Neal is the real deal. He has nothing to conceal. We're sharing it all, piecemeal.
K: Can we get fried pickles?
N: Let's go! The pickles here are giant. They're crazy.
S: Actually? I was imagining like the tiny little wimpy ones..
N: Oh no, they're like.. [indicates with his hands]
K: What have you been up to today?
N: I worked on updates to Infinite Craft. The updates did not go well.
K: What do you mean?
N: I was trying to replace the LLM that I'm using. The one I'm using right now is kind of old and also really expensive and not very efficient.
K: How did that change things?
N: I thought not that much. But as soon as I changed it, the Infinite Craft Discord blew up and everyone was like, what happened, Neal? And I didn't even say anything. They've been playing so long that they're attuned in a way that I'm not. They notice these subtle changes and they have all these hacks that only work for Llama 2. So I reverted it because I got scared. Someone made this thread called General Complaints About the New AI.
K: Whoa, that's long! The techs are no longer working. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, what is techs?
N: That's just a term they invented for a specific hack. There's so much that I don't know. Most importantly, the sim is now gone. I don't know what the sim is!
K: Do people have reactions like that to other games?
N: That one's the most intense. Internet Road Trip, too.
K: Why would people be upset there?
N: I can control the speed of the car and the logic behind which Street Views get picked and which ones don't, and how intersections work. People have tools that can see what's going to happen at that intersection. So if I change the logic and their tools don't line up, they get angry.
K: Has anything else taken a life of its own?
N: For Stimulation Clicker, a bunch of YouTubers contributed videos. I reached out to some, some reached out for other projects and were like, I want to be in this new thing. Researchers, too. For Absurd Trolley Problems, some researchers were like, we're going to do a paper on this.
N: I made all the questions before I knew how anyone would answer. And then some ended up being like 90% one way and 10% the other way, and everyone was like, why was that even a question, it's so obvious. And I was like, I thought it was a moral dilemma.
K: Whoa, that reveals more about you, I guess.
N: There was one where you run over five crabs or a cat. Everyone was like, the five crabs. And I was like, but there's five of them!
K: The crabs would be more satisfying to crunch.
N: It actually has crunch sounds now in there. A sound effects guy reached out and was like, this would be perfect for my skillset.
K: Okay, now walk me through a typical day in your life.
N: [Neal's day – could be a time chart/dial if we want. Maybe take 'walk' literally. And get some silhouettes of him walking and make a fun visual aide.]
K: How does an idea for a game start? Do you have multiple ideas gestating, and if so, how do you keep track of them? What are some ideas you've scrapped in the past? Why? Are there any you might eventually revisit? What do you do when you're stuck?
N: [Neal brief description of Infinite Craft]
N: [Neal brief description of Cursor Camp]
K: [What were the first things you did/made on the computer? How did you even get started with games?]
N: [Neal on his Scratch days]
K: What would you say is a significant game for you?
N: Team Fortress 2.
K: What about Team Fortress 2 was so captivating?
N: The community aspect. There was a whole economy behind it. I would come after school and I would start day trading, basically. You trade hats in the game, so you're basically predicting which hats will be popular. I would make like 30 cents per trade.
K: Real money?
N: I mean, it's like an in-game currency, but yeah.
K: There's another one that I've read a lot about but never played. The outskirts of the map are more outlawed, fewer rules enforced at the outer regions in this spaceship world. And the more central you are, the more rules are enforced. It's such a steep learning curve.
N: The people who play it are insane about it. It's like a day job. They have spreadsheets, and they'll use Jira sometimes because they need to manage their clan and assign tasks.
K: That feels like whenever my friends are like, yo, let's play Overcooked. I'm like, I don't want to work. Why are we working for leisure?
K: In my head, I don't think of you playing games. I don't picture you at home playing games.
N: I feel like games have the best user interfaces.
K: But then you're studying them. What's the last long session of a game you had?
N: Recently I've mostly played indie games. I'm not binging a game, I guess, but they're five hour stories that play over like a game.
K: What kinds of games do you wish you could see more of?
N: I'm so excited for you guys to play games. That's where I get like 90% of my inspiration.
S: Where's the other 10%?
N: Everything else.
K: Man, birth, death.
N: Philosophy, religion.
K: Pickles!
K: Can we just come and watch you play games some time? I like watching people impose their free will.
N: Games have solved so many interaction problems that nobody else in web development or SaaS has. Designing a game, you have to solve so many different problems about how that's going to work.
K: Are there any recent interactions you saw in games that you really liked?
N: The Playdate crank. Originally from the store it was, to buy something you had to crank to buy it. But they said it was so fun that people were buying games and refunding them just to crank. So they had to change it.
K: Where do you draw a line of game versus just an interactive experience? Is Wiki Spy a game?
N: I wouldn't call it a game, there's no objective or goal.
K: Is Infinite Craft a game?
N: It's interactive, but I feel like it stops short of game. People could make it a game, but as it is, it's not a game itself.
K: So open world sandboxes wouldn't be a game?
N: Well, even Minecraft has a goal and an objective.
K: What about in the sandbox mode?
N: I would consider it more of a toy. Toys are open-ended, and games are like, accomplish this. It's actually a big controversy in the gaming community. There's this whole genre of what people call walking simulators. Like Firewatch is considered one. There's a story, you walk around, you kind of interact with things, but it's more like a movie than a traditional game. Some people get really angry at that. They're like, we shouldn't consider these games because they're glorified movies.
K: Are there any mediums/formats you're especially interested in exploring?
K: Have you thought about making physical games or a toy?
N: Sounds tough. In the long run.
K: That's like, before the theme park you probably need something first.
K: [Something about his why.. e.g. What would you do with all of this if nobody used it? Is there something you're trying to figure out?]
K: What question do you have for our next guest?
K: I feel like the next interview we do should be Mikey lets us in and then we wake you up at 5am and Shen frog punches you and we're like, what's your biggest fear?
N: It's this!