00:00 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
played a lot of Tetris. I never played Dr Mario. I only played it when I was dating a woman who had played it a lot as a kid. We played it at a bar, where you could set up a Nintendo and play Dr Mario and get my ass kicked.
00:11 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
The things you'll do for girls, huh, anything, and yeah, and yeah we're.
00:20 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Welcome to the hey Good Game podcast, where we chat with the creators of your favorite games that you secretly play in the cracks of your day. I'm here with Joseph Rueter, Aaron Kardell and myself, Nate Kadlac, and you know this is a podcast about games, you know, and I think, more specific, it's casual games, but I'm we're just kind of riffing on this episode about like what games mean to us. And yeah, Joseph, what do games mean to you?
00:49 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
The mind goes back to growing up and you know, just goofing off trying to learn how to ice skate, right upon next to the house, right, and it was always about like how can I optimize this turn? Because I taught myself. Where was this? Where'd you grow up? Yeah, st Cloud, next to a park. That. Where's St Cloud, minnesota? That the city would flood like, roll the trucks out there and flood the baseball field and it would turn into an ice skating rink in the winter.
01:18
And then I would like figure out how to get water out onto the ramp. Right, it was a hill but I turned it into an icy kind of you know jump ramp. And then we had a trampoline and you got a bike and now you have autonomy and that was all just play. And when I was, whenever the Nintendo came out, for whatever reason, we didn't know a lot growing up, but I got a Nintendo that first Christmas and, like Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers, oh my goodness. And I remember getting Zelda when it came out and then just tethering myself to that screen until I could, until I won, I was just so captivating to put your brain in another world. Right, you come back from school and just get stuck to it. So those are like those first notions of play that I remember right, like I needed to focus on this thing, to create a world, to create an engagement, to get good at a thing, and then anything digital was that first? Nintendo?
02:21 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Do you remember the Zelda cartridge? Like it was a gold cartridge right Well before. So it just was blowing into the cartridge. I'm not sure what you're doing right now, but I remember opening it or seeing it at a friend's house before I owned it and I was reminded that there was a battery in that cartridge and I he would not let me play it because he's like oh, you have only so many times to play this game, and I don't know if that was actually true or not. Yeah, but I remember this gold cartridge just looked like All the other ones were gray. So it just I remember looking at the Zelda cartridge and like, holy shit, like this is amazing. Yeah, I was captivated right away.
03:00 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
You know it's remarkable for as much time as I spent playing on that we never had that many games. I spent an awful lot of time in Super Mario Bros, maybe Super Mario Bros 3 at some point. Then I think the other two games I was probably in the most were Tetris and Doctor Mario. And I don't know, do you guys ever play Doctor Mario? No, but Tetris. So definitely similar vibe to Tetris, but I think for me that kind of connects back to Tetris and Doctor Mario. That was like the first really getting into Brainy. Games was back then. So that was more on the playing side but on the creation side, that the first. So I started coding when I was like six years old. But the first big program that I wrote that was like one big cohesive program that actually did something. In fifth grade I made a clone of Connect 4. And you couldn't play the computer, you had to play with somebody else. It was all written in basic.
04:12 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
So when you played with someone else, were they like right next to you it?
04:14 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
were right next to you. You had to be right next to each other. It was using the same keyboard. Using the same keyboard was the most janky graphics ever. Think about a circle going on the screen. I didn't know how to like make a whole circle show up, so like the circle we do, like one circle, and then it would like do each inner circle after that. Like there was no painting the circle, it was like the slowest circle to show up on the screen ever. But that's kind of where I got started on both sides.
04:48 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
That's wild, I think, like programming at six years old is just absurd to think about.
04:53 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
In some ways I think it was easier back then, like easier to get started, like I think there's so much built up around coding at this point, or like needing to build a big or perfect thing. Like Hello World was actually a thing that like now it's kind of like a nostalgic thing. Yeah, but there was a time when you put 10 print Hello World into a terminal and that was the program you typed in and you ran it and just seemed so different than today.
05:26 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Was it because of the language? Was there like one language that you could code in and so, like you, had all these constraints? Is that why it was I?
05:34 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
think so. I think, yeah, it was just the norm that people would get started in basic and yeah, it's a very simplistic structure and it was kind of a known thing. What do people start in now, if not basic? I'm still trying to figure that out, to be honest, like I'm trying to help my son get started and he already does a little bit of coding, but like I think people get started in, like MIT has this sketch, scratch, right, scratch, is it?
06:04 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah.
06:05 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
So people get started in scratch. I think a lot of people that like really start to get into it probably default to JavaScript at this point. But even that's a little. It's just different right, because there's no type it in and run it in quite the same way that there once was.
06:22 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Cool. So for context, aaron is a lifelong developer, I'm mostly a designer. And Joseph, how do you kind of title yourself?
06:33 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
That's a great question. I've got a little bit of design. I've got a little bit of developer. I've got a little bit of right, more product focused. Yeah, Leading teams of those talent brackets to build stuff is where I've spent most of the career hours.
06:51 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah, I think you're like a great generalist. You know you cover a lot of surface areas and I think, as we talk about this stuff like Aaron's, the developer who has been coding some of these things, and Joseph and I are both curious about that side of it because we don't have a lot of experience there I think about, like, where do you start is a good question, because I've seen a lot of developers come out with games. Like there's thousands of games that exist on the web and we have seven under our property. Hey, good game. But I'm curious, like is basic, like a, is that like a client side language, like would you consider that like JavaScript, where it's client side, kind of, or is it like? I don't even know how to really think about it?
07:35 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Even the way you ask that question is super interesting to me, just because, like client side is such a modern notion to how I would even think about coding in 1986. Right, there was no client server, there was no like build this to run on the internet. Like what was the internet? Like it was build it to run on a computer, and if you actually wanted somebody else to have that program, like you would give them a floppy disk. So it's, it's client side. Yes, but that was all there was.
08:11 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
Right, right, it's like the ultimate form of sharing, like it's dark social now, but in the past it was a floppy disk. Right, right, it's a t-shirt.
08:21 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Well, it just reminds me though yeah, I may be a developer, but I've always been an entrepreneur these janky games that I had. I wasn't given those away to friends, I wanted to sell them to friends. Yeah, not because it had actual value, but I just wanted to sell it.
08:39 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Right, yeah, I was an artist. Like as a kid, I was just selling drawings to friends, you know, like that was my, my, my goal. But I think I think what's interesting about like the development side is just how so we're kind of getting at this. Like there's thousands of games that exist online. There's a lot of developers who tend to create these games as a experimental project. It's like a designer creating a to-do list app. You know, like it's sort of like one of those things that people like to do because it's simple. Why do you think games are so prevalent and why do developers tend to create these things? That either they're taking something from what they've seen or they're creating something new. But it just seems like it's like a hello world experiment sometimes because there's so many of them out there. Like, what's your take on? Why these? Why so many developers create games?
09:28 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I think a lot of people get into coding because the idea of like, oh, I could make a game is the thing that drew them there in the first place. Even when we were growing up, everybody was playing games then and it was kind of the norm. But think about, like my son, the number of hours he has spent in his life already gaming. Compared to what was normal for me back then, it's a lot, a lot more than what you were playing, yeah. And so I think people get into coding because they want to make a game. And I also think there's just everybody wants to create something that they themselves will use or that they can show or share with others, and there's just something a lot more compelling and interesting about creating a game, even as a first thing, than there is oh, I made another to do app.
10:25 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
Yeah, Well to do is about work.
10:28 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Game is about play Right. I mean you're going to, as a kid, choose, play over. I mean, like it too good. This isn't really what you're thinking about.
10:37 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
I remember, aaron, you're talking about selling stuff. In high school I got into Frisbee golf and we had a shop called Shields. It was like a sporting good shop. They were the first like non-trendy place to pull discs in. So the whole game was like can you get discs Right? And then you we'd skip school and we'd go get in a round of Frisbee quick and then come back to school like skip lunch and skip your study break and whatever. And they didn't have any bags.
11:10
And so I was pretty good sewing and my mom had some machines and I like cut out all this stuff and started selling it to my friends and then ended up getting them into the sporting goods shop, right, but it was all about fun and play. And here I stop and go well, I can make some money on this Like. So there's some trend there that I think is exciting and it's something I'm seeing in my son as well. Like Mr Beats comes out with chocolate bars and he's like you think I can buy that and sell it to my friends. I don't know. You wanna try? It's these seeds that are being planted when you're young, and so that'll be different for our kids. If they're not starting in basic right, it's scratch or it's something else. They have this wider view of how things can be made because the ecosystems are so much more advanced and developed.
12:02 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Yeah, I hadn't even connected. The other thing I peripherally did early to make money was fish golf balls out of a pond, wash them up and resell them Not that dissimilar maybe to the Frisbee Golf.
12:16 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
I think there's a theme that's like interesting is that games are maybe an introduction to entrepreneurship, which is kind of cool and unknowingly, maybe chasing that as a kid, especially because it's so simple and it's easy to do. I don't think it ever came across my mind to develop games, even though I played them a lot, like I played Oregon Trail and, oh boy, played a lot of Tetris. I never played Dr Mario. I only played it when I was dating a woman who had played it a lot as a kid. We played it at a bar where you could set up a Nintendo and play Dr Mario and get my ass kicked. But yeah, I really loved Super Mario. And then I had friends who had Atari's so I played a lot of Atari Joust and Pac-Man and a lot of that stuff really early on.
13:02 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
The things you'll do for girls. Huh, anything, anything and yeah.
13:09 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I remember by high school I had progressed to the Nintendo 64 and only two games on there were GoldenEye and Tetris 64, oh, and Mario Kart 64. But so those three games. But I invited my high school girlfriend over to play on the Nintendo 64. And her mom was all like, oh, she's inviting you over to play games, huh. And later on she went home just talked to her mom. Yeah, we played games.
13:41 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
I knew it and it was fun. Games is first date. Well, you're gonna have pinball and dartboards and pool and ping pong and foosball and bars right, it's like this other thing that you can do, you can be around people you can share right, it's bowling, it's lawn darts. Now you go to punch social or Pay to play these big games.
14:12 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah, that's, um, like a community thing now. So I'm curious, like we've been talking a lot about like just as a as a group, like casual gaming, and so why in your mind's like, why is casual gaming so done by so many people? Like you have like the RPGs, you have a lot of like very high fidelity games, but then you have these really simple, brainy, casual games like what, what is it about those that you think is so appealing?
14:39 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I think there's the appeal from the Playability perspective and I think there's the appeal from a developer perspective and I'll table the playability side. I think from a developer perspective. So after my resounding success of creating connect for with super high fidelity graphics, in fifth grade, we had a sixth grade assignment of like we had a group project and we were supposed to do something about countries, right, and I think my group had France, and so somehow got the idea of let's make a skiing game, like a computer game about skiing and that would be about France. And I think I pretty quickly Realized like it was this great idea, maybe, but I didn't have a clue where to start on like all the graphics, all the things that would go, you know, even in 1991, whatever that was like, it just became overwhelming very quickly, like I don't know how I'm gonna do that, and so Ultimately, like ended up Making a game where you just hit two letters in rapid succession to move a French flag across the screen. And it was.
15:57
It was because that was something I could do, it's something you could achieve and I think with Like a lot of these casual games, it's approachable, that it's a place that developers can start and the more that you get kind of like into the High fidelity graphics, you get into all these things like you have to have either Advanced skill sets or or a very large team, and so I think the casual gaming space is just a lot more Approachable for a lot more developers. To it. There's something they can do, there's something they can start at. Yeah, from a user standpoint.
16:33 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
I'm just trying to check out a reality. Right, I want a little, a little hit. I'm stressed about something. I got a meeting. I was on meeting before a meeting. Right, I'm winding down. I want to accomplish something, right? So instead of watching a sitcom that's got a Standardized story arc right, where you laugh a little and then you get a conflict, and then you laugh about them not being able to have a Solution right for like 20 minutes and then there's some weird ending, the game gives you Some kind of simple constraint to pay attention to and then better, your better yourself over time. So a little bit of challenge achievable, and If it can go on your phone, I mean all the better, right. Social death scrolling can only last for so long before you're interested in something a little more Interesting, and I think we've all experienced something like that. Right, it's like, hey, just give me a little snippet.
17:29 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Yeah, I think you're like, you're right, there's Fill, fills in some of the blanks of your day for sure. I was reading this book right now, called the theory of fun, by ref costar, and it's he kind of points to this reason of like why, like, daily games have really worked out well and Gaming is really just about learning. Like you're kind of always learning, and when you're done learning with the game, you usually you become bored of it and you stop playing it, like you just you've completed it. I think, like a lot of these daily games are Are presenting a new challenge every day, so you're never done with it necessarily. There's always some new equation to figure out, new puzzle, new word to kind of like complete the puzzle you know.
18:09
so there's always like these ongoing ways to learn, and so it's interesting to me that, like a game like Wordle can just last for so long you know, I mean there's spikes and trends, but like people still play it all the time, kind of don't ever see that ending, because each day presents a new challenge, a new attempt to learn something, and so Azure Games, to me, is like at its simple core. It's like really all it is right.
18:33 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
So, yeah, it's learned something or demonstrate that you were slightly better. Yesterday I didn't get it. Today I got it in four. I hope tomorrow I can get it in three. Right, there's this story arc across time and we see it on our games when people are like, don't change a thing, I play it every day. I love this thing. You don't understand how much I love this thing, right, and we get it just constantly about. It's like a check-in thing and it might be you know humans and behavior where you attach it to riding the train or before a meeting or whatever it ends up being. You have little bursts of joy. It's like a sugar cube. Put a sugar cube on a post long enough and the horse finds it. It'll return to that post every time it goes in that ring. It's fun, it's tasty. I like that and I think the casual games are like that little sugar cube for the horse.
19:28 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Yeah, I think it really is about that ability to dip in and out right. Like if you were sitting down to play Super Mario Brothers and you hadn't yet mastered it and like had every button pressed down where, like I think there are people who can beat it in a few minutes now or whatever, but like it was you were signing up for half hour, hour, whatever, to like get through the whole thing and try to beat it and you don't have to commit that now. On most of these casual games, it's like the high side of normal is like I need 10, 15 minutes to complete a level and that's like high right. You know like a lot of these are things that you ought to be able to dip into for five minutes, have a positive outcome and go on with your day.
20:16 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
We got this email recently of this guy who has said he has 100 telegram, like 100 people in his WhatsApp group, playing our games daily and they share scores with each other.
20:28
Oh, that's awesome and I think that that component of like everything we just said, plus getting your friends or family involved- you know, my wife and I play crossword all every morning and it's so fun, right, and it wouldn't be nearly as fun if I weren't sharing the score with her, you know, or like sure, getting someone to play along with me, so that idea of community is always like present.
20:53 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I'm trying to remember who the celebrities were, but I was just listening to a podcast and there were a few celebrities angling like how are we going to get in on Jason Bateman's wordle group? And you know, it was like. It was like Questlove was one of them and I can't remember who else. But maybe Questlove was talking to Conan O'Brien or something and Conan's like why would we want to be in that? You know, but everybody wants to be part of that group, right?
21:25 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Jack Shepherd, I think was a big quartal fan. Is that right yeah?
21:29 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
You guys will play, throw it in the discord. And I was like for a while because I know the maker of the game can get 13 seconds Right. It's like because you know how it works and I have to go figure this thing out. This is where I was like Nate, make a video. I literally don't know how to play this thing. But after you learn to play, you've got a target right and it's 13 seconds and it's like, well, I bet I can get 12 if I sit here long enough. And then, of sure, of course, I get to 12 and I want to go share that. Hey, it's not sharing as much as boasting or competition. Right, it's part of you know, hunt and gather and compete. This human wiring we have connects to the game.
22:19 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I play all of our dailies pretty much every morning and the ones that I consistently struggle on are like I think Nate and I both didn't get today's crosswordle, yeah, so still need to tidy up a few things on that game.
22:37 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
Make sure every level is achievable there, although I didn't even count the number of attempts, but I know I missed like two, so I wasn't going to get it anyways.
22:47 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
I missed a few, but there was still like it would have taken me at least five moves at the end. So I was like a long ways off Every now. And then the daily seven by seven on some plate. On a good day that'll take me three minutes, but some days I'm struggling at like the 10 minute mark. So those are the hard days. And then I had I had a I want to say like a 99 day streak going on. Killer mathler went away two days ago.
23:15 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
Oh, I have streaks, pretty aggressive streaks, in DuLingo, yes. So maybe we need some extra stars so you can get a streak freeze. There you go. We definitely need some of that stuff. There's saviors, right? Yeah yeah, get on an international flight and then your clock's all messed up and it doesn't think you played that day and you're like, no, I played.
23:39 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Well, it's interesting though streaks. So like my son was into Duolingo forever and then camp had a rule you can't take your phone to camp, yeah. And so his streak was busted just because he went to camp and so like now it's demotivational, like he will not come back to Duolingo because, like they, messed up his streak.
24:01 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
The same thing happened for my daughter. Snapchat was the driver for streaks she has with friends, goes to camp and then loses it. So it's two years now she loses it, not happy.
24:13 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
How much would you have paid Aaron Duolingo to recapture that streak for him?
24:18 - Aaron Kardell (Host)
Well, knowing what I know now, like I want him to like stick with it and to be learning, and I didn't know how severe that would have been. So like at the time, like nothing, like suck it up, like that's life Now, like I'd probably pay 50 or 100 bucks just so he'd keep with it. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
24:40 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
It's funny how streaks and consistency is so psychologically like, embedded in all of us. Habits are part of our lives, and how much would you pay to restore habit?
24:51 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
Well, when it's a bad one, a lot if you're not looking to overcome it right, right when it's a good one, but how?
24:57 - Nate Kadlac (Host)
many positive streaks, habits that you don't want to break. Would you pay to restore something interesting to think about? Yeah, it is. Well, this is a great chat guys. We are excited to talk more about casual games and just gaming in general and how it can play a role in our adult lives.
25:15
You know, even our kids, but really, I think, it's such an interesting concept and we really hope to dig into maybe bringing people on to interview talking more about tips and other things around games in general. But yeah, this is a great first episode.
25:29 - Joseph Rueter (Host)
Happy to be here, looking forward to the curiosity that we can generate and bump into together. Thanks, guys.
