Kiwi Talkz

Heather Cerlan a former artist at Naughty and Bethesda, in this interview she shares her journey from a passionate artist to a studio founder, discussing her experiences at Naughty Dog and Bethesda, her insights on game development, and her ambitious new project Hawthorne. Discover lessons on persistence, navigating industry challenges, and the future of game art and design.

HAWTHORNE INFO
https://playhawthorn.com/

#thelastofus #starfield #uncharted

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Being In A Rockband
02:30 - Heather Kept Pestering Naughty Dog Till They Hired Her
06:17 - Having Imposter Syndrome At Naughty Dog/Naughty Dog Didnt Have Producers
08:30 - Bethesda Are About Quantity/Naughty Dog Is About Quality
10:36 - Heather’s Role At Bethesda/Starfield
13:45 - Pros & Cons Of Creation Engine
15:05 - There Was Pressure Internally For Bethesda To Migrate To Unreal Engine
16:59 - Uncharted Lost Legacy Production Issues/Intense Crunch
22:44 - Working On The Shiva Temple
24:28 - Heather’s View On Her Work Getting Remastered/Originals Vs Remasters
29:28 - Working With Neil Druckmann/Lesbian Stories
33:04 - Heather Had Concerns On LGBTQ Themes In Last Of Us Part II
38:00 - Naughty Dog Were Split On Joel’s Death In TLOU Part II
38:48 - The Reason Heather Left Naughty Dog
40:04 - Work On Hawthorne/NEAR Studios
43:41 - Bruce Nesmith
46:00 - Hawthorne Is Skyrim Meets Stardew Valley/Raising Money/Bad Publisher Terms
48:15 - How Naughty Dog & Bethesdas Culture Has Influenced Hawthorne
51:16 - Q + A - Differences Between Naughty Dog & Bethesda
54:54 - Todd Howard Is A Neil Druckmann Fanboy
56:42 - Heather Feels Very Lucky/The Decision To Start Her Own Company
59:18 - Overcoming Fear With Hawthorne
1:05:22 - Where To Follow Heather & Keep Up With Hawthorne

Gabriel Betancourt is a former lighting artist at Treyarch and of course Naughty Dog. We cover his career at Naughty Dog and various other topics on the game industry.
#thelastofus #lastofus #lastofuspart2
WEBSITE - https://gabereel.com/
CALORIE GAME - https://www.caloriequest.app/

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro/Gabriel Watches Kiwi Talkz & Lists His Favourite Guests
01:44 - It’s Hard To Find Info On Lighting Artists/Early Days As A Lighting Artist
03:00 - Naughty Dog Has A Designer First, Speciality Second Philosophy
06:25 - Naughty Dog Devs Had Huge Arguments During The Last Of Us
09:17 - Game Development Requires The Risk Of Offending People
13:00 - Delivering Negative News In A Positive Way
14:54 - Game Devs Being Passionate & Emotional
18:45 - Naughty Dog Changed As The Studio Got Bigger/AAA Team Sizes Are Too Big
24:43 - The Brilliance Of Nintendo/Making Your Game Fun
27:35 - 60 People Worked On World Of Warcraft/Small Teams Make The Best Games
29:38 - Graphics & Gameplay Were Even During The Seventh Generation
31:00 - Art Is Used To Cover Up Gameplay Issues
32:34 - Everyone At Naughty Dog During The Last Of Us Was A Monster In Skill
33:00 - How Gabriel Joined Naughty Dog/New IP’s Increasingly Are Risky
36:20 - Bruce Straley & Neil Druckmann Risked Their Careers For The Last Of Us
37:45 - Uncharted 2 Put Naughty Dog On The Map
38:42 - Last Of Us Happened Because Bruce & Neil Were Influenced By Robert McKee Conference
43:44 - Why Gabriel Left Naughty Dog
46:49 - Last Of Us Part 2 Pre-production Ran Like Clockwork
49:58 - Gabriel Was Surprised By The Last Of Us Part 2 Controversy/Gabriel’s Suggestion Was Shot Down By Neil
52:19 - Neil Druckmann’s Specialty/Problems With The Last Of Us Part 2
55:00 - Dubar’s Number/Bureaucracy
01:01:40 - Changes At Naughty Dog That Impacted Last Of Us Part 2
1:06:30 - Specialists Left Naughty Dog Which Created Gaps In Skills Needed In The Teams
1:07:50 - A Game Will Be Good If The Director Has A Vision
1:09:54 - Gabriel Was Initially Skeptical Of The Last Of Us
1:11:39 - On Gabriels First Day Neil & Bruce Had A Special Presentation About The Last Of Us
1:16:35 - Q+A - How Did The Lighting Change Between Uncharted & The Last Of Us
1:30:22 - Q+A - Is Baked Lighting Better Than Path Traced Lighting
1:35:00 - Lighting On GTA 6 Trailers
1:36:03 - Closing Comments/Where To Follow Gabriel

Benson Russell was a former designer at Naughty Dog on The Uncharted Trilogy and The Last Of Us.He has now started his own consulting firm to help game developers navigate a lot of the pitfalls in game development.
#uncharted #thelastofus #naughtydog
WEBSITE FOR CONSULTING
https://www.unhandledexceptions.io/

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:32 - The Most Important Aspect Of Design/Player Fantasy
02:50 - Why Games Take So Long To Make/North Star You Need For Development
05:45 - Why Naughty Dog Games Are So Well Made/Story Is Their North Star
08:18 - Games Shouldn’t Take So Long To Develop/Wandering
13:30 - Scope Neglect/The Doomsday Clock
16:00 - Why Intergalactic Crunch Happened/Naughty Dog Treats Internal Deadlines Like External Deadlines
18:23 - Bureauacracy/How Games Differ From Other Creative Outlets
23:13 - Naughty Dog’s Work Structure
26:20 - Planning/Core Mechanics
27:00 - Flexible Working Hours At Naughty Dog/Crunch At Naughty Dog
29:00 - Why Benson Left Naughty Dog
32:45 - Benson Was P!ssed Off With Naughty Dog Deleting His Work On Last Of Us Part 1
46:01 - Working With Evans Wells & Neil Druckmann
47:00 - Clashing With Neil Druckmann
50:14 - Working With Amy Hennig
51:20 - Uncharted 2’s Introduction/Creating Introductions In Games
56:00 - Focus Testing At Naughty Dog/Companies Interpret Data Wrong
1:02:30 Q+A - How Much Naughty Dog Looks At The Competition When Designing Games
1:06:10 - AAA Studios Pivoting When They Are Too Deep/Games Should Be Cheaper
1:10:00 - Cost Of Game Development On The West Coast/China’s Meteoric Rise
1:16:04 - Uncharted 2 Was Influenced By Resident Evil 5
1:16:48 - Q+A - What Is Naughty Dog’s Hiring & Training Process
1:24:00 - Why Naughty Dog Started Losing Talent
1:26:00 - Is Game Development A Young Person’s Game/Knowledge Isnt Being Passed Down
1:31:00 - Closing Comments

Rob Carr is an audio designer who is best known for his tenure at Rockstar Games on L.A. Noire, RDR1, GTA 5 and RDR2. He is currently living in Finland working on his game Nyrkkipöytä
#rockstargames #gta #gta5

WEBSITE - https://audioexpat.wordpress.com/

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - How Rob Went From Being A Music Teacher To Working At Rockstar Leeds
07:51 - Moving From Handheld Games To Console Games/Rockstar Have Unlimited Resources
08:30 - The Psychology Of Sound/Finding Sounds That Sound Like Other Sounds
11:19 - There Are No Constraints On Audio With Rockstar Open World Games
13:10 - In Audio Everything You Can Use Is Recordable/Rob Has A 3TB Audio Library
15:17 - Tools & Workflow
19:50 - Technology Evolution/AI
23:51 - Rob Has Been Unemployed For Over A Year/Problems With The Game Industry/
25:50 - Learning A Coding Language
27:40 - Difference Between Numbers People & Creative People
30:30 - Working On Audio Bugs For Red Dead Redemption 1/Why It’s One Of Rob’s Favorite Games
34:30 - Playing A Game And Not Disecting It
37:30 - The Cost Of Buying Games
39:10 - GTA 6
43:21 - Why Rob Left Rockstar
45:24 - Crunch Culture/Europe Has Better Work Life Balance
46:45 - Moving To Finland/Rob’s Brother Has Motor Neuron Disease
51:35 - Rob Can’t Relocate For Work Anymore/Dire State Of The Game Industry
53:10 - Working From Home Has Ceased Because Of Security Reasons
55:20 - Why Rob Worked At The Office During Covid
56:51 - Dealing With Ear Fatigue During Crunch/How Audio People Deal With Crunch
1:05:30 - Q+A - Do You Physically Go On Location To Get Raw Recordings
1:08:00 - Q+A -What’s Rockstar Setup To Test Audio Systems
1:10:48 - Q+A - Is There A Particular Idea That Had To Be Cut
1:13:52 - Robs Game - Nyrkkipöytä
1:21:19 - Where To Follow Rob

I got some of the old devs who worked on Fallout to help review Season 2 of the Fallout series. Bruce Nesmith got the time wrong so didnt join until the last 20 minutes.

#fallout #falloutnewvegas #bethesda

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Fallout Is The Best Video Game Adaptation Of All Time
02:21 - Fallout S2 Thoughts Overrall
05:40 - Macauley Caulkins Acting
06:48 - Walton Goggins/The Ghoul
07:44 - Ella Purnell’s Accent As Lucy
08:40 - The Deathclaws
17:05 - The Prydwens/Factions
18:06 - Brotherhood Of Steel Tone Was Wrong
18:50 - Trust The Audience More/Have More Talking Instead Of Actions Scenes
20:21 - S2 Is A Setup For S3/The Roaches Were Scarier Than The Deathclaws
21:07 - Release Strategy
21:56 - Super Mutants/Ron Perlman
26:15 - Super Mutants In Fallout 4/Todd Howard’s Direction
26:50 - Deprioritize Brotherhood Of Steel In Fallout 5
28:10 - Bethesda’s Views On Fallout New Vegas
31:45 - Where Will S3 Go?/The Toddification Might Cause A Degrade
33:00 - Thaddeus/Keep The Show Low Key & Not Focused On Spectacle
35:55 - Casuals Buying The Games As A Result Of The Show
36:37 - Fallout 3 Remaster Will Release After S3/Remasters
37:50 - Bethesda Games Won’t Be Remade
38:57 - Deathclaw Differences Between Fallout 3 & 4
40:10 - Favourite Scenes
46:18 - Devs Give The Show A Score Out Of 10
47:00 - Making The Show Go On Indefinitely
48:13 - Bruce Nesmith Joins & Gives His Review
50:25 - Bruce’s Hopes For S3
50:45 - Will The Show Influence Fallout 5
51:56 - Bethesda Will Give Fallout 5 To Someone Else/Todd Howard
55:45 - Todd Howard’s Retirement 59:22 - Story Threads In S3 Will Be Less
1:01:20 - Hank’s Story/Will The Ghoul’s Story End In S3
1:03:30 - Practical Effects 1:04:59 - Actors Everyone Would Like In A Cameo
1:10:09 - Final Thoughts