WEBVTT

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Welcome back to On the Level - 
a series in which I play awesome

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video game stages, alongside 
the designers who made them.

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This time I’m playing one of my favourite games 
of 2021: the endlessly creative co-op adventure,

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It Takes Two. This is a game about a bickering 
married couple - Cody and May - who get turned

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into toys and then must work together to 
travel through madcap miniature worlds.

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And that includes the level featured in 
today’s video: a tree in Cody and May’s garden.

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Which is actually full of squirrel soldiers, 
killer wasps, and a giant robot bee. To fight

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back, the couple have a pair of handy weapons: 
Cody has a gun that shoots big globs of orange

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sap - and May has a crossbow that fires 
lit matches. And when the two collide -

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*Explosion*.

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To find out how this level was made, I talked 
to Oliver Granlund, a designer at Hazelight - who was

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one of the designers responsible for 
this level’s layout and game mechanics.

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Now, usually on this series I will play the level, 
and the designer watches my screen over Zoom.

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But as this is a co-op game, I actually got to 
play with Oliver - I picked Cody and he chose May.

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And so, without further 
ado, here’s our conversation

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as we played through It Takes 
Two’s second chapter: The Tree.

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CODY: Ah, this way!

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MAY: What?! You're never gonna make that jump!

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CODY: Yeah? Watch me!
Argh!

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MARK: So I always like to start by asking: 
how did this level begin development?

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OLIVER: Originally, art were just 
exploring settings. You know. We

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know we're going to be shrunk, 
what kind of places could be fun?

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And tree was one of them that was explored by 
art very early as a very interesting location.

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And design right now is just doing 
prototyping, just going crazy with

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tons of different mechanics - and we found 
the sap and match gun. For the very beginning

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they were just loose prototypes but at some point 
they were paired together with the tree. They

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went through each and every mechanic and, like, 
paired it to a setting that art had prototyped.

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And then we essentially gave each, like, 
designer or a pair of designers a level

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and then told them to, you know, make it, and 
come up with mechanics and everything in between.

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MARK: So you and designer Robert Johansson were

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responsible for the tree and also the 
snow globe, is that is that right?

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OLIVER: Yes that is correct. So I thought 
it would be interesting to show this level

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because a lot of people worked on this. This 
part was designed by a level designer named

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Henrik Sandin. This one was actually made quite 
late. From your perspective it might seem like

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of course this came first, but this actually came 
very late. And when the rest of the tree was made

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there were no swinging for example, and we 
had to go back and add that in everywhere.

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I think this part turned out really 
well, especially like a very calm

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piece in between the storm, kind of. And also 
very much establishes everything around it.

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There are some cool smart things that are actually 
done here with like ants moving in the direction

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you're supposed to go. Like here for example. I 
think this was originally accidental: you know,

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art added them in and then people started 
following the ants and then, you know, the ants

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led you down like a hill and people jumped off and 
died. Henrik used that knowledge to his advantage.

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MAY: We haven't got time for 
this! Is this a shortcut or not?

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SQUIRREL: The wasps have invaded our tree, wiped 
out most of our tribe. You two must kill them.

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MARK: So how did the sap and match gun develop

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from a prototype to the final 
mechanic we see in the game?

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OLIVER: In the original version of it, 
it was only you sapped and you exploded.

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*Explosion*

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Which was very cool, especially for combat, but it 
didn't really work if we wanted to do puzzles. So

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that was one of the first things we 
did when taking them from a prototype

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stage to the next level is that we 
looked into how can we make them

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into more than just a fire and forget kind of 
thing. And that's where we started pushing,

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for example, the weight mechanic 
and the spinner mechanic.

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An interesting thing here is that this is one of 
the few places where we actually have a separate

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tutorial for the players because, like, 
if you see a shooting sign (like on May’s

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screen) both players are gonna shoot it. And if 
you see yellow… you know, the common ‘use this’

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language that's been established by games: both 
just shot at both things and were super confused.

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MARK: So you had to make sure each player, 
like, understood their separate roles?

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OLIVER: Exactly. One thing we noticed, since 
we added weight as a property to, for example,

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the sap gun is that we had to be very grounded 
for people to be able to understand this.

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For example, if you weigh something down and 
something goes up they need to be connected.

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If you look at a lot of other levels they'll 
have just straight up, you know, Super Mario

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floating platforms. So what we did is for 
each level we set up our own rule set and

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our own internal logic. It's basically like 
teaching a player a new game in an hour.

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MARK: And what challenges 
did you face in doing that?

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OLIVER: Well it's interesting because the sap 
gun is a very systemic weapon that has a lot of

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freedom. You can shoot this anywhere. And it was 
a decision we made very early on where you can

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you can go two routes: you 
can either go the the very

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restricted route where you'll have a white 
spot in a black room and that's the only

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place you can shoot. Or you can do the other 
way around, and that's the route we went with.

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This could create problems where, you know, this 
cage… I have progress videos for you on. It's a

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very interesting progress of it. So this is one 
of the earliest prototypes I ever made. It might

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look super different, this big wasp nest, but the 
actual gameplay is very similar. But the problem

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was that you could sap on the outside, where May 
couldn't reach. And here we have version two:

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yeah this also hurts my soul. So Cody saps the 
roof instantly, so May has to look straight up…

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oh no. And, you know, it's just not 
nice. A lot of the work we did with these

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mechanics was eliminating places where you 
can do things that just doesn't feel nice.

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And we still manage to keep the puzzle intact, 
with just tons of iteration and simplification.

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Design by subtraction. And I think that was 
really helpful here. Like some things came out

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kind of fully formed, but most things always 
needs, like, at least one or two passes.

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MARK: Okay, so this is the first co-op game

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on the show. How did you go 
about designing for two players?

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OLIVER: I think we can break it down to three 
types of co-op. You have what we call parallel

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co-op, and that is essentially just you're playing 
your own single player game with another person.

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And then you have step-by-step co-op, 
which is essentially like you do something,

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that allows me to do something, it goes back 
and forth kind of. And then we have the third

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one which is like simultaneous co-op, which is 
when we're both having to act at the same time.

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We wanted a variety of all of these 
and I think pacing those moments

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in co-op is a big challenge to to make right. 
And that's something we care about a lot.

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MARK: This lab section is great, 
what can you tell me about it?

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OLIVER: Here is one of the super early 
blockouts. Oh this is also, as you see,

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this is cringe-worthy to to watch. You know, 
it hurts. The general idea here… you know,

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the side-scroller camera, which made 
everything way way better, it's not here yet.

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MARK: And so when did that come in?

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OLIVER: I think it was still relatively early 
that we started experimenting with that.

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But I think a lot of these things, like 
that you see here, they are obvious but

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it's more like I've built it, it doesn't work, 
okay… what's the next step to make this work?

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And a lot of the iteration was like 
that, you know, initial idea, oh cool

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they're gonna spin, and then not realising 
that there is gonna be camera problems,

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for example. And then you know, oh sh*t it's gonna 
work great if we just add a side-scrolling camera.

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CODY: Hey, let me get out of here!

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OLIVER: Oh yes, have you played this one?

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MARK: No, I didn't see this the 
first time I played, I’m scared now.

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OLIVER: Yeah you should be.

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BOTH: *laughter*.

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MARK: How did these side interactions come about?

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OLIVER: After each big milestone, we basically 
played through the game and we played through

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with some play testers and then we looked at what 
problems there were. And one thing we reacted

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to was that there was too little to do, and so 
we went on a spree of creating both mini games

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and the side interactions. And there 
actually ended up quite a lot of them.

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And how this one came about was, essentially, it 
started with a very simple ‘wouldn't it be fun

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if you could trap your friend’ and then ridicule 
them. And then ridicule turned into torture and,

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yeah, it went downhill from there.

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This kind of became our collectible in 
a way. We had a discussion very early,

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because we're a platformer, you know, 
of course we're gonna have collectibles.

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Right? Question mark. And we tried that and we 
didn't find a good purpose for it. We wanted to go

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another route, like we want to give meaning to the 
player or something they'd want. And what ended up

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happening was we created so many minigames and 
then we ended up hiding them a bit because they

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were sometimes a bit distracting, so that actually 
became our kind of collectible in the end.

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MAY: Something’s coming!

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CODY: Killer wasps!

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MARK: This is our first combat 
encounter. What was that like to design?

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OLIVER: One thing that's very interesting about 
co-op combat is you have to think about it in a

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whole different way than you would normal combat. 
Especially if you're going for the simultaneous

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co-op where you're both acting. So, for example, 
in this case we actually have an asymmetrical

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relationship where you're the instigator and I'm 
the detonator. Which means that I actually don't

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have a lot to do until you sap one of them. 
So what we've done in the AI is make sure that

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more of them are aggressive to May, making it 
more interesting for me until she can detonate.

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The other one is how do you handle 
if you're playing with a partner who

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who's not as skilled as you, or the other 
way around? And I think that that was one

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of the harder issues we had to answer. I think 
Tree is actually the hardest level in the game

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in terms of introducing a new player to it. It's 
the only level with combat and aiming for combat.

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But as you can tell when you play it… like, the 
auto aim system is very lenient and, like, we

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try to make the gameplay less about ‘can I hit the 
skill shot’ and more about making sure you dodge

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the wasp. Making sure that that you're spraying 
the right thing. And like all of that stuff

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instead. It's still one of the hardest mechanics 
for people who don't know how to use both sticks,

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but it ended up being way more usable than most 
first or third person shooters were at that stage.

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MAY: Interesting mechanic looks 
like some type of tug of war.

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OLIVER: Oh you're good at this! Oh no!

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MARK: Yeah! Oh no that was 
easy. We need a rematch!

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OLIVER: I'll take a rematch on that 
one. This has to be cut from the show.

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MARK: Ah!

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OLIVER: Oh. Are you playing with a keyboard?

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MARK: Nope, just an Xbox controller.

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OLIVER: : Okay. I'm ashamed.

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MARK: So why did you decide to 
add in competitive minigames?

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OLIVER: So the whole game is about corporation, 
and it's very hard to break the pace of that.

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And I think that a big reasoning behind 
us doing that was wanting to create,

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you know, a variation in moments, essentially, for 
the couples. Also kind of enforcing the story of

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them bickering. We had them in some places where, 
you know, the characters are bickering - now the

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players will be bickering. And it’s kind of 
fun and funny when you see that working out.

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And we tried to create a variety of minigames as 
well that would allow different kinds of players

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to win. We even have a literal chessboard in 
there. So the idea was that not everything

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would have to be technically skilled, because 
then the same person would win over and over.

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MARK: I love this giant vault 
door, it has a really cool design.

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OLIVER: This one was actually the 
original, where you would spray

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on it to explode it. But it had to be so 
tiny to not make your camera go wide. So

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we ended up switching for this, basically 
turning. So, instead, we iterated on it and

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made it into this lid actually. So the 
prototypes were basically just moved around.

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MARK: Just how important 
is that iteration process?

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OLIVER: I would say iteration was immensely 
important. We didn't have a lot of time

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to actually, like, make everything perfect. 
We aren’t triple A, we can't spend however

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much time we want on something. But we need 
to make it so that it's good enough for the

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player. Iteration was an immense part of that, I'd 
say. Even though a lot of the ideas were similar,

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I'd say the actual execution of them 
were quite different - wildly different,

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from beginning to end. Especially when you 
have so many mechanics that you're teaching.

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Like half of it was, you know, working on the 
mechanics themselves. Maybe this isn't clear,

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maybe this isn't good. Can we communicate this 
better? Another half of that was just iterating on

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the puzzles themselves, making them smooth, making 
sure it's fun and intuitive. A lot of the things

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that are fun here, they aren't fun first pass. 
Taking something from idea to fun gameplay - it

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takes a lot more work than than you might realise. 
Because the way we worked, it's very similar to

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how Respawn structure their action blocks: make 
something in a week, and throw it in there. The

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one deceiving thing, though, is that even though 
it might take like a week to prototype and get

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playable, it might take way longer to polish. And 
that's something we realised, like, painfully so.

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MAY: Don't worry, it's just 
a squirrel inside a robot.

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CODY: Yeah! A very big robot. It’s trying to kill 
us. You know, maybe we should just turn back…

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OLIVER: This is the cutscene that was added in 
later in the game when we realised… holy sh*t,

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this level is growing. So we had like a storyboard 
for the tree and then eventually we looked it over

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and we saw that it was supposed to be one hour… 
now if you play the tree you know that it's

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probably more than an hour. It's bordering 
on two hours. This actually was a problem

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because we had diluted the story with more 
gameplay because we we had so many prototypes.

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One place where we actually filled in with 
story what was these places where, like, okay,

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here we're gonna need to put a cut scene.

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MARK: It must be really difficult to pace 
a story when the level keeps changing…

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OLIVER: Yeah, totally. And I think 
it’s… especially for this type of game,

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knowing how long can you go without having 
story, and also how long can you watch a

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cutscene without any gameplay. It's a very 
fine balance to not bore the players, but also

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not having them lose interest in their larger 
purpose in the story. It's interesting because

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it's something you don't really see until the game 
is done. A big reason why a lot of this doesn't

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land for a lot of games is because you can't 
see it as a whole until very late. You don't

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know if a segment is gonna get extended or 
shrunk, and it's very hard to judge that

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without the whole context. You're gonna have to 
do a lot of imagining to see the whole there.

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MARK: And when you're balancing the story 
and gameplay, does one ever win out?

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OLIVER: The previous game we made was 
A Way Out which was very story focused.

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In this game I think that gameplay won 
out, but we try to keep them very balanced.

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One of our mottos is to try to marry gameplay and 
story - keep them together. We want some mechanics

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to have a multi-purpose kind of… you know, 
they’re filling story. For example, like, the

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magnets are about attraction. Clockwork is about 
time. You know, we call them emotional levels.

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MARK: So one of the things I love about this 
game is just the sheer variety of gameplay.

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Where did that come from?

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OLIVER: That was one of our core pillars 
all the way through. We don't want to

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repeat things. And so we we questioned 
the very classical Nintendo's game design,

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you know the four step level design 
rule. That's a great way to do it

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and we do at some places, but we were more 
interested in cramming out as much variety

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as we could. In another game the whole boat 
thing could have been like an entire game,

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but here it's a five minute segment. We could 
have definitely extended and had some ideas for

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how to make it 30 minutes long, but I think 
that would have ultimately made a worse game.

00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:07.200
MARK: How much depth do you give a mechanic if 
it's only going to be there for a few minutes?

00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:11.200
OLIVER: There is a lesson there 
that depth doesn't mean it's good

00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:15.280
if you don't have time to use it. And I 
think that's something where we talk about

00:16:15.280 --> 00:16:19.920
‘finding good enough’ which is one of our 
kind of pillars as well. Like ‘variety’

00:16:19.920 --> 00:16:24.240
and ‘finding good enough’. And they go hand in 
hand. How deep does it have to be? It doesn't

00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:29.200
have to be like a deep 20 hour mechanic if you're 
just gonna do it for five minutes. And I think

00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:34.880
that's a very important thing: knowing when to 
stop. Because the players might not appreciate

00:16:34.880 --> 00:16:40.320
anything beyond that point. What we did now is 
we try to take all the best things that we found

00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:44.560
and put them in the level instead of, you know, 
finding all the things and dragging them out.

00:16:44.560 --> 00:16:48.560
CODY: Whoa, I think they're 
bringing out the big guns now!

00:16:48.560 --> 00:16:54.320
OLIVER: This thing took it took a while to get 
working: the swarm technology, the one with the

00:16:54.320 --> 00:17:00.720
hammer, the whole system for this. And for it to 
go like seamlessly from one fight into this slide.

00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:05.840
This was quite a lot of work but I 
think it was it was worth it in the end.

00:17:05.840 --> 00:17:07.760
CODY: Hey hey! Don't do that!

00:17:12.120 --> 00:17:13.120
OLIVER:

00:17:13.120 --> 00:17:16.960
Sometimes as a designer you're kind of like 
I'm doing this thing, it's going to be very

00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:22.480
very expensive, I really hope it's gonna be cool 
so I'm not wasting everyone's time, you know.

00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:25.280
MARK: Yeah, as a designer like 
you're giving lots of work to

00:17:25.280 --> 00:17:28.640
programmers and artists. So how do 
you make that relationship work?

00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:30.960
OLIVER: I do believe it's 
very important to think of,

00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:35.600
you know, the final look before you actually 
commit to anything. We give art, you know,

00:17:35.600 --> 00:17:39.600
like an abstract piece of gameplay and it's 
like ‘what could this be?’ and, you know,

00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:43.840
art sits there, and they're looking at it, and 
they're like… it's not fun for anyone.

00:17:43.840 --> 00:17:48.080
MARK: Are there times when an artist made 
something that like really surprised you?

00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:54.080
OLIVER: So, so many things. Like the the whole 
lab section, you know the big wheels, this one

00:17:54.080 --> 00:17:58.080
was kind of like, I’d say, one of the prototypes 
that didn't really have a good context. You know.

00:17:58.080 --> 00:18:02.560
Why do you have big spinning wheels? And they 
turned it into this very elaborate lab that ended

00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:08.240
up influencing parts of the story. And I think 
that a lot of the times both art and programming

00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:12.160
as well would just build things 
that surprised us and I think that,

00:18:12.160 --> 00:18:16.960
you know, it's very true that game 
development is, you know, it's a team sport.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:19.840
CODY: Aww… now what!

00:18:19.840 --> 00:18:21.920
MAY: I think we need to head that way…

00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.240
CODY: Come on May, we can't swim in this.

00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:28.640
MAY: We're going by boat! Help me out!

00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:33.760
OLIVER: I wanted to show you the iteration of 
the boat because you asked me a bit about how we

00:18:33.760 --> 00:18:39.600
prototyped and I actually have the setup here. 
The initial idea was that you'd shoot and the

00:18:39.600 --> 00:18:43.760
boat would propel in the other direction. This 
is a terrible idea: you don't see where you're

00:18:43.760 --> 00:18:51.920
going. Absolutely terrible. And, you know, it's 
no worries - we made it in like a very short time.

00:18:51.920 --> 00:18:56.160
So then we took the the second question: 
okay how can we make this in a way that

00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:02.080
feels fun and easy to control? We landed on 
this one which was basically you controlled

00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:08.560
it with a rudder. This was very fun to control 
but it didn't match the kind of rules we had set

00:19:08.560 --> 00:19:14.880
for ourselves. As I said before, each kind of 
designer of a level set rules and Robert and I

00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:20.320
had decided that our things were gonna be kinetic. 
We were gonna avoid as much UI as possible and we

00:19:20.320 --> 00:19:26.000
would like to use the weapons. Instead of having a 
lever you press Y on, you would blow something up.

00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:31.840
So that's when we came up with essentially 
taking the same kind of function but tying

00:19:31.840 --> 00:19:37.440
it to the actual mechanic. So here you 
press the fire button to just start going.

00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.720
I think we're great at being 
reactive: we make something,

00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:45.520
play test it, talk about it, and then we change 
it. I think that that's one of our strengths.

00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:51.840
It's definitely like one of the things that 
I think made this game great in the long run.

00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:55.360
MAY: Wow! They are beautiful!

00:19:55.360 --> 00:20:00.480
CODY: Yeah… deadly beauty. Jellyfish 
can be lethal, we better get moving.

00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:04.320
MARK: So at this point the level 
starts getting really weird:

00:20:04.320 --> 00:20:07.600
were there rules for how 
strange the game could get?

00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:14.880
OLIVER: No, no. There definitely wasn’t. 
In meetings the feedback was ‘could we make

00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:19.440
it a bit crazier’ from Josef… I think, 
like, think Avatar on LSD or something.

00:20:20.080 --> 00:20:24.160
So we did. It's definitely out there: this 
is one of the moments where people playing,

00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:26.480
you know, they’re like ‘are we still in the tree’?

00:20:28.200 --> 00:20:31.920
CODY: You know, I am getting 
really tired of falling.

00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:33.640
MAY: Well be grateful you're in good shape.

00:20:33.640 --> 00:20:35.000
CODY: Oh yeah? Thanks May!

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:37.760
MAY: I meant good shape in this world.

00:20:37.760 --> 00:20:38.880
CODY: Oh.

00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:41.280
MARK: What was your approach to pacing the level?

00:20:41.280 --> 00:20:44.720
OLIVER: So I think this is something we probably 
should have paid a bit more attention to because

00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:49.680
we were just focused on creating cool sh*t and 
variety. A lot of games have to care about pacing

00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:54.720
in another way than we do: what they pace is 
the repetition of content. Here you're gonna have

00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:58.480
platforming, here you're gonna have a combat 
encounter, here you're gonna have platforming,

00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:02.320
here you're gonna have combat again. And to 
not make that boring you have to make sure

00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:07.200
that you're pacing it correctly with enough 
variety. we didn't have that problem as our

00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:11.760
game was just full of variety by the baseline. 
We just created new mechanics all the time.

00:21:11.760 --> 00:21:16.160
But we still have to make sure we pace 
intensity so that people don't get exhausted or

00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:21.600
people don't get bored. You still have to make 
sure to pull the intensity curve up and down.

00:21:23.960 --> 00:21:26.440
CODY: Oh, whoa…

00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.120
MAY: What is this place?

00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:34.000
CODY: Uh, I don't know but they look pretty angry.

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:36.567
MAY: Yeah they do.

00:21:40.520 --> 00:21:45.120
OLIVER: This one is one of the most intense 
fights in the game actually.

00:21:45.120 --> 00:21:47.120
MARK: What do you remember about designing it?

00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:52.000
OLIVER: We actually wanted the beetle to be 
like a mini enemy. And at one point we said,

00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:57.360
yeah, we don't need that variety - should we 
just make it into a boss? Which is not really

00:21:57.360 --> 00:22:00.400
what we intended because there 
is a boss right after this.

00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:05.120
But after the passes it became that 
way - I missed it, that was my fault…

00:22:05.120 --> 00:22:06.000
MARK: No worries!

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:11.760
OLIVER: And I remember iterating on this so 
many times to make it more difficult for, like,

00:22:11.760 --> 00:22:17.920
platformer and reducing the skill it needed from 
a mechanical or an aiming level. For example the

00:22:17.920 --> 00:22:23.440
grates were both a switch up from what you'd done 
earlier but also reduce the amount of, you know,

00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:28.160
how much aiming you need to do. In an earlier 
version we had it so that you had to like shoot it

00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.800
on the butt, but it required like a lot of 
mechanical skill and communication on our

00:22:32.800 --> 00:22:37.440
side to make that happen, you know. To go in 
behind, aim, you know, it was a lot of stuff…

00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:45.280
CODY: Well, uh, you know the queen? She has all 
the nectar. So if you help us take her down,

00:22:45.391 --> 00:22:47.880
you can have as much nectar as you want!

00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:55.514
BEETLE: Oh yummy! What are we 
waiting for? Come on, jump on!

00:22:57.347 --> 00:23:01.043
MAY: Jump!

00:23:05.373 --> 00:23:09.120
QUEEN WASP: Intruders!

00:23:09.120 --> 00:23:12.320
MARK: Okay so now we're facing the 
final boss of the level and I was

00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:15.520
just curious about the design 
of the game's health system.

00:23:15.520 --> 00:23:20.480
OLIVER: We actually had some different health 
systems we prototyped. We prototyped a Gears

00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:24.640
of War type of health system where one player 
dies and you have to go and revive them. That

00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:28.720
didn't work because of the sheer variety of our 
gameplay, you never know if you're dying during

00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:33.920
a platforming section or if you're separated. 
So that didn't work. We tried a shared health

00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:40.000
bar in the very middle of the screen and this idea 
seems great: you're sharing health, that's co-op,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.080
but what happened is if you had one player that 
was really good and one that was really bad, the

00:23:44.080 --> 00:23:49.200
bad player would just take damage over and over 
and then they would both die - instead of allowing

00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:54.800
the good player to carry them. So what we ended 
up on is just like a timer that that goes down,

00:23:54.800 --> 00:23:59.520
as long as you're both living. It becomes this 
kind of cheer on, like, ‘don't die, don't die,

00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:04.880
I'm almost back!’ that ended up being actually 
quite effectful I'd say. We generally didn't want

00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:09.360
players to have to replay parts either, that 
kind of goes against our motto of variation.

00:24:09.360 --> 00:24:13.760
Our health system ties into that because if one 
of us dies that's fine and then we'll just spawn

00:24:13.760 --> 00:24:18.080
in eventually, so it basically becomes like 
you have two lives. It's fun to die because

00:24:18.080 --> 00:24:25.619
then you feel like I'm challenged and you 
get that stress, but it's not fun to redo it.

00:24:25.619 --> 00:24:32.421
*Explosions*

00:24:32.421 --> 00:24:36.240
OLIVER: It's funny because a lot of people 
reacted to the beetle dying here. Which,

00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:40.160
for us, the beetle was kind of a throw-in, 
like, that was a one week prototype that we

00:24:40.160 --> 00:24:43.200
threw in. They were like ‘oh no the 
beetle’ and we're like, ‘oh yeah,

00:24:43.200 --> 00:24:49.360
the beetle, that's right’, and we didn't 
think of that at all. It's kind of funny.

00:24:49.360 --> 00:24:53.840
MAY: Come on Cody, over here! You drive!

00:24:53.840 --> 00:24:58.400
CODY: What, May, this is a plane 
- it's not a station wagon!

00:24:58.400 --> 00:24:59.840
MAY: Just fly!

00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:03.840
MARK: This plane section is really 
memorable, what can you tell me about it?

00:25:03.840 --> 00:25:08.960
OLIVER: So this was made by Per Stenbeck. 
You had the storyboards already,

00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:12.480
and we had the plane in there from like a 
story perspective, I think, before there

00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:18.080
was a prototype. And I think that this could 
have easily just been like a flight section

00:25:18.080 --> 00:25:24.160
that's that's kind of cool but it took some 
turns where it went even further than that.

00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:29.680
And what happened was that they had this idea 
of the squirrels that are flying behind you

00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:33.440
that they would like land on the plane and 
you'd have to like shoot them off-- oops.

00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:35.360
MARK: Sorry!

00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:40.400
OLIVER: They they were talking about that and 
they were like ‘oh what if you could jump out

00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:46.080
of the turret and like kinda kick them off’ 
and then somebody said ‘like Street Fighter?’.

00:25:46.080 --> 00:25:51.360
SQUIRREL: Time to say goodbye little doll. 
Can't wait to smash your wooden face!

00:25:51.360 --> 00:25:55.840
MAY: I can't wait to kick your furry arse!

00:25:57.560 --> 00:26:03.840
OLIVER: You know it's one of those things where 
in a lot of game companies those ‘what-ifs’, they

00:26:03.840 --> 00:26:09.680
don't happen. But they do happen here and I think 
that's one amazing quality about Hazelight. And I

00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:17.111
think kudos to everyone who worked on that because 
I think it turned out to be a great highlight.

00:26:17.560 --> 00:26:21.295
ANNOUNCER: KO!

00:26:21.295 --> 00:26:23.913
MAY: I’m here!

00:26:25.824 --> 00:26:32.240
OLIVER: This part is like a homage to Brothers: 
A Tale of Two Sons where you have a section kinda

00:26:32.240 --> 00:26:38.956
like this but with the brothers, but now in co-op. 
And, yeah, it worked excellently. And I think this

00:26:38.956 --> 00:26:45.684
whole section is great because you get variation. 
You know we've gone through three stages of plane

00:26:45.684 --> 00:26:49.280
but they all feel different. 
And I think that speaks to the,

00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:54.960
you know, like integral to the way we 
worked was just variety and both from art,

00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:59.600
programming, and design, everyone really 
got to add their own flair to everything

00:26:59.600 --> 00:27:05.840
and have so much ownership that it 
just naturally became so different.

00:27:05.840 --> 00:27:12.624
CODY: Oh! Oh!

00:27:12.624 --> 00:27:16.000
MAY: That is the last time I'm flying 
by the seat of your pants.

00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:18.720
CODY: Oh ha-ha, you're real 
comedian, you know that?

00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:19.820
MAY: Ah, thank you.

00:27:19.820 --> 00:27:21.760
MARK: And so there we have it.

00:27:21.760 --> 00:27:27.040
It was fascinating to hear about how the sap and 
match gun evolved from a purely combat-focused

00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:32.160
mechanic, to a puzzle-solving tool. And it was 
great to look at the step-by-step process of going

00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:37.840
from prototype to polished game mechanic. Plus, 
this conversation really highlighted the very

00:27:37.840 --> 00:27:44.007
collaborate nature of level design. And, as such, 
Oliver wanted to thank a handful of colleagues -

00:27:44.007 --> 00:27:48.080
OLIVER: I would like to thank Robert, Alexander, 
and Tom, who helped with the video. and I would

00:27:48.080 --> 00:27:53.120
like to thank Robert, Per, Henrik, and Filip 
who all worked on Tree and made it excellent.

00:27:53.120 --> 00:27:57.680
As usual, a full level playthrough and 
conversation is available exclusively to

00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:01.200
Patreon backers. And if you want 
to support Game Maker’s Toolkit,

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:06.000
please check out this quick YouTube ad before 
we get to the indie game recommendation.

00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:16.560
My indie game recommendation this time is Umurangi 
Generation - a low-poly photography game with a

00:28:16.560 --> 00:28:21.360
subversive sense of humour. In each level you're 
dropped into a 3D environment with a camera

00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:25.600
and a list of things to snap. You'll need 
to find each target and figure out the right

00:28:25.600 --> 00:28:30.880
lens to use and the right spot to stand on. 
If you agree with me that photography is an

00:28:30.880 --> 00:28:37.200
excellent video game mechanic, play Umurangi 
Generation. It's out now on PC and Switch.