Neil Jones (Never Yield) on His Fight to Stay in Gaming
Episode Description
Neil Jones is a game artist currently working out of Detroit, MI. Jones is an artist and game designer who worked on indie titles like Clique and Aerial Knight’s Never Yield.
Neil garnered a lot of attention after his game was featured as part of Nintendo's 2021 indie world showcase.
We talk with him about how Never Yield was his last-ditch effort to see if he could stay in an industry that is unwelcoming to black creators and his complicated feelings around the attention the showcase gave him.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
Episode Notes
You can follow Neil Jones here.
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Cover art and website design by Melody Hirsch
Origin Story original score by Ryan Hopper
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Phil 0:22
What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast that interviews creators about where they came from, to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell, and I'm with my co host,
Ben 0:35
Ben Thorpe.
Phil 0:37
Say it again.
Ben 0:39
Ben Thorp.
Phil 0:42
And today we are talking to Neil Jones, the creator of aerial nights never yield. Neil goes by aerial night online. And yeah, so never yield is a sidescrolling endless runner. Think of something like Temple Run, or Flappy Bird or Jetpack Joyride if you aren't much familiar with the genre. So it's a game where you're kind of running across the screen and dodging different obstacles through jumping and sliding and things like that. But never yield takes that a step further with expertly placed obstacles, as well as other kind of fine tuned precise gameplay, in addition to providing a narrative story, so you know, Neil calls it a narrative runner. And this was a really fun conversation. And Neil had so many insightful things to say about indie game development right now.
Ben 1:40
Yeah, you know, I think one of the one of the kind of Chief Insights is he talked a lot about, like, how hard it is to develop indie games, how a lot of I think, indie game developers are kind of doing this on their own dime and their own dollar, and just trying to get attention and trying to make it work. And how difficult that is, you know, that a game like his, you know, which I got, I think, ultimately got a lot of attention. But he kind of talked about, like, listen, we need more space for games like this. And I think he also does a good job of kind of, if you follow him on Twitter being like, hey, you know, check out these indie games, you know, you can get X number of indie games for the cost of one triple A game. You know, this is this is where people should be spending time and attention. Because these are kind of so much harder to get off the ground in some ways.
Phil 2:29
Yeah. And he does a good job of also talking about, you know, being a black developer himself, how the industry tends to pigeonhole or highlight or tokenize. Developers of color and kind of, you know, prop them up as arbiters of a whole race or ethnic group. And in this case, Neil does, Neil talks about how, you know, despite the fact that that never yield has gotten out of press, it was shown in the Nintendo indie showcase. He doesn't want to take away from the fact that there's so many other really cool games that developers are color are making, and he doesn't want to, you know, present as if he's talking for a whole group of people. And I think he does a really good job of talking about how you navigate that, and the discomfort that can exist when you're trying to navigate those kinds of conversations.
Ben 3:25
Yeah. And I think just to contextualize it, he was, in some ways, I think responding to so much of the press around him and around his game was like, oh, here, here's this black game developer. And I think he's really conscious of this, you know, of being lifted up. And then like, not no attention going to other black indie game developers who are also in this space and saying, hey, you know, it shouldn't just be me up here. You should also be listening to and paying attention to all of the other creators who are in this space as well. And so I just think he has some really good insights about like, how we how we like, have this bad habit of propping up one person, and not really paying attention to all of the other people who are also doing that work in the field.
Phil 4:12
Yeah, and another thing that I appreciated in the interview, was, you know, there's this kind of mythologized story in the games industry, about the classic RPG title Final Fantasy, where, you know, back in the day, people said that it was called Final Fantasy, because Sekiguchi the creator of it was, you know, this was the last chance for square to succeed in the games industry. This was their, quote, unquote, Final Fantasy. You know, it turns out later on that that's kind of maybe bunk, that it was kind of just happened to turn in into that title. But you know, it's a fun story, and in some ways, it relates to something that Neil gets at during the Interview, Niall talks about the development of never yield and how he had been trying to make in the industry for a number of years. He has the background and the skills. But as is the case for a lot of people of color across different industries, the doors are often shut against us. And he talked about how he made this game as a way to kind of give himself one last shot at this. And, you know, it took off in some ways. So that was kind of an interesting story. And he goes more into his personal connection and his family's personal connection with the story, which is very much so, you know, encapsulated in Detroit and Detroit being a centralized place. And this narrative, and in this this game he created Yeah,
Ben 5:42
and I think, you know, just lastly to to bring it back, it's like the title, not accidentally, is kind of never yield. And so he kind of talks about this idea of just persevering and continuing to kind of throw himself out there. Even though he felt like I don't you know, I don't know if it's gonna it's going to work out. Yeah,
Phil 6:03
cool. So without further ado, we are going to present y'all with Ariel knights never yield and our conversation with Neil Jones?
Up. Neal Jones is a game artist and game developer based in Detroit, Michigan, he's worked on titles such as click, and most recently, aerial nights never yield. Thanks for joining us, Neil.
Neil Jones 7:15
Hey, thanks for having me.
Phil 7:17
Yeah, so we wanted to bring you on, based off of your recent released aerial nights never yield, we'd love to just start off talking about, you know, where that project came from, and how you got started working on it. Yeah, so
Neil Jones 7:30
excuse me, never yield pretty much came from my frustrations with the game industry, after years of, you know, constantly applying for job after job, which many people do. And be this turned down for reasons that had nothing to really do with, like, my actual skill or talent. It was just things like, you know, the culture here, you know, we're looking for someone more local, things like that things I really couldn't help. So I will always be told that I, you know, had the capability, but I constantly couldn't find a position. So, before I just gave up on the game industry entirely, I decided to make one more game. For more for myself. And for anything else. I figured, if no one played it, but I enjoyed it, you know, at least of those years learning about game development, and how to do all this stuff with you know, have some kind of output. And, you know, I could share it with my friends. And you know, maybe they would think it was cool. But after, you know, a couple of months of kind of working by myself, I did a prototype, and took it to like a small showcase in Ohio, and people really seem to like it. And you know, I polish it up a little bit more and ended up in another showcase a digital showcase, where it caught the attention of a publisher after the game was mostly done, and they really helped push it to, you know, a larger audience, getting me, you know, porting me to the switch, and you know, the consoles, and doing all that cool stuff. So it really kind of evolved naturally over time.
Ben 9:14
Yeah. And that's a huge, I mean, kind of trajectory. And I'm wondering if you can talk about, you know, you were in the Nintendo showcase this year. What was what was that like? Especially, you know, as you're kind of describing that this game was, in some ways, I think, a test for you about, like, whether or not you wanted to stay in this industry?
Neil Jones 9:31
Yeah, um, you know, I set out to prove a point that I can kind of pull something off on my own look at this person who the game industry said, you know, didn't fit in, and you know, that that person kind of did it on their own. So, like being in that showcase really kind of highlighted that story and, like, prove that point, even though you know, there was still much more to do. On my end. You know, when I first got the news of the Nintendo thing, it was like more of a quick Should I didn't really know if it was going to happen or not. And then once it was confirmed, I was extremely tired because I was like at the end of development, and I was only sleeping like three hours a day, or something like that. And they wanted me to record this video, I wrote a script. But you know, I was tired and burnt out. And I wrote this, like really honest script. And I sent it to them. And I said to myself, if they reject this script, I'm not doing it. I know it's a big audience and all they can show the game but I didn't want to talk if you know it was gonna be this whole, you know, say exactly what we want you to say type of thing. But no, they said, hey, the scripts cool. They just had like one little note about how I said to no switch. But other than that, they just kind of let me say whatever I wanted. And I got away with it. So that you know, I recorded a video like 100 times just trying to because I'm really bad at reading the script and staying on on track. Obviously, as you can tell, I go on tangents. I'm Neil I go by Ariel Knight online, I'm the creator and developer of Ariel knights never yield a narrative runner that captures the spirit of classic games in the genre, with a few new features, and a lot of style. I created this game in Detroit, and make space for myself in the game industry was previously refused to make space for me to help with some of my amazing friends who created something that represents much more
Ben 11:24
I keep going like, I keep it movin like, I keep going like.
Neil Jones 11:45
But no, it was it was really cool. People, you know, the reactions have been what they have been, but like people liked it. So that was all that mattered to me.
Phil 11:57
Know, for sure. I remember, I think it was the the game developers of Color Conference. I think that's the name of it that that we met. And I remember to seeing never yield for the first time. And there was this, like, this euphoric moment of this kind of seeing this game, like Ben and I are both from Michigan originally came from Grand Rapids. And for one, like, there are almost no game set in Detroit, and Michigan in general. So on one level is like that. And then also,
Neil Jones 12:26
other than that, one that we don't talk about.
Phil 12:27
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, being like a black guy myself, I was like, damn, I have to talk to this to this guy who's making this game all by himself for the most part. And no, it's, it's interesting to hear you talk about like, I'd almost call your description of coming to make never yield as like a Final Fantasy, like thinking back to like how Final Fantasy came to be or was like, this is the last chance or whatever, this is a personal project. And I just feel like there's been so much buzz and interest about the game leading up and then after it's released, and I'm wondering if you could just talk about that, like you had this, this goal? And it seems to be like, there's so much energy behind the game. Yeah. Like,
Neil Jones 13:10
it was really exciting, seeing people, you know, online, talk about the game and be hyped about the game. I did my best to set expectations. Because, you know, people came out the gate saying, Oh, I was gonna be like a game of the year candidate. I was like, no, no, no, just remember, one, like one guy made this game, like, over, you know, some some time. And I was like, I am, I'm the biggest fan of my game, but at the same time, expectations. I knew I was just making like this small little game that was like, really action packed, and you know, would do its job to kind of prove the point. Now, the next game, if I, you know, get like, a chance to do another one, I can kind of do what I really wanted to do the whole time with like, a budget and all this cool stuff. So this is more of just like, a really good test case. If you liked this, you know, buy it, support it. And then I get to make what I really wanted to make.
Ben 14:12
Yeah, what has the response been like to the game? And what that what does that been like, you know, assume that there's now at least with the buzz that we've seen an audience for this and so like, what is the audience, you know, relationship been like, I guess?
Neil Jones 14:29
Yeah, like the fans are, like calm fans, despite the people who support me. This the people who've, like supported me in the game and stuff, they really enjoy the game. They understand what I was going for. And, you know, there's been some critiques about the game, which I completely agree with. I think that surprised a lot of people. You know, people make comments like, Hey, I don't like the slow motion in certain parts. And I was like, I pretty much figured a lot of people want it like it's not slow motion, because it's catered towards more accessibility to get people into The runner genre because there's a lot of people who don't like the intense nature of the runner genre. So I wanted to make it more accessible this round. And then if I got to do another one, you know, then I would up the ante a little bit, because now we already got those people and they can come with us. So like, I completely expected that and nervous things about, you know, hitboxes, people don't understand how I made the hitboxes. So there, they don't really get that I was really trying to, you know, like, let the players slide with a lot of, you know, if they were like a touch off of a jump or something like that, I give it to him, you know, things like that, just making it more comfortable and easy and focusing on people playing it and find it fun, rather than frustrating. So yeah, like, like, whenever, like people come to me with, you know, critiques and stuff like that, especially in the reviews, by most of the reviews out there, I'll sit there and like, I'll message to the person who wrote it was like, Hey, thanks for writing a review. I completely agree. I wish that I had more time to do this, this and that as well. But the point is, you know, now that I've, like, proven that I can do it, like, what's next? And you know, who else is out there? Who, who's been constantly rejected by the game industry? Who has the capability of doing something like this as well?
Phil 16:20
Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate on your Twitter, just how kind of honest and transparent you are about the game and the development of the game. And one thing that this is kind of making me recall is kind of leading up to the release, you were had a couple of tweets about, like, coming to the price of what the game would be given that, like, how long is the duration of the game and kind of figuring out all of that, and, and makes me think a lot about like scope and games and like, you know, this idea of like having to justify, quote, unquote, justify the price. And I think, especially for your game, which is kind of like this narrative based runner game, a lot of people might assume that it's just kind of like, randomly generated or something like you're running, you're running besides rolling, and then it's randomly generated objects and stuff like that. But that's not the case with this game. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about, you know, how never yield is different in that way, and how you went about, you know, tailoring the gameplay to be so exacting in terms of the experience you gave?
Neil Jones 17:25
Yeah. The first part about, you know, being super honest, on Twitter, I just figure, you know, if I, if I say it and put it out there, no one can kind of call me out on it, like, I was really unsure about the price and the length. Because, you know, the length of the game really depends on the person, you know, how much they die in the game, and how good they are at the game. And, you know, I averaged it out to be in about an hour and a half to two hours, somewhere in between that, or, you know, above that for people to complete the game. So, like, I didn't know, you know, the exact time I knew how long it took me to beat the game. But you know, as a general, early kind of, you know, plays, testing, sending codes out to people, I kind of got that feedback. Before launch. And I was, you know, I didn't know how people will feel about it, I thought it will take people a little bit longer to beat the game, I was aiming for like three hours. But once I found out that number, you know, I just kind of put it out there, I was nervous about putting it out there to say, hey, I don't know kind of what to do about this. And people gave some really good feedback, I didn't know lowering the price of the game, just a little bit based off of that, so so that it was around less than $1 per level, which I thought, you know, no one could really complain about, you know, 13 levels, the game being around 10 $11, just for the music alone, it would be you know, a good kind of value, if I kind of set it that way. And you know, how I kind of talked about, you know, the length of the game, I just really want to be open, so no one felt like, they were like, bamboozled or anything like that into the game. So that's also why I put the demo out was I wanted people to kind of like, understand what the game was, and not just buy the game just because, you know, whatever reason. And kind of understand, you know, hey, this is what I'm getting. And, you know, three levels of 13 level game is a lot to give people like for free. So I was really nervous about that as well. And to your other point about, you know, the procedural generation, specifically aimed away from that, because I want to do things different and render genre. There's a lot of games out there that just was like, hey, we'll just randomly throw stuff at you. And then I found it. And sometimes it can be unfair, depending on you know, the one that you have, so I wanted something custom that everybody experienced the same way and if you want to memorize a level, then you know, you could do that. And it wasn't based off of just like a random Generation, I want everybody to feel like level 13. They all if you completed it, like that's on you, and everybody had that same experience. And you know, I had to play the levels over and over again, to kind of like, make sure it felt right. So that you know, your fingers are in the right place at the right time, like, right after you did a crazy, you know, set of jumps and slides, Where were your fingers, then so that you can be ready for what came next. So, you know, I wanted to be a little bit more custom. And people that feel like the level design that I did for it kind of like was like with Mario, you know, everybody knows that level design, something that was more solid rather than random.
Ben 20:42
I also kind of want to circle back on this idea of like the length. Because I think I think what you're describing, which is like being transparent about how long the game is, and how big the game is, you know, a lot of games, you know, the conversations around games right now I think are built around like, Well, how am I getting the bang for my buck. But I also think that like, increasingly, I find myself overwhelmed by these, like big massive games that have so much to do and, like, take so much time. And so, you know, to some degree, you're talking about, like the constraints of like you're doing this on your own kind of, I think making it hard to make long, but I also wonder if like, I found it refreshing. And I'm wondering, you know, if you get the opportunity to do your next game, how long do you think that would be?
Neil Jones 21:27
Oh, probably be around the same length. When I when I talked about all the things I wanted to do. I mean, examples like the final level, the final level took a majority of development time, just because of all the things that happened in that level with the music blending with the action and you know, the twist of the mechanics. But you know, I can only pull that off once with the time that I had and my capabilities and stuff. But no, I totally agree with like the games being crazy lamps. One of my focus points was that I didn't want it to be you know, crazy long, it was never going to be like a five to 10 hour game, it's always gonna be something that you could be in one sitting. Because I you know, growing up on games were like, go to Gamestop and, you know, buy us games and try to beat it in the weekend. So I could take it back and I traded them for another game. Games aren't like that anymore. They're like, hundreds of hours sometimes. And take like, major commitments and time. So you know, I just kind of missed those old games with that, you know, those double A games that you can just be in a weekend or an afternoon,
Phil 22:36
now and what the constraints that you had in place with the gameplay? Yeah, I beat in maybe two sittings. And I found that you had just the right balance of like, surprise or like what you're saying after the last level, like this really big twist on the mechanics, like I think of a part that I really enjoyed was you're in the level where the there's the guitarist, and you're kind of like dodging the, the music notes that was really inventive and I won't spoil it. The final level is but like, what you do there is really interesting. And it shows you don't need to have like zillions of mechanics, like a lot of like maybe bigger, double A and triple A games have to be like awesome. So speaking of that, I wonder if you could just talk a bit about like the music, which seems to be another really big standout of the game. Yeah, the
Neil Jones 23:28
music is definitely everybody's favorite part. Me and my best friend, Dan. Well, let me start a little bit before that. When I was developing the game, I always knew kind of like how I wanted to sound. But I was completely wrong. After I finished the first level, me and my friend Dan, we worked this crappy job together. And you know, like, it was boring there. So I will bring my computer and just work on the game. And after a certain point. You know, I kind of wrapped up the level and I showed it to Dan and I was like, Can you do the music for it? Because he does. He did the music for all my previous games. He's been my go to because you know, I've I've known him since I was a kid. And he he said yes. And I bought him pizza for kind of like during the first level because we both didn't have any money. He did it kind of in his free time. Originally I went to be more oriental mix with like kind of hip hop trap beats and stuff like that. And then I was really avoiding hip hop in general as just a general thing because I didn't want to be typecast or stereotyped to say hey to black game developers doing this hip hop game or whatever. And you know, we tried a lot of different things and you know, it never just like really felt right and and I had to remember that I was making the game for me. So even if no one else played it, I needed to enjoy it. So I went back to what I liked anime I like jazz, hip hop and I kind of gave Dan those notes, I took a clip of the of the level and sent it to him. And I was like, just make whatever you want based off of this. And he spent the weekend he made this incredible song, it almost fit perfectly, I put into the level, move some things around in the level to make it match better. And then I sent the song back with some notes saying, Hey, you at this, this and that. And then he sent it back, and it was perfect. And that's the first song that you hear in level one. And we base the rest of the game pretty much off of that with the rule that after we may, I will give Dan you know, the noes have what's happening in the story of that level. And then he will create something and we will go back and forth. And then once it was kind of finalized, we would say that we have to listen to the song for two days straight. And if we made it through the two days and wasn't sick of it, and just didn't want to throw it in the trash, and it will go in the game. But if not, we will just you know, don't trash. And you know, we threw a lot of songs away because they were annoying after a couple of hours. So we found that rule really work with people because no one really complains about listening to songs I'll repeat in this game. So yeah, that was kind of our method.
Ben 26:15
Yeah. I mean, the music is so standout. And I'm wondering how much how tightly you were kind of tying the different levels to the songs? And you know, was it you know, the situation that you would take each level to him and then ask him to design music? Are you kind of designing and moving things around and each level to match some of the kind of musical cues that he was working with?
Neil Jones 26:37
Yeah, it was, it was definitely a back and forth. So like, I would like make a chunk of the level first, show him the level and tell him what was going on in the story. So he would have the mood and say, Hey, strings are more appropriate here or you know, the slow to the beat down, whatnot. But the pace of life, the character always was the same. So like he had to beat up the character to always kind of match up to or the tempo of the character. And then he would like design something, I would give him my notes and then you know, back and forth until he has something solid that we can put into the level and make sure mashed up with the level and then I'll move things here and there to kind of make sure that it worked. The last level in particular took about three months. Because it was it's eight minutes. It needed to it was the one time that is actually rhythm based. And there's a lot going on in in the vocals as well. We had to reach out to Austin who did an amazing job. The song was based off of m&ms guilty conscience because it like kind of goes from both of the perspectives in that in that point. And is blending all that stuff together just took a very long time. In this life, the thing I'm most proud of
Ben 28:07
but I'm going to slow it
down Yeah, can you can you maybe talk us through the story of the game.
Neil Jones 28:45
So people say the story makes it confusing. But I love hints in there specifically to kind of guide people into figuring out what happened. Oh, I was why I watched people on Twitch play the game all the time. And a guy made it to the third level and sit and watch the cutscene. And he said Wait is this this and that happened? He nailed the entire story. Like before he even made it to the end. And I was amazed. He's been the only one to get it right. Everybody else has been like super confused. But the story kind of has a conclusion. And it's a lead in to what I would do next with with the story to kind of like consolidate things and kind of really by hit home what's going on, but exist as a standalone thing as well. So if people if we didn't get to that then you know people can like pick apart you know what's actually going on and figure it out themselves.
Phil 29:47
Do you think that if you were to like make that sequel that it would kind of stay in the realm of like narrative runner rhythmic kind of gameplay? Yeah. And iterate on that
Neil Jones 30:00
I have the secret outline I have like the mechanics and everything that I want to do with it kind of outline. It's just I don't know if I want to do it. And, you know, as far as you know, time goes and commitment goes, and it's really up to the publisher and people. So if like, people really want me to, like, kind of make this, then you know, they buy the game, let the publisher know, and we'll figure it out. But I think people definitely enjoy this one if they enjoyed the first one.
Phil 30:28
What, uh, growing up what kinds of games and like anime and other kind of media were you like, really? into? And do you think that's, it's pretty clearly reflected in the kind of gameplay and the aesthetic of never yield? Yeah, you
Neil Jones 30:44
can almost tell just by the outfits that you unlock kind of where I was at with that, like, you know, a lot of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and, you know, all of the classics, you know, Toonami and all that. I was super basic, like, whatever was on TV, I pretty much liked it. I don't really like hate anything. My, I think my favorite like thing, weirdly, was like Hamtaro. Like, because it was really chill. It was it was like the bear. It was like the Steven Universe of that era, where you just watch it into a you know, take a nap. Comfortable. So I like I like things like that.
Phil 31:21
Now, it's funny, I don't even know exactly how to describe it. But I feel as if it were around the same age. And like I remember like Toonami and like Hamtaro. And like all those Dragonball Z Gundam Wing, all those things that were kind of playing when I was, you know, an elementary, middle middle school. And I can definitely just like feel that aura in the game, even when it's like, not just directly referenced. So that makes a lot of sense.
Neil Jones 31:46
Yeah, I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that the field was consistent throughout the game. So I appreciate that.
Ben 31:54
Can you maybe talk about the like the the setting, it's this kind of futuristic Detroit. And also just kind of like, how much of yourself is kind of embedded in this game?
Neil Jones 32:04
Oh, yeah. So like, it's not like a one to one representation of Detroit. It's just like, kind of, you know, your fantasy of running through Detroit or something like that, you know, every level was like, themed and inspired about by certain parts, like, you know, the, the, the early parts is, you know, the suburbs, and Royal Oak and all of that. And then you kind of make your way to the downtown area, to like residential stuff, and like really no corporate or you look in like buildings once you get downtown. So it's more of a general theme. And the feeling of Detroit rather than like a one on one representation. I forgot the second part of your question.
Ben 32:43
I'm just kind of wondering, you know, because I've seen these other interviews that you've done, and it feels like a lot of your kind of own life is embedded in this game. And I'm wondering, you can talk about, like, I guess, you know, how, what it's like to kind of create this thing that in so many ways, is kind of embodying your perspective and your life?
Neil Jones 33:03
Oh, yeah, definitely. So I this is a bunch of stuff in the game, that, you know, people wouldn't even know that's kind of I told him, I think I could write like a whole book of all the references. But even the character himself, was based off of like Axel Foley and my my uncle, who came to live with us when I was in high school, his name was Wallace and I looked up to him so much when I was like a little kid, because, you know, he was out in, you know, in LA, and he was like, making movies and all that stuff. And then he got really sick and came back to Detroit. And he had diabetes. He was born his legs, and he had this really cool prosthetic leg, that when he would walk around, I would just, like, be like, oh, man, he's a robot. He's so cool. And that's where they're like process, the prosthetic leg in the actual character itself came from was him. And then, you know, for example, in the achievements, the final achievement, people always asked me, Why is it called Call me if you need me. And my family, we really don't say goodbye, like, we're not like really mushy and stuff like that. Whenever we leave one of our who's to say, well, you know, whatever, call me if you need me. And it's our way of saying, you know, goodbye, see you later type of thing. So it was just like small stuff like that. And things in the background and you know, the alphas the characters were like, you know, me and my brothers, which is like, hey on or we watch so much Hey, on when we was kids, so like the 33 outfit was based off of Gerald from from that show, and the the Bozeman outfit was based off Chadwick Boseman. Because like, everybody looked up to him. And then like, I was like, in the middle of development, or towards the end of it when that happened to him and I was just like, so messed up and messed me up so bad. I felt like I just wanted to do something even though I couldn't do anything. So I made that outfit. So yeah, there's a lot of small references, I would have to like, kind of like play a level and just draw on the screen and be like, Oh, this is where I got this wrong. And that from this one.
Phil 35:13
With you posted a video recently, you were in the freep, and you showed your grandma I think it was that, you know, you had this big, this big article, like write up about the game, and I don't know, there's something like, you're on the game is really personal. And obviously, like, a lot of you went into it, and your friends would enjoy it. And, you know, all the game developers, we've talked to you so far, you know, everybody makes a point to talk about, like, game development isn't easy. And you know, like, it's not, and you know, everything, you know, if I could do things differently, I'd add this or do this. I'm just curious, like, now that the game is out, you know, people are playing it. You know, all that's all that's great. But like, how does it feel for you and like, your, like your family to kind of have this, this kind of like, artifact of like, not only you, but like you like your, your uncle and things like that out in the world?
Neil Jones 36:07
Yeah. So that, you know, grandma, people don't know, like, my grandma was kinda like a Detroit legend that no one talks about, she knew, like, everybody at Motown, she like, ran these bars and was in charge of license stuff with the Detroit Lions. And she, like, she gave up a lot. Because she had, you know, kids like girl and two boys, and you know, they all pass away and, and she raised me, my brothers, boy, and two twins, just like the ones she lost. And she kind of raised us my gave up, you know, all of her restaurants and stuff like that, to take care of us. And such. And she knew the struggles, you know, kind of I had growing up and you know, she always kind of say, Whatever you do, you're gonna be incredible at it, and kind of like, believed in me when, like, nobody else like had a reason to. And she doesn't, she's not on internet at all. She she knew nothing about what was going on. I was like, Hey, Grandma, you know, instead of applying for jobs, I'm just gonna make my own game. But she was like, Hey, go ahead. Go ahead, baby. Do if you think it's a good idea, then, you know, I'm right there with you. And, you know, I would tell her about hey, you know, it's doing well, I showed it to no thing. She was like, Okay, I don't know what this means. But she reads the newspaper. So when the Detroit Free Press reached out and say, Hey, we're gonna do a little article about you or whatnot. I was like, Oh, this is my chance. I was gonna get my grandma. So the article came out, I didn't know that it was going to like do a whole two page giant thing. And they did. And I saw it, and I bought a couple copies not to get over there. And this is like her first time kind of really understanding that, you know, I pulled this off. So I guess I never record her. But like, I had a record this time. And then like, she's like, you could fill it. She was just like, Oh, I was right about this little boy. And, you know, like, No, that was all I kind of needed. I was like, hey, if this fails, nothing, I'm good.
Ben 38:06
Yeah, that's so funny. That's so funny. Especially because it's like, you know, the Nintendo to some degree is like a much bigger deal. But the because it was the freep. That was her and be like, oh, yeah, like he really did it. That's so funny.
Neil Jones 38:20
Like she she sleeps with that newspaper, she she has it on her pillow. So I was like, Hey, I pulled up pulled it off. That's kind of all I needed. I don't even need to do anything else.
Phil 38:33
Yeah, so I know that since never yield came out. You've gone on to work at unity. And I'm curious what that experience has been like now finding this job in the industry and what you're up to now?
Neil Jones 38:44
Yeah, I'm just helping out with, you know, a couple things. I want you to know if I could talk about like specifics, but this is really cool. Everybody's really nice. There. I started there, like, right when I finished development, because all of development, I pretty much had two jobs, two jobs while I was making the game, you know, and then COVID happened and I had some downtime to kind of really, you know, go in and just focus. But, you know, I didn't make any money off of his game. Cuz it was made for $0 Like, people kind of forget that. Like, there was like, really no money put into it. When I went out when I got a publisher, they kind of paid Dan for, you know, doing all of the music. Because that was one of my kind of requests that was like, hey, you know, he did all this music for like pizza and food, can you kind of make sure he's compensated for it? So they paid him out. They kind of made sure you know, all the stuff was lined up for reporting X Xbox reached out to kind of like help pay for like the porting to all the consoles. So you know, kind of everything like all the funding that was needed to make sure it kind of came out on everything was taken care of, but like the actual development and making the game itself I was pretty much done with no budget. So, you know, again, I go on tangents. I think I missed your original question.
Phil 40:14
No, no, I think that's great. I was just curious about unity, but I'm sure like, there's a lot you can
Neil Jones 40:18
do. But, you know, once I finished development, or was close to the end of development, you know, uni reached out, they kind of just wanted feedback on, you know, someone using Unity, and then they know how to open it. And they, you know, offered it to me, and, you know, it was it was a lot of back and forth. And I was really unsure about it at first, but I just wanted to make sure that I can continue doing my own thing with any development. And, you know, once they reassured me that I could, you know, it was, it was really easy to kind of make that decision.
Ben 40:52
One of the things I wanted to ask you about the game, so it's interesting, you were talking about, like, wanting to make it something you could play in one sitting. Because I found so you know, most games, you die, or you fail, and it'll be like, continue, and yours with the never yield. made it really hard to quit, because I never, I never wanted to be like, Yeah, I'm gonna yield like I'm gonna give up. And so it's like, every single time I was like, Well, no, I can't I have to keep going. Because yield in a in a way is like, functions it felt like has like a taunt of like, you're going to yield. And so I'm wondering if you can, you can talk about like that, that end design that way?
Neil Jones 41:27
Oh, yeah. So that was really random. When I kind of came up with that, like, I came up with the name of the game first. And then I changed it a couple of times, I kind of settled on every year because I was like, Man, this just sounds so cool. Um, so after, after I made that the name of the game, I got to designing, you know, the menus, and, you know, before it was like, quit or you know, continue. But then I was like, Man, I really can't miss out on the chance to say never yield at this point, and kind of make it like a full circle thing. So, you know, is I didn't plan it that way. But, you know, once I saw that opportunity, I was like, Oh, I gotta do this
Phil 42:12
is the in the Midwest, or more specifically, in Detroit, or Michigan as a whole, like, at least one I live in Seattle now. And I lived in Michigan, most of my life. And I there was like no inkling that there's any kind of game development, like major game development happening. I'm curious, like, what's the scene? Like, in Detroit? And like, do you have like other kinds of people that you're your LinkedIn with that kind of you do like little game jams and stuff like that? Or?
Neil Jones 42:40
Oh, no, you're totally right. There's there's very little game development up here on a large scale. But there are a lot of like smaller indies, like myself, that are scattered throughout the state, but there's a group in Michigan or in Detroit, specifically, that we all kind of help each other now figure things out. We're, we meet up at the local colleges that teach game development, and kind of like, just take, take advantage of their space sometimes, and kind of just like have meetups and, you know, sometimes we do small game jams, if anybody's interested is called, you know, Michigan game devs. So you can just Google that and kind of find them. But you know, it was really random and cool that, you know, as my game came out to have their games launched alongside mine, so we kind of kind of hit the finish line at the same time. One was called wave crash. So you should definitely look into that.
Ben 43:41
I've been trying to think about how to frame this, but I think I'm wondering about, like, you know, when you think back to this game, what is what is a moment in the development process as you were doing this, that is kind of stick with you, you know, long after this, this game is out there in the world?
Neil Jones 43:59
Oh, definitely hearing level 13 song for the first time. Because, you know, you work on things, bits and pieces, you know, we got the beat together and we you know, reached out to like Austin, and he did his vocals and then I you know, combine them and then throw it in level. And then like hearing and seeing all that together. At the same time. I was like, This is what I like been trying to do. This is what I want to show people. So like, once I first saw that and heard that I was like, Man, this is perfect. And in Austin's lyrics like perfectly, you know, say what those characters in the game are going through. And it man it mirrors what I was going through when I started the game, just like me and my insecurities about you know, am I good enough? Like how can I prove this to myself more than anybody else? So if you don't play the game, this go listen to level 13 song it's on like YouTube. It's on like Spotify. It's on everything free. So go check it out.
Ben 45:21
There something we haven't asked you that you, you know, wish people would ask you more about this game or about this experience.
Neil Jones 45:28
Oh, you know, I'm, I'm cool for whatever I'm just happy people, you know, kind of care about the game and want to talk to me. But what I have been bringing up a lot is that in game development itself, it's like a lot of times, game developers, especially developers of color are like pitted against each other simply for that kind of spotlight. And I've been trying to make it a habit of breaking that whenever I can. So me and Justin from the mix, got together, we made this freshman class list of indie games created by black creators, specifically black creators, and with black characters. And we put this list out just as both of our games were coming out, like the day after my game launched, we put this list in this cool poster with all of these characters standing together to support each other, to kind of like prove additional point that even though you know one person is being highlighted, they're supported by all these other people who never like his have been seen or like paid attention to. So I tried to you like, I feel like I got the juice right now. And I have a little bit of attention placed on me because of you know, the game. And I just kind of want to take that opportunity to kind of spotlight the people who always are ignored in the grander game industry. So if you listen to this, if you play my game, if you like my game, if you don't like my game, just look up the miss the mix freshman class, on whatever it is that you just see articles pop up for it. And it's it's cool poster with, you know, my main character in is surrounded by all these other game characters, which games have came out this year, or are, you know, are coming out in the next couple months, so that you can wish listed and like look at it now. And all these creators are really talented some way better than me. So, you know, check that out, check them out, you know, support all this cool stuff we're trying to do?
Ben 47:29
Yeah. Do you mind talking about that just a little bit more like this idea that, you know, the I guess the industry is basically picking one black Dev and then only kind of highlighting them as opposed to hey, look, there's actually these all these other games? Yeah. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I
Neil Jones 47:44
think I feel like I just got kind of lucky, I was in the right spot, and right time with the right story that people want to kind of like hear that, at that point in time. And other people, they just kind of made a cool game, they want to show it off. It's not that they're new at this or anything like that they've been doing this, they there's plenty of games out there made by black creators that have been overshadowed, even myself, like, if you look at the PlayStation Store, from the time like game came out to now like it's pretty much been buried. A there's like a lot of cool games out there. But you know, there has been a lot of support for my games and other people's games as well. So we try to make sure that, you know, we've still seen and heard from because a lot of us, like have the same story that I had with not finding a place in the game industry. So kind of taking it upon themselves to do it themselves. So yeah, we just kind of says, like game developers have never like, asked for a handout, we never say give us this, we always said give us the chance or give us the opportunity to do this. So you know, just look at the games. I'm not saying hey, just buy it just because they're black or anything like that, saying, Hey, check it out. If it looks cool to you, you know, support? No,
Phil 48:59
no, for sure. And I think, yeah, and a lot of your interviews, you've done a good job of kind of pushing against a lot of like this inkling that, you know, in, in journalism, or PR of like, Hey, here's like, this one black person, that's going to be the monolith, or like the representative for all black people in the industry. And instead, like using this platform to be like, hey, like you just said, There's zillions of us out here, you know, doing the same thing. And I just really appreciate that as as like a black gamer myself. So
Ben 49:32
yeah, thanks, man. Yeah, and, and I almost want to I was like, you know, because we were reading a lot of these interviews that you were doing, and I had this vibe, where I was like, I almost feel like because basically every interviewer would ask this question about like, what's it like being a black dev in the industry? And I started to fill it was like, I feel like he's getting frustrated as you go like as it keeps coming. It seems like it seems like he's getting tired of getting asked his question every single time. And I'm wondering if that is to some degree Like our frustration with, you know, you being propped up at expensive all these other black devs that they could be talking to, and feeling like, you know, in some ways both the industry, whether it be journalism, or even the game industry kind of trots you out to absolve itself of not bringing more kind of black creators actually into, you know, the industry.
Neil Jones 50:20
Yeah. So the the frustration of that question might have can't I try not to be frustrated by that question, because everybody I talked to is my first time talking to them. That might be the first time they asked a question. I think my responses, like, Spike kind of grew a little bit more frustrated. Just because I was like, you know, like, look at look at Twitter, like, everybody literally talks about this every day. type of thing, but um, you know, I'm always down to answer that question. Because my experience, I speak on my experience, and I always say, I don't speak for I don't speak for all black people, I can only speak for myself, and you know, the people, maybe the people that I know, but you know, I feel like, the more we interview different types of people, because I really feel like I should not be the like the example because I kind of hate the game industry. And I'm very bitter towards the game industry. So I don't even want to be that kind of that put on that pedestal. I don't think anybody should, I think we all shoot together. And that way, you know, if one of us falls or you know, doesn't want to do this, or kind of has the issue or you know, gets canceled or whatever. It's not like, you know, up, there's the one black guy. Now we got to find another one to replace them. It's all of us being lifted up together. So yeah, I don't have a problem with the question. I just feel like, I'll be more cool with it. If you know, there's more answers other than just smile.
Phil 51:58
At the top of the interview you You talked a little bit about, you know, applying to a lot of MC industry jobs. And you know, the classic scenario like, Oh, you're great, but we're not giving you the job that I think a lot of black people have to face or like people of color have to face in these white dominated industries. And I'm curious, like, you know, now that you have this game out there now that you're thinking about whatever is next, and whether it be a new game or something else, like, do you do you think you'd want to kind of work in the in the industry in that in that kind of more corporate way? Or do you think maybe this path of like, making your own stuff or having a smaller team is more interesting to you?
Neil Jones 52:40
Oh, yeah, smaller teams have always been more interesting to me. Like, I rather I like indie, I don't think indie is highlighted as much as it should be. But in general, you know, I like small teams better than, you know, large teams and like corporate stuff, I would never have been able to send out that tweet about, you know, hey, my game is like, like two hours long. How can I go about explaining this to people without them writing it off? Like, there is no way a PR person would have let me send that out. Or they PR would have never let me say what I said on to no showcase, I pretty much called out the game industry for being racist. To like, 10 million people. There's, that's what that's why I like the freedom to kind of do whatever I want. Now, even though, when I first came into this, I really wanted to like work at those big studios, I really wanted that experience. I want to know what it was like, and I want to work on like, my favorite games, like Call of Duty and all that cool stuff. But the older I got, and the more I saw, like how actually was and you know, know how disposable people are. I was just like, it's not for me, that's one of the reasons I put my name on a game was to kind of let gamers know like there's a person behind this like, and I feel like it kind of reflects and how people talk about the game and talk to me specifically because there's a name and a face to this and not just like a company does a random company name or or what have you. So and I called out a few people I told him I'm not sure friendly neighborhood Game Dev I will you know talk crap about you like if you if you want to get all you know snarky with me. Because they're gonna do what are they gonna do what they
Ben 54:33
right, and but you're saying, you know, that isn't really available to you if you're working for a big studio that has to worry about, you know, PR for millions of people. You put out this tweet recently about the role of things like game paths in helping to support indie games, and I'm wondering if you can expand on that just a little bit more.
Neil Jones 54:55
Yeah. So you know, I came from it from a gamer point of view of while ago, I was like, man, you know, I just like, you know, having games individually and, and whatnot. And, you know, I wasn't really, you know, sold on the whole, you know, Netflix type of model, where you kind of just buy this one thing and you have access to these games, and I didn't know how, you know, you know, the money flow work for the game developers. But you know, after seeing and talking to a lot of like developers and like the frustrations with you know, pricing and making sure that people were playing your game, or, you know, you even had like, a major money back from, you know, development. You know, like me, I made this game I made like these levels and all this stuff, but I wasn't sure if people were gonna even play my game. So like, with game paths, if you can get that deal, you know, it kind of pays for development. Just like the epic game store, I love the epic game store and what they're trying to do. A lot of people like, sign that epic deal. And like, their game is paid for already, whatever they do next, be it like, after the epic game store, I'm putting out other systems, that's all profit. So Game Pass epic game store, I lump all those together as like, just a better deal for like, in East themselves, because any there's very few like higher level indies, you know, you see the really small, you know, big games, where you just do some simple, but you know, the more complicated games games, they'd like, take a risk and do things differently. Not the million dollar hanes and, you know, fall guys, I'm talking about, you know, on the lower end, the site sign or wildhearts, and things like that, those type of games is like really risky to do anything different, or, you know, kind of put yourself out there. And then if you don't stand out, then you know, that's really risky as well. So it's not really worth it to make games, really, because not, there's no money in it, unless you like get a hit, and, you know, is really random. So something like the Netflix model where, you know, people can just make stuff and then, you know, have it paid for before they even like kind of throw it on, like multiple platforms. I don't see that as a bad thing. And I think gamers themselves need to kind of realize, Hey, do we want these things. And if we do want these things, then we are kind of support, you know, these other methods of getting them if we don't want to pay for them, because it's a catch 22 They don't want to pay for the games. But also, they don't want you know, any exclusivity deals or anything like that. So I'm like, you can't have both, you got to pick one. And I feel like Game Pass and you know, signing deals like you know, epic game store and stuff, stuff like that. It's kind of a middle ground.
Phil 57:47
Yeah, I just found that really interesting when you tweeted that out. Because I'm thinking about another tweet you had or you you're talking about. I wish people would just if they didn't know something, they just say it's okay. It's okay to not know.
Neil Jones 58:02
I was watching my podcast talking about games. And like, I think one was talking about cyberpunk. And they started talking about, oh, they should have coded it like this, or designed it like this. And I was like, you know nothing about, you know, the struggles they had like, making that game or, you know, seeing all the graphics on this trash can is terrible. Like, there might be a reason for that, like you don't know, or like, I would never fault somebody for saying, Hey, I don't know what's going on. But I don't like it. That's cool. You don't like some cool, if you don't know what happened to get it to that point. Cool. Don't make something up. Because everyone listening to you, is now dumber because of you and from from a developer point of view, when y'all say stuff like no child, but you know, the overall, y'all win games me to say stuff like that. We just like these people are stupid, they don't understand. And it feels like we're really disconnected from you all, when we should all kind of be working in the same form or reality.
Phil 58:59
No, I think that makes a lot of sense. Because this probably isn't unique to games, but for some reason I feel like the games industry get gamers have so many opinions on like, how the how the product is made without having any experience making any games, and they're very vocal about it. And yeah, I'm wondering if there's, if there's some way where we can get to a place in the industry where there is like a bit more of like, you're seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak, where like we can if there was more like idea of how games were made, maybe there would be less like people pretending like they knew what they were doing.
Neil Jones 59:40
Perfect example for my game, which, you know, I don't fault people for not knowing but you know, it's just they all know, the people complain about the hitboxes in the game, when people don't know there is no hitboxes in my game. There's actually just a wall in front of every obstacle, and it just checks to see what you're actually doing. It says hey, are you doing Think Are you sliding? Are you vaulting? If you are, then you get past? If not, then you you fail. And it's just that simple. Now I could easily go on Twitter and like make a video showing people and breaking it down. But no one's ever asked. They just like say, Oh, the collision boxes off. I'm like, you can just ask me, I could have told you how it works.
Ben 1:00:24
Yeah, and I almost wonder if like, you're both saying like for gamers, and maybe even particularly for games media that you wish there was like a degree of like, maybe awareness of game design, before, you know firing off or saying XYZ about No,
Neil Jones 1:00:41
I'm completely fine with people not knowing if you don't want like, I spent years trying to understand this. And y'all figured out all the terms and stuff like that. And some games media come from Blade making games themselves, so they can speak on it. But I'm not like a doctor. So I'm never gonna speak on, you know, the inner workings of diabetes or whatever, I'm just gonna be like, Hey, I don't know nothing about that. We should probably look that up. You know, stuff like that. Just acknowledge that you don't know everything about game development. And a lot of people do do that. I'm just saying there are individuals out there who kind of say, hey, game developers are stupid. If I was making this game, I already did this, this and that. But they never have for reason. Sorry. I'm really like real salty, about that kind of stuff.
Phil 1:01:28
No, I mean, I think a perfect example is we were interviewing Greg cassava, who is the creative director for Hades, like a month ago. And he talked a bit about, like, how hard it is to develop games. And one of the things that was really interesting for me that I had never would have expected as he was talking about how like menus and games are like really hard, you know, and it made me think of like persona five, and like how like, robust those menus are, and like, that's like a whole? There's a lot that goes into that. And the more than most people would think.
Neil Jones 1:02:00
Yeah, because you got to predict what people will want. For my game, there was one review. He really liked the game. But he said is really stupid, that there's no option in the menu of gameplay, like once you hit pause in the pause menu, for switching out your outfits on the fly there. And I said, how would I even do that? I don't even know how I would do that. You know, I got idea. But I was like, why would I think that people want to do that in the pause menu rather than going back to the main menu, or kind of like finding like the outfit shack or something like that, where they can switch it. I was like, how is that like, a super obvious thing? Like, especially like during the game development when you're worried about everything else? So you know, it's stuff like that, which I don't fault them for it. And like, I don't think gamers themselves like not games, media, gamers separate from that. I don't think gamers themselves need to kind of worry about knowing all of that stuff. Just on the games media portion of it, I get frustrated, because once they, you know, make nitpicks and say things like they're obvious, then the gamers watching them and reading them, kind of just assume that, you know, oh, the people making this game are idiots. And that's where the toxicity between game developers and gamers themselves come from where gamers can get like real brave on Twitter and start like harassing developers and saying whatever they want. So I feel like, you know, games media needed to protect game developers a little bit more. And a way to do that will be by saying, I don't know, man, we got real deep into like that. Yeah. You know how you tweet about something because you're frustrated? And then you kind of forget about it, and somebody brings it back up? And you're like, Oh, yeah.
Phil 1:03:54
Well, cool, I think I think we should probably probably wrap it up. But, Neil, this has been really great. I loved the game. And it's been great to see, like when I talked to you like a year ago to like, now it's out and like talking to you about what it's like to have this thing out there and hear the energy around it. So I really appreciate you coming on.
Neil Jones 1:04:14
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks for connecting with me. I know. Now, it's kind of later in the day work for you guys. So hey, thanks for having me on. And you know, acids, like really don't questions and you know, yeah, I really looked up, you know, my own interviews and stuff like that and brought that stuff up. I wasn't expecting that.
Phil 1:04:37
Where can where can they find you if if people want to want to look you up? Where should they where should they go?
Neil Jones 1:04:43
Yeah, I'm on Twitter. I'm at Ariel underscore night. And that's pretty much all I'm really on is on Twitter, really. But you know, you can go to my website, Ariel knight.com If you want to, and there's nothing on there. But you know, but again, it's on everything. Awesome.
Ben 1:05:02
Yeah. Hey, thank you so, so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it.
Neil Jones 1:05:06
Thank you appreciate it
Phil 1:05:27
all right, well, that was our conversation with Neil Jones about his game never yield. I really appreciated his discussion, especially about developers of color and, you know, uplifting the work that's already out there, despite the fact of how it's reported on. And also this kind of hearing his his familial connections to the game and how, in a lot of ways, he's used it as a way to, you know, not mythologized, but kind of leave a lasting image of some of his family members in a really unique way.
Ben 1:06:04
Yeah, I think it's always we had the benefit of like, you know, coming to this conversation a little bit later that it was like you could look through and I, you know, you and I were having conversations around all the coverage of this game, and feeling like, Oh, hey, I feel like he's maybe getting frustrated, by the way that he's, he's getting pigeon holed, maybe in this way of, oh, hey, what is what's it like to be a black creator in this space? And everybody asking him that question, without then also asking who else is in this space that we should kind of promote or think about or talk to? And so yeah, it was it was interesting. And I think it continues to be interesting, as we do kind of our research to prepare for these interviews, and then be like, Hmm, like this question is happening a lot. How do we how do we want to kind of try to reframe some of these conversations?
Phil 1:06:51
Yeah. And he does a good job of he had a moment in the interview, where he essentially is talking about acknowledging when you don't know, right, and I think especially and games journalism, there's a tendency to talk about games and game development, from a place of knowing where at least, if I'm speaking for myself, I won't generalize for all of the journalists out there. And it's not like I've ever developed a game, right, I have a cursory understanding of it. And Neil does a good job of talking about like, it's okay to not know, like, part of the job of developers or designers is to talk about how games are made and to educate others on so I think that was a good reminder, he does it, he does a good job of kind of checking people, but in a respectful and helpful way, not in like a super aggressive or, like, accusatory way.
Ben 1:07:49
Totally. And I also just really appreciate, you know, I think with a lot of these conversations, it's like, as you could kind of hear people getting more comfortable as they get towards, you know, the half hour mark or the 40 minute mark. And, you know, when we started to get there, it's like, you could really hear him being like, Alright, I'm actually ready to have X conversation. Or, you know, I really want to talk about why. And it's it's just, it's it's exciting, I think when the when the interview opens up in those ways, for sure.
Phil 1:08:17
So yeah, again, we wanted to thank Neil Jones for coming on the show and talking to us about aerial knights never yield. The game is really awesome, super awesome soundtrack. It's you can you can get through it in a sitting so it's if it's like, you don't have a lot of time to game. Perfect game for that. And you know, it's available like everywhere, it's on PC, it's on switch is on Xbox is on PlayStation. So give it a shot. It's definitely worth your time. You can learn more about the game at WWW dot aerial night.com. That's night like a warrior in armor night, as in nighttime. And you can follow Neal Jones on Twitter at Ariel underscore night. Ben, where can they find you?
Ben 1:09:09
They can find me at Sid underscore radio underscore lab. And you can also find us at origin story underscore, Phil, where can they find you?
Phil 1:09:18
They can find me on Twitter at 3d, Cisco. And you can find our website at WWW dot origin story dot show. We want to take a minute and thanks right thank Ryan Hopper for providing the music that you hear in the beginning and the end of our show. And we wanted to thank melody Hirsch for providing the awesome cover art and website design that you see every time you boot us up.
Ben 1:09:48
Yeah, if you have any kind of questions or ideas I think especially now if if there's someone that you're like, hey, this would be a perfect person for you guys to talk to whether it's kind of in the book space or the indie game space. Ace or a musician. Hit us up. We're definitely open to suggestions.
Phil 1:10:05
Yes, please send us emails, we'd love to start reading them on the show, maybe at the as we're closing out each week. And you know, as we said in a previous episode, leave those reviews. I made a little video that you could probably find on the website by the time you listen to this, where it walks you through how to do it on iTunes. And
Ben 1:10:29
I'm looking at you, mom, yeah, mom's Is this the instruction that you need? Or is it it's confusing Mom, this is important is to ask him for a suite review. Okay.
Phil 1:10:39
Yeah, I mean, they help a lot. And one thing to know is that if you can try to actually write a review, in addition to leaving the stars, that helps out a lot more. Sometimes the stars like don't even show up because iTunes is weird and already too complicated. But it helps lie and it doesn't need to be long. It could literally be like this was good. So help us out. So we can keep on doing
Ben 1:11:08
this. All right, Phil, anything else?
Phil 1:11:10
I think that's it. Y'all are going to be seeing us here again. Next Thursday. 5am. Pacific time. 8am. Eastern.
Ben 1:11:19
We're not going to leave you alone. We're like a bad pitch.
Phil 1:11:23
All right. Peace.
