Cleaver interview/Part 4

In May 2005, Cleaver agreed to be interviewed in a Ventrilo chat session hosted by Bluetta. Questions were posed by a variety of guests, who either contributed to winning Cleaver in the auction, or won a ticket in three events Bluetta hosted. Llama recorded the interview. Part four is transcribed below.

Part 4 - Costumes, Advertising, and Hairstyles

Bluetta:	Madam.
Madam:	I'm sorry for making you talk about furni.
Cleaver:	That's okay. I like to talk about furni.
Madam:	Furni's pretty fun, you know. Can I have a chaise? That'd be great. I was wondering, did you see our blanky? This is just a little self-serving here. In that same vein, are there parts of the office that are just really bare, and are just crying out for some fine craft work?
Cleaver:	Yes, I did see the blanky. In fact, it was really funny, because Nemo was literally talking about it at lunch time, and how awesome it was, because he'd seen the pictures. And then we came back from lunch and there it was- arrived and waiting for him. So, that was super super impressive, super cool. Yeah, there are big swathes of the office that could do with decoration. I'm actually thinking of having a, I've been planning for a while, some kind of competition or something, to encourage people to send stuff in. Although, the other thing is, there's so much great stuff that people have already made and some of the pieces of artwork but I'm actually thinking I might try to rustle up some cash and make a few art purchases to decorate our apartment, or rather our office. Yeah, there will be opportunities to decorate the office, and stuff is gladly received.
Bluetta:	That answer it for you Madam?
Madam:	Sure thing.
Bluetta:	Okay. Ridestowe, waiting very patiently.
Ridestowe:	Okay. First of all, I'd like to say that Cleaver, you've gotten me into pirates, and it now consumes my life. Twice this year, in Public Speaking class, I've oriented my speeches based around pirates, or something to do with them, and I've dressed up for the occasion, but that's not the point right now. Oh god, I forgot what I was going to say.
Cleaver:	Dressing like a pirate is so much fun. I still do it all the time. And indeed if you'd seen me at E3, I was wearing my pirate hat all day long.
Bluetta:	Was it a savvy hat?
Cleaver:	It's not a savvy hat, no. It's kind of a really beaten up old tricorne- black, gold rim. It's seen better days, but it's very homely. Me and that hat now go back a long way.
Ridestowe:	From the description, that reminds me of the hat that Jack Sparrow wore in Pirates of the Carribbean, which by the way is a fantastic movie.
Cleaver:	It's not quite like that. That one's a bit more leathery and a bit more like the savvy hat. This one's more like a Puzzle Pirates tricorne, but it's kind of soft, sort of felt hat. It's very good, it's water resistant. Tricornes are great because you can angle the peak in a different direction depending on where the sun is, so you can always kind of keep the sun out of your eyes. Very handy.
Bluetta:	Okay, back to Caspian, I think she's adding on to an earlier question- oh wait, yeah, okay. Caspian and then Pisces.
Caspian:	Earlier you were talking about target audiences and that sort of thing. There seems to be, I'm turning myself in, there seems to be a lot of us in the 20-something range. Has there been any thoughts targeting college campus type things, people in that age group?
Cleaver:	Yeah, a few people have suggested that and we've succeeded in doing approximately nothing about it. One of our admitted major failings as a company is that we've never put enough thought or effort into marketing. I think this is what commonly happens when you have a bunch of game designers and engineers and others and generally (?) who like to make things running a company and driving it, rather than a bunch of, as I call them fondly, blue shirt dudes, who are really into doing business deals and buying ads and spending up people's money and so forth. So yeah, I think that's something we could definitely put some effort into, and it is actually on my list to have a campaign this coming autumn with the new intake. We keep sort of missing the boat, but this autumn seems like a good time to do it.
Caspian:	So we should get dressed up and run around college campuses in the meantime, right?
Cleaver:	Well there's no one there right now. But yeah, next autumn. (laughs) Certainly get dressed up and run around college campuses. Hey, that's always fun, though, regardless. Doesn't matter if anyone's there.
Caspian:	Okay (laughs).
Bluetta:	Of course, college students are all poor, as many of us could probably attest to. But not too poor to pay for a subscription. It's amazing, what you'll pay for.
Caspian:	Amen.
Bluetta:	Beer and Puzzle Pirates. Okay, back to... Pisces.
Pisces:	Yay. Okay, so, this pretty much may not be something you can answer, but you could possibly pass it on. Back when the wide brim hat altering disaster first started, Nemo promised that he would put in pigtails, and I've yet to see those, and I was curious if that was going to still come, or if the hair potions in general, or any of those type of items were going to be put in, or if it was decided that that was going to be too difficult, or whatever.
Cleaver:	The "Michael Jackson shop" as we fondly used to refer it, probably shouldn't now, to change hairstyles and skin color and all the rest of it, is on the cards. Definitely we'll do that. It may be a shoppe, it may be potions, we keep sort of going back and forth on that. I don't know anything about pigtails, but I think pigtails are really cute, so I'm all in favor pigtails. I'm on your side. Bring the pigtails. I will point out that the Princess Leia hair-do, that's in the game, which is the most pigtail-like thing there is, is entirely my doing. (?) hair-do greater resistance from Bluebeard anyway, but I think it's way cool. So I'm all for pigtails.
Pisces:	So could you let Nemo know that I have not yet forgotten and that he is in trouble until it's put in?
Cleaver:	I will tell him that he's in trouble. It would be my pleasure.
Bluetta(?):	And Llama would like to know "What about powdered wigs?"
Cleaver:	I do remember... yeah, now you see, the powdered wigs thing is funny because it's in the header on the website. There's this woman with the powdered wig. Where are the wigs? I agree. Where are the wigs? It's an outrage. Disgraceful. Shocking. I think there are some issues with wigs, which would basically require a bunch of code, so it's less... but it would be a lot of fun. I mean I'd really like to have the masks in all the time as well. One of the issues supposedly is the bloating of the artwork stack. But the actual evidence is that once people actually start downloading the game properly, and, you know, run the installer, then the size of the download, there isn't a big dropoff there. So I think we could afford to, you know, throw another ten meg of art on there. I don't think it would make much difference to our overall potential audience. Anyways. That doesn't mean we'll have wigs real soon though. But I will harass Nemo on your behalf.
Bluetta:	Homullus. Spread your wisdom.
Cleaver:	Oh no!
Madam:	He's not actually here, he's in the bathroom. Sorry. He wants to ask the age-old question: If you were to do it again, and I suppose this could go for the next game that you do, from lessons learned, what's one thing that you'd do exactly the same and what's one thing that you would do completely different?
Cleaver:	Huh. You know, I think I'd make pretty much the same game. That's one thing that I'd do the same. I'm really really pleased with how Puzzle Pirates came out. There's things that I would change, but fundamentally, I think that it was a sound idea. So that's definitely a nice thing to be able to say. It makes me happy to say that. Something I would do different, I would probably... I would pay more attention to the marketing side of things. I think, you know, looking at it now, and certainly looking at doing another product, one has to consider seriously whether we would be better off, I don't know. Having some kind of deals in advance so that we know that we're going to get distribution, and so-on. I mean it's just, it's tricky. I don't really know if we could have done a lot better then, even if we had paid more attention to it. I guess another thing I would do differently is I would make the game somewhat simpler. I think Puzzle Pirates is a bit too complicated. Not so much it's too complicated to get into, although that's a part of it, but I think that maybe the depth in the game in places is misplaced, and it's a big long conversation to get into where exactly, but I can see ways in which we could make a simpler game with less complexity in terms of the features, but an equally rich amount of gameplay, if that makes sense.
Bluetta:	Okay, Ridestowe, since you're leaving in five minutes. Pop it.
Ridestowe:	Okay. One quick one, Cleaver: what's on your iPod?
Cleaver:	I don't have one. I don't have an iPod.
Ridestowe:	What's on the closest thing that you have to an iPod?
Clear:	Oh, dude. Uhm. So, I guess, you know, what you're asking is what kind of music I like. Which is a not unreasonable question. I think, if you want some names of bands that I really like, I don't have that many for you. I've been enjoying, or I have historically really enjoyed a band called Boards of Canada, who are kind of weird, ambient music. And that's if you want a sort of thing you can look up on the webternet that expresses Cleaver's taste in music, then Boards of Canada's a pretty good choice. Now they haven't released anything for a while. So, yeah. That's probably what would be on my iPod if I had one. Although I'd rather listen to it too much (?) at this point. I have a stack of CDs in front of me but I don't think you want me to go through all of those. I'm not that involved in music. My girlfriend listens to a lot more music than I do, and she kind of feeds me CDs that I listen to, and I have friends that feed me stuff. But really, it's something I've not spent a lot of time on. Been a bit busy
Ridestowe:	One more quick question- not really a question, more of a comment. Can you tell Nemo to keep his promises? He promised me dreadlocks as a hairstyle in the game, and I still don't see them.
Cleaver:	You guys need to have Nemo come on here, next month, and then you can just persecute the crap out of him, and I'll listen in, and it'll be great. So we've got kilts- no that was for the chat, sorry- wigs and pigtails and dreadlocks. I'm all for the dreadlocks too actually, I think dreadlocks is one that I was really keen on. But dreadlocks would have to be real hair, I'm not making a dreadlock wig, that's for sure.