Hello and welcome to The Back Page, A Video Games Podcast. I’m Samuel Roberts and I’m joined as ever by Matthew Castle. Hello. Matthew, we’re joined by another special guest. So Jen, would you like to introduce yourself? I’m Jen Simpkins, and it’s very exciting to be here and be listening to this happening live after listening for a long time. It’s really cool to finally be here. It’s taken us some time. Yeah, what a great honor. You’re one of the first people I asked to come on. And I feel like every six months, I’ve kind of like politely hounded you. And then it has eventually happened. You’re just really dobbling me in immediately. I love that. I love that. No, I think I’m dobbling myself in really for like not letting it go. But yeah, I tried to give it like six months between like asking you, but like, no, it’s really cool to have you on. So what’s your sort of background, Jen? Tell us a bit about, you know, your sort of what you do now and what you’ve been doing previously. Yeah, I mean, so these days, I’m a Media Molecule’s editorial manager. And obviously we work on the video game Dreams, which is sort of a creation game, much like a lot of Media Molecule’s past output. And it’s sort of a job I pitched for myself, where I was like, hey, there’s loads of genuinely really cool stuff being made in Dreams. Do you want someone to come and write stuff about that for you, for people to read? And they went, yeah. So that’s where I ended up doing that. And I suppose, as you might imagine, before that, I was also writing about video games, which is how I know the both of you, because I was at Future for a while at a couple of different magazines, writing about games there. So yeah, that’s sort of my official trajectory through games media, and then into the games industry dev side. That’s awesome. Yeah, so yeah, we wanted to have you on for a while because you have crossover with our careers, and you’ve had a really interesting sort of path yourself. So it’d be really cool to hear about that. So in this episode, we’re going to talk a bit about Jen’s role in games media, various roles in games media, and moving from official PlayStation magazine to Edge. And then in the final section, we’ll talk about Jen’s work at Media Molecule a little bit. So if you enjoy our magazine focused episodes, Jen’s got loads to say on that front, I’m sure. I suppose I should ask first of all, Jen, Pokemon cards. Is that like a new thing to you? Because I’ve seen you tweeting about it. It totally is. It totally is. So what happened was I’ve been sort of buying Pokemon cards for my partner and myself as just sort of like a little treat when you go into Sainsbury’s because you know, you kind of get that hit of like, ooh, like pulls, like, you know, IRL loot boxes. I was once for my sins, like a real Overwatch loot box person a fair few years ago. Spending actual human money on that. Oh yeah, it’s embarrassing. Like I don’t, I can’t go back there, but with Pokemon cards, you’re like, yeah, you know, maybe it’ll be worth something someday. You justify these things to yourself. My partner’s sort of been casually collecting for a little while and I would buy him stuff. And then the other day he was like, oh, do you want to actually sit down and play with one of these like pre-made deck things that they sell in the supermarkets? And I was like, yeah, that’d be really nice. And we did, and we were immediately like, oh my God, this is actually really fun. Which is really weird, because I’m not normally a card game person or even a turn-based games person, with some exceptions we’ll probably talk about. But yeah, it’s really interesting. And now like a bunch of other people at Media Molecule have sort of come out of the woodwork all of a sudden and we’re all geeking over all of these like rules and plays and pulls from Pokemon. So yeah, it’s a recent thing. Just pray for my wallet, I suppose. Have you got any special cards? Oh, well I pulled, so this is the funny thing, when we’re sort of in casual collecting mode, my partner just like gave me one of these little booster packs, they’re called. And they’ve got 10 or so cards in, they cost like a few quid, right? And he was like, oh, here you go, like you can have one of these. And I was like, oh, thank you. And I opened it and I got this thing that is a rainbow rare. So it looks really, really like glittery and shiny and rainbow colored. It’s like Ice Rider, Calyrex, VMAX, just, you know, just an unintelligible string of words, as you might expect. It’s like printing error or action error. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah, so that is my claim to fame, really, at the moment, probably. But Rosabelle, one of our programmers at Media Molecule, pulled, I think it was two like really rare Charizard. And then on top of that, a rainbow rare Charizard the other day. So she’s winning. So that would eventually put someone through university. Oh, yeah. I mean, like I said to her, I was like, you need to like retire on your Charizard fortune and move to Hawaii. They’re going up on like eBay for like upwards of 500 pounds. It’s ridiculous. Yeah, it’s crazy. One day, that’ll be me with my Borderlands 3 top trumps. Oh, exactly. One day, that’ll be me with my Battleborn promo set, my eight Battleborn promo sets. Now that is optimism. Probably we’re already on to Battleborn. This is a record. Yeah, this is a stealth Battleborn podcast. Oh, yeah. Get Rich on, wasn’t it? Rich was like a not so secret Battleborn believer. Oh, really? I didn’t know this. Yeah, I think he ended up writing an article on Kotaku about it. Sorry, Big Tangent. But I remember him. Was it Rich? I might be. I remember Garen as well. Do you remember Garen? Yeah, Garen was a huge Battleborn guy. Whenever I met him, I was like, man, how the might have fallen. Maybe I’m projecting onto Rich and he’s going to DM me when he hears this. Yeah, I do remember them. If you ever meet someone who’s a genuine Battleborn head. It kind of sticks with you. Kind of sticks with you. I kind of get the Pokemon thing, Jen. I found that post 2020, I just need things to throw time and money into like a hole. And that will probably equal pleasure at the end of it. But, you know, it’s a sunk cost fallacy thing. But it does sound genuinely wholesome as a kind of hobby to take up in adulthood. Like it sounds lame, but it’s really amazing how quickly it’s gotten us away from, you know, screens, which we spend a long time on and, you know, we’ll go entire evenings just playing it at the moment. And like we’re just really into it. And it means we’re actually not looking at a screen for like the remaining eight hours of the evening or something, which like sounds like a real, you know, probably like an uncool thing to say. But I don’t know. It’s it’s it’s helping. I think it’s nice. So which games did you grow up playing and what informed your sensibilities when you were younger and getting into games? It’s such a weird mix. And I feel like maybe this is the case for people like me who grew up with older siblings, because you kind of get their hand-me-downs. Well, you know, whenever they stop playing with the Game Boy or the PlayStation for like a second and you’re like, oh, it’s my go. And, you know, what have they got? I have two, like, much older brothers, really. And so I would sort of play their, like, cast-offs. I was really trying to think, I was like, what was the first video game I ever played? I can’t decide. I can’t remember whether between the two, but they were both on, like, Game Boy original, like the big fat grey one. And there was one, I think it was Paperboy 2, and the other one that I can’t remember if I played before, Paperboy 2 or not, is something called Fortified Zone, which may be an incredibly deep cut, but it was almost like a kind of, like a very basic sort of, I suppose you’d say like Metal Gear Solid kind of aesthetic, like kind of like industrial run and gun kind of thing through these quite like maze-like levels. I have really strong memories of it. I’m not sure it was that good a game. But, and I found it really difficult, but I remember playing a lot of it, you know, in the car primarily. I think that was like my first introduction to video games, and then we got a Game Boy Color and a PS1, and so I was allowed to play some of those as well. I think I played, there was like a Batman game on the Game Boy Color, which I think may have been one of my first exposures to Batman as a concept, which is kind of… Yeah, first time I ever truly saw color, you know. Yeah, so like a weird mix, and then there was like a Tom and Jerry license game on that as well. All sorts of weird shit, basically. And then the PS1, of course, was like, I was a Harry Potter kid back in the day, not anymore, for obvious reasons. They had the sort of EA’s license games on PS1. I think the PS2 is where I really started exploring some stranger things. And also that was my first exposure to fighting games as well. I played a lot of Mortal Kombat Deception when I wasn’t supposed to, because I was about 12 or something. I feel like Game Boy bundles in the 90s were responsible for smuggling a lot of weird shit into British houses. I feel like that was very much a thing that happened. There was a packet of Fortified Zones somewhere in Loser Us, and then they just had to shift them. Yeah, we really had that vibe of just really not much going on for it. Just very cut and dry, running around and trying to shoot baddies with a gun. But again, when it’s your first video game, you’re just fascinated by it and trying to get as far as possible. That’s it. No one really has a read on these things. It’s not that you don’t have critical faculties, but you don’t even appreciate that there is a range of quality. Games are games when you first encounter them. So I think everyone’s got a Tom and Jerry license game somewhere in there. In your head, you’re like, yeah, this is what games… All games are this. All games are Bart vs. the Space Mutants for me, the terrible Simpsons game. Or like my brother had Small Soldiers, the film tie-in on Gameboy. License games. Yeah, very fond of that tie-in. Some of them had awesome music and weird little things that sort of stay with you forever. Yeah, definitely. Lots of redeeming qualities in amongst quite a lot of shite. But there would be certain elements that you really… Oh my gosh. Whoa, I just had a flashback to it. I played loads of the DuckTales game that was on. Oh yeah. I think original Game Boy. Yeah. Wow. And you would pogo around and collect little ice creams to increase his health. And the first screen is a little midi version of the theme tune. I think you went to the moon at one point. Yeah, that’s DuckTales. You go to the moon. I’ve definitely played the NES thing. I can’t remember the handheld one, but it makes sense that there could be such a thing. Yeah, I feel like maybe a lot of it is your parents sort of maybe recognizing properties like that and just being like, oh, yeah, like DuckTales for the kids. Like, that’s a thing. This can’t upset them and this can’t be violent. Like, that’s the kind of thinking, really, of a parent. Yeah, yeah. God knows how Mortal Kombat Deception got in there. Basically, my much older brother had it for PS2. And I would literally, I still don’t know whether my parents know I did this. I think I eventually told them. I would just sneak upstairs to his bedroom because I was so obsessed with playing it. And sit there and, you know, play as much of it as I could, basically, before they sort of started wondering where I was. And I had to sort of hurriedly shut down the PS2. And I remember being really frightened slash aroused by Melina, I think. I think she was like my bisexual awakening. This lady with like terrifying teeth. I remember being really like scared of her win animation, where she would just like cackle at the camera. And you can finally like sort of see under that veil she’s wearing. Yeah, yeah, like horrifying. And I knew I was terrified of it, but also I like couldn’t stop playing as her. I would always play as the women, obviously. I just gravitate to that. And obviously, I’d maybe, you know, related to this horrible crocodile mouth demon woman. But yeah, and like, you know, sort of being strangely attracted to her as a sort of an early teenager when you’re sort of getting a bit hormonal, I suppose. I’m guessing this is not a horny podcast. I’m sorry. We’ll move it away from Melina’s talk of Melina’s, you know, copious under boob. I’m guessing this never made it into a time extended show, Jen. Yeah. For some reason, you know, the old boys won’t go for the pitch of how Melina was my bisexual awakening. Not very edge, they said. Yeah. So like, there was a lot of stuff like that that I think was sort of a result of just having older brothers and playing what they were playing. I used to sit next to my brother and watch him play hours of, was it Medal of Honor? I can’t remember which Medal of Honor game it was. But it was basically my job to sort of point out where the med packs were. And that was sort of how I could get away with watching as if I was sort of playing with my brother and I wasn’t playing it with myself. Like a real medic on a medal happy. Yeah, just run over there and like maybe you’ll find him. You know, I know you’re bleeding out, but you know, making out. It was a PS2 where you first start like forging what your game tastes were. Did that come a little bit later? What was your first kind of like format where you were picking the game so you know what you liked, I guess? Yeah. Oh, that was definitely DS. I think and by the time I’d gotten to DS, I’d also been exposed to the PSP. So, yeah, there was like PS2 and then my brothers had a PSP, but they were playing boring shit. Like, oh God, I can’t even remember. Probably some form of FIFA that I just wasn’t interested in. I briefly had like a football manager phase as a little one because I just liked playing with my brother. And he was into that. But my friend Jenny, actually, she’s a developer now at school. She had a PSP. I didn’t have my own one. I had to share it with my brothers, but she would bring it in. And we that was actually where I like first played Loco Roco. And I think that was the first game I played where I was like, this is kind of, you know, the start of my taste. And maybe some of the weirder stuff on like PS2 as well. I was starting to get hold of via friends. Like the more indie stuff. And so I think because of that, I can’t remember exactly. But basically my mum bought me a DS Lite one Christmas when I was, I must have been about 12 or 13. It was a black DS Lite, beautiful, beautiful machine. And she got me, she has no idea about games. So she got me Mario. She got me new Super Mario Bros. Yeah, so good. I played so much of the versus mode with my friend Vicky at Sleepovers where we would just go forever. Just fucking smacking stars out of each other. It was amazing. So I got new Super Mario Bros. And she also bought me something called Animal Crossing. Obviously just going, oh, this looks cute and kid friendly. And I became obsessed with Animal Crossing World. And yeah, that was me being like, oh my gosh, what is this amazing kind of real time thing? And these like strange little characters that would kind of make friends with you, but also like berate you. And it was sort of an extension, I suppose, of how I used to like play as a kid with like dolls and Lego and stuff. Where like a lot of it is sort of down to your imagination. And, you know, I would like spend a long time just walking along the beach in that game and just like vibing out. And yeah, as you guys like know, because you know me, I think that like definitely began a lifelong love of like that game and Nintendo games more broadly. But yeah, I’ve clocked probably over probably about over 2000 hours between like all the Animal Crossing games I’ve played. Like just big numbers. You must have seen every line that is in that game. I really feel like I have. Does that come a point where those characters stop being characters and just become, you know, you just see them as content clusters? Wild World, absolutely not. Like I think I must have played about 700 hours of Wild World, I think it says on my DS time because you can track. And they just kept coming with new stuff and it was amazing. And New Leaf was very similar. I’ve played 850 hours of New Leaf. New Leaf was similar-ish, but I remember being quite disappointed that there was a lot more dialogue reuse than there was in Wild World. But they’re all great games. And again, the new Animal Crossing is a great game as well. But probably again, even more kind of cardboard characters from Wild World. But yeah, that’s probably the Animal Crossing game I’ve played the least amount of hours in, even though I’ve played a lot. But it’s a great game. I think we all got maybe burnt out on that after the pandemic. And like you say, you’re maybe the right age when Wild World hit for you to fill in the gaps a bit with your imagination. Maybe that is a key part of it. Yeah. I played with dolls and I still play with Lego. But I played with that kind of stuff really right up until my early teens. And so, yeah, it felt like that kind of like entry ramp into sort of video games, that sort of like transition, like a really useful one. And then ever since that and specifically just the DS and DS Lite and, you know, my core friend group had them at school and we would play stuff together and Mario Kart. Like ever since that, it like became a really big thing for me. Phoenix Wright, I would beg for one every Christmas. And then I would just sit and play the entire game on like Christmas Day and Boxing Day and not talk to my family. What a great way to spend a Christmas. Literally heaven. I would sit there and just like, you know, eat my Toblerone or whatever and just solve crime. This is really, you’ve just described heaven to me. Ace Attorney in one hand, Toblerone in the other. You’ve even identified the perfect snack. The perfect combo. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think there’s a reason, you know, we’ve vibed over the years. We really have some, we share some core DNA, I feel like, somehow. Obsessed with that to the point where, like, for a long time, I thought I’m going to be a lawyer when I grew up before, you know, some lawyers came into school to talk about what it’s actually like. And I went, actually, that sounds boring. And when is it their hair explodes? You know, and yeah. So that was very disappointing to learn the truth of that. I very nearly went and did a law degree. I literally, I was about 17 before I discovered the truth. It was a sad day. Yeah, it’s okay. Law’s loss was games journalism’s gain. Thank you so much. Yeah. And like, just, I could talk about the DS Lite for ages. I think that was like really the, it’s such a weird piece of kit that like so much weird stuff came out of it. So many weird games. I just remember like begging my mum one Christmas. I can’t remember where I’d seen something about it, but I’d heard about Electroplankton, the Toshio Ooi game, and I begged my mum to like import it from Japan. Like begged. Yeah, when I was about 14 and got it and was, and just became obsessed with it for ages. So yeah, I think that was like the genesis of developing my own taste and then being like, oh, like I have things to say about these things. Maybe. It’s a perfect era of like the pound being strong against all other currencies. And also like the DS being region free. Those two things are a good combination, you know. Yes, like that was, that unlocked so much for me. I think that was like the real genesis of like my, my taste in sort of like indie games. Like an experimental hardware, I think to a point. Obviously it’s a very, you know, Nintendo version of it. But, you know, just like shit like blowing into the mic in DS games and stuff or like, you know, yelling objection into the DS for like Phoenix Wright. I just found endlessly sort of entertaining and interesting. And even, you know, touch controls was kind of like a big deal like in the DS era. And I think touch phones were just starting. That was the advent of like touch screen phones as well. So, yeah, I think that sort of like kicked off a love of just sort of like weird handheld devices that do like unexpectedly magical things. There was another Japanese DS game. It might have been a DSi game. But use the camera to track your face to essentially render this kind of like Doll’s House scene in 3D. And it was like a hidden object game where you’d sort of have to crane around, like, you know, hold up your DS. Do you remember that at all? Yeah, I do know what you’re talking about, but the name absolutely escapes me. Yeah, I just remember that it was a hidden object game and I was just mind blown because obviously this was like before the 3DS came out and it was using that kind of stereoscopic effect via the camera and I just remember thinking it was absolutely magic. And I just love tiny things and miniatures and dire armours anyway. Yeah, I remember that sticking with me. Wish I could remember the name. Someone listening, tell me what it was. We’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll find out what it is and then if you look at the podcast description, you’ll find out right now what the Doll’s House head tracking game is called. So yeah, that’s the magic of researching after the episode is done. So what made you want to write about Games for a Living, Jen? Did you always want to work in games media or did it… Is that something that happened later after the lawyer thing kind of blew up for you? Yeah, it was kind of, you know, the whole lawyer realisation. I was like, oh crap, well, what should I do now? And I was like, well, the only thing I’m really good at is like English. You know, I was always very encouraged in school by my teachers being like, oh yeah, you’re really good at this like English thing and like criticism of literature and stuff. And I was like, okay. I was like, I guess I’ll do that because I don’t really know what I want to do. Like, I definitely didn’t. I was sort of, you know, getting the occasional magazine before I was going to university and reading bits of OPM and stuff like that. But I’d never really thought of it as an option, even though I was like, obviously reading people who were doing it. So I went to university and I did English literature and, you know, essentially is all criticism. And I think about halfway through uni, I just had this moment of clarity of like, oh, you know, I’m reading Kotaku and I’m buying magazines and like, this is a job that people do and maybe I could do it. So then I just immediately was like, right, I’m going to do everything I can. Like, funny enough, I think the lawyer thing was an interesting part of it because I realised that what I was interested in about Phoenix Wright wasn’t the legal bit. I was like, oh, I’m just like really into video games. And, you know, maybe I can think more deeply about why that is. So yeah, about halfway through uni, I just threw myself into a bunch of extracurriculars. And I went to uni in London, so that was fortunate because it was kind of the epicentre of a lot of hobbyist blogs were run by just people from London. I joined this hobbyist blog site called 16 Bit Kings, which was a super cool name. And then they changed it for some reason to Vexoid, which is like so much. Yeah, 16 Bit Kings, RIP. Maybe they thought it was more general, but they were a great group of people. They were just like mates, just like hanging out, being like, oh, we could do a blog together, you know, and it was all strictly just voluntary. I think that was the same year I joined Twitter, RIP. And I was posting on my own incredibly bad WordPress blog, all sorts of nonsense. And they’d found it and gone, oh, like, do you want to come and like write on our blog and sort of be part of like our little collective? And I was just thinking, yeah, like, you know, it’s all stuff to put on my CV. There was another thing called, like, I don’t know, still to this day, it looks great written down, but I don’t know how to say it. It’s like IND 13 magazine. It’s like indie, but with like a 13. Oh, I see. Yeah. Bad mouth feel. But like a great, a great little magazine that was, you know, really dedicated to kind of the indie side of things, which was what I was really, really interested in. So I just started doing a bunch of stuff like that. You know, it was all unpaid and just for, you know, like practice kind of. Yeah. And then I, basically one of the people in our, in our Vexoid group was like, here’s, I think posted on Facebook and was like, oh, look, there’s a staff writer role open at OPM. Like, you know, anyone in this group should like definitely think about applying. And I did. And that’s how I ended up there. Yeah, that’s amazing. Did you attach like a writing sample to get it or anything like that, Jen? So the game, they asked you to review a game in a certain amount of words, just like a very short review, basically like the the Clagg length review. Like, I don’t know if you talked about Clagg on this podcast or if that’s a thing that extends past OPM. I don’t know the word Clagg. Do you, Matthew? No, but I sort of know what you’re talking about. Do you? Yeah, it’s like the word Clagg obviously is very evocative. If you’re looking up, it’s really not complimentary to what those reviews were. They were some of the best and most fun reviews in the magazine, but we sort of used to colloquially refer to them as Clagg. Sorry, freelancers. It’s kind of just the little bitty bits, basically. So they’d be like the very short, basically third of a page reviews that you would do for maybe smaller games, typically indie games. This is where they get shoved in as an afterthought. So, yeah, so they asked me to sort of write a review of that length on any game I’d played recently. So I actually did The Swindle, if you know of it. It’s sort of Dan Vance middle game-ish sort of thing. Yeah, it’s that sort of procedurally generated house robbing thing, right? Yeah, exactly. It’s really interesting. And there are a lot of really interesting little design choices. I think I had spent some time talking about how the torch is a really interesting mechanic or something. I can’t remember now. It’s been… You only had 200 words. I know. Well, I just threw in a couple of those little things. But yeah, my God. God knows how I did it. Because since then, famously, I’ve never been able to stick to a word count. So, yeah, I remember doing that. And I think I gave it a seven, of course. It’s probably like… I wonder how many reviews people get for writing samples where they come out with like, they’re like, I’m going to pick my favorite game and give it a nine or a ten. Maybe the seven helped. Now I look back and I’m like, wow, the equivocation score. I really set the tone for my career as a journalist. But as a critic, I wonder whether maybe that stuck out that I picked something that I was a little more cool on maybe. Honestly, when we were revealing, this was back in the days when everyone wanted to be a staff writer in a magazine, you’d get hundreds of applications. But the choice of game someone picked to write about for their sample review was often as important as what they actually wrote. Because it just told you a lot about their mindset or the scope of their experience, I guess. The ones that used to kill me were so many people who would review the Telltale games. And talking about them purely as narrative experiences, so they were always more like film reviews than game reviews. And it killed so many applications. To the point where we joke on the job advert, we should say, please write this, do not review a Telltale game, because we’ve not yet employed anyone who has done that. I don’t think we’ve even interviewed anyone who’s done that. I think it’s so easy to fall into that trap, especially when you’re new to all of it, of just recounting the game. Yeah. If you’re a bit nervous. Yeah, I get that. I remember the period you’re joining, because it was like we had a… There was like an influx of people. It tends to happen in the future. People seem to come in like generations. So I remember you joined at a very similar time to Ben Tyra on OPM. Yeah, the exact same time, in fact. The exact same time, right. The same process. And we hired Tom Stone on OXM at a similar time. I think Robin joined GM around then as well. Yeah, I think Robin… I want to say Robin might have been there just before we arrived. Yeah, but either way, there was a definite influx of fresh meat. You were like, oh, this is… Sorry, that pretty sounds weird. In terms of like, oh, this is cool. You know, a new batch of like, interesting staff writers. I always really enjoyed that. I was part of a group myself at one point, so to say it, I was always quite fond of it happening in that way. Yeah, it was really lovely. I mean, especially me, Ben, Tom, you know, we’re all still really, really close. Us like, clutch of little staff writers that started at the same time. You really sort of go through the trenches together. I remember we would just use multiple stupid hours doing freelance. You were right to say fresh meat because we would arrive all shiny-eyed and then immediately it would be like the editors would descend and be like, right, freelance, freelance, freelance. And we’d be like, oh, and you’d kind of, I just remember saying yes to everything because I was so excited that all of these heroes essentially were coming to me and being like, oh yeah, you want to write something? And yeah, my goodness. I mean, it was the way that you just learn really quickly. Heroes is very jealous. Well, you know, to us, we were just like… It’s not like you’ve newly joined the Justice League and then Superman and Batman are like, hey. Do you want to write a clag? Do you want to review a 100-hour JRPG for 20 quid? Oh God, I feel like I got off lightly in comparison to this. Like, I feel like Tom always had some sort of like massive thing on the go. And I would be probably pretty quickly and candidly worked out that like Indies were shorter. But, you know, I also did my fair share of, you know, Sniper Elite previews and… That’s so me. I mean, you can always find like a fun little angle that’s exciting. Through a line, Loco Roco, Animal Crossing, Sniper Elite, it’s there. Sniper Elite 4. I remember, for some reason, that sticks in my brain. I think I spent a long time writing. I think I might have had to do that thing where you do like three different previews for people. And so you’re just racking your brain. Like, how do I not write the exact same thing about a game that I really probably don’t have enough knowledge about? But just, you know, create a great reading experience somehow. Pack it with jokes that are later cut. Which games ended up defining your era on OPM, Jen? I remember the Persona 5 cover seemed like a big deal at the time. It was right as that series, interest in that series in the UK or Europe was spiking. But like more generally, I suppose, what do you, when you reflect on that time, what defines it for you? It’s really cool you bringing up the Persona cover, because that felt like a big deal to me too. And it kind of was. I think we had the first, I want to say the first exclusive review in the West, which was kind of wild for like a UK print magazine. And I somehow just managed to blag it. Basically, I was at E3 and I played the demo. It was fucking amazing. I remember being excited about it and I hadn’t really been like into Persona much before. I think I tried a bit before. So I remember Matt Sakuraka-Gilman, who was on Games Master, was like a really big fan. And so for a while he was sort of getting me hyped that like Persona 5 was coming over here. And he was like, oh, but look how like stylish this is. And like, I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. So I ended up getting super excited and made an appointment to see E3. And I think the PR at the time was John Hardin. Yeah, he’s a really cool dude, basically. And I think he was quite revered by like the sort of community around Atlas Games. I think there’s a real heartbreak when he when he left Atlas and moved on. But yeah, he was sort of manning the E3 booth. And I remember playing the demo and being like, oh, my God, like, that’s incredible. That’s incredible. You know, what can we do? Can we work on it? And I think maybe we had our first conversation at E3. I was like, oh, this would look amazing on a magazine cover. Like it just would. Right. And so I went back and I remember sort of floating this idea to sort of the editorships at the time and and and sort of the big dudes of a future. Right. Well, you know, the other big dudes that went, you two, the two big men who play Alden. You know, kind of like we weren’t as big back then. Back then, we were moderately sized. You’ve only you’ve only grown in power since then. You know, every new patron adds like a centimeter onto your height. That’s what I feel like. I’m more like my waist. That’s very generous of you to pretend. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. So, yeah. So I remember sort of floating as a cover idea and being like, Oh, John says he might give us the exclusive. And number one, it was a bit like, is that really going to happen? And number two, as you say, Sam, I think Persona at that point hadn’t really taken off, I guess, in like a quote-unquote mainstream way in the West. Obviously, Persona 4 was beloved by so many people, right? But I guess it was still a bit niche. Is that fair? Yeah, I think so. I think it was bigger in America than it was in Europe. But still, it was waiting to break out, I would say. Yeah. And it felt like Persona 5 did that. And I sort of got a vibe that if I could be this excited about this essentially turn-based Pokemon anime game, maybe other people would be too. But yeah, I remember the idea of the cover being really unpopular in the future and being like, no, we can’t put that on the cover. I think Matt Pellet was in the process of moving on to his next job. He was the editor at the time of the OPM. And I remember it being dismissed. But we sort of did it anyway. I think the compromise that we had to do and that John Lessom agreed to was that we would put it on the full cover, but it would be in a cardboard wallet. And on that cardboard wallet, there would be three other PlayStation games because we couldn’t do full Persona. A secret shame. We want to do the cover, but we are embarrassed by it. Hide Joker away. I don’t know if that’s a tactic that anyone else did. If you kind of have to appease the higher ups where they’re like, we’re not actually confident this will sell on the news, Dan. Right, okay. All the time that happens, for sure. Yeah, so I can understand because I think it was like, my first big cover play, essentially, where I had a relationship with the PR and built up a sort of level of trust and talked to him about how it would be good for them as well as for us. And yeah, it was kind of like a wild swing on that one, but I just had this funny feeling about it. I literally had no involvement with making covers happen until I was an editor after six, seven years or something. You were so crazy on top of your game from the off. It’s still wild to me. I was given quite a lot of opportunities quite early on being able to go to stuff like E3 and events like that. That is really where those conversations happen. Frank and Honest Conversations with PRs where you sort of talk about each other’s goals for a release if you both ended up excited about it and really make that stuff happen. I was really privileged really that I was given quite a lot of trust to go and represent something like OPM at these events and make those connections. I think that really set me on a path where I was just able to keep that up. I think my whole career I’ve been super excited about getting a gut feeling about stuff and then being like, right, how can we use this platform we have to really make a splash about something I believe in. Magazines are great for that. That’s like a proper editor’s instinct thing for sure. I hope so. My memory of you playing Persona 5 as well is you played it so, so quickly. Oh, God. An absurd time frame. I just remember you mentioning it in the office. What was that like? Oh, mad. So basically it ended up that by the time code came in, you know, nice and early because of the way, you know, print times work, I had about a week to play Persona 5. And it was weird. The only other thing I did that with for OPM was No Man’s Sky. And that was equally like just surreal, just like 12 hour days, just trying to play this thing. I was lucky on Persona 5 because it had already released in Japan. And so there were kind of guides on the Internet that had been sort of partially translated by people already. That game is sort of full of sometimes quite arcane like puzzles and with all the different sort of dungeons and mine palaces you go to. So I felt very fortunate that with this big exclusive, it had come out in Japan before and there was some documentation on the Internet else there’s no way I would have played it that quickly. I think my final game time was about 80 hours and I really rushed it. I just tried to stay on as much as what I knew the critical path was as possible. But it’s very surreal with a persona game because a lot of the critical path is actually just kind of hanging out and like eating curry and like chatting with friends. And the whole time I’m like sweating like, oh my God, I need to get. We cannot go to this cafe today. Let’s Mind Palace. I can’t do this burger eating contest. There’s a crazy artist plagiarizing people’s work. I do not have time to sit with you, Ryuji, do this fucking burger eating contest. So that was very surreal. Yeah, wild times. Yeah, that’s really cool. So which other games were kind of significant to you during that period? Does anything kind of spring to mind? Yeah, I think No Man’s Sky was the other big one, right? And I mean, I think they stick in the mind for obvious reasons because of the amount of quick review work you would maybe have to do. But I remember being trusted basically to go and do the cover story. And that was a huge deal, especially at the time when it was really at the peak of its hype cycle. In fact, it might have been a little bit before the peak because they were quite relaxed at the studio, I would say, and all the PR around it was kind of relaxed. Maybe it was just before it started playing that big. Was this the kind of era of all the grand promises and proclamations that were maybe quite easily made in a more relaxed environment? Yeah, I think it was a little bit before, because I remember the video, the visit to the studio being quite relaxed and all this kind of stuff. And I think it was just, I think maybe Word was just starting to get around. I’m trying to think whether Edge did their cover before. I think maybe, maybe just before. That would make sense probably from what we know about the hierarchy. Yeah, from what we know about the hierarchy perhaps of this stuff. But yeah, it was a really nice experience. I think that was a real studio visit where I went to and I was like, wow, this seems like a cool environment to be in. Working on this clearly, really mathematically impressive and quite innovative thing. I got to talk to loads of really interesting people. So obviously got to talk to Sean Murray while he was demoing the game. I remember having an amazing conversation with, I think it was Paul Weir, who was the audio genius behind a lot of the generative music. And that was fascinating. I also talked to Ines McKendrick, who was the programmer behind a lot of the amazing beautiful maths going on. We had this really fascinating conversation where I was being told about how beautiful maths could be. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there having dropped a hot potato after GCSE. You’re like, that’s great. How many guns are in the game? Literally. You kind of get sent on these missions as well. And I remember my editor going, right, we need to know certain things. We need to know how much of this. And it was still shrouded in mystery. I suppose because even the developers, right, because so much of it is procedural. Sometimes you don’t know what’s going to come up. I remember writing a very involved intro paragraph about this essentially ball bag creature that I encountered in my demo. Something you probably couldn’t get away with on Edge. But it was good fun. Oh, I don’t know. I think Edge is actually capable of highbrow toilet humor. Yeah, maybe. Where it’s slightly like, wink, wink, yes, we are being rude. And you’re like, ooh, naughty Edge. Yeah, like, are we naughty? Maybe that was my start of my transition period. But yeah, I remember that just being a huge deal. And probably like the first experience I had where I was like, wow, like game dev behind the scenes here looks cool. And wouldn’t it be cool to work on something that’s, you know, really shooting for the moon, essentially, and like doing some really new stuff and, you know, talking to all these really infinitely more intelligent and fascinating, you know, people. I was like, wow, what must it be like to be around here all the time? So, yeah, I think the combination of that, you know, being maybe one of my highest profile cover stories and, you know, playing, I think, probably about, I think it was about 50 hours and four days for the review. Yeah, that was actually just painful because I remember my editor telling me as well, there’s a center of the universe. They say there’s a center of the universe. You need to try and get to the center. I just lie and say, I got there and it was like beyond words. It’d be funnier for you. Like, I got there and it was shit. I hear it’s awesome. It was Peter Molyneux. Yeah, he was just like, now your next job is to chip away at this cube. But yeah, it was amazing. And, you know, I think all the journalists are playing at the same time. So it’s another one of those situations where you kind of hear one of the best things about game journalism, when you’re all discovering a game together and there’s sort of a bit of time pressure. It happens with Dark Souls, famously, right? Where you’re all sort of swapping tips. I remember me and Robin Valentine did that with Outer Wilds when it came out. Where you’re like, oh, have you done this? You should do this. It’s really important. Have you seen this bit yet? Oh, my God. Wait till you see that. I hijacked Phil Savage at a Doom Eternal. I think it was preview events because I knew he’d been playing it because I was so stuck at the end. I think we were both stuck on that sort of notorious difficulty spike at the end of Outer Wilds. We were both like, fuck knows. I emailed the developers in the end and was like, you’ve got to help me here. And they sent it back to me like as a cryptic riddle. Oh my gosh, that is classic. It’s so good. I remember being quite down on that actually in my review. I really was spitting and swearing at that point of the game. And I’d had such a good time up until about that. And then I think when there’s less time pressure, you’re a lot more forgiving of stuff like that. And you’re really going to spend the time to, it’s all seeded in the game beautifully and subtly. But when you’re a journalist on a timeline, you’re like, ah, why can’t I just do this thing? Why isn’t it doing it? So yeah, I remember Robin helped me out a ton on that. And yeah, I remember being a bit down on it in the review. I think I gave it a nine. I probably shouldn’t say what I reviewed in Edge. You’re not supposed to be. People do these things, don’t they? I suppose. I feel like Tony Mott’s going to hunt me down. Yeah, well, that’s it. Like, yeah. I say I reviewed Skyward Sword, but I don’t think I talk about any outside of that. Maybe that’s bullshit, Samuel, I don’t know. I think it is. Yeah, like, I feel like I have the same things. I think there are, like, significant ones where I’m like, I feel like, yeah, maybe people don’t need to know who did, like, certain ones. But for something like Outer Wilds, it’s like, I think it’s pretty obviously me. I think I was the only person on the team of Edge who even played that game. I’m sure that Matthew has proudly said that he’s the guy who dunked on Heavy Rain for Edge. Like, that has definitely come up on this podcast before. Heavy Rain, Scoward Sword, I’ve definitely, yeah. Oh, gosh, I think I brought up Heavy Rain in my OPM interview, actually. But, like, you know, I really, you know, for my sins when I was younger was really into it. And, of course, when you get there, there’s a lot of criticism around certain parts of it. But to me, like, I was really starstruck by a lot of elements in that game. Like, really, if you’re younger, like, I hadn’t encountered quite a lot of that, some of the stuff it was doing elsewhere, I felt like. Yeah. Yeah, and then, of course, you know, you re-evaluate opinions perhaps when you get older. But, yeah, I remember being really hyped by it when I was younger. I’ve just chosen not to replay it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the best way to do it, I think, is just to, like, keep those memories of, like, a great first impression that really made me think, oh, like, games don’t always have to be guns. Unless you’ve got a persona cover. Oh, yeah, absolutely. In which case, you have to put a big old bullet on the wall. It has to be. They did have guns in that game, so maybe it was on Jon. He should have given us a big old piece of art. Cat with a machine gun. It’s probably, I’m trying to remember, it’s probably, like, a big machine gun monster with, like, wings at some point that you trap in a Pokeball. The Persona monsters are amazing. I wouldn’t be surprised. Yeah, for sure. That’s the sort of, like, memory of Persona you would have when you play, like, a hundred hours of it in five days or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was a Pokeball, a hat with a gun. All very vague. Very blurry time in my life. For sure. Well, that’s awesome, Jen. So shall we take a quick break there and we’ll come back and talk about Edge a little bit? Yeah, let’s do it. But I’ve been sneakily drinking sips of water. So, like, yeah. Take a gulp. Yeah, I don’t know what your beverage policy is. Sorry, listeners. Sipping away. I’ve been drinking tea as well, so it’s all good. I ate a renny. Okay, amazing. Cool. I could hear him rustling. I’m glad I’ve not completely shamed myself. Oh, rustling, Matt. Let’s do a break and rustle to our hearts content. Cool. Welcome back to the podcast. So, in section two, we’re gonna ask Jen a bunch of Edge questions. Jen, you were editor of Edge, and before that, deputy editor, I believe? Yes. Ashley, why don’t you just tell us what you did on Edge before I try and make it up with bad research? Yeah, so moving on to Edge. Yeah, I was at OPM, and I think the editor who hired me basically left, and we had a new editor in. And I’d been on OPM, I think, for probably coming up three years. So maybe I was feeling like, oh, hey, I’m kind of looking around at other parts of the floor, lots of other cool teams to work with. And I’d spent a little bit of time chatting quite a lot with Ben Maxwell over on Edge. That period was basically when we were starting to sort of get friendly and exchange opinions on indie games. I remember he really liked rhyme, and I thought it was fine. So, you know, bonding overtakes. So, yeah, I think that was sort of my first go at edging into the, ha, edging, edging into the edge sphere of the office. Do you remember them in that sort of dark back corner, sort of surrounded by? They’ve always occupied a dark back corner somewhere. That’s sort of the edge aesthetic. That’s where they grow. The sort of, yeah, the sort of like, probably obsessed with Elden Ring lately, I’m sure we’ll get onto that at some point, but like the sort of slightly evil witches and wizards of like Ryalukaria and they’ve got like a mad office that’s like piled high with tomes and you don’t quite know what they’re up to, but it’s probably something secret and shady and it’s a little bit dim. They’re only right by candlelight. That was very much my impression. That’s a real cultivated thing at Edge as well, this sort of air of mystique and it’s very cool, especially me. I’m like, oh, that’s so cool. I wanna see what they’re up to over there. They’re probably playing the latest Nintendo game that I haven’t caught yet. So I sort of to Edge into that space, very occasionally chat to Nathan if I needed something when we were working on something on OPM or wanted to trade stories about codes or something who had and hadn’t got them. So Ben Maxwell was leaving and he’d been staff writer on Edge for ages, right? And he was moving on to somewhere new. And I think we had a conversation where he was like, oh, like, you know, would you ever want to go work on Edge? And I was like, you know, I don’t know if I’d up to that like standard, but like, it would be very, very cool. And there was that conversation. Then all of a sudden one day, Nathan Brown, I should say Nathan Brown, editor of Edge for the majority of time I was there, sort of came over to my desk. I think it was lunchtime. And he was like, can I just, can I have a word with you in the like future canteen for a bit, like downstairs? And I was like, oh, okay. And he sat me down at a table and basically was like, would you like to come in and work on Edge magazine? I think Ben had basically recommended me perhaps. I don’t think Nathan had really read much of my work, which is fine, cause it was very, you know, kind of sophomore. But he loved your rhyme tape. Yeah, he loved the ball bag anecdote from No Man’s Sky. He was like, yeah, you know which cheeky chappy man would love this content? Yeah, so I think sort of he’d trusted Ben on this sort of little tip that, hey, you know, there’s probably a decent writer over at OPM who might want to come and work on Edge. And so yeah, I was like, I was real starstruck. I think at first I was like, we sort of eased me into like the Edge style, which is quite like specific. So I did some freelance in a couple of issues before. Yeah, and then I joined the team. As deputy editor in the end, I think we were initially talking about a sort of like like games editor role or like reviews editor. And with a little bit of negotiating on my part, it became deputy editor. Again, I don’t know how that happened. I see, I got very lucky, I think, in that I asked for something and they very kindly gave it to me. Was it all that time you spent negotiating with monsters in Persona? Yeah, exactly. Because they’re basically like, everyone at Edge is like a sexy goth monster. Oh yeah, they’re a, what did we say? A gun with wings. When I picture Nathan Brown in my head, I see him as a gun with wings. The gun when I have a deadline or a word count I need to cut down and then the wings when he’s just being a good mentor. Yeah, that was kind of how I got onto Edge and it was very surreal because, again, it’s sort of something I would buy occasionally and be like, oh, wow, this is amazing. And maybe some of it a little bit over my head. But some of it I really connected with and I think I’d sort of been leaning into, I suppose more like philosophical breakdowns of games in OPM. And yeah, it seemed like there was infinite space in Edge to do stuff like that and almost sort of get back to my academic criticism roots in a way. You know, trying to make it interesting and not dry as well. But I remember that being really exciting to me and just sort of feeling like, you know, OPM is so much fun and loads of like fun little things you could do like doctor PlayStation and stuff. But this was really an opportunity to be like, oh wow, look at these big word counts and look at these postscripts where you can like really come in at like interesting angles and extrapolate out, you know, some really interesting stuff. So that was really, yeah, really attractive to me. I remember the, when you moved across to Edge, was that E3 where we were staying in Murder House? Oh, you can’t do that when I’m drinking, I nearly, I nearly spat it all out. Murder House, I think we’ve still got, is that WhatsApp still alive? We ought to scroll through it live. I don’t know, we’ll probably say all sorts of, you know, revealing things about journalists at E3 and the absolute chaos that goes on there. I think the last message in there just says, remember Murder House, like I think that was like the last thing anyone said. Good times. Yeah, we should maybe explain, Murder House was just sort of the affectionate nickname it got when we rocked up to this place that like really looked like it was still a building site in many ways from the outside. But then on the inside, it was like horrifyingly specific. There was a mirror that was like painted black, which was a choice. And then also there was like a door that led to a basement where we like suspected that someone was down there, but we hadn’t been told there was anyone else in the place. Yeah. It was a lot like a super massive game kind of premise, wasn’t it? Yeah, like five journalists, six journalists go to a, go to a house and they’re sort of picked off over the course of E3 in various ways. Which B-list stars play each of you? Do we want to help the people? Jesse Plemons would be me, I think. Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s a choice. I love that. Gosh, I’m not sure who I would cast as me. I think Jesse Plemons could play either you or me, Matthew, to be honest. Interchangeable. There’s like a guest role where Matthew comes around one night for a post-show beer and it’s also Jesse Plemons. Oh, yeah. So I always thought you seemed like a great fit for Edge because you had a strong idea of what was right for it. So what did you see as the Edge identity coming into it as it were? And what do you feel you, how do you feel like you shaped it with your sensibilities? Edge has always had this really strong identity, right? Which is like really its big strength. So I remember rocking up and just being like, for at least a year, you know, I just wanted to get it right and like make sure I was talking in the right voice. I was sort of, you know, foregrounding the right stories. And that was very, very easy to learn because Nathan as editor was a really good like teacher of that. You know, people like Nathan and Tony are people who’ve been there for ages and they’ve really internalized like what that magazine is and its whole identity. And so it’s actually really nice to have a person go, hey, this is right, this is wrong. It like, it’s quite simple in that regard because the identity is so strong. But yeah, for a while it was kind of like, well, I kind of don’t want to, you know, try and like muscle my own, too much of my own identity in here really because it really is about serving the mag as an entity. You sort of forfeit your rights in some ways early on maybe to your own identity because it’s important that you protect the edge identity that has been the same or, you know, had a certain standard for what, 25, 26 plus years. You want to make sure the readers are getting what they come to get and have come to get for a huge amount of years. But like one thing I really strongly identified with and where I thought I could sort of help, maybe not help, but like carve out my own niche in was that masthead they have, right? Which is the future of interactive entertainment. That to me is like something I identify so strongly with and still to this day, I think that’s such a good motto to have for video games, you know, and that whole interactive art form. Like I, so much of what I do is about what is like the future of this? What’s the next thing? Like, where’s all the innovation at? And I guess before like I started like worming my way into that, I felt like they were always really good at, you know, covering sort of new advancements in technology, why it was interesting, breaking that down, and also covering sort of big ticket games in that vein as well, and sort of using that amazing access Edge gets because of its identity to really, you know, get super deep access to these really big ticket games from big companies. So yeah, that was my like first impression of the Edge identity, I suppose. And then, so sort of as I got more comfortable there, and you know, you sort of feel like you can ease back into your own identity a bit more, and there’s so, like I feel like if you know Edge, like really well, even though there’s no bylines, you can eventually tell which writer has written what. And yeah, sort of like a year or so in, I started being able to get into that sphere where I could really sort of have my own little anonymous niche in Edge. Yeah, and for me, you know, future of interactive entertainment, I was like, oh, well, that’s indie games. You know, there’s a lot of innovative stuff happening in indie games, in sort of alt game scenes, art game scenes, I felt that that was really fascinating. And that sometimes maybe that got passed over in favor of understandably, like access to the big stuff, because that’s one of Edge’s like huge coups, right? Is that they have the clout to be able to do that and really provide that stuff for their audience. And it sells fantastically, it’s wonderful. But for me, I was like, oh, like there’s so much stuff, I think that really merits like a real deep dive. So I started pushing really hard to make space for like kind of more niche indie stuff. And again, Nathan was like super supportive. It wasn’t long before he let me do this like huge feature on like alternative controllers and games made specifically for like hyper-specific controllers like this weird DJ thing, like with fighting game like Sanwa buttons called the Midi Fighter. You know, there was this- Is that the thing with, is that like the thing with the block of like 16 buttons? Exactly, yeah. And they’re all like colorful. And they’re those clicky like arcade buttons, right? Like the super tactile ones. And I remember, I think I’d read an article somewhere about the developer TJ Hughes at GDC in the sort of alt control bit showing off this game called Gnor, like the first bit of Nourish. And it was all about, it was like these are incredibly beautiful, like surreal, super vibrant colorful scenes of like ramen noodles and popcorn and like gummy bears being poured into a bath. And you would use this super colorful, tactile controller with like motion controls to interact with the food in these scenes. And I was like, that is the coolest thing ever, you know? And so TJ and his work and a bunch of other people doing stuff with like really weird controllers in video games, like indie stuff, future looking stuff, you know, there was no, there was no Steel Battalion bit, I was looking more forward. I got to do that and that was awesome. And that to me was like, I don’t know, I feel like it’s out of like weird stuff like that, that like things like the DS get born and all that kind of stuff. I think Knorr eventually, well, I know Knorr eventually got picked up a few years later. I backed it on Kickstarter, but it actually ended up getting picked up by Sony. So yeah, so I was like, I saw that before it was cool. So I just started doing a lot of that stuff in Edge basically, and I was given space to do that. Yeah, and really pushing for Indies on the covers, which sort of ended up leaning more into when I was eventually editor. When did you become editor and what was that like for you taking on that role? Because you progressed in your career very quickly at Future. You were a real kind of rising star, I think justifiably so, but like what was that like taking on the role of editor to an edge? In some ways it was scary, but then in other ways it wasn’t really scary at all because Nathan and I had sort of been working on a level together for like at least a couple of years before that, just because of the nature of how magazine teams are. Like, you’ll know this, like, you know, if you have a deputy, like you end up kind of dividing the work equally because you have to, and you know, there’s a lot to get through. So, you know, my editor did that with me. And he was like, Nathan was always very, very hot on making me do the things and learn the things. He, like, it felt like he always had this idea of like, you know, one day when I am old and grey, she will take over and, you know, and step into my place. And so he really like prepared me for a lot of that and let me get hands on with a lot of stuff. You know, I think also it’s just, it’s hard to do everything yourself. So you just have to assign out that work. So, you know, I’d been leading covers, essentially managing the budget and working with sort of our range of freelance writers and editing everything as well as writing a whole bunch. So I was well prepared, but yeah, I mean, it was surreal. It was a surreal moment because like you say, it kind of felt like it all happened quite fast and it was suddenly like, oh my gosh, I’m at the helm of this thing that I’ve just admired, you know, since I was really young. And some days you still, you’re like, oh, I hope I’m doing it right. But I think by the time I got there, I was pretty well-prepped at least. Was there anything that gave you the fear? About like the editorship in general? Yeah, like when you’re finally there and you’ve got it all because I felt like, I didn’t feel, based on your description there, I didn’t feel half as prepared. I like, weirdly, I probably worked on Mags for twice as long at that point, but I felt half as prepared, which again speaks to many qualities as an all-round journalist superstar. But yeah, like there was so much where I was like, I have to now make these calls, like the bug stops here. Yeah. I felt like, I probably felt more fear than excitement. Yeah, I like, it was probably a 50-50 for me, because I like, like again, I think I’d just gotten really lucky in having someone who was like, you know what, I’m gonna prepare her for this eventuality and have her make calls on covers. But you’re right, like, you know, back in the day, if I had a wild idea for a cover, which I did, the buck would stop with Nathan, it would be up to Nathan to sort of go to the higher ups hat in hand and go, look, she’s got a really good idea, I think we should let her do it. Whereas then I had to get into that role, and that is scary trying to justify, essentially, what are often gut feelings on things like covers. So yeah, I suppose covers are that main thing where you’re like, this is the thing that on the shelf makes or breaks a purchasing decision, this is the thing that all the other wonderful stuff in the magazine written by really talented people is kind of like locked behind, like in a mind share kind of way. And it’s like, am I picking the right thing that is gonna ensure that people give a rat’s ass essentially and pick up and read the rest of it? Because that’s the nice thing about magazines is kind of once you get them in and once you’ve had someone pay for something or invest in the idea, they tend to read all the stuff. So yeah, I think that was front of mind, that was like, am I making the right cover choices? Seeing as though, yeah, that part of it stops with me now. I find the edge cover thing really interesting and this isn’t to do other games mags down, but I feel like edge, because of its reputation and because its remit is that bit wider, it could kind of set the agenda a bit more. Like growing up, I always thought edge told you what it thought was important. It didn’t necessarily pander to what was popular. And I know there’s a bit of give and take and most magazine editors, I know like Samuel on PC Gamer did this loads, like mash champion, lots of stuff and do covers, which he’s really super proud of. On OXM, like I felt like the platform like ran away from me totally. You know, I was just chasing what I thought an Xbox person would like. So it was like man with guns. But on edge, I’m interested in the process of like picking the right cover. It isn’t as simple as like the big game that sells. It’s how do you identify what is the right tech piece of tech or argument even that you’re trying to make that is worthwhile putting on the cover, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re absolutely right. It’s a very specific curation process and it’s completely informed by the identity of the magazine. Like you’re right. The cover of Edge is still a huge deal. That’s amazing. Like if people see something on the cover of Edge, they give it credence, right? They’re like, oh, well, if Edge has put it on the cover, that must be like a pretty big deal. And so I was always hyper aware of putting the right thing on, of making the right call, of going like, is this actually, like A, is this actually what the story is? Which is something you kind of only realize when you get into the interviews. And B, like, is the game or the thing a banger? Or is sort of history gonna prove us incorrect? Like there’s kind of this pressure on Edge to be correct. And that’s always was like a really scary thing. Because, you know. I like the idea, Edge’s subtitle should have been all bangers all the time. All bangers, all killer, no filler. But like this is the thing. And, you know, maybe I won’t get specific, but kind of like the wrong calls are always talked with like a reverence at Edge HQ, where you’re like, you know what, you don’t want to get it wrong. Because they’re actually, you know, they’re a, there are things that people still refer to the X incident. Oh, yeah. I mean, and you’ll see it if you go on any forums. This is the thing, like, you’re really supposed to be the arbiter of truth in the game industry. And of course, you know, the big thing is no one really can be because things are objective. But if you have this lens through which to view things, like, hey, so Edge’s remit is kind of the future of interactive entertainment. Like even beyond the game is the story of this thing or what these people who are making the game are trying to do. Like, does that kind of align with what the magazine values, right? And so that is funny. Because sometimes you’ll kind of pick things where you’re like, I know the story behind this is actually kind of fascinating, but people might look at the cover and be like, why the hell is that on there? And it’s because even if the game looks left field, the story of the people behind it, you know, and at least what we’ve learned from talking to them is sort of aligned with Edge’s like core values, I suppose you could say. But it’s very weird. Like, I wouldn’t know how to sum up the kind of like this, but not this. It’s kind of this weird, again, like semi-magical gut feeling you get from just being around like Edge people and having conversations and knowing about that. But like, yeah, again, we’ve like talked a little bit about this already, right? But like, I feel like I did a decent job of kind of trusting my gut on stuff. And I don’t think I made any seriously bad calls in my stint. We’re going to miss them now. Oh, God. Yeah, here we go. No. Like the sound of a scroll unrolling, like actually. No, not at all. I was going to ask Jen, it seems like the peak Jen Simpkins cover to me is the Playdate cover. Intersection of interesting control mechanism and indie games. It seems like very you. Was that a Jen Simpkins choice? It must have been. Oh, that is exactly what happened. And I fully led that cover. And Nathan, basically, I’ll tell you the story. But Nathan, I came to Nathan with it and I went, dude, I know it looks crazy. But trust me, this story is fascinating. It’s so me, but it’s also so Edge. It’s really interesting. They’re offering us this exclusive. Can we put it on the cover? And I think, you know, at least at that point, I think he tried to shelter me from a lot of the discussions that had to go along with doing something like that. But essentially, you know, okay, leave it with me and went and had the requisite conversations. But yeah, like he basically fought my corner of we’re going to put this fucking weird Game Boy looking ass thing with a crank on the cover. Like it’s so hipster, like it plays one bit games and it’s going on the cover of Edge and he really made that happen. But yeah, that was like two months of like really long days for me because not only was I working full time on the magazine, obviously getting, you know, the previous issues for those months out while working on this project, setting up all the interviews, doing the like crazy process of getting the right cover art, you know, working with Teenage Engineering to make sure that we’re representing this thing like in a correct way. So yeah, it was working full time on the magazine, UK time, and then it was like, and then, you know, Seattle wakes up, Portland, sorry, Portland wakes up and I’m in, you know, panic kindly sort of let me into their slack so that we could discuss there and keep all the discussions there instead of an email. So yeah, that was that was a lot of work and I was in charge of it. There’s the sort of brief story behind it. I talk a little bit about in the in the cover feature that eventually came to be but I went to GDC. It’s my first GDC and I got this email from this guy that I didn’t really know called Cable. He was like, hey, I’m with this company. Well, I’m the CEO essentially of this company called Panic. We helped out like publishing Firewatch and like we’re working on this really weird thing that I kind of want to show you and I think you’d be interested in. And so I met up with this guy. He’s like lovely and he was like, right, let’s find somewhere to go sit. You know, you’re sort of in San Francisco and it was outside of the show floor. So it’s like, right, what do we where should we go to like look at this in a place that has adequate secrecy? So I don’t know about you guys. I don’t know where you’ve been taken to just sort of try and look at a game away from the general public. But when you’re in public, like I’m normally it will be like on a laptop in a coffee shop somewhere, maybe in a quiet corner. That’s very familiar. Yeah. So that was sort of hotel lobby. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you just kind of, you know, put headphone, you get headphones on and they show you and it’s all very clandestine. And I also started to realize that he didn’t have a laptop with him or anything like not even a bag. And I was like at this point, I’m like kind of started to panic. I’m not going to lie. It’s like my first time in San Francisco on my own. And I’m like, what is like, what’s happening? Am I going to be like, is this a pyramid scheme? Like what’s going on? What have I stepped into? Starts making threatening referencing to cranking. And I’m like, not sure about this. Some red flags are starting to go up. Kidnappers, if you’re listening to this. Not usually this gullible, I promise. Anyway, so we end up basically halfway up a stairwell in some public building. And he’s like, yeah, thank you for sitting with me in this very weird secret place, but I don’t really want anyone to see what’s happening. And then he just sort of reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out this Game Boy looking ass thing. And I was like, oh, immediately. It’s like every cell in my body lit up. And I was like, what is this? I think I’m probably famously non-cynical, I would say. So immediately, as soon as I saw it, I was just like, ah, that’s so cool. The crank wasn’t even out at this point. Yeah, and I was just like, what is this? And he sort of proceeded just to demo it. He had, what did he have working? Just some really basic stuff like the clock app, like a menu interface, like this drawing app. Maybe he showed me a little bit of cranking, which is this funny little thing where you crank forward to have this robot run forward. And then if you crank backward, he runs backward, but time goes backwards. And there’s puzzles to do with that. And he just starts demoing it and saying, I’m like immediately sold. It’s so embarrassing. It’s really cool. The screen manages to look great. Obviously it’s kind of like this reflective thing. So it kind of needs light to show up, but it was quite like a lit up stairwell because of all the glass walls. And I wonder if that played a part in his venue selection. And he was just explaining this thing. And he was like, we’ve got Zach Gage making a game for it. We like, here’s Keita Takahashi’s game. Bennett Foddy’s working on something for it. We’re going to do this, this and this. Of course, at some point he like pops out the crank and I’m like, what the, I’m like laughing at this point. Like, oh my God, what is happening? And I was just like, yeah. I was like, man, this is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. He’s like a huge fan of Edge. So really he’s just looking for anything. But I was just like, dude, like, I was like, I can’t promise anything because I have to go talk to my editor. But like, from what you’ve told me, I was like, I really want to put it on the cover. And he was like, oh my God. And we were just hyping out. And so I like, I think I had a free time after that. So I just went back into the Moscone Center. I like found some like quiet booth in the media area. And I immediately called Nathan was like, dude, I’ve seen the most batshit thing. And I think Nathan is more of a natural cynic. So I think at first he was like, okay, like, what is this? Why is it interesting? And then when I explained like who was working on it, I also drew, if you want for the show notes, I can send you my like laughably shit iPhone sketched version of what this device looked like. It’s fabulous. I’ll send you that. Cause I was like, I can try and explain it, but I’ll just try and do this like rough drawing of what it is and what the crank looked like. I got the crank like horribly wrong. I don’t know why I even said it, it was so stupid. I was so excited. Yeah, and that just kicked off that whole thing. It’s a very long story, but it’s a really fun story. And I think Cable sort of knew what he was doing with like the showmanship of having to find this secret place. And I think he said to me, you know, months later, he was like, oh yeah, I really planned the pocket bit, you know, where you just take it out. It was a massive moment in like kicking that off. It was the moment that kicked it off, wasn’t it? And like, it feels like that that is a really good example of like what Edge can do that like maybe other magazines can’t do. So yeah, it must have been really exciting for you at the time. Yeah, it was. It was nerve wracking because I was like, God, I hope people care. But like, again, I had this gut feeling that people might. And I was like, you know, I feel like I know enough people like me who love indie games and love kind of moonshots and like weird fucking hardware. But yeah, that was a wild, wild time. And it was just so much work on everybody’s part. Like panic, panic, but so many hours into like really giving us the access. So I was like, right, if we’re going to put this on the cover, we need we need hours of interview, we need, you know, like all this stuff. We need the guarantee of exclusivity. And we’ll do this kind of big splash moment that like aligns with all of their stuff. Yeah, it was it’s amazing looking back on it. Like I can’t believe like it landed in my lap. And this is another thing where I just feel like I got real blessed. Cable just wanted to talk to someone at Edge because he loved Edge. And I think he really lucked out talking to someone. Maybe he lucked out. Maybe it was planned, you know, who who was basically going to eat this shit up. I’m just so glad you didn’t have to go back to him and say I’m afraid we’re going with Call of Duty. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? That’s the thing. Like I don’t. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I don’t think we would have done that. It’s getting 50 words in the news. Enjoy your enjoy your clag review. Like maybe maybe it’ll be all right. I’m afraid it’s clag. It’s clag for you. What a moment. I was so glad I could do that. And it just, you know, another one of those things that really, really solidified my belief in like taking really weird stuff and giving it as big as a platform as possible. Obviously Panic is like I think a multi-million dollar company. So it’s not quite, you know, like a total tale of struggle. They have a lot of resources behind them. And you know, these are really superstar indies that were working on it at first before like a bunch of other people got added. But nevertheless, it just felt like one of those really cool, risky things that you could create like a real moment around. And people really like showed out for it, which I was like super excited by. It was really nice. Were there any other specific covers you’re really proud of in retrospect Jen? I think like, was that Edge cover feature still the most comprehensive silk song? Kind of like, I guess, ex-bazeyo feature that there’s been? I think so, yeah, yeah. And again, I think I was really blessed with that. Obviously, well, I am a huge fan of Hollow Knight, the first game. I think I did jump onto it, in fact, a year after it first released when it came to the Switch. And I was like, this thing is fucking incredible. I think I reviewed it for it. I did review it for Edge. Another Cheeky Review exclusive, The Back Page pod, revealing ripping off Edge masks one at a time. I was absolutely in love with it, you know, completed it, the works. And so immediately I started emailing moonshots at Team Cherry, like, you know, as soon as we heard that Silk Song was a thing, I was like, oh my gosh, I immediately went in with, I would love to put it on the cover of Edge. Because it felt like Hollow Knight had this, you know, it does have this really, really rabid fan base about around it, because it’s such a brilliant game. And it’s really one of those indie darlings, you know, one of those things that you can really justify putting it on the cover. And I just started emailing, I think it was probably about every six months, bless them, every single time they were like, oh, basically, they were like, that sounds really cool. And I was like, wow, but, you know, we’re not quite ready, or like, you know, there’s something going on or various stuff, you know, like, they really have quite a complex development process. I did a making of Hollow Knight as well. And I talked to them quite a lot about sort of how their development process sort of webs out. Probably for about two plus years, I would just keep emailing them, especially, you know, in those moments where you don’t have anything to cover and you’re like, oh, you know, it’d be really good if it came off right now. Just please. Anyway, one day it came off and they came back. Yeah, actually, we could probably show you some stuff. And I was like hyperventilating. Was that your last issue? That was my last issue, which again, do you know what? And I think the last plea I made to them was about a month or so before. And I knew it was going to be my last issue. And I think I emailed them and I was like, look, guys, it’s my last issue. I was like, obviously, no pressure and you can only show something if you’re ready. But if you can, I can’t explain how exciting it would be if this was my last cover. I would love to do that. I was like, but just let me know. I thought, you know, they’re not going to be ready. But they were like, yeah, you know what, let’s do it. And again, I feel like there’s just been a series of people in my career that have really gone, you know what, she seems all right. Like, why not? Let’s give it a go. Hopefully, it’s worked out for them on balance. That issue also had that great Tangle Tower making of. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Oh, I love them. That was like super in-depth. That was huge. Was it like eight pages? Yeah, because they sent us so much incredible art. So like developers, if you’re listening to this, you want to pitch stuff to Edge or talk to Edge about a feature. If you have beautiful things that you can print in a magazine, like assets are gold dust. So if you come at us with like gorgeous concept art, you know, like Catherine Unger worked on that game and Adam Vian as well, like a lot on the art. And they had the most beautiful stuff from all sections of development. And so it’s like the easiest yes in the world, you know. And also, you know, if it’s your last issue, you just go mega indulgent. I’m just going to put everything… I don’t give a fuck. That’s what I liked about that issue. It was really you. Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, it was just a blast to put together. It was busy, obviously, but it, you know, especially your last issue. If you’re lucky enough to have one, you know, and I felt really lucky having heard stories about people not getting their last issue. And I was like, you know what, I’m going to make it count. And just go full Jen and blow it. Hopefully people enjoy it. So yeah, that was fabulous. They’re an amazing team. I can’t wait to see what they do next. But they’re wonderful. We’ve kept in touch sort of here and there since then. And I think I, yeah, I sort of presented a little section of IndieCade with them. So if you want more Tangle Tower content, Matthew, go look through like the IndieCade, like 2019 VODs. Oh, I will do. We’ve got some stuff there where I’m like playing the game and interviewing them a bit more about the process. I think I also did a Watch Dogs 2 Timex in that issue. Oh, yeah, I forgot you like Watch Dogs 2. Bless me for my sins. I think Nathan had sort of warned me off it for a while. And then eventually, last issue, I was like, you know what, I’m just going to do it. That’s me. I’m the Watch Dogs 2 liker. Let’s get logged on. It’s got good vibes that game. Yeah, like some of the vibes are cringe, but I think I have a high tolerance for cringe. I think enough genuineness comes through in that game to be quite radical, especially like Yubi at the time. And I think I wrote a bit in the Time X about how it was really cool of them to do that big tone swing from the first game that was very bleak and grey and maudlin and received quite badly. And for them to be like, okay, you know what, we will go crazy and we’ll go completely in the opposite direction. And I think, regardless of what you think of the final game, which does have its flaws as well as some brilliant stuff. It’s not an Edge 10, is what you’re saying. Oh, it’s not an Edge 10, but that’s the most interesting stuff to write about all the time, is that stuff that kind of hovers around the 7, 8, 6 area where you’re like, yeah, they took a big swing and maybe they missed some stuff, but the heart of it is trying to do something quite interesting. Yeah, good last issue. I can feel proud of that one. And yeah, I feel lucky that essentially I was able to have that issue to do that. Yeah, I was kind of curious, which games end up defining your era on Edge? I suppose you mentioned Tangle Tower there, but is there anything in particular that you were sort of obsessed with during that time or you reviewed in a fairly significant moment? Or I guess, like, give me the spread of stuff that meant something to you at the time, Jen. Yeah, I think the main game was just the game of trying to edit a magazine and then reviewing whatever I had to review that month. And I, you know, I was lucky enough, I think, to review a lot of really cool games, you know, stuff up in the nine and ten echelons. And that’s always exciting for Edge, when you get to kind of gird yourself and go, right, I’m going to write a nine review, I’m going to write a ten review. Have you, I mean, you don’t have to say what it is. Have you, you’ve written a ten review, then? Yeah, and I think anyone who maybe knows me can guess what that might be. Yeah, not a massive… It’s not a huge reach, but, you know, we’ll let the readers work them out themselves. Weirdly, the game that defines my Edge career, I think, is a seven out of ten, an Edge seven that I gave. And it was, do you remember GRIZ? Yeah, platformer. Yeah, it’s, you know, it’s very, like, basically this kind of like very incredibly beautiful, like 2D indie platformer where you sort of play as this like floaty dressed girl, sort of like running around essentially in her own crumbling mind palace. It’s, you know, it’s so indie. It’s the indiest thing you can ever imagine, you know, like to a fault, right? And I sort of explored that quite a bit in my review. In some ways, it’s very, very tropey, but, you know, it looks gorgeous. The puzzles are all right. But then sort of in the back third of the review, I started to get quite personal, not in like a first person way, because you don’t really do that in Edge, you know, you’re the mag voice. But I sort of became this treatise to millennial angst, I suppose. Sounds incredibly pretentious. But like, what happened was I was listening to a new 1975 album, the one with like I Like America, but America Doesn’t Like Me or some pretentious title, that album with that on it. Anyway, and I was sort of in my feelings about being a depressed millennial. And it sounds so lame, but like some of that review became this sort of treatise on like, yeah, like it’s quite cliched and like there’s a lot of like quiet like in your feelings cliches about it. But like, you know, sometimes that sort of stuff hits and you have to just let it hit. Like sometimes cliches are cliches for a reason because like they sort of connect with maybe like a more universal truth. And it really felt like a game that was aimed at perhaps a specific generation of people. Like the music I was listening to was this kind of like, oh, like kind of weirdly fell through the cracks in some instances. And we’re all a bit depressed and like kind of don’t know how to interact with ourselves. Yeah, exactly. It’s bullshit. But like, I know, right. Oh my God, my diamond shoes are too tight as well. Anyway, but like, so the thing that was important or significant about that was, bless him, Nathan had like a really big reaction to it, you know, and as someone who like really looks up to this person and he’s my mentor, and I’ve learned a lot about writing from him and, you know, really trying to, you know, essentially be a great depth for him. He had this really like, I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t write him out, but like quite an emotional reaction to it. He’s really proud of me and he was, he basically messaged me after he was doing proofs the like night before we’d sent and was like, this is amazing. Like I kind of didn’t get why people would go on about like putting these kind of personal angles on reviews like this, but like this made me get it. And I kind of understand you through it. And I’ve actually gained like a deeper understanding of this kind of seven out of ten game through what you’ve written here. And like he was super, super generous and like sweet about it. And that really stuck out in my mind as like a real victory of like, oh, I did something with my writing, you know, and like games writing is tough, right? Like because sometimes you’re like, you know, write about video games. And it like really felt like this significant moment of I’ve managed to sounds kind of parasitic, but like use someone else’s art to talk about like why it was significant in a wider sense because I had such a like personal reaction to it and I was working through that in the writing. And yeah, like I like, you know, Nathan, different generation perhaps as he is and always teasing me about being young and not really understanding sometimes where I’m coming from. That was this moment where like I’d really somehow allowed him to get into my brain and he was very publicly nice about the review when it came out on Twitter and you know, like said as much. That was great, you know, like for your boss who you really look up to who, you know, is a real stoic edge editor. I was like, wow, I got through. That’s so cool. I get that. I get that. Wanting to impress him and so on. Yeah. And like when you finally land it. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a pretty special thing. Yeah. Yeah. And in such a personal way as well. And I was just like, oh, man, that’s so cool. You know, it’s quite hard to justify all of my other stupid things that I’m obsessed with. Why are you always watching that anime, you weirdo? But yeah, that was one time. Yeah. At one time, I will always hold close. Yeah. I hope he’s sweet with me outing him as the wonderful, sensitive, considerate mentor he is and not like a, you know, stone statue edge man. He’s actually a very great friend of mine, an excellent teacher and a big softie. Well, that seems like a good note to sort of wrap up edge discussions. Is there anything else you wanted to sort of mention there, Jen, that was like a big deal? I’m so glad I did it. And I’m so glad I got given the opportunity to do it. It was like significant in so many ways. I think I’m the second ever female editor, along with like Margaret from a while back. I really took that seriously and I wanted to represent well and like to be given the opportunity to do that for something like Edge, which is like so rightfully, I think, revered was huge. And I will always be super, super grateful for that and everyone who helped me get there. Oh, that’s great. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s wonderful to hear you discuss that at that time. So much appreciated. In which case, we’ll take a quick break then and we’ll come back and talk about your current work at Media Molecule. Nice. Welcome back to the podcast. So in this final section, we’re gonna chat to Jen a little bit about working at Media Molecule. So Jen, I’m really curious, going from Edge to industry side, what was responsible for that leap? Is it more about the studio than it was about moving out of media? It’s a little bit of both, really. Edge, ultimately, I think, was responsible, and maybe a little bit of OPM, because as we’ve covered, I started going to visit game studios. Those are jobs that put me in fortunate positions, to go and see what was happening behind the scenes. And Edge, infinitely more so than OPM even, Edge is a publication that’s all about going dev side and hopping over there and really spending as much time with that as possible. And I thought it looked great. I was able to have conversations, even off the record with developers, about what their lives were like and what they were working on and how it was to be developing video games. And I was like, that sounds really cool. So that was a huge part of it. But also, Media Molecule itself, much like Edge was like a real lifetime dream of mine, ever since playing Tear Away and then Little Big Planet before that, I’d grown up on PlayStations. And so I’d interacted with that stuff and really admired what they did over there, the culture in particular. I was like, wow, that looks amazing. You know, the real sort of free flow of ideas, creativity. I did an Edge cover feature on Dreams, actually. And I got to go to the studio in, I want to say like maybe 2017, to check out Dreams and the studio. And I like really fell in love, was like, this place is amazing. Like maybe one day. So yeah, that’s sort of what happened. But I really wanted to wait for the right opportunity because I was in a really fortunate position at Edge, in a dream job. So I wanted to wait for the right job. Once I’d thought, oh, you know what? Actually, maybe I’ll move it dev side and get involved in that. And I wanted to be somewhere where I felt like I could immediately contribute. I didn’t want to just try and walk in and be like, maybe I can develop a video game. Because I wasn’t entirely sure I could. I’d done a lot of like little hobbyist kind of things. But you know, there are maybe few entry points to specifically that side of things. So yeah, I just sort of thought, oh, I’ll wait around for something that seems like the right fit before I start, you know, putting out any feelers. And I would periodically check the Media Molecule’s job site. And then one day a position for content curator came up. And I thought that sounds like something that I could actually do out of the box. So I applied for that. And then they got back to me like really swiftly, which immediately, oh my God, that’s crazy. And they said, it’s great that you’ve applied for this position, but actually like, we’re sort of thinking we might need someone in another position, a kind of like editorial person for Media Molecule to help kick that off at the studio. Do you want to just come and have a chat with us about what that might be? And so I did that. And I immediately had this kind of pitch, right? Where I’d been playing Dreams for a while at this point. It had been like officially like full release for several months. And I’d really sort of identified it as this amazing, you know, kind of like hobbyist platform with all of these like short form wild indie games. You would really have to dig to find them sort of in that first like nine months or so from the proper release. But I enjoyed doing that, you know, and I was finding like some of these like really great little gems. And I was like, wow, you know, after a game releases, the kind of media cycle around it moves on, right? There’s other things to cover. There’s other releases to cover. And you know, you want updates or something to bring that back into the media cycle. So no, there were a few places, you know, regularly writing about dreams and almost none fully dedicated to what weird indie releases are happening in dreams. And I thought, oh, well, you know, if anyone wanted to invest in something like that, that’s a dream job is basically getting to look at this indie platform all day and like write these little kind of bite size odes to them and explain to people what is actually worth playing and looking at maybe and why. Yeah, so that was kind of like the conversation we had in this first interview. And they liked the idea too, that like they saw like there could maybe be a lot of merit in it. And that just sort of happened and that was very surreal. So that is sort of what I do nowadays is basically I started up my own little blog on Media Molecule’s sort of like game adjacent site that like links with the game itself. And I sort of spend my days like looking for all these like curiosities essentially and really short form indie games made by hobbyist devs and sort of explain why they’re worth people’s time. What I really like about it is often you associate, you know, things which are coming out of a studio, you’d expect them to be very kind of safe and neat and corporate, I guess. And actually you’ve absolutely like maintained your own voice in the same way actually that I think like the Minecraft guys with their Minecraft blog, you know, Tom Stone, our former staff writer, ended up there being really fucking funny. You’re on there being really fucking funny. And you’re like, how awesome is this that these awesome, funny mag people got to be like the big voice of these products or a voice of these products in this way? Oh, well that’s super generous. But yeah, like it’s really fun. Again, like I was very careful about what I would leave edge for. And I’d say probably there’s very few, like maybe AAA games, right? That I would go to work on. And like Dreams was just, it just felt like, like the perfect fit for the thing that I had identified through my career that I am good at and that I massively, massively enjoy, which is like, you know, pulling out these like strange hidden gems made by like really interesting people and trying to get them in front of people. Yeah, for sure. Like, how does curation work with a platform like Dreams, Jen? How do you build those relationships with the developers who are creating games inside Dreams? Wow, I mean, yeah, it’s wild because Dreams is this huge thing. I feel like, you know, anyone listening to this who’s heard of Dreams, which is essentially a sort of like game engine that is gamified in many ways to encourage creation. But, you know, also at the same time, you don’t have to create anything at all. There’s like just infinite stuff to play. Curation is kind of a new thing. So it was, you know, that sort of curator job that I applied for. That was the first time that MM was like, hey, maybe we should get in people to actively curate in game rather than sort of leaving it up to like automatic feeds. We should get people to put certain things on the front page and curate playlists. And so it’s not just me like writing about stuff, which I suppose is one form of curation, you know, putting together magazines and things like that, the things that we do and have done. That’s one form of curation. But we also have two dedicated curators, Ali and Jacob, who I work with sort of alongside every day. We’re sort of a little curation module. They actually work on the using the back end of the game to group together in like fun and interesting and inviting ways all these different experiences and lay them out on the front page to try and get them in front of like players faces essentially. It is a wild process. What I would say is like it’s it’s lots like a magazine, right? Where you there’s kind of this voice that you want for like dreams as a platform or as a publication and you’re kind of looking to foreground things that really align with those those core values, right? So for dreams, it’s like, hey, it’s great to put like really polished hyper realistic stuff on the front page because that really connects with people. People like to see things they’re kind of familiar with. But also for us, a huge part of curation and a huge part of like what us three are really passionate about are like really new novel experiences that are maybe only possible in dreams or are from people who wouldn’t really normally do game development, but have access to it through this tool and are making like super weird, like fringe stuff. So it’s kind of like this mix of serving all these different audiences whilst also going, okay, we want to represent the kind of free spiritedness of MM and what we think like dreams should be, you know, we want to represent polished stuff, but we also want to represent stuff that’s rough around the edges. We want to represent stuff where we know there’s kind of human stories behind it that shine through and it’s just mixing all that together in a way that’s exciting, this kind of variety grab bag of stuff when people look at the front page and playlists. What I would say is I’ve actually written a probably too long gamedeveloper.com article that is a very top line view really, but of how we do approach curation, which is this kind of new activity. It’s been around just about over a year now officially at MM, but that article has a bunch more stuff in it if anyone is interested in learning a little bit more about that beyond what I’ve just said. I will link that article in the show notes as well. I’ve lost show notes this week, but it’s worthwhile, I think. Yeah, I think that’s why it seemed like such a good fit for you, the job, because you just had that whole thing of championing stuff that you thought was important via Edge. And so going into a platform where there’s this massive variety of stuff to be curated, it does feel spot on for the type of editor you were, so I can see why it was really appealing to do it, if that makes sense. Yeah, it was super exciting. I know you had a bit of your question where you were like, oh, how do you build relationships with developers? To that, I would just say that MM has this real reputation for being super close with its community. We’ve obviously hired people from the community before, we have tons of people who, well, I say tons, we have some people at the studio who maybe started out with LittleBigPlanet and are now like MM developers, you know. How great is that? You’re so good at your favourite game, you get to work on your favourite game. It’s great, right? That’s the dream. And we’ve hired even more people than that from the Dreams community. I suppose Jen, can you tell us a bit about how Dreams has been updated since release? Why is now a good time to jump in? You mentioned that like, Curation is like a year old kind of project, I guess. But like, yeah, for people who kind of want to layer the land of the game now, like, why is now a good time to jump in? Yeah, for sure. And we’ve covered it, but Curation, I would say, is a really big thing. The access to the data we have behind the game, like, it’s like really massively increased engagement and stuff. People are really looks like finding the kind of like quality stuff they really want to play. And like, it’s just really changed the face of Dreams. If the last time you logged in was like 2020 or, you know, around that area or even before that, I cannot express to you how much that like front page of, you know, we call it dream surfing, basically, the place where you go and play all the games. I can’t express how much that has changed and become sort of tidied up and tweak to appeal to a greater range of sensibilities and really produce or platform some of the best stuff. We have like a daily dream surf now. There’s like, it’s basically like five great things that we found, whether they’re games or like pieces of music or pieces of art or whatever that’s in the dream of us. We’ve hand selected. We do that every day and refreshes every day. Like, it’s fantastic. And if you play them, it kind of it takes them out of the little list. So there’s this lovely little meta game that Jacob and Ali have developed with that, where you can kind of like tick off these five things for the day. You know, and it might take you like half an hour to play through them all. And you’ve had a really good slice of just like a variety of like really great stuff that’s interesting for different reasons. That’s just one example of like a way in that we provide now, where it’s you’re not just overwhelmed anymore by like, Oh, what do I do? Do I search Shrek and try and figure out whether there’s anything interesting from the search thing? Did you say search Shrek? Oh, yeah. Oh, there’s some wild stuff. There’s some wild stuff. Of course, we’re not allowed to sort of like platform any of that stuff, but it tends to be like wild meme shit posts. That was just obviously not really like a crazy experience. But if you want to go and like search something completely random and sort of vibe through all of that, you totally can. It’s just like, you know, the front page is kind of like the refined version of that. But you can go off the beaten path if you want to vibe with some dank Shrek memes. If you really want to vibe with some dank Shrek memes, you know, that is entirely your jurisdiction. I will say some wild stuff comes on the front page because, you know, we love some weird shitposts. We really do. It’s just, you know, we also don’t want lawyers to come after us. So, you know, Shrek may be another life. Yeah, so there’s that. That is such a huge thing, especially if you just want to get in and play, which is totally fine. I feel like a lot of people think of dreams and they’re like, oh, I’ve got to be, I’ve got to be using the creative tools and making my own things. And it’s all about that. And it really can just treat it like an itch or like, you know, the site, not the medical condition. But, you know, you can treat it like an itch.io. You can you can treat it like WarioWare. You can dip in and be like, you know what, I’m going to I’m going to play half an hour of dreams and just see what’s on the front page today. And if anything sort of catches my fancy, I challenge you. Like once you’re in the rabbit hole, it’s so hard to get out because there’s so much stuff. But, you know, if you are into creation, there was a really great update recently that also included a whole new game called Ancient Dangers, which is a really nifty little dungeon crawler. Feels really nice game feel. I wrote a little bit on that. It was quite fun. But along with that, some like tutorials came in for essentially like templates. So it’s like, hey, if you want to make a mini golf game, here’s like a tutorial, like step by step, like guided, of like showing you like where to put stuff and how to connect up this logic and things like that. And we sort of provide the kits and hold your hand through it if you need that. And that’s really useful, giving people and sort of wiping away like the blank page syndrome a little bit and being like, hey, we’ve got varying levels of sort of like games in completeness and step by step tutorials for that stuff. We’re not just going, OK, work out how to make this on your own. You made you you turned one of your actual dreams into a project the other day. I did recently. And I was really like surprised and like super flattered by the reaction to it because it was literally something I spent like a couple hours doing. I think I was listening to Back Page Pod while I was doing it. I just got into sculpt mode. And the thing about dreams I think people like maybe aren’t aware of is that you don’t have to make anything from scratch if you don’t want to. I made this little scene basically that is sort of like a kind of like a stone coliseum with some like nice water and like a pirate ship in it and these like lovely cherry blossom trees and there’s falling cherry blossom. It took me like an hour or two to knock up and I’m very slow at this stuff because I had this dream of like I had an actual dream. I was like I’m going to recreate this because it was the rare nice dream I have where things are beautiful and my teeth aren’t falling out. Yeah, but the thing is, it’s like I don’t have to sculpt a million cherry blossom trees. I don’t have to sculpt like Colosseum stonework or like make a ship. I literally just bring up the little search bar when I’m in sculpt mode and dreams and I just go ship and then I stamp in a ship with like the X button and then I go cherry blossom tree and then I stamp it in and then I go falling cherry blossoms and I stamp them in and then I go sunset lighting and like someone’s made that already and it’s in the dreamverse and I stamp it in and then I you know like the cloning thing for dreams so like once I’ve got my cherry blossom tree that someone else has spent their valuable time making because they enjoy that. I can’t be asked so I’ll just use that and then it’s like I think it’s like L1 and the right trigger and that’s just like the instant clone shortcut and you just you know you use the motion controls and you just pop them around the scene and it’s literally that easy and I feel like people feel this real pressure to like oh well if I’m gonna do it I should make everything from scratch myself and it’s just like nah just pop on a podcast and just like use other people’s assets and you can see from the reaction like I posted you know a tweet of it and me walking through it because you can just stamp in a puppet and possess the puppet and suddenly you’re walking around your space in first person. You can do it in VR because Dreams has this VR mode. It’s all made for you because Dreams has been out like you know between I think like Beta and Early Access probably like four or five years now. Everyone’s done a lot of stuff already and you can just use it and the best thing is that the community is so not gatekeep-y. I posted that which is basically just made out of other people’s assets and the game automatically credits it in the game and the community is like this is so cool like I love how you’ve arranged all this stuff like you’ve got some like level design chops and I’m like I’m just stamping stuff in and choosing where to put it and you know thinking about the design that I came up with when I was unconscious and snoring. They’re all like needs more Shrek’s. They’re like where is Shrek in a leather suit working or whatever the TikTok name is. They’re like but the thing is and I do not advocate this but like you if they want to put Shrek in it, they can remix it and they can do that because I chose to make my scene remixable. So the nice thing is that the community who are just so sweet about it and they’re like oh I love your scene like so cool. Then they take it and they’re like I’m going to put my little character in it and run it around and like send Jen a screenshot of like this little like pop character I made like running around with this little green sprout head jiggling about running around her dream. Or I’m going to remix it and you know I’ve had people using like the same assets I have but like putting them in different configurations. So this this literal dream I had in my head is now spreading and morphing and it’s fascinating and it’s lovely. And yeah I would just say you know if you’re kind of down with that idea like just give me a go. I think dreams is on sale quite often for about a tenner. And it’s such a great thing to stick on if you’re listening to a podcast and go you know what I’m just going to I’m just going to stamp in some trees for a bit and make it look nice. And yeah it’s nice. It’s very Zen. It’s a very Zen experience sometimes. What sorts of projects made by the people who have blown you away doing your role Jen? Oh yeah I mean we just need a whole separate podcast at this point. So what I will say is so my job is to write a blog like full of all these recommendations and hopefully if you know you’re the sort of person who listens to the back page pod and you enjoy sort of magazine style written japs you will enjoy it. If you just google the imp cider it’s like insider but with imp in it because that is a dreams and media molecule thing so it’s called the imp cider and like every week I write a round up of like the five coolest things I’ve seen in dreams that week and played and like why they’re maybe worth your time. There’s little buttons that take you straight to the game if you’re like logged in on your dreams account as well. Go there for a million recommendations but I’ll give you some like great weird ones that I really enjoy that just are fun to talk about. So, the thing that won the big creation of the year at this year’s IMPIE Awards, which is our award show we do for community creators, and it’s crazy. The thing that won is something called the Idyllium, and it’s essentially like a walkable virtual art gallery just filled with bizarre abstract sculptures and paintings. Normally, museums are kind of like these blank slates, right, that you just put stuff in, and their job is to be a blank slate. And this place is like alive. And so as you kind of walk around, it kind of unfolds, like as you move through it and like new wings appear and like certain art like reacts to your presence. It’s crazy. It’s got some real edgy stuff in there. And it’s absolutely amazing. I would hugely recommend that if you’re kind of like a muso interest in that sort of stuff. It’s got a real sense of humor to it as well. It’s really surreal kind of like Dali-esque stuff. That’s amazing. It’s from one of the creators, one of the three creators who made it and is showcasing their art in it is this guy called Beavis2. I believe he’s an architect in real life. And before this, he made something similar, which is kind of this like gallery space called House of Beavis. But that is kind of like a horror. It’s literally it’s a while, but like it’s weird because it’s not actually about this guy. It’s it’s sort of about like, from what I can tell and from what like this this person’s sort of description of it, sort of about like this repressed housewife and this like place is sort of this figment of her like imagination and like repressed energy. And it’s like, it’s horrifying that like you go through and you think it’s just a gallery. And then, you know, while the Idyllium is this place that like maybe unfolds and like sort of with you, this earlier thing that was like real edgy and great is like wild, like all this like horrifying stuff starts to happen where these like you’ll get locked in rooms and the statues will sort of like move and talk at you and all these like super surreal clips of like old TV shows and stuff like that. Like there’s just like a huge fire at one point. It’s mad. Like I would recommend checking that out. Something that you two might enjoy or like a creator who I really enjoy that you two might enjoy is a creator called Venwave. And they make these awesome kind of games with like what I would describe as like, you know, like weird PS1 vibes, like, you know, like, like kind of like Japan studio stuff where it’s like quite wholesome, but also like kind of fuzzy around the edges and like kind of like lovable jank and like wild colors and shapes. But with like these beautiful hearts, like very loco roco. But like through the lens of like, like smeary kind of N64 graphics. They’ve got a game called Drag Flower to the Exit, which is amazing. You play as this kind of little seed and you’re sort of 3D platforming through this like very sort of like kit bashed kind of colorful PS1-esque world. And you’re sort of growing at each stage and the music is kind of growing with you. And like this is beautiful emotional conclusion. It’s very indie and the same creator also made this incredible like interactive theme park slash concert called Flow World, which has this like almost Tamagotchi-esque UI where they’re kind of these colorful shapes, like always in your periphery that you kind of like see everything through and it’s like real chaotic. And I think you kind of you kind of have to have this like a little bit of a tolerance for, you know, like like kind of purposefully rough edges. But if you’re that kind of person that enjoys kind of like diving through itch and like takes that as part of the experience with like these kind of like a theme park slash concert where you play as like this weird little mosquito character running around, like you’re going to love that kind of stuff. And there’s this amazing interactive kind of alien reproductive simulator with like fantastic sort of like lynchian lighting and it’s called Is It Love? And the goal is to sort of create the optimal conditions for alien life for these two aliens that you’re sort of controlling and doing this amazing sort of underwater like dance together. And you’re trying to like set the mood lighting essentially in the flow in such a way that they will be inspired to create a little alien child. There’s so much of this stuff. If you’re after really polished stuff, there’s something called Tripp’s Voyage. I don’t know if either of you will have seen this floating around Twitter. It got some traction. I might have done. I might ring a bell this one actually. So it’s very it basically looks like the love child of like a rare and a Nintendo game. And it’s like it’s it’s quite far from like Dreams House style. You know, it’s very like tight graphics, really clean edges, like a really skilled creator called Euphelous has made this. And yeah, it’s this very, very polished 3D platformer where you’re kind of this little orange cat jumping around and collecting bells through these like tropical and worlds. And that’s sort of in development. There’s a couple of levels out and it’s the overworld is incredibly polished. Like the whole thing is like astounding. I honestly I was like this person is a Nintendo staffer in disguise. I was just looking at looking up on my phone as you talk. Yeah, that looks crazy. It’s like you have to play it to just feel how like spot on it is to like those references. Like I, you know, obviously like it takes heavily takes sort of inspiration from a lot of that like era of 3D platformers. But I think the fact that they’ve managed to recreate it and then sort of display this incredible understanding of what makes like a really interesting and like curiosity inspiring like 3D level. Like it’s not just, you know, they do so much with it on top of it that is like really, it’s just not them just chomping someone’s flavor. Like this is a really skilled game developer. It’s fantastic. I tell you what, I will end with, Matthew, you really must play this. Sammy Seale, The Sky High Potato Murder. I think I’ve seen footage of this on Twitter. Like honestly, it’s really worth your time. It’s by a creator called Jimmy Cultist. And it is just a classic sort of detective sleuth them up. And it’s a decent length, I would say. I’d probably give you about like 45 minutes to an hour, like depending on like how thorough you are. And there’s really different levels of thoroughness. First off, it looks amazing. Like they’ve got this like cell shaded 3D style down that is unlike anything else you’re kind of going to see in Dreams. The character design is just incredible, just sort of like partially kind of cuphead-y. It’s wild, just these sort of like strange like insect, animal, humanoid things. And you just go around and you look for clues as to this murder that’s taken place. And it’s kind of got an element of Paradise Killer to it, funnily enough, where it’s quite open-ended. You get this like Poirot scene when you’re ready to go to the parlor, essentially. And you can choose to accuse who you want to accuse based on the evidence that you found or may have not found. And there’s like, you know, a canon ending for every single thing that you do. So there’s, you know, you can, I’ve gone back and played it more times. I’m like, I’m not sure I got the whole story because there’s various sort of like little scenes between characters that maybe play out if you collect evidence in a certain order. It’s really involved. Yeah, it’s a banger. Like, I think that’s a real specific recommendation for you there based on some of the likes we have in common. I’ll list a bunch more of these in the show notes, Jen. I’ll list all those. Bless you. Like, oh, there’s so much. And yeah, again, if I can just plug the insider. Like, if you’re ever like, actually, I don’t really know what there is to play in Dreams. There’s so much. If you really like that kind of short form hobbyist stuff, the quality astounds me every day. I know I’m biased, but like, there’s a reason I wanted to come work here and I’m proved right every single day. It’s an absolute joy. That’s awesome. Yeah, your passion definitely comes through for sure. Thank you. Thanks so much for your time, Jen. I was just going to wrap up by asking what you’re playing at the moment. Just like, obviously, being game is still a massive part of your life beyond Dreams. What’s currently spinning for you? Yeah, obviously, I play a lot of Dreams, but it’s really interesting. I was thinking about it. I play a lot of indie games still. I used to play a lot of indie games on Edge as well. But I feel like Dreams really scratches a lot of that itch for me. That really short form, super novel stuff. So I’m actually playing more AAA titles than I may used to before. So I’ve been really into it. There’s no shame in that. I know. I’m like, oh. You’re among friends here. I feel really dirty. I’m like, oh, I’ve actually… There’s this thing called Elden Ring and everyone’s into it. And also I’m into it. And now I don’t feel special. It’s so good. Have you two played any more since you did your kind of episode? I know you did a follow up where you were like, oh, I’m kind of at the point where I’m bouncing off. Have either of you gone back? I’ve not to my great shame. I feel terrible. I plan to, but not currently. Yeah, I will. Yeah. I’ve got to clear the backlog a little bit, then I will go back to it, you know. I’ll circle back. I’m having such a good time with it. And I like I’ve slowed down, I think, from my initial rush and then being like, oh my god, this is fucking amazing. I just want to mainline it. I think maybe you guys covered this, but there’s a bit of a pressure when everyone else is doing it and finishing it. And you’re like, oh my god, like I’m miles off the pace. So I’m trying to be nice about that. But I think I’m going to finish it. I think it might take me until the end of the year, but I think I’m going to finish it. Like, and this is wild. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a FromSoft game. Yeah. So it’s like the longest one as well. Yeah. What a way to start. And I’m already thinking about like, right, I’ve got to go back and I’ve got to finish Dark Souls 3 and I’ve got to finish Bloodborne. And yeah, wild. So that that has been like, discovering that’s been like a real lease of life for me this year. Like, oh, my God, I’m into FromSoft games. Who knew? That’s awesome. Watching Varti Vidya lore videos and all sorts of shit. Who am I? Oh, my word. This is like very you, though, to like get into something and then get into it like big time. Really into it. Yeah. And just be talking everyone’s ear off about it. That’s definitely that. I feel like I’ve been kind of aligned with Back PagePod in that when you guys sort of go on about something, I’m like, right, I’ll give that a go. I’m most of the way through Ghostwire. Yeah, it’s all right. I think I went into it with the expectation of like, it’s going to be like a seven out of ten, you know, fun kind of Elden Ring cooler offer. So, yeah, I’ve been enjoying sort of noodling around that, you know, open world game is it is. I’ve started Kirby, massively enjoying that very early on, banger. And like based on what you said on the pod as well, it’s like, I’m definitely getting to that ending. And another thing, probably the last thing and like a real highlight of this year for me and another source of shame is that I hadn’t finished Disco Elysium properly. I started it on PC, like ages ago when the big hype around it came out and it was like, okay, this is fucking amazing, obviously, I have to try it. I think I got about maybe 10 hours in on PC and just sort of left it. But it came out on Switch and I finished that maybe like a month or so ago. Holy shit. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever played in my life. Like it’s so good. I think people bounce off it and I can understand why but it is, oh my god, it’s so good. I finally understand why everyone bangs on about it so much. It’s so good. I can’t believe it took me that long to push through on it. I’m just too boring to play Disco Elysium. I feel like Disco Elysium, if it met me in real life, it would think I was gone because in its political ideas, I am just everything. It seems. Have you got to any of those parts of the game where it starts calling you on that stuff because it is fucking hilarious? I’m just such a fence-setter and it like saw into my soul. It’s so good. But if you, you know, instead of like walking away in shame, which, you know, I think I also got like boring cop and sorry cop at various points into my jet, I was like, oh my God, I really am an equivocator, I’m a moralist or whatever. You know, if you really sort of take the hints that it’s giving you, like even on the loading screens where it’s like, hey, you should try being weirder because people will automatically sort of respect people in positions of authority like you, cop. If you start to take it seriously, and you’re like, right, okay, I’m going to do more stuff where I feel like I could potentially be fucking this up. Like it really starts to blossom. I feel like they’ve intentionally designed to where you bump up against, you know, some of that stuff where it’s like, oh, sorry cop, oh, boring cop. And I think they put that early on so that then you go, right, okay, fuck you, I’ll show you who’s boring. And then you actually start to play the game proper and you start to see like the wilder stuff that can happen. Like you know, like I died from like sitting on a chair wrong. I like almost shot a child at one point. I think you can do that, which is like crazy. But like, I don’t know, it’s probably not a great pitch, but like it really is brilliant. It really is brilliant. The promise of childhood. I know, and like maybe it seems quite dark and like, you know, very heavily into like it’s like political theory and stuff, and it is, but what I would say without spoiling the end is it’s really beautiful. It manages to come to this really beautiful conclusion. It sort of ends up being this treatise on the core friendship of, you know, like Kim Kitsuragi and the detective whose name is different depending on what you do. And it’s sort of this very human story of, of who am I? And like, here’s me in all my, like, kind of shambling glory, even though it’s like very imperfect. And like, basically, can I still make a friend and make a difference in spite of that? Which is maybe not where you expect it to go. But it’s really beautiful and really meaningful because obviously that game allows you to really sort of create your own personal character. I think it’s sort of single handedly unpacked a lot of my own, like, hang ups about doing things correctly and not failing because that game is all about like failing in style and and how good that can be and how people like will love you anyway and you can still get shit done anyway, even if it’s kind of messy, which like is weird, right? You might not expect that. Yeah, aspirational, really, like, especially with a print media background, I would say. Yeah, I was talking to the lovely Chris Schilling about this, Edge’s current deputy editor, because I think he still has yet to tick off that game. And I was like, you really must play it because like it’s really, it’s really helped me grapple with my own worries around failure. And he was like, oh, yeah, like, oh, maybe like I can play a game about like feeling like a fuck up, which I feel like if you’d work in a high pressure, pressing situation like Edge, maybe it’s like therapeutic, even though of course he is a superstar, the kind of superstar who will never acknowledge it. Good old Chris. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s a good spread of stuff, Jen. And like, to be honest, a scary amount of like, sort of specific references to this podcast and episodes of this podcast, like I’m genuinely delighted by the level of research done there. That’s good. We’ve had some guests on who are like, and which one are you? I mean, yeah, you say research, but it’s just me probably sitting in my pants recreating my dreams, listening to you, you know, talk about Kirby. It’s nothing super in-depth, it’s just me, it’s just me hanging out, which is, yeah, lots of fun. Keep making the podcast. You got to now. There’s stakes. I really, really appreciate your time though, Jen, like massively appreciate you talking us through your career and your current work. Like it’s really, really cool. Is that where can people find you on social media? Yeah. So I’m usually for my sins on Twitter. That is at its Jen Simpkins and that’s where I can normally be found posting my life away. So I mean, that’s a good place as any to find me. I’ve obviously plugged my little blog enough. There’s also my email. Imp Cider, one more time. Imp Cider, you know, louder for the people at the back. So you can get me there. But there’s also my Media Molecule email in my bio on Twitter. So if you do want to like talk about anything to do with Dreams, come on over, like give us a shout. We always like talking to people about like our weird cool game engine platform thing. So you know, be nice to chat to people if you ever want any pointers on what to play or check out in Dreams. Like I am at your disposal. I’m very happy to do that. That’s wonderful. Yeah. So Dreams is like, as Jen says, often on sale on PlayStation Store. So yep, go check that out. It won’t cost you much and you’ll have more to play than you’ll ever have time to play. So that’s really cool. Matthew, where can people find you on social media? MrBazzle UnderscorePesto. I’m Samuel W. Roberts and this podcast is supported by patreon.com/backpagepod, where we make a moderate amount of money, then offer our guests money. We offer Jen money and she said no, but that’s fine. That’s her prerogative. But yes, this podcast will be back next week. So thank you for watching this thing and goodbye.