Episode 484 - Interview with Leyla and Soren Johnson

Waypoint Radio

VICE

Leisure, Video Game Development, Television, Rewatch, Replay, Tv & Film, Video Games, Games, Movies, Video Game Culture

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2022

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rob has invited Leyla and Soren Johnson, CEO and Design Director at Mohawk Games respectively, onto Waypoint Radio this week to chat about their time in game dev- from Soren's time at Firaxis as lead designer on Civilization IV and Leyla's time in the State Department to transitioning into running their own studio and creating games alongside a dedicated fanbase in early access. They also chat about their 4X game Old World and it's new expansion Heroes of the Aegean, and trying their best to design from different historical perspectives that people might not expect.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good internet? I'm your host, Rob Zachary, and you're listening to a Waypoint
0:21.2	Radio interview. This week, I'm joined by Leyla and Soren Johnson, respectively the CEO
0:25.9	and game designer at Mohawk Games. Last summer, they released their unusual 4x old world on the
0:32.4	Epic Store, and this month, they are both releasing it on Steam and in expansion. Here's of the
0:37.6	Aegean Leyla and Soren, welcome to the show. Hey Rob, it's nice to talk to you again.
0:42.0	Hi Rob, it's great to be here. So I guess, you know, I wanted to start by noting that we're
0:48.0	chatting pretty early in the day because we're working around kids' schedules. I guess I wanted to ask
0:55.6	how are y'all doing? Because it sure feels like a lot of parents were counting on COVID to
1:02.9	sort of recede in schools being safe and straightforward at some point. But like, yeah, it's
1:07.4	not too a Patrick who's the only one of us here at Waypoint with kids. And it kind of seems like
1:15.0	every week is a new negotiation that like the new normal is just like the normal keeps changing.
1:21.2	And I'm curious how you how y'all are finding it and how that's meshing with trying to work from
1:27.4	home and and run a studio. I mean, it was today as much it's much easier than it was during the
1:38.2	peak of COVID and early days of COVID. It's there's more certain days a day than there were
1:45.4	few months ago and last year. So the hardest for us was in the beginning when we were still working
1:52.4	on Old World. We were just about to to launch on the Epic Games Store and then COVID hit.
2:00.4	And we didn't know what to do. Kids were having difficulty online. We're trying to be like their
2:05.7	IT support. The kids, the kids would migrate to YouTube instead of the schools. It was just really
2:12.1	a nightmare. So today is like a gift. They go to school. They're very good at keeping their
2:19.8	masks on. So like we really feel that oh my gosh, it's a blessing and compares into the early days
2:27.4	of COVID when they were still at home. How do you think? Yeah, our early access phase for Old World
2:32.4	kind of matched up almost exactly with the year year or so that the kids were out of school,
	...

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