0:00 This studio has failed more than they've 0:02 succeeded. They almost built the Death 0:03 Star Tycoon. They gambled on droids 0:05 instead. And three and a half months 0:07 later, they're still riding one of the 0:09 biggest launches Fortnite Creatives has 0:11 ever seen with a game that couldn't have 0:13 technically been built without a tool 0:15 that is still in development today. The 0:17 story behind that bet, plus the exact 0:20 design process they run before ever 0:21 locking in a game. 0:22 >> And we wanted to play that up. We took a 0:24 bit of a gamble, you know, thinking that 0:25 will other people like these cold metal 0:27 robots as much as we do. So, what did it 0:29 actually take behind the scenes to pull 0:32 that gamble off with an IP like Star 0:34 Wars watching over their shoulders? 0:36 >> Couldn't have technically made the game 0:37 without Scraph despite it still being 0:40 developed. 0:40 >> By the end of this, you'll know the one 0:43 test they run before locking in a design 0:44 document. And you won't ship your next 0:47 updates without running it yourself. We 0:49 get into so much more behind the scenes 0:51 of Droid. Let's go. 0:54 >> This is Creative Juice. 0:56 >> All right, I think we're live, dude. 0:58 What's up, fellas? 0:59 >> Yo, how's it going, 1:00 >> dude? Nate and Scott, dude, what a 1:02 treat. I am so happy to have you guys. 1:05 You guys have been crushing it. And I 1:07 mean, you guys have always been crushing 1:08 it. I've been a huge fan of course of 1:10 food and everything you guys have been 1:11 creating. I know you guys have also a 1:12 very passionate audience, but you guys 1:14 have just made a smash hit on Fortnite, 1:17 and it's a treat to be able to get the 1:19 devs behind it here today to kind of 1:20 talk about it. I know the audience 1:22 listening is probably very excited about 1:24 what you guys have to say today. So, I 1:26 guess we can just jump in, fellas, if if 1:28 you guys are ready. 1:29 >> Yeah, let's do this. I'm stoked to be 1:30 here. Yeah. 1:31 >> All right, guys. Well, here we go. I 1:33 mean, before FOD and Droid Tycoon became 1:36 huge, of course. What were each of you 1:38 uniquely bringing to the team? And when 1:39 did you guys realize your creative and 1:41 technical skill sets worked like really 1:43 well together? 1:44 >> Nate and I worked together for almost 1:46 two decades now. And we've had 1:49 >> so we've definitely like ironed out a 1:51 lot of those you know who does what 1:53 where do we overlap who's got a say in 1:56 this area who's got a say in this area 1:57 type thing. We've also worked with our 1:59 animator and effects guy Andrew for 2:02 >> the same amount of time too. So there's 2:04 like a a lot of built-in chemistry 2:06 there. So you know going into any 2:08 project there is a lot of that kind of 2:10 figured out to a degree. So when we 2:12 ideulate it's kind of easy because we 2:14 know what the other person can do. So it 2:15 just makes it a lot easier. So you're 2:16 not overplanning anything. Nate's really 2:18 good at overplanning for himself 2:20 already, [laughter] so no one else has 2:22 to do that. 2:23 >> What do you guys What's your individual 2:24 skill sets and what you guys do on FOD, 2:26 I guess, like let's just start off there 2:28 kind of for the audience. 2:29 >> Yeah, that's uh you know, one of the 2:30 things that I love about working with 2:32 Scott in general has just been I think 2:33 our our our inherent built-in skills are 2:36 just really complimentary to each other. 2:38 >> Yeah, it's fantastic. Scott's a creative 2:40 director at the studio and he is the one 2:42 responsible for a lot of you know the 2:44 lookdev the design the visual polish all 2:47 those things like that and I've handled 2:48 a lot of the technical sides of bringing 2:50 those things to life in the past so 2:53 basically doing things like you know I 2:55 was doing the verse code for a long time 2:57 but also things like setting up the you 2:59 know things like UI and HUD those are 3:01 also some of my specialties I come from 3:03 like a lot of like a motion design and 3:05 animation background so that kind of 3:07 blends naturally and we're to Scott's 3:10 kind of doing a lot more of the 3D and 3:11 the, you know, character development 3:13 type work. 3:14 >> Yeah. Okay. No, and that's perfect. So, 3:16 I mean, you guys were all in on UFN. You 3:19 guys started right when UFN came out and 3:21 you guys had been kind of dabbling in 3:22 Unreal Engine before that. You guys were 3:24 making games. Like, what was that like? 3:27 If you guys remember like coming over to 3:28 UFN and especially UFN 3 years ago, like 3:32 that tool, if you guys can remember back 3:34 then, like the the training wheels were 3:36 back on essentially, I guess. I mean, do 3:38 do you guys remember those times or like 3:39 what like what was your guys's thinking 3:41 about those days? 3:42 >> Really positive. We came from like, you 3:44 know, when we started in games, it was 3:46 mobile gaming cuz that was pretty 3:48 accessible and it was Unity and we spent 3:50 years doing that and it was actually I 3:52 don't even remember what year we 3:53 switched over to to UEIE. What 3:55 >> 2020 I think. 3:56 >> Yeah. So, it was like a little bit later 3:58 there. But we also liked how quick UEI 4:00 was and what we could produce out of 4:01 there. But, you know, the first thing we 4:02 jumped into as a studio was making our 4:04 own, you know, attempting to make our 4:05 own indie title and working on the back 4:07 end for that and figuring out 4:08 multiplayer. And so, I mean, I know 4:10 we've said this before, but jumping into 4:12 UFN was actually like a gigantic 4:15 increase in speed for development 4:17 because we did skip what felt like a ton 4:19 of those barriers. 4:20 >> Yeah, it was I I remember distinctly it 4:22 was really exciting. You know, Scott and 4:25 I were looking at the tool, kind of 4:26 evaluating it right after GDC. Kevin 4:29 Marciano, our CEO, was actually at GDC 4:32 for the announcement, and he was really 4:34 amped amped about it. So, he came back 4:36 and said, "You guys, check this out. 4:38 What do you think?" And we were, you 4:39 know, it almost seemed like it was too 4:40 good to be true at some point. Mainly 4:42 because the first test we did, Scott 4:44 came over for like essentially a 48 hour 4:46 game jam. Our daughters are both really 4:47 good friends, so we just had a whole, 4:49 you know, a whole weekend of it. But 4:51 we're amazed how quickly just the assets 4:53 we were able to like take from our core 4:54 game import straight into Fortnite and 4:56 like see the stuff running around with 4:58 Jonesy or whoever else was just wild. 4:59 This is really insane. 5:00 >> Dropped like an asset in and then 5:02 hurdled over. It was like 5:03 >> Yeah, exactly. 5:04 >> Hurdle over our own thing. That's cool. 5:07 >> Exact. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the uh not 5:09 dealing with, you know, the multiplayer 5:11 aspects of it was great as well, you 5:13 know, let me kind of lean into more of 5:14 the creative design, which I greatly 5:16 appreciated. 5:17 >> Yeah. No, that makes sense. And and I 5:19 think a lot of creators who've never who 5:21 have stayed inside of UGC forget about 5:24 that, right? The porting to console, PC, 5:28 uh handheld, mobile, all of that. And 5:30 then or or just having weapons already 5:32 there, having characters already there, 5:35 like all those things you don't have to 5:37 think about when you build a game. And 5:38 so, yeah, I can see that kind of being 5:40 refreshing. Unity is crazy because we've 5:42 seen the announcements about Unity, 5:44 right? Coming to to Fortnite. 5:46 What did you guys think when you first 5:48 heard about that since you guys have 5:50 spent a lot of time in it? 5:51 >> Said no way. [laughter] 5:58 >> Oh, we're being truthful now. 5:59 >> Sorry. Okay. 6:00 >> Yeah, [laughter] that's the We're here. 6:02 That's hilarious. 6:03 >> That was a That was a shocker of 6:04 announcement. I'll be honest. I did not 6:06 see that coming. Obviously, you can 6:09 leave it up to to Tim Sweeney to 6:11 >> to to to really to really really switch 6:14 things up, but you know, it's exciting. 6:15 You know, I think is is 6:17 >> the idea of this like open ecosystem is 6:19 strong and to see him, you know, see 6:21 Epic putting, you know, effort and 6:22 resources behind it is is really 6:24 interesting. I'll be curious where it 6:25 goes. I'll be curious when it launches. 6:27 But 6:27 >> yeah, you know, we also have a lot of 6:29 friends still in the Unity space. So it 6:32 would be interesting to actually see 6:34 those worlds kind of combine again where 6:36 they might be able to still develop in 6:38 the same ecosystem we do. So there's 6:40 something weird there. 6:42 >> Yeah. 6:42 >> No, it it's very interesting. I mean, 6:44 we're we're still so in the dark, right? 6:46 We don't we have no idea how this is 6:47 going to roll out. We don't know if it, 6:49 you know, Unity is going to have any of 6:50 the Fortnite attire. I don't know the 6:52 word like features like building and 6:54 using the skin, any of that stuff, 6:55 right? like we don't it Epic will how 6:57 they roll things out are always usually 6:59 a little different than what you think 7:00 it you know imagine it's going to be but 7:02 yeah I I I think it's fascinating 7:04 there's not a lot of people I've talked 7:05 to from the Unity side and it's always 7:08 kind of a fun topic to bring up but um 7:09 let's get into Star Wars man I'm sure a 7:11 lot of people are wanting to know about 7:12 this and dude that you guys created an 7:15 incredible game Droid Tycoon and I I 7:18 just I want to talk about you know when 7:20 the opportunity to build a Star Wars 7:21 experience kind of came together you 7:23 know how did you guys go from an 7:25 enormous like universe of Star Wars, you 7:28 know, of infinite possibilities, you 7:30 know, and then you guys decided, let's 7:31 make Droid Tycoon, like let's make this 7:33 around droids. 7:34 >> There's a bit of a background there 7:36 where, you know, we were actually in 7:37 active development with really good 7:39 buddy of ours, Blazing, aka Shane. 7:42 >> Shout out Blazing. Yeah. 7:43 >> Yeah. Love the dude. But we were um we 7:46 were actively working on a sort of a 7:48 collab project with them at the time 7:49 when Epic had approached Future Trash 7:52 FOD to kind of pitch an idea for this. 7:55 And you know we really kind of wanted to 7:57 take our our our best sensibilities 7:59 which were you know firmly in these sort 8:00 of tycoon incremental genres and see how 8:04 that could be applicable to you know 8:05 sort of the Star Wars universe because 8:07 we felt like that is sort of prime for 8:08 it. That led us to you know what you 8:11 know what outlets were there within the 8:13 universe that would be appropriate for 8:14 that. We kicked around a couple 8:15 different ideas like should be a 8:17 lightsaber tycoon or should it be you 8:18 know like 8:20 oh yeah des 8:24 sick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got quite 8:26 the quite the stack of muro boards we 8:28 used [laughter] to flesh all these out. 8:30 >> But yeah we we we ended up with droids 8:32 because we think there's something 8:33 that's just inherently inherently 8:35 interesting about them from not only 8:37 just you know collection standpoint but 8:38 there's like some emotional weight to 8:40 them. Yeah, you know, these things that 8:41 are just, you know, could just be robots 8:43 and even, you know, some parallels 8:44 you're seeing with AI now. These things 8:46 that could just be these morphic 8:47 objects, they actually have distinct 8:49 personalities and feelings and and we 8:51 wanted to we wanted to play that up and 8:53 we we took a bit of a gamble, you know, 8:54 thinking that will other people like 8:56 these, you know, sort of cold metal 8:58 robots as much as we do, but yeah, happy 9:00 to say it seems like they do. Well, and 9:02 I mean it just the the polish of that 9:04 game and how it all came together and it 9:07 had the collectionbased systems with it, 9:09 card collection and then your guys' I 9:12 mean your UIUX, your visual effects when 9:14 you collect them and you capture all of 9:17 those things. I mean it was it was just 9:19 incredibly polished. Like it was again 9:21 it was like one of the was it Blane Wars 9:23 was your first game in UFN was it? 9:26 >> Right. 9:27 >> Yeah. And I remember playing that game 9:29 for the first time and that 9:30 [clears throat] was like an eyeopening 9:32 like this is where we're going. You 9:33 know, we've been in 1.0 and we've only 9:35 been able to do these things and then 9:36 you guys came along and you were you 9:37 just showed like this is what UEFn can 9:39 do and can be and I was like oh wow but 9:42 things are changing and then you know 9:44 years went on and then the same thing 9:46 kind of happened with that game. I had 9:48 that another feeling like this is a 9:50 different level of polish than I've seen 9:52 in in UFN and in Fortnite. So man again 9:55 hats off that the game's incredible. I 9:57 want to talk more about it. Like you 9:59 guys created more than like 40 custom 10:01 droids at launch, which is insane. I 10:03 still don't understand how you guys fit 10:05 all of this in through one game, you 10:08 know, but like at what point did the 10:10 team realize like the scope is getting 10:12 out of control, you know, like what did 10:14 you guys keep, you know, and you guys 10:15 kept going with it? Like how did that 10:17 all play out? I know I'm sure you had to 10:18 do a lot of balancing. Yeah, there there 10:21 are definitely more droids than 10:23 anticipated, but it was mostly because 10:25 we figured out that pipeline 10:27 >> well enough to support that. And there 10:29 was also this kind of critical moment, 10:31 too, where we realized, you know, it's 10:33 this is a tycoon, but this is like a 10:36 droid collection game. Yeah. 10:37 >> And you cannot have too few. You can't 10:40 you have to have enough droids for that 10:42 to happen. So, 10:43 >> even though the commitment's a little 10:44 bit higher on developing them, it was 10:46 really important for the game design to 10:48 actually have those. And uh you know we 10:50 have a great 3D modeler and texture 10:52 artist named Mark. We've actually again 10:54 known him for a very long time and 10:56 worked with him and he's a very fast 10:58 great precise modeler. 11:00 >> So we we built this game around him and 11:03 our an animator and VFX artist Andrew 11:05 kind of knowing their skill sets and 11:06 making sure 11:08 >> that whatever we planned these two could 11:10 handle a huge majority of that weight. 11:13 So between the two of them they were 11:14 able to tackle quite a bit of this. And 11:16 the entry is really technical too. Uh, 11:18 and him and Nate figuring out great ways 11:20 to actually optimize and get these 11:23 things functional, as many as we have, 11:26 was really complicated. We created combo 11:29 droids of these, which was awesome to 11:32 get the green light on mix and matching 11:34 some of these droids, and that was fun. 11:35 Uh, so, you know, ultimately we made as 11:38 many as we possibly could in the time 11:41 frame. And then those two have still 11:43 been making droids since. 11:45 >> Yeah. I mean, 11:48 doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. I mean, 11:49 you can look at Brain Rots, right? And 11:51 they've been making I mean, there's 11:52 always some new thing always coming out. 11:54 So, yeah. I mean, it it's it's kind of 11:56 like whatever the the engine can handle 11:59 at this point and how many you add. But 12:01 you're right, it's a collection game and 12:02 you have to you got to give them 12:04 something exciting to collect. So, that 12:06 makes 12:07 >> they're also fun and we had favorites 12:09 and then we started hearing about like, 12:10 you know, what people the Epics teams 12:13 what were their favorite droids and 12:14 like, "Oh, we got to do those and then 12:15 Disney's like what have you thought 12:16 about these three?" And we're like, 12:17 "Yeah, we should do that." 12:18 >> Yeah. 12:18 >> So, you know, and then now that it's 12:20 launched, there's a lot of feedback 12:21 like, "Have you ever seen this droid?" 12:22 And we're like, "Actually, no. Should we 12:24 do that one?" 12:26 >> Well, and that's cool. And that's what's 12:27 great, too, about when you build a 12:28 community around your game and all those 12:31 things, then you get this free feedback, 12:33 right, that can help you grow these 12:34 games or things. You know, it we all 12:36 have our jobs. We all have things that 12:38 we're so, you know, focused on. It's 12:40 hard. It's hard to, you know, see all of 12:42 those things. And so, that that's super 12:43 nice you guys have that. 12:44 >> Yeah. But we we we honestly big shout 12:46 out though we do have like an incredible 12:48 community. They're really engaged, super 12:50 engaged Discord and Reddit and Facebook 12:52 groups. We really appreciate, you know, 12:54 we constantly, you know, observing them, 12:56 getting feedback, trying to interact as 12:58 much as we can while still trying to 13:00 push weekly updates and everything else 13:02 and, you know, the struggle is real, but 13:04 we really do appreciate, you know, all 13:06 the individuals that are, you know, so 13:09 passionate about what we're doing. 13:10 >> For sure. Those links will be in the 13:11 description. Go join the join them right 13:13 now. I want to talk about kind of like 13:15 maybe some fun things around the project 13:16 or some behind the scenes stuff like was 13:19 there like a funny bug or like a 13:21 disaster that happened or like a 13:23 completely broken version or any any 13:25 cool stories behind the scenes of of 13:27 making the game? 13:28 >> So, funny enough and as boring as this 13:31 answer is actually kind of no. There was 13:34 a lot of like complications but the the 13:37 project went really smooth. We have some 13:40 awesome developers. Blair is amazing. 13:42 spoke at Unreal Fest about scene graph 13:45 and where scene graph is new and is a 13:47 tool being actively worked on and that 13:49 did have its own issues. We did use it 13:51 in a way that would prevent us from 13:53 running into some of those like larger 13:55 issues. And I I know Nate will speak 13:57 about this more, but honestly the actual 13:59 production side of things went knock on 14:02 wood like 14:04 >> pretty well. It kind of which again 14:06 we've done a lot of games at this point 14:08 and they don't always go very well. It 14:11 it really was. You know, I do give a lot 14:13 of credit to Blair here, though. I mean, 14:15 like he the systems he built were so 14:17 robust. They could withstand quite a 14:18 bit. I'm so proud of the system that he 14:20 and Andrew and Mark and they came up 14:22 with for for our droids. They're really 14:24 interesting. I won't go too much into 14:26 it, but they're all actually Niagara 14:27 systems at the end of the day. They're 14:28 all particles because we have so many of 14:30 them. We could not afford to do them all 14:31 as, you know, skeletal meshes 14:33 traditionally. So, there's a lot of a 14:35 lot of tricks behind there. But I 14:36 remember just the magic of when Blair 14:38 kind of first had that first droid 14:40 running around. Just seeing the the 14:41 culmination of all these smart people 14:43 that I get to work with every day making 14:44 something a like like this is like oh 14:46 this is we're we're here. This is 14:47 actually going to work. It was a a big 14:49 relief honestly too cuz a lot of it was 14:51 speculative but you know it really 14:52 worked 14:53 >> and you know the epic tools were right 14:55 at the exact spot we needed them to be 14:57 to produce what we made. Syn Graph was 15:00 just finally getting mature enough that 15:01 we felt comfortable jumping in and 15:02 taking a little bit of a risk with it 15:03 and overall it, you know, just really 15:05 worked out worked out well for us. 15:07 >> Couldn't have technically made the game 15:08 without Singraph. So despite, you know, 15:11 Yeah. I stand by that. 15:13 >> Yeah. 15:13 >> Literally no way. Yeah, 15:15 >> we did have a funny moment. I guess it 15:17 was more like an unintentional but 15:18 permanent design cuz one of the very 15:20 first things Nate put together was a 15:22 carryable blueprint that 15:25 >> was kind of just an idea and then 15:26 >> it was a stop gap. Yeah. you just ran 15:28 around and then you slam dunked it into 15:30 the ground and BBH just exploded out of 15:31 it [laughter] 15:32 and it was just like the funniest thing. 15:34 So, we try to like maintain whatever was 15:37 funny about that and keep it in the 15:39 game. And honestly, bouncing blueprints, 15:40 they've had problems. We have proxy 15:42 colliders all around the map to prevent 15:44 random bugs that happen. It's like a 15:46 whole thing, but they're a very funny 15:48 aspect and they get they get stuck in 15:50 the air and they get people hide them. 15:52 They figure out the glitches with them. 15:53 They ricochet them on places and post 15:56 videos. So, it ended up being a funny 15:58 kind of accidental feature. 16:00 >> It was originally we had it so they 16:02 would literally just bounce 16:03 continuously, but now we finally did it. 16:05 When they detect they hit something, 16:06 they stop at least. So, that's good. But 16:09 when they were bouncing everywhere, it 16:10 was kind of like a game of soccer 16:11 getting a getting a blueprint back to 16:13 your base. 16:14 >> That is and and Epic does that too when 16:16 they they kind of like sometimes there's 16:18 a bug or a fun bug or they'll kind of 16:20 lean into it like large heads or well 16:23 whatever little little things like that. 16:24 And like I think that just adds 16:26 character to your game. It also adds 16:27 free promotion, right? So like people 16:29 find these fun little bugs or these 16:31 little things, especially if it's not 16:33 gamebreaking, then that's as long as 16:34 it's not a problem. It can lead to more 16:37 plays. So like it kind of works out. Is 16:39 there like a secret or are there any 16:41 things in this game that you're like 16:42 people haven't found out yet or trying 16:45 like maybe a few people have or or 16:47 something that you like would love to 16:48 tell people about your game? Like 16:49 >> there's no secret. 16:50 >> There's nothing left unturned. I feel 16:52 like immediately Scott adds something 16:53 like hidden to the mavers. It is like 16:55 literally 15 minutes after an update 16:57 someone in the discord is like why is 16:58 there a gunk in the middle of the desert 17:00 in between these two rocks? 17:01 >> They also make something out of nothing 17:03 so often like I'll I accidentally in a 17:07 update put the wrong color on a symbol 17:09 and they had a whole [laughter] 17:10 speculation about what the new class of 17:12 droid was going to be and it's just a 17:14 it's just the wrong color. 17:15 >> We love it. But but 17:19 >> they found a hole in a bunch of rocks, 17:20 so we put some gonks down there to hang 17:22 out in like watching TV. So like they're 17:25 really quick to find everything. And we 17:27 also we're hyper paranoid about putting 17:29 anything in. Like we have no uh we've 17:32 got no ability to like give ourselves 17:34 anything in the game out of fear that it 17:35 would get like figured out. So there's 17:37 like zero exploits that exist that we 17:40 did on purpose. 17:42 >> The game's been exploited multiple 17:43 times. 17:44 >> Yeah, I mean it's part of it. It's part 17:46 of the thing. But yeah, it is. 17:47 >> Here's I found infinite glitches here 17:49 and there. Yeah, I think that was cool, 17:51 too, because they called us out on 17:53 things that we just they were so niche 17:55 like a hyphen in the wrong spot in a 17:57 name. That was a thing for a while that 17:59 people were like, "Fix this unplayable." 18:02 >> And it was very funny. 18:03 >> A hyphen. 18:04 >> Yep. 18:05 >> There's a few things like that, but then 18:06 we we fixed those things. And 18:08 ultimately, it was cool to see like even 18:09 though this ecosystem's got a lot of 18:11 Fortnite players, there are also like 18:13 fans of other things in here. It was 18:15 cool to see there was actually a d way 18:17 more Star Wars fans actually playing 18:19 this game, recognizing niche characters 18:21 we put in there that we expected and 18:23 that was cool because it 18:26 >> it makes the the pieces we spend a lot 18:28 of time on more valuable from like a you 18:31 know an actual Star Wars IP standpoint 18:32 and we are huge Star Wars fans. We have 18:35 always been huge Star Wars fans so we 18:37 want to get this stuff right. We also 18:39 know this stuff fairly well, but to have 18:42 people know just simply way more than we 18:44 do still. 18:45 >> Yeah. 18:45 >> Which is cool. So, you're like, you want 18:47 to make the game feel as Star Warsy as 18:49 possible and you want to get those 18:50 things right because 18:51 >> you do have Star Wars fans playing Star 18:53 Wars game. No, it makes sense and that 18:55 and it's kind of cool behind the scenes 18:56 look too when you work with IPs and I've 18:58 you know I've worked I've been fortunate 19:00 enough to work with Disney and Lego big 19:02 big IPs and that it's very important 19:05 that you you have to get it right and 19:07 work within their brand guidelines and 19:09 you have to sometimes bring in somebody 19:11 that's like that like that knows 19:13 everything about everything about that 19:15 IP to kind of help you if if you don't 19:17 know it right and so no I think 19:19 >> yeah I I love I just I love kind of 19:21 shining lights on stuff like that like 19:23 behind in the scenes cuz I don't think 19:24 people get it like not everyone gets it, 19:26 you know. 19:27 >> No, there there there there's so much 19:29 that goes into you know Star Wars fandom 19:30 in general but also just you the lore 19:32 and everything else and us being you 19:34 know giant it it literally like if you 19:36 would ask me two years ago what IP would 19:38 you want to work on within this 19:39 ecosystem or anywhere Star Wars would 19:41 have been the number one for me for 19:43 sure. I have such fond memories of, you 19:45 know, literally going to the local 19:46 grocery store to rent Return of the Jedi 19:48 with my dad when I was like six, you 19:49 know, like it was just the coolest 19:51 coolest, you know, experience. 19:52 >> He's at the grocery store. 19:55 [laughter] What's that? 19:57 >> 22. 19:58 >> Yeah. 19:59 >> 22. Yeah. 20:00 >> But I remember we had the original 20:02 three, the first three on a box, like a 20:06 >> set. I remember that. My dad had it. And 20:08 so I remember watching all of those. It 20:10 was it was really cool. And then I 20:11 didn't I didn't like get too much into 20:13 Star Wars, but I mean it was experience. 20:15 I remember back then watching those 20:16 videos and being like, whoa, this is 20:17 crazy, you know? 20:19 >> So yeah, I wish 20:20 >> I was always fas fascinated just by the 20:23 visual effects was such an a huge impact 20:26 in my life. That's what actually got me 20:28 into like an entire career that I am in 20:30 now. uh and specifically Star Wars was 20:32 that it was the book Into the Digital 20:34 Realm by Industrial Light and Magic that 20:36 they kind of put out in the mid '90s was 20:38 really my catalyst for honestly my 20:40 entire career. So, it was so cool to 20:41 come kind of full circle with it. And 20:43 >> yeah, 20:44 >> yeah, the uh I just remember pouring 20:45 over that book specifically. It's a 20:47 super thick coffee table book that just 20:48 has, you know, how they did I think it 20:51 was right around the time they did some 20:52 of the remasters of the uh you know, of 20:54 the originals. So they had like, you 20:56 know, here's our CGI job of the hut and 20:58 all these other and I was like, I'm 21:00 going to I'm going to learn how to 21:01 pirate some 3D software and make my own 21:03 job of the hut 21:04 >> lime wire. [laughter] 21:05 >> Yeah, exactly. Literally. Yeah, 21:07 >> we're getting 90s nostalgia baked right 21:09 now. 21:09 >> Sorry for for uh descending into Boomer 21:11 podcast. 21:12 >> We are. We we are. But hey, it's fine. 21:15 And it's it's fun to talk about. I mean, 21:17 it's it's like, man, I really wish like 21:20 my kids, we all have kids. I wish there 21:22 was Blockbuster. I just want them to 21:25 experience that one time in their life, 21:26 man. You know? 21:28 >> Yeah. 21:28 >> Nothing like it. 21:29 >> Nothing like it. Yeah. The smell of it 21:31 even. 21:31 >> Yeah. Just horrible wet carpet. But 21:34 like, dude, remember renting games from 21:36 Blockbuster? Dude, I just couldn't wait 21:38 to get home and then you only had like a 21:39 week, so you had to like 21:40 >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. 21:41 >> That was the original RNG. Like, get 21:44 home. Will it work? 21:46 >> Yeah. 21:47 >> Will it turn on? No. 21:48 >> Will they even have the game in stock? 21:50 Who knows? 21:50 >> Exactly. I would call. 21:52 >> Open the cartridge. different game and 21:54 you're like, 21:55 >> "Yeah, someone stole it and put their 21:57 old game in there." Yeah, dude. Oh my 21:59 gosh. Yeah. Now it's like my kids every 22:01 time we go on vacation or whatever, like 22:03 the Disney Channel will come on and 22:04 they'll be like, "Why is there why is 22:05 this commercials?" You know, like 22:07 [laughter] they call it like TV. I'm 22:09 like, "This is TV. Like, this is how it 22:11 was. You have no idea how how lucky you 22:14 guys have this." 22:14 >> We'll get back into it here, but like I 22:16 want to talk about kind of like Droid 22:17 Tycoon. You know, you reached a level of 22:19 success that like very few Fortnite 22:21 islands experience. I mean know what was 22:23 the exact moment when you guys realized 22:25 you know this was no longer a normal 22:27 launch and I will preface this like you 22:29 and you guys have launched lots of games 22:31 you've had launch successful games as 22:33 well inside of the ecosystem but very 22:35 few people in this ecosystem can say 22:37 they've seen a something like this you 22:39 know a launch what was the exact moment 22:41 you realized like this is no longer 22:42 normal launch like this is crazy Nate 22:44 and I actually just hung out last week 22:46 for the first time since launch and 22:49 actually like talked about it. Wow, you 22:52 guys have been in it, man. 22:53 >> Yeah, and I think that's kind of part of 22:54 it, too. Like, I think Nate and I have, 22:57 you know, we've worked together on a lot 22:58 of stuff, good, bad, short, long-term 23:00 projects. And I think, you know, one 23:02 thing we've always set out to do, and, 23:04 you know, Kevin has the same mentality 23:05 is we really want to have fun and build 23:07 stuff that makes us happy during, you 23:09 know, the daytime hours and or what's 23:11 the point of this. So, it's kind of one 23:12 of those things like it's really 23:14 exciting and it's really amazing to 23:16 actually have this audience. It's 23:17 awesome to be able to take the 23:18 opportunity to grow our team, which is 23:20 something we did immediately and that's 23:21 something that we still plan on doing 23:22 and all within the ecosystem, which is 23:24 cool. And, you know, ultimately what 23:26 it's allowed us to do is more of what we 23:27 want to do. 23:28 >> Mhm. 23:28 >> So, with this, it's uh it's been 23:30 awesome. Getting a community has been 23:32 awesome, but there's a lot more we want 23:34 to do probably forever. So, you know, 23:36 right now it kind of just feels like 23:37 let's well, let's just keep adding to 23:39 the game because it's fun. What What's 23:41 the next weird uh thing we can do, which 23:43 we have stuff planned. October is going 23:45 to be a wild month for 23:47 >> we're gonna have a lot of a lot of fun. 23:49 Yeah, I think it really was the, you 23:50 know, seeing the second weekend when we 23:52 started doing, you know, sort of rolling 23:53 out events and things like that and 23:55 seeing that we're sustaining some 23:56 momentum that that's when things got 23:58 pretty exciting internally, like 23:59 obviously the big numbers originally 24:01 were cool, but it was always like we'll 24:03 do one, you know, a couple updates and 24:05 see how the community reacts, but to be, 24:06 you know, three and a half months out 24:08 from launch and still having a very 24:10 thriving and active community. And you 24:12 know, again, like Scott was saying, we 24:13 it's just so motivating and exciting to 24:16 just talk about these off-the-wall 24:18 features, which Disney's been such an 24:20 awesome partner with. I mean, they're 24:21 really here to play ball. They 24:23 understand the UGC ecosystem really, 24:25 really well, and they're letting us push 24:28 as, you know, giving us lots of creative 24:29 freedom in terms of where we want to 24:31 push within, you know, certain aspects. 24:32 You know, I remember how nervous we were 24:34 originally approaching them saying like, 24:37 can we make one of these droids diamond? 24:38 Okay. Can we make one of these droids 24:40 rainbow? Yeah, that's cool. And so now 24:42 we're getting to, you know, even weirder 24:44 territory with, you know, some of our 24:45 newest ones, Galactic and uh most Yeah. 24:48 Yeah. It's been fun. 24:50 >> We were, you know, we were writing like 24:51 books like explainers like this is why 24:54 we want this thing. And Epic was really 24:55 good too about kind of like helping us 24:57 along with the, you know, getting those 24:59 ideas through properly and stuff like 25:01 that. And it was really good. But, you 25:02 know, we have we've gotten the ability 25:04 to do a little bit less of that like big 25:06 pitch type thing like please let us put 25:09 R2-D2 in the game. you know, he's like 25:11 [clears throat] 25:11 >> one of the most iconic droids, but like 25:13 can we add him to this game? 25:15 >> Yeah. [laughter] 25:17 >> No, I mean, 25:18 >> awesome. 25:18 >> No, and that and that that makes sense 25:20 because it's just I think a lot of us, 25:22 we build a game and we don't unless 25:25 you're in it and and you know this know 25:27 the system. You build a game, you hope 25:28 it successful, and you don't really 25:30 think much after it, right? You don't 25:32 think about and and especially now when 25:33 like live events are very huge on a lot 25:36 of the top games. you have to have keep 25:37 a D7 up, keep reasons for people to come 25:39 back and engage. It's it's very hard and 25:42 and the work starts necessarily like 25:44 it's so hard to get to that publishing 25:46 spot and then you get your game that has 25:48 players and success and then it's 25:49 keeping that, right? And you're limited 25:52 either by tools or you're limited to 25:54 ideas, right? And and so it's it can be 25:57 a good problem and a bad problem 25:59 depending where you're at. It is kind of 26:00 in the fun part, right? Like where 26:01 you're like, okay, like how can we, you 26:03 know, add new things? How can we keep 26:05 keep players excited? How can we add 26:07 things that players maybe not expect? 26:09 But but then you're working with an IP 26:11 on top of that. So it's like that's so 26:13 that's like the comp complication like 26:15 how complex that is. I I can't imagine. 26:18 But um you guys are good. 26:19 >> It is. But the nice thing is of all IPs 26:22 to try and like pull unlimited ideas 26:24 from, Star Wars has so much and they've 26:28 got great stuff. They've got weird 26:30 stuff. They've got off-the-wall 26:31 everything. So, it's like a ton to tap 26:34 into. There's limitations with memory 26:36 and tools and things like that. But, I 26:38 will say like from the idea standpoint, 26:40 I feel like we've only touched the 26:41 surface and now it's like where else can 26:43 we dig in that IP? Where else can we 26:45 pull from? They're still creating stuff. 26:47 So, 26:47 >> what else can we snag from? 26:49 >> No, makes sense, dude. That's awesome. I 26:51 mean, look, I think the big the fans, if 26:52 they're listening, that's exciting to 26:54 hear. Love seeing Epic work with a a UFN 26:57 native team and and gaining the success. 27:00 And I and I feel like that a lot like a 27:03 lot of companies or people like they 27:05 don't really look into they they have a 27:07 AAA team that's incredible. I'm not 27:09 saying that they're not and I'm sure 27:11 they're great and they can do make a 27:12 great game, but like it's people that 27:14 are in this ecosystem that have been 27:17 getting their butts kicked every day and 27:19 learning the nuances of Fortnite and 27:21 this and what players, you know, and and 27:23 it, you know, and that's over years of 27:24 you guys in this ecosystem to learn that 27:27 they're giving, you know, teams in UFN 27:29 those chances to make games and then 27:31 seeing them blow up and be successful. 27:33 That is great for all of us. So that's 27:35 great for the ecosystem and hopefully 27:38 that just you know it opens up eyes not 27:41 only for Epic, you know, it opens up all 27:44 IP and all people coming in this space 27:45 and a lot of the teams that are you know 27:48 day in and day out here. Hopefully we'll 27:50 get these chances as well to make 27:51 experiences like that. So man again I 27:53 had to just stop and say hats off man. 27:55 It's incredible what you guys have done. 27:57 >> Appreciate it man. 27:57 >> Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much. I 28:00 mean I think that has an interesting 28:01 thread there where you know the 28:03 ecosystem for media in general is just 28:05 really changing overall and it's really 28:06 interesting to see where it's kind of 28:08 the trajectory is going. I don't think 28:10 anyone truly you know truly truly knows 28:12 but I do think obviously user generated 28:14 content be it you know for games or for 28:16 any any other avenues is really really 28:19 truly like one of the big future paths 28:22 of this stuff. So to see, you know, 28:23 Disney and Epic embracing it so much is 28:25 it's is heartening, you know, cuz I do 28:27 think that is, you know, to stay 28:28 relevant, to stay, you know, it's 28:31 exactly where they need to be right now. 28:32 So it's it's cool to see and it's cool. 28:34 Again, like Epic's been a great advocate 28:36 for us, you know, we've been dealing 28:37 with some wonderful folks there. Also, I 28:39 I feel too what's cool about this is 28:41 like the timing. Like we haven't had a 28:43 really good Star Wars game in a while, 28:46 right? Like a standalone off game. So, 28:48 I'm I'm wondering also like is that how 28:51 much that did that help a little bit in 28:53 some cases like getting people to come 28:55 on to Fortnite, right, and check out not 28:58 only Star Wars if they're Star Wars 28:59 fans, but maybe other things in the 29:01 game. 29:01 >> Yeah, there's not a lot of games that 29:03 have as many, you know, Star Wars cannon 29:06 droids as this one, too. So, it's at 29:08 least worth worth a peek just to see 29:10 them. It's [clears throat] cool to see 29:11 them in a video game situation at all. 29:13 >> Yeah. And I remember like everyone of 29:15 course went like made the Battlefront 29:16 like style games immediately and 29:18 everyone was like, "Oh, this is it. 29:19 Let's go over there." And I mean our 29:21 tooling's a little different. I will say 29:23 the launch of the UFN tooling for Star 29:26 Wars was massive. Like we haven't seen 29:28 an IP come out with that many things and 29:30 that many weapons. It's so hard to 29:32 create games in our ecosystem without 29:34 having a catalog of weapons like that. I 29:37 mean, we can make weapons now, but you 29:38 know what I'm saying? Mhm. 29:40 >> And so that that also probably was a 29:42 kind of a huge like I'm hoping when we 29:44 release IP for other games that is in 29:47 the forefront like we need something of 29:49 that depth. 29:50 >> That's certainly an an advantage we've 29:52 always found ourselves in. It's a 29:53 disadvantage at the same time in other 29:55 ways, but we've been a creative studio 29:58 since before video games. So it is nice 30:00 to be able to be able to generate our 30:02 assets for these kinds of things and 30:03 stuff like that, which is not something 30:04 obviously that's feasible for for 30:07 everybody. So those assets also are huge 30:09 and you know we were able to reference 30:11 those and use a lot of those 30:13 supplementary assets in our games and it 30:15 was a gigantic you know time saving and 30:17 >> yeah my biggest regret is Scott I think 30:19 you were the one I forget who who 30:21 dragged the Death Star into uh the 30:22 project at one point it was like oh this 30:24 is so cool how do we get this into 30:26 >> Has it ever been to Tatooine 30:30 >> is it like what was it like 10,000 30:32 that's probably 10% of memory when you 30:34 put that thing in there 30:34 >> yeah exactly [laughter] 30:37 Get that starter. 30:39 >> It's it's beautiful. It look cool in the 30:41 sky, but not yet. 30:43 >> So, let's talk about a little more on 30:44 Droid Tycoon and then we'll talk about 30:46 some of your newer games that you guys 30:47 also just recently released. But I want 30:49 to talk about like your average play 30:51 time. I mean, people are playing staying 30:53 in Droid Tycoon for very long sessions. 30:56 What do you believe the game understood 30:58 about player motivation that like most 31:00 maybe tycoons miss? You know, 31:03 >> we we pulled from so many avenues when 31:06 we designed it. And Shane's got a lot of 31:10 similar like game sentiments that I 31:11 think, you know, Nate and I have. We 31:13 like simulators. We like clickers. We 31:16 actually one of the earliest 31:16 inspirations was Cookie Clicker cuz we 31:18 had all played it. And then once we 31:20 talked about it, we all got back into it 31:22 and just sitting in meetings like 31:24 [laughter] 31:26 >> Scott and I had a very heated Cookie 31:28 Clicker competition last summer. I think 31:29 he ended up really smoking me though 31:31 towards the end. 31:32 >> I I I I I doubled I committed hard. 31:35 >> So like we have a back like a lot of our 31:38 gaming interests just happen to fall in 31:40 those categories. And of course we were 31:41 looking at games from Roblox and we're 31:43 looking at Brain Rock games and we're 31:45 looking at those and we played 31:46 everything. We we play as much as we can 31:48 and we try to figure out essentially why 31:50 we like those games too or if we don't 31:52 like those games, what we don't like 31:53 about those games. And there's a lot to 31:54 like about so many of the biggest Roblox 31:57 games right now. There's so much to like 31:59 about some of the quick game genres that 32:01 are coming out of UGC in general. And 32:02 when you play them and you kind of take 32:04 away the the bias component or the 32:07 visual component or anything along those 32:08 lines, you can find a very fun game in a 32:10 lot of 32:10 >> Yeah. 32:10 >> So, I think we, you know, having that 32:12 mentality going into this and that 32:14 perspective was nice to just be able to 32:16 to see what we liked about games, what 32:18 we thought was missing, figure out what 32:20 style of game and game loop we wanted to 32:23 add to Droid Tycoon to make it sticky 32:24 for players, but for us, too. I want to 32:27 play the game. We all play the game. 32:29 Every event that comes out where the 32:31 double credits and double trips we play 32:33 because we get our accounts to go much 32:35 further. We do the same thing everyone 32:36 else does. So, we try to like build 32:38 those mechanics that we do want to play 32:40 in our own game in there. And 32:42 ultimately, you know, something we 32:43 gravitated towards is having a very 32:45 action-based game. We saw the areas 32:47 where you were idling and sitting and we 32:49 didn't have fun doing those. So adding 32:51 mechanics to those areas to make them 32:53 more fun ultimately leads to a game 32:55 where there's a lot to do. So you know 32:56 there's that standpoint where it's 32:59 you're always doing something. So I 33:01 average gameplay is going to like go up 33:02 with that. But I I lost myself in 33:04 Harvest Moon 6 like two nights ago. 33:07 >> One of my favorite games of all time. 33:08 The days go so fast and I'm like oh I've 33:10 got anxiety of how much I can farm in a 33:12 day and then like I got to go to bed and 33:14 it's 3:00 and I'm still farming. Like 33:16 I've always been that kind of gamer 33:18 already. So it's it's it's one of those 33:20 games like putting it together you knew 33:22 we knew when it would felt good because 33:24 we were playing it. 33:25 >> Yeah. Yeah. Midi mid dev I remember 33:27 Steam game a Berry Berry Berry came out 33:30 and thank god the game was only 10 hours 33:32 long otherwise. [laughter] I don't know 33:34 if Droid would have shipped because the 33:35 whole studio got a lot of us got really 33:37 hooked on I think Blair is the one that 33:38 recommended it but it was it was great 33:41 because it had these characters that I 33:42 really love the design of. I thought it 33:43 was like this this but again it had this 33:45 very incremental slope you know nature 33:47 to it. just kind of a little bit of 33:49 weird oddball sensibilities, but a 33:50 really like 33:51 >> little horror vibe, something along the 33:53 >> setting. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But the 33:56 definitely the, you know, sort of 33:57 growing your, you know, collection 34:00 menagery of these these really odd 34:02 characters was very appealing and was 34:04 like, hey, it's kind of like our droids. 34:06 There's an 34:07 >> analog Yeah. analogy here. So, 34:09 >> I think we also had like a focus on the 34:11 level of complexity we could add to the 34:12 game. we've known actually even before 34:14 UGC and I know you had them on but we've 34:17 known the guys from Terra Vision for a 34:18 super long time 34:20 >> and we worked together for a long time. 34:22 So it was cool to see obviously like 34:24 Havoc Hotel do well cuz it was a much 34:26 more complex game design that hadn't 34:28 necessarily hit the ecosystem yet. 34:29 >> Yeah. And so seeing how they kind of 34:32 weaned players into those kind of 34:33 mechanics without it feeling 34:34 overwhelming was definitely something 34:36 that we wanted to make sure we could do 34:38 here because we did want a complex game, 34:40 but but we didn't want to like open with 34:42 it. We wanted to like gradually 34:44 introduce those mechanics, downplay the 34:47 complicated ones, not make the game, you 34:49 know, have stopping points and things 34:50 like that. 34:51 >> Yeah. 34:52 >> For on boarding and anything along those 34:53 lines. So there's a lot of like really 34:55 good internal like you know games inside 34:57 the space that were incredibly helpful 34:59 too. 35:00 >> Yeah, definitely the accessibility was 35:02 kind of paramount when we were putting 35:03 things together and deciding what to 35:05 keep and what to cut when we're really 35:06 focusing on that like you know the find 35:07 the fun moments in early development 35:09 those first two two months or so. You 35:11 know really just trying to figure out 35:13 what was what was the core of what we 35:16 were building. you know, how the 35:17 complexity is like, of course, like 35:18 droid crafting, you could get down to 35:20 some very very very, you know, like I've 35:21 got this piece here and this piece here 35:23 and this piece here, 35:24 >> but was that going to work for the 35:26 audience and was that going to work for, 35:27 you know, the actual like kind of 35:29 fast-paced nature of the game? When we 35:30 started playing it, we're like, I want 35:32 to build more droids. I want more 35:33 droids. I want more in my factory. I 35:34 want more, you know. 35:35 >> Yeah. 35:35 >> That's where pickaxing came from. Like, 35:37 I don't want to watch my droid. Like, we 35:38 need to speed this thing up. 35:40 >> Got to hit it. 35:41 >> Yeah. Yeah. And which felt so natural 35:43 for, you know, Fortnite, which is great. 35:45 Yeah. There's so much to unpack what you 35:47 guys just said like there was there's so 35:48 many nuggets in there for creators and 35:50 and and just like one playing you guys 35:53 played you know you did your research 35:55 you guys love playing games obviously 35:56 that goes hand I mean that's pretty like 35:58 apparent but like it's just people don't 36:01 like sometimes you got to you got to 36:03 hear it again like you have to really 36:04 know the audience you have to go play 36:06 these games play other experiences play 36:08 Steam and then what I love to hear is 36:10 you like you you kind of knew what you 36:12 liked and didn't like you also love 36:14 playing your game which also another 36:16 great sign, right? And so like a lot of 36:18 people if you don't want to play your 36:20 own game, like why would other people 36:22 want to play your game? You know what I 36:24 mean? I think and I know and and that 36:27 happens sometimes. We all get really 36:28 excited about a game we start making. 36:30 Then it's kind of like, you know, all 36:31 right, I want to make that's why we all 36:33 have like 20 games in our unpublished, 36:35 right? Like I think that's a great sign. 36:38 You guys love playing it. You want to 36:39 play it. You're still playing it and 36:41 still grinding your own game even after 36:43 months. That's that's an incredible like 36:45 that that that's a great sign. And so 36:47 no, I think a lot of gems you guys just 36:48 shared about kind of behind the scenes 36:50 and creating these successful games and 36:52 where you get your inspiration from. And 36:54 I I I think that's really huge. Like 36:56 people need to like really take that 36:58 part serious before you you guys are you 37:01 guys aren't just building these games 37:02 right from the rip from your brain. you 37:04 you guys have already done a lot of this 37:06 upfront work and figured out what you 37:08 all like and don't like and how how can 37:09 we make this game you know something 37:12 perfect for the ecosystem and then 37:13 understanding Fortnite let's put a 37:15 pickaxe so that speeds this up like 37:17 those little things right I think that's 37:19 beautiful 37:19 >> I think something we go into every 37:21 project do is setting up these like key 37:23 pillars for what we're like what our 37:25 goals are for that project and they're 37:26 not always quite the same I think 37:28 there's some pieces in there that are 37:29 similar between our projects because we 37:31 have stuff we want to do for us in every 37:33 project. So, those pillars always 37:35 maintain, but then there's a lot of like 37:37 times we'll focus on like social aspects 37:39 for a specific game because we feel like 37:41 the genre we're building it for uh would 37:43 really benefit from having it or 37:44 something that like isn't necessarily 37:46 our strong suit. You know, we've done 37:47 combat and things like that. But I do 37:49 think having the team on the same page 37:51 about the motivators and the reasons 37:53 we're going to build a game has always 37:54 been really helpful for us and it's 37:55 helped us like go back to those areas to 37:58 make sure if we didn't hit one of those 37:59 areas that we initially wanted to hit, 38:01 why did we decide it wasn't a good 38:03 pillar? Usually not the case. we've 38:05 usually just overthought something or 38:07 lost something along the ways and the 38:08 sensibilities at the beginning were 38:10 something we you know try to go back to 38:12 and you know even Droid Tycoon had a lot 38:14 of changes 38:15 >> near the end to go back to some of those 38:17 sensibilities that ended up on my 38:19 opinion a lot of our opinions really 38:21 benefiting and and altering the game 38:22 even the last two weeks that I think 38:24 helped it and helped it be like a game 38:26 that we also wanted to be from the get- 38:27 go. Yeah, piggybacking like on that, you 38:30 know, no one could have predicted the 38:32 success of this game, but like maybe a 38:34 little behind the scenes, like did that 38:35 success maybe change how you guys work 38:37 together now? Like did it create any new 38:39 kind of pressure for your your team now? 38:41 Like is there, you know, anything like 38:43 that? 38:43 >> You know, we we've always kind of put 38:45 all of ourselves into the projects we 38:46 make and I think, you know, you 38:47 mentioned things like polish and stuff 38:49 like that and that is sort of the the 38:50 end result there, but really it's all 38:52 we're just really passionate about what 38:53 we're creating. We we we love to create. 38:56 it's kind of what we're on this on this 38:57 world to do. So to just have a receptive 39:00 audience for it's been really you know 39:02 motivating I would say you know for 39:03 myself personally in terms of like team 39:05 dynamics or anything like that you know 39:07 we we have been growing the team with 39:09 some some great folks that we've been 39:11 you know working with as sort of a 39:13 contract basis for a while we've kind of 39:15 stacked up we've added Brent and Raspus 39:18 to the team recently Rasmus is a 39:19 developer Brent's a producer and we got 39:23 our own QA now too by Hudson which has 39:26 been awesome 39:28 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been it's been 39:29 really really phenomenal. But we're 39:30 really picky about who we choose to work 39:32 with too because we are definitely, you 39:34 know, there are enormously talented 39:36 people out there in the community. But 39:37 we we definitely have a a specific vibe 39:39 internally that we try to to keep and a 39:42 lot of that just hinges on being, you 39:43 know, really hardworking and really 39:44 honest with each other about what's 39:46 working, what's not working, and being 39:47 able to have healthy dialogue around 39:49 that. 39:49 >> Yeah, that that makes sense. I mean, you 39:51 kind you got to have have that. You 39:52 guys, we work together for, you know, 12 39:55 hours a day, you know, like you kind of 39:57 have to vibe and you got to be able to 39:59 communicate and be open, you know what I 40:00 mean? And 40:01 >> the exciting thing about, you know, 40:02 collaboration in general, but especially 40:03 with collaborating with people on, you 40:04 know, Scott's level and all our other, 40:07 you know, people of future trash is is 40:09 just I I love getting I love getting 40:12 feedback from people that are on that 40:14 level, you know, like where they're 40:16 actually like coming up with like a 40:17 whole different way to see something or 40:19 a whole different reason behind 40:20 something because it's so easy to get 40:21 kind of stuck in your own, you know, 40:23 your own head or your own reason or be 40:25 like just 40:26 >> way too proud, way too proud of your own 40:28 solution for something. So, you know, 40:30 collaboration so many times just leads 40:32 to a better result and uh yeah, that's 40:34 kind of a lot of the magic I feel like 40:35 that we have internally. 40:36 >> That's phenomenal. No, and you do it 40:38 shows. Um and I I've hung out with you 40:40 guys plenty of times, dude. You guys are 40:42 a vibe. It's just it's always a fun 40:44 time, dude. Like this is a perfect 40:46 example. So, you guys hosted the 40:48 unofficial creator party for Unreal 40:50 Fest, right? 40:51 >> And whatever. Normally, it's just drinks 40:53 and maybe a few little things here. 40:55 Like, you guys went all out this year. 40:57 Not only did you guys come up with the 40:59 Crater Awards, which was fantastic. That 41:01 was really fun to be a part of. 41:03 >> Let's shout out to Eric. He's 41:06 >> Oh, yeah. We got to shout out Eric, 41:07 >> producer, project manager. Everybody 41:09 knows Eric, but yeah, he 41:11 >> Panda. Yeah, 41:13 >> I was [clears throat] behind the scenes 41:14 with him. So, I know how much work that 41:16 dude's going into on top of you guys 41:18 have a very successful game you're 41:20 trying to run right now. 41:21 >> He He was on it. Yeah, he was running 41:23 around like a mad man. But saying that 41:26 like you guys like you again this is 41:28 like your level of thinking like you had 41:30 a great venue great perfect but then 41:33 you're like hey let's get some guys you 41:35 guys found some like local Star Wars 41:37 like and I'm not talking some like mom 41:40 and pop show these guys made straight up 41:42 realistic like movie film ready droids 41:46 and they had the whole kits and they 41:47 were walking around the party like and 41:50 driving them. It was crazy. 41:52 Yeah, Eric. Eric did a lot of research 41:54 in finding this. Eric's a big like 41:56 Disneyland guy and he goes there 41:57 frequently and you know these guys are 41:59 amazing. He sent them over to us. He's 42:00 like they will come to the party. 42:01 They'll bring droids like they've got a 42:03 DJ Rex. They've got an R2. We're talking 42:05 to one of the guys there and he's like, 42:06 "Oh yeah, this this droid actually has a 42:08 little spout that pops up. There's a 42:10 tequila bottle inside out of the droid." 42:13 He's like, "But the tequila's been in 42:14 there for a really long time, so I don't 42:15 think I'd recommend drinking it." And I 42:17 >> even been to like some droid meetups 42:19 now. He's he's all in. 42:20 >> Yeah. Yeah, he hits him up. The one guy 42:23 is actually making um one of the combo 42:25 droids, the proto roller from the game 42:26 now. So, he's been 3D printing all the 42:28 pieces and parts and he's going to set 42:30 it up so that it's fully, you know, anim 42:32 animatronic and everything. That party 42:33 was cool, too, cuz it was like you got 42:35 droids all over. Then you have all these 42:36 like goats all over the place with Good 42:38 Gamer had like their hat set up and you 42:40 got these big cutouts and stuff. Then 42:41 you got like the Lego photo booth. 42:43 That's just a funny party of like things 42:45 I've never and probably will never see 42:46 in a room again ever. 42:48 >> That it was it really was. There was it 42:50 was wild. They did the go- go had the 42:52 collab with their skin, so they had a 42:54 bunch of plush, but like all that going 42:55 on. Yeah, Lego was there. They were part 42:57 of the giveaways and helping out and and 43:00 yeah, that Star Wars, you're right, it 43:01 it was wild. It was It was a 43:03 >> It was a lot of stuff. 43:04 >> It It was a fun fun night. And again, 43:07 but more so I just saying like that's 43:09 the level of polish you guys always 43:10 bring to not only your games, but in 43:12 real life. So, it it comes through. 43:15 >> Nate Nate always quotes for an eternity. 43:17 how how you do anything is is how you do 43:19 everything. So, it it is it's always 43:22 that. 43:22 >> Yeah. Go big or go home. I mean, what 43:24 what are we here for, right? Let's let's 43:26 do it. No, I love it. It was it was 43:28 entertaining. All right, moving a little 43:30 bit away from Droid recently. U Fortnite 43:33 came out with sidekicks. They gave us 43:35 sidekicks we could start creating like 43:36 for battle royale and things like that. 43:38 And they kind of gave a a little 43:40 promotion around to some of the sidekick 43:42 games. People if they create with it, 43:44 they'll give it a little bit of 43:45 promotion. That was like a month ago 43:47 now, I think. But I I I kind of want to 43:49 talk about that because you guys made, 43:50 you know, Sidekick Wars and I'm sure 43:52 that's kind of a major slower 43:55 progression shift to Droid Tycoon, but 43:57 you know, like what was your guys' 43:59 original prototype and, you know, h how 44:01 different um was it from like from the 44:03 game players received actually? 44:05 >> You know, we're we're always trying to 44:07 kind of push the envelope in whatever 44:08 we're whatever we're doing and this is 44:10 an opportunity we saw here that would 44:12 be, you know, kind of fun. We're big. 44:14 See my Starcraft my Starcraft in the 44:16 background. We're big 44:19 >> my tiny 44:20 >> I can't it's very small but 44:21 >> exactly but you know a lot of us are you 44:23 know RTS fans and you know strategy game 44:26 fans of course a big inspiration 44:28 obviously you know Clash of Clans Clash 44:30 Royale type games as well and we wanted 44:32 to see if there was a way we could make 44:33 that kind of exist within the world of 44:35 Fortnite you know still playing to 44:36 Fortnite sensibilities and things. So 44:38 the first thing we do you know with any 44:39 game like that is always the find the 44:41 fun you know and that is the prototyping 44:43 stage is the R&D is this actually you 44:45 know with the bare bones of it is it fun 44:47 and we we knew the biggest task for 44:49 something like this having done you know 44:51 something like lane wars which was a 44:53 very wild one to attempt as our first 44:54 out the gate uh moa minia we we we knew 44:58 it was important that you know one it 44:59 was easy to understand but two was you 45:01 know very fun to play so we tried a 45:04 variety of different camera angles we 45:05 actually had Blair prototyped this 45:07 insane top down version of it that you 45:09 could use touch controls from. Uh it was 45:11 very very cool. It was it it worked 45:15 surprisingly well for the way we had to 45:17 do it at the time. Right now, you know, 45:18 when we were prototyping that there was 45:19 no actual touch input. You couldn't get 45:21 the actual cursor position. It was just 45:23 literally an array. 45:25 >> It was an array of buttons basically up 45:27 top and it was cool. But you know at the 45:29 end of the day we also had a third 45:30 person one that we prototyped and we 45:32 actually thought the top down was going 45:33 to win but then we started playing them. 45:35 You know, 45:35 >> you guys prototype multiple things 45:37 first. 45:37 >> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, still, 45:40 you know, same spirit of it, but 45:41 definitely different, you know, 45:42 different mechanics and different sort 45:44 of, you know, again, camera and all 45:45 these things, but we actually ended up 45:46 having more fun of the third person 45:47 mode. It was just an interesting, it's 45:49 more of a, you know, on the battlefield 45:51 type perspective of this, which we 45:52 thought brought a lot of the, you know, 45:54 Fortnite, you know, vibe to it, which 45:57 which helped. And it also gave us things 45:59 like, oh, you can mine mana crystals now 46:01 instead of just having to wait for a 46:02 meter to refill and stare at your phone. 46:04 So we thought there were some 46:04 interesting active gameplay elements we 46:06 could bring into it as well. So that 46:08 kind of cemented it and again something 46:10 we always do early on. We never want to 46:12 commit to like this is it. The game 46:13 design document is locked. 46:15 >> Yeah. 46:15 >> We're spending the next 3 months, 6 46:17 months with our heads down and that's 46:18 it. Definitely the most dangerous thing 46:20 you could possibly do. 46:20 >> Great. 46:21 >> I mean even you know Scott and I were 46:22 even talking about you know before this 46:24 some of the testing we do is just so 46:26 integral internally. Just jumping back 46:27 to Droid for a second. We actually we 46:29 actually made some very pivotal changes 46:31 to Droid in terms of just how the 46:32 rebirththing worked and everything else 46:34 because folks at Epic and you know we 46:36 actually had our own daughters. We got a 46:38 nine I've got a nine-year-old. Scott's 46:39 got a 10-year-old play it and they loved 46:42 it all up until the point where you 46:43 rebirth and you lost all your droids and 46:45 they're like well that really sucks. I 46:47 love my mouth. 46:48 >> This game literally that was the word. 46:49 Yeah 46:50 >> and I'll never play. 46:51 >> They said that was the word. Yeah. Yeah. 46:54 Word for word. And there are harshest 46:55 critics which is great. best players. So 46:59 >> they're so mean to us. 47:00 >> Yeah, you need it. You need it. 47:01 >> They're very honest. 47:03 >> But which which I think led to an 47:05 overall more because again you you do 47:07 have this emotional attachment to these 47:08 droids. They're I say they're a little 47:09 less disposable than you know something 47:11 you get from like you know other types 47:12 of you know other of the collection type 47:15 games. 47:16 >> Yeah. 47:16 >> So we wanted to we didn't want people to 47:18 get you know kind of this this bummer 47:20 feeling 30 minutes 60 minutes into it 47:22 and feel like they're just right back at 47:23 the bottom. So, we ended up shifting a 47:25 lot of the meta mechanics around that 47:27 kind of principle. 47:28 >> It makes sense that I I have kids too, 47:30 right? And they're they're the best play 47:31 testers. You know what I mean? If your 47:32 kid can, you know, put the controller 47:34 down after a few minutes, it's 47:36 >> you know, it's back to the drawing 47:37 board. Yeah. What went wrong? Yeah. 47:39 >> Yeah, it is. It's OP. We We got a short 47:41 window though with them. You know, 47:42 >> it is [laughter] 47:44 exactly. 47:45 >> Yeah. Shorter every day. 47:46 >> But anyway, look, I just wanted to bring 47:48 up, you know, Sidekick Wars cuz it it's 47:51 very new. It's a very different type of 47:53 game. Again, it's faux polished. It's 47:55 incredible. It's really fun to play. I 47:58 love, you know, that you the third uh 48:00 person mentioned as well, like I think 48:02 that was a good good choice. I don't 48:04 know why, but Fortnite just does not 48:06 like other other camera angles, man. 48:09 They just I don't know how they're going 48:11 to solve this, but like for whatever 48:13 reason, it's it's tough. It'll just take 48:14 time. You got a game first that already 48:17 players and they play it all one way and 48:20 you're telling them play it this way. 48:22 >> And that happens. 48:23 >> I've never played a game that way. It 48:25 does. 48:25 >> Exactly. 48:26 >> It's on Roblox. Same thing. And people 48:28 like the third person. 48:29 >> Yeah. No, it's it's an up it's an uphill 48:30 battle the moment you decide you're not 48:32 going that route. Not to discourage 48:34 anyone. I I applaud up. They're doing a 48:36 lot of effort to get, you know, 48:37 especially the mobile gaming up and you 48:39 know 48:39 >> Exactly. 48:39 >> up to snuff, which which is which is 48:41 awesome. There's a lot of really cool 48:42 features that are coming out in, you 48:43 know, 42 and beyond and looking forward 48:45 to seeing what people do create with 48:47 that because I think there's, you know, 48:48 some very interesting, you know, 48:50 interesting games that could be made. 48:51 But, yeah, right now it is still 48:52 definitely, you know, there's a 48:53 definitely preference within the 48:54 ecosystem of, you know, specific camera 48:57 style, specific gameplay. 48:58 >> All right, guys. We're almost there. 48:59 This has been a such a like a incredible 49:02 episode, man. And I I've been very 49:04 excited about get you guys on since the 49:05 launch. And you guys are very busy, so I 49:07 got to steal a little bit of your time. 49:09 I really appreciate it. I guarantee the 49:10 fans and and people listening do as 49:12 well. The last question I kind of want 49:14 to hit is just, you know, we've seen 49:16 some it's very this is a very hard 49:17 ecosystem. Lots of, you know, the AAA is 49:21 in shambles. Like there's layoffs all 49:23 the time and a lot of people are coming 49:25 over to UGC. We've seen a lot of big 49:27 studios come and go in this ecosystem. 49:29 And you guys been able to be be doing 49:31 this for years now in this ecosystem. 49:33 like you got any advice for maybe 49:35 creators or teams, small teams, large 49:38 teams or anything like around you know 49:40 um around this space and I don't know 49:43 like just something maybe that they're 49:45 kind of thinking about either staying or 49:46 going or wherever they're at in this you 49:48 know in in their gamedev experience like 49:51 you have any advice for those guys? 49:53 >> Run. 49:54 >> Yeah, just [laughter] get out of here 49:55 now. 49:56 >> Don't touch our CCU. 49:58 >> Yeah. 50:00 >> I mean 50:00 >> there's there's a there's a lot of 50:02 advice. 50:02 >> Yeah. And some of it is, you know, 50:04 specific to a certain type of person, 50:06 too. 50:07 >> Yeah. 50:07 >> I think the best advice anyone can give 50:09 is, you know, what's applicable to 50:10 themselves, of course. But I mean, I 50:12 think doing, you know, we brought this 50:14 up earlier, too, like having a reason 50:16 why you're doing something is really 50:17 important. I think when it comes down to 50:19 like making a game and who you're making 50:21 that game for really matters. I think 50:23 there's a lot of great creators that 50:24 have made games that they want to make. 50:27 And usually a lot of people praise those 50:29 games regardless of the CCU. and jumping 50:31 into those games, there's an 50:32 appreciation for the passion behind them 50:34 and that has merit. 50:35 >> And that's something that we've always 50:36 cared about, you know, more than, you 50:38 know, the CCU and the success that 50:41 potentially follows it. And now, of 50:42 course, you want both sides of that coin 50:44 sometimes, too. And that's where, you 50:46 know, being realistic is really 50:48 important. It's knowing what you're 50:49 building. You don't need to have the 50:51 players, you shouldn't expect the 50:53 players to love the thing you're making. 50:54 If you want them to, though, you 50:56 definitely can look at what they're 50:57 playing and what they like, and you can 50:58 build a game that's geared towards them. 51:00 And then there's of course like the 51:02 middle ground there where you're not 51:03 just making a game for them, but you're 51:05 taking the insight that you have from 51:07 that aspect and then you've got the 51:08 stuff that you care about and what 51:10 you're passionate about. And and some of 51:11 that stuff just takes simply like time 51:13 to figure out what that balance sits. 51:14 And I can, you know, it's it's easy to 51:16 say that when you've got a game that's 51:18 like now working, but like we've we've 51:20 we've failed more in our careers and 51:21 we've succeeded. And the one thing 51:23 that's always been so motivating and so 51:25 easy to keep going is simply put that 51:27 we're just having a good time and we've 51:29 always found a way to have fun and it's 51:30 not like we're trying that hard to have 51:32 fun. We're just putting ourselves in a 51:33 position to 51:34 >> to kind of keep enjoying the things that 51:36 we do and it's made our work better and 51:37 it's made us happier as we've worked on 51:39 stuff and I think you shouldn't 51:41 discredit your own enjoyment and 51:43 fulfillment that you get from creating 51:44 something which is what everyone's 51:45 doing. 51:46 >> Beautifully said. I mean there's there's 51:48 Scott there's no better way to end off 51:49 this episode. I mean it is true. It's 51:52 very it it's tough. It just you're 51:54 right. It just depends what you're here 51:55 for. There's the business side and 51:56 there's the fun side and then there's 51:58 something in the middle and if I I 52:00 started this when I didn't make money 52:01 when you couldn't make money and I just 52:03 love making games and then that rest of 52:05 that followed. You know what I mean? And 52:07 >> but it is a hard ecosystem. It's not 52:10 easy and there's lots of talent out 52:12 there. There's lots of people that are 52:13 are here for the money and they don't 52:14 care what they'll do. They'll do 52:15 whatever they have to do to to do those 52:18 things. But I think what that's what I 52:20 love about this space is there's there's 52:23 developers. There's teams like yourself 52:24 that didn't give up. You guys put 52:27 everything you have into your games and 52:29 you learned from it and onto the next 52:32 and and then you guys created massive 52:34 hit. And so I don't know. I think that I 52:37 think that's great you guys shared that. 52:39 Thank you for sharing that and just the 52:40 the mentality behind you know the team 52:43 and it just shows it just shines 52:45 through. So again, congrats on all the 52:48 success, guys. I mean, that's an 52:49 episode. You guys crushed it. Thank you 52:51 again. Please shout out. You guys want 52:54 any talk about any anything coming up, 52:56 please shout it out. And then where can 52:58 we, you know, follow you guys? 52:59 >> Here's what's coming up. More Droid 53:01 Tycoon forever. 53:02 >> Yeah, October. 53:03 >> October's big. Uh December is even 53:06 bigger, maybe. I don't know. 53:08 >> Uh we've got an upcoming project that 53:10 we've been working on before Droid 53:11 Tycoon that we're coming back to. It is 53:12 a full-based project. 53:14 >> Okay. 53:14 >> Through and through. is arguably not 53:17 arguably it is the biggest phone game 53:19 we've made. 53:20 >> It's awesome and we've taken a lot of 53:22 like stuff that we've learned from Droid 53:24 Tycoon and applied it to it and a lot of 53:26 staff have been building up again has 53:27 been to to be able to do multiple 53:29 projects and have you know that we want 53:32 to do for personal reasons and 53:35 >> you know we love phone and we love 53:36 developing our own IP and stuff like 53:38 that. So that's in the pipeline. We're 53:40 getting that fixed up and we're hoping 53:42 to launch something by end of year, 53:44 early next year there. 53:45 >> Okay. 53:45 >> Socials. What are our socials? This is 53:47 what Eric's like. They should know this. 53:50 >> Troy, definitely join the the Droid 53:52 Tycoon Discord. You can just search 53:54 Droid Tycoon and that's your idea. 54:00 [laughter] 54:02 >> Yeah. Yeah. Look, all their socials, no 54:04 matter what. It's not like you're going 54:05 to remember what we say and write it 54:07 down. They're in the description. Please 54:09 go follow them. They they are also like 54:11 they post like every day. They have a 54:13 bunch of updates and all the cool things 54:15 that they're doing. Please go follow 54:16 them. These guys are the real deal and 54:18 they are incredible people. So go follow 54:20 them, please, for me. And that's an 54:22 episode, guys. Thanks for coming on. 54:23 >> Appreciate it, man. Loved it. 54:24 >> Really appreciate being here. Thanks so 54:26 much, man. 54:26 >> Anytime, guys. Hey, Scott and Nate, 54:28 thank you so much for coming on and 54:30 being this open. How Droid Tycoon 54:31 actually came together. Please go join 54:33 their Discord at Droid Tycoon. Just 54:36 search that up, you'll find it. Follow 54:37 them on X at Fodzone. All of those links 54:40 for everything to follow them will be 54:41 down in the description. And if you 54:43 enjoyed this episode, please do me a 54:45 favor. Follow the podcast, subscribe on 54:47 YouTube, hit the like button, and if you 54:49 are listening on audio, please leave a 54:51 positive review on your favorite podcast 54:53 app. It generally helps out more than 54:55 you think. I will see you in a Fortnite, 54:57 which is in 2 weeks. And remember, 54:58 [music] don't hate,