Kiwi Talkz

Ted Anderson is an artist who is most well known for his tenure at Retro Studios working on both Donkey Kong Country games and Mario Kart 7. He currently works for Pixel Pushers Union 512 and recently released the game Tonight We Riot.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Pixel Pushers - @ppu512

Twitter - @pixel_possum

Tonight We Riot - https://tonightweriot.com/

#donkeykong #mariokart #retrostudios

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:45 - How Ted Ended Up At Retro Studios

02:45 - Nintendo’s Philosophy On Art/Retro Helped Form His Artstyle

06:00 - Stylised Art/Warhammer’s Art Helped With Artstyle Of DKCR

08:15 - Dynamic With The Artists At Retro

09:20 - Creating Texture Libraries For DKCR

12:20 - Challenges Of Migrating Over To The Wii U Hardware

15:45 - Why Concept Art Is Needed/Boundaries Of An Artist

17:00 - Designing Grassland Grooves In DKCTF

19:50 - Working On World 5(The Fruit World) 

20:45 - Collaborating With Eric Kozlowsky

22:45 - Ted Struggles With Water Levels/Specialty In Mechanical Structures

24:15 - Stylised & Realistic Art Challenges

26:30 - Dynamic Between Retro Studios & NOJ/DK Blow Mechanic Story

28:45 - Ted Got Given All The Assets For The Entire Mario Kart Franchise While Working On MK7

30:15 - Many Of Retro’s Staff Didnt Want To Work On Mario Kart 7/Early 3DS Development Kits

32:29 - MK7 Tracks Ted Worked On

33:18 - Ted Went Above And Beyond To Make Shy Guy Bazaar Track

36:10 - Ted Is A Quick Artist

36:40 - How Ted Works Fast But Still Maintains Quality

39:30 - How To Work Around Hardware Limitations

41:10 - How To Design Machinery 

45:50 - Ted Worked Off Hours On Shyguy Bazaar To Make It Special

47:12 - How The Metroid Easter Eggs In Donkey Kong Came About/Crocomire Reference

48:45 - Retro’s Design Team/Artists Killing Some Designers Ideas

50:40 - Collaborating With Designers

52:10 - Foreground & Background Design In DKCR

53:50 - Making DK The Focus In Levels With Destructive Terrain

56:40 - Its A Fireable Offence To Work On Personal Games Well At Nintendo

1:00:00 - Publishers Should Encourage Developers To Work On Personal Projects Off Hours

1:01:00 - Certification 

1:03:30 - Ted Shows Off His Retro Mementos 

1:04:20 - Where To Follow Ted Anderson/Pixel Pushers

Chet Faliszek who was a former writer at Valve for over 12 years. He is now Co-Founder and CEO of Stray Bombay and are currently working on Anacrusis.

SOCIAL MEDIA

TWITTER - @chetfaliszek

ANACRUSIS WEBSITE - https://www.theanacrusis.com/

Discord - https://discord.com/invite/straybombay

#valve #left4dead #anacrusis

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro/Anacrusis Correction & What It Means

01:41 - Big Dictionary Of Slang

03:19 - Proper Pronounciation Of Faliszek

04:46 - Being Approached By Gabe To Join Valve/Gabe’s Personality

06:08 - Chet’s First Day At Valve

07:15 - Dynamic Between Chet & Erik Wolpaw

08:10 - Work On Half Life Universe

09:30 - Gabe Initially Didnt Want Chet To Do A Zombie Game

11:37 - Conception Of Left 4 Dead

13:20 - What Chet Would Change On Left 4 Dead Based On The Pandemic

15:41 - Planting Seeds For A Sequel In Left 4 Dead

17:30 - How He Ended Up Writing For Portal 2/Writing For Portal 2

20:45 - Challenge Of Writing For Left 4 Dead

22:00 - Valve’s Culture/Certification

24:46 - Valve’s Influence On Stray Bombay/Flat Hierarchy Pros & Cons

27:43 - Misperceptions/Collaboration

31:00 - Working With Sensitive People/Nothing Is Cool & Suck/Feedback

33:17 - Chet Doesn’t Get Affected By People Screaming At Him/Dealing With Tensions

35:40 - DOOM’s Impact On Chet/Improving Your Comedy/Old Man Murray

38:20 - Chet Loved Living In Cleveland

39:01 - How Being A Painter Transferred Over To Game Design

41:00 - Chet Has A Lot Of Respect For Trade Workers

42:25 - Self Imposed Crunch/You Can’t Finesse Crunch 

45:02 - Retail Releases Are What Causes Crunch

45:05 - How Chet Ended Up Working On HTC VR

51:10 - Defining The Goals On Anacrusis

52:30 - What’s On The Horizon For Anacrusis

56:50 - Where To Follow Chet Faliszek/Stray Bombay

Jim Wornell was a former graphic designer at Nintendo who created the logos for franchises such as Metroid, Animal Crossing and Paper Mario. He also was a localiser, bug tester and manual editor on Ocarina Of Time.

#nintendo #ocarinaoftime #metroidprime

SOCIAL MEDIA

TWITTER - @jimbob_crachit

WEBSITE - https://www.jimwornell.net/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

01:07 - How Jim Ended Up Working At Nintendo & Became A Graphic Designer

04:00 - The Hardest & Easiest Graphics To Design

05:50 - Iterations Of Animal Crossing Logo/Logo Design Phase

08:00 - Working On The Metroid Prime Logo

13:00 - What Graphic Design Jim Does Now/Nintendo Has All Of Jim’s Unseen Designs

14:30 - The Hardest Parts Of Learning Graphic Design

15:30 - The Big Green Book Of Maps/Learning Design Before Youtube

17:20 - Friendly Rivalry With Other Graphic Designers

17:55 - Working On Ocarina Of Time

23:35 - Bugs Found Well Play Testing Ocarina Of Time

24:55 - Being Credited For Work Jim Didn’t Do

25:25 - Design That Was Made But Game Was Cancelled

26:54 - Jim Did The Metroid Prime Logo Entirely Solo/Other Work He Was Doing At The Time

28:07 - Time Management/Advice For Designers

29:50 - Checking Your Ego

31:44 - What Jim Asks Of Clients When They Request A Design

33:10 - Dealing With Clients Who Don’t Know What They Want

35:15 - Metroid Prime Logo Font

36:56 - Metroid Fusion/Metroid Prime 2 Logo

38:00 - Paper Mario Logo

39:04 - Never Stop Learning With Adobe Programs

39:48 - How Jim Ended Up Being The Announcer On F-Zero X 

42:48 - Voice Acting Bug/Voice Acting Is A Tough Business

43:15 - Doing Different Accents/

44:35 - Connecting With The F-Zero Community

46:05 - Tips For Voice Acting

47:50 - Jim Is Learning About Mixing

49:20 - Meeting Shigeru Miyamoto

50:49 - Meeting Owen Hart 3 Weeks Before He Died/Meeting Dwayne Johnson

52:51 - Where To Follow Jim Wornell

53:25 - Who Drew Jim Wornell’s Graphic

Erik Wolpaw is a writer at Valve and has worked on franchises such as Half Life and Portal. He recently worked on Half Life:Alyx and Aperture Desk Job

SOCIAL MEDIA TWITTER - @wolpaw

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:25 - Being A Database Programmer Before Being A Writer

01:00 - Procrastination/Psychonauts

03:10 - Coming Up With Names Is Easy/Keeping Up Energy Is Hard/Jokes Being Cut

04:50 - Erik Doesn’t Like Writing

05:55 - Erik’s Ideology In Terms Of Writing For A Game

07:50 - Time Between Portal & Portal 2/Don’t Write Yourself Into A Corner

08:25 - Erik Wants To Work On A Portal 3/Valve’s Corporate Structure 

10:01 - Portal 3 Might Not Happen/Why Valve Doesn’t Release Many Games

11:45 - Valve’s High Quality Bar/Development Cycle

12:20 - Portal 2 Almost Didn’t Happen/Portal 2 Project Cycle

15:45 - Games Are Terrible Until Near The End

17:04 - Struggling With Ideas For Portal 2 Until Wheatley Idea Came About

19:14 - Working With Stephen Merchant On Wheatley/Writing To An Actors Strengths

23:30 - People Involved In Directing An Actor In The Studio

25:00 - Working With Rhys Darby On Russell/Meeting Rhys Darby In L.A.

27:45 - The Original Writing For Half Life:Alyx Didn’t Work/Writing Half Life:Alyx

31:47 - Original Ending Of Half Life:Alyx And Tweaking It

34:15 - Connecting Half Life:Alyx Ending To Half Life 2

38:10 - Gabe’s Involvement/Erik’s Relationship With Gabe

39:45 - Writing With Jay Pinkerton

41:22 - Erik’s Easiest  Character To Write Is The Institution Voice In Portal 2

42:36 - Writing Something And Thinking Its Horrible When Said Aloud

43:40 - Nate Bargatze Struggled With The Word Turret On Aperture Desk Job

44:08 - Convoluted Lines Of Portal 2

45:00 - Erik Appreciates The Work It Takes To Write Something Good/God Of War Caused Erik Stress

46:00 - Erik Is Always Stressed/Erik Hates Letting People Down

47:45 - Comedic Obsessions With Writing/Erik Wants To Improve On His Writing

49:40 - Re-Purposing Dialogue

50:10 - Erik Respects The Valve Artists/Picturing An Image Well Writing

53:00 - Jay Pinkerton Is A Good Designer/Comics

54:09 - Erik Wants To See A Sunset Overdrive 2/The Game Industry Is Quite Small

55:50 - Why Erik Left Valve & Became A Contractor Instead

56:50 - Erik’s Son Being Born During The End Of Portal 2’s Development

1:00:15 - Where To Follow Erik Wolpaw

1:02:09 - Petition To Gabe Newell To Start Portal 3

Andrew Hulshult is a video game composer and sound designer who composed music on the DOOM Eternal DLC The Ancient Gods, he is also well known for DOOM remix project IDKFA as well as his work on franchises such as Quake and Duke Nukem

#doometernal #anicentgods #idkfa

SOCIAL MEDIA

YOUTUBE -  @Andrew Hulshult 

TWITTER -  @Andrew Hulshult 

WEBSITE - https://www.hulshult.com/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:50 - Not Copying Mick Gordon But Respecting DOOM’s Music

03:10 - Chad Mossholders Guidance 

08:28 - Process Of Making Blood Swamps

10:45 - Difference Between Ambience, Light Combat And Heavy Combat

12:30 - Creating Various Versions Of Blood Swamps

14:30 - Andrew Didn’t Contact Mick Gordon To Get His Blessing Because Of The Fragile Situation

15:46 - Making Allies To Get More Work Opportunities

16:35 - Don’t Burn Bridges/Fragile Egos

19:30 - IDKFA - Dark Halls Track

21:40 - IDKFA Project/Bobby Prince

23:44 - Getting Better With Strings/Sinister Track

25:45 - Not Liking Your Own Music After Hearing It So Much

26:59 - Listening To Old Mixes

29:00 - Andrew’s Mixing Process

29:45 - Ear Fatigue/Time Management

33:30 - Ancient Gods DLC OST/Why He Hasn’t Advocated For One

34:45 - Andrew Would Love To Work On Another DOOM Game/Outings

37:18 - Andrew Has Had Moments Where He Thinks He’s Awesome/Staying Grounded

39:20 - Helping The Community/North Texas Foodbank/Capitalism 

41:42 - DOOM & Quake Were Dream Projects/Projects Andrew Wants To Work On

44:00 - Creating Ambience/Renowned Music For DOOM

45:45 - Submitting Demos

46:20 - Andrew’s Ancient Gods DLC Demo

48:10 - David Levy Is His Brother In Arms/Honesty

50:08 - Callbacks To Bobby Prince’s Music

51:40 - 2021 Was A Hard Year For Andrew/Phone Call With Bobby Prince

54:40 - How Andrew Manages Multiple Projects At The Same Time

57:20 - Andrew’s Cat

57:45 - Where To Follow Andrew Hulshult 

Stephen Hunter is an actor, radio host, voice over artist, and acting coach. He is most well known for playing Bombur in The Hobbit.

SOCIAL MEDIA

YOUTUBE -  @Stephen Hunter 

TWITTER - @StephenJHunter1

WEBSITE - https://www.stephen-hunter.com/

#thehobbit #peterjackson #actingcoach

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

01:07 - Stephen’s Bombur Shirt/Stephen’s Office Of Memorabilia 

02:50 - Stephen Doesn’t Get The Luxury Of Choosing Roles/Sydney Floods

04:29 - How Stephen Got A Role In The Hobbit

10:17 - Colour Audition Rounds Of Hobbit

10:48 - Having No Dialogue As Bomber/Physical Acting

13:02 - Being Intimidated By The Scale Of The Hobbit At First

15:00 - Committing To The Role By Eating

16:25 - Shooting The Bag End Scenes/Different Stages They Had Sets

19:03 - Barrel Riding Scene

20:42 - The Bomber Costume

24:05 - Peter Jackson’s Direction

26:24 - Goblin Cave Story/Practical Jokes

28:20 - Running From Beorn Scene

31:30 - Biggest Mistakes Actors Make

34:00 - Hollywood Creates Delusions In Actors/Advice For Actors

38:38 - Voice Acting Opportunities/Audio Plugins

41:16 - Video Game Voice Acting Doesnt Pay Well In Australia /Naughty Dog

43:09 - Online Voice Agencies/Audio Equipment Is Cheap/Recording Booths

45:40 - Stephen Is An Audio Engineer

47:00 - Actors Creating A Constant Income/Don’t Rely On One Industry For Survival

50:00 - Why Stephen Didn’t Move To America/American Visas

50:55 - Australian Actors Making It Big In America

51:26 - Stephen Worked With Chris Hemsworth Before He Blew Up

51:55 - Australia & NZ Film Studios 

54:00 - How To Sign Up To Stephen’s Acting Coach Course

David Levy is a film, television and video game composer who is most well known for partly composing the soundtrack to the DOOM Eternal DLC - The Ancient Gods

#doometernal #ancientones #immora

SOCIAL MEDIA

YOUTUBE -  @David Levy 

TWITTER - @davidlevymusic

INSTAGRAM - @davidlevymusic

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:57 - How David Ended Up Scoring For Ancient Gods DLC

02:00 - David Was Told Not To Copy Mick

02:58 - Atlantica Was The First Track David Worked On/Intensity Levels

05:25 - Ambience To Combat To Heavy Combat

06:28 - Mick Gordons Mixing

07:54 - Modulators/Plugin Units David Used For Ancient Gods

09:15 - How David Composed For Ancient Gods DLC

10:45 - Trial Of Malligog/Music David Worked On

12:45 - Working With Andrew Hulshult

14:00 - Davids Work History/Difference Between Scoring Games & Film/Immora

17:45 - Avoiding Overnighters & Burnout

18:45 - Satanist Immora Story/Metal Choir Samples

21:39 - David’s Cat In His Videos 

23:30 - Project Simulation

24:20 - Doing One Project At A Time/Energy Levels

26:11 - How David Structures His Day

27:05 - Ear Fatigue On DOOM/David’s Mixing

30:45 - You Can’t Have An Ego As A Game Composer

32:46 - Setting Expectations Before A Project Starts

35:36 - Don’t Copy Any Other Artist

36:15 - David Would Love To Work On DOOM Again

37:15 - David Was Super Stressed Out Working On DOOM

39:40 - How David Ended Up Working On Gen:Lock/Burnout

44:55 - Pushing Yourself When You Are About To Give Up

46:15 - Gen:Lock Was A 6 Month Sprint/DOOM Was A Short Sprint

47:40 - David Considered Giving Up His Career As A Composer After Moving To Austin

49:40 - How David Established His Portfolio

54:40 - How David Pushed Through Moments Of Being Disheartened In His Early Years

55:25 - Advice From Austin Wintory/Gotta Keep Going

57:25 - Royalties

59:30 - Getting Passive Income From Sample Packs

1:02:50 - Where To Follow David Levy

Joe Houston is a programmer/engineer who is most well known for his tenure at Bluepoint Games working on games such as Shadow Of The Colossus, Titanfall, Uncharted, Demon Souls etc.

#bluepointgames #shadowofthecolossus #uncharted

SOCIAL MEDIA

TWITTER - @pandamittens

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:00 - Joe Hasn’t Been To Houston Despite His Surname

01:20 - Bluepoint Games Like Hard Problems

03:13 - Memory Stomp Bug On Titanfall 

04:50 - Code Drops On Titanfall/Co-Development With Respawn Titanfall

06:40 - Optimisation Problems With Titanfall

09:10 - Bluepoint Games Reputation, Professionalism & Transparency 

11:40 - Bluepoint Engine

12:20 - Extracting Data From Older Games/Process Of Making Remakes

14:14 - Joe’s Skillset/Workflow & Bug Tracking For SOTC

17:25 - Parity Issues Were A Problem On SOTC/Japanese Source Code

20:40 - Japanese Source  Code Issues That Ended Up Accumulating Over Time

22:17 - Joe Knows Basic Japanese/Localization

23:30 - Maintaining Culture In Localisation/Arabic Compared To English

27:00 - The Problems With The Original SOTC/Dishonored Being Compared To Thief

30:40 - Modernising Uncharted 1 For PS4

34:40 - Getting Uncharted Collection To Maintain 60FPS

36:40 - Working On Uncharted Games Simultaneously/Bluepoints QA

37:45 - Uncharted 2 Was The Starting Point For Development Of The Collection/Keeping Bugs

40:20 - Remakes & Remasters Vs Original IP

42:17 - Playing Uncharted 3 To Prepare For Development On The Remake

43:25 - Joe Never Played SOTC Until He Started Developing The Remake/Studying SOTC

45:33 - How Japanese Coders Operate/Birds In SOTC

47:00 - Working With Andy O’Neil

49:03 - Bluepoint Games Motto”Working Smarter,Not Harder”/Avoiding Crunch

51:07 - Bluepoint Is A Great Studio For Engineers

51:58 - Pros & Cons Of Bluepoint Games

53:45 - Breaking Into The Game Industry/Artistry/Flexing His Other Skillset/Working At Discord

56:49 - Where To Follow Joe Houston

Ben Kasparek was the music editor on the English Dub of Dragonball Z for the Android, Cell and Buu Sagas of DBZ and worked closely with the composers of the show Mike Smith, Scott Morgan and Julius Dobos

#dbz #dragonballz #brucefaulconer

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:42 - How Ben Got Into DBZ/Getting Job At Faulconer Productions

04:08 - Ben Originally Wanted A Job At Funimation But Couldn’t Find The Office

04:49 - Watching Mike Work/What Episode Ben Started First When Editing

06:30 - Editing An Episode Took One Week/Editing Process

08:07 - DBZ Music Library/Mistake With Vegetas Theme

10:13 - Ben Favoured Hyperbolic Time Chamber Theme In Editing

11:25 - Limiting Of Pikkons Theme

12:56 - Ben Inspired Scott To Write The Arpeggiated Part Of Pikkons Theme

14:56 - The Genius Of Mike Smith,Scott Morgan & Julius Dobos

15:59 - Japanese DBZ Music/Gohan Vs Cell Kamehameha Episodes Had No Changes In Editing

18:19 - 16 Rips Off Cells Tail/Gohan & Icarus/Perfect Cell Runs

19:25 - Such A Massive Library Existed By Buu Saga So Cell Saga Music Was Hardly Used

20:32 - Having A Bigger Catalog Made It Easy To Edit

22:33 - How The Best Of DBZ Vol 1 Soundtrack Came About

25:12 - Ben Would Give The Musicians Requests And They Nailed It Every Time

26:32 - Ben Was Late To Work On The Day Of 9/11

28:21 - Gohan Goes To School Episode Had To Be Edited In 24 Hours

29:32 - Hardcore DBZ Fan In Ben’s Class/New Generation Of DBZ Fans

31:04 - Groove Of Work

32:05 - Bruce Faulconer’s Involvement In DBZ

34:24 - Cakemix Studio/Internets Effect On Bruce’s Studio

35:34 - Ben Not Knowing Gohan SSJ Is Goku’s SSJ Backwards

36:24 - Tying Gohan’s Music To Piccolo During The End Of Cell Saga

37:32 - Character Moments

38:30 - Going From Fighting Music To Silly Music Being Jarring/

41:45 - Ambient Pieces Being Easy To Edit/Transitions

43:45 - The Final Atonement Episode

46:15 - Emotional Scenes

48:15 - Mike, Scott And Julius’s Different Styles Of Composing

51:10 - SSJ3 Theme

52:46 - Julius’s Work On Editing On Outside DBZ

55:00 - Bittersweet Feeling Of DBZ Ending

DoctorM64 is the man behind the Metroid 2 fan remake AM2R. He spent over 8 years developing it in his spare time. His efforts werent in vain as now he is a programmer at Moon Studios and recently worked on Ori:Will Of The Wisps.

#am2r #metroid #metroid2

SOCIAL MEDIA

TWITTER - @DoctorM64, @PROJECTAM2R

YOUTUBE -  @Milton Guasti 

Join the Kiwi Talkz Discord server to make guest submissions and submit questions to guests! https://discord.com/invite/gJ6VgGq2

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:28 - How The Name DoctorM64 Came About

01:50 - Times DoctorM64 Considered Giving Up On AM2R

04:00 - What Was Developed From The Get Go/What Changed Throughout Development

07:03 - Skippy The Bot Section In AM2R

10:39 - Skippy The Bot Flash Game

15:14 - Musical Approach For AM2R

17:01 - Refining The Music/Working With Composers

20:22 - Trying To Lessen The Repetitiveness Of The Metroid Encounters

23:20 - A.I. Programming Of The Metroids

25:31 - Challenge Of Overhauling Zeta, Omega & Metroid Queen

29:26 - Random Crashes In Game Maker And Losing Development Progress

30:57 - Water Distortion Filter Effect

33:02 - How The Power Generator Area Came About/Static Electricity Filter Effect

37:10 - Designing The Escape Sequence

41:39 - Input From The Speedrunning Community During Design

43:45 - Working In A Team As A Programmer Prepared Him To Manage The AM2R Team

46:48 - Approach To The Lore Of Metroid

49:40 - Problems With The EMMIs In Metroid Dread

52:02 - DoctorM64 Marvelled At The Agility Of Samus In Metroid Dread

53:19 - DoctorM64 Can’t Help But Critique Metroidvania Games

54:19 - Development Eventually Gets Stale So You Need Others To Look At Design With Fresh Eyes

56:15 - Where To Follow DoctorM64