Interview – Cosmo D talks pizza and the cheese in the trunk (abridged)

Having played through and reviewed Cosmo D’s whole catalogue, I thought the appropriate place to cap it off would be to talk to the man himself. If you haven’t checked the coverage out, you can find them here:

Off-Peak
The Norwood Suite
Tales from Off-Peak City Vol 1.
Betrayal at Club Low
Move of the Diamond Hand

It was pretty easy to come up with questions for him, since there’s so much nuance to his work. The way you see his design evolving with each new game gives you full view of his whole trajectory. If anything, I was a bit intimidated. Even despite the weirder, quirkier elements, his games give off a whiff of sophistication, and the closest I ever come to sophistication is snobbery. It’s not the same thing, but it sure makes me feel that way.

While I’ll continue referring to him as Cosmo D, his real name is Greg Heffernan and, in addition to being a game designer, he’s a New York cellist. Hence, the sophistication. Also, hence the New York accent. As it turns out, it was a lot of fun talking shop with the guy. I’d gladly share a pizza with him.

The interview was a long one, and it’s loaded with fine detail. I find it all really interesting, but for reasons of readability, I’m doing this abridged version to provide the major points in a digestible format. Alongside this, I’ll post a more unabridged version of the interview, in case you’re hungry for more detail.

STARTING OUT WITH SATURN V

In my reviews of the series, I skipped over what is technically Cosmo D’s first game, Saturn V. A musician by trade, he wanted to try adding a visual element to the music of the band he was in, Archie Pelago. “(Game development and Unity) was getting easy enough to use for somebody with some kind of technical proficiency, generally, to mess around with it,” he told me. “And so it kind of grew out of that. It was like a music video in four dimensions.”

For me, his work is more of a visual experience, but I admit that’s probably because I’m more of a visual person. However, this caused me to make the mistaken assumption that he was a visual artist alongside a musical one. He told me, “No informal visual training. It’s all been just shoot from the hip. Along the way, I would kinda learn techniques. I would kind of learn some dos and don’ts.”

So, without the visual background, I wondered about where he got the models – the building pieces – of his games. “It’s a mix. I’d say the more crude and basic models are mine, and then the ones that probably look more elaborately made; I would get from that from a store. So, for example, I think the chandelier in The Norwood Suite; I definitely made that from some primitives that I kind of assembled together. Oh, and the router that you turn on. But the cars were either, you know, free asset store cars or asset store cars.”

BUILDING OFF-PEAK

The pizzas, which first showed up in Off-Peak, were him, for the most part. At least, what made them look delicious, was his doing. Essentially, they were just photographs of pizzas pasted onto “flat cylinders.” “Super crude,” he called them, but they were given their tantalizing life through careful use of light mapping. In his words, “And that’s where I was really like, ‘how does the light hit off the cheese of the pizza?’ I didn’t want it to be too shiny, ’cause I didn’t want it to look plastic, but I didn’t want it to just look like rubber and absorb light. So there had to be this balance of how the light reflects and hits off of this cylinder with a pizza texture on it.”

It’s 9am in the morning, and I could use a slice just thinking about it.

I ask a question to pretty much every independent developer I talk to, and that’s: Do you play video games, or do you just make them? That’s not trying to expose a passion or lack thereof, it’s legitimately interesting to me. Despite being a writer, I’m not an avid reader. For some developers, the act of building a game satisfies and desire for playing them. I thought that would be true for Cosmo D. His games don’t play like anything else. Even within the walking sim genre, the games play like he’s making it up as he goes along. So, I was kind of surprised to find out he actually plays a lot.

“I got an early Nintendo; everyone had one in their house. But also early PC. Like King’s Quest, Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Battle Chess, all the Origin System stuff. I was of that generation where my parents were like, ‘You cannot get a console, but we will give you a computer, because the computer, at least you can do homework on it.’”

He went on to list more games, almost tripping over himself – interrupting himself mid-sentence – to list off the ones he loved. These included: Mechwarrior 2, Crusader: No Remorse, Wing Commander, Command and Conquer, Myst, Planescape Torment, Baldur’s Gate. He then went to more modern releases, such as Metaphor: ReFantazio, Stoneshard, Shadow of the Road (which it sounds like he’s played in advance of its future release), Warhammer: Rogue Trader, Balatro, Evil Within, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Battletech, Stellaris, Caves of Qud, Silent Hill 2, Stray.

He says, “I think it’s a mix of playing because I love playing, but also, like, appreciating the craft. I’ll get to a point where I’m playing, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, I gotta make something. I gotta stop playing.’ ’cause I’m so inspired that I wanna get back to working on my thing.”

CHECKING INTO THE NORWOOD SUITE

I feel that The Norwood Suite is where Cosmo D’s “messing around” began to solidify into his unique style. One of his greatest strengths has been giving a tangible sense of place, and it’s in that dream-like hotel that it really starts popping.

The hotel itself was inspired by lodge-like hotels. In particular, the Mohonk Mountain House in Paltz, New York, as well as Gilette Castle – the former estate of William Gilette – in Connecticut, which seems to be the basis of the backstory. Norwood himself was an amalgam of people from Cosmo D’s professional life.

We got onto the topic of Cosmo D just enjoying the act of creation. He always has these small flourishes, like in Tales From Off-Peak City Vol 1, where the spine of every single book on a bookshelf has a unique title on it that gives some small insight into a character. I mentioned that, in college, I had a teacher who gave advice that has sat with me since, which was that you should always write detailed backstory for a character, even if it doesn’t come up in the narrative you’re trying to tell. The idea is that, because you’re basing a character’s actions because of off-page information, the reader will pick up on the depth of the character, even when it isn’t presented to them. This wound up uncovering what I felt was the most interesting part of the interview.

He said, “Somebody similarly told me, ‘When you create a place, think about what happened a hundred years ago. What happened 80? What happened 50? What happened 30?’ That was The Norwood Suite. That was a lesson I tried to apply to that. If somebody’s like, ‘Why is that wheel of cheese in the trunk?’ Or, ‘Why is that giant hand holding up the apple?’ I need to tell you with a straight face exactly why. And I think I can pretty much, 99% of the time.”

I bit. Why was the cheese in the trunk?

OKAY, WHY IS THE CHEESE IN THE TRUNK?

“The cheese is in the trunk because people who were staying at the hotel; they wanna go on a picnic. And that was their sort of leftover spillover of provisions that they brought to the hotel. And they like left the cheese in the trunk. They just forgot about it. And it’s like the kind of cheese that is sealed with that wax so that it keeps better. It’s a wheel, so it can keep if you leave it in the trunk. At least for a little while.”

My mind was swimming with scenes I wanted details on. I settled on some hilariously passive aggressive signs in the kitchen about wearing an apron. “Apron must be worn at all times,” followed by, “Apron!” followed by, “Come on…”

“Bruce, who is kind of like on the outs with the hotel, has been in a beef with Nadia, who manages the hotel. Everybody has it out for Nadia. But Nadia, this is her way of passive-aggressively telling people who work in the kitchen to put on their apron. If they’re just like showing up to the kitchen like in their sweatpants and chill clothes, it’s a health hazard. So that was her way of fancifully reminding people to follow the proper dress code in the kitchen.”

I should have asked about the Bassett Hound in the pool of Blue Moose. But I didn’t want to keep him all day just fielding my nerdy questions about visual details. However, it reminded me of games, such as Portal 2, that have developer commentary that give background on the game. I suggested to Cosmo D that he should consider a “Special Edition” of The Norwood Suite that has similar commentary. It seems like something he may have already had in mind.

“I’ve thought about remastering or future-proofing some of the older work. I mean, it’s been 10 years. It’ll be almost eight years since Norwood, and that’s running on old Unity. So yeah, I think there’ll be a time and a place for either a remaster, or a touch up, glow up, commentary. I don’t wanna change that much about it in terms of its presentation, but just, like, a tech maintenance release and then, yeah, throw in some serious commentary on everything.”

TELLING TALES FROM OFF-PEAK CITY (Vol 1)

You may not have noticed this, but starting with Tales of Off-Peak City Vol 1, Cosmo D changed the way he did character faces.

According to him, “I was using this software called Mixamo Fuse. Unity Asset Store had promoted it as a way for indie or more indie-leaning developers to make models. And for a while, I was cruising with it. It was a lot of fun to use! But then Adobe bought it and kind of mothballed it. So, that was around when I wanted to switch it up.”

The new character faces are clearly actual images of people’s faces. It reminded me of the original version of Mafia, but it was (and still is) a common approach. The method is perhaps most famous for putting Sam Lake’s face on Max Payne. I was caught wondering, who are these people? Stock image models? Friends of Cosmo D? Taken without permission? Turns out, it’s sort of the last one, but with a twist that caught me by surprise.

“I actually took some old – I still can’t believe I did this – but I basically would go on these old mugshot websites, because I was looking for some public domain stuff. And there’s this site that’s, like, mugshots from Australia in the turn of the century.”

“That’s kind of intense,” he admitted. “I wanted them to have the look of somebody who’d done something really bad. And I made sure that the mugshots were not murderers or people who committed serious crimes – like crimes beyond like petty thievery or some small time stuff. Because the small time stuff, you get a lot of that churn of like people in the system.”

With Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1 being five years old and two(ish) games ago, you may wonder if there will ever be a Vol 2. Maybe! But probably not.

In Cosmo D’s words, “I think that’s what Moves of the Diamond Hand is sort of emerging as. It’s like a spiritual sequel because it does a lot of the same things that [Tales from Off-Peak City Vol 1] did in terms of it’s setting being a city block. It’s dealing with like local issues. It’s revisiting The Factory, which was featured in that game. Some of the same characters are coming back. 

“I think, I’m not calling it volume two, more for the purposes of, like, my own sense that time has passed and like I’m in a different place. If I was gonna do a Volume Two, it would probably be like a commitment to what Volume One was, which is like more of a walking sim vibe.”

BEING BETRAYED IN CLUB LOW

I’ve always wondered if the player character was supposed to be the same person. It’s impossible to tell, since every game except Betrayal at Club Low is in the first-person. Club Low’s protagonist is probably recognizable to anyone who played Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1, but I won’t spoil it, because it’s more fun to actually make the connection. In any case, the other characters were up in the air, so I asked.

“I think it’s interpretive. I actually really like that. Moving into Moves of the Diamond Hand, I’m really realizing what it always was that I was trying to say with my earlier work. I don’t think the perspective has actually shifted that much, with the exception of Club Low. Club Low was like a deliberate shift to be this character who could be you as him. It was very much third-person in terms of gameplay and who you are and what the game is telling you. 

“But these games, the other games, I do think they were always either me or you, the player, or you as who you want to be in the game. It’s really up to you. And then I take that idea even further with Moves of the Diamond Hand. I’m like, who are you?” he told me.

Moves of the Diamond Hand starts off asking about your motivations and what your plans are, essentially allowing you to set up your own backstory. This approach has been taken in a number of other games – especially CRPGs. It’s a lot better than playing as an amnesiac, a character that is supposed to be you but has an extensive back story, or a character who seems to have spontaneously begun existing.

MOVING TO MOVES OF THE DIAMOND HAND

Moves of the Diamond Hand is an interesting return to the Betrayal At Club Low dice RPG system. The first part of it is available for free, and the rest is going to be released episodically through Early Access. He says that he’s aiming to have the Early Access release this fall.

It’s easily the most ambitious of Cosmo D’s games. Even the demo available now has a runtime similar to Betrayal at Club Low. He’s not entirely certain how long each chapter will be – the “cadence” as he puts it – but it sounds like the plan is laid out. He’s aiming to have a good balance of vibes, gameplay, and narrative, and Betrayal at Club Low suggests he’s capable.

He said, “I haven’t pushed myself as far narratively till this game. It’s a bigger, longer game. But if I can hit all of those parts, and they’re all working in harmony and in synchronicity, I’ll be very, very pleased.”

ANOTHER SLICE

One thing that is already apparent is that Moves of the Diamond Hand will continue the pizza centricity of Cosmo D’s games. Pizza dice make their return and a row of delicious looking flat cylinders are on display on the ground floor. Mmm.

I had to ask why pizza is so central to the series, and he gave one of the most detailed responses of the interview. To summarize the whole thing, pizza is universal.

“Pizza works on a number of levels. It grounds the game. You’re in this kind of surreal place, but everybody’s having pizza. Like, pizza’s a relatable food. It’s almost an international food. It’s a street food. It’s a relatable food that people can enjoy. Nine out of ten people, when they hear pizza’s coming, are gonna respond positively to it. It’s fun. It’s a little bit of silliness. It’s, like, kick back and have a pizza.”

However, he also used this as a way to make the game more legible. He explained, “With Club Low, pizza was the bridge that helped me kinda reinforce the rules of the game. As that game brought in dice mechanics, there was a lot of things I was asking the player to keep in their head that I’d never asked them to before. It was a way to say, ‘Oh, cheese does this and sauce does that.’ It served as a practical gameplay bridge. On top of all the sort of cultural symbolism going on.”

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Talking to Cosmo D was really insightful to me. The impression I got when I first played Off-Peak was “this guy’s an artist.” It felt like walking into the modern art portion of a museum. His games don’t really feel like they’re informed by other video games. Even if you look at games like The Norwood Suite as a walking sim, it doesn’t really walk the same walk. Betrayal at Club Low is absolutely an RPG, but it doesn’t translate the tabletop origins to a video game in the same way.

Yet, it’s not that his games are outsider art – he plays video games like the rest of us. Rather, he just has a really healthy relationship with his art. He enjoys the process of creating. You can see this in all the small, unnecessary flourishes he adds, like how packed bookshelves in Tales from Off-Peak City Vol. 1 have unique titles on every single book. He doesn’t even fancy himself a visual artist, with music being his main outlet.

The insight really frames his work quite well. Knowing that behind every scene and every character is carefree intent makes everything feel a lot warmer. More importantly, however, I’m going to be taking a much closer look at all the environmental details, knowing that there’s probably a story behind each of them.