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Johnny Galvatron
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Tim Gettys
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Tim Gettys
you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows go to patreon.com kindafunny. What's up and welcome back to the Kinda Funny Games cast for Friday, May 1, 2026. Of course I'm your host Tim Gettys. And I'm joined today by Andy Cortez.
Andy Cortez
Hello. Hello, Tim.
Tim Gettys
And it is my pleasure to finally welcome to the Kinda Funny Studios, Johnny Galvatron.
Johnny Galvatron
Sick. It's so good to be here.
Tim Gettys
It's so cool to have you.
Woody Woodward
Thanks.
Johnny Galvatron
That's my full name. It is for saying the whole thing.
Tim Gettys
And Woody Woodward.
Woody Woodward
Hi.
Tim Gettys
Now people, if people don't know. All right. These are director, producer over at Beethoven and Dinosaur, creators of my game of the year 2021, the artful escape. And what is what will hopefully be my game of the year in 2026. I don't know. I don't know. Having to. Haven't played it all the way through, you know, mixtape. We did get to play three levels of it, Andy and I.
Andy Cortez
There has never been a better time to play mixtape. We can't wait for you to hop in. When?
Johnny Galvatron
May 7th.
Andy Cortez
May 7th.
Woody Woodward
We listen to you on everything.
Tim Gettys
Yes. Yeah. It's everywhere. It's very exciting.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. Too many. Too many consoles. Too many.
Tim Gettys
You want to name them?
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, God.
Woody Woodward
We're talking Xbox. We're talking PlayStation.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Damn.
Woody Woodward
We're talking Nintendo Switch too. We're talking steam, we're talking EGs, we're talking Windows PC.
Andy Cortez
All of them.
Johnny Galvatron
All the things. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Tim Gettys
Making rad ass games. Now here's the thing. I'm very excited about this because like I said, Artful Escape, the best.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. Thank you for that.
Johnny Galvatron
You were the best. You were the torchbearer of the Artful Escape. And I just want to say thank you so much. It really meant a lot to us and you were always pushing the game and not just when it came out like months afterwards. You know, you gave it your game of the year and it meant heaps to us and we would always check what you're saying and it meant heaps to our team in, in Melbourne. And thank you very much.
Tim Gettys
I appreciate you saying that and thank you so much. But I remember when I was talking about it, you DMed me and we were going back and forth and we've been trying to make this happen for years now.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
So believe I'm finally meeting you now. And I was so jealous because we sent Greg down to Summer Game Fest last year.
Andy Cortez
Right.
Tim Gettys
And so Greg got to play mixtape, but then he came back and was telling us all about it and meeting both of you and I'm just like, this, like this sucks. I'm seeing all these pictures of, of Woody with Greg and Jen. I'm just like, come on, man, it could have been me. I think it could have been.
Woody Woodward
I think Greg did it to spot you.
Tim Gettys
I know he often does that.
Johnny Galvatron
When I met Greg, I was like, greg, nice to meet you. Let's talk about Tim.
Tim Gettys
Let's talk about Tim. But let's talk about mixtape, because mixtape, obviously, artful Escape, was. Was awesome. I know a couple of us here enjoyed it. I really, really loved it. But when mixtape was first shown at that Xbox game showcase two years ago, I want to say. Yep. Everyone here was like, oh, shit.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
Right? This looks incredible. I popped off when I saw the Beethoven dinosaur logo pop up.
Johnny Galvatron
I know. I watched you. I watched you watched it, and I watched it back, and also I showed it to my mom and dad.
Tim Gettys
Yes, dude.
Andy Cortez
Hell, yeah. Like, say in the darkest moments, replay that.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah.
Woody Woodward
See, mom and dad. People like what I do.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah. It's a real.
Tim Gettys
But I mean, this just. It looks so cool. We've been very, very excited about it. How are you feeling right now, a week out from release?
Johnny Galvatron
I feel like I'm gonna spew. Tim.
Woody Woodward
It's all adding up.
Johnny Galvatron
Can I. It's that. Can I just say we did. We did an. An interview with. Oh, it was with cnn. And we were, like, very different than this, I'm sure. We were doing an interview with cnn, and me and Woody were just.
Andy Cortez
Did they say, fucking Galvatron?
Woody Woodward
They score way more than we.
Tim Gettys
That was great.
Johnny Galvatron
They made us change the room that we were in because there were. There were pinups on the wall.
Woody Woodward
They're like, we can't have. We can't pack nipples on the wall behind me. Like, I'm sorry.
Johnny Galvatron
We were in a movie set, and that looked like a bedroom, and so they made us move out into the backyard. But the whole time leading up to the interview with, me and Woody are just pretending going, his name's Rick. Thanks, Rick. We had a really fun interview, but every time we're going, rick. Yeah, it's great. Rick, we can hear you. Welcome to cnn. And he goes. And, you know, there's spoilers. Spoilers here. But he's like, what does it feel like to make a game that's never been made before? And I'm grabbing Woody by the eye. I'm like, let me answer this. Let me answer this. And he's like, what does it feel like to make a game that's never been made before? And I'm like, it feels good, Rick. Feels great.
Woody Woodward
It was, like, full. Like, spike the alley you did for you.
Tim Gettys
Let me actually take a step Back here.
Woody Woodward
What.
Tim Gettys
What did you do on mixtape? And what did you do on mixtape?
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, well, indie teams, you usually do a lot of things. And I'll tell you, like, some examples, like the Alpha Escape. We have an artist called Arden, Arden Beckwith, and she was doing young adult fiction covers and Star wars trading cards. She's a fantastic illustrator. And she did all the illustration in the artful escape, beautiful 2D and. And digital artist. And then she learned to 3D sculpt and she made Rockford, you know, So I think the whole of the main character. The main character in mixtape. So, you know, I think all of us have very. Have different, like, lots of little keys that we play on this grand piano of making a video game. And I do some writing and directing sound. Some sound and music and direct actors and stuff. But everyone on the whole team has a whole bunch of crazy jobs that they do. And that's what's being. That's what's really fun about making indie games. And being in an indie game team is like, Monday I'm in the studio making music, and then Tuesday I'm directing some actors. And then on Wednesday I just hang out with Woody on Wednesday. But Thursdays, then you're doing some, like, level design. And so that's one of the things they talk about too with indie teams is like this institutional knowledge. The longer you can keep people on your team, the more strings they're going to have in their bow and your team gets better. And we work with an amazing team that just wants to make cool shit and get better. And that's like an amazing environment to be in.
Woody Woodward
And they're good at it.
Johnny Galvatron
And they're good. Yeah, God damn it, they're good.
Woody Woodward
I feel good. I don't do all the work. I just make sure the work gets done.
Tim Gettys
Okay, so you're a producer.
Woody Woodward
I'm a producer.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
Love that.
Johnny Galvatron
And can I tell you what makes Woody a good producer?
Woody Woodward
Oh.
Johnny Galvatron
Is. Hang on.
Woody Woodward
Oh, hang on. Oh.
Johnny Galvatron
I think it's hard to be a producer because you have to have, like, an aura of respect on some level that is unfakable because you're in a situation where there's a bunch of artists and. And I. People often differentiate programmers and artists, but they're really the same thing, you know? So you have this team of artists and they're very protective and concerned about their own art, which is what you want. You want people to care. Like, when people come up to you and they're upset about something in the game, you go, I'm so stoked that you care that much. You know, that's how you should feel. And it's very hard to, I think, gathering and. And heard those cats.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Of. Of artists who care so much about what they're doing. And you have to have some level of unobtainable respect that can't be faked. And that's what. That's what Woody has.
Woody Woodward
They're a beautiful, delicate flock, and I love to love to, you know, keep them in the pen of development in a nice way.
Andy Cortez
Almost spit. Take the cat.
Johnny Galvatron
Not in any literal sense, of course.
Woody Woodward
Imagine it's more like. It's like a bike, and it's the guys riding the bikes covered in, like, exotic birds.
Johnny Galvatron
That's.
Woody Woodward
That's how I.
Johnny Galvatron
Exactly. What Your production method.
Woody Woodward
That's how I envision it.
Johnny Galvatron
And you're trying to get them, not take off and feed them.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, yeah. I'm like, no, stay here, Bloomer core. It's fine.
Andy Cortez
Like, it's fine.
Tim Gettys
So I want to get to mixtape the game. Andy, I haven't heard anything from you because I. I knew I was gonna like this game just based on how much I liked Artful Escape. I'm like, okay. And so much of what I liked about Artful Escape was the writing, the tone, the narrative, the characters. But, like, there was really something about specifically the writing that I really connected with. And I'm just like, damn, there's a voice to this that speaks to me very loudly. And I know that that. That voice with the kind of style of that game wasn't going to be for everyone, but that voice with the style of mixtape I knew was going to be for everybody. And I played three levels, and I was like, yeah, Andy's going to love this game. Was I right?
Andy Cortez
So, okay, that's a great question. Can you guys leave the room so I could talk to him in practice?
Woody Woodward
We'll turn away.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, okay.
Johnny Galvatron
I'm gonna listen to diva.
Andy Cortez
So, you know, there was a private exchange. This is like, I'm just, like, leaking the DMS right now. I didn't really know what this game was. I didn't know it was the team that made the Artful Escape. We'd seen it tons of times. I know the art looked beautiful. I know it looked like to be this experiential sort of thing, and it. But I didn't know it was like, oh, that's a team that made your Artful Escape. Tim loves the Artful Escape, but I saw myself on this interview, and I messaged him And Greg for it, scheduled for it. And I messaged him and Greg, I was like, hey, guys, I don't know why I'm on this. Like, I. I'm sure maybe there's a reason for me to like, but. And I told him I'm not the life is strange type of gamer. That's what I thought this was. As I said, I'm not. I don't play life is strange type games. Like, you know, Roger loves those, so does Joey. But, like, if you need me to be there, like, I'm totally down, and I'll, like, figure some stuff out to ask. And Tim was like, just. Just play that demo. Play that demo. And I was so. I was so happy to be surprised and delighted by everything that I was shown and that I experienced. And it is. It's one that I know that this is for everybody. You don't have to be somebody who is only like, the. Well, Andy plays the action games, right?
Johnny Galvatron
What?
Andy Cortez
This game was just so lovely. And the quality of writing in it, the heart that there is the. The voice acting was phenomenal.
Johnny Galvatron
It's.
Andy Cortez
It's just like, ah, this is gonna be. This is gonna be a special one. And I know why Tim wanted me to play this now.
Tim Gettys
Yeah. The three levels.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
Can't wait to play more, right?
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
So having heard that, you guys, what is mixtape?
Johnny Galvatron
Mixtape is a video game. That's how I would like to begin. I would. I can't stress that enough.
Woody Woodward
It's definitely a video game.
Johnny Galvatron
It's absolutely a video game. So it's about three teenagers on their last night together, their last night of high school, and they're going to a party together, and they're listening to the greatest soundtrack of all time. Hey, Woody, let's talk about some of the bands.
Woody Woodward
Oh, like Joy Division.
Andy Cortez
Oh.
Johnny Galvatron
Anyone else?
Woody Woodward
The Cure.
Johnny Galvatron
The Cure's on there. Can you think of first track of the game?
Woody Woodward
Oh, Devo.
Johnny Galvatron
I'm just a humongous Devo fan. You couldn't tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love Devo. And do you know, actually, can I. Can I. We can just talk crap, can't we?
Tim Gettys
Oh, absolutely.
Johnny Galvatron
I. When we laid out all the songs for the game, and when we were figuring out what tracks are going to be there, I was like, am I. Am I starting a business with my best friends? Do you know what I mean? Am I setting my favorite song to the song that wakes me up in the morning? You know what I mean? Am I about to ruin my relationship with my best friends? Of these songs that I Love. And the answer is no. Absolutely. Like, every time I hear Devo, that's good. When the, when the game starts up, I'm just absolutely pumped.
Woody Woodward
I know when. I know when Johnny's playing the start of the game at work because I can see over the top of my monitor, I see top of Johnny's head and hands, like, bobbing behind. Even after like three years, he's still just like vibing it, which is like. And I. I love it too.
Johnny Galvatron
There's this weird Devo shaped hole in my heart. And when I listen to. That's Good.
Woody Woodward
The Devo block fits.
Johnny Galvatron
I feel complete and whole. And Devo.
Andy Cortez
Well, one thing that also made me want to play it was Tim said andy. And as I'm telling you to play this. And he sent me a screenshot where the characters say, God, I was listening to Moving Pictures last night. And it's just like, fuck. How, like, how is that an album? And then they, they go on to use it in context about, like, who's. Who's the name of the singer? Getty Lee. And I was like, okay, I gotta play this. So I had to also wear the Rush shirt today. And the. It's just the vibes are just. They're just immaculate in this game.
Tim Gettys
And I love that. It, like, things like that can speak to you, right?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
And to me, when we first saw the initial trailer. And you. You see, well, so one thing about Artful Escape that I loved was the use of voice actors that were incredibly talented and some very big names. Carl Weathers.
Johnny Galvatron
Carl Weathers, yeah. Rest in Peace.
Tim Gettys
His last.
Johnny Galvatron
His last voice role.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
That's wild. Among others, right?
Johnny Galvatron
And he was dope. He was so cool because, like, he
Woody Woodward
was just adding stuff in.
Johnny Galvatron
He was like, adding stuff. And he was like, you know, I wouldn't say that there. I would say young blood. And I was like, sick. I'll do what you want to say.
Woody Woodward
I wouldn't say that. You go, yes, sir.
Johnny Galvatron
Carl Weathers was my first ever voice direction.
Tim Gettys
Dang.
Johnny Galvatron
At three in the morning in Melbourne. And he's there and I'm absolutely just shitting myself.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Woody Woodward
As you would be.
Johnny Galvatron
And he's like, he gets on the mic, he's like, what do you want, Johnny? And I'm like, I don't fucking know, Carl. Let's do this. He was so good.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
So I love that. I remember seeing the. I mean, there were many artful escape trailers. That was a game that, like, what we kept seeing, it was so beautiful. Every time it's like, oh, my gosh, want to play it. But towards the end, we started seeing the. The big star names on the Dreamers. Right. Like to market it. And I love that for the. The first time we saw mixtape. Such a big part of it. Obviously from the name, the music you see just artist, artist, artist, and it's just banger, banger, banger, banger. Like so many, like iconic groups.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
And I see Stan Bush and I'm like, my fucking guy, Johnny Galvatron making the connection here. For people that might not know what I'm alluding to here. Galvatron. What is Galvatron?
Johnny Galvatron
Galvatron is from the 1986 Transformers film. The Better than any Chris Nolan film. Fantastic. Everyone's like, oh, shit.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. Very emotionally charged.
Andy Cortez
He's not going to like that.
Johnny Galvatron
It's a. It's a doc dark film and permeated by some of the most brilliant and cheesy hair metal power ballads ever constructed. The Touch by Stan Bush is in this game. And do you know. Oh, do I have another Stan Bush story? We were like, it was like five days from the end of us locking the game and locking like all of our everything with all the before certification. Certification, yeah. Oh, God. That's why you need to produce. And we're just days before Alexa victoriously sips the coffee. Yeah, I gotcha. I need this guy. And. And we wanted another. I don't know if we'll say, but you will know I wanted another Stan Bush track off that album. The second track that he has. And it was five days before the end. And I'm just like, put in this Hail Mary call. I'm like, oh, like red phone.
Woody Woodward
Like red.
Johnny Galvatron
I picked up the red phone to music supervisor and Adam Penner. I'm like, I need more Stan Bush. I need. I need 15 seconds more of Stan Bush. And that was like our last, last, last minute thing that we got into the game was like 15 more seconds of Stan Bush. But I'll wait for you to see that.
Tim Gettys
I love that so much. But the thing about Transformers, the Animated movie.
Woody Woodward
Yes.
Tim Gettys
Is if you are a fan of it, it's your entire life and personality.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
And so that's why I knew we were going to be friends. I heard your name even. I'm like, this doesn't make sense. But then seeing Stan Busch in that thing, I was like, I know I'm going to love this game. And so, yeah, hearing the touches in
Johnny Galvatron
it, I think incredibly excited. The 1986 Transformers film is actually my first introduction to Devo as well, because Weird Al Yankovic does this song called Dare to Be Stupid, which is like a rip off of Devo. And so I listened to that, and then I was, like, listening to his other songs and being like, well, nothing really else sounds like this guy's kind of crazy. This guy cannot be put in a box. He is undefinable. And then obviously found out later that it's ripping off Devo. And if you listen to. Oh, no, it's Devo that. The album, you can. If you listen to the whole album, you can pick every little bit of Dare to Be Stupid out of it. And where he took. Where Weird Al took that. And Devo famously hates it because they think it's better than any Devo song. If you see there's an interview with Mark Mothersburg, who's just deadpan, just going, I hate that guy.
Woody Woodward
Imagine, like, you spent years creating this band, and this weird guy just makes one song that's, like, encapsulates all your catalogs, and he's just like.
Johnny Galvatron
And you're just like, well, and it's a banger.
Woody Woodward
Great track.
Johnny Galvatron
It's called Dare to Be Stupid. Have a listen. It's real good.
Woody Woodward
Weird Al biopic as well is so good.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Weird Al.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, thanks for being.
Johnny Galvatron
Do another Devo song, if you could.
Tim Gettys
Okay, so then, mixtape, obviously, a lot of songs, they're trying to make the perfect mixtape to. To cover their. Their final day together as friends. How does that translate to a video game?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, I think what happened was we started with. We started with that's Good by Diva.
Woody Woodward
We literally started with that.
Johnny Galvatron
We started with that, right? And then we lay out all these different songs that. These were my favorite songs, and we would lay them out. And, of course, the art of a mixtape is an art of arrangement. And you can have all these different things, and you can have people from different places, and they're from different countries in different decades, and you can put all their songs together, and you can find this through line of emotion. You can find what connects them. And if you rearrange, suddenly you have a different narrative. And so we would rearrange these tracks into all these different narratives and see where they flow, see where they would peak, see where they would dip. And then we made what we call a horizontal slice. Woody.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, we, like, built the game around the flow of that soundtrack because, like, as the soundtrack and the narrative are, like, running along, then we kind of place the levels along that line and built the whole game start to finish.
Johnny Galvatron
Real shitty.
Woody Woodward
Like, Some cutscenes. It was like a black screen with, like, the text. Like, you know, this happens now. This happens.
Johnny Galvatron
A real bad softball.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. Things like that. And then we once. So shitty.
Johnny Galvatron
And I'll add, it was. Had all me. Me doing all the acting.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. The. The. The Johnny Cut of the Johnny Cut
Johnny Galvatron
will not be released.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Damn.
Woody Woodward
And then we. Once. We felt like the horizontal slice was good, like start to finish, which was all playable, then we were like, cool. And we went in, just like, brought the audio up, brought the visuals up, and, like, brought. Built it all up on top of that. But yeah, it was like. It was like, literally, like Johnny said, it was like making a mixtape. We laid it all out.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. And then the mixtape kind of. It permeates into everything of the game because it's like you have. Every song requires something different. And when you get given these songs too, it feels like a tremendous responsibility. Like, I love Diva, but, like, give me. That's good. Do you know what I mean? And I'm like, well, this needs to be. The mechanics here need to match this song. We need to be as good as this song. We're adding stuff on top. You know, we're painting on top of the Mona Lisa. Do you know what I mean?
Woody Woodward
We don't want to do the Mr. Bean thing where we ruin. Is it like Whistler's Mother or whatever?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah, we don't want to do that. We want to, like, try and enhance the music of anything. So once you have a mixtape of music, suddenly, if you want to do the best for every song, suddenly you need a mixtape of mechanics. You need a different system. You need a different way of showing the mental state of the protagonist to the player. I think that's what's really interesting about this kind of mix of mechanics, of using the medium, of using games to show what these songs feel like. There's a lot of really amazing games about difficulty and overcoming hardship and perseverance. But it's really fun to try and use the medium to show betrayal. How do you show. How do you, with a controller, show that someone's stomach has dropped and that they've been betrayed by their friend? And we have a scene in the game where Rockford is betrayed by her best friend, and she just lifts off the ground and floats through town, and she floats backwards through town. And it's a very simple mechanic, but it's this beautiful moment, and it just uses the medium really well to show betrayal. You have Sensitive to Light by Rainbow with, like, Ronnie Dio singing over the Top and it's electric. And you like, well, this needs to be a shopping cart escaping the police with helicopters, obviously. And we're going to have to do something completely different. So you have this kind of mixtape of mechanics, mixtape of music. And then you have. Everywhere you look, the mixtape kind of permeates, right? Because it's like, wait, are these three characters from the same period or is Slater kind of from thrash from 88 and Rockford is from 94. And Cassandra, she's like kind of from 1996. And then you look around their rooms and you're like, well, this is. This whole world is kind of some like classic hits radio station. That. That is. That exists somewhere between like 1970 and 1995. Except for Freak by Silverchair, which came out in 1996. But who's count? No one knows. But I love the idea of that suddenly this mixtape not only permeates the music, but then it permeates the characters. It permeates the rooms, the world and how you interact with it as a medium.
Andy Cortez
And that's one thing I wanted to ask because this game, you know, like you. You're Talking about late 90s, in some instances with the. With the time and where this takes place. I was wondering if this were a game about kids now and you had the last 20 years of 20 to 30 years of music catalog to choose from, who would you like to get added into the catalog from?
Johnny Galvatron
If we were doing from the last
Andy Cortez
20 years from like 2000 and on.
Johnny Galvatron
Let's start with Woody, because Woody's gonna say a whole bunch of bands can't even say their name on the radio. You know what I mean? It's going to be like Puke Kiss and Puke Kiss. Puke Kiss. I saw them in a.
Andy Cortez
The Abortions last album.
Tim Gettys
Little.
Woody Woodward
Little. Little derivative. Didn't hit the notes.
Johnny Galvatron
And Woody saw them in like a shed in North Melbourne and all they. All they do is bang empty kegs.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. And eat rats live.
Johnny Galvatron
So after you, Woody.
Woody Woodward
Oh, I mean, I'm just gonna spout off a bunch of like, you were bands.
Johnny Galvatron
Please give me a bunch of obscure.
Woody Woodward
Some power trip in there.
Johnny Galvatron
Yep.
Woody Woodward
I'd love some butthole surfers in there.
Andy Cortez
Okay.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah. Who else do you know? I would go, like, straight into 2007. I would be like Kaiser Chiefs.
Woody Woodward
Oh, really?
Johnny Galvatron
Straight to India into the indie sleaze and like Kasabian.
Woody Woodward
And I always said Kasai Ban. Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
I thought for years placebo was called Placebo.
Woody Woodward
Wait, what?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah. And they got introduced on hey, hey. It's Saturday, like, way in Australia, and the guy went placebo. And I like this idiot. He doesn't even know how to say their band name.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, placebo for sure.
Johnny Galvatron
I really like the Test Icicles. I know that sounds like a funny name. That sounds like a band that Woody would like with the Test Icicles was really good.
Woody Woodward
Is that a real band?
Johnny Galvatron
And do you know what? The klaxons. Okay, I'm gonna throw out there. I would throw in a bunch of claxons.
Woody Woodward
Great choice.
Andy Cortez
I thought it was just klaxons. They have a though in front of it.
Johnny Galvatron
Really? It's the placebo.
Andy Cortez
Oh, gotcha. Well, there is a reference to this is how we do it.
Woody Woodward
There is.
Andy Cortez
And, you know, because I think of some of the best R B from the early night or, you know, that sort of 90s era. I think of, like, Ginuwine's Pony. I think of like, you know, that sort of like, era of hip hop that will always play at a club.
Johnny Galvatron
And I'm picturing you there right now.
Andy Cortez
I mean, well, you know, that doesn't happen at all. But, you know, that.
Tim Gettys
And getting down to pony, I've seen it.
Andy Cortez
That music's still very near dear to my heart, even though, like, I come from more of like, like, you know, emo indie sort of, like, scene or whatever. But I would, you know, I was hoping that they would, you know, throw out some, you know. God, so many people have been canceled, Tim. I can't even like anybody.
Woody Woodward
I'll list about 50 bands. Kelly.
Andy Cortez
People are terrible. Never mind. Never mind then.
Woody Woodward
Oh, My Chemical Romance is one I definitely put in there.
Andy Cortez
Oh, great to do it.
Woody Woodward
If you good to do it again later.
Johnny Galvatron
We went and saw Bring Me the Horizon the other night.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Machine Gun Kelly bumped into me.
Tim Gettys
Really?
Johnny Galvatron
No. I was like, hey. And he went, hi. And kept walking. It was actually a delightful encounter.
Andy Cortez
Good for him.
Woody Woodward
Was he opening?
Johnny Galvatron
No, he was there watching with Helsie.
Tim Gettys
Huh.
Andy Cortez
Oh. Oh, him and Megan Fox not together anymore. It's true.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
Oh, really?
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, really?
Andy Cortez
Really tough.
Johnny Galvatron
You heard it here first.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
Was there any songs that you had on your mixtape that you either couldn't get access to or that you couldn't find the gameplay mechanic to add to it? So you cut it.
Johnny Galvatron
Let's venture into getting the music of the game.
Tim Gettys
Let's do that.
Andy Cortez
Let's do that, Tim.
Tim Gettys
Oh, actually, you're right. You're right. Hold on one second. Let's do that. After a word from our sponsors, this
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Johnny Galvatron
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Tim Gettys
So how'd you get these songs?
Johnny Galvatron
Wow, that's a great question. When you bring a music supervisor and say, we're making a game about a girl who wants to be a music supervisor and has to have the greatest soundtrack of all time, they say, yes, please. I would like to work on this game.
Woody Woodward
It's like a devil's handshake. Yeah, because like what, you're gonna work on it and not make the best soundtrack out of it. You know what I mean?
Tim Gettys
That's great.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, it was sick.
Woody Woodward
The trick.
Johnny Galvatron
And there were things like we Needed to get the rights for the cure. But someone was at a retreat, and they had to send, like, a Sherpa to find someone and get the rights for the cur.
Tim Gettys
Sure.
Johnny Galvatron
I love that.
Woody Woodward
There was like, no. There's, like, no phone or Internet. Wherever they were. Like, I just sent. Literally sent someone to go and find them.
Johnny Galvatron
It was just like, I gotta get the rights.
Andy Cortez
You think they were Lenny Kravitz's island? We learned about Lenny Kravitz, how he has this island. I did that. Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Automatically suspicious.
Tim Gettys
I know.
Johnny Galvatron
I don't know.
Tim Gettys
People shouldn't have.
Andy Cortez
So, like, Mike was like. He's the one who introduced it to us. And, like, it's hard for your mind not to go. Like, well, there's got to be something nefarious happening here. But there's no cell phones allowed. You go there to just, like.
Johnny Galvatron
To.
Andy Cortez
To just disconnect from. There's a lot of, like, travel. There's a lot of. That's what he calls it.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
Crab McGraw. And there's a lot of sheep all over the place. And we were talking about it, like, I bet you those used to be humans. Like, that's where my mind goes at. Like. Yeah, that makes sense. Like, it's a story to bother you situation. Yeah, it's very, very weird.
Woody Woodward
Have you seen the Lenny Kravitz video on the Internet? These.
Johnny Galvatron
We can't talk about that.
Woody Woodward
No, we can.
Andy Cortez
The hanger.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Woody Woodward
What do you mean? The hanger?
Andy Cortez
Where it pops out. Oh, yeah, yeah. The weapon of mass destruction.
Tim Gettys
I do. I do love speaking to Snow Bike Mike. I was talking to him this morning, and he was so excited that Johnny Galvatron's gonna be here. And he goes, man, I wonder if Johnny Galvatron's met Snowbike. Mike, you're the only human being that would put a sentence like that together.
Woody Woodward
Himself.
Tim Gettys
By himself.
Woody Woodward
Himself.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, oh, oh.
Woody Woodward
Just a bizarre human speaking. The third person. Yeah, look, he's.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah,
Tim Gettys
sorry. Back to the Cure.
Johnny Galvatron
So. Yeah, back to the Cure. So we were. We were trying to get all these different songs. The only ones I didn't try and get were, like, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Because our music supervisor was like, I have offered them millions with an S, and they just say no to everything. Yeah, don't both.
Woody Woodward
Don't bolt.
Johnny Galvatron
I don't think we wanted to go that. Because I really like. I like a soundtrack that is not the main hit.
Woody Woodward
Deeper, deeper cuts.
Johnny Galvatron
A little deeper cuts. Like, I think the Donnie Darko license soundtrack is like, the perfect, perfect licensed soundtrack. I love that. Just kind of next level down and with a theme that connects all of those tracks together. That's like. It's like they. It's like all the licensed songs in Donnie Darko, they all use like the same reverb plugin.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
It's like this beautiful synergy through it.
Woody Woodward
And it's like.
Andy Cortez
I was gonna ask, is there a song that you were least expecting to get? One that you were like, this is kind of a Hail Mary. I know you mentioned that story earlier, but like, was there one that you're like, oh, we actually got it. Nice. That's awesome.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, there was a. There was a couple like that. There was More Than this by Roxy Music. And there's a. There's a line in the game where Rockford, the protagonist says, brian Eno and Brian Ferry, two of the greatest Brian's in the same band. What are the odds, right? And then they rang me and they're like, Brian wants to know, like, where in the game the song is. I'm like, which Brian? Like, we didn't ask.
Woody Woodward
I'm like, I need to know.
Johnny Galvatron
It was Brian Ferry.
Woody Woodward
We had to do like a split the subtitle for that as well because both their Brian's are spelled different. So when. When Rockford says two of the greatest Brian's, we're like, well, what do we do?
Johnny Galvatron
Well, how do we write which Brian.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Does. Gets preference? Brian Ferry or Brian Eno?
Woody Woodward
Yeah, we don't want to. So we just did like a slash and had both the spellings.
Johnny Galvatron
It's an awkward subtitle. There's a lot of politics involved.
Woody Woodward
Let's include all the Brian.
Johnny Galvatron
And Smashing Pumpkins was another one. I couldn't believe we got over the line because Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. Man, that default, that was me when I was. When I was 16. What was your 16 year old album?
Woody Woodward
Probably early System of a Down.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, no way.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, I remember My Phone. That was earlier. My first single I ever bought was Linkin Park, One Step Closer.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, nice. Yeah, My first single was the Cause Were you.
Andy Cortez
But singles were never a thing that I think we like did. We're buying on 38.
Johnny Galvatron
Okay.
Andy Cortez
Were we ever buying albums that were like. Or were you ever going to like a Sam Goody Tim and going like, here's this three dollar thing for just the single or whatever.
Tim Gettys
I bought Lincoln park singles and Eminem
Andy Cortez
singles because I only ever saw albums. I don't think we had that where I was at.
Woody Woodward
Singles were a huge thing Back home they had like the top 10 albums or whatever and they're like, they'd have all the top 10 singles and that kind of stuff.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Woody Woodward
And they were like back home they're like $10 more for a single.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah. And you would get a shitty remix with it.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah.
Woody Woodward
It was like, it was like here's
Tim Gettys
the extended version with the shitty dance.
Woody Woodward
Exactly. It was like main track, shitty extended dance, like instrumental. Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Acapella chipmunk version.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
I remember having the Chipmunk Macarena
Andy Cortez
and
Woody Woodward
you're like, you're like man, this superior to the original. Imagine you sitting down with like a whiskey. Like, like. Yes. Yes.
Tim Gettys
One. One of the gameplay mechanics we saw was a kissing scene between two characters where we got to, to play and control the tongues inside the mouth. Can you talk about that?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, we, we. Most of the game's budget was spent on the tongues. Yeah, it's, it's two tongues wrestling, which it's another interesting way to use like the medium to use, to use interaction to show like teenage awkwardness and embarrassment. And it's these two colossal tongues that are, that are fighting each other. And I, I, I, it's, it's vile. We spent so much time on the particle systems for like ropes of saliva and spit flying out. And then we were like, could we put braces on it? We did. And then, and then I've seen three different reactions to how it people play it. One is just there's a button that comes up at like three or four seconds too late that says that's enough. And you click, that's enough. And usually immediately people are like, that is enough. And they, they get out. And then I saw someone brought at summer Games fest brought in maybe their 12 year old kid to play it and then the tongues come up and they went sideways on the sticks. The tongues just went and never touched. They're like, ew, no, the tongues must never touch. And then Tim Schaefer came and played and he played it for like 45 minutes. Tim shaped, that's all. He did not get off the, he literally logged in. He was just like a journalist can be on the phone.
Andy Cortez
Get our engineers on the phone. Yeah, I, that is one thing that I noticed with my time with it was the, the love and attention put into silly shit like that.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
As well as how much there's going on like in the background with the physics systems.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh sure.
Andy Cortez
There's like so many great rigid body gravitation things exploding.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
I'm throwing toilet paper and it. And it falls and tracks exactly the
Johnny Galvatron
way you would want it to. I'm so glad that you noticed.
Andy Cortez
And it remind, and it reminds me of like that first time that this is a different sort of scale. But like, just stick with me here. The first time when we were playing the Last of Us two.
Woody Woodward
Very similar.
Andy Cortez
Very similar.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
And we were dealing with. You are playing as Ellie with the rope system.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh.
Andy Cortez
And you are grabbing the rope and you could wrap it around this and it'll. And it would fall and it would, you know, wrap around certain objects and everything. All the collisions was like so perfect. And that's when I'm playing, I'm like, damn. There's like, none of this is half assed.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
This takes a lot of like engineering and work. And was there ever a moment you're like, like, guys, it's not worth it. Or you're like, no, we need that.
Johnny Galvatron
No, we need to be perfect ourselves. We just want to ruin ourselves. And, and yes, we say that every day. But you were suddenly you were in a bunch of artists and it's always, there's always one artist on the team who goes, yeah, we could, you know, if we did this, we could. This is, this is every interaction that I have with Roman Maximission, who's the technical director and the hero of, of
Andy Cortez
making props to them. Amazing.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah. Of. Of making mixtape. And I'd be like, can we have the. All the characters fly through the air and that they have like a different movement system when they get close to the ground so that they can veer off and then have a separate movement system when they're running. And then I need a separate movement system in these wind tunnels. And he goes, no, that's ridiculous. I go, that's fair enough. Then he'll sit there for a bit. He is.
Woody Woodward
It was.
Johnny Galvatron
Well, if we did this.
Woody Woodward
No, it was fully that name of like, no, no, no.
Johnny Galvatron
I'll try it for 10 minutes. And then four hours later he comes to you and it's done. It's like. And that's, that's like playing down how brilliant and what a genius Rahman is. But it was always like that. But we were always trying to meet and match the brilliance of the song. So, you know, and also trying to like, if we're trying to show teenage freedom, there's a, there's a scene in the game where you fly. It's in the trailers. You fly through these fields and you're kind of flipping and stuff. And you want this to represent teenage freedom. The first time that you're kind of off the chain, and the first time you experience that freedom with your friends, and it has to be this. There it is. There she goes.
Andy Cortez
Great B roll from Barrett.
Johnny Galvatron
Thank you so much. And you can do all these things. Like, there's this beautiful movement system of when they're kind of gliding through the fields, and then they fly up through the air. And then we have a separate movement system for how they should turn and how they should be, like. Because it has to be ballet. And then if you bring them up like this, how I wanted them, then they come back down at the wrong angle, so you have to have a different angle come down, and then you have. Have to have a separate system that shears them off so that they can kind of run down onto the ground and seamlessly land and stuff. And then we just chucked in a massive fucking saxophone solo.
Woody Woodward
Yes, we did.
Tim Gettys
Always makes things better.
Johnny Galvatron
And that's once you've got the movement right, that sack solo, really.
Tim Gettys
So how much of this is the licensed mixtapes stuff and how much of this is original music? And who made the original music?
Johnny Galvatron
Me and Josh Abrahams made the original music. And we will use a lot of stuff that we learned from the Alpha escape of how to blend in and out of things. Most of it is licensed music.
Woody Woodward
There's, like, we say, what, 70, 30.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Woody Woodward
70, 37.
Johnny Galvatron
There's, like, 28 tracks. You know, it's like, very. It's too. It's too big. Too many tracks.
Woody Woodward
It's like four vinyl.
Johnny Galvatron
How are we gonna release the soundtrack? But, yeah, just like, trying to have, you know, give every song what it needed, and just being, like, treating those things like these precious, like, reliloquies, like these really sacred kind of religious objects, and trying to. That was. That was the hardest and scariest part. But, I think, yeah, extremely satisfying. And we always felt privileged to work on that music.
Woody Woodward
That's. I mean, that helped us get a lot of the tracks as well. Like, when you go. When you go to, like, Devo or whatever, and you're like, hey, we want to. Oh, there's this little band called Devo. You might have heard of them.
Johnny Galvatron
Love them.
Woody Woodward
It's just like your shirt, actually. And you say to them, like, hey, we want to include your track in the game. And it's not just, like, a background track that plays, like, the main character looks you in the eyes and says. Talks about how dope the track is. And they're like, well, yeah, of course. Yeah, like, you know? Yeah. So it was. I mean, it helped us.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
The one thing that I really loved about Artful Escape and from my experience with mixtape, I'm loving as well, is the kind of restraint of gameplay, not having to be like every single second you're doing something.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
It's like you. The input is only there to reward you with something fun. The animations that Andy's talking about or like, just like these. These interesting gameplay moments that might only happen once in the game or maybe twice or whatever it is. How do you find that balance of not over gamifying this thing that is such a narrative where you can call this thing so many things. Video games can be anything. Interactive movies, this, that. Whatever. This is very clearly a video game. Like, if you do not interact with this, you will not get the story.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
How do you find that line?
Johnny Galvatron
I think we have this kind of theory is that the game will tell you what it needs.
Andy Cortez
Needs.
Johnny Galvatron
And if you have a group of people sitting there on the couches playing the game and you all hear the same thing, then you know you're all work, you're all in sync. You're all becoming like the machine working on this. This goal. So you. You would sit there and you would know.
Andy Cortez
No in sync on the album, by the way.
Johnny Galvatron
No.
Andy Cortez
Unfortunate.
Johnny Galvatron
A little late. We could try and squeeze it in. I'll call. I will call Adam Perna.
Woody Woodward
I would have gone Backstreet Boys over and sick anyway.
Johnny Galvatron
Would you? Yeah, absolutely.
Woody Woodward
Absolutely.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. So what are we talking about?
Woody Woodward
The gameplay, how the thing and people
Johnny Galvatron
ask you too, is like, do you have to make. Do you have to kill darlings? Did you have to cut anything? That was really hard. And when the game tells you it's too long, you know, when things are too short or they need to be fleshed out, the game will tell you. So I think it's more a thing of, like, not, like, going into each song saying, what does this need? And how are we going to weigh things up? It's just by, like, getting it on the screen, getting our, like, as much of it happening as we can. And then it starts telling you things. It starts telling you where we need the action and how the pacing's right and where we need the dialogue to hit and how things needed to be edited. It's always going to tell you what it needs to be. And I think one of the cool things about making a game like this and having, you know, a nice publisher deal and stuff is like, no one's being like, this needs to be padded to 10 hours or this needs to come in under an hour.
Woody Woodward
Put a fucking battle pass in.
Johnny Galvatron
Put a battle pass in. Have some Michael. Some Michael transactions.
Woody Woodward
Michael transactions.
Johnny Galvatron
Have you met him yet? And so I love that we're allowed to just be like this game is as long as it needs to be, to be awesome. So I think the game will tell you.
Andy Cortez
I really, really was immediately impressed by the quality of the writing and the quality of the voice acting. And you alluded to a story about getting some of the voice actors. When we were out there. You told me a story about how you got the voice actors to play the game. I would love for you to share that with. With the class.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, sure.
Woody Woodward
It was special.
Johnny Galvatron
It was. It was really amazing because you work on these things, especially with voice actors. They might not see it for a year. So we were working. We. I. I loved working with all the people, all the team. The voice cast is amazing.
Andy Cortez
They're so good. God damn, they're so good.
Johnny Galvatron
They're really good. And it was just like hundreds of auditions that we went through. We recorded a couple of different Rockfords. We recorded a couple of different Cassandras. And it needs to be this, you know, for Rockford, there needs to be this mix of where she can talk to camera like an MTV presenter, but then she has to have these emotional big scenes with her friends. It's very hard to find the right person who can do that. And then with Slater, is.
Andy Cortez
Is.
Johnny Galvatron
Slater has to be like really Bill and Ted and Keanu, but if he's a caricature, then he's not going to be what he needs to be as. As the character. So it was, like, amazing working with these people who I don't think had worked in video games before. And anyway, we got to show them. We got to show them the finished game. So they come to Annapurna. Have you been there? No, it's. You gotta go, Nick. We'll take it there. It's nuts.
Woody Woodward
Amazing.
Johnny Galvatron
It's like this crazy movie studio. So we. We were playing it on this enormous screen and they played through the whole game and they were sitting there at the end and they're just like bawling, like crying in the chairs. And Jess, who plays Cassandra, was there and she's sitting. She's sitting there like closed eyes, like, hands on the chair for, like 10 minutes.
Woody Woodward
I was like, sitting there. Is she asleep? Is she like. I was like, is she bored? Did she hate it?
Johnny Galvatron
Okay. And I came. It came and said it. And I touched her Arm. I'm like, is it. Are you okay? And in this bawling voice, she goes, I thought it was just going to be some shitty video game. Who the fuck are you?
Woody Woodward
You fucked me up, man.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, yeah.
Woody Woodward
Just like single tears.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. And it was just. It's always been a joy to show people this game because it's like, it is very smile inducing. And I think I'm so glad that you like the writing. I'm stoked. I think a lot of our influences is kind of is. Comes from hangout films, which are like Dazed and Confused and there's a whole genre of hangout films. You should watch them. It's kind of like about more about dialogue and character. Obviously. Video games are usually quite Plot.
Andy Cortez
Slice of life.
Woody Woodward
Slice of life, exactly.
Johnny Galvatron
And so the pacing of those sort of things is like. If you can make those moments where they're just hanging out and talking to each other as exhilarating as when they're flying down the hill on a shopping trolley, then you've kind of. You've found your area. I think like one of my favorite dialogue bits is just Rockford has this long barrage about how loud motorcycles are not as good as people with a microphone. And that people with loud motorcycles should not be so loud because the audience is unaware.
Andy Cortez
They haven't earned it.
Woody Woodward
That's it.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
They haven't earned it.
Andy Cortez
It's so fucking good.
Woody Woodward
You bought loudness. Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
You bought loudness where loudness should be earned.
Tim Gettys
It's fucking profound, man.
Johnny Galvatron
And I love. I love that you get to write these kind of hangout moments. And, you know, each time you come back from a. From a song, there's different interactions with the characters. They have different conversations. And such a fun way to explore characters too, because writing dialogue for these characters is like a joy. They will not. You might hear writers say, this is like they would. Don't shut up. They just always have opinions on things as those kind of teenagers who really judge people on what they listen to. And I was like that. Woody's still like that now.
Woody Woodward
Actually, it is.
Andy Cortez
That was a very shout out to Johnny for that move. A very Nick Scarpino move to like, I'm gonna make fun of somebody at the desk right now.
Tim Gettys
See the reaction?
Woody Woodward
That wasn't pretty.
Johnny Galvatron
I gave him a real good run before, so I gotta give him a couple.
Woody Woodward
They gotta be the sandwich.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just. I don't know, I. I was just really blown away by the. The quality of the writing. And I think one of the first Things I told you was. And one of the things. First thing that I told Barrett was I think that it's always noticeable at how. How I think the games industry has like a lack of really awesome quality writing. And it's rarer to get that nowadays, I feel. And like when I played Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2 and I'm like, oh man, I wish I could clone you and just have you write for other stuff. I. I wish I could clone Johnny Galvatron.
Tim Gettys
I'm saying it for you.
Andy Cortez
And have that dialogue in a lot of other IP and stuff. Just because there was just such a great level of. With that never. It was never cheesy and over. Like, if anything, this is like the most confident game I've played in a long time. Like, it is so it knows what it wants to be and it. It. It's crushing it. Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
Like, I really love the experience.
Johnny Galvatron
Thanks so much. I do. I do feel like it is an extremely confident game. I think that's a great way to talk about it. It really knows what it is. It comes out of the gate hard.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
I think like, it is very stylistically confident. And yeah, that whole mixtape as well is also influencing the visual style because I really love that we have like all these different weird visual styles that come in through the different songs and we use like back, like. Like recorded back plates from Seinfeld when people are driving and stuff like that.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Or using. We use like all these old ABC footage which is like Australia's pbs.
Andy Cortez
It's so good.
Johnny Galvatron
And we. We got it all for like really cheap.
Andy Cortez
They were like.
Johnny Galvatron
They were like. We've never found footage for a video.
Woody Woodward
It was great. We got like assigned a research and they went into like their archives. Like all this footage for it was rad.
Tim Gettys
I love like even the very start of this game. I think it like explains its mission statement so well of we're creating the mixtape. It's our final day. But defining we are tying music to memories. And it's just like that concept is just. That's how music works. You know, you. You tie nostalgia to hearing music and all of that. And like designing a game around that I think is. Is so special. But it's the loving care put into every. Around that song as we've been talking about. But that stock footage, there's like scenes early in the the game that you just see like a lot of flashes of like quote unquote random stuff. But it's not random. Like you. It feels so designed and like the. The footage Being used is telling such a great story. And it's just like we talk about vibes so much. The vibes are immaculate. It's just like every piece of the art is coming together in a way to make it something more. And I. I can't believe I'm this hyped about stock footage in a video game, but it's like there is. There is something about the decisions that make it feel like, oh, wow, this is special.
Johnny Galvatron
Do you know what I really love when walking through the game?
Woody Woodward
Thank you.
Johnny Galvatron
Because is. Thank you.
Woody Woodward
Despite our looks, we did think about the video game. Yeah. Yeah, it was thought that went into it.
Johnny Galvatron
Even though I do look like a wrestler, that someone said in the comments earlier. Who is this guy?
Woody Woodward
Wrestler?
Johnny Galvatron
Do you know what? I'll tell you something that is. Is really special that maybe only people in video games get to experience, but I'll tell you something that I really love is that video game making is very iterative. And when I say that it's. Woody and I and the team, we might work on a single level for a year. You know what I mean? And, like, it's not just someone comes up with a level and then everyone sprinkles stuff on. It's like everyone's in there working. Do you know what I mean? And then suddenly you get to that last day and you're doing your last playthrough for certification. And I walk out into the field, and I see Harry in those trees. I know Harry put that over there. And then I know that Woody harassed Mikey to get those trees better. Lod details down there.
Woody Woodward
And I did do that.
Johnny Galvatron
And I see Woody in there. And then I see.
Woody Woodward
Thank you, Mikey.
Johnny Galvatron
You know, and then these light beams come through, and I know that Mikey added them. And to just walk through and see your friends and your colleagues there, like, cast forever. Very cool. Very cool.
Tim Gettys
The dude that just said that wrote this game. You know what I mean? That was some dope. This game has dope riding like that from the dome.
Andy Cortez
When I see a blue Prius, I'm like, that's Tim.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Woody Woodward
But I'm seeing him everywhere.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. But if that. Yeah. If you ever get to work on a game, that is really one of the. If he had a good experienced it, that is like. That is really one of the joys to see all your friends there, like, frozen forever. So it's. It's really a joy.
Woody Woodward
Eternal monument.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
So how different is this from artful escape? Take that question.
Woody Woodward
What was it?
Johnny Galvatron
What was the biggest change?
Woody Woodward
Woody, you're not going to believe this, but a whole extra dimension.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Whoa.
Woody Woodward
I know.
Johnny Galvatron
Let me tell you, that extra dimension
Woody Woodward
is up, down, left, right, and forward and back. Come on.
Andy Cortez
Yeah.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, my God. But do you know what? I. This is kind of me going from artful to. To mixtape is like. When I was making Artful, I'm like, well, artful is this enormous tracking shot. You know, it's a dolly tracking shot and where we would make these things for months and then you would run past them in three.
Woody Woodward
The whole game's left to right at break.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. Hey, there it is. Yeah, you like do that.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. And you just blast past it and so.
Johnny Galvatron
See that thing? That took months.
Woody Woodward
Sorry. It's gone.
Johnny Galvatron
It's gone.
Woody Woodward
It's a good game.
Johnny Galvatron
It looks. It still looks so pretty. So I would collect all these tracking shots from all these different films. So you would have like these Wes Anderson tracking shots or like there's like some really good Spielberg wanting tracking shots. And also like, you know, the classics. Scorsese has beautiful, like long tracking shots. So I collected them and then I'd got really, really into cinematography. Hard. And then by the time this game started, I'm like, oh, my God, the camera can turn around. I'm so excited. And so it was like I got to like just be a, you know, a dop and learn on the job. As I was saying, because things are so iterative. I can work on a camera shot for a year and make sure that I get better and get it right and get the scenes right. So it was. I had so much fun doing that. So that was one of the big jumps. And then what else?
Woody Woodward
What else?
Johnny Galvatron
What did we learn from Artful on the way.
Woody Woodward
I think our pacing from Artful really helped us with this because, like, like, obviously it's set to music and so we don't want to just loop the same song for 20 minutes, you know what I mean? And stuff like that. So the pacing and having, you know, the gameplay serving. The serving not overstaying its welcome. Enough gameplay for those sections, levels lasting just long enough, that kind of thing. Like, what does the game tell you?
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah, make it shorter, make it longer.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. I mean, the tagline for the game is nothing but the hits. And I think that's without pacing. We really nailed it. Like, it's. There's no. There's no fluff off. It's just a top to bottom. That's the game.
Johnny Galvatron
Just a hit.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Tim Gettys
We got a couple super chats I want to get to here. Yeah, Science dog. Official just says, showing some love for the Artful Escape. It was a transcendent experience that blew my tiny mind.
Woody Woodward
Sick. Thank you.
Johnny Galvatron
Thank you so much.
Tim Gettys
Only special feature says, I adore Artful Escape. I'm so hyped for mixtape. And then Mr. Hawk says, My favorite fun fact about Artful Escape is that the band McFly loved the art in it so much, they hired Arden Beckworth to design the art for their album Power to Play.
Johnny Galvatron
That's really true. And Arden was like, can I have some time off to work on this? And we were like, no, no, we did.
Woody Woodward
We said yes.
Johnny Galvatron
We said yes. There, it's on the album. It looks great.
Tim Gettys
Ashes writes in and says, I just want to know, what does Nick think of that gorgeous mullet? I loved Artful Escape. I can't wait for mixtapes. What did Nick. Didn't you meet Nick Scarpino?
Woody Woodward
I did, briefly. Didn't say words.
Tim Gettys
He must have commented on.
Woody Woodward
Didn't say a word.
Andy Cortez
He'll say when you leave, he'll probably be like, that was awesome. That was a good moment.
Johnny Galvatron
It's a great. You have a. It's a great one. It's a really great mullet.
Woody Woodward
Best part. Grow up myself.
Johnny Galvatron
Sick man. Sick man.
Andy Cortez
Selftaught.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, selftaught.
Tim Gettys
But in terms of mixtapes kind of tone versus Artful Escape, like, do you think that this is going to reach a. A wider audience?
Johnny Galvatron
I think it's an. This is my business answer is I think it's an easier game to sell. Is that. Is that a terrible answer? I think that the. Sometimes I think maybe Artful Escape is this weird thing. It's not really a 2D platformer. That's not what it is, but it looks like one. So I think there's something hard in the sale of that, of Artful. Whereas, I think, you know, we've become a better team. We always push ourselves to get better, and our next game is going to be better again. And that's my answer.
Woody Woodward
We're making another game.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, we might. Yeah. Yeah. It's about Cricket.
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Wow.
Tim Gettys
How would you describe Artful Escape?
Johnny Galvatron
No, Cricket. Back to Cricket. Artful Escape, I think is. Well, the difference between Artful Escape and mixtape is like, Artful Escape is very much about making music, and it's very much about the satellite aspects around people's creative Personas and, like, how they can elevate your core medium, which I think is a really fun thing. I love that kind of, like, outside of. Of Bowie's music, what did Bowie do to make himself Interesting. You know, when he made stage Personas, he would go to restaurants in limousines, even though he was sleeping on people's couches and had no money. And that was part of how he grew as an artist and grew his image. And I kind of really love that stuff. And then mixtape, coming across the mixtape, it's about the listener. It's about what does music mean to the listener, how does it affect your life? How does it make you feel? And then being able to convey that feeling through the medium. And what I think is cool is like, you know, you have all these clubs. This is. I'm golf. This is a golf metaphor.
Woody Woodward
Golf analogy.
Johnny Galvatron
Golf analogy. I love golf. You have. Have you ever golf?
Andy Cortez
Oh, yeah, I love golf.
Woody Woodward
One times golf.
Johnny Galvatron
You have, like your cinematic club and your. Your music club and your narrative club, and then you also have your mechanic club. You know what I mean? And if you. If you can use them all and then have them flow and then you can get all those points, like the narrative and the mechanics and everything to hit those c Nandos in four or five times, you know, within the narrative, within the design, then I think, like, you've struck gold.
Tim Gettys
Follow that.
Andy Cortez
Well, I was thinking about my. How my brother always makes fun of me because I bought Nike golf clubs at one point, and Nike's no longer doing golf stuff. And so it's like, everybody's like, why did you buy Nike golf clubs? Like, that's such a dorky thing to do because I just like Tiger woods at the time. Embarrassing.
Johnny Galvatron
I'm sorry.
Andy Cortez
Embarrassing.
Woody Woodward
Are they good clubs?
Johnny Galvatron
Clubs?
Andy Cortez
No. No.
Johnny Galvatron
What kind of cricket bat do you have?
Woody Woodward
Me? Yeah. I have a kookaburra cricket bat. How Australian.
Johnny Galvatron
Sick. You guys know much about cricket?
Tim Gettys
No.
Andy Cortez
No, no.
Woody Woodward
Would you like to.
Tim Gettys
Third game coming soon. Only special feature says, will there be a physical edition?
Johnny Galvatron
Maybe they don't tell us that stuff.
Woody Woodward
Maybe they don't say maybe stuff.
Tim Gettys
The answer is maybe. Everybody, please.
Woody Woodward
I would love one to say maybe.
Johnny Galvatron
I would love one as well. We would love one. People ask us about it all the time. I. I just. We just make. I can.
Woody Woodward
Maybe.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. Oh, maybe.
Tim Gettys
So we're approaching the end here. Is there anything else that you would want to talk about? Mixtape or cricket or anything?
Woody Woodward
We won't talk about cricket because then you have to cancel the rest of your shows for the day because it'll just be. We'll just be rambling for hours.
Johnny Galvatron
We really love cricket,
Woody Woodward
man.
Johnny Galvatron
Love cricket. Me and Woody are the only two people in the video game industry worldwide that Love cricket. And that's why we work together.
Woody Woodward
That's the only reason Woody.
Johnny Galvatron
Woody had left his previous job. And then we were drinking in the pub one time and I. We were talking about cricket and I was like, do you wanna. Do you wanna work at mine? And he was like, yes. And then we had. Then we. Unfortunately for the stuff, every time the Ashes are on, that's a cricket thing between Australia and England, and we have them on the TVs around the. Around the studio. Anyway, I love cricket. Anything else we should talk about to sell the game? Probably the video game mixtape dot game comes out May 7th.
Woody Woodward
It's on everything. We're talking mixtape, game on, like, Instagram, Twitter.
Johnny Galvatron
Oh, my gosh.
Woody Woodward
Bs. That's Blue Sky Tim.
Andy Cortez
That's Blue Sky Tim.
Tim Gettys
Yes, it is.
Woody Woodward
Yeah. On all the stuff. Devo.com, xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Steam, EGS, Windows for PC. Game Pass.
Johnny Galvatron
Game Pass.
Woody Woodward
Game Pass. Day one.
Andy Cortez
It's one of those that I'm like, I'm just, like, trying to earn. Like, this isn't. This is a genreless video game.
Johnny Galvatron
Sick.
Andy Cortez
Just buy it and experience it. You will. You will love. It is like, I. You don't have to be. I only play whatever first person I was and I only play this. Andy, don't be dumb.
Tim Gettys
Like the first couple.
Andy Cortez
Experience it and then, you know, be
Woody Woodward
smart like, you will love it.
Andy Cortez
Be smart like me.
Johnny Galvatron
Yeah. We worked really hard on it.
Woody Woodward
Thank you. Please.
Johnny Galvatron
We're really proud of it. We think it's really special.
Woody Woodward
I'd like to take a holiday.
Johnny Galvatron
I. Someone asked me the other day what's like, what are you doing after the game drops? I'm like, I look into the future and all I see is darkness.
Woody Woodward
I'm gonna lie down. Yeah.
Tim Gettys
Lie down for a. Y' all deserve that. Y' all deserve that. Check out mixtape next week. Of course. We'll be doing our full review next week of the game. I can't wait to play more. I can't wait for y' all to play. It's gonna be a good time. What a pleasure to meet both of you.
Johnny Galvatron
Nice to meet you guys. Sorry about Steve Irwin.
Woody Woodward
What do you mean?
Tim Gettys
Thank you for that chat, Zach.
Andy Cortez
Sorry about him.
Woody Woodward
Oh, he's sorry about him. Right, right, right. I mean, thanks. He. He lived like he died just on. On the Edge.
Andy Cortez
On the Edge.
Woody Woodward
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
That's the first one that really affected me.
Tim Gettys
I mean, honestly, that was the first celebrity worldwide situation, dude.
Woody Woodward
I think he gained appreciation after that.
Tim Gettys
I.
Andy Cortez
You know, I mean, he always had my appreciation.
Tim Gettys
Yeah.
Andy Cortez
I was always the biggest fan.
Tim Gettys
His son's amazing.
Woody Woodward
They hunted that daughter, too.
Tim Gettys
But his son's dope.
Johnny Galvatron
They're good kids.
Woody Woodward
Yeah, they hunted that stingray one Dancing
Tim Gettys
with the Stars last week.
Andy Cortez
Yeah, he got away.
Woody Woodward
He was on the road. They were trying to find it.
Tim Gettys
I love you all. Goodbye.
Johnny Galvatron
Peace.
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Date: May 1, 2026
Host: Tim Gettys
Guests: Andy Cortez, Johnny Galvatron (Director/Writer, Beethoven & Dinosaur), Woody Woodward (Producer, Beethoven & Dinosaur)
Theme: An in-depth discussion ahead of the release of Mixtape, the new musical adventure game from the creators of The Artful Escape. The team explores the game's vision, development, soundtrack, design philosophy, and what makes Mixtape stand out.
This episode focuses on the anticipation for Mixtape, an upcoming narrative adventure by Beethoven & Dinosaur. The hosts, along with creators Johnny Galvatron and Woody Woodward, dive into the story, style, unique mechanics, and especially the music that defines the game. There's enthusiasm around how Mixtape builds on The Artful Escape, and candid conversations about the creative and logistical challenges of making a game where both gameplay and an iconic soundtrack drive the experience.
Tone:
Funny, irreverent, yet sincere. Full of creative passion, musical nostalgia, and Aussie banter. Deep behind-the-scenes moments meet silly asides (cricket, tongue physics, wrestling metaphors).
Takeaways:
Final Words:
"This is a genreless video game. Just buy it and experience it. You will love it." —Andy Cortez [62:29]
Mixtape releases May 7, 2026 on all platforms.
Check out mixtape.game and @mixtapegame for more.