Nick Guérin (Spiritfarer) on Death Positivity and Making Care into a Game Mechanic
Episode Description
Nick Guérin is the creative director at Thunder Lotus Games where he directed and wrote Spiritfarer, which has been described as a “cozy management sim about dying.” Nick’s other work includes design work on several Assassin’s Creed games including Origins and Syndicate as well as design for Watch Dogs 2.
In this episode, we interview Nick Guérin about how he translated the experience of caring for someone who is dying into a video game and why it is important to demystify and talk about death openly.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
Episode Notes
Learn more about Spiritfarer here.
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Phil 0:20
What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast where we interview creators about where they came from, to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell and I'm with my co host, Ben Thorpe. And today we're talking to Nick Garonne, the creative director and writer of thunder Lotus games, most recent project spirit Fair, which is described as a cozy management sim about dying. And this was really interesting. Yeah, it's a great interview. And I think I think we should say, you know, this is an indie title, but I think it got a lot of, or maybe maybe a medium amount of press when it came out. Because of just like, it's very unique premise, which is that, you know, you've you've got a sim where you're helping kind of take the souls of these characters to death and help them kind of leave life.
Ben 1:16
It's, it's a, it's just, it's a really interesting concept. So it's basically a farm sin like, like a Stardew. Valley kind of type, you take over, you take over for Chiron, in this job of kind of charting souls to their final resting place. And so along the way, you're doing a lot of these kind of farm sim activities where you're kind of planting a garden or you're cooking meals, and basically taking care of the souls and trying to make them as kind of satisfied as they can be, before they kind of get to their last kind of resting place and leave.
Phil 1:50
Yeah, yeah. And I think one of the really fascinating things that sets it apart from a lot of other kind of bigger name games in the industry is that it presents this topic about death and grief and mourning,
you know, all these, this heavy subject matter, and a really positive, warm and light point of view. That's not to say that it doesn't, you know, grapple with really heavy themes and a narrative that will, you know, affect a lot of people, but it just, it just presents death in a positive way. And as is, isn't afraid of, you know, really digging deep into that topic of what it means to grieve what it means to mourn and what it means to pass over and how we care for people. And that's something that Nick, I think, does a phenomenal job of really articulating throughout the interview. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, we were both really impressed, he was talking about how he did some of the prep for thinking about this. And so both from the studio perspective, they were having conversations amongst kind of coworkers, talking about death, talking about kind of the people that were important to them in their lives, that they lost, how that impacted them, and how that kind of bleeds into the game. And he was also kind of describing how he prepped for some of this by going to visit hospitals. And it sounds like kind of seeing people in and around hospice care, and talking to people in those situations about how they were thinking about or preparing for death. And so I don't know, I mean, it was just like a It's, I think, a very surprising but also like, a very interesting way of engaging with that.
Yeah, it was a really elucidating moment and the energy and in the conversation. And, you know, I think one of the points of this podcast from the get go, was to demystify a lot of these roles, whether it be in the games industry or another industry. And I think was something like a creative director, you know, we talked to Greg cassava and already about what his role was like, Nick does a good job of showing us another avenue where a creative direction could go and kind of seeing the behind the scenes of like, how do you kind of conceptualize a game around care, caring for people who are dying, and he does a good job of tying that through line together with how the mechanics are developed in order to make the player feel like one would if they were caring for somebody who's who's dying. And a lot of what he talks about is, you know, the important of the mundane or like, what some may consider these boring kinds of points in life and how including those moments, you know, allowing for these quieter moments can give us these payoffs, that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. So he just did a really good job of justifying the mechanics and kind of showing the thought process for how they came to them. Yeah, and I think just a really good you know, he kind of talks about the balance between those things where it's like, alright, well, how do we make a game that is, you know, marketable to some degree but also in
cages with things that are difficult, and also has a gameplay loop that is, you know is going to make you feel, you know, put you in this kind of caretaker role in some ways where it isn't always kind of immediate gratification. It can be frustrating in some ways. It was a it was a really interesting way of thinking about coming at creating a game.
Ben 5:20
Yeah, so we're really excited for you all to listen to this interview. And we really appreciate just you know, the honesty and transparency that Nick brings to this conversation. So we hope that you enjoy it and let's not keep them waiting. Let's get to it.
Nic Ron is a creative director for thunder Lotus games and wrote spirit Fair, which has been described as a cozy management Sam about dying. Next other work includes design work on several Assassin's Creed games, including origins and syndicate, as well as design work for watchdogs to spirit Fair has been nominated for games for impact and best indie game at the Game Awards. 2020. It's also a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Game writing. Nick, thank you so much for coming to talk to us.
Nick Guerin 6:55
So happy to join you guys. Thanks for having me today.
Ben 6:58
I think we kind of just wanted to start by asking, you know, what inspired the concepts for Spirit fair, because it's a very unique game.
Nick Guerin 7:07
Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's a question everyone is curious about, which makes sense because it's, it sounds like a very weird thing to to start with the idea of having a cozy management game about dying. Actually, it's not my idea at all, I joined the company, and the pitch was already there. And in a nutshell, the pitch was the myth of Chiron in the Greek mythology. So that very grim, dark figure on the sixth river had been having to ferry the souls of the dead through the underworld, the Greek underworld. And that concept was used in contrast to add, say, the whole world of studio jubilees hire me as it gives movies. So a bit more colorful, you know, dreamy, that idea of metaphorical concept.
But I guess the whole premise was that contrast idea of having that dark, gloomy figure being juxtaposed with and a world that was way more bubbly, and colorful. And that was about it. Actually, it was more of a facade experiment than anything else, which was interesting, because when I joined the company, it was like, wow, that's completely weird and deep. And then I can't I think I can do something with this more, most probably based on like your previous work, and we'll get into that and a bit what kind of drew you to the project and what stood out to you about spirit fair and thunder lotus in general that made you want to join in? Right. So I think the first to me the appeal was for the company. Before the project, they were looking for someone to take on the creative directors role. That role was before me. Soon by wield Bae was the who was the actual company's CEO and the founder, a co founder of the company.
And you know, I was at that point, my career was in AAA since the beginning I was at EA when you when I started, as you say, and then Ubisoft for quite many years, working on big AAA projects. I mean, don't get me wrong, Assassin's Creed game are absolutely awesome. And they are most probably the in Montreal, one of the best franchises you can work on. The teams are great. They were absolutely, you know, made with stellar individual in many regards. But that being said, Only Montreal. They were made by by teams of around 300 400 peopleworldwide globally, we would count around 1000 developers in the project class. So you do you do quite many things, but on a very small fraction of them. Even wearing when you're directing roles, you still have toshare understand the vision that is actually represented and carried by a very vast number of individuals. And at any rate, I think when you're in a very large company, such as Ubisoft, you have to also deal with the fact that you have to have a very low Number of devil of sorry of players to seduce, you have to make a game that will sell millions and millions because you have to, they are so expensive that you have to have a model that allows you to sell a very high number of copies. So, when I heard we'll talk about the position ethminer Ellis would like it sounds like something way more smaller way simpler.
I guess when you're game designing, and when it's something you want to do since your childhood, as I was the idea of of owning a concept entirely, you know, dabbling in many areas of the of the concept from writing to game design, to level design, to creative direction to in many ways marketing and all those type of stuff was pretty much interesting in that it was probably from a holistic point of view, the most interesting thing that could be doing and also from, you know, that's a career perspective, it made sense to me. I mean, I've had been following thrillers for a long while since they released Jotun their first game and you know, in comparison to Assassin's Creed I mean Assassin's Creed I'd say you know, want wants to make games that are grounded in history.
That was always the motto that history is our playground this would we say it all the time. And we should get the job done. And I hope many of your listeners will have played the game but it's a game that is humble, yet extremely ambitious, that everything that did they tried to do we know with being extremely genuine and being honest. The game you saved in Icelandic. It's been, you know, approach the Scandinavian Northen mythology from a very, you know, true perspective. And that was seduced into me. Those guys, they didn't know what they're doing, in my opinion this way. I thought so yeah, it was a natural fit, to be honest.
Phil 11:52
Yeah, and then I think just thinking about spirit fair, as a, as a project, I'm really fascinated by what I'd call like this death positivity that it brings into the realm of, of games, which, you know, death is is kind of like a pillar in the games industry. But usually we're though, you know, the player is the one you know, causing the death and a lot of senses. I'm curious with spirit Fair, which has such a different perspective. You know, you're helping people reach the afterlife and it presents everything in a pleasant kind of kind of way while still dealing with with dark themes are hard to grapple with topics.
I'm curious if you could just like you know, just talk more about you know, developing a project like that in the gaming industry.
Nick Guerin 12:44
Right? Absolutely. I think you're totally right i mean death because it's positivity was central to the experience from the get go as I said in the beginning of the the contrast between the ASIC ease world and the Greek mythology was an interesting one because it it led to those reflections about what death is actually from a creative perspective to meet Oh as felt as I said the studio had that very genuine honest approach and I was hell bent on wanting to carrying across and to continue that that tradition of trying to take a subject and think about it very carefully and very you know, deeply understand what that meant.
You know, to bring divinity right again, in the video games industry, maybe not in nature but I'd say from a from an entertainment you know, domain perspective, like from a games perspective, death is generally considered an objective you have to inflict death upon others well, not others you inflict death on NPC generally so on on pixelated AI as the people who are your enemies are challenged. And that makes sense. I mean, it's a pretty standard thing you do to to think about from the beginning, you have been challenged to have an enemy to kill, I kill him or her. And then that was my challenge, and I can complete my quest or whatever.
Again, by having developed what five Assassin's Creed game have been stabbing in the neck, a very high number of NPCs. You know, may their soul rest in peace, but it just yeah, it felt to me that death was also extremely present in the video games landscape, not really considered carefully. And it actually makes sense. Death is terrible. It's something we do not want to think about it. It's there is a reason why it's because it's gonna happen to all of us. And we just don't want to think about it. It's it's actually pretty bad when you think about all the time.
Probably there's a Western bias to it. I'm not entirely sure. But I think from the top of civilization to the top of cultures, death is approached differently. We tend to and I say we as a Western culture, I'm French myself and I'd say from Western Europe to North America to other types of developed country, we've tend to forget about death. Death is a way
Death is something else that is different death is not for us deaths for someone else. So it always comes as a shock when it actually happens to you. And it does quite often for any individual on Earth.
So that was that was the start of it, I was thinking to myself, we have to talk about that from,
you know, a real perspective, like really thought about think about that. And the first step I took, and we took as a studio was for me to research the topic. So imagine me watching a very high number of documentaries about people dying people, you know, at the end of their lives. And then I was lucky enough that reg is lucky to have a brother who is in France, He's chief of service in geriatric care hospital in Southern France. Turns out that southern France is a bit like Florida, and to us a lot of the times of all people go there for their retirement period. So lo and behold, a nice and there are tons of people in his, you know, service. And it was a very good way for me to document that more. So I went to the hospital, I talked to patients, people, they're dying, talk to, you know, caregivers there. And it was fascinating. Truthfully, it was extremely interesting. Yeah, from from the literary to the documentary to,
you know, firsthand research. I guess the the main takeaway for me was that life was still there, it was not just a grim, it was not felt as a, you know, I'd say that gloomy place, it was, of course, a bit dramatic, and, and people were there to die. And many of them were very old, and many of them had no life behind them. But still, what I guess struck me the hardest was the fact that those people were still definitely your life, they'd still had projects, they still had things that were doing, they were still like, you know, were going on, they weren't going out, they were like waking up in the morning and brushing their teeth, and, you know, fixing themselves a coffee, or we're doing things actually.
And my feeling was that life and death were extremely intertwined in the smallest of moments, because that's what to do there. And when when you see the family is going to see their their relatives, if they do have some, some people don't have any family going to visit them, which is a bit set. But what they do is that they don't, you know, recite epic poems on a cliff before they die. They just go and do their daily things. They will not be watching TV, and they won't. They will be I don't know, talking about something and they only will stop. And that's it. That's so simple. That's, that's so mundane, so so.
scarily normal, that I thought there was a good, you know, approach to death positivity in the sense that, yes, you die, and it's terrible, but it's time it's so simple, so natural.
And it was a reminder for me first, and it was tough at first. But then I think we created the characters according to that, that moto in the game.
Ben 18:03
And I think maybe on that, you know, what was it like? Because I think one of our questions is like, what, what is your relationship? Or what was your relationship to thinking about death before the game? And maybe how did the game change that? And I'm also kind of curious, like, what it was like, for a team of people to kind of be sitting with and thinking about death in this very present daily way. Because I think you're right, you know, Western culture as a whole has this very, like, death is something that happens over there. You know, we hide it away in hospitals, we, you know, we do everything we can to make it not a part of our daily lives. And so I'm wondering how you and your team were kind of impacted by every day you're going into work? And you're like, let's think about death in this in this, you know, in the structure of this game.
Nick Guerin 18:49
Oh, man, that's such an interesting question. I mean, it's, you know, yes, as I told you, we were facing death. Now, I at least I was, because I was in the forefront of it. But
so before the game.
I am personally in a theist, I don't believe in God, really, I've been, you know, in, in religious city when I was a kid, but it was never really my thing. I'm worthless, I have a very scientifical mind, and I need to have proof of things. And they need to observe the world from a scientific point of view.
But there are a few things that are a bit not ambiguous, but mysterious and interesting, like the fact that life is a thing and non life is another thing in the universe, we have those two categories of things of living things and nonliving things. So this is this is a mystery. And then you can also infer that life wants to carry on the first order of life is to continue being life. So that's also interesting, and there is no answer to this from a scientific perspective. Now, I myself isn't FAA so I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in heaven and living hell. I don't believe that my x in life will amount to some reward or punishment. When I die there isn't. I don't think
There is some form of place where my soul is going to be yes, my my molecules will be recycled into being organic matter and being a tree or a pad on a diaper at some point, I don't care really, but it's just it's part of life.
Now, before that I'm a father as well as to leave today.
And I think since my fatherhood app I'm scared by death way more than before. Because I feel now that my life has some form of purpose that is, at the very least take care of a human being that needs me and my wife but I mean still, they need somebody to take care of them. So death is pretty scary now has voted for change anything for me? I don't think so.
Maybe it's hard to say you know, it's you know, it's just that when the players play spirit for they will play our own take on it. As I told you for me was there was first mouth of research and you know, documenting end of life and talking to people in at the end of their life was for the game back that was there for me that was the ticket was there. And then spirit offers the results of this in a nutshell. But from from you know, team's point of view. We also one of the first initiative I took was to ask people to talk to me about relatives that had a huge impact in their life so that was one of the message one of the let's say one of the the angles of the game to try to make sense of death through the lens off we still having us people who had an impact on us when they were alive. Would it be genetically your fat your your your parents your grandparents your your language in a way would it be from you know a cultural perspective people in your country will that had an impact on you could be like non figure actors characters could have an impact on your life but also more generally your family so people around you called cousins, friends, people who shaped who shaped you and made you who you are. The way you talk the way you think he wet your like your taste in foods, your how you dress up? How dress, right? Just like how you just happen. Anyway. So yeah, that concept of of being molded by people around you was central to the understanding that they might be dead. But they are still with us all the time. And we carry that legacy through time. So that was probably something that say, okay, yeah, I guess I'm feeling a tiny bit better. Now that I understand that. I understood that a bit better. But as I said, a few seconds ago, I've asked team members to talk to me about relatives that passed away and who had a huge impact on this on them. And there were tons of vertical story. In the game, there are at least three to four characters that are shaped after my grandmother, my grandfather, a friend of mine who died when he was 18. Another friend that I had Diaby later, one of the characters is almost directly inspired by one of the artists, grandmother, someone's uncle, well, almost all the spirits are the result of that. There's interviews I had with team members. And I can tell you, the first thing that happened when this meeting started, is first people are filled with joy IV Oh, I'm gonna think about that person I love so much. And that's gonna be great. Thanks. And then you think about this. And the very first speaker comes in, oh, that person is dead. I won't ever get to see him or her again. And then you cry. Like, really? You cry? whenever, whenever, wherever you are, whatever you do, you start crying.
So it means also that, that feel of lost that whole you carry in your heart still there. But the funny thing is that the first moment they had, then they remembered about it. So it's just always the same pattern like joy, huge sadness, and oh, yeah, that's right. They actually I am them away, you know, I am a bit of them. So I feel better. It's kind of a very small, very fragile, you know, warmth in my heart, and I can feel it. So from I don't know, like, that's a growth perspective, as as, you know, humans, that was mostly it, we felt it was this way and move the character we the net you encounter in the game, they had that impact on Stellar, and then we could infer that still, I was kind of us, you know, and we felt that all those moments where we're, you know, they're, you know, I'd say in a way that's also probably what makes the game so bittersweet. I mean, it's both sad and happy at the same time. It's happy because of this because you have fun and you make jokes and people are goofy and they will still do silly things. You know, I funny story, I met someone and that guy was a Army vet in France. He was pretty old. And he was in that hospital. And the first thing he did when I met him was fart. Like, he let a huge fart in the room. He was terrible, like, very noisy, and very smelly. And he was, he was so crowded, it was like, he was laughing his ass off. It was absolutely amazing. And two days after that he was dead. I was like, wow, that's life, man. That guy was like making the rudest joke when I met him, and then he passed away. But, I mean, that's also part of it. That's, that's why it's so sad and funny. At the same time, it's it's life.
Ben 25:35
You know, because it is so personal. I think in some ways, you were asking your, your teammates and your team members to really get into it with you. And, you know, I'm wondering what that was like, and how I guess unique It was to be in a workplace and really asking people to kind of talk about, you know, I mean, death and your relationships to people in this way, or just show personal?
Nick Guerin 25:58
Yeah. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's just, it feels like it's a tragedy, it feels like it's have to, to, to to, to bear and because it's talking about to about this topic, it feels pretty, you know, intense. But you have to understand that it happens through the course of many years, well, at least three years for us. Well say let's let's doing the one to one year at the beginning of the budget, but still, it's a long period of time. So you don't feel that burn that much. Because he has, there was an hour of conversation between me and that person. And it was an intense moment, it was a very intense hour. But then, two hours later, we were, you know, taking a coffee break in a room and was thinking about something else. So it's, I guess, when you when you we've summed this up in such a small amount of time, it feels terrible. But then, you know, across a time period, it's much better. And probably it's also something that helps us composed with that. Yes, when we think about it, now, in the moment, it's each That's intense. But then it's, it's diluted, you know, in time, and then you think less about it, and you forget about those moments, so it's Life finds a way to, you know, to balance itself in your own, you know, feelings.
Ben 27:08
Yeah, and I, you know, I'm wondering, what were, what were some of the kind of audience reactions to the game itself, because I feel like, again, you know, something that is so personal, I think it's so easy for people to kind of see themselves or see their own experience. Right in that. And so I'm wondering if you've noticed, in, you know, especially in, you know, from the games that you had worked on previously, a stronger reaction or emotional reaction to the game.
Nick Guerin 27:36
It's, it's, it's something I can tell you this, it's I would never had foreseen this. Specifically, because of the moment we'll talk about this, but it's
quite many people connected with the game, while belief Well, at least from the receiving end that we had, we had, I don't know, maybe more than many 100 letters of personal testimonies of how the game affected people, extremely touching was extremely moving. I mean, when I was reading it, it was it was, you know, I'm there, all the time in the verge of tears, because it's so moving. Many people day, when they are really moved by the game, it's completely intertwined with their own story with some character reminds me of my grandfather, grandmother, friend, myself, have experienced death or dying off off close on a mother, a wife or husband. It's extremely moving. So many, many people are see themselves in the game. Because yeah, because of that personal connection, because we actually put our heart out there. And then people saw that, and then they can relate. But also, I guess, the most moving to me, were the ones who, actually, again, maybe there was a handful of them who told me I am a nurse. And thanks to spiritual, I understand my work better. And now, there is one one that there was even one letter of someone who wrote to us saying, I had given up on my work, it is a terrible work to do. I mean, those people, honestly, there are real heroes out there people who actually are holding the hands of dengue people, they are heroes, I can tell you that, because they are going through it every day, every month, every year, and it's extremely heavy for them. It's heavy. I can tell you, but yes, that person was writing to us telling us, you know, I couldn't like do it anymore. And then I played spiritual and I got something I understood that my life had purpose, way more than I did before. And she took back her job as a nurse. And I was like, wow, at least I can feel I've done something, you know, we've achieved something as a team.
Phil 29:52
Yeah, something was really something that's really resonating with me and a lot of your answers is for one like I really appreciate the honesty, especially with Ben's question about like, how have you changed since the project and I think everybody expects when you when you create something that once it's out, you're gonna have, like you said, this dramatic proclamation, I'm a new person. And often it's not that way I, I was telling you over the email that Ben and I had a podcast a number of years ago where we were doing a road trip around the United States. And we are interviewing people about death, belief and other metaphysical topics. And we're kind of like you, but a bit more skeptical, more on the atheistic bent of things. And, you know, people would ask us once we got back from the trip after we talked all these people about death, like, how have you changed? And, you know, certainly there are experiences that that changed my perspective, but it's not in these these grand ways. It's always in these kind of smaller ways. And absolutely thinking about spirit fair. I'm curious, you know, it's like, it's a management system that was like resource gathering, and you're kind of working with these these spirits, giving them what they need, or what they want in order to help them eventually pass over. And just from a, like a gameplay perspective, I'm curious how you all kind of fell upon that those kinds of systems and what your yellows thinking was and developing the gameplay or flow?
Nick Guerin 31:25
Yeah. Right. So from from a gameplay point of view? Well, it's, it's, again, an awesome question. Thank you for asking. Yeah, it's it's see that blind is I think it's, it's crucial to understanding what's paid for is, again, not me, I joined the project. And until there was a pitch, but beyond the pitch, it was also a gameplay structure ish. And that structure was, hey, we want to make a game that is kind of starting to rally. Oh, okay. Sure. Why not? I wasn't entirely sure at first. But then it was kind of making a tons of sense, because, as I told you, it isn't as simple things life is in the simple repetition of chores and mundane activity. And what is more of a chore than actually having to tend to a garden and then to farm things. It's the most simple, normal, quiet things you can do you just like plant a seed, you water it, you watch it grow. That's it, that's life there. But there is repetition. There are a ton of things that are perceived as chores, which is interesting, actually, it was kind of a contention point, because many players who tackled spirit for a while kind of like, you know, threw off by a fine. Okay, so I have to manage things in this way. It's kind of boring, isn't it? Is that? No, no, it's not boring. It's not boring. To me. It's not boring to many players out there. But I can definitely understand it might be boring to some of you guys. Because it does not mean for everyone to play a game which is slow paced, in which things take their time to happen. But I couldn't have told actually, I couldn't have led player experience the games message, you know, without it. Because you have to do this, you have to repeat things over and over again to get it that that's where life happens in those moments. Now, I'm just like preferencing myself, but that's, that's, that's where it is. And also, that was one of my takeaways off talking to caregivers in hospitals, they do the same thing all over again, every day. They have the same questions, they repeat the same procedures. And, and, you know, fun fact, because they work in places where that turns out for people who are dying of dental degenerative disease, most of them will forget what they did. So they will repeat themselves all over again. I guess the only thing that I couldn't you know, having became was people in those services, they talk talk very loudly, because many elderly people they do have you know, hearing loss and additional loss of they have to talk very loudly to others. Which is interesting, but it's kind of goofy, right? You're talking to someone again, that is in a terrible condition that have a few days to live and you're shouting in her here that her lunch is missing salt and it's okay Madame something Yeah, we'll bring you salt. You know. So the the mundane activity of doing the type of Francine Spitzer was was was a okay it worked perfectly well. I say the only thing that was a bit of a surprise for us was how, how in love we were with the platforming aspect of it. I don't think it's raised very well the theme to be honest, I don't think bouncing around having character a dad that zips lines through places that can double jump. You know, it's not exactly thematically appropriate but being who we were and having the characters the way they were designed, and now our animation team will our team and mission team are are awesome artists. They really are very good. My opinion. I won't say otherwise of course but I mean they do. They really are really good. And when you see these characters alive and jumping around, it was a natural fit. Now, of course, you can try to retrofit to the fact that it is an expression of life's joy. And it feels a bit, you know, because of your end up bouncing around, it feels bubbly and shiny and nice, which it is to a degree but from, you know, our audience that mix was funky, syphilis to have blood farming and management, and then, you know, a narrative adventure thrown in it. But it kind of worked. So we did.
Ben 35:30
And what I'm hearing you say is that, you know, listen to the medically the farm, Sam really works in with this, this piece about building relationships to some degree. And also just like, the way that a lot of kind of managing death, right can also work. And so I'm wondering, it's interesting that you brought up Stardew Valley, because I think Stardew Valley is like a good comparison point in some ways, that, you know, Stardew Valley, I think has some degree of kind of relationships are part of that you can kind of get married and build relationships and give people things which is also kind of part of spirit harbor spirit for I think takes that a step further, and how you're kind of building relationships and getting to know someone's needs. Can you talk about that? And like, you know, I guess why it's important to kind of build that piece out for the story you were telling.
Nick Guerin 36:19
Right? So yeah, and actually going to Stardew Valley, I guess we should also pay homage to Harvest Moon, which was the initiator of the actual inspiration for sort of a lot anyway, so the farm sim farming simulation in general from, you know, a historical perspective in the videogames world. So yeah, Stardew Valley was was in there as a concept. There is one thing that works really well, in those games, as well as the concept of motivation. When there are games that are that's, that's, that's a very important topic for you, you want to keep players engaged. And it's probably one of the most fascinating aspects of game design in which we, we, as game designers, have to know how the psychology of players work. And 20 players it feels like, when I hear play, players telling me oh, yeah, it was so addictive. So I like it. It's like, yeah, because we know how, why and how to embed those addictive mechanisms in the game. We do this for wheat, we bend our lotus and many other Indies and video games in general. Do it for a good reason, then for let's say, entertainment purpose, some of the games do this from a bit more, you know, mercantile point of view, and then they will engage you and they will sell you things and you know, anyway. But yeah, it works pretty, pretty well for spirits for and for the for the message because two minutes and triple Mechanix they had to revolve around care in general. So beyond the farming, that concept of care was was central. We tried many combinations of things beyond the farming structure, itch in the game from a from a you know, structurally mechanical point of view, you do have stations, for example, you have a sawmill, you have every gardens a station, so you do a little mini games in them. Because I love mini games, and I think minigames are fun, anyway. And so you plan things and then you you get planks, and then you cook things. So all those little stations, they will help you build up, you know, resources to give to spirits. And then spirits, they need you to have other things built for them to all those loops, because that's how we call them from, you know, I'd say that lingo talk of the of the game design world, all those loops off objective challenge reward, they work really well. And they are really nice to intertwine into one another. So you always feel compelled to move forward and do something in a sense, the game asks you something that you don't have yet but you know how to get it. So you do it, and then you do it. So it's a very interesting, you know, way forward. In a way, it's also, you know, mimicking how life works, because you want something and then you set tiny goals, you have goals for the day, you have goals for the week, I don't know you have might have goals for the mountain and life goals. So they can be structured the same way. Again, you know, that's emulating what life is about.
Ben 39:12
I almost want to jump in and just ask this question about an AI. You're kind of talking about this idea of building in to some degree, like things that are mundane or things that are you know, I noticed for me that the relationship with a tool who's the kind of frog uncle character who's always hungry and he's always asking me for a kind of new dish to go cook him and it's always a specific dish, and I often found that I was like, I don't have the ingredients have to go find this. So I can go cook this for him. Which I think is you know, great and is true to relationships, right? But it's true that there's this frustration or mundanity despite the fact that you might love this person. But you're also talking about like, well how do we make this to some degree marketable also, and addictive also, and so it's like I wonder if you can talk about the balance between these mechanics where it's like you want to give people these real feelings that are sometimes frustrating or sometimes, you know, a little boring, but are also, you know, able to, you know, loop people and grab people. And it sounds like there's a, there's maybe a bit of a contradiction, there are a bit of a right a tug and pull and tug. So can you talk about that?
Nick Guerin 40:23
Yeah, don't don't get me wrong. I don't mean this in a, in a marketing way. I mean, you're right, that I mean, many, many game designers and many games try to do this from that, with that goal in mind. But I think it was ours. I mean, it's what I'm telling us more of the fact that game mechanics tend to be designed this way. For this reason. My purpose was to find another reason why these game mechanics were designed this way. So yes, there was this. So I'm happy that people will feel engaged. But it was here to serve a higher purpose. And that purpose was this to understand how, you know, caring about others in the land, in the light of them dying, made sense. There was a mechanic that we had at first that I tried to have in the game that didn't work was, you know, taking care of them in a more literal way they need they needed medicine, like they were having a disease, and then you need to have like to give them shots and to give them pills. It just didn't work at all. So remove that it was filled felt like a burden. Also, which is another topic, many games will have those mechanics for the challenge. And my so if I don't take care of that person, that person will dwindle and eventually die, which was not something that we could do in spirit for obviously, we really didn't want the player to feel like it was their own fault. Spirit die was terrible. It would have also been completely contradiction to the message because it felt like, yes, people die, but it's not your fault at all. You're trying to keep them alive, not to kill them. So it was kind of weird. But yeah, to to go back to your initial question. Yes, there is that that, that kind of a conflict between making a game that will work towards gamers and having that wholesome satisfaction about about taking care of them? But I would say that, you know, yes, we designed that this way, mainly because I wanted player to experience what it felt like taking care of people who are dying, and how those people were actually the one helping you staying alive or being who you were. The same went for the hugs, for example. I mean, it felt like you needed to have a physical connection to lift someone's spirit. Metaphorically, like literally. But anyway, so the that mechanic was was useful. And then we also developed another system, which will be mood systems, so to keep people in good mood. But this is more cosmetic than anything people can be spirits can be in a very bad mood and the game. At first we had consequences for this, like some events would be blocked, some some progression would be stopping. But the players would just not understand them, they would not understand that I have I have not fed that person, they have not fulfilled her his or her request, and they have not tagged him. Now he's best at one talk to me, it felt weird, we had something missing in the system. So we kind of removed that. But it's really back and forth between keeping the player engaged, imposing some burden on him or her to make sure that they feel that that you know, truly aspect of taking care of someone else. Some spirits are absolute dicks, I must say. So I mean, some sites are terrible. It was kind of weird, because the way the game was structured, was on the mythological Greek underworld, right. So the way the Greek underworld is made is that you have the blessed dies in the right in the center. And then you have the Elysium fields, basically, when you're nice in your life. So when you are the guards properly, you will end up in a nice afterlife. But when you're not nice person, you will end up in terrible places, you have flag it down the river of death, and then you have aka around the river of Paisley. No, no, don't want to enter there. But anyway, so the world was shaped this way. And the concept was that the first parents you would meet would be more at ease with the fact that they were dying and the spirits will meet at the end of the game. So at the edge of the world, it would be more harder to actually understand and to reach. So we kind of kept that but he wasn't really nimble, we should have changed it anyway. But last period to meet in the in the first version of the game that it was out were kind of tough. I mean, you have Bruce and Mickey the two dogs you have Elena who is basically in our very hard teacher. So your point was for you to dislike these characters to understand that yes, you have to take care of them but they are bad people. They are terrible persons. You know, you didn't want the player to like them.
And he was gonna fail because of the structure and then you feel he felt like at the end of the game, you had all this character that were extremely annoying, and that the beginning you had the nicest characters. But that being said, I guess it also helps sell the point that death can happen too. Anyone, actually sorry to do a bit of a segue. But I've always considered weird eulogies of people weird. Like, when you have someone dying, you have always come across at church or wherever it is to say that person was such a nice person in life when you know that, on the contrary, some people might be terrible persons, and they still die. And you go there. So yeah, he was really nice when you think that you can count all the terrible things that hidden they in his life. So he always felt me natural that you could actually meet people who were dying, and just people in their life might have, you know, be the best versions, the same thing went for the fact that they all had requests to fulfill. So they all had a story arc of them knowing they were dying, and what they were doing in their last moments to reach some kind of, like inner peace. Well, long story short, many of them don't, they don't find their inner peace. Some people died in a terrible situation, some people die. Some people know understand that they're going to die and they're angry, they stay angry, up to the moment they die, and they're still angry. So it's not like they they have found some some, you know, inner truth or Nirvana state where they feel like, some of them die in a terrible way. Well, not terrible, but in a more, you know, intense and not peaceful way, which was also a true portrait of death that wanted to give,
Ben 46:19
I really loved what you said about eulogies. My I was just thinking about it in the context of my my grandfather, when he died, my dad gave the kind of speech. And they had a really complicated relationship. And he gave a really complicated speech, where he wasn't kind of trying to, you know, paint this person is perfect, or all good. And my, my cousin was kind of talking to me after the fact and she was like, you know, it almost when you're kind of putting someone to rest, you're almost better able to do it, when you're more honest about kind of who they were that it's like, it completes the story in a better way, than letting them go to rest with like a false story about kind of who they were sorry, boy, I really love what you just said.
Nick Guerin 47:08
Yeah. And to bounce back on this briefly, the going back to the concept of being shaped by someone you can be shaped in the Gadigal negated by someone you can be you can have a bad influence on one on you. Or you can see someone some something in someone that you don't want to repeat in your life. An example of this is a relationship between Astrid and Giovanni, which are definitely my grandmother and my grandfather, my grandfather, he cheated on his wife for the better of his life. And she didn't know that. And when she learned about this many years after his death, she just hated his guts. She said, I don't want to think about that guy anymore. You know, because it's cheating on me for all my but I don't know. Fuck him. Sorry. So it was it was kind of weird. And, again, that guy, I love them. My grandfather, he was an awesome dude. But he did very weird things all his life. I mean, he taught me how to, again, I'm French, we don't have guns in France. Still, he taught me how to shoot with a gun when I was seven. Who on his right mind would hand as you know, a seven year old guns they should end up being not a good idea. Anyway, so yeah, it's, it's going back to that today that you're shaped by others, you can be shaped by seeing a behavior, you think you should avoid yourself in someone else. So that was instilled in the you know,
Phil 48:18
going back kind of kind of bouncing off that, you know, we've talked a lot about how spirit fair is a very unique game and, and I agree, and I think a simple question would be like, how is the the gaming industry changed to allow these these types of games to exist? I'm curious what what do you find personally, you've seen has changed in the industry. That is allowing games like spirit fair to better kind of iterating on more classic games like Harvest Moon and things like that to to more introspective places. How are you finding? Or what are you finding is changing an industry that's allowing these things to happen?
Nick Guerin 49:03
Right. Wow. That's, that's, that's, that's a complex question. It is fascinating, though. And, okay, so I don't want to sound like like someone on grade for all anything, but I'm getting a bit older now. I'm 41, which is not that old, but still older. And I've been playing as I guess, for many of you guys, for quite many years. I yesterday actually, the day before I was trying to think back at the games I played because my daughter is seven now and she's she's playing games. And I just like, became aware of that I started playing when I was two. So it was a 1983 1982 Basically, which is lifetime ago, and I've always felt like games were I could it's gonna sound weird, but games were always clearly aimed at. You know, Oxton total males between 14 18 and 21 that was the window. To me. That's wait. That's how it felt. And maybe mainly because probably that was an argument that I heard my time in Ubisoft, and maybe even in EA, about our core audience. At some point, in the industry, we even had that weird distinction between casual gamers and hardcore gamers, which was extremely artificial way of dividing people. But still, I always felt like, as an industry, we always thought of that specific target as the golden target that the people you have to reach. And by doing so, we always, I felt in a way, I was training ourselves to brush up on more mature topics. Now, minigames would be for those that are listened spirit for dabbled on on on very mature themes, or tackle them in a more mature way. But I guess the difference now is that we just as developers getting older, we want to play games that are that mean, something that just games that are the same iteration of the first person shooter again. And there are tons of very good game now I'm in the very, very good games that Apple is like, wow, this is great. I'm actually playing disco Elysium and be late. Now it's out in console. I love it. It's awesome. It's a fantastical game. There's some weird things of course, because you know, it's made by a team of like, as an army, the army I guess I had wager pleasant 20 people doing games that are quite ambitious. But still, they try to do something so fresh. So so personal, so interesting. So new, in a way, but I mean, it's not entirely new. I mean, it's it's a, let's say from a detective story is going on in literature scenes when, two centuries ago. So he kind of late to the party as an industry. But still, I think there are so many initiatives now that players have probably grown up, have, you know, the different types of audience, way more women playing, which is a blessing, to be honest, I think our diverse cultures diverse opinions. I was lucky enough to talk with many journalists from many countries for spread for random people in Turkey, Brazil, playing games, and not just the same people. I love people in Kentucky, Kentucky as an example. But I mean, just like it was it's I mean, it's getting diverse and broader and more interesting. So I guess we do have more audience also the fact that games, probably a bit cheaper to produce mean, we do have integrated engines now. spirituals been made with Unity. Unity is a simpler stuff to use than a complex engine from beginning of the year 2000, like, like big unreal or big, you know, other types of engines. So it's nimbler, it's easier for people to craft stuff. If you've guys played if found, which is an awesome game, made by dream field company in Ireland, and it's just the first simple thing, it's more of a couple of pictures that you're Yeah, it's more exactly a visual level. And it just, it's so simple, so nice. And it works really well. So my opinion on this to sum this up would be that more people are interested in to making games that they understand something they like themselves. And there is a bigger audience for this. And there are more studios now are trying to do this. So it's an awesome time to make to make games. And I'm, I'm hoping for a kind of golden age of, you know, games going forward, as it went for TV a couple of years ago.
Ben 53:31
And I want to ask you, because I, you know, I'd noticed before earlier, when you were kind of talking about the early stages of spirit far where you're you're describing, you know, having people play and thinking about your audience in this very clear way about like, what are things that we can do to make this an enjoyable experience, but also an engaging experience? And I think you're mentioning this here, too, though, the idea of, you know, who is the audience? And how do we expand to the idea of, of what our audience is, and who we're telling stories for? And so maybe you can talk about, you know, how you picture an audience for a game like spirit fair, and what were the conversations like around that? Obviously, you know, for contrast, you were talking about, you know, a place like Ubisoft having this vision of kind of young white male playing Assassin's Creed, what was your vision for kind of who an audience was?
Nick Guerin 54:20
Right? So here's the thing, I'd be lying if I said what I've just I got this question. It's, it's complex. As for everything, but Okay, so here's the deal. The the, our approach to game is to make games that we first find interesting, like SS, 2d SSP SS people that we find not only interesting from an artistic point of view, not just know making games that will bring us money. I mean, of course, we still need to recoup our budget. I mean, we're not doing this for for a nonprofit organization we do we still have to have some form of off money being made out of the gate. game. But that being said, we will never ship a game that we don't believe in. Actually, that's why I think, and to believe in it, we have to be our first customers. Now. I talked about art, because I think the every game is isn't trying to be an art form. I personally believe that game games are an art form, I'm 100% convinced of it. But to be an art form, you have to say something, you have to make something that you believe into, you have to, as I said, Put your heart out there. And many developers are doing it. Now, this is the first step. Now the $1 million question or many million depending on your budget is, is my thing, interestingly enough? And if it is stretched and interesting to him, who's going to who's going to be interesting that that? So there are there are simple and complicated ways to tackle this, I guess from I don't know, like more organized industry, you would say we will make focus groups, and we will try to have people and nail down the audience. But we didn't really do that, because we were prayed for was made by a team of 15 people so we couldn't really exactly you know, have like complex organization of what was dressing people. But definitely the audience for spirit for was pretty simply the indie games audience, so people who want to play games that are not displaying many millions of dollars of budget on screen, and are trying to tackle subjects that are a bit different. So approached in a different way. So I guess to us it always the concept of having just like simply for the indie audience, and that that was about it. So it was meant to be more of our PCs and PCs team and maybe a bit on switch now because they they've been pushing the indie a lot over the years. But now, in hindsight, I'd say that we've hit a more honestly, this an audience that is that we're interested by the wholesomeness of the game, the message, we can have pretty interesting makes our community is awesome. It's one of the best communities I've ever worked with. They're very nice people. They're really interesting to talk to. It's absolutely great. But yeah, the wholesomeness the I'd say the, I'd say this, but yeah, the way the game is the, because of the colors, because of the coziness of the game attracted a specific crowd as well. And because it had a genuine message it, you know, worked for them as well. So I don't know, if we actually started the game with that much of an audience beyond the fact that we knew that we had to sell the game to an indie audience. And it was enough. I mean, we knew that we could make a game and have the budget we had, and not being entirely broke, if we, you know, ship the game. With the with the audience that we thought we could reach, in a way.
Ben 57:53
Yeah, so it maybe it sounds like maybe you're saying there's a different balance than what I'm asking the balance is, how do you find something that is has a clear and concrete creative vision, while also like, still, at the end of the day being something that, you know, is marketable to some degree?
Nick Guerin 58:09
Yeah, I guess the difference would be many, many companies do tackle games, as if they were a product, which they are, in a way, I mean, they will, you know, do a marketing, you know, investigation, they will try to have a business model that works with them. So they will think of things as a product and you have a product and you have customers basically. And I don't think with this, we think of games as a as as a concept, you know, a piece in a way so something that you believe in to yourself, and then you put out there and you hope people will understand it. Of course, you know, in between we do have that, you know thinking about it will gain reach enough people will be okay, we do we do we have to change the game to reach more people. But at the beginning, it's not about the game being a product morphin an art form. Because you have to express yourself.
Phil 58:57
Yeah, to kind of switch gears a little bit. One thing that I think is really important, especially when talking to people in the games industry is that it doesn't seem like there is necessarily the traditional route into it. I feel like everybody we talked to you has a very kind of unique kind of gateway into how they got into games. And I'm curious just for you, like what was what was young Nick? Like, like, what was your household like was and then like, eventually kind of walking us to when you started to getting into the industry? Was that something that your family was like, accepting of or is that at the time like whoa, like what the hell are you going to do with that? You know
Nick Guerin 59:43
when I'm when I'm when I'm asked that question, I've always wanted to reverse who I was. But yeah, so Wow, it's well, I guess I've been fortunate enough to to, to throughout my life, and I'm being allowed to play games, and to spend a very inordinate amount of time playing them in any form. Growing up, I was more of a tabletop RPG gamer than a video game, video gamer, because I'm older and I've always no thought that I still think that, you know, tabletop RPG are the pinnacle of interactive entertainment. But yeah, so I never knew it was my call. You know, I never knew that I would be doing this my life asked for many people my age, no, my family was trying to make me do something that was worth it. So maybe a doctor be a lawyer or something like this, you know, as for everyone be a journalist, I don't know, but have a real job. So I'm like, Yeah, okay, I can try to do this. So I try to have a real job for a long time I tried to in France, you know, find my way. I guess I was lucky enough to be quite lazy. So I was bad at it, I would try to do something I went to university, I didn't perform that well. I was kind of doing okay, but still not that great. And then to me, to me, the most important thing was and that's gonna sound weird was to leave my family my to leave them away from where I was. So I changed City. I was born in the French Riviera, nice, which was, which is not a bad place to be. I mean, the the we're on the border of the Mediterranean. So it's kind of nice, though, to be in to be in French Riviera. But still, it felt like, my description was that it felt like an aquarium. It's, it's small. If people are with between themselves, they don't get to see the world. So as for many young French person, I, I moved up to Paris to find a job. And then their friend of mine, a good friend of mine was working at Ubisoft as they, you know, I've stopped what you're doing. And, you know, try your luck and video games like yes, I'm gonna try and do this. Because I'm playing on my life. And I have, I've tried things already. It was back in the beginning of the year 2000. So we didn't have access that much to simple prototyping tools. So I did things more on a pen and paper, you know, tabletop RPGs and oriental board game style of no game development. And then I was extremely lucky because I had a lucky encounter with someone called Alan Tesco who was the founder of EA Montreal in 2004. And we were just hailing from the same city and then out of sheer luck we hadn't encountered and we had meaning as to Yeah, sure. I will hire you. Okay. I was pure luck like roll a dice crit. That's it. I was extremely lucky. Many people in my position would have tried to you know, enter the industry for years and years and years and years. Or ever in Paris. It's pretty hard you don't have that many studios. They were not hiring that much. I remember interview being interviewed by Quantic Dreams back then bit Ubisoft, but not that much. So it would have been a much longer road. So I was pretty lucky. But yeah, to go back to your question, I never really knew that I would want to do this. But that was I was completely inhibited by it. You know, I was thinking games I was. I was buying magazines and playing games anytime I could. And I was trying to avoid going into you know, school to play Final Fantasy seven and Mario Kart. It's not a good strategy. Kids don't do that.
Ben 1:03:24
One of the things we've been asking a lot of creators that we've talked to, is to maybe create a scene with sound maybe describe it for us. When you think about this game, you know, what is what is something that's going to stick with you
Nick Guerin 1:03:39
about spirituality mean? Okay, so the toughest and the most at the high stakes moment of the game, where all the what we call last voyages, basically, the moment where the spirits are on that tiny embarkation. And then you bring them still brings them to the every door, which is where they disappear. So they die basically. And it was extremely long. And I had to describe this moment to many people as a long and boring sequence. Which was completely anti climactic as Yeah, it has to be long and boring, not boring, because it has to be moving. It has to be sweeping, but you couldn't do that we had just like, the image itself. So kudos to max ll our awesome composer, we've got it a he completely got it. And he composed an awesome score for the game, but me describing he was like, so you have the bark going. And then you only see you'll only hear the sound of the battle in the world. And then in the game, you have speech today is a bit bitter, but that's what it is. And that was it. And then you have Towards the end, that big giant door, it's actually a bridge with a reflection that forms a perfect circle. And then the circle lights up and starts on the top of the bridge to continue in the reflection to give the symbol of the reflection and the afterlife in a way. And then the everything he was saying was, it makes the end, and that was, that was terrible. Let people stay
Phil 1:05:42
was incredibly realistic.
Ben 1:05:46
Actually the voice that was spot on that, because that's exactly what it sounds like.
Nick Guerin 1:05:52
You have you have to you have to make sounds for sound people because you have to understand what you actually mean when you just want to sound. Yeah. So yeah, that was and it was. So it was a mistake, because people will never believe me like that thing will never work. Sorry, Nick. Fold it right now. He just won't work.
Phil 1:06:10
Thank you. Thank you for that. I think we're kind of running out of time. So maybe just out of curiosity now that the game is out. It's been out a little bit less than a year. Yeah. How's how's the team doing? Like, what do you all up to is? Are you kind of iterating on whatever the next thing is? Are you taking a break? Or?
Nick Guerin 1:06:34
Oh, man, it's, it's I guess it's weird because we should, in the pandemic, right. So it was it was it was something very special. We started shutting down studio in April. And then we should know August. And since August, we had quite a couple of mouth of hoping for the thing to stop and we could go back to Studio and work on something else. But it just didn't happen. Right. So we bounced back on on believing in the fact that the game was was nice enough to be perfected. The game was shipped was was okay. I mean it worked. We still had many bugs to fix and we still had some some more updates to create we had ideas for characters that we couldn't make it we can put into the game when we when it was released. So very sizeable chunk of the team works Sudarshan is paid for and is making updates we've announced some dates the game so I guess now that it's it's reaching it's it's rearing its ugly, and epidemic, we will probably meet back in person at the studio in probably in September after the summer. And we'll try something else we'll do something new. But of course I can talk about because the that's how the video games industry work. But it's going to be another video game.
Ben 1:07:50
How about that
Nick Guerin 1:07:51
with characters?
Ben 1:07:54
Shocking.
Nick Guerin 1:07:55
Shocking, is Yeah.
Ben 1:07:58
Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. We really appreciate it.
Nick Guerin 1:08:02
Thank you guys. It was an awesome conversation.
Ben 1:08:04
Yeah, it was great talking to you. You too Thank you
Phil 1:08:24
Well, that was our conversation with Nick are on on spirit fair and everything else related to Thunder, Lewis games and game development. Man, it was such an interesting conversation, especially just thinking about how they went about, like formulating the different narrative beats in the game and how Nick went to like hospitals talk to people who are dying, and really does a good job of showing that it is kind of these quieter, smaller moments that are intertwined with life and death, not like these big, grand moments that we might expect and dramatic stories that we're used to.
Ben 1:09:07
Yeah, it was I think such a such a good interview. I mean, he's just so compelling. And he just does a great job of talking about all this stuff and breaking it down. I just Yeah, I was kind of wowed. When we got done with this interview. I know that we talked about it. But I just what an interesting person and what a great kind of perspective. There is. One thing that I couldn't help but notice as I was listening back to this interview, though, Phil I think I pronounced spirit fair a different way. Every single time I say it. Yeah, spirit fair. You got spirit Farrer. You got spirit. I mean, I don't understand how he did it, but I really I really pulled it off. You
Phil 1:09:46
know, you're you're just spreading your wings, trying some new things, seeing what sticks. That's life, baby.
Ben 1:09:54
That's an embarrassment is what it is.
Phil 1:09:58
Well, we want to thank Nik, you're on so much for coming on the show. Again, like it was such a an eye opening conversation. I think that we both left it feeling so surprised. Not that we thought that it would be a bad conversation or anything, but it just like was one of those conversations where it kind of floored us in ways that we weren't expecting. So, yeah, we just really want to thank him for his honesty and candor and talking about the game and his role within it. And he doesn't have any sources that he wants to plug but you can find more of Nick and his team's work at Thunder Lotus games.com.
Ben 1:10:39
As always, thank you to Ryan Hopper for the music melody Hirsch for the cover arts. And thank you, dear listener for listening. If you're enjoying what you're listening to right now, you know, maybe think about the opening your app, dropping some stars, maybe a good review, say some nice things about us how handsome we are. How nice our voices are
Phil 1:11:01
five stars, you know, it helps a lot gets more eyes on the podcast. And you know, how about you tell a friend like these conversations are interesting. I'm sure people like to listen to interesting conversations. So spread the word.
Ben 1:11:15
And if you have to harass a friend harangue a friend, you know, lock your friend in the apartment and just blast the podcast Full Tilt. Yeah, that's the one Yeah, you
Phil 1:11:26
know, another another great tip. You know, you're driving, you're driving with your friend, you're going on a weekend adventure. You have control over the radio, like, what are they going to do? This pop on origin story?
Ben 1:11:38
Trapped in that car with just our voices. pseudonym.
Phil 1:11:43
So where could they could they find you? Then
Ben 1:11:47
they can find me at said underscore radio underscore lab.
Phil 1:11:52
That is just the best handle. I gotta I gotta say. I feel like I say that every time.
Ben 1:11:57
I appreciate it. I'm sad. And I work in radio. What do you want?
Phil 1:12:01
You can find me at 3d Cisco. And you could find this podcast at origin story underscore on Twitter. If you all have any questions, ideas, wants Meads needs if you want to tell us like something that you'd love to see more of or, you know, whatever. You can hit us up at our email, the origin story pod@gmail.com. We are going to be here again next week with another next week conversation next week. Ben. Buckle up, buckle up. So we will see you all then. Thanks for listening.
