Chandana Ekanayake (Falcon Age) on Creating a More Diverse and Inclusive Games Studio and Industry
Episode Description
Chandana Ekanayake is the Co-founder and Creative Director at Outerloop Games. His studio focuses on games about underrepresented cultures and themes. Together they’ve made Falcon Age, a game about raising a falcon and fighting colonizers. And are now making a game about Desi culture, family, and relationships called Thirsty Suitors.
We talked with Eka about what it was like building Outerloop Games, creating a more diverse studio, and how that diversity and inclusion can positively affect the games industry.
We also learn about the development of Falcon Age and Thirsty Suitors, and the importance of doing a game developers conference presentation while demonstrating how to cook his mother’s famous fritters.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
Episode Notes
You can visit Chanada Ekanayake’s website here.
You can follow Chanada Ekanayake’s here.
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Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper
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Ben 0:00
Chandana Ekanayake is co founder and studio director at outer loop games and has over 20 years of experience as a video game designer and art director. outer loops first game Falcon age is a sci fi VR action adventure about raising a baby Falcon and reclaiming a cultural legacy from a force of automated colonizers. outer loop second game Thursday suitors is a stylish story driven adventure that unfolds through turn based battles, skateboarding and cooking, and is slated for release later this year. Thank you so much for coming and talking to both of us.
Chandana Ekanayake 0:35
Oh, no problem. Thanks for having me.
Ben 0:38
You know, I think the the first question that we're trying to start asking regularly is like, how are you? How are you feeling? How's life going? Generally right now?
Chandana Ekanayake 0:47
Yeah, I mean, generally, I'd say probably a seven or eight out of 10. Would given give. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I can't complain. More than everyone else can I guess? So I'm good. We're good. That's good. Family is healthy. So we're good.
Ben 1:03
Yeah, that's extra good. One of the things that I think like we want to really get into because I think like you do such a good job of kind of explaining this. But you know, let's start by talking about outer loop games. And kind of the the mindset behind it. The company was co founded by you in 2017, and kind of describes itself as a minority led, fully distributed indie game studio that creates accessible games with depth about underrepresented cultures and themes. Can you talk about kind of how that all came about?
Chandana Ekanayake 1:36
Sure. I mean, I've been in games for 25 years, I think it'd be 25 years coming up. I started at 19. So I started pretty young. I'm not that old, I am old, but not. And for most of my career before starting out, or loop, which was you know, 2017 it's been on pretty, you know, mostly white male teams. I think it's pretty common, like most of the industry, I think, is still pretty, not as diverse as we would like. So having that experience, made me really want to focus on sort of other perspectives and things that I feel like that I could bring to the table and our team. So starting the studio and focusing on on you know, you know, for example, Falcon a just inspired by South Asian culture and colonialism, and you know, those kinds of things. So, being able to tell these kinds of stories and mix it with some sort of gameplay that it feels like, if you're going to do a theme that's a little different than I feel like having a some gameplay that is more comfortable for players. So there's some way in, which was sort of our idea, which would do the Falcon age and which we're doing with their suitors or game about fighting your exes in South Asian culture. But it's also like a torrent, you know, has kind of turn based RPG kind of mechanics and skateboarding and, and cooking, thinks that people are familiar with. So kind of mixing these themes and stories that I don't think a lot of folks in the West are as familiar with, with with more familiar, gameplay was our approach, if that makes sense.
Phil 3:17
Now, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think we are planning on maybe jumping in to Falcon agent a little bit, but just bouncing off that. One thing I really appreciated about that game is what you're talking about the gameplay. It isn't, like, super challenging in some ways. So it allowed me to really focus in on the narrative elements. And they come up, they come through so strongly, like I loved that exploration of colonization and various forms of resistance and how people respond to it. And like you're saying, I feel as if the gameplay kind of allowed me to really focus in on the conversations as opposed to like struggling through, you know, complex interactions at the same time.
Chandana Ekanayake 3:59
Yeah, and that's our hope. And I'm hoping we could do a better job of it with thirsty like, there's, you know, it's always like, you look back at anything you work on, I'm sure, as you all do, too. It's like, Oh, I wish I could have done this differently. That's better. It's always going to be the case. So you know, I'm hoping we can do more interesting things with thirsty coming up.
Ben 4:19
Yeah, I watched your keynote address that you gave for Is it is it G cap?
Chandana Ekanayake 4:23
Oh, yeah. Yeah. G cap. Yeah. Yeah. And
Ben 4:25
it was it was great. And you You brought on that your kind of Narrative Designer to kind of talk about the some of the ways that kind of she thinks about work with outer loop and talks about this idea that I think is great, which is like the way that there is some freedom when you were working in a studio and the stories that you're telling can be too and for each other within minority spaces. Yeah. And not having to worry about the white gaze so much. And Phil, you know, Phil has written some reviews, particularly of like triple A games, where, you know, he talks about the limits. It feels like you see us Some of those games where it's like they're holding back, and they're having a conversation that is kind of still concerned about like, like a white player. And so maybe you can talk about, like, what does that look like? And what does that allow for when you're telling stories? Yeah, so
Chandana Ekanayake 5:13
I think, yeah, so my narrative partner, Meghna, and I worked together on Falcon age, and then we're working together on Thursday. So we do, she's in the UK, and actually, she's in India right now. So depending on time of the year, she goes, visit her family. So sometimes that means like, it's early morning for me or late at night, for her or some, some variation. But we we, we have a meeting weekly for years now. And we talk about, especially for this game. The specificity of it is what we feel like is the, the thing that is allows us to get away from sort of building it for an audience, that's not us. Like, I feel like it's more authentic, if, if we're putting ourselves and there's a lot of ourselves in this game. And in various form forms. And I feel like, the real way to, to be more universal with this story is be very specific with it. And if that feels more authentic than trying to generalize it to appeal to an audience that you don't know who that might be, I think, and I always appreciate seeing films and art and stories and books and games that are very specific. And I think that makes it feel like I can connect with the people that are making the game and the characters in the game. So that's been our approach. It's a lot harder, because we're always like, how are people gonna get this and that, but I feel like there's, you know, with least with literacy, it's about, you know, love and family drama, and these kind of more universal themes. And we're doing that with Jolo, our main character through her perspective, and including fighting her exes, and things like that. So yeah, our approach has been, you know, specificity for kind of more universal approach. And I think we hope that is that people identify with that, even if they're not South Asian or whatever.
Phil 7:14
Now, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, for me, personally, I, you know, I went through two master's degrees in creative writing. And during my first one, I was the only black person in the program. And I look back at the work that I was doing then and like, not that I don't like it, but I feel so much of myself is, isn't in it. Because of the people I was collaborating, collaborating with. Versus when I went to U DUB for my MFA. It was the first time that I got to get feedback from other black writers. And I had a black thesis advisor. And like, you're saying, it's really interesting thinking about the possibilities that you that you gain when you get to just be exposed to people who understand your experiences from the get. And I feel like the work I was making, there was so much stronger and more interesting and more universal, because I was able to be more specific about the things that I was talking about. I'm curious, just like, since you've had such a long career, in games, and you've worked on at big studios, you've worked in, in smaller studios, and you've, you've kind of gone through the gamut of all types of titles. I'd love for you just to talk a little bit more about what it's what it's like at outer loop when you're, you know, coming up with these these games and these narratives, is it is it a highly collaborative thing where everybody's drawing their experiences together, and then it goes into the game or is it you and Meghna kind of leading the charge in terms of the direction of whatever the next game is going to be?
Chandana Ekanayake 8:48
So for the stuff that I usually like a Google Doc that I've just always throw ideas into and and it takes me a while to kind of formulate those ideas and just sit on it for like a year. And then I'll pitch the team on things to see what people react to. And with Falcon age, I wrote like a sort of a one pager of sort of the what I wanted to do with the game, and then I pitched it to Magna at the time. And then we fleshed it out. And then the cool thing about it is every person on the team will bring their own sort of experiences to it. And even though I might start with me, or whatever, the what what ships is like very much the team's. I mean, that's the reason why, you know, we work with 14 different folks on the team as they have, you know, different specialties and different perspectives and seeing the thirsty it started. Roughly actually, Thursday started as an idea. I had the Slack message, I sent the magnet I was like, What do you think about this? I had the name first. So I registered the name and 27 Oh, wow, there's the suitors because we were talking. We were, you know, talking about projects and we're talking about arranged marriage and kind of how that's eatin in sort of on the West and South Asia and all, you know, she's India and Sri Lankan, there's like different sort of caste systems and different approaches, depending on where you are in the country or countries. So we were just talking about that I was like, Oh, that might be interesting for a game. And then as we're talking about suitors, and just like the the word thirsty and Souter kind of came together and came up with a name that way. So when I pitched her her the game, it was originally going to be by arranged marriage. But then we were talking more, and neither of us have gone through arranged marriages, or when we have family and friends, but we just felt like, you know, out there, that may, that may not be the right topic for us, because we don't we're not really familiar with it, we couldn't really dive into it. So we decided to go away from the ranch marriage and made it more about you know, exes and relationships, which we could both talk talk about, and obviously, people on the team could talk about. So that's sort of how it started. And then the actually the thing that really brought it together was fighting your access when we came up with that, but that didn't happen till pretty, like couple months into sort of prototyping and figuring out the game. Yeah, I mean, that once we figured that component out, and of course, there's a Scott Pilgrim, you know, sort of that's the first thing we notice when we show to people like, oh, Scott Pilgrim, I mean, I guess it is that way, because it's one of the few things in popular media that kind of deals with fighting your exes. So, but the actual gameplay for us is very different perspectives different, but I mean, it's fine. The comparisons are fine, completely valid. But like once we figured that aspect of it out, the skating kind of came in because our animator is also a skater and does parkour. He has a huge following on tick tock and YouTube, it's a whole separate thing. So he just brought up skating in. I think I had it I had a skating loading screen that I mocked up for the prototype. And I made it look like a 90s skating video, low angle wide, like fisheye lens and and then people were like, oh, I want to be I want to do that. So we're like, we should try building skating out of it. So that just came out of you know, that and plus our animators began skating. But he's, he's terrible at Tony Hawk. And so we're like, Can we do a more accessible skating game, and then they kind of fit into the character. So stuff like that comes through from the team, even though we might start with like, one person's idea. What ends up shipping is always there's a lot of collaboration that happens through the process. At least that's how we work.
Ben 12:40
Yeah. Can I can I kind of get you to talk just a little bit about the the fighting your exes? I mean, is it an RPG like battler? Or is it? I mean, is it like a straight battle? Or is it like conversation? things? Like how does it how's it gonna work?
Chandana Ekanayake 12:54
Yes, yes. It's the conversation and choices and turn based battle. It's all tied in. I think we were developing this before. JACC is the new one. Yes. Okay.
Ben 13:07
We're gonna ask because because we're actually both in the midst of playing that and really enjoying it. And we're both kind of talking about how there's something about a modern setting with RPG elements that just works like it just works great. Yeah,
Chandana Ekanayake 13:19
I'm a huge like, a dragon fan. Yeah. So I wouldn't ever pitch this, but if this is going on record, but it's like our game is like a, like a smaller version of the Yakuza game. So it's like, random, random desperate things tied together with a narrative story, right, like so yeah, I mean, the the turn based battle is, it was really inspired by Paper Mario 1000 Year Door. So like, there's active timing elements, and their skills, and you know, what we call willpower, but it's like magic powers and stuff like that. That includes narrative choices in the middle of combat to which, because it really doesn't do so. But yeah, we're doing because of sort of our theming. And the reason that access works so well is there's a built in history when you fighting somebody for the player, they're new, but there's, there's like this. There's a history there. And we kind of get into that through the course of a battle. No.
Phil 14:26
That's awesome. No, I love that. I mean, something I've been thinking a lot about. And I'd love to get into the Yakuza stuff in a bit is you know, obviously dialogue, conversations and like, like, dialogue options have been part of games for a long time. But something that I've been noticing a lot more recently, especially in indie games is thinking more critically of how we can use conversation and the ways in which we talk to one another to add tension within like gameplay McKay annexed. So I think of things like signs of the sojourner, or even grift lands and how it uses conversation and debate as like another battle mechanic. I love that, that you're doing that with thirsty suitors. I'm curious, like, did that come from some of these other games that were that were experimenting with it? Or do you think that's just kind of something that's in the air? Right now?
Chandana Ekanayake 15:27
That's interesting. It's probably a lot of these things. Seems like people are thinking about same time because of what's, you know, what's, what's come before that, or what they're playing, you know, it's hard to not be influenced by things that we're playing happens all the time. And not that we changed the game every week, because I played in the game, but like, you know, like, we certainly bring our experiences to everything we create, you know, kind of mix it together, it's like comes to where do ideas come from? Usually, it's just probably just a bunch of different experiences and somehow remix together. With with thirsty, we knew we're in the game about relationships were like, Okay, we're doing combat, and how do we do combat in a way that you're like, you're not actually killing them? It's like, it's a it's a sort of like the equivalent of a date where we're going to argument. And then how does that like? How do we visualize that as a kind of surreal battle? And so that's like, how do we weave the, the conversation bits? You know, what do we what do you say, and, you know, we have this, we have this whole mood system where like, it's called thirsty suitors, because thirsty is one of the moods you can like use as a time and there's different types of times. And you can, you can, there's more angry times and like health photons and things like that, that leads to you know, how that ties into the battle mechanics and the different skills you have, I'm not going to get really into it, because we haven't really shown anything up. But like, generally, the idea is like, okay, we're doing a game, turn based combat game, but it's about relationships, what are the themes and ideas that we can incorporate into a battle. So like, it made sense to like the conversation to be part of that, as well as like physical things. So that's, and then we prototypes, a ton of different things, the battle system has gone through so many changes. By far. The cooking is also kind of term based. And you're doing it for your mom's approval. So you're not fighting your mom directly. But she has an approval meter that you're trying to get across in the course of a cooking session. The skating has, it's more real time. So you're running around, there's like a full skating levels. And that's how you get around the game. But there's also, there's also conversational bits thrown into that too, which will show later. So yeah, I mean, the theme definitely tries, we're, you know, and that's the hope with any game, it's like you have a theme, you have mechanics, and what are the ways that they those two things can interact as much as possible. And that usually takes years to get to the point where we show it off, people are like, Oh, obviously, these two things work together. But it's like, no, it's just that they didn't in the beginning. We're just, we're just trying to prototype and figure out ways to for those two separate things to come together. And hopefully in a in a really nice way.
Ben 18:17
Yeah, I think I had this question, because, you know, you are a studio that is I think, in a lot of ways, like themes are really important. We're leading in some, in some ways with theme. Yeah. So how do you is it about finding what are the game mechanics that are going to fit best within the kind of the story you're trying to tell?
Chandana Ekanayake 18:32
Yeah. That also and also, there are so many, it was like 10,000, games on Steam that come out every year or 5000? Some ridiculous that's crazy. Yeah. So we're like as a team of 14, how do we stand out? That's also a consideration, right? Like, the marketing business, love it. Because that's important, because I want to be able to pay our everyone a living wage. And so we can make another one that's like, that's like our definition of success to be able to keep going make another one? And how do we do that? And you know, there's a responsibility to our employees and families and like, we have to also make sure this is run as a business. And running as a business and games mean, making something interesting and hopefully stands out from a lot of other things. So there's considerations there to write like, yes, we want to do this very specific theme and these kind of underrepresented stories. How does it fit into what type of game we're making? And overall, sort of the type of game that type of product essentially, right, like, so there's always a bunch of concerns of what what you know, what kind of gameplay, Falcon, angels real time first person bits we had, you know, VR version on VR. And this, we felt like the turn based combat lends itself to the pacing of the theme really well. The conversation and the choices you make. I think those are harder if you're doing a real you know, Real, real time combat? Yeah, yeah.
Phil 20:04
No, I mean, I think I've only played Falcon age. But something I really appreciated with that game is, in my eyes, there's almost like no dissonance between the gameplay mechanics and the themes of the game, I almost consider the narrative. It feels almost like a poem to me, like, I love how you start off the game. And it's not this overly long explanation of like, what's happening, it really just puts you in there. And I think this speaks to what you were talking about, kind of at the top of the conversation of like, how much do we explain how much do we let the player try to figure things out? And like, who are we speaking to? I just found that Falcon age did a really, really good job. I have like a note notes here of just like quotes from the game of like, damn, this is such a good, good moment. I, I'd love to take a minute and talk about food, though, because that's something that I've noticed and that's going to be in thirsty suitors. It was also in Falcon age. And then I like Ben said, in the G cap presentation, I loved how you went about doing that keynote. I can't speak to G cap, specifically as an organization. But I could imagine that in general, for a lot of those kinds of, like, GDC type events. There's, there's a Western gaze there of like having to have this very stuffy, like, I'm at a podium kind of conversation. And I loved that, to me, it almost felt like a point of resistance of like, I'm going to have this, this conversation with you. That also speaks to culture, it speaks to the culture of our studio. I love to just, you know, hear your thoughts on on, on that ethos, I guess? And is that something that you've tried to bring into your studio in life?
Chandana Ekanayake 21:55
Yeah, I'm gonna back up a little bit and say, because so I moved to the States from Sri Lanka when I was eight. So, you know, grew up, I grew up in Maryland, and went to high school there and stuff. So I think, for a long time, I wasn't comfortable being myself, right. Like I was trying to fit in as much as possible, because that's just my parents, like, started their life over, you know, just working odd jobs. I mean, essentially, we moved here for a better life for the kids. You know, they're like, there's civil war going on in Sri Lanka, they're like, you know, it'd be safer if we, we had a family in Maryland. So they just kept their heads down. And they're like, just trying to get through. And I think that kind of had an influence on me, older brother and a younger sister, my older brother, filmmaker, younger sisters in fashion. So none of us did the immigrant route. Well, the parents wander, which is like Doctor engineer. You browse to better opportunities. And guess what we're gonna take some different opportunities, and then you explain and they're fine now, but at the time, it was, like wanting to go to art school was a was a, which I did for a little while. And Savannah, Georgia. But that was another thing they had in their plans when they moved us across the world. But I think, so part of starting at a loop was also getting me getting comfortable with who I am, and sort of this, this double heritage, I grew up with, like the Sri Lankan part, and try to be American, whatever the quote, unquote, whatever that means. But I think for a long time, I was just trying to fit in as much as possible. And it wasn't really working for me, and I wasn't quite happy. So I was trying to part of this, doing these games, but also kind of being able to revisit culture and be in touch with it. And I started cooking with my mom. I made a little videos recently, when she, so she moved back to Sri Lanka, and then recently moved back to the States. And I had learned to cook from her years ago, but I was like one or two, but the way she makes it, it's always better. So I'm like, I'm gonna just gonna make a little video. So I was in the kitchen making, you know, making these things. And I was like, it was really funny because she was having a good time just playing it off with a camera. So that was right before the G cap thing came in. I was like, oh, I should really, you know, cooking is a big theme and something that I personally love, and I do a lot at home. And it's in the game. And we and this is before we announced the game. So like, I think I bleeped Magna out with Yeah. I was like, let's just talk about the themes, because I think, you know, because we've been talking about the themes a lot. And it was really interesting to talk to a couple of the folks on the team like Emma, who's, you know, one of our Australian artists, and sunny who grew up in South Africa and like, she's, you know, she's still in school. But we just hired her recently and she's like, phenomenally talented. She's very quiet, but I want to get her on camera talking about like, culture and race and she really opened up and I really, really appreciate for her doing that. So a lot of entries She does some writing on the game now too. So like the cooking was like I was like, Okay, here's a way we can kind of show what we're, we are as a studio is also something that I'm really into. And it was just felt like something unique. At the time I was like, This is gonna be fun. But it was such a pain in the ass. Because I was trying to, I was filming myself with a with a lav mic wired. So I was like, Oh, I can't go too far and go to the kitchen and clean up my, you know, pots or whatever. So I was like, doing takes in between. And we're going to do it again. But this time, I'm going to do the cooking segments separately, and then cut in the gameplay stuff. And I was just like, yeah, I should have just done that from the beginning, but I wasn't thinking about at the time. So it took a week to just get that through, get that done. But it really spoke to what's important to me and the team, which is like, bring a piece of ourselves, put a piece of ourselves out there, whether it's it's this talk about the game or the game itself. And it was really great to do that. Because I you know, back then I had some great conversations, you had some amazing points. And like Emma had some amazing points, like, you know, talking about was the first time you felt seen and same with Sonny. So it was just really good, great for the team to be able to, to see that and work on that run, we were hoping to do more of those because I want to I want to remake all the recipes in the game. But in a smaller format, maybe like a two minute video instead of a 20 Min. video.
Phil 26:33
I love that. No, I mean, I, I was saying to Ben, before you came on that I think there's a version of that video that just feels so dishonest and like kind of like marketing material. And I felt like with your with the version that you all made, it felt not only genuine, but it's like something I've never seen before in this space. And it's something that I could relate to a lot, especially hearing those conversations around race and identity and how that influences the work that we do. So you know, I'd love to see, to see more of those videos in any kind of shape or form. I think that industry really, like needs more of that kind of stuff.
Chandana Ekanayake 27:09
Thank you, um, we agree, I think they're fun for us to do and be able to just share a little bit of, and then the type of foods we're putting in also, you know, like, there's a, there's a South African dish that we found that we were putting in there and there's gonna be a couple other you know, folks on the team and some of the local foods that we're figuring out ways to tie it all that stuff in.
Ben 27:35
I also did I hear you right that you were tried to record your bomb in order to get the exact way that she does a recipe like yeah, I'll film.
Chandana Ekanayake 27:45
Yeah, I think I tweeted a couple of those. But even then, because you know, she doesn't I was like how much she's like, Oh, just a little bit of this.
Ben 27:51
And it's a it's the exact same problem my so my there's like a My grandma has this recipe that has like been passed down. And the the details for like how much you use are like two pinches or like one patch. And you're like, well, that doesn't tell me anything. And so it's funny that you went to this length of like, I'm literally going to record this person. Yeah, hopefully that gets to the problem.
Chandana Ekanayake 28:13
Yeah, there's a there's a game called Benbow that is doing. You know, it's about South Asian cooking and about having a recipe book that isn't fully fleshed out. Hmm. And they're trying to figure that out as part of the main mechanic which they played, tested our cooking, we play tested, there's, it's been fun to chat with them and compare notes because it was like, to South Asian themed games in the same year, I was like That has never happened.
Phil 28:37
Glad you brought them up. That's like a game that I keep on seeing like, gifts for and stuff on Twitter. And it's like, I just want them on the podcast so bad. I want to see more of see more of the game. So yeah, it sounds great.
Ben 28:50
I think you know, you're kind of getting into it already. But I wanted to ask about, you know, Falcon age specifically, and how much of yourself is in there? Especially, you know, as it I think the game is really grappling with the different ideologies of like, how to how to come to terms with or how to think through colonization and how it's impacted you. You know, as I was talking to Phil about, like, you know, it feels like, there it feels similar to a lot of games where it's like, I felt like there were there were parts of, you know, like Jedi Outcast or portal. But the thing that really grabbed me was the way that all of the different ideologies of the different people in the game are so fleshed out, and it feels like they're, they're fully realized, right? You have the mother who's like, this is the reason that we have to do this. Also, here's this picture of this dog, you can have a nice dog. You have the auntie who's like this resistance leader, you think but then you also have that moment towards the end where you meet other resistance leaders who are like, yeah, she's kind of a pain in the ass. Yeah. And I think all of that felt so real and like maybe you can talk about, I don't know, how was this game and how was making a game, a way to also work through you know your own feelings around this stuff.
Chandana Ekanayake 30:01
Yeah. So I mean, that a lot of that came from us just having a conversation about like, you know, Sri Lanka is a colony or, you know, the British Empire and our other writer, Cassandra. They're from Malaysia. So they had a lot of thoughts. They did a lot of stuff in the town, where like the juggler having their perspective and things like that. Yeah, which were just great. Again, it's the specificity of that, I think, is what really comes across. So I mean, yeah, we just had a bunch of conversations around around sort of, like, here's our sort of main sort of thread and main theme, and maybe some opposing conversations of characters, because it's, that's the thing, it's like, it's never like everyone is feeling the same thing at the same time, right? Even if you're supposed to be on one side or the other. Because they all have, you know, people have their specific needs and specific situations and faults. So that's sort of how we approached it. And then also trying to do that in a small scale game with a very fixed number of characters. It's like, how do we, you know, we kind of personify a certain perspective, and a very particular character is what approaches because we're not a newbie, soft that can do that over, you know, 100 hours and hundreds of characters. So I think just distilling it down, that's always the thing with with smaller scope games, is, here's the things we want to do. Can we personify that with a specific character? And then can we distill this into these characters or these characters, and that's just the process. That just takes time. I think time is the big thing with games is just like, it always takes longer than you think. There's always problems, every project is different, no matter how much experience you've had. So I think for the perspectives that came with, it came from, here's the main thread main arc of the story. And here are some ways to kind of zigzag through it. And, and given the player some perspective, and there because there was like this one part where you find this broken down robot is malfunctioning, and it's like, you get a different perspective of the things that you were bashing on before that. So yeah, I don't know if that answers it. But like, trying to distill these ideas we have into into characters that the player with direct interaction with was because that's our sort of that's the other thing is, depending on the game type of game, right? is, how is the player gonna see this in what format? For us, it's, you're having a conversation with choices, and that's you're talking directly to a character. And that was our mechanical way of getting across. And that's how we wrote You know, those moments, because there isn't really a narration. You know, there isn't some sort of other overarching thing that happens. And that's how we get into the game really early to is like, mechanically, this is like, Oh, wait, can we use this security guard in the beginning to kind of establish who you are, what the world is, and what the situation is. So getting pieces of the sort of the overall story and where things are, I think it's always interesting. There's a little bit of mystery to the player as a you know, move through the story. Yeah, even in linear media, I think like best storytelling is where I'm like, Get get a little bits of this and then bit bad enough to follow but then there's like, some some something surprising as you keep going. I think this as things unfold, that's my I think that's what I like to so that's was our approach.
Ben 33:32
Can I get you to talk a little bit about the ending? Is that okay, I Oh, yeah. I had, I don't know. I mean, I felt complicated about it. Right? Yeah. You have to give up the Falcon I think so much of the relationship that you build with the Falcon over the game feels like it's tied to this piece about I'm I'm relearning you know, this aspect of my culture. I'm, you know, I'm finding ways to familiarize myself with it. And, and no matter what you choose, I guess as a player, it that ending is the same that it's either gonna kind of leave the planet or you're gonna stay with the revolution, but either way, you have to let go the Falcon, right. And it left me with this feeling of oh, is this a piece about like, no matter what happens there are some parts that are going to be lost? Yeah. And is that is that central to that? Because I will act with this like, boy just like this really kind of morose feeling and I Yeah, did you like I just spent all this time with this bird. Now you told me to take everything off and let it go. Let it go. What's going on here?
Chandana Ekanayake 34:31
So we spent some time with the falconer. There's a lot of falconers in Washington found out. We showed the game first time at a PAX West. Like six different Falconer stop by and wanted to play and then we and then one local to me reached out and she was like, oh, you know, let me know that I can help. So we went we went out myself and several other folks on the team and just went to a park and she brought her Falcon and she just like fed it and and flew around and we just, you know, learn all about like Falcone. And one of the things she was saying is like, after so many years, they let the birds go out in the wild. And I was like, Oh, that's a great, it kind of tied in with the themes we're exploring when the game too. So we also changed a bunch of things in the game to make it more realistic to Falconer. Even though if you're not a Falconer, you wouldn't know it was just there, suddenly, you know, that we definitely took some liberties with it. But like, the ending was also it was a combination of sort of the Falcon theme, the themes for exploring the game, and also just like, how do we end this thing. So there's like an economic need for us to it's like, we just, I think, overall, we might have spent more time leading up to that, but we just kind of ran out of time, too. So there's not that I was the only reason but that was definitely, like, the theme thing was was important, like, letting the Falcon go was always a thing we were gonna do. I think how we did and we might have built, built it up a little bit better. So I'm not quite happy with that. But it fit it fit well into the themes of sort of, you know, having a falcon and with so many, and having people for so long and letting it go. Sort of the lifecycle of falconry to. So that fit into that, and also the themes of letting you know, of where ours journey is and what what she wants to do. And she's getting pulled from multiple sides and like the bird being part of that, and, and freeing it also, you know, I think in a way, like it's her kind of just starting over or figuring out her own path. Because I think at the end, we had a couple of different sort of variations of the ending. There's one where it's like, they had another little baby baby bird kind of hinting at add more coming up, but I forget what all the Oh, yeah, depending on the choices, what you say to your mom, I think we had like slightly different sort of now that you still letting the fogging go, but post post ending so. So yeah, combination of the theme and mechanics and time and all the things as always,
Phil 37:16
was that was the idea because one of the things I really liked about the ending was that we don't see the outcome of whatever kind of ideology you end up leaning toward. And I think that's, that's one of the strengths of the game as a whole, like one of the lines that like you and Ben were just talking about, I love this idea of like, the characters representing these ideologies. Well, maybe not. Sure, showing you the full through line that allows the player to chew on things, when what one of the one of the lines I really liked was, I think it's the juggler. They say you need story and myth and laughter to remind the soul why it wants to survive. And that's, it's amazing. It's an it's an amazing line and it leaves you something to chew on. Has was the game was the narrative design, like always intentional at the end of not allowing the player to see like, choose like, Oh, I'm gonna go with the mom and go off world or stay with Auntie,
Chandana Ekanayake 38:18
yeah, I, I'm a fan of leaving things up to some thoughts past the ending of a game, I'm not a huge fan of like, multiple endings so much. Just because I feel like things, even though it's not maybe the most entertaining it just like, I hope it leaves you with something past when you shut the game off. So but there's always a balance, it's probably not as satisfying as like getting this like, very concrete thing at the end. But I think also with our games, we're kind of designing the hopefully the experience was good. And that leaves you with something bigger at the end, and it's not always successful, right? Like it's like I'm sure Mass Effect three fans would probably argue about that. But ya know, that was intention was to leave it kind of open ended up to interpretation.
Phil 39:17
Now, that makes sense. I mean, I was going to ask, I'd be curious to see what other players responses are to it because of what you're saying, I feel like games in general, players are really used to being like, I'm going to click all the dialogue options. I'm gonna make multiple save files and see what happens if I do X, Y and Z. But like you're saying, I felt maybe it's not the most commercial ending, but it definitely left me thinking about the game more after the fact. And if I just kind of knew what offworld look like or whatnot.
Chandana Ekanayake 39:46
Yeah, I'm also and we're gonna do with all our games, including Thursday. It's like the player. We don't want the player to be the center of the university. They're like there's we wanted to feel like they're part of this story and obviously they you know the player Have some agency over it, but their their character isn't like AI isn't sitting there waiting for them to show up when they show up and you know, all that stuff. So there's there's things bigger than them. And that's how we kind of think about and write write the characters to. Even at 30, you have choices, but they're not like life changing choices. They're smaller narrative bits, which I'm always a huge, bigger fan of. And then the payoff comes from the game remembering your choices. And then that comes up in conversation later. Which we did a little bit on Falcon, but we're doing a lot more on thirsty. Oh,
Ben 40:39
I really love that. I think so often. Yeah, being the center of the universe, and the whole game rotating around you can feel like weirdly exhausting that you're like, No, no, I don't I want to be a part of this world. But not Yeah, the driving force in it.
Chandana Ekanayake 40:53
Yeah. And I think there's plenty of triple A games that do that, right. Like, you get the total player fantasy. And again, it's another way for us to hopefully you're playing our game because it's, it's slightly different or a little different perspective or a different experience. We don't we can't compete with Ubisoft or Assassin's Creed.
Ben 41:14
We do have a question here. And I, you know, I kind of wanted to ask you this about, you know, I think there is a real hunger to see more video games stories told with characters that aren't white. But we're also seeing in some ways they think that space being filled by white or white LED or mostly white studios, you know, in a space without any real connection to the cultures, or the characters that they want to tell stories about. You know, obviously, I think this last kind of couple of weeks, we've seen that conversation around Cebu. We've seen that, you know, previously Iran games like custom sushi, Tsushima, or guacamole, you know, can it can you talk about, you know, especially your studio being the studio, that it is what it's like to see that happen. And I think, especially to see, in some ways that it's like, there's a there's a taking of opportunities, I think from from minority lead studios, when that happens, but you know, what's your what's your view on this? And, you know, can you just talk through how that looks?
Chandana Ekanayake 42:11
Yeah, so I think, you know, I have very strong opinions on this. And I talked about it on Twitter, too, but like, so when I pitched thirsty, and I've talked about this, in 2020 20, some odd sort of different groups like a Sony, Microsoft, you know, apples and all, all the different publishers. The first point of contact, everyone I pitched to was, was a white male in their 30s and 40s. So it's like, not that they don't understand everything. It's just like having a diversity of the funding level, at the decision making level, I think could also lead. My hope is, and I think it's true is that it leads to some more interesting content, we're seeing that on a Netflix level, we're seeing on Amazon level, we're seeing that in other media, we're seeing projects get signed, because there's folks in positions of power that come from different diverse backgrounds. And I think that only leads to just better stories and better games. So seeing something like sci fi, which is, you know, not I'm not the biggest fan of that, and I feel like there's probably a team that could do justice with the with the narrative of it, the game's gonna sell, it's already selling. Like regardless, like it's like the the mechanics of the game is really, really strong. It looks great. I think they're missing out on the theme of storytelling aspects of not including some more, you know, folks from Hong Kong or China being a not just as consultants, but being on the dev team, because there's a lot, there's a million choices have happened throughout a two year dev cycle that isn't gonna, it's not the same as having someone that you bring in once a month or whatever, as a consultant safe, this color red is good, or this, this object is fine. Like, there's a lot of conversations that happen on a daily basis on a dev team. And I think that leads to some really interesting and from a perspective of someone that understands our culture a lot better. So it's, it's still, it's still happening. It's also I think, it comes from, like, who's funding that? And we're in, in who's, who's on that level. And so one of the things I'm doing is trying to help out smaller teams and trying to find like, connect them with folks that are funding it and just like, hey, hey, Sony, do you know about the small team doesn't do an a cool thing, you should get to know them. And so just trying to change some of that on my own as much as I can to.
Phil 44:34
Yeah, and I'm just gonna ask the stupid questions, because I don't really know. I'm sure it's different depending on the studio and when, when the consultant comes in and all that, but in general, like what does that look like when a studio isn't bringing in a consultant to consult on some kind of cultural aspect of a game or?
Chandana Ekanayake 44:56
Yeah, so some sometimes there's like a sensitivity reader, though. We're brought in And, you know, either earlier or later to look over the script, you know, like any of this sound, okay? And that's fine. There's plenty, plenty of talented people that do that. But like, their specific, there's little smaller details that happen through the development like in a given day that I think could could definitely benefit from some of that understands, you know, or localization or a translation that doesn't it's like Google translated or, or whatever. Even if you got somebody that understood that translated for you, but like, sort of the cultural significance of this object, like getting seafoods, Prescott was like, this generic bunch of objects that when specifically from the game, it's more just like, oh, this is just Chinese stuff, right, which is, right isn't as interesting, it was something specific from one of the characters in the game, or part of the story or specific set from the game or things like that. So it just feels, it comes back to the specificity right, it feels feels generic, even though it's in the same sort of theme, but it doesn't feel strong, it almost became for somebody that understood it, or it was understood that cultural a lot more.
Phil 46:13
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think coupled with that, something I've been really thinking a lot about lately is, you know, I see different postings for, for jobs in the games industry, and other creative industries. And something I've been seeing a lot more lately is like, you know, the tweets that are like, Oh, we have a new job posting. And we're also interested, and, you know, people from different backgrounds, or like people from marginalized backgrounds who might maybe have different kinds of experiences, but it seems, it seems to me at least, that oftentimes, when I look at those postings, they still feel so alienating in terms of getting people who maybe don't have the traditional background in. And I'm wondering, with games, if you have any ideas or perspective on how can the space, open up more for people who, you know, have, you know, really interesting skills or backgrounds or experiences that would be beneficial to games that maybe they don't, they've never shipped a game? How can we open up more opportunities for them?
Chandana Ekanayake 47:17
Yeah, I think I'm one of the bigger reasons for going remote for me was be able to work with folks that don't have to move their whole life to work at a studio, which has been traditionally the case, right, like, it's still the case for some places, but one of the good things about sort of having to be remote everywhere is that you're able to just be wherever you are, and, and work at a studio like ours. And one of the things that we've seen and we've done is like, hey, let's let's just see, if this is something that is a good fit for you employee and employer. Let's just do like a small contract and just see if we like working with each other. Like some of the folks who have hired and don't necessarily have sort of the requirements in a traditional role, but like, you know, we've established it in a way where like, we want to work with you, let's figure out a way to work together, and we don't have, you don't have to move your whole life to do it. Like it's, it's a little less a little lower friction. And us being like, our goal is to have a kind of more diverse studio. And that's in hiring for that as a lot more work. But that's like, that's a core thing for us. So we're going to take the time and do it, which is a result of what you see when we are in our team. But like I think having to, you have to be a little more lenient, because not everyone grows up with the same amount of, you know, obviously, access to technology and computers and being able to form before going to some fancy school to get for game design. So I think the being remote and being able to work more remotely with better tools, makes it gap a little little smaller. But also it takes a studio to really make an effort. Because I it's it'd be really easy to hire white dude, for me right now, like super easy. So it's just much harder to find somebody. You know, like, we're thick, we're about 5050 men, men to women right now, which isn't I've never had that in a studio ever in 20 years. So that was a conscious choice, like we went out and and make sure we, you know, talk to folks we know and looked at looked at places that that might be have more access to things and I don't know, we just looked around and talk a lot of folks and to find the right candidates for what we wanted to do with the studio. So I don't know, I guess I guess the remote stuff helped a little bit but I mean, I think there's funding and earlier education and not and changing some of the traditional sort of requirements is a big step.
Ben 50:05
Do you mind just like briefly talking about your own path into into games? Obviously, you started really young, what did that look like for you?
Chandana Ekanayake 50:15
So I went to art school for a semester, ran out of money, came back home to Maryland. We're working at Costco. And then I was teaching myself like to do animation and stuff. And then a friend of mine was going through architecture school, and they were starting a studio to doing animation work. And we just kind of got together worked out of a house, we didn't know anything. And we were super cheap. And I spent like, a year like living out of this house and doing like, architecture work, and teaching myself 3d And Photoshop. And then we were sending reels around. And Bethesda was one of the companies that was local. They saw how cheap we were and how hungry we were and how talented we were. So at the time, and they hired us to do like a cutscene for one of their games. It was called Battle spider, which was like, Elder Scrolls presents before Morrowind. So that got us into the 1000s. And they're like, Oh, these folks that kind of talents. They hired, the five of us just started with us. So that's why I started there. So it's like, everyone has a different origin story and games. And mine is definitely not a traditional one. And that's something that would happen today. I don't think. So it was accidental and Right place, right time, like you, but I was mostly just driven, self driven to kind of Senator, we're finished school after that. So like, I still have a chip on my shoulder for like, wanting to keep learning stuff. And also just, I think also get perspective, like, I think it, you don't have to have a traditional schooling to do this stuff, too. And, and then, like, I see a lot of folks that are, you know, at 90 Now, they're just doing amazing stuff. That's just phenomenal what the resources available. And Twitter's really a good place to find a lot of talent, I found we've hired a bunch of folks off just seeing their stuff on Twitter, like South Asian artists hashtag and, you know, like, lots of different sort of, like specific hashtags that I follow, for folks have found and reached out to him. It's worked out that way. So I think that answered hopefully.
Ben 52:24
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I can we, I mean, I almost want to put the question to you that you you talked about earlier. And you know, Phil's Phil's talked about this question, but like, what is the what is the media and maybe particularly what is the game that you felt first represented by and, and maybe even before that, what is the game that got you to be like? Yeah, gaming? I guess for me,
Chandana Ekanayake 52:44
yeah, the the gaming for me was full throttle. LucasArts Tim Schafer game and I've told him this and that now that I've known him as a friend, I was like, Dude, that games just because I was really into like, film and cinematography growing up and full throttle was like, the first adventure game that like, they did like close ups and these amazing like cutaways and like for action sequences that were rendered in 3d to these close like good character moments. And I just like never saw that adventure game because the retro game was originally just like one screen at a certain perspective and scale and plus it was like this very modern take like this biker gang fighting the system and which is really interesting, and the writing was great. The pauses were easy because the adventure games are super difficult at the time that's the first game I was like, oh, there's people that actually make this thing maybe maybe I can learn how to do that. First game felt seen that's a hard one
Phil 53:46
or movie or TV show doesn't doesn't have necessarily to be a game.
Chandana Ekanayake 53:50
Yeah, I think the first thing actually got me thinking about all this stuff was Hasan Minaj is homecoming king that really like the stuff he was talking about growing up in in a small town in California was like very similar to my brain up in small town in Maryland, just like coming home coming you know, moving to the US and that just really like I think that's what I started really thinking about outer loop and maybe telling stories. I was like, Oh, he's out here doing this and making a living doing it. And then while we're working on Thirsty Never have I ever came out and I was like, oh, man, this is perfect because it explored some of the some of the things bendy like Beckham way back when kind of did some of that. So I think yeah, I think homecoming king was was the one that was 2017 2016. I don't remember. That was the for recent. Yeah.
Phil 54:46
Hmm. That's interesting. I was talking to Ben about that question. And I had mentioned to him that. For me, I feel as if like a movie or TV show that I felt CNN was the last black Man in San Francisco and Ben was like film that came out like three years ago, or something like that. And I'm almost 30 I'm gonna be 30 this year. And I've just been thinking about, like, Sure, there's been plenty of TV shows and films that explore black experience and everything. But something that I've even noticed in Falcon age, and I'm sure it's the case, and thirsty suitors is something that's been missing. For me. I grew up in Michigan, and in like an upper middle class household and my family. Both my parents are like in their early 70s. So they grew up pre Civil Rights Act. And that generational difference that happens between like how I grew up in a mostly white neighborhood to how my parents grew up is something that I still haven't seen a lot of. And when it comes to games, like similar, it's funny that you say full throttle, because I feel as if I can't think of a game that represents me personally. Yeah, but I can definitely think of games that that really got me into gaming when I started. And I'm looking at something like thirsty suitors. And it's like, Man, I really hope more studios get started doing similar things, because I feel like it's so important, especially right now.
Chandana Ekanayake 56:14
Yeah, yeah, I think it's the thing I also thought about, like, exploring themes. I was like, I've gotten used to experiences through white characters, like other people can get used to experience to, you know, darker characters, I think, like, like, identify with Bannon full throttle. I'm not a white biker, but like, it storytelling, right? Like, we can kind of fantasize, you know, play through the roles of the character. So that's also kind of give me a little more confidence to kind of tell the stories we're doing too, because I think there's like universal stories and characters that you can identify with, regardless of race. And gender, right. So Oh, yeah, sorry, I want to mention a couple of things. Because I was looking back at my pitch Doc, I had big sick and meet the girls. Because I think homecoming king and big sick came maybe back to back or a couple years after meet the Patel's is an older documentary about this comedian. Goes but he's his wife hit now his sister is a filmmaker in LA and he documents them over five years. He's a comedian, where he tells his parents, okay, set me up with an arranged marriage, I'll go for it. And he just broke up with his white girlfriend, and he's never told them about it. So they go back to India, and it's like, over five years. It's really fascinating. It's on Amazon. But that got me thinking about the studio.
Ben 57:40
Yeah, I think what's what's like it like so right about what you're saying. And I think like, gets to the the problem of like, projects, like CPU in some ways is like, there is so clearly, I think, a hunger to hear other stories, right? That it's like, you cannot like, you know, you go any direction in the video game industry. And you're gonna find out white power fantasy game, like, they're, they're just a diamond doesn't. And there's all these stories told in that way. So I think people do really want to see other stories. And so I think that that gets to the kind of the insidiousness of a white studio stepping in and being like, we can fill that gap for you.
Chandana Ekanayake 58:20
Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're seeing that with brands and like, you know, LGBTQ flags. Every totally. Yeah. Yeah. Especially this month, right. You're gonna see a lot of support a lot of empty support. Yep. That goes nowhere. Get a slap that add together. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's it's certainly a brand branding opportunity. I mean, they're seeing it as a branding opportunity. But it's which also means like, there's, there's a hunger for it. Right. But it's like, there's a right way to do it. And obviously, a very cosmetic way to do it, too.
Ben 58:56
Yeah. We, thank you so much for coming to talk to us. You know, I really appreciate it. And is there something that you know, before we end here, is there something we haven't asked you that you want to say?
Chandana Ekanayake 59:09
No, I mean, I again, to your point, I hope I want to see more more stories like Themba and through suitors and from other studios I hope I hope there's a lot more and I from what I've seen on Twitter other people doing a lot more interesting things and it's coming together and I hope they find ways to bring that to market yeah, there's like spirits swap I've been one of the ones I've been following and let's see love shore some of the folks that I follow on Twitter Those are great. Trying to think there's Oh invalidate Danny over valid issues. She's doing some great stuff too.
Ben 59:50
And then maybe maybe Lastly, it says thirsty suitors that I'm on the Steam page. Do we have a release date yet?
Chandana Ekanayake 59:58
No, sometime, hopefully. This year, okay.
Ben 1:00:01
Listen, the relationship RPG stuff is great. As soon as I saw skateboarding, I knew I was there.
Chandana Ekanayake 1:00:08
Yeah, yeah, we got plenty of that.
Ben 1:00:12
Cool, Phil, anything else from you?
Phil 1:00:15
Know, just again, thanks so much for coming on. I really love this conversation. I feel like I could just keep on going. So it's good that we're, we're putting a stop on it. I'd love to, you know, have y'all like maybe some other people on the team closer to when thirsty suitors is out just to continue the conversation.
Chandana Ekanayake 1:00:31
That'd be great. We'd love it. So thanks for having me.
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