We Interview Dispatch's Aaron Paul, NYT Games Editor - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast

Episode Title: We Interview Dispatch's Aaron Paul, NYT Games Editor
Date: November 18, 2025
Host(s): Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Barrett, Joey Noel, Nick, Andy Cortez
Guests: Joel Fogliano (NYT Games Editor & author), Aaron Paul (actor, Dispatch)

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Episode Overview

This special episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast features two primary topics:

• An in-depth interview with Joel Fogliano, the New York Times Games and Puzzle Editor and author of the new “Puzzle Mania” book, focusing on the world of puzzles, the evolution of NYT Games, and puzzle creation.
• A conversation with actor Aaron Paul about his role in the new video game Dispatch, with insights into game voice acting and the growing intersection between games and Hollywood talent.

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1. Interview with Joel Fogliano: NYT Games Editor & Author

NYT Games Behind-The-Scenes ([00:50] – [06:01])

• Job Explained:
  Joel Fogliano explains his role as NYT Games and Puzzle Editor, emphasizing that editors don’t just 'sit around doing puzzles.' The team divides editing and creation—Joel is responsible for the Mini Crossword, others for Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee.
  • “Yeah, that's basically the main question I always get: 'Oh, you're a puzzle editor, you just sit around and do puzzles all day.' That would be a fun job. That's not really what we do.” – Joel ([04:40])
• Team Structure:
  Seven editors, each with their own game, including the legendary Will Shortz, plus lots of cross-collaboration and game testing.
  • “Everyone has their own little kingdom... but we all give input on each other's games.” – Joel ([05:49])

Puzzle Difficulty & Player Frustration ([06:01] – [08:24])

• Playtesting and Tuning:
  Each puzzle is tested by editors and a broader panel to ensure playability. However, millions of players can surface unforeseen issues.
  • "Connections is supposed to... give you a couple slaps every now and then." – Joel ([06:01])
• Connections Difficulty:
  Editors want puzzles to be solvable and fun. Discusses color-coded categories in Connections, especially the infamous “purple” group.
  • “Purple’s the evil one. The blue ones often got pop culture. Like, know it or you don’t.” – Joel ([07:00])
  • Blessing on difficulty swings: “I feel like I could wake up and do the connections on a Monday and maybe be able to nail it. And then on a Tuesday, I'm like, what is this?” ([06:34])
• Meta-Play and Self-Imposed Challenges:
  Some players intentionally try to solve the hardest categories first for an extra sense of achievement.

What Makes a NYT Game? ([08:24] – [10:14])

• Hallmarks: Cleverness and rewarding the player’s sense of accomplishment are essential.
  • “The reason to do a puzzle is to feel better about yourself. Ultimately, I feel like it.” – Joel ([08:31])
  • “You want people to at the end be like, damn, I'm really clever. Like, I got that.” – Joel ([08:45])
• Social Layer:
  Puzzles have become social—players share times and results in group chats and Slack channels, a recent shift unique to short NYT games like the Mini and Wordle.

NYT Puzzle Culture & Player Community ([09:52] – [11:24])

• Competitive Fun:
  The Kinda Funny crew shares how the Mini Crossword has become a speed contest.
  • “It was specifically sharing our times. It was seeing who could solve the Mini crossword the fastest. Which was never me, always me and Lucy.” – Blessing ([09:52])
• Different Audiences:
  The Mini isn’t just an “on-ramp” to the full Crossword; it has a distinct audience enjoying daily quick solves and competition.
  • “It's actually just a different audience of people.” – Joel ([10:14])

Puzzle Mania Book, Puzzles as Passion ([11:24] – [15:26])

• Publishing Journey:
  Joel recounts his early passion for puzzles, getting his first NYT crossword published as a high school senior.
  • “I started to notice that the puzzles had bylines... Many polite rejections later. I had my first crossword accepted and published during my senior year of high school.” – Joel ([12:21])
• Puzzle Mania Book:
  Features hundreds of puzzles, including new types (e.g., Emojiography), themed on Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee. Ideal as a holiday gift.
  • "If you have someone in your life who loves the games... such a great holiday gift." – Greg ([11:40])
• Personal Story:
  Joel hid his puzzle creation hobby in school until his principal celebrated his NYT puzzle in front of the class; he reflects on being a “nerd” before puzzles were cool.

The Will Shortz Influence ([15:26] – [16:46])

• Puzzling Legend:
  Will Shortz, NYT crossword editor since 1993, even created the first college major in enigmatology (the study of puzzles).
  • “Talk about knowing what you want to be. Like, he knew and he pursued it when there was just like, not even careers that were available...” – Joel ([15:56])

Principles and Tools of Puzzle Making ([17:00] – [20:28])

• Guiding Philosophy:
  Always “think of the solver first”—avoid puzzles that only make sense to the creator.
  • "A lot of people make puzzles for themselves and that's like kind of the cardinal sin." – Joel ([17:11])
• Use of Technology:
  Puzzles crafted by a mix of human creation and software tools.
  • Tools mentioned: Crossword Compiler, Crossfire.
• Finding Ideas:
  Inspiration comes from everywhere—Joel keeps a notebook, collects ideas from daily life, and scavenges trivia for creative content.
  • “My wife's always saying, you know, remember like in the Queen's Gambit, when she... looks up at the ceiling and she's seeing all the pieces move? That's like me but with letters just, like, floating around.” – Joel ([20:33])

Creative Process and Replayability ([21:05] – [22:25])

• Puzzle Creation Fatigue:
  Puzzle editors often don’t play as much for fun, because it’s their job.
• Database of Past Work:
  Joel worries about unintentional repeats; NYT maintains an internal database to track clues and answers.

Audience Backlash & Engagement ([22:25] – [24:03])

• Harsh Feedback Happens:
  Despite positivity at events, online hate mail and nitpicking are frequent. Puzzles undergo heavy vetting.
  • “A lot of people who do our games are careful, smart people. So if there's an error, like, thousands of people are catching that.” – Joel ([22:43])

Changing Face of Puzzle Creators ([24:44] – [27:25])

• Editors as Public Figures:
  Social media brought puzzle editors out of obscurity—players now know and sometimes direct complaints at specific editors.
  • “I do feel like having forward-facing editors has helped us in some ways. I'm not on social media personally, so that's my way of dealing with it.” – Joel ([26:07])

Favorite Puzzles & Book Highlights ([27:26] – [29:36])

• Book Contents:
  “Puzzle Mania” collects Joel’s favorite Minis, favorite clues, as well as new “crazy variants” (e.g., vowelless crosswords). Designed so every page is a surprise.
  • “What I wanted the book to feel like was everything New York Times Games is now.” – Joel ([27:59])
• Emojiography Example:
  Puzzles where emojis hint at place names, e.g., Santa + boat = “Santa Cruz.”

Developing New Games at NYT ([29:36] – [31:17])

• “New Game Squad”:
  A rotating team pitches and prototypes new games; thorough user testing before any game launches, increasingly high expectations after hits like Wordle and Connections.
  • “The main thing we're usually trying to test for is just like, do people come back—like, is it a game that's sticky that people... will come back and play that the next day.” – Joel ([30:07])

NYT Games Competition & Rituals ([31:17] – [34:10])

• Internal Rivalries:
  Kinda Funny hosts and staff share competitive stories—fastest Mini solvers, Wordle strategies (“arise,” “sugar”), optimizations.
  • “For the Mini, if I don't do it in under a minute, then it's kind of a wash of a day.” – Barrett ([31:21])
• Wordle Tactics & Tools:
  Discussion on starting words, wordlebot, and different strategies.
  • “The Times has a thing... analyzes how you played Wordle... humbling... it'll be like, you chose like the 77th best guess.” – Joel ([34:10])

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2. The Aaron Paul Interview – Dispatch & Voice Acting in Games

Introduction and Gaming Background ([46:35] – [47:55])

• Gaming Fan:
  Aaron Paul describes himself as a past avid gamer, now less so after starting a family.
  • “I love just the gaming universe... My brother's a massive gamer... I just think that's so beautiful about gaming.” – Aaron Paul ([46:51])

Stepping into Video Game Acting ([47:55] – [49:05])

• Voice Acting Journey:
  After years of work in animation (“BoJack,” “Invincible”), Aaron Paul was selective about new projects. The mix of drama and comedy in Dispatch made this role appealing.
  • “I swore, okay, I'm not going to do another animated thing unless it's really great... When this came my way, Dispatch... It really kind of plays with your emotion. It's not just slapstick funny at all.” – Aaron Paul ([47:55])

Recording Process: Video Games vs Animation ([49:05] – [51:11])

• Longer Timeframes:
  Two years to record all lines for Dispatch, very different from animation (e.g., three sessions for “Invincible”).
  • “The process of recording is very similar to, you know, other animation... but the pure time was much, much different.” – Aaron Paul ([49:05])
• Working Solo:
  No ensemble recording; most lines performed to previously-recorded audio.
• Emotional Toll:
  Playing Powerplex in “Invincible” was intense and draining.
  • “It really made me want to pull out my Nintendo Wii... I would play just Mario Kart... with the steering wheel.” – Aaron Paul ([53:43])

Dispatch's Narrative, Episodic Release, and Choice ([51:11] – [53:19])

• Story-First Approach:
  Aaron values strong narratives in any acting role and enjoys that players' choices can meaningfully affect the story.
  • “If it's not, like, an interesting narrative... you'll turn it off. What's so unique about this is... you can play it again and just choose just the polar opposite...” – Aaron Paul ([52:24])
• Format:
  Game is being released in parts/episodes.

Immersion, Playing the Game, and Gaming Nostalgia ([53:19] – [54:17])

• Playing His Own Game:
  He play-tested a demo during VO sessions.
• Gaming Memories:
  Fond recollections of Mario Kart with family.

Dispatch Characters and Superpowers ([54:17] – [56:50])

• Phoenix Program:
  A team of reformed villains. Aaron’s character is a superhero stuck working the dispatch office after suit damage.
  • “It's really just a group of villains that are now... trying to try to be good.” – Aaron Paul ([55:44])
• Choice of Powers:
  Aaron likes the idea of turning invisible; Blessing would go for super speed, with its caveats (aging side-effect).
• Fun Exchange:
  “Who doesn't want to be a big demon lady?” – Aaron Paul ([56:43])
  • Nick (joking): “Just to be above 6ft, just for the height.” ([56:46])

Show-Ending Goof: Andy's Impression ([56:59] – [57:29])

• Personalized Insult (Joke):
  Aaron, at the hosts’ request, records a message for Andy, who is known for a bad Aaron Paul impression:
  • “Hey, Andy, you suck. Thank you for attempting, but it's just. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself. But good luck to you. Lots of love. And that's all I got.” – Aaron Paul ([57:17])

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• On Puzzle Creation:
  “You want people to at the end be like, damn, I'm really clever. Like, I got that.” – Joel Fogliano ([08:45])
• On Publishing Passion Projects:
  “My first crossword ever in the Times was... I was a senior in high school. I was super excited. I had told nobody, none. None of my friends knew that I had basically spent two years at that point, submitting crosswords to the New York Times.” – Joel ([14:07])
• On Connections Difficulty:
  “Connections is supposed to... give you a couple slaps every now and then.” – Joel ([06:01])
• On Community:
  “I just think that's so beautiful about gaming... people that he's never met in real life, but he's so close with... I just think that's so beautiful about gaming.” – Aaron Paul ([47:03])
• On Choosing Acting Roles:
  “It's just about the story, you know?...The story's got to be there.” – Aaron Paul ([52:24])
• On Facing Vocal Critique:
  “Hey, Andy, you suck. Thank you for attempting, but it's just. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself. But good luck to you. Lots of love. And that's all I got.” – Aaron Paul ([57:17])

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Key Timestamps for Navigation

• [00:50] – Show proper begins, Greg introduces guests, Joel Fogliano
• [04:36] – Explanation of the NYT Games Editor’s job
• [05:29] – Puzzle team structure & roles
• [06:37] – Testing and feedback process for puzzles
• [08:31] – Defining a “New York Times game”
• [11:24] – Puzzle Mania book and Joel’s background story
• [14:07] – Joel’s first NYT crossword and story from high school
• [15:33] – Will Shortz and his impact on puzzles
• [17:11] – Principles of puzzle construction
• [20:33] – Seeing the world through the lens of puzzles
• [22:25] – Editor's database and dealing with feedback
• [24:44] – Rise of the puzzle editor as a public figure
• [27:26] – Description of the Puzzle Mania book, Emojiography
• [29:36] – NYT’s new game development process
• [31:17] – Internal Kinda Funny Games competition stories
• [34:10] – Wordle strategies
• [46:35] – Start of the Aaron Paul interview
• [47:55] – Role selection and Dispatch’s appeal to Aaron
• [49:05] – The process of voice acting for games
• [51:11] – Interactive narrative, player choice in Dispatch
• [53:19] – Aaron on replaying the game, Mario Kart nostalgia
• [54:49] – Discussing superpowers from Dispatch
• [57:17] – Aaron’s personalized message for Andy

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Overall Tone and Takeaways

• Warm, nerdy camaraderie between the Kinda Funny crew and their guests
• Candid insights into puzzle design, the pressures and joys of crafting intellectual games for millions
• Fun, relaxed chat with Aaron Paul, moving between gaming fandom, voice acting details, and light-hearted banter
• Both interviews highlight the evolution of their respective media—puzzles and games—from niche passions to mainstream social phenomena.

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For full details on the episode—including puzzle construction stories, NYT Games behind-the-scenes, and Aaron Paul’s unique perspective on gaming and acting—use the timestamped notations for deep dives into each discussion segment.

Transcript

[Stassi Schroeder]

This is your fix. I am your host, Stassi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season three?

[Barrett]

Steven.

[Nick]

Because he's so evil, I do think he is misunderstood.

[Stassi Schroeder]

You see everyone face consequences.

[Joel Fogliano]

It's intoxicating.

[Stassi Schroeder]

The writers just know how to trick. Yeah, there's always a twist in this show. Tell Me Lies, the official podcast January 6th. And stream the new season of Tell Me Lies January 13th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Recruitment for Arknight's Enfield Beta Test 2 has officially begun. Head to endfield.grifline.com and complete the recruitment survey for a chance to join beta test 2 when it starts on November 28th.

[Greg Miller]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to a very special kind of funny games cast for Tuesday, November 18, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside Christmas in novemb November. Joey Noel.

[Barrett]

So close to this.

[Greg Miller]

It's so close. But do you like that or not like that? Like your name when it's Christmas in April. I think that's really quaint. Yeah, Christmas in December. Like, people don't get the reference anymore.

[Barrett]

Yeah, that's just.

[Greg Miller]

Maybe you stay off content.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Christmas.

[Barrett]

So it takes a pause during December.

[Greg Miller]

Next to you, it's Forbes 30 under 30, aka New York Game Awards nominated aka leftover poppy blessing at AOYE Junior. Good day, Greg. Hey, good day to you.

[Joel Fogliano]

Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

And next to Blessing, it's our esteemed guest, everybody. Let me break out the full title. All right. New York Times games and puzzle editor and published author of the New York Times Games Puzzle Mania book. It's Joel Fogliano. Hello, Joel. Yay.

[Barrett]

Thank you.

[Joel Fogliano]

Great to be here.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you for coming, Joel. This is a very big deal. We get a lot of cold emails. Hey, this person was a background extra in this movie. Do you want to talk to him? And I'm like, I don't even respond. I throw them away. This one came through of like, hey, the New York Times games editor wrote a book called Puzzle Mania. Do you want it? And I was. That was an immediate one minute less. Hey, yes, we want it. Can we get Joel in the office? They're like, I guess we could get him in the office. Thank you for coming through, Joel.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, it's awesome to be here.

[Greg Miller]

We're going to get into all of this, the new book, everything going on. Blessing's got bones to pick already about today's connections.

[Blessing]

Today's connections are messed up.

[Joel Fogliano]

All right, bring it on. Bring it on.

[Greg Miller]

But before then I will remind you of course that this is the Kinda Funny Games Cast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video games. Whether they be reviews, previews, interviews, like our Aaron Paul interview. That will be the second half of this episode. Of course Dispatches Aaron Paul. I guess he was in a show called Breaking Bad 2, but dispatch, I

[Barrett]

think we heard of it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, no, don't worry about it. Made for Speed Movie. Maybe you know him from that. We do that each and every weekday on YouTube.com kindafunnygames Twitch TV, kindafunnygames and podcast services around the globe. If you like that, pick up a Kinda Funny membership. Of course, patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com kind to FunnyGames, Apple and Spotify. You can toss US$10 get all of our content ad free. That's more than 80 episodes A and of course your daily dose of me, Greg Miller and a 15 to 20 minute podcast we call Greg Way. If you have questions for Joel or you want to pick bones about Wordle the Mini any other New York Times, let us know in your super chats. We'd love to hear from you on YouTube.com kindafunnygames Housekeeping for you. Remember, we're an 11 person small business all about live talk shows. Kinda Funny Games Daily already covered the Zelda movie news and images. And after this it's the Kinda Funny podcast that I guarantee you is going to be an instant classic. You will not want to miss this episode.

[Barrett]

I saw your post about this over the weekend and I was scared.

[Greg Miller]

I'm calling my shot. I'm Babe Ruth. Bless this is going to be an episode.

[Blessing]

Listen, I'm looking forward to it.

[Greg Miller]

Joel, I'd like you to I'd like to make sure you are out of the building before we start this episode of Not a Funny Podcast if you don't mind. I respect you too much for you

[Joel Fogliano]

to be here for the appreciate it.

[Greg Miller]

After that it's going to be blessing Andy beating Eldon Ring Night Rain.

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh yeah.

[Greg Miller]

All right. I'm excited about that.

[Blessing]

It's been like probably the longest playthrough I've had of a video game this year.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Of starting it back in what May when it came out and still haven't not beaten the final boss. So Andy's gonna get me.

[Joel Fogliano]

Okay, good.

[Greg Miller]

That's what I want to hear.

[Barrett]

Theme of the year time. Everyone's trying to finish everything up.

[Greg Miller]

If you're a kind of Funny member, today's Greg Way is all about the outer worlds. Two versus Starfield for something like 17 minutes. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega, Buster, and Delaney. The Psalm Twining for now. Let's begin the show with what is and forever will be topic of the show. Tots, Dots, Dots, Tots, Tots. Joel, your topic of the show. You have a new book called Puzzle Mania. I feel like there are so many places to start when again, the official title is New York Times games and Puzzle Editor.

[Joel Fogliano]

You don't have to do it with the glasses. I do

[Greg Miller]

whatever makes it work better that way. What is that job?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, that's fair. That's basically the main question I always get is like, oh, you're a puzzle editor. You just sit around and do puzzles all day. That would be a fun job. That's not really what we do, but I work on the mini crossword. Have you ever solved the mini crossword?

[Barrett]

The mini is my all time favorite,

[Greg Miller]

I think you say on it. But you're also heralded as the creator of the.

[Joel Fogliano]

I created it. Yeah, maybe. That was a humble brag.

[Greg Miller]

Rare air here.

[Joel Fogliano]

Everybody work on it?

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. So basically we have a team of editors. We've got somebody who works on the wordle, somebody works on the connections. I work on the mini. We all work on what we call the big crossword, which is the daily crossword, the super hard one. And together, every day, we're responsible for. Yeah. Daily set of games driving people crazy. And driving people crazy. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So how many editors are there? You say, you know, you all work in different stuff, but how many people are the puzzle?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, we've got seven now. So that includes Will Shorts, the longtime legend of the puzzle world, who I kind of.

[Greg Miller]

You were an intern with, right?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. Apprenticed with, for lack of a better word. Winna Lou, who does connections. Sam Ozerski does spelling bee and many others.

[Barrett]

So it's one person, like, per game?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, it's kind of their little. Everyone has their own little kingdom, you know, but then we all give input on each other's games. So I was like the main Connections tester for a long time.

[Greg Miller]

In the live chat, Comicsams3 says Connections is my personal hell.

[Joel Fogliano]

We kind of like it that way, to be honest with you. It's fun to have a range of difficulties with games. Wordle I don't think is anyone's personal hell. It's just sort of like a nice warm blanket. Everybody can do wordle. It's a good wordle. Connections is supposed to, you know, give You a couple slaps every now and then. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So blessing, pick your bone.

[Blessing]

I don't even want to start off with picking my bone because honestly, the bone to pick was just that today's connections whoop my ass. Yeah, I guess to start off with that, right? I guess. How do you guys determine the difficulty on a given day of a game? I feel like I could wake up and do the connections on a Monday and maybe be able to nail it. And then on a Tuesday, I'm like, what is this? What's going on here?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, I mean, believe it or not, we want it to be solvable. Right. We want you to have fun. So we're starting there. All the puzzles are tested first by one of the editors and then by a whole panel of people to make sure, like, I mean, it's just play testing, basically, and to get feedback and to make sure the thing is solvable. So before we put it out in the world, we have that. That being said, then you put it out to an audience of millions and you find out for real whether you did your job right. So much of puzzling is subjective, I would say, with connections. In particular, some of the blue and the purple categories, if you know what that means. Purple's the evil one. Yeah. The blue ones often got pop culture. Like, know it or you don't? Like, I don't know. There are people who do purple first. I don't know if you're one of these people.

[Blessing]

I'm not one of those people. I slowly have started becoming one of those people though, because I saw, oh, there was some creator on TikTok that was doing like, the thing where it is, I have to get the purple first or else I lose. And I think that's the coolest way to play it.

[Joel Fogliano]

It's almost like a self determined way of adding a level to the game. It's like I'm just gonna sit here and figure them all out without making the guesses. And so as the puzzle editors, we're. We're just constantly trying to figure out, like, for example, you really shouldn't overlap a purple category with something that's, you know, know it or don't. Like if you have something that's crazy wordplay and then there's a fifth member that could be in it, but that's in another category. Oh, people are dead.

[Blessing]

Today's had one where I was like, oh, certainly this is the thing. Right. Because it's all part of the same category. Hit it. Absolutely not it.

[Joel Fogliano]

Okay. But I'm curious. So like, one of the things I think that's built in to make connections a little fairer is that when you have those four at the end left, like, you could just reveal them. You don't really need to know.

[Barrett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

So we're just trying to get people just to that. Like, maybe they won't actually get that last category on their own, but, like, lots of people like to figure it out on their own. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.

[Blessing]

So my question is, between connections, the mini crossword, spelling bee, all these things. What makes a New York Times game?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, that's a great question. So it needs to be clever and rewarding are kind of two words that come to mind. Because, like, the reason to do a puzzle is to feel better about yourself. Ultimately, I feel like it.

[Greg Miller]

You don't want to keep ruining people's day.

[Nick]

No.

[Joel Fogliano]

You don't want to just, like, knock people's ego down a peg. Like, you want people to at the end be like, damn, I'm really clever. Like, I got that. So that's part of our hallmark. And then, I mean, I just think what has to separate our games from other games. They have to feel like a good use of your time. That's always what comes down to me. Like, there's so many ways to spend your time. Now I think what makes New York Times games, why people come back to it is like, yeah, that was a good use of my five or 10 minutes. I actually feel like I worked my brain, I got smarter. And now with all these social elements of the game, the way that people can then share it to their group chat, talk to their family about.

[Barrett]

We need a whole Slack channel just to share all of our stuff, which has provided different amounts of frustration with each other.

[Joel Fogliano]

That's kind of new because it used to be puzzling. Like, when I was growing up, it was just the crossword, Right. That was kind of the main thing the New York Times did. Like, not that many people solved crosswords with other people. It was just like, I sit with my coffee in the morning. I do my. My crossword. But now with the wordle with, like, you do your puzzle, and then this whole thing afterwards where you get to, like, kind of talk to people like, oh, I got in three. Like, what'd you get it in? You know, that sort of thing. And that's added a new dimension to our games, I would say.

[Blessing]

The thing that really dominated our Slack channel, I think, was the mini. It was the mini crossword. It was specifically sharing our times. It was Seeing who can solve the mini crossword the fastest. Which was never me, always me and Lucy. Yes, it was always Joey and Lucy. How often do you see people metagame the crosswords or metagame, like the NYT games? Like, do you see a lot of people create their own fun out of it?

[Joel Fogliano]

Totally. And the Mini is a great example of that. So like when we started the Mini, the whole idea was, I mean, if you've done the bigger one super hard,

[Barrett]

I have a shot at Monday. And that's about it.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. And it's got this built in difficulty curve. So Monday's the easiest. Saturday's like the hardest thing you've ever seen. And a lot of people don't even know about that built in difficulty curve. So they might show up to the app on a Friday and be like, oh, that's tough, let me try a crossword today. And it's like, whoa. And so the mini was intended to be just a reason to come back every day. Something you could solve. When I started making it, I quickly realized like, no, it's actually just a different audience of people. It's not a ramp up to this other game. There's a whole set of people who a like being competitive about their time. So they're like, okay, now that I know that I can do this in, let's call it under two minutes every day now I want to challenge both myself. Like, can I get my fastest time? But almost more importantly, like can I beat my friends and family at this? So with my, my goal of making the puzzle though is like, sure, I could just do pet that meows for cat. Right. Like that would make it easy and some people would go fast. But it wouldn't go back to what I said before. Like it just wouldn't have that clever and rewarding thing. So the fine line is like something that's easy and yet still feels like it fits in. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So my question then, I guess is from the book, of course, Puzzle Mania available now. An amazing. They're not sponsoring, they should sponsor. Oh, Kevin's got the full thing. You know, it's how many puzzles are inside of the book first off?

[Joel Fogliano]

I guess hundreds. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Greg Miller]

If you have someone in your life who loves the games like we love the games here. Such a great holiday gift. I'm really upset that I said Joey could have this one. I'm gonna have to get my copy to have on the coffee table ready to go. But in the opening here, your letter, like I talked to you, you know, before we came on, of if you're a kind of funny best friend and you're watching this and not just somebody in the chat mad that we're not interviewing Aaron Paul yet, I think it's worth, you know, calling out of, like, I see so much of my story in yours where I obviously have wanted to do this forever and everybody's heard my story of since the fourth grade. Yada, yada, yada. In yours is so the same way. Right. Where you're talking about in the 10th grade. I started to notice that the puzzles had bylines, which is, like, pulled from my story about this.

[Nick]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

I became obsessive about crosswords, reading every puzzle blog I could find, writing down puzzle ideas in the margins of my notebooks, doodling little grids in class. I began sending my puzzles to the New York Times. Many polite rejections later. I had my first crossword accepted and published during my senior year of high school. That then goes on to you.

[Joel Fogliano]

I think I even put one of the doodles in the book.

[Greg Miller]

You did? Yeah, yeah. Soon. Around there. Yeah. It starts alive.

[Nick]

Yemen.

[Greg Miller]

I wonder where that one starts.

[Joel Fogliano]

Bored alive. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

But then it continues to go on and, like, obviously the puzzles have been in your life for so long. And then I love this. Over here, we talk about. You give, you know, Wordle enters the picture here you talk about, you know, Josh Wardle making it for his partner. And then overnight, the number of people playing the mini doubled. It felt like we were an indie band that suddenly was selling out stadiums. Playing New York Times games became inexplicably cool. Perhaps most gratifying, though, puzzles, which had always been a solitary activity associated with sleepy Sunday mornings on the sofa, or were now being played as a social activity. You talk about being on the subway and seeing people with the app and all this, like, it was trippy. But, I mean, what is that like? Because that's. It's a similar thing of, like, for me, growing up, games being. Oh, games were my thing. They were a nerdy thing. My friends dabbled, but they didn't play games. Like, I play games where now video games are just pop culture. Everybody plays games. What? You're living that still to this day, to some degree, where the crossword, which I always thought of, like, as Grandma Miller's thing, not as something contemporaries were doing, is suddenly cool.

[Joel Fogliano]

And that's. You know, I don't even. I didn't tell this story in the book. I'm not sure I've ever told this story, but my first crossword of everybody to this show. So my first crossword ever in the Times was. I was a senior in high school. And it came out and, like, I was a huge day for me. I was super excited. I had told nobody, none. None of my friends knew that I had basically spent two years at that point, submitting crosswords to the New York Times.

[Greg Miller]

They didn't know you were doing that.

[Joel Fogliano]

They did not know.

[Barrett]

Did they know that you were like.

[Joel Fogliano]

They knew that I was, like, into Crossroads because, like, we would do the commuter one. Like, I grew up in Philly, so we would do, like, the Philadelphia Inquirer and, like, the Metro one. And we would race in class and see who could do them the quickest than I would win. They knew that I was good at it.

[Greg Miller]

No big deal.

[Joel Fogliano]

But I didn't tell anyone. Cause it was just sort of like this little secret project I had. I was just like, I don't really know if they know that I do this at that level. And then so basically, I got a call from the principal today, and they said, come down. You know, they said, come down to the office. And everyone's going, ooh. And I go down. And she's like, you have a puzzle in the New York Times today. Like, we've printed it out. We're gonna.

[Blessing]

Like.

[Joel Fogliano]

We have a little tray, and we're gonna give it out to everybody. And I go back up into class. We had those smart boards.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

And they're all looking at the puzzle and, like, reading the blog about it. And they all thought it was super cool. They're all like, oh, that's amazing. And I felt awesome. I feel sort of ashamed about it in retrospect. Like, I should have just embraced my inner nerd at that point.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

But I think I hadn't admitted to myself yet. Like, no, this is my thing. Even though I have many other. Like, this is what my calling is. And then, like, even then, I don't think I quite believed it until I interned with Will Shorts and worked with him for a while. I was like, I can do this.

[Greg Miller]

But, yeah, you talk about it a bit in the intro letter there, which, again, is for the audience, very brief. Like, this isn't an autobiography. I wanna make sure it's.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, it's a book, but there's not much writing. You pack it. It's just puzzles. It's a great writing.

[Greg Miller]

But, like, for people who don't know who is Will.

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, yeah. So Will Shortz has been the editor of the New York Times crossword since 1993. Before that, he edited a magazine called Games. I'm trying to think of a corollary for him. And like other American life, he's just a larger than life puzzle figure. Like, this is a guy who in the 1970s at Indiana University, created his own major, called it enigmatology.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, my God.

[Joel Fogliano]

And he made up a puzzle major for himself and was just like, talk about knowing what you want to be. Like, he knew and he pursued it when there was just like, not even careers that were available. He just made the whole thing, kind of like built the whole thing himself. And so going to work for him when I was like 17, it was insane. Like, you're sitting in his office, like spitballing clues with him. I think in the book, I say it was like, you know, you go, you like basketball? And it's like, oh, do you want to play horse with Michael Jordan? It's like, yeah, I think that sounds fun. Do that. Like so. And then, you know, you would just be going back and forth and I would say, you know, maybe we clue it this way. And he would be, all right. And it would go in the New York Times. And I was like, you're listening to me. Like, are you sure you would think about that a little longer? And so we've just had a good working relationship. I was his assistant for a long time, and now we just both are lead puzzle editors at the time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, Question from me, because there was something in your story that scared me. How old are you?

[Joel Fogliano]

Me right now I'm 33.

[Greg Miller]

When he said smart boards in high school, I was like, oh, no. Oh no, we're not the same.

[Blessing]

So throughout all this time, you know, learning and understanding how to create all these puzzles, what are some of the guiding principles that you have as a puzzle editor to create a good puzzle?

[Joel Fogliano]

Sure. So the first thing is you have to think of the solver first. Like, a lot of people make puzzles for themselves and that's like kind of the cardinal sin. Like you're loading it with references that only you know or things that you find funny, but other people, like, I don't really like that pun so much. You know, whatever. So the first thing is understand who your audience is and who you are, who you're going to serve up this puzzle to and kind of what they're looking for it in. That was a big thing with the mini. Was understanding. Oh, no, it's like a new audience and trying to understand the scope of people who were doing it. And then. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of tools now, like computer tools to help make Puzzles. I think a big thing is just studying up on the best puzzles now are made by a combination of human brain and computer tools. Like just straight computer made puzzles are. They're getting a little better but they're, they're still soulless and they don't really feel like it. I think people still want, they want to solve something made by a human. They want to connect with another person. Like that's part of the things with connections is people get so mad at connections. But the fact that there's a human on the other end of the line, Winna, it was something that came out of Wina's brain. You can just curse Winna to the heavens. Like you know that's, that's something like that to me is something. So I think the second point is just familiarize yourself. And there's all these free tools online like some called Crossword Compiler and Crossfire that you can just download and start making crosswords yourself.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

If you're interested.

[Blessing]

So talking about these things coming from somebody's brain.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing]

Like that came from their brain of what that connection is, how tough is it? Because we have the show called Game Showdown where I create trivia all the time for the guys to solve. The biggest struggle that I have when creating trivia is creating something from scratch. Starting from zero and going, all right, what topic, what game, what thing am I going to reference to try and pull trivia out from it?

[Joel Fogliano]

Are there.

[Blessing]

How do you figure out ideas from scratch?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, the blank canvas is terrifying.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. And I mean I've made the mini every day since 2014, so it's like 4,000 odd minis. And so like at a certain point

[Barrett]

the fact that you do it solo is so impressive too. Of like not you have obviously the rest of the editors to bounce around, but that's like a lot of pressure to build one for every day.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. And so I mean for me it's casting around. So I always keep a notebook with me. So like I find that just like walking around or in the morning, early in the morning, something pops in your head, you can write it down. Sometimes you don't even develop it then, but then you just come back later and you're like, okay, so there's something with that idea. These two crossing and they've referenced each other. How can I make a puzzle out of that? It's funny you mentioned trivia. There's actually a bunch of trivia in the book. And another thing I didn't mention, I didn't mention this in the book. Because it was kind of for me. But a lot of the trivia in the book is trivia I made for my brothers for, like, road trips. We do.

[Blessing]

Oh, that's cool.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. I have a brother in la and we go out and visit him. And I don't know, when you're making a puzzle, it is just really important to be like, okay, who's solving it? What's the sort of topics they're going to like? What's the sort of stuff they're gonna react to sometimes? That's your starting point. It's just like, okay, my little brother's really into skateboarding. Is there, like, an interesting skateboarding? Like, how do I make it appealing to my older brother, too, who's not as into it, but maybe there's a way I can find a way to make it more general. And then you just start making constraints. Constraints help. And then you go from there. Yeah.

[Blessing]

Sounds like you're always seeing the Matrix. It sounds like your brain is constantly at work seeing things, making puzzles out of them.

[Joel Fogliano]

My wife's always saying, you know, remember like in the Queen's Gambit, when she, like, looks up at the ceiling and she's seeing all the pieces move?

[Blessing]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

That's like, what, me? But with letters just, like, floating around. Does she see me?

[Greg Miller]

I am always, like, mid conversation at dinner, and she's like, are you thinking

[Joel Fogliano]

of something kind of, like, swirling? But it's just like, yeah, if you're walking around on the street, like, you see a street sign, like, I'm always just. I'll just anagram it a little bit or I'll just see, like, oh, if you remove the first letter, like, what does that spell? You just never know. Sometimes stuff comes out of that. But that's probably where my brain works differently than other people.

[Blessing]

Do you still play puzzle games? Like, do you ever check out. I know Blueprints is one of the most popular, like, puzzle games that came out this year for video games. Are you checking those things out or now are you solely focused on making the puzzles?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, I used to be much more into playing word games, but then since it became my job, like, when it was, it is like, all I do all day, basically. It's not really something I do as much to unwind anymore. I feel sort of, like, sad admitting that, but it's true. I just, like, have other.

[Barrett]

We all understand that. Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. So, yeah, I really don't play as. Play as much. But then when I go check out, like, oh, what? Like, you know, the Suite of games that LinkedIn now has, like, a suite of games. I'll go play their game. Yeah, they're actually pretty good. And you can go and play other people's games and see, like, kind of what's happening in the puzzle game space. I find that helpful. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

For doing the mini for so long. 4,000 plus. Do you have like a database spreadsheet? Like, do you ever, like, wait, have I done that before? Do you worry about that doing it again?

[Joel Fogliano]

Like, totally worry about redoing myself. Yeah. So we have an internal database that I can search every word and see how it's been clued in the past and also click to that puzzle and go see, oh, that's awesome. And I have redone ideas and then caught them. Be like, okay, I did that in 2018, can't do it again type of thing. Yeah, probably I'm the only person who cares and remembers. It still feels like just.

[Greg Miller]

Well, you say that. I have to imagine, like, it's different for sure. But I remember working at a newspaper and I remember coming in in the morning and opening my voicemail and picking it up, and the. The hate mail I got of people being so mad about something I did in an article or said an article or whatever. Do you guys have that where you're feeling people who are just like, blessing, constant pits to my connection?

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's part. It's part of the relationship people have to our games. It's. I wouldn't call it love hate. It's mostly love. Like most people, I would say the average person. So now that I'm doing this book tour for Puzzle Mania, like, all the events available now in Source, all the events are so they're like, positive, and people are just coming up, hey, it's a big part of my day. I really like it. Go online, though. Go online. We know online hate very well. And I mean, first of all, most. A lot of people who do our games are careful, smart people. So if there's an error, like, thousands of people are catching that, like, the smallest factual thing. So that's why the games are so heavily vetted before they go out. But also people just like, you know, stumping someone in a puzzle, if you do it in a satisfying way is great. If you do it in a frustrating way in a way that they don't feel paid off, then you kind of. They feel like you wasted their time. Sort of like, oh, that, that didn't pay off for me, what you were trying to do there to stump me. And so then, yeah, you get to get a little bit of anger that way. But we have a big. I mean, we have a big platform. It's a part of what comes with it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

[Barrett]

What kind of research do you do to, like, come up with these clues? Like, are you a big reader? Are you just, like, in taking a lot of news and pop culture, like, it seems like you kind of COVID so many different topics and clues that you just have to, like, acquire so much knowledge in general. How does that process look?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call myself a huge reader. I read. I try to read widely, and I try to keep at least just a finger on the pulse of what's going on in the world, just to see if it can inform the puzzles. But I will say a big part of the puzzle creation process for the cluing for the crossword is just research. Then so you've put something in the puzzle and now just go read about it. And so that's just reading dictionaries, but also just reading can I find the fun fact about the emu or whatever. There are certain Wikipedia pages that I think I alone in the world have visited more than anyone else. You know, like the Oreo Wikipedia page to try to find anything new.

[Barrett]

You might actually have a contender.

[Greg Miller]

I have an Oreo show, sir. All right, my next question would be. I think. I don't know, I might be thinking too much and I might be applying too much of modern society to it. But in the olden days, you're talking about bylines on puzzles and how this was and yada, yada, yada. But I feel like before the advent of social media and the connections and blah, blah, blah, people making the puzzles must have had a very, like, you're off over there, and it's quiet, and I don't feel like the spotlight was shined on them. Now, I'm obviously on a podcast. I've seen other NYT Games editors interviewed and on things like that. But even in the book, one of the things I really love are the, like, editor profile pages where you go and there's this Q and A with them and then your favorite puzzles and stuff like that. In your time there, or at least since even being an intern and seeing it grow, has there was there ever a point where New York Times didn't want to lean into personalities? They wanted you to kind of be like, you're the Supreme Court. You're over there doing your thing, you're quiet. The puzzles speak for themselves. And has there then been A change to bring that to the forefront. Personality.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, in the old days, or at least in the kind of like the 90s and early aughts, it was like Will shorts and then everybody else, like people would make puzzles, but even the byline in the paper said edited by Will Schwartz in really big font. And then puzzled by such and such in small font, it was like there was this like the big figurehead and then kind of everybody else.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

I always felt like the puzzles were, you know, they were an equal partnership between the puzzle creator and the editor. And so I really always felt like when I was more in charge, I wanted to highlight, like, who's making these puzzles? Like, people should know who the people making the puzzle they solved that day. And then as like with these kind of more personalized games, like take the spelling bee. Do you guys play the spelling bee?

[Barrett]

I have. It's not one that I play every day.

[Greg Miller]

I get hosed enough where I was like, no, I'm good.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. Okay. So with the spelling bee, it's like this grid of letters and you're making stuff out of it. But there's an editor who sort of determines what words are on the list. And if it was a faceless dictionary, I think people would just kind of get annoyed. Like, okay, but when there's a person there and there's a person, I guess like the downside, they can tweet at that person, you know, then they feel like they're in interaction with someone. So I do feel like having forward facing editors has helped us in some ways. I'm not on social media personally, so that's my way of dealing with it. I just pretend like it's not happening, but my friends will like search my name and then send me screenshots of what people are saying. And that's horrifying in its own way. So I think all of us are in some ways a little uncomfortable with how much we are kind of the dartboards for all this stuff. But in other ways it helps promote the games to just know that there's a person.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

[Blessing]

It sounds like it's covered in the book, but do you have any favorite puzzles that either you've done for the mini crossword or that other editors have worked on?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, I mean, so I should say about the book. So the book is.

[Greg Miller]

Talk about the book. You're on a book tour right now. What other cities are you going to? Where can people find you?

[Joel Fogliano]

Well, yeah, two books starts today in The SF area. But so the book is basically a mixture. So there's puzzles based around wordle connections, spelling bee, all strands, all the games, you know, from New York Times games, and then a ton of visual puzzles. A ton of.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

So that's like.

[Greg Miller]

This is your section.

[Joel Fogliano]

That's my section. There's a collection of my favorite minis I've ever made, and also my favorite mini clues. Nice. What I wanted the book to feel like was just basically everything New York Times Games is now. So, you know, it's got these distillations of the games, you know, but also a lot of things maybe you've never seen before. There's kind of crazy variants. Like there's a. A crossword that's called a vowel less crossword with no vowels in it. So everything.

[Blessing]

That's cool.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah. It's just the consonants. That's nuts. Yeah. That's kind of towards the back where I stuck some of the hardest stuff.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

But I have another favorite puzzle.

[Greg Miller]

As you go, it gets crazy.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, I have another favorite puzzle in there. It's in the front.

[Greg Miller]

You can show it off if you want to.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, sure. It's called Emojiography. So it's something again, that started. I made it for my brothers. But how it looks. Geography, David showing up. So the clue to every single one of these is a series of emojis. That clue, a place name in the world. You might have a picture of Santa and then this boat. That would be Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz.

[Blessing]

Oh, he's going sicko mode.

[Joel Fogliano]

That's pretty cool. And so there's a bunch of those. I don't know. They all make me laugh. They're pretty stupid, but they're the sort of thing that I enjoy. And so there's like original types of puzzles in here too. Stuff you've never seen.

[Greg Miller]

I want to.

[Joel Fogliano]

Basically you flip the page. Digital zoom for you. Yeah, I want you to. Basically you flip the page and you don't know what's coming. There's not really sections to the book. It's just each page is like, oh, right after this there's like a series of like, Minesweepers. And you can play like minesweeper imprint, stuff like that. So it's just a mixture.

[Barrett]

Can you talk about the process of developing new games that you're adding to this suite? Not necessarily things you have coming up, but like, I remember when strands got added or at least maybe got more.

[Joel Fogliano]

The new ones. Have you. Have you got.

[Barrett]

Is that the domino?

[Joel Fogliano]

Domino game. It's like a Logic domino one.

[Barrett]

Yeah. How is that? How did. How do you guys do that?

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, we've got it, like within the New York Times games team, we've got a separate team called, like the New Game Squad, which is a really fun. It rotates. Anybody can be on it.

[Greg Miller]

So like I was going to say, I was. Is it like jets and Sharks? We're like, the new class is here.

[Joel Fogliano]

It's over for you Mini. It's like if you're an iOS developer but you're on the New York Times games team, it gives you a chance to be like, I work for the New York Times Games team. I pitch some games and then like marketing people, anybody can join it. And it rotates now. Once you pitch a game, there's like 19 steps above that. You know, it has to. We then prototype it. Then we're doing a bunch of like, user, user testing. The main thing we're usually trying to test for is just like, do people come back like, is it a game that's sticky that people be like, yes, I will. I will come back and play that the next day And I will say that, like, wordle and Connection set pretty crazy high bars for that. They're just these incredibly popular and sticky games. So, you know, I've been at the Times now for more than 10 years. In the beginning, for definitely in the many days, it was like the Wild west when we were launching that we didn't know what we were doing. But then even a couple of years after that, we were just throwing games up, throwing stuff at the wall, see what happens. Quick prototype, throw it up there. Do people like it? And now it's like there's many, many, many more bars before we launch a game. Yeah, very cool. I want to hear more about your guys's internal games competition.

[Greg Miller]

Like who.

[Joel Fogliano]

Who excels at what? Like what? Lucy.

[Greg Miller]

Lucy and Joey.

[Blessing]

And Joey for sure.

[Barrett]

I feel like, because my thing for the Mini is if I don't do it in under a minute, then like, it's kind of a wash of a day. And I feel like it's usually Lucy and I competing for that. Barrett, I feel like, is always a big contender.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Barrett]

Whether it be for the Mini or for wordle, I feel like Barrett's usually the quickest at.

[Blessing]

I forget who's the Who.

[Joel Fogliano]

Who.

[Blessing]

Who's competing in Connections. I feel like I was heavy into Connections.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

I've been on sabbatical.

[Barrett]

Roger also is, like very into Connections. I feel like, too. Yeah, I also play.

[Blessing]

That's the one Connections. I My thing was because I was never again. Like, I was. I wasn't doing the purple thing of like, all right, I got to go for purple.

[Barrett]

But when you get purple first on the occasion.

[Blessing]

Oh, it feel. And like I think I. I'm rusty admittedly, which is why I came in today and was probably struggling with these connections. But when I'm locked in on connections, usually I can. I can do it flawlessly.

[Barrett]

Yeah. It is so interesting how all these pu puzzles are muscle memory of like the more you do them, you like, understand.

[Joel Fogliano]

Also with Wordle are you like, I do the same guess every single day?

[Blessing]

I am.

[Joel Fogliano]

You guys. All three of you are.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, man.

[Greg Miller]

Let me tell you.

[Joel Fogliano]

What are your starting words?

[Greg Miller]

I think I moved on to sugar at one point.

[Barrett]

Mine's arise, which was I think recently.

[Greg Miller]

Did you.

[Joel Fogliano]

Did you get it in one that day?

[Barrett]

Of course. I saw it play out on Tick tock before I had played it and

[Greg Miller]

I was like, that was my thing where there that the not the hike is Wordle's humongous still. But like when it was like slowly infecting and it was still indie and it was everybody posting. I remember the day where I put in sugar and it was in one and it was that thing where then I went and posted it and everybody in my like ads had already been like, oh, Greg's gonna love today's world.

[Barrett]

Yeah. I haven't strands I've like dabbled in and I feel like that's the next one that like is probably gonna really. I feel like I always play it based on the times is always. Or the mini is always my first one.

[Joel Fogliano]

I think you like strand strands is on the easier side because we. Yeah. With connections and we had been sort of indexing towards them like some harder games. Strands is I think easier. But yeah, it's interesting with Wordle. Like I just look around the room and see something and I'm like, stove. That's my guess for today. I just like to. Just because like, you never know. Maybe today's gonna be the day that you just hit it. It's rainy out. Rainy. Like, I don't know. It's not a good strategy for getting it more quickly. But to me it's like keeps the game more interesting. I feel like it would get stale otherwise. But it sounds like, I mean, maybe not. I don't know.

[Barrett]

It's so interesting too. Cause I feel like I have a friend that tried to pick their word which I can't remember what it is anymore. But based off of like Wheel of Fortune, like what letters are used the most. Like combining all of these different puzzle games of what are the most common letters to figuring out to like get that.

[Joel Fogliano]

Well, there's that wordle Bot thing. Now have you ever interacted with wordle Bot? Okay, look, look up wordle Bot after this.

[Barrett]

Okay.

[Joel Fogliano]

The Times has a thing. It was developed kind of by like the another desk, but basically it analyzes how you played wordle and breaks it down and it can be humbling because it'll be like you chose like the 77th best guess for like giving the thing. So it's for the sickos.

[Barrett]

Yeah, I think that's us.

[Greg Miller]

So of course is your book Puzzle Mania available right now? And of course obviously you can go play these games in the New York Times games app or the New York Times and everywhere else. Joel, thank you for making the time on this book tour to swing on through.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah, it's been great being here.

[Greg Miller]

It's been great. Everybody should pick up the book, especially me and bless since Joey's taking this copy, everybody. Of course there's more Gamescast, including our interview with Dispatch's Aaron Paul. But before then, I'll remind you that we couldn't do this without your support. Of course you can pick up your kinda funny membership YouTube.com kinda funnygames, apple Spotify, patreon.com kindafunny get all of our shows ad free and get your daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way. But right now you're not using your benefits so here's a word from our sponsors.

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[Greg Miller]

Terms [e-mail] 149 and we're back everybody. But before we go any further, we're going to see if blessing can solve wordle today. I dude his third shot here.

[Blessing]

That's crazy that that's not the word.

[Greg Miller]

Spoilers for word alert. He went aisle. He got the I in the wrong position, the E in the right position. Then he went bride got the I and the E in the right position. Then he went spite has the P, the I and the e in chat. Don't shout it out. And the right position. He has three guesses left to figure this out.

[Blessing]

What would this Nick do you ever wordle?

[Nick]

I wordled earlier on.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

When it was sweeping the nation.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And then I got stuck in the New York Times mini crossword puzzle, which

[Greg Miller]

do you understand, Joel created?

[Nick]

I did not.

[Greg Miller]

Joel is the Creator. He makes every mini. He's done 4,000. Go say, go say.

[Nick]

That's crazy.

[Greg Miller]

Go tell him before he leaves. I don't do a great job sometimes of introducing people, you know, they walk into the room. Nick knew that he worked for the New York Times and he had a long conversation with him, but it never came up that he made the Mini, which you got to do it. Hey, Bear, how are you doing? Well, did you hear all the praise you got?

[Joel Fogliano]

No, I did not.

[Greg Miller]

Everybody likes. You're a good performer in the New York Times games.

[Blessing]

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I have not played in a very long time.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I know. I need to get back on the horse. I fell out of it.

[Joel Fogliano]

Too many other video games.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, exactly. Here's my thing of why I like it and why I need to get back.

[Blessing]

Tell me about it while I give Nick back.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course. I need to get more of the garbage off my phone where it's like, I'll go to TikTok and watch these with the sound. I should be. I should be doing wordle. I should be doing connection.

[Barrett]

No shot.

[Blessing]

That's a word. Look at this.

[Greg Miller]

Opine.

[Blessing]

Opine, yeah. What does that mean?

[Joel Fogliano]

It's like an opossum.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah, exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Isn't it? To like, complain. I don't use it.

[Nick]

This happens all the time. And it's not. It's a bun. I'll pick with Joel. Now that we're best friends.

[Greg Miller]

Hold. And state is one is.

[Nick]

Occasionally. Occasionally I'll. I'll come across that in the cross in the middle Cross repository. I'm like, I've never heard that word before. And I swear to God it's not a real word. And I'll Google it. And it's this obscure fuck thing. And I'm like, the clue before that was the word was dance, you know, I mean, like, that's the easiest thing you possibly could get.

[Greg Miller]

I'm sick of all these coastal elites making us middle of the country people.

[Blessing]

So you're telling me that opine.

[Greg Miller]

You opine every day I'm like, but

[Blessing]

it's blowing my mind. Because that must be the same root word as opinion, right? So like, yeah.

[Joel Fogliano]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

So opinion is the noun, opine is the verb.

[Greg Miller]

I guess so, yeah.

[Blessing]

That's nuts.

[Joel Fogliano]

But I.

[Greg Miller]

Language, everybody. But guess what, everybody. We're done learning about words. Instead we're gonna use them to talk to Aaron, Paul, Blessing and Nick and. Hey, Nick. Welcome to the show, by the way. Hi, Greg. What the hell happened here? You interviewed Aaron Paul, Nick, We.

[Nick]

Yeah, we were called in for Dispatch.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Said, we have a couple celebrities for you. Give us your best interview.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And so we. We gave them blessing, and then they said, now give us your worst interviewer. Just to balance it out. Just to balance out the scale. So blessing and I got up and we interviewed. It was supposed to be, I think, Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright. Jeffrey couldn't make it, unfortunately. So we spent a solid 15 minutes, I would say, with Aaron Paul just having fun, just hanging out. He's a delightful guy. Talking to him about a game that I had zero context for, which was super fun.

[Greg Miller]

But bless you. Love Dispatch.

[Blessing]

I love this.

[Greg Miller]

So you probably had a lot of great questions for Aaron Paul, but.

[Blessing]

Oh, absolutely not, because I did played dispatch yet as of the time of this interview.

[Greg Miller]

This is how old this interview is, everybody. We interviewed Aaron Paul, and it was embargoed. It was embargoed. And then it was like. Then we got going, and then there was a conversation in one meeting about where to insert it, and then I think we all promptly forgot about it because there's 19,000 things going on here every day. We move past. It was during the spoiler cast where I think Barrett was like, didn't we have an interview, too? I was like, oh, right. We could have put that in here. We need to find somewhere else. And I figured, hey, we're already doing an interview with Joel from the New York Times. Why not bring this in here as well?

[Joel Fogliano]

That's a great idea.

[Nick]

Yeah, I do.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I do.

[Nick]

I don't regret the interview.

[Greg Miller]

The interview you're about to see. I don't regret it.

[Nick]

I regret it. I do wish we could talk to him, though, after we play the game, though.

[Blessing]

I so wish I could talk to him.

[Nick]

Because now you know his performance. And this is the thing.

[Blessing]

Now I know I haven't even the characters.

[Nick]

I think I'm. I think I'm scheduled now.

[Greg Miller]

I know the name of the character.

[Nick]

I want to say Andy put me on it at some point this week or next. I might be playing Dispatch. My first time. I'm very excited about it. But the one thing that everyone talks about is they're like, dude, it's less about the gameplay and more about just the cutscenes and the actual story that's being told. And they're like. Like, Andy was like, dude, you would love this, because it's like. It's like an invincible the boys. And I'm like, oh, man. That would have given us so many

[Joel Fogliano]

more questions to ask.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Aaron Paul.

[Nick]

But instead, honestly, he's a really nice guy called in from Europe, just living his best life out there and we

[Joel Fogliano]

had a great time.

[Greg Miller]

Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to fall. I'm following Aaron Paul. All right. I've already tagged him in the story about this interview when he inevitably sees, oh, Greg's got 100,000 Instagram followers. Thank you, everybody. He'll finally you hit back.

[Nick]

Congratulations.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Then I say something against Trump and I go down.

[Nick]

I post a comedy clip and I, I lose 30 every single time I do.

[Greg Miller]

So when, when Aaron inevitably f follows me back, we'll make sure we get another shot at it. So you can come in here and talk about it. But Nick, you really should play Dispatch.

[Nick]

I, that's, I'm, I'm excited to. I'm excited.

[Greg Miller]

You know what, it could be a fun stream too.

[Nick]

I'm kind of in the arc raiders world right now. But, but, but I. Dispatch is probably the next game.

[Blessing]

I would love to see you play Dispatch. No pine about it.

[Nick]

You know, I might opine. Yeah, I might opine right now.

[Greg Miller]

Give me your, give me your opinion. I never like somebody in the chat is already gone. I think is like no one's. I've never heard anyone use opine in a sense. And I'm like, me and Bless are gonna run this into the fucking garage. Oh yeah, and you saw it start right here. You saw it start gonna opine about that. Yeah, yeah.

[Nick]

I'm opining right now.

[Greg Miller]

Before we get opine about all the games we were talking about, let's watch this interview. Remember everybody that this has been the kinda funny Gamescast. This will finish our episode of the Kinda funny Gamescast. Up next, of course, if you're watching live on Twitch or YouTube will be the kinda funny podcast and you don't want to miss this one. Then of course after that is going to be a stream of them beating that their night rain from Elden Ring. It's going to be a lot of good content. If you're listening or watching later, of course, check those out on podcast services on YouTube.com kindafunnygames Most importantly, get your Kinda Funny membership. YouTube.com kindafunnygames Patreon.com Kinda Funny Apple Spotify. Get all of our shows ad free. Keep this 11 person small business dream alive. And of course get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Wayne. But to end our show right now, it's blessing. It's Nick and it's Aaron Paul.

[Joel Fogliano]

Aaron.

[Blessing]

Paul, thank you so much for joining us here. We're really excited to talk about Dispatch. My first question for you, Aaron, is obviously people know you from plenty of TV shows, plenty of movies. What is it about getting into a video game that has been different from those experiences, performing in those.

[Aaron Paul]

Oh, man. Well, I. First of all, I love just the gaming universe. You know, I used to really play, I think probably far too many games.

[Greg Miller]

No such thing is that.

[Aaron Paul]

No, no. I mean, once I got married and started having kiddos, I just needed to kind of laser focus elsewhere. But I just really appreciate just the. The gaming world as a whole. You know, like, my brother's a massive gamer, right. And that's where his real community is. There's other gamers, people that he's never met in real life, but he is so close with, you know, on the headset. Right. And I just think that's so beautiful about gaming. And so I've been really spoiled in the animation space. You know, with BoJack, I did that for many years, and so I swore, okay, I'm not going to do another animated thing unless it's really great. I then did a little bit on Invincible awesome, by the way. Oh, thank you, man.

[Joel Fogliano]

Thank you.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

And then.

[Aaron Paul]

And then I've really, honestly, I've been looking for a game, but I just, you know, some stuff that has come my way in the past, but it was just never really. Didn't really hit the mark. But when. When this came my way, dispatch came my way. At the core of it, it's a, you know, it's. It is a superhero sort of workplace comedy set in modern day Los Angeles, but also very heavy, dramatic, kind of heartfelt moments scattered throughout. And so it really kind of plays with your emotion. It's not just slapstick funny at all, but it really takes you on a journey. And this game in particular, it's a sort of choose your own adventure game. And so it took us a long time to record. It took us two years to record this thing. And so the process of recording is very similar to, you know, other animation that I've been involved with, but it's just the pure time was much, much different. But I think people are going to really resonate with the story that we're telling.

[Nick]

I always think. I always think when you're recording these things, and I know, you know, you've seen behind the scenes, and it's you in a VO booth, you know, you don't ever get to really interact with everyone else. Did you Guys actually get to do scenes together that you and Jeff.

[Aaron Paul]

I. I wish. I wish that was the case, but no, because it just took so long to do it. And so a lot of the time I had in my headphones the other audio that had been previously recorded from other cast members. I mean, that wasn't always the case.

[Nick]

That's pretty standard. That's pret.

[Joel Fogliano]

Standard.

[Greg Miller]

Pretty.

[Aaron Paul]

Pretty standard. But I. I mean, I just worked on it for so long, and.

[Nick]

So what's the time commitment look like for that versus, like, your stint on Invincible?

[Aaron Paul]

I mean, Invincible. I would. I. I went into the sound booth, I think, three different times.

[Joel Fogliano]

That.

[Aaron Paul]

And that's it. You know, I did a. I did a couple episodes, and then. And then they asked me to come back, but for the next season. But I got to tell you that that show I'm such a fan of, I watch every episode. I love it, but it was just way too grueling on my. My psyche, you know, it was like.

[Nick]

Your character, specifically was a little intense.

[Aaron Paul]

So much. I have such. Yeah. Such respect for what they're doing. But Powerplex, man, it really. Because he's not just messing around. I mean, he's going through, like, turmoil, you know, And I just. How I approach everything I do, I really put myself in that skin, and it. It was a skin I didn't feel comfortable in, you know?

[Joel Fogliano]

Really honest.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah, I did not. I didn't want to do it anymore. I'm like, I love you guys. I really do. And the thing is, everyone involved in that. That camp is amazing, you know, but what it did to me, I. I didn't like. And so I could. I couldn't. I couldn't continue. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

That is.

[Nick]

That's bold and awesome.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

That's.

[Blessing]

I mean, that's really cool.

[Nick]

That's crazy. I mean, I show.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yes.

[Nick]

That show is very, very intense. I imagine that Dispatch is a little bit more lighter vibe.

[Aaron Paul]

It's definitely lighter vibe, but just because there's. There's just such such funny elements to this show or to this. To this game. But also, like I said before, there's gonna be moments that really surprise the gamer, you know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Aaron Paul]

Kind of gonna kind of shock them a little bit.

[Nick]

And this is seasonal, right, that we're releasing sort of like, episodically. Or am I wrong?

[Blessing]

Oh, they're releasing, like, I believe.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

A few episodes or maybe like, a part of it.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah. I think you're gonna be able to play the first chunk for a little bit and then, you know, go on.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

A Question I have for you is, you know, we're talking about your history and animation going from BoJack Horseman, going into Invincible, and now, you know, Dispatch. It's a video game, but also it leans very heavily on the. This is a cinematic, animated sort of property, right? You look at it and you. You look at it and you think, this is something that you could watch on Amazon Prime.

[Aaron Paul]

You know what I mean?

[Blessing]

Is there. Do you have, like, a specific kind of taste when it comes to the type of projects that you like to. To be in? Because I think that that Venn diagram between BoJack and Invincible and, you know, Dispatch feels like it fits kind of in that, like, nice little middle.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. But I do have. It's just about the story, you know? I mean, you know, when. When you're watching a movie, tv, playing a game, the story's gotta be there if.

[Barrett]

There.

[Aaron Paul]

If. If it's not, like an interesting narrative, you know, like, let's say within a game. If you're playing a game and you're not. You're not interested in these characters and the journey they're on, you're going to turn it off, right? And what's so unique about this is you can play it one way, you can finish it, and if you want to play it again and just choose just the polar opposite of what your gut wants you to choose, you can go down a completely different journey, you know, a completely different path. And it's just got to be, you know, the writing's got to be good, and then, you know, hopefully you like the people behind it, and then you. You kind of march forward.

[Blessing]

Have you gotten a chance to play it yet?

[Aaron Paul]

I. I gotta play, like, a little test, you know, demo of it. I gotta do that when I. When I was recording sort of like the final two months of the record. I gotta mess around with it a little bit, but, yeah, it's fun.

[Joel Fogliano]

Nice.

[Nick]

Do you think this is going to be the gateway drug for you now for. For more video games?

[Aaron Paul]

Maybe.

[Joel Fogliano]

We'll.

[Aaron Paul]

We'll see, man. I mean, honestly, doing it, just doing it, it really made me want to pull out my Nintendo Wii. You know what I mean?

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Paul]

I used to. I got a Nintendo Wii with, like, with the kiddos. I thought that might be, like, the first kind of fun thing for them to play with. I still haven't really unboxed it, but, yeah, I mean, the. The amount of hours I would play, just Mario Kart, you know, you remember Nintendo Wii with, like, the, the steering wheel.

[Nick]

Oh, we know.

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Oh, man.

[Nick]

We spent many an hour as adult human males playing.

[Joel Fogliano]

Oh, yeah. Still in the studio.

[Blessing]

Fun question for you. So, you know, dispatch has this crew of people called the. The Phoenix program right there, sort of the Z team. And they're being dispatched to, you know, go take care of crimes. If you could choose any of the superpowers of any of the members of the Phoenix program, which superpower would you choose and why?

[Aaron Paul]

I mean, there's invisible who, you know, just kind of turns invisible and that's, that's always fun, you know, kind of disappear and reappear. God, there's so many. I just love this group of misfits because it's really just a group of villains that are now sort of being re reintroduced into society trying to try to be good, you know. And I have the job to, you know, I, you know, I play a guy who's a superhero, but his, his, his, his suit's been damaged in battle and so he's sort of forced to work at this superhero dispatch office and try to keep them in line. So he's, he's very frustrated. I'm just trying to think of other, other powers, but they're all fun, you know.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Aaron Paul]

What about you guys there was that

[Blessing]

like a vampire bat dude? I forget his name, but like, he's like kind of like a human vampire, bad looking dude. I feel like that'd be fun to do for a day.

[Nick]

I think you have to have the power forever.

[Joel Fogliano]

No, like, I don't want it forever.

[Blessing]

I mean the main character, you know, we talked about. I will say the, the. Well, I guess this isn't part of the Phoenix program. I'm reaching outside the bounds of the question now. But there's a character Chase who has super speed, and I've always been a fan of super speed.

[Aaron Paul]

Yeah, super speed would be nice.

[Blessing]

It does come with the caveat though of his character. The more he uses his power, the faster he ages.

[Joel Fogliano]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

And so like, that's tough.

[Nick]

But you know, as your elder here and kind of funny.

[Joel Fogliano]

Don't.

[Nick]

Don't take that power. Getting old sucks. Yeah, it's not fun. Not fun.

[Blessing]

There is also a lot of Pierce's character who a lot of Pierce plays almost like a kind of like a big demon lady is really cool. Okay, I forget what the powers are that comes with that. But even just the idea of walking around being like this intimidating.

[Aaron Paul]

Who doesn't want to be a big demon lady?

[Joel Fogliano]

Exactly, exactly.

[Nick]

Just like to be above 6ft.

[Blessing]

Just for the height.

[Nick]

I'll take it alone.

[Greg Miller]

Just.

[Nick]

It's alone. Aaron, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for your time before.

[Aaron Paul]

Thanks for the.

[Joel Fogliano]

Thanks.

[Blessing]

That pretty much covers it for me.

[Nick]

That covers it for me as well. I. Before we let you go, I do have to ask you one last question. We have a co worker, Andy, who loves you, specifically loves your work and Breaking Bad, and he does a really bad impression of you. So if you wouldn't mind, could you please say, hey, Andy, you suck. Please stop doing this impression of me.

[Aaron Paul]

Oh, of course. Hey, Andy, you suck. Okay. Thank you for attempting, but it's just. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself. But good luck to you. Lots of love. And that's all I got.

[Blessing]

Thank you so much, Aaron.

[Nick]

Perfect.

[Blessing]

That was perfect.

[Joel Fogliano]

Thank you.

[Nick]

That made. That made. Thank you so much for your time.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

We appreciate you.

[Greg Miller]

We'll let you go.

[Blessing]

Awesome. Thank you.

[Greg Miller]

All right.

[Aaron Paul]

See ya.

[Nick]

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[Stassi Schroeder]

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[Joel Fogliano]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Joel Fogliano]

How are you feeling? It's good to be home. Why? Hey, new girl. Hey.

[Stassi Schroeder]

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[Aaron Paul]

For a new plant to grow, the seed has to die.

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[Greg Miller]

Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax.

[Stassi Schroeder]

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[Joel Fogliano]

And breathe.

[Stassi Schroeder]

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

[Joel Fogliano]

1-800-contacts. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer?

[Greg Miller]

Too many to say here.

[Joel Fogliano]

Multi vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount.

[Greg Miller]

Storage discount.

[Stassi Schroeder]

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