So do you want to give a little bit more of an explanation into the book itself, like how it actually came about?

Well, I mean, I think one of the first, when I first started writing about indie video games, I think, for a very small site called Pop Geeks, like 15 years ago, one of the first things I did was interview the developer of Piper Light Drifter and Cuphead, and we did some interviews about those games.

And I've been hooked on indie games since then, basically just with, I think, something about Super Meat Boy and things like that on the Xbox Live Arcade.

so I've always been interested and Empton Hudson put out a call to pitch articles for potential books and it just seemed like a good fit and I knew Darren who works there a little bit because I've worked with people he knows and we just wanted we thought it would be an interesting subject for a book because there isn't a lot of There's some other books on indie games but not focusing on the visuals and the artwork as much as we'd like because I think the thing about indie games is they're probably the best proponent for

wow.

And then managed to get a contact detail.

that way um but that was probably the hardest bit was just literally finding contact it was once once i spoke to most people they were almost all like very happy to take part in like uh contribute to artwork and interviews and things like that um there was some like some delays obviously just obviously a lot of them are busy doing real work um but but they were like very accommodating i was actually like surprised and like i said considering a lot of the games on there are like games that like people would probably choose it like some of the best games that they've played in terms of indie games it was i was like quite humble to be able to speak to them

What led you to this particular story? What was your inspiration?

First of all, I was born, and that was a huge event.

No, but really, I was born in Colorado in the middle of nowhere on a farm in a tiny, tiny town called Elbert.

We didn't even have internet.

I had no access to the television or anything.

All I had was VHS tapes from the library.

My mom was a librarian.

You just really answered my next question, which was going to be, what was the creative process like? So expand on that, I guess, is really what I should say now, because that is a really fascinating behind-the-scenes look at what planted the seed in your head, the idea for the story.