Hell, look him. How do y'all Hey out there, ship heads, it's Michael Swain and my buddy Adam Ganzer say him. Yeah, that's what his voice sounds like. And this is one upsmanship yet again, a very special one upsmanship because we're about to sit down virtually. I'm actually standing because I'm on my PC this time. It's a long story, um, but we're speaking with probably, I would say, the highest profile developer who's dame to stop by the show. Thrilled to have him back, so appreciate his time. Um, head of Unknown Worlds and creator of one of like a game Adams still won't shut up about. I love it, but I've played it three times Adams played so natica and I really love it. Yeah, Um, you know him, you love and Charlie Cleveland, Hey, welcome Charlie, welcome back. Thank you, thank you. That was quite an intro and not really deserved. I have to say, oh, thank you, thank you. The false yeah we uh, our currency is false humility. So you're already scoring big with the audience. They love in that's right, fault dude, you're killing it. You're going even further. I love it. No, we we know Like all artists, you have a huge ego and this is just overcompensating for that. Um no, but you needed to be true. Um might ego destroyed a long time ago. Good. Well, that's great because we're here to talk about your brand new game, moon Breaker, which is, in many ways the gamification of something that nerds and losers like us would do in a tiny room in the corner of the school sometimes. Um So, let's dive right into it, Adam, I thought maybe we should start with our I know this won't be a non format episode, but how do you feel about still starting with the normal tell me like a summary of a summary of moon breaths? Right, but make Charlie doing Yeah? Oh yeah, oh that's so good. Yeah. So we have a format now called tell me like I made it, Charlie, in which we ask whoever is doing it to explain to the audience what this game we're going to discuss is, as though they've heard nothing about it. You seem like the perfect person to do that if you're willing to probably what you've been doing on repeat for the past eight months, one presumes pretty much. Yeah, are you ready for me? Give us your spiel? What's the bitch. I mean, it's actually a very short spiel. Um. Moon Breaker is a digital miniatures game boom kind of score. So you can paint them, you push them around on the virtual table, but it doesn't really look like a table. It looks like a world because it's a cool video game. It's digital um, and there's a whole story element to it. We've got Brandon Sanderson. He's creating all this amazing lore in this whole world. So it's kind of like the trifecta of Menatures, which is, you know, all manatures games do this, but it's the cool game, the painting experienced, the hobby, and then the world. That's what we're doing. Awesome. Uh. We no longer do it as a times speed run, but if we did, you would have aced that component as well. I think it is pretty straightforward. Yeah, once you see it. Last time we were here, of course, you were a much more koy about moon Breaker, UM, just referring it to as and as you like your next project, and sort of saying that you were handing off the reins of sub Natica below zero in some regard. What to what degree was that? So? Like, were you not how involved were you in Below Zero while you were working on moon Breaker? You know, I didn't really do very much. I mean I basically, um, I coached the head of the project, David Kalina, so I pretty much just was there to help him solve problems. But you know that was just you know, an hour or two a week, So I mean I wasn't involved. Well, I shouldn't say that. There was one part that I did come in a little bit. Um we had a big story reboot. The story was just not working, and we had some friends down in l A that we went to go hang out with and they basically let us use their writer's room and we basically just sat in a room for three days and just like ripped up the old stuff and figured out what was working, what wasn't, and basically redid the story completely, but in a way that was actually constrained by what we had already built, because we didn't want to throw a lot of that stuff away. We didn't have time or or whatever. So that was the one thing that I did kind of help with. But for the most part, I basically did nothing on Below zero. Awesome. Well, uh, I'm just intrigued by how did how did you know, Like, I mean obvious, there's obvious ways, but like, how long into the process do you go before you know the story is working in a game when you're designing it. I mean, when does that really trigger it's like, oh, it's not working. I think it was. I think we're just playing it and we were like trying to play play through the whole thing, and we're just noticing kit the intro isn't really setting up the characters or you know, we're kind of confused while we're here, like I don't know, we're like putting together this robot. It's kind of you know, going into our mind that's not really working. The end wasn't working, just none of it was working. So I mean I think it was. Yeah, you do require a certain amount of faith, you know before you don't want to redo something before you can really evaluate it. But I think it had been long enough that it just wasn't clicking with an of people were just like, okay, what are the we are the real problems here? Well, and we were in early access. I believe we were in early access to that. Yeah, we were at that time, so our players weren't getting it either, So I think we just kind of said, hey, we gotta make some changes. Now. This is the last time that you know, we have we still have enough time on the project. We can make some changes. Do we want to do it? And we just yeah, I gotta pull the trigger and just yeap it out. So that's the impression we got last time, for sure, was that it seems like a guiding principle of your work is never too late to change until it's too late to change it, very open to feedback, um, sharing what you've got when it's sort of you know, opening the hood when it's not even fully assembled, and allowing yourselves to learn from that, or sometimes what it is when we think it's fully assembled and we find out that it's not. It's never too late in the digital realm. Yeah, um, so I definitely want to get to that, but just to go in a sensible order, I got to ask some of the obligatories. So like, why what enticed you away from you've got to hit game? Are you someone who's just like I always want to do something new? So after Subnatica one was under you know, water under the bridge, like I need something new? Or was there a specific appeal to tabletop um. You know, I always got to ask, like an artist who changes gears or lanes or projects or to a whole new franchise, why, like, what's the appeal? What kept your passion for Moonbreaker going through the whole development process. Yeah, I mean people seem to be really surprised that we made a digital miniatures game after making Subnatica. And my my response is always, well, people were really surprised when we made Subnatica after we made Natural Selection one and two, and those those games were competitive and shooty with guns and blooded blood and you know, online competition, and Snatica was like a you know, a non violent survival game, you know, all the single player and a and as natural Selection had no stories, not as all story. So I mean, we we made that switch once and you know, somenotic it was way more successful than Natural Section ever was. So I'm so glad that, you know, I basically we're just the kind of studio that like wants to keep doing new things, and you know, our games end up by taking a long time. You know, five years is kind of typical for us, sometimes even longer. So you work on a game for five years, you kind of want to stretch your legs and do something else. Yeah, you know, So what's your experience historically with like I mean, I'm I'm more magic, the gathering and certain others. So like the big one is, you know, I know the big ones that everyone was like Warhammer for d K or whatever. But what's your miniatures experience? Just because I feel like after you see like, oh there's a painting mode too, it seems like miniatures have been important in your life at some point. Is is that recent or has that always been a part of your life? What's that? Well? When I was, you know, fourteen or something like that, I remember, you know, buying Warhammer the book, buying some miniatures, learning to paint them, and we you know, we had read the books and talk about the miniatures and basically paint around my friend's table. We never really played those games. They always had like such a strong appeal to me, but they never never really clicked. And probably it was just there's so many barriers to learning how to play. Um. I did play some MEC Warrior Dark Age, which was the kind of the the hero clicks kind of precedent before that that game took off. Um, but yeah, I've always I don't know, I can't. I can't say I've been a huge Ministers fan for my whole life, but you know, I think when I was a kid, it did definitely got its claws into me, and I think that was I mean, I can't really say that I've been wanting a digital manager's game this whole time. It's just my business partner, Max and I were we had prototyped a bunch different game ideas and you know, usually we you know, work on them for four to six weeks, make a bunch of prototypes, and you know, none of them were really jelling, and we just I don't can't remember who came up with it, but one of us mentioned a digital manager's idea, and it just, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, that'd be so cool. We could we can enforce all the rules digitally. You wouldn't have to like read all these big books. Oh and for measuring, you know, the computer could just show you where you go because you don't have to use a tape measure. Oh, you can tell me clear plastic sheets with the notches on them and all that stuff. Actors, all that stuff, and then we're like painting all the painting could be so cool, and next thing, you know, we're just getting more and more excited about it. So we decided to prototype it, and something about it just hooked us. Yeah, just grew. Yeah that's not I mean sometimes I think people are romanticized. You're like, I saw Warhammer for d K in the window of a shop and a light showing down. But I like the pisar, you know, Like, No, we had a meeting, we discussed eight ideas and we were like, this one seems right, and we all proceeded with it and it developed from there. You can't, oh, forgive go ahead. Oh no, no, I don't want to. I want you to say what you're gonna say. You can't think your way forward, right, That's the classic design thinking idea. You can't. You can't just imagine how something's gonna work and like and have that be real. You have to build it. So you have to prototype, and then the prototype tells you a lot very quickly, and then maybe you build another protype or another one, and then next thing you know, you've got momentum. I have sort of like a ten thousand feet question. I think, so you've made now games in at least three different genres and you've had success as a designer, Like if you have if you have a sense of your long term career goal, now, is it just keep making games or is there like do you have visions for what Unknown Worlds could be as a business? Uh Like talk a little bit about that. Yeah, I mean it changed a little bit, um and recently because we we did sell the craft in one year ago. Um, so it's it's kind of not just my company anymore. So there's other people around. Um. They have left us with tons of autonomy, which is amazing. It's amazing to sell a company and still get to run it. Um. But we have a lot of help in that department now. Um So, I don't know, I think I mean, like probably the biggest shift would would be we need to make games that are not They're not coming from me because I in the past, I've been like the I don't want to use the word further. This must be a better word than further, Like I'm the kind of the I've been in the beginning of those games. But obviously, you know, so many people have like made those games happen, and you know, so Natica grew so much during, you know, from the first couple of prototypes when I when I was working on it. But I think we just I want I want other teams at the company to be able to come up with new game ideas that fit the DNA of Unknown Worlds and basically for me to not have to work on them and have them have me be delighted by them and our fans. Yeah, I could tell all that's an unknown World's game. Um, that would be amazing that. I mean that sounds amazing. So are you hoping then to be more like the head of a studio and get involved when you feel like it? Is that like your personal goal within this? I mean, that's a good question. I mean it's hard for me to imagine not making games in some form. M I just it really lights me up, obviously, But I don't know. I guess I haven't. It's I don't really think of it more than just keep making games. Yeah, interesting, that simple. But I want this. I want the studio to be able to do it without me as well, because at some point that has to be planned for and it does. Things can't go through me, and there's lots of people that are bottlenecks at the studio. But like, any of those bottlenecks we can just fix is just going to be healthy long term for the company. Yeah. So not to steer us into brand identity questions, but I actually do wonder, Um, that's the US that's very interesting to me because there's only a few developers or like outfits. I don't know what the taxonomy is based on the size of the company, but um outfits where I'm like, I do know that game by developer like Devolver comes to mind. Um who I don't know if they're more of a distributor or developed directly or what the deal is as I say, but um, my question is what do you consider that brand identity? Like what is core? Because you do seem to be so versatile as a group with just three points of data, which is you know, hopefully there will be more in the future. Um, what do you hope you maintain from game to game that starts to sort of resonate as like, oh that's their thing. Yeah. I spent a lot of time thinking about that because we actually we had a like an internal initiative where we had teams you know, pitching games and making prototypes and and the idea was like, you know, how do we know whether this is like a game that like a good game or is this a game that fits the studio, because you know, you don't. We don't want to just put out games that are as product that you know they're not. It can't be just enough that they make money, because not every game is gonna make money, and if they did, you just have no you'd have no like fans that really are going to love all your games. It has to be some glue that holds it all together. And kind of the best uh, kind of description I came up with is our games take players on a journey into the unknown. And that's I mean, you could you could think of it in many ways in terms of in terms of the unknown. I think for Natural Selection, it was a new genre because it was blending shooters and strategy games in a in a pretty new way. For some Natica, it was like literally taking the journey like that was the whole game. It literally was that um the bottom of the ocean, and then beyond um and then for a Moonbreaker, it's a little bit different, but I mean, I do think of it. I don't think we can claim that it's a new genre, but it kind of is like, you know, there is no digital managers game out there, and you know, as much as I wish there was, because there's a lot of questions we have still about the game in the genre, and they'd be great if we could look at it comparable that has solved. Yeah, they don't exist. I thought it was then was fascinating how because I'm not in this world as much as I'm guessing Mike is. Uh. I thought it was fascinating how robust the customizability of the characters is, you know, like, and I'm kind of curious for you because I know that seems like the draw of it. Uh, what makes a satisfying customizable or like skin component to a game character in your mind? Like, what's the what's the best version of that? I mean you're talking about the painting and paintings, painting and and yeah, and it also seemed like like you could you could get skins, but also you can design your own skins if I understood it correctly. Uh we all? Oh sorry, continue, Oh no, I was just gonna say I thought that was at least one or two steps further than I've seen in most games. So I'm kind of curious what, like what makes that satisfying for you and for gamers, Well, you can't. We don't allow you to like change the mottele. Right, a model, there's just you collect you know, each unit as models, and then some of them we do call we call them skins where they have different variants of them, Like a captain might have multiple variants, one where she's writing a frog, one where she's writing a I can't remeber if we've released that one or not writing something else. Um, but the mystery, yeah, we were just said one we think isn't already. Honestly, my brain is a blur. Um the robot, she's writing a robot that one. Um. But yeah, the painting, I mean how we create, how we choose what kinds of models we want our characters to be. That definitely takes into account, like the kind of base appeal, like how it would look on a base and then oppose and all that stuff. So are the our team has learned a ton about um what figures stand out. And actually, in the beginning, we used to have a whole lot of like small humanoids, and it just they were not interesting to look at. They were just like really pooring moved away from that, and we have a lot more aliens and machines and robots, and you know, we really try to have a wide variety of kind of physical types. Yeah, and you seem like you're actually committed to And I would love to know how this decision came about or if you knew this from jump. I think something that really differentiates it from any games that have because I am more heavily into turn based strategy I think than Adam or games like X commersives some components I see overlap or connection to right in terms of how you're strategizing. Um, but what really makes it feel different is it's not trying to be an isometric view of an animated world. They're truly miniatures. So I wanted to know, like, how did you know from the beginning that the animations So it's hard to explain. People should watch footage of the game, but I mean they're robustly animated, but not in the way that a game character would be animated. It's as if your miniatures came to life. It's a very specific look. Yeah, that was from day one, I have to say, And that was Max. Uh my co founder. That was that was his push from the beginning, and I was I wasn't totally sure about it at the start, but um, you know the idea that I say that there's there's animation, but there's no articulated animation, so that the unit itself, like the miniatures jump around, but the entire base moves and they are static on top of that base, but the base is doing all sorts of stuff. It's like an invisible hand had picked it up and it's like pantomiming how the how the unit is moving? Um, And I yeah, I think I think that concept worked right away. I think it. It is the number one question we've gotten from developers joining the team over the past whole development of it, and they're always like, Hey, I've got this amazing idea, wouldn't this game be better if you animated the miniature like every other game ever made, like like every other game it's like And my answer is always the same because we tried it and it just really broke the whole miniature's feel. And like Max again, he always has a way of like cutting down, cutting to the center of a of an issue very quickly, and he says, I remember he once said, you know, we should be leaning into the miniatures feeld, not not moving away from it. I'm like, of course, that's it. It's miniatures. Like, if you don't like managers, don't play the game. But if you like manatures, there's no game like this. And it's specific artistic choices, which not doing certain things, that's what makes it have a specific feel. Well, it's a real love letter to that community too. Like I watched a couple of videos from like people who are giving like tutorials on how to get into your game, like early x US and like to a to a man, they were all like, this is about miniatures, that it's the best, Like that's the thing that got them really interested in it. So clearly you were right, you know, like clearly that's the right direction for the audience here because they argue that you know, sales will be higher or whatever would be bigger, but like it, you know, the game games have to they have to take a stance, you know, like no making game for everyone is making for no one. That's what they always say, and that that's our stance. And I think it became clear to us. It didn't take long for us to realize that the units have a lot of character, and you know, we did prototypes, We did animation prototypes separate from the game, just to make sure that it felt really cool and with you know, with v effects and animation and it's you know, like from the beginning like it. We could tell we could get a lot of mileage out of that, and we just hoped the long term we would have enough that our toolboxes, you know, extensive enough that we can actually get enough person ality out of the units. So far, so good. Um, that's been an interesting chat, right. I think you guys are tremendously inventive with how you animate something that's not animated, you know, the like yeah, so like a creature that crawls across the board does really feel different than someone who's just walking normally or in stealth motor going in loud. Um, just by the way you animate the miniature. It's it's very fun awesome. Our our animator, Lewis, who's been with us for a long time, he did he animated a lot of the creatures on Sonatica. He could do that. Guy can animate like I don't know, three or four units probably a day. Yeah, Like wow, it's so efficient. There's one bone, you're just animating one bone. Like and yet what's great. I'm sure as soon as you realize that, you're like bonus. But I love that it's also in line with an artistic vision right as you're leaning into the miniatures thing and then you realize, oh that frees us up to do this and not do all this. Yeah, very cool. Not Unfortunately, the flip side is, you know that huge efficiency we got for animation, we have a corresponding inefficiency, which is that when you're painting a unit, you need it to be really detailed. You know, you need a lot of detail on that model so you can zoom in and they're they're they're interesting to look at, they look beautiful, they're fun to paint. But most of the game is played from zoomed out, so you basically don't need the detail when you play. So we actually you know, and because it zoomed out, you have you know, you have a bunch of units. You know, your rosters are like eight big plus a captain. You know, it's a practical games as a bunch of units on the in play and like so we need a lot of units in production. And because that's how that's where our gameplay and all the richness comes from. But they need to be super high details. So we're kind of like in that bad spot where you know it's like the one character or the one human that we had in so Natica, that's just like one character. We have, like we already shipped like forty. We have like another twenty five coming. Right. It's collectible in nature, so it's going to expand and expand, right exactly. It's a huge amount of work. The art team on this game is surprisingly big, dozens and dozens of people. So, um, yeah, strange. Yeah, So is that something that I don't mean to be like pitching and I'm on the team, but does anyone suggests that are brought up that can that be accomplished with the dynamic camera? We're like, oh, it's there, turn to move to the camera snaps into them and then snaps out, or like, well, what options are you investigating to address this if you see it as a concern, Well, you're saying, so we can see more detail in the units of what we play for a long Yeah, for as higher percentage of time as possible. We're in close ups or what have you or do you feel like that's leaning away from the miniature. No. We actually for two or three years we had a full animated camera. It was framing things. Whenever you moved, it would zoom in. Yeah, it looked really cool, but it was always frustrating, you know. It was it when we have a turn limit. You know, each each turn, the turn timers seconds. So, because we wanted to make accessible miniatures, so we knew that multiplayer was a big part of that. We knew that, you know, looking at CCGs, how fast those games play. If you look at a traditional miniatures game, you know, tabletop, their hours for a lot of different in the afternoon. Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh crap, Like we don't we don't want to make that. So we wanted to have games that were five to twenty minutes long. And so for that to happen, you need you need to be able to have a turn timer, and then for that to happen, you need to be able to issue a bunch of orders really quickly, and you don't want the camera getting in the way. So that's a long way of saying. We did have it for a long time. It did the really cool and eventually we just the more we tried to fix it and have it get out of the way and have it be pleasant, the more it just became clear to clear to us we should just delete it. We just removed it completely, and the game just got like twice, it feels cleaner. That's yeah, most of our experiences in creating video content. So it's so interesting because something is indelible in a sense, and you'll watch the rails back and you'll go, oh, we should have done that. Wow, it's too light now, um, and it's always amazing the time to game dems are like, so we deleted it and changed it completely, and now it's this and it does that. Our players love it or they hate it. Liberating, Yeah, but it is. Actually you have to embrace it. You have to continually embrace that mindset change. But the converse of it, though, is that you're also never done. You're never done with a game, so like you like you're this game has seasons, which I presume means support into the future, gonna be Yeah, you're gonna be working on it or somebody is forever. I mean, as long as it goes. Why what's that? Why? We just so back then we you know, we you know, we Sabnatica was a big hit for us, like, you know, by far the biggest thing we've ever worked on. But we're immediately scrambling, you know, like because it's a big box or what do you call it. You know, it's like a premium game. People buy it, they play it, they you know, four years later, they're done. They want more. Um if you're lucky, they want more. And so what can we do? We can just keep making, Like we made an expansion which then turned into a mini sequel that was below zero, but even below zero is a risk because you you know, you want to give players, you know, if you want to make a sequel or an expansion, you have to give them something new. But you know, the core still has to be you know, largely there, but it has to be fresh enough that people want to buy. It doesn't feel like just more content. I mean, you can do just more content for a traditional expansion, but then how many of those do you have in you one or two before players start bouncing? And then usually you've kind of tarnished your and then your company is tied to that and that only forever. Yeah, and you need money now, like because you just you know, you're kind of at the end of the rope and now you need to develop a new I P that's like really fresh and new, but you don't really have maybe you don't have money in the bank anymore to like, you know, if you mess that game up, that might be the last game your studio works on. You close. So we we knew that we wanted to get out of that cycle where you know, you have to basically have you know, a you know, second base or third base hit every single game or else you know, you're facing ruin. So we wanted to make a service, you know, an officially service based game. So not it was not that game originally, even Natural Selection was. It's all designed around the tech tree. It's everything is so tightly integrated. It would be really hard to add new you know, characters, weapons, aliens, anything like that. So like, okay, this is it. Let's make a game that's going to be ever green for our studio. This will be our lifeline. As long as this game will continue, we're going to be fine financially. Allows us to take other risks elsewhere, can let us get out of that, you know, requiring a hit every single game to just survive. Just they It's like the opposite of Marvel's, like the Marvel tent pole idea that movies have right where it's like you're creating a game that is I mean it, well, it's identical in sense that it's trying to create cash, the design other things, but it's not. It doesn't seem like it's designed to be like the big release. Well it's funny you say that, because I don't think it's or I think it's fascinating that, like Marvel, Snap is super what everyone's talking about right now. Um, which if listeners aren't familiar as a phone game that I compared to Smash Up if anyone's played that game, Um, you play kind of board game is literally Snap. Oh yeah, it's not that complex. Yeah, um, but it's fascinating to me because I do think there's a lot of interest in evergreen p VP replayables that aren't FPS is um because I don't I know at or like we're still codboys and Adam. I know you love multiplayer FPS, um, but I represent an audience that exists that Also, it's like Thirsty four, the ability to compete online in a strategy way. Um, so I'm super into it. Uh I. I love that you're thinking about it. It's I mean, I don't Others may find it unromantic, but I find it awesome and like inspiring into some degree that you're making strategic decisions that nurture the future of the company, but also around trying to have some kind of cohesive vision, but also making something like taking the practical into account. Um, I think you're doing it right. You're balancing all the concerns in a way that I approve of, if that matters. But that's like a thing with artistry in general, right, is that, like people forget you're also managing your own career. Yeah, and and you're managing financial reality of like your financial attached to Yeah. And and just like now, this this company has a life of its own, and there are strategic decisions it requires that are not always artistically motivated. First. Yeah, but don't forget. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But also these these are just creative constraints anyone that if you can't work with a creative constraint, you're just basically not creative. Right, they're almost always helpful. Yeah, that's right. Now that you mentioned the connecting feature being introducing UH players to unknown worlds and we should have known. I guess it's kind of self evident from the name of the company, but I think that is that comes through loud and Clear and moon Breaker. Um. And we haven't really touched on yet. So like Brandon Sanderson, a legendary fantasy author, UH finished up, I believe the Wheel of Time series of yeah, rafter Robert Jordan past Yeah, Um, how do you connect to him? Like what it was? The what's the core of the world, because you guys basically built a whole new fantasy world from scratch here right yep, Yes, science fantasy kind of in the realm of like Gardens of the Galaxy or Star Wars kind of those are good touch points or um. So we we back into seventeen. We had started protyping and two seventeen we'd made this prototype. We we're starting to get excited about it. You know, we had no idea that it was going to be a huge project, but I think probably I don't know. Six months in we met someone from Bad Robot Games. That's J. J. J. J. Abrahams film company. He's got you know, it's Bad Robot. They had started a games company, and they really wanted to get involved in games, and they wanted to be creative partners with video game developers. So they you know, they know a thing or two about making accessible sci fi and reaching audiences emotionally, and you know a thing or two about making games, and so we thought, hey, let's let's work together, you know, make this game connect to people emotionally. And we're not just gonna like cobble together some lower like a typical game does. We're gonna like do this right, and we're going to try to build a long lasting world that's going to be as good or better that than you know, the Warhammer universe or one of these other kind of miniatures games worlds. And so they we got together with them, they started they you know, they had they knew Brandon, they knew a whole bunch of other writers. We talked to a whole bunch of them, and Brandon was like the clear winner, like immediately, and happened to have played Sonatica and enjoyed it, So that was he he was. He had been courting or had been courted by various video game developers for a while, and uh he had actually created two pitches for non, so he all his books are in the same world called the Cosmir. I don't know how big and fancy you are. UM. So he had to ideas for um books slash worlds that were outside of Cosmir. They neither of them we're gonna fit Cosmir. They still had the Brandon DNA, but they just were never going to fit into what he had already made. He didn't really feel like starting a whole new world, and so he had thought, hey, maybe one of these could be could work for a video game. So it just so happened that when we sent our pitch through bad Robot and they connected us to Brandon to both of his pitches, we're gonna work pretty well with the moon Breaker. One of them in particular was going to work really well. It was the more ambitious one. That's the one we ended up by going with, which I unfortunately can't I don't really want to talk about what that pitch is because these are details in the world that we haven't haven't revealed yet. But you know, it's called Moonbreaker that gets you somewhere. UM if you could see my desktop right now, my desktops, you could see all the cool artwork that we have not yet released about all this cool stuff. This is one of our problems we're having. But anyways, so we decided to create that world together Brandon. You know, we worked with him extensively and just he's such a gamer. He's basically a game designer. If you've read Miss Born or Way of Kings, you can understand how he thinks about magic. But he's known as the magic system dude. Yeah, the very specific, concrete magic system that is understandable and has rules. That's his thing. Yeah, you know, once you understand, you're like, oh my god, that means this and all of a sudden that's happening. Then means a wizard could do that, and then they do, ye know, and then they still they usually catch you by surprise anyways, but then perfect integrity, you're like, of course, that makes perfect sense that that would happen. It's like an emergent property. So that's how we got hooked over Brandon and he's been great. So then did that did his world idea come with an embedded magic system that helped inspired the gameplay or because it sounds like you're prototyping, Okay, so what gameplay existed at the time you met right, because you're already prototyping a mini issues game. I mean it kind of met in the middle, and we had we had the concept of command points, you know, and that you know, it was basically like manna from our stone. So that part wasn't really it wasn't like a big creative stretch to go from command points to sinder cinders, our magical resource. But Sender grew to have a life of its own. It affects a lot of other things throughout the reaches, which is our little pocket universe um which has air by the way. I don't know if you know, if you knew that, but there's an atmosphere so if you're if you're riding a creature or a ship between two moons, you can actually you don't need windows. You can actually dungeons and dragons module with the space pirates and bone ships where that was, Yeah, there was air between the planets to make a spell jamber. That's right, man, I forgot the name. That takes me right back to looking at the camps. Yes, spell jammer. That was. We have some spell jammer vibes going on here. It wasn't intentional, as I know, but looking back at him like, oh my gosh, we got a lot in common with spell Jammer. Yeah. So when it came to devising the actual game, the mechanics of the game, um, were you almost like we did you guys get down and play Warhammer? Care about Warhammers, Like try to compare your rules set to war Were you inspired by other games like x Common, Sive or anything else that comes to mind? Or yeah, like what were your inspirations? I mean for the how's the game gonna work? Work? I mean early on, we played um mostly skirmish miniatures games like Wow Miniatures. Um of course that Macwarry Dark Dark Age that I mentioned before. I read the rules to Warhammer, but once again didn't get through the barriers to actually playing it. Watch a lot of Warhammer videos. I really wish I had done more research on miniatures early on, because I you know, I kind of ended up by like taking more influence from xcom uh and Heartstone, which it's good and bad. Those things really helped a lot. But I think when we launched early Access Gosh just over a month ago, um it, it was really clear that we had a CCG like hidden influence there, which is really holding the game back. And we just yanked at all the crap out is gone. I'm so glad. So I'm getting I'm now I've I've gone back and read fascinating. Yeah, now we're now we've got the manager's bug hard at least I do. I've read. I've probably read fifteen different game systems in the past two weeks, three weeks, fully to try to really crock the state of the art on miniatures. Um, hey, I love that you said, g b uh. So you feel like there's a character to the way collectible card game rule sets work versus the way miniature rule sets work. That's fascinating to me. Oh yeah, I can tell you. I can sum it up for you. I mean, c c G s are all about managing randomness m HM and probability, and miniatures games are all about position and largely largely determinism, but basically planning. Planning more than determinism, because obviously there's randomness in your dice rolls, but being able to plan is a huge part of manastures games. And we just basically, I mean I more or less just missed it and the game was working super well. We've we've played I mean, I have like hours logged in Mombrek that's your game. Yeah, sure, playing it a lot for all a long time competitively on the team. And the game was working with like, you know, this randomness where you you know, you you choose your roster, but you don't get your full roster when you play. Then you get you get hold out a small piece of it, and then over time we get new units. But the units you get are not in a particular order, they're randomized, they're basically cards. And it worked and it was pretty fun, but it really violated the tenets of a miniatures game, you know, because you couldn't really plan, you know, you had to respond constantly to what was going on and people the feedback we got was they would never quite say that they didn't like that aspect of it. They would just kind of say they kept complaining about randomness in general, and how we needed like, um, like a Mulligan system. That's you gave the randomness, but really the real fix was just removing that randomness, Like instead of choosing a roster not getting it, now you just get the whole roster. We made that change immediately. We got rid of all the card drawing that kind of stuff, and the game immediately became twice as good. And now I'm realizing there's all these other aspects of miniatures games that we basically tried to abstract, and those are those are the two things, Like CCGs are about mitigating randomness, and then the second part is ccg s are much more abstract because there are kind of one step higher than like, you know, there is no board really a lane of cards, and so they don't really focus on the board. They're kind of like zoomed out and there's more elements you're interacting with. Your deck is bigger the cards because of the nature of cards being you know, there's not much room to put text on them. They usually have two stats. These are all like extracting. Yeah, yeah, these are core and this is what Moonbreaker has done for a very long time. And I just realized that is not where the sweet spot of this game is. We need more stats, We need way more terrain modifiers. We need to be we need to like drink in the lusciousness of miniatures, things that accentuate the aspects of Yeah, you're making me realize the primordial, like you're making me think of the prior votermordial nature of games like oh yeah, drawing a card from a deck of cards is a dance with randomness. Um, but a game like go or chess is seeing everything at all times, planning what's going to happen. That core difference is so interesting. I've never had that elucidated in my life. I'm like, oh yeah, both games that I have evolved into various games that I'm heavily into, but I never realized that they're sort of opposite and ethos like one his chance and we really are Yeah, I mean, enjoy both. If you came, if you came wanting one and you got the other, you're gonna bounce right. And you might not even know why because it's under a layer of story and art and you're like, I just don't like this game whatever, it's not really cooking for me. You don't really know why, and they're you're already off to the next. Thing always feels good when you get a cloud of a thousand notes and you finally realize what everyone is actually saying, or the thing that unifies them all. Not the time what people ask for, Like you know, nine percent of time the solution they present is raw, but nine percent of the time their core emotion of their response is correct, So you have to It's kind of like going to the doctor. You know, you have like you know, you have a symptom, and you it's like telling the doctor what you think the problem is or what you think this motion is, and like it's much better to say what your symptoms are and have the doctor figure out what the right solution is or what the what the condition is. So anyways, that that's what I've noticed as being running a game team, being like in game design, that's what a lot of it is is trying to look past the words and the feedback or like look between the lines basically and figure out what they're actually missing or wanting and then give them that instead of what the thing is that they're asking for. Yeah. Absolutely, that's the thing that we do all the time. Uh, as screenwriters and filmmakers do. Like, I like that an answer me. Well, I mean because every I feel like every artistic process is ultimate, like it wants to be something you know, like and uh, and sometimes you you have a grasp of what it is, but then sometimes when you can't figure out exactly why it's not totally working, other people's pointing at it will generate not necessarily the solution they offer, but the solution that's needed because you see the problem more deeply than they do. And that's like, that's really fascinating to me. Right, Um, I'm kind of curious. So, like, after the success of Sobnatica, Uh, has your relationship with your audience changed now that you're in a game that has seasonal content? Yeah? Is that a totally different audience? Is a different relationship. Yeah, we're kind of starting over, you know, Like I don't know how many people in the moon Breaker community played Sonatica. I mean some have, but I have a new audience and we you know, again, we we worried a little bit about this from natural selection to to Anatica, but you know, we figured it out. So um, yeah, it's very different. I'm I don't know, I don't really have anything else to say about that except yes, and we don't It would be nice, It would be nice to just like be able to use the exact same Yeah, But I think what happens is once the game, like Sontica fans are not necessarily going to be early adopters on Moonbreaker, but at some point when the game gets good enough, a bunch of people that either played Sonatica and loved it or heard about one of the friends that loved it, they're gonna make the connection, and it's going to be a lot easier to get them to play this game, because I think so not it had a stratospheric rise that like, I mean, I hope it happens again, but I can't. I have to believe that part of that was because of ten years of making natural section one and two. It just has to be right, certainly in terms of haunting your skills, making the connections, developing the relationships, if nothing else. Um, I do know a lot of gamers who imbibe all kinds of games, or like, you know, the classic line, I like all music, but always say that is that? Is that like a typical thing to say. Now I think are becoming more I will say the most common thing I hear people say is I like all music except not really country except Johnny Cash and a few like classic country. That's the standard music person opinion. I think I like all music, including country, including bluegrass, di Amanda Gloss, Tom Wads, I like that Tom Waits is his own category next to all all of rock also Tom Waite's yeah, so as sorry, Just to get my my thought back on track, I was gonna say, I I can see how you wouldn't immediately assume, Oh, there's gonna be a huge overlap here. Everyone will also every artistic professional I know, like, lives are busy. The world is full of many things. And uh, you may have fans, even fans who really connected with your for last piece, really love whatever, um they may take. Reminding like it's not necessarily easy to saturate the world with the information. Remember this thing you liked, the same people made this thing, um, you know, so it takes time for people to make that connection, get exposed to that link. Um. But I feel like you guys do yourselve as a service by as we've seen, being so open with the process so early in the process. So what I want to ask, because it's something I feel like you certainly didn't have to deal with to the same degree with so Natica if at all, was like your p v P, you're collectible, And I was digging through all the Steam reviews, right and there's I've seen that you've already made changes, like you said around ound, How do the rosters work. There were complaints like I don't like how it's random that the rosters where it feels unfair to me, and you're like or like so I saw someone on the teams like, we've changed that now, um so, how are you striking that balance? Because collectibles involved, it's like you have this whole gameplay system. I feel like you also have to figure out a very sophisticated strategy around. We want collectibles, we want scarcity, we want the joy of collecting, but we wouldn't want people to feel like they're grinding for bullshit all the right. So there's some kind of complicated balance you have to strike there. What was your sort of tactic there? It's really tricky. I we haven't found it yet, but you know, we had like boosters before and basically people hated that that was a huge blind spot. You know. Like I said, we've been played testing this game with well I didn't mention, but we've had like a couple of hundred friends and family people for the past year, which in retrospect, if the Jenny game dev's listening, I really just I would implore you to maybe think about going into early access instead of doing a Friends and Family UM release, because I really wish we had gone into a year ago UM. But anyways, that's a separate topic. UM. Just to start getting the feedback, like at the earliest possible juncture. Interesting, more objective, that is it Partly it's more objective and somehow you can't discount you can't discount reality, you know, ratings, sales, those things are. It's really what it comes down to is people are people streaming it? Are they buying it? Are they leaving reviews? And what they're saying because with the Friends and Family private release, they're not paying for it, they're not rating it, and they're not allowed to stream it. So though, but those three things are like the key success indicators frame. So I yeah, I mean I don't know if it really would have saved this much time if we had gone a year earlier, and it might have you know, tarnished our image even more because we had a really rough launch with that. You know, we basically missed we completely missed the business model screw up, which is where a pay we're a paid to download game because we're early access. We don't want because you're like, well in yet it's not ready for it. But we were gating content, you know, basically behind boosters. But so it's like it's like that uncomfortable zone where you know free games that so that's one thing to have boosters, but a game with boosters, like, we just missed it. I don't know how we missed it, but we did. So we yanked all that stuff out and we had this huge psychology psychology problem where like we're we're so excited, like a month before we launch, we finally get all these currencies working and like, oh these things boosters open and you can earn all this different stuff and it's so cool. But then new players, when they just bought the game, they run it and on the main menu they see five numbers in a row. I think it was either four or five, and it was like number of boosters, number of gold, the number of whatever, all of of the currencies, and they're like, oh my god, this is like some pay to win, free to play crap that I just had to buy. They immediately got turned off, even though they cot everything within like two hours of play, they got it all. That was never the goal, but the the that the spirit of the endeavor at all, the spirit and it was it violated their sense of integrity, So I mean their their sense of integrity or I don't know, justice was so broken, like they not broken, they it was so offended because they who on their right mind has stuff gated. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if it was because of the gaming orphics, because they were worried that we're going to turn it into some free to play, difficult, awful grinding thing. Whatever it was, It didn't matter what the logic was, the fact that you could unlock everything within two hours. That immediately people hated that and we just got horrible reviews and to the point where we're like, oh my gosh, you're all right, you know, even though even though there's nothing actually exploited of here and we never will do it, the perception was that we could at any time, or and if they hadn't played the game enough, they're doing it right now if they spent a little word from the speculation of like the structure is in place where they could if yeah, would put all that structure in there, if we were going to do it. So we learned our lesson there and we patched it out. I think it was like within ten days. It was all gone, and it was like, such as did it? I mean, so much work into that and it's fine, but I'm glad we did it, obviously it's but now, well, going back to what you're just saying your question about the collectibility and you know, unlocking stuff over time, but so now we have nothing that you unlock, so you just there's no gameplay the unlock. And actually today that's what I've been really working on is how can we have some stuff that you unlock but without violating that contract, without making people feel bad about it because it is a pay paid, a download game and it's creditive. There's a huge competitive element to this game. And the game that I just noticed that does is super well is Super Smash Ultimate. Yes, that's it. How does that work? It's a six dollar game and you don't get all the heroes and you have to fight online with them. They're super competitive, right yeah? And uh well in the most yeah, I don't. I have to revisit it. Alright, We're not here to fix your game, but no. But what's great is we could be that we could be you know, you strike me as the kind of parent who would throw their kid into the pool and just go You're going to figure it out. And I mean that in a good way. Um, I believe in you more of a positive yeah. Um. But what I love is like people listening to the If you're listening to this now, you know it's on Steam. I think it's supported for Mac as well as PC, right, and uh, you can actually if you're any a type person, be a part of They're very over. You guys are so open, way more than most developers I have ever engaged with, Like, you could change this game, you can improve this game. If you like this game but you don't like something about it. Um, the unknown world seems very like open to listening to that, So I think it's even more of a reason for people to happen. Totally. It's and we're just getting started now. We're starting to hit our stride on these updates, but we're yeah, we're making huge changes right now. So it's uh, it's it's exciting. It is a bit demoralizing to think that the game was so much farther along than it was and we'll we'll never know if this is going to achieve anything like Salonatica, because you know, my little ramped on this was that, you know, when we had when we started making Salvatica, we were the studio that had made Natural Selection, which had sold like you know maybe like at that time, maybe six thousand copies, which is huge, you know, Savonica, like the early Access was a lot smaller than than Moon Breakers, and we were actually on the financial edge, like we were right there. It was we shipped into early Access when we're out of money. We're making just enough money to keep the doors open. We knew, we you know, we could tell the game was not growing. We knew we had to make changes to the game and our our plans, and we looked at what people were enjoying, and we tried to really did some soul searching, and we started working on the right things and we cut all the things that weren't working there plans and the game just like you know, six months, within six months, it was like just growing like crazy. YouTubers were picking it up. It was just like hitting our stride. So the problem is now where the company that game. That game went on to sell like eight million copies, you know, like like it just it just went crazy. And so now we're like back in the same situation, except that we had some behind us. We're used to having some success, so now we're like starting over. It's like, oh man, I thought we were past this part. I thought this was going to be easy. No, no, the bar right, the bar only ranch it's up. It doesn't go that. The process didn't get any easier at all. None of it got it. In fact, it got harder because the world has changed. The gaming world is so competitive. It's uh yeah, it's got. It just gets harder and harder. But the tools, of course get better, and our knowledge gets better, and our teams get better, and our funding and all this stuff. So we'll see what happens. See, we benefit because the more competitive it gets, the better and better developers that are willing to do I show. They're like, I guess, I guess I think of the publicity. Huh yeah, that's right. That's awesome. Games are getting better and better too, right, that's what's amazing, right yeah, primarily because of our podcast, I think, because I think it's reality. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, Adam, I've got I've blown through my whole list. Did you have any more moon Breaker questions? I don't want to yank the plug. I had like broader artistic questions, but I also want to respect everybody's time. Uh, And so maybe I'll just add just one more, just one more. I mean, I don't know if it'll be juicy. Uh. And that is so Charlie. Uh. I've asked you a version of this, But I'm just sort of curious, like, uh h, have you achieved what you set out to do when you were like a young artist who wanted to be a game designer? Like, have you achieved that milestone? Or is there like a larger goal or is there a hole in you that can never be fair? No, I'm just sort of curious, like, you know, because you've you've had success now as a designer, which I think most people in creative fields that's what they want, and then they want to keep doing it right and of course you do too. But like, just reflecting on the success you've had, do you feel like you achieved what you set out to achieve or is there still more in front of you? I mean I never really I never said like, I mean, artists feels like a big word, even though I don't know I totally agree with its usage here, um, because there is a lot of like subjective expression. And it's not like we're looking at a you know, not looking We're not looking at a focus group and be like, Okay, how can we hit this market here and why are we going to do this. It's like there's artistic decisions they go into the games that we make, like the non violence and so Natica was just from day one, UM, regardless of how that was going to work out financially or you know whatever critically. But I never I don't know, I never really. I just I started making games and I made that half Life mod when I was working for a game company in Boston. I was programming there and I love I love programming there, but I always knew that I want to like have more creative input, and UM made the mod, got really excited about it, and I just I got the bug, and I just never I don't know. I guess I never really had ambitions about what success would look like. I just knew I just had to do it, and I just somehow had confidence to keep going. And it's been super incredible to be able to like sign autographs for twelve year olds, you know, for somebotica they're all twelve. I don't know what it is about that. They really are, like I just they're very young kids. They're really deep. See. Stuff would terrify me when I was It's like, it's pretty scary for a twelve year old. And you say it's not violent, but those Leviathans will it's not violent in one direction, but not in the other direction. I really need to change that. It's not like it's not violent because nature is violent, but it's not. It's not what's based or it's not combat. Yes, but I I don't know, like I mean, I have to say, I would be pretty darn sad if if Moonbreaker never went anywhere. I'd be pretty sad because I may have I do really want this game to succeed, and I I love it so much and I've just fallen in love with it over the years, and but I've always also known that like, Okay, well maybe this is just me being crazy. Maybe this is at some point, you can't just have success after success after success, each one bigger than the last. It's just not how it works. Authors put out stuff, they might get a hit and then they might do like a you know, first base or whatever. I don't know. I don't know anything. What sports him using those metaphors. But you can't. You can't expect, you can't predicate your happiness or your your satisfaction with your work on what the audience thinks. You just can't. Yeah, but like otherwise, you're just a whimp. You're just basically what my happiness is in the hands of other people. Um. Yeah, so care no no, I the very true wisdom, I think, especially for the twelve year old Sonatica fans listening, care a lot about what you're doing if you can, but don't put particular stipulations on it. Just be open to whatever form that path takes. I think that's very wise. I'm sorry, and as one more than just one more so, then with that, with that definition of how you're gonna respond to how the moon falls reception, what would be reception? Sorry? Excuse me? What the early name? I'm glad you did, because there's a movie called that, yes there is? Uh, what would be what would you consider success for a moon breaker? Like with given your own sort of self definition of satisfaction, how what would make you satisfied? Then? Yeah, I mean I want to be bigger than some Natica but that's very honest. Yeah, I really do. And I wanted to be everywhere and I want people to fall in love with the world. And we've got all these audio dramas, We've got such a we've got such a cool world and story. There's so much more maturity to some of the storytelling that we have lined up here. And I don't know this. And the whole idea from this game, for this game at the beginning was we want a game that's gonna last decade's so we want like a magic pot under you know, this is what this is what we wanted and it's ambitious. So your scope is that right? So you really feel like you have that much material? Oh? Yeah, designing Universe season six, That's where I'm at, way ahead, Yeah, which is yeah, I'm just so fast. I'm sorry now I feel like I've stumbled into a vein I could talk about for an hour. I just because I also know that you want variety, like you want to make other things. Yeah, so like already or is that like, are you not worried about or as of this taping, are you still super into this world? You know? I am still super into this. I have to say, it sounds like it It's been a really tough month and a half. I mean, and we have been working our butts off for months to get to launch, and then to have launch have so many core problems and like we're you know, we're just we're not seeing the game grow, you know, We're like we wanted to grow, but we got some major stuff to fix. First. We got onboarding issues, we got um just some of the core gameplay were like questioning because we just realized we kind of were just we're only off by like about fIF whereas like Subnatica, we we didn't really have anything. When we launched Sobnatica in early access, there was no story. There's no survival, there was no submarine, there were no dangerous creatures, there was no base building. We didn't have any of that, and we didn't even know which one of those things we were going to do. There was no water, no skybox. It was just a can. It was a tin can. We did have water, but the Aurora was just like an image. It was just like a two D image back you know, it was just there, just was anything there. So we kind of knew that we were going to have to add a lot. But with Moonbreaker, like we have everything all the core stuff has been already built. We've done all the planning, We've got the world bibles, We've got all the talent lined up, we got all the art pipelines, We've got the marketing support. We've got translated in like twelve languages, we got like crafting behind us. You know, we've got everything we need. But we're just now we've got to aim the game like ten to the left of where we thought it was. So I'm hoping that if we make those changes, it's gonna really thrive and grow. But I have to admit, like you can't, you know, if you think about that too much and you think about the pressure and like what if scenarios, What if it doesn't what if it's a total bomb? What if they hate it forever and we work on it forever and you know, it never goes anywhere. They just become miserable, just basically, how because you summon the courage to even work on another project and then it's like, wait a minute, I'm working on making a video game. We've got miniatures. I shouldn't be miserable, Like, yeah, I should be able to orient my life and a relationship to this in a way where I'm not miserable. Surely, Yeah, this should be the reward, right, this should be doing this, And you know it's true as a creator, you know that's true, right, right, totally. The reviews and the money and all that stuff is a huge benefit. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter when people say, like I love Snotic or whatever. I feel like kind of good. But really I'm just so happy because of those the times. I mean, I remember the feeling of working on that game so vividly and where things were crystallizing. It's just magic that that's magic in the process. Absolutely. Yeah, you gotta love the craft because that you get day in, day out for That's that's the real job, is loving That's the real job. That's right, it's loving the craft, all right, Adamy, don I gotta go download ragnar No. I could do this forever, but you know what, I want to respect everybody's time. Loved hearing from you again, Charlie, thank you so much for the bad Adam, do you have like an amazing buried questions that I just steamrolled over? No, man, look, no, okay, I feel like we could talk for a long time with Charlie, ye I can. And the passion for the particulars of this game deserve to be the front, like the fourth the front facing component this interview. And it was and that's good. Good, come okay with that awesome? Alright, well, always a pleasure. Thank you again for taking the time for fun. Yeah, glad to hear it. Everyone out there. Check out moon Breaker, available now in early access on Steam. Help shape the future of gaming. Yeah, not too big of a claim. No, not at all the future of game question mark. Uh. If you want to hear any of the wide array of non video game related podcasts that we have over on our Patreon, you can find those at patreon dot com slash small beans. Otherwise, if you only care about analysis of video games as a me m, stay tuned for more one upsmanship. We'll see you next week. By everyone worked Complete