Sexy Brutale With Charles Griffiths - Part 1

Developer Interviews

This episode is part of a series of interviews with developers. Check out this page for more of them

Featured Image

Players

Squidge

Jay

CharlesG

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Show Notes

This episode is the first two-parter dev interview we’ve done. We love doing these interviews, and we found that we wanted to keep as much of this interview from the cutting room floor as we could. As such, we’re releasing a (largely) unedited version of the recording

save for a few tweaks and some post-production magic from Squidge

so that you can listen to our almost 2.5 hour conversation with Charles.

Also, the guest for this episode is Charles Griffiths. He’s one of the masterminds behind the amazing Sexy Brutale

a game we’ve discussed a number of times already

in fact, the first time that we talked about it was back in episode 6

and an allround amazing person.

In this series of episodes, we wanted to explore the creation and backstory of The Sexy Brutal, and we also had some questions for Charles from both White Mage and Red Mage. But first…

Charles’ Recent Games

• Vegas Stakes
• The Sexy Brutale

which seems quite obvious, really

• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
• Sea of Thieves
• DOOM Eternal
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Squidge’s Recent Games

• Borderlands Legendary Collection
• Resident Evil: Revelations
• The Sexy Brutale

Jay’s Recent Games

• Power Blade
• WCW vs nWo: Revenge
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

Thunder Plain Games

For those who are new to the pod, we have a section called “Thunder Plain Games” which might be vaguely reminiscent of a certain programme on BBC Radio 4

but for copyright reasons, it is completely different

The usual rules the Thunder Plain Games are:

• You have been trapped in the Thunder Plains
• You will get help, at some point in the future
• Before you are sent there, you can pick a number of video games to take with you
  • You can have an Internet connected game, if you wish
  • But you cannot tell anyone that you are stuck in the Thunder Plains or ask for help

Charles’ Choices

• Goldeneye 007
• Final Fantasy VI

Squidge’s Choices

• Soul Edge

Squidge calls this Soul Blade in the episode.

it was known as Soul Edge in Japan, and Soul Blade everywhere else

• Resident Evil Gaiden

Because of course Squige brings up Resident Evil Gaiden again. Here’s a screenshot of the battle mode in action:

And while discussing RE Gaiden, we talked about the Sega Game Gear. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the recent blog post that I’d written about the whole Game Gear mini thing.

I’ve noticed that since writing that blog post, the folks who were all "I’ll never buy Sega again" are back on Sega’s bandwagon

And those were the folks who were perpetuating the rumour that it was a Dreamcast 2, too

something something gotta get those YouTube views, right?

The Sexy Bruale

What’s in a Name?

The first thing thing that we challenged Charles on was the name:

CharlesG:

To us, it’s the same thing as "Moulin Rouge", right. It’s just the name of the place… you have the glamour of gambling, and the very hard edge to what gambling is.

And what’s great about being an indy developer is that you can call your product whatever you want. Which is pretty cool to have that freedom, to be honest. And sometimes, you can just make a name work:

• Kleenex
• Friends
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Mad Max
• A Scritch in Ipswich

And suddenly I hit us all with a stupid “joke” from programming:

Jay:

There’s two things that are difficult in computer programming: naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors

But What’s The Sexy Brutale All About?

Squidge:

I only agreed to do this interview because I didn’t know how to pronounce Boon’s first name

Charles drops some knowledge on how The Sexy Brutale was a slightly different game when it was in development. Although the styling of the game weren’t finalised at the start, it was something that the team were moving towards from the start: Bobble-head characters running around an area in an isometric view.

Views and Puzzles

CharlesG:

Every room has it’s own distinct angle… rather than have the perfect, crisp line, that you can get from having everything uniform, I think it’s more important to have the ability to refresh the eye and give it more life

We all agree that the ability to refresh the eye, and move around freely is a lot better than the old SCUMM games where you end up pixel hunting because the puzzles use Moon Logic, and end up being so infuriatingly stupid that you have to call the helpline in order to get the solution.

Getting the difficulty of the puzzles right is so very difficult to get right:

CharlesG:

Difficulty is difficult

’nuff said

Aspiring games designers will want to really pay attention to this part of the interview; Charles drops some really deep knowledge on how to design puzzles such that they aren’t that difficult that they put people off, but also not too difficult that folks discount them out of hand immediately. And they’re not just points which apply specifically to puzzle games, too.

CharlesG:

[looking at it with fresh eyes] is one of the most important skills for a games designer

I really liked the conversation about the time loop, as it really underscores the idea of making it difficult for the gamer to get too upset about having to wait for the loop to end and start again. Another instance of a tight game loop is Shenmue, which has a full day

albeit a "day" being from 8am to 11pm

going by in around 15 minutes.

CharlesG:

Reduce the penalties [to nothing] and you end up with a game that’s really flat

The element of struggle can make a game fun, as long as it’s not too much of a struggle. Which is the key point to take away from this part of the episode, I think.

Part Two

Remember to check out part two when it drops - it’s due out one week from the release of this episode. Unless you’re reading these notes in the future

welcome to a glimpse into the past!

in which case, the episode is likely already out.

External Links of Interest

• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Cavalier Games Studios
• Tequila Works
• The Sexy Brutale
• Cavalier Games on Twitter
• Charles on Twitter
• The Sexy Brutale Discord
  • Tell them we sent you 😉
• The Sexy Brutale - The Wobbly Doodah
  • i.e. episode 6
• Favourite Games With White Mage and Red Mage
  • i.e. episode 8
• Ace Attorney (2012)
  • Possibly the greatest video game to movie transition
• Lets Talk About Sega, The Game Gear Mini, And Your Reaction To It
• SCUMM
• Moon Logic
  • It’s TV Tropes, so you might lose your afternoon

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Among The Stars, from the Cosmos Music Pack by Muz Station Productions
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Outro Music is I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)