A Seat at the Table

I wrote the story for a game that just released! Table Flip Simulator is a chaotic, physics-based puzzler where you destroy a wide variety of settings from your annoying office to the Oval Office… replica in Antarctica. The game has a pretty wild story, where the power of your anger makes you so big, you flip cars at kaiju! You can play Table Flip Simulator on Steam, Xbox, Switch, and PS5. If you do, let me know how cathartic the experience is. I think we all need a rage outlet right now.

Table Flip Simulator’s creative director is Spencer Yip, whose name will be familiar to regular readers. Spencer is an indie game developer who runs his own studio in Indonesia, YYT Games. I deeply admire Spencer. He has great insight into game design and business. He worked incredibly hard to build his own gaming fiefdom and a beautiful family. I’ve had a front row seat to Spencer’s development. It’s been a privilege to develop alongside him.

We first met back when I first moved to Los Angeles. I was in a YouTube comedy group with my friends Asterios and Joan called Overtime Comedy. This was in 2006, a prehistoric age for internet culture, and I’d been posting comedy stuff online for seven years prior. I believe this makes me an Internet Encino Man. Overtime’s most popular videos were dubs of poorly made video game cartoons from the 80s and 90s. Our biggest hit was a short called Mario in MySpace, which as of today has over 500,000 views. (I played Luigi and Toad, and yes, it’s obvious Keegan-Michael Key ripped off my performance, and yes, I’m obviously lying about that.) We also released Lack of Social Awareness Mega Man and the Legend of Zelda’s Relationship Issues, which have over 100K views each. These numbers were a big deal at the time. Nowadays a TikTok gets 4 million views and the creator complains they made 14 cents. We received nothing for our videos, but we weren’t expecting any kind of payday from YouTube. We were hoping Hollywood would see our videos and come a-calling. They did not, lol!!

Actually, someone better than Hollywood called. My good friend Spencer, who at the time ran a popular video game news site called Siliconera. He wanted to write a story about the success of our “Nintendubs,” as he called them, so we met with him for an interview. (The interview took place before Joan joined the group, so it was just Asterios and I.) At that time, Mario in MySpace had accumulated 40,000 views, which was enough to call it “viral.” The internet was a smaller place. Spencer gave our videos regular coverage on Siliconera, which led bigger sites like Kotaku to cover them as well, increasing their hit counts. The first of many kindnesses he did for me.

Spencer thought of me again and again for project after project. He hired me to write articles for Siliconera, including a review of Super Mario Galaxy’s story that’s cited on Rosalina’s Wikipedia page. (I’m worried if I link to it, some Wikipedia editor will delete it, which happened to me once before. But I’m there in the footnotes!) When he sold Siliconera to start YYT Games, Spencer thought of me to write their educational mobile game Nommons: Math Universe, short stories for the manual to Fallen Legion, and he gave me my first Narrative Director credit for Fallen Legion Revenants. Spencer specifically wanted me to write Table Flip Simulator, because the script for Revenants was heavy and emotionally draining. He wanted to hire me to write something more akin to my natural voice. More like a Nintendub.

Over the past twenty years, Spencer and I have been there for each other. He was a guest at my wedding to Amanda. I remember meeting his smart and caring wife Trish for the first time. When I told him that Amanda and I took “relaxications” together, where the purpose is to get away and just relax, Spencer took Trish on a similar trip. We’ve all had dinner together many times. Spencer and I went to GDC together a few times and stayed at the absolute worst hotels in San Francisco. (And one very nice one two years ago.)

What a joy it is whenever Spencer and Trish visit with their brilliant daughter Thea. She’s seriously brilliant. Thea mastered 3D printing and sells custom figures at school! Whenever she comes over, Thea gathers up all the “stuffies” in the house and creates a pile on the sofa. I’m honored that we introduced her to Garfield cartoons, a rite of passage in my childhood. When Amanda and I went on our trip to Japan, Spencer, Trish, and Thea gave us so many great recommendations. When Spencer told me he was planning to leave Los Angeles, I told him he should do what’s best for his family, because I want to support him 100%. Of course, I’d be sad if they ever do leave, but I’m certain we’d stay in touch. If nothing else, there’s always the next game.

2026 year marks 20 years of friendship and collaboration with Spencer. In many ways, I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. He saw something in me others didn’t. I was a fan of video games who dabbled in writing them, but Spencer took my talent seriously. He gave me a seat at the table in this industry. A real one.

I don’t have an amazing story to share about the development of Table Flip Simulator. It was a fun script to write. Very wacky with a satirical undercurrent. I’ve especially enjoyed watching him demo the game at conventions and seeing the joy it brings players. Spencer’s brought me a great deal of joy, too.

✊ Game Workers Conference: Speaking of conventions, there’s a free online convention for game works happening today and tomorrow. It’s organized by my union, Game Workers United. Check out the conference feed on YouTube! I’m most interested in the talk later today on game studio co-ops and how they work.

🎲 Your Turn: Is there someone in your life who made a meaningful impact on your career or your creativity? Do you have a creative partner-in-crime? Have you ever flipped a table in real life? I’d love to hear from you! Reply to this email or leave a comment by pushing the orange button below.