we were there.

Rand (01:01:02):
It could have, could have snatched us right
up, but it took years.
So they had made they, becausethey had made a Japanese version
of the manhole, they werealways interested and so they
finally contacted us and wantedto make this adult version
of, of some kind of game.

(01:01:22):
And that's, they contacted usand, and asked us to do that,
which would be our dream.
Robyn, you okay now, Robyn,you're gonna have to agree
with me that we were again.
This is like a certain naivety.
I mean, they came tous and said, I'm trying
to condense this story.
Right.
I, I know, but it's like, theidea is that they came to us
and said, Hey, could you dosomething for an older honesty?

(01:01:43):
We're like, yeah, you betcha.
and we're like, will it bebetter than the seventh guest?
And we're like, hell yeah.
Will, we're gonna make it betterthan the bestselling media game.
Yeah.
I don't know what you're saying.
That's exactly what happened.
Whatcha you trying to say?
And those are,that's what happened.
And, but we're naive enough toreally believe that, that, yeah.

(01:02:06):
Yeah, we're gonnado all that for you.
We didn't even have adesign and then we like
sat down and gave them fourpages of like a proposal.
No, we didn't have a design.
We didn't have a design.
I know.
What are you saying?
We're I

Alex (01:02:19):
that's, I call that

Rand (01:02:20):
naivety.
I'm calling that in my part.
It's like, sir,

Alex (01:02:24):
again, again, your naivety is another man savvy
they saw an opportunity with.
Did they, did they get,write you guys a check to
help fund it or something?
Or is that Yeah.
What ended up happening?

Rand (01:02:34):
Yeah.
We came up with the budget forit and we put, we, we, I was
gonna have to hire two morepeople and we're gonna have to
get a lot of Good Mac equipment.
It's gonna have to buythe latest and greatest.
And we came up withsome figure and then we
doubled that because Okay.
We're always bad at figuringit out and it ended end up
costing double that, but mm-hmm.
Yeah, it was.

(01:02:55):
Yeah, it was a six amount.
Do you remember what amount,

Alex (01:02:57):
what was the, what was the budget think?
Not the, not the how much theywrote you a check for, but how
much did it cost to make Myst?

Rand (01:03:03):
I think Myst budget was around one point, like
it was between 1,000,001and a half million.
I, I made, I have to addsomething in, into this.
Oh boy.
This product, this likemaking something for adult, an
adult audience was somethingwe had been wanting to do.

(01:03:24):
Yes.
Since we had beenwith Activision.
Mm-hmm.
We had for years, for acouple of years at least.
when they came and said,Hey, we want you to do this,
we were incredibly excited.
Now, when we started intoit, Rand saying there was
naivety, there is, when youstart into any big project,

(01:03:45):
you know, if you're gonnajump in and, you know, say,
I mean he's using that word.
Okay.
I don't know, I don'tknow what words you'd use.
Yeah, when you go into any bigproduction, you're going to
be naive in some way, shape,or form, but you also are
just going to believe in it.
And you also are justgoing to say, yeah, I can.
I can do this because I'mmaking the decision to

(01:04:07):
do it, and I'm making thedecision to go forward with
my belief that I can do it.
So you have toconquer your creative.
You know, you're gonnahit a lot of stumbling
blocks and then you.
You conquer those, you know?

(01:04:27):
Yeah.
Throughout the project.
I, okay.
That's So that's where you're atat the beginning of the project?
I am, but I think we did thatwith everything we went through.
We're probably sayingthe same thing.
This was the same wayin different words.
For example, at the beginningof the project, we thought
we were gonna do line art.
I was gonna ask you about this.
We didn't know whatkind of art there was.
Yeah.
We started into it andthen we realized, no, it's

(01:04:48):
not gonna be line art.
We can't possibly do that.
Let's keep going and figureout what is the kind of
artwork we're gonna do.
Well, we starteddoing 3D artwork.
It worked.
There was a lot of technicalhurdles, there was a lot
of art hurdles, there was alot of all kinds of hurdles.
The animation was anotherhuge hurdle, even how to

(01:05:10):
put it onto the CD realmitself, a huge hurdle.
So I don't think it'snaivety as much as it is
just production hurdles.

Alex (01:05:21):
I, well, what I'm hearing is two different perspectives
on the creative process.
You know, like an art, Rob,and, and I'm not, don't wanna
put words in your mouth, buthere's what I hear, Robyn, like,
as an artist, you're lookingat the creative process as an
exploration, like driving inthe Jeep out Albuquerque, out
into the, I don't have a map.
I don't know where we're going.
We're exploring, we'regonna find someplace

(01:05:42):
new and we may need tobacktrack what, whatever.
But this is the journey.
And, Rand coming from the bank.
if you're gonna go do somethingand not know where you're
going, well that soundsa little naive, but maybe
we'll end up somewhere.
Great.
And I guess we did,

Rand (01:06:00):
I, I'll say I like that.
I, I will say though, agreeingwith Robyn, whether ni naivety
or, or not, problem solvingwas the most important part of.
Any, any development effortthat we had over the years,
we would take this on andsolve the problems as we went.

(01:06:23):
And it meant, sometimesit meant making the design
box a little smaller.
Sometimes you could broaden ita bit as technology came out
to support what you were doing.
And there was a flexibility,but it, but it, we
would solve problems.
Both of us were problemsolvers, art artistically
and technologically.
We were, we would just find away to do things a lot of times.

Alex (01:06:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
When did you guys knowyou were onto something?
Like when did you knowthat Miss was gonna be
something special, eithercreatively or commercially?

Rand (01:06:56):
I think that it was relatively early on.
You know, I was trying todraw pictures in the beginning
of the project and I wasn'thappy with any of that.
When I started doing 3DImagery and it was working,
I was really, really excited.
How that was looking.
Yeah, that was pretty cool.

(01:07:16):
'cause it didn't looklike anything else.
Yeah.
that was out there.
Can I, can I tell

Aaron (01:07:20):
you something real quick to interrupt?
Yeah.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I just wanna say this, Iused to work at a Little
Caesar's right next to a,it was a Babbage's, I think.
Yeah.
And one day during break, Iwalked in and they would rant.
They would always put acomputer out with a game on it.
And they had Myst on it.
And it was like, whatthe hell is this?
That, that's cool.
And it just like, the, theart style was like, you know,

(01:07:43):
you, you didn't even, like,it didn't matter if you could
solve the puzzle or not.
You know, likejust looking at it.
And then like, I remembergoing back to work and that's
all I could think about.
So there's somethingabout that art style.
That's cool.

Rand (01:07:54):
That's cool.
You know.

Alex (01:07:56):
Oh, just from a minute.
You, you fire the thing up.
It's visually Yeah.
You're like, or orallythe, the vibe spatially.
Everything is everything.
Yeah.
Is just so engrossing andit, it was, it changed

Aaron (01:08:07):
me.

Alex (01:08:08):
Oh wow.
That's so cool.
Same thing, same cool.
Yeah.
Love that.
So saying you, as soon as youstarted to see those images
coming like in 3D and it wasworking for you, that was
like, Hey we, this is somethingthat's gonna be frequent.
That's

Rand (01:08:20):
when I got really excited.
I mean, now there was aninitial part before that
where I got excited like,this could be something,
this could be something.
And that was whenwe were designing.
So ran, that's Rand and Isitting in a room together
talking about the story.
Really like meticulouslydesigning, you know, what

(01:08:45):
these brothers were gonna bewhere they were, you know,
them being in these books.
You know, they're inthe library, the user's
gonna encounter them.
So every part of this andthat design part, I'm gonna
throw in something here.
That design part felt specialbecause as much as I liked
games, computer games, andRobyn wasn't really into

(01:09:07):
computer games, it didn'tfeel like we were doing a
movie or a book or a game.
It felt like wewere making a world.
We were

Robyn (01:09:14):
mm-hmm.
We were, there was a

Rand (01:09:16):
certain amount of required coherence that, that, that
was very heady stuff like,well, let's make this path,
go here and this is here.
And, and we weren'teven great at it.
We were doing the islandand it was a little bit
still disconnected and, and,in some ways a little chaotic.

(01:09:38):
But as we kept designingmore and more stuff felt
like it was a real place.
And that was.
That called back to, youknow, Rama and Dune and all
those writers who probablyfelt the same way when they
were writing those books.
Like it was a world,not a, not a game.

Aaron (01:09:57):
Yeah, yeah.
You get that rightwhen you look at it.
Totally.
Like you feel it right away.
Totally.
It's like a place.

Alex (01:10:03):
So, okay, so we got it.
Let's, let's fast forwardjust a little bit here.
Mm-hmm.
Like, like, we know thegame does come out and
becomes, super popular.
How did it change your lives?
How did it change?
Like, yeah.
Who bought the first Corvette?

Rand (01:10:18):
Well, at the do, do you, was there

Alex (01:10:20):
a point where you got like your first royalty check
or you saw like, you saw itin a store or, or, or somebody
who doesn't play games,called you and said, Hey, I
was playing this game calledMyst, and you're like, I made
that, you know, anything likethat, you know, it's like, I.

Rand (01:10:38):
There was a few of those.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I remember after Mystgoing on vacation Albuquerque
and walking into, you know,big box media store and having,
seeing rows of Myst on theshelf, like, oh my gosh, that
was a weird, weird feeling.

(01:10:59):
I'm just sittingthere eyes wide open.
Okay.
Very cool.
It was a little bit of a slowburn because it wasn't some
giant surge, you know, the firstcheck being the giant one, it
kind of ramped up graduallyand just kept producing money.

(01:11:19):
so it was, it was numberone on the charts for a
long time, a lot of years.
So it was kind of interestingin, in that regard.
There wasn't somegiant first check.
It just, funded Riven.
I mean, basically at thatpoint, Robyn, right on.
Anything to add?
I saw it a few times.

(01:11:39):
Yeah.
In Windows of places, andit was really amazing.
I, I saw it in magazines andthings like that, and I, I
never saved any magazines.
I never, I, I should have.
I, but I, I don't know whatI would do with any of them,
but I, yeah, I was impressed.
I, I'll mention oneother, I remember.

(01:12:01):
Okay.
Here was one thing, and I'vetold other people this is, I
remember once, like hearingnumbers of how many people
bought it, and I couldn'trelate to the numbers.
And I remember being in anauditorium, one or a big stadium
once, and realizing this kindof, doesn't even compare,
like this many people doesn'teven compare to the amount

(01:12:24):
of people who bought Myst.
That's insane.
That's a cool wayto think about it.
All of these, you know,and I, I, I just sort of
like, that's when it kindof hit me, this is crazy.
This is really, really crazythat all of these people have
played our game, you know,because you couldn't see it.
We couldn't see right.

(01:12:46):
Directly the peoplewho played our game.
It's not like we were rockstars or something, you know?
and we didn't interact directlywith those people, and,
and we weren't personally.
Pro probably because wedidn't really understand how
business stuff works, but wewere personally getting large
checks of money to spend.

(01:13:07):
We just thought, oh, that,that money stays with the
company and you know, that'sfor your fu future stuff.
So neither of us bought bighouses or cars or anything.
We just kind of wenton to the next product.
'cause that's how we haddone every single product.
We kind of used the moneyfrom the previous one to
bootstrap the next one.
And that was just how it worked.

(01:13:30):
I,

Alex (01:13:30):
I gotta say, I, I really love hearing that because like,
you know, today, I think alot of folks who get into this
industry are like, they'reraising VC money and they're
doing it to, to, to like.
For, for like an exit, you know?
Or like to, yeah, to, you know,money is the goal and it se
it's pretty clear that you guyswere building, for the love

(01:13:53):
of cre creating and creativityand the fact that Robyn, you
didn't, even, you, you didn'teven really understand the
impact until you were in astadium and you could connect
the visualization of thisnumber of people being a tiny
subset of like your audience.
Like I think that'sa very refreshing,

Rand (01:14:12):
yeah.
We were just gettingpaychecks and, and thinking
about the next one.
I, I, I honestly RobynMayfield the same way.
I thought it was likewe were lucky to be able
to have this as our job.
Like I wasn't thinkingabout huge amounts of money.
I was like, man, we arereally privileged to be
able to not have to have.

(01:14:33):
Other kinds of jobs.
This is so cool, that we canget a paycheck for doing this.

Alex (01:14:39):
Did, did anybody notable ever call you guys up and
say, Hey, I'm playing yourgame and I need some help.
can you give me, tell me howto get through this puzzle?
We had Tom, you, we had,Tom Cruise was the one
who called, his assistantcalled, called Doug and
asked for, you know, wow.
Wow.
That's

Rand (01:14:58):
cool.
we heard stories.
I, I don't think so.
We never heard had anybodycall us, but we heard
all the stories of that.
Who knows if they were true,but like, you know, Steven
Spielberg and Robin Williams,Steven Spielberg were sharing
hints over the phone lateat night or something.
I, I, to this day, don'tknow if that's true and
there was others, but Yeah.
Well, I think that one'strue just because we

(01:15:20):
talked to people close too.
Maybe you did.
I'd like to believe it's true.
I would like to believethat's true too.

Alex (01:15:28):
I've heard, I've heard, I've heard that story too.
okay.
So from that point, cyangoes on to do lots of things.
I think Cyan Worldsstill operating.

Rand (01:15:40):
Yes, it has.
I mean, cyan Worldshas its ups and downs.
you know, I think Riven wasreally, really fun to do be,
I mean, fun and a lot of work.
I mean, it was like thehours were were crazy, but
it was, it was like this,the house that mis built,

(01:16:01):
we, we had resources to dowhatever we wanted for Riven.
And it was different than Myst.
It wasn't Myst had that feelof, still had a little bit
of that feel of the manholewhere it, it developed
as it went a little bit.
As Robyn and I weresitting designing it,
it felt like it was.

(01:16:22):
Like it was making itselfa little r was very
meticulously designed.
I mean, and, and I'm, I'movergeneralizing here,
but it was, so it wasa, there was a blueprint

Alex (01:16:34):
before.
Yeah, it was a very, was

Rand (01:16:36):
a little bit of a different animal.
And we switched gears alittle bit halfway through
with Richard Vander onecoming in and kind of adding
a different, feel to things.
But it was really, intriguingto be able to put so much
time and effort into.
One of our products.

Alex (01:16:55):
and by then I'm, I'm imagining the team
is larger than Yeah.
The two of you.
Yeah.

Rand (01:16:59):
Yeah.

Alex (01:17:00):
And yeah,

Rand (01:17:00):
like, we had I think around 12 people
in the art department asopposed to two say in Myst.
Yeah.
So,

Alex (01:17:09):
blows the mind.
Blows the mind comparedto the size of like, you
know, AAA game today.
Oh man.
Yeah.
But, all right, so the,the company is still
operating, but at somepoint, Robyn, you split off.
Yes.

Rand (01:17:21):
After Rive, I think, you know, the company
was really changed.
the way we operated things hadchanged, so I wanted to just
take off and do my own thing.

Alex (01:17:34):
Was that, was that a little bit of burnout or
just like, wanted to getback to into the Jeep and go.
Explore creatively?
I think a little

Rand (01:17:43):
bit of both.
I think a little bit of both.
You know, I think I honestly,I've had a lot of time
to kinda look back, withhindsight, examine that time.
but I think Rand probablyhas his perspective
on that time period.
I have my perspective, butI feel like I, yeah, I, I

(01:18:06):
I really was burned out.
Robyn, you've, you'vementioned that you wanted
that, that it was hard tellingstories in interactive.
You mentioned that before too.
I felt at the time period withthe technology, it was really
difficult to, tell a story.
That was one reason.
There were a lot of reasons.

(01:18:28):
but yeah, I don't know ifit gets a little boring just
going into all that stuff.
I think some of it is,I mean, Robyn wasn't as
into games as I was so.
I mean, he's making this froman artistic point of view,
making these worlds, and I'mjust, I love the game aspect.

(01:18:50):
So it seemed, I justwanted to keep doing that.
I was okay with that, youknow, what comes next?
But Riven was hard.
Riven was, it was a lot ofburnout in Riven, but you know,
we, we kind of were able to.
Move on and figure outwhat, what we wanted to

(01:19:10):
do after that individually

Alex (01:19:13):
or try and you, you guys still seem like you're pretty
close, happy to barve eachother and have some good laughs
and smiles, so that's awesome.
Yeah.
I feel like we could doprobably like a series of five
episodes with you guys, likethe amount of discs I think.

(01:19:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Know exactly.
Put it in DISC two, Afive disc series and we've
gone, we've got way, way.
Way over.
So I super apologize for keepingyou guys, but it's just, I'm on,
I just hanging on every word.
Just hearing the, the, thehistory you guys' relationship
is fascinating as well.
Your, your formative yearsupbringing, it all makes sense

(01:19:55):
and adds up and who would know,you know, but, I think that's
kind of the point of why welove these conversations is kind
of getting it in with behind,behind the proverbial curtain.
So thank you so much forspending all morning with us.

Rand (01:20:10):
Yeah.
It's really cool Alex,because you've been through
so much of this, you know, wedon't get to talk to people
who've, who come at it frombehind the curtain like this.
So it's, it's kind of special tohave somebody who understands.

Alex (01:20:24):
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
We didn't even cover the,the, cease and desist
letter you guys sent us.
Do

Rand (01:20:30):
you

Alex (01:20:30):
remember that?
Yes, that's right.
I remember that forEnd the show, dude.
That's right.
Yes.
All worked out.
It was all, all good.
No, that was, that wasprobably how we first met.
We've,

Rand (01:20:42):
we've had a few of those over the years and it's like the
big companies are the ones whereyou just want to do something
evil to 'em, and the smallones are like, oh, you know.
No, don't, don't do that.
Like they're cool people.
Oh, 'cause of myth.
Because I don't knowanything about this
cease and deist letter.

Alex (01:21:02):
Whatcha guys?
Robyn was shieldedfrom all people.

Rand (01:21:06):
Yeah.
From all the evil.
Well, so

Alex (01:21:07):
when we made, we made myth the fallen lords originally
we were just gonna call itmyth and you guys reached out
and were like, Hey, that's,you know, that's kind of
like MY there's a T in there.
It's sounds kind of similar.
And we're like,what all worked out?
cool.
Oh my.
Well thanks guys.

(01:21:28):
Yeah.
like I said, we could doa five oh whole episodes,
but what a thrill to geta chance to hang out.
Really appreciate it.
This is fun.
And I, yeah, I would love tofollow up again and just see
how, what, like, what, what'sgoing on these days and, and
all, all that kind of thing.
Do you ever make it to SoCal?
Please do let me know.
totally.

Rand (01:21:48):
Yeah.
And next time we do this,let's leave Randolph.
I'll probably be dead.

Robyn (01:21:55):
Oh god.

Alex (01:21:58):
That'll be even better.
Alright, well thanks guys.
Thanks.
We'll see you around.
Okay.
This has been a blast.
This has, thank you.
Thank you guys a lot.
Alright, cheers.
Cheers.
We'll see you around.
Thanks so much.
Bye-Bye.
It's pretty interestingtalking to those two about
like their, their differentsort of backgrounds, different
approach to not just games,but kind of the world.
You know, Rand sort of fitsin, in the, the, you know,

(01:22:22):
he had the banking softwarejob, you know, and Robyn
was totally the free spirit.
Just exploring his creativity.
Left, right, right.
Brain thing.
I still don't rememberwhich one is left and right.
Like, how are yousupposed to remember that?
Left is

Aaron (01:22:35):
creativity, right?
Is analytical, I think.

Alex (01:22:38):
Yeah.
They're, they're verydifferent that way.
And then when Robynhood wastalking about how, manhole was
built where basically startedwith a picture from a manhole.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, like whathappens if you open the manhole?
Yeah.
And like this thing happensand then you just kind of
explored it and built thisworld to create, you know,
kind of almost recursively.
I thought that was pretty cool.
That

Aaron (01:22:56):
is very cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a neat little story.
And then going, and then, youknow, like what you talked
about, like with the, at thebeginning of the show, with
the mom supporting you, Ithink having an event like
that where they went to theshop, to the, to the show and
they sold out of the discs andpeople were talking to them,
and that makes a really bigimpression, you know, like that.

(01:23:17):
Really?
Mm-hmm.
Like, it's like,oh, I can do this.
You know, it's a, it's, it's theopposite of, you know, there's
people that pitch 500 times.
And you know, they get reallygood at pitching obviously,
but they never sign anything.
Yeah.
Like that's, that can reallylike bring you down, you
know, and then you finallyget that win later, which

(01:23:38):
is another story, obviously.
But the, the, I can imaginethat they went home and
they're like, we can do this.
And that's gonna be Yeah.
Well that, yes.
Super

Alex (01:23:46):
motivating, validating.
I think that's super important.
I will say though, you don'tneed to hit the home run to
get some of that validation,which is fuel for like,
the small wins count too.
Persistence.
Right.
It's the persistent.
Yeah, exactly.
It matters.
Yeah.
I think, you know, yougotta, you gotta listen to
the small wins in additionto, you know, chasing the

(01:24:07):
big wins too, I think.
Mm-hmm.

Aaron (01:24:09):
I've, I've felt those little wins before with like,
something I've done and mymom always is like a, that
having like people that,that, Validate you outside.
Like, I'm sure you get emailsfrom people like Alex, you,
your game, you know, this gametotally changed my life and you
help, you know what I'm saying?
You've gotten emailslike that before, right?
If you're

Alex (01:24:28):
like an entrepreneur or you're a builder or you're doing
something, which is sort oflike you're investing yourself
into a thing, you, you, you doneed for, we had the, we had
that triangle that we were, wewere talking, we've been talking
about lately of like, you know,talent, persistence, luck.
you also kind of needa support system.
You know, you kind, you know,that's maybe that's sort of like

(01:24:49):
the second level, but havingpeople around you who, believe
or getting some feedback, that,you know, which what you're
doing is wanted, is eitherwanted or good or valued.
That's, that's hugely important.
Point one, I'll say.
Yeah, 0.1, 0.2 is that I, everyonce in a while we'll get, you

(01:25:12):
know, but we'll, there'll bea comment somewhere on, you
know, LinkedIn or whereverwe'll get an email about, folks
who listen to the show and,and got something out of it.
Yeah.
And that's why we do it,you know, so that's, that's
just awesome to hear.
yeah, it's good.
So it's good feedback.
We appreciate you.
Appreciate you.

Aaron (01:25:31):
Yeah.
Especially when that happens.
I think that's very,like, it's validating.
Is that the wordWe're, we're, yeah.

Alex (01:25:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Validating.
Sure.
Yeah.
All right.
Well on that, A validating note.
I'd like to thank you allfor listening to this week's
episode of The Fourth Curtain,and we shall see you next time.

Aaron (01:25:54):
See you later everybody.
Thank you for listening tothe Fourth Curtain Podcast.
Visit us@thefourthcurtain.com tofind our monthly newsletter and
support the show via Patreon.
The Fourth Curtain Podcast isa production of Fourth Curtain
Media, lovingly edited by BrianHensley of Noise Floor Sound
Solutions Production supportby Kimia Taher with Community

(01:26:15):
Management by Doug Artman andArt Production by Paul Russell.
Thanks again for listening.

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