Picking The Brains of Brain & Brain, The Indie Devs Behind ‘Burly Men at Sea’

A little over a year ago, the quiet adventurers over at Brain&Brain released an interactive choose-your-adventure type story, Burly Men at Sea. The game is their second release since the well-received mobile platform title, Doggins, and thus Burly Men at Sea was met with a wave of praise and appreciation of the simpler, minimal things that make up the core of the game.

Behind the scenes, this indie dev team is made up of a married duo: David and Brooke Condolora. Each half of Beain&Brain split their specialized roles; Brooke serves as the resident graphic designer/illustrator, animator and folklore aficionado, while David deals with the more technical aspects of their projects, like programming and sound design.

I had the distinct opportunity of chatting with the team and asked them a few questions I had rattling in my own brain.

Due to scheduling conflicts, the team was interviewed separately with the same questions. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

David and Brooke Condolora, the team that makes up both halves of Brain&Brain

GoombaStomp (GS): To start off, what exactly was it that got you two started on Burly Men at Sea specifically? And the specific theme of the game?

DC (David Condolora): So, it had been a name that we’d kicked around, since before we were making games. We just thought it was a funny name. It lent itself to lots of visual images. And Brooke, when we were working on Doggins, just shortly after…did a little sketch, in a coffee shop, one day, of three bearded fishermen, and that was sort of the start of what the game was all about. It started out as name, we had some visual ideas. Brooke started rediscovering her love for Scandinavian folklore.

That’s how she started developing the story of what these three brothers encounter when they out to sea. Yeah, so it started from a name and snowballed from there.

BC: (Brooke Condolora): The name came from a joke that we’ve since forgotten, years before we were making games. But it stuck with us, and we knew it was too good not to use. It really set up its own story, and the Scandinavian setting and folklore influence were just a natural fit for three bearded fishermen on an adventure.

BC: (Brooke Condolora): The name came from a joke that we’ve since forgotten, years before we were making games. But it stuck with us, and we knew it was too good not to use. It really set up its own story, and the Scandinavian setting and folklore influence were just a natural fit for three bearded fishermen on an adventure.

Brooke, David, and their Doggins.

GS: Were there any other adventure video games, like The Secret of Monkey Island, that went into Burly Men as inspiration? Was there anything specific that led you to the game’s nautical themes?

BC: Since we already had the name, its nautical setting was a given. But we did draw influence from other sources besides folklore, like a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

As for the game’s point-and-click nature, I think it’s definitely a style of gameplay we’re drawn to, though we didn’t set out with that in mind. With Doggins, our goal was to make a very traditional point-and-click adventure, but we wanted to let Burly Men at Sea take shape in its own way, with the mechanics growing out of the story and setting. It’s very non-traditional in that sense, often somewhere nearer to a visual novel.

DC: We play a lot of adventure games, in fact, we just beat Thimbleweed Park last week. I feel like Doggins was more directly influenced by adventure games. With Burly Men, we wanted to take a little bit of a different approach. There’s really no puzzles in the game at all. It’s really more of an interactive storytelling experience. We like to think of the player as the storyteller, as they’re playing this game, telling the story that they wanna tell in every voyage.

You know, the biggest inspirations I think for Burly Men were Kentucky Route Zero, just because of its minimalism and its focus on writing and character. Brooke drew a lot of inspiration visually from the works of Saul Bass, as well Scandinavian illustrations. And even the fishing villages themselves the game was based on they have these colorful building like you see in the game, because of the cod oil that they’re using to make the paint. She just drew a lot from those sources.

Burly Men at Sea

GS: As you just said, your games are more like interactive storybook experiences, however for a lot of people “video game”, as a label, invokes only the idea of beating a high score or a level, shooting enemies, jumping over barrels etc. Do you think that kind of labeling perhaps inhibits how people view experiences like the ones you guys craft?

DC: Um…maybe. Maybe to probably more so quote unquote traditional gamers more so the newer casual audience. Maybe a little bit. You know, games have become a catchall term. In my mind at least, a game is just an interactive piece of media in some way. You’re right in that what we create are more interactive stories strictly than traditional gaming experiences, with lots of stats and numbers and levels and things like that. We just really like storytelling especially, that’s what we’re all about, but also interested in how games as an interactive medium can push storytelling forward with interactivity. I think that’s a nut that no-one has cracked yet. You know, we try in our own small way with Burly Men at Sea to give the player agency but at the same time be telling them a story even as they’re helping shape that story, in probably a bigger way than some other games.

The idea of a choose your own adventure game is nothing new, of course. But a lot of games present choice in a way that…has an effect on the player and maybe the characters in a small way, but it doesn’t have a big effect on the story as it’s unfolding. One of the things we tried to do specifically with Burly Men at Sea made it so that the choices you make really affect the plot in a way more than the characters. Even though the outcome is the same every time you play it, it’s really about that middle chunk that you’re affecting every time.

BC: I think that sort of narrow definition can prevent people from letting an experience be enjoyable for what it is. It’s something we’ve definitely gotten criticism for, on certain storefronts. To be honest, though, it doesn’t really matter to me whether what we make is called a game. There’s a broad field right now, where devs are making all sorts of interactive experiences, and maybe “game” doesn’t fit anymore, or maybe it does. That doesn’t need to affect the player’s experience.

But I do think labels are useful for categorizing, for making a choice about what to purchase. Setting expectations is important, and if players feel cheated, they get upset. The trouble is that right now there isn’t a category where expectations won’t be upset.

GS: The term “quiet little adventure” seems to almost be Brain&Brian’s motto, having used it to describe both Burly Men and Doggins. It’s fitting but how did that notion come to manifest your works?

DC: In a way, we feel like that term “quiet adventure” describes our lives. Adventure is often seen as a very grand notion; backpacking the entire Pacific Crest Trail, or traveling the world, and things that seem out of reach for most people. But, we believe that everyone has adventure within reach in some fashion. Maybe not quite so grand, but sometimes those are the best kinds; the “quiet adventures” that are just you going out into nature nearby or trying something new or different.

That’s something we try to inject a little of into our lives all the time. And we hope that our games kind of have that same spirit. They’re not necessarily epic adventures. They’re smaller, a little more intimate, a little more whimsical, and we think that’s something we all need every day.

A physical version of a story from ‘Burly Men at Sea’

GS: Getting into books, one thing I find really interesting, is the physical aspect of each possible story within Burly Men at Sea. By using a code given after every ending, players can actually get a hardbound version of their specific story, illustrations and all. How did this idea form?

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Many thanks to David and Brooke for taking the time to talk to GS about their projects, lives, the gaming industry, and Oliver Doggins. Burly Men at Sea is due to set sail for the PS4/PS Vita on September 19th, and it might just inspire you to find an adventure that’s already within your reach.