Ruff Talk VR

Interview with Sam Clay - Producer of Arcade Paradise

• Ruff Talk VR • Season 1 • Episode 195

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On this episode of Ruff Talk VR we are joined by Sam Clay the producer of Arcade Paradise VR! Made developed by Nosebleed Interactive and published by Wired Productions, this game transports you back to the 90's as you transform an old laundry mat into an arcade! Listen as we get to know Sam, his history in the gaming industry, more about Arcade Paradise and porting it to VR, and more!

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Arcade Paradise Store Link: https://www.meta.com/experiences/5968301983261530/

Store Description: Enter the virtual realm in Arcade Paradise VR, transporting you back to 1993 for an all-new immersive experience oozing with retro-fuelled gaming nostalgia. Taking you on an empowering journey from rags to riches, Arcade Paradise is an adventure and light-management sim combo game where you transform the decrepit King Wash laundromat into a thriving business. 

Set in the rundown town of Grindstone, you play as Ashley, a rebel teenager going against your father’s wishes to continue the family business. Get hands on managing the fully gamified day-to-day tasks, from manually picking up gum, doing the laundry, and scrubbing a toilet perfectly clean - to throwing out the trash in a basketball style mini game. Then, take your hard-earned money from completing these tasks to unlock your real objective… buying more arcade units!

Featuring 12 fully realized VR cabinets alongside 27 traditionally controlled games from the original release, it’s time to play, profit and purchase your way to your very own Arcade Paradise. So, strap on your latest virtual reality tech - because the future is NOW!

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Breaking Down Virtual Reality Gaming

Speaker 1

Welcome to another episode of Rough Talk VR, a weekly podcast with in-depth game reviews, exclusive developer interviews and the latest metaquest and virtual reality news. We join our hosts, the father-son team of D Scruffles and Stratus, today as they spend another episode breaking down and discussing the world of virtual reality.

Speaker 2

Hey, welcome to this episode of Rough Talk VR. Today we're joining you with another exciting interview. We we have the producer of an upcoming game arcade, paradise scenes yeah, today we're talking with sam clay, the producer of arcade paradise, an upcoming game on the meta quest, but it exists flat screen as well. I remember you playing it a couple years ago at this point on my.

Speaker 3

Is it? I don't even know if it's been that long. If you could tell if it is, it is.

Speaker 2

But yeah, I played it on xbox yeah, so before we go you know, too crazy explaining what it is and stuff. Sam, do you want to introduce yourself a little bit to the listeners? Tell them you know who you are and what you do over for arcade paradise, yeah sure thanks, awesome.

Speaker 4

First of all, thanks for having me on. I know it's always difficult getting guests from different places around the world, but obviously your dedication. I'm here for Reggie, by the way. That's the only reason why I agreed to do this. So my name's Sam Clay. I'm a producer at Wired Productions, but more so the producer on Arcade Paradise Blimey. I have been working on the. Well now, you know, you said you said you had played it. It's been out for nearly two years now, but obviously prior to that I'm talking the development took three, four years. Especially, the whole world collapsed, with the world shutting down and all covid or whatever like that. So it's uh, it's yeah. It's been a hell of a long time and we've managed to uh prolong it even further by let's make a vr version. So, yeah, that and that's where we are now. Uh, with it coming out on the 25th of april.

Speaker 2

so it's all very exciting and so you've been the producer since the og original version yeah, the, the, the original pitch idea.

Speaker 4

I, yeah, I've seen it from the start and uh, so saw it all the way, seen it all the way through, and it's been a wonderful, uh, it's been a wonderful development for everyone who's got involved with it.

Speaker 3

But also like seeing the arc of a very, very interesting, unique game, you know, uh, come to fruition, as it were well, I I can say that when I played it on the xbox I I know I immediately told you I'm like it seems like this is built for vr, like it could be done in VR. But and I've seen a handful of games where I've felt that so it's, it's cool that this game actually made the leap to say, well, why can't?

Speaker 2

we go to VR and what? How did that conversation come to be?

Speaker 4

You know what was the point, where you guys were like I think we can do this, this game but in virtual reality, uh, very much a sort of if we were going to bring it to a platform like vr. You know a different way of playing. It had to make sense. It had to not be a um, you know, be fun to do and pretty much we the uh, the process of that was play about with it and see if it works in vr, if it makes sense in vr, um and and it did uh, especially the, the washing elements of it, because the rest of the arcade stuff just makes sense once.

Speaker 4

Once you have you can describe most arcade games. You know you just think to yourself, well, these are going to work perfectly in vr. But you know light gun games or games you'd see um a lot, especially in here in the uk's, sort of bowling alleys seems to have arcades in. I don't know what it's like in america. You know, like gun games or games you'd see, especially in here in the UK, sort of bowling alleys seems to have arcades in. I don't know what it's like in America, but you know basketball hoops and all that sort of stuff. So it made a lot of sense. We did a lot of testing on it and we just, yeah, we ran with it and we have produced an incredible experience on top of what already existed.

Speaker 3

I mean, I think the, I think the uh, the washing element uh is actually probably I should probably have to explain in a moment but, like the, the moments that in flat were very um, uh, maybe not the the most thrilling of it of gameplay, but in vr they're sort of next, bizarrely next level and really enjoyable to to play and that's exactly why when I played it on flat screen and was trying to make a mental leap in my head to vr, I was like, just mechanically, it would make sense to do it in vr versus and I'm not saying anything against the flat screen, but just to me, mechanically I'd rather be the one physically doing it than a you know, just buttons yeah.

Speaker 3

It's you can. You can feel it. I mean all you have to do, and there's people who have played it, but I suppose we should rewind and let people know exactly what, conceptually, the game is that you're you.

Speaker 2

Conceptually, the game is that you're you're going to be doing because, I could just assume.

Speaker 4

Well, everyone's played it flat screen. Yeah, so do you want to explain to listeners exactly what arcade? Yeah, do you know? It's really funny, because someone the other day asked me, um, what it is, and it's not like, uh, I can't. You can't describe it to someone in in five words, do you know? I mean, it's not a a conversation down the pub to explain to someone what you've been playing. So, arcade paradise.

Speaker 4

Um, you play a character called ashley. Uh, it's, it's set. It's set in 1993, early 90s, and um, it's sort of a homage to a lot of things be in that era, but also a homage to that uh, dead-end job you had. You know, uh, you went going through being a teenager, going through those years of just having really crappy jobs and, um, ashley's final uh option is basically working for her dad. Uh, for ashley's dad's uh, laundrette, laundromat, um and uh, otherwise, it's effectively, you're going to the, the meat packing plant, to get a job there. So your, your dad, goes like, right here, have one of my many businesses. You better not mess this up, you know, uh gives you one last chance and, effectively, you, you start a day and the game tutorial is how to do all the, the.

Speaker 4

You know the cleaning and washing of clothes, but in the, in the back room of this um, the laundromat, is a selection of arcade games. And you go and you empty the hoppers in there and you get the money out of them and you soon realize that they're making more money than the actual business itself. Uh. So what do you do? Well, of course you uh. You get on a? Uh, a computer of that era and you you message your dad with a graph, a graphic saying look, these are making way more money we can make really out.

Speaker 4

And he says to you um, no, no, no, you're in the uh the sanitation business. You know game, you won't make any money from games. Uh, get on with what you're supposed to be doing. And naturally, you go behind your dad's back to uh to then begin your arcade paradise and and and we lead uh the player on on the story of that while they get to play, um, yeah, 30, 40, 40 games, um. But do you know, I'm lost, sort of lost for the exact number, not that it really matters, because there are. There's so much to play in arcade paradise. It's, um, it really is quite an offering when it comes to the actual arcade um titles themselves, the cabinets I, I remember you're bringing me back to that story.

Speaker 3

I remember that conversation when you, you're talking to your dad and it's like it seems like a no-brainer because you're right, there's proof that you're showing like it's profitable. So you, you're running like a, like a speakeasy more, or less for side hustle. Yeah, side hustle for the uh and you can, if I remember correctly, you can. You can really upgrade it pretty good too, like change it from the basic basic settings.

Speaker 4

Yep, and so, without, without spoiling anything, yeah, you, you sort of at first are going, you know sort of sneaky undercover, and then the back room, you end up expanding, expanding, expanding, um, to the point where potentially and obviously the game's been out quite a while that you end up it ends up being turned into an arcade entirely. But but the whole premise of that is that sort of sneaky behind your your dad's back. You'd never want the front of the, the, the business he knows, to suddenly become an arcade, because then you, then your time's up immediately. But, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got all those 90s tropes. You know the sticky carpets and all that. If only we could have the smell. And you know the, uh, the, the real effect of the arcades.

Speaker 2

But we're not there yet and this might be a hard question to answer, because it kind of depends on how long people are willing to kill on each individual arcade game. But how long would you say? The story is from start to finish do you know what?

Speaker 4

I saw someone speed run the game, uh the other day and that took them 23 hours. Um, and that would. They did that on a stream actually. Uh, it's um and that would. They did that on a stream actually. Uh, it's well flat, I would say.

Speaker 4

First time you're looking at 40, 45 hours, um, vr is going to be a lot longer because it's, you know, depending on, well, if you're comfortable throughout, then you're probably doing exactly the same time, and we've we've made changes to make the numbers make more sense for vr, so it's not too um stressful for the player, but um, yeah, what you? What you find, though, is uh, nosebleed, um interactive. The developers of the game, they really put together that sort of one. One more, go feel to the the title. So you know you might be 11 o'clock at night and go about, call it a day and get into bed, but there might be that one little task, that next thing. You know it's 1 am in the morning and you might be late for work and work the following day so would you say that the game really takes a a full.

Speaker 4

You know speed once you pass that washing phase and you really unlock the arcade so it's really funny, actually, because you've just, you've just said, uh, past the washing phase, we never tell the player what they should be doing, so there's no actual like over you know, there's no like you must clean these clothes or you know like something that if you don't do that, you'll get. You know, uh, game over, failed, failed state or something like. So it's really fascinating here how people, when you say nothing at all, lots of people assume like, oh, I've got to do this. No, no, you can start the game, you can do the games tutorial and then you could just go and play arcade. You know, just make money through playing all the arcade games in the back. That's literally what you could do.

Speaker 4

So it's really fascinating watching people uh, play it, especially when, so, you have a watch, um, watch on that. Every time a cleaning cycle or a dry cycle finishes, it beeps at you and says, like, go and empty their clothes. Um, it's amazing what just beeping someone's watch makes people do. Because you don't have to do that, you're just notified that they're doing it. So you watch people play it and they back out of the arcade and they go and do it and they go.

Speaker 4

Oh god, sorry, good, fine, fine, and back to the arcade and you end you're actually making this perfect world, because that's that's what, that's the uh, what we're trying to incite of that era. It was like that one more go. You know it was the going and buying a game in the old classic big boxes and you know, getting a bus home or the journey home and reading every page of that manual, you know smelling that fresh page smell of a game manual and just really soaking up a game before you even played it. So that's what we really try and homage and that's why when you purchase from the computer, each, each machine, you get that small description of what it is but you've got that actual excitement of finishing your day in the game to then, you know, start a new game and get your new game. You know see it get delivered in a really over the top fashion but then it all starts over and over again really so call me crazy.

Speaker 3

But as far as the laundry goes, like when it tells you like hey, somebody's dropped off a basket of clothes, you get compensated for this, don't you? Oh yeah, so you don't have to do it, but you do get money for doing it. So I found myself in flat screen like it was a hustle, because if the shit shows up, I know it's going to show up every day.

Speaker 1

I'm going to do it.

Speaker 3

And I'm trying to crank out. I was more focused on cranking out as many loads of laundry as I could, as quick as I could.

Speaker 2

That is all the credit to the programmers and the developers, because and the game designers. But it sounds like that there's no fail if you don't.

Speaker 3

You just don't make. You won't make the money. But again you're going to see something that you want to buy and, granted, you can live off the hustle of the machines you might have in the back.

Speaker 2

But yeah, how much slower is that process? Going right, going right to playing the games and just working off the arcade machines versus, you know, like he did, and hustle, hustle, hustle on the laundry well, the point is is that the arcade machines are making more money than the laundry.

Speaker 4

So if you, when you go and complete, when you go and play the games, each, each cabinet have different goals, when you unlock these goals like they're sort of like in-game achievements, right, they add a multiplier to how much that machine's paying out for you. So, effectively, the more games you play and the more things you tick off and complete, you'll make more money from the arcade machines. But if you, you know how much the washing is going to make you. So if you're happy to just dart around and do the washing and then at least in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, I can make this, that and the other, but you don't have to do.

Speaker 4

I personally like to routine my day because you, you have to clean, place up, you have to go and obviously clean the toilet, which, in flat, you're effectively plunging a toilet in VR. We will have to go the next step. Then we you had to actually brush and clean the actual toilet, which is a very visceral experience. And, like we will be, I'm glad with the first game out there where you have to physically clean a toilet in VR. I'm glad I'm the first game out there where you have to physically clean a toilet in vr. I'm glad, I'm glad we've done that, um so, and you make money from that. And then when you're cleaning up the, the place and putting all the? Um rubbish in the bag or trash, whatever you want to call it um, you go and you throw that bag into the, the garbage truck uh out, not truck uh, the. Just you know what would you? Where would you put all your?

Speaker 4

dumpster, dumpster, there you go that's a big dump yeah yeah, yeah, massive dump, yeah, basically it's a sunday, people, when we're recording this one. My brain doesn't work um and uh, yeah, and you get money for that as well. So you, you, you got all these incentivized um bits that you know are going to make you money. And also, in vr, throwing the the bag into the dumpster is just so satisfying because you, you can sort of like kobe it and try and imagine that you're some sort of basketball star for that, those three, four or five seconds if I remember, the toilet's pretty filthy yeah, so um in vr, that's even better yeah, yeah it's pretty lewd.

Speaker 2

Well, I feel like that this is more disgusting man. I feel like, hey, that's realistic to how I'm sure how an arcade toilet would actually look.

Speaker 3

You know in the beginning yeah, more laundromat.

Speaker 4

So I always wanted the toilet to have a sort of story to it, like you'd get notes. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2

Like that sort of so you sort of worked out who it was that was defecating so poorly and you know, but it just didn't really make much sense to do that oh that that would have been a funny little overbranching story arc.

Speaker 2

Yeah, call me crazy, but this sounds like it would be a blast, in co-op as well, having your buddy clean the arcade. Is that something that's ever been in the discussion? Obviously, that's easy for me to say, just as a selfish consumer. I mean, it's a lot of work to implement, but has that ever been something you all have talked about?

Speaker 4

um, never for the the uh cleaning or laundrette side of of the game. Of course, we've had co-op or a versus and, you know, multiplayer for the arcade titles, for for a few of them, be it air hockey and uh, we've got a twin stick shooter that's really really really good, called zombat um, and we've we've done multiplayer for that, but no, it's never been a thought to do um, I would imagine it would be fun at first, but not actually be that entertaining after you know, because you just end up wanting to play the games and then, by the time, by the time you're playing the games, you're playing them single player anyway, aren't you? So it's not, really, it wouldn't make too much sense no that I, I get that.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it is one of those rare cases where the thought of co-op would be better. You know when it's better in the head than in the reality. Yeah, the application of it.

Speaker 4

100 you want to be left to your own to play games, right, that's what?

Speaker 3

yeah you'd look over and see your buddy doing the same shit just sitting there playing a game yeah and was this your first vr experience?

Speaker 4

uh development or experience uh, we'll start with.

Sam's Introduction to Virtual Reality

Speaker 4

We'll start with the experience, and then we'll go the development part after so I, um, no, I, I know he's gone and done some very interesting things. I actually, years and years ago, met Palmer Luckey at GDC and played on one of the early Oculus dev kits, like really, really early. He went on to make a bit of money, didn't he? And that was my first ever vr experience and I thought, oh, this sort of is interesting, but um it, graphically it looked like a playstation one um roll forward several. Well, probably, uh, I'd say like four or five years ago, because that was my initial vr experience, I thought vr has stayed pretty much the same. It's just, you know, the headsets have got smaller, whatever. But no, four or five years ago I was like, no, I mean, now, this is, this is, this is yeah, now, now we're cooking, this is quite, um, quite impressive.

Speaker 4

And then when we thought about uh actually developing some vr titles, we got on board with uh. So arcade was not our first rodeo, as it were. I've also worked on the last worker, um, and uh, tin hearts has just had a vr release as well. So I've done plenty of vr development. But the thing with um vr that I think I'm a little worried about, and this is why it made really a lot of sense to do.

Speaker 4

Arcade, was that? Um? I feel like the first thing you think about vr is either you do sort of sports titles like um sort of basic, or you've got a gun in your hand. Right. Those, those sort of um, those sort of tropes are possibly quite there's quite a few of them. So I, when we looked at arcade paradise in vr and because, as discussed, it's like, well, we'll try to see if the washing works and it does so we we immediately knew that it was fun and it was therefore going to be a really unique experience for people who weren't lucky enough to have it in the first place on on the, on the flat screen, really so the last worker, a, you guys got a thing for making people have to hustle in the games.

Speaker 3

It's the last worker. Yeah, you had, you had to work, man yeah, you're an amazon delivery driver. Basically, oh yeah, dude, some of the some of the commentary was yeah, it was funny.

Speaker 2

And what was your? Were you a producer for that game?

Speaker 4

yes, it was the producer on the last worker as well. So maybe there's like this yeah, maybe, maybe secretly inside I'm trying to destroy people's lives. I don't know if you have a hell of a time to find that out gonna come out with the mcdonald's simulator next, you know well, you know that, um, that, uh, is it supermarket simulator on steam?

Speaker 4

that's like an early access that I mean, that's that's doing the rounds at the moment. I always think that that's, um, that's basically playing. You know that's what kids play when they're like three, four years old. You know they have their own fake shop. So we're not far away from that, are we everything? Everything's gamified and everything's a game by this point, which I'm not complaining about, no I know you're a sucker for all the miscellaneous sims lawnmower sim power wash

Speaker 3

sim at the end of it, I'm in it.

Speaker 2

I can't help myself that's hilarious and you know kind of we always like to dive into our guests. You know how they got to where they are today. You know, prior to working at at wired production, you know, tell us a little bit about how you got into the game industry. Oh, bless.

Speaker 4

Okay, um, do you know? It's really funny, right? Because I've speak to a lot of people about, um, I'm really into games. Uh, how do I? You know, what do I need to? What college course do I need to go do and all this like that. First of all, like, depending on if you wanted to go develop games, then I would suggest obviously probably learning how to code and all. That's probably quite useful. So, yeah, because, uh, I never went to uni, never did any of that, I did the university of life.

Game Reviewer to Game Producer

Speaker 4

You know that awful saying I, um, have worked in game. So I'm I'm only a young, 33 years old. I've worked in games since I was 16 in some capacity. Um, I used to and this is hilarious I, when forums were a big thing back in the day, I used to just write game reviews and the and these in these forums. And I bumped into on a forum, an xbox forum, someone who wrote for an actual like tech website and he messaged me and said you, you're really good at like writing these reviews. You should like ask the companies for review copies and all this.

Speaker 4

And this is, you know, this is like, I say, well, nearly like 20 odd years ago, and so I'd be the squeaky kid who was ringing up the prs at these games publishers, going, hey, um, can I get a copy of blah blah blah. And I've spoken to a lot of them since who are still in the industry, and they always said to me they knew I was really young, but I was so polite and I was just so like um uh, welcoming and pleasing to their day that this, you know that little, you know young me would ring up where, like, anyway, week by week, I was getting copies of games through the post and I was just like um kid in a candy shop, sort of stuff like that. So I just had just had the, the best time about it. Um, started going to actual game preview events and stuff like that. And then just little me just would classically ask people like I remember one day the guy called richard wilcox, who's quite um uh old school in the industry, bless him um, he uh was the executive producer on a tv show um, I uh, just said, um, said to your man, have you got like, can I do work experience with someone like this? Because up to this point I wasn't making any money from, from writing about games. It was just a labor of love and bless, he went. I don't know, I don't do work experience, but I'll give you a job if you want.

Speaker 4

And then next thing, you know, I basically started from then and was, um, editing and producing a, a tv show that was the longest running. I can't remember what the marketing spiel on it was, but it was like the longest running magazine show for video games and, um, no, it always all went from there. Really, I uh, yeah, I'm just maybe maybe when you're that young and you're that uh, sort of spurred on by everything, you probably talk a bit too much, but at least the enthusiasm gets you places right. Um, and yeah, I've always said to people I've never had a job like this isn't a job to me, this is one passion that's led into a sort of a career.

Speaker 4

Um, and I'd say to anyone who ever wanted to, who just sits there and hears stuff like that um, just go and do what you you love and just don't care if you think it's um crap or people would think badly of it. If you, if it's what you want to do, go and find a platform to this to to make it happen, and just and just go from there, your passion will drive you further than anything else will, and if you don't have enough passion for it, then it probably isn't for you. But there's certain things in life that you'll find that you just suddenly whoa, you know, light bulb goes off and you know that that's the thing for you.

Speaker 2

And how did that go from longest running magazine? Video game show to to a game producer. You know when did that transition? Yeah, we did that development side less um.

Speaker 4

So then I went from that to uh the uh video editor at vt 20 for seven um. And then I had, uh, bizarrely, uh, that was actually youtube time when we were doing uh, that was like early youtube time, when youtube revenue had just started and that was doing very well. And then I bizarrely had um a bit of burnout from that because I was just, I was just knackered, I was not and I felt that I felt that I wasn't um, the enjoyment spark had slightly gone not completely gone, but I knew something was different. I I could still have done that every day and I would have been absolutely fine about it, but I'd never felt the same way. And then I bizarrely found myself um enjoying sort of the, the managing of other other people. You know, all the fun stuff of playing games is totally fine, but I actually was kind of like I'd actually prefer to just give other people um some games they play and I'll just put it together. Do you know what I mean? So, bizarrely, I'd gone sort of full circle, which then led me down the sort of trope of.

Speaker 4

I ended up, yeah, again bumping into uh someone who was read I was gonna do a, who was gonna do a HD remaster, a remaster of a game I used to play in the 90s called Constructor, which was a strategy game, a very, very unique strategy game. And yeah, again, it's like I'd love to work with you on this. So he said, hey, do you want a job? So I then ended up being the producer on Constructor HD and that was the start of my development. And then it just sort of I knew Wired Productions, for I knew Leo, jason and the people who run the place, and one thing leads to another. You release one game and then you send an email and you politely ask but I was very, incredibly lucky actually with that, because, um, so, and then you end up working on such an amazing game like arcade.

Speaker 4

Is that it all? Everything sort of went into alignment. It was during covid. I was doing another line of work, nothing gaming related. I needed a sort of break from ending a development cycle to. You know, I didn't know what I wanted to go do. I'm very passionate. If I work on a game, I have to, like I say, I have to feel passionate about it. Um and uh, didn't know what I wanted to do. Covid happened, so I got sort of stuck in a lull, but, um, just it, it all, everything fit into places, so everything fit into place. So I am a very, very fortunate guys and that's obviously how I've led to being finally on the podcast, I think it's amazing, though, that you've, you've it seems like a little bit of luck, some persistence taking a chance, though, well, and not saying out of every opportunity that you asked for.

Speaker 3

So I mean you ask somebody like, hey, I'd really love it, Because there are people who will say shit like that and if they were hit with that same hey, do you want a job? They would be like, oh, I didn't think you were really going to offer me a job. Where you're saying someone saying you know, I'll offer you the job and you pounced on it, you took full advantage of the opportunity. Another opportunity comes around. What do you do you pounce on?

Speaker 2

it start to build the resume up too. Now you've been a producer, it's a great story from like and and I.

Speaker 3

I think it's good to hear that like and you're right. If you're going to go into coding, you know you should probably go to school or you could even self-educate.

Speaker 2

There's plenty of people especially now yep, but your story's good yeah, it's a a unique one, but it's a bit of an inspirational one. It shows you can do it.

Speaker 3

And the keywords, the passion. It's like you know, why do we do what we do? Why do we? No one's twisting our arm, we've never felt dragged down to have to. And you're right, you. You do something that you're passionate about.

Speaker 2

It doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like work, regardless of the hours you put in and you said you have to feel, you know, a certain level of of passion towards a game, to to work on it. You know what was it about arcade paradise? That was like. This is something I want to devote geez at this point. However many years between the flat screen development and the.

Speaker 4

VR development um, our code's really, really special, uh, because it's of the era that I sort of may have been born in the 90s, but you know you never experienced that decade, do you? I always think that the decade you experience is your 15, 16s, you know I mean. So, technically, there's the decade I would experience would be the millennium, which is unfortunate because nothing the millennium wasn't as exciting as the 90s. But, um, no, the wonderful thing about arcade is is that, and if you go on, there's actually a reddit that's run by the, the community, and something that's naturally um spawned is. There's so many amazing feel-good stories in there of, like, this reminds me of, or I play this game with my partner, or it reminds me of my dad when he was still alive. You know all these sorts of stories.

Speaker 4

And throughout the development, what Andreas Fernegal, the game's creative director, has managed to do is curate this incredible development process of the game, where everyone got involved, everyone, even my cat, who is coming behind me she's in the game like, but all these ideas just were sort of just formed from, uh, conversations that were had and just such a labor of love. There was never like a strict rule set of the game has to be this, that and the other. It was um, a homage to the time of the 90s and the time of the arcades. Even the, even the music in the game, uh, all uh created by ourselves, um, and they all uh like, um, have likeness to songs of that era. So there's a a 20 plus. I'm not good with my numbers on a sunday, but we, we got a old um, we got an album that's basically a, an absolute earworm of the 90s, and I've had so much fun working, bizarrely, not only on the game but working on the music for the game, because it was uh, yeah, again, it was another creative process of back and forth.

Speaker 4

I'm not, I'm not going to tell you I'm a music producer or you know, or know a lot about music or the creation of music. But we managed to find another bit in the middle where it was like feedback of these tracks. I don't know, probably uh too much about uh, the, uh, the artists they were sort of based on. I couldn't tell you from a technical level, but I sort of knew, you sort of know, as a group of you, that it makes sense these sorts of sounds or this, that and the other, and even that was amazing because we'd made this incredible soundtrack before the game had even come out, right? So we made this universe a universe within the, this album of tracks that no one had ever heard of, because they obviously don't exist, because the game is now. Yet I'd been listening to them for months because I'd seen them being created and whatever like that, and they were in my the soundtrack, in my phone, right. So I'm commuting to work listening to this music that doesn't exist in the pub and I got end up in this sort of weird moment where I think these are real songs that have come out like they had actual releases.

Speaker 4

So then, when we did our launch party, we put on a band to play all these songs.

Speaker 4

Now the only people in the room are us at wired, the developers and like a handful other people who recognize these songs, right, that have, like you know, have like proper solid ballads you know this, that and the other like earworm songs, I can say, and everyone else at this launch party, he's got no idea what's being played, because it's not, you know, it's not the radio, it's not you know, you know it's not the latest pop songs on stage being performed.

Speaker 4

It's like this bizarre amalgamation of the 90s being played to everyone, and we had this moment during the the uh the party, where we looked at each other and said like we're really enjoying this, is everyone else really enjoying it, but of course they've never heard any of it. So, and luckily, with the game coming out now and you can listen to the album um uh, the soundtrack on spotify and all the other um uh platforms that we've managed to produce this sort of uh monster of a game, because it it harnesses so many different things of that of that era you know um so it's just been so much fun to to do and I'm I'm not, I'm not, I'm not at all annoyed and I'm not at all annoyed that the development continued and we did the, the vr version, because it's been so much fun to to work on that's awesome and I gotta ask have any of the songs?

Speaker 2

were they your creations?

Speaker 4

um, there's, there is one well, I'm not talented enough to perform my sax friends in the loft and or attic or locked away, I don't think. I think my music playing days are over, but there was one track where, um, I'd been given um and I was, uh, can't remember off the top of my head what it was originally called or conceptually called, but I've been given this track and I was like, you know, it kind of works like as an instrumental, but because I don't think this song, this, you know the sound, would make sense for too many lyrics. So I was like, yeah, we're halfway there, how about we stick a saxophone on it? And Kieran Pepper, who produced the soundtrack along with Ben pickersgill, uh, came back with his track and was like we stuck a sax on. It really works and that's become like one of my favorite um songs on on the soundtrack.

Speaker 4

And I'd like to I, I want to at least hold that, that um, the the mantle, that I was the one who caused the uh, uh the pier to have a saxophone on it. So, and we've used it a lot on a lot of our trailers and bits and pieces we've put out, and I like to see I like to see youtube comments where it's like what's the classic, like what's the song, you're like the name of the track or whatever like that, and and then people end up searching for that track because they're all like fake album, they're all fake artist names, right. So we've had people go like, oh, I really like blah, blah, blah, and what other stuff have they done? Like, you know, it's like what other? What albums? That often I was like no, it's just a one off. So, yeah, we probably made a universe out of just the music which I'm quite, quite impressed by.

Speaker 1

It would be cool to, in future games, include references to different songs from the same artist, like it's all made up artists like it's all the same universe.

Speaker 2

You know, you find like a, an album of one of the the bands in the last war, the last worker, or something like that. But it's cool because of the way everybody's. You know, with the music, everybody's work went into it. Or, like you said, your cat's in the game, you know everybody's. You know, with the music, everybody's work went into it. Or, like you said, your cat's in the game, you know everybody's. You know life is in the game, no matter what happens with the team From this, you know, whatever people go and work on, or 10 years from now, there's always going to be a little part of them.

Speaker 3

There's an imprint, yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, of Arcade Paradise. That's really cool that you know for, I guess, development culture. I'm sure it created, uh, a culture of everybody being passionate about the game and its development.

Speaker 4

Yeah, so there's a few, there's a few little um, I love. I love when people spot the easter eggs that were in there and we sort of you know, then have to explain it. So when you um unlock the uh, when you get, uh, one of the upgrades, you get a little plinth on like a placard Employee of the Month sort of sign in the arcade and the photo of that is Dre, as a teenager, my cat's in the game. Because we basically and it was my fault, I suggested it is I wanted some sort of challenge that was based off of, like in the 90s you got chain mail, you got emails from random people. So we had we already had the email system, uh, in place that basically the game would tell you bits and pieces from from the website you ordered the arcade machines, arcade mania. We always wanted to put something in there that basically uh, indirectly taught you things about how to tweak the prices and and adjust how much money you make out of all the machines. But what we then did was like, well, in the 90s you always got random emails from random people, or you know our commerce, you know people had pen pals or you know, uh, just communicate with random people.

Speaker 4

But the idea was that we had rivals, so people who were coming into the arcade and beating your high score. So we put in a few of these and one of them in the wide office. I said, right, we need a name for one of these rivals. If on the whiteboard I put whoever gets the highest score on Woodgall, which is like chopping a, a chopping, uh, you're chopping a tree down, you don't hit a branch. It's very, very basic uh, game design, but very, it's just a high score. Um, uh, chop them up. I'm gonna go with that anyway. So I was like, right by friday, whoever's highest on this high high score uh board will name the rival after you.

Speaker 4

And, uh, sam, it's amazing when you share names with other people. Uh, sam, in. Uh, in our qa team, he, he got the highest score, I think. Actually he got one, three, three, eight and I was upset because I thought, well, you should have stopped at one, three, 1337 and just like ultimate, you know, gamer, win there, right and anyway. So next thing, you know, write out these emails for this, this Sam character obviously sharing the name, and like six months into the game coming out. Reddit started filling up with people saying fuck you, sam Pardon, if I can't swear.

Speaker 2

No, you can, we're from Massachusetts. We had to make it explicit.

Speaker 4

And yeah, so it became this thing in the community of fuck you, sam. And it was because every time you beat the score that you're told. Every time you do it, you get an email back told you know you get, every time you do it, you get an email back saying I bet you can't beat this. Um, people were and this is this is brilliant were, um, uh, getting annoyed that they constantly were getting the reply and they just couldn't beat the score. And this was because and this is the more perfect part about it the way how that challenge works and I'm happy to talk about is all it does is look at your current score and then put a few higher and then you get the email. It's not ever like email 150, email 200, whatever. So your first email could come in at like 300 and it could be 300. Now you've got a score 305.

Speaker 4

So people were were setting the bar so high and receiving the email and they're not being able to beat it and they're all beating it too much, and then getting absolutely stuck in this circle of like pain, so like everyone was just getting really fucking angry about it. Um, and and at the end of that challenge, we were were like well, what do we give the player? Money seems a bit boring and, you know, not that great. If it was, you know, if it was a Zelda game, you'd get a better sword or some bollocks like that. I said no, no, it's got to be something completely useless.

Speaker 4

So you get given the attachment to the final email is a photo of my cat and all the rivals. When you finish the rivals, um, yeah, you get a photo of, uh, uh, a dog or a cat or pet, of anyone who is in the in the game dev. So, uh, I just think that's really. I love that idea of like people working really hard for it and then getting something that's uh, what, like oh, oh, thanks for that. Um, but the one thing I really wanted to do with the the one the wood girl one was, and dre said no is I wanted it to be infinite, I wanted it to constantly plus plus one you. And then I wanted to see if people would just keep going like I've got to complete this and I thought, no, that's a bit bit. I was told it was a bit too cruel, so we didn't do it.

Speaker 2

That reminds me of one of my all-time favorite games, star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. There was like a swoop bike racing thing where, no matter what your time was, you know, for two more times the time was going to be like a couple seconds faster than yours, so you were best to go just over the limit the first time. But I remember being a, you know, 10 year old, eight nine year old kid, whatever, and first time I go full speed and it's impossible to to beat from there because your first score is so good. You're like I don't think I can go four more seconds faster than that. Uh, that's, that's awesome.

Speaker 2

I like the sense of humor around it that would have been awesome to have one that goes infinitely. And excuse my ignorance on this, but are these all kind of made-up games inspired by real games, or are they licensed ones?

Speaker 4

Correct. They were inspired by real games. The reason why we didn't do licensed games obviously there's licensing B. It didn't make any sense in the universe we were building and you end up having a lot of fourth wall breaking things and also it's not really a creative process. Then You're just basically housing an actual arcade inside another game and it just wouldn't make much sense. Also, I don't think people would uh play the games as much because they just find the one that they would they really like in real life and just play that, as opposed to what we've done is we've created uh unique, unique games that every time, like I said earlier, when you've purchased it, you're sort of excited. You're excited to to play what's coming, because you don't know what it'll be like.

Speaker 2

So yeah, yeah, a lot more creative freedom in doing your own too.

Speaker 3

And he's exactly right If you put five nostalgic machines that you've played before. You're just going to have your favorite one.

Arcade Paradise Interview and VR Gaming

Speaker 2

So that must have been fun too from an internal game development side.

Speaker 3

You know making all of these, but all of them yeah are there a bunch that didn't make the cut too.

Speaker 2

They're kind of like a cut content of arcade games uh, anything, they've got anything that didn't make it.

Speaker 4

It was either, uh, on paper, oh that, yeah, that's a good idea, and then blew up and it was just absolutely, you know, uh, basically a game within itself, or it just wasn't fun enough to, you know, to be worthwhile. I know that I put so I'm the in one of our DLC titles for the flat version was Summer of Sports, which was a homage to the one time they used to be. I don't know if they still do them, but they used to do Olympic games. I know track and field existed years and years ago and this is sort of a homage of that, but they used to for each Olympics. They used to do, on Xbox 360 or whatever, track and field games where you'd do two simple button I don't have a controller to hand actually um, you know, you do two simple baffled presses the quickest you do ever like, and it was a homer to the time that I had some mates around and a friend of mine there was, um, I think it was like the beijing olympics game uh, the in the running. It was left and right on the stick and he'd done it so fast he'd completely burnt off the skin of like massive hole. It wasn't even a tiny little, you know like five, you know tiny like pen prick or whatever. It was like the entirety of his hand. The skin would just come off and I thought, oh, because commonly you'd burn this right and I felt so bad. I'm like, oh, my god, you've got to go over. It was just like I can't hold anything. So, yeah, uh, that was sort of my.

Speaker 4

I always liked those games as well, so that was sort of, uh, the reason why, uh, that was that was put in as a drc title. Luckily there's been no injuries. But, um, I just always remember. I just always remember and I felt it's his own fault for doing it. So but I felt like I felt really bad about it, just something like that. If someone hurts someone themselves in a certain way, I know that if it was an injury, that would annoy me, it then annoys me. Do you know? I mean, even I'm not the one in pain, but I'm not. Oh, mate, that would so annoy me. Yeah, so when your friend gets stung by a wasp or something like that and you're like, oh, I'd be, I'd be annoyed for for weeks, so I'm not the one who got stung here, just but at least it's like your friend got stung by a wasp because your pool was so fun to hang out in yeah, yeah, they hurt their hand because they loved your game so much that, yeah, but I didn't like that.

Speaker 2

And will all the dlcs come to vr too? Or is that something you know? You have to wait and see how things go I can't.

Speaker 4

Um, obviously I can't comment for that sort of stuff right now. What I will say is um, we will be supporting the game in exactly the same way we did the flat version. Uh, you'll see plenty of updates after launch, especially feedback. Um, from those playing in vr. There'll be um, we, we take a lot of feedback on board to really make the game the best that it can become.

Speaker 4

It's also interesting because we've done a bunch of VR-fied games for the VR version that are fully immersive. We did consider at one point doing all of the games as VR immersive, but basically we found doing that is just you made the games as VR immersive, but basically you, we found doing that is just you made the games considerably worse, like if they just were. It just didn't make sense to make everything VR. Um, you know, fully VR immersive because you just made a worse, worse a game and it just didn't feel right. I mean, I don't even know how you would play a twin-stick shooter with physical controllers. You're not going to have as much fun as you would with a gamepad. But we're always looking at ways we can add to the title and improve things. But I'm really excited to hear the amount of feedback we had for the original release and the really awesome stories we got out of it. I'm really excited to uh hear people's vr.

Speaker 2

It takes a on beer sounds like it'll be even better in vr, coming out right around the corner too yeah, april 25th.

Speaker 3

I'm just I'm curious if this studio is going to put something else vr related I was going to ask that before we wrap it up, I gotta know like you know what do? We got two now yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

well, the last worker that was in development for VR and flat screen at the same time, and then obviously this one came over. So it seems like Wired Productions has a little thing for VR, but maybe I'm speculating.

Speaker 4

I couldn't say Fair enough. We always have something off our sleeves, that's for sure. But well, hey, that's for sure. But well, hey, paradise is the only vr game or only game where you can properly clean a toilet. So that's you know. What else do you need? What else do you need? Why do you need any other game?

Speaker 2

yeah well, I appreciate that as a, as a studio. You know vr is on the radar in some way shape and form. You know, as as big vr fans and advocates, you know that's great to see that. From a professional side, you know we're seeing studios like wired, wired be like, let's do it, let's take the chance with vr. So that's awesome. And I got one last question before we wrap it up. I know we're stealing you late on a on a sunday nice, nice time difference. So all right. But since you know you, you were the original producer on the, the flat screen game as well too is it all the same team working on the vr version or did you have to grab a new team because you know it's vr?

Speaker 4

everyone who worked on the vr version worked on on the flat version. If anything, we uh, if there have been people who joined the project, they've been additional, but they've all all played and and know what made the, the flat version, work so well. So, uh, yeah, luckily, everyone's stuck, stuck around this. Uh, it's the, um, the. You know I was about to say it's the. What's the saying with that? The dodgy second album? Well, I can't remember what the saying is. It's not that at all. So, everyone who's involved, uh, I would never say such a thing. Uh, the uh, you know it's been, it's been amazing and and it's lovely to to have continued our you know, our story all together.

Speaker 2

It would have felt a bit weird if, if, if, we'd had people come on board that weren't involved for the first well, that's a product, I think, of everybody being involved in the game in the way they were, you know, their life kind of being attached to it. You know it's like of course it's coming out to a new platform, you're going to want to be involved in that, so hats off to you.

Speaker 4

You can even get even further immersed in it now because of the mixed reality that the Quest 3 options, the Quest offers. So if you want to feel, if the four walls of a uh, a grotty lawn laundromat aren't for you, you can pop into mr in game and you can place all the cabinets in and around your actual home and, uh, you know you can. You can play arcade at home and look quite, quite literally that's freaking awesome.

Speaker 2

That's pretty cool. So arcade paradise coming april 25th. I'm hyped to go check it out. You know, especially after this interview, I got a bad habit where I'll be excited for a game or I'll have some question or something like that. Then we do an interview and then I have 100 more questions and I'm twice as excited. So definitely excited to to see how this is received in vr. I imagine it seems even better fit and hopefully Wired Productions and hopefully they keep bringing over good VR stuff too. So, before we let Sam go, anything else you wanted to ask.

Speaker 3

No, I got my notepad full yeah.

Speaker 2

I think we usually could have done two hours with Sam. He definitely got quite the story alone just of how you started in VR.

Speaker 3

Great story of passion and opportunity.

Speaker 2

Yeah so good stuff. So to the listeners of the show if you enjoyed what you heard today, go, add it to your wishlist. Stay tuned Arcade Paradise coming later this month already, right? So thank you again, sam, for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, Rate us five stars and we'll check you out next week, take care.

Speaker 4

Ciao, ciao.