August 13, 2025 • 55 mins
Alex Burton of Pennyvale Media is the writer and executive producer of the Harrowed World video games. Alex comes on to talk about Harrowed World: What's Past is Portent, a Visual Novel prequel to Harrowed World: Portents in Red, a modern Vampire RPG. Alex talks about the time he has spent creating this world, the development of the games, and everything leading up to the Harrowed World occult world. Alex also talks games from his past including Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Vampyr, and Cult of the Lamb.
Be sure to go play Harrowed World: What's Past is Portent for free on Steam (and get ready for the upcoming story DLC) and learn of the world that is leading into Harrowed World: Portents in Red. Be sure to wishlist Portents in Red on Steam and follow along with the development cycle. We will have quests on Channel 3 as well for both so come and get your XP.
You can find all of Alex's links between channel3.gg/harrowedworld and channel3.gg/pennyvalemedia linking you to everything Harrowed World and Pennyvale Media.
Our hosts' links can be found at channel3.gg/rey and channel3.gg/dan
The show is Executive Produced by Channel 3 Founder Joel Willis who can be found at channel3.gg/joel
Our theme song is provided by Castor Garden. Find all of their tracks on Bandcamp by simply going to c3.gg/castorgardenmusic or find all of their links at channnel3.gg/castorgarden
About Channel3.gg: channel3.gg is social networking built from the ground up for gamers. Sure you can do all the stuff like on the old social medias like post pictures, videos, comments and the like. Channel 3 is so much more than that though. It takes the social media experience and game-ifies it. Made a great post that someone likes (1-ups) or respawns? You earn XP experience points that level you up. New levels mean chances to win tickets for physical prizes, earn digital flair for your profile, and more. Additionally there are weekly events hosted by Channel 3 that let the community unwind and kick back with a little friendly competition. Sure, you want to win but it's more about hanging out and the vibes. These events are hosted on C3's Twitch Channel and also earn XP for participants. XP can also be earned for completing quests-questions related to games and being a gamer, challenges where you go forth and complete a task in a game, rating & reviewing games and systems, creating specifically themed lists of games and more. You can find Channel 3 in both the Android and Apple App Stores or at c3.gg/app
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Channel 3. Is the future.
(00:29):
Welcome crew to one of your 3A Channel 3 podcast where we take
a member of the Channel 3 community, discuss three games
of their choosing, go through some honorable mentions and have
a nice little video game discussion.
But today we're doing one of ourour developer chats.
You've seen Harold World poppingup on Channel 3 here and talking
about Harold World and the various pieces of work tied to
(00:53):
that. So we've got Alex Burton, who is
the the founder of Pennyvale Media, star of the United
Kingdom, primarily acts as a publisher of Harold World.
And you've been doing that for three years now.
But hey, we got we got Alex Burton on the podcast.
So hi, Alex, how are you? I'm good.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
It's always, it's always fun when we make sure we align the
times for, you know, German, British episodes, things along
(01:16):
those lines and making sure it it's like, oh, the West Coast
people seem like they're more problematic.
We always have an easier time scheduling European guests.
I mean, the people on the West Coast, they're always more
finicky. So thanks for hopefully.
How that works? That's all right.
Yeah. So, you know, we wanted to talk.
First of all, you've got projects tied tied to steam,
tied tied to Ichio tied tied to ich dot IO for those who are are
(01:40):
less familiar there, But you've got what Harold worlds what what
what's past is portents. Try that again.
Harold worlds what's past is portents.
That's a lot of essence for me to get out of my mouth and in
one sentence without screwing itup.
So first of all, you know, I just let everybody know this is
a free base game. So a visual novel you can come
(02:01):
take a look at. And before I, I let you
introduce the game, I'm going tojust say to warn people in
advance. It's nice.
They're bite sized chunks, so you don't have to worry about
having to do a 2 hour stretch and, and and working now they're
broken out in in chapters and little stories, almost like a
little novellas built in there. So it's it's wonderful.
Thank you for thank you for not having to make this a three hour
(02:22):
effort for a visual novel game. I appreciate that first and
foremost. But hey, introduce yourself and
and we'll talk about the talk about the game.
Thank you for that and I appreciate the the poem with the
bite size as well. So I'm Alex.
Yeah, I'm from the UKI worked onthe Harrod World setting for
(02:43):
about a little over a decade before I started work using it
in projects. And that sort of led me into
doing video games. And the first thing we've
released is Harrod World. What's past these importance the
freebase game as you said. Yeah.
So take we, we will have quests for everybody.
As you're listening to this, you're going to see that popping
(03:04):
up on on Channel 3 when this drops here today.
Yeah, you've released the the passes portents.
You've also got some, some otherpackages tied to that.
So you had you had portents in red.
You've also got the the story pack DLC coming up here too,
right. So you got some, some more
(03:25):
content tied to the world that'sgoing to be coming as well to,
to build upon it. Yeah.
Yeah, so the story pack DLC willbe an extension of the What's
past Importance base game. So effectively it would be the
remaining stories because the visual novel consists in, in
total totality of a series of short stories that don't seem
(03:49):
initially directly connected, but they do lead into Howard
World, Importance in Red, and they'll be released
episodically. So when the story pack releases,
there will just be one story that's Duncan's story.
But then we will release the remaining stories episodically
and at no extra cost to the to the player.
And then as I mentioned, Howard will reports Importance in Red.
(04:12):
That's a modern gothic vampire RPG.
And yeah, basically it's in a modern setting.
It's gothic, you play a vampire and it's all about these
mysterious portents in red, as the title would suggest.
And you know you, you've just been turned, you're getting used
(04:33):
to this new vampire society. You're trying to work out what's
going on. And the way what's passed his
portents works is it introduces you to the character, sort of
important characters who act as protagonists for these stories
and also the various faction cup, the vampire as world, as it
were. And then yes.
(04:53):
So it's sort of all those both sort of fit together quite well
I think. So you you mentioned I wanted to
to click double click on this has been kind of cooking in your
in your head and notes and various things for a decade now,
which which makes sense is there's kind of a, a built out
complete world beyond just saying like, OK, we have and we
(05:14):
we know what vampire lore is. You've got characters, you've
got intertwined, you've got locations, you've got just kind
of like beyond just the vibe in the field, there's clearly a a
world tied together with this. So what what prompted what
started that? As much as I'm sure we'll, we'll
discuss some of that when we talk about some of your games
you have have highlighted to to chat about, but you know what?
(05:34):
What prompted you to say? Let me let me start cooking
something up here. Yeah, so it's an interesting 1.
So it, it is quite, it's, I'd like to think it's a full
developed setting. There isn't just vampires in it
either, but that's sort of 1 on for the video games to start
with. There are various other
supernatural creatures. So but actually when I was when
(05:58):
I was younger, I was never massively into the supernatural
initially, but that sort of interest came later.
And when I started to develop this interest and I sort of
thought, well, why don't I give a go at making my, my own
setting, it started off quite rough initially.
I've seen some of my initial notes that are honestly quite
(06:19):
embarrassing. But it's, it's as I've developed
and gotten a real understanding of what I wanted from the
setting, I've sort of, I've sortof improved that.
And as I went along, my notes soinsane that wouldn't make
understand any other human being.
But I understand them sort of the important part.
(06:42):
Is you have them and they're notjust randomly found by somebody
in notebooks collected anywhere that with no context.
Now this is work. This is.
Yeah, this. Is not the ramblings, random
scribblings of a madman. That's the important part.
Well, they might be, but yeah, but you've you've you've agree
something. With it, that's the important
part, yes, Yeah. So, and one of the games that I
(07:04):
mentioned actually was a big inspiration for me initially,
which was Vampire the MasqueradeBloodlines, which we'll talk
about later. That's sort of one of the
reasons I chose that game. Also, you know, you're looking
at, you know, Vampire games, particularly gothic vampire
games that even more particular RPGs.
(07:26):
There isn't a massive choice to come from.
If we're honest, though, it justmade logical sense to me to pick
that one. So artistically speaking with
the, you've kind of built this entire world out and there's,
you know, it, it, it just screams the gothic feel to it
while you're playing it, while you're looking at it.
(07:47):
How did you, you know, decide onthe art style visually speaking,
which I think was important, butalso the, the music in the
background, the, the audio that's kind of it's all coming
together. And, you know, if you're, you're
playing, I opted for playing this in the basement, turning
the lights off and just kind of kind of living with it.
(08:08):
And I think I recommend for anybody who could do that.
Yeah, listen, turn the lights off, enjoy.
And, and kind of it lets you drink it, drink it in a little
bit more. But you, you really tied
everything together. I think even from a, from AI,
forgive me. I, you know, I saw, I saw on the
credits who your narrator was while I was playing Isaac's
introduction section there. But I, I think it all kind of
(08:32):
really comes together when you have the, this, the art style
and I'm trying to go for like a gothic oil painting type of a
feel or something along those lines.
I'm, I'm a moron who claps, claps 2 rocks together.
So forgive me if I, I misinterpreted what that art
style looks like. But you got the, you got the
music and you've got a, a narrator that like all three
(08:53):
pieces come together and really kind of bring into the world.
How did you manage to balance all that to to get that feel?
So it is, you know, it's difficult and you, you have
doubts like like with the with the narrator, I thought, yeah,
this guy's fantastic, he's done a fantastic job.
And then have this doubt in my head.
(09:14):
It's like, do I know what soundsgood?
You know, you've got all these things that you've got to,
you've got to balance and you'reworking with, even with like a
small project like this, I'm working with the people.
And so they've got to get it fororder for it to all come
together. And you know, I've had the get
what's? Out of here and get get what's
in your head and your notes too.Like they, they don't have the
(09:36):
they don't have the mental vision you do of things, but
they also don't necessarily havelike every piece coming
together. So you're trying to piece these
things together with different people with different
specialties too. That's the funny part.
Yeah. And when it actually comes to
the art style, so I had the privilege of working with a a
very talented developer as well.We were both working together on
(09:58):
importance in Red. He likes to be known as Maha and
we were discussing the what's past his importance, the base
game. As I say, well, I'm going to
need to get an artist. And he was very keen to give it
a go. And he was he didn't really have
that much experience with that sort of thing, but he wants to
(10:20):
give it a go and he did a fantastic job.
He just really gets the sort of the vision.
He's just so good at that and hehe done this art with not really
any experience and I, I just, I had to keep reminding how good
it is. Didn't really believe it, but it
was. It's incredible artwork that he
put together without really any experience.
(10:43):
So like did you give him the script and he just kind of
visualize or are you sharing like I'm I'm picturing, do you
have, do you have like visual inspirations you were working
off of? Like how did you, how do you
communicate that to somebody? Because yeah, you've got the
vision in your head and you've got somebody else who, and it's
funny hearing they had limited experience.
I would have never guessed that for for sure.
(11:03):
But like you're communicating somebody who on top of these has
a limited experience. Really.
How did you get the image out ofyour head and into someone
else's hand to to generate it? Yeah.
So, you know, it's quite difficult and sometimes you
won't always get it right, at least not initially.
I think we've really gotten a good understanding from working
(11:25):
together. We sort of get each other.
And so that does help. But you know, it takes time to
perfect that. So generally think generally I
would describe the things that Iwanted.
So these would be things like backgrounds, characters.
And then I would, particularly the backgrounds, I would look
(11:48):
for references. In a lot of cases, this is the
sort of thing, you know, don't copy it exactly, but this is
sort of the sort of vibe. The vibe.
Yeah. So, and it's like you partly,
but it is always difficult because it's almost like you,
you are sort of, you know, thereis Gothic, Gothic architecture
(12:10):
in the world, but it's not the real world isn't quite as Gothic
as Harold World. So you are sort of you're trying
your best with what you've got. Yeah.
And sometimes, you know, you look at, you know, other
projects that come before and there are some good examples,
but also there isn't a lot of examples.
(12:31):
So there is actually a lot of good examples of Gothic vampire
games and unfortunately a lot ofones that have that were in
development never actually saw the light of day.
So you've got these scraps of these ideas and these concept
art for things that didn't necessarily come out.
(12:51):
You know, these are things from big companies or from small
developers that just never came out.
And stuff that's actually come out and is playable is actually
quite small. So it is quite limited what you
can draw inspiration from, see you know, so you've got to,
you've got to be got to sometimes widen it a little bit
(13:13):
and try and look around to see what you can find.
So, so the other big piece that I you know, you did not do your
own audio music scoring for the game either.
So that's something else that you had to like, you know,
scripting. Hey, listen, you can, you can
write, you can script. I think that you see the, you
feel, the 10 years, you feel thedepth in that.
And, and I feel like that might have been not the easiest part
(13:35):
to, to get out since it took youa decade, right?
Like you just, you're, you're trying to deal with your own
like combating and trying to geteverything perfect and just
right and, and balancing all that.
But then like you also have the audio to, to get out there.
And how do you, how do you, how do you do that?
Yeah. So again, I have the privilege
of working with very talented composer, he's called Stefan He
(14:00):
so he initially started doing some music for Portents in Red.
And so he's he's already done actually a bunch of tracks for
portents in Red, many of which people haven't heard yet but
sound amazing. But you'll have to wait and see
for those. But then, yeah, they seem
logical to ask him to do the music for what's past his
(14:23):
portents because he really got the style I was after.
And then it also sort of almost fits it more together because
it, as I said, it just sort of acts as a prelude, 2 portions in
red. So for that, I again, I sort of
looked at music, that music thatsort of got the style, the vibe
(14:46):
that I was after that this is the sort of thing, again,
obviously don't copy this, but even more particularly with
music. But yeah, this is the sort of
thing you know, and then you want.
To you want to evoke a feeling right?
Like that's so they can I I can't figure out how it's
awesome. Here's what I want to feel they
got to figure out. What that?
(15:07):
How? How to make that?
Audio you transfer into audio, yeah.
Yeah, so I'd often talk about. So I'd often with that with the
visual novels. So what's passes pawns, I'd
often send recordings of the theof the story or bits of the
(15:28):
story. So that would often the music's
often done last has been so far anyway, for what's passes
portents. So I'd send that over and say,
well, this is the story, you know, and that's sort of leaving
to it. When it comes to Portents in
Red, we sort of have a bit more of a discussion about the music.
(15:50):
So it's things like music for different factions.
So they have their own sort of basis of operations.
This is where it is, this is what they're all about, you
know, sort of invoke those ideasof what that factions all about.
But yeah, it's, I think again, Ithink Stefan's got a really good
idea of what I'm after now, so, and he's, it's really good to
(16:13):
work with so. So the the second thing I want
to say, because I, I want to talk about portents in read a
little bit and kind of what's building with the RPG side of
things. But you know, I've, I've got my
hands on the visual novel side of things too, and, and, and
getting the feel for the world. So I do want to ask about that.
One more thing I want to ask is just, you know, structurally
(16:36):
speaking, yeah. You never know with a visual
novel, right? There's things with visual
novels as a as a medium. They can, they can be just that
they're a novel, which means youstart on Page 1 and you finish
on page whatever it ends on. Yours is not the case.
You've got a little bit more of a choose your own adventure vibe
(16:57):
to it that like, yeah, you've got multiple paths you can take,
which can be challenging or complicated narratively
speaking. And by narratively, I mean, you
know, one from a programming perspective. 2 just trying to
trying to build upon it and every branch you create like,
OK, what's going to happen here,technically speaking, which can
(17:19):
be its own kind of fun challengeand things, right.
And then, but also just like, how do you, how do you tie it
back together? Because there's points for like,
OK, you see where, where it loops back in and there's others
that branch off and kind of do their own thing.
And yeah, just kind of curious, like how, how do you, how do you
tie all that together? Because you took the better
(17:39):
route as far as I'm concerned for visual novels, because you
you do give a little bit of wiggle room to.
Yeah, to see. What's going to happen here?
Yeah. So there's there is a there is a
slight complication with what's past importance and both the
base game and the DLC stories inthat they sort of need a
(18:00):
predetermined destination because these are characters
that will appear in Portance in Red.
They need to get to a place where importance in Red can
happen. They need to be.
So that does limit me slightly. But you know, when I originally
conceived the idea for the visual novel, I thought it's
(18:23):
just going to be a story withoutany choices.
And then I thought about it and I thought, that's not very much
fun, is it? So you're.
Building it like, because you're, you're, you're building
as a teaser for an RPG, which isan extra, an extra, not
complicate. I don't mean to say complication
in a negative way, but like you're giving yourself an extra
challenge with that. You're not, you're not making
(18:43):
things easier on yourself when you, when you decide that's
going to be the case, because you want an RPG to OK, you're,
you're role-playing, you want tomake the story your own.
So you're you're taking a mediumthat that often ends up going in
unilaterally and you're trying to give it a little, little
spice. Yeah, so and it and it's
(19:04):
interesting how there's so many ways that it differs from most
visual novels and I just seem tochoose all the options to make
it different. Just seems to be just so you
choose the. Options to make it difficult,
but these are different, OK. But again, like that's that's
difficult for you, but more interesting for everybody else I
guess. Yeah.
So of course, a lot of visual novels are like 1 long story as
(19:29):
you mentioned before. And this is more like lots of
different little stories that are connected by purpose.
So, you know, each, each story is obviously much shorter than a
sort of long visual novel, but they all have different
characters, different locations.So you've basically got to come
(19:51):
up from scratch each time. But to to answer your initial
question, because I think I've gone off it, the it's about the
choices. So, yeah, so.
With that, with the, with Isaac's story, which is the
story in the base game, I didn'treally have a plan for that.
I sort of winged it. So basically in the end I
(20:15):
determined that most of the and then again, it links to all the
achievements as well, of course.So a lot of it comes in sort of
the, the sort of second-half of the story where and it's all
about, you know, you're, you're basically rewarded for asking
(20:36):
questions. Your curiosity is rewarded with
achievements. You want to know more about
what's going on. Well, you will like to get an
achievement. That was sort of the thinking
for that. And then it was just the rest of
it was just what can, what can be a bit fun.
So, and how can we do this a bitdifferent?
And I just thought, I thought itwould be quite funny if you
(20:59):
know, you've just started and then you have an option where
you can just die. And I thought that would be and
then and then you get an achievement for being stupid.
And what's great about that, in my opinion anyways, it sort of
gives you a hint that maybe you shouldn't stay.
(21:21):
It try, it tries to warn you away from that, yeah.
Yeah, and you do it anyway. Then you die, of course.
So yes, you get those game overswhich which, which aren't Canon,
but they're fun. The way you know it's the Canon
ending is when it has the credits, so.
I nailed it. I got through it.
That's all that mattered. Yeah.
(21:42):
Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah, so the once you're sort of
in the final bit, there's a few different ways you can get to
those credits, that final ending.
And then then of course you got the epilogue after that.
We sort of it's to round it up, I, I came up with the epilogue
and. And tea and tea.
It felt like it was teasing more.
That's the. Yeah.
(22:02):
After the credits, yeah. Yeah, so I actually added the
epilogue later. So when it originally released,
there was no narrator, so no voice acting.
And I've decided to add that later.
And then I also decided to add the epilogue because there was a
bit of ambiguity on the the ending.
What happens to Isaac? That's obviously quite important
(22:24):
because he's going to be an important character importance
in red. So I sort of added that just to
like, you know, explain it basically it's, you know, it's.
So that's why why I did that. Yeah, yeah.
But you get to you, you tease throughout, you kind of weave it
and bring it back together so. Yeah.
That's how you wanted it to work.
(22:45):
So, so let me ask, so importancein red, what, what's, do we have
a status update with that? Or what, what's kind of the, the
runway looking like for that 'cause you're, you're building
towards that as much as you've got the, the visual novel tying
in and creating the world and giving the vibe you're, you're
building towards something seemsto be a lot bigger, a lot, a lot
more ambitious. And that can be challenging at
the same time too, in and of itself.
(23:06):
But you know what should we be on the look at with portents in
red? It's a proof that I might be
insane just how big it is. Like it's, yes, it's very
ambitious and that's sort of whywe decided to do what's passed
as importance, because then it'ssomething to sort of whet
people's appetite before it introduces these things, these
(23:31):
concepts, his factions, his characters in a more sort of a
more gradual pace. And also just gives us a bit
more time to work on importance in Red.
So obviously it's a lot bigger project.
So right now we're working on sort of the the the models, the
(23:52):
the systems to make it all work.Story itself is most of it is
planned out. I have, I've very good idea of
how I want it to start, how I want it to end and quite a good
idea of the things happening between.
So the main storyline I want to have a lot, I want to have a lot
(24:12):
of RPGs producing called them side quests.
I'm going to, we're going to call them tasks rather than
quests, but, you know, sort of lots of no side things you can
do besides the main story. But yeah, there's still a lot of
work to do. Ideally, at some point we might
(24:35):
be looking at maybe doing a Kickstarter with some of the
crowdfunding just to help with that development and maybe bring
a few more people on board. Because it is.
Yeah, it's basically just me andanother developer and thankfully
the developer is very talented, but it is quite hard that it's
just two of us working and we'vewe are basically working on two
(24:59):
games at the same time. Well, yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll
just jump in here and say we'll talk about it your first game,
but you want to talk about development cycles for
challenging development. You're you're in a challenging
development genre. It feels like it is a it is, it
is one with a storied history of, you know, the the developing
cycle can be, can be challengingfor sure.
(25:21):
But yeah, now again, you're, you're building the hype though,
you're building the, you're building everything up.
That's the important part. Yeah.
But yeah, I always knew it was going to be difficult, but you
know, sometimes that that makes it all the more sweet when you
achieve it. And it's it's very much the game
importance is very much the gameI really want to make.
(25:43):
So we're going to have to make it, even if it takes a bit.
The last thing I want to bring up, so you've got a little bit
of a you got a long term plan too, right?
You've got book ideas, you've got, you know, Dracula fawn
longer term, I think is really what it comes down to.
So this is not, you know, there are people come along and and
they, they're, they're trying toput something together.
(26:04):
You've got, like I said, you've had a decade of a world building
in your head that you're trying to to get out there too.
So you've really kind of got kind of got everything in the
works here but you. Want to touch on that.
Yeah. So I've got lots of ideas, lots
of plans. Yeah.
So we're looking, I'm looking atcompleting Wormwood Rising,
which is a which is a short story, not a game, just fiction,
(26:30):
which would sort of introduce readers to the magical folk of
Harold World as opposed to vampires.
Excellent. Well, we, we've teased I I love
talking with developers too, youknow, about their some of the
games that, you know, we always talk three games and usually
ends up there being some inspiration or something from
the huge thing along those lines.
(26:50):
So I think we've got a bit of both here for you that we've got
some, we've got some past, we'vegot some inspiration.
We've got one utterly ridiculousone that I I can't talk about
either, but. Always get a ridiculous one,
yeah? But, but, but we kind of teased
talking about, you know, obviously Vampire the Masquerade
and and Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines being an inspiration
(27:10):
for for many of vampire games since then.
But you know, this one came out 21 years ago now I painfully
say, but yeah, this is it was a game.
You know, The funny thing is I hadn't realized this thing.
I knew it was, you know, it's a cult game, right?
We'll we'll see that. And I don't mean like it's a
game about the occult. Yes, it is technically, but I
(27:31):
mean the thing, the thing kind of got, you know, first of all,
had a very rough development cycles.
I teased earlier here, but the thing sold fewer than 80,000
copies, but has been carrying onone with the the RPG.
It is Vampire of the Masquerade itself that that carries on.
But two, there's well, I'll, I'll talk about the other side
with like, no, they're still working on a sequel that we may
(27:53):
actually even see this year. Apparently it also has its own
terrifying development cycle too, but that's a separate story
for another day. But but you wanted to, you know,
I said, let's talk three games and the first one, you said it
was Vampire of the Masquerade Bloodlines.
All of all of its 21 years of age at this point.
Yeah, it's it's a funny one. And yeah, they are working on a
sequel and I have opinions. I and we're all going to find
(28:18):
out again. We may even be able to share
those opinions in two months, who knows?
I was like, wait, they actually put a date on it?
I didn't realise that. Oh God.
Yeah, they put a month on it. I don't think they put a.
That's true, yes. I did not see an actual date.
It said October of 2025 at this point, which is it's closer,
it's closer. But anyway.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah.
Well, when I actually started working on Importancy Read,
(28:41):
initially I was under the impression that Bloodlines 2 was
not going to release because it was in there was like a big
period of time where there was nothing.
Well, you it changed developers like they completely.
I don't know if they completely scrapped it or they transferred,
but I'd like it went to a new developer.
That's yeah. So that's what he says.
(29:01):
Like I don't know if it's going to happen.
Like no, it changed developers all together, like it was in the
wasteland. So yeah.
Yeah, so that was crazy thing. But yeah, when you and you know,
I'm not going to say too much about the sequel, but it the
original has has quite a important place in my heart
(29:22):
because it was. And actually when you when you
learn more about the developments and the problems
the studio had, which was Truckee Games, it sort of gives
you a greater understanding and appreciation of how good the
game is. They had so many problems during
development, like they had this,they were forced to use this
(29:43):
game engine that wasn't finished.
They kept having to update it. So every time they updated the
thing, they basically had to start things from scratch.
And then they made them release it.
The the the so the the publishers that would be
activism decided to release it at the same time as Half Life
too, which was basically the name of the coffin, like the
(30:04):
hospital. Players into this?
No, no, they're they're gone now.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and they had all these
problems and they were trying to, but like when you look at
all the games from around that time, it looks really good
despite the problems. And there were, you know, there
were places where it looks a bitunfinished because it is.
(30:25):
But there's, there's a real, there's a great atmosphere to
it. And and it's something that is
rarely it's, it's not really been replicated.
For 21, I get for For more than two decades, that's like.
Yeah, and and. Again, it was ambitious too,
because like you're taking a, a role-playing game, not like the,
(30:49):
the Final Fantasy sense, but you're taking a game where like,
no, people do this IRL, if you will.
And this is not, not called a tabletop, but like no, this is
something you do more of. AII wouldn't even compare it to
Dungeons and Dragons because frankly, the, the events and,
and things that have occurred around Vampire the Masquerade,
like I've heard of elaborate things where like they've rented
(31:10):
out basically an entire hotel to, to play or like an entire
warehouse to. No, you, you come in and there's
150 people at this event and they are living out a fully
orchestrated multi floor event. So like you're, you're, you're
talking about something that's pretty ambitious here to try to
go after. And they were trying to capture
(31:31):
as much of it as they possibly could too.
Like they weren't going to be like, oh, we're going to make a
game and just call it Vampire the Masquerade.
Like no, they wanted to capture as much of the spirit of it as
they could too. Yeah, I think they, I think they
did a good job with, with what they're working with.
You know, the, the Law of Vampire and Masquerade is quite
(31:53):
expansive, sometimes a bit messy.
I don't think that's unfair to say.
It's had a long development and lots of things have been,
they've had lots of material written for it, but they, they
took it, they took all the best parts of it and they brought it
to life. And, you know, that was, and he
made this game with this amazingatmosphere that, again, hasn't
(32:15):
been replicated since. So that was a big inspiration on
me. And so I wanted to do something
not exactly the same, but with there's obviously going to be
similarities. It's inevitable.
You take inspiration from the things that have gone before,
everyone does. And so you know, there'll be
(32:36):
yes. So we've like with my work,
there'll be similarities but there'll always be differences.
And because I have my own taste,my own opinions, I don't just
want to replicate what they've already done.
I want to do something slightly different.
You know, it might well appeal to the same people who enjoyed
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, but may appeal to
other people as well. But yeah, it's a very important
(32:59):
game for me. You know, it hasn't always aged
well in all aspects, but, you know, you know, as you say, it's
like 21 years old. However it is.
It was 2004, wasn't it? Yeah.
So it's not always going to haveaged well in all aspects, but
it, you know, there's still, youknow, there were, there were
games that are made now that don't measure up to that.
(33:22):
So you know. You know lots now, yes.
Yes. So yeah, I think I don't think
it's unfair to, you know, it's it is it's a classic.
It's, you know, as you say, it'sa cult classic and there's, you
know, it's there was a lot of heart in the development which
comes through and you know, it'sjust real unfortunate the studio
(33:42):
went down so aft so soon after the release.
When did you find your way into the actual game itself?
I would have been so I would have been too young to play it
when it released. Which you might have guessed,
yeah. Yeah, again, I'm not to make
assumptions or anything, but I, I kind of figured you weren't
(34:04):
playing this one then. No judgement towards your
parents. I mean, maybe you were all but
but but yeah. When did you end up in it
though? I would have been sort of mid to
late teens. I would have found it.
And, you know, I sort of heard things about it and I thought,
you know, why don't I give it a go?
(34:25):
It's there. Let me check it out.
Was this like a Steam? Let me go, Let me go check it
out on Steam type of thing, Yeah.
And then you get it on Steam andrealise it doesn't work, and
then you panic and have to find out how to make it work because
it doesn't play on modern machines without the unofficial
patch that isn't included on theSteam version.
Yeah, they can make it interesting.
(34:46):
Yeah, so that's fun to find out,you know, a few negative reviews
they've gotten on there because of that.
Well, kind of understand that, but yeah, it's.
But I suppose it's in a weird place because the developer
doesn't exist anymore. It's just just being put on
there, presumably by the publisher, who probably don't
really have anything to do. Activision just gets a check
(35:07):
once in a while. Yeah.
What else is new for them? They need to they have to go buy
and close another site. I guess I should not have said
that part, sorry and moving on. So did you?
Did you dabble in any of the Vampire of the Masquerade
outside of the game, out of curiosity?
(35:27):
Not really because I've I've notreally heard of it out so.
It it is culty in and of itself.Yes, it is.
It's one of those things like you have to, you got to find the
culture somewhere. Like it's it's it the the whole
theme of it is you're, you're hiding the vampire culture in
modern times. And like they kind of hide the
the players in modern times too,but they there is a weird
(35:50):
underground cult of it that exists.
That's the funny part. It's just a matter of like.
Finding it? Yeah, well, wouldn't you know it
exists. You can find them.
But well, I've never actually met someone in person who really
knows about it, so I only found out about it through the
Internet basically. And I thought, well, you know,
it looks interesting. So and it was.
(36:11):
And it is that sort of that ideathat's quite unique, that
vampires and other creatures canexist secretly among humanity in
sort of the modern day. And I thought that was a really
cool idea. And that's sort of what I've run
with, because if that's such an interesting but basic idea, you
(36:31):
can do things with that, of course.
But that basic idea, more so than actually the law itself,
just that basic idea was really fascinating.
You have a you have a second game in in the vampire realm of
vampire and this one at least a little newer 2018 though, I was
as I was like I was only a couple years.
(36:52):
Oh, that was seven years ago now.
Never, never mind how that that's the that's the only way I
realized that. But this, this is don't nods
action RPG where you're, you're playing a newly turned vampire
in, in, in in some older times, but you're, you know, they, they
give the element that you were adoctor and you're dealing with.
(37:14):
I think this one's got a little bit, it's got an interesting
narrative, right 'cause you're, you're a doctor and you're
suddenly thrust into this, this underground of, to your point,
the, the occult, the mythology, werewolves, all, all sorts of
mythological creatures that are that are underlying there.
But So what? What made you bring this one up?
(37:37):
Well, again, there isn't many vampire games you can really
pull off, particularly vampire RPGs.
This one, I thought there's lotsI could say about it.
I thought that would be a good reason to suggest it.
So, you know, there's, I quite like, there's definitely
ambition there, which I like. I think it's different to say
(38:00):
bloodlines in that you have a predetermined character.
This is who you play, this is who they are, this is their
history, etcetera. And I do like the, I like the
historical setting. I kind of wish it was Victorian,
but it's quite nice anyway. So it's nice.
It's quite an interesting periodof history because it's right
(38:21):
after, I think it's the First World War and it's during the
Spanish flu epidemic, which is areal point in history where
actually more people died from the epidemic than did the war.
And it's sort of in this sort ofalternative version of those
events, which I think is quite an interesting way to go with
it. And, you know, I quite like the
story, You know, you know, there's lots of interesting
(38:43):
things you can go with the idea,you know, you're you're fighting
between your Hippocratic Oath and being a vampire.
That's quite interesting. I think what I what I take away
from it is that it struggles with its identity.
And I think this is partly to dowith because, you know, you look
(39:10):
at that. How do I word this when you
you're dealing with a game of? It at the same time is that the
the piece you're touching? On there or like so no, so like
you have these big companies andthey'll be like, well, this is
doing well, so we've got to do this and I get that a lot from
vampire like so on one hand it'strying to be this sort of
(39:31):
atmospheric interesting story about being a vampire.
You're going to make these choices, which is really
interesting, and on the other hand you've got this sort of
almost souls like. Thing the action the action side
of the action RPG. Yeah, I don't mind there being
action because obviously there'saction in Bloodlines.
Yeah, I think they merge it slightly better in Bloodlines.
(39:57):
I think it fits more of the story in a lot of cases.
Whereas in Vampire it almost feels like you're just killing
people for no reason. Like these people are just here
and they want to kill me. I don't know who they are or why
they're doing it, but they're here.
You just. Kind of zoom.
You just kind of zoom out into abattle sequence too, That's the
thing. Like.
Basically, yeah, you have. Like these intimate scenes and
(40:17):
like quiet retrospective. And like you said, your, your,
your character is dealing with the, the philosophical issues at
hand. So like no, we're going to zoom
out and you're going to go battle this like 4 people that
are coming at you all of a sudden.
Yeah, yeah. And then you, you know, you then
you go go rest to, you know, maybe upgrade or whatever and
the person you've just killed has respawned.
(40:40):
Great. What was the point of killing
him right there again? This really is dark sauce.
Yeah. What was the.
I don't. I would have, I would have much
preferred even if they'd had allthose enemies in place, if it
didn't respawn, because now they're not real people.
They're just, yeah, you also have the the, that was my
(41:01):
problem when they remade The Last of Us Part 2 and they added
the, the like, roguelike element.
I'm like, oh, it's a game about like not wanting to kill people.
Like, oh, here's an endless killing people section of the
thing. I'm like you, you guys kind of
lost the thread you created herethis one too.
And like, what's what's the point of having your character,
you know, trying to, to deal with the impact of like, oh, now
(41:23):
I've got to start killing all these people and I swore my life
to to doing no harm. They've got another back.
Anyway, it's all good. Yeah, yeah.
So like I don't, part of me thinks maybe they sort of maybe
start to run out of time, but part of me also thinks like
somebody went, well, Dark Souls is popular, so we better do
that. And it just, to me, it feels it
doesn't quite work. But maybe that's just my
(41:45):
opinion. And I, I've seen some reviews
that quite a few reviews where people go, well, the dark soul,
the souls like combat isn't evenvery good souls like combat.
But I'm not really a fan of souls like anyway.
So I don't really, I don't really know if it's a good
iteration of that, but I have heard opinions that it's not.
(42:07):
But it's, it's just, I just, I just think the identity is a bit
confused. I mean, obviously action would
take a part of it, which makes sense.
And I have a problem with that. I just would prefer if it was
more integrated to the story, like it made more sense.
It just sort of brings me out ofit when there's just random
(42:27):
enemies all the time for no reason or when they respawn and
things like that. But the story is, the story is
interesting, Some good music to it.
I like that you can feed you in combat.
That's a good innovation that itdoes bring have mixed feelings
about the fact you have to kill every time you feed, but you
(42:51):
know it. I suppose that goes back to the
curse be the choice element, which is the whole tagline.
So there's there's some there's some logic to that decision as
well. Your third game you brought up
in the game, the game I've been teasing was just the most
ridiculous of the three. I, I want to say last year's
Cult of the Lamb, but apparentlythis was three years now.
This is just dumb. Time is dumb.
(43:11):
Time is dumb is all I'm getting out of the games you brought up
today. But it might say more about me
than time. But yeah.
No, no, because it feels like itwas just like I was only playing
this a couple of months ago. No, it was three years ago.
But yeah, we, we've got a rogue like here now in the, in the mix
with the, the, the widest of gaps between his character
(43:33):
design and it's and it's theme where you are a lamb saved by a,
a demigod got something along those lines.
So it's something of high power that says, hey, you got to make
a cult for me now. And you have to build followers
and sacrifice them and go go do roguelike runs to build up your
build up your camp and your cultand everything else along the
way. So, but yeah, anyway, that's,
(43:55):
that's where we're at. So what?
What? Alright, so we're, we're
straying, we're straying a little bit from your other two
games. How did so so go on?
Please tell me. Well, I thought, you know, I was
trying to think what's a good mainstream, a more mainstream
option that doesn't delve too far because it's still
(44:16):
supernatural and things. It's not vampires, but it's,
it's demons and monsters and things.
And I thought, well, you know, Cult of the Lamb and the genius
of Cult of the Lamb because it is genius.
And it's, it's not the style that I go with, obviously, but
there is a genius to it where you, you do with these themes
that you know, are quite dark and quite, you know, occult, as
(44:38):
you say, but you put it in a style where you can get away
with more things and get a lowerage rating.
So, and it's like like you need play it.
You sometimes forget what you'reactually playing.
And then like it was like when the first time I so you can like
(44:58):
you can harvest your followers for me the first time I did
that. And it's like, oh, this is
actually quiet. This is quiet.
DL for the for the style. You until until you said that I
didn't realize that game was a team A-Team rated game by the
ESRBII don't know what the rating the rating is over there
with but but Oh my God, I didn'trealize this was AI always
(45:21):
assumed it was an M rated game but oh go on.
Sorry that distracted me. I was like, wait, what do you
mean Oh my God. Yeah, so it's it's a 12 over
here. So a lot of games that are teen
over there are 12 over here. The the age ratings tend to line
up quite well when it comes to games.
They just have slightly different.
Names Movie ratings get weirder between Britain and America, but
yes. Yeah, but the movie ratings are
(45:43):
least in line here. Yeah, I think the the way the
movie ratings get weird is because Britain, the UK has a
15, whereas the US doesn't really have a 15 equivalent.
No. So basically all the gay, all
the movies that would be a 15 or18 here or like a we have the
(46:04):
PG. 13 and the R and you've got hard lines on some of yours like
no, no, no, the 18 means 18. Yeah, yeah.
So there's but yeah, but it lines up quite well with the
game. The call to the lamb is T
anyway, T&T or 12:00, depending on where you're at.
That's that's why I, I never realized that you're you're
dealing with feces everywhere. You're dealing with just like
(46:24):
like the sacrificial ceremonies,like no, I'm going to jam a
knife and and like you said, harvest this.
This was getting a little older,a little sick.
Let's go. Is this the one I'm going to
sacrifice? We're going to sacrifice the
young healthy one that's gettingget a little sassy, getting out
of line and questioning whether I'm in charge or whether they
should be giving this worship and all that which, Who am I
going to sacrifice this time? Yeah.
(46:45):
Yeah, like you and you cutting them off and like this is quite
dark and this is this is like, you know, this is a team, this
is a 12 game and you're cutting them off and it is, you know,
for the even for the art style, it's quite dark what you're
doing. You can.
It's quite. Oh yeah, they're happy go lucky
little cartoon creatures. Yeah, the art style is the
funniest part. You probably, you make it, you
(47:08):
change the art style and the game goes immediately to an
Amber 18 or whatever. So.
Yeah, if I made this game, caught the lamb in my style, it
would be an 18. So that's just, but it's an
element of genius to that. But then you have things like,
and then you have basically cannibalism because you can feed
the meat to their followers. OK, they are animals, but
(47:32):
they're basically people. So it's.
It's basically cannabis. Yeah.
And then you get, and then of course, you got the things.
Feces stuff is weird, though. You just get some.
You just want to eat feces. It's like why?
It's got to be I got the boon that gives me the benefits for
it, so I'm going after you. It's weird.
(47:55):
And then, yeah, that is, that's a bit weird.
Never quite got that part, but yeah.
And then, and it's funny becauseit obviously has these dungeons
that it disguises quite well as as, as as trying to, you know,
is not dungeons, but they are dungeons in a gameplay
development sort of stands. And I actually quite enjoy
(48:15):
those, which is quite strange because I always didn't like
dungeons, like dungeon style games.
But I quite like Core of the Lamb.
It masters it quite well and it's quite varied and mixes it
all. Yeah, you get those you get
those rogue like elements of like, OK, what weapons am I
getting on this run? What how do I, how do I stack?
How do I combine? You know, you're trying to
figure out like what are the pieces you want to you want to
(48:38):
make work or like what's it sending me up against now?
It always, you know, for the forthe well done ones works well
for the ones where they they didn't really think entirely
through what that looks like. It makes it annoying, boring,
and makes you feel like you're you're you're praying to the RNG
guys for the random number generator to give you something
helpful, but it feels like they they thought this one through.
(49:00):
Yeah. And it's interesting to say now
I've just made me think of, if you compare it to like Hitman
Freelancer, which is the new roguelike mode for Hitman, I
think they call it Word of Assassination.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. The, the Hitman Freelancer is
really frustrating to play for me because to be honest, I was
never that good at Hitman anyway.
(49:20):
And I had all these, like, crutches I could rely on to sort
of get me through it, including,you know, reloading.
So if you die and then those areall gone and, like, you lose
everything. And it's like, at least we've
caught the lamb. You don't lose every single
thing you've done when you die. I never messed with that Hitman
one because I just had I I feel like there was going to be some
(49:41):
money grab element to that I want to get involved with so.
There wasn't really a money grabelement, it was just like but it
is just reusing the same maps again.
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.
And it's like, well, I want, I think we've Hitman.
I want they'd keep using the same maps.
And it's like, give me new maps.I want new maps.
(50:03):
That's what I want from you. I don't want the same map 50
million times. You know, there were
complications with, I don't know, I know they had some
difficulties, I think around thedevelopments of Hitman 2.
So yeah, whatever, that's just my opinion and.
Now they're doing bonds, so they're just they're going the
rest of the way now, so. Yeah, going the rest of the way.
(50:24):
That's quite an that was interesting amount when I saw
that. And it's like, yeah, well, you
know, I think something new withJames Bond is what you need,
whether that's seen video games or movies.
Yeah, we've been chasing that Goldeneye high in video games
for Yeah, right. And, and what started with I, I,
I liked a couple of the Craig Bonds in particular.
Not to go to the movie chat too much, but no, we, we, we're
(50:45):
through the dark and gritty era.Let's see what the Let's see if
we can bring up new here. Yeah, I mean, you know, making
him James Bond younger is something different, you know,
and you need something different.
Will it work? I don't know.
But you know, it's worth a go. Now it's an entirely different
control because they found out the exact amount of money that
Broccolis needed to say, cool, we're out.
(51:05):
Yeah. Who knew?
Who knew that dollar figure existed?
So here we are. Yeah.
Crazy, yeah. Well, Colt to the lamb go check
it out, especially since it's rated teen.
Though I again, I sit here with the 12 year.
I'm like, I don't know how I would explain this game to my
son. I don't know how I would explain
this because I I never thought Ihad.
I would have to, but oh God. Yeah, like, yeah, it's crazy,
(51:27):
isn't it? But it must be the art style,
because what else could it explain that, Adrian?
Because it has, like you said, it has like the blood has
everything like like no, they just because they made it a
little cartoony. I guess it's all good.
Yeah, like, and maybe because hemade them animals, but he's
treated as people. They're basically people, the
people with animals. The.
Religion and cult elements of explaining all that I I don't, I
(51:50):
don't know anyway, well, he knows we we've reached a point
where we take a quest or a question from the Channel 3
history books. Just a quick little little
something I found with and I just want to ask you what what's
the game you have the most hourslogged in?
Hours logged in Vampire and matscreate bloodlines.
How how much time do you think you spent on?
(52:11):
Them so it's funny because Steamlogs the time you're in games
but because there's various modswith bloodlines that are played
due to the way the mod launcher works, it only counts sort of
the base game hours. So it could actually be a lot
(52:33):
more than it actually says on Steam because it doesn't go
through Steam for the mod launcher.
So. But I'll tell you what it says
on Steam, and this is my highesthours listed.
I'll get it up. It's 586.8 hours so yeah, so.
(52:53):
You knew you meant it. Yeah, it's it's any surprise of
making a vampire Rafi? Yeah, I want to make Yeah, I
want to make a new game that, you know, captures that feeling,
but a more modern game because obviously it's, you know, it's
over 20 years ago and it is of my opinion that the the sequel
(53:19):
won't do that. But that's just my opinion.
But it'd be a different law anyway.
We may or may not see. We'll see.
We may or may not see, I mean, Idon't know what I'm talking
about. You know, people might love it.
I, I don't know. It's just what, what I've seen.
And that's totally an unbiased opinion.
It may seem like a biased opinion.
It's not. It's just from what I've seen
(53:40):
from it. Well, again, I mentioned we're
going to we're going to wind things down here.
This is not my normal spot. Normally my Co host this year,
but he's not here for the daytime recording.
So I've got to land this plane. But the first thing I will do,
let everybody know you'll you'llsee some quests that have
dropped related to harrowed world.
So we'll have, you know, wish listing importance in red going
and playing what's what's past his importance as a as a part of
(54:04):
this. So you'll have some activities
for everybody to go do go check that out.
But you know, Alex has everything set up at Harold
World on Channel 3. So you get the links to the
links to everything are on his page there.
So just go to to channel 3 dot GG slash Harold World and you'll
you'll see everything you need to go find all things harrowed
(54:25):
world, the links to the Ichio, the links to steam again, we'll
have the quests that are there for it.
So you have all things tied to what Alex has been putting
together here and and go play because that'll be that'll be
one of the activities to to go do go play.
What's past importance. But I will, I will wind things
down then say just running C3 dot GG slash Harrod world or
(54:48):
channel 3 dot GG slash Harrod world.
We'll get you to Alex's page there.
Podcast, C3 dot GG slash podcast.
You'll find us there Wednesdays,3:33 AM in the morning, all the
majors, YouTube Music, Apple. Someone pointed out we're on
Audible. Like we got, we got Audible out
there. But our homes, our homes on
Spotify, we're, we're, we're on places I've never even heard of.
(55:09):
I'm Dan Ray. Ray would be with me otherwise.
Joel Willis, executive producingAnd shout out to Castor Garden
for our theme song. Go check out his quest too,
because he just dropped his first full album.
So Castor Garden's got an album out there.
Go go check it out, people. Have a good day.
(55:30):
Channel 3 is the future.
Channel 3. Is the future.
(00:29):
Welcome crew to one of your 3A Channel 3 podcast where we take
a member of the Channel 3 community, discuss three games
of their choosing, go through some honorable mentions and have
a nice little video game discussion.
But today we're doing one of ourour developer chats.
You've seen Harold World poppingup on Channel 3 here and talking
about Harold World and the various pieces of work tied to
(00:53):
that. So we've got Alex Burton, who is
the the founder of Pennyvale Media, star of the United
Kingdom, primarily acts as a publisher of Harold World.
And you've been doing that for three years now.
But hey, we got we got Alex Burton on the podcast.
So hi, Alex, how are you? I'm good.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
It's always, it's always fun when we make sure we align the
times for, you know, German, British episodes, things along
(01:16):
those lines and making sure it it's like, oh, the West Coast
people seem like they're more problematic.
We always have an easier time scheduling European guests.
I mean, the people on the West Coast, they're always more
finicky. So thanks for hopefully.
How that works? That's all right.
Yeah. So, you know, we wanted to talk.
First of all, you've got projects tied tied to steam,
tied tied to Ichio tied tied to ich dot IO for those who are are
(01:40):
less familiar there, But you've got what Harold worlds what what
what's past is portents. Try that again.
Harold worlds what's past is portents.
That's a lot of essence for me to get out of my mouth and in
one sentence without screwing itup.
So first of all, you know, I just let everybody know this is
a free base game. So a visual novel you can come
(02:01):
take a look at. And before I, I let you
introduce the game, I'm going tojust say to warn people in
advance. It's nice.
They're bite sized chunks, so you don't have to worry about
having to do a 2 hour stretch and, and and working now they're
broken out in in chapters and little stories, almost like a
little novellas built in there. So it's it's wonderful.
Thank you for thank you for not having to make this a three hour
(02:22):
effort for a visual novel game. I appreciate that first and
foremost. But hey, introduce yourself and
and we'll talk about the talk about the game.
Thank you for that and I appreciate the the poem with the
bite size as well. So I'm Alex.
Yeah, I'm from the UKI worked onthe Harrod World setting for
(02:43):
about a little over a decade before I started work using it
in projects. And that sort of led me into
doing video games. And the first thing we've
released is Harrod World. What's past these importance the
freebase game as you said. Yeah.
So take we, we will have quests for everybody.
As you're listening to this, you're going to see that popping
(03:04):
up on on Channel 3 when this drops here today.
Yeah, you've released the the passes portents.
You've also got some, some otherpackages tied to that.
So you had you had portents in red.
You've also got the the story pack DLC coming up here too,
right. So you got some, some more
(03:25):
content tied to the world that'sgoing to be coming as well to,
to build upon it. Yeah.
Yeah, so the story pack DLC willbe an extension of the What's
past Importance base game. So effectively it would be the
remaining stories because the visual novel consists in, in
total totality of a series of short stories that don't seem
(03:49):
initially directly connected, but they do lead into Howard
World, Importance in Red, and they'll be released
episodically. So when the story pack releases,
there will just be one story that's Duncan's story.
But then we will release the remaining stories episodically
and at no extra cost to the to the player.
And then as I mentioned, Howard will reports Importance in Red.
(04:12):
That's a modern gothic vampire RPG.
And yeah, basically it's in a modern setting.
It's gothic, you play a vampire and it's all about these
mysterious portents in red, as the title would suggest.
And you know you, you've just been turned, you're getting used
(04:33):
to this new vampire society. You're trying to work out what's
going on. And the way what's passed his
portents works is it introduces you to the character, sort of
important characters who act as protagonists for these stories
and also the various faction cup, the vampire as world, as it
were. And then yes.
(04:53):
So it's sort of all those both sort of fit together quite well
I think. So you you mentioned I wanted to
to click double click on this has been kind of cooking in your
in your head and notes and various things for a decade now,
which which makes sense is there's kind of a, a built out
complete world beyond just saying like, OK, we have and we
(05:14):
we know what vampire lore is. You've got characters, you've
got intertwined, you've got locations, you've got just kind
of like beyond just the vibe in the field, there's clearly a a
world tied together with this. So what what prompted what
started that? As much as I'm sure we'll, we'll
discuss some of that when we talk about some of your games
you have have highlighted to to chat about, but you know what?
(05:34):
What prompted you to say? Let me let me start cooking
something up here. Yeah, so it's an interesting 1.
So it, it is quite, it's, I'd like to think it's a full
developed setting. There isn't just vampires in it
either, but that's sort of 1 on for the video games to start
with. There are various other
supernatural creatures. So but actually when I was when
(05:58):
I was younger, I was never massively into the supernatural
initially, but that sort of interest came later.
And when I started to develop this interest and I sort of
thought, well, why don't I give a go at making my, my own
setting, it started off quite rough initially.
I've seen some of my initial notes that are honestly quite
(06:19):
embarrassing. But it's, it's as I've developed
and gotten a real understanding of what I wanted from the
setting, I've sort of, I've sortof improved that.
And as I went along, my notes soinsane that wouldn't make
understand any other human being.
But I understand them sort of the important part.
(06:42):
Is you have them and they're notjust randomly found by somebody
in notebooks collected anywhere that with no context.
Now this is work. This is.
Yeah, this. Is not the ramblings, random
scribblings of a madman. That's the important part.
Well, they might be, but yeah, but you've you've you've agree
something. With it, that's the important
part, yes, Yeah. So, and one of the games that I
(07:04):
mentioned actually was a big inspiration for me initially,
which was Vampire the MasqueradeBloodlines, which we'll talk
about later. That's sort of one of the
reasons I chose that game. Also, you know, you're looking
at, you know, Vampire games, particularly gothic vampire
games that even more particular RPGs.
(07:26):
There isn't a massive choice to come from.
If we're honest, though, it justmade logical sense to me to pick
that one. So artistically speaking with
the, you've kind of built this entire world out and there's,
you know, it, it, it just screams the gothic feel to it
while you're playing it, while you're looking at it.
(07:47):
How did you, you know, decide onthe art style visually speaking,
which I think was important, butalso the, the music in the
background, the, the audio that's kind of it's all coming
together. And, you know, if you're, you're
playing, I opted for playing this in the basement, turning
the lights off and just kind of kind of living with it.
(08:08):
And I think I recommend for anybody who could do that.
Yeah, listen, turn the lights off, enjoy.
And, and kind of it lets you drink it, drink it in a little
bit more. But you, you really tied
everything together. I think even from a, from AI,
forgive me. I, you know, I saw, I saw on the
credits who your narrator was while I was playing Isaac's
introduction section there. But I, I think it all kind of
(08:32):
really comes together when you have the, this, the art style
and I'm trying to go for like a gothic oil painting type of a
feel or something along those lines.
I'm, I'm a moron who claps, claps 2 rocks together.
So forgive me if I, I misinterpreted what that art
style looks like. But you got the, you got the
music and you've got a, a narrator that like all three
(08:53):
pieces come together and really kind of bring into the world.
How did you manage to balance all that to to get that feel?
So it is, you know, it's difficult and you, you have
doubts like like with the with the narrator, I thought, yeah,
this guy's fantastic, he's done a fantastic job.
And then have this doubt in my head.
(09:14):
It's like, do I know what soundsgood?
You know, you've got all these things that you've got to,
you've got to balance and you'reworking with, even with like a
small project like this, I'm working with the people.
And so they've got to get it fororder for it to all come
together. And you know, I've had the get
what's? Out of here and get get what's
in your head and your notes too.Like they, they don't have the
(09:36):
they don't have the mental vision you do of things, but
they also don't necessarily havelike every piece coming
together. So you're trying to piece these
things together with different people with different
specialties too. That's the funny part.
Yeah. And when it actually comes to
the art style, so I had the privilege of working with a a
very talented developer as well.We were both working together on
(09:58):
importance in Red. He likes to be known as Maha and
we were discussing the what's past his importance, the base
game. As I say, well, I'm going to
need to get an artist. And he was very keen to give it
a go. And he was he didn't really have
that much experience with that sort of thing, but he wants to
(10:20):
give it a go and he did a fantastic job.
He just really gets the sort of the vision.
He's just so good at that and hehe done this art with not really
any experience and I, I just, I had to keep reminding how good
it is. Didn't really believe it, but it
was. It's incredible artwork that he
put together without really any experience.
(10:43):
So like did you give him the script and he just kind of
visualize or are you sharing like I'm I'm picturing, do you
have, do you have like visual inspirations you were working
off of? Like how did you, how do you
communicate that to somebody? Because yeah, you've got the
vision in your head and you've got somebody else who, and it's
funny hearing they had limited experience.
I would have never guessed that for for sure.
(11:03):
But like you're communicating somebody who on top of these has
a limited experience. Really.
How did you get the image out ofyour head and into someone
else's hand to to generate it? Yeah.
So, you know, it's quite difficult and sometimes you
won't always get it right, at least not initially.
I think we've really gotten a good understanding from working
(11:25):
together. We sort of get each other.
And so that does help. But you know, it takes time to
perfect that. So generally think generally I
would describe the things that Iwanted.
So these would be things like backgrounds, characters.
And then I would, particularly the backgrounds, I would look
(11:48):
for references. In a lot of cases, this is the
sort of thing, you know, don't copy it exactly, but this is
sort of the sort of vibe. The vibe.
Yeah. So, and it's like you partly,
but it is always difficult because it's almost like you,
you are sort of, you know, thereis Gothic, Gothic architecture
(12:10):
in the world, but it's not the real world isn't quite as Gothic
as Harold World. So you are sort of you're trying
your best with what you've got. Yeah.
And sometimes, you know, you look at, you know, other
projects that come before and there are some good examples,
but also there isn't a lot of examples.
(12:31):
So there is actually a lot of good examples of Gothic vampire
games and unfortunately a lot ofones that have that were in
development never actually saw the light of day.
So you've got these scraps of these ideas and these concept
art for things that didn't necessarily come out.
(12:51):
You know, these are things from big companies or from small
developers that just never came out.
And stuff that's actually come out and is playable is actually
quite small. So it is quite limited what you
can draw inspiration from, see you know, so you've got to,
you've got to be got to sometimes widen it a little bit
(13:13):
and try and look around to see what you can find.
So, so the other big piece that I you know, you did not do your
own audio music scoring for the game either.
So that's something else that you had to like, you know,
scripting. Hey, listen, you can, you can
write, you can script. I think that you see the, you
feel, the 10 years, you feel thedepth in that.
And, and I feel like that might have been not the easiest part
(13:35):
to, to get out since it took youa decade, right?
Like you just, you're, you're trying to deal with your own
like combating and trying to geteverything perfect and just
right and, and balancing all that.
But then like you also have the audio to, to get out there.
And how do you, how do you, how do you do that?
Yeah. So again, I have the privilege
of working with very talented composer, he's called Stefan He
(14:00):
so he initially started doing some music for Portents in Red.
And so he's he's already done actually a bunch of tracks for
portents in Red, many of which people haven't heard yet but
sound amazing. But you'll have to wait and see
for those. But then, yeah, they seem
logical to ask him to do the music for what's past his
(14:23):
portents because he really got the style I was after.
And then it also sort of almost fits it more together because
it, as I said, it just sort of acts as a prelude, 2 portions in
red. So for that, I again, I sort of
looked at music, that music thatsort of got the style, the vibe
(14:46):
that I was after that this is the sort of thing, again,
obviously don't copy this, but even more particularly with
music. But yeah, this is the sort of
thing you know, and then you want.
To you want to evoke a feeling right?
Like that's so they can I I can't figure out how it's
awesome. Here's what I want to feel they
got to figure out. What that?
(15:07):
How? How to make that?
Audio you transfer into audio, yeah.
Yeah, so I'd often talk about. So I'd often with that with the
visual novels. So what's passes pawns, I'd
often send recordings of the theof the story or bits of the
(15:28):
story. So that would often the music's
often done last has been so far anyway, for what's passes
portents. So I'd send that over and say,
well, this is the story, you know, and that's sort of leaving
to it. When it comes to Portents in
Red, we sort of have a bit more of a discussion about the music.
(15:50):
So it's things like music for different factions.
So they have their own sort of basis of operations.
This is where it is, this is what they're all about, you
know, sort of invoke those ideasof what that factions all about.
But yeah, it's, I think again, Ithink Stefan's got a really good
idea of what I'm after now, so, and he's, it's really good to
(16:13):
work with so. So the the second thing I want
to say, because I, I want to talk about portents in read a
little bit and kind of what's building with the RPG side of
things. But you know, I've, I've got my
hands on the visual novel side of things too, and, and, and
getting the feel for the world. So I do want to ask about that.
One more thing I want to ask is just, you know, structurally
(16:36):
speaking, yeah. You never know with a visual
novel, right? There's things with visual
novels as a as a medium. They can, they can be just that
they're a novel, which means youstart on Page 1 and you finish
on page whatever it ends on. Yours is not the case.
You've got a little bit more of a choose your own adventure vibe
(16:57):
to it that like, yeah, you've got multiple paths you can take,
which can be challenging or complicated narratively
speaking. And by narratively, I mean, you
know, one from a programming perspective. 2 just trying to
trying to build upon it and every branch you create like,
OK, what's going to happen here,technically speaking, which can
(17:19):
be its own kind of fun challengeand things, right.
And then, but also just like, how do you, how do you tie it
back together? Because there's points for like,
OK, you see where, where it loops back in and there's others
that branch off and kind of do their own thing.
And yeah, just kind of curious, like how, how do you, how do you
tie all that together? Because you took the better
(17:39):
route as far as I'm concerned for visual novels, because you
you do give a little bit of wiggle room to.
Yeah, to see. What's going to happen here?
Yeah. So there's there is a there is a
slight complication with what's past importance and both the
base game and the DLC stories inthat they sort of need a
(18:00):
predetermined destination because these are characters
that will appear in Portance in Red.
They need to get to a place where importance in Red can
happen. They need to be.
So that does limit me slightly. But you know, when I originally
conceived the idea for the visual novel, I thought it's
(18:23):
just going to be a story withoutany choices.
And then I thought about it and I thought, that's not very much
fun, is it? So you're.
Building it like, because you're, you're, you're building
as a teaser for an RPG, which isan extra, an extra, not
complicate. I don't mean to say complication
in a negative way, but like you're giving yourself an extra
challenge with that. You're not, you're not making
(18:43):
things easier on yourself when you, when you decide that's
going to be the case, because you want an RPG to OK, you're,
you're role-playing, you want tomake the story your own.
So you're you're taking a mediumthat that often ends up going in
unilaterally and you're trying to give it a little, little
spice. Yeah, so and it and it's
(19:04):
interesting how there's so many ways that it differs from most
visual novels and I just seem tochoose all the options to make
it different. Just seems to be just so you
choose the. Options to make it difficult,
but these are different, OK. But again, like that's that's
difficult for you, but more interesting for everybody else I
guess. Yeah.
So of course, a lot of visual novels are like 1 long story as
(19:29):
you mentioned before. And this is more like lots of
different little stories that are connected by purpose.
So, you know, each, each story is obviously much shorter than a
sort of long visual novel, but they all have different
characters, different locations.So you've basically got to come
(19:51):
up from scratch each time. But to to answer your initial
question, because I think I've gone off it, the it's about the
choices. So, yeah, so.
With that, with the, with Isaac's story, which is the
story in the base game, I didn'treally have a plan for that.
I sort of winged it. So basically in the end I
(20:15):
determined that most of the and then again, it links to all the
achievements as well, of course.So a lot of it comes in sort of
the, the sort of second-half of the story where and it's all
about, you know, you're, you're basically rewarded for asking
(20:36):
questions. Your curiosity is rewarded with
achievements. You want to know more about
what's going on. Well, you will like to get an
achievement. That was sort of the thinking
for that. And then it was just the rest of
it was just what can, what can be a bit fun.
So, and how can we do this a bitdifferent?
And I just thought, I thought itwould be quite funny if you
(20:59):
know, you've just started and then you have an option where
you can just die. And I thought that would be and
then and then you get an achievement for being stupid.
And what's great about that, in my opinion anyways, it sort of
gives you a hint that maybe you shouldn't stay.
(21:21):
It try, it tries to warn you away from that, yeah.
Yeah, and you do it anyway. Then you die, of course.
So yes, you get those game overswhich which, which aren't Canon,
but they're fun. The way you know it's the Canon
ending is when it has the credits, so.
I nailed it. I got through it.
That's all that mattered. Yeah.
(21:42):
Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah, so the once you're sort of
in the final bit, there's a few different ways you can get to
those credits, that final ending.
And then then of course you got the epilogue after that.
We sort of it's to round it up, I, I came up with the epilogue
and. And tea and tea.
It felt like it was teasing more.
That's the. Yeah.
(22:02):
After the credits, yeah. Yeah, so I actually added the
epilogue later. So when it originally released,
there was no narrator, so no voice acting.
And I've decided to add that later.
And then I also decided to add the epilogue because there was a
bit of ambiguity on the the ending.
What happens to Isaac? That's obviously quite important
(22:24):
because he's going to be an important character importance
in red. So I sort of added that just to
like, you know, explain it basically it's, you know, it's.
So that's why why I did that. Yeah, yeah.
But you get to you, you tease throughout, you kind of weave it
and bring it back together so. Yeah.
That's how you wanted it to work.
(22:45):
So, so let me ask, so importancein red, what, what's, do we have
a status update with that? Or what, what's kind of the, the
runway looking like for that 'cause you're, you're building
towards that as much as you've got the, the visual novel tying
in and creating the world and giving the vibe you're, you're
building towards something seemsto be a lot bigger, a lot, a lot
more ambitious. And that can be challenging at
the same time too, in and of itself.
(23:06):
But you know what should we be on the look at with portents in
red? It's a proof that I might be
insane just how big it is. Like it's, yes, it's very
ambitious and that's sort of whywe decided to do what's passed
as importance, because then it'ssomething to sort of whet
people's appetite before it introduces these things, these
(23:31):
concepts, his factions, his characters in a more sort of a
more gradual pace. And also just gives us a bit
more time to work on importance in Red.
So obviously it's a lot bigger project.
So right now we're working on sort of the the the models, the
(23:52):
the systems to make it all work.Story itself is most of it is
planned out. I have, I've very good idea of
how I want it to start, how I want it to end and quite a good
idea of the things happening between.
So the main storyline I want to have a lot, I want to have a lot
(24:12):
of RPGs producing called them side quests.
I'm going to, we're going to call them tasks rather than
quests, but, you know, sort of lots of no side things you can
do besides the main story. But yeah, there's still a lot of
work to do. Ideally, at some point we might
(24:35):
be looking at maybe doing a Kickstarter with some of the
crowdfunding just to help with that development and maybe bring
a few more people on board. Because it is.
Yeah, it's basically just me andanother developer and thankfully
the developer is very talented, but it is quite hard that it's
just two of us working and we'vewe are basically working on two
(24:59):
games at the same time. Well, yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll
just jump in here and say we'll talk about it your first game,
but you want to talk about development cycles for
challenging development. You're you're in a challenging
development genre. It feels like it is a it is, it
is one with a storied history of, you know, the the developing
cycle can be, can be challengingfor sure.
(25:21):
But yeah, now again, you're, you're building the hype though,
you're building the, you're building everything up.
That's the important part. Yeah.
But yeah, I always knew it was going to be difficult, but you
know, sometimes that that makes it all the more sweet when you
achieve it. And it's it's very much the game
importance is very much the gameI really want to make.
(25:43):
So we're going to have to make it, even if it takes a bit.
The last thing I want to bring up, so you've got a little bit
of a you got a long term plan too, right?
You've got book ideas, you've got, you know, Dracula fawn
longer term, I think is really what it comes down to.
So this is not, you know, there are people come along and and
they, they're, they're trying toput something together.
(26:04):
You've got, like I said, you've had a decade of a world building
in your head that you're trying to to get out there too.
So you've really kind of got kind of got everything in the
works here but you. Want to touch on that.
Yeah. So I've got lots of ideas, lots
of plans. Yeah.
So we're looking, I'm looking atcompleting Wormwood Rising,
which is a which is a short story, not a game, just fiction,
(26:30):
which would sort of introduce readers to the magical folk of
Harold World as opposed to vampires.
Excellent. Well, we, we've teased I I love
talking with developers too, youknow, about their some of the
games that, you know, we always talk three games and usually
ends up there being some inspiration or something from
the huge thing along those lines.
(26:50):
So I think we've got a bit of both here for you that we've got
some, we've got some past, we'vegot some inspiration.
We've got one utterly ridiculousone that I I can't talk about
either, but. Always get a ridiculous one,
yeah? But, but, but we kind of teased
talking about, you know, obviously Vampire the Masquerade
and and Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines being an inspiration
(27:10):
for for many of vampire games since then.
But you know, this one came out 21 years ago now I painfully
say, but yeah, this is it was a game.
You know, The funny thing is I hadn't realized this thing.
I knew it was, you know, it's a cult game, right?
We'll we'll see that. And I don't mean like it's a
game about the occult. Yes, it is technically, but I
(27:31):
mean the thing, the thing kind of got, you know, first of all,
had a very rough development cycles.
I teased earlier here, but the thing sold fewer than 80,000
copies, but has been carrying onone with the the RPG.
It is Vampire of the Masquerade itself that that carries on.
But two, there's well, I'll, I'll talk about the other side
with like, no, they're still working on a sequel that we may
(27:53):
actually even see this year. Apparently it also has its own
terrifying development cycle too, but that's a separate story
for another day. But but you wanted to, you know,
I said, let's talk three games and the first one, you said it
was Vampire of the Masquerade Bloodlines.
All of all of its 21 years of age at this point.
Yeah, it's it's a funny one. And yeah, they are working on a
sequel and I have opinions. I and we're all going to find
(28:18):
out again. We may even be able to share
those opinions in two months, who knows?
I was like, wait, they actually put a date on it?
I didn't realise that. Oh God.
Yeah, they put a month on it. I don't think they put a.
That's true, yes. I did not see an actual date.
It said October of 2025 at this point, which is it's closer,
it's closer. But anyway.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah.
Well, when I actually started working on Importancy Read,
(28:41):
initially I was under the impression that Bloodlines 2 was
not going to release because it was in there was like a big
period of time where there was nothing.
Well, you it changed developers like they completely.
I don't know if they completely scrapped it or they transferred,
but I'd like it went to a new developer.
That's yeah. So that's what he says.
(29:01):
Like I don't know if it's going to happen.
Like no, it changed developers all together, like it was in the
wasteland. So yeah.
Yeah, so that was crazy thing. But yeah, when you and you know,
I'm not going to say too much about the sequel, but it the
original has has quite a important place in my heart
(29:22):
because it was. And actually when you when you
learn more about the developments and the problems
the studio had, which was Truckee Games, it sort of gives
you a greater understanding and appreciation of how good the
game is. They had so many problems during
development, like they had this,they were forced to use this
(29:43):
game engine that wasn't finished.
They kept having to update it. So every time they updated the
thing, they basically had to start things from scratch.
And then they made them release it.
The the the so the the publishers that would be
activism decided to release it at the same time as Half Life
too, which was basically the name of the coffin, like the
(30:04):
hospital. Players into this?
No, no, they're they're gone now.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and they had all these
problems and they were trying to, but like when you look at
all the games from around that time, it looks really good
despite the problems. And there were, you know, there
were places where it looks a bitunfinished because it is.
(30:25):
But there's, there's a real, there's a great atmosphere to
it. And and it's something that is
rarely it's, it's not really been replicated.
For 21, I get for For more than two decades, that's like.
Yeah, and and. Again, it was ambitious too,
because like you're taking a, a role-playing game, not like the,
(30:49):
the Final Fantasy sense, but you're taking a game where like,
no, people do this IRL, if you will.
And this is not, not called a tabletop, but like no, this is
something you do more of. AII wouldn't even compare it to
Dungeons and Dragons because frankly, the, the events and,
and things that have occurred around Vampire the Masquerade,
like I've heard of elaborate things where like they've rented
(31:10):
out basically an entire hotel to, to play or like an entire
warehouse to. No, you, you come in and there's
150 people at this event and they are living out a fully
orchestrated multi floor event. So like you're, you're, you're
talking about something that's pretty ambitious here to try to
go after. And they were trying to capture
(31:31):
as much of it as they possibly could too.
Like they weren't going to be like, oh, we're going to make a
game and just call it Vampire the Masquerade.
Like no, they wanted to capture as much of the spirit of it as
they could too. Yeah, I think they, I think they
did a good job with, with what they're working with.
You know, the, the Law of Vampire and Masquerade is quite
(31:53):
expansive, sometimes a bit messy.
I don't think that's unfair to say.
It's had a long development and lots of things have been,
they've had lots of material written for it, but they, they
took it, they took all the best parts of it and they brought it
to life. And, you know, that was, and he
made this game with this amazingatmosphere that, again, hasn't
(32:15):
been replicated since. So that was a big inspiration on
me. And so I wanted to do something
not exactly the same, but with there's obviously going to be
similarities. It's inevitable.
You take inspiration from the things that have gone before,
everyone does. And so you know, there'll be
(32:36):
yes. So we've like with my work,
there'll be similarities but there'll always be differences.
And because I have my own taste,my own opinions, I don't just
want to replicate what they've already done.
I want to do something slightly different.
You know, it might well appeal to the same people who enjoyed
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, but may appeal to
other people as well. But yeah, it's a very important
(32:59):
game for me. You know, it hasn't always aged
well in all aspects, but, you know, you know, as you say, it's
like 21 years old. However it is.
It was 2004, wasn't it? Yeah.
So it's not always going to haveaged well in all aspects, but
it, you know, there's still, youknow, there were, there were
games that are made now that don't measure up to that.
(33:22):
So you know. You know lots now, yes.
Yes. So yeah, I think I don't think
it's unfair to, you know, it's it is it's a classic.
It's, you know, as you say, it'sa cult classic and there's, you
know, it's there was a lot of heart in the development which
comes through and you know, it'sjust real unfortunate the studio
(33:42):
went down so aft so soon after the release.
When did you find your way into the actual game itself?
I would have been so I would have been too young to play it
when it released. Which you might have guessed,
yeah. Yeah, again, I'm not to make
assumptions or anything, but I, I kind of figured you weren't
(34:04):
playing this one then. No judgement towards your
parents. I mean, maybe you were all but
but but yeah. When did you end up in it
though? I would have been sort of mid to
late teens. I would have found it.
And, you know, I sort of heard things about it and I thought,
you know, why don't I give it a go?
(34:25):
It's there. Let me check it out.
Was this like a Steam? Let me go, Let me go check it
out on Steam type of thing, Yeah.
And then you get it on Steam andrealise it doesn't work, and
then you panic and have to find out how to make it work because
it doesn't play on modern machines without the unofficial
patch that isn't included on theSteam version.
Yeah, they can make it interesting.
(34:46):
Yeah, so that's fun to find out,you know, a few negative reviews
they've gotten on there because of that.
Well, kind of understand that, but yeah, it's.
But I suppose it's in a weird place because the developer
doesn't exist anymore. It's just just being put on
there, presumably by the publisher, who probably don't
really have anything to do. Activision just gets a check
(35:07):
once in a while. Yeah.
What else is new for them? They need to they have to go buy
and close another site. I guess I should not have said
that part, sorry and moving on. So did you?
Did you dabble in any of the Vampire of the Masquerade
outside of the game, out of curiosity?
(35:27):
Not really because I've I've notreally heard of it out so.
It it is culty in and of itself.Yes, it is.
It's one of those things like you have to, you got to find the
culture somewhere. Like it's it's it the the whole
theme of it is you're, you're hiding the vampire culture in
modern times. And like they kind of hide the
the players in modern times too,but they there is a weird
(35:50):
underground cult of it that exists.
That's the funny part. It's just a matter of like.
Finding it? Yeah, well, wouldn't you know it
exists. You can find them.
But well, I've never actually met someone in person who really
knows about it, so I only found out about it through the
Internet basically. And I thought, well, you know,
it looks interesting. So and it was.
(36:11):
And it is that sort of that ideathat's quite unique, that
vampires and other creatures canexist secretly among humanity in
sort of the modern day. And I thought that was a really
cool idea. And that's sort of what I've run
with, because if that's such an interesting but basic idea, you
(36:31):
can do things with that, of course.
But that basic idea, more so than actually the law itself,
just that basic idea was really fascinating.
You have a you have a second game in in the vampire realm of
vampire and this one at least a little newer 2018 though, I was
as I was like I was only a couple years.
(36:52):
Oh, that was seven years ago now.
Never, never mind how that that's the that's the only way I
realized that. But this, this is don't nods
action RPG where you're, you're playing a newly turned vampire
in, in, in in some older times, but you're, you know, they, they
give the element that you were adoctor and you're dealing with.
(37:14):
I think this one's got a little bit, it's got an interesting
narrative, right 'cause you're, you're a doctor and you're
suddenly thrust into this, this underground of, to your point,
the, the occult, the mythology, werewolves, all, all sorts of
mythological creatures that are that are underlying there.
But So what? What made you bring this one up?
(37:37):
Well, again, there isn't many vampire games you can really
pull off, particularly vampire RPGs.
This one, I thought there's lotsI could say about it.
I thought that would be a good reason to suggest it.
So, you know, there's, I quite like, there's definitely
ambition there, which I like. I think it's different to say
(38:00):
bloodlines in that you have a predetermined character.
This is who you play, this is who they are, this is their
history, etcetera. And I do like the, I like the
historical setting. I kind of wish it was Victorian,
but it's quite nice anyway. So it's nice.
It's quite an interesting periodof history because it's right
(38:21):
after, I think it's the First World War and it's during the
Spanish flu epidemic, which is areal point in history where
actually more people died from the epidemic than did the war.
And it's sort of in this sort ofalternative version of those
events, which I think is quite an interesting way to go with
it. And, you know, I quite like the
story, You know, you know, there's lots of interesting
(38:43):
things you can go with the idea,you know, you're you're fighting
between your Hippocratic Oath and being a vampire.
That's quite interesting. I think what I what I take away
from it is that it struggles with its identity.
And I think this is partly to dowith because, you know, you look
(39:10):
at that. How do I word this when you
you're dealing with a game of? It at the same time is that the
the piece you're touching? On there or like so no, so like
you have these big companies andthey'll be like, well, this is
doing well, so we've got to do this and I get that a lot from
vampire like so on one hand it'strying to be this sort of
(39:31):
atmospheric interesting story about being a vampire.
You're going to make these choices, which is really
interesting, and on the other hand you've got this sort of
almost souls like. Thing the action the action side
of the action RPG. Yeah, I don't mind there being
action because obviously there'saction in Bloodlines.
Yeah, I think they merge it slightly better in Bloodlines.
(39:57):
I think it fits more of the story in a lot of cases.
Whereas in Vampire it almost feels like you're just killing
people for no reason. Like these people are just here
and they want to kill me. I don't know who they are or why
they're doing it, but they're here.
You just. Kind of zoom.
You just kind of zoom out into abattle sequence too, That's the
thing. Like.
Basically, yeah, you have. Like these intimate scenes and
(40:17):
like quiet retrospective. And like you said, your, your,
your character is dealing with the, the philosophical issues at
hand. So like no, we're going to zoom
out and you're going to go battle this like 4 people that
are coming at you all of a sudden.
Yeah, yeah. And then you, you know, you then
you go go rest to, you know, maybe upgrade or whatever and
the person you've just killed has respawned.
(40:40):
Great. What was the point of killing
him right there again? This really is dark sauce.
Yeah. What was the.
I don't. I would have, I would have much
preferred even if they'd had allthose enemies in place, if it
didn't respawn, because now they're not real people.
They're just, yeah, you also have the the, that was my
(41:01):
problem when they remade The Last of Us Part 2 and they added
the, the like, roguelike element.
I'm like, oh, it's a game about like not wanting to kill people.
Like, oh, here's an endless killing people section of the
thing. I'm like you, you guys kind of
lost the thread you created herethis one too.
And like, what's what's the point of having your character,
you know, trying to, to deal with the impact of like, oh, now
(41:23):
I've got to start killing all these people and I swore my life
to to doing no harm. They've got another back.
Anyway, it's all good. Yeah, yeah.
So like I don't, part of me thinks maybe they sort of maybe
start to run out of time, but part of me also thinks like
somebody went, well, Dark Souls is popular, so we better do
that. And it just, to me, it feels it
doesn't quite work. But maybe that's just my
(41:45):
opinion. And I, I've seen some reviews
that quite a few reviews where people go, well, the dark soul,
the souls like combat isn't evenvery good souls like combat.
But I'm not really a fan of souls like anyway.
So I don't really, I don't really know if it's a good
iteration of that, but I have heard opinions that it's not.
(42:07):
But it's, it's just, I just, I just think the identity is a bit
confused. I mean, obviously action would
take a part of it, which makes sense.
And I have a problem with that. I just would prefer if it was
more integrated to the story, like it made more sense.
It just sort of brings me out ofit when there's just random
(42:27):
enemies all the time for no reason or when they respawn and
things like that. But the story is, the story is
interesting, Some good music to it.
I like that you can feed you in combat.
That's a good innovation that itdoes bring have mixed feelings
about the fact you have to kill every time you feed, but you
(42:51):
know it. I suppose that goes back to the
curse be the choice element, which is the whole tagline.
So there's there's some there's some logic to that decision as
well. Your third game you brought up
in the game, the game I've been teasing was just the most
ridiculous of the three. I, I want to say last year's
Cult of the Lamb, but apparentlythis was three years now.
This is just dumb. Time is dumb.
(43:11):
Time is dumb is all I'm getting out of the games you brought up
today. But it might say more about me
than time. But yeah.
No, no, because it feels like itwas just like I was only playing
this a couple of months ago. No, it was three years ago.
But yeah, we, we've got a rogue like here now in the, in the mix
with the, the, the widest of gaps between his character
(43:33):
design and it's and it's theme where you are a lamb saved by a,
a demigod got something along those lines.
So it's something of high power that says, hey, you got to make
a cult for me now. And you have to build followers
and sacrifice them and go go do roguelike runs to build up your
build up your camp and your cultand everything else along the
way. So, but yeah, anyway, that's,
(43:55):
that's where we're at. So what?
What? Alright, so we're, we're
straying, we're straying a little bit from your other two
games. How did so so go on?
Please tell me. Well, I thought, you know, I was
trying to think what's a good mainstream, a more mainstream
option that doesn't delve too far because it's still
(44:16):
supernatural and things. It's not vampires, but it's,
it's demons and monsters and things.
And I thought, well, you know, Cult of the Lamb and the genius
of Cult of the Lamb because it is genius.
And it's, it's not the style that I go with, obviously, but
there is a genius to it where you, you do with these themes
that you know, are quite dark and quite, you know, occult, as
(44:38):
you say, but you put it in a style where you can get away
with more things and get a lowerage rating.
So, and it's like like you need play it.
You sometimes forget what you'reactually playing.
And then like it was like when the first time I so you can like
(44:58):
you can harvest your followers for me the first time I did
that. And it's like, oh, this is
actually quiet. This is quiet.
DL for the for the style. You until until you said that I
didn't realize that game was a team A-Team rated game by the
ESRBII don't know what the rating the rating is over there
with but but Oh my God, I didn'trealize this was AI always
(45:21):
assumed it was an M rated game but oh go on.
Sorry that distracted me. I was like, wait, what do you
mean Oh my God. Yeah, so it's it's a 12 over
here. So a lot of games that are teen
over there are 12 over here. The the age ratings tend to line
up quite well when it comes to games.
They just have slightly different.
Names Movie ratings get weirder between Britain and America, but
yes. Yeah, but the movie ratings are
(45:43):
least in line here. Yeah, I think the the way the
movie ratings get weird is because Britain, the UK has a
15, whereas the US doesn't really have a 15 equivalent.
No. So basically all the gay, all
the movies that would be a 15 or18 here or like a we have the
(46:04):
PG. 13 and the R and you've got hard lines on some of yours like
no, no, no, the 18 means 18. Yeah, yeah.
So there's but yeah, but it lines up quite well with the
game. The call to the lamb is T
anyway, T&T or 12:00, depending on where you're at.
That's that's why I, I never realized that you're you're
dealing with feces everywhere. You're dealing with just like
(46:24):
like the sacrificial ceremonies,like no, I'm going to jam a
knife and and like you said, harvest this.
This was getting a little older,a little sick.
Let's go. Is this the one I'm going to
sacrifice? We're going to sacrifice the
young healthy one that's gettingget a little sassy, getting out
of line and questioning whether I'm in charge or whether they
should be giving this worship and all that which, Who am I
going to sacrifice this time? Yeah.
(46:45):
Yeah, like you and you cutting them off and like this is quite
dark and this is this is like, you know, this is a team, this
is a 12 game and you're cutting them off and it is, you know,
for the even for the art style, it's quite dark what you're
doing. You can.
It's quite. Oh yeah, they're happy go lucky
little cartoon creatures. Yeah, the art style is the
funniest part. You probably, you make it, you
(47:08):
change the art style and the game goes immediately to an
Amber 18 or whatever. So.
Yeah, if I made this game, caught the lamb in my style, it
would be an 18. So that's just, but it's an
element of genius to that. But then you have things like,
and then you have basically cannibalism because you can feed
the meat to their followers. OK, they are animals, but
(47:32):
they're basically people. So it's.
It's basically cannabis. Yeah.
And then you get, and then of course, you got the things.
Feces stuff is weird, though. You just get some.
You just want to eat feces. It's like why?
It's got to be I got the boon that gives me the benefits for
it, so I'm going after you. It's weird.
(47:55):
And then, yeah, that is, that's a bit weird.
Never quite got that part, but yeah.
And then, and it's funny becauseit obviously has these dungeons
that it disguises quite well as as, as as trying to, you know,
is not dungeons, but they are dungeons in a gameplay
development sort of stands. And I actually quite enjoy
(48:15):
those, which is quite strange because I always didn't like
dungeons, like dungeon style games.
But I quite like Core of the Lamb.
It masters it quite well and it's quite varied and mixes it
all. Yeah, you get those you get
those rogue like elements of like, OK, what weapons am I
getting on this run? What how do I, how do I stack?
How do I combine? You know, you're trying to
figure out like what are the pieces you want to you want to
(48:38):
make work or like what's it sending me up against now?
It always, you know, for the forthe well done ones works well
for the ones where they they didn't really think entirely
through what that looks like. It makes it annoying, boring,
and makes you feel like you're you're you're praying to the RNG
guys for the random number generator to give you something
helpful, but it feels like they they thought this one through.
(49:00):
Yeah. And it's interesting to say now
I've just made me think of, if you compare it to like Hitman
Freelancer, which is the new roguelike mode for Hitman, I
think they call it Word of Assassination.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah. The, the Hitman Freelancer is
really frustrating to play for me because to be honest, I was
never that good at Hitman anyway.
(49:20):
And I had all these, like, crutches I could rely on to sort
of get me through it, including,you know, reloading.
So if you die and then those areall gone and, like, you lose
everything. And it's like, at least we've
caught the lamb. You don't lose every single
thing you've done when you die. I never messed with that Hitman
one because I just had I I feel like there was going to be some
(49:41):
money grab element to that I want to get involved with so.
There wasn't really a money grabelement, it was just like but it
is just reusing the same maps again.
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.
And it's like, well, I want, I think we've Hitman.
I want they'd keep using the same maps.
And it's like, give me new maps.I want new maps.
(50:03):
That's what I want from you. I don't want the same map 50
million times. You know, there were
complications with, I don't know, I know they had some
difficulties, I think around thedevelopments of Hitman 2.
So yeah, whatever, that's just my opinion and.
Now they're doing bonds, so they're just they're going the
rest of the way now, so. Yeah, going the rest of the way.
(50:24):
That's quite an that was interesting amount when I saw
that. And it's like, yeah, well, you
know, I think something new withJames Bond is what you need,
whether that's seen video games or movies.
Yeah, we've been chasing that Goldeneye high in video games
for Yeah, right. And, and what started with I, I,
I liked a couple of the Craig Bonds in particular.
Not to go to the movie chat too much, but no, we, we, we're
(50:45):
through the dark and gritty era.Let's see what the Let's see if
we can bring up new here. Yeah, I mean, you know, making
him James Bond younger is something different, you know,
and you need something different.
Will it work? I don't know.
But you know, it's worth a go. Now it's an entirely different
control because they found out the exact amount of money that
Broccolis needed to say, cool, we're out.
(51:05):
Yeah. Who knew?
Who knew that dollar figure existed?
So here we are. Yeah.
Crazy, yeah. Well, Colt to the lamb go check
it out, especially since it's rated teen.
Though I again, I sit here with the 12 year.
I'm like, I don't know how I would explain this game to my
son. I don't know how I would explain
this because I I never thought Ihad.
I would have to, but oh God. Yeah, like, yeah, it's crazy,
(51:27):
isn't it? But it must be the art style,
because what else could it explain that, Adrian?
Because it has, like you said, it has like the blood has
everything like like no, they just because they made it a
little cartoony. I guess it's all good.
Yeah, like, and maybe because hemade them animals, but he's
treated as people. They're basically people, the
people with animals. The.
Religion and cult elements of explaining all that I I don't, I
(51:50):
don't know anyway, well, he knows we we've reached a point
where we take a quest or a question from the Channel 3
history books. Just a quick little little
something I found with and I just want to ask you what what's
the game you have the most hourslogged in?
Hours logged in Vampire and matscreate bloodlines.
How how much time do you think you spent on?
(52:11):
Them so it's funny because Steamlogs the time you're in games
but because there's various modswith bloodlines that are played
due to the way the mod launcher works, it only counts sort of
the base game hours. So it could actually be a lot
(52:33):
more than it actually says on Steam because it doesn't go
through Steam for the mod launcher.
So. But I'll tell you what it says
on Steam, and this is my highesthours listed.
I'll get it up. It's 586.8 hours so yeah, so.
(52:53):
You knew you meant it. Yeah, it's it's any surprise of
making a vampire Rafi? Yeah, I want to make Yeah, I
want to make a new game that, you know, captures that feeling,
but a more modern game because obviously it's, you know, it's
over 20 years ago and it is of my opinion that the the sequel
(53:19):
won't do that. But that's just my opinion.
But it'd be a different law anyway.
We may or may not see. We'll see.
We may or may not see, I mean, Idon't know what I'm talking
about. You know, people might love it.
I, I don't know. It's just what, what I've seen.
And that's totally an unbiased opinion.
It may seem like a biased opinion.
It's not. It's just from what I've seen
(53:40):
from it. Well, again, I mentioned we're
going to we're going to wind things down here.
This is not my normal spot. Normally my Co host this year,
but he's not here for the daytime recording.
So I've got to land this plane. But the first thing I will do,
let everybody know you'll you'llsee some quests that have
dropped related to harrowed world.
So we'll have, you know, wish listing importance in red going
and playing what's what's past his importance as a as a part of
(54:04):
this. So you'll have some activities
for everybody to go do go check that out.
But you know, Alex has everything set up at Harold
World on Channel 3. So you get the links to the
links to everything are on his page there.
So just go to to channel 3 dot GG slash Harold World and you'll
you'll see everything you need to go find all things harrowed
(54:25):
world, the links to the Ichio, the links to steam again, we'll
have the quests that are there for it.
So you have all things tied to what Alex has been putting
together here and and go play because that'll be that'll be
one of the activities to to go do go play.
What's past importance. But I will, I will wind things
down then say just running C3 dot GG slash Harrod world or
(54:48):
channel 3 dot GG slash Harrod world.
We'll get you to Alex's page there.
Podcast, C3 dot GG slash podcast.
You'll find us there Wednesdays,3:33 AM in the morning, all the
majors, YouTube Music, Apple. Someone pointed out we're on
Audible. Like we got, we got Audible out
there. But our homes, our homes on
Spotify, we're, we're, we're on places I've never even heard of.
(55:09):
I'm Dan Ray. Ray would be with me otherwise.
Joel Willis, executive producingAnd shout out to Castor Garden
for our theme song. Go check out his quest too,
because he just dropped his first full album.
So Castor Garden's got an album out there.
Go go check it out, people. Have a good day.
(55:30):
Channel 3 is the future.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.