Dev to Dev S01 E12 - Zachary Markham

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everyone. 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, ready for another conversation with a former colleague and friend. I got it the right way around. If you've listened to last week's episode, that will make you giggle, hopefully. Zach, would you like to introduce yourself? [00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah, my name's Zach Markham. I'm a senior software engineer. Been working in the games industry for about six years now and before, like doing some other engineering pieces. But yeah, feels still quite early in that kind of games industry career path. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, which is why I'm excited to dig into this, Zach, because I think you've got a really interesting career that's still forming, like you said, but still got some really interesting history. And yeah, we've worked together for a while and I feel like we know each other, but we're always with these conversations, I feel like there's more to learn and more to dig into. So. So as always, my favorite question to start things. What first inspired you about video games? [00:01:05] Speaker B: So my earliest memories of playing video games is on the snes. I have, like very vivid memories of playing that with my brother. Having the Super Mario All Stars cartridge, which was like multiple games on one cartridge. It had like Mario World, Mario 3, a couple of other ones that and a link to the past. And yeah, just spending a lot of time just seeing if I can get like a little bit further and a little bit further and a little bit further. Games were like, very competitive for me. It was always kind of like either competing against myself or competing against my brother. And we sort of like take it on those single player games. You kind of like take it in turns. And I always kind of found it difficult to watch someone else play because I was always like, oh, you know, you need to jump at that point or you did that wrong. I can do that better. Give me, give me the controller back. And yeah, it was always just like pushing each other, see how far we can get. And yeah, I was the older brother, so it was always a case of my brother had to be Luigi had to be player two. Yeah, yeah, very much like a competitive thing in the early days. And then, yeah, that sort of like, was a thread that carried on throughout all the kind of console generations and stuff. We both played a lot of like Goldeneye and played loads of that. Loads of Mario Kart. Lots of things that were like, we play in the same room together, like couch co op sort of things or I guess not Co op, more competitive. But yeah, a lot of playing against each other. Ages. That continued with Halo. So I went to a friend's house. We. My mom went on a holiday and she went on holiday for like a week to Spain. I was still at school at this point and my brother got shipped off to an aunt's house and I got sent to my best friend's house at the time, which was like, amazing. I got to spend a week with my best friend. I think I took my dreamcast with me and he had an Xbox, the original Xbox that I'd never played before. And he introduced me to Halo for the first time and that was it. We spent the entire week playing that. Every hour we could get, we played Halo. We played the campaign through so many times, just increasing the difficulty bit by bit until we were doing it on Legendary and then just doing those kind of daft multiplayer sessions where I was like, right, let's do a 1v1, but you're only allowed to use pistols or do 1v1 and you're only allowed to use like the worst weapon we can find in the game. Spent ages doing that and that really formed like, like a real loyalty to like Bungie and the Halo series. I basically went home from that week of playing that and was like, I need to get an Xbox straight away. Got an Xbox, got Halo, introduced my brother to it. And then we used to play that all the time. And then when Halo 2 came out, we were both addicted to that. Especially like the, like I said, like being competitive. I did like the ranking systems. He was always sort of slightly better than me. I'm pretty much across the board on every game mode. They'd always be like one level ahead of me, which was super frustrating. And yeah, a lot of competition, a lot of. A lot of Halo that basically continued into like Destiny. When that came out, it was like, that is my kind of one. I think a lot of games now are sort of like those kind of live service games are kind of like jobs. And that was like, that is my one job game. I'm not going to forget any other game that's like a similar live service game. That is the one. I kind of like stuck with that. And yeah, the loot grind really grabbed me on that was very into that sort of process of. There was the element of like getting better at things and like doing raids and doing PvP and stuff and slowly improving and optimizing like your play style. And yeah, I think the thing that really inspired me to get into the industry or want to get into the industry was when Halo 2 was about to be released. I remember getting the steelbook for that. I was a sucker for all those limited editions and collector's editions. I couldn't quite get the Halo 3 Master Chief helmet, but I got the Halo 2 steelbook. And I remember that came with the video diaries, documentaries of the devs and stuff. I remember being so absorbed by those and watching those and seeing all the devs in the office with all the figurines and things on the desks and things, and just seeing how the concept art gets created and just seeing an environment where everyone's talking about games, like, really passionately. And I was like, that's what I want to do. That kind of was a real sort of inflection point where I was like, that's. I didn't really have an idea what I wanted to do before that, but after seeing that, I was like, that is it. I want to make games for a living. But it never really felt. I think a few people have said this, it never really felt kind of possible at the time. And my mum was very much like, you need to sort of get a proper job, you need to do, like real kind of courses. So I did like, maths and computing and media studies business at college, which was supposed to be kind of like a broad thing. Like computers were getting, like, bigger then. So it was like, this is kind of like a broad spectrum of things that you can come out of college and you have like a huge, like, array of options if you want to go to university. So I did all those courses and then when it came around to choosing what to do at university and stuff, I remember seeing that games computing was an option and I was like, I hadn't really planned for that, but that would be something that I really like to do. And then those courses, they sort of had a list of like, these are the A levels. You need to do that course. And all the A levels that I'd done happened to be the exact fit for that course. I was like, oh, this is perfect. I can go do games computing. Yeah. When I did that and. Yeah. [00:07:33] Speaker A: Huh. So. So that's around 2007. Yeah. Where you went to. You went to university? [00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah, 2007, to uni. Yeah. [00:07:41] Speaker A: So where. Where was this happening? Where did you grow up? [00:07:45] Speaker B: So I grew up in a little town called Immingham, which is near Grimsby, which, for anyone listening from the UK will know that that's kind of. It's one of those places that often appears in these sort of frivolous like, oh, top 10 worst places to live in the country sort of thing. It's like very sort of like a hard working fishing, fishing port. Not sort of up to date with sort of like tech trends or anything like that. The place, the town Immingham that I grew up was super small. It was like it had one library, one school, couple of pubs and. And that was it. Really, really quiet town. And yeah, when we moved to, when I went to uni, we moved to Lincoln which is slightly bigger but still like when I finished my degree it never really felt like I could do, I could get into the games industry in Lincoln. It was always like, I probably have to go to London or Manchester or something like that. But I wasn't at a point in life where we wanted to move away. So it kind of got to a point where I was like, I want to do games dev, but I don't really want to leave Lincoln. And Lincoln is still a really small city. But compared to Immingham where I grew up, it was kind of huge. So it was like that was already kind of a big step for me and moving to somewhere like London, I was like, I don't want to do that. But going back to where I sort of grew up. Yeah, I had like a few friend groups and I always sort of had to split my interests amongst the friend groups. So there was like, I had some friends that were like super into football and other friends that were into games. And that's kind of how it's been sort of forever. And you sort of feel like you have to not so much anymore. But at the time felt like you had to divide your personality between the two groups. So like if I was going to play football, I'd never talk about like playing games and stuff because at the time everyone was like, oh, you're a massive. You're a massive. Well, people say nerd now, but at the time it was geek. Geek was like the more offensive term as growing up. Oh, you're a geek, you sit at home playing games all day, you need to be going out and doing stuff. And now I'd have my other friend group where that felt really natural and we could just all kind of be kind of who we are to a degree. We didn't have to worry about putting on like a bit of a bit of a facade and we just all going to sort of like LAN parties and stuff. Taking my Xbox to a friend's house which like, I remember carrying it in like a backpack. The original Xbox which was Huge. Right? It was massive. And I was like a really weedy little kid. Walked a couple of miles to a friend's house lugging this in my bag with my, I think I was with my brother and a friend. I remember them sort of like we were sort of messing around and I can't ask. Someone sort of pushed me or if I just lost my balance but just had this huge backpack on and like just fell back with the Xbox. But obviously like that thing was like massive and just like built to last, so it's made no difference whatsoever. Yeah. I remember going to a friend's house and everyone's got those huge like CRT TVs and stuff. Dragging them all into the living room and all playing. That was Halo again, playing Halo together. And that always felt like, like these are my, these are my people. They're easier to kind of like get along with and just be who you are. [00:11:22] Speaker A: But it sounds, sorry, just quickly. It sounds like the competition thread kind of lead is the, is the connection between those two lives though. Yeah. Like the competition in the multiplayer video games and the competition in football. It sounds like that was a common thread. [00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah. 100. So we've spoken before. I still, I still play football. Football now I love, love football. Love the competitive side of that. Still have that kind of element of like if I go to football on a Sunday, I won't talk about like DND and video games and stuff. But yeah, the competitive side like really, really drives me. I hate going to football on a Sunday and it being like the game's like too easy. Like it's, it's a very one sided like I'm, I don't want to do that. I want to be there where it's like really tough and you have to kind of like eke out sort of performance and things like that. So yeah, always been super competitive. Board games, video games, football, everything. [00:12:22] Speaker A: And that, that's fascinating to me because I want to pull on that thread just a little bit because I am the opposite. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:26] Speaker A: I, I, I, I like competition, but I don't like what it makes me. [00:12:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:12:32] Speaker A: I'm a bad, I'm a really bad loser. I'm an only child, you know, very spoiled. So I've always been a bad loser. So I find competition has to be just right. Like if I'm competing with someone who, who's chill and like doesn't care and we're just, you know, we're competing but we're not. Nobody's trying to be anyone. I'm fine. But the minute people get, like, test testy, the worst of me comes out. And it feels like you seek that, right? You seek that competition. You've, you know, both in video games and in. And in football. So as a person, that drive, right? That's something that drives you. You enjoy that, you know, literally said, right. The conflict, right? You want that. You want that tough challenge. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Like. [00:13:14] Speaker A: Like, that's just part of your nature. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think over the years, I've had to sort of understand that not everyone is like that. Especially, like, doing board game nights with friends and stuff. Like, having that kind of mentality of, like, I have to win this at all costs, and then realizing that no one else is enjoying that. I've had to kind of, like, rein that in a little bit. The flip side of that is that everyone ends up just, like, ganging up on me. We will play, like, a new board game, and everyone's like, our only goal is that Zach doesn't win, so they'll just, like, prevent that. And then I end up having a bad time. They have a great time. So I had to sort of, like, temper that over the years. Growing up, it was very much like, I didn't have a. Probably similar to what you were just saying. Like, you didn't write, like, that side of you. I think I didn't recognize that it wasn't that side of me that I didn't like. It was that other people didn't like it. And it was kind of like, oh, he's such like, a. A sore loser and a bad winner as well, like, both of them. So I think I've tried to get better at that over time. Video games are very much like, one way. I can kind of be like that, unleashed by that kind of restraint, especially when playing with kind of like, strangers online. I'm not the kind of person who'll have, like, a microphone on and be sort of like, throwing shade at people. But if you're doing it kind of silently, I don't need to rein it in. I can just sort of quietly to myself, be happy that I finished off with the leaderboard or whatever. I'm not. I'm not affecting anyone else by that. Or at least I can't see that affecting anyone else. They might be quietly at home thinking, oh, I didn't. I didn't finish up. But yeah, and. [00:14:56] Speaker A: And where do you think that comes from? I mean, you mentioned kind of competing with your brother, and you know, that always. That being sort of your first. A key memory. So has that always Been in you? [00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think as I got older, I realized my mum was also super competitive. It's not something that I really like, realized growing up, but, yeah, she is exactly the same. And I can see that it's come from. From there. Probably the whole family have got it from. From there. We'll have like Christmas, Christmas board game nights and I'll bring sort of my family and my wife hates it. Hates all. Like my mom's throwing away. She's like, right, let's get all the board games out and let's do something like really competitive and let's all try to win. And Kate is like, I just want to have a. I just want to have a good time. I'm not. I'm not here for that. So, yeah, my mom sort of. I think it comes from that. Without really realizing. I remember my mum only fairly recently told me that she. She's never really played games a huge amount, but she recently told me there was a game on the SNES called the Page Master, based on the film, which. Great film, amazing film. She told me that when I went to school she'd sit and play that. And there was like one. It was either a coin or a gem or something that she couldn't get. And she spent like hours, like trying to get this one thing she knew where it was and she just. She just couldn't get it. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly me. And like, as games have gotten more advanced and stuff and you have like, achievements and that kind of thing, like that kind of completionist mentality has been something that I've noticed in myself and had to sort of fight against. I think an element of that has kind of ruined games for me a little bit. I recently played Claire Obscure Expedition 33 and I very much had to be like, I'm not gonna check the achievements list. I'm not gonna try and like optimize the game. I just want to enjoy the game for what it is. So, yeah, it's definitely something that I've inherited, but I've been able to identify and use it as a kind of. As a tool if I want to kind of like slip into that. Right. This is the kind of game where I do want to achieve everything I wanted 100%. I can do that. But I can also take a step back and try not to be like that. [00:17:18] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's interesting how that competition manifests not only against other people, but against yourself. That, you know, if you're playing a Single player game, you're still competing but against yourself. That's, that's kind of fascinating. And you mentioned a brother. Is that your only siblings? You have other siblings? [00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah, just the one younger brother is about three years, three years younger than me. Yeah, we just grew up sort of playing games all the time together. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's been a common thread. And so you were, you were sort of keen gamers in the house and then sounds like you had friend groups, you know, a mixture of friend groups that were gamers or not gamers at all. But um, and so when you went to. So you mentioned kind of the, the documentaries on Halo 2 being the, the sort of trigger that made you realize, oh, video games can be, you know, I could potentially make video games. And that course that you went on, how, how did that sort of set you up in terms of video game development? Do you feel like you got a good understanding of how games are made through that course? [00:18:16] Speaker B: Honestly, not really. I think the course was still quite new when I, when I joined it. I think it still very much had like a more of a computer science kind of tilt towards it. And a lot of the, a lot of the units were based more on that. I remember having some, some units that were like on game engine stuff and like rendering and that was, that was quite useful. But yeah, Lincoln University at the time was a bit of a like the butt of a joke. There was a joke on the in between us about it being like a second rate education and stuff. It's improved massively since then. But at the time kind of I came out and I didn't really feel equipped to go into the games industry. Felt sort of very naive and I feel like I had like an understanding of certain elements but not the whole picture by any, by any stretch. I think the elements that I had a interest in were the sort of like the coding side of the things. The units that were focused on programming and engineering and structuring, that kind of stuff. I, I had like an interest in some of the other units. There were some that were more, more creative. There was some kind of like level design stuff in Hammer which was the steams. STEAMS engine. There were some other courses that were kind of like. There was a creative studies one that was. We had to do some photography in that and I actually really enjoyed that. But it had like no real bearing on what, where I thought my career would go. It was like, oh, that was a cool little thing to do. And then let's get back to, let's get back to coding. There was some machine learning stuff. It wasn't machine learning, it was like image processing stuff. But yeah, I wouldn't say that any of it kind of prepared me properly. Like, now that I've spent the past five years in the industry, I kind of look back at that and think everything that it taught me then isn't. It's not that. It's not irrelevant. There was a lot of kind of foundations, especially in engineering coding, that were really important, but sort of had to extrapolate those into the games industry. I've heard some folks on this podcast from the US speak about specialist colleges and things that they've gone to that set you up proper way. This very much didn't feel like that. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think. I think it's probably an era where there are a lot of universities sort of trying to figure out how to get folks ready for games because it was a, you know, an emerging trend of people wanting to get in. And I guess my, my. My question is, had you done much engineering before that, before university? Was that something you were already drawn to? [00:21:02] Speaker B: I'd done. I've done bits and pieces. So at college I did a computing course and I started learning there in like Visual Basic, but it was like really, really. Yeah, basic sort of level. I tinkered around in. Not in game engines I'd tinker around in. There was something called RPG Maker that I messed around with. I was still in school at that point. I remember I was trying to make a. I was trying to make a game in that and it was very much based on like me and like a group of friends. It was like this game, we were like going on like a booze cruise and I was like, at school at the time, I don't know why that had like been this thing. It was like, oh, yeah, we're going to like set sail and go to France and do this thing. But I was like really interested in that side of making something myself and just very simple stuff like, oh, I've got like a sprite on screen and I can make that, move around and do things. I then sort of. I had a spell of really getting into kind of like map editors on games. So the Forge system in Halo. Loved that. Used to love just making maps that you just like drive around like a warthog and stuff, like races and that kind of stuff and your own game modes and things like that. Far Cry had a really good map editor that I loved. Spent a long time making like my entire friends group in football manager in the Database Football manager had like a separate database editor. You can go in like make your all your own players and stuff in there. So I made like a Immingham Town FC because they didn't have a real football team in the game. So I made Immingham Town FC and it was like all my, all my friends and stuff in there. None of that was really programming though. It's kind of just like tinkering with existing bits and pieces. It wasn't until college that I started to learn programming properly and then university sort of developed that further. [00:22:57] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. I mean that a lot of that map editing stuff and database, that's more design than anything in many ways. [00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:04] Speaker A: So it's interesting that when you went to uni, you know, engineering, what was it about engineering that kind of drew you, do you think? [00:23:11] Speaker B: I'm not sure. I think it's just the, the. I think my mom had a friend that was like this is kind of what you sort of need to be doing. Like everything's moving towards technology. Coding's gonna be huge in the future, you should do that. So there was a little bit of external, sort of not pressure, external influence guiding me that way. And when I started doing it I just found it interesting the fact that there was like loads of different ways of achieving things and lots of different languages and lots of different styles doing things or with like an underlying set of principles that have adapted over time. I guess it's similar to what I said about the RPG maker thing where you can kind of like you can have a sprite and move it, getting into like the mechanics of what's actually happening under the hood to make, to make that, actually to make that move, to make that value increase. What effect does that have on all the other systems around it and stuff? I've always sort of had a bit of a curious mind really. When we got our first PC at home, my mum was very sort of tech averse so I'd always have to kind of figure things out and show her things. And I remember just opening applications and just like digging around all the, all the menus and subsystems and stuff and just like trying to figure out how things, how things operate. So then I could then teach it to my mom who like this is how you print something, this is how you open a file. But digging into like really low level settings in all of those applications and usually ended up kind of breaking the family computer. But yeah, I think it's just like an inquisitive mind and wanting to understand how things, how Things work. That has drawn me to that and. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Also sounds like kind of an aptitude for technology. Right. Because engineering sort of involves getting into the weeds and understanding how the bones of things work. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I think an aptitude for technology is possibly like a symptom of our generation a little bit. So, like, we grew up, like, with kind of computers becoming more common at home and stuff. I guess there was an interest there in using the computer that was maybe all the friends that were into, like, football and stuff just didn't really care about. I remember trying to, like, trying to get games like Age of Empires or Football Manager, working with friends over a network and having to kind of figure out, like, oh, how do you install, like, a VPN and get that all set up and things that. I used to quite enjoy figuring all that out and then explaining that to a friend and getting them to sort it out as well. And that was always, to be honest, absolutely hate networking. I don't know why I enjoyed that at the time. [00:26:16] Speaker A: But I think. I mean, you mentioned LAN parties. I think, at least for me, I think you hit the nail on the head there. Right. That as technology came, you know, came into the home and became more popular, it was kind of cool to be the person that figured that out and to be able to be able to explain it to your parents maybe who weren't as connected to it, or like you say, friends who weren't as connected to it. There was almost like a satisfaction of being the one that knew how to do it, you know? [00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I think also there's an element of just wanting to share that interest with others and having to put in that groundwork for others to then have a easier entry point into that. So, yeah, going back to the, like, the Halo Lampard, looking the Xbox across, across the town is like, I want to. I really want to do this thing. I want to have a Halo Lamp party. I will walk to you with my Xbox. Everything that's all needed. I will set it all up, and then you guys just turn up and play and we'll have a great time. The same with, like, the. Yeah. I will teach you how to install this, like, VPN and stuff, and then we can get a network game going on on Football Manager. Because I want to share this, like, game with you. [00:27:23] Speaker A: I want to do together building frameworks to help other people be successful and have fun. [00:27:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Okay. So you go to uni, you've kind of got a grounding in engineering, and then you move into blueprint gaming. Yeah. How did that Happen. How did that transition happen? [00:27:43] Speaker B: So when I first came out of uni, I had jobs in like I was a, a waiter at a restaurant for a little bit and then worked in retail game, had a Christmas job there and just, just worked there. And it always sort of felt like I was never really going to get an opportunity in the games industry. I applied for Rockstar because they had a qa, a QA studio in, in Lincoln. So I applied there and didn't hear anything back. I very much got into the mindset of I'm never going to be able to get into the industry unless I move. I don't really want to move, so I'm just kind of going to sit here and just keep working and doing these kind of like labor intensive sort of jobs. And then a friend of mine reached out who already had a job at Blueprint and he was like, oh, they're looking for more engineers, are you interested? And I was like, oh great, a programming job, that's exactly what I want. And it was based in a town that was only like half an hour away. So yeah, I turned up to an interview the following Monday, spoke with the manager and I sort of like prepared my laptop, had all my dissertation and stuff like from uni and these kind of like prototypes that I'd written up for like these like hack and slash games and things. Sort of sat down with him and showed him it all. I think it just, he just glossed over it all and wasn't interested and was like, look, it looks like you can code, come in tomorrow, we'll will set you off. And I very much thought I was going to be doing C development and engine development and when I turned up they were like, right, install Flash. So I got that installed and had to learn that on the job. Flash Action Script and they made slot games, online slots and stuff that very much at the time didn't feel like, it didn't really feel like a foot in the door in the games industry because it was very much not that, but it was like, oh, at least I'm doing engineering. And it felt like there was a lot of pressure to go get a degree and then get a job relevant to that degree. So this was very much that. It was like I'm putting to use the things that I've spent a lot of money on at university learning to get a job. So yeah, got a job, there was learning Flash and then that technology sort of evolved over time and Apple kind of killed Flash off and that moved to HTML5. That was like A very nascent technology and it was kind of always, always adapting, always like learning new frameworks, always learning new sort of like programming techniques and stuff. So it was a really good environment for me. I learned way more there than I did like at university. Despite it not really being like real games. I learned a lot about coding and technology. It was quite a low pressure job. There was definitely pressure at times, but there was a lot. There was long periods where it's like we haven't got any sort of major deadlines coming up. And in those times I'd kind of like dig into, dig into the engine and we'd have kind of like features where a designer would want to like have 100 sprites on screen at once. And it would bring the game to a halt. And I'd try to figure out that and made lots of optimizations to the engine and stuff. So it was really good, like space for me to grow and learn kind of like from my own, like unguided, just like learn my own way and figure things out. And it was, there was some good experiences that I learned from. [00:31:23] Speaker A: And I would imagine there were a lot of projects, you know, a lot of different games to work on. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they were shown and they were churning them out at a really, really high rate. The turnover was ridiculously high. And yeah, it wasn't the most inspiring work. It got to a point where a lot of it was kind of just reskins of the same stuff. But I always tried to make sure that I was embedded on kind of improving the framework and stuff so that when we had these reskins and things, if they wanted to do something that was more impressive than the previous one, like they had the capacity to do that. Whether that was like increasing the amount of assets that we can use or introducing things like asset like scaling or particle effects. Yeah, yeah, the turnover was, was really high. But like I said, it was kind of, it's kind of low, low pressure for the most part. I think I got to a point where I was like, Zach's, Zach's gonna hear like five, six years. He's been doing a really good job, which kind of leaving, leaving to it. And there was like no pressure on me. I could kind of just do what I want, work on the things that I found interesting. But then that kind of felt a bit like I was getting a bit stale. I felt like I wasn't under enough pressure to produce something and I felt like I was not really going anywhere. And also it also wasn't like the environment that I expected it to be. And I want it to be in either. Like, I spoke about the, the. The Halo videos and seeing everyone, like, talk about games and stuff. And I kind of assumed that everyone who was a programmer or an engineer would be, like, into games and nerdy. And I joined this, this place that was like a gambling firm and very quickly found out that that wasn't the case. Like, no one there. It was like the. I said before, like, being interested in like either football or games. This was very much on the football side of things, which was still fine. I could still kind of. I can still kind of socialize with that, with that group. But from like a career point of view, it's like I was expecting to walk in and see like, everyone have like, little figurines on the desks and have the desks be like, adorned with like, gaming, like, paraphernalia and stuff. And that wasn't the case. So. Yeah, it was a little bit. It just wasn't the environment I wanted to, to be in. But it was enough to get me like, engineering. Yeah, yeah. [00:33:58] Speaker A: Maybe not the, the group of people, you know, creative people you were. You're expecting to work with, but the, but the work itself was very fruitful in terms of. And it sounds like you kind of found a niche in. And maybe I'm reaching here, but a niche in extending frameworks, you know, again, making things more useful for folks to be successful. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I remember writing like a particle system editor for the artists. The environment there, or like the. Yeah, the environment there was very much like designers versus engineers versus artists. It wasn't like a cohesive unit where folks tried to help each other. It was like the designers asked us to do this ridiculous thing again that we're never going to achieve and how are we going to do that? I remember writing like a particle editor for the artists because they'd make their own systems. They'd pass it to us and then be like, right, we need you to get this into the game. And our system would be completely different to what they've used to create it. So making like a framework so that what they work, the system that they worked in outputted the same things that we then ingested. So it just made that way easier to work. And I really liked kind of like just going into the art room, sitting down with those folks, like, right, what are you guys doing? What would make your lives easier? Instead of having to go back and forth, be like, oh, you've sent us this and it's the wrong size, or it's the wrong file type and stuff. Yeah, I really enjoyed that, actually. [00:35:29] Speaker A: Fascinating. So you almost kind of went against the grain then, maybe, of the culture that you were much more about trying to reach out and understand the asks and then facilitate, helping people be creative, rather than, like you say, just taking a grenade as it comes over the wall, complaining about it and then throwing it back and expecting no complaints back kind of thing. [00:35:51] Speaker B: A little bit. I think one sort of led to the other, maybe. I think the. Yeah. Tossing it over one side to the other was the initial sort of route. And it was like, this isn't working. This is just difficult. It's a waste of time. Let's see how we can kind of improve this. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And that feels like that echoes back to who you are as a person. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Like, wanting to find ways to, you know, help people be successful and to, you know, and to get them excited about, you know, the thing that, that they're working on and that you're working on kind of thing. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Reducing. Reducing friction where possible. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So. So you were there for a while. You were there for like, over. Over seven years or so. [00:36:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quite a long time. [00:36:31] Speaker A: But then you felt like there. There was a point where it was getting too stale and you wanted to make a move. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And it. It did. It got to a point where it kind of felt like I was going to be there, like, forever. I'd kind of settled into it. I'd been there a long time, seven, eight years, and I didn't still. Still didn't want to move to, like, a big city or anything. So I was kind of hoping, like, an opportunity was going to come up, like a game dev would set up in Lincoln or something, and that would kind of be the dream. Someone reached out to me on LinkedIn from a code of studio. I basically didn't have a LinkedIn profile at the time. It was like the very basic. I created an account and I never, ever used it. But so because of that, I didn't feel like the message would sort of go anywhere. I got a message from a recruiter and they sort of asked about what I was interested in and if I'd be interested in, like, interviewing for some, applying for a role. And I was like, oh, these are like an actual game dev studio. This is like an absolute dream. This is what I want to do. But I tried to temper expectations and I was like, I'll go through the process, I'll speak to the recruiter, because I've never done this before. I'll speak to the recruiter, I'll kind of set up a cv, I'll go through the interview process and then whichever process that I kind of fail at, I can then take learnings from that. If I don't get past the CV process, I can be like, right, that needs like scrubbing up or if I fail, like the interview process and kind of reflect on, on that. And it went all the way through. I ended up getting the job and I was like, oh, I've, I've got it now. What? And then, yeah, started at a code of Studio. So they were based in Nottingham and they offered me like a hybrid opportunity that still wasn't kind of like the norm at the time because this was like pre Covid. So I had a high, high grade opportunities of doing three days in the office, two days at home with an hour commute. I took a little bit of a pay cut to do it because I was like this. I don't, I don't care about the work I'm doing now. I want to get into the industry and if taking a pay cut gets me into the industry, gets my foot in the door, then I will do it. That's not the money isn't the important thing here. So yeah, took that opportunity and yeah, that's the company that I've been at for the past six years now. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Right, okay. So that was, it's kind of fascinating that that connection happened then. You'd almost been doing nothing to sort of warrant it, really. Right. You said sort of minimal LinkedIn presence and not actively looking yet somebody, you know, found your, found your, what you had on LinkedIn interesting enough to reach out and that turned out to be the right role. [00:39:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, as like many engineers do, I've suffered with like imposter syndrome a lot. And I always sort of looked at that from a point of view of like it was just like really lucky, like right place, right time. The code of Studio were like really new at the time. Maybe only had about 20, 30 staff. I sort of look at it and think, oh, if they were trying to hire me from the position they're in now and now it's position I was in then maybe they wouldn't have looked at me because they're, because they're a lot bigger now. But I've sort of. Yeah, I've heard that like using luck as an excuse is like something quite common with like imposter syndrome. So I tried to look at it through. There's a really good quote that's like look is luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. And I try to look at it through that lens. I was prepared for that switch at the time and the opportunity came up, so that was, that was the, you can call it luck, but the look was because of those things, still very like grateful, very fortunate that that came about and got me into the industry. But yeah, I wasn't really like, I wasn't like putting feelers out there or applying for things. It was very much. It came to me and yeah, got lucky. [00:40:36] Speaker A: That's great. And so all the while you were at Blueprint, you know, even though you. It was a form of gaming, even if not maybe the form of gaming you were the most passionate about, but you were still a gamer. You throughout that period, you're still avidly playing. So I imagine when, you know, the multiplayer group MPG came knocking and like you said, they were an actual games company, you know, like a traditional games company, you were like, this is, this is the perfect combination. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, still, still a massive gamer. Always have been playing just. Yeah, constantly. And I didn't really fully understand that the studio was like a code of studio. When they, when they reached out to me, I kind of didn't, didn't care because it just felt like it's a gaming studio. Like it doesn't matter what, what they're doing. If it's gaming that I kind of want to get my, my foot in the door, even if it was like a stepping stone to another studio or, or something. And yeah, that, that felt a lot more like the environment that I wanted to, to be in that I was hoping for a blueprint. That wasn't the case when I started at mpg. It was very much a case of like, these are like the people that I want to be around. These are like, I don't have to kind of put on a facade of like, oh yeah, don't talk about those interests, talk about these interests. Everyone was kind of like, yeah, what games are you playing at the minute? And it wasn't like a very high level. Oh yeah, I play Free from Call of Duty. It was like we play these really interesting games that are either really niche or, oh, just way more interesting. And yeah, it felt like, not that I was really hiding before, but I felt like I didn't have to. Yeah, kind of put on a different personality anymore. [00:42:19] Speaker A: Well, like you said, you know, if Blueprint was kind of one side of your friend group, then MPG was very much the place you felt at home. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And as they, as they kind of got bigger and bigger because when we first joined the office it was tiny. But as it got bigger and bigger, the studio started to become more like that. Like the Bungie studio, right, where you've got all the knickknacks and things all over the desks and stuff, and an arcade cabinet in the corner that people can play on and just like props around the office, like controllers on the wall and posters and things. And it was like, this is the environment that I want to be in. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. That was sort of the dream realized. Did you ever think back to those kind of Halo documentaries at the time and think like, it's finally happened. [00:43:05] Speaker B: A little bit? Yeah. Like it's something that I. It's something that has like a. It's like a sort of really core memory, like an inflection point. Like I remember that really vividly when, when I got that. That disc. It kind of didn't feel like. Didn't feel like I'd made it yet, but it felt very much like it was on the. On the way, like on the right path finally. And it was like getting closer and closer. [00:43:33] Speaker A: That's cool. And so at mpg, you know, various sort of software engineers. Software engineer roles in that codev environment, which is a really kind of interesting, slightly more modern, I mean, not entirely unique to modern, but a more commonly modern approach now of, you know, being sort of a support studio for another studios project, but you know, often having quite large responsibilities, like kind of large pieces of the game you're working on. So how did the work at MPG kind of relate to the work at Blueprint? Was it similar. Did you kind of continue a similar track or did it shift? [00:44:10] Speaker B: It was a little bit different because it's like working for clients, it's kind of more. I couldn't just like sit there with no pressure and be like, I'm just going to tinker with the engine and like figure out what's going on. It's very much. You have client demands and they expect certain things. And so it was different in that way. The first project that I was on sort of helped me to develop my experience of C and C again because I'd not used that. I joined Blueprint. It's like, right, learn Flash, which is a dying technology at the time. So yeah, my first project I got to work on, it was kind of like cortex libraries and kind of gave me like, it kind of reset my understanding of those languages because it had been quite a long time since I've Been at uni and stuff. I'd forgotten. Not forgotten, but like, that was way at the back of my mind. And the level at which it was used at uni was completely different to the level it was used in the. In the industry. So that first year was like really good to kind of get me back up to. Back up to scratch. But it still wasn't really what I wanted to be doing because it was kind of like a cortech. It was almost like a publisher level sort of thing. I kind of spoke to my lead and I was like, if an opportunity comes up to work on like an actual game, that's. That's what I wanted. That's what I want to do. And at that point I'd realized that that was possible at that company because. Because it's co dev. They have a lot of. A lot of projects going on all at the same time, all at sort of like different, different levels. So like I said, that one was kind of like cortech. Some of them were like a lot closer to early development of, of a title, like working with like the designers and stuff. Some of it was purely right. We're working on like a networking module because this studio doesn't have a great experience with networking, so we'll do that. So, yeah. Then got the opportunity to work on like a real title that was like Dream to work on. And I was like, yeah, sign me up straight away. So moved across to that and, and. [00:46:19] Speaker A: At least the work that I remember us doing together, Zach, it was that. That role of kind of building things to help people be successful and, you know, to enable people to be creative. Felt very much. That's what I remember you doing so well. So was that on that big project, on the, on the, the game project, was that what you started doing and were you kind of drawn to that? [00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah, because that was. It was still quite nascent and there was a lot of work to do on like building the foundations and stuff. Yeah, it fed very much into that kind of. Right, let's figure out what all the requirements are for, folks. It wasn't. We couldn't kind of take a robust existing mature system and be like, right, where are the pain points here? Where's the friction? Where can we improve, get minor improvements? It was like that on steroids. It was like, we have nothing. What do you want to do? How can we make it easier? Or how can we make it at all? A lot of times there wasn't anything there at all. So it's, how do we build it from Scratch, which was a different skill, really. Sometimes it's easier to look at something that you already have and see where the difficulties already are. It's a lot harder to just make something that doesn't exist and just put it out there. So that was another huge learning curve figuring out. We spoke about being a completionist a lot of the time. I'm quite a perfectionist as well, especially with coding. And you can't really be that a lot of the time. You have to just. You can't come to a full solution before you understand the whole picture. You kind of have to just try something, see what works, get feedback from folks, go back and forth, and then come to a solution that's kind of iterated over time rather than being like, right, I'm going to build this system, I'm going to get all the. All the requirements up front and just build it from scratch. You can't really do that. So, yeah, it definitely, like, it was a slightly different skill to, like, taking existing things and reducing the friction. It was, yeah. Like I said, that what ramped up to 11. [00:48:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess almost the polar opposite of, you know, it sounds like to the latter period of blueprint, you were, like you said, kind of looking at an existing thing and trying to figure out how to make it better. Whereas on the, you know, on the project you're building from scratch, the end result is the same. You're trying to help people be more successful, but you're doing it from the opposite angle of, like, oh, there's nothing to look at, so we've got to invent it. And you mentioned, like, enjoying the looking at achievement lists and trying to optimize your playstyle. Like, in many ways, that is the opposite of what you said you had to do and we had to do on a project, a nascent project. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Yeah, very much. Yeah. I sometimes find that a little bit of a negative thing. Like I said before, I try and, like, I try not to do that. I'm very much the kind of player that's like, oh, in Destiny, you've got these three quests, and one of them is to get Void kills. One's to get plasma weapon kills, one's to get sniper kills. It's like, right, I'm going to equip a Void plasma sniper, and I'm going to get all those things done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And that's, yeah, what you want to do when you're writing a system or building something, you want to do it as efficiently as possible as optimize as possible. But. And sometimes you can't do that because not all of the requirements are visible from the start. Sometimes you don't realize what the requirements are until you start building. Building the thing. So, yeah, I sort of had to fight against that a little bit. Sometimes it's a case of not. Not just you, as an engineer doesn't know the requirements. Sometimes everyone doesn't know. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Sometimes the designer doesn't know. Yeah. [00:50:08] Speaker B: So when. When we were in. When we were in blueprint and we sort of had this like, designers versus engineers thing, we had a saying that was like, designers don't know what they want until they've seen what they don't want. And I thought that was like a very negative thing at the time. And it's only so now that I realize that. Yeah, that's completely, like, understandable. That makes sense. Like, sometimes you're not going to understand everything until you see something that you don't want. And then sometimes knowing what you don't want helps you come to realize what you. What you do want. [00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the ethos of fail fast, isn't it? Fail fast basically means you figure out a lot of things you don't want, and then eventually you're like, oh, this is the right one. Yeah, interesting. So it sounds like there's sort of almost an internal struggle there between who you are as a person. And, you know, sometimes the work that you have to do is just kind of the polar opposite of how maybe you like to. Like to function. [00:51:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I think speaking to other more experienced engineers, you kind of. They're. They're really helpful and kind of saying, like, teaching you these. These things that you kind of want to go with your instincts and. And you want to. I want to. I want to finish a system completely. I want to write the whole thing from scratch. I don't want to kind of submit work that feels like unfinished. And then, yeah, speaking to more experienced engineers, they say that. That exact sort of thing, it's like, just get something done. It doesn't matter if it's finished. Just get something like a foundation there. And once we can see that foundation, then it gets easier to kind of build upon that rather than trying to build the whole thing in one go. [00:51:45] Speaker A: Has that been a struggle to adapt to Zach? Because that does feel like that kind of runs contrary to your sort of DNA. [00:51:51] Speaker B: A little bit. Yeah. I sort of have to force myself into that thinking because there'll be times I'll be satisfied trying to solve an engineering problem, and I'LL just kind of be sat there for kind of hours thinking and thinking and thinking. And it's not until you kind of just start writing some code that some of the thoughts that you had hours ago just kind of go away. It's like, well, yeah, that's obviously not going to work because of X, Y, Z. And you only see that once you start putting stuff out. But it's hard to. Yeah, you have to kind of fight past that a lot of the time. My instinct is still to, I'm going to sit here and try and figure it out. And then I kind of get, like, anxiety and like, I've spent too long thinking about this. I need to, like, produce something. And then once that anxiety kicks in, it's like, oh, just do that thing that everyone says where you just write something and then figure it out. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's interesting how, you know, engineering design are very similar in that way. Right. Like, designers can spend way too long pontificating on paper when actually you put something in game and you figure it out in an afternoon. But it does feel like engineers, and maybe this is unfair, but it does feel like some engineers, fundamentally as people, that's what code is. Right. You want to write great code, you want to write clean code, you want fast code. And that usually involves sort of doing it right and sort of. It's an anathema to kind of do it badly. Right. Just get it in, do it badly, and then improve it later. That almost feels like the opposite of what you want to do. [00:53:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think imposter syndrome, like, feeds into that massively. Especially like when you're working in an environment where you're submitting code to be reviewed by people who are more experienced than you. You kind of want to get everything in a state where it's like, if someone looks at it, they're going to be impressed by it. I don't want to submit something where someone looks at it and picks it all apart. And as you kind of got more experience, you just learned that when you put something up like that, you say you fill your code with TO dos. I know this isn't the correct solution, but this is going to be improved later. And that's okay. Senior devs are okay with that. It's not like an acceptance of inferiority or anything. It's just we don't know the full requirements for this thing right now. We'll figure it out later and that's fine. But yeah, imposter syndrome sort of hugely feeds into that, especially because when I joined MPG. I'd just come from Blueprint, who had been doing HTML5 and JavaScript for years and years and years. And JavaScript's kind of like a butt of the joke sort of language feels very much like in comparison to C, which is like industry standard, it feels like, oh, if you only know JavaScript, then you're not an engineer sort of thing. That's how it felt to me. Even though you have sort of core foundations of what good code should be, that kind of is language agnostic, it still feels inferior. So I always kind of felt like I was proving myself in that regard, which just feeds into that. Right. I need to make this thing perfect before I submit it for someone to look at. [00:54:48] Speaker A: And is the competition element also fuel to that as well? [00:54:53] Speaker B: I think so. I think like a lot of that competition with self is trying to make things make yourself better and better and better. I think that in engineering, especially with C, you're kind of like learning new things all the time and you always want to improve on your implementations of things you look at. Often as an engineer, you look at code you've written years ago and you're like, why did I do that? That's awful. That makes no sense. You want to rip the whole thing up and start again. And it's just. Yeah. Engineering is almost like a constant competition with yourself as self improvement. Yeah. And when someone else has their eyes on it, it kind of feeds into that, like, because someone else can. Can see it. When you're writing your own things and hobby things, it doesn't matter as much. But as soon as someone sees it, it's like, this is a representation of me. And I want that representation to be as best as it can be. [00:55:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And I can relate to that. I mean, you know, as a pro, when you're prototyping or trying to build something, Right. Sometimes there's that competition element of being able to bend the thing to do something that people are like, how on earth did you do that? Yeah, I figured it out. You know, like there's there a little bit. It can be a little bit of that kind of competition element, just in general about making. Making stuff, but it's fat. You know, having worked with you for, you know, multiple years, competition is clearly a very key part of who you are as a person. But it never came. It never came across as like that. You know, some people that are really competitive are like grossly competitive in everything. Right. They'll compete in whatever possible thing they can compete in. And it sort of to Your point becomes frustrating for everyone else. So like, oh, just, you know, let that person win. And that, that never came across to me in your. Sort of. In our professional, you know, sort of working together to build something. It never came across as. As that. That sort of, you know, toxic in any way. [00:56:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's sort of the, the element that you sort of described of like wanting to help others and reduce friction kind of runs like completely perpendicular to that. Competitive. Like, if it was a competitive drive, I'd be like, well, no, you should be able to work with this. This thing that's like, has like high friction. I can do it. Why can't you do it? Like, that must mean that I'm better than you. But yeah, in a work environment, it's always been about reducing that. That friction. Which I think if I was playing a board game or something with someone, I'd be trying to increase the friction for someone else as much as possible. So, yeah, maybe it's not something that really manifests as much in, in work. [00:57:28] Speaker A: That's a fascinating point though. That sort of internal dichotomy within you sort of creates the perfect recipe. Right. Of sort of having the drive to make things better and to keep getting better, but also heavily tempered with the. But, you know, the empathy of trying to help other people be successful. That's a. Interesting manifest in a very positive way. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not really sure how the two can kind of coexist because they don't really seem compatible. Yeah. I think what I described before of like, learning how my competitiveness appears to others, that probably has helped in a, like a work sense of like, not appearing because you get some engineers that are like, my code is better than everyone else's and we have to do things my way. I think maybe the imposter syndrome helps with that because I'm very much like, well, my code can't possibly be the best because there's all these people out there that are way more experienced than me and stuff. I think maybe a good way to put it would be the competitiveness comes in when it's something that I know I'm really good at and I tend to be. My brother and I are both these kind of people where we can pick up a game that we'd never played before and kind of immediately grasp the rules and reach an above average kind of level quite quickly. And that just feeds into that competitiveness because you immediately sort of beat other people around you and then you want to beat the next person, the next person, the Next person. Because I'm quite critical of myself in a career aspect, I don't feel like I'm at that level, like I'm at that above average level. So it's still kind of like catching up. And that competitiveness doesn't kind of manifest itself as much. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. So, you know, as we sort of wind this down, a couple of closing questions. How has being a developer changed you as a gamer? [00:59:27] Speaker B: I don't think that much, to be honest. I think I, I'm very much a like developer sympathizer. I think it's the biggest thing like if I play games with friends and they're sort of like picking apart reasons why things could be better or they don't understand why devs have made a certain decision. I very much take the angle of like, well if you look at this system and this system like they had to do it this way because of this or they might not have had the resources to do it or it might be a creative decision why they've done it so very much like sympathize from that point of view or had lots of discussions with friends about like the door problem in, in video games. And it's like one tiny simple thing has so many decisions involved in it that you kind of don't really appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating games and the amount of decisions that get made for every single tiny little aspect that sometimes things can seem, can seem to someone else like they don't make sense. But there's loads of reasons why they've come to that decision. And like I said, sometimes it's creative, sometimes it's limitations in an engine, sometimes it's resourcing. You don't have the kind of manpower to be able to commit time to that sort of thing. So yeah, very much a sympathizer in terms of that. There's definitely been occasions where I've picked up a game and had no sympathy. I've like started playing it and been like, I don't understand why, how they've possibly come to this decision. And that's kind of like ruined it for me a little bit, I think. Yeah, I like to, when I, I try, I have to try and sort of distance myself from like analyzing games too much. Sometimes it's like a really interesting, like fun activity to do. Other times it kind of like breaks the fourth wall a little bit and kind of like peeks behind the curtain. I've been playing ball pit recently and that has like this kind of progression where there's like an AI element to it and sort of like watching, watching that and being like, oh well why is the AI done this thing? Why hasn't it done that thing? If I was playing, that would be the decision I've made. So how have they programmed it to sort of like factor that decision over that decision and find that really interesting. But yeah, I try as much as I can to, to distance it. [01:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I like you sort of mentioned already that you've tried to distance the self competition, you know, from the way you play sometimes. And you know that, that feels like that reflects a little bit on the stuff we just talked about professionally. What about how has been a developer changed you as a human? [01:02:21] Speaker B: I think I've become more like introspective. I think like we've just spoken about the imposter syndrome stuff before. That's something that I kind of really struggled with to start with. And just being in an environment with other engineers, like knowing that it's something that a huge percentage of engineers go through has been really helpful and it's made me really reflective on, on myself. My own sort of flaw seems like a bit of a strong, strong word but my own sort of like maybe weaknesses in, in development and stuff and that kind of manifests, manifests itself both in engineering and in general life as well. I mean a friend of mine will tell you that I'm still extremely critical of myself. Like when we play football together and like focus on the, focus on the tiny mistake that happened instead of like the, the two or three good things that happened. I think that's just kind of part of who I am. I think being in the industry has helped me be more reflective on it and accept that it's part of who I am and not, it's not necessarily a flaw, it's not a weakness. It's just I have that thing and I need to, I need to just deal with it and knowing about it and understanding it helps a lot more. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think being in the industry, working with other people, you know, being critical to certain parts of the, you know, the process or the development can help you temper some of those more self critical. You know, I, I have the same, you know, the same self critique in me and yeah, I think you sort of get used to going ah, maybe you know, we can get through it, it's not, not the end of the world and moving on. Yeah, cool. And then last question, how does your family relate to your job? [01:04:12] Speaker B: So my mum was very much like when I was going to college she was like, you need to get a real job. You can't be a game dev. That's not a thing. You need to be a plumber or get a trade or something. Which in hindsight, might not be the worst idea with the way the industry is going to. Um. But, yeah, she, like, she kind of never believed that it could be possible and she just wanted the best for me. She wanted me so. She didn't want me to go down a route that wasn't possible. And maybe that fed into me kind of thinking that it wasn't possible as well. But now that I'm not, I'm in the industry, she's super, super supportive of it and she's, like, really proud as well. Even if she doesn't really understand what I'm doing, she's proud that, like, I'm. I'm happy and successful doing what I'm doing and I'm able to kind of, like, keep a roof over my head and. And all that kind of stuff. Yeah. My stepdad has no idea what. I don't think he's ever played a video game in his life. But, yeah, he's proud as well. My wife is as well. Super proud of what I'm doing. Really supportive, absolutely loves it. She, again, very much not. Not a gamer. We tried playing It Takes Two. Yeah. The Cut, the co op game, and it's like, speaking about the kind of competitive side of things, I have to sort of really, really, really, like, rein that in and, like, play at, like, the lowest sort of, like, level and, like, try and, like, accommodate. And she just doesn't enjoy it. No matter how. No matter how much I try, it's too much. But she appreciates that I get a lot out of it and it's what I'm passionate about and it's what I've always wanted to do. Yeah. [01:06:03] Speaker A: And your two daughters presumably enjoy video games and will hopefully get to play something you work on down the road. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Maybe. Yes. Hopefully, yes. That is kind of the dream. I speak to my eldest daughter sometimes. We were playing a demo yesterday on Steam and talking about. It's like a really, like, independent. I won a solo dev thing and I was kind of saying to her, this is what. This is what I want to do. I want to make my own game and release it and have you play it and stuff. And she's not quite at an age where she kind of really understands it yet, but she, like, she likes, she likes playing them and I think as she gets older, she'll have a better appreciation of like, oh, this is what. This is what Daddy does. Like, hopefully kind of, like, explain that to, like, her friends and things, and maybe they'll find it. Cool. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Love that. Well, thanks, Zach. It's been a great journey. You know, I've loved. I love the. Just those points about internal dichotomy and, you know, kind of who you are as a person and. And how that manifests in what you do, I found very fascinating. I mean, that's the core of what this podcast is all about. So I appreciate you opening up about those things, and thank you for your time. [01:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.