One of the eeriest moments I remember… on my Nokia 3210, texting the word “ebraismo”… my T9 spelled it “fascismo”.
If you google it today, you’ll find I wasn’t alone in noticing it.
Sorry… I should have read it all the way down.
And, interesting fact… When I told, back then, to all my friend what I discovered, the most common reaction was: “How * beep * come you texted the word “ebraismo”?!?”
Apparently Guga and I had a weird teenage…
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I think it was, yeah.
There isn’t, sadly. She was just signing programmes at the stage door. I’m not sure we had cameras on our phones then, either, heh.
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Oh yeah, it used to be harder. Only photo I have of me is with that one guy…you know who sang that Smoke On The Water song…
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Ian Gillan?
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Yup, originally. Of course after him 3 other guys sang that one too in the band.
So you got to sing onstage with Deep Purple when you were a kid???
Based on what I said thus far that´s quite some conclusion to jump to!
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I’ve uploaded to the YouTube playlist for the Podcasts. Here:
I can’t remember how we downloaded the initial transcript info. @Someone used a script to download to the ‘raw’ directory in our git repo, and then you used one of the raw files as a basis for your transcription work, correct?
@Someone, can you share the youtube-dl command-line you used to extract the captions files? I can do it from the youtube GUI, but a) I don’t get the .txt version option, and b) I’d like to have the filenames match up to the others we have. Or if you can help by downloading, I don’t know if you are sharing the bitbucket hosted git repo with @Sushi and I (or want to), or if you sent them to @Sushi a different way in the past.
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Thanks! How far got the visualisation project in the end? That was great!
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Yeah, @someone shared the raw files via PM. Then I put them in git.
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Yeah, I’m a bit disappointed that I’ve been unable to make progress with the podcast animation work since January. Work and challenges associated with my older kids transitioning to college have taken all of my free time in the first part of the year. But things are settling down somewhat, so I’m actually just starting to get back into it.
I was thinking of initially getting a new animation demo out using this new Podcast #68, probably with no new features yet, and then shortly after making another demo with a guest speaker (which will be the first podcast where Mark joined in). Adding support for a guest speaker has required a lot of work in the script. I need a fourth set of sprites for the guest speaker, for which I am using Chet’s character (Pizza guy) from the game, for humor value, and because Ron provided his spritesheet as the “extra” I could try using. Chet’s spritesheet is weirder because he walks sideways (hilariously), always facing forward, and his head is in the middle instead of on top, so aligning the head (with different lip animations) with the body needs some new code, unfortunately.
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This is the face sprite for Mark Ferrari from the team site:
Are you using that?
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If I wanted to take that route, I’d need to clean that image up and get the pixel size right, and then make 6 versions of his face with the different lip positions. (these were already available in game data for other characters I’m using), and then I’d still be without body sprites (including walking animations) to go with it. So for now, I opted to use a character from the game, and act like Mark is sort of “ingognito”. We’ll see how it looks, I think it may work very well.
If we have any pixel artists on the forum who want to take on the task of creating a spritesheet for Mark, I’d be happy to support it! 
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Uhm, I didn’t remember that. 
Beside youtube-dl you need another converter to extract the pure text. Give me some minutes to recall that procedure.
@Sushi, @besmaller: We have a small problem here. This time Google has produced a lot of unnecessary lines. The result is looking like this:
Example
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
hi I’m Ron Gilbert now welcome to the
hi I’m Ron Gilbert now welcome to the
hi I’m Ron Gilbert now welcome to the
thimble week park stand-up meeting
thimble week park stand-up meeting
thimble week park stand-up meeting
podcast this is a very special podcast
podcast this is a very special podcast
podcast this is a very special podcast
…
I’ve deleted the doubled lines with the tool “awk” but I’m not sure if the whole text is there. Anyway: The pure text counts 45896 characters. Unfortunately Discourse doesn’t allow so many characters in one post. So I have to split up the text in two posts. Here is the first part:
Part 1
[Music]
[Music]
hi I’m Ron Gilbert now welcome to the
thimble week park stand-up meeting
podcast this is a very special podcast
because we released almost a year ago
today I think the last podcast we did
was right after maybe right before the
game ship so it has been quite a while
and as always I am joined by David Fox
either and Gary Winnick hello everyone
so it’s been a year it just seems like
25 years ago well we’ll do we’ll do our
next adventure game together in 25 years
it’s like every 25 years the three of us
will get together and we’ll make an
adventure game yeah and then then like
our heads are in glass higher so into
type up I have arthritis by then now
your mustache nanotechnology and your
mustache before then will allow it to
move this really smart fly off your body
and attack people and so the latest
adventure game for Ron Gilbert Gary
Winnick and David’s mustache yes I’m
planning to have it frozen in ice it’s
your tombstone just gonna have a big
mustache modified the game in a dress
there should be a checkbox for mustaches
or no mustaches than all the characters
with either have mustaches or not maybe
for next time so this is our one year
anniversary podcast and I’m not sure
what to talk about since we don’t
actually have a game that we’re working
on and we’re talking about what we’re
doing on the game so I’m not really sure
what the topic of our one-year
anniversary podcast should well it’s
it’s an anniversary since we launched
right it’s not really a year since we
stopped working on it
no that’s I think that’s the downside to
modern game development is I have been I
think I I actually stopped working on
the game when we shipped the Ransom DLC
it’s like when we ship that I’ve
actually been able to relax and work on
some private projects and stuff I keep
saying why does Ron keep building
that you know breaks and stuff
like that you know so he so you’ll have
a job I guess
job security well that was just ship
what a month ago yeah okay so you’ve
been on it for up until over the last
almost yeah it wasn’t it wasn’t
full-time and I was I was probably on it
pretty much full-time until we shipped I
guess the switch version was the last
version we released so I was pretty much
full-time until the switch came out and
then and then I was I you know took a
little bit of time off and did some
stuff and then started into the Ransom
stuff I mean the Ransom DLC should have
been done a lot earlier it just it just
turned into a really much more
complicated job than I anticipated it
being mostly just because edge cases you
know thoughts uh you know lots of weird
places that it was just kind of breaking
so I spent a lot more time working on
the Ransom flash I mean you didn’t just
throw all that old files in and just
push me one push button and you’re being
mean it’s just another problem with
Ron’s you know engine that he couldn’t
just push a button to do that yeah yeah
we pretty much had to charge a dollar 99
for it because of my sheer incompetence
well yeah and I I was helping
for that T I think it they spent like a
week reviewing all the files and making
sure we had them all and then there your
issues like where we used the same
recording in a couple places but didn’t
have copies of it so there were there
are bugs where he would start beeping
instead of swearing in a few places and
right we spent a lot of time testing
that to go solo the Katrina robber or
pounding on that for quite a while
because it were just lots of issues so
yeah it’s I mean doing that DLC was not
just a matter of copying some files over
so Ron I have a question for you which
you can or you may or may not answer and
any case regarding the limited run games
a deal is that’s something where they
approached us or what I mean how did
that come about
yeah they they approached us they came
to us I wanted to know whether we wanted
to do I do the limited rent stuff with
them and I think you know the they’ve
never done switched before so thimble
we’d park will be the very first game
that they’ve ever done on switch so that
means they’ll never do another one right
or or if they if if people who have
switches out there want them to do more
than they better bite the movie park to
prove how important it is
yeah bye bye bye 12 copies at least that
they can pre-order them there’s not a
there’s not a quantity limit on on that
right yeah there wasn’t I’m not exactly
sure how it work cuz Jen set everything
up mostly so she’s the one that did most
of that work and but I think there were
an unlimited number of switch pre-orders
but then once that’s done and there’s
kind of a limited number of things after
that I don’t know I don’t quite know how
the whole thing works with limited run I
think it’s just great that we’re on it
around physical media and then in terms
of the PC and big box you can still get
that from fangamer they sort of yeah you
know do that to as many orders as they
get I guess yeah well there’s I mean
there’s two there’s two big boxers yes
there’s the there’s the switch and the
PlayStation you know big box collector’s
editions those are limited but the
normal PC version a tumbleweed Park
through fangamer isn’t I mean they’ll
probably you know if if the demands
there they’ll probably keep making those
those boxes so are we going to you it
like a iOS hard copy like shipping
iPhone with the ability yes
it’s a thousand dollar copy you get it
you get an iPhone 10 pre-installed with
them Bowie Park yeah burnt into ROM you
can’t even do it it’s it’s kind of like
their calculator you just you can’t
delete the movie parts on the phone you
know have the launch screen you need you
know the can we park line screens on it
and
screams oh you mean it has like a
thimble we’d park Otterbox case that has
a light printed on there yeah it’s it’s
thimble phone for you add a bunch of
like you know ransom sound effects for
like you know John’s feet so the
ringtones are all ransom swearing yes
you know it’s the only ringtone pick up
the goddamn phone you know there’s
probably a market out there for like
four of those at least wrong well you
know Ray has that big chunky 1980 sale
your phone we should we should make
another we park one of those well how
about how about a house just an iPhone
case in the shape of one of those old
phones now that’s that we could follow
be a big case yeah and people wonder why
you’re not like out designing product do
we want to talk about what we’re working
on now yeah we could we could talk about
that or what we’re not working on as
assuming we’re actually doing something
else besides of this yeah so what are
you working on David well see I feel
like I kind of went into hibernation
mode afterwards so just you know
relaxing and sleeping more watching more
catching up on all the TV shows I missed
over over period and also they were
there because of apples or iOS they made
that change where you had to ship 64-bit
Apple so I had to go back to off-road Oh
AB said I had shipped and redo those a
64-bit and and that broke something out
the Rube Goldberg won and had to find
workarounds and so I was kind of in a
production many hell for a few months
trying to get it out before Apple
listened remove them from the store and
so all that so it’s old stuff really I’m
had been doing editing podcasts for
Annie for my wife and I think the last
one I had done was back in July before
we were in crunch mode so I went back to
things she recorded like a year ago
and I’ll cut up on all those and so it’s
really just a catch-up mode um I’m I’m
still interested dude do your laundry
stuff like that um stuff you didn’t and
didn’t do for the fight I’m really good
at laundry like I do that
I’m the laundry guy in the house and you
know the dog poop in the backyard I let
the rain deal with unfortunately we were
downhill the the slope is uphill so
we’re just rain down into our into our
front porch if we did that so that
wouldn’t be too cool and oh yeah you
know and I’ve always been interested in
virtual reality and all that so I’ve
been going to more meetups and not
purchase equipment yet but yeah I’ve
been researching a lot there went to
Universal Studios in Florida again to
check out the Harry Potter things second
time together you and you and Harry
Potter yeah I still like it and that was
really fun you’re one of the six people
who still like yeah yeah and there’s
also this place called the void which is
a virtual reality location-based
entertainment center we actually go and
they and you they have a physical space
set up to match the virtual space so
like they have a Star Wars game and if
you you know you see a bench you can
actually walk up to the band you sit
down on it and if you see guns on the
rock there’s actually guns when Iraqi
can pick them up so it’s kind of a
melding of physical with what you see
virtually yeah that was pretty cool um I
really enjoyed it the first time the
second time I did it right afterwards it
wasn’t as fun because it didn’t it
wasn’t deep um it’s pretty much they did
it for a wench and went off and if you
went through faster just ended faster
I think I like kind of like an adventure
game yeah so Roy you’re still gonna
consider doing that oculus rift version
of well I think that would be fun to do
but I just I don’t know that I’m gonna
get around to it I certainly don’t have
the experience to go do that but yeah
but I did the the screens for the
viewmaster version what we called that
the thimble what we call that the view
drop you tried yeah and all these things
were that I didn’t think it before were
issues um
you basically have to make sure that
their feet are always hidden if you by
the foreground stuff right otherwise
they’d be floating so you had to go back
and I’d you know happen in the
foreground so you never see their feet
on the ground since it wouldn’t be it
wouldn’t look like it was perfect I
think it’s harder than then we thought
it would be to do you know there could
be yeah it was fun though so that’s
pretty much what I’ve been doing no no
new projects I’m working on yet you know
full-time just kind of catching up on
old stuff
but what about you Gary okay so so I’ve
been messing around with comic book
stuff actually it’s interesting when
David said you know he’s looking at
stuff that he hadn’t touched for a long
time I actually had this comic book idea
when I worked at Lucasfilm for this
comic book that looked like a comic from
the 1960s it’s called the variants and I
actually worked on it with my friend
brain Anderson who’s a fairly well known
comic book guy you know that Lucas who
owns that and that is now Disney owns
that idea yeah yeah sure you’re gonna
get a cease and desist letter that you
can no longer work on this book well
it’s too late because I finished it but
in any case it’s something that’s that’s
I think Jen might post a picture of it
on one of our updates coming up because
I gave her one and it’s a weird thing
because what I decided to do was print
this comic book and have it looked like
an old comic book from the 1960s and
sell it for a quarter this is my great
business sense at work so I went out and
printed this thing and it cost me three
dollars a piece to print these and
you’re gonna sell them for a quarter
yeah so I have them actually in two
comic book stores because I can’t even
get into the regular distribution
channels with this because I’m Diamond I
think wants to take like you know some
percentage and they don’t want to take
some percentage of something that’s
selling for a quarter if you know what I
mean because everybody’s losing money
and they don’t want to lose money along
with me so I put it into comic book
stores my friend Joe Ferrara who’s
Atlantis and Santa Cruz and my another
friend Alan who has heroes in Campbell
California there’s the only two places
you can get it it’s called the variance
it’s a quarter and it looks like a
quarter annual comic book that came out
in 1960 I’ve also almost sold any uh
yeah actually so you’re just you’re
rolling in the quarters yeah well
actually I’m letting those guys keep the
quarters in order to like have them
compensate them for even bothering to
put it on their show Wow so your
business sense really is right not only
are you charging a quarter for a three
dollar comic you’re letting them keep
all the money that’s right because
support your local comic because I don’t
know
about what to do about it but like I
said it’s in those two places I’m gonna
do some sort of a posting about it
eventually we might even if if you guys
think it makes sense I’ll do a posting
on it on our blog at some point well you
should just put the put the PDF online
and then let people buy it directly to
you for a quarter I’m putting out
themselves through calm ecology or
something and and in that way I think
I’ll make a whole like thirteen cents of
a download or something so you know
there’s big money in those downloads Ron
I’ve heard that yeah so that’s what I’ve
been doing
oh that and and you know we got a new
new puppy
and unlike Ron we do have to clean up
the poop because it’s all over our house
well yeah a puppy yeah when pet when a
pop was a puppy we were definitely
cleaning up poop around the house but so
other than that things are going erased
all right yeah so let’s see what what
have I been doing I’ve been working on a
little kind of top-down view RPG game
that’s kind of been most most of my time
I kind of had a weird little story in
mind in it it’s kind of story that
doesn’t really work as an adventure game
it works much better as a as a little
you know RPG type thing so I just I’ve
been screwing around with that but
mostly I just been having fun you know
programming up the stuff I just really
enjoy programming so I don’t know that
the game will ever amount to anything
but I’ll probably spend another month or
so working on it still I mean a little
bit of thimble weed stuff you know
mostly just around you know getting
sales and promotions and and then stuff
like that figure it out but that’s
that’s pretty much are you still
planning to do any shows or anything
we’re on and go to any now I think we’re
I think we’re done I’m going I’m going
to some conference in May that’s in
Norway I am going to that but that’s the
only thing I have planned but we’re not
we’re not gonna be doing anything for
that we’d Park like we won’t be a PAX
this year or you know any stuff like
that so I mean those those packed shows
are a lot of work oh yeah
I mean most of that work Jen did she’s
really really good at that kind of stuff
but it’s just it’s a lot of work to go
to a show like that and you know III
don’t know that it would be hugely
beneficial to us to you know to do shows
with employed Park at this point yeah I
mean that kind of reminds me I’d like to
give kind of a shout out to Jen and
everybody you know Robert mm-hmm you
know everybody on our team who’s
continuing to just do great stuff for us
yeah everyone’s been great you mean
especially Robin good
yeah wonderful because you know stuff
will come up with you know product
support you know someone will try to run
the game on some strange Linux flavor or
whatever and I mean they both kind of
jump on it and try to figure out what’s
going on and fix it so you know the team
is still working and I would imagine
that you know we will probably still be
working on the game for another year
just on this kind of low-level tech
supports type type stuff and promotions
and you know little low-level marketing
type things I mean I that kind of stuff
just never ends right you could you
can’t just you can’t just forget about
the game because then it really will
just you know go to Sally one or two
copies a day so Sauron I have a question
for you relative to things you’ve done
in the past because you know now we’re
we’re pretty much aside from you know a
few physical copies that are sort of
collectors things everything is
completely digital download all these
different platforms do you find that
this feels much different to you than
the last things you’ve done or when you
were doing the cave and stuff was that
still kind of part of the way this
worked or is this really like a
different kind of experience well
certainly different than the cave was
because you know the cave I didn’t have
to deal with any of the kind of
marketing and sales issues so you know
once I was done with the game I was
really done with the game you know where
this game you know I’m I’m still dealing
with you know a lot of the issues about
you know when it goes on sale when it
doesn’t go and sale how much does it go
on sale should we be a part of this
promotion you know Nintendo’s doing some
you know promotion in Spain and they
want to know whether we want to be
involved on that I mean those are those
are the kinds of things that you know if
you gen gen does a lot of dealing with
that stuff but I deal with that a little
bit as well so like I said I mean that’s
just just gonna keep going I mean almost
never ends and then in in actuality
people don’t necessarily realize or
guess you know since we’re an indie
publisher we actually have a real
company that has to like fill out real
paperwork and pay real tax
the southern crap and actually Ron has
handled a great deal of that stuff I
mean you know we we do have accountants
and lawyers and crap like that but
there’s just a ton of other stuff
associated with that that a human being
who’s responsible as I’m going to put in
quotations the president of the company
or the chairman of the board has to deal
with all this stuff
well I’ve engineered everything with
taxes so so you’re the one that’s gonna
go to prison like I said I’m just gonna
go ahead look that I paid three dollars
for this comic book and I sold it I sold
it for a quarter and I let the guys who
sell sold keep the quarter so do the
math IRS yeah I’m sure you violated some
time you’re not allowed to not make
money on stuff ordinance that the
government yeah the new government
ordinance that came into effect recently
because of but I think that is I mean it
isn’t interesting you know point that
Gary brings up is you know when you’re
when you’re doing stuff like this you
know for any indie developer right it’s
not it’s not about just making a game
right because you probably have a little
you know company it might be an LLC or
something that you’ve got and there’s
just a lot of work that goes into that
you mean there’s a lot of bookkeeping
and there’s a lot of taxes and there’s a
lot of you know all this kind of stuff
that you know that we have to deal with
it’s like we have a bookkeeper you know
we we pay a bookkeeper just because I
don’t know anything about that kind of
stuff and you know we pay a tax
accountant and you know we pay lawyers
and all of these types of things you
have to do that that go along with
actually making a game I think I would
you know I’d be I would be much happier
of all I did was just make a game but
there’s all these other things that kind
of go along with it and I think that’s
where indie developers you know they’re
kind of wearing so many hats you know
they’re business people and they’re
marketing people and their sales people
and their programmers or their artists
and they’re just there all of these
things at once well you have that
experience with humongous too didn’t you
well I mean you in the early days you
know humongous grew fairly quickly to
the point that you know we hired you
know we hired an in-house accountant and
we you know hi
salespeople and hired marketing people
and so you’re I was kind of involved in
that stuff and very aware of that stuff
but I didn’t actually have to do that
stuff myself where with you know with
terrible toy box you know a lot of that
stuff is just is falling on this very
small team of people to do and and you
know in a lot of respects we’re learning
this stuff for the first time I mean
I’ve never dealt with steam and sales
and promotions and I’m just kind of
floundering around all that with
everyone else I am going to say I’ll say
out loud Ron I am impressed with the job
that you’ve done with all this stuff
having seen it a lot more than you know
people who you know are not actually
intimately involved in the day-to-day
operations of this company I’m pretty
impressed but I know that one day you
just want to have a company that’s
nothing but accountants and overhead
yeah that’s my dream yeah and I think
that you’ve done a great job of keeping
it in the forefront you know between you
know the sales and the special release
is the physical versions of it all of
the all the goodies people can buy
symbol the Tron stuff or quit of her the
record a lot of which you know I didn’t
I had no idea you were do working on I
didn’t realize until it was and now it’s
this Oh NOP well that’s cool yeah yeah
Ron are we gonna get all this crap or
what yeah we should
you mean you should definitely talk to
Jen if you haven’t but I know that she’s
some of that stuff well she’ll listen to
this and go oh it’s very efficient you
know I still haven’t opened my my box
oh I haven’t opened mine I’m not gonna
the PC box yeah I have it next to my
sealed monkey island-- and sealed maniac
mansion just next to his sealed Zack
McCracken uh-huh yeah yeah I should have
bought a box of these I wish I had done
that back when the our old games came
out i don’t i don’t think i have a Zack
I’m just kind of looking at my
oh no I don’t I don’t have a Zack yeah I
know I I don’t even know if I have
sealed copy suppose to those I have a
few of each game that we worked on it’s
like I have a seal bloom and I have a
sealed original monkey island-- like
this is like the 16 color monkey
island-- okay I have a sealed rescue on
fractal as’ and a sealed coronis rift
here and a single ball blazer you know I
don’t have I don’t have any Coronis
rifts I don’t have anything like that
I’m really the opposite of a pack rat I
just have so I really kind of hoarded a
lot of them but we’d park stuff because
I realized that I just don’t have any of
that stuff like I don’t own a single
humongous entertainment game huh of all
of those games we made and all those
timber boxes I don’t know in a single
one of those so I kind of hoarded a lot
of the movie park stuff yeah so so so
after you’re dead and mummified people
be going through the storage locker and
go look there’s a big box of what the
hell is this you know I’m gonna be
buried with it all take it take it into
the afterlife so I just talked about um
one of the biggest differences for me on
this game and any game I worked on is
especially the games back in the old
days and I mentioned this before was the
immediate feedback we get and often be
pretty good and bad good and bad I’d say
more good I mean the bad the bad um I
tend to ignore it but I I like I spend
maybe I know half an hour on Twitter
every day still between the movie part
stuff and looking at group works and and
just to see what people are saying and
and sometimes interact with them and
that’s really cool I made it and its
really cook acai I also get feedback
from people who played our games some
way back and people are still were
affected by those
and how many people ended up in the game
industry because they were inspired by
the Kings we used to do which is mostly
good I think I think they’re happy about
that but that’s kind of cool I mean with
snap we never got that kind of feedback
before there was very little direct
number we get sometimes we get sales
numbers but that was so divorced from
reality of actually imagining that many
people were sitting and playing the game
so I like that that’s one part that I’ll
probably continue doing for as long as
there’s there’s people are talking about
it just you know interact with people on
Twitter so thank you all yeah certainly
I will I will second that and saying
that it’s really nice to be able to get
kind of this immediate reaction which
has been for the most part positive and
it’s nice to be able to like see stuff I
look every day you know I never spent
this much time looking at something
every day because I never had anything
come out in this sort of you know now
the way the world is and we’re you know
something comes out and for a year every
single day there’s new stuff about it on
the internet which as I said has been
generally positive mostly yeah I mean I
think I think I think it’s I mean I
think it’s been overwhelmingly positive
right I don’t think it’s kind of like
you know 51% of the people of the game
and only 49% of the people hate and
despise it I think I think it’s
overwhelmingly been positive I think
that I think the negative stuff for me
you know and I don’t I don’t tend to go
you know trolling forums and stuff but I
think the negative stuff to me kind of
it stings sometimes when when people are
being negative about things that they
either are misunderstanding or things
that are just kind of I don’t know I
don’t know what the word is like like
you know the Ransom DLC stuff right I
mean we got a lot of negative for
the Ransom DLC stuff and it’s just you
know it’s like everybody worked very
hard to do that DLC it was not a matter
And here is the second part:
Part 2
of copying
files over right and and to have people
just you know accuse us of you know
trying to screw them out of money or
trying to do this or you know doing
something that should have shipped with
the original game and just all that
stuff like that kind of stings because
it’s like well you know we actually
spent a lot of time on this stuff and we
didn’t ship an incomplete game and now
we’re trying to do DLC and you know the
fact is if if you don’t want to hear if
you don’t want to spend a dollar ninety
nine you’re a clown sweared
don’t then the money right it’s like we
weren’t trying to screw anyone over with
this stuff and you know I think we have
bent over backwards with people to you
know to help out and to be open and to
be honest with this game and and so
that’s that stuff stings and I realize
it’s a very very small number of people
right it’s not like there’s this huge
number of people but you know when
someone posts some big you know ranting
thing on Steam about how we’re trying to
screw everybody over with it or DLC the
stuff sticks right it sticks on the main
page of steam and it’s like you’re just
like oh why is why is why is that up
there I mean people don’t take into
account you know we did major upgrades
you know like the arcade and other stuff
like that that we just put you know when
we yeah and that’s our position system
all of that stuff you know which is what
which was a ton of work yeah yes I guess
they just mostly let that stuff brush
off me I mean it irritates me for a
second and then I’d just have to think
okay this person I mean whenever I’ve
interacted with someone who’s said that
stuff they they’re like amazed that they
were actually heard and they get really
really humble and and a little maybe a
little embarrassed for having sped it
off and and I think it’s that’s the
downside for social media is that you
can you can taste
whatever comes into your head before you
really have a chance to think whether
you should say that and what the
ramifications are actually would you say
that you know what they walk up to you
on the street and say about it it’s
probably none and I think that’s a
really interesting point because you
know I there there have been people who
have just just attacked me like you know
on Twitter or you know other places
where if I was sitting that person face
to face they would not be that way but
there there’s this weird kind of
separate anonymity or remove Minh tit
happens that you’re just you just you
just lash out at people with stuff
rather than you know treating people a
little more respectfully and and and
again I mean I want to reiterate it I
think the vast majority of people are
incredibly respectful you know we get we
get a lot of tech support emails from
people and most of them people are very
polite you know they’re very polite in
their asking questions and we help them
out and the number of people that you
know rant at us on that stuff is is
really small I think it just it just it
just kind of stings sometimes you know
when when I feel like I mean there have
been people have ranted about stuff that
that you know I kind of agree with like
you know people were kind of upset when
the game first came out that the
characters couldn’t talk to each other
right and I was like that was very valid
right that was one of those things that
we kind of discussed a lot and
ultimately didn’t do and that was my
call to not do and that kind of stung
because it’s like yeah you’re right
you know that that was and you know we
kind of did a you know an update for
that stuff but the stuff that is that
that I just kind of don’t agree with and
just kind of seems very kind of kind of
vicious as is the stuff that stings a
little bit for me well often you see
like a conversation between two or three
people on Twitter and where they’re
complaining about something and you know
one or two things could happen you I
mean if if I pop in the conversation
since I mean this is an opal Channel do
people to forget that it’s not that
anyone can see what they’re saying
and it it transforms it immediately
usually into into a discussion where we
actually talk about what worked what
didn’t work or often I’ll see someone
else who’s a fan of the game jump in
into the conversation and defender or
maybe quote something that was said on
the blog from one of our blogs or
whatever certainly you know we support
everybody having their own opinions and
everything else and and by the same
token you’re never gonna make everybody
happy and we just do the best we can you
know we have to make ourselves happy
first I think that’s always part of good
I’m gonna say creative development is
make yourself happy and hopefully other
people will like it but you know you
have to be your own best critic yeah so
so we’re looking back you know Ron Gary
you know to pre Kickstarter you know
days and in seeing what it took to do it
and the whole thing on me are you would
you do it again are you if you feel like
it was a good choice to go ahead and
push that button to turn on the
Kickstarter or would you have second
thoughts and say nope
I don’t have any second thoughts I think
if I you know can magically do it all
again I think there’s no doubt that I
would do this again and get spin up I
think it’s been a wonderful experience
oh my that stuff there’s certainly
things that I would do differently you
know kind of 20/20 hindsight things that
you know I probably didn’t you don’t
understand some stuff initially and kind
of understand it a little bit more but
but then there’s other things that I
wouldn’t do differently you know there
are things that you know people have
been a little bit critical and things
that I think you know may have hurt the
sails of the game
like having those verbs down down there
on the screen I mean some people have
said oh you would have sold twice as
many copies that you gotten rid of those
verbs you know and you know maybe maybe
not I don’t know whether that’s true but
I that’s a decision that you know we
made and I’m happy with that decision
because I think having those verbs on
the screen was really it was really kind
of a part of what we were trying to do
which was to recreate the charm of those
games and I think those verbs were a
part of that charm and I think it was a
part of in some ways of what we were
experimenting with you know or that the
kind of big bobble-headed maniac mansion
character so I wouldn’t change that
right some people have been critical
about those those characters but I don’t
think I don’t think you want to change
that stuff so there’s a bunch of stuff
that I just wouldn’t change even though
people were were kind of critical over
it but I know I mean it’s an interesting
question I mean let me ask that question
of each of you it’s like oh I mean what
do you think what’s the one big thing
that you would change about the game
looking back when year later mmm I mean
I’m gonna say I certainly agree with Ron
about the initial question which was
yeah III don’t think I would have done I
would have pushed that button and there
are things you learned along the way and
you know I don’t know if I would have
changed any of those things in in
hindsight I could change them but at the
time I wouldn’t have changed them
because we made decisions that we were
based on kind of our feelings and guts
so
I think that we kind of retreated that
and we did kind of accomplish what we
set out to accomplish was to see whether
or not we could recreate this feeling
certainly for me working with the to you
guys and Mark and everybody else on the
team was a very cathartic and kind of
nostalgic process it because that really
brought home to me what it was like to
make these things before so I really
enjoyed not only the project but
certainly the people I work with as far
as what I would change in the game you
know I don’t you know Ron brings up the
verbs and I think maybe that’s something
I might have looked at more deeply but
we were trying to recreate that
experience so that’s why we did the
verbs but that might have been
interesting to to maybe even try
something different than what we’ve seen
out there with more minimal interfaces
something in between I don’t know what
that is right now but I might have sort
of wanted to explore that a little bit
more that’s about it yeah and for me
though the whole experience was super
positive you know there are a couple of
times when I was feeling some
frustration but that was mostly you know
with a bug that I couldn’t figure out or
like she kept on coming back to bite us
got happy tools yeah Ron I need some
where this features and you know having
a better having a tools person on on the
on the team to actually polish some of
the tools would have been nice but you
know we could work around pretty much
all the issues so it wasn’t critical the
the one thing would have been nice if we
had either more time and or our budget
safer voice would have been to have gone
through and maybe added more
interactions to that really non game
related for inspecting objects and you
know I think there was a point where we
were trying we realized how many lines
of dialogue we had and we were trying to
cut down the number of recorded lines
that the actor is going to have to say
and so we started coming up with macros
that would read you know
we’re close enough we would just use the
macro to say certain line instead of
actually coming up with a bunch of more
options so maybe having more options for
some of those and I know for me when I
was wiring up a lot of the rooms I want
to get them working enough so you could
play the game but got tired of adding
clever comments for every object in the
screen and you know more of those might
have made it a little bit richer and
without getting burned out by doing all
that but that’s I think comparatively
minor I know you’ve Ron you talked about
maybe would have been great to have more
stuff early on in the game people were
still exploring the DUI more more
interaction so more screens things to
touch or or different responses free
different things I think I think on that
especially that bridge scene you know
when you when you first get control of
the you know the two agents are Boris at
the very beginning almost almost good
having gone overboard with that screen
just in the amount of variety and the
amount of different responses for stuff
and and dealing you know with negative
responses a little better because people
were just kind of getting used to it I
think that I think that would have been
I think that would have been a good
thing to have done but other than that I
you know I just don’t know right because
you know we kind of set out to
accomplish a goal and that goal was to
recapture the charm of those old you
know Lucasfilm games and we I think we
had to operate under certain you know
certain set of constraints to be able to
accurately do that and and I think we
did that and I think I’m you know I’m
kind of pleased with that now if I was
to do another point and click adventure
game you know what I have verbs probably
not right I think that’s the point where
you know if it’s a brand new game and
we’re not we’re not involved in this
kind of experiment that we were that’s
when I kind of go through a nice dirty I
start to want to innovate you know on
all these things like the UI and
how characters interact and how puzzles
are constructive because I think if we
had done all of that stuff on this game
I don’t think people would have kind of
seen it as as what the game was really
meant to be it would just be oh this is
just another kind of pointing clique-ish
type adventure game out there and really
wouldn’t have accomplished what we set
out to do yeah you know I think that we
did exactly what we wanted to we I think
we wanted to capture like he said
capture the kind of games we did back
ever 25 years ago but with today’s
aesthetics in today’s sensibilities in
terms of game design and combine the two
and and I agree if we were to do another
one I don’t think I’d want to be
constrained in this in the same way that
we were yeah they were fun constraints
to work under but I don’t know that I
want to work under them again I think of
that that black and white movie you know
the movie that came out of silent movie
which was kind of a the artist yeah the
artist right there’s a knowledge to the
old silent films and I would guess that
that filmmaker would never do him like
that again because he just he did it and
he wanted to get it over system and he
like had something to say artistically
it wasn’t it wasn’t the rebirth of black
and white silent movie exactly right he
wanted to he wanted to do something with
within the constraints of that that
genre or that time period and get it and
so if I were to do you know the game
like like dice I would probably want to
do something without any constraints and
just come up with something that you
know the best in a different way you
know like like you said innovations and
changes I mean I I I someday I would
love to do a a VR type adventure game or
say an adventure game in of the are
expected to be our space yeah that would
be fun
VR makes me sick I couldn’t I couldn’t
work on the game for more than like 20
minutes a day I want to do VR of thimble
we’d park because I want to be able to
walk around a thing of bushes and have
it be like a flat piece of cardboard and
come around either side and it’s just
like this flat
basically you know half an inch of
thickness or something I mean will give
it a little bit of thickness I just
think that would be real amusing the
cardboard shipping containers you know
fragile and when you get behind the the
buildings then there’s just a little
sticks holding them up on the other side
you know a little broom sticks or
something yeah that would be fun to be
able to do that so yeah I I could see
doing something like that
and and this is really fun to do this
but um I don’t think that there’s so
much much I believe change I mean it
Brian you were you were thinking about
doing a talk at one point about things
that we’d that we messed up on yeah I
had I had a talk I wanted to give just
called there was the Boyd Park
everything we up and it was
basically just going through and just
talking about all of the things that we
screwed up on the project but I mean I
ultimately decided not to give it it’s
like I had a chance to give that talk at
GDC and I ultimately decided not to
because I’m just I’m not sure that it
I’m not sure that I could have pulled it
off the way that it needed to be pulled
off because I guess I was a little bit
worried that it would it would just be a
incredibly negative talk about
everything we screwed up and I mean we
are giving it or I would have been
giving it to a bunch of game developers
so I think that they kind of would have
understood a little bit of the context
of stuff that this stuff happens in
every project right there’s this simply
all the things we screwed up with them
from Bowie Park it’s on anomaly right
it’s not like we screwed up on all this
stuff and nobody else does right
everybody screws up stuff and it was
really just kind of talking about all
that stuff but yeah I kind of I can
alternately decided not to give it I
think mostly because I just I kind of
gotten to the point that I was just
coming down from the buiid Park and I
felt like
I was enjoying a little bit of of the
relaxedness and then jumping back into
having any of a talk at GTC just would
put me back in the the stress bucket and
I didn’t wanted to do that you can just
write one of those papers about it wrong
you know right up you know the kind of
like your rules about adventure game
design well we’d have I mean we do have
a big list
you know David and I brainstormed a
little bit on all the stuff that we
screwed up and I’ve got this big giant
document about everything we up
on the project but there’s just no way I
want to release that publicly without
context because releasing that publicly
it would just create a whole bunch of
people just arguing with all these
things or agreeing with them without the
context that would really be needed for
them people are are you with anything
that you post online
hard to believe well if you if you look
at this game in relation to all the
games that each of us have worked on me
in the past and if I were to rank this
in terms of you know total disaster or a
perfect it went perfectly I’d say this
is you know for at least or my from my
point of view then of course I wasn’t
involved in a lot of the stuff that that
ron was in terms of management and
scheduling and budgeting and all that
other stuff but from my point of view
this was towards the top of the list of
good things of you know games that went
well
I mean other than the fact that it took
longer than we had first hoped compared
to some of the games that were say at
Lucas it took we’re way over by like
years this I thought this was a really
really positive experience so it is -
from my point of view to say that we
really messed up isn’t really it’s not
really up as much as it’s
that’s the nature of beasts when you’re
doing development in engineering and
something new
you really can’t uncover a lot of this
stuff into you’re in the middle of it
and then you then you solve it you
figure it out and you fix it and I think
that was kind of the point of what I
wanted to talk about which is I think
externally you know people look at the
Boyd Park as a really successful game
right it it’s old you know quite well
for what it was and you know we were
very open during production and we had
accessible Kickstarter and I think from
the outside you know people look at it
as a very successful you know a
successful game and I think what I
wanted to do with the talk was go OK you
know it was a very successful game you
know probably one of the most successful
games I’ve worked on but here’s all the
things we screwed up so you know next
time you’re working in a game and you’re
screwing everything up just kind of
remember that this is really normal for
this kind of stuff to happen I think
that was really the point of the talk
and that’s where I think kind of
releasing the brainstorm list of
everything we screwed up or even
releasing it you know in print form I
think I think you lose you lose the
point of of the talk and I just I just
didn’t feel that I really wanted to
spend the effort that I would have
needed to have gone through to put that
talk together yeah on top of that you
love standing up and talking in front of
people wrong oh yeah especially when I’m
you know just in my underwear
you know wait oh wait that’s them you’re
supposed to imagine see that’s a problem
when I go up in stage I don’t imagine
the audience in their underwear
I imagine me and that’s just what I
I imagine the audience naked actually a
minute I think we’re very inappropriate
Yeah right well it’s like 15 minutes
okay so I’m going to say one last thing
at least you know we can all way in on
this but you know a little bit of a sad
note earlier this week we lost a friend
of ours who worked with us at Lucasfilm
look
arts martin cameron who we you know
affectionately referred to as bucky he
was one of my art guys one of the art
guys he worked on Zach McCracken he
worked on a lot of other things and I
just want to sort of mention you know he
was a great guy a very talented guy a
funny guy and he will be sorely missed
yeah Bucky Bucky I think I think for me
Bucky worked on Monkey Island and he did
at least on a 16 color version he did a
lot of the close-ups
you know so when you cut to the
close-ups of the Pirates and the
close-ups to guy brush and all those
things that those are a lot of the
things that Bucky had worked on on that
game he also bought my car the very the
very first car that I ever owned I sold
it at Bucky bought it he did the on the
256 color art for Zack really did he I
didn’t know that sounds right
and he’s great I I wish I could have
yeah I got to have coffee with him a few
years ago and he had a really fun
reunion and he was as funny as ever
and I talked about what he was into and
and I’m gonna miss him
well I think that’s it and and that
whole story that David told about the
donkey I’m gonna cut that I was hoping
you would all right maybe it won’t be
another year before you do another well
we’ll do the two year we’ll do the
two-year anniversary mod caste okay yeah
all right thanks guys bye bye okay now
wait for it to finish buffering
[Music]
oh it looks like for recording now
alright we are recording Iran remember
to at least push the record button this
time yeah alright are we ready okay
Nady hi and welcome to yeah I’m just
thinking about what I want to say okay
that is there our anniversary podcast
that’s right it’s been a year has yeah
btw: If the results are suitable I’ll post the commands I used.
Don’t spend much time on this. It’s pretty easy for me to just use the GUI to download the captions and do a cleanup. I was just thinking that you have a fixed recipe already, since we have in our git repo a file structure that looks like might have been created by a script.
Yes and no - I used three tools (in a script):
“youtube-dl” to download the subtitles in the VTT format
FFmpeg to convert the VTT format to the more human readable SRT format
“sed” to clean the SRT format and to get only the text
@Sushi can use the subtitles I posted above in the “hide details” parts.
Which subtitle format(s) offers YouTube in the GUI?