Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Interviews: Renee Gittins

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SMNTY Interviews: Renee Gittins · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your protective of iHeartRadio.
0:18
Speaker 2: Today we have an amazing guest on the show. She's
0:21
Speaker 2: a game developer and the creative director of Stumbling Cat Studios,
0:25
Speaker 2: which she created.
0:26
Speaker 3: Hello. She was also Forbes a thirty Under thirty and
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Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
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Speaker 2: I feel like I have to give that shout out
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Speaker 2: immediately because I'm like, yeah, there she goes.
0:35
Speaker 3: It is a Renee Gittens. Yay, welcome, Renee.
0:39
Speaker 4: Thank you really glad to be here.
0:41
Speaker 3: Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
0:44
Speaker 4: Yeah?
0:44
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Hi everyone. My name is Renee Giittens. I am
0:48
Speaker 5: a game developer. I currently run my own studio, Stumbling Cat,
0:51
Speaker 5: and we just launched Potions, a curious tale, an adventure
0:54
Speaker 5: crafting game. But I've done a lot in the games industry.
0:59
Speaker 5: I volunteer for the IGDA and was previously the executive director,
1:03
Speaker 5: and our missionists to support and empower game developers around
1:06
Speaker 5: the world and achieving fulfilling and sustainable careers. I create
1:10
Speaker 5: a lot of free educational content on TikTok and YouTube
1:14
Speaker 5: to uplift the next generation of game developers, and prior
1:19
Speaker 5: to my role leading Just my studio. I was the
1:23
Speaker 5: general manager of Phoenix Labs Vancouver, creators of Dauntless and
1:27
Speaker 5: Fay Farm.
1:27
Speaker 6: Wow.
1:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have a lot under your belt.
1:31
Speaker 2: When I was looking through just your LinkedIn, I was like, damn,
1:35
Speaker 2: Like this is her industry. She has been creating since
1:39
Speaker 2: way back when you went into school for something similar
1:44
Speaker 2: to this, obviously, Can you kind of tell us how
1:46
Speaker 2: you got into this world?
1:48
Speaker 4: Yeah?
1:48
Speaker 5: You know, Actually I got in a lot later than
1:51
Speaker 5: many of my peers because I didn't know I could
1:54
Speaker 5: be a game developer growing up, and despite being absolutely
1:58
Speaker 5: in love with math, I wasn't introduced to programming until college,
2:02
Speaker 5: so I started a little late.
2:03
Speaker 4: So I actually went.
2:04
Speaker 5: To school to get an engineering degree with a focus
2:08
Speaker 5: in mechanical engineering to become a biomechanical engineer with focus
2:11
Speaker 5: in prosthetics. And I started my career in biotech, working
2:15
Speaker 5: on on skin sensors for various companies. But it was
2:19
Speaker 5: my senior of college that I learned I could be
2:22
Speaker 5: a game developer. And I've been a gamer my whole life,
2:25
Speaker 5: very passionately. I started playing video games at maybe four
2:30
Speaker 5: or five, and unexpectedly it was mostly first person shooters,
2:34
Speaker 5: at first because that's what my father was playing. So
2:36
Speaker 5: like Wolfenstein three D, Duke Nukem three D, and then
2:42
Speaker 5: Pokemon Yellow were my first four games. So I had
2:45
Speaker 5: a bit of an aggressive start to video games, but
2:48
Speaker 5: I truly fell in love with them and ended up
2:51
Speaker 5: making cosplay, participating in forums, writing guides. But like I said,
2:57
Speaker 5: it was only my senior of college that I met
3:00
Speaker 5: game developer and went I can make games.
3:03
Speaker 4: Wait, game developers are like me.
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Speaker 5: I can be a game developer, and so I decided
3:07
Speaker 5: to work on changing my career trajectory from.
3:10
Speaker 3: There in your senior year, my senior year of college.
3:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was a little.
3:14
Speaker 3: Late never obviously, And honestly.
3:17
Speaker 5: That's one of the reasons why I'm so bigin to adcacy,
3:19
Speaker 5: Because if I had known it was a career path
3:21
Speaker 5: for me and been provided the tools to pursue it earlier,
3:24
Speaker 5: like I would have been making games as a kid,
3:27
Speaker 5: you know, a teenager, or even before if I could.
3:31
Speaker 5: And so I want to ensure that no one else
3:34
Speaker 5: is deprived from that opportunity of exploring a really great
3:38
Speaker 5: potential dream for them just because they aren't aware or
3:41
Speaker 5: don't feel like they're welcome or anything like that. Yeah,
3:45
Speaker 5: and so I worked really hard end up breaking into
3:47
Speaker 5: the games industry through multiple paths, and I am where
3:51
Speaker 5: I am today.
3:52
Speaker 7: That is amazing. And also, you are pointing to a problem.
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Speaker 1: Every time we talk about the gaming industry, we kind
3:57
Speaker 1: of have to talk about that of you know, women
4:01
Speaker 1: not seeing women, marginalized people not seeing marginalized people in
4:05
Speaker 1: that industry, and that is something that you've been outspoken
4:10
Speaker 1: about and that you're passionate about. Can you talk about
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Speaker 1: the experiences that you have had in the gaming industry
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Speaker 1: as part of that, and then also just maybe changes
4:22
Speaker 1: that you've seen in it in the past few years.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: Absolutely, So I am very lucky that I haven't experienced
4:33
Speaker 5: much direct harassment at least from my game industry peers
4:37
Speaker 5: and in general. Until very recently, I hadn't experienced much
4:40
Speaker 5: harassment within the games industry and my career at all
4:44
Speaker 5: as a woman who played video games, as a girl
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Speaker 5: who liked first person shooters, I can tell you I
4:51
Speaker 5: was very excited to play counter Strike for the first time,
4:55
Speaker 5: and the first time I spoke up in chat as
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Speaker 5: a twelve thirteen year old girl playing counter Strike, I
5:01
Speaker 5: decided I didn't like online first person shooters, because that
5:04
Speaker 5: was just, oh, that was toxic, and you know, with
5:08
Speaker 5: my upbringing, like I wasn't a bad first person shooter player,
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Speaker 5: but it was just the sound of my voice was
5:15
Speaker 5: enough to get really vile harassment. And I think that
5:19
Speaker 5: that is a point where a lot of people stop
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Speaker 5: playing games, and I can't blame them for that.
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Speaker 4: It is unpleasant.
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Speaker 5: Throughout my history as a gamer and fan, I certainly
5:32
Speaker 5: have received all sorts of weird death threats and stocking
5:36
Speaker 5: and harassment, particularly when I got into cosplaying.
5:39
Speaker 4: That it was really big there.
5:43
Speaker 5: But when I started my game industry career, I found
5:46
Speaker 5: the games industry in general to be very welcoming. Especially
5:50
Speaker 5: indie developers are just so kind and willing to share knowledge.
5:55
Speaker 5: The games industry might be somewhat competitive, but the way
6:00
Speaker 5: that game developers treat each other is not in a
6:03
Speaker 5: competitive manner. It's like we're all in this together, and
6:05
Speaker 5: so knowledge sharing and support is all really frequent.
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Speaker 4: Now.
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Speaker 5: I've definitely had a few uncomfortable situations in networking events,
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Speaker 5: and more commonly, I've found that people make a lot
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Speaker 5: of assumptions based on my gender. Originally, before I became
6:27
Speaker 5: well known in the games industry. If I was standing
6:29
Speaker 5: next to a male near my age, I was assumed
6:32
Speaker 5: to be a girlfriend, not a game developer, and was
6:35
Speaker 5: like ignored in the rounds of introductions that happened a
6:39
Speaker 5: few times. I'm a very sort of person, so I
6:41
Speaker 5: made sure I was introduced anyway, even if I was skipped.
6:45
Speaker 5: But again, that's one of those things where you know,
6:47
Speaker 5: death by a thousand cuts. If you're dealing with that
6:49
Speaker 5: while breaking into the industry, it can be really rough.
6:52
Speaker 5: And then I've had situations where I've talked about my work,
6:57
Speaker 5: my teams, you know, for stumbling cat on. You know,
7:00
Speaker 5: I've said like, oh, this person's helping with art, this
7:03
Speaker 5: person's helping with audio, this person does environment art, and
7:06
Speaker 5: then I do everything else and the person's next question was, well,
7:09
Speaker 5: then who does the programming.
7:12
Speaker 7: That's me, Like that's part of everything else.
7:15
Speaker 4: Yay.
7:17
Speaker 2: Uh.
7:17
Speaker 5: Definitely get exhumed to be an artist and such when
7:20
Speaker 5: people meet me as well, And obviously it's it's just
7:22
Speaker 5: their their biases, you know, they are subconscious biases, so.
7:27
Speaker 2: Right, and when you do tell them, yeah, it's made,
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Speaker 2: do you usually get the oh wow? Or is it like, oh, okay, yeah,
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Speaker 2: like obvious.
7:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 5: I think it's a lot of times people realize in
7:39
Speaker 5: that moment that they had made a really poor assumption.
7:42
Speaker 5: You know, they're just like, oh, y, yes, that's on me. Like,
7:47
Speaker 5: of course, not everyone is self reflective, but for the
7:51
Speaker 5: most part, in those situations, I've found people to be
7:54
Speaker 5: a little embarrassed when they realize their mistake, right.
7:58
Speaker 6: I would hope.
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Speaker 2: So, I mean at least very much acknowledged, like, yeah,
8:01
Speaker 2: that was that was an unconscious bias that I have.
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Speaker 2: I need to learn that, which is a great lesson
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Speaker 2: at your expense. Sorry. You know, within the gaming industry
8:12
Speaker 2: in general, especially when it comes to different especially larger
8:15
Speaker 2: corporations that we've seen, there's been a lot of shakeups
8:18
Speaker 2: me too. Movement has hit up some of the bigger
8:20
Speaker 2: corporations because of this. Have you seen changes in the industry,
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Speaker 2: whether good or bad?
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Speaker 5: Absolutely, I think the games industry is continuing to change
8:29
Speaker 5: for the better, and it still has a long way
8:31
Speaker 5: to go. With the rise of online digital games distribution,
8:38
Speaker 5: you know, through Steam, the Epics Store, and even just
8:42
Speaker 5: like through platforms, through online stores that are hosted by
8:46
Speaker 5: Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo, it has really allowed for
8:49
Speaker 5: a lot of smaller teams to rise up and for
8:54
Speaker 5: there to be less weight in publishers and purely big studios,
9:00
Speaker 5: and that has had both pros and cons. It has
9:03
Speaker 5: allowed for like a shakeup and a broadening of the
9:07
Speaker 5: people joining the games industry, and occasionally it has allowed
9:11
Speaker 5: for teams where it's just a bunch of friends together
9:14
Speaker 5: to suddenly explode in popularity and then turns out they're
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Speaker 5: like buddy buddy. Bro culture does not expand well to
9:22
Speaker 5: a four hundred or four thousand person company, and that
9:26
Speaker 5: can cause like some toxicity there. So the me too
9:29
Speaker 5: movement and other advocacy efforts to call out these issues
9:35
Speaker 5: certainly has caused a lot of intentional addressing of them.
9:40
Speaker 5: So there are more knowledge amongst HR teams, amongst management,
9:45
Speaker 5: there are more policies, but it's not perfect.
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Speaker 4: It's still got always to go.
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Speaker 5: And while the number of women identifying people are increasing
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Speaker 5: within the games industry, it's still a slow pace because
10:00
Speaker 5: it's not just the games industry that has issues, right
10:04
Speaker 5: Like STEMS still has issues about being welcoming to women,
10:08
Speaker 5: and education does. Like my second grade teacher told me,
10:12
Speaker 5: I didn't need to know more math because I.
10:13
Speaker 4: Was a girl.
10:16
Speaker 5: Beyond long division. It turns out long divisions cut off.
10:20
Speaker 7: I guess I had to happen to me. But it
10:24
Speaker 7: was in high school.
10:26
Speaker 2: Right like second grade, excelling to be like, no, we
10:30
Speaker 2: have to stop her. Now, she's going to be a
10:32
Speaker 2: dangerous woman and she knows math like Terminator. But maybe
10:40
Speaker 2: they were from the future. They're like, she's going to
10:41
Speaker 2: own a company. We got to stop that. But you know,
10:54
Speaker 2: I was talking about your childhood, and you kind of
10:57
Speaker 2: mentioned the fact that as a young gamer, at first
11:00
Speaker 2: the love was great and then you got into the
11:02
Speaker 2: community and you're like, oh, oh oh, they're not as welcoming.
11:05
Speaker 2: And obviously this has kind of formed how you run
11:09
Speaker 2: your company as well as how you led as an
11:11
Speaker 2: executive director. Have you seen good, hopefully good or worse?
11:16
Speaker 2: I guess changes when it comes to inclusion, for whether
11:19
Speaker 2: it's for gamers or whether it's for developers like both.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I certainly have seen more inclusion, more
11:27
Speaker 5: games with wider target audiences and not ones that are
11:32
Speaker 5: reductive towards those audiences like that.
11:35
Speaker 4: That's often a concern of mine.
11:37
Speaker 5: I've also seen varying levels of toxicity I think it
11:42
Speaker 5: sort of comes and goes in waves. I think the
11:44
Speaker 5: things overall have been getting better, but I feel like
11:49
Speaker 5: the pandemic and the rise of more anonymous focused engagement
11:55
Speaker 5: platforms have caused another search of toxicity. I've seen a
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Speaker 5: lot more toxic behavior these last few years than I
12:03
Speaker 5: think the few years before the pandemic. Now, admittedly I've
12:06
Speaker 5: been a direct target of some of this, so I
12:09
Speaker 5: could be biased there, but I've heard a lot of
12:11
Speaker 5: people say in general that they feel like empathy has
12:14
Speaker 5: gone down post pandemic and that there's there's just less
12:20
Speaker 5: friendliness amongst society, and I certainly think that's true online.
12:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that's that question of like I wonder
12:27
Speaker 2: if the people are having more time online and realize
12:32
Speaker 2: that that trolling people is entertaining for them, and so
12:35
Speaker 2: they've gone on full force because that's what they did
12:37
Speaker 2: throughout the pandemic and it's just gotten worse, which you
12:40
Speaker 2: would think they would stop, but they don't.
12:43
Speaker 6: Ever. That's a sidelog.
12:45
Speaker 2: But because we want to talk about all of that too,
12:50
Speaker 2: Because you have developed a game hello, because I'm playing it,
12:52
Speaker 2: but you had a lot of like bumps in the
12:55
Speaker 2: road throughout, Can you kind of tell us first about
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Speaker 2: your game, the game, and so could lay the process
13:01
Speaker 2: in developing this game?
13:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so.
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Speaker 5: Potions a Curious Tale is an adventure crafting game. You
13:09
Speaker 5: play as a young witch named Luna who's recently discovered
13:13
Speaker 5: her ability to brew magical potions, and she can use
13:17
Speaker 5: these potions as spells to solve puzzles and battle monsters
13:22
Speaker 5: and overcome other obstacles on her quest to become a
13:25
Speaker 5: potion's master. But you find that is your greatest weapon
13:30
Speaker 5: and combat is not always the answer, and the world
13:33
Speaker 5: itself is inspired by fairy tales and folklore from cultures
13:38
Speaker 5: all across the globe. When I first came up with
13:41
Speaker 5: the concept for Potions, it was because I wanted to
13:45
Speaker 5: explore game design war but my inspiration was frustration around
13:51
Speaker 5: games treating heroes as as slaughtering creatures. I feel like,
14:00
Speaker 5: as a hero in so many games, it's like if
14:03
Speaker 5: you slaughter every small force critter you see, it is
14:06
Speaker 5: ultimately beneficial, And that just never felt heroic to me, Like, yeah, sure,
14:12
Speaker 5: if you need a bunny fur, like yeah, the slaughter
14:16
Speaker 5: of the bunny, But if you don't, it shouldn't give
14:19
Speaker 5: you like golden experience, Like, there shouldn't just be this
14:22
Speaker 5: reason to like slaughter everything that you come across, and
14:27
Speaker 5: I wanted to figure out a way to temper that,
14:29
Speaker 5: and that's when I came up with the concept of
14:32
Speaker 5: potions as the engagement mechanism. You know, in potions, you
14:38
Speaker 5: can be actively aggressive only with potents, like using potions
14:44
Speaker 5: as spells. You can chase monsters into traps. You can
14:48
Speaker 5: get monsters to fight each other without using potions. But
14:52
Speaker 5: if you want to set something on fire, you got
14:54
Speaker 5: to use a fire potion. And that causes sort of
14:59
Speaker 5: a re source stress on the player because you know,
15:02
Speaker 5: potions cost resources. You have to brew every potion you use,
15:06
Speaker 5: and so it causes them to reconsider do I need
15:11
Speaker 5: to kill this thing? Is this worth using one of
15:13
Speaker 5: my potions? For I can only carry ten fire potions
15:16
Speaker 5: at once. Should I use one of these fire potions
15:18
Speaker 5: on this critter? Or should I avoid it until I
15:22
Speaker 5: need something from it and go about and do other things.
15:25
Speaker 5: And when I came up with this concept, it was
15:28
Speaker 5: never intended to be a commercial product. It was just
15:31
Speaker 5: intended to be a portfolio piece in the game's industry,
15:34
Speaker 5: having a strong portfolio is really important for getting hired,
15:38
Speaker 5: and so I just wanted to make this a little
15:41
Speaker 5: sort of demo project for my portfolio. But the more
15:45
Speaker 5: people I told about it, the more excited people seemed
15:49
Speaker 5: to be. And when I ran into people at future events,
15:52
Speaker 5: they would say, Hey, how is Potions going? Because that
15:55
Speaker 5: was just sort of my default name for it, And
15:59
Speaker 5: I ended up getting almost this fan following amongst game
16:02
Speaker 5: developers for this concept because they all thought it was
16:05
Speaker 5: really interesting. So at that point I decided to kickstart
16:09
Speaker 5: the game and see if there was going to be
16:11
Speaker 5: enough interest from the general public to make it commercially viable.
16:16
Speaker 5: And it barely funded, like fifteen minutes left. So I
16:21
Speaker 5: had this money, which was the bare minimum amount of
16:25
Speaker 5: money I thought I needed to ship the game, and
16:27
Speaker 5: I had to spend it all on like contracting out
16:30
Speaker 5: art and audio. It's like the only thing I could
16:32
Speaker 5: spend it on and physical kickstar rewards, and so I
16:37
Speaker 5: was not able to quit my job and work full
16:41
Speaker 5: time on Potions. I had to get side contracts and
16:46
Speaker 5: other work. I actually was trying to consult and do
16:49
Speaker 5: contracting for a long time before I realized the overhead
16:53
Speaker 5: of consulting was just too much. It was just easier
16:55
Speaker 5: to find full time jobs in the games industry and
16:58
Speaker 5: work nights and weekends on post or mornings and weekends
17:02
Speaker 5: was my preference. I'm a morning person, so morning brain
17:06
Speaker 5: goes to creative work as much as possible.
17:08
Speaker 2: I like it, And you know that makes click a
17:11
Speaker 2: little bit about why I like this game because I
17:13
Speaker 2: used to, Like I said, I told you before we
17:16
Speaker 2: record it, I'm not the typical gamer, and I just
17:19
Speaker 2: really got into playing games like I have become a
17:22
Speaker 2: fan of cozy games and the such. I always play
17:26
Speaker 2: phone games because I am definitely like add enough that
17:28
Speaker 2: I need that distraction. So all about swiping. So coming
17:32
Speaker 2: into this where you're like there's buttons and there's combinations
17:35
Speaker 2: and there's things you got to do, it's like, oh no,
17:37
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm going to do this. That's
17:39
Speaker 2: the level. But the one thing I would do my
17:42
Speaker 2: partner who was a gamer and loves it, was playing
17:45
Speaker 2: Red Dead and that's one of the big things is
17:46
Speaker 2: like killing all the animals, and I would actively root
17:49
Speaker 2: for the animals to kill him.
17:53
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly, I mean literally, I was like, I.
17:54
Speaker 3: Hope that Barry, oh the Barry eat you good.
17:58
Speaker 2: I'm a great partner in that same realm in the
18:02
Speaker 2: Potion's game, I'm like, oh, I can just run away
18:04
Speaker 2: from that rat. Okay, great, I'm just gonna run. I'm
18:05
Speaker 2: gonna run this way. Oh yeah, that thing's trying to
18:07
Speaker 2: get me bad. I don't have to take it a hit.
18:09
Speaker 2: I'm gonna run this way too. So I was like,
18:11
Speaker 2: that makes a whole lot more sense and makes it
18:13
Speaker 2: easier for me, so I don't have to do the
18:16
Speaker 2: battle thing because again the combo is like I don't
18:18
Speaker 2: where do I go?
18:19
Speaker 3: Where do I go with this?
18:20
Speaker 2: Instead of just oh, I can just go over there
18:22
Speaker 2: and go with this mission and do this puzzle. I'll
18:25
Speaker 2: do that. So I think for me that that makes
18:27
Speaker 2: so much more sense of like, this is why I
18:28
Speaker 2: enjoy this game so much, and the art is super cute,
18:31
Speaker 2: thank you.
18:32
Speaker 3: It is is super cute.
18:34
Speaker 2: But all of that is like just clicking in my brains,
18:35
Speaker 2: Like that makes it you purposely did that obviously.
18:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
18:40
Speaker 5: I actually think that first time gamers occasionally have an
18:43
Speaker 5: easier time with potions than people who've been playing video
18:46
Speaker 5: games a lot. I feel like women are generally okay
18:49
Speaker 5: with potions when they approach it. But it turns out
18:51
Speaker 5: that a lot of the men that I've seen playtest,
18:53
Speaker 5: they're like, ah, I have fire potion, ergo I should
18:56
Speaker 5: burn everything I see, And then they'll run into like
19:01
Speaker 5: running out of their potions, or they'll running into a
19:03
Speaker 5: creature that you can't burn, or a creature that will
19:06
Speaker 5: attack you and always when if you try to attack it,
19:10
Speaker 5: And it's funny watching them come to the realization that, no,
19:14
Speaker 5: you can't just murder everything to win this game. You
19:17
Speaker 5: have to be a little bit more nuanced in your.
19:20
Speaker 2: Approach, like you have to save the fire potion to
19:23
Speaker 2: get past the haystack to get to that resource. I
19:25
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, I get it. I'm not gonna lie.
19:29
Speaker 2: Like being able to think it through is so much
19:30
Speaker 2: more fun to me. Hope, I'm not insulting anybody. I
19:34
Speaker 2: love the I love the battle.
19:36
Speaker 4: Everyone can enjoy different types of games. But yeah, Potions
19:39
Speaker 4: is certainly for a particular target audience, and it's resonated
19:42
Speaker 4: well with them.
19:43
Speaker 2: Right, And I guess again, like talking about why including
19:47
Speaker 2: people who aren't your typical or what people would see
19:51
Speaker 2: as a gamer, why is that something that you think
19:53
Speaker 2: is important.
19:54
Speaker 5: I think it's important because video games are just a
20:00
Speaker 5: wonderful storytelling an immersive medium that everyone should be able
20:05
Speaker 5: to enjoy, right Like, just like film and music, I
20:10
Speaker 5: feel like video games.
20:11
Speaker 4: Are pretty much on the same level as those.
20:14
Speaker 5: And ensuring that there are games that are welcoming and
20:20
Speaker 5: empowering for people, particularly people who don't often see themselves
20:25
Speaker 5: in games, is important to me. And when I first
20:28
Speaker 5: started creating Potions, I was just creating a game that
20:31
Speaker 5: I wanted to play. I wasn't thinking as much about
20:33
Speaker 5: a target audience, which is a terrible way to design
20:35
Speaker 5: a game.
20:35
Speaker 4: You're always supposed to be thinking about your target audience.
20:38
Speaker 5: And I figured I was like, well, it's kind of
20:39
Speaker 5: a Zelda like so it's going to have a similar
20:42
Speaker 5: audience to Zelda, which it does. But when I was
20:45
Speaker 5: dembling Potions one of the first times I first demoed
20:48
Speaker 5: at packs and it was.
20:49
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say well received.
20:51
Speaker 5: It was like some people are like, oh, that's cool,
20:53
Speaker 5: I own nothing super exciting, Like nobody being like this
20:56
Speaker 5: is the best game in the world. And then a
20:59
Speaker 5: couple months later, there's an event here in Seattle called
21:02
Speaker 5: geek Girl Con, which is a celebration of the female
21:05
Speaker 5: Geek and I demoed it there. It was actually the
21:07
Speaker 5: first video game to ever done a like GEK girl
21:09
Speaker 5: Con because it only been tabletop games and board games
21:12
Speaker 5: and my booth which just absolutely swarmed by all these
21:18
Speaker 5: young girls because of course, it's like a twelve year
21:21
Speaker 5: old witch is in a fairy tale setting, right, a
21:23
Speaker 5: fairy tale fantasy setting. And the reactions that I had
21:28
Speaker 5: from that group of fans caused me to rethink how
21:35
Speaker 5: I was approaching the game, and honestly, thankfully I didn't
21:38
Speaker 5: have to really change anything, but I made sure that
21:40
Speaker 5: the game was for them because I had a little
21:44
Speaker 5: like I had a girl who was like eight and
21:46
Speaker 5: dressed up as a witch, and she just pointed at
21:48
Speaker 5: the screen that was playing the trailer and said.
21:50
Speaker 4: Look, mom, it's me. Oh.
21:54
Speaker 5: And then I had another girl who was in second grade.
21:57
Speaker 5: Her parents came up to me and they said, you know,
21:59
Speaker 5: thank you so much for being here. Our daughter's in
22:01
Speaker 5: second grade and she's getting bullied for liking Minecraft. So
22:06
Speaker 5: it means because people are saying that video games are
22:09
Speaker 5: for boys and that she shouldn't play at it as
22:11
Speaker 5: a girl. So it means so much to her to
22:14
Speaker 5: see a game here for her being made by someone
22:18
Speaker 5: that she can relate to, and that that caused me
22:22
Speaker 5: to really think about how I was writing the story
22:24
Speaker 5: and how I was making the game because I want
22:27
Speaker 5: I want an eight year old girl to play this
22:29
Speaker 5: and be like, yeah, that is me, Like I can
22:32
Speaker 5: solve my own problems. I don't have to be the strongest,
22:36
Speaker 5: I don't have to be the most powerful, but with
22:38
Speaker 5: my wit and my perseverance, my creativity, like I can
22:43
Speaker 5: overcome these issues and save the world.
22:45
Speaker 1: It is I love that about because I also add
22:49
Speaker 1: a similar story to you. I grew up like from
22:51
Speaker 1: four playing video games and two brothers, so that kind
22:56
Speaker 1: of colored my experience. And I also got scared off
23:01
Speaker 1: of video games from online video games when I was
23:05
Speaker 1: like twelve. But as I've been working through this on
23:08
Speaker 1: the show several several years ago, there was a a
23:12
Speaker 1: museum exhibit that was just like games women have developed,
23:19
Speaker 1: And of course the history is longer than anyone likes
23:22
Speaker 1: to give credit to huge popular games by the way,
23:26
Speaker 1: but it was really cool because so many of them.
23:30
Speaker 1: I love when a video game like kind of understands
23:36
Speaker 1: what you think a video game might be and doesn't.
23:39
Speaker 1: It was like, no, it's not that because it has
23:42
Speaker 1: so long been Let's defeat this villain.
23:44
Speaker 7: Let's do the way forward? Is this way forward? And
23:48
Speaker 7: I like when a video game comes out and it's
23:51
Speaker 7: like what if it wasn't that though? What if it
23:53
Speaker 7: was like a different thing? And so I think, like
23:56
Speaker 7: this is so important in terms of representation, but also
24:00
Speaker 7: just creativity because I am one hundred with you and
24:04
Speaker 7: like the storytelling aspect of it. We've done episodes about
24:10
Speaker 7: like the health benefits of playing some video games, like
24:13
Speaker 7: they are real world important things that it should be
24:20
Speaker 7: that a young girl can say, Oh, I see that.
24:24
Speaker 7: I like that. I want to play that. It's better
24:28
Speaker 7: for everybody.
24:28
Speaker 1: I don't know why, well I do know why people
24:31
Speaker 1: get so upset about it. They're like, don't you want
24:35
Speaker 1: more options or there than less?
24:39
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
24:50
Speaker 2: And I know like getting this game off it took
24:52
Speaker 2: you like ten years I guess from like when you
24:54
Speaker 2: were originally thinking this is just gonna be an idea
24:56
Speaker 2: for my portfolio, to Okay, let's actually create this game.
24:59
Speaker 3: Oh they want this.
25:00
Speaker 2: Let's give this an empower young girls, which I know
25:02
Speaker 2: you've made comments about wanting to do a story about
25:07
Speaker 2: a coming of age for young girls and witchcraft obviously,
25:11
Speaker 2: and maybe a cat because Helius is awesome.
25:13
Speaker 3: Which, by the way, do I get more pets when
25:15
Speaker 3: I keep going? Or is it just I just love
25:18
Speaker 3: all the pets?
25:19
Speaker 1: Sorry?
25:20
Speaker 4: Too jealous? He wouldn't allow any other pets.
25:23
Speaker 3: He's so pretty. I was like, oh, cool, okay, let's go.
25:26
Speaker 3: But all of these things.
25:28
Speaker 2: But I know with that there again, like when you're
25:31
Speaker 2: beginning your launch, My introduction to your game as well
25:36
Speaker 2: as to you was your TikTok video in which you
25:39
Speaker 2: had concerns about the release in launch date, and I
25:43
Speaker 2: know you made some headlines in different places, and honestly
25:47
Speaker 2: it was like to me, I was like, yeah, this
25:49
Speaker 2: is a very reasonable video. You worked ten years on
25:53
Speaker 2: this project that you are in love with and then
25:56
Speaker 2: things unexpected happened, And sure it may not have been
25:59
Speaker 2: an attack. When it comes to big corporations versus indie games,
26:02
Speaker 2: we know, we know, like there's a big bad.
26:04
Speaker 3: Corporations are a big bad. We're just gonna say that.
26:06
Speaker 2: We say that on our show in general, and idea
26:09
Speaker 2: is that a lot of the things are not one
26:12
Speaker 2: hundred percent. Again, we kind of talked about some of
26:14
Speaker 2: the things that were happening at the beginning anyway.
26:16
Speaker 3: But with that you got a lot of good support,
26:19
Speaker 3: but backlash as well. What was your initial reaction to this?
26:23
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, yeah.
26:24
Speaker 5: So to provide context for the audience, what happened was
26:30
Speaker 5: I spent lots and lots of time in research picking
26:33
Speaker 5: a launch date, and I chose to pick.
26:36
Speaker 4: International Women's Day.
26:38
Speaker 5: Technically in my time zone, it was the day before
26:40
Speaker 5: International Women's Day because Japan is sixteen hours ahead, you know,
26:44
Speaker 5: other places are ahead. And I researched that date to
26:51
Speaker 5: ensure that there was no other great competing game launches.
26:56
Speaker 4: None were listed in any of the.
26:58
Speaker 5: Softwareys to to check that out, and that I was
27:02
Speaker 5: going in with a really strong set of supporters, so
27:05
Speaker 5: wish lists on Steam et cetera, and from my calculations,
27:09
Speaker 5: I should have been on the Steam front page in
27:11
Speaker 5: a new and trending for three or four days, which
27:15
Speaker 5: is basically gets you one to two million impressions and
27:20
Speaker 5: thousands of wish lists and hundreds to thousands of sales,
27:24
Speaker 5: which for an indie developer is huge. Like that, that
27:26
Speaker 5: is a make it or break it sort of thing.
27:29
Speaker 5: And you know, I launched my game I was in
27:31
Speaker 5: all sorts of celebration. You know, I launched Yay women
27:35
Speaker 5: like gay list. This is empowering. And I actually stayed
27:39
Speaker 5: away from looking at the sales numbers for a bit,
27:41
Speaker 5: and then when I checked them, they were like thirty
27:44
Speaker 5: percent of what I predicted with conservative.
27:46
Speaker 4: Estimates, and I was crushed.
27:48
Speaker 5: And I looked into it, and it turns out that
27:51
Speaker 5: EA had launched eleven titles from their back catalog like
27:56
Speaker 5: two hours after I launched my game, like immediately on
27:59
Speaker 5: the tail of it. And so though I hit all
28:02
Speaker 5: the thresholds and all the numbers, since that list is
28:06
Speaker 5: date ordered by launch date, they all came and just
28:10
Speaker 5: immediately knocked me off the list and all of that
28:13
Speaker 5: potential exposure. And I found this on in my time
28:18
Speaker 5: zone International Women's Day, and I was absolutely devastated. So
28:22
Speaker 5: I posted about it, and I also made a TikTok
28:26
Speaker 5: where you know, I've made many tiktoks speaking about my
28:29
Speaker 5: experiences as an Indian game developer. I even mentioned the game.
28:33
Speaker 5: I said, you know what sucks about being a game developer.
28:36
Speaker 5: You can work ten years on a project, spend all
28:39
Speaker 5: this time making sure you have a perfect launch date
28:41
Speaker 5: to all the marketing and give you things set up,
28:43
Speaker 5: and then EA can drop eleven titles unannounced and completely
28:48
Speaker 5: ruin all your work. And then at the end, I said,
28:52
Speaker 5: so happy as International Women's Day, and that last line
28:56
Speaker 5: there that upset a lot of people. Obviously, I state
29:00
Speaker 5: it because I was devastated for this to happen on
29:05
Speaker 5: International Women's Day, being like an empowering women focused sort
29:09
Speaker 5: of celebration, right like it's a game four girls about
29:13
Speaker 5: a girl made by a woman, like I was kind
29:17
Speaker 5: of hoping that that would be celebratory, and so that
29:20
Speaker 5: TikTok went extra super crazy viral, which had at first
29:25
Speaker 5: a huge outpouring of support, and then as the audience increased,
29:29
Speaker 5: TikTok's algorithms found that there was also a lot of
29:34
Speaker 5: engagement by really angry male gamers who were very upset
29:42
Speaker 5: about me and mentioning International Women's Day.
29:44
Speaker 4: They were upset that I expressed emotions.
29:47
Speaker 5: They felt like I was being emotionally manipulative, and that
29:53
Speaker 5: just escalated into beyond the worst harassment I've ever experienced,
29:58
Speaker 5: like by magnitudes. I had death threats, I had people
30:01
Speaker 5: spamming pornographic images in my game's discord, like really gross things.
30:07
Speaker 5: I had people trying to review bomb the game on Steam,
30:11
Speaker 5: trolling the Steam community forums. I had to put an
30:14
Speaker 5: anti swatting notice on my house. Yeah, and that was
30:21
Speaker 5: almost three months ago now, and it slowed down, but
30:31
Speaker 5: it hasn't stopped, and it'll come. It'll spike, Like I'll
30:35
Speaker 5: post a TikTok that will awaken algorithms, and then the
30:38
Speaker 5: main one gets posted out again, and then I'll get
30:40
Speaker 5: just like hundreds of hateful comments. And when I'm talking
30:44
Speaker 5: about this, like there was like ten thousand hate comments,
30:47
Speaker 5: like this is like a small number of things. And
30:50
Speaker 5: on the launch of your game day, you're trying to
30:53
Speaker 5: like hot fix and like put out fires right not
30:56
Speaker 5: also deal with community management fires in right, people trying
31:02
Speaker 5: to like abuse your community with graphic images and toxicity
31:08
Speaker 5: right not to mention abuse you too. So it was
31:11
Speaker 5: stressful for the first couple of weeks. I mean, in
31:16
Speaker 5: a much more stable place now, a lot less of
31:21
Speaker 5: being a harassed place as well.
31:23
Speaker 4: I've been able to release some hot fixes and updates.
31:25
Speaker 5: But yeah, I feel like I am almost now permanently
31:29
Speaker 5: in the public eye for the better and worse.
31:33
Speaker 2: Right, right, I mean like this is there's so many
31:36
Speaker 2: these A. Because you said it's International Women's Day, they're upset,
31:41
Speaker 2: which is just International Women's Day.
31:43
Speaker 3: Hello.
31:43
Speaker 2: But B they are not talking about the fact that
31:47
Speaker 2: this multimillion dollar if not billion dollar company who doesn't
31:50
Speaker 2: give us about no, not at all, you as any person,
31:54
Speaker 2: let's just be honest, any person. And like they're defending
31:57
Speaker 2: them like they are the victim. A. I'm like, you're
32:01
Speaker 2: defending a corporation. One that's really odd. B. We also
32:04
Speaker 2: know corporations like that use and abuse. I want to
32:07
Speaker 2: talk about manipulation days like International Women's Day, months like
32:11
Speaker 2: Pride Month for just getting money, Like it's not even
32:15
Speaker 2: about being actually excited to work for or help women,
32:18
Speaker 2: it's just using that name or whatever that day. So
32:21
Speaker 2: like we have these two things and then these trolls
32:24
Speaker 2: who just could ignore this, like why are you so
32:28
Speaker 2: upset when this is a part of your career And
32:32
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, you're trying to manipulate us and make
32:34
Speaker 2: us feel bad. What how's the same thing to do
32:37
Speaker 2: with you, dude? Like there's so many things unpack of,
32:40
Speaker 2: like why are you so concerned to the fact that
32:43
Speaker 2: you have to put extra energy out to make sure
32:46
Speaker 2: someone feels threatened.
32:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's interesting because it's from these people. It's
32:54
Speaker 5: very rarely one comment like yeah, it's often like I
32:57
Speaker 5: see my notifications like the pain of ones and not
33:01
Speaker 5: even on the same video. They like find me and
33:03
Speaker 5: they get upset and then they go to my other
33:05
Speaker 5: videos and then they're like.
33:06
Speaker 4: Upset those sort of like why are you hurting yourself?
33:09
Speaker 4: Like if you don't like me, just go go.
33:13
Speaker 2: Fine, right, why are you taking this much time of
33:17
Speaker 2: like why am I living rent free? In your head
33:19
Speaker 2: like this, you need to calm down. But again, like
33:21
Speaker 2: it comes back to like you're also doing this for
33:24
Speaker 2: a million multimillionary corporation who will never know your face
33:29
Speaker 2: and will care less about you in general, Like, so,
33:31
Speaker 2: why are you defending this hard for a company? And
33:34
Speaker 2: I guarantee these are the same people who also, mister,
33:38
Speaker 2: you know you're being emotional, are the same people who
33:40
Speaker 2: would throw their control at a wall and like you know,
33:43
Speaker 2: like bust up something when they die or something like that,
33:46
Speaker 2: or the same thing of like a person interrupts them
33:49
Speaker 2: during a big moment and then they start screaming and
33:52
Speaker 2: like pretty much having you know, like fights with people
33:54
Speaker 2: because you're so upset over a gabe like that you
33:57
Speaker 2: didn't even create, Like I'm just there's so much baffling,
34:01
Speaker 2: like double standards in that. In that alone, it's just
34:05
Speaker 2: kind of like, Wow, y'all really want to do this,
34:09
Speaker 2: Like I just get bloan because I'm not gonna lie.
34:11
Speaker 2: When I was looking through it again, from my end,
34:14
Speaker 2: I think I was in that moment of like everybody
34:16
Speaker 2: supporting you and understanding exactly what you're saying, and yeah,
34:19
Speaker 2: we want to we want to see more women, We
34:21
Speaker 2: want to see marginalized people in this in this role
34:23
Speaker 2: because we want to be included or so that people
34:25
Speaker 2: will feel included. As well as the fact that again
34:28
Speaker 2: the people who are making all the money are the
34:30
Speaker 2: people who don't love it, who just just wants the money.
34:33
Speaker 2: So seeing people who love the game, who love this
34:35
Speaker 2: job and want to bring other people up with them,
34:38
Speaker 2: that's what we want to support. Why is it that
34:40
Speaker 2: a bad thing? So for me, I was like, yeah,
34:42
Speaker 2: we're gonna support this. But then when you start reading
34:45
Speaker 2: the comments, and it had to be much later because
34:47
Speaker 2: when I was initially seeing your video I think was
34:49
Speaker 2: almost the day that you released it, it was mainly positive.
34:53
Speaker 4: Yeah.
34:53
Speaker 2: So when I came back to seeing the comments and
34:55
Speaker 2: then seeing like they took it to Reddit, they took it,
34:57
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, what has happened? And of
35:01
Speaker 2: course ninety eight percent were men were absolutely or young
35:04
Speaker 2: boys will say young boys because I don't know. I'm
35:08
Speaker 2: sure meant too, but you know what I mean. Like,
35:09
Speaker 2: it just it was baffling how they really took a
35:11
Speaker 2: hold of something and decided to run on their own
35:14
Speaker 2: narrative instead of just seeing a woman, an adult who
35:19
Speaker 2: was using her skills and smarts and about knowing about
35:22
Speaker 2: the corporation and then realizing that it got undermined very
35:26
Speaker 2: quickly and being disappointed in that, and seeing that this
35:28
Speaker 2: is a part of the business, but also being disappointed
35:31
Speaker 2: it's a part of the business too, and being able
35:32
Speaker 2: to freely say I'm disappointed. It should be it should
35:36
Speaker 2: be a standard, like it should be okay, like it
35:38
Speaker 2: should be, Yeah, why is this a bad thing?
35:40
Speaker 3: And they just ran with that.
35:41
Speaker 2: It was so baffling for me, And I'm glad you're
35:45
Speaker 2: on that other end because I didn't know the rest
35:46
Speaker 2: of the part because I'm not on the discord. All
35:48
Speaker 2: I saw was obviously just me on the outside seeing
35:51
Speaker 2: the comments, and that was bad enough. So I could
35:54
Speaker 2: not imagine the toll, the mental health toll that it
35:57
Speaker 2: took to see things like when they were at deply
36:00
Speaker 2: coming after you.
36:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's twofold right on one side. You
36:07
Speaker 4: you know, to for.
36:08
Speaker 5: The most part, not take these people seriously. Obviously, Like
36:11
Speaker 5: I said, I put an anti squatty notice on my house.
36:14
Speaker 5: I was, you know, implementing proper precautions just in case
36:19
Speaker 5: somebody decided to go overboard. But I recognize that, yeah,
36:23
Speaker 5: these are people who are upset, maybe not at me directly,
36:30
Speaker 5: but they're expressing their anger at me at least that
36:33
Speaker 5: they're not my target audience. So it's okay if they
36:35
Speaker 5: don't like me or my game, and that I should
36:39
Speaker 5: not take their words seriously.
36:41
Speaker 4: And then on the other.
36:42
Speaker 5: Hand, each one is just like the littlest paper cut.
36:45
Speaker 5: And then when there are thousands of them, it gets real,
36:49
Speaker 5: real exhausted. It's it's really hard. I try to do
36:52
Speaker 5: things like I create lists of positive things that people say,
36:57
Speaker 5: like cut them out and put them in a document
36:59
Speaker 5: so I can review them, and I'll use that to
37:01
Speaker 5: try to keep my attitude positive, keep my head above water.
37:06
Speaker 5: But yeah, it certainly it was still difficult, you know,
37:10
Speaker 5: But I refuse to stop keep making games, keep making
37:17
Speaker 5: educational content, keep showing other people they can pursue their
37:21
Speaker 5: dream exactly, gender aside, right, I just want to inspire others.
37:25
Speaker 2: Right, And that's again you kind of already mentioned the
37:27
Speaker 2: fact that you were like, I want to write a
37:28
Speaker 2: good list of the people who are supporting me, because
37:31
Speaker 2: obviously we know this in any industry, when you are
37:35
Speaker 2: a face of something, whether you're leading a company in
37:39
Speaker 2: creating games or any of that, you might go through
37:42
Speaker 2: these hard times. And again, gaming industry, like gam or
37:45
Speaker 2: gate was a whole thing, we know that a lot
37:47
Speaker 2: of marginalized people get harassed. For you, what do you
37:50
Speaker 2: do to persevere through those times?
37:53
Speaker 4: Yeah?
37:53
Speaker 5: I think it's it's a combination of actively dismissing hate
38:00
Speaker 5: and toxicity, like I'm saying to myself, doesn't matter, like
38:06
Speaker 5: these comments doesn't matter, It's okay. It's also surrounding myself
38:11
Speaker 5: by people who support me and care for me and
38:15
Speaker 5: love me. You know, the TikTok was by far the
38:18
Speaker 5: most toxic platform when it comes to pretty much everything else.
38:23
Speaker 4: People who are generally really supportive.
38:24
Speaker 5: So Twitter, LinkedIn Facebook, I get a lot of support there,
38:30
Speaker 5: and like through friends and family, you know, I reach
38:33
Speaker 5: out to them. I've always been honest about my mental
38:38
Speaker 5: and emotional states, so I'll be like, yeah, I'm feeling bad,
38:42
Speaker 5: I'm really anxious right now because I'm getting all these
38:44
Speaker 5: hate messages, or you know, in the past, when I've
38:47
Speaker 5: suffered depression, I've been like, yeah, I'm not doing so well,
38:51
Speaker 5: but trying every day. And I think that it helps
38:54
Speaker 5: to be honest with the people close to you about
38:57
Speaker 5: those sort of things, because it also makes that more
39:00
Speaker 5: approachable if they're ever facing similar issues. And then, luckily,
39:07
Speaker 5: I'm just really stubborn, so I do everything I can
39:10
Speaker 5: to keep pushing forward. I like synking my teeth into problems.
39:15
Speaker 5: I like, yeah, being involved with helping others, and so
39:21
Speaker 5: if social media is too much at any point in time,
39:24
Speaker 5: I have a lot of other things to focus on.
39:26
Speaker 5: I have my game, I have mentorship, I have all
39:31
Speaker 5: sorts of other things where I can spend my time,
39:33
Speaker 5: and I try to only right now open social media
39:37
Speaker 5: if I am like mentally prepared for some harassment, like
39:41
Speaker 5: I only do what I'm feeling like good and stable.
39:44
Speaker 5: I don't just like I don't allow notifications to come
39:47
Speaker 5: to my phone from those platforms. They have to be
39:50
Speaker 5: something that I pull and check.
39:53
Speaker 3: Actively, though smart.
39:54
Speaker 2: I made the mistake when I first started podcasting look
39:56
Speaker 2: at reviews and I almost cry every day.
39:59
Speaker 3: Was like, we all told you not to, and they did,
40:03
Speaker 3: and that finally learned.
40:04
Speaker 1: Well, you know, that's a good point, though it's so
40:07
Speaker 1: frustrating because you do want to if there are like
40:10
Speaker 1: legitimate critiques, you do want that of like, Okay, it
40:16
Speaker 1: seems like some of them you might be okay, it
40:19
Speaker 1: sounds like you just don't like me, and you're saying
40:21
Speaker 1: it politely, okay.
40:23
Speaker 7: But some of them you're like, okay, I wish I
40:24
Speaker 7: had known this and I could have improved. And that's
40:27
Speaker 7: another thing.
40:28
Speaker 1: If you're getting like review bombed or all these negative comments.
40:31
Speaker 1: It's something that women in marginalized people have to deal
40:33
Speaker 1: with that a lot of white men don't, and it
40:38
Speaker 1: does impact your job and that's ridiculous.
40:41
Speaker 7: But yeah, I had to make that same.
40:42
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't be on social media, which
40:44
Speaker 1: is a place where a lot of us show up
40:46
Speaker 1: and try to market our games. Or I don't make
40:49
Speaker 1: games our stuff, but like that directly impacts your job
40:55
Speaker 1: and your your mental health and physical health.
40:57
Speaker 5: Honestly, Yeah, and I I haven't done this too much yet,
41:02
Speaker 5: but I plan on leaning on others to help me
41:05
Speaker 5: sift through things like if you if you think that
41:08
Speaker 5: there might be good content and negative reviews, have somebody
41:12
Speaker 5: else read the negative reviews and tell you the like
41:15
Speaker 5: important takeaways because.
41:18
Speaker 1: At point Idea, you know it's an important job.
41:23
Speaker 6: It's an important job, you know.
41:34
Speaker 2: But with all of that, you also did receive a
41:37
Speaker 2: lot of support. Like I said, I was at the
41:38
Speaker 2: beginning with like, oh yeah, everybody's like, yes, we're here,
41:41
Speaker 2: we let we hear you, we see this, we want
41:43
Speaker 2: this game. And with that big conversation of why supporting
41:46
Speaker 2: independent gaming companies like yours is so important, how do
41:50
Speaker 2: you feel in seeing this type of support.
41:52
Speaker 5: I was so thankful for the support, and I know
41:55
Speaker 5: it's easy for me to get overwhelmed about the harassment,
41:58
Speaker 5: but I recognized that the outpouring of support was honestly
42:04
Speaker 5: really wonderful, and it did recover sort of the exposure
42:08
Speaker 5: and marketing loss that that had happened on my launch
42:13
Speaker 5: day and I've also I've got the very sweetest fan emails.
42:18
Speaker 5: Like I was expecting to maybe get like one or
42:22
Speaker 5: two fan emails, ever in the first week, I was
42:26
Speaker 5: getting one or two a day, and like paragraphs long
42:30
Speaker 5: talking about who they are and their experiences and why.
42:33
Speaker 4: The game meant so much to them.
42:36
Speaker 5: I am tearing up actually thinking about it, because it's
42:38
Speaker 5: just so sweet to know that you can connect with
42:41
Speaker 5: others that way, that you can give them something to
42:43
Speaker 5: connect with and that they appreciate something that you put
42:47
Speaker 5: so much of yourself into. And that's that's just been
42:50
Speaker 5: truly wonderful, and it's why I'm so excited to do
42:56
Speaker 5: my next steps. I'm looking at bringing the game to
42:59
Speaker 5: switch and PlayStation and Xbox, so I have my devocates
43:02
Speaker 5: of working on Courting, just getting out one more patch
43:05
Speaker 5: for PC that's gonna have a lot of quality life
43:08
Speaker 5: improvements that actually are also partially for consoles, like making
43:11
Speaker 5: font sizes bigger and things more readable.
43:14
Speaker 4: So I'm really I'm really.
43:16
Speaker 5: Looking forward to sharing this game with even more people.
43:20
Speaker 5: And I am so lucky to be a game developer
43:24
Speaker 5: in a time where indie developers can exist, where we
43:27
Speaker 5: don't have to have publishers to make physical cartridges where
43:32
Speaker 5: you know a smaller game can thrive. And right now,
43:36
Speaker 5: I think indie development is extra important because it is
43:40
Speaker 5: a wonderful storytelling medium and there is so much that
43:44
Speaker 5: indie developers can communicate that other game developers can't. I
43:49
Speaker 5: mentor a bunch of Indonesian game developers, and they are
43:53
Speaker 5: making games that are bringing in their local culture and
43:57
Speaker 5: lore and history, and that's really wonderful.
44:01
Speaker 4: In potions, I.
44:02
Speaker 5: Mean I intentionally brought in other cultures.
44:06
Speaker 4: You have Babby Alga from Slavic lore.
44:09
Speaker 6: You have like.
44:10
Speaker 5: Three of the four Journey to the West characters in
44:13
Speaker 5: one of the sections.
44:14
Speaker 4: Of the game. You have Sindbad and the Sphinx. There's
44:20
Speaker 4: all sorts of characters and stories that help.
44:26
Speaker 5: Make people more worldly just by playing the game, like
44:29
Speaker 5: give them an insight into these other cultures and lore.
44:34
Speaker 5: And right now, with how the game and industry has been,
44:39
Speaker 5: almost all of the Triple A studios cut their research
44:42
Speaker 5: and development teams that are on D teams that was
44:45
Speaker 5: what they did before. A lot of the layoffs are
44:47
Speaker 5: at the start of the layoffs, so there are very
44:50
Speaker 5: few large studios that are really working to push boundaries
44:54
Speaker 5: and create new ip So that's that's where indie devs
44:57
Speaker 5: can shine right now. There's a huge gap in the
45:00
Speaker 5: market for us to do innovative things, to break new
45:05
Speaker 5: bounds in to bring players to new worlds.
45:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm at the Sphinx in the game.
45:12
Speaker 7: You're saying it like you're haunted Samantha.
45:14
Speaker 4: I love this.
45:16
Speaker 5: She's got a great attitude. Does for anyone listening if
45:23
Speaker 5: you get to the Sphinx say all the wrong answers first,
45:26
Speaker 5: because she has a unique reaction to each of them.
45:29
Speaker 2: No, I think I did one. I think she was
45:31
Speaker 2: really sissan Okay.
45:35
Speaker 7: I love this.
45:35
Speaker 6: Well.
45:37
Speaker 7: Do you have any speaking of you've been talking about
45:41
Speaker 7: mentorship and all of this, do you have any advice
45:45
Speaker 7: for people who want to get into the industry.
45:50
Speaker 5: Absolutely make a game. It doesn't have to be a
45:53
Speaker 5: big game. It doesn't have to be a new game.
45:55
Speaker 5: You can recreate pac Man that's fine. Find a tutorial
46:00
Speaker 5: or a game engine. Learnt unity dot com is great,
46:04
Speaker 5: and even just get out a piece of paper and
46:06
Speaker 5: start sketching out ideas. There are tons of resources available
46:10
Speaker 5: to teach you aspects of game development, but really the
46:14
Speaker 5: joy of game development is coming up with something and
46:17
Speaker 5: being creative.
46:18
Speaker 4: So just start there.
46:20
Speaker 5: And then gather the tools you need as you go
46:23
Speaker 5: to sort of bring that first vision to life. Doesn't
46:26
Speaker 5: have to be perfect, doesn't have to be complete, but
46:29
Speaker 5: you'll learn so much along the way, and it will
46:33
Speaker 5: guide you along your path going forward.
46:36
Speaker 1: I have to say it's also a fascinating experience in
46:40
Speaker 1: like thinking about human psychology, like what will a person do?
46:44
Speaker 1: You know, like, Okay, I've got to think about all
46:47
Speaker 1: of the strange ideas that.
46:50
Speaker 4: I can tell you you absolutely can't.
46:51
Speaker 5: And play testing is super important. You have no idea
46:57
Speaker 5: how much the start of Potions Curious has changed, not
47:01
Speaker 5: even like the core like how it works, but changing
47:05
Speaker 5: like camera zoom and making things sparkle and giving hints
47:10
Speaker 5: like Potions tries to not hold your hand, but there
47:14
Speaker 5: are so many hints and like visual cues in there
47:17
Speaker 5: to help guide players because the first time they didn't
47:21
Speaker 5: know what was going on, Like it requires a lot
47:24
Speaker 5: of iteration. You can think you've designed a perfect game
47:27
Speaker 5: and you'll put in front of somebody and they'll be like,
47:28
Speaker 5: I have no clue what's going on, and I don't
47:30
Speaker 5: know what to.
47:30
Speaker 3: Do, and it's like you and D and D.
47:34
Speaker 2: When you think you've predicted what they're going to do,
47:36
Speaker 2: they do them being completely opposite and they make stories exactly.
47:41
Speaker 7: It's like a beautiful, annoying thing.
47:45
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, okay, I never would have thought of that,
47:48
Speaker 1: but all right.
47:49
Speaker 4: They're very creative.
47:51
Speaker 7: Here we go, and I love I like, legitimately love it.
47:55
Speaker 1: But it is an exercise of thinking, like they're going
47:58
Speaker 1: to find some way to set this up on fire.
48:00
Speaker 7: I just got to figure out how apparently.
48:08
Speaker 1: Okay, do you have any advice to if someone's got
48:12
Speaker 1: an idea for a game but they're not really sure,
48:16
Speaker 1: like should I pursue this or what should I do?
48:20
Speaker 1: Any advice for people like that who have like the
48:22
Speaker 1: idea but don't really know the next steps.
48:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, once you have a core idea for your game,
48:29
Speaker 5: I recommend generating a like Elevator pitch, two or three
48:34
Speaker 5: sentences that capture the absolute core of your game, what
48:38
Speaker 5: makes it special. So I actually gave you the elevator
48:40
Speaker 5: pitch for Potions earlier. So something like that, you talk
48:43
Speaker 5: about the genre, the story setting, what makes it unique,
48:47
Speaker 5: and that will help you have.
48:50
Speaker 4: Your north star. It'll be sort of your vision there.
48:53
Speaker 5: Once you have that, think about your audience, who would
48:56
Speaker 5: like that vision and is it going to be if
49:00
Speaker 5: you want to be commercially viable, a large enough audience
49:03
Speaker 5: to actually support the development of the game.
49:06
Speaker 4: And then if.
49:07
Speaker 5: Those two are checked off, make a simple prototype. Make
49:10
Speaker 5: sure that what you think is going to be fun
49:12
Speaker 5: is fun. Jonathan Blow actually has a really wonderful talk
49:16
Speaker 5: on indie prototyping and talks about what is important to
49:19
Speaker 5: prototype and what successful prototypes are like. I won't summarize
49:23
Speaker 5: as like hour plus talk there, but definitely prototype core mechanics,
49:28
Speaker 5: what makes your game special and see if that's actually
49:30
Speaker 5: as fun as you think it is, and if it
49:32
Speaker 5: is your set to go, you can build it out
49:34
Speaker 5: from there.
49:35
Speaker 2: Okay, Now with all of that, as we are coming
49:38
Speaker 2: towards the end, I need to know what are your
49:40
Speaker 2: future plans.
49:41
Speaker 3: Do you have other games in mind that you're creating,
49:44
Speaker 3: or what's happening in the world of Fumily Caz.
49:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.
49:48
Speaker 5: So I'm working on an update patch for Potions right
49:50
Speaker 5: now that has some quality of life features and more
49:53
Speaker 5: art asset updates, and then after that I will be
49:59
Speaker 5: working on the console ports so that should take me
50:02
Speaker 5: at least through October, if not into next year. Beyond that,
50:06
Speaker 5: I do have another game idea. I'm thinking of doing
50:09
Speaker 5: something that's a little more social. So when I grew up,
50:13
Speaker 5: I had like Pokemon Stadium, and Pokemon Stadium had a
50:16
Speaker 5: party game mode built into it. I never played a
50:19
Speaker 5: ton of Mario Party, but I have as an adult,
50:22
Speaker 5: and I really want to create sort of a really
50:25
Speaker 5: fun party game, silly game. And the nice thing about
50:29
Speaker 5: that is it is tight, small, fast iteration on small
50:33
Speaker 5: game experiences. I love potions, I love story based adventure games.
50:37
Speaker 5: I need a little bit of a break and do
50:39
Speaker 5: some faster iteration, find the fun really quick. So I'm
50:43
Speaker 5: looking forward to starting that next.
50:46
Speaker 3: I love it. Can I get?
50:47
Speaker 4: Can?
50:47
Speaker 3: I ask that?
50:49
Speaker 6: So?
50:50
Speaker 2: One of the things that I cannot do in Mario
50:52
Speaker 2: Party is when they have to run across things where
50:54
Speaker 2: they can't. Can you do play sure that I can't
50:56
Speaker 2: fall off of things? That's what I'm meaning's.
50:58
Speaker 4: Guardrails rails those games.
51:02
Speaker 3: I can't.
51:03
Speaker 7: We play a lot of Mario.
51:05
Speaker 2: Like every time I have to also Mario Kart. Why
51:08
Speaker 2: do they let me fall off? This should not be
51:10
Speaker 2: a thing.
51:10
Speaker 3: I don't I don't.
51:11
Speaker 2: I don't need this for my self esteem anyway, just
51:16
Speaker 2: noted noted.
51:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, it make it friendly and accessible for sure.
51:20
Speaker 3: Just just bumber rails. That's all I need.
51:22
Speaker 2: Also, again, I'm talking about the fact that I am
51:25
Speaker 2: a beginner essentially when it comes to like working with
51:28
Speaker 2: different outlets and platforms. And I love a good like
51:32
Speaker 2: cozy game. Like I've really gotten into those where like
51:35
Speaker 2: there's a but there's still like mystery and still a
51:38
Speaker 2: little gameplay in it. What would you suggest for me?
51:41
Speaker 2: Do you know of anything that I could look into
51:43
Speaker 2: or you know what I could be more advanced? Push
51:45
Speaker 2: me a little more advanced. But what recommends me?
51:48
Speaker 5: I have the perfect game for you? Okay, this is
51:51
Speaker 5: like a cozy game pre cozy games. Okay, It's called
51:55
Speaker 5: Recitere an Item Shops Tale.
51:58
Speaker 3: Okay, I got write this, damn keep going.
52:00
Speaker 5: And so you play as the owner of an item
52:04
Speaker 5: shop in a fantasy RPG, and you are the main
52:10
Speaker 5: character's motto is capitalism ho. So yeah, it's a shop
52:18
Speaker 5: running simulator. You're trying to like min max profits. There
52:23
Speaker 5: is a dungeon diving aspect to it. I love it,
52:26
Speaker 5: But you don't have to do the Dungeon Divy. If
52:28
Speaker 5: you don't want to, you can purely do like Bilo
52:31
Speaker 5: sell High Manipulation of the Market. And it's it's really
52:35
Speaker 5: fun and it's really cute, very well done, and it's
52:39
Speaker 5: it's pretty old.
52:39
Speaker 4: So I think you can get it on sale.
52:42
Speaker 2: What do you need to get like? Can I get
52:43
Speaker 2: it through Switch? Or do I need to do it
52:44
Speaker 2: Steam Deck the PC?
52:46
Speaker 5: I know you can get it on Steam. I don't
52:47
Speaker 5: know if you can get it on modern consoles. It
52:49
Speaker 5: is a pretty old game.
52:50
Speaker 1: I'll go find it. I'll find this is so great.
52:53
Speaker 1: At the start of the pandemic, smanth that was like,
52:55
Speaker 1: never play a game. Then as the pandemic has happened,
53:01
Speaker 1: you know more games than get there. You'd give me
53:03
Speaker 1: a lot of great advice. I love it. Can you
53:07
Speaker 1: played this? This is fantastic? Well, thank you, thank you,
53:13
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today. Renee, would
53:18
Speaker 1: you like to tell the good listeners how to find you?
53:20
Speaker 4: Yeah?
53:21
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you can find Potions of Curious Tale currently on Steam.
53:25
Speaker 5: Just type in potions you should be able to find it.
53:29
Speaker 5: If you want to follow me on social media, I
53:32
Speaker 5: am Riku Ka t Riku Kat with a k on
53:37
Speaker 5: pretty much everything, So I am very easy to find.
53:41
Speaker 4: If you want to find me on anything except for YouTube. YouTube,
53:45
Speaker 4: just find me under Renee Giittens.
53:46
Speaker 6: I'll be there.
53:47
Speaker 1: I thought you were about to say, like, except for YouTube,
53:50
Speaker 1: they won't have me up there.
53:54
Speaker 4: No, it's trying to be more formal.
53:55
Speaker 5: It's like, oh, Renee Gittens, because formality I should have
53:59
Speaker 5: just stuck to the same handle.
54:02
Speaker 1: All good, well, listeners, go go check out all of
54:04
Speaker 1: those things. Go check out the game. It's awesome. It's beautiful.
54:08
Speaker 1: If you haven't already, and if you would like to
54:11
Speaker 1: contact us, you can or email is Stuff Media mom
54:13
Speaker 1: Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
54:15
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
54:17
Speaker 1: and stuff whe Never Told You.
54:19
Speaker 7: We're on YouTube. We have a t pelg store. Hey,
54:21
Speaker 7: we have a book you can get wherever you get
54:23
Speaker 7: your books.
54:24
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our superroducer christinaor executive Pducer Mayer
54:26
Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey.
54:27
Speaker 3: Thank you.
54:28
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You
54:30
Speaker 1: is production by Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my
54:31
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, you can check out the I Heart Radio
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54:34
Speaker 7: Or wherever you listen to your favorite ships,