Neil Jones (Never Yield) on Listening to Fan Feedback and the State of Indie Game Development
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 creating new DLC for Never Yield through listening to fan feedback, and the trials and tribulations of indie game development today.
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 0:18
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 am with my co host, Ben Thorpe. And then we are back again with a favorite from season one. Game Developer, an artist Neal Jones, who is the creator of Ariel knights never yield. And we kind of just talked to him on this episode about making a huge update called the update for the game that kind of addressed a lot of the different criticisms and, you know, suggestions that people had about the initial release. And we just wanted to kind of pick his brain a bit about what it was like to kind of working on this update, and also kind of engaging with fans and fan feedback and in a big way, so really cool conversation.
Ben 1:15
Yeah, Phil, actually, we keep having, you know, season one guests back on the show. This felt nice, you know,
Phil 1:21
it's like we're getting more friends, Ben.
Ben 1:24
Yeah, yeah, it's that's exactly how this felt. It was like that friend that you got to catch up with they haven't talked to in a while, and then you peek back into your life, you're like, wow, things are going surprisingly well.
Phil 1:35
Exactly. Yeah. This felt this like fun. It's a fun conversation. We talked about the game we talked about everything from why piccolo as a black man to hot takes around cyberpunk being an actually good game. And then also just, you know, Neil talks a bit about what it's what it's like with the industry currently, as we're seeing all these different kind of mergers and acquisitions between, you know, the big the big guys like Sony and Microsoft, and how that that feels, especially as an indie developer.
Ben 2:11
Yeah, I feel like Neil is so good at kind of breaking down his perspective on all of this stuff as an indie dev and like, you know, last time, he kind of talked about how hard it is to kind of stay on the top of the charts and to stay kind of in the public view. And again, I think he just has interesting perspectives on like, this industry that is kind of eating itself right now it feels like, and he described a lot of these big mergers, I think is like Game of Thrones, like, and so you know, he's happy to watch it happen until you know, maybe it'll start hurting him down the line. He doesn't know,
Phil 2:45
for sure. So yeah, that's kind of our conversation ahead in this episode. Before we jump in, I just wanted to thank everybody who has been checking out our kind of new side project called study hall. Seems like it's been getting some some good reception. And you know, it's definitely in this phase of fluidity where we're figuring out exactly what the format is going to be. So I think I can speak for both of us when I say like, hit us up with any kind of feedback you have in terms of what would make the show, like the best kind of version it could be. And yeah, we'd love we'd love to hear from you.
Ben 3:21
Yeah, even if it is like, don't let Ben just talk for 2530 minutes again, I respect and understand that so like, do send out advice in.
Phil 3:31
Exactly. And then as always, if you enjoy the show, definitely rate us five stars on Apple podcasts, even if you don't end up leaving a written review. And the same goes for Spotify and wherever else you're listening. So with that, how about we jump right into the show?
Yeah, I think maybe just to start us off like Neil, welcome back to the show. We're glad to have you back on origin story and maybe just to get us started. We'd love to just hear like how you've been you know, what's new. How's life? What do you been up to?
Neil Jones 4:32
Now thanks for having me back. I really appreciate it. Been been really good it's tired working on the game. Just trying to keep up with everything trying to make sure I have time to play games as well.
Phil 4:47
For sure, no, I mean, I think you know, we'll be right back on because you know, never you'll has it been about a year or a little bit less than a year since it came out. And you have this big update coming out called the update We'd love to, you know, spend some time talking about, you know, how that whole process came to be why you're making this update? And you know, what can we expect on on this update?
Neil Jones 5:13
Yeah, so shortly it's been less than a year has been about eight months or so. This, this is pretty much gonna be the last update. So instead of doing a lot of small, tiny, like updates, I just wanted to do it all at once, you know, push, push it out and just kind of be done with it. And I spent a lot of time just like reading comments and watching people play, you know, I'm big on Washington's Twitch, people stream the game, and I'll sit there and comment. It gives them pointers, pointers and stuff like that, while they're playing. And, you know, there was, there was definitely some feedback. It was, it was a lot of feedback, you know, about multiple things. And, you know, things I wanted to add to the game that I didn't get to, and specifically the story. I was, I always, you know, had trouble with that ending. I didn't think it was clear enough. I wanted people to kind of like, come to your own conclusions. But you know, I can, I can admit that, you know, I'm not an animator, and it kind of missed the mark a little bit from what I was aiming for. So I just want to always go back and take another like, shot at making that just more clear, and was putting a little bit more time into it. Because, you know, marching a game the first time around, it's just like, a lot of stuff I had to deal with that I wasn't expecting. So yeah, I'm, I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to take all the reviews and take all the feedback and kind of just do this one clean, giant update, and people are like, excited about it. And, you know, it's getting some promotion. And you know, from, from what I've seen early people really liked what I've done with it.
Ben 7:10
Yeah, I mean, can you maybe talk about that seems like a really great relationship to have with, like fans of the game where it's like, you're watching them play and you're like, okay, cool. Like, maybe here's something that I can put into the game. I mean, what was that? What was that? Like?
Neil Jones 7:23
Yeah, so I don't really like people telling you what to do. I don't know if it bugs me. So, you know, when when the game first came out, people were like, Oh, it needs endless mode. Oh, it needs leaderboards. And I was like, there was a reason I didn't do those things. But you know, what some time you know, I kind of can admit that, you know, a you know, this is their game to if they want these things I should consider so I did a version of those things kind of meet in the middle of so it was I we put in leaderboards into the game, but it's not directly you know, here's your name. Here's your scores. I believe the board is more of a like pools, like there's tiers to it. So in you know, your time you fall into that certain tier, because I do want to be fun on people sitting there stressing the whole time about a number or a specific time.
Ben 8:21
Do you feel comfortable talking about the story? I don't know when it's coming out if you're worried. Okay, okay. I don't know if you're worried about like spoilers or
Neil Jones 8:31
something. No. What do you plan on dropping this?
Phil 8:35
It'll be after the updates. Are you out? For sure.
Neil Jones 8:38
Okay. Yeah, it was after the updates out, that's fine. Um, yeah, so the point of the story was always that there are two characters and they're pretty much twins are twin brothers, but they're fighting is a reference to my struggle. One is supposed to be, you know, Neil, and one is supposed to be Ariel Knight is supposed to just be my struggle of me trying to achieve something. And me holding myself back from that thing. In at the end of the game, it's like one of those things, like winning and taking over type of deal. And, you know, it wasn't very clear. People thought that, you know, there was just one character and so they got to the end of the game. But, you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff in the game, especially with the lyrics at the end of the last level, it kind of breaks a lot down. And then there's still like, a lot of, you know, hidden stuff that I put in the game to allude to other things going on. But, you know, the, the core of it is my struggle between you know, this, this dream fantasy version of myself, and that I want to do is a great thing. But also reality, always pulling you back, you have to keep getting back up, you have to never yield type of thing.
Ben 10:10
I can, I can totally see why maybe people miss that. But I boy, I, I remember feeling that from the from playing it the first time especially because that there's that end level where you play both both characters racing against one another and it keeps kind of swapping the perspective. So you're kind of racing against each other, which is such a, like, it was such a great level, and I think does a really good job of expressing that. Oh, that like you're literally as a player facing off against yourself in some ways.
Neil Jones 10:41
Yeah. And there's not really any, you can't really lose, based off that kind of story. That's why I never stressed how many depths you have, or anything like that never really mattered. It was just like, finishing. That's all that really mattered. If you finish the game, then you want.
Phil 11:00
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think one of the things from our initial interview that I still think about today, even after all the interviews we did since then, is just your point about whether it's game press, or just gamers in general, you know, coming to a game or a piece of creative work and like admitting when you don't know and not trying to, like, give feedback or ideas to the to the creator in this way of like, I know everything. And, you know, having that that humbling perspective, and I think it's really interesting when you think of updating a game to this extent, and I'm curious, you know, for you, I'm sure you learned a lot just during the update, but do you think there's anything? You know, now that you've completed the update, and it's coming out that you? Do you learned either about the game or about yourself? Or like, what you're taking away from kind of doing this big update to this project?
Neil Jones 11:58
Yes, you know, it's fine to get more help, though, when I first rolled out the notes of like people's feedback, and the reviews, a lot of the reviews are really nice. But also, you know, the scores, like the scoring, I bumped down from like, nitpicks almost I felt like things that, you know, wasn't worth knocking down the score for. So I, but I, you know, that's how people like some people feel, and that's totally justifiable. So I just kind of kept notes on all of those things. So when I went to make this giant list of things I wanted to fix, I want, I wanted to kind of address all of the reviews, so that I can kind of, you know, forced their hand to say, Hey, there, you made all these comments about the game, now I address all of them. So you should address your review, because it's no longer accurate. But, you know, they, you know, that's up to them, they don't have to, but they do do it for the bigger games. So I kind of wanted to see, you know, how far I could push it. And you know, what is, you know, a perfect game to some people, because I feel that, you know, no matter what, this, my game is not going like get 10s and like five out of fives or anything like that. You know, but if you say, you know, this, this and that is what's holding this game back from being a 10. So if I fix those things, then you know, what's the next step? I think that's a it's a good conversation to have between, like developers and reviewers, or anybody critiquing games is that, you know, if you say, these are the critiques, and the critiques are addressed, then what's the next step?
Phil 13:55
That makes sense. I mean, I don't know this something that's something that's come into my head just from from that, as you know, it's a hard balance from for reviewing games, especially when you're thinking about like triple A, or double A, or really the, you know, really indie developed games like You're like yourself, do you think that maybe there's there should not different standards, but just I could imagine like, for something like never yield, which is a game that you largely developed yourself? It's almost unfair for like a reviewer to, you know, hold it to the same standard as like a game from Ubisoft as 300 people that developed it, and thinking about that in the context of, of critique, I wonder if there's like something, something there in terms of how we approach these kinds of games that should change? Yeah, I
Neil Jones 14:45
think it's all just personal like fillings and like, I don't think anybody really has an issue with someone saying, hey, it's just not for me. type of thing. I've never like hidden or not anybody for not liking My game because there's plenty of games out that, you know, just aren't for me is, is this standards, like, if you're going to review a game and like, you know, be the life or death fruit of a game, and you're doing this for a lot of games, then it needs, we need to understand, you know what you believe, to make a good game of what you believe to be to make a bad game. So that is consistent across the board. A lot of times, I think scores get inflated because of hype, and a lot of outside factors that don't really have anything to do with the game. Because I've played games that, like I was told was bad games that, you know, hey, you should not waste your time. And I think mafia three was the thing that woke me up to it the most I avoided mafia three, even though I love black characters and those types of environments. But um, you know, I played that game. Whoa, I think it was on PlayStation Plus, or something like that. And I was like, this game was amazing. I don't understand, like, Why didn't it like kind of gravitate towards this, but then I remembered I've watched a lot of reviews and things like that, that kind of kept me away from it. And that's not to knock reviewers or anything like that. I don't want people to take it that way. It's just the reviews are part of my reasoning for wanting to do this updating helped me put together my list of things I want to fix.
Ben 16:29
Yeah, you've also I feel like talked about how quickly especially when, you know, when you're talking about indie games, they kind of disappear from visibility, they, you know, it's like that there's just this male, and there's so many different options. And yours can come out, get some hype, and then disappear down the list. Like, pretty quickly. I wonder if you can maybe talk about like, how it's been for your game, you know, eight months later as it has it been able to kind of stay on the top a little bit I did notice that x boxes is making I think never yields its games with gold, February, I mean, how to stuff like that. Hell
Neil Jones 17:00
yeah, no, I think my, my game has been one of the ones that have got a lot of press because it never really, like achieved what it could have, as far as you know, you know, just blowing up in the public with the music and you know, the art style and the gameplay and it's really accessible type of game. So, you know, I just got the feedback that hey, you know, more people should have, you know, kind of noticed the game. I don't think anybody's any developers owed success. Just because you make a good game doesn't mean that game should be successful. Because there's a lot of things that go into it. But you know, some some things just, you know, come out of bad times and just don't work out. And what and what not. My game just kind of consistent because people like discover it. And then once they discovered they talked about in the music and all these things, I have a lot of stuff going on. It kept driving the game. And there was always this talk about me doing this update because it wasn't a secret. I was in the discord. Asking people all the time, like what is like are things that you would like to see if I were to do a bait. Pretty much doing everything but confirming it. I think there was always kind of that that space. And the knowledge that this was coming sooner or later.
Phil 18:26
I mean, I think I assume that this is probably going to be a positive answer. But yeah, just again, speaking to that, like the games with gold in expanding that to like maybe game paths or PS Plus or I forget Nintendo Switch online. I guess they don't really do it in the same way. But these kind of services where they're giving away the free games for your subscription. I'm curious, like, you talked a bit about this in our initial conversation, but how do you think this is an important part for for NDA games to find success is like having these ways of getting that these big tentpole moments.
Neil Jones 19:03
Yeah, I think it gives a lot of attention. So you me, I just want people to play the game. Like I don't really, I don't worry worry too much about how much money the games gonna make or anything like that. As you know, because I had a publisher and I had like a lot of other things kind of set up to help out with that be, you know, the vinyl and all these extra things. It did play a factor early on. So it's this kind of figure out what I was going to do if I was going to have enough to kind of make the next game. But I think you know, it's a net positive right now because you see a lot of gamers just saying, I don't want to buy anything. I just want to sign up for the subscription service and get things to play. Which I totally understand younger me would have loved like any of these services to kind of have something new to play every month or you know a bunch of handful of games. say like, keep me entertained. So I think it's just more of a wait and see. thing. I think it's working right now. But you know, depending on the twists and turns, it could go bad. But hopefully, you know, I'm just, you know, kind of hoping for the best. I'm very grateful to be a part of games with gold. And you know, any other things along the line that my game kind of ends up on. But you know, me, I just like watching people play the game, and I just want to make something that people really enjoy. And whatever gets that to more people on pool with.
Ben 20:34
Yeah, I kind of wanted to ask your perspective on, you know, obviously, we're in the midst of watching Sony and Microsoft pick up a bunch of these studios. And I know that we've talked before about like, the the space of like, Indies and indie creators and like, what is how does that landscape look to you now? And like, how are you feeling about, you know, as you're watching these kind of big deals get made, what does that mean for someone like you
Neil Jones 20:59
is, is really weird. I don't think anybody knows what's gonna happen. That's why everybody's so kind of worried about it. Because, you know, we always known that Sony and Xbox has billions of dollars and can do whatever they want. And, you know, the competition between, like studios, AAA studios have always been like, really crazy, especially during November and such, because, you know, I avoid putting any kind of content out in November, October, December, just because, you know, you know, the call of duties and, you know, triple A's, they own those spaces. So, you know, we end these found out little windows, but, you know, we got to see, you know, what happens, you know, maybe this might be a good thing so that the triple A's kind of spread out their releases a little bit more, and don't, you know, aren't more of these random drops that kind of throw people's marketing plans all out of whack? Like me, my update is coming out in the middle of February, in between, like, forge huge triple A games. You know, I'm hoping I don't get buried and you know, you know, I don't get hit with like a cyberpunk trailer the same day, as you know, the draft of my game. But you know, it's real random these days. There's nothing we can really do about it either.
Phil 22:24
Now that I mean, yeah, that makes sense. I think Ben and I have just been talking a lot about it's crazy, like, every day with the Sony and Bungie thing. And then obviously, Microsoft with Bethesda and then Blizzard, it's just like, it just seems like, impossible.
Neil Jones 22:40
It's stressful, but it's fun. Like, I woke up and saw the activism thing. And I was like, This is crazy. I felt like it was Game of Thrones or something. I really enjoy it. But it also like worries me, because you know, you're gonna run out of studios eventually.
Phil 23:00
That's hilarious. You know, I think we should definitely highlight the fact that just recently, never yield had won an award from the sponsors for music. And I'd love for you to just yeah, just just to talk a little bit about that experience. And, you know, obviously, I think Khalif Adams has done a lot for, for black creators in the space and kind of watching the award show is really dope to just to see like, two black hosts in that kind of award setting. I mean, that's not nothing I've ever seen before.
Neil Jones 23:34
Yeah, it's weird talking about streamers. I think streamers and developers alike, are so far apart when it comes to just this space in general. But we're in the same space. But you know, we have completely different struggles, but also the same struggles. So, you know, I'm super proud of the leaf spine on me and everybody involved that. It's just, you know, for my own mental health, there's so much to worry about on the dev side that I kind of just compartmentalize things to say, Hey, I'm gonna worry about the dev stuff, you know, you know, Cleef and all the streamers got their streamer stuff, and I'm gonna support them in any way I can. But, you know, I got all these devs who you know, can't even get you know, a deal from a publisher that I'm trying to kind of help out and give advice to win. There's like, so much work on that end to do.
Ben 24:34
How are people you know, I guess coming to you for advice and stuff, because you've obviously had some success and like getting eyeballs on your game and so do you do people come to you and say, Hey, like, what did this take? And like, how do I get there? Yeah,
Neil Jones 24:47
you know, we have a discord for a lot of black game developers and people, you know, hit me up on Twitter and you know, email me and a even if you're listening to this and you need you know, some kind of somebody's opinion, always hit me up. If I got time, I'm always down to like, talk and help. But there's a lot of randomness that goes into it. And, you know, sometimes you just gotta be at the right place at the right time, like, and I feel like, that's what happened to me, you know, with my game coming out that year that, you know, people really want to focus on black creators. And then, you know, landing a publisher at a really good time and wish the publisher was looking for somebody in the art style of my game, and you know, everything kind of just worked out. But that really doesn't happen for a lot of people. And, you know, I couldn't I can't tell anybody, like, follow these exact steps. And then, you know, this will happen for you. I don't think anybody can say that. But, you know, I can help out with, you know, marketing and you know, style and saying, Hey, this is a good look, this isn't a good luck, type of thing. Because I just really want everybody to be successful, I think the more create different types of creators we have, like, the better the space is going to be, the more comfortable it's going to be for everybody. Not even just developers. I think that's like streamers, and what have you, we just need like, there's more people that's different in these spaces.
Phil 26:17
Yeah, I'm, I'm curious, something that we didn't ask I don't think on the first conversation that just hearing you say, This is making me think about as you know, as a writer, I hear a lot of stories about people who maybe are getting like their first book published and the the differences and experience in terms of like going through a publisher and going through an editor and especially as a as a person of color, like, some some experiences that may be negative, and not having any kind of anybody to lean on or get perspective on. And that in that experience, I'm curious for you with publishing never yield. You know, what was that experience? Like? Like going in getting a publisher for the game? And like, in those kinds of scenarios, since I don't really know anything about it? Is it like, does the publisher give input in terms of the game? And like, do you have to change things based off of the publisher? Like, what's that whole experience? Like for you? At least? What never yield?
Neil Jones 27:13
Yeah, yeah, it is weird. It's a lot like, a lot, like starting a new job, a job that you really, really like, and then your boss at play saying, Hey, you should do this differently. You really want to be like, chill, this is my job, I got this. But also, you're like, Well, you know, it's my boss. But you know, it's a little bit different. It's not like a boss work situation, you know, they, everybody has the best intentions. So you know, the publisher is not going to come to you and say, Hey, let's do this random thing, just because that's how I feel today. They want to make money. And I think if everybody goes into the whole publisher relationship, knowing that, you know, the publisher wants to make money, that's their goal, they want you to succeed because they get a cut. And that's all publishers, I don't care where you go, I don't care how nice they are to you, whatnot, that's, that's the end of the day, that's what they looking for. And if you kind of just keep that in mind, when you kind of do the whole thing, and you stick to you know, the lightened know what you're willing to buy budge on and know what you're willing to not let go. Like, there was never going to be a scenario where, you know, my main character wasn't going to be black. I don't care who, what, or whatever needs to happen. If someone asked me, Hey, can you just change the color? You know, that was never gonna happen. But, you know, they say, Hey, can you you know, add leaderboards into it? You know, that can be more of a conversation.
Phil 28:47
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I just from my personal experience, there's a couple years ago, now I was working on this essay that was about, like, it was basically about like, me, and my black friend growing up used to view piccolo from Dragonball Z as like a black dude. And yeah, you know, like, kind of working through, like, why black people have such a close connection to piccolo as a character. And, you know, as going through the whole editing process at this journal to get it published. And, you know, my editor was a white guy. And it was, I think you're bringing up a really important thing that creators, especially new creators have to think about is like, what are you willing to concede on? And what are you willing to you just you can't concede on and for me, it was like, he was trying to tell me, like, essentially, he was basically trying to edit what my black experience was, like, as if he would know and I had to walk away from that experience, more or less, but I think it's a really, you know, really valuable insight for new creators to be like, hey, if this isn't your vision to be like, you need Don't you need to walk away. It's not worth it.
Neil Jones 29:53
There's like, I saw this essay or this video essay A long time ago, about just why black people gravitate to drag ballsy, so much, especially black men. And it's about, I forget the details. But basically, the thesis was that, you know, Goku was like this powerful being from this world far away. And he had this potential inside of him to do crazy great things. But you know, in public around white people, he just had to hold back. He never kind of put himself out there. But when he was around his people who were like him, he was like, just this Super Saiyan. And then he had this history that, you know, he never would know, just like black people in America. This is amazing history that he'll never know. Other than being told about it through like stories and having to hunt downs. I just thought it was like really interesting and a good look. A breakdown because I never even thought about that. I like when someone said, Why do you like Dragonball Z so much? Compared to like other things? I couldn't even tell them. But then I watched her videos like that. That really makes sense.
Phil 31:03
Yeah, I mean, I definitely I definitely agree. I mean, I haven't met any black person that's watched Dragonball Z, that doesn't like Dragonball Z. And I think what you're talking about, like, especially that thing about, like Goku having this, this history that he doesn't have access to, and he doesn't he doesn't know about. I think I've seen that same video, like that really resonated with me too. And that's kind of one of the reasons I wrote wrote the piece. But
Neil Jones 31:27
Piccolo was definitely black also. But ya know, I'll see why people were like, don't understand that he does care.
Phil 31:35
And he's got drip. Right,
Neil Jones 31:37
right. No.
But yeah, I forgot what we're talking about. Back to the update. So in the update, what I ended up learning all there was like hundreds of changes, I noticed super random, just go back a little bit. But I got this thing pulled up to remind me to say this. There's like hundreds of small updates, you know, because I found stuff along the way. But the core of it was like adding new bonus levels people wanted, like, they really liked that really hard bonus level, but was really frustrated that they couldn't just like replay it, they had to go through the level to kind of replay it. So I was like, let me you know, give them what they want. Plus add some tourists. So I made a couple more new music, I got to work with Dan, again, to do the new music for the new like in this mode. Because that's no thing people want. It was this weird, endless mode. And I was like, I don't know if endless mode would be fun. But I could do it in my own kind of way in which you can enjoy it for a little bit. And then, you know, my take on the leaderboards, I wanted to do a mobile version, just overhaul the entire UI, because the UI was like the thing that you know, bugged me the most, because I'm very much a persona five type of person. And I want to add so much more style to that UI. But those kind of UI should take 20 years to really master and like you have to do so many iterations of it. So I was really happy, I got to do another iteration of it and clean up some of the graphics. Like we talked about the story and level updates. I had to fix that one achievement that everybody had issue with, but I fixed it. So I want to hear nothing else about it. Making sure we make game work for the Xbox accessibility controller. Because I love saying we use that thing. And making sure that like as many people like can play it. Because you know, I'm I do the best I can, you know, but I'm only one person. But I want to make sure I at least tried to have that option in there. That's awesome. Yeah.
Ben 33:43
Do you maybe want to talk to you briefly about you know, what are the things that especially the indie games that you're playing right now?
Neil Jones 33:52
Oh, I got a list. Let me open it up. So I've been like catching up on a new game. So after party super dope in inscription buy that game like creeps me out. But I just love card game so much. Yeah, especially like single player card games. I don't like the no multiplayer stuff going down especially with the I tried to do multiplayer one that just came out. And you know, it's the same for me. Because new new type of card game uvlo is like a classic you know, I'm really, you know, nostalgic of that. I play a little bit slime heroes. I got an early preview of samurai zero from another black creator. I've played a lot of stuff. Cat quest two is what I'm all into right now. So yeah, I'm just I'm just trying to make up ground for you know, this. The two years I've been working on my game to kind of play all these other things.
Ben 34:51
Yeah, listen, I'm taking a list who you know, we were kind of talking about like, who else are there other people that you would recommend that we kind of reach out to that would be good To talk to
Neil Jones 35:01
Oh, yeah, so my homie, Justin Woodward, he, he worked on the Jay and Silent Bob, pixel game. That was really fun. I played that over the summer. Anybody on that? We did this freshman class of 2021? Oh, yeah,
Ben 35:21
I think we, I want us to be linked to that did we might have,
Neil Jones 35:25
most of those deeds are out now. So I would pretty much talk to anybody on that list. Because it's all those games are, you know, really fun to play.
Phil 35:36
Sec. I want it before I want to I just want to backtrack, because I'm interested with the endless mode. You know, one thing that you were pretty particular and distinguishing when we initially talked was that, you know, unlike an endless runner, never yield that each level, you have deliberately placed all the objects in order to, you know, to make a certain experience for each level. I'm curious what, like an endless mode. What was that? Like? And, you know, yeah, can you just talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. So
Neil Jones 36:09
it's pretty, it's pretty different game. I think people will notice that when they play it. They're either like it or they'll be like, oh, yeah, Neil was right. Just this wasn't like some put in there as a this, which I asked for. You just kind of see where so, you know, I'm really particularly particular about him placing things in the level. I wasn't ever gonna just make a level that instantly kept spawning, so I put it in my high school gym, I modeled my high school gym. And you're just running laps, and then the objects or obstacles, spawn. You know, depending on where you are, you get to, you know, you just count how many laps you ran. And you know how long you survive that way. So it was more of a like a survival runner. But in those motor sounds cooler. Survival. Yeah.
Phil 37:02
That's dope. I mean, I just, I just really love like that personal connection that I think with this game, you've incorporated into basically every aspect, like I really, as a nonfiction writer, that's something that I really, you know, relate to. And I'm curious, you know, now that this game is going to be out, it's the final update. I remember you mentioned that maybe there could be a never yield to in the future. What do you think you want to work on next? And you know, feel free to be vague or whatever in that question.
Neil Jones 37:33
No, I, I even put the answer to that question is an after credit screen. So I do that really super dope after credit screen, just to see like, how cool look. And like I sent it to somebody I was like, What are you thinking it was like, I still I was like, was going in? So you know, it's it's really cool seeing you said, this is coming out after the thing, but it puts out there what the next game will be. And the title and everything. My favorite is my favorite thing. So we really depends on the players at that point. Like, I need these reviews. If if you if you like what you saw on that in credit screen, you've probably just look it up right now if the games, the updates already, I'll just like go on YouTube and be like, never yield ending, you know, update, whatever, and see what that looks like. But I just need reviews and people to play it and to know that you know, this is what I want. And I'll make more of it. Eventually, I think I'm gonna make something else next but you know,
Ben 38:38
you'll come back to it, it's something that you'll return to definitely awesome.
Neil Jones 38:44
Well, probably one day we'll see we'll see.
Phil 38:48
And some form
Neil Jones 38:50
you know, given me so much over these endless moles and his like achievement stuff I'm I'm waiting to see because he wag real reckless online
Ben 39:05
or you have the people come crawling back and we're like all right, you are correct taught and there's a mistake.
Neil Jones 39:09
Everybody wants to be a game dev until it's time to be a game dev. I made decisions in the first game I still stand by but I backed off a lot of because I was like what is what people want and I want you know, I want to make this the most game like the most beloved games, you know, as far as a runner, it can be so you know, a way they want to drive so I gave him the control
Ben 39:36
is a classic case of people think they know what they want but they don't
Neil Jones 39:40
know if the now of the review scores go down after this debate. I'm mad at everybody. And nobody talks. I'm blocking everybody.
Phil 39:52
Hilarious. Van Do you Do you have any other questions for angiology things that we haven't touched on yet?
Ben 40:00
No, I don't think so. Neil, are there any questions that we haven't asked you that you want to ask
Neil Jones 40:04
me about the mobile version? Oh, yeah, we
Phil 40:06
hadn't even realized there was a mobile when,
Ben 40:09
when when does that drop? What was it? You said, You completely refurbish the UI. What was that? Like? Why, why mobile,
Neil Jones 40:16
it was a pain, like the number one advice I give to people trying to do something like this is not to go off the platform, don't ever do it, I'm never doing this again, it's like, there's like, there's literally like eight or nine versions of the game now. And I have to update all of them across the board. And each of them, like, there can be different bugs for each of them. And then these two new ones, you know, Apple and the Google Play Store, you know, that is exactly the experience that you would get on, on every other version of it. So it was really hard to make sure that it ran really smoothly. And all that content was still there, because the game was was never built to be on a mobile. But I'm also never going to put anything out that doesn't feel right. So that's what added about two months to this update was just kind of making sure that the port felt right. And, you know, I got help from this awesome studio out of the UK, who helped me with the leaderboards and doing this whole mobile port and, you know, helped me fix a lot of these bugs, because, you know, I could not have done it this quickly. Without them. They're called beta testers. And you know, they're in the credits, and they're, you know, on the page, and you can look them up the really cool people, I really hope I get to work with them again.
Phil 41:41
Awesome, and that's gonna be coming out the same, the same time that the the updates coming out, or is it gonna be a little bit later for the iOS Android?
Neil Jones 41:49
So yeah, that's the thing. I'm aiming for it to be out in February as well. But it just really depends on like, Apple and Play stores approval process. I have no deals of Apple or Google Play, so I could talk all the crap about them, and how long they make it, how hard they make this whole process. And I was like, Hey, can y'all help me out with X, Y, and Z? No reply, like getting hold of anybody over there is freaking terrible. And, you know, I see why a lot of developers don't like on a mobile. You know, but you know, people ask for it. You know, I just, I want to kind of give them another option. So my thought was, we will see if
Phil 42:40
that makes sense. I mean, even even with this podcast, you know, like, we host it on Apple and typical Apple fashion fashion. The analytics, for instance, like, literally the page doesn't work, unless you're using Safari, and you know, nobody, there's nobody to contact, it's, there's you can hardly get any data. So we feel your pain in that regard.
Neil Jones 43:01
Yeah, kind of wanting to, like just host it, like on my own website to just be like, Hey, if you want the mobile version you got downloaded here. Just so I wouldn't have to go through them and then don't take their cut and all this is trash, like trying to get anything on mobile and is just the worst. But I hope people you know, have fun with it. So it'd be worth all the trouble. We'll you know, we'll kind of see I'm aiming for the end of February sometime but you know, it's pretty much up to them at this point whenever they kind of approve it and I put hosted on your store. I'm gonna put it on my Twitter and you know, announce it as soon as it's live. But yeah, I'm just I'm just kind of tired
Ben 43:54
Yeah, I think that's all we got for you. Thanks for coming and talking to us. I really appreciate thanks
Neil Jones 43:59
for having me come back and like being able to like complain about all these things. I'm really, if you if you're listening now and you've played the game, you know, please go leave a review. Even if you you know, it wasn't for you just like let me know what parts of it that you didn't like, just so that I can know for you know, the next game that I make where people didn't like reviews are like way more important than I think people realize because it really you know dictates you know, next steps it might not address you know the thing that you want right now. Well, you know, it helps for when I'm thinking about the next game or when I'm thinking about an update or, or whatnot. So not even just for my game for any game that you really enjoyed or last play it just go go leave a review and you know, even if it's negative, try to say something nice so that the person who makes it doesn't feel like trash. Because these things are really hard.
Ben 44:55
And also people can know that you already like spent a lot of time it sounds like listening to feed back and trying to incorporate it into your game. So it's not, it's not going nowhere,
Neil Jones 45:04
I literally read almost everything that's out there about it, especially involved in any kind of like real criticism that I could do anything about, you know, the only thing I didn't want to change was any, like the core mechanics like so the running, jumping, sliding that was always gonna stay, but everything else was kind of up for grabs.
Phil 45:28
Great, well, you know, this this season, we're definitely trying to just have some more like informal conversations about like gaming news, or like a game that really resonated with people. So you know, Neil, this is an open invitation that it's like, if you ever want to come back on the show and talk about a game that you love, or anatomy or whatever, you know, we'd love to figure out something
Neil Jones 45:50
real quick then since like, since you opened the door. Yeah, let's hear it. Cyberpunk was one of the best games that came out that year. I know people had issues with it with a whole system. Where I think people way too harsh on it and guy like, like, you know how to hype train builds up a game to get like really high risk, that hate train, like, drove that grit game into the ground. And people didn't realize how revolutionary the the skill tree was. Because, you know, you can feel however you feel about the game and the story and whatnot. But that skill tree was amazing. The art in a game was amazing. And the way people like downplayed it at the Game Awards was trashed in saying that it was an RPG, it literally is the definition of RPG is an action RPG, just like the Witcher was just like the other games that was nominated was it's not a traditional JRPG Sure, but that game was crazy good. And I feel like after they updated and you know, patch it and you know, do whatever tweaks, everybody's gonna hop on the hype train and act like they always supported it, and all that, but I'm telling you right now, I always loved that game. I just didn't say anything about my game and need to get caught in that crossfire. Don't nobody want that smoke.
Ben 47:11
Honestly, I feel like we're gonna have to bring you out for game hot takes on a regular basis. I'm here for it. Yeah, I'm
Neil Jones 47:16
down. Because, you know, sometimes you just need somebody to be real with you.
Phil 47:43
And that was our conversation with Neil Jones, aka Ariel Knight, about all things never yield the video game industry, cyberpunk and more. As always, it's really fun talking to Neil, about games in general, whether it's, you know, during the, the episodes or off air when we're done recording, he's just really, you know, friendly. And, you know, super knowledgeable about the industry. So, yeah, it was, it was really great to just kind of catch up with him again.
Ben 48:17
Yeah, and I really, I think the thing that was cracking me up, but it's also like, good is Neil, someone who I think really wants to make the best version of his game, and is always kind of responding to feedback, and I think takes feedback, it seems like pretty seriously, in terms of revising the game, but he also, I don't know, he has like almost an antagonistic view towards people who critique the game where he's like, sure, sure, sure. I'll make the fixes that you want. But I think that you don't know necessarily like what you're really after. And I don't know, that cracked me up. That was really good.
Phil 48:52
No, for sure. I mean, I think that if I if I think about myself in terms of my own creative work, and, you know, maybe how, how I engage with critique or like a reception of things, I don't think I'm as like overly challenging or confident about, like, sticking up for my work as maybe somebody like Neil and I think that that's probably true of a lot of like, creatives, like the, there's a lot of people who tend to kind of be a little bit more shy or like, yeah, just not just not as like confident, I'd say and I think something that's really refreshing about Neil is that, you know, he's somebody who who takes feedback and you know, is willing to rework his different projects, as we saw with like this huge update for never yield. But I mean, it's really refreshing to see somebody also kind of just call people on their bullshit and acknowledge like, Hey, I actually am a really skilled, you know, at my craft, and I'm gonna make sure that you know, it, you know, like that. There's something cool about that,
Ben 49:55
ya know, 100% And it's like, I feel like he again in some ways, like voicing this stuff that I like think to myself when I'm going through an edit where it's like, you know, when someone's like, Oh, hey, can you try it this way? And I'm like, I mean I can but it's not going to be good. And when it does when an edit does end up you know being for the best of it peace I'm like, fuck like they were right. But you know, when when they're like, actually, you have to go back to the original way that you had it because that was right on like a hill. Yeah, fucking god them. So I don't know. I feel like I appreciate that he gives he gives voice to that.
Phil 50:28
For sure. So yeah, that was kind of a quick update on everything that's been happening with Neil Jones and never yield. As always, like I said at the top of the show, if you enjoy what you're listening to, then definitely give us some feedback, send us an email at the origin story pod@gmail.com or at our Twitter account at origin story underscore, and yeah, as always, make sure to leave reviews on Apple podcasts and Spotify.
Ben 51:02
Thank you, as always, to Ryan Hopper for the intro and outro music that you're listening to right now. And to melody Hirsch, for all of the design work for origin story. You can follow me at sad underscore radio underscore lad. Phil, we're going to find you they
Phil 51:19
could follow me at three D Cisco on Twitter. And yeah, I guess one last thing that I'm thinking about it, we just started an Instagram account not too long ago. So if you are an Instagram person, we got a really pretty looking page over there. So definitely
Ben 51:37
looking good, real good. It's got a lot of content got a little smiling faces. It looks good.
Phil 51:43
So you know give it give it a follow. It's at origin story dot show on Instagram. And with that ban, I think that's all we have for him today.
Ben 51:55
Yeah, see you next time. Bye.
