In Season 2, Episode 2, Kaili hosts the incredible, badass game designer and developer Brenda Romero. In 2017, Brenda won both The Develop Conference's Development Legend Award and a BAFTA special award. In 2015, she won the Game Developers Choice Awards coveted Ambassador Award. She's a 2014 Fulbright Scholar and is the recipient of the 2013 Women in Games Lifetime Achievement Award by Microsoft. With design credits in 49 games, her portfolio includes the Wizardry series and her highly anticipated new game, Empire of Sin. But it's her critically acclaimed and deeply meaningful analog game series called The Message Is The Mechanic that fueled much of the discussion in this episode.
Empire of Sin releases on December 1, 2020 for PC, Mac, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Follow Brenda on Twitter at @br.
Check out the Romero Games website at: romerogames.ie.
For bonus material from this episode and to learn more about the*gameHERs, check out the*gameHERs website.
Check out a transcript of this episode here.
In Season 2, Episode 2, Kaili hosts the incredible, badass game designer and developer Brenda Romero. In 2017, Brenda won both The Develop Conference's Development Legend Award and a BAFTA special award. In 2015, she won the Game Developers Choice Awards coveted Ambassador Award. She's a 2014 Fulbright Scholar and is the recipient of the 2013 Women in Games Lifetime Achievement Award by Microsoft. With design credits in 49 games, her portfolio includes the Wizardry series and her highly anticipated new game, Empire of Sin. But it's her critically acclaimed and deeply meaningful analog game series called The Message Is The Mechanic that fueled much of the discussion in this episode.
Empire of Sin releases on December 1, 2020 for PC, Mac, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Follow Brenda on Twitter at @br.
Check out the Romero Games website at: romerogames.ie.
For bonus material from this episode and to learn more about the*gameHERs, check out the*gameHERs website.
Check out a transcript of this episode here.
TRANSCRIPTS ARE GENERATED USING A COMBINATION OF SPEECH RECOGNITION SOFTWARE AND HUMAN TRANSCRIBERS, AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK THE CORRESPONDING AUDIO BEFORE QUOTING IN PRINT.
Brenda Romero [00:00:00] Games. That's a really broad term, and there's so many different things that can fit within that space and I don't see as a designer and as a player any reason to limit it.
Verta Maloney [00:00:16] Welcome to Let's Play by the*gameHERs. A podcast hosted by actress Kaili Vernoff. Fans know Kaili best as the fiery Susan Grimshaw in Red Dead Redemption 2, and Miranda Cowan in GTA V. Our series features some of the most informed and exciting people in the gaming industry today. Kaili and her guests discuss careers, gaming and so much more. If you like what you hear, be sure to check out thegamehers.com website to hear exclusive bonus material from each of our guests.
Kaili Vernoff [00:00:49] Hey, everybody. Okay get ready. My guest today is the totally inspiring and badass game designer and developer Brenda Romero. Brenda is truly a legend in the field. In 2017, Brenda won both The Develop Conference's Development Legend Award and a BAFTA special award. In 2015, she won the Game Developers Choice Awards coveted Ambassador Award. She's a 2014 Fulbright Scholar and is the recipient of the 2013 Women in Games Lifetime Achievement Award by Microsoft. With design credits in 49 games her portfolio includes the Wizardry series and her highly anticipated new game, Empire of Sin. But it's her critically acclaimed and deeply meaningful analog game series called The Message Is The Mechanic that really fueled much of our discussion today. We also talked about her background, her process in game design and the history of women in games. It was truly a fascinating conversation and I'm so thrilled to share it with you. So let's get right into it. Hi there. How are you?
Brenda Romero [00:01:51] Hi, I'm good.
Kaili Vernoff [00:01:51] Thank you so much for making time for this. I'm so excited. I've been just sort of immersing myself in your stuff and I'm really just thrilled to talk to you in person.
Brenda Romero [00:02:04] Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited about it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:02:06] So let me just start with a little bit of the fact that we have this kind of shared experience and you have helped me sort of revisit some of these ideas I've had about myself in a different way. So I'm sort of rethinking some things. Yeah. So you and I grew up, we're similar in age, and we both grew up in upstate New York. I went to high school in Troy.
Brenda Romero [00:02:30] Okay.
Kaili Vernoff [00:02:31] And you you're further north near Canada, right where you grew up.
Brenda Romero [00:02:35] Right on the border. Quite literally. There's Ogdensburg, water, Canada.
Kaili Vernoff [00:02:40] Wow. Wow. OK. Yeah. So, but I always kind of had this theory that one of the reasons that I was so intimidated my entire adult life by technology was that I was kind of in this generation that just missed computers being taught as required curriculum.
Brenda Romero [00:02:58] Hmmm. Yeah, I, you know, when I was, I want to say maybe my high school was slightly more advanced. I don't know. I mean, Ogdensburg, New York, you know, for anybody who knows anything about New York State, Ogdensburg, in St. Lawrence County, where it is there are far more cows there than there are people. It's rural. It's a wonderful place, it's a fantastic place to grow up. But it's certainly not that, you know, it's never going to be a technological hotbed.
Kaili Vernoff [00:03:34] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:03:34] Nonetheless, I remember computers coming into our school when I was maybe in eighth or ninth grade. So this would have been 79 or 1980. At first, the TRS-80s. And then later very early IBMs. And I, like I know the early forays it was it was a math teacher who had a computer lab. I don't even, you know, interestingly enough, I don't think that there was actually a course. Maybe there was. I remember taking basic and then begging, just begging the school to please offer something to teach Pascal.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:17] And that is already a total foreign language to me, like literally a foreign language to me. I remember I had this great friend whose father was trying to teach me computers thinking she's going to go off to college and she has to be able to use computers. But it was like, it's interesting what you're saying. So it sounds like it wasn't required at your school either, but it was available and you took full advantage.
Brenda Romero [00:04:42] Yeah, I mean, I just I can't even tell you how excited I was to work on them. It was nothing we could have ever afforded by a long shot at home.
Kaili Vernoff [00:04:53] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:04:53] So I was just very curious about it. And I loved how I could build things with it. I remember taking this accounting final exam in either 10th grade or 11th grade, and it was it had depreciation on it and the school was so eager for people to use computers. So you were welcome to use computers in any way you liked during the exam and even to have programs that would help you on the exam so long as you wrote those programs yourself and could provide the source code for it. So I wrote programs for everything I needed for that accounting exam and got 100 on it consequently. And that was that was the beginning of the end of that policy. So that no longer did that, that didn't survive that semester, unfortunately for me. But I you know, I took full advantage of it. Absolutely full advantage, and I did I could prove that I had all the source code, you know, that I wrote it all myself.
Kaili Vernoff [00:05:52] This is incredible to me. This is incredible to me. I want to take a moment to sort of test one of my other long held sort of beliefs about myself and see if this holds water now in this conversation, which is that Okay. And and I should full disclosure, I think I came up with this theory like 25 years ago and have really never reexamined it. But I feel like reaching out with your hands is almost like another sense. Like digging into things and seeing how they work and particularly manually is something that some people are fluent in, that they have like manual fluency. And other people, like me, recoil from. Like, for me if something breaks, I am never going to open it up and see if I can fix it. My daughter just the other day had a has a very old little digital clock and it broke open and she showed me the insides and I thought, oh, that's going to explode. I have to back away. Did you always have this idea that you could figure out systems, that you could look and how they work with? Did that always fascinate you?
Brenda Romero [00:07:04] It, yes. And I'll even say this is going to sound odd to say it at first and I mean this in a positive way. I'm sure there is a way to say it that sounds positive. But the initial description of working with your hands, almost felt invasive. Like how do you know that about me? Like, not a bad thing. How do you know that? Because I've said nothing that would indicate that, and I would go even a step further with it, that I have a need to do that. In this talk I gave on the creation of my analog games. I talked about how good it felt to make something with my hands. That I felt a genuine need to have my hands be the thing that created, whatever that thing was. And the tactile nature of being able to touch the parts of the game and decide how they feel, one versus another was just overwhelmingly fulfilling for me. And still, as a designer, I will when I'm looking for, when I'm doing anything really, how those things feel on my fingers is an important part of the decision of my game design if I'm making a board game.
Kaili Vernoff [00:08:27] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:08:27] But yes, I that describes me to a tee. I've always been fascinated with how things work. Now, that said, truly, just before I got on the phone with you, we have a chair here, that's a recliner and it's not working. And just stopped working, and it's it was was really nice chair. So I'm calling them to to to say this, but I'm not going to open that thing up and figure out how it works. But, I become fascinated with how other things work. Why do people believe what they believe? How did, if you took anything. Absolutely anything. I have a fascination with, especially if it's like a. Well, I'll give you an example from my current game, because the one I'm working on now, is for my next game, which I haven't talked about yet. But my current game, I was fascinated with why, how Prohibition worked.
Kaili Vernoff [00:09:23] Right. So now we're talking about Empire of Sin, which I'm so excited about.
Brenda Romero [00:09:27] Yes. So I, there's a lot of it that's obvious right? You know, how they make the alcohol and how they sell the alcohol and get it in the bars. But the part that fascinated me that really got its hooks into me was this. How did this this one bar in the town where I grew up called The Place, had big windows in the front. Everybody could see in. And it apparently ran nonstop all the way through prohibition. And is known as the longest continuously operating bar in the US.
Kaili Vernoff [00:09:55] Holy shit.
Brenda Romero [00:09:57] Yeah, and so I as a kid, I asked my mother, like, well, why didn't the cops just shut it down? I mean, it's like it's look at it. It's on the main literally on the main street with big windows.
Kaili Vernoff [00:10:07] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:10:08] And, so she didn't want to tell me because she tried to evade the truth. You know, like, well, sometimes cops turn a blind eye, she didn't want to tell me that. But that set off this fascination, you know, and that fascination well, goes into so many different subjects. Like I had this similar fascination, which is I've nearly completed the arc as long as nothing else happens. I think I've read everything I needed to read with El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel. You know, here's here's a man who was illiterate and he rises to one of the most powerful, to be one of the most powerful men in the world, while people are trying to kill him.
Kaili Vernoff [00:10:51] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:10:52] And so there's this, how do you how do you run a business like that? He also did, again, it's these these dual sides like, you know, builds hospitals, paves roads, you know, puts in electricity. And then there's all this, you know, there's a long litany of horrible things as well.
Kaili Vernoff [00:11:08] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:11:08] So I'm just fascinated with, we'll say messy systems where the answers aren't always obvious. And I'll spend. Oh, my gosh, I'll spend so much time thinking about these things, it's like my own version of a puzzle. You know, it arrives already complete. And I'm trying to find out what all the pieces are and how they lock together. And I've just been like this since I can remember.
Kaili Vernoff [00:11:34] I heard you say something, I was listening to a talk that you gave and you were saying how one of your fascinations with Jackson Pollock was that his painting is an artifact of his painting experience.
Brenda Romero [00:11:48] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:11:49] And the more I listen
Brenda Romero [00:11:50] Yeah, he's fantastic.
Kaili Vernoff [00:11:51] God yes. But, you know, I was talking about this and this conversation with my husband and daughter last night and all the things I wanted to ask you in our short amount of time. And my daughter, who's 14, was saying, like, ugh his painting is ridiculous. It's just throwing paint against the wall. Right. And I said, right. Which is why I'm so interested in this idea that it's an artifact of the experience because I love his work and I'm drawn to his work. But I absolutely feel the experience behind it. And it feels to me like what you do is immerse yourself so fully in these systems that by the time you have something to deliver, it is more than just what we can grab with our hands. It is an artifact of all the experience that you have immerse yourself in.
Brenda Romero [00:12:40] Ha, isn't that interesting? Funny enough, I've not thought of my own games that way, but that's accurate. I often think with the Pollock reference specifically, you know, he's going over and over and over the same canvas to build up a space and to show this. And I often use that in conjunction with my husband, John Romero. He's he's a level designer and programmer and game designer as well.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:13] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:13:13] And when he designs levels, he plays them hundreds, if not thousands of times. He makes a very small change play, small change play. So each one of his levels is an artifact of that play experience.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:27] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:13:27] Which stands to complete an obvious reason that my games would similarly be an artifact of, I guess, this thought exercise and then later play experience because I'm playing it and changing it based on, you know, based on how it feels. Because it doesn't always feel great the first go.
Kaili Vernoff [00:13:46] Mhm. Yeah. I felt like. So I want to talk a little bit about these analog games that you made that I am just so. You know before we moved to Troy my stepfather was this very I say successful, but in a very small world, big fish, little pond. But he was very successful in the world of video art installation, video art.
Brenda Romero [00:14:13] Wow.
Kaili Vernoff [00:14:13] Yeah. And your games to me brought me right back to that. These analog games where you are using I believe the series is called The Mechanic is the Message.
Brenda Romero [00:14:24] It is. Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:14:24] So you're using the mechanic of the game to. I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I don't know if it's to experience or to contemplate these large systems. And I think for the most part, the systems that you are investigating with these games have to do with human on human tragedy.
Brenda Romero [00:14:46] Mhm.
Kaili Vernoff [00:14:46] And what really hit me was another thing. You said that where there is human on human tragedy, there is also a system because things like the Holocaust couldn't happen by accident.
Brenda Romero [00:14:57] Right. Yeah. Yeah, and if you have a system, if you have a system, you can make a game out of it. And just because I know any normal human being would recoil at what I just said.
Kaili Vernoff [00:15:11] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:15:11] First I'll expand what what I mean by game. So games traditionally when people think of a game, it's often some, you know, some fun thing that, you know, the kids have going on PS4 but rarely or board game or an iPhone game like, say, Bejeweled Blitz or something like that or Candy Crush. And that's often what we think of as a game. But when I say movie or book or painting or podcast, we don't think, we're not putting these things into a prescribed format. Right. Like, all podcasts must be fun. Or all movies must be uplifting. In fact, every other form of media bar my own, has available to this whole range of human experience. And so I guess with too much time on my hands or this is what happens when I'm left to think. I started wondering about that. You know, why games didn't do that. Like why didn't we tackle darker subjects. Why didn't we do what movies did. And I was listening while I was I was teaching in fact. I was listening to these, a group of professors of photography talk about whether they decide to take the picture or not. And that got me thinking about how most, what we would consider like great photographs are actually photographs of difficult experiences. Something, you know, the award winning photographs are often of that type.
Kaili Vernoff [00:16:55] Yes. Of war of. Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:16:57] Yeah! And so I started thinking about, games never do this. They just don't. So that got me thinking. Actually, that's that's not quite accurate. That got me thinking. Let's just say that that's what it did. It it didn't go any further than that. Just a hmm. And then, I don't know how much time passes, probably less than a year. And my daughter, who is then seven, comes home from school and she had learned it was February. So that month they were talking about the Middle Passage.
Kaili Vernoff [00:17:31] Black History Month right, here in the States.
Brenda Romero [00:17:33] Black History Month. Right. So they were talking about the Middle Passage. Her father is from the Caribbean and he's black. And so I stopped what I was doing and I asked her so what did you think about that? You know, because I, you know, this is part of her culture.
Kaili Vernoff [00:17:52] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:17:52] And this was the first time we'd ever discussed it. I mean, certainly we had discussed other aspects of history before. But this was the first time where she had had an entire unit on the Middle Passage specifically. And so when I asked her what she thought, she described it, well she described it exactly as I suppose she would need to for a test. You know, she had all the right words and all the right locations. And here's everything that happened. But there was no emotion to it. Like, it was just empty. And I thought, my God, these are your relatives, right like you come from this. This is where you come from
Kaili Vernoff [00:18:26] And she's reciting them like bullet points on a lecture. Yeah. Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:18:30] Yeah. And so she did that. And then she, there was a two second pause and then she said, can I play a game, mommy? And what she meant was, can I go play a game on the console? And so I said, yes, but don't move. Because I make games, I went and grabbed a bunch prototype pieces and I made a game about the Middle Passage. And I had her, it was a single player game which which is trickier to do than you'd think it is.
Kaili Vernoff [00:19:00] And you were making this while she was sitting there. This was like in the moment. Wow.
Brenda Romero [00:19:05] Yeah. So it was pretty easy game. She basically I had her paint family, so I grabbed about 40 wooden pawns that have no color to them, they're just wood. And then, well, the color of wood. And I had to paint me a bunch of families. So she had pink family and a blue family, yellow family, just a bunch of different families. And then when they had dried-ish, I grabbed a bunch at random and I threw them on a boat, which was an index card. And so then I gave her, she had 30 pennies, and that was the food to get across the ocean. And then she had a die, one to six. So she was going across the ocean and she had to roll 10 times to get across the ocean. So each turn she rolled and consumed that amount of food. And so then when we were little past halfway, maybe we were running low. Like she could tell this wasn't, she had been rolling high, so odds are we weren't going to make it. And she said that she said, mommy, I don't think we're gonna make it. What do we do? It's funny, there's still, now I've told the story probably 100 times. And it still chokes me up when I tell it, just because I remembered, like watching a comprehension come over a kid's face, like when they, you know, just like that moment when she said, mommy, did this really happen? And asked, well, what are we going to do? So I explained, well, we could put some people in the water. And obviously she knows what that means. And so then we stopped the game there. And when her father came home, quite obviously not expecting to walk into this, you know, she. Oh, my gosh. It a million questions, you know, did how did he feel about it? You know, did he know who is relatives who were left there, that were left there? Has he ever tried to reach them? Would ever want to reach them? And then questions about how it might work. So they would always, she would say. Oh, and she was trying to because I hadn't grabbed full families, I literally just grabbed people at random to put them on the boat. And she kept trying to reunite the family, to put the families together. And she said, no, the pink baby wants to go and so on. And I said, no, they don't get to choose who goes. This is the Middle Passage. And so she has a twin brother and sister. And she had asked, so if daddy were taken, we would get to go? No. If they took me, would they take Avalon and Donovan as well? No, not necessarily. They're going to take whoever they take. But when we got to the U.S., we would be reunited. No. Why not? We're a family. And then having to say, no you're property at that point, you know, which is just like, oh, my God, I can't even imagine, you know. So anyway, this whole thing, like, she's crying and I'm crying and father's crying, right. The interesting thing about it, I guess sort of the darkly beautiful thing about it, was that she learned more in that single game than she learned in a month at school. And I saw just the incredible power of systems to educate. Now, mind you, in video games, traditionally we use systems to educate. That's what a tutorial is. You know, you you do this, you do it better and you keep doing it better. But as soon as I finished that, I decided immediately that I was going to make a game about my family's history, which was coming from Ireland and how the family had lost the property. And you know why my great grandfather came over as a stowaway at twelve during the famine. And that ended up that whole experience, which happened quite obviously on the fly. That took me back to that thought process I had like, why don't games ever do this?
Kaili Vernoff [00:23:09] Right.
Brenda Romero [00:23:10] And I thought, you know, I have the time. I wasn't working on a commercial game at that moment. And I thought, I'm going to make a series of six games about difficult subjects, and just see if I can do it. And so having said that, and I'll go back to the point when you were talking, when you mentioned the Holocaust, I felt like if I, like to me, that was the most difficult subject.
Kaili Vernoff [00:23:36] Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:23:37] And if I left that out, if I didn't do that, it meant that it wasn't, I was cheating. It wasn't going to be really as challenging of an exercise as I thought it might. And I wasn't intending for these games ever to be known. You know, like, I'm I'm sure you have at least a hundred ideas for podcasts that nobody knows about and may never know about. Like, my brother is a musician. He's written songs and no one will ever hear. I have game ideas that will never see the light of day, nor should they. But these I just wanted to see if I could do it. I want to see, I wanted to test my design skills. And in the process, you ended up creating the series of games about difficult subject matter that eventually became known and seemed to have defined, I would say defined my career. You know, people know more about those games than the video games that I've worked on.
Kaili Vernoff [00:24:39] Yeah, when I learned about them, I started just looking them up and I wanted to see what they looked like physically. I wanted to understand the game play and the system. I wanted to ask you about something you said about creating these games. I think you that you said that with these analog games that you you feel a real duality, that you feel a separation between you and the game. Whereas with commercial video games, you feel intimately connected to it. Do I have that right? Is that fair?
Brenda Romero [00:25:13] It depends. With Train because Train's subject matter I have a physical separation from me and the game. And part of the game is an actual Nazi typewriter.
Kaili Vernoff [00:25:28] Oh my god.
Brenda Romero [00:25:29] Yeah, the rules were written with a Nazi typewriter. So I try to see, I try to see it like what would, I try to make everything as authentic as I can. And where else would that have come? Where else would the rules of something like that have come from? And it's part of the you know, it's part of the larger question of Train is will people just blindly accept the rules? You know, will they blindly accept the rules even if they take them from a typewriter like that? Will they not question where they're going? And then to what degree do people standing around are, to what degree are they complicit in the outcome? And, you know, that was that was the central question of Train was was complicity and people blindly following the rules. So it was important for that for the other games. It depends. You know, the game about Irish history was my family's history, Sîochân Leat.
Kaili Vernoff [00:26:22] Right. I love what you said about that game, that you can't win that game because the British have already won.
Brenda Romero [00:26:28] Yeah. Yeah. It's who loses the least.
Kaili Vernoff [00:26:32] Who loses the least. My husband loved that. I was telling him that.
Brenda Romero [00:26:37] Yep. And then it depends like the game One Falls for Each of Us. I feel very connected to that game. But at the same time
Kaili Vernoff [00:26:45] And that's about the Trail of Tears, yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:26:50] It is yeah. And I guess the the one that I haven't into which I will finish. I've got the notes for it and I've got the parts for it. I know how the game play works. It's designed. I just haven't built it. Is the game about Cité Soleil, which is day and night violence in Port au Prince, Haiti. So that's the last one. And that'll be built when I'm finished with Empire of Sin. But yeah, I feel when I'm working on a game, it's all I think about. You know, I've got a I've got a notebook beside my bed all the time, just in case the story idea comes out, you know, which always happens. But I feel intimately connected to them. Train is, just because of the research for that. I mean, that was just, you know. I don't know, how do I describe this. It's a challenge. You know, it's a challenge
Kaili Vernoff [00:27:43] Immersing yourself in something like that. Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:27:46] Yeah. And now that's to say, like, my immersion is like one tenth of one one thousandth of what you know, anybody who went through it. So I'm acutely aware of that. You know, I'm acutely aware that that borders on a whine, whining.
Kaili Vernoff [00:28:03] Well, except that I think that you're hitting on something that is critical here. Especially after what you talked about with your daughter, is that if you can't feel the thing, then how do you learn from it going forward? If you can't let yourself feel the abject despair that comes with these things in our history, then it becomes like your daughter coming home with bullet points on a list.
Brenda Romero [00:28:28] Yeah, well, I do try like the research for Train, there is a picture of two boys and I'm not Jewish. My family was was Irish Catholic. So I didn't have that sense of connection. So, I tried to find a way to emotionally connect with the game and it was this picture of these two young boys because they were close enough in age. It was obvious that they weren't the same age, but they were close enough that I could think about myself as a mother and their mother. And I would spend anywhere between half an hour and an hour a day sitting with them, sitting with this picture. And thinking about what their mother would go through, thinking about what they might do that day, really just trying to connect in the only way that I really could connect, which, you know, going after a maternal instinct, was was pretty powerful. And I also met with I also met with a rabbi to go through every single bit of the game, which was just phenomenally intimidating, but easily the best experience that I've ever had with with a game reception.
Kaili Vernoff [00:29:48] Mhm. And so you spoke to this rabbi to try to make sure that that the way that you were meditating on these systems was correct. To sort of, was it like a truth check?
Brenda Romero [00:30:02] Yes. Yes, and it was, I was working on at the time, I think I had. Was Train done? Train might have been in progress. It was in progress at the time. It wasn't finished yet. Wait, no, it was finished. Sorry. I'm thinking, I'm confusing two separate things because the person who introduced me to the rabbi, his wife was also, this sounds so ridiculous. The Irish game, the rules for the game are written in English ink and Irish blood. And I needed to get somebody to
Kaili Vernoff [00:30:41] Wow.
[00:30:42] I needed to get, things you some things, you know. I needed to get somebody to draw my blood for this. Which I thought was really a pretty easy thing to do, but it turns out it's not. You can't just, you know, go down to the drugstore and get a needle. And my sister, who is a nurse, she's retired, but she's a nurse. And I said, please, she says I'm not going to do that for you. You at this point in time, she thinks I'm just you know, she's she does not think that these games are great ideas. And especially because I was never planning to talk to other people about it. This is just I want to make a game as good as I can possibly make it and make games about difficult subject matter, which will challenge me as well. So the guy who introduced me to the rabbi, his wife was a retired nurse. So I got a needle from a vet and then got the needle to her and then she took my blood.
Kaili Vernoff [00:31:39] A veterinarian? You got a needle from a veterinarian.
Brenda Romero [00:31:43] Yeah. Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:31:43] And then brought it to the rabbi's wife to take your blood to write the
Brenda Romero [00:31:48] Yeah, and the needle wasn't even the right kind of needle because normally blood, you know, like when you're taking blood with a needle, you there's like a vacuum tube on it, right. That just sucks that blood out of your body. And that wasn't this was like a medicine giving needle, not a blood taking needle.
Kaili Vernoff [00:32:06] Oh Brenda, oh my god.
Brenda Romero [00:32:07] It's so ridiculous. But anyway, it happend. I mean, it was you know, it was what was needed, right.
Kaili Vernoff [00:32:13] Yeah, yes.
Brenda Romero [00:32:13] You know, and I just remember it was what was needed for the game to make it right. You know? And anyway, David, he had said to me that the rabbi would like to talk with me about the game. And so would I bring the game to the synagogue. So I did and I can't even tell you just, I just the feelings of, like I the feelings of fear that I. Fear is not the right term. Like with games. So let's just forget we're talking about Train for a minute.
Kaili Vernoff [00:32:59] Okay.
Brenda Romero [00:32:59] With Empire of Sin I wanted a UR test as soon as I could get one. The is barely functional. It's probably not even at all fun but I wanted, like let's give to UR test. I want to find out what's wrong as soon as I can. Okay great.
Kaili Vernoff [00:33:15] You have to tell me what UR means.
Brenda Romero [00:33:17] Oh sorry. User reasearch.
Kaili Vernoff [00:33:17] Okay.
Brenda Romero [00:33:17] So the game isn't finished. In fact, maybe only a little bit of it would be done, but what do they like about the idea? What are they hoping we do? And because I do these UR sessions so early, odds are that the majority of the feedback I get is going to be negative.
Kaili Vernoff [00:33:39] Right.
Brenda Romero [00:33:40] And I'm aware of that. But I'm I want, I would rather hear it from them than hear it from the press when it's released. I would rather hear, oh, you should do this when I have time to do it versus in the last, you know, month of the game or something. So I really love throwing my ideas, you know, or the games that we've developed out there as soon as I possibly can to get some feedback on them. So I was all fine for the feedback, like anything that I could do better Absolutely, because you know, I know I'm not, I'm far from perfect. So it would be great if somebody pointed these things out. But when you're talking about a significant cultural trauma, significant is even too, when you are talking about just a massive cultural trauma. I didn't see any gray area. You either did it right or phenomenally wrong.
Kaili Vernoff [00:34:34] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:34:34] And there was going to be that was either gonna be right or just a very off and and I. But I went I didn't know what more I could have done with the game. Like I felt I had made it to the best of my ability. Maybe somebody else could have made it better, but this was the best that I could do. And I brought it in and brought a friend with me as well. And he had me go through every line of the rules, explain every single line of the rules. Every single thing on the board pointed to it. What is that? What is that for? I talked about some of the repetition in the game. I talked about the symbolism in the game. I talked about breaking the glass panes with with a hammer to initiate the beginning of the game. I talked about why I created it, what I was hoping to do. That it wasn't in any way meant to be irreverence. It was meant to be educational, know to make people question just blindly following the rules or standing by and watching things happen. And so then after, jeez. It was longer than an hour. It was a really long time. He said to me, I talked to a friend later who said, you know, you've just gone through the Jewish gantlet. And I had no idea and him asking these questions whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. But I you know, I recognized that what I was experiencing was a tremendous privilege. And then he says he's going to do a blessing, which I wasn't expecting. I wasn't, I didn't, I was bringing Train there because I was asked to do it. And it seemed like the right thing to do. Like it, just like if you make a game about that, it is your responsibility. I feel. And so after I had gone through everything. He said, I'm going to say a blessing. And and he said it in hebrew, so I didn't know what the blessing was. But he said but first I'm going to bless this as a work of Torah. You have brought us a great tool for learning. And to have this game blessed is a work of Torah was so far. Like, I know that there's we're not on video, but like this will never cease to blow me away and never cease to bring tears to my eyes, will be the greatest honor that I ever get. There's just no way either I don't know what, frankly, would ever top that.
Kaili Vernoff [00:37:23] Yeah, that is a gift beyond your wildest dreams, right. That kind of an honor with something that came from a need to make it.
Brenda Romero [00:37:33] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:37:34] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:37:35] And yes. And he. And so I remember leaving and feeling. I remember just feeling. You know, I was crying as was my friend, you know, just out of pure gratitude. It was. I mean, I remember everything about that moment. I remember where I was sitting, I remember where David was sitting, I remember where the rabbi was sitting and I remember where my friend was sitting. And I remember bringing it back to the university where I was teaching and setting it up and someone saying, you know, now what you could do, you know, now that this has happened, you could really build it. You could. And then they were talking about, you know, doing all these things like now that I built the prototype and I'm like, now that that's the game. It is what it is. And especially because it had I wasn't interested in, you know, having it made out of, you know, some kind of special plastic. I wasn't interested in having lights shining up through the glass. I was just it was it was perfect as it was. And also because it had been blessed is a work of Torah. I felt that that meant that all of it. I felt at the time, I still do. I felt that it was important to make sure that I saved all of it. So originally when people smashed the glass, I was going to have a glass replaced.
Kaili Vernoff [00:39:00] Mmmm.
Brenda Romero [00:39:00] But because the glass had been blessed, I felt that the glass now, mind you, this is where you're we're mixing, you know, Judaism and Catholicism. That because it's been blessed, therefore it was sacred.
Kaili Vernoff [00:39:16] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:39:16] And and so I have still to this day, saved every piece of glass, including the tiniest little bits. You know, I shine a light on it, on the cloth to make sure that I get all of the bits that I can physically see. And then I use the same exact cloth, which I never shake out, session to session. Like whenever the game is displayed, it's always with the same black cloth. So to my knowledge, I've not even lost so much as, you know, just even the tiniest little fragment of that glass. Nor, oddly enough, have I ever been cut by it, which you would think at this point, you know, dealing with setting up setting up glass. But, yeah, it absolutley
Kaili Vernoff [00:39:55] It's a powerful blessing, a powerful blessing that no shards have pierced your skin.
Brenda Romero [00:40:03] Yeah. You know, it was really, I guess that let me, you know that. I don't know that it didn't, that mattered to me more than anything else. More than any other review I've ever had or will have for a game. You know, it was really, it was just an incredibly powerful experience that I'll be grateful for for the rest of my life.
Kaili Vernoff [00:40:28] Yeah, I feel that. I feel that and I really hope that I have an opportunity to experience this game firsthand. I hope that you will bring it to New York or I will come to Ireland. I would love to
Brenda Romero [00:40:42] Eventually, I suspect I suspect it will go to New York. One of my games, the Irish Game, Sîochân Leat, is in The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester.
Kaili Vernoff [00:40:53] Oh wow.
Brenda Romero [00:40:54] So my guess is that this will similarly, or that Train will also find its way there. And it's you know, you're bringing up your dad's work. His installations were interactive. Were they?
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:07] They were mixed media. Some were interactive. Some were visual video. And then he would sometimes, there would be like poetry with it. Some of them were tactile where you would pick things up.
Brenda Romero [00:41:25] One of the interesting things, I suspect, like his work, people could actually interact with it as the artist intended.
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:36] Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:41:36] And games right now have, games are in a different space. And it's something that museums have had difficulty with because like Sîochân Leat is under glass. So it can't actually be played.
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:54] Mmmm, right.
Brenda Romero [00:41:55] And you can see the rules but
Kaili Vernoff [00:41:56] You're just looking at it.
Brenda Romero [00:41:57] You're just looking at it, right. But the it's like handing you it's like handing you Red Dead Redemption in a box and saying, what do you think right?
Kaili Vernoff [00:42:07] Right.
Brenda Romero [00:42:07] And you're not actually interacting with the game or, you know, attaching to the characters. And, you know, I've seen John does he does a fair number of cons, conferences sorry. That sounded wrong. He does a fair number of confrences
Kaili Vernoff [00:42:24] He's a con artist.
Brenda Romero [00:42:26] He is. There will be, you know, voice actors there. And I will see people, voice actors who've done video games. And we were in a booth next to Doug Cockle, who did the voice of The Witcher. And I would watch people come up to him and just, you know, how much the game meant to them. And see the reaction to hearing that voice live. So video games well at least board games have an issue that I can't. You know, how how are those played in a museum context. And Train was on loan to a museum in Italy and it was played. It was out for play. And you could tell it was worse for the wear. Not I mean, I never made the game to be played, you know, 100 plus times.
Kaili Vernoff [00:43:17] Right.
Brenda Romero [00:43:19] But you could tell it was know slightly worse for the wear and, you know, people had to mind the game. And anytime I've had the game out for public viewing where people were also able to play it, there usually have to be four or five people just watching to make sure that, you know, people are trying to take a piece or they're not trying to walk up with the set of the rules. Not because they're thieves, but because they think, oh, that must be the thing that's describing the game. I'll take that pamphlet where it's the literally the only copy of the rules that exists.
Kaili Vernoff [00:43:48] Right. Right.
Brenda Romero [00:43:50] So there's all these all these tricky issues that come up with games in museum context, even digital games, you know, like consoles and controllers. I know that, you know, some exhibits like they'll have here come play the original Super Mario Brothers and you know, and somebody will yank that controller out of the wall. So it's a real it's a real cultural, sorry curatorial challenge. But yes. So eventually Train I would suspect will be there and probably under glass. But if I go I've already brought Train there and played it at The Strong before, and gave a talk about it. So, you know, I would expect that if I were to go to The Strong that those games could be made available for play.
Kaili Vernoff [00:44:39] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:44:40] Of course I've just committed them to something without talking to anybody.
Kaili Vernoff [00:44:45] Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:44:46] Whoops.
Kaili Vernoff [00:44:46] I will be first in line. I want to talk a little bit about people's reaction to video games now, because I know people are really excited to hear from you as a video game designer. And I will say. So, first of all, you've been designing video games since you were 15, which is just mind blowing to me. Is that true or you?
Brenda Romero [00:45:08] Well, I was non professionally designing from probably the age of 13 or 14. So I was rewriting rulesets in traditional analog. Like pencil and paper games like Dungeons and Dragons and I rewrote the entire rules set for Rollmaster when I was 14. I'm sure it was terrible, but it was my it was my first game. I said I wish I had it.
Kaili Vernoff [00:45:37] Oh I wish you did too.
Brenda Romero [00:45:37] I don't have it anymore. I really do, because I would love to just see, you know, I'm sure there's parts of it I imagine is far worse than they actually were. But I'm sure there are also parts of it that were far worse. But I got my first job was amazing. I was asked if I if I had ever played Wizardry. And basically what I did is I answered a phone, and this is pre Internet, right. So people can't if they're stuck on something, they can't Google the FAQ. So instead they actually have to call the FAQ, and that was me. So you would ask
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:15] As a teenager? As a teenager. You were the person on the other end, right?
Brenda Romero [00:46:17] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:17] That's amazing.
Brenda Romero [00:46:18] Yeah. And so I got paid my actual paying job was play games, memorize them and when people call answer those questions. That was my job.
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:28] Brenda, that is the coolest high school job anyone has ever had.
Brenda Romero [00:46:32] Isn't it though?
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:32] I'm sorry. Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:46:34] Oh it was. It was even better than I make it sound because I could be there whenever I wanted to be, as long as somebody else was there, as long as the company was open. So I'd show up early and I'd stay late. And because my family didn't really have any money, this also gave me access to computers well ahead of my own ability to ever have them.
Kaili Vernoff [00:46:57] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [00:46:57] So, yeah, that's how I got started. That was my teenage job. I paid games, I played games and got paid. And then eventually there really was no you know, this is also very early in the game industry. So there really was no like what we would say is a QA department that didn't really exist. So I worked, you were part of product development and you might do everything from writing the manuals to, you know, writing the insert card, saying how something got installed, to looking up weapon names for the designers, to playing the game and saying, okay, what level where you at when you got, what experience level were you up by the time you got to level six? So it wasn't it wasn't a formalized field, at least in games then, but it was certainly part of what I did. And then went to college when I got out of college. I still worked at Sir-Tech all the way through college, to put myself through school.
Kaili Vernoff [00:47:57] Mhm. I was wondering about that. You stayed there all throughout?
Brenda Romero [00:48:00] Yeah. Yeah, just nonstop. And then when I left college, I had an interview. I was still a Sir-Tech as its graduation was approaching. And I had talked about going out and, you know, I think I was going to go get a real job, because video games at the time didn't seem like a normal career. So when I graduated college, I was very excited about going to work for IBM or Microsoft. But I got an interview with IBM and I remember being down in Atlanta and they said you would be. So what you'd be doing is revising DOS manuals, and I thought like, I don't want to revise DOS manuals. I want to do, like who wants to do that?
Kaili Vernoff [00:48:39] That sounds so boring.
Brenda Romero [00:48:40] It's certainly whatever it was
Kaili Vernoff [00:48:40] I don't even know what it is, but it's already putting me to sleep just thinking about it.
Brenda Romero [00:48:45] Yeah. Zero desire to do that. And so I went back to Sir-Tech when I arrived back from Atlanta and they said how'd it go. And I, well, the vice president of the company asked me how it went and I said, good, but I think I'd just like to stay here and keep making games. And that was it. And I was there until 2001.
Kaili Vernoff [00:49:05] I would be remiss if I did not ask you about this because I was shocked when I heard you say that nobody referred to you as a female game designer until like the mid nineties.
Brenda Romero [00:49:18] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:49:18] I think that people listening to this podcast will be shocked to learn that it that the idea of it being a male dominated field is new, relatively new.
Brenda Romero [00:49:32] Interestingly enough, like and if I broaden that out, some the idea of even code being, you know, the exclusive domain of men is also relatively new, in fact. When I graduated from college, I think the actual number is thirty seven point one percent of computer science graduates were women.
Kaili Vernoff [00:49:59] Wow.
Brenda Romero [00:50:00] The role of women in computer science is huge. Like a woman, Ada Lovelace invents code. Hedy Lamarr then invents Wi-Fi. There is Grace Hopper
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:10] Wait, Hedy Lamarr, the actress?
Brenda Romero [00:50:12] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:13] What!
Brenda Romero [00:50:13] Yeah, she invented Wi-Fi. Yeah, isn't that great?
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:14] What are you talking about!?
Brenda Romero [00:50:14] Yeah, she really did.
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:14] Oh my god.
Brenda Romero [00:50:14] Yeah, I know you wouldn't. She is a hardcore geek. So she invents Wi-Fi. And then you have Grace Hopper who invents COBOL pointers and coins, computer bug. Kathleen Booth invents the assembler, which is really hard core. And even the ENIAC, our very first computer, the ENIAC, was programed by an all female coding team.
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:47] Wow.
Brenda Romero [00:50:47] So women were all over the place.
Kaili Vernoff [00:50:48] I have chills everywhere because I did not know.
Brenda Romero [00:50:50] Oh you know, if we keep talking I won't have time to open up my ridiculous list of things I'm collecting that are along this line. So women and even in the company that I started at, there were, when I joined the company, there were there were four women and five men. So when I joined it was parody. And I didn't have this feeling of being just the woman, certainly. And there were you know, there were a lot of great teams back then, you know, Anne Westfall and Jon Freeman, Roberta and Ken Williams, Patty Bell and, I think James Bell. And it was not uncommon. And, you know, Patty Bell. And I think a lot of times people will see these husband and wives, couples in the early 80s making games and assume, oh, well, you know, the wife did the writing and the game design and the husband did the code. And that's, you know, first of all. So what's right? Like that's like ascribing the contents of a book is valueless and giving all the credit to the person who puts the book together, right?
Kaili Vernoff [00:52:02] Yes, it is. Yes.
Brenda Romero [00:52:04] The design is what makes something what it is. Otherwise, you've just got a bunch of disconnected data on a disk. So I'm finding, you know, when I what I look deeper. I am finding lots of women who were involved in early game history. Now, it is true that there certainly were more men in games. And now there are also you know, still the industry is majority men. But it's not like the you know, these small islands.
Kaili Vernoff [00:52:36] Right.
Brenda Romero [00:52:38] In fact, the first one of the earliest digital games, The Sumerian Game, which was back in the 50s, I want to say was done by Mabel Addis. You know, and so there's loads of evidence. It is not this incredibly male dominated field. I sometimes wonder, if because the most popular genres of games tend to be male centric or tend to have more male players than female players, if that factors into it. Also, we tend to segment the market into, you know, what are core games, we'll say and casual games. And people who are really into core games like, you know, first person shooters or sports games like FIFA will go like, oh, yeah, well, Candy Crush doesn't matter. That's not a real game. Well, guess what it is. Right. It absolutely is a real game. And, you know, it's that's like taking a whole form of movies and just discounting them and say, oh, documentaries aren't movies because they're not what I like to watch.
Kaili Vernoff [00:53:42] Right. Right. I know that some of these gamers, the way they decide who gets into the gamer club seems so arbitrary and bizarre.
Brenda Romero [00:53:54] Yeah, I think, you know, all of it, you know, it's a game if if its creator says it is. It's you know
Kaili Vernoff [00:54:03] It's a game if its creator says it is. Yeah.
Brenda Romero [00:54:06] Yeah there are. When I was I was writing a book on games, game design and at the time of the writing, I found 54 different definitions of the word game by other academics who were also writing books about it. So I think the term is far from carved in stone. But yeah, it's you know, when we look at the full range of games and what people are doing and what people are playing, there was, ohgosh, I wish off the top my head I remembered where the statistic came from. But I can certainly let you know it's that the majority of gamers were actually women, and the majority of gamers were playing those casual games. I find myself, even though I am absolutely a hardcore gamer. Like I don't think anybody is going to argue that I am a hardcore gamer. And if they do, I would challenge them to tell me what THAC0 means, which is two hit armor class zero. You know, you've got to be going back a ways for that. And I play all kinds of games. I play everything from World of Warcraft, to Minecraft, to Ghost Recon to Ghost Recon Breakpoint, to my own games, you know, to like some of the really heavy paradox strategy games. But I don't have time now. Like, I've got four kids and I'm you know, I don't have time for what I refer to as a destination game. Like, I don't have time to say, like, man, it's Saturday. I'm going to play games for 14 hours today. I don't there's no way I can do that anymore. So, sure, bring on the two, three hour games, bring on the casual games on my iPhone that I can play on the way to work. You know, games have expanded to remove that sense of privilege, right. You know, the the game literacy. So you're an absolute expert in aiming in a first person shooter. So what. I mean, it's great if you are competitive at it. Good. I suppose that's something that is useful for esports. But if you're not and you just happen to like playing games like, say, Drop7, which is a game I've been playing for probably ten years every day. It's just a nice calm game. And I like it. And there's, you know, the graphics, it's not going to win any graphics awards, but it's just it's like, it sort of looks like one of those match three games I guess you could say. Games is that's a really broad term. And there's so many different things that can fit within that space. And I don't see as a designer and as a player any reason to limit it. You know, the more experiences that I can have, the more things that we can bring to the medium, the more design, the more expanded our design sensibilities and possibilities space becomes, the better. You know great things can come out of that.
Kaili Vernoff [00:56:56] Yeah. Yes. Well, I'll tell you just a little bit about my experience, which is that I'm an actress. I had never played video games. I didn't know anything about gaming until I was cast by Rockstar. I had no idea that I thought I was on a commercial audition and, you know, and I ended up playing Susan Grimshaw. And it's we shot full performance capture. So I shot for four and a half years playing this this character and had no. And because we were under NDA, I could never talk about it with anyone. No one knew that I was in this video game. And so when it was released to the world, I was absolutely shocked about the the fan base who they were made up of and like you said, going to conventions and meeting these people. How many of them were moms just like me and how relieved they were to see, you know, Susan Grimshaw is a full fledged member of the Van der Linde gang. She's great with a shotgun. She has full agency. She contributes to this gang, but she is a middle aged, bossy, cranky woman. And people were so, I mean, so just delighted to see someone like that, as woman in this game. I had people queued up in London who would say when I put my kids to bed this is what I want to play. And it wasn't the fan base that I thought it was going to be at all. It just wasn't was what I was expecting. And I've told this story before, but I remember I'd been probably playing her like three and a half years. And I remember our director was on set and he was just kind of giving me direction. And I think that my superpower as an actress is taking direction. And he was giving me direction and he was making his face at me like this, just looking real hard. And I finally said, what, what I know I'm doing what you're asking me to do? And he said, You absolutely are. I am just afraid that our core audience is going to fucking hate her. And I thought, oh, this is late in the game to be to be wondering this. But we moved forward and and gave the fans full credit to go on a journey with someone instead of dismissing them because they weren't someone they related to right off the bat.
Brenda Romero [00:59:16] And you never know who players are going to relate to either. You know, we have in Empire of Sin, and this is a super early design decision. I wanted to have a diverse cast of characters, a diverse cast of bosses, instead of just Al Capone and people who looked like Al Capone. And so so we you know, we have we do have Elvira Duarte in there. And Elvira is actually my husband's great grandmother. She was a madam, really was a madam in Nogales, Mexico. And she was an incredibly powerful woman and she was also a respected woman. And so the people's reaction to her just to be able to play somebody who doesn't look like a a big, muscly dude, you know, not that there's anything wrong with big, muscly dudes. I like big muscly dudes.
Kaili Vernoff [01:00:10] Who doesn't?
Brenda Romero [01:00:13] But I also remember, and this goes back to, you know, getting into the game industry at such an early age that when I would play games, all of my characters were guys, all of them. Up until well, I guess when I'm playing D&D, you know, analog games, obviously you can make a character whatever you want. But in video games you were you were gonna be a guy, and you were gonna go rescue the princess from the castle. And I didn't want to rescue the princess, I want to rescue the prince. And the first game that you could actually play a woman in was Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
Kaili Vernoff [01:00:46] Wait, sorry what?
Brenda Romero [01:00:47] Right.
Kaili Vernoff [01:00:47] One more time, leather
Brenda Romero [01:00:50] Leather Goddesses of Phobos. It was nineteen eighty six or seven. It was the first time you could play a woman in a game. So I wanted to make sure that I could play myself in a game. I could pick a character who is like me and I even, we even went a step further with Empire of Sin in that, you know, sometimes games will put people into these gender boxes. And I just decided, like, look, there's everybody in this. There's no need to have gender there. So just nobody there's not any gender, you people or whoever the hell they want to be. And so there's. Yeah, so there's that's not even a part of the game. But I for me to be able to play as an older woman, you know, Elvira in the game, she is probably 20 years older than I am.
Kaili Vernoff [01:01:37] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [01:01:37] And it was a bit of a design challenge like what do you what combat. You know, she's not going to knock you out and melee, right. So our combat designer, Ian O'Neill, you know, he did some research on what would have been used at the time if she really were in a difficult situation, what might she have used at that time? And so
Kaili Vernoff [01:01:56] Can you tell me?
Brenda Romero [01:01:58] I can, now of course I've forgotten the name of it, but basically, it was a powder that came from a plant. A dried powder from a plant that had basically caused an hallucinogenic powers and allowed you to, sort of a bit of a truth serum, allowed you to get people to do what you want them to do. So in combat, Elvira is able to take over other people and and cause them to take actions on others.
Kaili Vernoff [01:02:26] That is fantastic. That is fantastic!
Brenda Romero [01:02:29] Yeah, it's also super powerful. It's super powerful and very strategic, like when you when you decide to use it. But, yeah, it just it feels good, like in watching, you know, watching some of the UR tests. So people would be able to play characters that that looked like them. Hearing them say that they appreciated that was fantastic. Oh, you know what? Here's something we sort of have in common.
Kaili Vernoff [01:02:56] Tell me.
Brenda Romero [01:02:57] So, Loren Anthony the Navajo character in Red Dead.
Kaili Vernoff [01:03:02] Oh yeah.
Brenda Romero [01:03:02] And so I was looking for, we have. Well, there are actually four indigenous characters in the game.
Kaili Vernoff [01:03:09] In Empire of Sin?
Brenda Romero [01:03:09] Yeah. John's Yaqui and Cherokee. So his his both of his grandparents are bosses. And so there they are. And then I had there's also two other characters that are that identify as is native in the game. And one is Navajo and the other one is Cree from Canada. And so I started thinking, you know, it would be. I also wanted to make sure that whoever was voicing the characters that I had, that I had culturally appropriate people to voice the characters. I didn't want some white guy rocking in and voicing the Navajo character, for instance. So I contacted Loren and he was fantastic. And then I went a step further, actually, and I thought, you know what? What if I can I wonder, can Loren, he can speak Navajo. Like, what if I actually had those characters speak in their native language. And so Empire and features these two characters that that speak in one speaks and Cree and the other one speaks in Navajo. And it's just so cool. It's you know, it's just like that is the great reward as a game designer where you can actually think, you know, it'd be really cool. And you're in a position to do it.
Kaili Vernoff [01:04:28] I love this. I literally have written down as a question here to ask her if she felt the need to be true to what you would find in Chicago during Prohibition or if she can pull from all areas of her own desire and put them in that game, too.
Brenda Romero [01:04:44] Yeah, well, yeah, but it's and. The cool thing is it's yes to both. So what while we do have some fictional bosses, they are accurate to the people who were there at the time. So there were loads of people running booze across from Canada and many of them masqueraded as show people. And so Goldie Garneau is one of those characters. And then we have, you know, other people that if you Googled, you know, Chicago bosses, they might not come up in that list, but they were absolutely there. And if you like it, history has a warped way of remembering things. Let's just say. And so, Daniel McKee Jackson, who I'd say is one of my favorite bosses. He is an undertaker. He's an undertaker, and he ran casinos. So he was
Kaili Vernoff [01:05:37] He was an undertaker who was also running casinos, like on the side.
Brenda Romero [01:05:41] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [01:05:41] Wow.
Brenda Romero [01:05:41] Yeah, so, like if, you know, if you had a problem with him, not only would he solve the problem, but he could bury you as well. And he was, he really loved his community. And so we had on the design team Darius Monks, who is the designer behind this. He the lengths that he went to, I don't know, to mine history, to find these people. Other times I there would be people that I would be really taken with, like Stephanie St. Clair. So she was a New York boss. Also, she was a card shark, New York boss. So I moved her over to Chicago just like I moved Elvira, John's great grandmother. I moved her up from Nogales, Mexico, to Chicago. So there's a bit of alt-history there, but all of it. There was a you know, there was a diverse cast in whatever event you pick in history.
Kaili Vernoff [01:06:39] Right.
Brenda Romero [01:06:40] But history doesn't always choose to elevate the diversity of that cast. So we dug for it and found it.
Kaili Vernoff [01:06:46] I cannot wait to play this game. I really, I was watching the preview yesterday and I thought I just got so excited and I thought I have to subscribe because I want to unlock these. I never think this way, Brenda. I am not a gamer. I still have not finished Red Dead because I just always get murdered. I just I'm so bad at shooting. I just, I'm always wanted.
Brenda Romero [01:07:08] Does it feel weird to hear your own voice in a game?
Kaili Vernoff [01:07:12] Yes, it does. It does. And of course I have a 14 year old daughter who will like hang around camp. And when you're talking to the other gang members, you can either greet or antagonize. So you can guess what she presses and
Brenda Romero [01:07:26] Oh, of course. Mom, I can't believe you say that.
Kaili Vernoff [01:07:29] And I'll hear all these things that are, you know, that I may have shot years ago. And so it is weird. And it's sort of delightful. Also, you know, when when there's 100 hours of gameplay, I don't get to see every scene that people did. And so watching my peers just I mean, Rockstar just cast the shit out of this game. And watching them just tear up these scenes, it's just like. I think I heard you were on Reddit the other day with fans. And I think you said that game designing that it really it becomes like a family. That whole development process feels like a family. Yeah. And it feels that way to us, especially with the NDA, because you can't talk to anyone else.
Brenda Romero [01:08:12] Oh, yeah. Exactly.
Kaili Vernoff [01:08:13] And so when I play the game, I'm always wanted or being chased by O'Driscoll, and then I accidently shoot my horse. It's all devastating. But in between those moments of abject terror, I get to watch my cast, just do these things. They're such wonderful actors and it feels like I'm a part of that, too. So it's been an experience of a lifetime. It really has been an experience of a lifetime. It's opened me up in so many ways as an artist.
Brenda Romero [01:08:43] And I think it is, as somebody who was raised in this medium. I mean, starting at 15 I was obviously still a kid. It has actually been tremendous seeing skilled actors such as yourself come into games because before my voice ends up being in some games just because we needed a voice.
Kaili Vernoff [01:09:10] Mmmm.
Brenda Romero [01:09:10] Or having, you know, the studio directors niece who took voice class, you know, play as a character. And so actually having skilled actors come into games and bring these characters to life. Taking it beyond where, say, a designer or, you know, a narrative director could even see that to me was one of the moment, one of the I want to call it a moment, but it's one of the trends that has moved video games up in we'll say respectability as an art form. Because people are able to they're able to connect with characters far more than they could with just text. And far more than they could with, you know, a designer or some, you know, who knows in the studio, just voicing some random lines.
Kaili Vernoff [01:10:05] Yeah. Yes. Thank you for saying that. I didn't know games prior. But I will tell you that I always felt like the level of integrity of what was expected of my work and how I was respected as an artist was up there with you know, I've worked with some wonderful film directors in my life. But this was at that level, I really felt like the directing. You know, I just I felt like we were all there in service of this thing. And then and then, you know, it's all play pretend. So you're on a set and you're you know, I'm on a horse that's built to scale, but it's really, you know, made of like wood. And, you know, I'm smoking with a straw. Like, you know, it's as an actor I just have to say is just not at all what I would have expected. And and it has made me a much better actress. I think. I'm better for it.
Brenda Romero [01:11:00] It would have to. It would have to, because you're not. Yeah. I hadn't really thought about that whole challenge of it.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:06] Yeah.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:07] Here, get on this wood pony and pretend you're on a horse. Here have a straw.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:11] Yes! And don't step on that red line because it's a tent.
Brenda Romero [01:11:15] Right.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:15] And there's cameras 360. You don't know where the camera is, they're around you 360 and there's one right on your face. Go.
Brenda Romero [01:11:24] Jeez.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:24] Yeah, it was pretty neat.
Brenda Romero [01:11:24] I'll stick to my math side and spreadsheets.
Kaili Vernoff [01:11:27] So as we're winding down here, since we know that we can't do anything in a void and and we all need each other. And anything worth doing, I think is worth collaborating on. I would love to give you an opportunity to tell me about a time in your life or in your career when somebody took a chance on you and gave you an opportunity.
Brenda Romero [01:11:52] Boy, there are so many of those. Just the one that comes to mind really was when I was at Clarkson, there's a professor who's he's deceased now, but his name is Bradford Broghten. And it's a bit of an odd answer, but I had a paper that I'm so proud of and he gave me a C on it. And I looked and there were five mistakes and he had circled them and I went to his office to complain and I said this, this is you know, why did I get a C? There's five mistakes. And he said, because I expected more of you. And it was it, for whatever reason that invited me to think more of myself. I'm sure I could have pushed him and said, well, that's ridiculous. You can't grade me worse than you grade other people because you think I can do better. And I don't I don't even, you know who, that doesn't even matter to me because I walked away equally complimented and furious. And when he took me seriously, he took me seriously as a writer. And he knew that I was at that point, I was already working in games because I was in college. That really opened the door for me to push myself, for me to study grammar, which isn't the most fun thing in the world.
Kaili Vernoff [01:13:20] Mhm.
Brenda Romero [01:13:21] But I've never forgotten that. And he spent a lot of time with me. He spent a lot of time with me just making me better. And made me have more attention to detail. I think, too, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my big brother. Now, my big brother's a musician. And this was during the time where I was debating will I go work for IBM and, you know, go into do something with technical writing. And I really loved games. And he said, you know, do what you love and the money will follow.
Kaili Vernoff [01:13:56] Wow.
Brenda Romero [01:13:57] But most important what you love and that piece of advice. You know, that piece of advice is why I am where I am today.
Kaili Vernoff [01:14:07] I'm sorry, I'm like writing it down. That's beautiful. That's incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that with us and thank you so much for making time for this today. I really appreciate and value your time.
Brenda Romero [01:14:20] Oh, it was my pleasure. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Kaili Vernoff [01:14:23] Yeah, me too. Well, I have to tell you that I've been feeling this call to Ireland for a lot of different reasons. So I would love to get to, when we can get there, I'd love to sort of get to visit your space and see what you guys do. If I could wrangle an invitation.
Brenda Romero [01:14:42] Oh, that would be easy. Absolutely.
Kaili Vernoff [01:14:43] I would love that.
Brenda Romero [01:14:44] Consider yourself invited.
Kaili Vernoff [01:14:45] Yes! And also, I will just say as a side note that as I was researching you and Galway last night, I saw the Blackrock diving tower.
Brenda Romero [01:14:54] That's pretty cool. No, I have not gone off.
Kaili Vernoff [01:14:57] I wouldn't imagine that you had. But I will say that my husband won a silver medal in the Olympics for platform diving. And so now we have to come. He's obsessed.
Brenda Romero [01:15:05] Oh, yeah. I hope I get an invite to see that.
Kaili Vernoff [01:15:09] You will!
Brenda Romero [01:15:09] Great.
Kaili Vernoff [01:15:09] You will, we'll do that. All right. That's it. That's everything I have for you. But I am so filled up from this conversation. I just I'm a huge fan. I'm honored that I had this time with you.
Brenda Romero [01:15:23] Oh jeez well thank you. I mean, I'm honored to be on the podcast. I appreciate it. And really, if you do come to Ireland, let me know. I can teach you. I will close in Irish by saying go raibh míle maith agat, which is, thanks a million.
Kaili Vernoff [01:15:39] That's beautiful. Thank you a million.
Kaili Vernoff [01:15:46] I loved everything about that conversation. And thank you for listening. And be sure to check out Brenda's newest game, Empire of Sin. It looks incredible to me, and it's releasing on December 1st for P.C. Mac, Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. And if you want to learn more about Brenda and Romero games, you can visit her Web site at romerogames.ie. That's r o m e r o games dot i e. And now a very special message from the*gameHERs.
Kaili Vernoff [01:16:20] OK, everyone. It is time to recognize women in all aspects of gaming for their dedication to creating content, building communities and empowering each other. The*gameHERs Awards honors exceptional women in gaming in 17 different categories nominated by you, the*gameHERs community. So it is your time to make your voice heard and vote for who you think should win each gameHERs award, anyone can participate. So head to thegamehers.com. That's t h e g a m e h e r s dot com and click on awards to cast your vote. And be sure to tune in on November 19th to watch the awards show live on the*gamerHERs' Twitch Channel. You know, I'll be watching and I cannot wait to see who wins. See you there.
[01:17:06] Thanks for listening. Let's play was brought to you by the*gameHERs. A community that connects all types of women gamers and welcomes every human who supports this. Let's Play was produced by Kaili Vernoff and co-produced by the*gameHERs team: Laura Deutsch, Rebecca Dixon, Verta Maloney, Heather Ouida and Alexis Wilcock with sound design done by Frank Verderosa. Please visit thegamehers.com for show notes, to access exclusive bonus material, and to learn more about the*gameHERSs community. And we'd so appreciate if you subscribed and gave us a five star review. Thanks again for listening.