Mudcon 2k22 Q&A transcript

mudcon_2k22_qa.txt

Transcript of mudcon 2022 Q&A VOD
Link: https://twitch.tv/videos/1450855587
thnx to alice, fayti & samual for proofreading and fixing [?]s

<00:00:48>
alice [via whiteboard]: i'm with stupid *arrow pointing at matr1x*
matr1x: oi. very rude. they can't read it cuz it's backwards (ED NOTE: not true)

<00:01:30>
matr1x: i guess, the first question i have for you before we get ones in from
them is, what was your process when you were first brought into hackmud?
chris: right, so, the story there, is that sean and i have known each other for
quite a while now, but we met during a game industry dota 2 tournament, in like
2014. he actually (i think) was developing hackmud at the time, and showed it to
me on his laptop, and i did not understand it at all.
matr1x: still don't now
chris: yeah, and i still don't- no. and then a few years later, i was leaving
my job at the time, and he went for a hike with a mutual friend, tom francis,
who's also a game developer, and he was looking for a writer, and tom [?] to
me, we talked, we realized that we had sort of a lot of the same ideas about a
variety of things. this was like the spring after the game had come out the
previous september, and i just started working and stuff. initially the process
was coming into something that had launched with like the outline of some
narrative ideas and a mixture of things that were kind of top-level concept and
a few big questions, but also sort of a wide ranging tone
matr1x: yeah there's some comedic stuff there's some serious stuff
chris: there's a huge question at the bottom of the game
[... chris calls matr1x a human tripod ...]
chris: so i started off writing a few things just to kinda get a sense of the
vibe. the first thing i wrote for the game was the idp1p1-
chris: so i wrote kinda little new-player loops and stuff, and then built out
from there into doing a lot of work initially just to kind of flesh out the
background, make sure it's gonna work, add stuff behind the scenes, and a
direction forward for a lot of characters, and since then the first big event
i've worked on was petra arbella
chris: so after that, the second robovac revolution, which obviously kicked off
a lot of the characters and stuff
matr1x: yeah, established a lot of the themes and things like that
[UTTER WIND SOUNDS]
chris: basically it's the point I was making about, y'know, the game has a tonal
range, and that's kind of [?-- wind --?] lighter than some of the stuff you'd
find elsewhere. That's good.
marto: it's only starting to get involved
chris: it's only starting to get involved, yeah

<00:06:21>
alice [via whiteboard]:
    alice.encore
WL-@alice-XP7e16JM3684JvzA
(hope i copied that right...)
      tell me if not!
chris: i like that now, i feel like i have not chosen the most obscure way to
give out a script, so congratulations alice, you've taken the crown there.

<00:06:50>
matr1x: how long would you say it normally takes to make most event content?
chris: it varies, and one thing i will say, over the years, after that first
one, we've added more every time, they got more complicated, and obviously
there's a way that sean and i work together, where it's very back and forth in
some ways, because i'm not a programmer, so sometimes i need help with
implementing stuff, and sometimes he's working on the narrative side of it.
there's a lot of planning, and then quick production. so, there's like tons and
tons of planning, and then actually, some of the stuff just happens in a week or
so of just really intense work. i guess an example would be like, at occasion
you have an idea and you run with it, but in order for the idea to happen, you
need to make it happen quickly. so for example, the first bigbot adventure, the
moon castle, that was an easter egg originally, that was hidden as part of a
different event, and i wrote that in basically like one weekend that i no longer
remember. i had a fugue state, and when i woke up, this thing existed, and the
rest is a series of weird decisions.
matr1x: and now you have to work with this thing that you don't understand
chris: exactly. and it varies but it tends to be a couple months of planning and
then like a week or three of intense execution. i think the last thing we did
before the pandemic and before things got more difficult, both risk.trace and
the sort-of finale to the previous revolution. that was about a month of quite
intense work, because it was just a lot of writing and planning and different
interrelated things to make.
matr1x: by then were you already writing a script that bigbot was gonna win?
chris: no. i don't want to get too meta about things, but i had a sense that
bigbot would win, but [...] some of the preproduction is "what do i do if we
have like a 11th hour swerve and it's catesby, or it's muldrake, or...", it was
never gonna be muldrake, let's be real.
matr1x: muldrake said he had several votes when he had 2.
chris: look, that is more than one. that is technically several. and those two
people, you're winners in my eyes.
matr1x: i think it's probably one person.
chris: that one person is a winner in my eyes.
matr1x: i think it was just to test whether muldrake was actually votable as
well.
chris: yeah, he was. muldrake is the most maligned character that i like. he
deserves better, frankly.

<00:10:07>
matr1x: what would you say is your favourite and least favourite bits of the
story?
chris: least favourite's a weird one, because, you know, like... i actually do
have to think about that. i think, things that mean the most to me, as the
person thinking about this stuff, is the fun of watching the community figure
something out, or when a point gets landed on, you know what i mean, when you
get to an ending. and i do like watching chat when moments kinda get discovered,
so one of my favourite moments i think, was, i'll say this, the finale of the
trace event, and sort of- i was about to say spoilers, but for this crowd, i
don't think it is -the che/chela thing and then the sort of reaching back, and i
think it was the moment somebody went poking around in teach, and figured out
some stuff i've hidden there a long time ago
matr1x: the fact that teach and che have the same things
chris: yeah, it actually goes a little deeper than that in ways that i think
people didn't pick up on, or maybe still haven't
matr1x: there's the anagram
chris: yeah, the anagram was the thing, right, like, their descriptors are
anagrams of each other. that was one of those things that, like, seeding that a
long time ago, not knowing when we'd get to the right time, that was really
satisfying right. a big mystery like this, a part of it is hoping people know-
well there's a reactive element to making it, but there's also a planning
element. and one of the reasons to tie stuff, is to give that reassurance to the
future, like, there is a plan. there are things that have been hidden for a
while. so that was a really good moment.
chris: least favourite is really hard in a way. i think i have like a silly
least favourite answer and a more serious one. when people get really
frustrated, is not the desire, right. and it's really tough as puzzle design,
it's more on the design side, right. like, you don't wanna see people be
frustrated or fall out over not being able to solve something, or feel
disheartened. and particularly when there's an error, or something that we
missed.
matr1x: something can't be solved because of a bug.
chris: i think it was mentioned earlier when we were having lunch, the kapiskaya
translation issue. thing 1 would be whenever there's like an "oof, i missed
that". it's such a detail-oriented community, that you have to be super on-it,
because if there's a problem, you'll catch it. and you never want it to feel too
meta, to be like, "is this a puzzle detail or did chris fuck up", and sometimes
it's the latter.
matr1x: like the fact that how we kept reading into the all the misspellings
that were in v4
    (chris: incredibly distracting couple doing the bungee jump in the
background)
matr1x: yeah, there was a lot of misspellings in v4. there was like isocahedron
chris: that one time i misspelled orthagonal. that's a low point.
sudo: to be fair i think there were clues to other things with misspellings
chris: also occasionally typos are a deliberate part. and that's actually the
point of the question that's been asked as well. in terms of actual least
favourite moments though, when i was like "ah, no". i will point to the moment
where literally nobody seemed to appreciate the magnitude of what muldrake had
done during the bigbot finale. and people were like "he's just an idiot hat now
who beeps", and it was partly true. and maybe this is meta, but it's very
significant that he's the one who says no and denies the binmat. and a lot of
the robovacs get an opportunity to stand up to the six in that moment and do
something.
matr1x: yeah, cuz catesby turns the words into the... [antonyms]
chris: yeah, percy does whatever the fuck it is percy does.
matr1x: percy kills chela
chris: with a tiny bit of help, let's say. and obviously p1p1 helps with angie
in that moment. and the thing that i was like "aww man", is simply the fact that
it's significant that it's muldrake that does something that bigbot can't do in
that moment, and stands up to petra, which is not easy to do, as most people
confessed[?], as she's kind of a dick. so, i always thought they didn't get
enough credit. apparently the theme of this Q&A is like Muldrake Awareness Week.

<00:15:00>
fayti [via twitch]: Do you do anything special to help writing 'in character' or
do you just sorta wing it?
chris: i do have lots of notes and stuff, so i do have a sense of how different
characters write. and obviously writing in character is a really interesting
concept in this game particularly, because how people type is part of their
personality.
    alice [via whiteboard]: I like muldrake :)
    chris: thanks alice. i really genuinely appreciate it.
    matr1x: draw the smiley face upside down!
    chris: also the fact that that's in red pen with a smiley face is giving me
the creeps.
    matr1x: yeah, two stars and a crescent moon
chris: so part of it is like trying to mindful of how people type, and how they
express themselves, and what that said about them.
    samual: aw, they said they couldn't read it, you have to put it closer.
    alice [via whiteboard]: NO
chris: a big part of it is just typing style. i do have to admit, when it's like
a lot of characters, like the big all-of-the-vacs-are-shouting-at-each-other
sequences, there's a lot of going back over what's previously been done, and
reminding myself the difference between, not like the main cast, but the
supporting cast
matr1x: they all have sort-of like distinct, like...
chris: try and make sure they're consistent with the previous pattern. but it
obviously takes often going back over stuff, and making sure it's relatively
consistent. and then characters kind of evolve and change, and there are moments
where you write characters far more carefully, because it's gonna be significant
later. the thing i would point at for that is the intro sequence thing for the
interface event, where each of the six take turns to explain what's about to
happen, obviously with subsequent revelations in place, like, it's really
significant how mallory and chela both speak in that moment.

<00:17:00>
matr1x: how did the pandemic affect the design process?
chris: well, as you may have noticed, it slowed it down somewhat. it's something
that's been kind of painful honestly, in a lot of ways. to be real about it, (i
don't wanna speak for sean too much) i think we both found, up until the
pandemic, the game had become sort of this shared kind-of passion project, but
nonetheless something that fit in around our other lives, like our dayjobs and
the other things we were doing, and then the pandemic, which wasn't something
that was necessarily apparent at first, but i think would be clear to most
people, it was kinda like losing a certain amount of your daily capacity of
doing anything, right, like just the process of being through a lockdown, and
trying to just keep your life going, as things shut down, and you have less
access to people and less access to stuff, and i think both of us initially
found ourselves struggling a bit to kinda keep things going. so what we did
instead was that we made this basic commitment that we would talk every single
week. and initially about the game, and then making sure we're okay, checking in
with each other. and then through that time, like, what i would say is, even
though i appreciate that it's been light on particularly narrative stuff,
outside of the two revelries, but we have spent a lot of time thinking about
where we want the game to go, and the future of it, i spent time going back over
what had been done, and sort of like returning to those notes that i described
making in the beginning, to kinda make sure that i had a good sense of what- cuz
i think it's good to revisit- even though you want there to be some consistent
ideas so that the community can be chasing after a fixed point, it's nice to be
able to go back to them and go "is this as good as it can be?", and build out.
so i have a sense of what comes next and what might happen, and honestly i would
also say that i very much appreciate the amount of patience the community has
had frankly through a kinda rough time for the two of us, sort of just figuring
it out, but i honestly personally have the chance that things are coming more
into focus now.
matr1x: aww, that's good to hear.
chris: yeah.
twitch chat: <3 <3 <3

<00:19:55>
matr1x: do you make the puzzles?
chris: we share them. all the ones you loved, that was me. all the ones that
were broken were sean- no, that's actually not the case. the way the process has
traditionally worked... we have most of them to some extent of one of us going
like "how about this?" and us handing the idea back and forth until it actually
becomes good or doable, and there's a lot of anticipating the community's routes
through the puzzle, and trying to anticipate that, and i think we've got better
at that over the years. in one sense it's this collaborative metaprogression of
towards like the most recent major event having things like catch-up mechanics
baked into the puzzle itself.
matr1x: yeah like the hints from the...
chris: the hint systems and being more of a... because there was a period in
time where the hint system was very much something that we had to do live, which
is a huge amount of work.
matr1x: just bolt new things onto like a robovacs...
chris: yeah, plotter or something like that. that wasn't quite the question
though... there's definitely a sense that, as i said, like, i'm not programming.
some of the more sophisticated puzzles in that regard are more or all sean, in
some cases it might come from a theme i've got in mind, like from i think the
4th roborevolution, which is effectively like, fawkes's whole thing is "i'm
gonna be trust, and i'm gonna be trust but better." and how well that goes, but
then sean re[?] that idea in a particular direction. otherwise, a lot of it is
like i have a sense of what we want both the experience of solving it and the
story told to be, and then i'll have a theme, and then we talk collectively
about ways to make sure it's as cool as it can be, as difficult as it can be, as
accessible to the different parts of the community as it can be. so, for
example, risk.trace started life as "i want to do a murder mistery". and that's
what it was, it was just a really weird one, with like several different [?]
matr1x: very abstract
chris: very abstract murder mystery, but it's functionally what it was. it's a
whodunnit, and whendunnit, and howdunnit, and whydunnit.
matr1x: and then all 10 of those at the same time.
chris: and then all 10 of em the same time, and then a [?] into a string, and
then bruteforce that string. the bit at the end of the episode of columbo,
where columbo, rather than just turning around once, spins around an infinite
number of times, until the right answer reveals itself.
[?]
chris: exactly, recursive columbo.

<00:23:00>
matr1x: are you happy with how DATA_CHECK turned out?
chris: i think there's a dimension of this which is more of a sean thing than a
personal thing. i think it remains a useful storytelling mechanic, because i did
want the community to have a way to know some things. obviously there's a lovely
tension with not knowing what you can know for sure, but at a certain point you
want a way to verify information.
matr1x: well people have their own conspiracies that the things that eve
verifies aren't necessarily correct.
chris: sure, and i'll never tell people not to think like that, but it was nice
to give people a way to kinda come together around something and debate what it
means, and debate what it coincides with, and so on. i imagine the last time i
spoke about any of this at length was when we launched [DATA_CHECK] at the
other talk. i think the state of the game at the time[?], to kind of create
valuable pieces of data to be hoarded or guarded, it hasn't come off. that's
the part of it that has been there.
matr1x: well, there's still like formal questions...
chris: sure, but that's a question of how things [stated?], and the nature of
the information being sought for, and the size of the group looking for them,
and how that information works as a part of that group. so i think in that
sense, i think there's certainly always refinement that we could definitely
think of there. but i will say, it's a fun thing to be able to do to provide a
long-awaited answer or something like that, and allow the shake-up that
initiates...
matr1x: DAMC being the...
chris: right, or more recently, effectively having something as a reward where
you wouldn't expect it. it's a cool mechanism for that.

<00:25:12>
ghamb [via twitch]: Out of the characters that you've made or have written for,
which is your favorite? I'm fond of the bathroom vac.
chris: idp1p1 is definitely like... i think because they were the first
character i invented, it was a lot of self-serving to give them a more key role
than several other members of the twelve.
matr1x: well, most of the twelve are dead.
chris: well, i mean, how many of them actually are there? what's the number?
who knows?
matr1x: they're just silent.
chris: i feel like i'd be remissed to not... apparently because this is the
Muldrake Awareness Hour, just say, i had a lot of fun writing muldrake... i
don't wanna give you too meta... they're all dumb, right. and to write one that
sounds smart but is actually dumb is really fun. but is he that dumb? yes. and
then the other really obvious answer is mallory, because i do like a villain.
and i think there's a few moments where i think she's a fun presence.
samual: she's not quite a villian, she's more like an anti-hero.
chris: that's a debate that i'd love to watch you have, but i'm not gonna
participate in. however you choose to interpret what she does, is your [?], but
she's fun to write as well. and bigbot, what the fuck am i talking about,
bigbot. the meme that came to life and took over.
matr1x: took over the entire, like, continuity
chris: i would call that out actually as an example to being reactive to the
community, like, there was definitely no part of my original notes for the
game, which was like...
matr1x: bigbot becomes...
chris: there's some thing that it touches on, but putting the moon castle stuff
in as an easter egg for people who liked the character from this very very brief
periods of this event, and then that just sort of eventually taking off in the
way that it did.
matr1x: i mean, for an easter egg, it's quite a huge part of the...
chris: yeah, which is why it was insane of me to spend a weekend doing it
frankly. cuz it's commitment to the bit, right, at some point you keep writing,
and then you suddenly you've written a really bad version of Zork.
[EXTREMELY WINDY]
matr1x: Zork where you fall out of a harbor[?] and get thrown back in
chris: yeah and we have a lot of uh...
matr1x: just variations on that... X rotations of [?]
[MORE WIND NOISES]
chris: i do like bigbot. he's a good boy. he's a big good boy.

chris: it's fun to talk about video games, and thank you very much for reading
any of this nonsense.

<00:30:00>
snacks [via twitch]: who came up with the plants?
chris: sean.
ghamb [via twitch]: grr
matr1x: i don't think you understand how upset ghamb is about plants

<00:32:35>
We The Curious museum: *is on fire*
snacks [via twitch]: is this part of the mudcon event or
chris: i've had a lot of weird puzzle ideas, but arson isn't one of them
matr1x: burn a building down and the flames will start spelling out a risk hash!
chris: it's hard for people to come in a bit late to the event
matr1x: it's a bit dangerous as well.

<00:48:30>
ghamb [via twitch]: Sean has long stated that he doesnt want to give an OFFICIAL
answer for what GC stands for. What is your take on what GC stands for? A
prevailing answer is Grandma Cookies
chris: hmm... i have to think of a funny answer to this on the spot. whatever i
say will be scrutinized. it stands for Good Chuestion.

<00:50:38>
snacks [via twitch]: which fish here would you eat (if you had to)
alice: *points at Atlantic Cod*
chris: this one.
matr1x: yeah, i agree, that one.
chris: yeah, this one volunteered itself.
snacks [via twitch]: exquisite choice, sir

<00:53:25>
alice: *hits frog-shaped trash can with whiteboard*