Paul Reiche: Hi, this is Paul Reiche. This interview with Erol Otus is a part of a series for the 30th anniversary of Star Control: The Ur-Quan Masters, focusing on the many talented people who helped create the game, besides me and Fred. Erol Otus is an artist, game designer, writer and musician, who for the last 40 years has worked on some of the biggest, best games of all time, as well as some of the most unusual ones. Erol's first published art was in 1977's Arduin Grimoire, one of the first successful role playing supplements outside of Dungeons and Dragons. Most recently, Erol was a designer at Toys for Bob for over 15 years, helping to create Skylanders, one of the most successful game franchises of all time. How are you doing, Erol? Erol Otus: I'm doing very well, thank you Paul. Paul Reiche: Good. So full disclosure here, I had the insane good fortune to meet Erol at high school, in 1976, when I was 15. And without his talent and friendship, I would never have become a game designer at all. Erol Otus: I'm glad you remembered that. I actually don't remember the exact date, I've been puzzling over that. That's good. Paul Reiche: I think so. Erol Otus: I think that's about right. Paul Reiche: We were just learning to drive, that was a very key time in our lives. I'm going to start off with a pretty broad question, which is, who are you, and what games and other things have you worked on? Erol Otus: I'm Erol Otus, best known for, starting with Dungeons and Dragons, both advanced versions, basic and expert. And then I had a chance to work on Aragon, as a play tester. The last Ninja Star Flight Two, which was a great game, did some artwork for that. Star Control One as a play tester. And then quite a few things for Star Control Two, that was a great experience. Also, a couple of Star Trek games, A Final Unity and Generations. A couple of Mac Warrior games, Mac Commander, and Mac Warrior Three. And then several small conversions of board games for games.com. Scrabble, Monopoly, Battleship, and others. Then Disney Skate at TFB, Madagascar, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, Madagascar Two. Also several paper RPGs, doing artwork for those, Dungeon Crawl classics, role playing game. Swords and Wizardry. Oh, and also quite a while ago, Alma Mater and Hack Master. And then most recently, the Skylanders series, video Games, Skylanders, Skylander Giants, Trap Team. And lastly, perhaps bestly, Imaginators. Paul Reiche: Great. So let's go back to Star Control Two. Actually, first, let's go back to Star Control One, because I believe you did do some art on that, if I recall. I was looking through some of the big still pictures that were done for each spaceship, and the UNGA stood out to me as looking like something that you may have illustrated. Erol Otus: Oh, oh, you're right. That was on the computer, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. What were those used for? I actually don't remember. Paul Reiche: I can't remember what edit in what it actually is, but there were these, you could go look at ships. And it would give you a nice big picture of the spaceship and then read outs of its weapons and a little bit of kind of flare and flavor text. Erol Otus: Okay. Paul Reiche: Because we didn't have that much story, and we didn't have the places to sort of show the background of the aliens, and that was one of the places. Erol Otus: Yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing that in my mind's eye. And I'd love, if you can link me to that or point me to that image at some point, that would be really cool. Paul Reiche: You betcha. I just so happen to have been looking at everything Star Control Two related and Star Control One. So tell me a little bit about what you remember doing for Star Control Two. Now, I think you're primarily known as an artist, but you contributed to the game in more ways, in more categories than anybody else. When you think back to the work you did, what stands out? Erol Otus: Well, the main thing were the Alien View Screen pictures. And those were really a lot of fun to do, and were done both with acrylic painting and then digitally. And then they were scanned in and animations added by Paul and team. So that was the main thing that I did. And some pretty cool images came out of that. But there was also a little music. I did what ended up being the URQUAN theme, and that was also a lot of fun to do. It was composed on an emulator two, was a sampler big back in the day. And it had an eight track sequencer on it, and that's how that theme was created. And then there was some writing for some different dialogue that the aliens would speak. And then some recording for the audio of Trimmer, which was sort of a robotic voice, kind of an homage to something from Star Trek. I can't remember exactly which one it was, but... Paul Reiche: Guardian of Forever, or? Erol Otus: I don't know. Yeah, it was at the two... There were so many cool robotic choices in Star Trek. Paul Reiche: There was Lights of Zaytar. They kind of sounded like Smooth Greek gods, if I recall. And there was Guardian of Forever who definitely sounded like a big... Erol Otus: What did Nomad sound like? I don't remember that. Paul Reiche: I am Nomad. Erol Otus: It made a little Nomad, but there's somebody else- Paul Reiche: You are Kirk. Erol Otus: Who's even more, yeah... Paul Reiche: Oh, let's see. There was Blalock. He had a nice big voice. There was, let's see... Erol Otus: There's some research, I'll do some research. Paul Reiche: Yeah, we got to do some research into that. Man, there was a lot of good voices in there. I don't know about you, but Star Trek is always running in my head. People are always asking me, what do you think of this new show? What do you think of this new show? And then compare it. Erol Otus: Compare it. Yeah. Paul Reiche: And I just say, I can't. That's a big part of what I'm running in my head is still Star Trek. And whenever I hear the boards creak or something like that, I just... Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said that. If you watch the old shows, you can hear the boards creak as they walk around. And once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Erol Otus: Oh. Now I'll listen for it. Paul Reiche: Forget that. Maybe we should wipe your memory of that one. But anyway, you should also just, I have been watching, of course, all things Star Trek. And the new series is really not easy to watch. Erol Otus: There's two, right? Paul Reiche: Well, yes. This is strangely symmetrical. There is a television show called Star Trek. It has some of the things that people do in Star Trek. And then it has in my mind, some really dumb stuff. Erol Otus: Oh, I've have to- Paul Reiche: The main conceit is a fungus drive. The thing that makes their ship go, their advanced super tech, is fungus. Now, I know you're a fungus fan. Erol Otus: Yes, that is true. But I can see how it's a stretch to have it power. It doesn't seem like a very energetic matter. Paul Reiche: And also, I can imagine little circular spores like drying up and floating through space, but I don't think of some network of... Anyway. Anyway, I may be deep overthinking this. But then there is the Orville. Erol Otus: A comedy. It's a sort of a comedy one? Paul Reiche: Yeah. But somehow, it actually is more Star Trek, at least at the way that my brain sees it. Erol Otus: Yeah, I haven't watched the show yet, but I've watched some KTVU, our local station that carries it. And the previews are shown there a lot. And it looks like Star Trek to me. I don't know. Paul Reiche: Ship Design's pretty good. Yeah. Channel 44, is that KBHK or KTVU? KTVU is Channel 2. Erol Otus: Channel 2. That's the Orville. Paul Reiche: Yeah, starting Frank Somerville. But is it KBHK is Channel 44? Those two channels were really instrumental in one's childhood in the Bay Area. Erol Otus: And don't forget Channel 20. Ultraman was on Channel 20. Paul Reiche: Oh, right. Erol Otus: Yeah. UHF. First time I realized there was other channels as a child, it was amazing. And Ultraman was there. Paul Reiche: It took work, too. I remember to get it. You didn't go click, click, click, you had to- Erol Otus: No, no, no. You had to... Yeah, it was a radio tuner. Paul Reiche: I wonder if people know what we're talking about. You actually had to learn to use TVs in the old days, and it was pretty fun. Okay, so we're talking about Star Control and your contributions. Yeah. You did a whole lot of traditional media paintings, which were then scanned and animated after the fact. And I was looking through the credits and getting into touch with all of the people who did that work. One guy I haven't yet reached out to is Kyle Balda, who did a whole lot of the animation on top of those communication screens. And I would get the paintings from you and I would scan them in, and then I would leave them set up in Deluxe Paint for Kyle. And Kyle I think was working at LucasArts at the time, but he was a student at Cal Arts. And he would come up at night to the office and just sort of out of sight from us would do all of this animation. And we'd just show up in the morning and it was done. So he was sort of our animation brownie. And then I didn't see Kyle for a while. I knew he went off into traditional films, but then I recently kind of stumbled into him. He directed Minions most recently, one of the most successful movies of all time about those little yellow guys. Erol Otus: You're kidding me. Paul Reiche: Nope. Nope. He seems to be doing much better these days. But I do intend on getting in touch with him. Erol Otus: That's really cool. Paul Reiche: Finding out what happened in the middle of the night when we weren't there when he was animating. But yeah, his stuff was great. And there was a lot of funny partnerships in Star Control. There was a lot of, some people were paid, some people were volunteers. I think a lot of the writing you did initially was volunteered. Erol Otus: Oh yeah. Paul Reiche: I hope you got paid for the paintings. I think you did. Erol Otus: Yes I did. Paul Reiche: Okay, good. Erol Otus: Paid me for the paintings. Paul Reiche: Humorously, I may have to get you to sign releases for those, but that's a longer story. And so in addition to the music that you did, and one of the things that's interesting, I think, about the music is we were moving from synthesized audio. If you go all the way back to the Utari 800 or the Commodore 64, you had these really early sound chips that had a noise channel and a couple of different wave forms that you could select from. And then when the Amiga showed up, it introduced us all to digital, not just digital recording, but using digital samples to synthesize music. But you were using a professional audio kit to do that. Were there any bands at that time in the late eighties, early nineties that were using that same tech? Erol Otus: The Emulator two? Oh yeah. Yeah, that was a big sampler at the time. Excuse me, I have to cough. Let's see. Paul Reiche: Take this opportunity to sip. Erol Otus: Oh yes. Let's see. Who was using the E two? Steve Nieve of Elvis Costello, Depeche Mode, Heaven 17. I mean, there was a lot. It was very popular. When it came out, it was the number one sampler. Paul Reiche: I remember going to see The Residents, I think. Erol Otus: Oh, The Residents. Of course. Paul Reiche: Was that it? okay. Because- Erol Otus: They had the first ambulator, I think. And they probably had the second one. Paul Reiche: I just remember that they had sort of this lock step inserting of the floppy discs during their performance to get the next set of samples onto their machine. Erol Otus: Great. Yes, a big floppy disc. Paul Reiche: So when the Amiga came out, it introduced holding digital audio and playing it back samples, and then manipulating the way those samples were played to create what sounded like a continuous piece of music. And that was the first time that Fred and I ran into that. It's called the mod file format. I believe it comes from Finland or from the European demo scene. But we first saw it, I believe, in a demo of Dune, one of the original Dune games. There was a great mod that sounded like the Desert Sands. And then Blood Money came out, and a number of other games from European English and Finnish and German teams using this mod format. And so we saw it as a great opportunity to make music that sounded different, but no one here knew how to make them, as far as we could tell. But your format was sufficiently close that we were able to transcribe it. Erol Otus: I have no idea how you did that. Paul Reiche: Some of it was by ear and some of it was the magic of Fred Ford's programming. But that allowed us to see that there was a path to get composition done in the US into the game. However, we ran out of people. There was you. And then we just stumbled to find anyone else that we knew who had that same setup. And so we ended up finding out that most of the people who used the mod format were over in Europe. And we ended up having a music competition, which was a desperate attempt by us to get a whole lot of music from someone who is talented at a reasonable price. And maybe we'll do a whole separate recording podcast on that. But for me, the Ur-Quan theme always stood out as sort this acme or exemplar of what we were looking for, which was power, not overly soft and electronic. And if you think about the color of pulp science fiction, some connection into audio that I felt like it was just a very bold, exciting piece. When you were making it, what were you thinking about? Erol Otus: Grimness and grandeur. That's it. I was thinking about it's war, but it's also majesty. And also, I don't know. Not necessarily mystery, but space. Paul Reiche: That's good. Well, space is a good place. Full of grimness and majesty. I hope we can get there someday. The Ur-Quan in the first game... I think actually the first theme you did was for the Amiga version of Star Control One. I don't know if you recall that. But there was a hierarchy victory theme, and then there was an alliance victory theme. Do you recall those? Erol Otus: I'm afraid not. Paul Reiche: Yeah, I actually haven't been able to track them down either. So we'll probably edit this part out. But what I do recall is, at the end of it, the very first version of the theme I got was your voice going Star Control. Erol Otus: Star Control. Yeah. I think that's the same piece. The original sort of intent I had, and I'm glad it still worked out and was used, was for it to be the theme of the game in my egotistical mind. So yeah, I had that thing at the end. And again, I think it was wise to take that out, because really it was a little too close to it's full of stars. That's where I got it from, from the Space Odyssey sequel. Paul Reiche: I thought it was pretty cool. We were just a little worried that the name wasn't going to end up being Star Control. But maybe we can resurrect that somehow for people to check out. So what else? Let's talk a little bit about the Orz. Greg Johnson wrote the bulk of the Oars dialogue, but I remember handing him a document that you gave me, some cryptic tips and thoughts about the Oars, but there were no explanations. There was just words like "happy campers." Erol Otus: Yeah. So I can't remember why. It seemed to me that you probably described it, the Oars would be so cryptic and a little difficult to understand. But at the time, we had a vice president named Dan Quail who exhibited to me a lot of these sort of same qualities and fragments of speech and thought that were difficult to understand. And "happy campers," I think was one of them. He referred to, I don't remember who, but some people who were having a hard time as being okay because they were happy campers. And it just seemed so wrong. Paul Reiche: Although, it strangely seems to fit into modern political thinking quite well. Erol Otus: Oh yeah. Now, I mean, I don't want to get too deeply into politics, but Dan Quail was just simply a foreshadowing of much more amazing things. But yeah, he helped me think about the Orz in, I think, a successful way, at least a genesis of how they might communicate. Paul Reiche: Great. All right, so let's see. Original remake. As you said earlier, you did do the voice work, voice acting for the Chmmr on the 3DO version. Was that the first time you had done voice acting? Erol Otus: For a final product, that is true, I think, yeah. Paul Reiche: Do you find voice acting comes naturally to you? Erol Otus: I guess, yeah. I mean, sometimes you don't need... Yeah, I think so. Not a lot of thought goes into it before the voice comes out. It sort of shows up. Paul Reiche: Do you think being a DM for so many years helped that? Erol Otus: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It is performance on a scale that I'm comfortable with, right? With just a few people who aren't recording you. And it's a great tool to jump back and forth from the impartial presence or overseer of the real DM, and then as characters interacting directly with the players. It's a lot of fun and it adds interesting moments. I have to be careful though, in playing with people who know me very, very well, like yourself. Sometimes when I jump into the character who's talking directly with the players, certain people get more information than I intended. So it's a vulnerable thing, but that's okay. That's part of the game. But yeah, the different voices for the characters is, or doing that while DMing has definitely helped me hone some talent in that area. Paul Reiche: Yeah. And you worked at Toys for Bob. You actually recorded more lines, I think, than any single other actor. Can you tell us a little bit about what voice you did in Star Control? Erol Otus: In... Paul Reiche: Sorry. Yeah, let me start that one over. Most people may not know that you not only did voice acting work in Skylanders, all of the games, but you probably have more lines than anybody else. Can you tell me who you played in Skylanders? Erol Otus: There were quite a few different characters, but the main one was a guy known as the announcer who came into being, I believe, during the creation of the PVP player versus player mode for Skylanders. Skylanders is lighthearted and whimsical in many ways, and the announcer is a very serious guy. And that provided a nice kind of humorous contrast to a lot of the things a serious guy would say about things in Skylanders. Paul Reiche: Do you have a favorite line that he might have said? Erol Otus: Yes. Well, he said many, many things. I guess both in PVP and a regular game a skylander would eat a power up, a food power up, he would say "Delicious." And that one lives on. A lot of times we would say that in the office. But a lot of the power ups were fun to say, like "Chinese food" and things like that. The announcer was... I think I did... Early on in Skylanders, there was a really neat idea that some of our characters would not speak, they would actually make monster sounds. And I kind of wish we would've kept some of that. Obviously, the speaking is a lot more engaging, but if some of them had remained monsters, I think it would've been better. The Eruptor had a sort of a voice that I missed, but no. Paul Reiche: Yeah, I think the first Skylanders, now, I'll have to double check this. I think there weren't voices for every single characters in Skylanders one, but by Giants, I think they all had personalities. Erol Otus: Did we have? Oh, okay. Paul Reiche: I'll have to go back and check the Eruptor. There was definitely some good voice acting on those, sound effect like voices. Erol Otus: We definitely started that way. I thought we eventually... Well, we'll see. Paul Reiche: Yeah, I remember having a conversation, actually with Eric Hershberg about that, and he was dead set that every character should speak and have a tagline. And ultimately, I believe he was right in that kids would associate with those lines and repeat them. And in that, some of our monsters that didn't speak, for me, ended up having that personality. But I do, well maybe playing D&D with you. There were an awful lot of monsters we face who mostly made sound effects, and I enjoyed them a lot. Yeah, this is off the record, but when we play D&D, every now and then, I realize I probably shouldn't be blurting out exactly what's in my head. But it's really fun to apply 56 year old pattern matching. At 16 or 17, I had no idea what was going on. But anyway, so it is a lot of fun, but I should probably not try to just read your mind. Erol Otus: Well, it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Paul Reiche: Okay. Let's see. So let's talk a little bit about your history. Early on, my first experience with you was as a D&D player and as a great DM, but- Paul Reiche: Experience with you was as a D&D player and as a great DM, but what stood out from everybody else we knew was that you were an amazing artist, even at 15 and 16. How did you end up being a great artist? Erol Otus: Oh wow. Well, thank you. I don't think I am great artist, was a great artist, but at that time I was having a lot of fun drawing for the purpose of enhancing a game. It was just natural and fun to draw magic items and monsters and the maps. And yeah, I had been drawing my whole life up to that point. Paul Reiche: Are there other artists in your family? Erol Otus: Oh yes, my mom. My mom's a great artist, an unrecognized great artist. Yeah, both paint... Multiple disciplines. But yeah, lots and lots of paintings. There's a painting by her right there. Paul Reiche: Wow. Erol Otus: Yeah, it's pretty cool. And yeah, she encouraged me and helped me a lot with materials and took me on some excursions. She used to go to a watercolor seminar down in Monterey and I went to that and tried to do watercolors. Very bad. It's tricky, watercolors. Paul Reiche: Well actually I've seen some of your early watercolors- Erol Otus: Oh yeah. My watercolors, the good, were sort of just like... I don't want to diminish it. But came out good because what I was doing was coloring a pen and ink drawing most of the time. And to control a watercolor separate of pen and ink on watercolor paper and create some of the desired effects you've got one shot basically, and then the next piece of paper comes out if it didn't come out right. Yeah, you can't fix it. Paul Reiche: And what was the first job that you got paid for in as being an artist? Erol Otus: Yeah, I think Dave Hargrave paid me, I'm pretty sure. And so that would be illustrating his Arduin Grimoire, which was a pretty imaginative and cool book. Paul Reiche: Yeah. So for those of you who may not know, David Hargrave wrote the Arduin Grimoire series, which really was one of the first creative equals with D&D in many ways. I wasn't nearly as successful economically, but it was inspiring to us. Well, not only did you illustrate it personally for me in a style and a form that people have never matched. There's something about your illustrations that stands out from all the other artists in D&D. And even back then, I can go look at some of the illustrations that are online and still see that they're definitely you. And whether it's the style of your pen and ink, or whether it's just what your characters are up to or their relationship with monsters. Monsters are on an equal, if not superior, footing. Erol Otus: Yeah. Yeah. I think you got to take their side in D&D. I mean, I think it might have been Lawrence Schick who said it in some interview or other about how D&D was a game that gave players not an excuse, but the right to kill other creatures and take their stuff. And that's pretty rough and I think it's kind of glossed over a lot of the times because the players are "heroes", but what they're doing... And I don't want them to stop doing it, but I think people need to recognize that there's another side to the story and monsters are cool and there's something brutal about it that's missing a lot of times in illustrations where you see the confrontation is sort of like before what's really going down is going to happen. The monster's going "Ahh" and the hero has a sword. Hmm. But what's about to happen is pretty brutal, and I like to include some of that in my illustrations just to keep it honest. Paul Reiche: I'd love to, I don't know if it's possible, but show some images next to the podcast like accompanying photos. Erol Otus: Oh yeah. Paul Reiche: So maybe we can- Erol Otus: Pick out a few. Yeah. Paul Reiche: Go back and forth and pick out a few. Because monsters are definitely giving as good as they're getting in many of them. Erol Otus: Yeah. Yeah. I think that is not usually the final outcome of D&D games, although it can be, especially at conventions where people don't care about their characters and behave more stupidly and often are wiped out. But yeah, that outcome needs to be considered. Paul Reiche: That idea of monsters and treasure, which is so common nowadays, but it was unspoken for a long time. I think those of us who played role playing games, when you said monsters and treasure that's like what you do in life in that analogy. But one of the first times I realized what you said, and I've actually never heard anyone say it quite that way, was my daughter Ariana. I got Baldur's Gate for Christmas and we played it for two weeks straight, it was one of the few times that we've ever just vanished from the family. And she was I think 11 or 12 and really got into it, played it all the way through, had a great time. And we were driving down the road a little bit after, and when you play a game like that for eight or ten hours straight and then you go out into the real world, you're still sort of in that game world and you're seeing the real world through a lens. We're driving down the road and there were some guys, probably people who got arrested for driving drunk, working in those yellow outfits by the side of the road picking up trash. And my daughter said, "I wonder if we could hit them and take their treasure". Erol Otus: Wow. Paul Reiche: And I think she was joking. Erol Otus: Joking, yeah. But the joke was fueled by- Paul Reiche: Right. Everybody is just can you take their treasure? I don't know. Maybe they'll be an alien race in the next Ur-Quan Masters game. That'd be a nice turnaround, actually. Lawrence Schick is a pretty amazing character. I wasn't thinking we'd initially talk about him. Well let's start out, who was Lawrence Schick? Erol Otus: He was an editor and designer at TSR. I think he was already there, but very recently there, when I started in '79. But yeah. And he was actually my roommate as well for a while. He and his wife offered to share their really a pretty cool rental. And Paul, you were there too as well. Paul Reiche: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Erol Otus: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Yeah. So we were roommates for a while. And yeah, coworkers at TSR. Paul Reiche: Yeah, Lawrence was an inspiration to me as well. He was my boss for a while, although Erol did design while he was there and did DM games and compete as a DM. Mostly what you're known for at TSR was art. Erol Otus: Oh, yeah. Paul Reiche: And Lawrence was a head of design when I got there, and so I worked for him. And he had a lot of inspiration for me. One of them was, I believe I'm quoting him, "Stop using so many goddamn commas". Which I hear that voice in my head to this day, but I still use too many commas. But Lawrence- Erol Otus: I'm still trying to figure out the semicolon. I've never- Paul Reiche: There's however. I know what to do with however. Erol Otus: You could take out a comma and use a semicolon sometime. Paul Reiche: Start using two dashes. You can use two dashes for anything, I swear to God. Sorry English teachers throughout history who have tried to teach me grammar, and sorry Lyle Brennan who I believe got several degrees in grammar and I should probably learn from him. That's my daughter's fiancé. Erol Otus: Huh. Paul Reiche: But anyways, so Lawrence Schick was not only the head of design at TSR, he designed White Plume Mountain, a great early D&D module. He designed A4, which was that great module where they take away all your stuff and you have to run around hitting people with beaver skulls or something like that. I loved that module. He was one of the two designers on Star Frontiers. And he's had a career, like Erol and I, he moved into video games. Worked at Coleco on ColecoVision, and a number of PC games. And he's still, insert whatever Lawrence is [inaudible 00:31:37]. Erol Otus: Isn't he the head of American Online game something? Paul Reiche: For a while there. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: I think he is now the official head of lore for the Elder Scrolls. Erol Otus: Hmm. Paul Reiche: But interestingly, he also I believe has the most recent translation of the third Three Musketeers book that was released last year or a couple of years back, which I only know one or two people who've read that book. Anyway, so moving on. Let's see. So in 1980, after graduating high school, did you go to college for one year? Two years. Erol Otus: Well, okay. Graduated high school in '78 and went to Cal for one year before moving to Lake Geneva in '79. Paul Reiche: So you moved from Berkeley, California, which is very temperate climate to Wisconsin. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: Which is not, what was that transition like? Erol Otus: Oh, well I think you can imagine the weather was a big shock to me. I'd never been anywhere like that before. I mean it's going to sound wimpy, but yeah I was particularly struck by the idea that, in the winter anyway, if you stayed out overnight you would be dead. That was a new thing. And then in the summer it was humid and the mosquitoes would just devour me. I mean it's well known, right? Things like fleas bite everyone, you just have a reaction or not. But mosquitoes have preferences. And Paul, you may remember this, but I discovered that when we are together, they prefer me and not you. Why were we setting up a tent outside to practice camping for which we never did. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: But we were setting up a tent outside at dusk and I had to run inside. I was being devoured, and Paul was like, "What? What's happening?". So anyway, that was a lesson. But yeah, weather wise it was not for me. There were two months a year that were nice, I forget which they were, in between times. Paul Reiche: That's usually when people try to hire people in that part of the country. Erol Otus: Oh yeah. That's actually when I went out to interview at TSR, I believe it was maybe September-ish, something like that. Paul Reiche: I remember at least two other stories about you almost dying out there. One was a winter story? Can you tell us that one? Erol Otus: So yeah, the legitimate one was the winter story. Mike Carr and other well meaning people took me out, at night, snowmobiling for the first time I'd ever been on a snowmobile. Let me drive one. I was amazed, but fine. So I was driving around on this dark, dark lake following Mike Carr and who else was there? Tim Cahoon, maybe? I can't remember exactly. But I was following them and I guess they had cracked the ice and safely negotiated and I just went boosh right into the water. At the time I was very scared. I leapt. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: It was slushy though. It was slushy, so slow sinking. Leapt out onto the ice. And I guess it wasn't very deep as it turned out, but deeper than a person. But anyway, so yeah, that was bad. Frozen legs. But apparently people had been watching, some people living on the edge of the lake saw the lights of the snowmobile disappear so they had already called people. And so I probably would've been rescued even if I went all the way in. But yeah, don't do that. Paul Reiche: Okay. Yeah, good lesson. I think they probably were looking out there going, "Why are people snowmobiling on a not frozen lake at night?". Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: Well, yeah. You should ask Mike Carr. What was he thinking? Erol Otus: Well, I think they meant well. They wanted to show the new guy the ropes and the funs of Lake Geneva. I think they- Paul Reiche: They also locked you in the attic ones, right? Erol Otus: Well I don't remember exactly why I was walking around up there, but yeah that wasn't nearly as deadly. That was just silly falling through the ceiling. I would not have died there, even if- Paul Reiche: Just injury. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: Injury. Let's see. So when you think about the time you spent at TSR, and you were there for two and a half, three years? Erol Otus: I think closer to two years, spanning '79, '80 and '81. Paul Reiche: What do you think is your favorite illustration, or collection of illustrations, you did there? Erol Otus: Whenever somebody asks me that I always think about the Cthulhu Mythos. Sorry. Whenever someone asks me that, I always think about the Cthulhu Mythos in the first edition of Deities & Demigods. A couple of those pictures are my favorites. Paul Reiche: Which ones? Erol Otus: Yog-Sothoth. He's got all his little spawns coming out of him and it's a really nice complete illustration. And then Cthulhu himself. I mean, I really like that Cthulhu. It's interesting to me, when I was creating it I wasn't really thinking about him being gigantic, but being sort of in his dreaming city sort of as more of an amorphous entity. And I like his intelligence in my drawing as opposed to the more bestial depictions of him. I don't know why, but I always thought of him as more intelligent? I'm not sure why. Paul Reiche: Sure. Yeah. Well, I think to be all powerful super gods of evil inhuman primordialness, you got to have some IQ I think. Erol Otus: Yeah. I mean not to say the giant monsters don't, but they don't seem like they do as much when they're flailing around gigantically. Paul Reiche: Yeah. I mean you've got Shoggoths, they seem like they can obey orders but they aren't necessarily like college grads or anything. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: Okay, cool. And I remember when I showed up just about the time that Deities & Demigods was coming out, but we had to do two editions. There was the first edition with the Cthulhu Mythos and the Elric art, and then there was the second edition that did not. Erol Otus: Yeah, they had to take him out. I guess they for some reason were publishing other people's intellectual property without asking them or getting the rights to. We were quite surprised that our executives were making these moves. Paul Reiche: Well, the executives hadn't been necessarily high powered executives for long. I remember at one point my boss's boss's boss previous job had been an exterminator and had become a big mucky muck at TSR. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: So there was a lot of local Lake Geneva residents getting pretty good jobs. Erol Otus: Hmm. Paul Reiche: So while you were at TSR, and after, you've been in the role playing gaming world. You met both Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the two people credited with inventing Dungeons & Dragons and role playing games. What were they like? Erol Otus: Well, at TSR we did see Gary on occasion. We didn't really work very closely with him at TSR. We did see Gary Gygax on occasion, and I always got a good vibe from him. The vibe of a creator. We knew he was sort of in charge along with some of the other executives we saw, but he didn't have that corporate creature vibe to me. And it was always nice to see him and talk to him, especially cool was he was one of the player judges in the Dungeon Master contest. I think it was for Gen Con 8 if the web treats me right. And that was really fun. He was like a warm friendly guy player, even though he was judging me. I had other player judges in that same game, for example Brian Blume, who I got a very different vibe from. And actually I did pretty well in that contest, but it was Brian Blume throwing pepper at a monster, black pepper, and then me getting some AD&D rule that would handle that wrong that I think sunk me. But it was a lot of fun. Now Dave Arneson I didn't meet at TSR at all, I don't think he was part of it at that time. But I did see him many years later at SoCal Gen Con 2005? I'm not quite sure. And he also had a really cool vibe. He was pretty old at that time, but sort of a gentle creative guy. But I didn't know him that well. Paul Reiche: I wonder if they had any idea how much what they were doing was going to change culture. I certainly didn't. Erol Otus: Oh no, not at that time. Not in 1980, '79. I mean it was getting big, but I don't think anybody realized how long lasting it would be. Paul Reiche: Yeah. There was one day he did come visit TSR, I remember it was the day- Erol Otus: Oh, Arneson? Paul Reiche: Yeah, we tried to stage a coup. Erol Otus: I missed it think. Paul Reiche: I don't know if you remember this. It did not work, spoiler. But we wanted to have a different boss at the top. I think we had a problem maybe with the Blumes. And we had decided that Mike Carr was the person we wanted to have be our boss. Erol Otus: This sounds vaguely familiar. Paul Reiche: And again, I was maybe 19, tops. And so all of us had been given very small amounts of TSR stock that had voting rights, and by small amounts I mean like five to ten shares. And so the day came to vote someone onto the board, and it was a shoo-in for one of the Blume brothers as I recall, because they had so much stock. But Arneson showed up and he and his lawyer sat in the corner of the Dungeon Hobby Shop basement. Erol Otus: I remember being there, but I guess I just wasn't aware that Arneson was there or something. It was also a long time ago. Paul Reiche: Well when the time came, we all voted our shares for Mike Carr, who had no clue this was coming. Now in retrospect we put him in a horrible place. Erol Otus: Hmm. Paul Reiche: But Arneson didn't want to vote for Blume, and so he ended up voting for Mike Carr as well, just because he didn't know what else to do and it seemed like a neutral move. And I remember when that happened, Arneson had a lot of shares, Mike Carr's face he was really not happy with how things were going. And ultimately Brian Blume just casually said, "So I've got a lot more shares, so I win". And you said, "Can we count the number of people who voted for Mike versus you?". And Brian Blume got very upset and said, "That doesn't matter". But he lost that vote, just in case you're wondering. Erol Otus: Oh, I wish I'd remembered that. Damn it. Paul Reiche: This is important and something I think we agree on, but I want to make it clear. bugbears, their head, is it a pumpkin head or a bug head? Erol Otus: Okay. Yeah. There's room for both in my opinion. I'd like to see more bugheaded bugbears, but the pumpkin one is totally solid. But let's not forget the bugbears from Trampier's work. Those to me are like the mainstream bugbears. And I actually had a chance to honor those or make a homage to those for HackMaster cover where the bugbears are winning, they are absolutely winning. It's carnage. The adventures have been undone by bugbears and it's his. It might have been Sutherland and Trampier's, they both drew early bugbears with those faces. They're kind of like a combination of a Greek mythological painting where the tongue is sticking out and a gorilla or something. I don't know. But there are three, I guess that's the lessons here. Paul Reiche: Okay. Excellent. So you were involved in role playing games early on, but a big part of gaming of course was early video games, games in arcades. Did you go to any particular arcade? Erol Otus: Yes. We had a great arcade in Berkeley called Silver Ball Gardens. And I think they had it seemed like a prototype of Space Wars? Like the first one. I'm not sure exactly, but it had less regalia than later versions I saw, less official looking paint and stuff. And that was a fantastic game. Yeah, and I think before TSR Space Invaders also came out and was in the student commons of UC Berkeley. And that was amazing. I mean rows of people deep before you could even get to the machine, people just watching. And yeah, so there was Space Invaders there on the Berkeley campus. And then at TSR, I think that's when there was a bar next door right next to the office that had Asteroids, definitely had Asteroids. And across the street there was this old weird arcade that had a lot of weird old stuff, but that's when Defender came out and we had some fun playing Defender with it. I have to hand it to Asteroids over Defender though, you could work asteroids for a long time. Defender would take your money. Paul Reiche: Asteroids, of course, being based on that Space Wars core is really near and dear to the Star Control heart. I've never actually played the original Space Wars. Erol Otus: We didn't play it a Silver Ball? Oh, there was an earlier one. Paul Reiche: I think you're right. The guy who made the standup arcade version of Space Wars was a Berkeley resident and he made prototypes that he tested there at Silver Ball. And I remember that crazy big keypad that was sort of glued to the side to control the user interface for Space Wars. That looked really home brew there. And he later also brought in... Paul Reiche: That looked really home brew there. And he later also brought in his, "Oops" the contraceptive game. Erol Otus: Yes, yes. Paul Reiche: One player was the syringe of contraceptive and the other player was the wave of sperm. That was- Erol Otus: Promising but not as fun. Paul Reiche: Nope. Didn't get outside of Silver Ball. And then he did a four unit Maze Wars. I don't know, it was only there for a few weeks. And I remember talking with him there and he was very disappointed how hard it was to get four people on four different machines all playing together. But it was pretty cool. Erol Otus: Mm-hmm. Paul Reiche: Yeah. But Asteroids, whenever I'm sort of trying to learn a new development environment I try to re-implement Asteroids. And so I've recently found the source code for it and I've been trying to relearn 6502 Assembly language so that I can understand what the hell they were doing in there. But it's been too long and my brain is too old to really decipher it effectively. Erol Otus: Oh, I also want to mention one of the greatest video games of all time was the two player version of Rip Off. And we were lucky enough to buy one of those. Was it from like a mafia auction? I don't know what it was. But yeah, so we had a copy of that, an actual copy of the arcade game that served for many years. But that I recommend if you can try the two player version of Rip Off. Not the one player, the two player. It's really fun. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: Cooperative game. Paul Reiche: It was that Cinematronics vector technology. Erol Otus: Oh yes. It was vector. Yeah. Paul Reiche: Right. And then you had- Erol Otus: You were protecting a little pile in the center and you had your two ships, and yeah it was good. You even had a couple of excellent weird expletive bugs that would show up every now and then and you treasured those. It was a good game. Paul Reiche: When the little thing got stuck in the corner? Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: That little thing they stole. Yeah, that was actually a really great game and one of the first instances of sort of a hoard mode-like mechanic where players are defending against creatures coming in. Erol Otus: Yes, yes. Paul Reiche: Yeah, that was great there. I'm trying to remember, there were several mechanical games that we played as well back then, and there were pinball games. What was your favorite pinball games? Erol Otus: Pinball? Okay. I did enjoy one pinball game that was at a tennis sort of a resort in Lake Tahoe that my parents used to go to. And of course I would go with them because I was like nine years old or something like that. And there was a pinball game there called El Dorado and it kicked ass. That's the only one that stands out, they all just blend together. Unlike video games, which for some reason don't blend together like that. I guess because there were far fewer and they were all much more different from each other than pinball games. Pinball enthusiasts will now kill me, but it's more about details rather than broad strokes with the difference between pinball games I think. Paul Reiche: Central core mechanic. Erol Otus: Remains the same. Paul Reiche: Hit the silver ball. Erol Otus: Don't let it go. Keep it going. Paul Reiche: Great. There's a museum in Rochester, New York called The Strong Museum of Play that has been putting together a collection of video games and quite a few servo mechanical games like old pinball machines. And if any of you are ever out in Rochester, I highly recommend that you go visit that museum. And if you can possibly get into their cold storage and look at some of the really old games it's a great experience. Let's see what else? Okay, bugbears. Oh, I've got a question. So you were a very good video game player. Excellent reflexes, you had the highest score of people we knew. Did you ever compete? Erol Otus: No. No. I think the only game competition was that DMing competition at TSR. Paul Reiche: Have you competed in- Erol Otus: And that's a video game of course. Paul Reiche: Competition is a huge deal right now with the Overwatch League and League of Legends, I mean there's bazillions of dollars flowing around through that economy now. Have you had any interesting in competing competitively in computer games? Erol Otus: Oh, I would've like 20 years ago when I was really good at, not now. Yeah, no. I was the office champion at MicroProse Spectrum HoloByte at Doom or Quake. It lasted several years. I was kicking these young dudes asses. It was fun. But I think those reflexes have now faded away. Paul Reiche: After TSR you came back to the Bay Area, did you start making video games right away? Erol Otus: No, I went back to UC Berkeley, I think for at least a year, maybe slightly more? And then I studied painting there and then I went to the art academy in San Francisco, studied illustration for about a year. Paul Reiche: At this time were you starting to transition from traditional painting to digital media? We can start that one over. Erol Otus: Oh, okay. No, there was something about that that I wanted to mention. Oh, yeah okay. No, first I went back to UC Berkeley and studied painting for about a year. Then I went to the art academy in San Francisco and studied illustration for a little bit longer. And sometime during that period I got a chance to play test the most excellent game, Archon: The Light in the Dark, which you might be familiar with. And then after that I started working for a graphic software developer called Island Graphics and I worked there for about maybe seven, eight years. During which time I did do the freelance work for Starflight 2 and Star Control and Star Control II. And then shortly thereafter I started full time in '93 at what was then Spectrum HoloByte and became MicroProse and games.com. Yeah. Paul Reiche: I don't know. Oh, so how do I phrase it? Through all the schools that you went through and the different forms of training, were there any teachers that stood out as being particularly inspiring or helpful? Erol Otus: Yeah. I think of one guy named Barron Storey who was an illustration teacher at the art academy. And this was after I worked at TSR, but still it was both his approach and the class. At illustration school there's not nearly as much room for creativity as there is when you're, for example studying painting at UC Berkeley where it's just almost too much freedom in a sense. Not enough freedom at illustration school except for Barron Storey's class, it was the class he was teaching. It was a place where now you were allowed to be creative and he was really good at it. It was funny though. And I was really good in that class. I actually took it I think at least twice, even though I wasn't getting more credit for it the second time. But it was interesting to see, not to say non-creative, but more mainstream illustrators struggle in that class. It was interesting. But yeah, he's a great illustrator and a teacher I think of who was inspiring. Paul Reiche: Great. Okay, I'm going to stop right now because I'm kind of panicking. Just want to make sure that this was recording. Erol Otus: Oh. Paul Reiche: Probably should have checked earlier. And we're back. Okay. So what's the most difficult, weird, or unusual job you've ever had? Erol Otus: Crap. No, this is one that I don't think I had. Okay. That's one I didn't- Paul Reiche: You could wait for the beep beep beep to go away if you want to think about that. But it may not go away. Erol Otus: Let's see. Paul Reiche: I'll ask that question again. What's the most unusual? Okay, I just have to live with the beep. That's fine. No problem. It's part of life. It's verisimilitude, cinéma vérité. Erol Otus: Yeah, they made it. Paul Reiche: What is it? Erol Otus: It looked like they may have gone one way and then they were trying to go a different way. Paul Reiche: All right, so- Erol Otus: I don't know if I have a good answer, but I'll give an answer. I don't know how unusual or difficult this is, but it convinced me that I never wanted to have a real job in my life. And that was making crêpes. Excuse me. And that was making crêpes at the Crêpe Escape, which was restaurant work, but it was very specific. You stood behind the counter and you had this little crêpe machine and you would pull out the dough and then you would fill it with delicious things. Excuse me. I know, it's interesting isn't it? What is that empathetic reaction, especially when people cough in the office? It's all of a sudden everyone's coughing. But it's only with coughing, it's not like with sneezing. When we sneeze everybody doesn't start sneezing, but the throat- Paul Reiche: Yawning, coughing. Erol Otus: Everyone feels it. Paul Reiche: There's social mirroring and then there's neuron mirroring? Anyway, I was wondering about the folding your arms thing. Erol Otus: Oh there's that. Paul Reiche: That's a powerful one. Erol Otus: And it's not just that. It's like and then you go like this. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah, so this was not necessarily unusual or difficult, but it made me realize I never wanted to do a real job. "Real". And that was making crêpes at the Crêpe Escape. You would draw out dough on this little hot thing and it would heat up and you would fill it with delicious stuff. And that was fun. I ate a lot and gained more weight than I ever have before because you could make dessert crêpes and fill them with three times the amount that the customer would get of chestnut paste and blueberries and whipped cream. Yeah. Yeah. There were some benefits of the job, but it was horrible at the same time. Paul Reiche: I'm trying to think if there were any... There was making a falafel, but that had its upsides through at the Greek theater. Erol Otus: Oh yeah. No, that was fun. But mainly because it was also very limited, like having to go back every day. Yeah, the Crêpe Escape did have some moments. There was a lot of cockroaches there, which you wouldn't know at first because they weren't scurrying all around, but you needed to go take care of them. And when you would go in the back and move a cardboard box I thought they had failed... When they had painted the restaurant, they just left the boxes in place and painted around them because there was this dark square behind the box. But it just was a solid mass of cockroaches. Big ones, little ones, baby ones. And then we took the spray to them and then that big square scattered, but it doesn't kill them. I mean they're amazing creatures. Paul Reiche: Probably just annoyed them more than anything else. Erol Otus: Yeah. They just spread out in this vast army. Paul Reiche: I really hope the Crêpes Escape isn't still open. Erol Otus: I never saw a cockroach in the vats of food that you put in the crêpe, I would say that. And I was right there looking over, so I think even though there were a lot of cockroaches there we didn't serve them. Paul Reiche: That's good. You're a good employee. Erol Otus: I was, yeah. Because I was eating it too, so I was looking. Yeah. Paul Reiche: Yeah. I have myself been served cockroach pooris here in Berkeley. That was disturbing. I was trying to be cool. I was with this person who I didn't want to be real uncool with, so it was like just, "Oh, hey look. They deep fried cockroach and served it. We'll just put this to the side and keep eating". And in retrospect, eww. Anyway. So yes, did you ever get offered a job that you were glad you turned down? Erol Otus: Yeah, so I definitely thought of something. This is more about getting a job that you were glad they turned you down for. And that was after MicroProse shut down and then I moved to games.com. Oh wait, no. After MicroProse shut down I was looking for a job, and I went back to that graphics company Island Graphics and was exploring going back to work there. But they turned me down and that was really lucky because then I started working for games.com, which then also shut down just in time for me to work for Toys for Bob. So yeah, it's weird. That would've been terrible. Go back to Island Graphics and miss that? Yeah, no. So that was great. Good job, Dan. Paul Reiche: When you were at Island Graphics you actually did a bunch of illustrations for the Amiga and then later for the TARGA that were used sort for corporate purposes. What were the illustrations you were proud of that you did back then? Erol Otus: Well yeah, I did a lot of I guess it was sort of demoing the systems. They were some of the first paint systems for the Amiga and also the TARGA, some of the first true color paint systems way before the Mac, way before Photoshop. Missed opportunities. But anyway, I think it was later in Island Graphics history when they were making some of the first really high resolution paint systems. And actually at that time that was I think just after Star Control II, where I was working almost exclusively digitally for a while using these high resolution paintings and some of them came up pretty good. I was submitting them to SIGGRAPH and they were in some of the SIGGRAPH shows. Some abstracts, self-portraits, some pretty strange compositions. It's hard to describe them. But yeah, that was some of those later digital paintings were notable. Paul Reiche: If those exist in file formats that we could interpret these days, that would be great. I went hunting for the TARGA Eagle, but I couldn't find it. I don't know if you have it in- Erol Otus: I don't know. I might have some of that stuff. Boy, I was really stupid. So I had this computer at home, but Island Graphics was cool enough to let me keep, and I had a lot of stuff on there for many years and I had backed up some of it onto SyQuest cartridges. And one day that computer just died, just died. So eventually I thought I had everything backed up in the SyQuests and then in later years I tried to get stuff off of them. I didn't get everything off and I took that hard drive down someplace in the South Bay and they said they couldn't fix it. I couldn't get it off and I still have that hard drive. And I went to a place near work and they said, "We can get anything. We can get everything". So I brought into them like, "No problem". And then a couple weeks passes, "We can't get this". So I have this hard drive. I think I have some stuff that could help, but not everything, which is too bad. Paul Reiche: That'd be cool to get that. Yeah, those early true color paint systems. I remember visiting you at Island Graphics and seeing. We've been painting with mice on PCs. Erol Otus: Oh God. Paul Reiche: But starting to use stylists, that was a big difference. Erol Otus: Mm-hmm. Paul Reiche: And one of the questions that we have been thinking about, Fred and I, is when you look at making a sequel to the Ur-Quan Masters, which we're calling The Ghosts of the Precursors right now, is whether to do it in true color, which is what everything in the world has done now. Just any color you want. Or whether to go back and somehow try to find a palletized version. There's something about palletized art and color cycling that is evocative and of the time, but there's always this question about being too retro. Erol Otus: Hmm. Paul Reiche: What do you think? Erol Otus: I was just looking at some slightly earlier art than Star Control, some of the digital deluxe paint images I made for Startflight 2. And there is something about that stuff. I mean it's so crisp and interesting. We did weird little tricks to try and achieve things like stuff faded into the background where you would just overlay an interlaced pattern of the background color to create the illusion of fog and things. It's amazing the amount of labor intensive every pixel matters artwork. There's just something about it, it's true. But you're also right, that's a tough question. Paul Reiche: Yeah, I was looking at- Erol Otus: [inaudible 01:03:44] a race that's like that. All of a sudden you're in a true color game. Paul Reiche: We are from the future. We have all colors. Yeah, it'll be interesting to do. I have some modern palletized editing software that's sort of a modern take on deluxe paint and deluxe animate. And I've thought about asking a programmer, he's this nice German guy, "Can you give me like 512 colors?". And it's just people stare at me like they can't imagine why you would have 512 colors, because there's 256. And I'm like, "But that would be better. You could say this is upgraded. As far as I know, no one has done a game with 512 colors". Which [inaudible 01:04:30] somewhere in there between 512 and 1024 things get really solid and you could have lots of color cycles. But it is very interesting looking at games now and how they do cell animation. And the evolution of animation I think mostly on the Mac and the whole Director/Flash evolution has led to this very cartoony, almost illustrator like foreground set. Erol Otus: Mm-hmm. Paul Reiche: And you don't see many where they just take a bit map and animate pieces of those bitmaps. That's much more rare these days. Erol Otus: Mm-hmm. Paul Reiche: So it'll be interesting to see which way we end up going. Let's see. Okay. Who would you say, as of today, is your favorite historical figure? Erol Otus: Fuck. That's another one. Nothing occurred to me. Have you come back to that one? Paul Reiche: Sure. Erol Otus: I don't know if it'll be in the background, maybe. Paul Reiche: All right. An important thing to think about is should magical things happen, how you respond? Most people focus on the zombies or maybe getting three wishes or something like that. And by the way, if you do get three wishes I recommend that you get rid of those bloodsucking parasites. And it may or may not take all three wishes to get rid of them, but here's one. Erol Otus: Oh, mosquitoes. Paul Reiche: Right. But then their baby's hatch, those eggs hatched. So hah, you're going to need to use all three wishes. Erol Otus: Oh shit. Paul Reiche: I just hate to say that. But anyway. So imagine you had a choice, you could teleport yourself as you are with whatever you have in your pockets to either Rivendell in Middle Earth, or the bridge of the Enterprise Captain James T. Kirk, the very first one. Which would you choose and why? Erol Otus: I think I would go with Rivendell. I think you would have more opportunity to both relax and adventure if you wanted to. I know the Enterprise has some relaxing places, but it's not as big. Yeah. I don't think there would be as much room for self expression on the Enterprise also. I think in Rivendell, you could kind of do your own thing if you wanted to. Paul Reiche: All right. Yeah. I think most of the people on the Enterprise seems like they had a job. Erol Otus: Exactly. Paul Reiche: I did once meet someone who was a mom of one of my kids' friends. And when you meet other parents, it's one of those funny situations where the normal social mechanisms that bring you together don't. It's a random person, and this seemed like the most traditional person I'd ever met who probably had never thought about monsters and treasure in their life. And then out of the blue, there was some difficulty going on with organizing the kids and she just said, "Oh, I wish I was in Star Trek". And I just said, "Why?". I didn't say this, but I know why I want to be there, but why would a normal human want to be there? And she said, "Because you have a job, you know what to do, and they give you the clothes to wear every day". And I just thought, "Huh, that's true". Erol Otus: Those would not be the reasons that I would choose Star Trek. But okay, different strokes you know. Paul Reiche: Decision making was hard, I think. Erol Otus: Remove all decisions. Paul Reiche: Just do what you're told. All right. Let's see. So Dungeons & Dragons appeared in the mid '70s, it's now the mid twenty teens. Imagine we're 40 years further on in the mid 2050s, do you think people will still be playing what we think of as social D&D? Erol Otus: Yes. Not to be trite, but if humans are still here, they'll be playing D&D. Paul Reiche: And what if we're say stainless steel cubes? Erol Otus: What? Paul Reiche: Well there's I think a good chance that we're all going to be stainless steel cubes. Erol Otus: Oh, okay. To survive the environment or something? Paul Reiche: Or just like it's better. Erol Otus: Okay. That's different. There's a lot less express... I mean the way I'm imagining a stainless steel cube, it has a lot less ability to sort of express individuality. So that might kill it off, that might kill off D&D if people become cubes. Yeah. Paul Reiche: Okay. Well maybe that's a good reason for us to avoid that. Erol Otus: Mm-hmm. Paul Reiche: Okay, well maybe that's a- Erol Otus: If people become cubes, yeah. Paul Reiche: Good reason for us to avoid that. All right, so now moving backwards to... Erol Otus: Nice one, I like that. Paul Reiche: Don't knock the stainless steel cubes. Erol Otus: No, there's- Paul Reiche: They got a lot. Erol Otus: Pluses, that's a plus. Paul Reiche: We don't have to change clothes every day. Erol Otus: Nope. Paul Reiche: There's all kinds of things. All right, so you've done a tremendous amount of, whether it's fantasy or science fiction art for paper and video games. What about non-commercial art, stuff that's for yourself? What sort of work do you do? Erol Otus: I think most of that I would have done in, while at UC Berkeley, studying painting, abstract art, which I still do every now and then. I actually have something in progress now, which has been in progress for a long time. Not to say it's very far along, but I keep it up every now and then. I do enjoy abstract painting. That's the kind of personal work. Paul Reiche: Is it digital or traditional media? Erol Otus: Oh, well, I've done both, but lately it's traditional media that's mainly, I work mainly in acrylics for painting, especially abstract art. Although I did do several, like I said, on the high resolution at the time, high resolution paint systems by Island Graphics. I did some abstracts as well as some figurative work. Paul Reiche: Great. You got to have a show sometime. I don't know if you've ever thought about having a show of your personal work. Erol Otus: I need more. It's said somewhere you might be interested in showing one of those. I think that's cool. And I would like to show, I need to take, roll out, it's a little. The big one I used to have up when I had big walls at Bonnie Lane, if you remember it. It was like a big abstract on the wall. Paul Reiche: Yeah, I'd love to see it. Erol Otus: Yeah, I'd like to, it's I guess to get a image of that, I need to hang it up somewhere on a wall. It would also work on the floor, but then you'd need to get up high to, anyway. Paul Reiche: Or mountain mirror to the ceiling. Erol Otus: Yeah. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: Need to- Paul Reiche: If you have something like that, that would be great. Erol Otus: Yeah, I think that would be cool. I have some of the digital abstracts, I think, but that one is, there's this one in particular that I keep thinking about. Not necessarily that I want to do that again, but it was a good representation of what I was trying to do, so. Paul Reiche: Okay. We'll see if this, I've got an idea, see if this works. What I want to do is, this may be really stupid, we'll see. I want to try to surprise each of the people I interview with a small section of freeform role playing, inheriting what has happened in the previous interviews. So we're going to try to do some character creation right now, since you're the first one. The first thing you ever do in a role playing game is to create a character. So we're going to use things that people have heard of to help us work with this. So the first thing I'm going to say is, you are going to pick a character class. It needs to be a job, trade, profession from say, you can pick either Star Trek or Lord of the Rings. Erol Otus: So pick a profession that has been represented. Paul Reiche: Yes. Erol Otus: Oh, okay. Let's see. Of course, we can edit out this brain freeze part. I'm not sure that you saw this person, but I think someone was responsible in loth... How do you say that? Lothlorien? Someone was responsible in Lothlorien for the maintenance of the glowing moats. Paul Reiche: All right. Erol Otus: Maintenance care of feeding and distributing glowing moats. And that is my profession. Glowing moatster. Glowing moat wrangler. Paul Reiche: That's good. And I think residents of Lothlorien had lived a long time, so you've probably learned some skills there on the side, which we can get to later. All right. In terms of your appearance, you can choose any person, probably a famous person from before the year 2000. What is your visual appearance? What person does your glowing moat maintain? Maintenance person. Erol Otus: Did you say a famous person? Paul Reiche: It could be someone, preferably someone that people know, or you're going to need to describe them. If it's someone, a family or personal friend, you'll need to describe them. Erol Otus: Oh, Captain Ahab. Paul Reiche: Okay. So one leg, well, two legs. Erol Otus: Gregory Peck, Captain Ahab, yeah. Paul Reiche: Kind of limping around the moats, making sure- Erol Otus: Yeah, with the lamb choppy beard. Paul Reiche: Okay. And you have a satchel, in your satchel. You may have one object from this house that we are currently recording in. What is in your satchel? Erol Otus: Yeah. I almost said a couple things that I don't want people to know that I have. I almost said- Paul Reiche: Maybe we don't get into that cash or gold and or drugs. A couple of the... Erol Otus: Shush, pencil sharpener. Paul Reiche: Can you repeat that as I was- Erol Otus: Oh, I think I would like in my satchel a pencil sharpener, but not just any pencil sharpener. My Panasonic pencil sharpener that I purchased in 1980, which still works better than any pencil sharpener I've ever found since. Paul Reiche: And any artists out there I think will share this as, for example, my wife complains about her pencil sharpeners for her various art projects, every day. So you have a magic one over there. Erol Otus: I bought a couple of them over the years, to have it at the office, and I'm like, "What's wrong with these?" And I come home and I'm like, "This thing is gold, man. It sharpened thousands and thousands and thousands of pencils." Paul Reiche: Okay. Well, I'm then going to give you skills somehow relating to illustration or roon drawing. Do you think there's room drawing? Do you think that there is room drawing connected with the maintenance of the glowing moats of- Erol Otus: Oh yeah. That sounds reasonable, yes. Paul Reiche: Okay, so that's good for now. We're going to hand this off probably to Greg Johnson, who will pick up this character and go on an initial adventure, but thank you. Erol Otus: Okay. Paul Reiche: We could do that for a long time, but I think that'd a lot funner. Erol Otus: Oh, one question you asked me. I don't know if you're going to ask me. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: Not that I have actually, it's interesting, the different creative experiences question. Paul Reiche: Sure, yeah. That way- Erol Otus: I don't don't think have a great actual answer, but I thought that it would be cool to read some of the limerick or it's limericks as examples of writing. Maybe it could be entertaining part the- Paul Reiche: So we've said or no, actually. So you've contributed, so 25 years ago you contributed to star control two in a lot of different ways. Art, writing, play testing, voice acting. Now, when you go into those different creative endeavors, how's the mindset? How is it different? Erol Otus: Well, this is kind of obvious, but for a painting or a drawings, the first thing is seeing something in your mind's eye or having an image appear. Hopefully sometimes it doesn't, but then you have to try and make it work. And then for music, hearing a phrase or a rhythm, sometimes accompanied with lyrics, sometimes not. And these things, you strive to make them happen, applying them toward a project or an assignment, or sometimes, and I used to keep a little recorder and a pad of paper by my bed because, and I've heard this is fairly common, not a common occurrence, but amongst people is right when you're falling asleep, but you haven't fallen asleep, one of these images or sounds may appear to you and then it's on you. Or at least for me, it was on me to get up and record it or write it down, because I would never remember it otherwise. So that was sort of a tool for writing. It's different for me. I've never actually written anything that wasn't gaming related, nothing significant. So those kinds of writings come with a less open-ended opportunity than painting or music, for me anyway, in the scope of projects I've done. But that doesn't mean they aren't interesting and creative, it's just that they, they've maybe some technical requirement that the game places upon what you're actually writing about, but you can still have fun and be creative. I'm thinking of some limericks that I wrote for a first edition adventure, and these limericks were sort of a spell cast by the limerickers, and once they completed them, usually terrible things would happen to the adventurers. Paul Reiche: Do you have those limericks with you? Erol Otus: I'm glad you asked. I would actually enjoy reading a couple of them. I was thinking about that. You actually missed, there was an adventure where they fought giant ones and they were much harder to stop. Let's see. Okay. Paul Reiche: And then after you read the limerick, tell me what, if you can remember, an example of what would've happened to you. Erol Otus: Oh, absolutely. Actually, each limerick and an example of game related writing, each limerick is a rhyme, but I also, yes, since I had to account for what would happen to the players, the descriptions will follow. So this character's name was Clars, a good fellow longtime player in my campaign. Clars' mouth became dark as coal as from it emerged a black hole, gravitational woes. Should one venture, you die again. Clars' mouth became dark as coal as from it emerged a black hole, gravitational woes. Should one venture too close, where'd he go? All that's left is his soul. So when this limerick completed, and I think it did, his eyes grow wide as his mouth opens and from it pops a black sphere that hovers before him, he cannot move transfixed by it. He begins to spin around the sphere faster and faster until he is merely a blur. Suddenly his physical body and the sphere wink out of existence, but remaining is a shadowy presence. His soul, which floats [inaudible 01:21:00] in limbo before you. Paul Reiche: Doesn't sound good for Clars. Erol Otus: No, I think there was a way out once you, oh yeah. The limbers, when you kill them, would drop maybe one or two moats, which you could then use to restore the individual. So those are highly prized. Okay, this one was for one of the players at the North Texas role playing game convention. Surrounded by tadpoles was Leo, wherever you'd go, these are not easy to say. Surrounded by tadpoles was Leo. Wherever you go, they croaked we go. So he leapt into acid. While the tadpoles grew placid, he ditched his new friends as he flowed. So when this one completed, Leo appeared agitated as he is ringed by dozens of tadpoles who follow his every move. He looks this way and that, desperate to get away from them. Suddenly he smiles as he spot... Leo appears agitated as he is ringed with dozens of tadpoles who follow his every move. He looks this way and that desperate to get away from them. Suddenly he smiles as he spies a pool of dark liquid. He quickly leaps in as he dissolves the tadpoles look downcast and begin dispersing. Paul Reiche: Poor tadpoles. Erol Otus: Yeah. Maybe one- Paul Reiche: One can only imagine how that carried into their frog existence or whatever, their development phase that follow- Erol Otus: Oh, traumatized, yeah. Okay, one last one. Okay, maybe two. Not that you would use all of them, but we just do two. Okay. Nadir gazed up at the tower where the maiden cried out for her chowder. As he handed it up, she [inaudible 01:22:58] him. Nadir gazed up at the tower where a maiden cried out for her chowder. As he handed it up, she snatched at the cup. To this day, that fine stew a devour. This actually doesn't sound too bad, but- Paul Reiche: Depends on how much you like chowder I think. Erol Otus: Yeah. Looking up, he spies a last demanding the steaming soup he holds in his hands. He quickly scammers up the tower, delivering the dish. There they pass it back and forth. Extolling its virtues forevermore. Yeah, definitely not one of the worst faiths. One last one. Paul Reiche: What did the limerickers themselves look like? Erol Otus: Oh yeah, that was them. They float. They kind of like an evil fairy pixie thing with a distended belly of a mal nutritious in, they float looking like a sick fairy with a long nose and a extended belly, and they take great pleasure in their rhymes. Okay, just one more. Paul Reiche: All right. Erol Otus: I just enjoyed this too much. Sorry. Lavuth had a vision prime evil. Methane bursts from the ocean's upheaval, not enough air for creatures with hair. Now, ruling the world was... Lavuth had a vision prime evil. Methane burst from the ocean's upheaval, not enough air for creatures with hair. Now ruling the world was the weevil. So that's kind of obvious what happened there. Paul Reiche: Data, I think, is really relevant to what's going on today as well. Erol Otus: Yeah, hopefully not. Have you been keeping up with the polar icecap? I haven't. Paul Reiche: Yeah. Erol Otus: I think- Paul Reiche: You know me, I do search the polar thickness and surface area regularly. I'm also following the methane outbursts up in the Arctic. But it's not good. I don't think you and I are going to pay the price. We'll probably succumb to something else before things go really bad. Erol Otus: It was really hot here, remember? In September, I mean, it was bad. No ac. I mean, I was like. Did I tell you about, oh no, so I couldn't be up here. It was 97 degrees up here. So I went downstairs when I think it was probably about 92, and I took off my shirt and I had a bowl of water and a cowl and a fan. I actually moved, that made me get to do TV, which I should've done anyway because I took my TV, put it downstairs so I could watch TV. While I sat there and splashed myself with water and had the fan point. And i was like, "You know, if this is the future, I am just totally fucked." I mean- Paul Reiche: Head North. Erol Otus: Because if I had not been doing that, I would've felt really bad anyway. Paul Reiche: Sleep ice. Erol Otus: I had to do that. Paul Reiche: Just lost in space we'll need our sleep ice. Erol Otus: That's right. Paul Reiche: Well, yeah. I'd really like the limericks. There's something about, well, so most of the writing I've done is also for games, but I've watched people who write poetry, work on their poems. And it's interesting to see the layers of effort that go into the restricted forms with whether or not you're rhyming. There's usually questions of rhythm and syllable, how many syllables you can use and how they're connected. And you were talking earlier about the limitations from games and writing within them. Do you ever find restrictions are inspiring? Erol Otus: Oh, I would say absolutely. And exactly what you were talking about there with poetry or lyrics. The limitation is so many fewer words than like in a story. Even a short story, a poem or lyrics just has so few that each one becomes really important, like pixels back in the day. But yeah, and that is inspiring, where every, this word or that word in this one, this piece of writing, that's only 20 words long. It's like everything becomes really important. So definitely that's the thing about the low resolution art you were talking about as well. The amount of pixels, the colors, just what exact color am I going to use a sacrifice one of my 16 colors here? I mean, that's missing and not in a bad way, but there's something good about having those restrictions that makes the art form completely a different discipline. Paul Reiche: I went back and looked at pixel art from the four colors, 16 color and 256 color era. And definitely the four color art from the early IBM is just horrible. Erol Otus: It's unpleasant when it becomes that restrictive. Paul Reiche: Starting at 16, there's something about the quantized nature of edges, like you were describing. I was looking at Mark Ferrari's work from Monkey Island, and that dude dithered, like he was born to dither. I don't know what he does now, but if it's not dithering, Mark, get back to it. But there is something different about looking at that work than looking at a beautiful painting. And I don't know if it's kind of a rose colored glasses of the experience we had back then, but when I look at it, I feel more involved in the image. I feel like I'm helping to make that image alive, which always interests me as compared to just getting the thing delivered to you completely. Erol Otus: Right, because it is, you're sort of completing it in your mind. Yeah. Paul Reiche: There's also something about following, this may be OCD tendencies, but looking at the dither pattern, and if it's done correctly, it is very satisfying. And if it's not, it makes one anxious. Erol Otus: No, absolutely. Especially, and no truer, and more difficult to task than describing a circle or ellipse and just, is it that pixel or is that, sometimes it's impossible. Based on where the ellipse is in the image, but when it is possible and it's not done right, you're like, "ah, that's, why didn't you put that pixel there?" Yeah. Well, I keep thinking about the tandaloo that I did for- Paul Reiche: Starflight Two? Erol Otus: Yeah. I keep thinking about the tandaloo that I did for Starflight Two. That was one of my favorite low res pieces of artwork. And mainly it was because of the dithering of the background tandaloo, which was merely just taking the image and then overlaying a interlaced pattern of the background color, which just faded them into the background. And it was just like, I don't know, satisfying.