Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Dev to Dev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day.
I'm Alex Solman here again to have another interesting conversation with another developer and this time we're chatting to.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Hi everybody. I'm Paul Jadro. I'm a senior gameplay programmer and most recently I was working at Zenmax Online Studios with Alex.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Yay. Thanks, Paul.
Thank you for doing this. Thank you for taking the time.
Yes, recent colleagues.
And I'm really excited to. We've worked together multiple times throughout the last few years, but I'm excited just to hang out, chat a little bit more about who you are as a person and how you got what you got and kind of really dive into this conversation. So I like to kind of kick it off with going right back, right to a question about what first made you fall in love with video games.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: You know, I kind of started gaming pretty early on, you know, I think back in, you know, when I was like 10 or something like that, Rebel Assault, which was like a full motion video, like they did, you know, sort of panning between different frames of captured video or whatever.
But it was, it was a game for the PC and I played a couple console games after that and Doom and all that sort of thing. But more than anything, it was just really interesting and really interactive and, you know, there was a lot of things that, you know, you couldn't really do in any other medium.
You know, I was, I was reading lots of interesting books. I read the Lord of the Rings when I was in like second grade. I think I might have missed some of the nuance of it, perhaps at that age. But, you know, I was playing Dungeons and Dragons from a really early age and playing with my friends and you know, like this sort of interaction with that kind of game was really interesting. But video games were, you know, like, really fascinating for different reasons. Right. It could do different things, it could tell different stories, it could. Had different systems that you could, you know, play with.
I had a lot of fond memories of playing like multiplayer games with my friends on the N64 and stuff like that.
So it just, it brought people together in a different way and you could kind of like tell different stories with it. So really, really grabbed me for different stuff.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Interesting. So you kind of had a roots in, you know, kind of board games, Dungeons and Dragons, kind of very organic storytelling, and then your first video game memory is one of the least interarguably a very non interactive experience, but a very strong storytelling experience. Right. Those F and B games were really good. Is there, Is there a correlation there, you know, with stories or.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: I think that's just what we had.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: More than just what you had. Right.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: No, I mean, you know, as far as. As what sort of gripped me, like, you know, I, I played everything. Like, I, I sort of was talking to one of my friends recently who was like, oh, yeah, you know, I have like, you know, 6,000 hours in dead by Daylight, and I'm like, literally, how, like, how do you find the time? He's like, oh, well, I treated it like a job because I was basically a professional streamer for a while. And I'm like looking through my, my Steam library and I'm like, I don't even have anything that comes up to like 600 hours, let alone a thousand, let alone 6,000 or whatever. I just, I play everything and I play it enough and then, you know, lose. I lose some interest or I'll complete the game and move on. But I play a bunch of different games and so to some extent I'll just play everything and I'll find something with a lot of different games, some little interesting piece of it, whether it's the story or some interesting mechanic or some clever implementation or something. So to some extent it's the quality of the craft, and to other extents it's like something interesting that goes on with it or something like that.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Interesting. So kind of a quite a diverse reason to play a game. It's not like I, you know, like Rebel Assault maybe was something that you had and intrigued you because it was a game and, you know, video game, but your taste is very broad and very, you know, has that always been the case? Was that, you know, right from the start, have you played a very diverse selection of games or did you kind of fall into that over time?
[00:04:33] Speaker B: I mean, you know, I, you know, certain games will stick around for longer than others. I got a lot of hours in Factorio, for example. But, you know, I, I think, you know, games that can hold my attention are games that, like, there's lots of interesting things to do or the, the, the content sort of sticks around for longer. Like, multiplayer games tend to have more of that because. But a lot of that relies on my friends being interested in playing it with me or, or there being enough interesting things to do in it that there doesn't get to be too much repetition.
So, yeah, I mean, it falls into the, the endless content problem, you know, but if a game is well crafted, you know, you can enjoy it for a Significantly longer time, you know.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, like you say that especially with that multiplayer component to games that, you know, sounds like caught you from an early age as well. That. Yeah, I mean, making stories with friends.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: One of those games that I've put tons of time into is Team Fortress 2. And that game is, you know, was very, at least initially was very like fixed. Like it had a very limited, like at least by today's standards, set of gameplay features as it were like nine classes and they only had like a single loadout selection. But there were so many interesting interactions between those different classes that there was a lot of interesting things going on with it. Even if people were only playing like the same couple of maps, it was still really interesting to like play those same maps with different characters or with different like team ups or you know, like there was a lot of, of interesting gameplay to have even with that like fixed con, you know, like content from the design, you know, from the developer or whatever. They didn't have to continuously churn out new maps for it to remain interesting because the core set of the game was so dynamic and interesting to start with, you know.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Got it. So you were kind of drawn to games that were interesting that you could play, you know, multiple, like play this game and play that game.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: I would play it until, you know, I ran out of it became, you know, until I stopped being interesting.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Essentially exhausted it kind of thing. Yeah. And with games that had, you know, multiplayer games or more, more extended games that kept, you, kept feeling fresh, you were kind of okay. I mean I'm add.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: So like it's a, it's attention or it's a interest based nervous system to some extent.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Interesting. I was, I was. Knowing you as I do, I was, I was wondering at what point those, those stars would cross, how much.
So I want to get into that a little bit as we go.
But, but thinking about. So Rebel Assault, what was it about Rebel Assault that drew you like? So maybe it was just the game you had.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: That was just the one we had. That was like the first game I played, you know.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Right, but what. And was that the first sort of access to video games that you had?
Yeah, that just so happened to be okay. Interesting.
So somebody got a PCCD ROM in their, in their PC and was like.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a, a PC and that was just like the one that we picked up. I had an older brother and so I think that was just like the one he grabbed, but it wasn't the one that held like the fondest memory or anything like that that was just like the one I remember playing. And then like the. The first earlier ones. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess this was technically the earliest one or something.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Got it, got it. Where did you grow up?
[00:08:18] Speaker B: I grew up in Wixom, Michigan, which is so. Michigan looks like your hand. And so I grew up right over here. It's one of the suburbs of Detroit.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. And you said you had an older brother who was into video games?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: No, he didn't play him too much, but he was. Yeah, he's like seven years older than me, so, you know, he.
He played him a little bit, but most of the time he was more so on the sporty side of things, but.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Okay, so you ended up being more of the gamer, maybe.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Okay. And any other brothers and sisters or.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: I got a sister who's two years younger than me, and she. She was more involved on. In, like, band and that sort of thing, but sort of started hanging out with me and my group of nerdy friends near the end of high school, and it seemed to rub off on her. And now she's like a Twitch streamer. She does, like, cosplay and streams, Dungeons and Dragons and other, like, Tabletop and that sort of thing, so.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So she's like, come full circle on it in that.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Right. So she kind of picked up the bug from you maybe ultimately. Right. Has followed that. That's. That's interesting.
Okay, so you sort of get initial access to PC, you're playing some multiplayer games.
How does that relate to. When did you. Oh, when. Let me ask this differently. When did you first feel like, oh, I want to make video games?
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So it didn't occur to me that I could be a game developer until, like, I don't know, maybe like somewhere in, like, high school.
I, you know, I had gotten PC Gamer magazine for the longest time, like, since like, somewhere in middle school or something. I had this, like, huge stack of them, and they have this, like, PC Gamer along the side after a certain point.
And so I had. That was, you know, the Internet didn't exist for a bit, and then eventually it caught up and then. But I was still like, you know, PC Gamer was my connection there.
And then, you know, after a certain point, I realized, like, well, wait a minute, like, someone has to be making these games. And I'm a. Someone who would. Who would be the people making these. And so in high school, I had a teacher who I particularly liked. He ran the Living History Club in high school, which was like, A Revolutionary War reenactment, which was interesting in its own right. It was like kind of a Renaissance festival sort of thing, but for Revolutionary War era.
But he was a pretty cool dude and he was a math teacher and he also ran the programming classes. But there weren't really many students interested in it, so they didn't get many opportunities to teach it. But I happened to be there when they did teach one of them. So I got really into that. I was, you know, usually in the, you know, sort of advanced classes throughout, you know, middle school and high school and that sort of thing. So I took to that pretty well and sort of latched onto that and kind of understood that that was kind of a route towards like game development and just tried to, like, figure out as much of that as I could and, you know, try to.
Once I got to college, you know, I went to a college that had game development as a, like, minor or a cognate or whatever they called it. And that was really fantastic because there were a bunch of people there who had done way more research into it than I. And they're like, you're going to the game developer conference, right? I'm like, the what?
And like, yeah, it's in San Francisco. Actual game developers are going to be there. I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess I should go there. You know, so that was really phenomenal. And then I was actually talking to game developers and like, figured out how to make those connections and where I should apply and what I should, like, how I should like, you know, sort of set myself up to best break into the industry.
But yeah, it wasn't until like, you know, like early high school when I was like, oh, that's a thing I can do. That sounds like the most interesting thing I can do. How do I set myself up best for that?
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Right. Okay, so you, so you're playing games, you're at high school, and was it engineering that or, you know, programming that kind of made you think, oh, maybe I can make video games. Or was it, I think I want to make video games. Oh, and I could do programming.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: How did that. Yeah, kind of that, like, you know, like making games sounds really cool.
I'm pretty good with math. That seems like the best route forward with that.
You know, I was, I was playing Dungeons and Dragons. I was playing, you know, Magic the Gathering and that sort of thing. And, you know, the, the computer side of it seemed like my best route forward.
I, Interestingly, it never really actually occurred to me to like, try to design a game like I don't know. Why?
Because it, like thinking back, it's like I could have just designed a game like I. With paper and stuff. Like, my friends were kind of doing that by running games with D and D. I like, tried to be a DM like once or twice, but like, I kind of found it a little overwhelming.
But yeah, it, it was, it was interesting. But I, I was pretty proficient at programming, so that was like kind of a more straightforward meth like way for me, you know?
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess that's, that's an interesting thing. Just a thread to pick at for a second, like. Yeah, clearly you were into creative endeavors. Right. D, D is very creative. Right. You can't not be creative and you can't be not creative and play D and D. Right. Really? Yeah.
But clearly you were obviously very drawn to the kind of maths, you know, problem solving aspect of engineering the system side of it. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that side of your, your brain was kind of pulling you more than the.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Side if it didn't, you know, maybe correlate to trying to design something.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, like, thinking back about it, like D and D was a very interesting game for me. Like, like, like the system of it was like, and it's 3rd, 3, 3rd edition and 3.5 and that sort of thing was very crunchy system. So like looking at it and being like, okay, how do all these like classes fit together and what sort of things can I do? And that sort of thing was how I thought about it at the time. You know, I had a bit of role playing and that sort of thing, but that really wasn't my focus at the time.
Later on I would like, develop more as a person and develop more as, as a, as an adult. And then like, now that's role playing and developing characters and the shared narrative is much more interesting to me than the system itself.
But at the time, like the sort of game and system of it was what. And complexity there was what was more interesting at the time. So I think at that point, like the, the, that part of it was, was kind of where my brain was.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Huh. And, and do you think that correlates with what drew you to programming? You know, similar kind of.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: How the puzzles fit together?
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the, the, you know, programming is a lot about how you can instruct the computer to do exactly what you want it to do in a given circumstance and, you know, create these complex systems and you know, essentially automate an entire, like, process an entire entire game and get it to, to perform in the way that you want it to.
So like constructing this entire like structure made, made a lot of sense to me, you know, and I seem to have a talent for it, so I ran with that.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Yeah, and it sounds like it kind of connected to you as a person, right? That you know, you kind of enjoy that side of what, you know, whatever the thing is. And D and D being one version and you know, game programming being another.
So. Okay, so, so you get the idea at high school you, you start doing some engineering there and then you said you, you went to college to you know, study some form of game, game development.
Where was college? Where did you go? Did you move to go to college?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I went to Michigan State University.
I, they had a game development program there and that was really awesome because you know, the, the program itself exposed me a lot to game design and a lot of aspects that I hadn't really thought about in as structured a way. I understood game design as a player and sort of from an intuitive level, but I hadn't really thought about it from a structured like constructive level. Like if I were to create a game, how would I go about setting this up? If I were to do this versus that, what would the consequences and effects of that be? Like, I literally had just never thought about it and it never occurred to me to do so. So like, you know, like recently I had one of, one of my.
Over the years I've talked to a number of different like colleges and students and you know, my mom's friends are like, oh, hey, you know, my grandson wants me to, wants to go into game development. Would you talk to me? Yeah, sure.
College is an interesting sell these days because it's very expensive and the Internet exists and there is tons of material there for those who are motivated and self disciplined and it's so it's kind of a tough sell. But for me it was absolutely a great thing because I was not very good with self discipline and that structure was super helpful for me. But more important than anything, it gave me a community of peers who were like very much on the same track as me and very much like pushing in the right direction in a way that I didn't even realize that I should be. Like I said they were like we're going to Game Developers Conference. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that was a thing and that I should be doing that or you know, talking to them about game design. They were already like leads ahead of me in that, in that direction in a thing that I didn't even realize I should be like thinking about.
So it was phenomenal for that.
And like I said, the structure of it was really helpful for me because I basically had showed up to school and done my schoolwork and then was just went home and played video games. And then the outside of that I was just kind of like doing whatever I was supposed to do and haven't really done much to like structure my, my life on my own. So that was a, a new skill I had to develop.
So that was a great place for me to figure that out.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Right, so taught you some life lessons as well.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But you know, it was a great program and it, it got me connected with, you know, designers and artists and together we worked on a lot of different projects together and stuff like that.
And then yeah, I went to Game Developer Conference a couple different times and you know, met a bunch of different people through that and learned about a lot about the industry and it was just a phenomenal, you know, experience for me.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Right, so so did you, is it fair to say maybe you kind of went from being, you know, an individual who loved gaming and was kind of into the idea of making games to suddenly at college finding yourself amongst your peers and amongst folks like, oh, there's other folks like me that want to do this. And was that.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: And like I said, folks who are significantly more, not only self motivated but like actually like digging in, doing the work. Like I looked over at one of my friends who was in my classes and he was reading a book on AI and I'm like, I guess they are, there are people writing books on game development and AI. I should probably look into that. Like it just had never occurred. Yeah, like I had picked up a book on like C programming for Dummies because again, the Internet was still very early and literally YouTube did not exist yet. So like where am I gonna find that?
Amazon didn't exist yet. So like, I guess I should like go to the library and see what stuff they had.
My local library isn't going to have books on game AI, so I guess I'll go to the college library and find it.
So yeah, it was incredibly helpful for that. And yeah, just, it was really, really awesome to make the connections I did. And yeah, we had a bunch of game jams and stuff like that and that was really good for cutting my teeth and figuring out how to do what I needed to do to become a game developer.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Right, yeah. So it sort of gave you a grounding in what it Means to actually make video game. Video games with other video game developers. And so give you that.
Okay, so you graduate, you graduate from college, and then you.
If I'm tracking your career correctly, you don't go into games initially, correct you.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there was.
Right out of college, I, I did a couple internships with a couple companies. One of them was actually with a.
A studio that was doing like some serious games, but was like, they, they were, they used to be Outrage Games, which was like a sister studio to Volition.
Let's see if I get this right. I think it was Interplay had broken up into Volition and Outrage Games.
And then Outrage worked on a game called Alter Alter Echo. And after a while, like, THQ shut them down. And they didn't give them an explanation or anything like that, but they just, they shut them down. And so a couple of the core people from that group started Reactor Zero, which is a reference to dissent, which a lot of the group had worked on in. Oh, sorry, my dog's saying hi.
Reactor Zero, which a lot of the group had worked on back at Interplay.
So that group was still tied to Volition. They worked on the Red Faction guerrilla port for PC, but they were just trying to do dev work for hire wherever they could.
I did an internship with them because they were also a Michigan company.
And so, yeah, I worked with them right out of college. I was fortunate enough to get a job there, but it was some serious games and we did some contract simulation work for the government. So one of the projects was driving training for the Secret Service, which was pretty cool. I actually had to get government clearance at one point to make sure I was like a member of the public trust or something like that, because I was writing code that was running on some 8000 core supercomputer or something that the government owned or something.
But yeah, it was pretty cool, but it wasn't game development, so I still had my eyes open. And one of the applications that I had put in a while back called me back up and said, hey, you know, are you still interested in this position? You know, we now have an opening. And then I eventually started working at S2 Games, which was another Michigan company that worked on Heroes of New Earth, which was a MOBA that was a contemporary to League of Legends.
But, you know, we, we know which one of those ended up surviving, unfortunately. But yeah, so got it.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: So. So your internships were maybe sort of maybe games adjacent, but. But, you know, military. Military, government stuff. Yeah, but then, yeah, then the Reactor Zero was kind of Your first game dev job? Yeah. Yeah.
How was that transition? How, you know, coming out of college, you know, having. Having had some exposure to, you know, making games. I presume in your course you were kind of building games. How was that transition?
[00:25:21] Speaker B: It was okay. You know, some of my internships were like, in an office building and stuff like that, working on, so software. So, like, you know, I. I'd had some. Some experience there, but, like, it was, you know, I. I was working 40 hours a week for the first time.
You know, it was okay, just kind of. It was just kind of a slow, easy transition. And then it was like, okay, so we're doing stuff. And it wasn't quite games, and it was still interesting work and that sort of thing, but it just wasn't super exciting. And then once I started working at S2 Games and started working on Heroes of New Earth, things got really exciting and really interesting and a lot more dynamic. And at that point, the game had already launched, so it was a blend of new features and fixing bugs and interacting with the community, and it was a really dynamic environment. And the team was pretty young, but, like, you know, scrappy and. And, you know, is, you know, like during the moba, like, boom, and going up against League of legends. And then Dota 2 got announced while we were, you know, still working on Heroes of New Earth. And so, like, kind of like in that shifting environment and stuff like that, it's a really, like, interesting time.
And it was. It was a little. It was a little stressful, to be honest, because, like, here I am right out of college, and they're like, all right, so you have an interest in AI. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, all right, so just make a player AI. And then I'm like, okay.
And so I'm like, talking with one of the senior programmers and one of the. The, like the lead programmer. And like, after a while I'm like, so I'm. How do I do this? Like, I don't know, you're the expert. And I'm like, oh, God, I guess I am. Oh, you know, and so I just had to figure it out. And, you know, they were. They were very, you know, graceful about it and gave me, like, probably way more time. You know, they. They were just super chill about it and very supportive, and they gave me lots of time on it and that sort of thing and gave me lots of support on it. But it was. It was a whole, you know, beast of a project. So super appreciative of that opportunity. And in the End. Yeah, I wrote this huge like player AI for a moba, which is a very complex game to play for human players, let alone, you know, an AI player to like even attempt it.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: So yeah, that's a heck of a first gig.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it was right out of college and I'm just like, okay, I'll figure it out.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess sort of taking one step back from that, that's AI programming. Right. So you came out of college and went straight into kind of an AI programming role, you sort of game dev role.
How did you find your way to AI program? What was it about that aspect of programming that really drew you in?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: So I love AI programming because it's this like cool blend of like game design and like capital P programming problems, like they're, they're really tough programming problems that like require like complexity and clever solutions.
But it's a game design problem to start with. Right. Like the two examples I like to talk about are you know, like snipers. Right. So a sniper, a good sniper is going to shoot once, hit their target, you never knew they were there, they're gonna kill you and then it's done. They fade into the background. But that sucks to play against. It's not fun, it's not a good experience.
So what do we do about that as a game designer? Well, we need to let the player know that there's snipers there and there's a bunch of different solutions. You have, you know, you can have the, you know, one of the other characters like call it out or you can have a visual effect with the laser or something like that. But the clever solution that I've seen is Halo where they have like a shot that goes out and you know, make sure the first shot always misses. But we can do one better. We can make sure the first shot always misses and make sure the player always sees it.
We can use the math to find the view frustum of the camera and shoot in a place that's going to miss the player, player and aim in a place where the player can see it.
And that's really clever and really cool to me. You know, the other side of it is like the, the smoke and mirrors aspect of it or the, the perception aspect of it.
There's a review in PC Gamer on how incredibly smart the AI in Half Life 1 is. And they talk about how like the, the grunts, the, the military guys in Half Life one how they're really clever and they're like set ambushes for you and like call for reinforcements and that sort of thing.
That's complete nonsense. That isn't what they do. But what they will do is when they're at a certain threshold of hit points, when they're like, low on hit points, they'll run away from the player and say, I need backup.
But what does that actually do away from the player is usually deeper into the level where there's more AI. So what it looks like is that they're setting an ambush for you. And that perception is what creates that kind of experience.
And that little, like, design bit and that little, like, AI creation is super clever and creates the illusion of this, like, very intelligent AI.
And that's really cool to me. You know, it's this. This wonderful blend of design and programming.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I'm immediately fascinated, Paul, because one of the first things we said is that you had no aspirations to design. Right. You were fascinated by that When I started, that's what. That's what I think is fascinating, right. Is that you started from that side. And now when you talk about what you do, it's so much about how the design and the engineering mesh.
So how did you. How did you get there? Was that experience? Was that. Did the creative side clearly was there come out? Like, how did you kind of.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: I think that's what happened was like, the more I was, like, the more I started to look at it, the more I saw those clever pieces that. The sort of subtlety of. Of where design has its influence. Like, the more I started to play games, the more I saw the differences in the things that I liked and didn't like. You know, why. Why do I like these kind of games versus those kind of games? Why do I like this and not that? And I could start to articulate it based on, like, having that, the lane, you know, the landmarks. And to be able to say, like, I like this kind of sniper versus that kind of sniper, or the way they did it this way is better because of this, and the way they did this way is worse because of that and be able to, like, start to think about it more critically and then sort of develop my, you know, game design sense off of that.
It wasn't as it was. It was more learned and less immediately intuitive, maybe.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I guess over time you, like you say you kind of learn your vocabulary on how to talk about the experience of what you were trying to build grew.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
Whenever I hear someone say that they don't like a game because it's bad, it irritates me because I'm like, okay, but why? Like, like maybe you're. It's shorthand. It's like, but I got like 20 minutes. Like, explain it to me. Because it's bad. Is just like, either you, either you don't know or you're repeating something or like, you just like, tell me why it's bad because I don't believe you.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Well, there's more to it, right?
Just be bad. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it feels like that correlates well to your problem solving passion. Right. That, that in many ways the design language helps you more aptly solve the problem at the engineering side and I guess gives you more vocabulary to discuss what you want to see and what the designer maybe needs or what you're trying to execute on.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I usually a lot of times in interviews or whatever and people like, ask me like, oh, what do you like about AI? I say like, AI has the most interesting set of problems to solve.
I think a lot about programming as puzzles to solve.
Here I have this thing we want to do and what sort of tools and pieces and construction do we need to do to solve that problem and solve it in a way that is going to be best for future development. It's going to be easiest for designers to use, is going to hold up for performance reasons for, you know, extendability.
Like, how can I best solve this problem? That's the puzzle, you know.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah, got it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and like, seems to speak to who you are, you know, who you are as a person. It's something you're drawn to is that kind of problem solving.
So, so I guess, yeah, working your way through S2, Frostburn reset, up to Daybreak. Right, Those kind of. You continue that kind of AI trend that started in college. Yeah, that was kind of where you were drawn. I mean, you mentioned seeing some, some person with a book about AI programming. Is that sort of where it began?
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit of that, you know, like, as I was going through, it's like, okay, so there's a couple sort of major tracks of that. There's like, AI, there's graphics, there's physics, there's, you know, like kind of these specialities and that sort of thing that you can kind of focus in on. And you know, I, I've, I've touched into pieces of each of those things throughout my career.
But like I said, AI has the most interesting problems to solve. And it, I think a lot of that comes down to, like I said, how it, how it intersects with game design and, and how it interacts with player experience. Like it, it creates the most interesting moments for players. Like graphics can create these incredible moments, but like AI consistently creates interesting stories for players. Like it, it creates interesting moments so often for players. And the fact that it's, it's something that you can construct and then it, it sort of, you know, is put in place and then a million players interact with it and then you have a million stories from it.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, see that, that experience piece is fascinating to me because, you know, when you hear rendering and graphics programmers talk about the problems they're trying to solve, that sounds like very intense problem solving. Right. In terms of performance and, you know, and scope and spectacle and, you know, feature set, et cetera. But the fact that you're drawn to the gameplay experience of it, I mean, honestly, it sounds a lot like the D and D in you. Right. That D and D is a lot about moments and experience. Right. Organic moments and experience that happen, that only happen to you in that game on that moment. And it sounds like meshing that with your problem, you know, most interesting problem set, which is AI, sort of feels like the perfect blend of, of who you are, you know, from your foundation of what, you know, from board games and video games to, you know, what you do every day.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Well, like I said that my experience with that has evolved over time too. Yeah, it used to be very systematic and now it's more experiential and narrative and, you know, that sort of thing.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it's more game designy than maybe it was before. And like you say, you're kind of blending those two sides.
Interesting. Okay, yeah. So obviously, you know, you sort of work your way through Planetside 2 and, you know, various other, you know, big MMOs and.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Things kind of scaled up from there. That, that it was interesting to work on that project because, like, a couple months after I started there, H1Z1 really started to pop off and they're like, okay, so the whole team is moving over there except for you and one designer and a producer. And so I was the only programmer on the project for like a year. And so I got to learn a lot about production and a lot about, you know, how a game operates at a project management point of view.
And that would serve me well at ZeniMax because I would sort of take on more responsibility there as well.
And yeah, it's, it's. It was an interesting, you know, role to step up to.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: But yeah, that, that role was more, you know, gameplay all around and that sort of thing. And it was a much more dynamic multiplayer environment because Heroes of New Earth was very like session based but like, you know, planetside. It's like these, these servers are up for, you know, like a long time and there's like 1200 players in them at a time. So yeah, a lot more things going on.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, go on.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Oh, I was gonna say there's, there's a lot more things going on, but there's a lot of like, bigger programming problems to solve because it's, it's, it's a lot more latency based and it's a lot more like player interactions with each other than it is with, you know, the game system or the entities in the game.
Although there is that because it's like, okay, well now you have like tanks and aircraft and all these physics objects they're dealing with. So a lot of interesting problems to solve there too.
[00:39:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say plant side too, with its scope and scale of, you know, hundreds of players on a server shooting each other, moving around, you know, vehicles.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: They had some clever solutions for sure.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: But I bet, yeah, and I think like you said, that kind of multiplies the problem set.
Adds a load of wrinkles in that the minute, you know, that just multiply the complexity of the problems you're dealing with. So again, feeding that, that, you know, that desire that you have to kind of solve problems and, and, and you know, and improve the experience.
Yeah, so, so, you know, let me just change tracks just slightly rather, you know, I think. And we've got a really good idea of how you kind of got to where you, you know, you are now right in terms of your, your path and what's drawn you and what you, what's led you to focus on AI.
How does, how does being an AI programmer, an AI engineer, how has that affected the way you play games, you as a gamer?
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, so I, I have a friend who also recently got laid off and I, I said, well, you know, to, he's, he's a programmer, he works in like more applications, corporate America, that sort of thing. And I'm like, have you ever considered game? He's like, no, of course not. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, why, why not? You play a lot of games, why wouldn't you do it? He's like, no, I mean like, he was just very against it. And I'm like, well, it's interesting and it's fun and you know, that sort of thing. And he was just like, I'm worried that it'll like change the way that I play games. And I'm like it like that it would lose its magic or something like that. And I, I don't think it has for me. I was explaining this to him for me I think has changed the way that I play games, but I don't think it has made it lose its luster. I, I enjoy games just as much as I do did before it to some extent. It makes me appreciate games like more Like I look at certain games and really appreciate when they have clever solutions to things. For example. Or like I look at a game like Warhammer Total War and I see how fast their, their turns go and I'm like, there's like 270 factions taking their turns. How the hell did you pull that off? The wizardry you've done to make this go this fast is insane.
You know, or whatever they've managed to pull off or looking at a game and, and when like looking at the credits and going, you did this with how few people? Insane. You know, like just learning to appreciate when a game is really good and I've pulled it off with so few people at the same time it's like, you know, it makes bad games worse. But if they were bad games to start with, you know, it's, it's not gonna to ruin it more.
Even if it does ruin it more, it's. It was already a game I wasn't going to enjoy. So I'd say it's. If anything it's improved the way that I, I play games. Like it's, it's helped me give more like allowance to games like if, if something's like a little rough or something like that. I'm like, yeah, I know this sort of thing is kind of tough to pull off or I'm sure they're very aware of it and they're working on it, that sort of thing because I, I've been there before and it's like they can't not know that this is a problem, but it's probably low priority or yeah, this is annoying but like, you know, it's not a big priority. It's not a big deal. So it's, it's fine.
Or you know, they've got some other higher class bugs to probably fix or whatever.
But it's enhanced the ones that are really good, you know, or made me appreciate when there's like a really weird unusual game that I'm like the, the fact that this game got made at all is incredible, credible, you know. Like you must have had to fund this game yourself or something like that, to be able to have this exist at all.
So in that sense, I think it's just enhanced it.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I love that positive outlook of, you know, rather than it's made. Rather than it's maybe made you pick holes in everything more than you might, you know, that some people might do. I know I do that sometimes it's made you, you know, pull more from what you play, you know, appreciate things more than maybe you would if you didn't have that understanding of what it takes to make video games. And that's such a positive way of, you know, I, I've definitely had moments similarly where, you know, I've played a game that might be considered average, that has a system in it that I'm like, no, but that system, though, was so clever. Like the way they built it, the way it felt, the way it did, whatever. Right, yeah. Like you say, you can kind of explain, pull more from, from less, as it were, and appreciate it.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Well, I have the benefit of being a programmer, so I don't have to micro analyze all the game design. You know, I know that one of the questions I've been asking studios is like, so how do you facilitate, like community culture if it's like a remote position or something like that? And I'll ask about if you have game nights where people play games and some students are like, yeah, we had that for a bit, but it turned into a thing where we are all just like doing competitive analysis. And, you know, that's work.
You know, it's hard to get game designers to play games for fun because the brain's always on sometimes.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: We could be like that for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to, I like to think, I try very hard to tread that line, similar to you. Like, I try very much to appreciate. Appreciate games for what they're trying to do rather than judge them for what they're not.
Yeah, that can be tough sometimes. And I, I focus on it.
[00:45:27] Speaker B: I mean, like, even, even for myself and, and Factorio is probably about the, the closest analog to programming in a video game. Right.
And it, it was interesting and constructive for myself as a programmer to play that game because at a certain point I was like, you know, I'm spending too much time, like on this build for a certain part of it. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm playing a game. I'm doing this for fun. Like, if I want to make the build look nice, I should be able to do that. This is for Me like I don't have to do this fast, I'm not speed running or something. If I want to make it look good and it takes longer, I should do that. This is the point, this is why I'm playing.
So it was interesting to go through some of that for myself and that sort of thing.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that a lot.
So you kind of mentioned it a little bit earlier and I'm kind of trying to draw some threads here.
You mentioned add, right? As a thing that you're managing, that you're aware of.
How does that relate to, to this?
Does it relate to the problem solving area that you have? Does it relate to your, the focus on the way you work? Is it a superpower for the way.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: You work or a challenge A bit. Right. So I only really realized it was a thing and sort of got diagnosed like actually pretty late in life. So like maybe about five years ago, like maybe five or six years ago or we know or was it less?
I think yeah, so I think only like maybe, maybe like three or four years ago.
So before I started ADD medication I was pretty zombie like in the mornings, not a morning person.
So my first couple of hours would be pretty sluggish and would have a lot of coffee in the morning.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: And.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: So my mornings were not very productive.
But since being on Adderall, which is one of the stimulant ones, I am significantly more awake in the morning and I'm significantly more productive in the morning.
So that is much better for, for work because I'm better at that. But I um, once I finally got my like sort of dosage dialed in, it helps me stay focused on a task but not sort of hyper focus on it. Right. Because there's the, the, the trick of it is, you know, just like working on anything, it's like if I'm trying to develop a system, let's say, you know how much of it is I want to make this system perfect versus this is good enough and I should just move on to the next part of it.
There's a balance to strike there.
And with programming it's sometimes difficult because you know how much is this going, is this a thing where if I do it quickly I'm going to have to fix it later or it's going to have knock on effects where it's going to cause us, cost us time and money later.
So striking that balance is, is difficult at times and I think that's one of the useful and valuable skills to develop as a programmer is learning when to sort of how Deep to go down the rabbit hole, as it were, and how fast to go.
And it's a difficult thing at times.
And with add, it's like, it can be difficult to notice how long you're spending on a particular problem.
Time blindness is a real ass thing.
So one of the things I started doing, partly because of that and partly because my memory is not the best, I would look back at a week and go, wait, what the hell did I do on Monday? When I would be like, stand ups or something and be like, what, Wait, what did I do earlier this week? I would start writing down notes to like, just be like, all right, this day I worked on this and I worked on that and I worked on that. So I sort of developed this like, note taking habit. And it was super helpful not only to like, sort of accommodate for the time blindness, but to like, track how long I was working on a particular project or, you know, task or whatever and just like, sort of accommodate that part.
And then when I got on ADD medication, I was really good at it, so I, I got really good at it. And, and it was something of a superpower at that point. So I, I got to really dial it in and became, I think, probably pretty aware of it and was able to leverage that quite well.
But yeah, it's a push and pull. You know, it's the ability to, you know, like, there's sort of a lot of talk about context switching and the cost of that.
ADD is like, that it's switching. It's. It's useful in the. Its ability to like, jump back and forth between different parts of the problem.
But it's, it's tricky in that it's like, okay, but now I should check Slack. Oh, wait, but actually now I don't need to do that. Like, I had a co worker who was. Who is, you know, a bit less experienced than me, sort of like razz me a little bit for, like, not responding to his messages. And I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm working.
Yeah, yeah. But like, I, I had to like, whenever I'm. I'm setting up my new workstation or whatever, I'm like, okay, turn off all my Slack notifications. Turn off all this. Turn off all that. I, like, turn off all the audio parts of it. It's like, so, like, all I have is the badge not flashing. It's not anything. So, like, same when I, When I get to the point where I'm, okay, now, my attention's popping back over here. I can check, but it can't pull My attention because I already have enough of that going on upstairs on its own.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Very similar.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I'm, you know, I, I was, I'm a, I'm a scripter, I'm not a coder, but I can kind of, I think I can kind of correlate the satisfaction you get of like spinning those problem plates as you're trying to assemble something through code or through scripts.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: Well, I mean, scripting is coding. It's just at a different layer, you know, Like I, it's, it's for people.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: That are bad at maths. That's what it's for. They're like me doing lots of math here.
[00:52:41] Speaker B: So I don't know, sometimes people will try to like, make it a hierarchy thing or something like that, but scripting's programming. It's just using a different language to do it.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: I appreciate that. Yeah, I think it's definitely a very similar thought process you have to go through in terms of execution. And I think, you know, that, that, that's where I think it is a superpower. Right. Being able to have multiple things in your head and be able to kind of not only switch between them, but also correlate them, cross pollinate them. Right. Which is sometimes very bad when they're very abstract. Right, right. Because there is massive context switching. But I think when you're in it and you are effectively context switching within different contexts of the same problem space, that is such a superpower to be able to hold those things in your head and go, oh, no, it relates to this. Oh, I jump over this fold. I know I pull that from there. And you know, I think there is, there is some, some correlation there between people with ADD and, and the types of creative fields, but certainly in video games that the types of things, they're drawn to that sort of leverage that they're good at almost because they have this ability to kind of switch.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: And there's sort of a stereotype about engineers and, and their sort of neuro atypicality and, you know, engineers are a peculiar breed.
There's eccentric and unusual to some extent, and not always the most sociable and, and gregarious among them, but often very clever, often very bright and not always the most people. Smart, but often very nice. Not always, but often.
But I sort of.
The way I describe it to people is that the way that we communicate as humans is clumsy and ineffective and slow, but the way that an engineer communicates with the code, the way that they operate it and the way that they interface with it, with the IDE through Visual Studio or whatever, the computer doesn't slow you down.
That's why engineers tend to be very bright that way. They tend to work really well with code because the computer doesn't slow them down. But often communication but with other people slows you down because it's, you know, you have to try and figure out the right words and then when you communicate with them, you have to wait for them to understand and respond. And a lot of times there's, there's signal loss, as it were. But when it's just you and the computer, it's like, okay, we're, we're going fast.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. That's a great way of sort of correlating real life with, with the, the engineering life as it were.
So as we're kind of winding this down, a couple of, couple of other things I'm kind of curious about. You mentioned, you know, a sister who's kind of, you know, been drawn to video games and a brother that maybe wasn't. How does your family kind of relate to, to what you do and, and you know, what your day job?
[00:55:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they're, they're happy that I'm successful. They're, you know, proud of what I do. I don't think they terribly understand too much about it. They're not play games as much as, although my dad's an avid golfer, so he plays that game quite a bit. But yeah, they're happy that I'm creative, they're happy that I'm successful, they're happy that I'm enjoying my life and you know, all that sort of thing.
But yeah, I mean I think that's about as far as that is.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think I'm very similar. I think creative fields can be difficult for people to correlate like really relate to and especially technical fields. They, they are a little bit, yeah. Very nuanced.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Well certainly, I mean I have, you know, some aunts and uncles who are software developers themselves and they can connect it a bit. And yeah, you know, both my parents are accountants and you know, they're so, they're math minded technical people but like just games don't interest them.
I've had a lot of conversations in the last couple of years with my mom because she's, she does a lot of sewing and a lot of like quilting and that sort of thing. And it's been really interesting to talk to her about that as it relates to game development because she's very, very much about the, the Process, not the. The design of it. So as I've been talking to her about how she's making these quilts and all these different, like, patterns and that sort of thing, and, you know, like, it's been super interesting to like, watch her process and watch her, like, go through all that and to hear all the different aspects of it and sort of correlate different parts of how she does that with how I do different things with programming to, like, kind of draw some of those parallels. So that's been really neat.
[00:57:39] Speaker A: That's a fantastic real life.
[00:57:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: Cross pollination of, like, who you are, who you know, who you're mom is, and how you've sort of ended up doing different versions of a similar thing. That's. That's so cool.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: Yeah, she's great.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:57:55] Speaker B: No, it's been really cool.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you for your time, Paul. I think I feel like we've got a really good understanding of, you know, your path, but also who you are as a person, who you are as a developer and how those overlap, who you are as a gamer and how those kind of all overlap to make you as a person. I think that's really at the bones of what I'm trying to get out of this podcast. Right. Is I think. I think that sort of understanding of who we are as people, you know, that are behind all these games that we make. Right. Is complex and nuance. And we all have a similar, like Jones to make games. Right. We're all kind of Jones in to make video games. We all have a passion for video games, but our path and how we get there and who it and how we represent ourselves, you know, as developers is very different. And. And I feel like I've learned a lot about who you are and how you got what you got, so I really appreciate it.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for having me on, man.
[00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. Time and see you soon.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: See you then.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Cheers.
