Ep 36 - Kevin Glikmann === Kevin Glikmann: [00:00:00] the inventing spirit hit me, I think, when I was like nine years old, and I designed a roller coaster. Did the blueprints, made a, made a model like four foot by four foot model outta of Bossel wood. Nate VO Intro: Welcome to the Hey, good Game podcast, where we chat with the creators of your favorite games that you secretly play in the cracks of your day. Nate: Hey everyone. I'm Nate Kadlac, and today's guest is the kind of person who seems to have lived three lifetimes. You might recognize his voice before his name. Maybe you've heard him cackling maniacally as Seth Breyers in Red Dead Redemption, the Unforgettable grave Robbing Lunatic,, or maybe you caught him on screen as Tommy Boetti, NER, or holding it down and Changeling alongside Angelina Jolie. Kevin Glickman is a veteran, actor, voice artist, writer, and now game creator. [00:01:00] His latest project is Word Glyph, a webby nominated word game that strips down the language to its raw components, the literal segments of each letter. It's clever, addictive, and unlike anything we've really seen in this word space. Kevin, I'm so excited to chat with you today. Kevin Glikmann: Well, goodbye. Good games has been a great pleasure. That's a little Seth for you. Nate: Yeah. No, that's beautiful man. Know, what are you playing these days? What's your favorite game to play right now? Kevin Glikmann: Chess is my go-to game. Classic chess three minute bullet. That's, that's what I play. And, and I'm not very good at it. I'm just like, Nate Kadlac: you find I'm also kind of addicted to, to, to three minute. And I also get like sometimes Kevin Glikmann: Let's go now. Let's go now. Nate Kadlac: I need one minute Blitz chest, you Kevin Glikmann: Right. Nate Kadlac: that's more Kevin Glikmann: I. Nate Kadlac: and doesn't serve any purpose other than just wasting time. But Kevin Glikmann: Yeah, no, you see me standing at, since I was a kid, pretty much. Yeah. But I, [00:02:00] I, I'm so impatient and I don't memorize the openings, and so I'm always like starting fresh, and EE four is the only one I like to do, and I'm like convinced I can, like, you know, come up with a master plan every time, but I, I don't, like putting myself, I like putting myself into like very sticky situations and seeing if I could creatively come out of them. So yeah, if you ever see, like, I, I play in chess and I play anonymous too. I don't, I don't have a rating because that's way too stressful. And so if you ever, if you ever look at like the opening book and it tells you like, oh, how many people have played this opening before, like within like three or four moves, like nobody's ever done this stupid thing that you've just done. Nate Kadlac: You know, we had a, we had, we had a guest on in the past, Zach Gage. Kevin Glikmann: Huh. Nate Kadlac: this game called Really Bad Chess Kevin Glikmann: Oh, Nate Kadlac: enjoy. Kevin Glikmann: I gotta write that down. Nate Kadlac: is, it gives you like three or four queens, you know, or a bunch of nights, and it's [00:03:00] just a Kevin Glikmann: Oh, Nate Kadlac: mess. Kevin Glikmann: I like that. Nate Kadlac: about the rules all that much, it's actually pretty fun to play Kevin Glikmann: I like that. I'm gonna try that out really bad Chess. Nate Kadlac: Absolutely. Well, you know, you've got such a kind of a rich history and I almost don't even know where to start. But, you know, one thing I'd love to just touch on is, , how did you get into acting? , And really how does, how does games kind of fall into your life? You know, I'm Kevin Glikmann: Right. Nate Kadlac: about that crossover between the two. Kevin Glikmann: Well, let's see. Well, the, in the inventing spirit hit me, I think, when I was like nine years old, and I designed a roller coaster. Did the blueprints, made a, made a model like four foot by four foot model outta of Bossel wood. And I, Nate Kadlac: Not, not, not like a game, just Kevin Glikmann: no, no, this was like a real model. And, and then I took pictures of it and I wrote a letter to Disneyland. And trying to sell it to them. And I wrote [00:04:00] like, you know, to whom it may concern I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Kevin Glickman. I'm 10 years old and I've come up with a rollercoaster called the Quadruple, and it has four loops and it's really exciting and, and somehow I got an address to send it to and, you know, there's no email back in the late seventies. And so we sent, I sent off that letter and I actually got a response back and it said you know, dear Kevin thank you so much for your exciting adventure rollercoaster of the quadruple, but we're building Thunder Mountain right now. And that's what we're working on. So, you know, thanks, thanks so much. Nate Kadlac: That Kevin Glikmann: But, so, yeah, so anyway, I mean that was, that started this, you know, inventing spirit and I think that that ended up coming from my. My mom who does cul, she's, she's a sculptor. And you know, I grew up with her making a, a new piece of sculpture [00:05:00] every week. And then my dad was in kind of fashion. He had a factory for clothing. And so I grew up again, seven years old, watching the entire process. Nothing was outsourced back then, so everything was under one roof. So I saw the designers make the sketches and figure out the clothing, colors and the fabric and the pattern makers and the sewers and the cutters and the shippers. And then I would see all the stuff in the store. So there's this, this energy of like, with my mom and, and all that, and my dad with the fashion, like, Hey, you, you dream it, you build it, then you sell it. And then when I got into, I got into acting 'cause he ended up then like getting a video camera, the first RC, a color, color video camera with a long cord that went into the VH Hs recorder, you know, and then I just started like. My friends and I would come up with sketches and, you know, we'd love the movie Airplane and Stripes and all these comedies and we just started doing all the characters and recreating all [00:06:00] that stuff. So that started the voices and the, and dressing up and doing the characters. And then on the, then my dad bought an Apple tube plus, and then that's when I started coding too. And Nate Kadlac: Hmm. Kevin Glikmann: I think it was Byte Magazine. I can't, I think that's what it was. And I just kept retyping all the code that I saw and making these learn. That's how I learned how to code and in basic. And then then I dabbled in some, some assembly. The 51 0 2, I think it was the 52 0 1 I think. And then and then I would combine the two worlds together. 'cause we played like this game, like Chopper. I don't know if you know that game where it was. Nate Kadlac: do know Chavar. Kevin Glikmann: Oh, you do? Okay. So the little helicopter and you're landing. Yeah. And you're collecting people. So, so that would be my opening master shot. I. Nate Kadlac: game. Kevin Glikmann: Right. And so we would record the opening master shot, and then we would cut into the scene of me flying the helicopter, like, oh, damnit, I just crushed three more people. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: And so that's was the relationship between this, the computer world and the, and the, you know, and [00:07:00] the acting. And it was just constantly happening. And then I do remember getting, I think this was closer to 13, the Rubik's cube, and that, that just exploded my brain with like, wow, somebody can think of this. And, and then I was obsessed with solving it, taking it apart, how did it work? And I ended up figuring it out finally. And my first thought after I figured it out was, how can I make this harder? And I came up with an idea of, let's turn, let's make it so that you can turn it on as diagonal. I broke out my bandsaw and I started cutting up the pieces. And I started, I had my, like I said, my mom was an artist, so she knew how to make molds, so it made a mold of the new armature, the inside of it so that it could spin on its diagonal. And yeah, I started doing crazy things and fortunately that was a big fail because the pieces, I couldn't make them perfectly [00:08:00] enough and it would just pop and explode everywhere. So I, I moved on. But all of those things and that creation energy just got infused into me and I would just keep popping around. I guess it's like a DHD, like sometimes acting, sometimes programming, sometimes inventing. That's, that's, that's me. And it followed me into college too, because I ended up going, I ended up doing performance as a major like feeder performance and major called quantitative economics, decision science making. So both sides of the brain were constantly just like struggling with each other. Nate Kadlac: It's fascinating. I think you learn to, to create at such a young age and having both that. Kind of mental acumen to, to, to learn, to program and to, to have art in the household and learn , fine arts. That's such a, it's kind of a rare, rare combination. I grew up in, my dad was an artist and a, and a [00:09:00] sculptor and painter as well. And but I never really got into programming. I was more on the design and visual side. I sort of stayed there. Kevin Glikmann: okay. Nate Kadlac: and yeah. What, what is it about that combination, because you, it is pretty rare, you know, to, to see that in someone who's, look at code and can look at design and, and the arts Kevin Glikmann: Right. Nate Kadlac: find that harmony between the two. What is it about that for you that you can, you're Kevin Glikmann: It's that drive that I think I can make something that's never been done and, and. It's that entrepreneurial spirit. And so like in order to build it, you have to build it. You've gotta know how to code in the computer world, you've gotta know how to use a band. So if you wanna cut and build something, you've gotta, or a hammer or screwdriver. So I was like always into construction and taking things apart too. When I was a kid, I took a lot of things apart and not necessarily put 'em all back together. So I always had that get your hands dirty and build it and do it yourself, you know, [00:10:00] and how does it work and why does it work? And that's just how I've always seen the world of, you know, I don't put the key into the car and go, I wonder why this works. I know exactly why it works. And that really turns me on. Nate Kadlac: You know, as an actor you know, you're, you're probably used to people sort of interpreting your performance and as a game creator, you know, people are interpreting your systems, you know, your design choices and things like that. Is it, Kevin Glikmann: Right. Nate Kadlac: kind of vulnerability? Kevin Glikmann: Oh, that's a, that's a really cool question. Yeah, so when you're creating that, that character and you are making yourself so vulnerable out there, you know, I, I usually play another version of crazy is, so I don't, and because it's so crazy, I, I don't really even care if like what people think. 'cause it's craziness. It's just this unstableness that, that gets ex [00:11:00] exude from me. But at the same time, you know, I am protective of it. I don't want it, you know, I want everyone to love it. And and even in the, in the, in the computer world too, you know, I want, if I've created something I. There is that vulnerability and I'm much more vulnerable, I guess, on the inventing side. Because I, I've, I've made certain choices and I've had a lot of thought about those choices where on the acting side, it's just who I am. It just comes out. So like if, and not everybody enjoys everything that, you know, enjoys all humans. So it's like, that's just who I am and what's what comes out. And I'm cool if you don't like all of it, but when I think about something and I've made some real choices in the computer side of the design side, I, I do get a little more defensive, you know, and especially like, and in writing too, I, I do writing as well and write written scripts and stuff. So, yeah, I, [00:12:00] I, I tend to, the stuff that I guess my, my left side of the brain has to create is a little more defensive than the pure energy of just. Creating and acting and being, I, I think that, Nate Kadlac: Yeah, that, that makes a ton of sense. And I think I think it feels, I don't know, maybe for me it's like you're taking such a fragile idea, you know, that doesn't exist and then you're putting it, that it does feel like it might be more vulnerable to share something like that. But Kevin Glikmann: there's a high, there's a high rate of, there's a high rate of rejection Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: in that, you know? And there's a high rate, which actually very interesting, a super high rate in the audition process of the acting. So maybe it's just that I like getting beat up because I'm always, I mean, you know, I've booked a handful of things, but I've had hundreds of auditions Nate Kadlac: [00:13:00] Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: and, and you have to learn very early on to just let it go. And like, that's not a big deal that. Someone rejected me. I was like, well, that's just not what they were looking for. And I'm an odd nut, so it doesn't really, I'm like, okay. Nate Kadlac: You know, there's a, you know, your role as Seth Breyers in red Dead Redemption, Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: you know, was that not did you choose not to reprise that? What, what happened? Kevin Glikmann: So Nate Kadlac: that role specifically? Kevin Glikmann: I would love to reprise that. And I was booked to reprise that. And Covid happened, I think is what happened. I mean, I literally, they called it my manager or the, my agent, and they said, Hey, we want to bring him back. And they were gonna fly me out to New York and everything got canceled with the Covid stuff. And I think it was around that time. And so that was, that was actually like, ugh. [00:14:00] Damnit. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: I was, yeah, I was a, I was a little a little taken back about that. And then, and then especially when I, I, someone, some gamer, they never, Breyer's wasn't in the second one, although someone found, I guess some hidden footage or something of it. I don't know if it was official or not, but it was somewhere on the game and, and it was a different voice and people were like, well, that's not Kevin. That's not, so I was like, oh, man. But yeah, I mean, listen on the actor side, I, you know, I'm like every other actor, I'm like, I wanna be loved and I wanna do it over and over again, and I please, please cast me, please. But no, I would love, I would love to have reprise that again and maybe, who knows? I don't know. Maybe they'll, maybe they do have something that they're in the works and they'll, and they'll phone me up again. I mean, I'm getting older now to the part where I am getting all wrinkly and, and you know, I could be cast in the movie now. Nate Kadlac: yeah. That's Kevin Glikmann: So [00:15:00] I Nate Kadlac: the Kevin Glikmann: am like, ah, this is perfect. I've grown into the part. But that, yeah, that was, I mean, it was so interesting to see, 'cause that was one of the first where they did the full, full capture of, you know, the, my entire body that's me moving and that's my voice and everything. And, and during the audition, I think it was just an audition for the body type, but I think they liked my insanity so much that they ended up having me do the voice and everything. Nate Kadlac: Do you have a preference to, you know, whether it's and forgive me for not knowing all the, the industry terms, but just like re like just acting, voice acting versus creating something like a game. Like, is there, I'm sure there's a love for everything, but do you have something that you, that stands out as, as more, you know, worth your time? Kevin Glikmann: I love creating the character physically in, in, in the actual, on camera they call it, where something physical is happening. It's whether it's an accent or a [00:16:00] twitch or a, a limp or whatever it is. I love embodying that and seeing what happens. And just being in that moment and escaping and being something completely different. I think I enjoy that the most. And then comes the voiceover, same type of thing because you've created then, you know, some sort of cool character, you know, that hasn't been done. And that there was like, some of my greatest and highest moments in my life was, I was, I think it was, it was called Get Blake. And I was I played Leonard. I played Leonard the great. From outer space, gonna take over the world. Obviously it's an electromagnetic time machine. So that character came out of me and I loved playing that. And every day we would go and record that and we did like 52 [00:17:00] episodes at for Nickelodeon. And that was, that was like a, the highlight of of my, of my life. I love doing that. And then, and then the game creation, that would be third. That would be, I love it. It's great. But it's, it's, it's because it's just me doing all the heavy lifting everywhere. Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: It's draining and it's, it's a hard, it's a lot of work. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: And again, it's a lot of tweaking because you do something and then you put it out there real quick for your friends to play and they go, Hey, this isn't working on my phone, or, this isn't, you know, why is it doing this and why can't we do that? And so then you're, you're constantly getting all this input and feedback to like, try to make it better and please everybody, because again, I'm the basis of an actor. I wanna be loved. And so I'm like, okay, I gotta please you. I gotta please you. I gotta like, you know, fix that, fix that and make this work. And it's, it becomes very overwhelming. And when you're just [00:18:00] doing it all by yourself, it's, it's insane. It gets very crazy. Nate Kadlac: get yeah I wholeheartedly agree. I think it's, it's an evolving medium, right? And I, I suppose at least I can imagine that you're hired to, to, to do a role or a voice like you do, it goes through its revision process, but then it's done and it's locked in, and Kevin Glikmann: Right, Nate Kadlac: never really locked in. Kevin Glikmann: right. Exactly. I mean, you know, it's very rare to be called back. Like sometimes, you know, you call back for, you know, some looping or whatever, you know, to like, Hey, we didn't get that line. You gotta have redo it. So you gotta revisit your character and you gotta do the line again. But it's, Nate Kadlac: Yep. Kevin Glikmann: not as tedious as game development. No. No. You can't even compare Nate Kadlac: Well, before we get to word glyphs what did you have a history of, of publishing and launching games before this? Did you, did you have a first game that you, that you released into the wild prior to this? Kevin Glikmann: the. [00:19:00] I had a a puzzle three DI created a three-dimensional puzzle slide game. And it had like these transparent, transparent cubes with colors on them. And you could slide it around and you, it's kinda like the rubs cube. You had to get all the colors on, all the, all the sides. And I got a patent and I tried to chop that around, but nothing ever happened. So that was a fail. Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: I did another one. I was obsessed with Scrabble and we used to play Scrabble all the time with my grandmother. And she loved it. We all loved it. It was something we all did together. And I wanted to impress her, I guess. And I came up with this idea of building a three dimensional scrabble. Kind of like, there was something called upwards, I think at the time where you could stack the letters on top of them to change the word, but there was nothing where you could construct a, you know, make a construction kit kind of and like build out. And so that, I got super excited about that and I ended up, again, breaking out the bandsaw [00:20:00] and creating pieces. And, you know, for the red connectors and blue and green, there were connectors that would connect the pieces together. So that's how you'd get your double word, but then also because it was in space, if you were spelling the word like, you know, stop, well that was pots on, on the other side of it, so you had anagrams so you could score even more. So that was the first game that, okay, I got like a serious you know, patent and I went out and I got a toy agent. And the toy agent really liked it. And in fact, I, I had made the pieces on purpose. Spheres instead of cubes. 'cause I really wanted to call the game scrap ball, BALL. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: The the agent is like, yeah, that's not gonna happen. Let's just call it like word ball. Okay, maybe if, if Hasbro buys it, you know that. But anyway, he, he shopped it around to Pressman and to Hasbro and all the places and everybody was just like, yeah, this is just not gonna [00:21:00] fit into our, our gaming, just, you know, our product line type of thing. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: that was another fail. And then I came up with another word game called word Race, where it's very much like a multiplayer spelling bee, like the New York Times spelling Bee where everybody sees a scramble and then everybody is racing to come up with, with a word. And you claim the word that you just f found out and nobody else can make that word. So at that point I had met, I. I would, I'd go to parties and I would be like, I'd introduce myself. I'm Mc Kevin and do you happen to know anybody in the toy industry? I literally would say these to people and eventually I actually was at some sort of party in like Thousand Oaks and some, someone was like, yeah, I actually do, my best friend works over at Hasbro. I'm like, oh really? And before you know it, within a week I was, I'm flying on a red eye to meet the vice president of Hasbro in a hotel room. 'cause he [00:22:00] happens to be at a game convention and I'm presenting this word race game. And, and he played it and we, we played like a quick round of it and he's like, this is a really fun game. I really like it. But we, we don't, we don't launch new Word games. In fact, if, if Scrabble was to come out, come present to me today, we wouldn't buy it. We, we just, it's, it's too much of a niche market. You know, Scrabble is an anomaly because. There's a built in market, but we would never launch it. It's too expensive to market and to get people to play something like that. So he, but he said to me, you should make it into a computer game. Nate Kadlac: hmm. Kevin Glikmann: I was like, well, okay, thanks. Thanks, man. And I never, I never did that. And again, that was kind of just never went anywhere. So those were the, those were the games in my experience. And then when I came up with word glyph, I was like, oh, I'm gonna take that advice and, and do a, a compute computer version. [00:23:00] Which, that's what I ended up doing. But the version that's out now is not even, I did that 15 years ago. The version that, the original version. Nate Kadlac: When it came to Wordglyph, where did that idea stem from? Kevin Glikmann: As I had told you, Nate Kadlac: it feels to me real quick, like, it's like, it, there's a, there's an element that comes back from like taking a bandsaw to your, Kevin Glikmann: right? Nate Kadlac: Rubik's cube, you Kevin Glikmann: Yeah, Nate Kadlac: it's like, these are like cut up letters almost Kevin Glikmann: yeah, Nate Kadlac: run them through a saw. And yeah, it's just kind of a fascinating knowing your story now a little bit. Kevin Glikmann: yeah. I think so. I love chess, like I told you. And and I love Scrabble and, and I always, and I was thinking 15 years ago, I was just thinking, I wonder is there a way to combine chess in a word game with a strategy where I could test the limit of my opponent's vocabulary, so to speak. Like I wanted to know, like I. Is there a way to challenge someone's [00:24:00] vocabulary? And when I, I, that was the question that I ca that I asked myself, is there a way to do that? And oftentimes when I ask myself these type of questions, then usually with, in a couple days or a week, I'll wake up with some sort of answer that the universe is kind of channeling me. And, and it was the answer of what if you broke up the alphabet into sticks? So that if I was trying to make an A, but you are trying to, you know, make a, let's say an O, you would block my a And once that I woke up with that, I was like, oh snap. That's really an interesting idea. And I ran downstairs and I got some toothpicks and I started laying out what the alphabet would look like. And I was like, oh, let me try something. And I played against myself of like making a letter and I was like. Wow, this is really interesting. And then I wrote down what [00:25:00] the layout would be, and then I went over to my buddy Jeff's house. He's, he's my, he's my Guinea pig since, since I was like 13. And so I'd always run my ideas by him. And so I went over to his house and I said, check this out. And I'm like, okay, we're, you're gonna pick an E word and I'm gonna pick an E word and then I'm gonna try to make an, you use this alphabet and with, with the toothpicks, and I'm gonna try to make my letter and you're gonna try to make your letter. And if you block me, then I'll have to come up with a new word. If I block you, you'll have to come up with a new E word and we're gonna go back and and forth until finally someone is gonna get stumped. They're not going to, you know, be able to come up with another word, or they're gonna come up with the word that the other person came up with. And that was the original word, glyph game, going back and forth with these sticks and trying to, and you know, you could build up to a 15 letter word back then. And so that's kind of the, the genesis of the, of the very first word. And that's when I made I made the very first the software [00:26:00] in Flash and then put it onto Facebook and, and launched it. And that was like a, you know, back end. I used Azure. I was like, oh, if it gets big then it'll be able to handle it. And, and it was very hard to market it. And it was, if there's a video out there actually that's still on Wordly YouTube channel from 15 years ago, and you can hear me and visually see the game and you look at that now and I look at that and I'm like, man, this is so over-engineered and so complicated. It's no wonder it didn't work out well. It's just really like, it's crazy and again, crazy to see all the crazy things that, you know, ideas I was throwing around back then. But that was the original idea of Wordglyph. Nate Kadlac: So what happened between then and now? And, and when did, when did you actually build out the, the web version of this game on its own domain? Like this Kevin Glikmann: So that was three, no, that was only three or four months [00:27:00] ago. Yeah. I, I, so what happened? I always thought in the back of my mind that there could be a single player version of it. And, and and I started thinking about that because phone games started really taking off games on, you know, apps on the phone. And I was like, yeah, I really should think about that. But I was like, I, I couldn't solve the problem of the interface because there were, at the time, you could go all the way up to like, 15, 15 letters and that wouldn't fit on the phone. And so I kind of was like, I don't know how to solve that. And I, and I was doing a lot of acting at the time, and then what really happened was Wordle came out and I was like, aha, look at that. People do. And, and it would do like playing single player word games by themselves, and it doesn't have to be multiplayer. So that, that was like a confirmation of like, yeah, okay, great. And so then I brought it, brought it back into my focus word glyph, and [00:28:00] started noodling around in my mind, still couldn't figure out the interface, but then I was like, okay, again, I asked myself, what, what could it be? And I woke up. I was like, okay, well it needs to be, instead of a five letter, let's just do a six letter. That's something that maybe I can reasonably fit onto the screen. And then the other thing that happened was ai, because I was like, oh. Because I was like. Sh I, I, I really didn't wanna do the heavy lifting of coding it from scratch. And I was like, well, AI could hopefully do it. So I took pictures of my game board 'cause I had that from the past and the instructions, and I gave it all to ai and it failed so bad it could not do it at all. Not at all. Like I have original pictures of just it, trying to do the sticks in the matrix and it was just so wrong and so off. And I tried to explain it to AI and it was just like, was not getting it. And so then I was like, okay, [00:29:00] I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna sit down and do it. And so, and I wanted it to be super simple. I just wanted to, I didn't wanna use any libraries. I wanted to just use CSS and JavaScript and I sat there and I was just, once, I literally started with one segment, let's just click a segment, make a turn on. Let's add another segment. Let's make it the angles happen. And then when I got that concept of what I needed AI to do originally, and I had it all set up I then showed it to ai. And AI was like, oh, I see what you're trying to do. Yeah, not a problem. And then I'm like, oh, UAI. And then, and then it really started helping me and just multiplying things faster. And then I was massaging it. And so I, I still hadn't figured out how to get it to work on the phone, but I, at least that's when I got the domain and I started putting it on the computer screen and nothing was [00:30:00] interactive yet. Like you, you would click on a stick. The original game, just kind of that my friend started playing, I just showed you the alphabet of, of how it was laid out. And then you had the matrix and you would have to click on sticks and. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: It was either gonna be correct or it was gonna be wrong, and you had to like slowly work on it and figure out the puzzle. And that's, that's kind of how it started. And then there was a lot of design challenges and making it better iteration after iteration. Nate Kadlac: Just to dig into the, your workflow around how you use AI and stuff for a game like this, Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: what were you doing? Were you using a, like cursor, which is Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: know, coding IDE, or were you just asking chat GPT questions? Or how, how did you use it? Kevin Glikmann: I use it for very specific functions, so I would show it. I, I was not using Cursor. I was just, I'd like to keep things very simple and so, and it was, it is literally just one page of [00:31:00] JavaScript and CSS, so I would load it into chat and I would say, Hey, here's my code. I, I need to make the colors, you know, turn to red or blue or whatever. And then chat would come up with a solution, oftentimes a very convoluted solution, and I would rob some ideas from it and then massage it and, and change it. That, that's usually what was going on. It was like, it was coming up with very convoluted stuff. Especially when it was trying to do debug. That was the other thing I was using it for. I was paste it in and like. I click on a stick and it, and it's not changing the alphabet, and, and then it would come up and be like, well, you've gotta rewrite this and this and this. And then I would see what it was doing. And I was like, no, what, what? Actually, I think you just need to put an if statement here. And then it would be like, oh yes, of course. I oftentimes over, over-engineer these things. I'm like, Jesus. But then I, [00:32:00] early on I did discover too that Claude was far better than cha, GBT, and so I, most of my stuff then just ended up going into, into Claude. And again, just loading the page. Nate Kadlac: in Claude kind of setting it up that way, or just Kevin Glikmann: No, it was just straight up. I, I don't even think Claude had the project thing yet. I'm not quite sure. But yeah, I was just straight up paste and then get the result because I was going for very specific questions and usually trying to like solve a bug or which the code base got. It's, it's still under, I think 800 k, but. The, but even at that point, it would, the kind of questions that I was asking it, it got itself into the AI black hole where it just couldn't, it, it, it, it was just doing circular reasoning and looping back and forth. And I would have to then show it the answer and it would be like, oh yes, of course Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: I see that. Nate Kadlac: level is high. Kevin Glikmann: It's [00:33:00] so, it's always so hilarious so many times. So that's how I was using it. I was just pacing in, going back. And also just, just to be honest, it was very scary because sometimes it would do things that was very cool. But the real scary part was my disconnect on some of the functions, meaning I didn't know what it was doing anymore on some of the things. And that, that kind of scared me. I was like, because I was like, man, I've really turned off my brain and I didn't like that feeling of like. Just relying on something. Like, again, I think I had mentioned like, I like to know how things work. Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: just, I don't like to not know. And, you know, I, I was kind of getting lazy and just letting it do something and then not knowing. And then when the bug happened, I was like, Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: and it couldn't solve it. And I was like, well, okay, now I have to read this line by line and I've gotta figure out why it's not working. [00:34:00] And then re and then kind of like emotionally reconnect back to the code Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: and get reconnected to it. And so, and it's yeah, it's gonna be something, you know, the new generation of these coders, like not other, I, I don't think they're gonna know that glory of having this idea and really struggling to get that first building built of, like, I made that framework. It's just gonna be made for them and they won't really appreciate it, their creation as much. Nate Kadlac: I think that's where I get stumped to is when I'm, when I'm vibe coding and I'm getting to a point where it's throwing errors at me or it's working, but I don't know how it's working, like that's such a painful point for me to understand like, well, sure it works, but I'm not gonna know how to fix this. Kevin Glikmann: Exactly Nate Kadlac: I can ask ai, but you know exactly what you said. If it doesn't know, I don't know. I'm not a programmer [00:35:00] and so it feels like I'm in a worse off position sometimes 'cause I've Kevin Glikmann: right. Nate Kadlac: that I don't know how it's built Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: that Kevin Glikmann: There. Nate Kadlac: is, Kevin Glikmann: you know, I see people on TikTok all the time talking about, you don't need to know how to code. If you have an idea, you just throw it into ai. Right now, at least when I, I, you know, three months that there's no way AI and I tried to, that could have made wordly. There's, there's no way it, it didn't, it was, you know, it was just too different. It didn't have any patterns to pull from once I showed it, no problem. But yeah, so, but a lot of ideas are, you know, not that hard. Nate Kadlac: What's it been like releasing the game now and, trying to get traffic to it? , What has that process been to have you thought about, marketing and distribution and, and all of that kind of, that goes into, to launching a game? Kevin Glikmann: Oh yeah. All, all I do now is, is the marketing side. I. Fortunately, one of the things I did for [00:36:00] many years is I was one of the founders and CTO of a social media marketing company. It turned into a social media marketing company. So I watched how that workflow works with marketing. And so I've been doing all of those techniques and stuff, and I've done some pretty crazy stuff. I mean, like, I went through first through Reddit and I found every possible subreddit and coming up with any possible story of how I could post this game, and that worked out pretty, pretty well. You know, I got a couple dozen users from, from that. And then Y Combinator was a pretty huge boost with their show. Hn tag you know, there's a bunch of coders there. They, they love looking at new stuff, so you get an initial burst and then it falls off very quickly. But some stick around that, like the game. And now I'm doing, you know, I even came up with like. [00:37:00] I told ai, Hey, here's my code. Write an article. You know, the linguistics, the linguistic benefit. If you're a professor of linguistics, write an article of why this is a, a good game for in, in the linguistics world. Did you, did, Nate Kadlac: smart. Kevin Glikmann: does this game discover anything new in linguistics? And sure enough, it said about a whole bunch of things. I know nothing about linguistics, but it said all these really interesting things. And so then I went into the linguistics subreddit and I, and I was, you know, posted the article and I was like. AI wrote this, is there any kind of truth to it? You know, and they're like, well, it's a lot of, just a lot of techno babble. But there is some, some, you know, grains of truth in these, in this article. And, you know, it's very fascinating. And again, I got more users Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: looking at it. I did that with math too. I had it write a whole article and programming. I had an article on programming, an article on math and like the statistically what, what [00:38:00] sticks are giving more information than not. I was at the green sticks and, you know, it's the green sticks actually give more information, which is why the scoring system kind of works. But and then I would post that in mathematics and I would, you know, post that everywhere. The, the next one is like, how I ended up, I'll post in marketing is how I did this. I'll get more users. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: And then now I just made, two days ago I just started my TikTok account. 'cause now I have some news about the Webby nomination. So. I can start, you know. Nate Kadlac: the way. Kevin Glikmann: Thank you. Thank you. So now I made a TikTok about me talking about the Webby nomination and being up against Pokemon and how there's no possible way, you know, and that got, that got like a, like, I don't know, 150 views. So I was like, ah, that didn't really play like I wanted. But then I, I, I made a, a video where I was like, okay, I ended up, I I wanted to do capture the, the, the mobile screen which, oh, I didn't, I, when I, because I, [00:39:00] I didn't tell you the story how I finally came up with the mobile design, but I ended up with that matrix at the bottom. 'cause I was looking at the game and I was like, man, there's all this dead space down here. What could I put there? And all of a sudden I was like, oh, you could just put a large matrix that can control the other matrixes, you know, and that's how I ended up making the mobile design. So I used that mobile design and I got a Bluetooth mouse that could. I could see the pointer on the, on my actual iPhone. And then the iPhone, I ca I'm capturing it into, in OBS. And so I can move my mouse so you can see where I'm clicking, so I can give a tutorial and talk about, so I made a TikTok with that layout of the mobile layout. And then I was like, you know, I'm gonna play it like, like Bob Ross, you know the artist that's like right now we're gonna like, just paint a little right over here. And I'm, and then I started and I was like, all right, let's play a little forklift today. Alright, we're gonna try for the [00:40:00] F Oh, that's great. It looks like it's gonna be an R and f. Yeah, it's r let's move on to the next later. So I did that kind of like an A Nate Kadlac: right. Kevin Glikmann: I and, and you could hear the clicking, so, and I was like, yeah, this. And I turned the mic up real hot and I was like, wow. It's like an A SMR video. And so I did that tag as SMR relax a puzzles and it's up to 2000. Views and I got 60 viewers 60 players from the 2000, which is I think a pretty, pretty big conversion. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: I was like, wow. So anyway, I'm starting down that path and I'll just, every day I'll try to make a little, Hey, SMR video. Hello, welcome. Let's play some forklift. So, yeah, so I'm just constantly thinking about how to, how to market and stuff. And now I'm you know, if, if somehow those judge, you know, 'cause when you have a web, when you get Webby nominated, you can win either through a judge picking you, the judges can pick [00:41:00] you or, and, and, or you can get picked by the popular vote. I no way. I'll probably win against Pokemon. I mean, I'm up to 12% or something, but Pokemon's still at 50. But if the judges pick me, well that's just gonna be, I mean, I'll book my ticket to New York. And I will, you know, try to, I will try to figure out how to get to Jimmy Fallon. 'cause he's, he's nominated because I don't, you know, the story of how Wordle launched through Jimmy Fallon. He ended up tweeting about it and then he played it for eight minutes live on his show. That's an eight minute commercial. And that's when it, you know, went off the charts for 10 million people and he made it viral. So I need to get an influencer eventually that's going to tweet about it, talk about it, and to, to get, to get the sheep to play. That's, that's, that's the goal. Nate Kadlac: you're right. There's a lot of, [00:42:00] especially, you know, we were just at a a conference in Boston called Sudokucon, Kevin Glikmann: Mm-hmm. Nate Kadlac: Sudokucon has a large niche community around and sub niches around variant Sudoku. But there's some really great players and influencers in that community alone that's just them play Sudoku. Right. And I you kind of like testing it out on me here. Like I, I would go watch that. I would go watch you play, Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: word gly, a SMR videos Kevin Glikmann: Well, Nate Kadlac: that Kevin Glikmann: you know, the thing is there are there are, you know, these, these women on TikTok playing Wordle, and they split the screen. Their top screen is them, and the bottom screen is Wordle, and one of them has 1.8 million viewers. And, you know, I tried to be naive and I, I contacted her just you, you know, making a message like, Hey, you know, I, I came up, you know, you say you love word games and here's a great word game, you know, and never, you know, whatever. I think she hearted it, but Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: ended up contacting her agent, I. [00:43:00] To see, okay, let's see how much it costs to actually get her to play the game. 'cause she does, she does sponsorships and she does play some other games occasionally. And it's so much money they wouldn't even tell me. 'cause I emailed them and I said, Hey, could you tell me, you know, I'm totally new to the space. I have no idea, which I don't, I didn't have, I have no idea. Could you gimme a ballpark of what I would need to get her to play the game? And she's like, well, why don't you tell us your budget? And I was like, I have no idea. Literally, I wrote back, I was like, I don't even know. I have, I don't know, $500. You know, I never heard back. And then I found another agency website that represented another influencer with about the same amount of followers. She, she has. And their dropdown of a pricing started at I think $15,000. So. Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: I was like, okay, I see Nate Kadlac: yeah. Kevin Glikmann: when they don't wanna tell you because Nate Kadlac: figures [00:44:00] likely Kevin Glikmann: yeah. And so I was like, yeah, well, okay, that's, that's a lot. And I'm not sure that's a hundred percent worth it, but I'm gonna see if I can build, you know, I was even thinking there's, there's new ais where I could play and then it maps me as a woman and I could have my own ai, ai Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: influencer. But yeah, just dreaming of constant ideas and meeting people and trying to, trying to get it, you know? 'cause eventually it's, from what I've heard, the feedback, everybody who plays it says, this is a fun game. And even if you don't even play the, the real strategy, it's fun just clicking on sticks and, and coming up with the word. So there's it, it's breaking with two different type of populations right now, of just them, you know, clicking on it. I mean, I have, there are several ants of mine that, you know, are older and they just like clicking on the sticks and trying to, then they figure out the word. But the, you know, the real strategy is trying to, you know, balance your unused sticks and your wrong guesses. 'cause you get credit to erase [00:45:00] your wrong sticks. And that whole scoring system, that was actually another design challenge. That was, that was cool. That had the breakthrough when I figured that out, Nate Kadlac: Well, I think on the, on the influencer side, have you thought about going upstream, so like 50 K or less followers where the brand deal might be really inexpensive, but you're still potentially reaching a decent audience? Kevin Glikmann: Yeah, for sure. I, I, I've tried to reach one of those and didn't hear back, but I'll try again. Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: they seem to be elusive. I'm not quite sure why, but Nate Kadlac: well, likely because they'd, they might not have structure in place for brand Kevin Glikmann: yes. Nate Kadlac: Like there's too small to really have a, an official Kevin Glikmann: Yeah. Nate Kadlac: pricing, structure. And they're Of like, free, free asks, you know, so you gotta find a way to rate rise Kevin Glikmann: right. Yes. I'm, yeah, I'm just getting into that world and figuring it out and, you know, hoping, you know, hoping also I [00:46:00] did do a a free press release off of a website called games press.com, Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: and they have a free version, they have a paid version and the paid version, you can do a lot of press releases. And I was like, well, I only need to do one right now. So I asked around, I also, interestingly enough, contacted an agency to write my, my press release because of the Webby nomination. And I'm like, yeah, I wanted to do it right. And they were like, yeah, I don't think we're gonna be the, a good fit. So I was like, okay. And I ended up just using AI and I bounced, you know, all theis against each other, you know, Google and Claude and to it. It seemed like everyone agreed, all AI agreed this was a very strong press release. And I was like, okay guys, I trust you. Nate Kadlac: yeah. Kevin Glikmann: And then and then press games, press sent that out and, Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: I don't know if actually anybody's paid attention. And then I used that and I did a product hunt. I, I launched it on [00:47:00] there as well. So yeah, I'll probably end up doing the upstream thing too. And anything I can to build awareness, Nate Kadlac: One thing I really like about your game, and I don't think a lot of people get this right, is onboarding. And so many times we're dumped onto a game and you're, maybe there's Kevin Glikmann: I. Nate Kadlac: instructions or there's a help button in the top right or something like that. But I think what you did really well was playing the game yourself and, and help helping us kind of like visualize and see what, what that feels like because so ma, so much of the time you can't just write this stuff out. And I think watching you play or watching someone play, like I think that's what works so well in marketing is so helpful. What, What, about that felt right to you? What, you know, I'm just kind of curious, like, it felt like maybe it was a, a natural thing for you to do, but talk us through onboarding and creating that. Kevin Glikmann: so I started with just instructions and nobody [00:48:00] was reading the instructions. Nobody. And even the, even my friends who were playing the game, I had one friend who played the game so much, and he's like, there used to be hints, there still is, but they're turned off right now. And the hints would let you show what letters were missing. And he is like, what are the hints for, I'm like. Did you didn't read the instructions. So basically I was like, how am I going to get people to read these instructions? I was like, alright, I'm just gonna make a video Nate Kadlac: Mm-hmm. Kevin Glikmann: playing. And like, it's the first thing you see when it comes up on the splash screen. Like, watch how to play. Nate Kadlac: Yep. Kevin Glikmann: And even then people don't click that. And some, some people do, at least some people, but not, I'd say 20%. But some people you just, it's just human nature. You just wanna just let me see if I can figure it out. And so I've done everything I could. I I, as you click on the sticks, I get a, an you get an alert. I've watched people play, they just click away. They don't read it. It's, it's three, four words, just like click on the neck, good [00:49:00] job. And then I keep, get, you know, all occasionally the first time you're playing it will come up with more messages and, and go like, Hey, remember, you know, if, if you did, I think if you complete three letters, you're not supposed to complete letters if you're playing it right. And it comes up as like, Hey, you wanna improve your score, don't complete the letters. You know, and, and so I just have concentrated so much, I've done everything I could to try to get people down that path. And that's where I think it's just gonna end up being some big influencer finally go and articles about, you're not playing iff, right? Here's how to play it. And then everyone's gonna be pay attention to be like, oh yeah, right. Yeah. You're supposed to play it like this. You know, the New York Times raised an article of like, this is how you're supposed to play. Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: But some of the players, you know, oh, I'm in Discord too. I've. Found all the puzzle places in Discord. And so, and that's a fun community in there 'cause they seem to be more willing to, to try new things and, and stuff like that. But yeah, there was, I had long [00:50:00] discussions with people about, oh, they're finally figuring it out and like, oh cool, I get it, type of thing. So it's just like constantly training people and getting them to, you know, learn, learn the rules. Nate Kadlac: I think what we've found in our games is that you getting a first win is so important. And if someone doesn't win they play your game for the first time, the likelihood of them coming back is very, very small. Kevin Glikmann: Right. Nate Kadlac: and so, you know, I think the things that you're doing, it's not gonna be one thing, you know, but multiple things to help people get over that first win is so crucial to, to, Kevin Glikmann: Well, that's why I ended up creating the community thing where you, it says click this link to check out how other people solved it, or something like that. And so, and that's also you, you know, there's, there is no win or lose. It's just kind of like you get your achievement at, at the end. You've either ended up, it's not [00:51:00] like, you know, you, you don't figure out the word and then you're just done and you lost. It's basically, oh, you started here with these sticks and you can move up and you can visually see how to move up and when you click that link of how to see other people's strategies. That was cool breakthrough because that helped a lot of people. Go like, oh, oh, I see. That's how the better people are playing. Oh, I see. They're using the wrong sticks to figure out the letter just as well as they're using the, the correct sticks. And that's, that helps so much with that, you know, community board to see how, how solutions were, were being solved. Nate Kadlac: Reminds me of this conversation I was having with another creator who we were talking about ads and what works in ads, you know, for games, especially mobile games where that's really the route to, to acquiring players is paid, paid ads. Kevin Glikmann: Mm-hmm. Nate Kadlac: And you see trends in the advertising space. And one of the trends is, [00:52:00] you know, you show a screen and someone's doing the wrong thing, like over and over and over. And I, I could see an ad for you where it's like you've, you've got a letter almost filled in, but you just keep clicking the wrong segment over and hoping someone will be like, I can do this better and, and download, you know, and go, go play your game. But, Kevin Glikmann: Right, Nate Kadlac: yeah, you know, there's just so much to experiment with. You never know it's gonna work. Kevin Glikmann: Well, I have a friend who loves the game and he's given me lots of fun little tips and ideas like, why don't you just have it automatically fill in the letter when you're down to, like, there's no other possible solution. It must be an N even though you haven't clicked all the ends, but it must be an end. And I thought about it for a long time and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do that because, excuse me. Basically, I was like, one friend was like, well, why are you doing that? That's you're giving up, you know, they could make the mistake and they could still click the stick. And I'm like, I just need people to be kind of like [00:53:00] led to the right way of playing. So Nate Kadlac: yeah. Kevin Glikmann: having that letter pop in before you actually finish the letter, it's a big clue of like, oh, that's how you're supposed to play. And so it just does it for you and. You know, my original friend Jeff, who plays the game, he, he's upset about that, but Nate Kadlac: Yeah. No Kevin Glikmann: really, Nate Kadlac: but I'm just kidding. Kevin Glikmann: but it's, it, it is really the better thing because it's forcing people to just experientially realize that that's how you're supposed to play without reading the rule of how you're supposed to play. So anytime you can, anytime you can teach somebody in the experience, obviously way better and, and reward them that way. Nate Kadlac: Well, I know this game has only been out for a little bit, but is there anything that you would do differently? You know, if you were starting today building the game? Kevin Glikmann: What would I do differently? I don't, no, I, I mean, I don't think so. I, I, Nate Kadlac: Yeah, Kevin Glikmann: everything I [00:54:00] did was, I mean, I had, I mean, everything just happened. It just, it, Nate Kadlac: yeah. Kevin Glikmann: the way it unfolded. And I, I. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: It's not much that I would probably, you know, change. I mean, maybe I wish I would've somehow known Jimmy Fallon right away. Nate Kadlac: Yeah. Kevin Glikmann: But Nate Kadlac: Well, what's, what's next for you? Are you what, you know, continuing to work on this game, do you have other games in mind that you're, that you're, Kevin Glikmann: the next big project is going back to a game show that I invented, called Stumped. And I had about seven years ago came up with this game where people come up with questions off the top of their heads in like pressure cooker situations. And it's like legit game store style. And we ended up shooting a pilot for it getting, you know, jeopardy champions to be on it. And I've been in, like, I've been trying to sell that. I've been in like three different options with different production companies [00:55:00] because they all see it and they go like, this is so cool, but the. It's such a fresh, cool, new idea that it kind of just breaks the brain of the executive at the, you know, big broadcasters. And they, they can't, they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that there's something called in, in the game show world. There's something called the Stack that's the questions in a trivia game. And it doesn't have a stack because the questions are coming up off the top of these, you know, players' heads. So it's kind of like reality, you know, survivor reality TV meeting, the standard game show, and it's just, it broke too many rules. It, they can't say yes. So now I'm at the point where. I'm just going to do it myself and, and do it on a low scale. I figured out a more of a, a mini version of it, and so that I can launch it on TikTok and Instagram and all of the other, you know, social media platforms. So I'm gonna rebuild the game. I mean, I did it all from scratch, of course, [00:56:00] the code and everything. Oh, and what's really cool now is the game had a character called Eden that was the sidekick. And back then, seven years ago, it was a fake AI that was judging the questions that were coming off the people's heads. Well, now I'm gonna code it. So it's gonna be a real ai. And so it's going to, in real time, listen to the game, listen to the questions, and then the host is gonna be able to interact with the AI and actually come back and go. Have questions, whether it was a good question or a bad question, what the right answer was. And we have no idea. And, and I've, you know, we tested this out and we've told it to be a snarky, punny, you know, sidekick, and it comes out really hilarious. And so that's the next project to put that all together. Nate Kadlac: Well, that sounds, wonderful. Is that something that's interactive with the audience viewing it, or is it really a, a show that you're watching and watching Kevin Glikmann: It's gonna I, I, Nate Kadlac: I, Kevin Glikmann: it's going, yes, I have, [00:57:00] 'cause I do wanna have Twitch to be one of the outlets and I do wanna build an interactivity with it. In fact, I wanna make it somehow where you can get on the show by building up points because you've interacted live in the game and knew the answers just as well as the, you know, contestants that we've picked. So yes, it's a, it's a big, big project. But that is the next project that, I will be on. Nate Kadlac: Well Kevin, this has been such a fun and interesting chat for me. And I know our audience is gonna take a lot from this as well. Kevin Glikmann: Oh, great. Nate Kadlac: people wanna find you online, where, where should they go? Kevin Glikmann: You can go to word glyph x you know, at Word glyph. And you can you can go to my website too, kevin glickman.com and see all of my work and projects and stuff like that. Nate Kadlac: Wonderful. Well, thanks for being here today. Kevin Glikmann: Thank you for having me. Nate Kadlac: is, is the nomination still available to vote on or Kevin Glikmann: Up to the up to April 17th? I think Nate Kadlac: Okay. Kevin Glikmann: so, yeah. If this [00:58:00] happens to come out before that, go vote. Nate Kadlac: go vote. Kevin Glikmann: Bring down Pokemon. Nate Kadlac: love it. All right, well, thanks so much, Kevin. Kevin Glikmann: Thanks. Bye. ​