WEBVTT
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[eerie music]
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Hello, my friend. Stay a while and listen.
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I never really envisioned that Deckard Cain
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would become as popular as he became.
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I mean, he was always a really big father figure
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or whatever for your character,
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and so I wanted him to be your guide and your mentor,
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giving you help along the way.
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If you come across challenges
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and questions to which you seek knowledge, seek me out,
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and I will tell you what I can.
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My name is David Brevik, lead programmer on "Diablo",
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and this is how a show of hands turned "Diablo"
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from a turn-based game into real-time.
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[dramatic music]
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I feel I have come to know this hero.
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I got into video games at a very early age.
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My dad brought home an Apple II Plus in, maybe, 1979.
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Started learning to program at that time,
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before that we had had the original Pong machine
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and the Atari 2600, but program really became a passion
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once the Apple II came around and I learned how to program,
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taught myself to program, on the Apple II Plus.
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That was kind of the start of my career,
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and it was a passion that never really left me.
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I wanted to do nothing but make video games my entire life,
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ever since I sat down and started programming.
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So work began on "Diablo" probably in earnest in late 1993.
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We created a company and my friends and I,
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who I'd met at a previous company,
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we started pitching "Diablo" to a bunch of different places.
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The game was always titled "Diablo."
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The name "Diablo" comes from a mountain
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here in the San Francisco Bay Area
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that I lived at the base of that mountain,
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[chuckles] called Mount Diablo.
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I didn't speak any Spanish,
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so once I found out what the name meant for the mountain,
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then I said, "Yeah, that's gonna make
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"a great video game name someday."
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So we pitched it as "Diablo" and the name never really left.
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Blizzard first became involved
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when we got together for a trade show.
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It was Consumer Electronics Show
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and we were showing off "Justice League Task Force."
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We were doing the Sega Genesis version,
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and then another development company
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was working on the Super Nintendo version.
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We didn't realize that there was
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a Super Nintendo version of it,
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and they didn't realize that there was
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a Genesis version of it.
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So we didn't share any kind of design or anything like that,
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or any kind of assets or whatever.
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But strangely the games were very similar.
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They looked like they could have been developed in tandem.
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And so the two companies instantly kind of merged
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over our design sensibilities and our graphic style
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and everything like that.
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They changed their name from Silicon & Synapse
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to Blizzard Entertainment.
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They said, "Okay, well, we're working on this title.
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"Come take a look."
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And I went to their little meeting room that they had rented
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and they showed off "Warcraft."
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[Video Game Character] Work completed.
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And they said, "Yeah, we're also looking for other titles.
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"We're looking to work with people
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"that we think are good developers."
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And I said, "Well, we've got a great game idea,
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"but nobody wants to, you know, do this.
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"So are you guys interested?"
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And they said, "Well, after we finish 'Warcraft I'
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"we'll come out and you can pitch us."
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And they then agreed to do "Diablo."
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[dramatic music]
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So at the time, PC RPGs in general
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were kind of in a very strange state.
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Sales had really declined on any kind of RPG at the time.
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And even though that was a huge genre earlier,
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when we went to go pitch "Diablo"
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to a bunch of different places,
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we got rejected 20-plus times,
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but we knew that this was an unusual kind of style of RPG.
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In a lot of ways, we wanted to kind of make
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the antithesis of what RPGs were at the time.
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We went out of our way to do that,
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to make sure that the graphics weren't elves and dragons.
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We wanted to make it, you know, very different than that.
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We wanted to make sure that the style of game it was
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was much more like the way that I used to play
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"Dungeons & Dragons" as a kid.
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I didn't really care so much about the story
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and things like that in Dungeons & Dragons.
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For me, it was much more about the loot.
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It was much more about getting the awesome vorpal swords
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and stuff like that.
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And so I wanted a game that was ringing true
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with a game that was more about, you know,
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killing monsters and getting cool loot
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rather than having a long story
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with a deep character customization and stuff like that.
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I wanted to focus more on the action side
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and more on the loot side.
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And so we felt like we had a great idea
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that separated us from the crowd,
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but I think that a lot of people,
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especially a lot of people in publishing at that time,
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weren't necessarily gamers.
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Lot of them were just businessmen
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who had learned that this genre isn't selling anymore.
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I don't care what kinda game you're pitching me.
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And so getting to pitch the game
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to people that were actually gamers,
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that were publishers in Blizzard,
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was a kind of breath of fresh air.
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And they understood the vision
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and ultimately led to us doing a deal with them.
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I had many influences growing up,
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things like "Ultima" to "Might and Magic" to "Wizardry."
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And so I started designing "Diablo"
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when I was in high school.
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And then in college, I started playing a lot
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on Unix machines that were, you know,
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in the computer lab at the time.
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They didn't have really any kind of graphics
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associated with them.
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And that was really where I got introduced
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to things like MUDs and roguelike games,
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even though the term roguelike comes from games
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that are like the game "Rogue,"
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which is one of the games that I was playing at the time.
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And then there were others like "NetHack" and "Moria,"
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"Umoria" and "Angband."
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And those were huge influences in really,
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in a lot of ways it was "Angband,"
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I think, that was kind of the model of what we wanted.
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The point of the game was just, you know,
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kill a boss and there was random levels and random items,
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but you were the @ symbol attacking the letter K.
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There was a game, "NHL '94."
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One of the things that we loved about that game
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is that with just a few quick buttons,
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we were in and skating around
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and could check each other and things like that.
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And that was the kind of philosophy
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that we wanted to bring to "Diablo."
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We wanted to be everything that RPGs weren't,
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and one of those things was,
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we want to just press a few buttons
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and get right into the game.
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Character creation was this big deal in RPGs.
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You would end up answering a bunch of questions
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about your history and giving yourself a backstory
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and putting numbers into all sorts of stats
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before you even knew what the stats would do.
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So we wanted to bypass all of that and get directly in.
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And that philosophy permeated every decision that we made.
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Time from boot up to kill was like,
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it's gotta be under a minute kind of thing.
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For "Diablo," there were a lot of technical things
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that we had to overcome that were different
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than the way that games had been at the time.
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So the loot lottery is kind of a system
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by which random items are generated,
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and the best analogy is it's a slot machine.
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Every time you kill a monster,
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you put a quarter into the slot machine
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and you pull the lever and out can come nothing,
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you get your quarter back, you know,
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you could do pretty well, or you could hit a jackpot.
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[game chimes]
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And so if you can think of pulling the lever
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as every time you kill a monster,
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it's got kind of this addictive quality.
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Just as slot machines are addictive,
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so is the, I am going to maybe win something big here.
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It was kind of loosely based on the system
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that came from "Moria," "Angband," "Umoria,"
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those kind of style games.
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They had random item generation,
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but not to the same extent
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that we were gonna be doing it in "Diablo."
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Luckily, this was a really fun part of the game
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for a lot of us,
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and so we didn't mind working on this part.
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It meant that we got to play the game and get cool stuff.
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Random level generation in "Diablo"
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was extremely complicated.
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There were, like, four kind of subsections
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of the original game.
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There were, like, kind of four different tilesets,
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but also it was having to write basically
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four times the code that you normally would write
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for one of these things
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also made it kind of a big challenge.
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One of our pillars was your guy that you've made,
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your character that you've made, is unique.
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Your experience is going to be different
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than anybody else's forever,
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just because of the way the trillions of combinations
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that exist out there.
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Nobody will have the same experience twice.
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A lot of RPGs were like, oh, we've got a hundred hours,
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and things like that, of content.
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And we were saying,
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basically you have unlimited content here.
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One of the things that we wanted to do with "Diablo"
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was multi-classing.
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This was kind of a philosophy that was the, again,
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kind of anti-typical RPG.
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RPGs at the time were things like,
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oh, you're playing as a cleric,
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and as a cleric, I can't hold a sword.
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It didn't make any sense at all
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that, you know, a person who claims to be this cleric,
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can't just actually pick up a dagger or pick up a sword.
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They could only use maces.
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And so in a lot of ways, we wanted to make
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the anti-system for that,
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which was this kind of like multi-classing,
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or everybody can do everything, kind of system.
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So as a warrior, you could cast spells.
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You may be a lot worse at it.
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It may take you extra mana.
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Your spell casting animations are longer,
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but you could do it.
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It was the system where you could make any class you wanted.
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There were no restrictions,
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like so many of the other things
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that we thought were just barriers to fun.
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[Video Game Character] Fresh meat.
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And so making it so that it was kind of
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this free form was really important to us.
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And again, it was more of the anti-RPG at the time.
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[Video Game Character] The spirits of the dead
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are now avenged.
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The relationship between Blizzard North
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and Blizzard South was sometimes contentious,
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as any two groups can be or whatever, in any relationship.
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Largely, we got along really well.
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We were very reasonable with each other.
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We helped each other out.
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Obviously there were some fights,
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some things that they felt passionately about,
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some things that we felt passionately about.
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They were involved,
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but they weren't involved in a day-to-day basis.
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You know, we would talk often,
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but it wasn't like they were sitting in our office
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like with a producer or talking about
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what we're doing every day kind of thing.
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Originally, "Diablo" was gonna be a turn-based game,
254
00:10:21.930 --> 00:10:25.900
which is based on "Rogue" and "Angband," et cetera.
255
00:10:25.900 --> 00:10:27.780
All of those games were turn-based.
256
00:10:27.780 --> 00:10:31.150
At some point during the process, which was pretty early,
257
00:10:31.150 --> 00:10:34.980
I would say within maybe three or four months
258
00:10:34.980 --> 00:10:36.850
of the start of the project,
259
00:10:36.850 --> 00:10:38.920
they came to us after their success
260
00:10:38.920 --> 00:10:42.320
with converting strategy games to real-time
261
00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:44.960
in the same way that they did with "Warcraft."
262
00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:47.200
And they felt, hey, with all of these kind of
263
00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:50.640
turn-based old-school versions of RPGs,
264
00:10:50.640 --> 00:10:54.410
we should do a real-time version of it.
265
00:10:54.410 --> 00:10:57.950
And I was really against this idea.
266
00:10:57.950 --> 00:11:00.040
This was the line in the sand for me.
267
00:11:00.040 --> 00:11:02.470
I was not gonna, there was no way
268
00:11:02.470 --> 00:11:04.807
that I was changing this game to real-time.
269
00:11:04.807 --> 00:11:07.310
[Video Game Character] His reckless overconfidence
270
00:11:07.310 --> 00:11:10.310
has proven costly to us all.
271
00:11:10.310 --> 00:11:13.010
I was deathly afraid of losing
272
00:11:13.010 --> 00:11:15.430
what I thought was kind of the essence of this game.
273
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Oftentimes when you're playing
274
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these turn-based RPGs like this,
275
00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:22.210 line:15%
you get to a point where your character's about to die.
276
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You were important decisions you had to make.
277
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There was just so much strategy and depth
278
00:11:26.140 --> 00:11:27.690 line:15%
and the games were permadeath.
279
00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:30.300
So if you, you know, if you died, that was it.
280
00:11:30.300 --> 00:11:32.610
And there was on these Unix servers,
281
00:11:32.610 --> 00:11:35.040
so you couldn't, like, restore your characters
282
00:11:35.040 --> 00:11:36.200
or anything like that, it was gone.
283
00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:37.667
So it's this really tense moment.
284
00:11:37.667 --> 00:11:41.400
And I really did not want to lose that tension.
285
00:11:41.400 --> 00:11:43.453
I thought that was essential to the way
286
00:11:43.453 --> 00:11:45.270 line:15%
that the game was gonna play.
287
00:11:45.270 --> 00:11:48.100 line:15%
And our turn base wasn't really like our turn, their turn,
288
00:11:48.100 --> 00:11:48.933 line:15%
our turn, their turn.
289
00:11:48.933 --> 00:11:50.350 line:15%
It was a little bit more complicated.
290
00:11:50.350 --> 00:11:54.920 line:15%
It was if a single turn was broken into 10 sub-turns
291
00:11:54.920 --> 00:11:55.960
or something like that,
292
00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:57.410
pulling out your sword may take
293
00:11:57.410 --> 00:12:00.300
like, you know, 1/10 of a turn,
294
00:12:00.300 --> 00:12:03.280
and then walking one square horizontally
295
00:12:03.280 --> 00:12:06.960
took a whole turn, but diagonally took 1.4 turns.
296
00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:09.840
So we kind of had this scaling list.
297
00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:12.080
So it was kind of a complicated turn-based thing.
298
00:12:12.080 --> 00:12:13.870
And there was a lot of conflict,
299
00:12:13.870 --> 00:12:16.250
and a lot of times that we would talk about the game
300
00:12:16.250 --> 00:12:17.290
and how things were going,
301
00:12:17.290 --> 00:12:21.130
and we would have phone calls and for weeks at the end,
302
00:12:21.130 --> 00:12:23.267
they would say, "Hey, so what about
303
00:12:23.267 --> 00:12:25.190
"changing it to real- time?"
304
00:12:25.190 --> 00:12:27.980
They would kind of keep nudging on this.
305
00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:30.230
I brought it up with some of the people at the office.
306
00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:31.750
It started to gain some momentum.
307
00:12:31.750 --> 00:12:32.583
People were like, "Yeah, no,
308
00:12:32.583 --> 00:12:34.717
"I think that it might be kind of cool."
309
00:12:34.717 --> 00:12:37.870
[Video Game Character] My knowledge of the ancient ways
310
00:12:37.870 --> 00:12:40.260
might be of some help.
311
00:12:40.260 --> 00:12:41.270
We all got together.
312
00:12:41.270 --> 00:12:43.500
The entire Blizzard North got together
313
00:12:43.500 --> 00:12:45.335
in the kitchen and had a vote.
314
00:12:45.335 --> 00:12:47.270
The development team was probably
315
00:12:47.270 --> 00:12:50.120
maybe 15 people at the time.
316
00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:53.430
We all voted and I was heavily outweighed.
317
00:12:53.430 --> 00:12:55.910
There were a few, three or four of us,
318
00:12:55.910 --> 00:12:57.780
kind of didn't want to change it,
319
00:12:57.780 --> 00:13:00.630
but it was, you know, 15 of them
320
00:13:00.630 --> 00:13:02.130
did want to change it or whatever.
321
00:13:02.130 --> 00:13:05.130
So reluctantly, I said: Okay, yeah, we can do this.
322
00:13:05.130 --> 00:13:07.411
We can give it a try. I think this is dumb.
323
00:13:07.411 --> 00:13:09.020
I think it's gonna be a waste of like,
324
00:13:09.020 --> 00:13:11.210
it's gonna take us a month to do this.
325
00:13:11.210 --> 00:13:14.060
We've done this game for too cheap. We're gonna go back.
326
00:13:14.060 --> 00:13:16.210
We're gonna try and get some more money as well,
327
00:13:16.210 --> 00:13:17.043
at the same time.
328
00:13:17.043 --> 00:13:19.730
I went back, I said: Yeah, it's gonna take us longer
329
00:13:19.730 --> 00:13:20.930
to develop the game now
330
00:13:20.930 --> 00:13:22.710
because it's gonna be this real-time thing.
331
00:13:22.710 --> 00:13:25.770
So we not only need an extra milestone payment,
332
00:13:25.770 --> 00:13:28.750
but also, you know, we're not gonna have anything
333
00:13:28.750 --> 00:13:31.010
to show or talk about for like a month,
334
00:13:31.010 --> 00:13:33.060
because it's just gonna take so long to do this.
335
00:13:33.060 --> 00:13:35.820
And so I said: Okay, I'm gonna start this process.
336
00:13:35.820 --> 00:13:37.300
Everybody go home.
337
00:13:37.300 --> 00:13:40.100
This was on a Friday, everybody cleared out.
338
00:13:40.100 --> 00:13:42.840
And Friday afternoon I started working on it,
339
00:13:42.840 --> 00:13:47.000
and by Friday evening I had it done. [laughs]
340
00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:49.800
I remember it just like it was yesterday.
341
00:13:49.800 --> 00:13:50.830
You know, I was working on it
342
00:13:50.830 --> 00:13:52.410
and I always kind of the warrior.
343
00:13:52.410 --> 00:13:53.750
I had this club in my hand,
344
00:13:53.750 --> 00:13:55.700
there was a skeleton on the screen,
345
00:13:55.700 --> 00:13:57.800
and I kind of clicked on a skeleton.
346
00:13:57.800 --> 00:13:59.500
My character walked over and swung
347
00:13:59.500 --> 00:14:01.650
and smacked the skeleton apart.
348
00:14:01.650 --> 00:14:05.020
And I was like, "Oh my God, this is amazing."
349
00:14:05.020 --> 00:14:09.270
That felt so good. That was, really, this was way better.
350
00:14:09.270 --> 00:14:12.610
The sun shone through the window, the clouds parted,
351
00:14:12.610 --> 00:14:14.680
the angels went, ahh.
352
00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:17.680
It was definitely a moment that I knew
353
00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:19.880
that this was definitely the way to go.
354
00:14:19.880 --> 00:14:21.400
This was way better.
355
00:14:21.400 --> 00:14:23.010
And I just sat there for like an hour,
356
00:14:23.010 --> 00:14:25.210
like clicking the mouse button over and over again,
357
00:14:25.210 --> 00:14:28.410
as I just swung the sword and we never really looked back.
358
00:14:28.410 --> 00:14:30.600
So when people came in on Monday morning,
359
00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:31.750
it was done, it was working.
360
00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:34.980
It was obvious that this was the way to go,
361
00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:36.200
and we never looked back.
362
00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:38.470
One of the great things about this change
363
00:14:38.470 --> 00:14:40.930
was that we had so many assets to work with.
364
00:14:40.930 --> 00:14:45.680
The game itself was already deep in production.
365
00:14:45.680 --> 00:14:48.180
We already had a bunch of different assets,
366
00:14:48.180 --> 00:14:49.940
so we didn't need to start from scratch.
367
00:14:49.940 --> 00:14:51.570
We kept the same perspective.
368
00:14:51.570 --> 00:14:53.400
We kept a lot of the assets that we had.
369
00:14:53.400 --> 00:14:55.300
So there wasn't really any kind of fundamental
370
00:14:55.300 --> 00:14:58.780
technology changes in terms of the graphics pipeline
371
00:14:58.780 --> 00:15:00.380
or art assets or anything like that,
372
00:15:00.380 --> 00:15:01.320
that we needed to take care of.
373
00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:06.180
It was mainly focused on our ability to change the gameplay
374
00:15:06.180 --> 00:15:09.060
and make sure that that was a smooth transition.
375
00:15:09.060 --> 00:15:11.790
Once the real-time change had happened
376
00:15:11.790 --> 00:15:13.320
and we kind of settled in,
377
00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:17.930
it was pretty obvious that it was the right decision.
378
00:15:17.930 --> 00:15:21.100
Throughout the office it was kind of an electric atmosphere.
379
00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:23.800
Everybody was really jazzed. Everybody's really psyched.
380
00:15:23.800 --> 00:15:27.490
Even the people that were kind of steadfast against us,
381
00:15:27.490 --> 00:15:29.917
including myself, came to me and said,
382
00:15:29.917 --> 00:15:33.260
"Yes, this feels amazing. This is really cool."
383
00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:35.190
We kind of changed some of the design of the game
384
00:15:35.190 --> 00:15:37.130
and the way that you're gonna interact with the monsters
385
00:15:37.130 --> 00:15:39.080
and the way that you're gonna do combat and stuff like that.
386
00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:43.410
And these things kind of evolved and changed
387
00:15:43.410 --> 00:15:45.550
over a period of the next few weeks and months
388
00:15:45.550 --> 00:15:49.420
as we kind of grasped what the real-time really meant
389
00:15:49.420 --> 00:15:52.760
and how that affected the actual moment-to-moment gameplay.
390
00:15:52.760 --> 00:15:57.230
So on that day that I had that incredible encoding session,
391
00:15:57.230 --> 00:16:00.440
we didn't let Blizzard know quite right away,
392
00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:02.410
but I couldn't hold it back that much.
393
00:16:02.410 --> 00:16:05.500
I couldn't withhold that information for too long
394
00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:07.400
'cause it was just so damn exciting.
395
00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:09.380
And they had already agreed to pay us more money,
396
00:16:09.380 --> 00:16:12.380
so that part was taken care of.
397
00:16:12.380 --> 00:16:14.160
And the fact that it took such a short time
398
00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:17.250
and was such an improvement, and they kind of got their way,
399
00:16:17.250 --> 00:16:19.450
it ended up not really being an issue at all.
400
00:16:19.450 --> 00:16:22.530
And everybody was very excited about the new direction
401
00:16:22.530 --> 00:16:24.080
and the way that it turned out.
402
00:16:25.067 --> 00:16:26.587
[Video Game Character] We have learned strength
403
00:16:26.587 --> 00:16:28.680
is making the right choice.
404
00:16:28.680 --> 00:16:31.600
Looking back, I feel like "Diablo I"
405
00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:35.490
turned out way better than I ever imagined it would.
406
00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:39.310
I'm obviously very proud of working on it.
407
00:16:39.310 --> 00:16:41.820
You know, it's just such a highlight
408
00:16:41.820 --> 00:16:44.930
and a pillar of my career, but it wasn't just me.
409
00:16:44.930 --> 00:16:45.890
It was a lot of people.
410
00:16:45.890 --> 00:16:46.830
There are a lot of people,
411
00:16:46.830 --> 00:16:48.870
very talented people that I worked with,
412
00:16:48.870 --> 00:16:52.840
that made that a reality, from music to graphics,
413
00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:54.650
to other programmers, et cetera.
414
00:16:54.650 --> 00:16:57.130
There were just so many super talented people
415
00:16:57.130 --> 00:16:58.963
that worked together as a team to make that
416
00:16:58.963 --> 00:17:00.690
a just really special time.
417
00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:03.093
In terms of my overall vision,
418
00:17:04.169 --> 00:17:06.170
it exceeded what my vision
419
00:17:06.170 --> 00:17:07.923
of what the final product could be.
420
00:17:09.450 --> 00:17:11.540
I feel very, very lucky to have worked on it.
421
00:17:11.540 --> 00:17:13.840
We had a very different vision for "Diablo II."
422
00:17:13.840 --> 00:17:16.070
We had a lot more experience about what we were doing.
423
00:17:16.070 --> 00:17:17.960
We understood the market a lot better.
424
00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:22.170
We understood that we're building upon this fantastic game.
425
00:17:22.170 --> 00:17:24.120
With "Diablo II," it was definitely
426
00:17:24.120 --> 00:17:26.360
more in lines with my expectations.
427
00:17:26.360 --> 00:17:29.480
It still exceeded my expectations and still does today.
428
00:17:29.480 --> 00:17:30.560
I mean, the fact of the matter is
429
00:17:30.560 --> 00:17:31.920
that there are so many people
430
00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:35.420
playing the game today that, you know,
431
00:17:35.420 --> 00:17:38.850
20 years after we released it, says a lot about the product.
432
00:17:38.850 --> 00:17:39.790
You can go on to Twitch
433
00:17:39.790 --> 00:17:42.920
and find people streaming the product at any time.
434
00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:45.080
It continued to sell, you know,
435
00:17:45.080 --> 00:17:47.190
a boxed copy of this game on target
436
00:17:47.190 --> 00:17:50.177
for 15 years after the product was released.
437
00:17:50.177 --> 00:17:53.270
And it was always in the top 10 sellers of the year.
438
00:17:53.270 --> 00:17:56.570
At the time, "Diablo II" was the fastest-selling
439
00:17:56.570 --> 00:17:57.840
PC game of all time.
440
00:17:57.840 --> 00:17:59.080
You know, it reached a million copies
441
00:17:59.080 --> 00:18:00.600
faster than any other game in history.
442
00:18:00.600 --> 00:18:03.270
And I think that "Diablo I", you know,
443
00:18:03.270 --> 00:18:05.350
sold a million very quickly as well.
444
00:18:05.350 --> 00:18:08.690
Right at the exact same time, "The Sims" came out.
445
00:18:08.690 --> 00:18:10.910
It was almost exact same time as "Diablo II."
446
00:18:10.910 --> 00:18:13.280
Those two games were on the bestselling list
447
00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:15.760
and still are on the bestselling lists of all time
448
00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:17.470
if you look up PC sales.
449
00:18:17.470 --> 00:18:19.270
People are so passionate about the game
450
00:18:19.270 --> 00:18:21.000
and they figure out every little aspect.
451
00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:24.170
And it's funny, they'll collect every single unique item
452
00:18:24.170 --> 00:18:25.770
in the game or something like that.
453
00:18:25.770 --> 00:18:28.210
And they play literally hundreds and hundreds
454
00:18:28.210 --> 00:18:30.360
and hundreds of hours trying to collect these things.
455
00:18:30.360 --> 00:18:31.720
They do it unique ways.
456
00:18:31.720 --> 00:18:32.790
So I'm just going to,
457
00:18:32.790 --> 00:18:34.900
I'm not gonna use any kind of weapons.
458
00:18:34.900 --> 00:18:37.170
I'm just gonna punch my way to the end, or whatever.
459
00:18:37.170 --> 00:18:39.050
There's like all sorts of different ways
460
00:18:39.050 --> 00:18:39.883
that people come up with.
461
00:18:39.883 --> 00:18:42.210
They make videos on YouTube and all these kind of things,
462
00:18:42.210 --> 00:18:45.120
and it's really great to see people so passionate
463
00:18:45.120 --> 00:18:47.490
about the game after all these years.
464
00:18:47.490 --> 00:18:50.390
Both "Diablo" and "Diablo II" had such a huge impact
465
00:18:50.390 --> 00:18:52.490
on my career and still do to today.
466
00:18:52.490 --> 00:18:54.970
It's strange, having such success
467
00:18:54.970 --> 00:18:58.620
with your first PC game you've ever made,
468
00:18:58.620 --> 00:19:01.470
the expectations for everything that you do after that
469
00:19:01.470 --> 00:19:04.540
are just sky high, ridiculously high.
470
00:19:04.540 --> 00:19:08.100
That was a tough thing to deal with when we left Blizzard
471
00:19:08.100 --> 00:19:10.110
and made things like "Hellgate: London,"
472
00:19:10.110 --> 00:19:14.360
and the hype for that game was outrageously high
473
00:19:14.360 --> 00:19:16.440
and didn't meet expectations.
474
00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:18.900 line:15%
It was a really unique game. It was really cool.
475
00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:21.110 line:15%
I think it was a game that was way ahead of its time.
476
00:19:21.110 --> 00:19:23.050 line:15%
Basically it was the very first looter shooter
477
00:19:23.050 --> 00:19:25.240 line:15%
that, I don't know, some people call it shooter looter,
478
00:19:25.240 --> 00:19:26.570
some people call it looter shooter.
479
00:19:26.570 --> 00:19:27.910
There are other names for or whatever,
480
00:19:27.910 --> 00:19:29.820
but whatever way that you wanna say it,
481
00:19:29.820 --> 00:19:32.210
it was the first of that style of game.
482
00:19:32.210 --> 00:19:33.620
And I get a lot of people that come back
483
00:19:33.620 --> 00:19:35.280
and compliment me on that all the time,
484
00:19:35.280 --> 00:19:38.720
despite the flaws, which were mainly bug-related.
485
00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:40.040
There are a lot of gameplay loops
486
00:19:40.040 --> 00:19:41.570
that I'm fond of these days.
487
00:19:41.570 --> 00:19:43.040 line:15%
I think that for me, a lot of
488
00:19:43.040 --> 00:19:45.580 line:15%
kind of like survival-esque games
489
00:19:45.580 --> 00:19:48.310 line:15%
are really kind of my jam lately.
490
00:19:48.310 --> 00:19:51.210 line:15%
I was really into MMOs for awhile
491
00:19:52.090 --> 00:19:55.200 line:15%
and I think that any kind of survival, building, crafting,
492
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.450 line:15%
those kinds of things, I really enjoy that a lot,
493
00:19:57.450 --> 00:20:00.870 line:15%
but still I harken back to ARPGs.
494
00:20:00.870 --> 00:20:04.200
Like, I still really enjoy the loop
495
00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:06.630
of kill monsters, get loot.
496
00:20:06.630 --> 00:20:08.550
I still really love that the most,
497
00:20:08.550 --> 00:20:10.650
much more than almost any other genre.
498
00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:13.050
The best general advice that I can give
499
00:20:13.050 --> 00:20:17.030
are things like from a UI perspective.
500
00:20:17.030 --> 00:20:20.240
Can somebody play this without reading a manual
501
00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:21.970
or getting any kind of instructions?
502
00:20:21.970 --> 00:20:25.510
Like, back in the early days when I was playing,
503
00:20:25.510 --> 00:20:27.530
when we were making "Diablo," we had this thing,
504
00:20:27.530 --> 00:20:28.970
which is now kind of unfair,
505
00:20:28.970 --> 00:20:30.820
but it was nicknamed the mom test,
506
00:20:30.820 --> 00:20:33.920
which was like, my mom was not computer-savvy at the time.
507
00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:37.860
And so like, if my mom can pick this up and play this,
508
00:20:37.860 --> 00:20:39.570
then anybody can.
509
00:20:39.570 --> 00:20:40.830
We wanted to approach the thing
510
00:20:40.830 --> 00:20:43.380
so it was kind of a wide audience kind of way
511
00:20:43.380 --> 00:20:45.790
to play the game and it made simplified things.
512
00:20:45.790 --> 00:20:48.410
It forced us to simplify any UI.
513
00:20:48.410 --> 00:20:50.470
And so kind of distilling the essence
514
00:20:50.470 --> 00:20:52.390
of what you're trying to do, whatever it is,
515
00:20:52.390 --> 00:20:55.310
and making the UI kind of enhance that
516
00:20:55.310 --> 00:20:57.290
is the best kind of experience that I can give.
517
00:20:57.290 --> 00:20:58.810
Making sure that something
518
00:20:58.810 --> 00:21:01.060
is really simple and straightforward,
519
00:21:01.060 --> 00:21:04.200
especially in your core game loop, is critical.
520
00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:07.030
A few years ago, I went completely independent.
521
00:21:07.030 --> 00:21:09.060
I made a company called Graybeard Games.
522
00:21:09.060 --> 00:21:12.410
It was originally just me. It's still largely just me.
523
00:21:12.410 --> 00:21:14.430 line:15%
Made a product called "It Lurks Below."
524
00:21:14.430 --> 00:21:15.263 line:15%
I did everything.
525
00:21:15.263 --> 00:21:20.263 line:15%
I did the pixel art, the programming, the design, music.
526
00:21:20.360 --> 00:21:23.250 line:15%
Later in the game, a couple other people help.
527
00:21:23.250 --> 00:21:26.500
My wife is doing a little bit of programming and design
528
00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:27.900
and my third eldest kid,
529
00:21:27.900 --> 00:21:30.063
but my eldest kid here still at the house,
530
00:21:31.360 --> 00:21:32.680
she's doing some of the art.
531
00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:34.000
We've done some of the pixel art
532
00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:35.650
and I've got some other friends
533
00:21:35.650 --> 00:21:36.900
helping me and stuff like that.
534
00:21:36.900 --> 00:21:38.410
So it's more than just me,
535
00:21:38.410 --> 00:21:40.450
but originally a great majority of the project
536
00:21:40.450 --> 00:21:41.360
has been just me.
537
00:21:41.360 --> 00:21:43.800
I wanted to try and do a project all by myself
538
00:21:43.800 --> 00:21:45.670
and "It Lurks Below," it's out.
539
00:21:45.670 --> 00:21:46.950
It's been out for about a year,
540
00:21:46.950 --> 00:21:50.880
and it's coming to Xbox soon and hopefully other platforms,
541
00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:52.150
other consoles after that.
542
00:21:52.150 --> 00:21:55.140
And then recently I also just started a publisher
543
00:21:55.140 --> 00:21:56.500
called Skystone Games
544
00:21:56.500 --> 00:22:00.740
and looking to publish other kind of indie products
545
00:22:00.740 --> 00:22:03.640
and take my experience from being an indie developer
546
00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:06.470
and trying to boost other indies
547
00:22:06.470 --> 00:22:09.400
and making sure that they can survive
548
00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:11.370
in today's harsh climate.
549
00:22:11.370 --> 00:22:13.550
Give them not only game feedback,
550
00:22:13.550 --> 00:22:15.580
but also make sure that they can
551
00:22:16.450 --> 00:22:18.760
get good coverage on their game
552
00:22:18.760 --> 00:22:22.180
and get seen by press outlets and things like that.
553
00:22:22.180 --> 00:22:24.190
There were a bunch of times during development
554
00:22:24.190 --> 00:22:26.010
that I felt like this could be a hit,
555
00:22:26.010 --> 00:22:28.670
but the thing that really drove it home for me
556
00:22:28.670 --> 00:22:30.680
while we were making the game,
557
00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:34.560
we would work and people would roll in and work all day,
558
00:22:34.560 --> 00:22:36.520
and then when it was time to go home,
559
00:22:36.520 --> 00:22:37.670
they weren't going home.
560
00:22:37.670 --> 00:22:38.730
They were playing the game
561
00:22:38.730 --> 00:22:40.450
that they had just spent all day working on.
562
00:22:40.450 --> 00:22:43.050
So I knew when that was happening,
563
00:22:43.050 --> 00:22:45.830
that it was, you know, it could be something
564
00:22:45.830 --> 00:22:47.660
that was kind of addictive.
565
00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:50.410
And the dream was never that it would do as well as it did.
566
00:22:50.410 --> 00:22:54.550
Our dream was maybe someday we can sell 25,000 copies.
567
00:22:54.550 --> 00:22:56.500
If we did that, maybe we could make a sequel.
568
00:22:56.500 --> 00:22:58.220
That was kind of the original dream.
569
00:22:58.220 --> 00:23:01.070
I had no real intent in making it, you know,
570
00:23:01.070 --> 00:23:02.940
that it was gonna be so addictive
571
00:23:02.940 --> 00:23:05.460
or that wasn't really what we had set out to be.
572
00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:07.990
It was just the hopes of us being able
573
00:23:07.990 --> 00:23:09.610
to make the PC games that we love.
574
00:23:09.610 --> 00:23:12.940
[dramatic music]
575
00:23:12.940 --> 00:23:15.607
[logo whooshes]