1 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:07,400 Thanks very much again, mate, for coming on. 2 00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:11,920 I really appreciate you doing that for me today and for our 3 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:13,520 listeners. So I really appreciate it mate. 4 00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:16,440 But you're you're out. You're out in Canada. 5 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:18,800 Is that right? Yeah, that's right. 6 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:21,360 I moved here around 15 years ago now. 7 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:26,240 All right. And how's life there? 8 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:31,200 Yeah, life here is excellent. Oh, that's fantastic. 9 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:33,280 Very good. Are you out? 10 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:35,680 Are you out in the sticks or we're in the city areas? 11 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:42,360 No, we're in Montreal. We're in the, it's actually a 12 00:00:42,360 --> 00:00:46,880 nice kind of balance because I mean, Montreal is very towny and 13 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:49,720 feel, I don't know if you know the city at all, but like it's, 14 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:53,560 it was never a city. It was like a bunch of towns and 15 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:57,720 the towns just kind of grew into each other as they started 16 00:00:57,720 --> 00:00:59,320 calling it the city. But it still has that kind of 17 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:04,319 like small town feel, even though you're a big city and 18 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:10,280 yourself, like, are you? You're not Japanese evidence. 19 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:12,600 I'm not, I'm not Japanese now, far from a mate. 20 00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:15,880 My my son qualifies for that. My wife certainly, but not me. 21 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:22,840 No, I'm Australian mate, so, but been living here for 11 years 22 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:27,000 now, so and I've been enjoying it. 23 00:01:28,480 --> 00:01:32,720 But yeah, yeah, I, I came here because of my wife and wanted to 24 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,400 just try something new, something different and have a 25 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:39,480 bit of, a bit of a change, sea change, as I say, and it brought 26 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:41,680 me here so. But yeah, I'm much happier for 27 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:44,200 it, to be honest. I I really enjoy living here, 28 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:46,520 even though Australia is a wonderful country. 29 00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:49,080 I love living there. It's just, yeah, it's just 30 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,120 culturally very different, very interesting. 31 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:54,200 So many. It's got a very deep and rich 32 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,720 long history as well. So you've got so many different 33 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:59,640 places to go and check out. And I would, I would imagine 34 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:02,360 Canada has something very similar, you know. 35 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:05,520 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. 36 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:07,200 Yeah. I mean, it's a huge country. 37 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:11,800 But surprisingly though, like, you know, I don't know if this 38 00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:14,000 happens to you once you move somewhere, it's just kind of 39 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,360 like the urge to visit around you and do the do like the 40 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:20,600 touristy things around you just kind of goes away. 41 00:02:21,440 --> 00:02:24,000 So there's so there is so much around us, but we just never go 42 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,400 and do it. Now if we when we go on 43 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:28,080 vacation, we always get the other places away from Canada. 44 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:30,560 So it's huge amounts of Canada. We've just never explored. 45 00:02:30,920 --> 00:02:32,320 Right. Well, I got the opposite. 46 00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:34,600 Like in Australia, I never really had the urge to travel 47 00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:37,080 anywhere. But since I came to Japan, I 48 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,360 wanted to see everything. So I'm still West. 49 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:45,160 This year we're going to go down to Kyoto and Kobe and Osaka. 50 00:02:45,200 --> 00:02:47,920 I've been to Osaka before, but not I've been to Kobe once at 51 00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:49,600 the airport, but I haven't. I've never been to Kyoto. 52 00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,440 And that's one of the most historical places that everyone 53 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:54,960 goes to when they travel to Japan. 54 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:58,200 So have you been to Japan at all night? 55 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:03,800 I did go when I was young. I was maybe like 10 or 11 when 56 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:07,640 we went. So like I remember it, but not 57 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:10,120 perfectly. And we just, we just stopped up 58 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:14,960 for a couple days. We were flying, I was living in 59 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:19,520 Saudi Arabia at the time and we were flying to the West Coast of 60 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:22,880 the States, but we're going round like we've stopped up in 61 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:24,480 Japan and then went over to the States. 62 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,120 So we stopped up for a couple days in Tokyo. 63 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:31,680 We took the, took a ride on the bullet train. 64 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:36,040 That was the that's the only kind of big thing I remember 65 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:38,720 about it is riding on the bullet train. 66 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:43,880 That was. Just for sure, yeah. 67 00:03:43,880 --> 00:03:46,360 Yeah. Apart from that, it was just 68 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,800 visiting Tokyo. But I don't have AI, don't have 69 00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:53,000 a lot of memories about it. Yeah, that's a long time ago, 70 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:53,560 mate. Yeah. 71 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:56,760 What, what brought you to the UK then? 72 00:03:56,760 --> 00:04:00,120 Because obviously you, you you had to travel to the UK in order 73 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,640 to launch your, you know, very prosperous and long career at 74 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:05,280 Gangs Workshop. What actually brought you to the 75 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:10,400 UK? So my mom is British so I'm a 76 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:17,839 dual British U.S. citizen and my parents I was born in the US but 77 00:04:17,839 --> 00:04:24,000 my parents moved to the UK when I was one year old so mostly I 78 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,320 grew up in the UK. Wow, OK, that's excellent. 79 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:29,840 So you're very, very multi national, mate, very multi 80 00:04:29,840 --> 00:04:32,000 national, international. That's excellent. 81 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:34,560 Set life experiences travelling and living in different 82 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:36,640 countries. You mentioned Saudi Arabia. 83 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:38,920 What was that like to live in Saudi Arabia? 84 00:04:38,920 --> 00:04:41,280 Because I know I know someone, one of the other Youtubers I 85 00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:43,120 know he lives there and he's been living there for quite a 86 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:45,560 long time. What was what was the experience 87 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:51,040 like living there? So my parents moved there when I 88 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:59,480 was like 9 years old, I guess. And as a kid, it was fantastic. 89 00:04:59,920 --> 00:05:03,040 Like, I absolutely loved it as a kid because it's just, you know, 90 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:05,880 there's sunny weather and there's a swimming pool and 91 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:10,680 there's beaches nearby and school finishes at 1:30 in the 92 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:13,360 afternoon because the afternoons get so hot. 93 00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:19,080 Like schools finish early. So as a kid, like, I absolutely 94 00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:23,320 loved it. And my parents stayed there for 95 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:27,880 like more than 10 years. They sent me back to the UK, to 96 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:30,600 boarding school in the UK when I was as soon as I was old enough 97 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:35,120 to go to boarding school. So then I'd go back, you know, 98 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:37,440 I'd go back to the UK for school and then go back to visit the, 99 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:42,600 the family and the, and the vacations, which was still like, 100 00:05:42,600 --> 00:05:44,520 it was great. Like going to vacations to these 101 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:49,400 sunny beaches every vacation. And then I really got into scuba 102 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:53,080 diving as well. And Saudi Arabia is the best 103 00:05:53,080 --> 00:05:55,160 place in the world for scuba diving. 104 00:05:55,720 --> 00:05:58,880 You know, people talk about other countries, but what the 105 00:05:58,880 --> 00:06:01,200 difference with Saudi Arabia is it doesn't have much of A 106 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:05,320 tourist industry. So the reefs are completely 107 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:10,000 untouched. So you get this fabulous diving 108 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:13,080 which is not kind of over saturated with with tourist 109 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:14,920 divers. So the diving was amazing. 110 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:21,680 My first job, I got a job working at a private beach that 111 00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:25,800 was owned by a school. So we'd have groups of kids 112 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:29,600 every week would take a group of school kids down to the beach, 113 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:35,160 teach them how to windsurf and teach them how to kayak. 114 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:38,600 So like, it was like the most fun job in the world. 115 00:06:40,880 --> 00:06:45,960 And then the Gulf War broke out and that kind of like, put an 116 00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:50,360 end to all of that. The the beach that I was working 117 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,200 at closed down. So I was kind of sitting around 118 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:57,640 doing nothing. So things kind of started going 119 00:06:57,640 --> 00:06:59,960 downhill from there. Yeah. 120 00:07:00,520 --> 00:07:03,360 I think there's a it was a lot of change in just how people 121 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:08,120 felt about being there as well. You know, I mean, well, we were 122 00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:09,440 there. I had a friend who got injured 123 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:12,480 in a scud attack. If you remember the scud 124 00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:17,080 missiles, it was not badly injured, it just it shook the 125 00:07:17,080 --> 00:07:19,880 building he was in which caused the painting to fall off his 126 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:24,120 wall and painting landed on his head and split his head open. 127 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:28,320 But that was that was the the entire injury from the Hulk of 128 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:30,320 war. But you know, it just became 129 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:34,720 like a less fun place to live. And also I think as I grew up, 130 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:39,560 as I grew older, starting to realize like the the kind of 131 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:42,120 cultural oppression there is there, which I didn't care about 132 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,080 at all as a little kid. But you know, once you get 133 00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:50,120 older, you start to realize. And so, yeah, the whole family 134 00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:52,840 left shortly after that. Yeah. 135 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:56,560 I came back to go to university in the UK. 136 00:07:58,440 --> 00:07:59,000 No. Interesting. 137 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:00,480 What did you study in university mate? 138 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:04,160 Out of curiosity? Philosophy, right. 139 00:08:06,080 --> 00:08:07,960 Wonderful. OK, well, yeah, we had some 140 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:11,200 obviously interest in it then. And you had to choose something. 141 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:13,520 So did you really? Did you have a really good 142 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:17,520 knowledge of what you would want to do when you left university 143 00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:21,760 or was it just? Nope, I had absolutely no idea 144 00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:25,360 at all. I didn't really have any idea 145 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:29,720 going into university what I wanted to do with university or 146 00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:31,840 anything at all with my entire life. 147 00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:36,679 So philosophy, like I think the main reason that I chose 148 00:08:36,679 --> 00:08:39,440 philosophy, like I was interested in it, but mostly it 149 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:42,919 just had easier entry qualifications than other 150 00:08:42,919 --> 00:08:43,880 degrees. Yeah. 151 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,600 So it was kind of like a little bit of an easy option for me. 152 00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:55,560 And it had a reputation as well for being like an easy degree, 153 00:08:55,560 --> 00:08:58,400 right? That was kind of like AI mean. 154 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:02,360 I did have a genuine interest in it and I did, yeah, I did do 155 00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:05,040 some work during those three years and learned some stuff, 156 00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:07,080 but it was still a pretty easy time. 157 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:09,600 Yeah, good man. That's great. 158 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,680 And then obviously you left university and then you must 159 00:09:12,680 --> 00:09:15,440 have discovered war gaming at some point because you're in the 160 00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:18,640 heartland of of gangs workshop then in the UK. 161 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:23,320 When did you actually first come across miniatures and and just 162 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:28,560 tabletop gaming? So started, so it was while we 163 00:09:28,560 --> 00:09:32,120 were living in Saudi Arabia that I had some buddies from the 164 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:35,720 States who played Dungeons Dragons, right? 165 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:41,320 Which was like, it was, I mean, it was not well known at the 166 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:44,200 time, but it was much more well known in the US than it was in 167 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:45,960 the UK. So it was kind of like my, it 168 00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:50,080 was my American friends kind of import. 169 00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:55,840 And that was like my first introduction to to gaming and my 170 00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:57,440 first introduction to miniatures as well. 171 00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:01,560 And my first minis that I got were Dungeons and Dragons minis. 172 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:04,240 The very first one was just that. 173 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:08,120 It was literally like a mini I found lying in the street. 174 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:11,880 I have no idea where it came from or what happened to it. 175 00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:16,280 It was just it was there and up. And I think it was like a Lord 176 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,240 of the Rings Gandalf mini. It was like a little wizard. 177 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,160 And I think, you know, I was really hooked from that point. 178 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:27,160 You know, even like as a little kid, like my one little mini, 179 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:31,240 I'd spend hours just like playing with it, you know, like 180 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:34,800 holding it. And there's this wonderful 181 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:39,680 tactile pleasure that you get from minis right where you want 182 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:41,640 to, you know, if there's a mini there, like if you just put 183 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:44,880 minis on some minis on the table and somebody walks into the 184 00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:47,480 room, they're going to go over and they're going to pick them 185 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:49,840 up and they're going to start, you know, just moving in the 186 00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:51,520 back in their hands and looking at them. 187 00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:55,040 And it's just a wonderful, like pleasurable physical things. 188 00:10:56,840 --> 00:11:00,040 And then, you know, I came back to when I was at boarding 189 00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:03,040 school, that's where I discovered Warhammer for the 190 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:05,520 first time. So I had a friend there who was 191 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:09,720 playing the 1st edition of Warhammer playing, I say, I 192 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:11,320 don't think we ever actually played it. 193 00:11:11,880 --> 00:11:16,600 We just, you know, would talk about it and read the army books 194 00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:21,000 and read White Dwarf articles and dream about one day owning 195 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,000 enough minis to be able to play a game. 196 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:26,000 But I don't think we ever played first edition. 197 00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:30,600 Second edition, I think was probably the first time I played 198 00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:33,400 second edition. I don't, if you remember, had 199 00:11:33,400 --> 00:11:39,200 these like cardboard cut out, like stand like little standees 200 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:41,800 that you could use instead of the minis. 201 00:11:43,160 --> 00:11:48,600 So I think my very first game of Warhammer ever was second 202 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:51,600 edition with those like little cut out. 203 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:55,400 There was some dwarves. There was some slang, I think, 204 00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:57,520 Right. I think there was there was a 205 00:11:57,520 --> 00:12:03,480 little scenario where you played like a group of dwarf miners, if 206 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:06,000 I remember right, fighting against some slang in the 207 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,760 jungles of last year or something like that. 208 00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:11,240 Yeah. Yeah, I think you might. 209 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:12,720 Be. Right, I think. 210 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:20,560 That was my first epic game and my first minis from there. 211 00:12:20,560 --> 00:12:23,400 Like I had a little collection of Warhammer minis, but my first 212 00:12:23,400 --> 00:12:26,280 kind of like armies. Do you remember they are the old 213 00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:30,880 Prince August molds? Like you could buy these rubber 214 00:12:30,880 --> 00:12:33,920 molds that you could cast your own minis at home. 215 00:12:34,440 --> 00:12:38,160 Get like a little saucepan that you melt the lead on your stove. 216 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:45,480 And so I had a few of these Prince August molds and I had an 217 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:52,120 army of elven arches and Wizards on one hand against this kind of 218 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:55,280 rat tag assortment of skeletons and orcs on the other side. 219 00:12:56,560 --> 00:13:02,360 It's my first kind of real war games with these little bands of 220 00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:07,320 random miscellaneous Prince August cast miniatures. 221 00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:12,920 We we kind of made ourselves and then we had nowhere to play. 222 00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:17,920 So we played in the garage when my dad was out at work. 223 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:22,280 So the car was out. Oh no, my dad was still in. 224 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:24,440 He wasn't out of work. He was still in Saudi Arabia. 225 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:27,680 Not right. When were the, Yeah, I don't 226 00:13:27,680 --> 00:13:29,680 know, when my mum was out shopping or whatever, When the 227 00:13:29,680 --> 00:13:35,960 car was not in the garage. Yeah, with the drawer on the 228 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:41,440 garage floor would use chalk to draw out the like the tabletop. 229 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:44,520 We had no terrain, we didn't have a table big enough to play. 230 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:47,920 So just play on the floor in the garage with like chalk drawn 231 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:53,120 trees, armies of unpainted homemade home cast miniatures 232 00:13:54,440 --> 00:13:56,600 and that's how we play. I don't think we ever actually 233 00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,680 played a full game there even like with kind of set everything 234 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:04,400 out and we'd play a turn or two and then something would happen. 235 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:08,720 You know, we'd have to go for dinner or I'd have to go back to 236 00:14:08,720 --> 00:14:12,040 school because we'd just be, you know, we'd play at the the 237 00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:15,800 weekends and then I'd get to Sunday evening and Sunday 238 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,240 evening I'd be shipped back off to boarding school again. 239 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:23,880 So that was my first my first games. 240 00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:27,160 Wonderful. Stephen, you actually mentioned 241 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:30,720 there too something you were a big part of later on, but you 242 00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:34,600 mentioned White Dwarf magazine. Can you remember what first 243 00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:40,240 issue you picked up? I think my first issue was 244 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,640 actually if I remember right it was a best of they used to do 245 00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:47,640 like best of White Dwarf articles and best of White dwarf 246 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:52,880 scenarios. I can't remember which one it 247 00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:56,680 was. I'm not. 248 00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:58,520 Yeah, I'm not 100% sure I remember. 249 00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:03,120 So it was certainly the first article I really remember well 250 00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:07,240 was I think it was from Best Of, but I'm not 100% sure about 251 00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:11,120 that. It was a Lord of the Rings 252 00:15:12,560 --> 00:15:19,880 scenario for Warhammer. It was fighting Ministerith 253 00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:24,000 fighting the Battle of Ministerith for Warhammer. 254 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:27,080 I think it would have been for first edition Warhammer as well 255 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:28,680 if I remember right. OK. 256 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,880 And that that was kind of it was very aspirational for us. 257 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:39,920 I think we you had this kind of the the two armies. 258 00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:47,040 You had the, the, the kind of good side army that was, looked 259 00:15:47,040 --> 00:15:50,200 like it was collectible. There was like not a huge amount 260 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:56,600 of minis required. And then you had the the hordes 261 00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:00,280 attacking it, and you needed like 500 minis to be able to 262 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:02,680 represent this, you know, that this scenario was kind of like a 263 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:06,120 really sort of accurate representation of the Battle of 264 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:07,600 Ministers. Right. 265 00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:12,280 And so we never even came close to to playing that, but I 266 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:15,440 remember it being a kind of like, it was very aspirational, 267 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:19,400 like Wow, wouldn't it be great to be able to play this one day, 268 00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:23,360 to be able to have this horde of minis that would be required to 269 00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:27,520 play it? That was sort of that's the 270 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:32,960 earliest memory I have. And then after that, I mean, 271 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:36,360 what Dwarf at the time was very much like it was a role-playing 272 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:37,840 gaming magazine, right? It wasn't. 273 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:41,200 It was just by chance that I remember that that Warhammer 274 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:44,440 article was in one of the first issues that I had. 275 00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:48,280 So I was into like a lot of other gaming at the time, you 276 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:49,720 know, RPGs and all kinds of gaming. 277 00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:53,000 I remember there was a lot of Golden Heroes. 278 00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:58,800 I would buy White Dwarf issues that had Golden Heroes articles 279 00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:01,480 in it because Golden Heroes was a game, you know, we were 280 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:06,240 playing at school at the time. Dungeons and Dragons, of course. 281 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:08,520 I remember a lot of early Dungeons and Dragons articles 282 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:12,240 there, advice for Dungeon Masters. 283 00:17:12,839 --> 00:17:15,280 You know, a lot of that, a lot of those early issues kind of 284 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:17,200 really a still dungeon master to the day. 285 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:20,560 Yeah. A lot of those early issues kind 286 00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:23,480 of redefined my dungeon mastering style. 287 00:17:23,839 --> 00:17:26,640 Yeah. A lot of a lot of influence that 288 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:30,560 those had. So. 289 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:34,120 And it was very kind of scattered. 290 00:17:34,120 --> 00:17:36,360 You know, I wasn't, I didn't go and buy it every month. 291 00:17:36,360 --> 00:17:41,040 It was really like if I had enough money, if I had to pocket 292 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:44,240 money to spare and there was an article that you know, there was 293 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:48,320 something interesting in that issue, then I'd go and get it. 294 00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:55,200 It wasn't a regular thing. And I was up until the early, 295 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:59,720 the earliest ones that probably around the 40s in terms of 296 00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:03,800 number. And then that would be like on 297 00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:08,120 and off I'd get issues probably up until into the the early 298 00:18:08,120 --> 00:18:13,080 hundreds. I kind of mostly stopped for a 299 00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:16,040 long time. Then, like as it became more 300 00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:21,200 Games Workshop Game, sorry, Games Workshop magazine, you 301 00:18:21,200 --> 00:18:24,560 know, it came that that transition happened over time, 302 00:18:24,560 --> 00:18:27,640 that it just became like a Warhammer magazine. 303 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,200 I kind of read it less and less though. 304 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:34,200 I was playing, you know, I had Warhammer. 305 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,080 I would play from time to time. Like it was not a main part of 306 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:39,320 my kind of gaming diet at that point. 307 00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,760 Yeah, OK. That's that's fascinating. 308 00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:47,280 So what was the clincher? What what sort of brought you 309 00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:51,640 back into like picking up White Dwarf, reading it and then being 310 00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:54,160 and then just falling in love with Gangs Workshop? 311 00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:58,760 University, absolutely. Like I remember very 312 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:02,440 specifically, it was my like first or second day at 313 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:07,240 university and I walked past someone's room. 314 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:08,720 We were playing. We were staying in these, you 315 00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:12,240 know, big, like, halls of residence. 316 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:16,000 And I walked past, walking along my corridor, past somebody's 317 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,680 room and saw his army, like, laid out on his desk in his 318 00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:24,680 room. I was kind of like a reason to 319 00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:27,360 say hi. I was like, hi, You play war 320 00:19:27,360 --> 00:19:28,440 games. It was like, yeah. 321 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:31,800 And we kind of became best buddies. 322 00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:40,120 And I went out that week and bought myself an army, right? 323 00:19:40,120 --> 00:19:44,080 He was like, you know, I had my like, I'd get my money at the 324 00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:46,520 start of the term. So at the start of the first day 325 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,520 of term, you had like all this money that had to last. 326 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:51,640 You like the next like 3 or 4? Months. 327 00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,000 Oh man, that's that's a, that's a that's a mistake. 328 00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:56,400 Yeah, absolutely. Right. 329 00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:59,240 So I had all this money and I went out and bought myself an 330 00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,840 army and then, you know, had no money for the rest of the 3-4 331 00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:07,600 months. But yeah, it was. 332 00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:12,480 Alex Scott, I don't know if you remember Alex Scott. 333 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:14,960 He was, he worked on the Citadel Journal. 334 00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:17,640 He was one of the writers for the Citadel Journal. 335 00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:22,280 So yeah, he came and joined me at Games Workshop. 336 00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:26,880 So that was like years later he came to work for for GW as well, 337 00:20:29,120 --> 00:20:30,440 but that was it. Yeah. 338 00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:33,280 Then we became war gaming buddies at university and then 339 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:38,120 found a few other like war gamers and that would be like a 340 00:20:38,760 --> 00:20:40,760 little thing. We were the war gaming group at 341 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:42,640 the at university. Wow. 342 00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:46,560 OK. And that's what kind of really 343 00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:50,440 brought me back into it, right? I mean, brought me back into I 344 00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:53,360 was never completely out of it. It was always there. 345 00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:55,360 Yeah. But that was the point that it 346 00:20:55,360 --> 00:20:58,800 really kind of became, you know, when I started like Banquet Wolf 347 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,800 freedom more regularly and started building up armies and 348 00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:06,080 started like doing the the Warhammer hobby like people do 349 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:08,160 it these days. Yeah. 350 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:12,720 So obviously you rediscovered, you know, Wahama through Scott, 351 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:17,280 and then you started getting, you bought an army and which was 352 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,320 probably a good portion of your yearly salary. 353 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,840 And then what sort of drove you to going to the next step of 354 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:27,080 actually applying to work for Games Workshop? 355 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:31,160 So it's going to come back to that question you asked earlier. 356 00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:33,360 Did I have any idea what I wanted to do when I left 357 00:21:33,360 --> 00:21:39,960 university and I needed a job and I my first job was in 358 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:43,760 retail, right? I was working at the Stain 359 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:48,040 store, which is just outside of just outside of London. 360 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:56,200 And I mean, Staines is honestly a pretty accurate description of 361 00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,160 the place where it is. That name doesn't sound very 362 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,080 nice, is it? Isn't it not very popular 363 00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:05,360 clothing store or something? Yeah, I hope I'm not offending 364 00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:07,480 anyone from Stains. I don't think so. 365 00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,520 The people I met from Stains, generally, we're not. 366 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:12,880 Yeah, we're not big fans of the place. 367 00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,640 Yeah, But still, it was a lovely little store and we had like a 368 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:19,720 lot of lovely regulars would come in. 369 00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:26,720 But yeah, it was. It was purely because I needed, 370 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,040 when working in a Games Workshop store looked like it would be 371 00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:34,840 kind of fun thing to do. And it kind of was, you know, 372 00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,840 like you had some retail work to do. 373 00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:41,560 But a big part of the day was just painting minis and showing 374 00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,000 kids how to paint minis and playing games. 375 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:49,200 And, you know, it was, it's, it's not a bad job at all. 376 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,440 It's, it was a fairly entertaining way to spend the 377 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,840 time that I spent there. And then that's what led to my, 378 00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:00,360 to the, the opportunity in the studio. 379 00:23:00,360 --> 00:23:04,480 So it was while I was there, I heard about, you know, the role 380 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:08,840 on Dwarf. So this was the time that it was 381 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,840 right when White Dwarf was about to become fat, as they said. 382 00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:16,800 So at the time they were about to like add in all these extra 383 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,480 pages that they added in and they added in the card section. 384 00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:26,720 So they were looking for more staff to help fill these extra 385 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:27,920 pages. You know, there was all this 386 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:29,240 extra content that would be needed. 387 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,040 So they were looking for staff to kind of help fill those extra 388 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:36,200 pages. And so heard about that like 389 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:42,400 along the Grapevine and applied. And that was, I know it was 390 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,840 super fun just applying and going for the interview. 391 00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:50,080 You know, like I'm sure you never remember when you're when 392 00:23:50,080 --> 00:23:53,600 you're when you're young and you see all these names in the pages 393 00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,680 of White Dwarf and they become, you know, like your your heroes 394 00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,160 and your idols. And it is Rick Priestley and 395 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:05,360 Addy Chambers and all these kind of greats, these legends now of 396 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:08,080 the industry. So I got to go up to the studio 397 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,600 and spend the day at the studio and meet some of these people. 398 00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:15,440 And, you know, kind of John Blanche won this past while 399 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,600 you're sitting like having a chat with Jake Thornton. 400 00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,680 And it's like, wow. Yeah. 401 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:27,760 And they offered me the job. So it's one fun little story 402 00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,520 there because I think there was one thing that came up multiple 403 00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,360 times during the day. I think it was like the little 404 00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:36,920 thing that kind of gave me the edge that kind of got my foot in 405 00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,920 the door. My only job before I'd worked 406 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:43,800 for Games Workshop was working at this beach in Saudi Arabia. 407 00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,800 And, you know, I'd left because of the outbreak of the Gulf War. 408 00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:55,240 And they had a question on the application form, last 409 00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:57,920 employment and reason for leaving last employment. 410 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:01,280 So in that reason for leaving, I'd written outbreak of war. 411 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,280 So I think this was like, you know, this was it was a cool 412 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,720 kind of conversation started, you know, like everyone I talked 413 00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:11,640 to was like, tell me about this outbreak of war being your 414 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:13,320 reason for leaving your last job. 415 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,240 That was my like little thing that I think kind of got me in 416 00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:20,400 the door there. Yeah, would raise a few 417 00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,040 eyebrows. And yeah, like I said, good 418 00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:25,120 conversation point. Who were the people that 419 00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,280 interviewed you when you got to Nottingham? 420 00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:35,600 So started with I think it was Jake and Robin was kind of the 421 00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:38,080 first round. Yeah. 422 00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,960 So Robin was still technically editor at the time I think, but 423 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:48,040 about to move into being studio manager and Jake was about to 424 00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:53,320 take over as being editor. Then I did a like a kind of 425 00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:55,880 little round table with the whole White Dwarf team. 426 00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,920 So there would have been 80 would have been there. 427 00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:06,440 Gav, Ian interviewed with some of the production stuff as well. 428 00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,800 So, Lindsay, do you know Lindsay Rick's? 429 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:18,520 No, Rick's wife. Yeah, yeah, She did a lot of 430 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:25,720 like the editorial work, so maybe some of the other 431 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:27,240 production stuff as well. I can't. 432 00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,120 I don't even remember now. There was the guy, what's his 433 00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:33,840 name? He was one of the production 434 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:35,760 managers. He did all the maps as well. 435 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,880 I don't know, get his name. Yeah, he's not a well known 436 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:40,960 name. Yeah. 437 00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,720 And then, but then I actually turned the job down when they 438 00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:48,160 offered it to me. Oh, really? 439 00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,000 So yeah, I went up and went through all of that. 440 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:52,280 And at the end they offered me the job. 441 00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:57,440 And I was living in London at the time and I had my girlfriend 442 00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:59,280 down in London. I had some other things going 443 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:00,720 on. I had a band that I was really 444 00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,680 into, like doing things with my band. 445 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:09,320 And I kind of felt like it was, I wasn't ready to give up my 446 00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,920 life in London at that point. And it was just a few months 447 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:18,440 later that I reconsidered. So a few months later is like, 448 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,680 actually, maybe that was a bad idea, turning them down. 449 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,040 Maybe, you know, I should have said yes. 450 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:30,440 So I wrote back and said I noticed that there was an 451 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,880 advertisement in White Dwarf at that point looking for writers. 452 00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:35,840 So it's kind of odd. Looks like they haven't filled 453 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:37,680 the posts yet if they're still advertising. 454 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,000 Yeah, I wrote back and said I kind of changed my mind. 455 00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:47,080 And very luckily for me, they they agreed to take me the 456 00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,120 second time. That's good mate, because I 457 00:27:49,120 --> 00:27:52,080 think most, I think you know, from personal experience, I 458 00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,800 think in most cases if you knock them back the first time, they 459 00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:56,600 won't pick you up the second time, you know what I mean? 460 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:58,280 I think that's not just. Yeah, yeah. 461 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,560 Those companies, if you knock them back the first time, 462 00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:02,760 they're a bit hesitant to take you on because they don't know 463 00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,360 whether you're really committed or whatever. 464 00:28:04,360 --> 00:28:05,920 You know that's that's. Yeah, yeah. 465 00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:13,040 So I mean that was yeah. So, you know, all credit to to 466 00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,080 Robin and Jake there for taking me that second time. 467 00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:23,760 But I think, you know, honestly, like it's, it's tough finding 468 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:29,200 people to work in the studio. I mean, I went through we still 469 00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,520 we hired several more writers while I was there. 470 00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,960 And so I was kind of like on the fringe involved in the process. 471 00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,280 And the problem is like, you know, if you advertise for a 472 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,600 post like the writer on White Dwarf, you will get so many 473 00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:49,360 applications from people that have absolutely no 474 00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:55,120 qualifications or, you know, who are absolutely not suited to the 475 00:28:55,120 --> 00:29:00,240 job at all. So it is, it's tough to find, to 476 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,320 find people. And also like, I mean, the pay 477 00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:09,880 was really low. So finding people that have 478 00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,360 something to be able to to offer and are willing to accept the 479 00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,320 level of pay that they that that was available there is also, you 480 00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:21,760 know, it was challenging. Did they? 481 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,400 Pay better so. Did they pay better than stains 482 00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,320 at all or not? No, I actually took a pay cut 483 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:32,360 going from stains, working in the stains in retail to working 484 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:37,640 as a right run dwarf. I think I took maybe like a £500 485 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:39,320 pay cut, pay cut, something like that. 486 00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:44,320 Right, right. The the difference was it stains 487 00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:49,840 because I was at at London, there was like a they took into 488 00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,200 account living expenses and London is more expensive than 489 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,000 Nottingham. So I was like on a higher kind 490 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,800 of like salary band because I was living in London. 491 00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,360 So I actually took a pay cut. I don't remember exactly how 492 00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:10,280 much it was. It was, I certainly started on 493 00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,440 under £10,000 a year. Like it was a four figure 494 00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:18,600 salary, which, you know, even taking into account inflation 495 00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:24,720 was, you know, was minimum minimum wage kind of jobs. 496 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,360 And we wouldn't. It wasn't the lowest because I 497 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,280 know the figure painters the like the heavy metal team got 498 00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,440 paid even less than us. That's me. 499 00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:35,800 That's. What I got? 500 00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:36,960 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 501 00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:38,320 You were working at the average metal team. 502 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:40,680 Yeah, yeah. I remember you and I remember a 503 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,520 few other guys. I never actually talked to you 504 00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,040 over in the White Dwarf team, but you were sort of on the side 505 00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:46,880 there and. Oh, wow. 506 00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:48,720 Yeah. You know Dave Perry. 507 00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:50,320 You know Dave? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 508 00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,600 He lives in Japan here. Yeah, I follow him on Facebook 509 00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:58,160 and kind of. Yeah, yeah, we got to meet a 510 00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,160 couple of years ago, last year I think it was. 511 00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,200 We got to meet up and play some games and hang out and all that 512 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,400 kind of stuff. So yeah, we, he's going to come 513 00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,160 up here at one point and play some old, old, like old hang out 514 00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:09,840 with me. So he's keen to do that. 515 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:11,920 But yeah, he's still, he's still, he's now getting back 516 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,440 into figure painting. He's getting back into gaming 517 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:16,320 and all that kind of stuff now, which is really good. 518 00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:19,560 But I've, you know, I've got like John Wigley. 519 00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,080 I know he's married to a Japanese lady and he comes. 520 00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,560 Here and. There's a quite a few actually, 521 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,680 there's quite a few people that that are associated with Gangs 522 00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,720 Workshop back in that time who actually either live in Japan, 523 00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,400 live in Japan, or they're married Japanese women or 524 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:39,200 whatever, vice versa. And yeah, there's some kind of 525 00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,000 connection here, which is quite, quite odd, but yeah, it's quite 526 00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,080 good at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. 527 00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,840 Facebook friends with Dave and get constantly bombarded with 528 00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:53,400 endless photos of his lunch. That's kind of his thing, I 529 00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,400 suppose, because of whatever he's eating. 530 00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:58,760 Hamburgers. Yeah. 531 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,000 He's always eating like, you know, he's always eating like 532 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,160 really great looking stuff. I'm always like he's. 533 00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:07,440 In good shape. He's in good shape. 534 00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:09,960 So he must, he must work out or something because with all that 535 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,640 stuff he's eating and drinking that, yeah, he's still in good 536 00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:18,120 shape now for his age. But yeah, no, that's good, mate. 537 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,640 Yeah, So. And in AD of course sends his 538 00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:23,240 regards, he said, Oh yeah, you're interviewing, 539 00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,200 interviewing Steve. He's a really good bloke. 540 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:26,400 He said. So that's really nice. 541 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,200 And I said, oh, you should get in touch. 542 00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:34,360 Yeah, it'd be good. Yeah, ADI kind of lost most of 543 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:36,200 the team I kind of stayed in contact with. 544 00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:38,880 Yeah, good. We went our separate ways, but 545 00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:40,320 not really. ADI didn't. 546 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,760 I didn't hear anything at all. But I think the first thing I 547 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:48,520 saw about AD was, no, it wasn't your podcast. 548 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,040 Or is that Tom? Film Deck. 549 00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,960 Yeah, that's the one. He did an interview for Film 550 00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:00,760 Deck, and that was the first time I'd seen anything about him 551 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:04,680 in years. But yeah, he was. 552 00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,720 We used to jam together sometimes. 553 00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,880 Yeah, he was saying that. I noticed you got some guitars 554 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:11,800 behind you, but you said you're a very good bass player. 555 00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:16,000 So yeah, we used to, it was fun, but just, I remember one time we 556 00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,240 booked a little studio, just the two of us to have some, you 557 00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:23,760 know, a space to play and spent an afternoon just him drumming 558 00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,840 and me playing on bass and that was it, just the the two of us 559 00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:27,880 jamming away. It was fun. 560 00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,440 Oh, that's good, mate. Yeah, I heard, I heard from 82 561 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,920 that there were quite a few other people there at the studio 562 00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:37,760 who also played instruments and you had some kind of music, you 563 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,600 know, trio or what have you going on there. 564 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,720 So that's nice, isn't it? So yeah, we'll get, yeah, yeah. 565 00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,680 And it's all about war gaming and painting miniatures. 566 00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,800 We'll do other things and have other interests. 567 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,280 So it's nice we'll have a musical kind of bond together. 568 00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,800 It was that and the rock climbing that was the other 569 00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:57,960 thing that happened a lot in the studio. 570 00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,320 Right. There was some like Little Rock 571 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:03,360 climbing. There were a few Little Rock 572 00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:07,560 climbing clans, but it was kind of quite a popular pastime. 573 00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,600 Yeah, I saw Mike McVeigh and I think Richard Wright. 574 00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:13,639 No talk about going rock climbing or something like that. 575 00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:16,920 So yeah, I remember that when I was there. 576 00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,639 But anyway, I'm looking to go for a quick break because we're 577 00:34:19,639 --> 00:34:22,880 almost out of this Zoom limit time, but we'll kick back. 578 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,199 We can talk more about your time at at the studio and other 579 00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:30,360 things you progressed on within your career, but we'll be back 580 00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:39,440 in just a moment. Well, let's let's go back to 581 00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,440 when you're at the studio now you've you've landed your dream 582 00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,840 job, I hope at, at the White Dwarf team as one of the editors 583 00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,400 and writers of the White Dwarf magazine. 584 00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:52,360 But I think I think most people would know you and associate 585 00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,040 yourself and your name, especially with the Necromander 586 00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,040 articles. Would that be a fair call? 587 00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,600 Yeah, I mean there are two things that people kind of like 588 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,600 still when people still remember. 589 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,440 There are two things that people remember is 1 the Necromander 590 00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:13,360 articles, the whole Papa Steve thing, and the other is that one 591 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:18,920 article, the the secret Diary, I forget which issue it was now 592 00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:21,600 issued 200 and something very early, 2 hundreds. 593 00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:28,920 I wrote that. So it was actually, that was 594 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:32,120 interesting how the article came about because I started writing 595 00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:39,400 it literally like as a diary on my desk and Jake walked past 596 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:41,560 behind me one day and saw it and he was like, oh, we should turn 597 00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:45,880 that into an article. And then I just kind of like, 598 00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,320 you do what started it and didn't finish it and other 599 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,640 things to priority. And I stopped working on the 600 00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,040 Army I was working on and stopped writing the article that 601 00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:56,440 started writing. And it all just kind of fell 602 00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:01,080 aside for months. And then a few months later, we 603 00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:05,560 were doing the the staff tournament and we needed to do 604 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,400 some coverage for the staff tournament. 605 00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:13,360 And I don't know if it was Jake that suggested it or if I 606 00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:14,720 brought it. I don't remember where the idea 607 00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:18,080 came from, but it was like, hey, that article you started those 608 00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,320 months ago, have I do that for the the staff tournament, you 609 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,880 know, will be a little bit more interesting than just doing the, 610 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,360 you know, the kind of very dry newsroom style article that the 611 00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,760 that we'd usually done for those kinds of things. 612 00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,960 So yeah, that became our grand tournament, grand tournament, 613 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,360 staff grand tournament kind of coverage article. 614 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,960 Was that the secret diary? And that's still, I think it's 615 00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:49,240 still probably my favorite article I did on Dwarf and very 616 00:36:49,240 --> 00:36:52,920 often gets when when people remember things from from those 617 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,920 days, it comes up often. I think what was really great 618 00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,920 about that article and what people remember about it was, 619 00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,600 well, probably how I mean, it was. 620 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,560 It was a real account, right? There was kind of, there was 621 00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:10,000 nothing polished about it. There was really like me 622 00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,480 starting something and getting bored of it and then restarting 623 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,600 it months later. But more than that, it was, you 624 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,480 know, I was not a great miniature painter, right? 625 00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,440 That was a very kind of functional miniature painter. 626 00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:27,760 But I still got to have my army showing in the pages of White 627 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,920 Dwarf. And it was for most people that 628 00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:34,680 just never seen like an ordinary army, right? 629 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:38,640 Like what you see is this kind of very aspirational heavy metal 630 00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:40,920 standard, or even when you go into the stores, you see the 631 00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,440 cabinets, which were all kind of a very high standard painting. 632 00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:48,000 And it was really like for a lot of people, it was kind of seeing 633 00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,320 that you don't have to paint like that, right? 634 00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,920 You can, you can just paint in a very ordinary way and it'll 635 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,840 still look great and still, you know, you can have fun with it. 636 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:03,000 And I think that's the thing that people most remember from 637 00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,120 it, right? It's just that kind of like 638 00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:09,880 seeing and, and, and an ordinary looking army in White Dwarf. 639 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:13,920 So that really stands out. That was like, I think one of my 640 00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:16,560 favorite things. And the whole the whole papasti 641 00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,040 thing was a little bit strange because I was actually never 642 00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,040 like a huge fan of Necromunda to be honest. 643 00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:23,280 Oh, really? OK. 644 00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,040 Like I really, the law was fantastic and the minis were 645 00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,400 fantastic, but just the game itself. 646 00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:34,640 So I think the a big part of playing war games for me is the 647 00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,800 spectacle. It's just, you know, having like 648 00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,760 two big armies fully painted spectacular scenery, just 649 00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,760 creating this kind of the the experience of it. 650 00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,760 And Necromonda is kind of the antithesis of that, right? 651 00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,280 Like if you see a well played Necromonda game, half the time 652 00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,560 you can't even see the miniatures because it's so much 653 00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:58,480 about like moving and positioning and hiding your 654 00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,880 miniatures. You know, it's difficult to tell 655 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:03,560 the difference between like a table full of Necromonda terrain 656 00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,560 on its own and the game being played. 657 00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:08,680 It's like go and find all the mini as a hit. 658 00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,040 So it didn't really engage me on that kind of like spectacle 659 00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,760 level like, you know, like the big games did. 660 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,760 I still enjoyed it. You know, I still, I still liked 661 00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:20,760 it. You know, it's a kind of 662 00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:22,560 tactical game. It was, you know, it was 663 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,480 fantastically well done, but it was never kind of my favorite 664 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,640 game. It just happened that I fell 665 00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,080 into being like the Necromander person on the team. 666 00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:41,760 It was mostly because the time I joined was I joined just as 667 00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:45,600 Necromundo was launching. And so of course the point that 668 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,120 the game is launching, everyone in the studio has been playing 669 00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,560 it for months already because you know, they're play testing 670 00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,080 it and then they're, you know, they're playing it the writing 671 00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,080 articles before it launches. And then by the time the game 672 00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,040 launches, everybody's moved on to something else. 673 00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,560 But for me, it was still like the new thing, you know, I'd 674 00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:03,280 never seen it before, I'd never played it before. 675 00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,520 So I was a little bit more excited about it than the rest 676 00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:08,840 of the team. So those early Necromundo 677 00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:14,760 articles fell on me to do. I think the first one, the very 678 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:21,680 first one I did was what you mean the Outlanders preview or 679 00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:28,040 the Outlanders launch article? And again, there I think it was, 680 00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:29,800 you know. It was kind of given to me 681 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,240 because I was a little bit more excited about Necromundo and at 682 00:40:33,240 --> 00:40:36,520 the time it was just supposed to be or the mandate was kind of 683 00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:38,280 due. It's a news release. 684 00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,800 It's just, it's a, it's an extended news article to talk 685 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:47,440 about this release. But I wanted to do something a 686 00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:52,800 bit more fun with it rather than just doing kind of a new, a try 687 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,160 sort of press release style. So I kind of like started 688 00:40:57,160 --> 00:40:59,880 writing it from this, you know, from this kind of first person 689 00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:04,240 perspective in putting a little bit more narrative into it, 690 00:41:04,240 --> 00:41:06,360 presenting it in a little bit more of a fun way. 691 00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:11,920 And then the the name that was, I mean, that was the name of my 692 00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,040 gang at the time. You know, I had that the lap 693 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:18,760 gang. It was again, I can't remember 694 00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:23,120 who who came up with it. I don't think it was my own. 695 00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,400 I don't think I came up with the the idea that the Papa thing it 696 00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:30,280 was the gang was almost all Jews at the start. 697 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:32,920 Like I was kind of just experimenting with different 698 00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,400 gang types. And I've made a gang that almost 699 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:39,640 exclusively started with Jews. And so there was like Jews and 700 00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,320 then there was like this was the little back story for the game. 701 00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:48,160 The, the, the leader of the gang was the, the, the dad and he had 702 00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,080 this like little clan of his, his kids. 703 00:41:50,720 --> 00:41:56,040 So it was like Papa and Papa Steve and then the Burger Boys 704 00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:58,400 was the name of the gang after this scenery piece. 705 00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:04,400 So it made like a, a piece of scenery out of a couple Coke 706 00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:06,840 bottles and some corrugated cardboard. 707 00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,760 And there was something I got from an old, old issue of White 708 00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:12,440 Dwarf. It was from something I'd seen 709 00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:18,640 in a, a Judge Dredd article in White Dwarf like years before, 710 00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,800 but literally it taken the the top and the bottom from a Coke 711 00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:28,600 bottle and cut them off, which to make like burger buns. 712 00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,240 And then there was a couple, some corrugated cardboard to be 713 00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:35,960 the burger in the middle and painted it and dripped some PBA 714 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,280 glue and painted that yellow and red to be kind of must. 715 00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,000 And it became like the burger bar. 716 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,120 So that was like my little scenery piece I used in all my 717 00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,480 battles. So as that's where the they 718 00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,800 became the burger boys and that was the birth of papacy from the 719 00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:52,880 burger boys. And it just kind of just kind of 720 00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:56,360 stuck. Everyone seemed to like it. 721 00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:01,400 The, the only person that didn't like it was John Blanche because 722 00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:06,720 I used, I replaced my profile picture with a crop from a piece 723 00:43:06,720 --> 00:43:11,200 of John Blanche artwork. And he was he, John was always 724 00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:15,040 kind of very sensitive about how artwork in general got used. 725 00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,680 You know, he things had to be kind of cropped correctly and, 726 00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:24,080 you know, used in a respectful way. 727 00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:30,320 So I remember him coming down when when I first, when I first 728 00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,960 had that that little crop, I was kind of like, what's going on 729 00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:34,640 here? How come? 730 00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,200 You know, because it's taken from a bigger piece of artwork. 731 00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,800 But evidently Jake managed to convince him because we ended up 732 00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:49,000 using it. So yeah, that's how that's how 733 00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,720 Papa Steve was born. Wow, there you go. 734 00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,960 Excellent bit of legacy there. And yeah, I'm sure people would 735 00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,640 would be interested to know your thoughts about Nick or Amanda 736 00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,360 not being your favorite game. So am I to presume that 737 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,200 Warhammer was your favorite game? 738 00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:05,560 Like as a spectacle kind of thing on the tabletop? 739 00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:07,600 Can that be right? Yeah. 740 00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:09,720 I mean, Fantasy Battle was absolutely. 741 00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:15,920 That was my reason for playing. 40K was great as well. 742 00:44:16,680 --> 00:44:22,800 The guy was very much into 40K, but Fantasy Battle, I think was 743 00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:28,560 the the IT was the archetype of the spectacle game, right? 744 00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:30,280 You know, these big blocks of units. 745 00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,960 I mean, that's how I always imagined a war game should look 746 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,760 like. Yeah, that was always, that was 747 00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:38,920 what did it for me. Epic. 748 00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:42,120 I played quite a lot of epic as well. 749 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:46,760 I think the thing about Epic for me was my girlfriend at the time 750 00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,000 would play Epic with me. It was the one Games Workshop 751 00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:54,120 game that she was she wasn't really into, but she was, you 752 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:56,800 know, accepting enough of that. She would play games. 753 00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:02,200 She had an Eldar army, had had my for my Epic squad army. 754 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,480 So we would play 40K against each other. 755 00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,880 Yeah. But yeah, Warhammer Fantasy 756 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,440 Battle was the that was the one for me. 757 00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:12,360 Nice mate. That's great. 758 00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,120 Yeah, well, that's well, that's good. 759 00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,840 You got to play. But Epic too, because I was 760 00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,400 talking to AD of course, in our live stream yesterday and we 761 00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:20,560 have a great love and passion for Epic. 762 00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,920 It was the game that sort of introduced us to mass battles on 763 00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:30,160 table tops because the like I'm I wasn't a student like you had 764 00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,480 a massive amount of money at the start of the year to spend and 765 00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,760 splash on an army for myself Wahama. 766 00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:39,240 So it was very difficult to buy a Wahama fantasy army, but Epic 767 00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:45,840 was a very affordable way to get into a mass tabletop game from 768 00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:48,400 Games Workshop. And what a what a great system 769 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:49,800 it was too. And it still is. 770 00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:55,680 Yeah, so actually my very first battle report on White Dwarf was 771 00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,600 against AD and it was an Epic battle report. 772 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:02,680 I think it was probably the last battle report we did for that 773 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:08,360 edition of Epic. So that was my my my 774 00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:11,560 introduction to battle reports. I think I remember I had Eldar. 775 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:17,080 I think AD had Chaos. Honestly I don't remember a lot 776 00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,840 about that game apart from I Lost. 777 00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:22,880 Right, I have to go after going to look at that because I really 778 00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,760 want to find that battle report now that that doesn't ring a 779 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:27,760 bell with me. But I'm now really curious as to 780 00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,040 what that was. So I have to go and try to track 781 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,120 it down mate. Yeah, would have been the early 782 00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:35,960 190's, like 192 or 193 around there. 783 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:39,240 Yeah. The only other thing I remember 784 00:46:39,240 --> 00:46:42,880 about that one, that was my first ever painted mini that 785 00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,160 appeared in the magazine was in that battle report. 786 00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:50,320 There was the, I don't know what had happened to the Eldar army, 787 00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:52,720 but it had various minis missing. 788 00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:55,520 Like there were units that were not quite complete. 789 00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,680 So just to play the game, I had to go in and paint up a few 790 00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:04,400 extra minis to round it out. If you look very, very carefully 791 00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,760 in some of the photos, you can tell some of the minis, you 792 00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,920 know, are a little bit less well painted than the rest of their 793 00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:12,960 unit. And that's the, that's my ones 794 00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,080 in there have to be. You have to look hard to find 795 00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:17,320 them though, because they're so small. 796 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,680 Yeah, that's nice. And the sudden they did a new 797 00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:27,480 edition of Epic while I was there, which was that was Andy 798 00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:32,800 and Jervis worked on that that that never really grabbed me 799 00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:36,200 that I'm not sure if that was like second or third edition or 800 00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:38,560 what edition it was. Epic four third. 801 00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:39,840 Edition, right? Yeah. 802 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,120 It didn't really grab me. I think there were. 803 00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:47,760 I think Andy and Jervis kind of acknowledged that, you know, 804 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,760 during the course of shortly after the release of the game 805 00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:57,440 that, you know, a lot of people found it too too gamey, too 806 00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:02,040 gamified, too kind of abstract, that it was more about the rules 807 00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,800 and about the tabletop experience. 808 00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,800 There was, I remember there was one very specific thing that 809 00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,920 bothered me about it, which was that I really loved the Flyer 810 00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:17,480 miniatures. Some of my favorite epic 811 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:20,040 miniatures were the Flyers that they did, like they did these 812 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:26,560 fantastic little bombers and or you know, planes and you didn't 813 00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:30,240 get to put them on the tabletop. Those flyer rules for that 814 00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:34,080 edition was they sat on the side of the table and then when you 815 00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,000 did an attack with them, you kind of moved them across the 816 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:38,800 table and then you took them off the table again. 817 00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:41,920 And that was kind of a little pet peeve of mine. 818 00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,560 It was like, you know, like I was saying earlier, what I like 819 00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:48,680 about the games is creating the spectacle, having like a table 820 00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:51,120 cup full of miniatures and having like your favorite 821 00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:55,680 miniatures out on the table. So it was kind of really, really 822 00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:59,400 greated me that I would then have miniatures just sitting on 823 00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:04,120 the side and not playing. So, you know, it's kind of, I 824 00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:07,440 think people's criticism of that edition I found kind of very 825 00:49:07,640 --> 00:49:09,760 valid. And it was certainly not my 826 00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:16,200 favorite edition either. I think the I also just it was 827 00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,160 epic as well. Just because they're so you 828 00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:22,040 know, that they're so small. What makes spectacle there is 829 00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:24,880 having the big minis, having the Titans on there. 830 00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:30,000 So I think really where Epic became more interesting was when 831 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:35,440 you had lots of those big, when it was less focused on large 832 00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:37,640 units of infantry, but when you had those kind of big, 833 00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:43,640 impressive Titans and those bring about the battlefield. 834 00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:46,480 Interesting. Yeah, I think, I think 3rd 835 00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:48,320 edition was kind of like Marmite. 836 00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:51,880 I think either you loved it or hated it, and I think there was 837 00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:56,040 not so many people in between. I've never actually tried it and 838 00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:59,240 I just know without even trying it I haven't playing it. 839 00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:02,720 I just don't think it has the same essence that second edition 840 00:50:02,720 --> 00:50:06,920 has and the same things, the same qualities that 2nd edition 841 00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,400 gave me. So but I will give it a go. 842 00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:13,280 I will give it a go and give it a good shot and just see, you 843 00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,320 know, at the end what I really feel about it. 844 00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:19,840 But I know from one of the guys on a discord, another Canadian 845 00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:21,600 actually, he actually squares by. 846 00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:24,080 He absolutely loves it. So, but I don't think he ever 847 00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,200 played second edition. I think 3rd edition was his 848 00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:28,240 first kind of experience playing Epic. 849 00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,400 So that's interesting. But let's go, let's go back to a 850 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,840 game that you do really feel passionate about, and that's 851 00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,040 Warhammer. And what kind of armies did you, 852 00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,280 what was your first army you collected by the way, that you 853 00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:40,640 bought when you're in university? 854 00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:43,640 Undead all. Right. 855 00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:48,520 So at the time they had like this kind of undead army in a 856 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,200 box kit. It was like all plastic, which 857 00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:54,640 was, you know, very uncommon at the time. 858 00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:59,080 And the reason I got it was very simply because it was the 859 00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,960 cheapest army you could get, because you could, you could buy 860 00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:09,600 this box set and you know, it was kind of like at a discount 861 00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,160 because it was in the box. And again, there wasn't a lot of 862 00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,560 that at the time. And it was all plastic, which 863 00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:19,200 made it much cheaper. So it started off by going down 864 00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:25,640 to the, the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street was where I bought 865 00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:27,680 it, I think. Not the Virgin game store, not 866 00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,280 the Megastore, the Virgin Game store. 867 00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:36,040 And I bought 2 boxes of this undead army in a box and then 868 00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:40,200 got them back and realized half the plastic was missing in each 869 00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:43,440 of the boxes. So went back to the store and 870 00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:45,440 they gave me two more whole boxes. 871 00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,960 Oh wow. I had like 2 full boxes, +2 half 872 00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:54,560 boxes. And they were also super quick 873 00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:56,160 and easy to paint. Yeah. 874 00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:58,880 So that was nice as well. You know, skeletons are like 875 00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:04,880 spray paint them white ink wash painting the weapons. 876 00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:06,760 That was it. That was that was good enough 877 00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:10,720 for the skeletons. So yeah, that was my that was my 878 00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:16,000 first kind of real army. And then over time experimented 879 00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:23,280 with pretty much everything had a empire army. 880 00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,880 I was very fond of dwarfs historically. 881 00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:29,520 Have frequently gone back to dwarfs. 882 00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:34,600 Chaos as well. Frequently gone back to Chaos. 883 00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,200 Wood Elves has always been a favorite as well. 884 00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:41,600 Yep. Wood elves? 885 00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:46,560 Wood elves was like wood elves when Gary Morley did his wood 886 00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:50,480 elves sculpts. I think he did the range for 887 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:55,040 what was it, 5th edition I guess 4th or 5th edition? 888 00:52:55,120 --> 00:53:00,160 4th edition, right? And those remain to this day 889 00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,760 like my, some of my favorite minis. 890 00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,800 I think I mean by anything Gary Morley does, anything the Perry 891 00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:12,320 twins do is like for me, that's like their style, their 892 00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:14,880 aesthetic, That's what kind of grabs me. 893 00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,920 So the Perry's, their empire range is just incredible. 894 00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:23,920 And I think those two ranges, the Perry's Empire, Empire minis 895 00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:32,200 and Gary's Woodall's, those are the two that I could never get 896 00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,160 enough of. Those two ranges. 897 00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:42,480 Dwarfs is more kind of they're, you know, I like to play with 898 00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,480 dwarfs because they're, they're simple and easy to play with. 899 00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:50,320 You just sit there and shoot them until they get close enough 900 00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:51,920 and then smash them when they get close. 901 00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:53,640 And you know, you don't have to think too much. 902 00:53:55,040 --> 00:53:57,840 Kind of fits my play style nicely, yeah. 903 00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:01,120 But in terms of many, it's the the Empire and the Willows of 904 00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:05,840 the two that historically have really, really appealed to me. 905 00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:07,920 If you if you can hear a screaming Boblin in the 906 00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:11,200 background, that's my son downstairs being tickled by his 907 00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,160 mother. So apologies for that. 908 00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:18,480 We both have kids, me and Steve, and we both like I'm this is 909 00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:22,320 we're recording now at 9:30 and my son is just having a bit of a 910 00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:26,000 tickle session with his mother. And your, your little hobbits 911 00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:27,280 are running around too, aren't they mate? 912 00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:29,800 In the background so. Yeah, I can hear them just 913 00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:33,280 getting up now, so. Yeah, you are Papa after all. 914 00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:39,080 Goblets as well. That's my other Yeah, the other 915 00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:44,640 army, the goblin army that I did for the that one article. 916 00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,600 But yeah, that was the only time I ever played with goblins and 917 00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:50,280 that. How did that happen? 918 00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:52,920 I honestly can't remember. I thought, oh, yeah, of course 919 00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,200 it was because there was a new goblin range being worked on at 920 00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,040 the time. So, you know, and that was 921 00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,960 exactly, like I say in the article, exactly how it 922 00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:03,080 happened. You know, whenever you see 923 00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:06,320 something new and shiny, that's what you want to collect. 924 00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,680 And so, you know, we're seeing some new shiny orcs and goblins 925 00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:11,520 around in the studio and thinking, oh, I'm going to have 926 00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:16,000 to build the goblin army now. And then regretting it from the 927 00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:20,400 reality of painting up a whole army of goblins sets in. 928 00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:23,000 Yeah, mate. Yep, Yep, exactly. 929 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:26,240 But yeah, it's, it's probably the great atmosphere to be in 930 00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:28,880 working in the steer. You're always sort of turning 931 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:31,800 your head to the next new thing that's coming out and the stuff 932 00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:34,640 that's coming out of the the foundry and everything. 933 00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:36,320 So yeah, that's, that's a wonderful time. 934 00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,080 Do you actually have any of those armies still in your 935 00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,120 collection? Yeah. 936 00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:46,120 So it's interesting like that. So really just like the past few 937 00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:51,200 months, six months or so, six months to a year, I've been kind 938 00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,440 of getting back into it a little bit, sort of discovering the 939 00:55:54,440 --> 00:55:58,280 online communities that there are around the games and digging 940 00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:02,800 out some of my old minis. The past, since moving to 941 00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:06,200 Canada, for the longest time I didn't really play much. 942 00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:08,480 There was a little group when I was working at Ubisoft, there 943 00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:12,320 was a little 4 DK group there. I play occasional games there, 944 00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:18,280 but my main gaming the past 10-15 years has been other 945 00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:20,440 tabletop games playing a lot of manifold. 946 00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:25,480 But just this kind of past year or so I've been digging out some 947 00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:29,320 of the the old miniature cases and just seeing what's in there. 948 00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:31,720 Nice man. So I still have a pretty pretty 949 00:56:31,720 --> 00:56:36,320 decent dwarf collection. I've been rediscovering that. 950 00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:40,200 Forgotten about found a few. I haven't got the whole enough 951 00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:43,600 for a whole army, but there's some handfuls of wood elf, some 952 00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,080 of my favorite wood elf minis, some of my, you know, the better 953 00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:51,600 painted ones that I've kept more recently it's been more 40K, 954 00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,200 right? I bought the Leviathan box last 955 00:56:55,200 --> 00:57:00,120 year, which is the first time I've bought any 40K in over a 956 00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:01,560 decade. Yeah. 957 00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:04,360 Yeah, and it's such a fantastic box. 958 00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:08,920 Really like, you know, I'm I can't say I'm a huge fan of the 959 00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:14,040 the rules, the 10th edition rules go more inclined to just 960 00:57:14,240 --> 00:57:18,720 do something like either playing very simplified 40K rules or 961 00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,800 playing one page. One page rules work very well as 962 00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:25,920 well. But the mini is just you know, 963 00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:30,520 they're the the quality is just it's astounding these days. 964 00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:35,440 I mean, really like, I love the the the minis that we have in 965 00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:39,800 the Leviathan box. So we have been painting those 966 00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:43,400 up very slowly, but the chipping away at that. 967 00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:44,720 Oh. That's good, mate. 968 00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:46,160 Yeah, it's good to get into my meeting. 969 00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:48,160 Still active in the hobby. That's nice. 970 00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:57,480 My oldest kid So not long ago, my oldest kid completely none 971 00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:01,120 ironically, when we were walking back from school, turns to me 972 00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:03,240 and goes. Have you ever heard of a game 973 00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:10,080 called Warhammer? And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. 974 00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:14,440 So we get home, and that was kind of the trigger for it all, 975 00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:17,600 you know, literally went down to the basement to find some old 976 00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:20,280 White Dwarf magazines and started training, you know, 977 00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:22,800 showing my picture in some of the magazines. 978 00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:25,480 And then of course, he goes back to school the next day and he's 979 00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:32,080 like, my dad wrote Warhammer, like, OK, not exactly. 980 00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:37,160 So that kind of like brought me back. 981 00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,840 That was kind of the the catalyst to, to rediscovering 982 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,960 things. Don't play a lot. 983 00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:51,520 I'll play occasionally with my with my kid, but that's OK. 984 00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:56,360 It's fun still just painting and playing with the minis and 985 00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:03,120 trying to convince my old Malifu buddy to to start playing some 986 00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:05,040 Warhammer or Warhammer 40K with me. 987 00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:11,960 But he doesn't want to get, he doesn't want to to take the the 988 00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:14,920 pocketbook impact that would, you know, that's required. 989 00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:18,480 So if we're going to play, I'm going to have to have two armies 990 00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,280 for, you know, I'm going to be providing all the menus that 991 00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:23,960 we'll probably get round to it at some point. 992 00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:29,280 You can always do Necromundo. Yeah, I mean, the Necromunda 993 00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:32,240 minis are very, you know, they're very interesting. 994 00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:36,400 You know, the the new ranges I could certainly see. 995 00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:48,400 Yeah. But yeah, I don't, I don't need 996 00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:50,920 to start collecting another range, though. 997 00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,640 I think I'm I'm spending enough as it is. 998 00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:57,320 No, that's fair enough right now, Steve, You. 999 00:59:57,560 --> 00:59:59,160 Yeah, of course. Your time. 1000 00:59:59,160 --> 00:59:59,600 How? How? 1001 00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:02,360 Actually, how long were you employed at Games Workshop 1002 01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:09,720 before you decided to part ways? So I did, I remember I did four 1003 01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:14,600 games days starting in retail. So I think it was probably like 1004 01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:18,840 one in retail and the somewhere between three and four years 1005 01:00:18,840 --> 01:00:21,000 that I worked in retail and Dwarf. 1006 01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:24,640 I think Dwarf was about maybe 2 1/2 close to three years. 1007 01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:32,440 And then but then after I left White Dwarf, I ended up coming. 1008 01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:35,920 It was my next job, in fact was coming back to work on Warhammer 1009 01:00:35,920 --> 01:00:38,040 Online. Oh, right. 1010 01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:44,160 So that was, it was actually a joint production between Games 1011 01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:48,280 Workshop and Climax. So I was employed by Climax, but 1012 01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:51,680 we were still working very closely with the Games Workshop 1013 01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:53,680 team. I mean, Robin was Robin Dews 1014 01:00:53,680 --> 01:00:59,000 was, I'm not sure this title was like general manager of the, you 1015 01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:00,640 know, the whole thing. All right. 1016 01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:03,760 So I still had kind of, you know, daily contact with Robin 1017 01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:08,280 and Jake and Mark from White Dwarf had both also gone to work 1018 01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:11,080 at on Warhammer Online after they left. 1019 01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:13,680 So. It's a little bit of a reunion 1020 01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:17,600 of the the old Dwarf team, and this is the so this is the first 1021 01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:20,080 version of Warhammer Online, of course. 1022 01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:23,160 So a lot of people don't know that there were two Warhammer 1023 01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,520 Online games. There was one made by climax and 1024 01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:31,040 then that got cancelled after a few years and then it got re 1025 01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:37,000 picked up again by mythic people that made dark age of Camelot. 1026 01:01:38,000 --> 01:01:41,640 But that so that version we were working on was very much kind of 1027 01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,400 very much more inspired by Warhammer fantasy role play. 1028 01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,440 So the, the eventual Warhammer Online, the one that that 1029 01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:55,040 launched the age of reckoning was it was kind of like this 1030 01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:57,040 realm versus realm. You played the different races. 1031 01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,200 It was, it had a very kind of Warhammer fantasy battle feel to 1032 01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,840 it where you know, you had your, your faction, dark elves or orcs 1033 01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:06,480 or whatever. The, the original version was 1034 01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:11,600 very fantasy role play inspired. So you played like in the 1035 01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:17,040 Empire, a little band of adventurers uncovering the dark 1036 01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:20,640 secrets that lay beneath the cities and mountains of the 1037 01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:25,040 Empire. And that was, I mean, it was 1038 01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:30,400 fantastic at the start. I think it was very similar in a 1039 01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:34,960 way to what happened when I went on, when I started on Dwarf. 1040 01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:40,640 So, so just going back a little bit again to the dwarf days. 1041 01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:48,160 I mean, when I started, we had like a ridiculous amount of 1042 01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:54,440 creative freedom. You know, we really, we were a 1043 01:02:54,440 --> 01:02:59,320 bunch of passionate gamers just playing games and writing about 1044 01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:02,960 them. You know, we, we were aware that 1045 01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:05,480 we had a job which was selling miniatures, right? 1046 01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:09,200 The ultimately, but at the same time that was never really 1047 01:03:09,200 --> 01:03:11,800 pushed on us, right? You know, we were very 1048 01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:13,640 independent. The studio was very independent. 1049 01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:18,080 And we, we would have a little pitch meeting at the start of 1050 01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:20,960 each month. We would together, the White 1051 01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:22,920 Dwarf team, we would kind of pitch the articles we wanted to 1052 01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:25,520 do that month. If there were specific things 1053 01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:28,120 that had to be done, then, you know, Jake and AD would kind of 1054 01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:30,000 like say, you know, we have to do this, we have to do this. 1055 01:03:30,440 --> 01:03:32,960 Any ideas what we do with those? But we've really had a huge 1056 01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:37,720 amount of creative freedom. I think it really shows as well, 1057 01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,600 you know, those those issues that kind of one night is into 1058 01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:46,440 the early 2 hundreds. Obviously I'm very biased, but I 1059 01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:49,320 think even trying to look objectively, I think those were 1060 01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:52,800 some of the best issues of White Dwarf have ever been published, 1061 01:03:52,800 --> 01:03:55,160 right? Because I think that, you know, 1062 01:03:55,160 --> 01:03:58,560 that authenticity, that genuineness about it does just, 1063 01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:01,720 you know, being a bunch of passionate gamers really shone 1064 01:04:01,720 --> 01:04:06,280 through. And then at some point, you 1065 01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:10,480 know, in the, the early 2 hundreds, the upper management 1066 01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:14,120 of the studio, of the studio of the company started cottoning on 1067 01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:17,840 to the fact that, you know, US son dwarf and the studio in 1068 01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:20,080 general were just kind of like doing our own thing. 1069 01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:24,520 And I mean, you, you probably know more about that period than 1070 01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:26,960 I do because, you know, you've talked to to all the people 1071 01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:31,320 about that transition, but that upper management started coming 1072 01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:34,680 in and being a bit more controlling and having more 1073 01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:38,840 impact. So the immediate impact for us, 1074 01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:42,480 of course, was Jake being moved off, you know, Jake being moved 1075 01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:48,840 on to other responsibilities and being replaced by at well, at 1076 01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:52,960 the time this even before Paul Sawyer came in, there was a 1077 01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:57,040 managing editor came in. Chris. 1078 01:04:57,040 --> 01:04:58,760 Chris Colston. Oh, yeah. 1079 01:04:58,760 --> 01:04:59,400 Chris. Yeah, yeah. 1080 01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:03,880 So he came in as managing editor, right. 1081 01:05:03,880 --> 01:05:06,320 So he wasn't involved in kind of the creative side, but he was 1082 01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:11,200 kind of technically our boss and then and responsible for the 1083 01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:13,160 production side. But yeah, increasingly it 1084 01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:18,520 became, you know, that that freedom started to be eroded and 1085 01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:22,640 the, you know, the magazine magazine became less fun to work 1086 01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:24,880 on. So I think everyone that was 1087 01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:27,960 there at that time was gone within a year. 1088 01:05:28,600 --> 01:05:36,000 Either quit, you know, me, Mark, Jake soon after, or they moved 1089 01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:37,960 into game development. Thomas moved into game 1090 01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:40,720 development. Gabby and the 80 was the only 1091 01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:44,840 person who stuck it out, who was kind of like transitioned into 1092 01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:48,320 even ADI. Don't think he lasted long on 1093 01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:50,400 again. You probably know more than me. 1094 01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:52,600 You've talked to him. I'm not sure how long he lasted 1095 01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:57,200 on once Paul took over his editor. 1096 01:05:58,000 --> 01:05:59,560 Not long after, I think he got moved. 1097 01:05:59,560 --> 01:06:03,480 I think he moved on just as soon as he took the helm as editor. 1098 01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:05,920 He moved on from there and wanted to do something else. 1099 01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,240 So yeah. But it was intense. 1100 01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:10,480 You know that working on Dwarf was intense. 1101 01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:16,640 It was like you had these four week schedules and as soon as 1102 01:06:16,640 --> 01:06:19,040 you were done with for one or straight into the crunch for the 1103 01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:21,600 next, you know, there wasn't. So there was AI mean there was a 1104 01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:26,440 high turnover rate on on tour. Anyway, I'm drifting up the 1105 01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:30,200 whammer online, but whammer online was very much the same 1106 01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:33,440 kind of experience. Like when we started, we had a 1107 01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:35,640 huge amount of creative freedom, right? 1108 01:06:35,640 --> 01:06:39,440 We were just kind of making we wanted to do and doing what we 1109 01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:42,880 wanted to do. And you know, I was working, I 1110 01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,120 was given initially my mandate. My first mandate was the magic 1111 01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:50,080 system. And I had a blast doing that. 1112 01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:53,760 It was just kind of like making up spells and writing 1113 01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:55,880 descriptions of them. And we had hundreds of magic 1114 01:06:55,880 --> 01:06:58,200 spells. So it's just, you know, creating 1115 01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,000 names and effects and descriptions for hundreds of 1116 01:07:01,000 --> 01:07:03,520 magic spells. And it was really fun. 1117 01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:07,040 It was super cool. But then again, over time, 1118 01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:13,080 people started realizing that yeah, this there was a game that 1119 01:07:13,080 --> 01:07:20,280 had to be made here. And making AI mean making an MMO 1120 01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:27,200 is hard, really hard. Especially we were, we were 1121 01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,560 super inexperienced, not just in the design team. 1122 01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:33,600 I mean, me, Mark and Jake would never worked on a video game 1123 01:07:33,600 --> 01:07:37,040 before, let alone an MMO. Yeah, across the company. 1124 01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:41,000 I mean, very few people had worked on Mmos before. 1125 01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:44,840 Robin, of course, who was in charge of the whole enterprise, 1126 01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:46,880 had never worked on a video game before. 1127 01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:50,760 I don't think. And I think Robin is a marvelous 1128 01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:53,800 manager. I mean, really one of the the 1129 01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:55,560 best managers I've ever worked with. 1130 01:07:55,600 --> 01:07:58,920 You know, I, I don't have enough praise for Robin as a manager, 1131 01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:07,320 but to make an MMO when you've have no experience doing that 1132 01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:11,200 kind of thing was really, you know, it was, it was inevitable 1133 01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:13,600 that, that, that it was not going to work. 1134 01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:16,479 That title. I mean, whatever the kind of, 1135 01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:20,080 whatever the, the precise reasons that it was cancelled 1136 01:08:20,080 --> 01:08:24,680 for, you know, the, whatever the problems were that month, the 1137 01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,800 reason that was given for it being cancelled, it would never 1138 01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:31,080 have worked with the, the team we had and the scope that we 1139 01:08:31,080 --> 01:08:34,120 were looking for and the, the resources and time available. 1140 01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:38,200 If it hadn't been cancelled then it would have been cancelled 1141 01:08:38,200 --> 01:08:40,319 later after more millions had been spent. 1142 01:08:40,319 --> 01:08:45,399 So I think it was the right decision in hindsight, still 1143 01:08:45,399 --> 01:08:49,600 very painful. You know, I think that's one of 1144 01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:53,680 the big things I've learned over my career is not to get attached 1145 01:08:53,680 --> 01:08:57,439 to things. But at the time I hadn't learned 1146 01:08:57,439 --> 01:08:59,720 that lesson. So, you know, I think like, and 1147 01:08:59,720 --> 01:09:02,960 like many of us, we were very passionate about what we were 1148 01:09:02,960 --> 01:09:06,000 doing and very attached to it and very personally invested in 1149 01:09:06,000 --> 01:09:08,800 it. So to have that cancelled and to 1150 01:09:08,800 --> 01:09:13,200 lose like years of work was extremely painful at the time. 1151 01:09:13,399 --> 01:09:16,760 But a very good lesson, you know, a very good lesson about 1152 01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:22,200 not getting attached to, to your work or, or finding the right 1153 01:09:22,200 --> 01:09:24,319 level of attachment. You know, you need a level of 1154 01:09:24,319 --> 01:09:26,760 personal involvement to, to do these kinds of things. 1155 01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:30,319 But, you know, you need to also keep that level of detachment so 1156 01:09:30,319 --> 01:09:33,680 that when it does get taken away from you, it's not, you know, 1157 01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:36,560 it's not too devastating. Yeah, I bet mate, I bet. 1158 01:09:37,319 --> 01:09:38,520 Yeah. So that's interesting. 1159 01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:43,040 That's well, interesting on in the side that all you guys were 1160 01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:45,840 introduced or working for a games company when you've never 1161 01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:48,840 had any experience with creating an MMO or any other computer 1162 01:09:48,840 --> 01:09:52,720 game for that matter. And then yeah, yeah, on a, on a 1163 01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:54,840 Women of Prayer, hoping that everything will be OK and it 1164 01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:56,880 actually used something to be produced at the end. 1165 01:09:56,880 --> 01:10:00,320 So it's very interesting learning that, but we'll have to 1166 01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:01,680 go. Sorry. 1167 01:10:02,480 --> 01:10:04,120 Quick. Ad Break. 1168 01:10:04,120 --> 01:10:06,920 But when we come back, we're going to talk more about your 1169 01:10:06,920 --> 01:10:10,880 involvement with the computer game industry and what you're 1170 01:10:11,240 --> 01:10:13,160 doing right now. You've just announced something 1171 01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:17,080 very exciting recently on Instagram and we can just talk 1172 01:10:17,080 --> 01:10:19,280 about that when we come back in just a moment. 1173 01:10:26,080 --> 01:10:28,920 So let's let's get into the the let's get into the game 1174 01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:32,760 development side of things because after you departed on 1175 01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:35,000 sadly, the fail project with Warhammer Online. 1176 01:10:35,000 --> 01:10:37,200 Where did that take you there mate, From there. 1177 01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:42,680 So there I'm I did a little bit of studying in and around that 1178 01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:44,480 period of time. I went back to university for a 1179 01:10:44,480 --> 01:10:49,960 few years, studied computer science, but then my next job 1180 01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:56,800 after Warhammer Online, I moved. I moved to Paris right on a whim 1181 01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:04,800 really. AI was really into salsa dancing 1182 01:11:04,800 --> 01:11:09,040 at the time and I heard there was a big salsa scene in Paris. 1183 01:11:10,280 --> 01:11:14,640 So I went over originally with a plan of just staying for a few 1184 01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:16,600 months. Like I had a little bit of money 1185 01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:18,760 aside, didn't have anything in particular to do. 1186 01:11:19,440 --> 01:11:24,200 So moved over to Paris and then fell in love with the city. 1187 01:11:24,200 --> 01:11:28,360 So looked for a job there and got the, got the job in the 1188 01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:35,360 small indie studio Monte Cristo, Monte Cristo Multimedia, Monte 1189 01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:36,600 Cristo Entertainment. I don't remember. 1190 01:11:38,960 --> 01:11:42,640 I spent a few years in Paris working in some different 1191 01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:47,240 smaller indie studios there. Met my wife there. 1192 01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:53,040 And then after a few years there, they started there was 1193 01:11:53,040 --> 01:11:58,080 some, the, the, the video games industry was not doing so well 1194 01:11:58,120 --> 01:12:00,320 at that point. You know, they were in, in 1195 01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:03,640 Paris. So the the studio I was working 1196 01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:08,320 for closed down and the next job that I found was in Canada. 1197 01:12:09,480 --> 01:12:15,520 So I originally I applied for a job in at Ubisoft in Vancouver 1198 01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:20,120 and interviewed for a role at Ubisoft Vancouver and then they 1199 01:12:20,120 --> 01:12:26,080 offered me a different role in Montreal and decided to accept 1200 01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:31,080 that and moved over here 15 years ago and haven't really 1201 01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:34,040 looked back since. Love Canada. 1202 01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:37,760 Love Montreal. I'm very settled here now 1203 01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:41,120 working. So the past 15 years has been 1204 01:12:41,200 --> 01:12:48,600 working in AAA, which I mean, it's it's Groundhog Day, right? 1205 01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:52,960 Working in AAA, you come in every day and you do that's a, 1206 01:12:53,480 --> 01:12:55,840 that's a little bit unfair for me to say it like that because 1207 01:12:55,840 --> 01:12:58,440 there's been, I had some great projects and had some great 1208 01:12:58,440 --> 01:13:01,480 times and met some great people in, you know, my 15 years in 1209 01:13:01,480 --> 01:13:05,600 AAA. But at the same time it's like 1210 01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:09,440 it's very, it's very much the same thing each time. 1211 01:13:09,440 --> 01:13:18,280 And that kind of gets, it gets monotonous, it gets frustrating. 1212 01:13:18,760 --> 01:13:22,080 So I mean, 15 years is a long time to be doing a AAA. 1213 01:13:24,280 --> 01:13:27,360 Can I ask what AAA? Can I ask what AAA is? 1214 01:13:27,360 --> 01:13:32,120 Sorry. AAA What do the AAA's the 3A 1215 01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:37,280 stand for? Budget high budget high. 1216 01:13:37,680 --> 01:13:42,000 I don't know what they are this it's, you know, big budget, big 1217 01:13:42,000 --> 01:13:45,800 team, blockbuster games. It's the the Call of Duty is the 1218 01:13:45,800 --> 01:13:49,520 Assassin's Creed, the. AAA title. 1219 01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:50,920 AAA title. OK, now I get. 1220 01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:55,280 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The triple the AAA's actually 1221 01:13:55,280 --> 01:13:59,440 stand for something, but one of the A's is high budget, one of 1222 01:13:59,440 --> 01:14:01,520 them is like. Just money. 1223 01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,080 High, high, high ratings as well. 1224 01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:06,800 Like I think technically to be AAA you need to be like, you 1225 01:14:06,800 --> 01:14:11,560 know, 80% or 90% plus rating, you know, review ratings or I 1226 01:14:12,000 --> 01:14:17,400 don't remember. So, yeah, after 15 years of 1227 01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:21,360 doing that, I mean, you're probably aware as well that the 1228 01:14:21,360 --> 01:14:26,600 past few years have not been good for the AAA industry, the 1229 01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:28,840 AAA video game industry. There's been a lot of 1230 01:14:28,840 --> 01:14:31,680 redundancies, a lot of canceled projects. 1231 01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:35,680 You know, there was this huge boom during the pandemic when 1232 01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:38,760 video games became like, you know, because everyone was just 1233 01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:40,440 sitting at home playing video games all the time. 1234 01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:42,800 So it was this huge boom in the industry. 1235 01:14:43,400 --> 01:14:47,600 And then as soon as the pandemic ended, people started going out 1236 01:14:47,600 --> 01:14:50,120 and doing other things and. Covering the world. 1237 01:14:50,120 --> 01:14:53,040 Boom. Yeah, the boom collapsed, Yeah. 1238 01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,360 So the past years of past couple of years have not been kind to 1239 01:14:56,360 --> 01:15:00,120 the the big video game industry. So there's a lot of 1240 01:15:00,120 --> 01:15:02,160 redundancies, a lot of cancelled projects. 1241 01:15:03,560 --> 01:15:10,960 I left the Ubisoft close to two years ago now to move to another 1242 01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:16,560 big another big video game company idos the most well known 1243 01:15:16,560 --> 01:15:21,040 for Tomb Raider, Deus Ex Few other kind of big titles went 1244 01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:26,120 there just looking for something different and really found just 1245 01:15:26,120 --> 01:15:30,960 more of the same. So last year I decided enough is 1246 01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:32,480 enough. It's time to do something 1247 01:15:32,480 --> 01:15:36,600 different than just packed all that in and left to do my own 1248 01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:41,800 thing, which in this case is making a video game about Welsh 1249 01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:46,600 mythology in the Welsh language. So, you know, a little bit 1250 01:15:47,280 --> 01:15:52,680 niche, but you know, it's something I'm, I'm passionate 1251 01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:55,840 about and something I, I feel I can get a little little bit more 1252 01:15:55,840 --> 01:16:02,320 personally invested in. So doing that, like normally 1253 01:16:02,320 --> 01:16:09,240 doing that as a solo dev, I'm the the only full time person, 1254 01:16:10,320 --> 01:16:14,400 but I have a little team of freelancers around me, Gav, Gav 1255 01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:15,600 Thorpe. Oh, great. 1256 01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:18,680 I've been working with Gav again, which has been really 1257 01:16:18,680 --> 01:16:22,120 nice. Nice, something with the the 1258 01:16:22,120 --> 01:16:24,080 narrative and the the right thing for the game. 1259 01:16:26,320 --> 01:16:28,320 So that's, I mean, Gav's a lovely guy as well. 1260 01:16:28,320 --> 01:16:29,600 I don't know if you talked to him yet. 1261 01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:31,840 Is he getting on your podcast? Not yet. 1262 01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:33,920 So it's a date mate. We need to get that. 1263 01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:38,880 We need to get that sorted out. Yeah, I mean, he's a very busy 1264 01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:41,400 guy as well, so, you know, good luck tying him down. 1265 01:16:43,280 --> 01:16:45,320 I mean, he's an absolutely lovely guy. 1266 01:16:46,400 --> 01:16:49,560 And you know, it's a really pleasure to be to be working 1267 01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:50,800 with Megan after all these years. 1268 01:16:51,280 --> 01:16:55,520 And we actually were involved in the project together, but not 1269 01:16:55,520 --> 01:17:00,720 directly some years back. For Honor do you know For Honor 1270 01:17:01,400 --> 01:17:06,720 like the sword fighting? Ubisoft's big sword fighting, 1271 01:17:06,720 --> 01:17:11,720 axe fighting like battle game? Never heard of it, no. 1272 01:17:11,720 --> 01:17:15,360 Sorry, check it, check it out. You might, you know Forerunner. 1273 01:17:15,360 --> 01:17:18,320 Is it forerunner? For Honor. 1274 01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:20,640 For Honor, I apologize. I do. 1275 01:17:20,800 --> 01:17:22,480 For Honor. I've never played it, but that 1276 01:17:22,480 --> 01:17:25,720 came out quite some time ago I think For the Xbox I think it 1277 01:17:25,720 --> 01:17:28,800 wasn't it. Probably across all platforms. 1278 01:17:28,840 --> 01:17:33,680 All platforms, right? So Gav was, he was working on 1279 01:17:33,680 --> 01:17:36,640 the lore for that. Like he wrote all the kind of, 1280 01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:41,800 he wrote like the big lore Bible for the game I was actually away 1281 01:17:41,800 --> 01:17:43,320 on. He came over to Montreal for a 1282 01:17:43,320 --> 01:17:45,360 bit, but I was away on parental leave. 1283 01:17:46,600 --> 01:17:49,000 But when he came over, so we didn't meet up during that time. 1284 01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:52,920 But, you know, I'm sure I was working with his lore Bible when 1285 01:17:52,920 --> 01:17:54,440 that when I came back on the project. 1286 01:17:57,120 --> 01:18:01,240 But yeah, that's, that's been fun working with him again and, 1287 01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:02,880 you know, a little team of other freelancers. 1288 01:18:04,000 --> 01:18:08,960 So yeah, that's, that's my, that's kind of my current 1289 01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:14,480 passion project. Yeah, it's kind of, I'll give 1290 01:18:14,480 --> 01:18:17,920 you the whole story of how that came about a lot of. 1291 01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:20,360 Stories too, man, because I was going to say my next question 1292 01:18:20,360 --> 01:18:22,520 would be like, have you ever been to Wales? 1293 01:18:22,520 --> 01:18:25,320 But obviously you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 1294 01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:31,400 So a little, kind of a little. OK, I'll get back to White Dwarf 1295 01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:35,560 in a second because it kind of very, very tangentially ties 1296 01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:37,640 back into White Dwarf and I'll get there in a second. 1297 01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:42,200 So my mother, I've always known there's Welsh connections in my 1298 01:18:42,200 --> 01:18:44,440 family, right? My mother's name is Bronwyn. 1299 01:18:45,400 --> 01:18:49,320 My grandmother is Gwen. Gwen Jones, which is like, Gwen 1300 01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:51,680 Jones is like, you know, it's as Welsh as you can get. 1301 01:18:51,800 --> 01:18:53,600 Yeah, that's right. So, you know, it's kind of like 1302 01:18:54,480 --> 01:18:56,800 there's an awareness that there's Welshness, you know, 1303 01:18:56,800 --> 01:18:58,240 that there's a Welsh influence there. 1304 01:18:58,560 --> 01:19:01,200 But my family never identified as Welsh, right? 1305 01:19:01,200 --> 01:19:04,440 They're all very firmly British. Like my mother was very British. 1306 01:19:04,440 --> 01:19:07,280 My, my grandmother Gwen Jones was like, she was never Welsh. 1307 01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:11,600 She was British, not so much as a hint of a Welsh accent. 1308 01:19:12,040 --> 01:19:14,040 Certainly never heard them speaking Welsh. 1309 01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:19,120 Yeah. But then last year, my little 1310 01:19:19,120 --> 01:19:21,960 girl was doing a school project on the family. 1311 01:19:23,520 --> 01:19:25,560 We were, I was helping her out. We were researching our family 1312 01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:29,200 tree and our family ancestry and all kind of my old relatives 1313 01:19:29,200 --> 01:19:32,800 were sending over photos and old newspaper clippings and all 1314 01:19:32,800 --> 01:19:35,200 kinds of stuff. And I started finding Welsh in 1315 01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:37,080 there. Like there were newspaper 1316 01:19:37,080 --> 01:19:40,800 articles written in the Welsh language and on the back of 1317 01:19:40,880 --> 01:19:44,640 family photos, it was Welsh language writing just kind of, 1318 01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:46,680 OK, this is interesting, you know. 1319 01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:50,320 So I started looking into it and found that in fact, my, my 1320 01:19:50,320 --> 01:19:53,800 family, my mother's side is like up until my grandparents 1321 01:19:53,800 --> 01:19:57,440 generation were very firmly Welsh, you know, they were Welsh 1322 01:19:57,440 --> 01:20:01,280 language speakers. They were my, a fun one. 1323 01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:06,440 I found my great, great, great grandfather was the first person 1324 01:20:06,440 --> 01:20:11,040 to ever sing the Welsh national anthem in North Wales. 1325 01:20:13,040 --> 01:20:16,760 And so like it was a core part of the family identity up until 1326 01:20:16,760 --> 01:20:20,760 my, my grandparents generation, and then it just kind of stopped 1327 01:20:20,920 --> 01:20:23,120 there. So from my grandparents 1328 01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:25,600 generation onwards, it became instead of being Welsh 1329 01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:29,240 identifying Welsh speaking, it became British identifying 1330 01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:33,080 English speaking. So I started researching this 1331 01:20:33,080 --> 01:20:36,160 more and started discovering, you know, the history behind all 1332 01:20:36,160 --> 01:20:38,200 of this and the reasons behind all of this and this kind of 1333 01:20:38,880 --> 01:20:44,120 your cultural suppression and linguistic suppression that 1334 01:20:44,120 --> 01:20:48,040 happened to to the Welsh people and the Welsh language, you 1335 01:20:48,320 --> 01:20:50,800 know, up until well into the the 20th century. 1336 01:20:53,440 --> 01:20:57,960 And at the same time this was happening, I was, you know, 1337 01:20:57,960 --> 01:21:01,680 starting work on my own game and looking for, you know, ideas and 1338 01:21:01,680 --> 01:21:04,680 watching what to do with this. For various reasons. 1339 01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:08,920 I knew I wanted to make a fantasy game, but I mean, 1340 01:21:08,920 --> 01:21:14,320 fantasy is a it's a super over saturated market, right? 1341 01:21:14,440 --> 01:21:19,000 I mean, it's hard to find an interesting original twist on 1342 01:21:19,000 --> 01:21:22,560 the fantasy genre. So I was looking at the history 1343 01:21:22,560 --> 01:21:24,960 of various and just looking for inspiration, looking at the 1344 01:21:24,960 --> 01:21:29,160 history of the the genre, looking at the history of Lord 1345 01:21:29,160 --> 01:21:33,760 of the Rings and Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and Warhammer 1346 01:21:33,760 --> 01:21:35,760 as well. Like the, you know, the, how 1347 01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:39,760 does the, the lore of Warhammer fit into the, the history of 1348 01:21:39,760 --> 01:21:42,880 the, you know, the modern fantasy genre and Dungeons and 1349 01:21:42,880 --> 01:21:47,760 Dragons and all of these different, you know, branches of 1350 01:21:47,760 --> 01:21:49,920 the fantasy genre. As I dealt, as I, as I went 1351 01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:52,040 further and further back in history, I kept finding this 1352 01:21:52,440 --> 01:21:55,280 references to this one book, the Mabinogian. 1353 01:21:56,720 --> 01:22:02,560 And what was interesting about that was, I mean, I'm a hardcore 1354 01:22:02,560 --> 01:22:06,840 fantasy nerd, right? You know, it's the what as a 1355 01:22:06,840 --> 01:22:09,400 right to for Games Workshop. You know, you don't get much 1356 01:22:09,400 --> 01:22:11,800 more hardcore fantasy nerd than that. 1357 01:22:12,360 --> 01:22:14,920 And I heard of the Mabinogian, you know, imagine it's the same 1358 01:22:14,920 --> 01:22:17,720 thing as I imagine, you know, you're you're probably a pretty 1359 01:22:17,720 --> 01:22:21,400 hardcore fantasy nerd as well. And they were just saying like 1360 01:22:21,400 --> 01:22:22,800 you just mentioned, like it's I try to. 1361 01:22:22,800 --> 01:22:24,960 Hard that actually say about I tell my wife I'm not a nerd. 1362 01:22:24,960 --> 01:22:27,960 She always calls me out for Taku and I say no, no, no, I'm not a 1363 01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:29,120 Taku. I'm just like painting 1364 01:22:29,120 --> 01:22:33,400 miniatures, you know? I remember when I was working at 1365 01:22:33,440 --> 01:22:39,560 Ubisoft and we had our little 40K40K group at Ubisoft, when we 1366 01:22:39,560 --> 01:22:43,440 were playing 40K games, the other devs used to come by the 1367 01:22:43,440 --> 01:22:47,960 door and they just lean around the door and they go nerds, you 1368 01:22:47,960 --> 01:22:50,120 know? You know, you're like, yeah, 1369 01:22:50,280 --> 01:22:53,520 when when game developers are shouting nerd at you, you're 1370 01:22:53,520 --> 01:22:56,560 like, you're at the pinnacle of the pyramid of. 1371 01:22:56,560 --> 01:22:59,960 Neriosity There's levels you know you have to climb to ascend 1372 01:22:59,960 --> 01:23:04,560 to to get to the nerddom. So anyway, it was like, there 1373 01:23:04,560 --> 01:23:07,640 was this interesting question there of why have I never heard 1374 01:23:07,640 --> 01:23:11,400 of this book before? You know, it's like it's, it's 1375 01:23:11,400 --> 01:23:14,800 clearly being like a hugely influential, important work in 1376 01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:17,120 the, the development of the fantasy journal. 1377 01:23:17,120 --> 01:23:18,920 But why have I never heard of this? 1378 01:23:20,880 --> 01:23:23,360 And so I started researching the Mapinogian and it's history and 1379 01:23:23,360 --> 01:23:28,200 the reasons why it's not more widely known and discovering 1380 01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:33,040 that there was this big overlap with my own family history and 1381 01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:37,760 the reasons that I was not aware of, you know, the, the, the 1382 01:23:37,760 --> 01:23:41,480 Welshness of my own family history, which is the fact that 1383 01:23:41,480 --> 01:23:42,920 the Mapinogian was written in Welsh. 1384 01:23:42,920 --> 01:23:46,880 It's a Welsh book and there's been this historic suppression 1385 01:23:47,360 --> 01:23:51,400 of Welsh culture. It's not that simple. 1386 01:23:51,400 --> 01:23:54,160 Of course, you know, the reasons are complex and you know, I'm 1387 01:23:54,160 --> 01:23:57,880 not a professional historian, so, you know, I'm not qualified 1388 01:23:57,880 --> 01:24:00,760 to go into the details of it. But it's clear that at the heart 1389 01:24:01,160 --> 01:24:02,560 is the fact that it's a Welsh text. 1390 01:24:03,720 --> 01:24:06,880 So I think when these two things came together at the same time, 1391 01:24:07,400 --> 01:24:10,520 this, you know, discovery of the Mapenagi and then just how 1392 01:24:10,680 --> 01:24:15,480 influential a text it is. And you know, like all every 1393 01:24:15,480 --> 01:24:20,120 fantasy trope you can think of from Dragons and Wizards and 1394 01:24:20,640 --> 01:24:23,840 magic swords and rings of invisibility, you know, the 1395 01:24:23,840 --> 01:24:26,760 magic ring of invisibility, capes of invisibility, you know, 1396 01:24:27,200 --> 01:24:33,280 you get all over the place and battles against hordes of undead 1397 01:24:33,280 --> 01:24:36,200 armies. All these fantasy tropes. 1398 01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:40,520 The first time you find these things in writing is in the 1399 01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:44,720 Mabinogian, right? So it's like it's in a very real 1400 01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:48,200 sense, you could consider it the first work of, of fantasy 1401 01:24:48,200 --> 01:24:54,240 literature kind of lost my line of thinking there a little bit. 1402 01:24:55,320 --> 01:24:57,240 It's when I discovered these kind of two things. 1403 01:24:58,360 --> 01:25:01,760 This, you know, the, the, how powerful and influential the 1404 01:25:01,760 --> 01:25:03,960 Mabanoggan was and the fact that it, you know, it's not more 1405 01:25:03,960 --> 01:25:06,760 widely acknowledged and discovering, you know, how 1406 01:25:07,360 --> 01:25:11,960 ingrained my own family identity was with, with Welsh and the 1407 01:25:11,960 --> 01:25:13,200 Welsh language and the Welsh culture. 1408 01:25:14,320 --> 01:25:16,640 Those two things kind of coming together at that point was kind 1409 01:25:16,640 --> 01:25:19,960 of like, OK, this is this is what I need to do, right? 1410 01:25:20,160 --> 01:25:24,520 This is a what I want to do with, you know, my own project. 1411 01:25:26,320 --> 01:25:30,960 On the one hand, have an opportunity to present these 1412 01:25:30,960 --> 01:25:35,160 stories and, you know, present the, the Mavenoggian to a wider 1413 01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:38,040 audience. Of course in Wales it's very 1414 01:25:38,040 --> 01:25:40,240 well known, you know, as any Welsh person, they've heard of 1415 01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:42,800 the Mavenoggian of course. But the outside of Wales, 1416 01:25:43,960 --> 01:25:48,200 outside of academia in any case, it's really not well known at 1417 01:25:48,200 --> 01:25:49,680 all. So kind of bring a little bit of 1418 01:25:49,680 --> 01:25:54,080 exposure to to to Welsh myths and legends and the stories of 1419 01:25:54,080 --> 01:26:00,160 the Mabinogian and at the same time kind of just pay tribute to 1420 01:26:01,800 --> 01:26:05,720 my own family heritage. And these generations before 1421 01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:11,000 where, you know, their Welsh identity was so important, was 1422 01:26:11,000 --> 01:26:13,320 such an important part of, you know, that heritage. 1423 01:26:14,360 --> 01:26:18,920 And then, you know, it was sad to have to to have discovered 1424 01:26:18,920 --> 01:26:21,840 that and then to see that literally over the course of a 1425 01:26:21,840 --> 01:26:24,480 single generation just dissolve. So absolutely. 1426 01:26:25,320 --> 01:26:28,720 So just kind of reconnect with that family history as well. 1427 01:26:30,360 --> 01:26:35,680 So for, you know, for those reasons, I started making a game 1428 01:26:35,680 --> 01:26:39,560 about the, the, the Tales from the Mavanaghian, the which is 1429 01:26:39,560 --> 01:26:40,760 the, you know, the title of the game. 1430 01:26:41,160 --> 01:26:43,560 Yeah, wonderful man. I saw your trailer on Instagram 1431 01:26:43,560 --> 01:26:47,080 and yeah, it's very impressive visually impressive. 1432 01:26:47,080 --> 01:26:50,920 I like the Welsh language of course as well and you know it's 1433 01:26:50,920 --> 01:26:53,880 really nice. So it you've you've definitely 1434 01:26:53,880 --> 01:26:56,840 nailed down the theme and I think it's going to be very 1435 01:26:56,840 --> 01:26:59,040 popular. Well, hopefully with a lot of 1436 01:26:59,040 --> 01:27:01,560 people in Wales, but across the world of course as well. 1437 01:27:01,560 --> 01:27:05,360 Because I think it's again, it's like, like you say, it's like an 1438 01:27:05,360 --> 01:27:11,480 untapped part of fantasy literature that maybe a lot of 1439 01:27:11,480 --> 01:27:13,280 people don't know about. I'd certainly didn't know about 1440 01:27:13,280 --> 01:27:15,960 that book and I had no nothing. I know Owen Stayton. 1441 01:27:15,960 --> 01:27:18,680 I've sort of got you onto Owen Stayton's work as well because 1442 01:27:18,680 --> 01:27:22,400 he talks a lot of, he tells a lot of tales about Welsh 1443 01:27:22,400 --> 01:27:26,080 folklore. And so I thought I'd put you in 1444 01:27:26,080 --> 01:27:30,400 contact with him because he'd be a perfect person to talk to, at 1445 01:27:30,400 --> 01:27:33,720 least if you just wanted somebody to, to just, you know, 1446 01:27:33,720 --> 01:27:39,120 bounce ideas off or what have you about Wales and you know, 1447 01:27:39,120 --> 01:27:41,160 the Welsh folklore because he knows it by heart. 1448 01:27:42,280 --> 01:27:44,360 But yeah, it sounds like a really interesting project. 1449 01:27:44,360 --> 01:27:46,320 And I just want to wish you all the best with a mate. 1450 01:27:46,320 --> 01:27:50,600 And we'll keep in touch with its its progression and see how it 1451 01:27:50,600 --> 01:27:54,000 evolves. And I'm glad that you have a 1452 01:27:54,000 --> 01:27:58,360 great team of freelancers behind you in in part of this. 1453 01:27:58,360 --> 01:28:01,360 And yeah, mate, look, we'll just keep, keep in touch with what 1454 01:28:01,360 --> 01:28:04,960 happens, what happens with it. I'll, I'll leave some links here 1455 01:28:04,960 --> 01:28:09,720 for you, for your social media so people can actually go and 1456 01:28:09,720 --> 01:28:12,280 see the trailer. Is it actually on YouTube as 1457 01:28:12,280 --> 01:28:13,120 well? Steve. 1458 01:28:13,520 --> 01:28:14,720 He's. Trying, Yeah, it's on YouTube, 1459 01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:17,440 Yeah, I'll send you all the links. 1460 01:28:17,520 --> 01:28:22,360 So it's there's YouTube. There's an account for the game 1461 01:28:22,360 --> 01:28:28,320 on X there's my personal Instagram that I'm using more 1462 01:28:28,320 --> 01:28:30,480 for just kind of like whammer stuff, the Instagram at the 1463 01:28:30,480 --> 01:28:35,000 moment, but occasionally posting game stuff there as well, plus 1464 01:28:35,000 --> 01:28:37,200 the steam pages up of course already. 1465 01:28:37,200 --> 01:28:41,080 So you know, wish lists on Steam are always appreciated. 1466 01:28:42,960 --> 01:28:46,040 I was going to say about the this tangential reference back 1467 01:28:46,040 --> 01:28:48,200 to White Dwarf as well. Oh yes, play too. 1468 01:28:48,200 --> 01:28:52,160 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was my my first my 1469 01:28:52,600 --> 01:28:53,880 like. My interest for the Welsh 1470 01:28:53,880 --> 01:28:56,920 language actually started on White Dwarf. 1471 01:28:56,920 --> 01:29:01,800 I remember very specifically it was a battle report against 1472 01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:04,840 twice. I was playing a wood elf army 1473 01:29:04,920 --> 01:29:09,880 and looking for inspiration for names and kind of, you know, 1474 01:29:09,880 --> 01:29:14,120 there's a big Celtic influence on, on, on the wood of, on the, 1475 01:29:14,520 --> 01:29:18,640 in the wood of lore. And I borrowed a Welsh language 1476 01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:23,080 dictionary from Nigel Stillman to look for influences for 1477 01:29:23,080 --> 01:29:25,720 names. So I remember that very clear 1478 01:29:25,720 --> 01:29:28,560 that that was my first introduction to the Welsh 1479 01:29:28,560 --> 01:29:32,720 language. And the what was interesting was 1480 01:29:32,960 --> 01:29:36,640 so I, I used kind of various Welsh words to influence the 1481 01:29:36,640 --> 01:29:41,440 names of the characters. And then I got a letter, a fan 1482 01:29:41,440 --> 01:29:46,640 letter after the article got published from a, a kid in 1483 01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:49,240 Wales. I assume it was a kid. 1484 01:29:49,240 --> 01:29:52,400 I don't know how make you, I don't know how old he was, wrote 1485 01:29:52,400 --> 01:29:56,680 like a kid saying that it was really nice to see like the 1486 01:29:56,680 --> 01:30:00,240 Welsh language being used and correcting, correcting some of 1487 01:30:00,240 --> 01:30:03,640 my words that, you know, I hadn't, I hadn't spelled 1488 01:30:03,640 --> 01:30:04,920 correctly. I hadn't kind of grammatic, 1489 01:30:04,920 --> 01:30:06,920 well, not grammatically correct, my usage of them. 1490 01:30:08,320 --> 01:30:13,640 And I remember feeling just very touched that there was no e-mail 1491 01:30:13,800 --> 01:30:16,120 at the time, right. Like, if you if you wanted to 1492 01:30:16,120 --> 01:30:19,000 write to us, it was like you had to get down and write the letter 1493 01:30:19,000 --> 01:30:20,840 and then go to the post office and spend it. 1494 01:30:20,840 --> 01:30:24,440 And, you know, it was, it was, you know, an investment of time 1495 01:30:24,440 --> 01:30:26,440 and effort. And it was very touching to see 1496 01:30:26,440 --> 01:30:30,320 someone caring that much about their language and their culture 1497 01:30:30,320 --> 01:30:34,000 to, you know, to write in and and to say that it was 1498 01:30:34,000 --> 01:30:35,800 appreciated. And yeah. 1499 01:30:36,200 --> 01:30:37,880 So that, I mean, that's always stuck with me. 1500 01:30:37,880 --> 01:30:42,080 And, you know, it, it would be too strong to say that that 1501 01:30:42,080 --> 01:30:44,520 letter led to me, you know, years later making a game in the 1502 01:30:44,520 --> 01:30:48,200 Welsh language. But it certainly, you know, as I 1503 01:30:48,200 --> 01:30:50,560 started getting into this project, it was, you know, I 1504 01:30:50,560 --> 01:30:52,280 remembered it. I remembered the impact that it 1505 01:30:52,280 --> 01:30:55,760 had. So if that kids out there, if 1506 01:30:55,760 --> 01:31:02,440 you remember writing to me 25 odd years ago about that White 1507 01:31:02,440 --> 01:31:06,800 Dwarf battle report, you know, I'd love for me to hear from you 1508 01:31:06,800 --> 01:31:08,160 again, say thanks for that letter. 1509 01:31:08,160 --> 01:31:11,680 You know it, it meant something. Yeah, wonderful, mate. 1510 01:31:11,680 --> 01:31:14,720 I hope you get to reconnect with that, that young fella out there 1511 01:31:14,760 --> 01:31:17,320 in Wales somewhere. And that's the beauty of the 1512 01:31:17,320 --> 01:31:19,680 Internet, because we can all reconnect like we're doing now. 1513 01:31:19,680 --> 01:31:23,040 Like, you know, I, I saw you, I saw you at the studio, I saw you 1514 01:31:23,040 --> 01:31:25,280 walking. I think you lived in an 1515 01:31:25,280 --> 01:31:28,440 apartment block just up the road from where I was living. 1516 01:31:28,600 --> 01:31:30,200 But we never got to spoke. Good. 1517 01:31:30,320 --> 01:31:32,760 Got to speak to each other. But now here we are, you know, 1518 01:31:32,760 --> 01:31:35,000 all these years later, mate. And yes. 1519 01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:38,480 It's really a pleasure. Steve, it's been a great 1520 01:31:38,480 --> 01:31:39,920 pleasure of mine to talk to you mate. 1521 01:31:39,920 --> 01:31:43,760 You're a fascinating guy and you live you've, you've LED a very 1522 01:31:43,760 --> 01:31:48,080 rich life and it's just nice to see you doing something you 1523 01:31:48,080 --> 01:31:50,680 really care and passionate about in your job. 1524 01:31:50,680 --> 01:31:52,400 And you're doing your dream project. 1525 01:31:52,480 --> 01:31:56,480 And I hope that people can go and check out what you're doing, 1526 01:31:57,000 --> 01:32:00,640 get behind it and send their support any way they can. 1527 01:32:00,640 --> 01:32:05,080 And let's hope we can see this game come to fruition in the 1528 01:32:05,080 --> 01:32:08,400 near future. Thank you so much. 1529 01:32:08,400 --> 01:32:10,640 Thanks for inviting me on. It's really been a pleasure 1530 01:32:10,640 --> 01:32:12,840 talking to you. Now a pleasure of all mine. 1531 01:32:12,840 --> 01:32:14,640 Thank you Steve again for your time today.