Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Ahoy there. Welcome to Another episode of DevtoDev, the podcast about everyday video game developers and why they do what they do every day.
It's time for another exciting conversation with another former colleague and friend. Liam, would you like to introduce yourself?
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hi there. Yes. Liam McDonald. I'm a principal systems designer who's had the good fortune working with Alex for these past, what, four years? How many did we get?
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Something like that? Yeah. I think it was about four. Yeah, four and a bit.
That's very kind, thank you.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Excited to dig into your conversation.
I find several of these conversations with people that I know, but I don't really know. Like, when I look at your history, I'm like, oh, yeah, shoot. There's bits and bobs that you've done and things. So excited to dig into it. So I always like to kick off this conversation with my favorite question.
What first inspired you about video games?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: It was definitely the escapism, I think. Like, there's a clear sort of core memory I have about the first game that got me hooked. And actually, weirdly, before that game, my household was one of those, for those UK listeners, those sort of Tony Blair bandwagon of getting a computer in every home.
We had like an early BBC computer with floppy disks and Frogger on it. But I wasn't. I mean, that was a cool gimmick, but that wasn't what really hooked me.
It wasn't until I was in high school and I discovered a little game called Runescape that you could access on the school library computers at lunchtime and anytime you could sneak away from class.
And it was exciting, probably because it doesn't have some of the guardrails or it didn't at that time that modern games would have, like, there was an actual race for who had the top, like mining or smithing stat because the game was so early. So there wasn't this visible ceiling on the game and you didn't really know what the whole world was. There wasn't like those resources out there that told you this is the entire map and things. So, like, there was a lot more unknowns because of that lack of information.
And I think that escapism into that world and just that wonder of where the boundaries of where the boundaries of the rules of this game that I couldn't figure out was what really got me hooked. And there's some other early games in there as well, but that was the first key one, right?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: So that was the one that's sort of the most memorable one that really got you hooked. On video games in general.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, there's and there's others that had really formative experiences for me in different ways particularly like the social aspect or clan aspect. So I played a lot of. I didn't go down the common route. I wasn't a Call of Duty player. I was a Medal of Honor Allied Assault player.
So for anyone who's as old as me who was gaming this far back when one of the first sort of clan like websites cropped up for playing ranked matches. It was called Clan Base.
I was in like a medal von Allied Assault group that played in that played ranked matches and just that, you know, you're talking early days of MSN Ventrilo, like the first voice comms and stuff and it's just connecting with people who are in other parts of the uk. This wasn't even necessarily across to the US at this point. It was just like I'm speaking to someone in London, that's crazy.
And the organization of coming together is like, you know, I was 14, 15 year old kid and there's older gamers there obviously and coming together and competing together.
It was really exciting and felt so tangible and you know, way before esports and that was really like the groundwork for that.
So that was another big one because that brought in I actually one of the reasons that I moved to study in Sheffield later in life was because I met a group of friends through my very first gaming experience in Medal of on Isle d' Assault from Sheffield and they became lifelong friends.
Sort of best man at one of their weddings. So those are like really formative relationships in my life as well that grew out of that.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Wow, that's cool. So it was the escapism and then also multiplayer, but specifically competition. It sounds like that was a real drive for you.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that was. I just liked pushing things as much as possible. So. Oh, we could play, right? Let's do that and I'll. Yeah, I can get this organized, I can get this set up. I was quite fortunate in that I had an older brother who was really good with computers without any.
So it was just something natural to him. Like he took apart cameras when he was little just to see how they work sort of thing. He now does like electrical engineering on cars and stuff that goes to shows. But he was setting up like a whole network system in our house for how every computer could connect to it and be monitored with time lockouts and things like that when he was a teenager. So setting up a voice server and having our own game server running was Easy. He had his own servers running very early on. And actually we for a brief time had a hosting company that we put together.
And that was because I was so embedded in that sort of clan based community that had loads of contacts with people who would buy servers. And he had this capability to run servers and understand how they worked and get us into sort of data centers at that point.
And so for a brief period even did that.
And that was just like, oh, I could do that. So let's see what would happen if I did that.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: So you had your own little hosting company?
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: That's so cool.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and I think we were toying with the idea of like running our own sort of clan competition with sort of prizes of a server and things like that.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Huh. That is early esports.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, very early.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: So where does this happen? Where did you grow up?
[00:05:49] Speaker B: So Edinburgh.
I was actually born in Aberdeen but moved to Edinburgh very early, like 2 years old. So Edinburgh is my, is my hometown and that's where I grew up. It's where I went to school. And I didn't move away from Edinburgh until I went to university in Sheffield. So all of those early experiences were in Edinburgh. But again, once I was involved in that early multiple experience and having that clan, I was making trips to see people. People would come up here, we'd go away camping together. And so I moved schools a bit when I was young because I didn't really get on well in school. I struggled with focus. And so I didn't have like a core group of friends and they became that core group for me.
And it was interesting because what I learned later and sort of follows my path in video games is just that the way I learn and focus is just a bit different than maybe what's expected of you in school. And so I found it really hard. I got very bored very easily in class and I didn't see that, I didn't see the point of it. To me there was all this exciting stuff happening at home and with technology and none of that was present in school. Didn't have a computing class until like four years into my high school.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And so like you say with a brother who was, you know, into tech and building a lot of tech and you were kind of obviously similarly inspired by, by that side of things and didn't find that school.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're very, very different though in that he didn't play games at all.
He ever touched a game.
He had a completely different interest than, than I did, but it was an Interesting meeting of those interests.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah. That's cool. Kind of complemented each other.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Was it. Was your brother your only siblings? Do you have other siblings?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: No, two other siblings. So an older brother, an older sister and then a younger sister.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: And were they gamers at all or no?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Well, I have an early memory of my older sister loving Rayman and it was the only game I'd ever seen her play, but she loved Rayman. That's. That's about it. I think I was the only gamer in the household, really.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Right. And it said. And you sort of implied that maybe there weren't that many gaming school friends either.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I mean, not it. To be honest, we're talking so early here that like msn, this is the early messaging service, got around the school because I put it on like a hard disk and took it into class and started handing out hard disks with it and then suddenly everyone was on msn. So, like we're talking technologies in such an early phase that to have a computer, to have the know how on how to download that particular game and also connect to these things and then find the communities online, which is on set, and then have parents who are either willing to let you do that or not paying attention to you. It was quite a small pool at that time. So there wasn't a lot of gaming going on.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Right. And it sounds like it was predominantly PC then, Not a whole lot of console. Console gaming.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I did a bit of console gaming. I think that is probably more where the school gaming would come in. My memories of that are actually more from primary school than the N64 really. Like lots of Mario Kart, lots of Goldeneye.
That's the strange thing is that I have early memories of playing those games and I loved them, particularly GoldenEye multiplayer. GoldenEye did that to the wee hours, until the wee hours was 7pm but those never sparked an interest in me in doing something in games. I think it wasn't until I started playing games like RuneScape and Medal of Allied Assault that I found an interest. Those really fun things to do and I played a lot of them, but they didn't just scratch an itch in me, I don't think, and I don't know why. I've never like thought deeply about why that is.
I guess in some respects those were social experiences in themselves because you were in a friend's bedroom or your own bedroom, played a lot of Halo multiplayer, like Co Op, like going through all of those in the early Xbox was a big thing as well.
But yeah, again, those weren't things that, like, scratched that itch for me.
So I don't know if there's something about them being solo games or maybe it's.
Maybe it's the things that came along with the game, that extra little. There's a. There's a social aspect or there's a world you don't quite understand and you don't know the edges of, as opposed to these very contained experiences that those had.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And I get the impression you sort of.
One of the first things you said was, was playing with people in other towns, other parts of the country.
That's very different to playing locally.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Playing on the sofa.
I wonder if that's connected somehow, that, you know, there was sort of this mystery about the online world versus the local world. Maybe. I don't know.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: I think so. Well, I think it goes back to escapism, doesn't it? Because there I'm meeting people from all kinds of different walks of life and experiences and.
And also that never.
Because I didn't ever really get into the rhythm in school to form, like, those core friendship bonds. That was, in a way, my social community.
Like, I had quite normal experiences at school, you know, hanging out with groups of people, but I just. I always felt I didn't have the same experience as many other people were having and where. And maybe that's partly because I was invested in this. This, like, other online community as well.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's almost like that was your friend group.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: And was, you know, more evocative and more interesting maybe, than. Than the local friend group and, you know, to your point, kind of ties in with that escapism, that escaping from where you are to somewhere that you've never been.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: Interesting.
So just looking at your, your, Your school history, you.
You went to, you went to, you know, a couple of colleges and then you went to Sheffield, like you said, to study politics.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: But then took a shift, it says you took a shift away from that. So what inspired you to study politics? And then what inspired you to change?
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I had. I mean, I've always been interested in sort of current affairs. I was always watching the news, always following what the government was doing. News around the world from a young age. It's just something that interested me. And so I think I had a romantic idea about what studying politics would be. You know, cycling to class, going to lectures, learning things, debating things, and I went and studied in Sheffield. And that was not what it was like. It was, you be in three hours. And there's a large social life in town, which is maybe the larger focus of this experience. And that wasn't really what I was looking for or what I thought it would be.
And I'm not even sure necessarily that a career in politics or something related to politics degree would have been the right thing for me necessarily, because I've got a very active brain and I like a lot of autonomy in whatever I do. And I'm not sure if that had resulted in a very sort of structured, strict environment that necessarily would have been the right thing for me. But that's definitely what led me. There was this, like, not really understanding what I wanted to do and having like a romantic idea of studying at university and then that going on to be a Korean, because I've chosen this topic that's now what I am and why I will be. Like, there's this linear path.
Of course, what we discovered over the subsequent years is that we've got so many degrees in this country that aren't vocational at all, and people invest large amounts of money in studying them and don't end up with a career and sometimes have to restudy or move to somewhere else.
I hadn't learned that yet. I was sort of going through the system and I had to do quite a lot because I had that distraction at school and that disengagement. I had to go back and do like a nighttime English hire and do some extra stuff to get onto the course.
And I sort of stuck with it for as long as I could, thinking, really like, you have to do this. If you don't do this, you feel. It never entered my mind to go into the games industry. And even during that course of time, I did a test for the Royal Navy, thinking, well, maybe I'll join the Royal Navy, because I like being really active. I'd done officer training at university, so I'd been through that sort of selection process and program where you learn how to tear apart an SA 80 rifle and build it back up and all that kind of stuff. And so I thought, well, maybe I do like service.
I like being.
Giving to something else, giving to a larger cause of some kind of. And so I did the test and I was lucky enough that I got.
I very slowly went, what's the hardest thing to. To be able to do if you're going to do this test? Okay, I'll put on the application that I want to do that. It was like a communications technician, which is like, you know, intelligence or like counterintelligence on the ships and.
And then I passed and got that and I was on wait. It was then like a three year wait until you get called up. And then it was during that time that I was just doing a lot of like evaluating on what I wanted to do. And a friend of mine actually decided he was going to do a programming course. He'd actually been doing an accountant's course, Sheffield, and he pivoted to doing like a programming focus course.
And I just started thinking, well, could I actually work in Git? Is that actually something you can decide to do? Because that sounds a lot more fun. But then I almost had this idea that I didn't have the skills. I wasn't my brother. I didn't understand networks in the way that he did. I built computers myself from very early age. I understood how they worked and knew a lot more than other people with the experiences I'd had.
And I knew how to navigate the web and software very well. But I didn't feel like I had any of the core skills you might need to get into games.
And so that's what led me to do this H and D and computer games development course at Edinburgh College where back to my town, where it was giving you a smatter of experience in a lot of different areas. So you were doing a bit of programming, you were also doing animation, you're doing project management as well.
You were learning sort of everything through a bit 3D modeling. So the way I saw it was, well, I'll find out if I'm good at anything and then I'll do that thing was my plan, that was my strategy, if I had one.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Well, it sounds like you chose the right course for that if it gave you that broad, you know, an insight into different parts of the development process.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yes, I think so. I mean really the big thing that it did for me is it helped me understand a bit more about. Because now I'm older, right, And I am like most people are moving into their careers maybe and I'm now at an age where actually I care about learning what I'm learning. So I'm far more engaged in the education process. But I've also learned that I'm not someone who can take a textbook, go away and learn something.
My elder sister actually was great at that. She was one of those people who just knew how to sit an exam, you know, very well, didn't have to be engaged in the subject, but knew how to sit exam, you know, she was good enough that got into a private school and the rest of us Didn't. And she was just academically very good because she could do the mechanics of it very well and I never could and therefore thought, well, I'm therefore not good at education because I can't do the mechanics of it.
Whereas what I learned was I'm actually someone who's better engaged face to face, where I need to be able to ask little questions and have that conversation between two people.
And so being in class and in that course setting where you're doing a lot of group stuff together, but you're in a lot of classes every day, a lot of different classes, and it's about learning and learning from scratch was exactly what I needed. And I also had some fantastic teachers there as well, who really helped sort of inspire me into, like, a move into what would become, like, a career.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: Got it. Okay. So you kind of found your way to Game Dev as, and it suited your way of being and your way of learning and your way of thinking.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
And there was a lot of stuff going on in the periphery to that as well, which all sort of. I feel like lots of different.
I sort of became energized and started doing a lot of different things at once over the. Over my time during that course. So, like, I.
I started like, a game content channel called Game Canon, which, with a friend of mine which did tutorials.
Initially it was tutorials on how to get data crons on Star Wars.
Was it the New Republic? It wasn't the old Republic because that was the older one. It was the newer Star wars game. And it was just like the data cons were the collectibles that were in hidden locations. And we just said, oh, well, we'll just do a gate hall these. And because it was the hit thing, they got tons of views.
And then because we got tons of views, we were able to get, like, access to places so we could go to different conventions under the guise of like, well, we're sort of media. Right.
And did some, like, interviews with people as well. So I was doing that while on the course. And then also I was weirdly like an ambassador for Asus, you know, the hardware company. They were looking for, like, games ambassadors and technology ambassadors. And I did that, and that got me to a few conventions as well, and some hardware prototypes and things like that. So just engaging in all these different things, trying to find the thing that really worked for me and where my place was in this industry that I wanted to join.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: And so it sounds like you very much had the sort of the bug to get into the Industry. At that point, you were very keen to, like you said, trying to find your way.
I want to ask you one quick question about the European computer driving license.
What was that?
[00:20:33] Speaker B: It was something you could do in the core. I think it was a government initiative to be like, well, this means you've hit a certain level with computers that we will recognize and will be understood among stall companies that you're proficient in this way.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: And so I just sort of did.
It's like, okay, seems simple enough.
It was just a tiny module you could do very quickly though, right.
But yeah, that is a blast of the past because I completely forgotten that existed. Of course, I threw it on my CV as well. They said it could be useful.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: The government said I would need it.
Yeah. Okay, so you're studying sort of game dev with a very broad development palette.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Which is really great that there was a course like that. And then you're also working, doing this kind of ambassador thing for Asus and doing your website.
Um, how do you transition from doing that into the industry and finding your place? How did that happen?
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Well, so on that course I was making.
Everything I made was truly terrible. I've got, I mean, I'll, I'll share, I've still got some of the files, I think, on this computer, so I'll share some of them with you Afterwards. I got very bad animation that I did about a stick figure looking through a telescope at the moon.
I did like a terrible game in Unity with just awful textures about unlocking doors with a tool you have to pick up.
I did a terrible model somewhere, although that was actually kind of good in the end because I did a model for these wireless joysticks that you could hold in your hand so you could use both hands at the same time and every control was accessible. And then like several years later, they came up with VR headsets that have exactly the same kind of control. I was like, see, I didn't know the use case for them, but I designed them already.
But so I was completing all that stuff and I was coming to the end of this two year course and I realized that I had to make a decision over whether I go and do as my friend was doing and studying this course at university. I could go back down to Sheffield.
I could go into the same course, you know, a few years back from him. I could go on a different course, like an art course, or I could try and find a design course, or I could try and get a role in the industry. And I didn't know what to do. And I was looking at jobs, but it was very hard because I was very much in. I knew at that point that I wanted to be involved in game design and that was just because I always had ideas about games and about the way mechanics worked and things I'd like to see. And that was really where my creative passion was, as I said. Never really had the technical interest. I think I developed that actually more as I. As I got involved in the industry, but initially it was more in the design and the wonder of like the world and the possibilities that you. The agency that you're giving over the player and what they can do. And so what I did quite late on was I used the credentials I had through our game canon YouTube channel to get media access to E3 and actually just like flew out there and attended and. And went to E3 and sort of interviewed developers. But from the point of view that, well, I mean, it's nothing to do with media. I'm a student who's thinking about getting into industry. What I literally just asked, what would your advice be? I've got. I'm at this crossroads where I have these two choices of I could do further study and I could go in. What would you do? And.
And overwhelmingly the answer was join a studio, learn in the process of being at a studio. And so the longer I was spending there, the more invested I was in that. I need to find a job. I need to find a job. That's what I want to do. It means I can get straight into the industry, hit the ground running and develop and grow and build within a studio. And so that's what my focus was coming out of, coming out of E3 and finishing up the course. And I managed to find a role just at the sort of end of the course. It was my first job in the. In the industry as a junior programmer.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Right, interesting. So that's incredibly brave, right? To jump on a plane and go to E3.
What year was that? What E3 was that?
Oh, do you remember?
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. I know.
Elite and Dangerous was showing.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Okay, Right. We were probably at the same E3.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Probably, yeah. That's around. That's the right time. I was living in California, so yeah.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: I'll have to look it up. I'll find out after.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: So. So you just got on a plane, you flew to E3 under the. You already knew you were going to go there under the proviso of trying to get advice on how to join the industry. Was that. Was that your plan? Or did that kind of come to you when you were there?
[00:25:41] Speaker B: No, that was my. Like I set up meetings, like media meetings. This is so like cloak and dagger media meetings under the channel. And I had a list of questions to ask, but I was also.
So, like when I went to those, I wasn't asking that question, but I was going up to every. Because of course every booth is manned by the developers, right? They didn't have loads of staff there who were just there to show the game it was the developers, like didn't really matter how big the game was.
And even if they did have a few helper staff, the developers all had developer hoodies on. So you knew exactly who the developers were.
And so I mostly did it like that in my walking around time as I just go up and I just strike up the conversation and just drill into what they did, where they were located, even did they have any openings, like, what would you do in this if you were in my situation? And I mean I find this across my career is that developers in our industry are always super keen to give advice and lift people up and they just loved being able to talk about their journey and how it worked for them. And like an overriding theme of that was often luck and strange paths and there wasn't often direct routes. You do sometimes see it, but there wasn't often direct routes. I mean, one of the reasons there isn't direct routes is probably because in some areas there's not as much of an engagement with the education system as there could be from the industry side.
I understand it partly because it's a complex problem that you need to devote resource to to make work. But you know, as an example, I was on a two year course at Edinburgh College that had been running for a while and you've got Rockstar north centered in the city and there was like no placement opportunities that you could access and we're like the only games course really running in the city. And so there's a massive opportunity where you think, why isn't there like an established like internship program where, you know, a few of you on the course every year gets to spend some time just seeing your studio on the inside.
And it's very hard, I think, for the lecturers to orchestrate that without like willingness on the other side. It's not so much true in Sheffield, where I know that the friend I was talking about did an internship at Sumo, which is based in Sheffield. So there are places where that kind of connection exists. And that proved very fruitful because he went to go on and work there for several years.
And I think that happened quite a lot where they had an influx of students then that were hired. So it does benefit the studio once you've worked out that time sink and how to manage the process.
But yeah, that's.
That I didn't, I didn't necessarily have that right at the gate. So I was seeking those answers when I was speaking to people.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah, man, that's impressive to just. And it's not like you went, you know, an hour down the road, you like flew to California, just. I mean, I don't blame you. E3 was incredible. But yeah, that's super impressive that you did that. And so. So you came back from that inspired to find a role and that landed you a job at Failbetter.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I also had loads of swag, by the way, because if you do. This is a pro tip. If you do media interviews, you get a bag of swag. Yes, I was like. And thank you very much.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Thank you advice and thank you for your T shirts.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Thank you for your T shirts and many battery packs for some reason.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: And so you joined as a programmer.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: So you said design was kind of. You'd sort of already settled that design was where you wanted to be, yet you joined as a programmer. How did that. How did that happen?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Well, I mean, one answer is it's what they were advertising for.
But the other answer is that, like, what I realized at that time, they're just. You did not see entry level or even many like game designer job adverts, like, as a vocation. It just wasn't as visible.
And I don't know if that's because, like, that was held in like the director's hands or the owners or whether there was just fewer roles and it was other people who'd ascended to that through other roles. I'm not sure. But like, it just became very apparent to me that trying to get in as an entry level game designer was hard and hard to really differentiate yourself as a candidate at that point.
I felt that way. And the other route obviously was qa, but the way I felt about qa, and this is very unfair to people who are great at QA because I've worked with some fantastic QA people who. That is their profession and they are great at it. But a lot of people also go into QA as an entry level into the games industry in the hope to move horizontally.
And it was something I was considering at that time, but it felt like the obvious and done thing. And so in interviews you would have to hide the fact that your interest wasn't solely about QA because they were sort of guarded to that. And I didn't really like that because I tend to be, I'm even to this day quite brutally honest in interviews to the point that I will say, oh, if you're looking for this, that's not me. Just straight into just like just kill myself. And in an interview from the process, because I'm very much like, well, what's the point in getting a role if it's not going to work and if I'm going to be worried about inadequacies all the time. And I'm worried enough about that, I don't need to like make it harder for myself. So.
So I didn't really want to want to go down a QA route when it was an interest sold. The thing about programming was that I had done a lot of it and I had got like a satisfaction out of it when code works. I love that. Like I definitely got bit by the programming bug in terms of, of just like I wrote and this isn't a good thing because it's bad program, but I wrote like 4,000 lines of code for a group project which we decided rather than making one game as a group, I said let's all make a game and tie it together into like you can pick from between four games. And so I did the menu system, I said do your game here and I'll get it all together in a master master profile and I'll connect it all together and it'll work and I'll reset everything and it'll be fine. There's an absolute nightmare. But it was a really great learning experience and sort of stood out as being very different maybe from what people would do. So I did like programming. I just didn't think I was very good at it. But then I thought, well, it's a junior role, so it's learning on the job and feel better. Games where I'd applied, they're very small indie studio and they had just gotten like Kickstarter funding for their debut title, Sunless Sea, which at that point in the Kickstarter they had shown it as like turn based combat. It was like a sort of a top down 2D roguelike game. And so I thought, well, they're quite a new studio, it's a junior programming. One of the things they mentioned was there's a lot of QA that needs to be done anyway. There's some bug fixing. We need someone who can help with the support tickets because they had this math unlike many other games. Maybe they had this massive community who was like onslaught with information because they were, they were going like straight into early access to really leverage their testing, which is very smart but also creates this huge burden.
So I just thought that there was enough there that even if I wasn't great at programming, there'd be so much else to do and I could learn by fixing little bugs and get better.
That's why I thought it was a role that I could be suited for.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Interesting. So you picked up, like you said, you picked up enough programming to feel confident enough to be able to be a programmer, professional programmer as it were, but you were still kind of trying to find a spot within the company that would, that would really suit you.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean I think at that point I really did think I would like I'm pegging myself into programming and I'll develop as a programmer. And I don't, I don't think I had a strategy at that point for design. I think design was a passion and I looked at it and said I don't think I can join anywhere as a designer. I want to move into the industry. It's what all the advice has said. I need, I just understood I needed to have value. I needed to find a role that gave me value and programming was the one thing that felt like I could do and I could get better at.
And so, yeah, so I sort of saw myself at that point as a, as a programmer and sort of locked into that, at least initially and without really an idea about design anymore at that point it's sort of maybe let that drift away as well. That's something I love. But again it's this thing of, well, you can't actually do design in video games at that point.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The amorphous, obscure profession of design.
So, so you're, you're at Failbetter for, for, you know, while like over four years. How did that transition go? So you joined as an entry level programmer. How did your sort of transition through the company go?
[00:34:56] Speaker B: I mean, so what I did was again, this comes from.
I had this ethos of. They have given me this great opportunity of my first job and I was very fortunate actually because my dad worked in London. He'd work in London during the week and travel back home at the weekend.
So he actually had a flat off Pudding Lane next to the Great Fire of London Monument. And so I was very lucky in that I could do this role and stay somewhere long Enough to see how it developed without having to find a way to live in London, which is a whole challenge in itself and something I had to contend with very quickly afterwards. But it allowed me to just get a foot in London and start that process. I was incredibly lucky, really. And again, that comes back to those developers who talk about luck. You know, that was in entire. I mean, there's many things that were bad luck about my dad working away from home all week as I was growing up as a child, but at least at that point it became something that was useful.
So what I did when I started the role was they had this flood of support tickets and so I started answering them and I started collecting the information into bug reports and saying, well, writing auto responses, oh, well, these all relate to this bug. So I'll write a response for that bug that's a macro that I can then just auto reply to those and just start clearing out the tickets and also cataloging things into bugs.
And then, then there was roles within that of, well, go and have a look in the code, see what, see if you can see what the problem is. And then sort of just evolved from there to, okay, well, now let's get you working on a feature. So they were really good at like ramping me up and onboarding me. And I think they, because I was very frank with where I was at and my experience that I'd had, they understood that. Well, that just the dealing with that support side and having someone who has the sensibilities to understand how to not only clear out that information and be courteous and be responsive and care about your fan base and make them feel like they're listening to, but to also, like, pull out the really crucial information you need as a team and as developers that you can action on was very valuable.
And I learned a lot working there about how to work with a community as well.
I think one of the things that stuck with me, I can't remember who it was who said it there, and I'm sure you've heard this before, but I mean, I don't know if I've said it to you before, but is that when players are complaining about something, they're almost always wrong about what they're complaining about, but they're almost always right that there's something wrong.
And due to just the volume of stuff that we were getting, that was almost always true. There was constant complaints around areas, but it didn't mean this. Often they'd come up with a, well, you should do this, or you know, it's a problem because of this. And that was almost never right, but it was always right that we kept getting complaints around this area and we need to look at it and address it in some way as designers and as developers.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting and it's fascinating to me that you landed a role at a company that was in that at that time, 2014, very new world of, of public funding.
That feels like it ties really well to the comment you made earlier about wanting to be part of something bigger and kind of, you know, being conscious. That feels like there's a good correlation there to me. I don't know if I'm reaching there, but it feels like there's a good sort of overlap between who you are, maybe why you responded so well to that environment because it feels that it kind of connects with who you are as a person.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Definitely there was that, but there was also something else that I quickly realized that the people I were working with had some really great design brains. And it's a small team that were very talented in many different ways, but they had lots of great design brains there across all disciplines. But they also had, and I think people like sleep on Failbert games quite a lot. They are, I think that the best, have some of the best writers in the UK games industry, they have some of the best narrative design in the UK games industry. And I think sometimes it's been a little inaccessible in the way that it's presented in the games. And I think over the time I spent there, really it was a journey of how do we make the games more accessible for people who aren't necessarily those kind of people who can want to sit and read a lot of that narrative. Although that's a big, a big part of it, particularly the early games. But it was always like, how can we inject meaningful story and choices in more consumable chunks while also having the long form narrative as well because, you know, you're a small game again. So a lot of it is through dialogue. But I just think I just was immediately impressed with like the writing and the talent there and it felt like something that not many other studios had this quality and I, I just thought if we can just get this right in a game, it will be huge. And I know that they're working now on Mandrake, their next title, and it is looking really, really good and it feels like that might be the promise game that I was always driving towards. Although all the others that we worked on were massive successes. But I always felt like there was this diamond of getting everything to just click just right in terms of the mechanic and the way that narrative was delivered and the gameplay, how chunky it felt. And I was always pushing for like what I really wanted was like a 3D environment.
And they've now just made a big transition to that in Mandrake.
So I'm really excited by the work they're doing still.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: That's cool. Sounds like a great company to kind of get your feet into the industry with and sort of give you great experience.
So you were there, like I said, for about four years.
You end up kind of leaping lead programmer, you know, on. On some projects.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's an interesting one actually that like the, the journey there because I. So I was junior programmer on Sunless Sea and by the end of development I was implementing features and doing a lot of like really chunky coding, but I was also doing like the distribution on like Steam and Gog and liaising with them and managing the builds and then the support staff. And I also did some QA on like a little title we worked on with Bioware, Dragon Age, the Last Court, which is very early on in my time where we just had like one writer on it and I did some qa, but Sunlessly it had this arc. And in their Kickstarter for Sunless Sea, one of their stretch goals was they commit to doing an expansion, Submariner. But as a studio they wanted to move on to developing an app for their browser game which really was like before the Kickstarter for Sunset the Sea, it was the revenue earner and it was the monthly revenue earner Fallen London. That's the sort of IP that all of their games, the world that it sits within is Fallen London. And so they as a studio wanted to move on to that, but they needed to fulfill this commitment. And so I was put on that as like the only programmer, you know, obviously had help when I needed. There was only two other programmers really there, but I was put on that. And so. But I not only got to do the programming and then also all the build stuff I've been doing before, but also got to do a little bit of design, enemy design and stuff and just have more of a say in the conversation about what we were building because there was fewer of us doing it and less resource on it. But it wasn't, I mean, I think listed in the titles I was still like programmer. But then it wasn't until afterwards where like my. My manager said, well, well, you know, you were a lead programmer on Submariner and I Was like, was I. You know, because that's. That's the. That's the we thing, is that. Yes, I was. That was what I did. But I was still so early in my career that I didn't say, oh, well, I feel like I should be lead programmer in the. In the title screen. I mean that. To be honest, the credits were the last thing from my mind. I was just like, we have to ship this game. It has to work. It has to not put egg on the company's face while they're doing this other thing. And I feel like, really responsible for making sure that works. So I really burnt myself out doing that and achieving it. I was very proud that it was held in even as close to high regard as Sunless Sea, but I just felt like that was what I needed to do as part of that paying back the company for the opportunity that I had.
And then when we transitioned onto Sunless Skies, it was the full team then, because the app hadn't worked out the way they'd hoped, it sort of faltered and was shut down. And so Sunless Skies was kickstarted again. I mean, failbar games again. When it comes to crowdfunding and Kickstarter, they have an impeccable record and they deliver and they're. And they're great with the community as well, but they always just meet their goals so fast.
And so, yeah, so we're backed for that. And so that became a big part of what I was doing. And I was again taking on more design tasks. In amongst, it was sort of. I became a programmer, a bit technical designer, bit of design as well, because I was pushing for that.
But I'd made the decision for the end of Sunless Skies that I needed to move. I needed to. It's so hard in a small indie studio to move roles. There's.
It's. Most stuff's already covered and the people above me are like directors. And so there's very little movement, so you really need to enjoy what you're doing. And I just realized that if I want to move into game design, I have to move into game design. And unfortunately, I would have loved to stay there for a long time, but I just. I felt like I had to do it for my career at that point.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Right. And so is that what took you to PlayStation places, you know?
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what took me to PlayStation. So this was like a. It was with Sony Manchester, but I was working out of the London office, so there was like a core team of like the sort of studio heads and Then three designers who were all hired at the same time as me and two other designers and the rest of the studio were based in Manchester, which is kind of weird setup, but that was a project where I was so excited to be able to land and get like a senior game designer role that I don't. I didn't have a good grasp on what I was setting myself up for. And it wasn't until we started that we realized, well, none of us had been shown the game prior to or really being told much about the game prior to joining. And we all three of us very quickly realized that it was a title that had been in development for like five years and had some problems with it and was maybe struggling a bit. There was really old documentation and many different directions that wasn't unified in things.
And so I was coming from this indie environment where I was like, you don't have time to mess about. This is everyone's salaries and their livelihood on the line. If there's something that needs to be discussed, you need to discuss it. And so I was like working in Unreal and building missions for them and stuff. And I start having these, like trying or trying to have these fundamental questions about the game and how the you want the player to feel. There was some. Obviously I can't talk about it because it's under NDA, but there's some aspects of it where the main mechanic of the game is obviously VR tile. You get in this position and then the main action is happening behind you and you can't actually see it. So you're completely removed from this tense moment of the game. And I was trying to have conversations around, well, how do we change that? Are there like HUD displays where you are so that you can see the action and then you can make decisions as things start to go wrong.
Like, how is the sound design playing into, like the claustrophobia of the player and the environment versus the sounds and the action that's going on external to this environment that they're contained within.
And I was trying to push all these things to try and churn this into something that people could like rally behind and galvanize. But I think through that process, it probably came across as abrasive. Like, why are you questioning the designs of this game? Why are you, you know, and because I was having conversations. We had one meet up in Manchester with the team and I was like, well, this is my only chance to talk to the team. So I was saying, what do you think we need to address this and how do you feel about that.
And so it just quickly became apparent that the people running that project, the reason it had been languishing for five years was because, like, the.
Had an inability to address this stuff. And it didn't really matter how much I pushed at the door or tried to have those conversations, it wasn't going to work. And so I just realized, like, again, I was in this. I don't want to waste time if this isn't, if this isn't what I should be doing. I need to go and do the thing I should be doing.
And so that's when I started this long application process that was me joining Zos Cinemax online studios and moving. And of course, like that, Sony Manchester ended up, they closed down, I think, four months later, like, kind of understandably for a project running that long. But, like, it was so unfortunate because when I was there, I felt like, you have, you're at the heart of Sony, you have all the backing you need.
They had a VR studio in there doing Blood and Truth, which was so good, which is so interesting, and had loads of expertise in how to execute a VR game. And I, I, because I met with some of the people there, like, I was going out and emailed them and say, hey, I'm. Can I meet for lunch? And I said, and I didn't understand why we weren't having a conversation with them about how to build a VR game. Like, but we just weren't. And it was. So it was all those fundamental things that just didn't feel right to me.
But yeah, so then, so then I got into this sort of application process which was kind of like, at that point I was like, well, just cast my net everywhere. I was at a point in my life where I didn't had a partner, but I didn't have kids and I could sort of do anything at that point.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: And so you, you land a role in America in Maryland and you take you and your partner over there.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, here's the thing. By the time, by the time I get to that point, I have a kid, and your kids a lot more complicated. Yeah, but, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it just sort of, it was one of those things where I looked at, well, what studios would I like to work for? And like I said, well, love to work for, you know, studio behind Skyrim. And then you look into the company that owns like, Bethesda, oh, Zenimite, oh, they've got lots of shields. And then you look into, oh, they're doing Elder Scrolls online. And then you start looking at the opportunities and so that's how I found it.
And yeah, it was like that's possibly something I could do. And then so I applied and I got a reply and they want to speak to me and I probably credit most of it down to. And this is quite often been the case is that there's usually someone who knows or is passionate about like sunless sea or sunless skies as a manor or they know something about fail better games and the kind of work they do and that's enough to start a conversation and then hopefully they like me and the way I talk about games and it progresses from there. But yeah, like I, I had to fly out for what was a full day of interviews which is like literally 9am to 5pm had lunch in the middle which was nice.
But yeah, it was just back to back interview with everyone on the team. It was just like daunting. Daunting, like an exhausting day.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and the, you know, having done that myself, that, that, that burden's the wrong word. That pressure you feel when you're taking a job in another country and you're kind of moving not just yourself but your family over there. Right. That's a huge. Puts a lot of pressure on you as a developer, as an employee to show up and do a good job.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean the real scary thing you realize is how easily people are let go in the US compared to the uk we have notice periods that are sometimes quite generous and you tend not to have that in the US and you're talking about a situation where you're really uplifting your whole life. You're selling a property, you're packing all your stuff into a container and shipping it around the world. I moved two cats as well as a kid.
It's like a huge cost. And also that here's the other thing that usually when you take these kind of roles, there's relocation support but you have to work for a certain period or pay back either in full or half some of the relocation. So there is a real pressure to like not fizzle out in this role straight away. So, so and everyone around you, of course your, your partner and your kid, they're supporting you, they've done on this. But at the same time you're still, it's not as if, well, oh, you've got the role, you're doing the job now, why aren't you happy? There's a huge amount of pressure still on you to then make that work. And that becomes something you have to balance in your Relationship of understanding each other. That kind of. You're both quite stressed by the process that that has been.
And that's just one of the things that, you know, when, if you see this discourse online about, you know, on site jobs and remote jobs and why people might be like reticent to go on site, it's because of things like this. And especially for me now I have children's school and you know, they've got clubs and friends and I just wouldn't move them or I just, I couldn't, particularly for my kids because of how they work and how they settle and how transitions impact them.
But you have to factor this and everyone's different and that isn't an issue for some people. You know, you got families who were raised by parents in the army who move bases all the time and we had people like that who came into our school and things. And so like that works for some people, it doesn't work for others. There's no one rule fits all.
But it feels like in the industry remote has a big place that we should accommodate. And actually as we talk about how my time went at Zenmax Online Studios, the majority of it ended up being remote and I certainly don't think it impacted my role or how I developed in that role at all. And now I'm in a position where unfortunately, although I moved to London for games and I moved to Maryland for Zos, I'm now back in, in Sheffield where I live and I, I'm not in a position where I can move even two hours away because of everything. It would sort of unsettle on, on the family side.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's a big part of. Right. Making games is complicated and hard and challenging and draining and also awesomely fun and incredibly fulfilling.
But it's not just, you know, in many situations, it's not just you, the developer that that affects, right. It's your family. And that's true of any job, right? No, there's no, there's very few jobs that people do that don't have, you know, some ripple effect in your home life.
But I think a creative role like this, like game development, especially now that it is so global, you know that there is so many developers around the world, there's so much cross pollination between developers in different countries that ripple effect out into families based on the role you take, the way that role goes, how that company succeeds or fails is such a human element of video games, I think rarely gets. I mean we've all heard of EA Spouse, right? The most extreme example of relationship being affected by game development. But I think there's everyday pressures and your story of having to make that shift for an incredible opportunity, but the impact that it has on you as a family, I think is, you know, is an important part of the story.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: And I guess you also made that move back as well, didn't you, because you were at ZeniMax for, you know, just over a year and then you guys moved back to Sheffield, so you sort of reversed that trip and came back.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Came, absolutely, because I joined on. Well, I think I flew out on like New Year's Day 2020, and I think it was three months later the pandemic hit and so we went into lockdown and.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Yeah, so you've made that move and then you were locked down. Wow.
[00:56:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the. And the problem with lockdown is that it wasn't so much that I wasn't seeing the colleagues because they did a great job of transitioning us all to remote working very quickly, incredibly efficient machine in that regard, and that it's testament to, like, the maturity of that studio at that time that they could do that.
But the problem was that we couldn't socialize, so my partner couldn't go out and meet people or establish any kind of life there. I struggled as well, although I had the work colleagues, which at least was something.
But also we couldn't fly home because there was just so many changes to the rule. I mean, at times the flights were just not running and then there were so many changes to the rules where no one could give you a definitive answer if you would get back in or not. Family couldn't fly out because of the rules. And so just. And we waited and waited and waited. And in the end we just said, look, if we don't have a definitive answer about when these restrictions are going to end by this date, we're going to have to go to ZeniMax and say, you know, I expected to be here for the lifetime of the project, but due to these circumstances I have to go back. So. And I had to pay a chunk of my relocation back because of that and then also fund my relocation. So it was like, like a really difficult thing.
But the good thing about it was is that I moved to this role at the Multi Cloud group who were being contracted onto the project. So essentially my job and role never changed. I was just able to come back to the uk, work remotely still, as everyone was doing.
And then a year and a bit later I was actually rehire directly Once Zos had found out a way to hire through their UK entity employees.
I think you blazed the trail for me on that one, so thank you.
Because. Because it was a big thing for me is being, you know, I've said this to you before, but I like to join a studio and be there for a long time. I want to be invested this, you know, I want to be part of that journey that they're going on. And I don't really. I'm not someone who likes to necessarily hop around for new opportunities. I like to pick opportunities that are exciting, not just for project that they're doing, but for the potential of the studio and what. What their sort of culture and ethos is. And so being back there was. Although it didn't change my job in any way, it was sort of important to me.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You kind of got to rejoin the company that you were investing your, your time and career in.
Yeah. And so that. That sort of brings us up to. To the present.
We're already running close on time, so I want to. I want to kind of just. Just transition slightly to a few. Few of my sort of more personal questions that I like to kind of dig into. So. And we've already sort of scratched at this with the, you know, with the move that you've. You've done with your family. Like, how does your family relate to your role and what you do?
[00:58:57] Speaker B: I don't. I think my. My elder son is actually engaged in it more now and he's quite likes looking over my shoulder, how things are built and likes to ask questions about it. I think my partner prefers my time over my job. And this is the difficulty is that, like, for so long in, you know, school and, like, education, I just didn't know what I want to do. And when I don't have a focus, I think I struggle and I need quite an occupying force in my life to just even everything out. So having a role that I'm passionate, doing something that I care about and passionate about is, like, critical for me and being quite a balanced person. So that's something where, although I think my partner would be quite happy if I was doing something else, that was a more regular 9 to 5 and I had a bit more time.
I know what I need in order to. Just for my own mental health, to be a successful human, to be a good dad.
And it's not full of sight. Like, as I say, my dad was away all during the week and came back on a Friday and was there for a few Days I do drop off and pickups and weekends are just two days with the kids.
Family life is big and important to me. But obviously working in us, your hours are more flexible, you miss some meals.
It's a different routine than people working 9 to 5.
But I think it's worked. I think it works out. You know, you have to find a balance between people's needs and your family's needs and your family's interests. And of course it affords you opportunities for experiences for your kids. Being in America for a very young age and having some of those like early memories and us even being able to do that at all. Right.
And obviously the kind of opportunities that come up when you, when you launch a game as well and the excitement of sharing something that is public then. Although for some people that doesn't happen just due to bad luck.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
And how is being a game developer changed you as a gamer?
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, I think I game a lot less, but I don't know if that's because I'm a game developer or because I have two children because I'm very economical with my time now. Like I've got. So I just feel like my time is a pie that I'm constantly cutting up where I also have like friends now. I have like a core, you know, I don't exist in how I did as a teenager with an online community.
I have colleagues usually who are my online community in a way. I have a core group of friends here and I, you know, play D and D with them, I play football with them.
We try and go out, we struggle because everyone's got kids now and I've got got time with my partner and time with my kids. And then so when I do game, it's usually with those friends and it's the games that they have or interested in and they are not like they're not PC gamers. So it's typically console titles.
And that also goes back to like how I interface with games though, in that, like, I like to be very directed. Like if I'm working on something, I love to have like a couple of comps and go and play them with some aspect of them in mind.
I'm not someone who relies on having played 10 roguelike games and being able to, off the top of my head, pick apart the what was good about that, bad about that. I'm very. It goes back to that college learning again of like the focus and being able to dial into something and not having those tools of the academic recall. Like I'm Just not equipped with that kind of memory recall. I like to have a very targeted task where I go, I know these things are relevant to me and I really want to pick them apart and understand them.
So I tend, when I'm engaging in games, it tends to be more for those reasons, like there's something driving in the thing I'm currently working on that will benefit from them or it's an opportunity to spend some time with friends. It's very rare I get to just enjoy a game for the sake of enjoying a game nowadays.
[01:03:15] Speaker A: That's interesting. So, yeah, so it's either tying back to that, being able to play online and connect with friends, or like you say, it's part of almost research to keep connected with what you're working on.
Okay, last question. How has been a game developer changed you as a human?
[01:03:31] Speaker B: I think it's helped me understand myself better. I think because of the journey I've taken, it's helped me understand how to balance like priorities and my family life better.
It slowly. Everyone still suffers from imposter syndrome, but it's helped me slowly understand what I'm good at and the value I have and can bring.
And that's why I said to you earlier on, very honest in interviews now, because I know exactly what I can do well and how I can support a studio and if that's what they're looking for, great. And if it's not, I can tell you exactly what you should be looking for because I have that sensibility of I know what you need to make that succeed again. That comes from the indie environment of understanding what pushes a project forward and where focus has to be at a particular point in development and getting to the line and delivering and delivering something stable and well. And so I'm very quick. And again, you look at the VR experience I had where it was just like I could see what could help and I could see what wouldn't help and I could see practically what was going to happen here.
And so I think it's helped me understand myself and my value in a way that for so long I was like, well, I can't do these things or I can't do that, or I don't know what I can do now. I think I have a much better understanding of my sort of qualities.
[01:04:55] Speaker A: I think that's a wonderful answer because it sort of does. It sort of Cora. It reflects back so interestingly on how you started your career. Right. You started your career very unclear about where you wanted to be, what you wanted to do. You know, you were passionate about games and making games, but how you were going to do that was. Was still forming. And it feels like you've got to a point now where that's formed very succinctly well, in your head. And that's a testament to the journey you've taken and the risks you've taken and the opportunities you've grabbed. So, yeah, I think that's a great human story about what it's like to build a career in video games.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Hopefully it's one that other people can share and identify with, because certainly I feel that there's a couple of common traits there that I hear from other people. And it just is great when people find themselves in our industry. It feels that's often the journey of people entering the industries. You can tell that there's someone who might be trying to find themselves in some way or have some reassurance about what they think they can bring and want to do. And that's where I think the uplifting point I said was about where we, as seasoned developers are eager to just help solidify those new entrants into our industry and say, no, there's a place for you in this space and you're good at what you're doing and you will learn, you will grow and you'll find where you're supposed to be.
[01:06:23] Speaker A: Agreed. That's a great way of signing off. Thanks, Liam, and thank you for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation and yeah, thank you.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: No problem. Thank you.
