Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: And welcome back to Crosswires. It's James here and it almost feels like a tradition now. Icon factory. Do a Kickstarter. We have Gideon on the show. It's become like a thing.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Our pleasure.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: This was almost a year ago. Almost exactly.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Do you know what? Yeah. For Tapestry. No. Is it that?
Is it that. Hang on, is the Tapestry kickstart? No, that was 24. Wasn't.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: Was at the end of 23 into 24.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it. So. So that's nearly two years ago.
Yeah. We're 20, 26.
Wow.
No, I remember because.
So when.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Oh, dear. Just. Do you know what? It's genuinely always been a pleasure to have you on and we've talked a lot of stuff now, of course, not only Gideon is here again. Gideon Mayhew. We'll do a proper introduction in a moment, get you to plug everything that you're doing. But of course, my wonderful co host and my beautiful fiance Jay is here as well. How you doing, Jay?
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Doing good. I managed to dig myself out from underneath all the snow.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you know, it's really nice. I think you were gonna come home anyway, but it's. It's nice that you've not actually had to take time off the store because we've. Because at the time of recording this, Ohio. Well, Columbus, Ohio, particularly the last few days has been under various levels of snow warning. What was it, 10 to 15 inches of snow you had.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's also been bitter cold.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: So for the safety of our team and our customers, we decided to close a physical store because we've got a good online store as well, so. Which is really good.
It's excellent.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Trying to get a car out from underneath it got into the snow bank and I had to dig it out. It was. It was so, so big. And like, what was so interesting is seeing how snow was handled in the UK versus us because, like, when you said there was snow, I look at the window, I'm like, that's messed up. Yeah. I'm like, it's just like a dusting here. I like, literally when I put my foot into the snow, it went all the way down.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: We don't get that. We really don't get that. Because you're California, aren't you, Gideon?
[00:02:30] Speaker C: No, I'm in North Carolina.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Are you in North Carolina? Oh, gosh. Wow. But somehow had somehow you pictured in California?
Have you had any snow?
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, we're. We got a big one with this storm that just rocked most of the Country. So this was our first snow of the year and actually first snow in a couple years and we got like 6, 7 inches, which for here is crazy.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: That's bad. Yeah, we don't get that much here. I mean, we got a couple of inches where my parents were going to drive us back from her place down to where I live because.
Well, yeah, for those of you haven't heard, I might have gotten attacked just before picking Jay up and. Might have.
So I was basically going to pick Jay up from a hotel.
Some random guy decided to punch me several times to the side of the head, thankfully, where my bad eye is.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Oh, no way.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And at first it wasn't too bad. It's what we call a PVD posterior vitreous detachment, which means lots of floaters. Oh, just after Christmas that did that turned into a detached retina, folks. And that's me having emergency eye surgery the day after Boxing Day.
So don't recommend it because you are fully awake for the procedure.
It's. It's scary. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about our friend Ollie. He's kind of back, but in a different form and I don't think we've ever really talked about Ollie's arcade.
Deeply. But Gideon, first of all, who on earth are you?
For those who've never listened before, I know who he is.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: I'm a designer and owner of a company called the Icon Factory. We have been around since 1996.
June will be our, if you can believe it, our 30th anniversary.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: And yep, I am a UI and icon designer by trade, but I wear many, many hats at the company. I am of one of the owners and we've produced iOS software and Mac software and we do design work for clients and seems like we've been doing it since the Stone Age, frankly.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: So we still. So you. So you are still using tablets then? Just not that type of tablet.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Right, right.
Fred Flint's doing tablets, it feels like sometimes, but no.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but yes, no, I went to go and have a look at upgrade trading in my 4th gen air.
Yeah, not yet. I can't justify that cost just yet. It's.
Yeah, it's not quite there yet. I'm not. I'm not ready to spend that much anyway.
So Gideon, you obviously, for those you don't know, Icon Factory made Twitterific, which was a wonderful Twitter client.
Now of course, unfortunately, the great idiot Elon Musk killed off third party clients, to be fair and I hope you don't take this the wrong way, that now kind of is overshadowed by what they've been doing recently. And I'm just going to say this. If your platform makes it possible to create nudes of miners, let's be really blunt about this, it just, just disgusting. Okay. If your platform does that, I'm sorry, killing off third party APIs is kind of lower down the evilness list.
[00:05:59] Speaker C: But he's been on a real roll, I swear, since he bought Twitter. He really has. And you know, there's a lot of advantages to being the world's richest man. One of them is you can do whatever the hell you want, evidently, and get away with it. Because if he was any other person, his app and Grok and would have been removed from the App Store already for violating the rules. But for some reason that none of us can ponder, he's still there. Twitter's still there. X is still there.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: And yeah, and I mean, it's not just. We are going to talk about Apple's leadership later on once we've had a nice chat about Ollie's arcade.
But it's not the only thing I will say, not even in defense of Apple, but it would be bad if it was just Apple. But it's not. It's Google. And Google and Microsoft as well has not removed those apps from their own app stores.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: And the fact that he thought it was funny and instead of actually removing the functionality just made it a premium only feature. So it's really still not removed. It's just been made for anybody who wants to pay for it.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's bad. I mean, it's gone to a point now where Jay, where Jay and I have made the decision that we previously kept a Twitter account for the live part of Crosswise for streaming because unfortunately Twitch streamers, you know, and, and game devs are still very active on that site.
And we were genuinely like, okay, we're just going to post our live announcements. We're not really going to interact.
Well, we made the decision after all this. No, that's it. That is my final straw. We can't support that platform. I. I can't in good conscious just have. So we've done it and we're just deciding. I think we're probably going to do the same for one of our other businesses. We just need to get the owner's sign off. Yeah, it should be easy enough. I can just twist Jay's mum's arm around a little.
Yeah, we're probably gonna do it for a beat Store as well. But anyway, look, let's talk happy news and then we can loop back to talking about Tim Cook, which I'll just say this. Jay and I have met Tim in person.
We've got a photo with him. I've talked to him and it's really hard for me because actually he was such a nice guy. He took the time to talk to us and, you know, I thanked him because there are things that Apple have done that are great. Like I will always say Apple's work on accessibility is some of the best in the industry, but this and the current leadership and his traits right now. No. Anyway, let's look, let's talk about all these arcade. Because Ollie's arcade. Well, Gideon. What? What? First of all, for those of you who don't know, Ollie was the mascot of Twitterific, the bird.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: The one Bluebird.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: A bluebird, yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: That Twitter's actual bluebird logo was based off of.
So we had a little bit of a.
A historic offering there. But yeah, his name was Ali. And when Musk came in and bought and killed the third party apps on the App Store inside of Twitterific, there was an Easter egg inside of Twitter fic called Flappy Ollie, I think. And it was. It was like Flappy Bird where you just.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: With Ollie.
[00:09:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, with Ollie is the bird and you just tap the screen and. And he would go through a bunch of walls with holes in them. It was really dirt simple. Like Sean coded it in his spare time and it didn't look great, but it was really hard. But it was a nice little fun little Easter egg built into the app.
And we also had stickers, ollie stickers for iOS that were built into Twitterific.
And people really love those stickers. They're still, you know, by use by a lot of people.
So when he killed the app and we had to remove Twitter from the App Store, we're like, what do we do with the stickers and this Easter egg game? Wouldn't it be cool to just turn it into its own little app or something so that we can still have that stuff in the App Store? So we stripped those things out of Twitterific and built a whole new game around these, a whole new app around these two things. And we redid Ollie's Flappy Ollie and it became Ollie Source and we put the stickers in so you can use Ollie's stickers when you download the Ollie's Arcade. And then we added two more games we had. Another one was Lunar Lander, a ripoff of Lunar Lander called Tranquility Touchdown with our own little spin on it. I love Lunar Lander when I was a kid in the arcade. So we made our own little version of that. And then we did a classic retroing version of Snake, the. The game that everyone probably knows where you have you control a snake, then you go around and you eat apples. And every apple you eat, your tail gets longer and longer and it gets harder and harder to wind your way and. And succeed. And you could try to get the highest score you can.
So we built these games and we bundle them together into an app called Ollie's Arcade.
And there's no ads, there's no scams. We don't collect your information, we don't sell you coins. We don't do any of that stuff. You just download the app and you play it, and you waste a few minutes and you play it.
And we did that. We introduced that in 2003.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: And I believe Craig, if I'm wrong, weren't the other two games in app purchase? So Ollie Source was. Was free.
Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: And then both the other games were in app purchases to unlock one time, not a subscription.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: As Gideon said, no coins. Because even Atari's and I don't know who published it for Atari, but the Missile Command that's on the iPad and I think on the iPhone, that's got consumable currency in it to boost. I'm like, no, come on.
No.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
One of the reasons why we did Forensic for Apple Arcade was because there was no in app consumables for it that we had to worry about. Arcade doesn't use that mechanism. So that was one of the appealing things about creating that game for Apple Arcade. And we had never been into that scammy kind of addictive stuff for our apps. And we didn't want to start it with all these arcade, so we just made them a single in app purchase. And then we were like, well, let's do a Kickstarter because we always wanted to do more games and we wanted to bolster Ollie's Arcade, but it hasn't made enough money to justify it to spend the time and designing and coding new games for this, for this little app.
So how can we add apps to this game? Well, let's do a Kickstarter and hopefully we can make enough money to make the whole game, the whole app, free for everybody. And we can also add a new version of our puzzle game Forensic.
And thankfully, the. The primary goals already met, that was $20,000. And we passed that within two or three days. Two for Ollie's Arcade. So that part of it has been awesome. There are stretch goals so that we can raise enough money to add a few more games. That would be great because we have ideas, we want to make more games.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: But I think that's a huge thing. The fact that it's not locked behind a subscription service, it's not locked behind the different things. Because on the App Store it is hard to find non micro transaction games unless you pay for subscription service. Because I know the people behind Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, they have their own halfbrick, they have Halfbrick plus, which is. And then they have Apple Arcade, you have Netflix, you have different subscriptions for games, but it's hard to find good games where you don't have to pay a lot of money or have gotchas. And I think one of the other things that really sets it apart is there's no AI involved. There's no AI in the images, no AI in the coding.
You're paying for actual developers and designers to work on this.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: And you don't have to watch ads. I hate that too. In a lot of games, you play a level and then they force you to watch an ad before you play the next level. I hate that so much.
Major pet peeve of mine.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: So it's bad amendments for games where the ads show, you know, show something like gameplay, but then actually those are like the bonus levels and the rest of the app is effectively pay to win or wait to win. And it's.
It's so bad. Just, it's terrible. Now let, let's talk a little bit about the goal. So as you said, we passed that primary goal, that 20,000. So that is now, correct me if I'm wrong, that's going to be all the existing games are going to become free for everyone and Forensic is going to come to Ollie's Arcade.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: Yep. We already started working on it and it's underway. It's going to be great.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: That is going to be awesome. Now, so as 20,000 now it's very public on Kickstarter, you've already reached $26,000 and a little bit more.
So now we should say this is quite a short Kickstarter. So when, what's the actual date this ends?
[00:15:30] Speaker C: I think it's February 5th.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: February 5th. Okay.
[00:15:33] Speaker C: I think that's right.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: So let's just bring up the old calendar. I think that sounds right. Let's just see what day that's going to be because that's gonna. No, that would make sense. So that is no, James, need to look at February not. So that is going to literally be. So we're recording this on Wednesday, 28 January.
The plan is that this is going to. Oh, no, it says 13 days left.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Okay, I think I must be wrong.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: So hang on. So 1, 2, 3, 4.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: February 10.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: February 10. There we go. Which is so Tuesday, February 10. So we're gonna have this out on February 2. I promise you all. It's gonna be out on February 2. So that gives you just over a week, folks, to go and back this. And now you do have, obviously the. The different tiers, which are very fairly priced. But you also, by the way, I did want to ask you a question on that, actually, because it did. It did make me smile. So I'll come back to it. Obviously have the option as well to back without one of the sort of reward levels. So people can chip in whatever they can afford a couple bucks or whatever.
And I think it's fair to say, obviously, in our current world, in our current situation, I mean, we always say this on our live streams and I think it's fair to say, please don't put yourself into any financial hardship to support a project that's not. I assume, knowing you so as we do, that's not what Gideon and his team want.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: No, not at all.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Good, good, good, good. You're not signing your soul over. You're not doing anything like that.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: And one thing I do want to bring up, it's a slight tangent, but I think it's a very important one to talk about.
You're also not including tracking, and that is actually something that has been used. Wired had an article about how there's a candy crush. Yeah.
Which is being used by a lot of apps.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: And.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: And that's actually being used by ICE to. To target people for deportation. So, I mean, it is huge that you're choosing to not use any of that.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: We don't do that in any of our apps. We don't track users in any of our apps. And we have gotten some slack from that, from people about that. And I have no qualms about it at all. I really don't.
I don't need to know the people that play our games or use our apps, you know.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, let's. Quickly. Because I wanted Vasa. Both of you raised really good points there. There's one question I want to ask because there's a difference between tracking as in users.
What about crash logs? And I mean, because, I mean, none of these games are really having to Connect up to be. I mean, obviously Tapestry connects to the Internet to get the stuff, but what about things like crash logs and analytics? How are you, Are you using those? And if so, how are you, you know, what are you doing too? Because I think all three of us are on the same page. We are big privacy advocates. That certainly comes across from everything we we've discussed in the past.
How do you handle those? Or do you just rely on Apple's tools?
[00:18:35] Speaker C: We do rely on Apple's tools. If the user has already opted in to share their crash log information with Apple for, for all of their apps on iOS, then we will get a crash log for a particular app of one of ours that crashes or has a problem like that. They can always reach out to us on our support page if they need further tech support, but we don't have any, you know, specific data on those people or by, or anything that can be tracked back to them.
We don't even have their email addresses. We can't, we can't even contact them if we wanted to.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: So, you know, it's.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's actually a reason why We've deleted our TikTok accounts because TikTok is now asking for things and they, and they specifically mention whether you are trans or non binary, whether you have, what's your citizenship, immigration status. They're asking for all this data now on, on TikTok. And, and we obviously know what the administration wants because the administration now owns TikTok in the U.S. but I mean, again, I think it's huge that you are protecting the privacy because data and analytics, that's where some apps make their money. The domains running from the app, they make their money from selling the analytics.
[00:19:56] Speaker C: Yeah. Of people and their data.
It's so frustrating because so many developers out there get angel funding and investor money because they sell this kind of information or they rely on it to bolster their numbers and they're awash in cash.
And for a developer like us who just keeps our head down and creates these apps that we love to make, we have to rely totally on App Store purchases and subscriptions. And it's not what it used to be. I mean, the App Store, it's tough enough to make a living on the App Store as it is, and last few years it's even harder.
So it's frustrating to see some companies getting millions of dollars for things that are kind of shady or dodgy.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's. The App Store is not, you know, and, and there's a lot the Thing is, and I'll say this because I, you know, I obviously we know you guys, I work with an indie dev. I. Very transparent. I've been very transparent, Michelle. And we are going to have the guys on the show, but obviously I'm gonna, we're gonna be very careful to make sure it's not just a, you know, a panda piece up that's, you guys know, engine hopefully will back me up on this. I don't, I don't set up things in advance. This is just our conversation. This is not, you know, there's, there's no, you know, there's no, there's no ulterior motive here. I just want to talk to people and get their stories. So. But you know, it's really difficult when you are such a small team and you don't have that income source and you. And people go, oh, your, your thing is so expensive. How dare you charge. And you know, it's really interesting because on iOS people do make subscription purchases, but from everything I've heard, Android users don't. They don't do. In apps, they won't do subscriptions. I don't know how anyone makes money except through illegitimate means and means a privacy invasion invading on the Google Play Store. Now obviously there's loads of great free apps who make the money elsewhere. That's different, that's fine.
But I don't understand how people make any money on Google Play Store. But just my opinion, for what it's worth.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: But yeah, and again, knowing your attention to detail, you're fretting over different parts of the interface. This is not just some chatgpt outputted code. I've seen apps like that. I've seen youtubers who will make games and then put them on the App Store. And this is somebody that. You're coding it, you're designing it. You're not just using generative AI for it.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
Talked about previously.
[00:23:03] Speaker C: One of our things is our attention to detail.
We've always been sticklers for pixel perfection if we can in all of our work. And that's the part of the fun. Why would I want to not. Why would I want to hand over that part of, of developing an app to an AI where when I could draw it myself or create it myself, I wouldn't.
That's. I enjoy that part of it. And, and Sean enjoys coding and so does Craig Anthony. I and Talos, we just, we love designing.
So why. Except for to save money, I guess, or make the game more profitable. Why would you do that? I don't I don't understand that personally.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: I'm with you now. Look, let's talk about the reward tiers a little bit, because I do have one question. Okay, so the reward tier start at $16 for the novice, then jump to 32. Okay, that's fine. That's a nice. That's a. That's a good 16 bit. 32 bit.
Then you got to 48.
I'm sorry, I just got. I've got. I. I like. But then we go to. I think we go to. Let me just pull up, Matthews. Go. Completely forgot where it was. Where are we? So we go to. So we got 48 to.
Then we go back to doubling 256. 128 to 256. So these are the noob, the expert, the ace, the hero at 256, a member wizard at 1024.
[00:24:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Now, I know we've got. I know we've got a RAM shortage, Gideon. I know we got RAM prices going through the roof right now, but what happened to my 64? My 512?
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Yeah, well, they're actually based on classic Mac icon sizes, not RAM sizes. In the original Macintosh, the sizes of the icons after iOS 8 were 16, 32, 48, 128.
And then when iOS 10 came along, you know, we got 256, 512 and 10, 24. We didn't bother with the 512 because it just was an in between, and we wanted to simplify it a little bit, so we got rid of that. But that's why there's no 64, because there never was a 64 by 64 resource inside of Mac icons.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: You see, there's me thinking bits or memory. Okay, Right.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Icon factory, you know, so that's amazing.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: There you go, folks. You heard that here. There you go. That's why.
That's awesome. The thing that. I'm excited now. I'll be very transparent. Jay and I have both backed. I have backed at the novice level, which is of. Is the 32 bit. Over 32 icons.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Yep.
I met novice as well.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: So we're both novice. And do you know what? The bit that, I'll be honest with you, that really excited me was the arcade theme wallpapers, because I wonder what app they might be. That's gonna be Wallaroo, isn't it? That's gonna be available through Walt.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a bunch of. We did this for Tapestry. We created a bunch of exclusive wallpapers for Tapestry. And We' for Ollie's arcade, too. We'll create a bunch of wallpapers that are each designed for each game in the app, themed around each game in the app, and probably a few little extra bonuses too, because you've just recently.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Done a Battlefield one, which. I loved that classic guitar.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: Yeah. Battle Zone.
Yeah.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Battlefield's completely different games, folks. That shows Battle Zone. I love that game.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: I. Yeah, I was addicted to that.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Game as a kid because vector graphics. Right. I mean, I played a Vectrex in person.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: Ah, yeah, yeah. Corey had a. Corey, my friend, he was one of the founders of the icon factory. He had a Vectrex on his desk in the Greensboro office and we would play it all the time. I love that game so much. It was great.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: I mean, look, this is. So. This is. Obviously, we're gonna get all these things now. Look, but let's just talk really quickly about where I was gonna go with this. I was gonna.
There are some really cool rewards as you start going up through the tiers. Obviously, for the expert, the 48 icon size, you're going to get test flight early access. And this is one thing I'll say. So Jay and I obviously backed Ivory at that level at the test flight access. And you guys were really transparent with those builds. They were coming thick and fast, so that's awesome.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: And they will again once we get to that point of development, you know.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yes, you just misspoke. You said Ivory, not Tapestry.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Oh, did I? Yeah. What did I say wrong on my Ivory bait? Oh, thank you.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:55] Speaker C: It's okay. They're great guys and honor.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: They are.
[00:27:57] Speaker C: I'm glad to be confused with them.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you know what? We're keeping this in because obviously I keep.
It still feels. I still feel not guilty, but I mean, you guys made a decision not to do an Ivory app because you.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Not mastered on app.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: You see, that's how bad I am. But I was. And I'll be very. I've been a Twitterific and I was a Twitter riffic and a Tweetbot user and always respected both. I keep. Kept flipping between them with different releases because you guys, fair to say, wasn't vicious, but you guys competed like anything.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: We had a feature arm race. I will freely admit it. We. Yes. There was a time there where we had to add features and try to compete and all of that at the time.
It is what it is. I have no desire to do that anymore. I'm old enough and I don't need the stress of trying to compete with awesome developers like TapBots. So I think there's room for all of us out there.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: I think you're 100% right. But this is a key point for me. There is plenty of room in the App Store for genuine hard working developers.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: So one question I have because you mentioned Forensics in the App Arcade.
Why not?
[00:29:08] Speaker C: It used to be. It was, it was removed. Yeah.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Forensic Overtime was in Apple Arcade for a while and then it was removed I think two years ago. Since it was removed, people keep asking us where can I play Forensic? I miss Forensic. I can't play it anymore. And that was one of the another reason why we wanted to do Ollie's Arcade and add Forensic back into the mix and not in the just for as a real quick explainer, Forensic Overtime is a puzzle game. It's fast paced, it's time limited. You place triangular chips or in wedges into circular pies and you try to create solid color pies and get points and lives and all of that. Forensic Overtime was level based. It had multiple mechanics in it. It had tons of bad guys and power ups and it was off the hook and it was great. It was a great evolution of Forensic, but it was definitely not the original Forensic which premiered in 2007, 2008 for the Mac.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:17] Speaker C: It was one of the first touch based games for iOS that was ever in the App Store. It was very successful. People loved it. It was a great pick up and play game.
Some people found it extremely difficult and there's some reasons for that that I could talk about. But when, when it came time to do Forensic Overtime for Apple Arcade, we revamped it completely, which is really cool.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: So yeah, and that's one thing to consider. Apple Arcade is, is a great service. I really value some of the games, but games get removed by either by developers or assumed by Apple over time as they decide, you know, we want to make space. There's a really interesting mix of games in there right now. I don't know if I'd pay for it separately to my Apple Premiere, but whatever they're calling it these days, I think it's still Apple. One Premiere I think is the Tier 4 where you get everything in the family plan. In fairness, Apple don't change their plan names that often like Microsoft do. I'm still completely lost on what subscription we're paying for Microsoft 365 Copilot AI Edition through a bead store. I just completely lost track of what we're calling it.
There's just too much AI Slope.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: What was the decision on going on a Kickstarter versus, like, shopping it around to Apple again or to Netflix or to.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Ooh, good question.
[00:31:37] Speaker C: You're talking about Forensic Overtime or Ollie's Arcade.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Ollie's Arcade.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Well, both of them.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: But shopping either one around to one of the many services out there that are doing subscriptions.
[00:31:49] Speaker C: Yeah, that was part of the thing that we tried to do. We posted a couple months back about some of our apps going up for sale. I don't know if you guys caught that or not. There's a post at the Icon Factory where we were willing to let our apps go for the right price if people were interested. And of all of our apps, we only had one taker, and that was the Bitcam app. We did the Pixel app.
We sold that one off. But we couldn't find a buyer or anyone that was interested in Forensic Overtime, which kind of surprised me. But, I mean, I don't have the contacts in Silicon Valley and in game publishing houses that some people do.
I am not. I mean, I'm in North Carolina, I'm not in California. I don't.
I haven't lived my life in.
In that realm. So it's harder for a small company like us to find people who would be willing to purchase those games.
We wanted to do it, I would love to do it, but it just didn't turn out that it was a reality. So we had to turn away from that and go back to Kickstarter.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: And I think the success of Tapestry was, I'm going to guess, was a. Confident. Was a. Okay, we know we can do this. We know we've. We know how to do a Kickstarter well.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: Right. We've done two of them before. They were both successful. We did Tourific for the Mac and we did Tapestry, and they were both successful thanks to the generous support of our fans and people in the Mac and iOS community.
I said it before and I'll say it again, we still wouldn't be here today without them.
So we rely on them. We don't go and get investor funds to keep us running. We rely on people paying for our apps and also donating with Kickstarters like this to keep things running up and running. And it's tough. It really. I'm not going to say it's. It's easy. It is not. It's like having a fundraising drive every year or something on pbs.
You have to beg, plead and borrow to keep things going. But we've been lucky so far.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: And you obviously, as you Said you offer icon design services. You do graphic design.
I know someone who's had.
Actually by Anthony has had a whole rebrand done for them.
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: And. And on my, you know, not. Not to, you know, because he said, do you know anyone who could do. I'm like, yeah, go to the Icon Factory.
And did he come to us because of you?
Really?
[00:34:31] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: No problem. You probably know who I'm talking about, don't you?
[00:34:35] Speaker C: Yes, I do. Yes.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yep.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very happy with the works. I did some work for him as well, but I think. Yeah, because I did some initial work. I mean, you've done the icons for him for.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: We rebranded and did all of the support graphics and. Yeah, that was fun project. And he was really very happy with what happened.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: No, we won't. Just because, first of all, I don't have his permission to show who he is. But also just for his confidentiality but genuinely filled and what we said on the last episode, Kadeem was here.
I don't have the capacity to take on any more graphic design work at Romono. I've got a full time. Not full time, but I've got enough work at the bead store and cross wires as a brand doing design work. So, folks, if you need graphics design, icon design, go to the Icon Factory because they deserve your support. Plus also, I do this stuff, but I don't have the time to do it and I'd much rather it go to a company that we know.
We'll take care of people. And that's one of the bits of feedback that this friend of mine gave is that the communications was excellent. So, genuinely, you got a live testimony over.
[00:35:51] Speaker C: Good to know.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
Obviously a lot of really, really cool things going into this new Kickstarter for all these arcade. And if you can, folks, please do support it. It's really good. I got addicted to Tranquility.
So was it Tranquility Touchdown? That's it. I always keep forgetting that last bit. That's because I'm getting old.
That game is one of those games like, oh, I nearly got it. Oh, what did I just do? Because the controls are quite intuitive. Quite intuitive, not intuitive. They are precision controls. You've got to just get them right, otherwise you really mess up, you know?
But let's shift focus. I want to talk happier things before because before we ended the recording, we'll talk about the current state of Tim Cook and Apple. I think we think it's appropriate to do that given that we're all Apple users, by the way, as the point of recording. Happy Creator Studio release day. Final cut 12's out today.
I've not yet signed up only because. And I'll very quickly say I think the Creator Studio is a great price. I think it's got great functionality, but I already got the apps I need. If I got a new iPad with an M series chip, I would be signing up because I want Final Cut for iPad. That would really push me to, to sign up. But let's talk because look, these games, you know, unfortunately, I hate to say this, Friends, it can be considered the original Friends, it can be considered retro. I'm afraid if a Nintendo Wii isn't.
[00:37:23] Speaker C: That crazy, 2008 is a retro game. Oh my God. Well, I mean, you're gonna have users.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Who never were able to play it.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: When it first came out.
Right, right, right. Or get an email. I remember playing that when it first came when I was a kid, you know, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm so.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Well, honestly, do you know that? Okay, so, because this is. I want to talk about retro arcade and gaming in general because pre show, we were chatting about, you know, retro stuff. I was showing, showing Gideon a European snes which I have here by my side.
I got one just before Christmas and I got an upscale and I've got, you know, I've got a few bits, I've got. So I've got here my, my retro quality is Now a European SNES obviously, because I'm from the UK. An Amiga 500 and a Spectrum Plus 3, which is one with a weird floppy drive, a 3 inch floppy drive.
But what I think the experience I had, which in fact both Jay and I had, but this was my experience, was going to the Cave, which is a retro computer museum, and we went to Arcade Archive as well, because we did a day of filming with the team at Retro Collective.
If you're ever in the uk, Gideon, let me know and we'll go, I'll take you. Okay, we'll go.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:47] Speaker B: But we went to go and do day filming and we've got a video that's in the works because it's a long video, there's so much great content.
Obviously we're filming, but what I realized very quickly is was computers, video game machines as well. So computer actual computers and video games, hardware that I grew up with that I remember using, but Jay has never seen before. And Jay is only seven years younger than I am.
[00:39:14] Speaker C: Right. That gives you a clue about how fast things changed when the technology was maturing back then. Well, I'm curious. Just, let's just go. What was your first gaming console?
[00:39:27] Speaker B: I'm gonna let Jay go first on that one.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: It was the nes.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: Was that one you remember having? Mel, did you use that?
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Okay, so I don't remember my family playing the Ataris, because I know they had it in Ataria. I don't know which model, but I remember the NES and Ant Snez most.
[00:39:45] Speaker C: Okay, what about you, James?
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Well, so I. We weren't allowed consoles.
We had. Now we allowed handhelds. We had. So my technical. I guess that means then that my first was the SEGA Game Gear. That was my first con. Like, computers are a whole different thing. And you all, everyone who's ever listened to a show before knows my first computer. But no, sega's Game Gear, which I do still have, actually isn't one of the drawers down here. It's not in good shape. I want to get it refurbed and recapped and everything. But here's. So now I think we need to ask the question of you. What was your first video game console?
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Mine was the Atari 2600.
That was the first one that I.
Well, no, I'm not, no, that's not actually true. It was the Odyssey.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: The Magnavox Odyssey.
[00:40:36] Speaker C: Yes, the Magnavox Odyssey. We had that before we had the Atari 2600.
And you could play Pong on it and you could. There were a couple. I think there's two or three games on it or something like that. So that was truly the first one. But I didn't really get into that one. It was too limited in way. But when we got our 2600, holy cow, that changed my life. I was, I became a video gamer for life because of that console. I had all the games. Yars Revenge, Asteroids, Pac Man, Raiders of The Lost Ark, E.T. the Stinky E.T. game.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Oh, UID. Oh, wow.
[00:41:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Where you go around picking, collecting Reese's Pieces and everything.
I would send away to Atari for game hints. I, I, I sent away and I got a map for Raiders of the Lost Ark. So they. You could tell, like, how to win the game and beat the game. Adventure, Missile Command, Centipede, the Temp.
The list goes on and on. And I love the 2600 so much.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: It's wonderful. And you were showing us earlier, you, you've got the Lego 2600, Atari, which I think is awesome.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: My wife bought me the, the LEGO version of that set, and it's one of my favorites I've ever built. I love it so much the loving detail that went into designing that LEGO set is. Is obvious. It's great. It's.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: It was cool. I actually thought when you showed it, I think, you know, that's another original because I've got here.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: You got. Yeah, you're one enough me there. You got the original. It's awesome.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Do you know what? I'm going to be able to test result because this will work on the spectrum. It will be. I'll be able to use it on that and actually be able to use it on the Amiga as well. So I'm going to test it when I get.
[00:42:19] Speaker C: Yeah. And Sean Heber, he's the main engineer on Ollie's Arcade and he just been recently posting about Commodore 64 emulator, the new one that just came out or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got HDMI out and it's got some advancements and things, but it's the Commodore 64 from long ago and had a blast plugging that in and reliving some games. So Dave was also kind of inspiring for this, the Kickstarter too.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Didn't he introduce his kids to it as well? I seem to remember his kids getting so excited. I mean, look, this is. I mean, I showed before.
I'll put a link to this, a video. I might even do a video clip of this. But I've got in my hands, folks, a DE.
I think it is. I think it's. Yeah, DE9, which is the Atari joystick connector. Actually, that is the same connector as your Atari or the Atari thing to usb. Now, this is to plug a USB mouse into an Amiga. So that's what that's for.
But, you know, it was what I love about retro games. And obviously arcade is a whole different thing.
I mean, we all want to talk about. Okay, but retro gaming, no down. No 50 gigabyte download as an update for your first install. No installing games. No.
[00:43:41] Speaker C: No instructions. No instructions.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: Y.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: You just turn it on and play. And you have to figure it out. That's all. You're thrown right in. You're like, oh, what am I doing? I have no idea. Let's jump. Let's. You know, and, and.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: And, you know, and one of the things. So an old friend of mine once said to me, when graphics are not state of the art, it's not a good game. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. That is so untrue. I mean, you know, look at, you know, if we go into the NES era, look at, you know, Super Mario Bro, Original Super Mario Brothers, look at the original Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and obviously Donkey Kong's an arcade classic, but there are games that do not have next gen or even at that time, like any gen graphics. These are, you know, the developers and the designers did the best that they could with very, very limited hardware.
Yep.
[00:44:44] Speaker C: Audio too. The sounds were very primitive. The MIDI music tracks and 4 bit, 16 bit sound, whatever it is. And yeah, but that's part of this is all nostalgia. Yeah. Yes. We all grew up in the arcade playing these types of games and we love them. They have a fond place in our heart and our mind.
Because I, I don't know about you, but I spent every Saturday at the arcade when I was growing up in the 80s, I really, I, I lived in New Hampshire and we had one of the largest arcades in the world near me. It's called Fun Spot in, in New Hampshire. And I would, my mother would drive me up there and drop me off in the morning and then she would come back and get me in the afternoon like at like 6pm that's the way it was back then. You have helicopter parents hanging around on, all over you. They just, just go, go play, go do what you do and I'll see you later.
And that's the way it was. And I loved it.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, it's incredible. I mean I, I, we didn't really have arcade around here but my fondest memory, now I'm obviously a little bit younger so my generation of arcade games was more into the 90s, but I remember going on holiday vacation for you Americans and, and going there would always be, you know, because we had a touring caravan so we'd go to campsites and we'd always be an arcade and it's things like your Street Fighter 2 or. I'm trying to remember a lot of the racing games like Chase HQ was there.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: Pole Position.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: I played Pole Position.
I, Now I want to talk, I want to mention. So when we were filming with, with Neil and the team, Jay, your face was lit up. When we were downstairs in the arcade archive, they had, I mean they had the Star wars arcade game.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: Oh yeah. One of the best games of all times.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. And working, you know. And we had Defender with Pet. Is it? No, it's Asteroid with Pepper's Ghost, isn't it?
Yeah. Asteroids got the Pepper's Ghost effect where we've got the glass screen in the mirror. Yes. So we can see. Yeah. So basically you've got your background and you've got the mirror and the screens beneath. So You've got the background being project, so the, the actual vector graphics been projected onto this background using a mirror. Very, very cool.
But what astounded me, I think we are in an age now where retro is really, really coming back. I mean, you know, my, my eldest nephew is 16 now and you know, he likes retro games.
There's such fascination. But one of the things that really, really interests me the most right now is this whole preservation effort to bring these games. Now you, I'm gonna say you guys are part of that because. Yeah, okay, Tranquility, Tranquility. Touchdown is, is not Lunar Lander. It is a, it's not a rip off of. It's a, it's a retelling of. There you go. I'm gonna give you.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: It's an ode, a loving ode, an old to that game.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Yeah, and Steak is a loving old. I mean, I remember Snake on my Nokia phone that was like, you know.
[00:47:56] Speaker C: Just, well, Snake, Snake is, is a good one because everyone knows Snake and everyone has their own take on Snake. How do you make it unique? How do you make it something that people want to pick up and play?
And we came at it at the, from the angle of, well, what if you had gone to the store and bought a physical electronic handheld game that was just Snake? What would that look like? What would it sound like, how would it feel?
And so on. And let's turn that into a thing. And it turns out that it was pretty darn cool because it's just a grid of LED lights and you flick with your finger to make the Snake go in the direction you want and it keeps score and it gets harder and harder and harder and at some point you're going to die, but then you're like, oh, I can do better, I can do better the next time I'm going to play again. And it gets addictive and it's very, very fun.
And we've gotten a lot of POS reaction to Snake. It's, it's, it was the first original. Like those other two games in Ollie's arcade were there in other forms before. But, but Snake was the first one that we did just for Ollie's Arcade. And I, I get lots of positive feedback from people online. They love it. It's so simple, it's easy to pick up. It's. You can understand it, but it's also retroy and fun.
And that's what we want to do with Forensic. We want to do the same kind of thing with Forensic.
If you bought a physical handheld thing of forensic in the 80s.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: What would it look like?
[00:49:39] Speaker C: How would it play?
[00:49:40] Speaker B: I'm looking forward to seeing this once it starts taking shape. I might have to twist your arm to let us onto the test flight.
[00:49:49] Speaker C: Yeah, sure.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: And what's cool is you're preserving something on the App Store, something that was here and is coming back. I mean, that's one thing that, like, with the App Store, we have so many games as we have gone through all the different OS releases, we've lost so many games that were there in the beginning.
I think I mentioned on the last episode one of the games that I really liked.
[00:50:15] Speaker C: Ramchamp.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: Different games that are no longer around.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: That's not even your property anymore. That's been sold. Yeah.
[00:50:22] Speaker C: Everyone loved Ramp Champ.
Everyone keeps asking, can we do another ramp. Ramped. Can you have a Kickstarter for Ramp Chat? I would totally do it, but we don't own the rights to it anymore. We sold the rights off years ago.
So we can't build a new one, which is a shame, but have to live in our memories, I guess. Absolutely.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Well, and that's kind of where. So I wanted to get. I don't know if have you done much with like the concept of.
Concept of emulation, like emulating retro systems?
Because obviously, you know, there is a big push, like what's the RetroPie, which is a OS you can install onto a Raspberry PI and you get all the emulators.
Have you done much with that yourself, out of interest?
[00:51:07] Speaker C: No, I have not. I'm not that big of a gear head, but I know what you're talking about. There's a big community for that. And emulation is, you know, is. Is hugely popular.
The Delta app proves that.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:51:24] Speaker B: That'S by Riley. And I'm always gonna.
[00:51:26] Speaker C: Riley. Riley is awesome. And he's created something that so many people love. And he's another one that has really given us a lot of support over the years. I can't say enough positive things about Riley and what he's done for the community in general.
So big props to him and his team.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: He. No, I really like. I love what they're doing with.
What is the name of their Alt Store?
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Yeah, Old Store.
[00:51:53] Speaker C: The Old Store.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: You know what? This is a good transition, actually, into the state of Apple because Alt Store is obviously not. I don't think it's as easy to. You can't easily. You can do Alt Store in the US and in the uk, but not as easily, obviously.
[00:52:10] Speaker C: No. You have to jump through a few.
[00:52:11] Speaker B: Hoops for yeah, yeah, but obviously in the eu and again, for our American listeners, just remember UK is not part of the eu, which we are part of. Go on.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: Makes me so angry because if you.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Had not done the damn Brexit, we would have all store.
[00:52:28] Speaker B: Well, yeah, well, I did. Well, not. Yes, you would as well, because Jay switched a App Store region to the UK and you're here enough that actually they could do those checks. But yes, no, it's, let's not get onto the Brexit thing because I, I.
[00:52:41] Speaker A: Know that was a joke.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's a good joke. It's a good joke. Look, let's. So obviously Alt Store's doing, you know, well, although I didn't realize that Riley put something out and this really shocked me.
If there's a problem with App Store Connect, that impacts his stuff as well.
Like how that's his store. I, I, I, I used to be very much like, sort of concerned about the concept of alternative app stores, but as I've seen more and more, I'm like, no, actually it's a really good idea. My concern was always, what's going to be the quality of those alternative app stores? Like, being blunt.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: I know where this is going, James. I know exactly where you're going with this.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: Go on. Where am I going?
[00:53:26] Speaker C: You were concerned that the quality of apps would be low and dodgy and questionable, but that has pretty much happened anyway in the App Store.
[00:53:40] Speaker B: It has, yeah.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: And you get rejected for ridiculous reasons in the App Store and then other apps get through when they have like this big exploit somewhere inside of the app.
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, like we talked about earlier, Twitter, I refuse to call it what it's actually called. Twitter and Grok are still in the store and they've allowed so many nasty apps. So no, I mean, my concern's completely thrown out window because if it's going to be in the App Store anyway, well, what does it matter if it's in, in other stores? No one, but.
[00:54:10] Speaker C: Right. I mean, it's a bit of, it's not a bit. It is hypocritical of Apple and to allow something like that when they wouldn't allow it from a developer like us. If we submitted an app like that, it would be instantly rejected and probably rightly so.
But we don't run doge. We don't have the ear of a certain person who's sitting at in the White House. So, you know, the rules are different.
Apple likes to say that there's only one set of rules for all developers, but it's so not true. It is so not true.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and, and Mrs. And, and you know someone.
I've heard, okay, so there are apps that use notifications for excessive marketing, but then when an app does it to promote a sale of a feature once they get called out on it by customers, like, okay, maybe that's fair, but what about all the, the rules, as you say, are not applied equally and it's not fair. But that's not the biggest problem right now.
I, I'm sorry, I. Look, I am an Apple, I'm, I'm an Apple user through and through all my devices now. Look on the server side, I'm a Linux user.
All of our server stuff, you know, that powers everything is Linux based. I love Linux. I love, I mean, I've just interestingly, with Windows, my nephew's old laptop could not run Windows 10.
Sorry, Windows 11. Of course it could run Windows 10. So I put a Linux distro called Bazzite on there. Worked great. And he's set up for what he needs. But, and Apple's hardware is also brilliant. I mean, obviously by the time we recorded, Apple had just released new airtags, which a lot of really positive things in there.
But Apple's leadership, and I'm sorry, I'm going to specifically Tim Cook, who I'm sorry to say my opinion of Tim has just massively gone down since it does.
Okay, can we start by acknowledging one.
If Tim had just gone to the White House to go and meet with other tech leaders and had just, you know, sort of engaged with the President, with the convicted felon. I'm not an American, I can say it with the convicted felon, then that would be different because I can't imagine if we remove, if we, if that was where it stopped, then I can't imagine what a difficult situation a tech CEO is in right now when you've got that leadership.
But for him to then go and present him with. What was it? The gold. What was that stupid gold thing you did and to go and be there for Melania's documentary, like willingly not just engaging with, at a tech level, at a.
What you should expect as a reasonable engagement with the leadership of the country you are based in and giving money.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: To the ballroom at the White House.
[00:57:26] Speaker C: Yes, Apple is, I mean there's a lot of arguments to be made for, you know, Cook is, is doing what he needs to do as the leader of a public company to try and protect shareholders and investors so that Apple doesn't have to deal with the tariffs of their goods from China and all of these problems that are part of politics, sadly. I totally understand that. I appreciate it.
There's also a way to compromise and not compromise your principles, I think, and not be a hypocrite. Yeah, that's the biggie, I think, because Apple is saying one thing on one side and doing another, and you can't have your cake and eat it too. In situations like this. I don't think you can. If you can.
If you do, you totally deserve the ire and public ill will and public change of opinion on you that you are bound to get.
And that is what happened. Because, like you, I admired Tim Cook quite a bit since he took over for Steve, and I was pretty proud of the job that he was doing, especially in the environmental sections for Apple. Yes, they've done a lot there. And that's not a small thing. Thing. That's a big deal.
That. That's a big deal.
But what is also a big deal is supporting human rights and trans rights and the LGBT community and all of these things. And you can't have it both ways. No, you just can't. It's. It's.
I don't know what to say.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: You know, I mean, literally, just before we came to record this, Jay sent me the link. So John Gruber has just published. Apparently there's been an internal memo at Apple.
[00:59:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: And basically saying, you know, now's the time to de. Escalate. I'm in these. I'm going to paraphrase. He said, I'm glad of the openness of a president to engage on these issues.
[00:59:38] Speaker C: Your.
[00:59:39] Speaker B: Your president has been sent to. Threatening to send military.
Military to. To defend against your own Minnesota. We've got a very, very dear friend in Minnesota right now who is. And I hope she won't mind me saying this, who is having to take her ID and her passport out with when she goes to walk her dog. She is an American citizen, but she's so scared of those. I'm sorry again. I mean, I'm not an American citizen. I can't get in trouble for this. So I'm. I'm gonna. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna say the things that I don't think you two maybe want to say because we're a recorded format, and if we.
[01:00:18] Speaker C: I have a friend in Minnesota who lives just a couple blocks from where all this has happened, and he.
He. His life is completely changed, and they have all banded together to try to protect one another and try to protect their neighbors, and it's been. That part has given me a lot of hope and I as I think it has the entire world.
It brings out the best in people like that.
The fact that there are so many who disagree with that and see.
[01:00:54] Speaker B: The.
[01:00:55] Speaker C: Bad things that are going on and the jackbooting of ICE and stuff as well they deserve it or this is what people voted for. And so we have every right to shoot people in the street.
That's the depressing part for me is there's so many people that still support that.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: Well, it's really difficult.
Very clear.
Anyone any agent of IN ICE who hasn't resigned and who hasn't took a stand, I think you really need to reevaluate where you are because you are surrounded by literal Nazis who are dragging Americans forget for a second the fact of. I mean, look, illegal immigration is a big challenge because of various resources. But that does not mean the people who have come illegally are the problem. It does not make them bad people. Okay? And actually I'm going to say this. Illegal immigration wouldn't be a problem if the richest of the rich paid their share of taxes and helped makers were a point where we as a world can support those in need.
[01:02:05] Speaker A: Well, and Ben Palmer has actually been showing people.
He's been showing people what the. What individuals who call up ICE are actually trying to do because Ben Palmer has made a fake ICE website and a fake hotline to try to.
And the people calling up are saying, oh well, this person doesn't speak English or this person looks different than me, but it's racism. It's racism. Ethnocentrism and xenophobia in a nutshell.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: Actually, do you know what? I was watching that and Gideon will appreciate it because I know you're a Babylon 5 fan just like I am. I was watching the series two episode today with Grupo with Paul Winfield as Richard Frank. No, not Richard Vicini, but Dodge Franklin's father. I've forgotten his.
[01:03:02] Speaker C: Right.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: And he says he's saying to his son, you need to heal humans. He said these alien creatures. So he was.
And it just triggered that sort of.
Is that what people see in people from other countries? People. And I'm sorry to say this, Jay, that the sort of people who are against people of different color and people of different languages and creeds and. And nationalities are the same people who are out to get you. Yeah. And. And people like, you know, you. You. And is that what people see other people as? I'm sorry to get so emotional, but let me just be really clear here. Folks cross wires.
Life is life. And people have a right to live free of the fear of assault, free of a fear of being dragged out.
[01:03:57] Speaker A: And at crossfires we see color. We see the systemic racism that exists in our society that divides us all and the issues that someone has because of the color of their skin.
[01:04:10] Speaker C: I wanted to kind of communicate this. I mean, I know it's a little self serving, but before we started the Kickstarter, I was really worried about it because I was worried that there's so much going on in the world and people are persecuted and run down and they're stressed and every single day the headlines are awful.
And all I could think of was like, why should we even think about doing this? Why should we even launch this Kickstarter now? Will anybody pay attention? Will anybody have the money or the time or the wherewithal to even worry about why we want to do this and why we want to bring this thing into the world and so on and so on. I stress about this for weeks before we did it. I really, it kept me up nights. And I got a lot of good replies when I posted about it on Mastodon, that I was voicing my fears and everything. And a lot of people replied and said that people need ways to, one, distract themselves, but also to know that there are still things that they can make a difference with.
And whether it's a Kickstarter or a local food bank or helping your neighbor mow their lawn or whatever, it is small acts of kindness that people can do to feel like they can take some modicum of control back in their lives.
And those things are just as important as the big things. In some ways they're more important because they help keep us sane and they, they help us, they ground us in our daily, in our daily lives and in our communities. And so, so I was grateful for those people who replied on Mastodon and told me that because they helped quell a lot of my fears. And we decided to go ahead. I'm glad we did. And it turns out that there are still a lot of people who love what we do and retro gaming. And I'm getting emotional now too. But these are the things that matter. They're the things that matter the most, is how what we do with our lives, whether we choose to create or destroy or support people or take them down.
And I choose to be a creator.
I choose to support people like you guys, your community, the two of you, and everyone listening. And I want to be part of that.
I'm always looking for ways That I can do more as you are to support, support people who, who matter and, and fight for what's right and justice. So I'm not, I don't want to make a big deal out of it and everything, but I think it's important to be said.
All of us at the Icon Factory have always felt that way.
[01:07:09] Speaker B: So there's a reason, there is a, there is a reason you guys are respected like you are. I mean, look, I'll be very, very transparent with you.
When we first approached, because I, I think I first approached Sean when Twitter, Twitter stuff died and Sean said, no, you know what? I don't, I died. I don't feel I can do it. Let me point you towards Gideon because Gideon's probably the best one.
There was a, because of how much you guys are respected in the Apple community.
There was an almost, almost like a shock and awe. Oh my gosh, we've got someone from the Icon Factory coming on our show.
But this, and maybe this is kind of of. I don't want to blow smoke up your backside because that's not. But what you, I think is really important to remember about certainly indie devs, certainly the small like because you guys are an indie dev. Okay. You are five, five, six people at the most.
[01:08:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Okay. You are an indie dev. You know, you are not Tencent for Tencent.
Is that what I'm thinking of?
[01:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah. The, the giant Chinese conglomerate.
[01:08:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:17] Speaker B: You're not Tencent. You're not, you know, you're not.
I was about to say DMA Designs, but I mean Rockstar or even ea.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: Who'S now owned by somebody else.
[01:08:27] Speaker B: Yes. By the way, on the subject of retro, you do both know that Rockstar Games that we know now was DMA Design who created Lemmings. Wow.
That's for Lineage, you know.
And Mike Daly who was one of the developers behind Lemmings is up in Scotland. He'd very, very sweary.
Honestly, he's hilarious. He's part of a retro collective communities. He's so foul mouthed it's unbelievable. I love the guy.
But the point I'm making is just remember folks, and this is a message I kind of want to get. You know, we're talking about small arts of kindness. Remember that developers like the Icon Factory, like so many of your favorite apps, are not VC funded. They're not angel investor funded. We don't have an infinite bankroll. And most of them are not, they're not billionaires. Most of them aren't even millionaires.
[01:09:25] Speaker C: I mean, I'D imagine most of them have a millionaire.
[01:09:28] Speaker B: I was gonna say we've had to top up Gideon's electric meter for this recording for. No, I'm joking. I'm joking joking.
[01:09:36] Speaker C: Not far off.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: But yeah, but you know what? These are genuine people who are trying to make a living.
Please, if you can do so support these guys. But also we. So we're just getting everything set up at the moment. Our live streams are going to be supporting a Tiltify campaign from a friend of ours has set up to help with some of the Minnesota stuff right now to help fundraise. So if you come and watch our live streams which is cross oh crosswise.net forward slash live I believe.
[01:10:10] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah we also have Cy is C. Hang on C W I R E S forward slash. Twitch will also take you there because we got that, we bought that domain. I love that domain. It's so cool to be able to do all your shortening. So come along and join my live streams. But again back the Ollie's Ollie's Arcade Kickstarter because a. It's cool.
Really looking forward to seeing Forensic. I mean we will. The fact that you've been been funded to that first goal is amazing. Let folks I. I know we all. I know we do not have the audience to get to get them there. Okay. I'm not gonna lie. But I also am gonna say I want folks to see these guys get funded to the 65000 tier.
[01:10:54] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[01:10:55] Speaker B: That's three additional. That's three additional goals. Oh now then we should mention if you are gonna back the Kickstarter and you want to do a little add on you're doing your pixel portraits again.
[01:11:07] Speaker C: Yeah, we. We introduced that with Tapestry and it's become something that really a lot of people have. Have loved. Yeah it's.
I love pixel pushing. I. I started as my artistic career creating simple icons for the Mac desktop and that's basically what it is. It's. It's you know 32 bit or 60 in this case 64 by 64. Nice portraits of. Of. Of people who send us scan them. We don't AI them. We draw them by hand. We look at the reference and we draw them by hand. We color them by hand. We give them their own character and feel and then we return them a high graph high res graphic for their that they can do whatever they want when they print it out. Put it on a wall, give it to a friend or a loved one or a family member.
We've done pixel portraits of pets so many Dogs and cats, I can't count. So. So those are really wonderful. I love doing those. But they're great. And it's just a little side add on service that we offer, but we are offering it with the Kickstarter too.
[01:12:16] Speaker B: Which is really awesome. Definitely. I've seen a lot of the output and Jay and I are saving our pennies to get to. For us. It's really interesting as well because obviously you guys do them.
Do you remember a game?
I don't know if you would have been. Do you remember? Not Command and Conquer, but he's a great game.
Do you remember Cannon Fodder? No, no. Or Sensible Soccer?
No, no. Okay, so I think they might have been uk. Very uk. They were Amiga, they were Commodore Dev. They did other platforms as well, but sensible software. Well, Stu Cambridge S T O O Cambridge. What a great, great.
He did, did, does pixel art as well. Because he was a pixel artist for them. He was obviously their designer. Okay. He's, I've got some of his gorgeous.
He did a pixel stuff in fact, actually he remember Leisure Suit Larry. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:13:13] Speaker A: Pixel art.
[01:13:14] Speaker C: And that was awesome.
[01:13:15] Speaker B: Oh, Drew Ember Simon the Sorcerer. Vaguely, vaguely. They've done a remaster. Not a remaster. We've done a new version. Isn't quite, doesn't quite hit the same way but, but pixel art is just something fantastic. Well, I was gonna say he did stuff with the retro collective. He did the retro. I've got it somewhere safe. The retro. The coloring book of retro computers, which is the coolest thing ever. So literally he's a coloring book of retro computers. So, you know, but listen, Gideon, thank you so much for chatting with us. I mean, I think that, I think we all needed that little Steam event release about the current state of Apple. Yeah, I'm, I'm not abandoning my Apple hardware because mine. And do you know, I, I, I'm gonna say something controversial. Okay, I'll. And this excludes Twitter because Twitter's under his direct control and he's the one driving it. Right.
But I know a lot of people will say, oh, don't support Tesla, don't support SpaceX, don't support, you know, all these.
But I actually want to just say those companies, if he was no longer involved, could do absolutely fine without him. And it maybe is a little disingenuous to make because they have amazing engineers. Elon Musk is not building the Teslas.
I, I do want to say, I just, I don't know, I want to give them, I don't think I'd buy one because I know the money goes to him. But also. So let's not assume everyone who owns a Tesla is necessarily a Nazi themselves.
[01:14:50] Speaker C: No, I used to have one myself.
[01:14:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:14:53] Speaker C: Before he took over.
Before he turned to the dark side, I guess you could say. Yeah, I leased a Tesla and then he did all of his stuff with Twitter and I very quickly ended the lease. Yeah, well, I tried to end Elise. I couldn't get out of it without buying the vehicle outright, which really sucked. So I had to drive around in the this Model Y until the lease ran out. And I, I felt awful doing it. But I, I mean, the car is a good car. And I felt, I, when I had leased it, I felt like, oh, I'm helping the environment and all of these things. So I know not everyone who owns a Tesla is a bad person. I I, I There for the grace of God go I.
But I won't, I won't, I won't. No, I won't buy one or rent one or release one ever again. Not while he's there.
[01:15:47] Speaker B: No. And this is the thing. If it was, if there's any punishment that should be served him, I mean, obviously probably jail time, but also probably have those companies taken off and given someone who actually could run them properly, because you know what I mean?
Like, the scary thing is as well, like, you know, I'm just gonna wrap up with this. Starlink is a wonderful technology, but because he can control it and can choose to shut down satellites, for example, he can and I think has shut off Starlink connections to Ukraine.
[01:16:21] Speaker C: Yep.
[01:16:22] Speaker B: I'm sorry, it's not a service I can support.
[01:16:26] Speaker C: Not only that, not only that, but Starlink has decided that they can orbit 13,000 satellites. And, and that's perfectly acceptable because no one is regulating them at all. So they can deorbit 10 to 15 satellites per day.
And that aluminum and toxic metals that get re entered into the atmosphere is absolutely fine. That's fine with Starlink and Musk. The fact that if one of those satellites or multiple of those satellites don't make their course corrections properly, every single minute of every single day, they will collide and then that absolutely shutting down orbital launches for the entire planet. Oh, yeah, because with that many satellites in orbit, that's absolutely something that can happen. I follow an astronomer and an astrophysicist physicist on Mastodon who is so scared of this event that will happen eventually.
There's starting to be more articles about it.
This is like a major problem that's coming up. We're going to hear a lot more about it soon. And this is Starling's fault. And of course now there's Chinese competitors that have to compete with Starlink. So they're launching their own versions of these satellites, which means there's going to be 20,000, 30,000 of these satellites in orbit.
[01:17:51] Speaker B: I mean, I mean, I've got to ask a question.
NASA are about to send a manned mission back to the moon.
Is it going to be like traffic lights around where all the satellites are like, oh, so we're held at a red signal, folks. We're going to wait for the satellites to clear so we can get up.
[01:18:07] Speaker A: It'll be like the ones you know in Wally where Wally ship breaks through all the satellites.
[01:18:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
One of the game ideas I had for Ollie's Arcade for one of the stretch goals was called Star Junk.
And what the purpose of the game was, there's astronauts coming back to Earth and you have to clear a path through orbiting satellites and crap around the Earth in order so that they can land safely back on home. And I really want to make that game. I really want to make that game.
So help us get to the stretch Gold and maybe Star Junk can become a thing.
[01:18:48] Speaker B: I think that, I think that's, I think that might even be the episode title, Ollie. Star Junk.
Yeah, no, it might actually be. Listen, Gideon, thank you. Where can people find more about the.
[01:19:00] Speaker C: Icon factory iconfactory.com you can read more about the Kickstarter at our blog, which is, which is blog.iconfactory.com that'll lead you to the Kickstarter page. And that URL is too long for people to type and stuff.
[01:19:17] Speaker B: We will put it in the show notes of course, folks, so you can easily get there and back it.
So remember folks, 10th of February, that is get on it if you can. Again, only if you can financially afford to do so, do go over to iconfactory.com because go and check out their apps, go and give them your business. If you need graphic design work genuinely go and pick up yourself a pixel portrait, everything like that that you need.
Your one stop shop for pixel gorgeousness. There we go.
[01:19:46] Speaker C: Thank you.
[01:19:46] Speaker B: No problem.
[01:19:47] Speaker C: Thanks for, thanks for having me again. I really appreciate it.
[01:19:50] Speaker B: Oh no, you're always welcome back. I mean we still, we, we've got so many other topics. Oh, actually one final thought, one final question.
How are you enjoying Starfleet 90210?
[01:20:05] Speaker C: You know, I'm, I am, I'm pretty proud of myself because I went, I, I really, when I saw the stuff from Paramount about it, I really was not enthused about it at all. I. I'm like, why do I care about that?
It's not my kind of thing.
I'm not of that age group. And it's obviously directed at younger viewers and all of this. Then I went and I was like, I'll just watch it.
And it was good. I liked it a lot. I'm enjoying it.
It's way in the future. It's so in the future that they can get away with things that you can't get away with in normal Star Trek. But the cast is great, the writing is good, it's solid. I love Holly Hunter.
It's awesome seeing Picardo again. And I'm looking forward to more, I've.
[01:20:53] Speaker B: Got to say, in my first episode where he's doing the physicals for the thing and that line. Line. Tricorder.
[01:21:00] Speaker C: Medical tricorder.
[01:21:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:21:04] Speaker B: I think my favorite character is. Has to be Laura is just that. Gemma. Dark.
[01:21:11] Speaker C: She's awesome.
[01:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah, she's amazing.
[01:21:13] Speaker A: And yeah, what I love is. Is seeing. Well, actually, no, I don't want to say it because it's. It's a spoiler. Never mind.
[01:21:19] Speaker B: Oh.
[01:21:20] Speaker A: Oh, there's a queer romance in the. In surfing academy. I just want to say who it is, is.
[01:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, I know who you're talking about. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
But that's. No, but I will say. Shut up, Elon. It doesn't matter if people wear glasses in the future. It doesn't matter if people are larger sized in the future.
Screw you. And I would do a quote from our favorite Stranger Things Season 5 character, but this is a clean rated podcast and on that bombshell, make sure you check out all the stuff you're going to hear via Jay. Thank you as always for joining me. Yeah, we'll be back soon. We've got some really cool episodes lined up and we are gonna try and get back onto a good release schedule. Now that had we. Oh, no, I guess we haven't, have we?
We haven't told people what's gone on in my life. We haven't released an episode where we've. That's been recorded after the fact.
[01:22:16] Speaker A: No.
[01:22:17] Speaker B: So we've told our livestream. Gideon knows because I've told him. I quit my job in December, folks. So I'm now entirely freelance, entirely focused on crosswise and our clients. So it is sc. It is exciting.
So if you do need some IT Help, which I think is fair to say is probably not something iconfactory, offer you're not an IT service provider, right?
[01:22:38] Speaker C: No.
[01:22:39] Speaker B: Otherwise we'll be saying no. We won't send everyone your way. Or if you are another indie developer and you want some help with your customer support, come and talk to me. Hello, at Crosswise. Yeah, you know, I have very reasonable rates and I've been told I'm actually very good with the customers, even the annoying ones.
[01:22:58] Speaker C: That's a big plus.
[01:22:59] Speaker B: You see, I am.
I have. Honestly, I. You know what, I'll tell you after. After the episode because I want to save some of that customer service stuff for when I have the guys on. But listen. Thank you everyone for listening. We will see you soon.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Crosswires. We hope you've enjoyed our discussion and we'd love to hear your thoughts. So please drop us a note over to podcastrosswires.net why not come and join our Discord community over crosswires.net we've got lots of text channels, we've even got voice channels, and we've got forum posts for every episode that we put out there. If you are Mastodon, you can also follow us either by heading over to Wires Social or just follow Crossed Wires Social. If you'd like to check out more.
[01:23:43] Speaker A: Of our content, head over to CrossedWires.net YouTube for all our videos and keep an eye on our Twitch channel at Crossedwires Live for our upcoming streams.
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[01:24:01] Speaker A: And of course, if you can spare even the smallest amount of financial support, we'd be incredibly grateful. You can Support us at ko fi.comCrossedWires that is K-O-F I.comCrossedWires until next time.
[01:24:16] Speaker B: Thanks for listening. Listen.
