Jack Bennett
Appearances
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, I like Souls. I play... What do you call it? Sword Sanctuary. I love that one. That one I've played a lot. When we used to have an office, we played Sword Sanctuary a lot. I've played Dark Souls, but I'm not great at them. Our team is diverse in the way we like games. I come into games with a story aspect of it.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I like challenging combat, but I'm not there for the hardest of hard hitting my head against a wall. Whereas other members of the team are there for that, and they couldn't give a rat about the story.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
the crazy thing that i like about monster hunter is it feels i know it's a triple a game but it feels that 30 minutes i'll go in do a hunt kill this thing nice one it gives me that little loop that i can just play and put it down whereas like god of war does not give me that god of war is like i need to know exactly what's going on why so i've been playing for hours you know
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Hey guys, thanks for having me. It's fun to be here.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. So I'll caveat this with, we're an indie team that's never worked in a AAA studio. So the way we do it is not necessarily the correct way. I love that though. That's what I want to know. Like, what is it like? Yeah.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Like we literally all came out of university and just started a studio. So we've never had any like industry experience, you know? I love that. I love it. So I would say my role specifically is like, I'm the person that sews everything together. Like we have, we have one person making the environments. We have one person doing the characters and getting the combat work.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And so then I come along and I've written this story and I make the quest and I make the levels and I've plopped the artwork in here and I put their character in here and I get that all working. And then we have Dan then comes through and does like the balance pass on top of that. So I would say I'm the person that sews it together, but that's an abstract way of saying it.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So like, um, the easiest way to explain what, like my day to day is like, you know what, like a flow chart, you know, like you come in yes or no, this option, this option. That's what I look at. Like,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
20 hours a day basically is that and like if I tried to explain if somebody had to come in and do my job it would be like right here's the layers of the onion that is this game because the way that Tales of Iron works is like Every encounter is an encounter graph. So there's a graph saying this guy turns on and does this attack. And then once you killed him, this happens.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Once you kill him, this happens. Quest complete. Encounter complete. Then above that, there is a quest graph that says once this encounter is completed, this encounter should turn on. Then you pick up this item and blah, blah, blah, blah. Once that's done, this quest is complete.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And then above that, there is a game graph that says once this quest is complete, these things turn on and these things turn off. and then there's another quest here, another quest here, and then once that's done, that's game complete. And then for Tales of I2, there was another graph on top of that that said, when this monster's been defeated, it will appear in this part of the world.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So there was like four layers of depth to this. I mean, I don't... I share at my screen and I can take you. I'd love to see this.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
No worries. I love being here. I spent my life talking about Tales of Iron, so I've got to enjoy it.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So this is just the quest graph for the opening quest of Tales of Iron 2. Oh my gosh.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
i know loot when i see it so that that is like just the the one graph but then each of these is an individual graph like that oh my goodness that is a quest and then on top of that i mean my pc might not open this right now whilst trying to stream it as well because
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Even when I'm not streaming, this graph is a laggy monstrosity because this is the graph that's on top of all that that says each green square here is a quest, basically. So this is the graph on top of that that sets up.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So when I started game development, I had hair down past my bum. so take from that what you want to oh wow oh man that's impressive man whilst I'm sharing my screen something that you might find interesting this is not my role but it's a
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
interesting way that i think we develop games that not a lot of people do develop games in that way it's because our games are all like 2d right they're all side scrolling right and then they have that intense like parallax of moving assets and that sort of thing um so the way that works is every single asset in the game is actually an individual piece an individual asset that's placed in the zed
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
That's all like you've seen there, individual 2D assets. But then like we... I don't know if I can show you. I don't know if I can find it. But basically what we do in the game is, you know, like...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
here what i'm showing you is the main hub you know this is the area you keep coming back to over and over again so we we do all sorts of crazy things where we're like switching our assets in here things are getting destroyed we're changing time of day so although it looks like a single individual scene we're actually you know smashing pieces up and adding assets in yeah so it gets it gets pretty hectic in there
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So this would be more part of my job is I've built all of these... When you look at what I do, it's a lot less interesting to see. That's what I see most of the time, is that. A door.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
That's what I see most of the time. But then I hook all these levels up and you set characters in them and that sort of thing. Because something we do that is, again, I don't know if every player does this, but we actually animate within Unity. A lot of studios will probably animate outside of Unity, but We rig everything and animate within the software.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
For example, this is Arlo, the main character, and here with him we can do whatever we want to with moving him around and stuff. Everything is in this actual...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. Well, I mean like, it's the same thing with him, right? Like we, we, we have to crush it down a little bit, but he is all like individual, uh, separate pieces that are like 2d assets that we've squished down let me see if this is really cool this is awesome you can see what he is underneath you know oh yeah yeah okay
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, with Tales of Iron 2, I think there's close to a thousand individual weapons, armors and helmets and things. Yeah. Wow.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So yeah, me, Dan and Martin, we all went to university together. And then Matt and Nathan, the two coders, they went to university together at a separate university. But me, Dan and Martin, we all, we graduated. And then there was a competition in Scotland called Dare to be Digital, which is like recent graduates or last year students go there and they have like two months, you make a game.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
It's a strange one because our studio is all remote, right? So we're not in an office of like, we're all there like stressing and nervous. We're just there at home. And the game's done like two, three weeks because you have to send it off to all platforms. So you're basically just
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And then at the end of it,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
like people from industry come around and view and mark them and give you awards and that so we made a little random game there and then people from sony x dev actually came and looked in it was like we don't like this game but we want to see what else is from you and dan had his final major project from uni which was called the lost bear and then they really liked that and they gave us funding for that so we made a demo in six months for the lost bear which was
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
going to be a 2d cinematic platformer then that got picked up and then for a series of events which is long and sad and miserable it became a 2d vr platformer that we made in like a year and a bit and then that came out and then from there we got funding for tales of iron and you know just kind of like
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
snowballed on from there so yeah it's it's it's a it's a like it's a tough road to walk if you it's it's I guess it's the same as every business though it's like making the continuous supply of money is hard to come across yeah
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Personally, I think the bit that's really cool about Tales of Iron 2 is that when you come back to the rabbits and the necromancer's there and he brings back the leader of the rabbits, he has to fight that bunch. I like that bit from a story perspective. I think that's really cool and fun. But I think actual combat-wise, I really like the spider.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
done with it so until that actual day beforehand you're like it it's out of my hands you hear you hear it kind of oh it's gone off to journalists and journalists are reviewing it now and you get these bits of it but there's like almost like a month period where you're just waiting you're just waiting for it you know for the day so like uh
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I think the difference of being able to swing around and he puts the poison out, but then he... digs and comes up i think the spider's quite like a unique fight and you think you get him quite early on but i also quite like the chameleon as well the the sneaking around yeah he was cool too i was uh answers all of them yeah
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. The, the ending of that as well. So like we did, did you get the two references we did? Like the new Elorian, like they were meant to be like Jabba the Hutt. Yeah.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. And that's the bit where it is like actually a fully unique boss to the side, the side quest as well, which is enjoyable.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I gotta know, man. How's that make you feel? I mean, I guess in the same way I hope the people like George R. R. Martin likes humans, but he still cuts them up and poisons them and that sort of thing. I hope it's a similar feeling. I hope he's not like...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
angry about it but no we try and keep it fairly cartoonish in the murders in the killing but yeah that is a really interesting point about Tales of Black because I think a lot of people see it and they're like oh this is so cute it's so lovely it's like Redwall and then they start playing it and you're chopping the heads off frogs or stabbing you know bats through the stomach that's quite a nice and interesting moment where people are like oh this is not what I was expecting
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
that's definitely what i remember from the first game i was like oh it's that kind of game yeah like when we showed the game at gamescom and because of german rules you're not like if it's an 18 or 16 plus you're not allowed to have screens facing out because it's because kids walking around yeah so uh because it tells why two is like a 16 plus we had all the screens coming in and parents be coming up just like why why can't the kids come in and play this it's like well actually it's
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So with Tales of Iron, we don't see it as, like, a single game. We don't see it as, like, oh, this is the Tales of Iron games. We're seeing it as a world, as a universe. Like I just said about, like, Game of Thrones, we want to show all of the perspectives of that world, you know? And just to constantly show Reggie and, like,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
he's he's coming from a super privileged position in life you know to see that perspective every time it's not as interesting as seeing like how Arlo maybe approaches it or how another person would approach it from a different angle and to see how the different parts of the world then kind of connect with each other to us that was way more enjoyable than to be like here's Reggie again he's in the Crimson Keep and there's something drawing him out of the Crimson Keep because again things that we really like to do is show
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, like it's nerve wracking the day before, but before that is kind of just a numbness. You're like, I'm done with it. There's no more I can do. I've just got to wait until that moment and see how people react. But then when it comes out, that's the big like, well, you don't know what's going on. You're just waiting for those first reviews to come in.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Or something that's enjoyable about Tales of Iron is showing the different parts of the world, showing the different races. Because that's a great moment in Tales of Iron 1, right? When you're playing the game and suddenly these Russian moles come out of nowhere with the electric and communism and that sort of thing. I love them.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
that was something we enjoyed in Tales of Iron 2 was being like, here's these owls that have got like a parliament and they make rules that they can't even meet and like all of this sort of stuff. So like creating these small little civilizations and introducing you to them is like the really enjoyable part of it. And I think,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
By showing different protagonists, you get to experience that in different ways to like, oh, we know how Reggie's going to respond to this, and we know how he's going to act in this situation. I think that's an enjoyable way. In the future, it'll be interesting to see what happens in... If anything happens, who knows?
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, so when we first started creating Tales of Iron, we wanted to make our own version of the classic fantasy game, but we didn't want to be locked in with, like, this is what a dwarf does, this is what an elf does. So we basically assign the races to the different types of animal, but then try and trade it around. So like, The rats are the humans, right?
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
They're the basic standard knights, castles, that sort of thing. Our version of dwarves was the moles, right? Yeah, they live underground and they dig, but they've got electricity. They've got an arena of wrestlers that fight each other to the death. They've got this unique
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
they are our dwarves but they're not actually dwarves like yeah in towns of iron 2 the owls were meant to be our elves like yes they do have laws and are governed in a more civilized manner but they also make rules that are completely against their own like instincts and nature and that sort of thing so it's interesting to play within those different aspects and like you say giving animals make gives us an easy way to make it feel different to the classic
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
You're waiting for people to tweet about it and that sort of stuff. So it's like a roller coaster of emotions that day.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, I mean, we knew what we wanted to do. We knew, like, we want this, this, and this. And this is where we're going to start, this is where we're going to end, and this is what the middle is going to be. But, like, the bits that happen around that may be changed depending on mechanics, depending on, you know, things that we want to do or bits that happen in the world.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
That changes as we're going along. But we always had plans for, like, this is what the games are going to be. We've even got plans of, like,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
what we'd like to do if there was like an animated series or a graphic novel, you know, I need that up without, without giving spoilers, you know, like that end scene of the game, there's a lot of explaining that could happen between that and wherever the future begins, you know? So that would be a nice space for like,
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
a little ranger situation a little aragorn situation maybe going on you know so that that would be that would be an interesting situation so yeah we had all these plans for like things that we want to do it's just the minutiae of that change is slightly dependent on other circumstances you know oh that's awesome so like speaking of you know uh animated series and other kind of things you can go into that all falls into the look of the game
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah. So Martin, the environment artist, he's from the Czech Republic or Czechia now. And they're like big thing is like block printing. I mean, everywhere in the world does it, but they're quite well known for it. It's like, you know, you carve the word, you ink it up and then you stamp it and you get like an image from that.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
and so that's why all of our artwork has like these black borders to it like the thick black lines that cover everything and because of that that then led us down this fairy tale route this storybook route so that was kind of the concept of like the art the direction of it but then that informed other things right like oh we want a fairy tale sort of feeling to the game so we want as few words as possible to make sure that story's simple
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
but still like endearing to the player. So we only had a narrator, no animal like talks in words to each other. That also then led to the speech bubble situation where everything's trying to be like spoken through images rather than through text. So it kind of like led itself through, but that basis was like the block printing concept of the artwork. Yeah.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I mean, it initially starts... We were in a unique situation because with Tales of Iron 2, we had all the feedback from Tales of Iron 1. So we had people that said, I like this about the combat, or I don't like this about the combat, or I'd like this to happen or that to happen. So we knew people loved the basis of the combat. They just wanted it to be a deeper...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
situate like a deepest form of combat not just like responding to um like tells basically so we knew we needed to go deeper with that so it was a way of us being like how can we keep the basis of this but make it a more interesting system basically so yeah that then comes down to like we're a gamer so we're like okay what what can we relate this to and that kind of led us down that monster hunter sort of elemental system of like enemies have weaknesses and resistances
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
you have weaknesses and resistances depending on the armors you're wearing and that felt like a natural fit to us where like you are fighting these big creatures but you can give yourself this buff by practicing ahead and you know that kind of lent itself because we were big fans of the witcher as well that lent itself into the witcher you know with the bestiary and the poisons and all that sort of thing so it kind of just became this like oh we could take this from here and this from here and kind of merge it into what we want for our combat system
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
which will then in turn fix this feedback that we've got of like people want a deeper system.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, so United Label is actually owned by CI Games. CI Games make Lords of the Fallen. So they're basically our publisher.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
It was just like in-house stuff, basically. We were... Quite friendly, I guess.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
If we had the time, it would have been nice to go into the Umbra and fight some monster from the North of the Fallen to get the armor piece, but I just didn't have the time for that, unfortunately.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
you get to you can only squeeze the lemon so much there's no lemon juice left you know we have to like take some breaks and like hide or hide away in the darkness come back so like that's less intensive but when you're sat there and it's like
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
i've got to get this level made i've got to get this quest done today in order for people to be able to play it and test it and see what they think of it that's when it becomes a lot more crunch but more intense the amount of work you're doing because you've got deadlines that are more structured
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
whereas okay you know when you're in the concept phase you might you might spend two days talking about mechanic and then the next day you're like actually this isn't going to work it's wasted time there you know you're not going to you're not going to get everything right straight away so that that initial periods are a lot looser and free flowing i'd say that's awesome i feel
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, 100%. It's so hard to explain, but even this, you can be like, right, this is going to be our crafting system. And then even the smallest little minutest change over here, you're like, oh, well, this just removes everything that we've done over here. That makes no sense. I mean, for us anyway, I think games are basically a house of cards. Designs are a house of cards.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And the minute you move this card, this all falls down. You just got to make sure you're putting bits in the right place the whole way through. Yeah.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
we're doing rats and frogs so all of the rats in Tales of Iron One are based on Dan's actual pet rats they were real rats oh my god that's so cool they're actual real rats and they had names and their characters are kind of loosely based on their real life characters it was less of a I need to sell the rats to people it was more like what are we putting these rats in that was the concept yeah
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Hear me out. I mean, it was more of, he turns up to the office and froze rats around.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
yeah we did it man like this is great people are loving this but like how do you handle the negative reviews at the same time yeah i mean it's it's whenever you create anything whether it's games or music or film whatever there's gonna be probably get reviews on the podcast as well there's always going to be yeah there's always going to be someone that doesn't like something about something like yeah like you say you're never going to please everyone but as developers we're
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
no thank you for i mean thank you for talking about it like it's equally us making it and no one talking about it is you know this is the other side of the coin so glad that you're talking about it you know thanks for having us on
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
that negative feedback is actually quite useful to us because we can see what maybe we can patch in and fix at a later date or things that people haven't enjoyed that we can move away from in other games going forward. So although the negative reviews on the day are like a knife in the heart and they're not enjoyable to read, they're actually very useful.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So once the emotion's gone out of it and you come back to it in a couple of weeks' time and you read through it, it's good to get that that feedback and because positive reviews are great to hear, obviously like they, but most of the time we, we, we get so many of the positive reviews. We know what the good stuff is. It's getting the negative reviews.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And like, again, negative reviews can sometimes be a load of swear words and nothing that you actually get useful, but negative reviews that actually explain what they didn't like and what they, you know, what they found hard or difficult or different. That's really useful to us as developers.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Well, where are souls like? So we kind of expect quite a lot of that rage-induced negative. I can see myself in that situation being like, this is broken. They've done this deliberately. It's so unfair. You know, like just when you're hitting your head against that wall. So I understand where that point comes from. But going...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
getting enough negative reviews together you can start to pinpoint like this is a recurring thing this is something that whether whether they've liked saying can like something different they've both said that they don't like this and this is something that we can focus on and then depending on how core it is to the gameplay loop it's something we can work on and patch and update yeah yeah what
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
That's what I did to him. He's partying and celebrating. That's what I was going to say. No, like you say...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
a good portion of it goes to bug fixing like no matter how hard we test a game there's five of us and i think the qa team is probably another that's 10 people playing a 15 to 20 hour game literally day one there was a bug that people were getting that we'd never seen before that opened an end game crypt within like two hours of the game started oh no no way
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So like literally bugs coming out that you're with all of the best intentions we've tried to find. They just happen because once you go from 10 people playing it to thousands of people playing it, it's just the law of averages. You know, you're eventually going to get something that we've never seen.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So yeah, a good portion of it goes to bug fixing just to like stabilize it and make sure we're not, because again, like we've briefly touched on steam is driven by reviews, right? So like, if you're not in that very positive state, you're disappearing into the annals of steam, disappeared, gone. So you want to be in that 80% and above.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
So you want to fix those bugs as quick as possible to keep that very positive review.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, I mean, like, there's backwards, there's, like, you know, it's not a perfect science, but as long as you're in that mostly positive, which I think is 80% of stuff, then that is kind of what keeps you popping up for people and keeps you in the algorithm spaces. There's 8 out of 10s galore on Steam. If you're not an 8 out of 10, then you're something else, you know, you're not there, so...
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
you're better off you aim for the stars you know so yeah going back to that point we fix those bugs to try and keep that good percentage then other things are like quality of life so people for example Tales of Iron 2 people were saying they would like to scale the subtitles because sometimes in different languages
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
the subtitles were slightly too big or covered areas that they didn't want it to cover so you know we can add in quality of life things like that um a big percentage of it goes to you know pr stuff like you say like talking um to podcasts journalists whatever and i mean i say that lightly but there's five of us on the team so me being here it's like it's a fifth of the team just gone i imagine on a triple a game it's like yeah there's nothing but in reality it's different and then
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Obviously, the rest of the time is spent on what's next, which is, you know, that as an indie dev, that is what you're in that precipice, you know, like your game's doing well, but you might not have got the you don't get paid out straight away from your royalties because, you know, business, business, business. And then so you're in that bit where there's no money coming in.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
And you need to be making something so that you can get money coming in to keep everything ticking over nicely. So that's the next stage is like, oh, it sounds like to love it done. Here's what we're making next.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
When you break that down, there's five of us, which is like one is like a combat designer, character designer, animator. Then there's environment artists, lighting. Then there's two coders. And then there's me doing like level design, quest design, story writing, production. And then we have a team in Italy of three guys that just come in and do the audio with us.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
But they're like a separate team of themselves.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, I mean, I've had every Nintendo console that's ever been great. That was my in. It was like from NES to Switch, I've had everything. And I would argue that Nintendo is the best entrance into gaming because it always teaches you the fundamentals first. Mario will give you everything you need to know to go on to any game.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I mean, there's loads of games that I've played and loved, but I'd say I'd break it down into AAA and indie games because they're two different worlds. Oh, absolutely. In indie space, the game I always, always come back to is Kingdom Two Crowns. I love that game. It's so simple. It's like a 2D tower defense game, basically.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Have you guys played it? Have you seen it? No, but now you've got me interested. It's published by Royal Fury. You build a little village side on, and you have to venture out to bring villagers back to become towers and that sort of thing, and then every night you get attacked.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
so you're like trying to build out your village whilst you're getting attacked it's super simple but it's like that game i can jump into and play like 30 minutes and get my hit and you know i'm done yeah i mean like carrying on down that line i like i like hades as well like i've been playing yes as well yeah because another game still i've not beaten it but and i've played it a lot and i've just never beaten that final fight i don't know what it is
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I get to Hades, like, I've been there like three times now, and every time he just wipes the floor with me, I'm like, I know I'm going to do it someday, but I might be empty.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
I don't know what's going on. Yeah. So I'd say they were like the, the Indies I keep coming back to because they give me that, you know, that hit of game when I'm, when I finished work and I can just play and go to bed and I've done, I've got my little, little hit out of it. But in like in the AAA space, I'd say God of War has probably been like, yeah. Yeah.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
Yeah, I'd say like we've got a war. It was like I played the originals back in the day, you know, PlayStation 2 and that. But this just felt like that moment.
Video Gamers Podcast
Dishin' it with the Devs of Tails of Iron 2 - Gaming Podcast
maturing of the ip you know it was it was a whole new world a whole new angle on the game and it just blends gameplay and story so well like those characters you're attached to in a completely different way yeah that that game loves i love and it again that was an influence on us like obviously god of war uses the the tails on attacks you know the reds the yellows the whites oh yeah yeah that's where we got it from for tales of iron because we was like yeah love that combat so oh