Jonathan Blow on Advice For Indie Game Developers
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Interview: • Jonathan Blow - On Gam...
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Jonathan Blow on Advice For Indie Game Developers
Clip from Jonathan Blow
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#jonathanblow #gamedev #webdevelopment #programming #indie #indiegame
Best advice I heard over the years on topics ranging from music production to drawing:
-Help it write itself. Don't bloat it with layers and layers of complexity
-Don't fear the simple ideas.
-Strip away the fluff off an idea to get to the core
-A good simple idea outweighs technical execution
"Design by Subtraction" Fumito Ueda has talked about this in interviews. If you think about it all he was ever doing was remaking the Legend of Zelda in a sense. Ico was one dungeon, SotC was boss fights and so on.
Edit: There are a crazy amount of examples of it, but one I always liked was Alan Moore. He became famous for his deconstruction of "what is a super hero" in his Swamp Thing run and The Watchmen. Truth is it is just a matter of figuring out what actually matters. What is the essence or soul of the work of art.
The interview this is from is one of JB's best ones, thanks for linking it in the description. The interviewer knows to ask the right questions and lets him talk without interruption, even when he takes time to think of what to say. He has a particular way of not filling the silence when he thinks, many people feel the need to speak up in such a moment. Not this interviewer. Most importantly though, it's one of the topics where his opinion and ideas genuinely shine. Some of the things he says miss the mark for me, but when _this_ is the topic, it's all pure gold.
By far the biggest lesson you’ll actually need to learn is understanding and recognizing that failure is almost always the first step towards success. Then learn how to leverage your failures into progress.
The first game you make will be horrible. The first iteration you make of any game will also likely be horrible. Don’t give up or scrap it. Do what Jon says. Analyze it. Figure out what needs to be changed and give it your best shot. Above all-always keep learning and figuring out what works.
"The first iteration you make of any game will also likely be horrible"
As an example compare Demon's Souls with Elden Ring. That progress only happened because of repeated iteration. Sure Elden Ring had a bigger budget, but the core game wouldn't be nearly as polished without the ~15 years of experience.
Yup it's not even about games anymore, it's anything in life (except heart surgery - that thing better succeed the first time, or you won't get to iterate much)
@@reireireireireireireireirei To be fair, there must be a long history of surgeons accidentally killing their patients before we as a species figured out how to operate safely.
no. just give up.
There is a GDC talk called "Why Dark Souls is the IKEA of games" which is based around a similar notion of what Jon is talking about here. It's a very good talk that I highly recommend for people interested in a slightly more through exploration of this topic.
Thanks man, I’m gonna watch that!
I was a little distracted from the point he was making by the interviewers *hilarious* reaction to her cat choosing to start licking its bottom on camera!
"Putting many functionally correct black boxes together does not make a great complete thing. You need cohesion/holistic design, leaning into the specific idea's strengths. Leaning into a specific design space might give you opportunities that might literally be impossible to get for programs with with different compromises." -JBlow's mind, probably.
Ironically the one time he's at a loss for words is regarding the one topic he has real experience with and insight into.
Loled at the baby metaphor
I think the last thing Jon talked about was relating to cohesion.
Cohesion is all about making sure that what you're implementing isn't just implemented as a black box, but rather the correct cog for the machine to function without issue.
Example: I was making a Blackjack game for college about a year ago, and I was following the directions, but I wasn't thinking about how everything would work together to function as an actual game. When it came time for the game to run, and go through its iterations, it didn't work correctly because I was only thinking of the directions as a checklist, and while they are technically a list of things to check off and complete, they are more akin to puzzle pieces that need to properly fit together and match the picture on the box. I was thinking of each piece as its own puzzle, so I lost view of the bigger picture, of the context surrounding the piece, and that's why nothing worked in the end.
The solution is to ensure that whatever piece you're making fits the puzzle; that what you're making isn't just surface level correct, meaning that you can describe it and it not only makes sense why it's there, but it also proves its importance in the overall functioning of the system.
While you're at it, it'd probably be a good thing if it didn't segfault.
Cohesion in Blow's games comes from focusing on a central idea, and expanding from there. E.g. The Witness: a line goes from the starting point to the end. Everything you see in the game follows this rule, it's fundamental to the game world.
This is different from e.g. GTA games where there's a lot of arbitrary mechanics, and the devs work hard to make them work well together.
(In this sense Taiji is very similar to what Blow would make.)
@@reireireireireireireireirei You're talking about Cohesion with respect to game design. I was talking about Cohesion in relation to system design. But I agree. Never played any of Blows' games. Are they as good as the general perception leads me to believe?
@@NibbleMeTwiceYou should really experience it for yourself. Others' opinions are nothing compared to your own perception of the world.
@@0ia At first, I thought you replied to my original comment, so I had no idea what you were talking about. Now I realize you're talking about Blow's games. Fair enough. I'll give one a try!
'promosm' 👏
ex developer here. most important advice: 94% of completed indie games are not profitable. dont waste time. go to the beach. buy a farm.
I'm making sure my indie is a success, then farm.
"I failed so you shouldn't even try"
@@TheFrygar i think failing is actually a great part of growing up, and i let my kids fail all the time for example. i just think if 94% fail that i wish someone told me that. those are years of work i could have spent having relationships, playing guitar, and enjoying life. now thats all gone… for nothing but a lesson
Over 94% of indie games are terrible.
@@ekstrajohn Having a relationship is probably the only thing better than making a game. "Enjoying life" honestly gets boring after a few months. Guitar gets boring after a few weeks.
This is old few years