After over a decade of remote work in a very remote industry covering an equally remote industry, I’m a little exhausted by Zoom interviews. The vast, vast majority of my conversations with developers take place in little video boxes, often with poor-quality webcams and audio and everyone feeling a bit disconnected and unusual. That doesn’t mean all or even most of my interviews are bad ones (I hope!), but there’s certainly something far more exciting, tangible, and emotional about getting to do one in person. It’s often easier to connect with the other person, and I feel like I get better answers. But even those can be a bit stilted, perhaps just because of the inherent oddness of sitting down with someone for a period of time and grilling them with questions. It’s often led me to wish there were better, more comfortable ways to speak to people, especially in situations where I’m not grilling a CEO on their latest terrible practice, but rather chatting amicably with an artist who’s made something I deeply, deeply love. I am so happy that the developers of Big Walk not only agreed to my invitation to be interviewed within Big Walk, but that it went as well as (if not better than) I could have hoped. I went on a nearly 90-minute stroll with Stuart Gillespie-Cook, Jake Strasser, and Nico Disseldorp, three of the five full-time members of House House. For a lot of the walk, we weren’t doing anything more complex than sitting somewhere and waving our little characters’ arms around. But there was just something delightful about the environment, the silliness of it all, and just existing within their creation that broke through the stiffness I often feel in Zoom interviews. Maybe it was the effect of the interview space, or perhaps it’s just that Gillespie-Cook, Strasser, and Disseldorp are entertaining people and artists who gave great, thorough answers to all my questions. But whatever the case, I didn’t want to split this interview up into a bunch of smaller stories, or summarize or truncate it in any way. I think the whole conversation was worth printing, so here it is. Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. One question and its answers, regarding the “log out” noise, was moved from its actual location in the interview at the very, very end to a spot where it flowed a bit better for readers, but otherwise the pacing is untouched. All three of them told me their official title was just “developer,” but did give me a bit more preliminary info on what their roles were. Stuart Gillespie-Cook does “capital G Game Design,” “looked at the animation,” and lately has done a lot of QA. He’s depicted as (from top to bottom) red, blue, and yellow in the attached screenshots. Jake Strasser is “responsible for the world” alongside (not present) Kalonica Quigley, who is House House’s first new employee, hired when the studio grew from four to five between its previous release, Untitled Goose Game, and the new Big Walk. Strasser says he “put all the rocks everywhere,” did a lot of technical art, and “probably made it really hard to walk for you.” He’s in the screenshots as the green, red, and brown character. Finally, Nico Disseldorp is a programmer and designer, and made a bunch of Big Walk’s challenges along with Gillespie-Cook. He’s blue, red, and gold in the images. The final member of House House, not present, is Michael McMaster, who was in charge of “aesthetics.” One last note: this interview covers every aspect of the game, including the ending. Major spoilers are ahead, so please proceed with caution. [We start our walk from the tutorial room and head out a big door to a section of the island players tend to visit later on. We’re headed to a train station we know is just over the hill, and the train will take us to a place I call the “Five Minute Room” where I suggest we conduct part of the interview. Gillespie-Cook takes along an orb-shaped item from the tutorial room that can be turned on and off to use as a light.] I’ve read a bunch of other interviews with you guys coming into this. I read that this was a pandemic game, and you guys talked about having a prototype of Big Walk within one week. What was that prototype that you had in one week? What did it look like? What did you do in it? Disseldorp: I think you looked pretty much like this, I think. You’re just like a model that jumped up and down, right? Strasser: No! Disseldorp: You’re gonna get us arguing now. Gillespie-Cook: There were a few different characters, before. I think you could spawn as one of two characters and there was one and this was another. [At this point we’ve reached the train station. We all go to stand on the platform and wait for the train. Strasser checks the train schedule.] So this little three balls, with legs and arms, and a little duck-like face? This was, from the beginning, you looked like this? Disseldorp: Pretty early on, but they didn’t animate. And then there was a big, it was a pretty big space. You’d walk around, but there was nothing in it at all. Like it was, it was just a terrain basically. And it had proximity voice chat that meant you could only hear people if you’re pretty close. And we were just having so much fun, just walking around and making sure we were staying together and making sure no one got too far ahead. If you started running off, you’d have to really turn around and say, like, “Is everyone here? One, two, three. Okay.” Was there anything in it? Was it just like a big blank space? Did you throw some random physics objects in it or anything? Disseldorp: Yeah, I think you could probably throw a physics object. I think there was one of these. [He indicates the orb-shaped light Gillespie-Cook has been holding, takes it from him, and turns it off.] Gillespie-Cook: Yeah. That one was very early. Strasser: Was that the Faroe Island photo scan? Disseldorp: Yeah, yeah it used a photo scan. I think it was Faroe Islands at that point. Is that the island [thatBig Walk’s map] is based off? Disseldorp: No, this is Wilson’s Prom[ontory National Park] in Australia. Strasser: When I say Bjork’s house, does that mean anything to you? No, but…like the musician? Maybe? Strasser: That’s just an idea, I think. I don’t know if it’s actually her house? What? Strasser: There’s this incredible house on—is this, is this just a me thing or is this an everyone thing? Disseldorp: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Gillespie-Cook: I can picture the image you’re talking about. Strasser: I think if you Google-search Bjork’s house, this turns up. I’m not sure. Gillespie-Cook: Wait, this is, this is a vibe thing, right? It’s not where Bjork lives. Is that correct? It’s the kind of place Bjork would live. Strasser: I think it’s maybe through a Reddit post. Maybe it is Bjork’s house. I don’t know. It’s the first result. [Everyone is laughing at this point.] Gillespie-Cook: Imagine the kind of place where Bjork would live and that’s where the first game took place. Strasser: The Faroe Islands are like, they’re north of the UK and they’re incredible. Disseldorp: I think they’re part of Denmark or something. [It’s not Bjork’s house (https://www.architecturaldigest.in/story/what-its-like-to-live-inside-the-loneliest-house-in-the-world/) , but given that there’s a whole Snopes article about the image Strasser is thinking of (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/worlds-loneliest-house-ellidaey/) , I can see why he thought it was. And he’s correct, it does look like the sort of place Bjork would live. I was a bit confused during this part of the conversation so I’m not sure which of the Faroe Islands was the actual terrain map used at the time, but I think their explanation paints a pretty clear visual picture either way.] Strasser: They’re very isolated, beautiful islands. It made sense as a video game level because they’re so small. And it seemed, when the game felt like it would be smaller, it seemed like it could be a spot to set something like this. But I think we very quickly realized that we wanted to make something that was more local and, you know, responded to things we knew about more. [We can hear the train coming at this point.] Gillespie-Cook: I think, especially after Goose Game, right? Why aren’t we just making a game about our backyard? [We all leap onto the train, which has just arrived. Disseldorp drops the light orb into the little storage bin near the front, then leaps off the train to grab the clock stuck on the wall at the station before jumping back on.] Disseldorp: Sorry, I just thought I’d bring a clock. Our group has been trying to figure out what the clock is for. Gillespie-Cook: Oh, would you like a spoiler? Yeah, sure. Gillespie-Cook: It’s for telling the time. [We’ve all sat down in the passenger area of the train. Disseldorp is next to me, the others sit across.] I’ll let them know. They’re going to love that. Disseldorp: There are a couple of weird solves you can do with a clock if you’re really in the mood. Like, um, a couple of really far-away synchronized button presses. And you can say like, all right, I’m going to hit it on the minute, every minute. And then you can sync up without communicating just with that as you play it, provided everyone brings a clock. [I can briefly see the sun starting to set out the windows behind Gillespie-Cook and Strasser as the train chugs along around the west side of the island.] So you have this photo scan of Bjork’s house, I guess. And you guys are just running around in proximity chat and this is really fun. And you’ve decided you were going to turn this into something. What is the first thing you do to turn this into something that you can, I guess, sell people and say is a game? Disseldorp: I think the idea that we were going to sell this to people was way later. Gillespie-Cook: Yeah, it was potentially just a tool for sharing around to friends or something. Disseldorp: We can have a party here. Strasser: Let’s play a game. Disseldorp: I think our most immediate goal was like, if we get this good enough, we can have a little party with our friends here. In like a month. [The train starts to go through a tunnel. Everyone’s voices echo as we speak.] What would “good enough” have looked like? What were you doing with it at that time? Gillespie-Cook: Being desperate for human connection of any kind at all. Is it still 2021? Gillespie-Cook: I think maybe the most concrete design goal I had in mind was that, I’ve told this story before, but like going on a bunch of Zoom calls with everyone, because it’s someone’s birthday or whatever, and everyone’s trying to talk over the top of everyone else. And it’s absolute chaos. I imagined that experience, but there were just breakout rooms in a very natural way where you could just walk around the corner and not have to have the same conversation as everyone else. And that seemed so appealing to me. [We exit the tunnel. Still some daylight left, and I can see the ocean out the window.] Strasser: When we were talking about bringing it into a space or setting that we knew more about, the house party came up for sure. I remember just like, you can walk down to the park that’s nearby and go hang out there, and just the urban experience of being at a party felt very appealing. I’m not sure what then made us expand the world into this. Gillespie-Cook: I remember making a first challenge. I remember making that gauntlet. That obstacle course thing where you’re climbing over trying to get to the end? Disseldorp: It was one that doesn’t exist anymore. It was a bunch of doors, basically. And one player had to walk through a tunnel and the other player had to open all the doors to let them through. And it was just like real basic co-op stuff. Strasser: It was un-fun. Uh, should we jump off at this station? Walk over the hill? [Everyone agrees. I get too eager and start to jump off but they stop me—we’re getting off at the next bridge. We enter another tunnel as Disseldorp speaks.] Disseldorp: I think that the moment we had these characters, though, lwe weren’t necessarily as focused on “you’ll be able to split up” as much as “it’s fun to have a character and pay close attention to each other.” I think the scale of the interaction was actually the revelatory thing. If you don’t have something else to do and you’re really just focusing on the people you’re playing with, then you can put in things like hand movements and waves and picking people up. And rather than it feeling like a bit of added noise or something, it’s something that you really pay attention to and can feel really intimate and make you feel connected to the people you’re playing with. And we realized that that was the scale where we wanted to be making the game was this place where you’re making lots of eye contact and everyone’s noticing things you’re doing and lots of your verbs were about showing and expressing and communicating rather than anything else. And it got more and more communication in it, both with the proximity voice chat stuff and we’re putting in radios and things like that, as you want to do if you’re making a proximity voice chat game. But also these bodily communication styles and stuff as well. And I think at some point it started feeling rich enough that we could make challenge out of it. [We’ve exited the tunnel. The sun is almost fully set at this point; it’s dim outside but there’s still a tinge of pink. Gillespie-Cook grabs the light orb from the storage bin. Disseldorp jumps off the train and down a cliffside slope before Gillespie-Cook can say the following:] Gillespie-Cook: I’m so sorry to interrupt, Nico, but let’s go. [We all follow him, falling into a dense brush far below the tracks.] Wheee! [Everyone bonks on the ground and is briefly stunned, but we managed to stay together, and Gillespie-Cook still has the light orb, which is a good thing because it’s getting very dark.] Gillespie-Cook: We haven’t done many interviews in Big Walk and I’m shocked every time how derailing it can be that you just all of a sudden have to do a big jump. [We start walking into the forest, with the three developers alternating leading the way and Gillespie-Cook holding the light. They are adept in a way I am not used to at remembering to turn around and make sure that we’re all staying together and they haven’t lost the journalist somewhere. We can only see a few feet in front of us at any given time but having, you know, made the game, the trio knows where they’re going.] So you added this challenge and even though you say that that challenge was scrapped and was not good, it was clearly fun enough to keep going with, to make more of them. Gillespie-Cook: Well, it was maybe, it wasn’t even the fact that it was good enough. It was like, it was bad in ways that were interesting, that we were like, “Well, how come that was bad? What is the good kind of interaction and the good kind of cooperation you can have in this game that doesn’t just feel too easy or rote or something like that?” And I think that turned out to be a very interesting question to answer. Like, what is the cooperation you can have that doesn’t feel like either one person is just in charge of everything and is taking the lead and everyone’s just following them, or just feels like everyone’s participating but in a nothing-y way where no one really feels like they have any ownership of it. And just trying to answer those design questions became a good little interesting puzzle for us to sink our teeth into. [We reach a beach and begin walking along the shoreline. It’s fully dark now, with a clear sky of stars overhead.] What was the first puzzle that you guys came across that clicked for you? Disseldorp: I can’t remember, though I feel like there was a week where we probably made like 15 challenges in a week, which is weird to say now because by the end of the game, it would take us like a month to make a challenge. But there’s something about the start of a project where everything’s really fast and it’s not clear why that ever stops. [We begin climbing up a bunch of rocks near the shore.] And I think we ended up keeping about half of them in the end. Like this one was probably made in like the first week of making challenges. [He’s referring to the puzzle we’ve just entered, a small house on the beach with two large windows. It contains a three-person couch, a chair, a coffee table with a weird device on it, and a giant timer on the wall set to five minutes. There are four switches on the back wall. We each press one, which locks us all in the room, and the timer begins to count down from five minutes. In Big Walk, this “challenge” is just to sit in the room and wait out the timer. Gillespie-Cook takes the chair, Strasser and I sit on the couch, and Disseldorp stands for a while before eventually sitting on the coffee table that holds the challenge’s reward.] Really? Disseldorp: And we kept this. Like it got a new model and it got a fancy timer and stuff, but we had a version of this pretty early on without really thinking too much about it. I think our heuristic for what made a Big Walk challenge at that point was just, what’s something that we can get you to do that involves a bit of cooperation, but never takes the focus away from the people you’re playing with? Apparently for this one, the answer is nothing. You can get people to do nothing. Disseldorp: Yeah, you get it. So we’ve got this thing here. [I point at the prize in the middle
