Daniel Mullins: Making Games Alone (ish), Burning Through Savings & Failing Upwards | Ep. #042

How exactly do you go full-time indie all while creating bizarre, almost impulsive games from your bedroom that come straight from the heart? Look, if that's your dream, you got to listen to this podcast with the indie game dev legend Daniel Mullins. Daniel is the creator of Pony Island. That's super creepy. Oh god. Description. Take this and this and put this here and then take one of these and put that there. Bada bing, bada boom. and his latest project, Pony Island 2: Panda Circus. Yes, that's the game's real name. This conversation was easily one of my favorite conversations with a full-time indie. We discussed how he went full-time and perhaps how you can, too. We discuss his strategies for making a rockolid, profitable indie game, and we even open up the actual project inscription inside of Unity. I think you're going to be surprised just how normal the project looks. It's probably similar to your own projects, but what makes it shine is Daniel's magical ability to make any

asset look beautiful and juicy. We jump into all of this, and well, it's not going to disappoint you. This is a great conversation. And by the way, if you're anything like me and you've always dreamt of getting paid to make your indie games, I have a super cool gift for you. It's a webinar below, totally free, and it's about how to turn a simple 15-minute demo into an actual paycheck. I've secured six figures multiple times with just a demo, ensuring I was able to go full-time indie and pay the bills before even finishing my game. Believe it or not, over 15,000 devs have checked out this free webinar. Now, maybe it's your turn. Click the link below to enroll for free and you can save it for later, use it as a resource, and watch it whenever you want. I'll see you there. So, how did how did you get to this point? Can you give us the the the the journey from Yeah. from basically, you know, not making games to where you are now, which is this is your job. I mean, you're getting paid to make crazy ideas that

come from your head. And they're crazy. Like, your games are insane and they're we'll talk all about your games and how you have the courage and it truly should. It takes courage to make games like this cuz they're so bizarre. Um, but yeah, what's what's the journey to to to getting to this point? Well, yeah. I um you mentioned like from before I started making games and I'll try to keep it short because that does go pretty far back. I think I was interested in games from a very young age like I was my something like drastically shifted in my brain when I got a Game Boy Color and Pokemon Blue version. Uh and I I'd played it before that and I was like I need to have this and then when I had it I was obsessed with it. And um you know, ever since that point, there was a probably a part of my brain that was also interested in the making side of it. And um you know, I think from an early age, I I remember making little card. I would I would make custom cards. That's a strong memory of

like I would print out like a Magic the Gathering or a Yu-Gi-Oh template and then draw in my own portraits and like write in the names. And I got my friends to do that too. So like I don't know how old I was, but that would be a start. And then like I was always interested in that like uh another like light went on when I went to my friend's house and he had he showed me RPG Maker and I was like holy [ __ ] like I was like I was you can do this and I was I was into those kinds of RPGs at the time like on the Game Boy Advance probably I was playing them. So to see him just like oh yeah you can make your own characters and stuff that was like insane to me. And so I made some games in RPG Maker. Um, and then I got a little older in high school. I learned some skills that I still have today, like Photoshop and Flash. I don't use Flash anymore, but there's some fundamentals in there. Uh, and I made some flash games. Um, some goofy stuff. I made like, you know, you know, the impossible quiz. Flash you talk about this in another. I

probably played it in the school library, right? Cuz that's what everybody did before school started. We'd go to the computer lab and play. dumb, but like actually no, it's not dumb. The humor is dumb on purpose, but it's quite innovative. Um, anyway, I made my own one of those. Always doing derivative stuff. Flash. Yeah, that was with Flash or AS3. Probably was an older version. And I I was so un like I was had the most minimal programming skills. So like I only was like pasting in like snippets that I could hardly understand trying to make it work. And like making impossible quiz was fairly easy from a programming standpoint. Um and and yeah, like you know, I showed that to my friends in the IT class and like maybe that was my first time someone was like excited. I remember like I showed it to my friend in class and he came back the next day and he's like I played it all night and I beat it. And that was like so rewarding, you know? That was maybe the first time that it happened. Uh and then yeah, I went to university for computer

science. Um, I met a really key friend who um was into game jams and got me into that. And uh we made some mobile games together. Those are the ones I mentioned that probably you wouldn't be able to even find now. Uh and then I yeah, we had some lucky things happen like while I was still in school, there was this this dude on the internet uh who saw our first game that almost no one saw and he was like, "Ah, I think these guys could make us make me a game." and he paid us like $5,000 to make a mobile game uh for him. It was like a a children's math game and like that was just incredibly lucky that like we got paid for a summer to make a game and you know similar things like that I guess happened a lot to me which accounts for a lot of the success I've had. I think that first moment you get paid when you're younger. I mean I I was 18 when I got paid for the first my first live stream. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I think I I made 20 grand and I was like holy [ __ ] Yeah, that would blow me away happening. I remember I got

breakfast with my dad and I was like, why am I going to college? Yeah. And what what did you do? Did you still I went to college. I did what I was supposed to do. And I the whole time I was at college, I did probably did what you did, which is I'm just going to keep making games and not I didn't hang out with anybody. I didn't go to parties or anything. I just made games and then tried to finish my degree as fast as I could. So, you know that the the moment you get your first dollar from a game, it's such a bizarre feeling. You're like, "Wait, this is real, you know, it's actually worth something." So, that's awesome that you got to achieve that. Yeah. And it was contract work, right? Like Yeah, it was contract work. I guess the first game we released technically made dollars, but I knew they were only from family and friends. They like I don't know. Maybe the guy who ended up maybe there was a few like really nice and we did like try to go on Reddit and everything and market it and it and that was my first like realization. I I went we released it like in the evening for some reason and I went to bed and I was

like I know I'm being silly but maybe I'll wake up and hundreds of people have bought this game and of course I wake up and like no one has even looked at it. Of course I know the feeling. Yeah. But that made a few bucks I guess but that didn't really it feel it felt like the contract thing was like wo like this is actually serious. Um and then through that mobile game that brief mobile game journey was how I met my composer Jonah. [Music] uh he was on Reddit making free music and um he uh for our third game which we never finished sadly uh he was offering to make it music for it for free. We didn't finish it but then I was later like uh would you consider like would you allow me to use that music in a different game? Uh that was Pony Island. And then he's like sure but I want to make more songs for you. And um I think I gave him I gave him a revenue percent but I don't remember if I even paid him upfront. Uh, and then after the game came out, I he told me that he was a

high schooler, but he had he graduated shortly after. Uh, but that was a crazy realization. His music, dude, his music it it fits the vibe of your game so perfectly. It's It's erratic and beautiful. Like, it's it's it's that's there's something there's something messy. And I know that that's not the right word, but there's something messy about your games and their music. [Music] The world is just a mess, but in a beautiful way. It's like so it's such a hard it's a hard thing to pin down. And we'll get into that. Anyway, let's let's keep your story going, though. I want to hear how it But yeah, that I guess that's just another example of this lucky thing that happened, right? like I he he might not have been as talented and where would I be or like you know

like or maybe we didn't work out together and I had to find another composer and you know it's just like I happened to find like the dream collaborator by accident like I couldn't ask for a better person. He's the only person who's been on all of my games and I could not ask for a better partner in that. Um and so anyway yeah I I then I started working in the games industry like for real. I think having those like earlier projects probably set me up really well in the eyes of employers. So I got like a job here in Vancouver as a programmer. Sadly a lesson learned in the game industry was that the the uh company went out of business within six months of my joining. At the time though, I was young and had very little financial obligations and I was actually hugely I mean I I did feel bad for the people who who really were like invested in that company, but I was really excited actually because I got paid um severance leave and I was like I'd been thinking about an indie game idea. I was like, "Oh, I can use my I'm getting paid

for like two weeks. I can just start making an indie game." and I made um a Kickstarter and it did not succeed, but it still felt like this important step that I took. Um, do you mind if I ask what the Kickstarter was? Yeah, sure. It's called Catch Monsters. It's a It's a Pokemon meets Hearth with Hearthstone card-based combat sort of thing. I'd love to look at it here. Um, it's not even on Kickstarter anymore. Uhoh. I'm looking it up here. I think it'd be valuable to look at this and see kind of why it Last I was aware, it's on Kick Track, but it's not on Kick Track. Maybe they've started culling old failed ones. I always felt like it was a little unfair for Kickstarter to just leave up the failed projects. I was happy. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But like it was another thing. And I actually had this confirmed that the next job I got, they were like, "Yeah, we you really stood out because you tried to do a Kickstarter and like you're serious." That's great. Catch I found it. I found

it. Uh, really? Somehow. Can you send it to me on Discord? Yeah. Yeah. Or uh my closed Discord. Can I send it to the private chat here? I guess at the risk of ruining um my audio again. I think it would be valuable. Daniel, are you okay with us looking at this for Oh, please. Please. Yeah. No, I'm thinkable because I'm still proud of it in some ways. Oh. The only thing that's very cringe about it is the version of me that appears in the video. I don't think I can personally look at that, but you can. I'm gonna I'm about to share my screen, so hang on. Okay. I think it'd be great for us to look at this. Yeah. Um and I'll edit it and make it pretty. What I mean is like the So it's not like this. Uh Yeah. Yeah. Uh you can blur me out if Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Uh okay. So, Catch Monsters is an adult reimagining of Pokemon that focuses Well, so my first question is what does that mean? Well, in hindsight, it sounds a little weird. Almost like It sounds like a like a

hentai game or something. Yeah. And and and maybe that was part of the key to this game's failure cuz that I what I was trying to say and yeah, it it sounds weird. I I'll I'll I'll take that. Um I what I was trying to do was was say that it was like poke Pokemon is largely directed at children even though adults enjoy it. Uh, and I was trying to say this game has mature things happening. Like there are there is death and and and there there's even like weird Pokemon slavery in the game where like there's like of course there is. You made it. There's there's like these Pokemon in in the trailer that you'll see that are like mining at this like in this like desert. This looks cool already, Daniel. I love this. I It feels like classic Flash vibes, you know? Yes. that I made all the graphics in Flash. So, I'm not I'm not listening to the audio because I don't think it's it's streaming right now to the podcast, but at least we could take a look. There's a pretty cool song in the trailer, but

yeah, you can do that later. Uh, well, maybe maybe it will. Oh, Jesus. No, I wasn't supposed to see that. I want to see a 10 year ago version of myself. It is always it always so cringe. Especially me doing YouTube, it's like even looking back last year, I'm like, Thomas, you're such an idiot. Yeah. Um, this is, dude, this looks so cool. Yeah. You know, I I'm proud of a lot of the things I did for it. Um, so yeah, it's basically I I have something I call the big butt principle, which what my my what I try and do on YouTube is in the podcast and stuff is I try and put like successful game developers like how they made their game and put it into a framework. And the big so the framework of the big butt principle and this helps me a lot is every every great IP usually is some sort of genre or game but it has a twist, right? So like this would be Pokemon but violent, right? Or Pokemon

but horror. So it's that's why it's called the big butt principle. Um like every every great especially nowadays where they're rebooting franchises all the time, they're just doing a little twist, right? So, I I think it's a great twist. Pokemon but horror, right? Or but violent. Is that kind of what it was? I would say so. Yeah. I mean, I I think I had big plans for it that like if I I think it was lucky that I didn't make the whole thing because I don't think I was really up to make something of that scale, but if I had, I think I would have like striven to make it more nuanced maybe than like simply that. But, but that description probably makes sense like Yeah. Oh, I'm not critiquing it. I'm just I was just curious what you meant by it. But I think Yeah, you're right. That is what I was trying to say with that. Yeah, it making it super duper what I my my project Never Song. I don't know what I was thinking. Look, you can't even find it. Yeah, that's that's the one of yours that I did play. Um I got it on it.io. It's not came out.

Um I don't know about that. I mean, I was impressed. Thanks. Uh so this was my tagline. This is a problem from the creator of Pinstripe. It's like, right, well, who knows that, you know? Maybe some people might know that. And and there there was so much wrong with this. Like, once upon a coma, there was a boy named Pete who slept quietly in a coma. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a nightmare. It's like what? Like, what is that? You know, like maybe I'm weird, but like I like that description. Also, even if I hadn't heard of Pinstripe, maybe I'm not typical here, but I like that it's from the creator of anything. It's like I'm taking ownership. I have a history and you can look at my like lineage of games. Like to me, I like that. But I I see what you're saying. But I think that um Kickstarter is so fascinating because half of it is the it's a proof of concept, wouldn't you say? like if if Kickstarter if it

fails, congratulations in a weird way because it means that it means that you're not going to waste your time, right? Yes. Yeah, totally. And I think that I was saved from that for this game at least. Um I was Look at how little I was asking for. Like that's un that's unbelievably unrealistic. I was asking for that. It was in Canadian dollars. It was like 6,000 or something. Yeah. I mean, you you probably would have I don't know. You probably would have pissed off your backers because you would have released something that's not up to par, you know. Yeah. And I think I would have not been able to just walk away from it either. So, yeah. Oh, that's that's something we need to talk about, which is the when to know when to quit. Um. Right. And we'll we'll see if we can jump on that. But anyway, um yeah. Okay. So, let's keep going with your story. So, you had a failed Kickstarter, right? Yes. Yes. I forgot we were in a story. Um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, so yes, that that Kickstarter, like I said, I was I was upset that it

failed, but in hindsight, I think it was a good thing and and it I kind of recontextualized as this is I'm trying to become an indie developer and this is like a step toward it. Uh but but I did need to make money. So I I uh got another job and at a local company here called Skybox Labs and uh they're still around and still doing cool stuff. Um, and while I was there, I definitely leveled up my programming skills a lot. I think I had some really good mentors there and just some great people helping me. And um, during that time, I I was still doing game jams and I had I had done the game jam version of Pony Island like right before I started that job and I had already accepted the offer, but I started to detect this interest in Pony Island that I had never publicly gotten for any other game. And it wasn't huge or anything. It was just like people people are responding to this in a way that nothing I've done before has had

them respond like that. It's a bad sentence. Um but uh like I had um a giant bomb article mention it. I had some streamers play it. I was like whoa. Again, that was another like moment where like What game was this by the way, Daniel? Uh it's Pony Island. This is this was the first Yeah. Yeah. But it was it was a game jam um entry initially. Um, and then so that was in the back of my mind. And then I was working at Skybox and one weekend I went away with my friends and for some reason when I was on my way back I was thinking I it would be cool to try that Steam Greenlight thing that I'm hearing about where you put your game and if enough people like it you get on Steam and that's that would be a huge step if my game was even on Steam because at the time you couldn't just pay a fee to do that. And I was like what would be a good candidate for that? Well, of course, uh, Pony Island. And so I I made a little trailer and I put it on Steam Greenlight. It sat there doing nothing. But then I thought, well, I have something here that some people are interested in. Why don't I just reach out to publishers? And I applied my

approach that I did to uh job interviews, which is that I compiled a massive list of emails and with a Python script, I inserted hello name and blasted out as many emails as I could in a way that seemed like they were personalized. Uh, so I did that to as many publishers as I possibly could and then I got some interest. Publishers was willing to um put some money. I think it was like actually they weren't even putting any money up. I I don't think they were just going to get it on Steam and um that was enough for me to sign with them. Uh this is I think I'm too in the weeds here, but I'll speed it up. No, no, no. I was just going to say I I I was just going to say I'm very interested in what you just said. Sure. So, you worked with a publisher, but on the Steam page, you didn't. Well, yes. So, that I'll get to that part of the tail. Um, yeah. By the way, when you worked with a publisher, because people listening right now, they want to know, was it worth it? Did they give you some money? Was it did it help you go full-time? Like, what was that like? I'm going to not name the publisher here because I'm

going to say some bad things about them. That's fine. And I've had bad experiences with publishers, too. Um, yeah. Part of me wants to put them on blast, but I'm not going to because I felt that way too conversation. Um, so they were actually they were fine at first. It was great. Um, and actually the person my contact at the publisher was an extremely great guy and like I have nothing but good things to say about him. Um, my game was green lit by Steam Greenlight cuz I sat on there and then all of a sudden I realized, oh, I'm on Steam now. All they were offering was putting me on Steam, but now they're taking a percentage of my money and I'm getting nothing out of it. Like they didn't even have How old were you, by the way? Uh, like 22. Dude, if I was a publisher and I was working with a 22. You're basically They didn't know that, though. You're basically a kid. If I was working with a kid like that, I'd be like, "Guys, I'm not going to that. I'm not going to screw you over." Yeah. Well, that's And luckily, that's what my guy did. And it was only the scumbaggery

actually only came later. So if if nothing had happened, I would have had only good things to say about this publisher because my my friend there, he unders he's like, I understand. I'm going to push hard to to get you out of this contract cuz I don't think it's fair anymore. And so he did that and I was So they didn't pay you anything? No, no money was changed hands. All the like all here's my thought. I was just like I need to be on Steam. That is my goal here. At the time that felt if you're on Steam, you could make some money. and and I I still felt like it was this step-by-step process to becoming an India. I was like, "Okay, at the Kickstarter now, the next step have any game just on Steam." That was my What year was this? Uh 2015 was when I was Yeah. doing that. I think I think we can as an audience hearing your story, we can be more forgiving. If it was like 20120, it'd be like, "Daniel, what are you doing?" Yeah. Well, I wasn't like a you know, it's not like I was a savvy business person anyway, but um that was my goal. But 2015 was different, you know. I think Greenlight was newish,

right? Well, it was actually getting closer to the end because that's when they were opening the floodgates of like they lowered their criteria and that's how Pony Island got green lit cuz they they just kept lowering it and then there'd be these big batches of games that just been sitting there and eventually, you know, I also put catch monsters on green light and eventually even that was green lit. So that says something. Um eventually everything was I think it looks great. Cash Monsters is honestly no one had no one had it looks a lot better than most of the games like uh that are living on Steam right now. So sure, but yeah. But anyway, I I'll briefly mention this scumbaggery, which is that much later they continued to pose after the game had become successful in a few instances, they posed as my publisher, even though our contract had been null and void. And um and then they went bankrupt and then a sister company of their of theirs with a lot of the same people who had just jumped ship continued to pose as my publisher in certain deals. There was

one with EA where they tried to take a cut of my deal with EA Origin, the subscription service, by posing as my publisher. No. Uh, and we had no agreement. And yeah. Did the publisher Um, okay. I did it start with a Z. Um, no. Okay. I had a publisher. I had a publisher. The first deal I signed was the same sort of thing. I was I was 18 or 19 years old. Signed a deal. Now, they paid me, so that was nice. So, I got to You already got a leg up on me. I have a leg up on you. Yeah. But they they were like, "We'll we'll make the game for you. We'll just we'll just make" cuz it was a flash game. So, they were like, "We're going to make Coma." It was called Coma. They were like, "We're going to make Coma into an iPad game. It's this new thing called an iPad." And uh that was the thing back then. Everyone wanted to get it on the iPad for some reason. Um, and so what I ended up doing, what ended up happening is they didn't make the game for me. Like that's a hard

thing to do. We're going to make an adventure game and we're barely going to pay you and we'll do all the work, you know. So they ended up not doing it at all and they went bankrupt and I had to buy the game back. Um, which ended up turning into Never Song. So did they give you a good deal? Like do you feel like it was worth buying it back sort of? Yes. Yes. So I guess I can disclose this. They It was a $20,000 deal to buy the entire IP, which I I did, which you're 18, you know, you're going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Someone waves 20 grand in front of your face. You're 18 years old. You want to impress your girlfriend. So, you sign the deal. Yeah. You take the 20 grand, but you sell the whole IP. And so, I sold the whole IP, but I ended up buying it back for about like a tenth of what Okay. they paid me for. So, it was actually It was a pretty sweet deal. Yeah. Yeah. It's just free money. free money. Uh, so anyway, dude, that sucks, man. I'm sorry that your first publisher deal that you signed really like I wasn't like mad about it

because yeah, like like I said, the scumbaggery came after the game had already been a success and changed my life. So, it's not like I was like really, you know, I I was thinking about these nightmare scenarios though of like what like again goes back to like all these lucky strokes I had where like what if I had they had not let me leave and I had published Pony Island and they had kept all the money and then went bankrupt and I actually got a letter in the mail from a French they were and now I'm leaking too much but whatever. Uh they're a French company. Uh, I got a French uh, court notice in the mail and and it was all in French and like at the time I guess now you could just like put your phone in front of it and like translate by the time I was like there's no way I'm going to be a like I I didn't need to, but there's no way I would have been able to deal with like a French court from from Canada. Like imagine that. I guess I'd have to hire a French lawyer or something, but like I if they were holding my money, how would I do that? Um, so I just was think like it could have been really bad if if my my saintly friend hadn't got me out of that agreement. Um, so but anyway, fast forward, I I um due to the the positive

sort of reinforcement I was getting. Um, just the fact that a publisher was even interested was a lot of wind under my sales. And so this felt like my big shot. So I spent a lot of time outside of work working on it. Eventually it got to a point where I could show it to people and people like my friends and family, you know, and they were excited about it. And um at that point I asked my employer if I could work on it part if I could work at my job part-time and work on my indie game the other half of course at a reduced salary but and so yeah yeah but and I kind of pitched it as like if you say no I probably will just leave but I really wanted to keep working at the job to sort of hedge my my bets financially. Um, and they allowed me to do that. Another bit of luck. And then I continued now with like full steam ahead working like able to work like I think I eventually got down to only two days a week at my job. They let me do that. Um, and then I was working three days and some of the weekend or a good part of the weekend probably on Pony Island. Did you have social obligations? So like a wife less.

So I had my partner who is now my wife was long distance and so uh I had friends but you know nothing. Yeah. No kids yet. That's I I've said it before, but yeah, if I had like all these obligations, I doubt that would have worked, right? Yeah. So, were you Daniel, sorry to interrupt. Were you Were you living on um like basically just like a really low frugal budget? It was I can't say I like had to scrap and save too much. Like I you know, like I did I I was renting a basement suite like but like I I didn't like go hungry. Basement suite. It sounds very fancy. Yeah, I was I was living in in a basement in East Vancouver. In Vancouver, rent is pretty expensive, but I know that's what I'm trying to figure out here is how did you do this? Because a lot of people listening right now. What they and I know you said on Discord that you misspoke during a podcast, but I agreed with I agreed with what you said, which is money is important as an

indie game developer. Would you agree with that? Having money it's a factor. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's Yeah. So, so the reason I say this is because I'm like I I try I try and tell people who listen to me on YouTube like try and get some funding or something while you're making your game cuz it helps. Yeah. Now, your situation though is interesting cuz it's like somehow you made two days of work pay for this game. Well, I guess that was that was like I I slowly reduced. So like if I'm really like crunching the numbers in hindsight, I definitely like I I I've never have been a big spender. So I was always saving. I mean a game dev programming job even as a junior still pays like it still paid much more than my cost of living. So I was saving as I was working full-time. And then as I reduced, I guess I was getting closer to the point where I was breaking even. And maybe on 2 days, I probably wasn't in I was in the red probably, but I still had enough savings. And and this is all a

compressed time period. I think I I can't remember the exact timeline, but it was only it was it was a number of months that I was doing this, not not years. So to me, it didn't seem risky at all. Um and again, like I was I I I at the time I was very optimistic about my job prospects. I when I had first applied for my first job in the games industry, I picked from one of three offers. It was probably a good time. And so like that I it felt like, oh, if I if I get laid off, I can just get another job. Big whoop-dedoo. If my if indie game fails, I'll just get another job. Um, so I I think I it was probably a good time in the games industry that I wasn't worried about that. I think I was a good candidate because I could always show the employers like, look, I'm look at all the stuff I'm doing and look at my experience. Um, so I I just wasn't worried about that. And so many indie game developers, so many indie game developers or like aspiring indie game developers, they just feel like they have to go allin, you know? It's like I have to sign a a publishing deal with

with a publisher or I have to do a Kickstarter campaign and get a full salary so that I can quit or I can't do it at all and I have to work a job I hate. And it sounds like you found this happy medium. Yeah, I found a happy medium in a lucky way. I think like I yeah I do agree that that dichotomy is is somewhat false but I also think that yeah if you had all those obligations like a family and everything and you were already working full-time like I can't honestly tell you to like oh you should be working in your spare time somehow like that's that's atrocious time especially with doesn't exist. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. That's a hard one. But I mean, I guess the part-time thing is was a stroke of luck and maybe that's one avenue. But I don't know if it's luck. It just sounds like you were being smart. Well, a lot of a lot of a lot of um employers would just say no, right? I they don't want It's not like they were paying you for for the hours you weren't working. True. You know, so I think I think you just It sounds like Dude, I mean, I'm just

listening to your career and I'm looking at your games. It just sounds like you have a really good head on your shoulders. Maybe. Yeah. Thanks. It's so interesting. You you interest me so much because half of you is very practical and and wise and then the the the but the creativity that comes out of you is like serial killer stuff. I mean it's it's just wild. Um we'll get into all that. So let's let's keep going though with your story. I want to hear how you got you went full-time. Yeah. Well, I'm almost there because I um the all this, you know, working on Pony Island part-time and eventually like almost full-time was was to finish the game. And I finished it very quickly. I was like super motivated by finishing it quickly and it was a short game, but it was like just over a year of development and not all of that was even full-time. Um that's amazing, man. It Yeah, I don't even know how that even happened. I I just never I never secondguessed anything. I still kind of work like that, but I just it was like next thing, next thing, next thing. Every if I was working on it like a little bit before work in the morning. It's like let's

just do one little task, like one little like bullet point on my massive list. If I can do that it before work, then I've made a step forward. Um, but anyway, got to release. Um, I was, yeah, I guess that I I started to get really excited because I I put out I was starting to get YouTubers um emailing me because I had it on Steam as upcoming and it looked interesting. So, these like quite small YouTubers in terms of like their subscribers and whatnot uh were emailing me asking if they could play it and I was just letting them play the whole game and upload videos of the whole thing even before the game came out. Um, and which is a weird choice maybe, but I I just thought like what what could it hurt? And I was starting to get more and more of those. And I think those videos attracted um a YouTuber who you may have heard of called PewDiePie. And then that's amazing. And then dude, yeah. Yeah. And and I I was um had a New Year's Eve party at the at the New

Year's Eve at the end of 2015 at at a friend's house and I woke up in their basement with an email from PewDiePie saying like, "Can I play your game? It looks interesting." Wow. Sent him the thing and then on release day, 4 days later that had been planned, uh, he released a entire playthrough just straight and playing it. And it's hard. I did have like a decent amount of wish list. I'm certain the video did a lot too, but it was basically a instant like success uh for me. Oh, look at him go. Yay. Butterflies. Shoot him. for shoo shoe butterflies. Why this is so congratulations by the way on thanks that. That is that is such a huge monumental achievement. And I'm by the way I'm looking right now at all of the streamers who have played Pony Island. And this is going to lead me to a really important question that I think everyone listening wants to know. Um you've got

Markiplier. He played Pony Island. 3.4 million views. Um, John Wolf. Um, 291,000 views. See here. I want to see the most. Sort by view count. I would have thought it would be the PewDiePie one, but actually I thought so, too. Uh, but it's Markiplier, but this eight years ago, so it's a different time back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, GT Live, that's a big one. They they've played some of my games as well. He's really really nice. Yeah. I think Jack Septic Eye was in there somewhere. Or maybe that was related. David, Jesse Cox, John Wolf, we mentioned that. Game Grumps, they've played some of my games, too. They've uh they've done really well. Uh anyway, the reason I'm I'm looking at this is I'm trying to see, are you more successful than me? And the answer is yes. Uh you've done amazing. This is so cool. Like, dude, it's such a streamable game. So, that's what I wanted to ask you.

What I want to ask you is what made this game streamable? Well, yeah. And and I should say that, and I'm I know I'm being a broken record here, but this was another thing that I feel was just lucky. I wasn't like aiming at that when I made the game. I was just trying to make an interesting game. I was always thinking about the way I felt when X happened in Bioshock or Y happened in Portal. Like these moments where you're like, whoa, like everything's different. Yeah. I was tr that's I to the to definitely a high degree I'm still chasing those moments in my games and so that's what I was aiming for but I think as a result um it makes a game that's very it's it's very good to react to it um it's so like there's lots of moments for the streamer to display their personality by going like whoa or like getting up off their seat and like walking around and stuff and I think streamers look for those types of games they don't want a game where they're going to be like sitting there emotionless less clicking, right?

Um, and then of course the title was very clickbaity. Uh, oh, Pony Island. Oh, but it's a horror game or something, especially in like 20, what was this, 2017 or Yeah, in 2016 it came out. Um, yeah, that was like pre mascot horror games. Um, which yes, you know, it's I feel like this is sort of leading up to that, which is like the twisted cute animals. Like I think I got in on that trend on the earlier side of things. Yeah. Yeah, you did. Wow. Um, yeah, Undertale had come out in 2015 and I remember seeing it and I was like, "Oh, no." Like, this game is doing a lot of the things that I want to do, but it's probably doing them better. And now it did so many things that I was like, "Oh, well, I'm not going to be the first to try that anymore cuz they just did that." Uh, and then I was I was almost a little bitter about it, but I think it also it created a context for in not it created a context for Pony Island where people like, "Oh, it's it's like Undertale. It's it's meta. It's all

these things." And um I think actually Undertale kind of like planted the seeds to to help me actually. Maybe. Sure. Yeah. The the meta vibe. Um Yeah. It's basically your games do two things I think really really well. They're they're meta. Um, but they're also subverting expectations. So, every like 30 minutes it's like, wait, what? I'm out of the game. Yeah. Right. And And did Pony Island do that? It just took the took you to a new genre. I think so. Game. Yeah. And I think I think Undertale does that to to some degree and and and shifts your expectations constantly. Keeps you on your toes. It's so good hearing you say that. I I wrote down aim for the woe. Yeah. Aim for the woe. And I think I need to I definitely I had a a call with my publisher this week and they felt like the the demo of my game Twisted Tower that it's it's streamable to a degree. I mean, we've had some pretty cool streamers play it, but chapter 2 through five, it's just

kind of like Sirius Sam. Just shoot run a gun. And so I had a call with my publisher and and we basically landed on exactly what you just said, which and it's this the problem is is this is an expensive approach. It takes time. Yeah. Seriously. where you got to go in and create these set pieces and these moments that cause the streamer to get out of their chair. My question is is do you feel like that's necessary for a game? I I I don't think I would I think it might be a mistake if you were if it was like oh I it's it's for the streamer first. I think you'd want to be like this is for the player. I mean, I'm sure you're not forgetting that either, but it's like this is for the player, but a streamer might also like it because like ultimately the streamer will direct someone to the game and they'll play it and if they have a bad experience, then it kind of ends there. Like I think so, they won't leave a good review, they won't tell their friends about it. What's the difference between what's the difference between aiming for a woe from a streamer versus a gamer? I maybe it's

not as different as I'm saying, you know? Um maybe you're right. I I just think maybe some of those mascot horror games it almost seems like they're and it's not fair to all of them. I I don't even I'm not even familiar with all them, but sometimes it feels like they're they were they're almost just bait for streamers first and foremost and then when you play them it's just like yeah there might be kind of vapid or I don't know like and I haven't played that many of them. And of course Five Nights at Freddy's I think was pretty innovative for even kicking all that off. So I'm not targeting them with this. Sure. So that's that's really cool, man. You know, aiming for the woe. I think that's a really cool Yeah. sort of thought process there. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to aim for it from the streamer, but you're and you've done that so well, but it sounds like with Pony Island, it sounds like you you didn't even aim for that. You just you just sort of intuitively knew that's what you wanted. Yeah. Right. I think I in a way I had a successful prototype. I had the the game jam

version and many people don't publicly release their prototypes but I did as a game jam version and and I it was a a feedback loop that I started getting there and I think that was a big key to it where I put out a lot of things at that point and then I detected that this one was being responded to and many many elements of the original game jam are the core identity of the final game. So part of it was was the success of the game jam version. Yeah. So, back to the story. How did launch go? Well, yeah, that was incredible. It was like an emotional roller coaster. I had achieved my goal of being full indie way faster than I had ever expected. Um because I when I started this game, my goal is just get it on Steam. Just it has to be on Steam. That's the that's the next step. Um, and so it had not just been on Steam, it had sold a lot to the point where I was now able to fund my next game and not worry about, you know, paying rent at all. Um, it got it

continued to get like rave reviews and YouTubers playing it. Like every week there was some like, oh, it's Markiplier this week. Oh, it's this person said they liked it. And it was crazy. It It was a little It felt a little undeserved at times. cuz I felt almost a weird sense of guilt where I was like I kind of just rammed this thing out like I don't Are you sure like you want to say that I'm a great game developer? Like would you say that's imposter syndrome? Did you feel like a fraud or was it just like I I don't know. Lucky or I wasn't thinking that I was bad at what I did. It just felt like the result was not compensatory to the what I put out sort of like I I would be happy if it did well. Well, it just seemed like the people who were going on and on about is like that like the excess was what felt. I wonder if the guy who invented a peanut butter jelly sandwich felt the same way. Yeah. You know, it's like I just put peanut butter jelly on some bread, but everyone loves it, you know?

And it But the thing is is it's ingenious, right? That that sandwich is ingenious. Your style, your aesthetic, and like the genre of your games, and I don't even know if you have a genre. Uh it's very it's very unique and it's but it's simple. Um and inscription is very simple. Uh but also it's not it like there's just something really really unique about that. And so in a way I don't know if you were born with that skill, but it sounds like you were just sort of blessed to have this ability to create something very unique but very simple. Yeah, I think I had I had developed like the core technical skills and like just craftsmanship from all of my experiments and then when I got the direction of like this is what you should direct them at, that was when I was able to succeed on that one. I I just wanted to mention one thing that I forgot to say. I feel like is an important point I kind of left my friend in the lurch where there was one point I'll say it quick just so I if he's listening I I got to give him his proper

due. There was one point where I was making for that French publisher I was making a a demo. They wanted to see a 30-minute version of the game. And I thought it was really important that I deliver this. And so my friend helped me like clarify my thoughts. He actually kind of designed out a little road map of like how I could proceed making a 30-minute demo. And um he's credited as a designer on the game because he helped me so much to make that first 30 minutes. And then after that, I kind of took it from there. But um anyway, just a shout out. Um what was his name? Uh Simon Jenkins. He's a he's a very very he still is like sort of my design guru that I go to every once in a while and I say uh he works at EA now and I say like oh I've got this design problem and he'll go way too hard. He'll like send me like PowerPoint presentations on like this is what I think here's all these approaches you could do. Uh so yeah. So Pony Island, what was that first what was that first paycheck like? Not the number. I'm not asking for the number. Like what was it like? Was it Was it

like way bigger than you expected? Oh, yeah. And you're like, "Holy crap." And you you did you feel like scared? Like, can I can I keep doing this? Is my next game going to do well? I think the the panic set in when I was like, the dust had settled and a few months after Corn Island, I was like, "All right, start time to start the next project." But what is that? And that was when well that I actually had my boss at work um tell me to do that but I just didn't want to do that. I thought I've I've I've exhausted this I I currently I had felt like I exhausted that idea and I didn't want to be someone who is seen as like getting one success and just milking it to death. Um which is there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not what I Well, you're doing that right now, aren't you? Yeah, I guess so. With 212. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, in the end, I took his advice. But that's right. Um, and so I just thought, I got to make something else, but it has to be all these things that people just said they like. I I don't

think when I was making Pony Island, I ever said the word meta. Maybe when Undertale came out, I started I heard that term, but like I never aimed at that or or all these or subversive or all these things that people said about Pony Island. But when it came out, everyone said those words a lot. And I thought my next game has to be all that. And I had I had an idea in mind um and I scrapped it because it was shaping up to not be those things. And so and then in a panic sort of I started the hex and I was sort of directionless and for a while I was trying to like merge this one idea I had of like this idea for a game but trying to like shoehorn in the meta and it has to be all these things and then I I think that game was was a struggle to make because I was just felt like it wasn't going to live up to Pony Island in the end. In hindsight, I think it I like it more than Pony Island and I'm more proud of it. But it certainly as far as like reviews and sales, it was it was not nearly as successful. But why? Well, I think a big part of it was

was it doesn't present itself well in a trailer. I don't I I will say that I did all the art in that game. Looking back on it, there are some parts I like, but I don't think it it's visually stunning. Let's say many people told me that as well. I It's so interesting because I agree with you. I'm looking at Pony Island versus the Hex. Yeah. Pony Island has a Undertale um grunginess to it. Yeah. It It looks worse worse than the Hex, but better. Like it's It has a simpler style that just makes it easier to but it's more trendy. I don't know. Yeah, whereas the hex feels less so. Um, and I don't know why. I don't Well, the hex I was straining against the limits of my my art skills. And Pony Island, I was able to I think I was able to deploy them in a way that it was less obvious, you know, that it was

like it was easy to draw a crappy sprite for Pony Island and make it look like it belonged there, but in the Hex it was like sort of very noticeable. Let's think about this. Okay. So, which one was funnier? I got to say the hex. Yeah. Really? There's some good ice. What about on the surface? So, like what about as it's as it's presented? Which one's funnier? Uh Pony Island. Yeah. Clearly, because it has the gag with the name, but yeah, there's there Yeah. And also at the end of at the end of Pony Island's description on Steam, it says it is not a game about ponies. Yes. Yes. That's funny. Uh whereas the Hex, it's the Hex. And so it's automatically feels like it's maybe it's a horror game. Maybe it's taking itself seriously, which isn't a problem. Uh, in a creaky old tavern, this is the description on Steam. In a creaky old tavern in a forgotten corner of the video game universe, a storm is raging. An anonymous caller suggests that there is a murder plot. Six video game protagonists are the only plausible suspect. So, it's clever, but I don't

know if it's funny, right? So, that's just something to think about, you know? I don't know. Um, clearly this game has done way better than my even my like this it's done great, you know, 4,000 reviews. Sure, you should have seen it before Inscription, though. I mean, it it was fine, but um it it it uh got secondhand um attention because of Inscription's success. Uh it it's it's I I've said this before, but its best day of sales in its lifetime was Inscription's launch, not its own launch. Wow. Yeah. Everyone's like, "Oo, I want to get a a game like Conscription." Partly because there's a bundle. There's a bundle, I should say. It's a little bit artificial, but yes. This is interesting. We've got You are so close, dude. You are so I'm looking at I'm fascinated. Oh, I know. 94. Yeah, trust me. Oh, you're so freaking close. And it was, you know, what's even worse? It was and it dipped at one. Oh, man. You just couldn't get it, you know? Um whereas Pony Island, dude,

congratulations. 13,000 almost 14,000 overwhelmingly positive reviews. That is amazing. Yeah, that is. Now, obviously Inscription probably blows it out of the water, but yeah. Um, let's look at Inscription. 120,000. What is wrong with you? How did you do that? Well, amazing. Again, it's not necessarily like, you know, like if a a game snowballs, it snowballs, right? It's not like I I It's not like Incription is hundred times better than the Hex, right? Well, let's Can we move on to Inscription in your story? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's that's about where we were at. Yeah. Yeah. So, I want to figure out like And I guess it we I guess we answered your first the first question of this podcast, which is what's your story of getting fulltime? Definitely. If we thoroughly answered that, we thoroughly and I'm it was great. So, we thoroughly answered how you went full-time. I want to move

into something like how do you know how you followed your gut with it incription? When I see Inscription, I see it I see a game that's clearly crafted by a singular mind and is so brave in its art artistic style and integrity, the music, the vibes, everything is so I I don't like the word brave, but it's brave. It's like Thanks. You just you just went for it and you just went with your gut. At least that's how it feels. Yeah. And so my question is, how did you know when an idea was good with this game? Well, I was kind of like I think I have to give credit to the process of making the hex in this where I was floundering for so long and so insecure about it and then I was working on that game for like 3 years or maybe a little less. Yeah, the hex. And and in the last like 8 maybe 6 to 8 to

10 months or so, I really was like, let's pull this together. Let's let's make this the best version of what it is and let's put it out there. And I was really I think I was heartened by my ability to do that to take I rapidly took something that I was very un I was very ashamed of or or just like not proud of and I turned it into something that I thought was great and I was proud of it. And so I felt that it kind of made me feel that I could do that again where let's just start and and so much can change. Um like I often just think about how the game is never done until you release it. It you can if there's something you don't like, you can always change it. There there's like just keep moving forward. If it's crap now, it doesn't have to be forever. And so you don't have to feel bad about this one part. Oh, I hate that one part. Just change it later. like uh and so I guess that I felt um sort of invincible after the Hex where I felt like even though it

hadn't done that well, I just thought like I still the game I had like nightmares about like it being so bad that people like like mocked me and it had like negative reviews and everyone's like, "Oh my god, the Pony Island guy made this. That's embarrassing." And like it didn't do that. It had overwhelmingly positive reviews. It didn't have that many of them, but and so I just felt, yeah, let's do that again. and you know do certain things different like let's get the art better. That was intentional. Um well Daniel just side side note here I'm in that situation right now. Yeah I I've I've been doing you know my games they do they don't do nearly well as well as yours in numbers but they're both very positive. Never and pinstripe is very positive and I feel I feel good. I feel like, okay, I I have credibility, so I'm going to make YouTube videos about Definitely. And so, I make YouTube videos and I and I teach and I tell people how to make games and follow their passions. But here I am with Twisted Tower, which is my third game,

and I'm not super proud of it, and I'm I'm ready to wrap it up. Um, and I will ask one thing though. Do you find that um you're not proud of it today, but can you think of a time that you were extremely proud of it like a month ago or two months ago? I was really proud of it a month ago when the demo launched. Well, there that's weird. Well, I think this is normal. I think there is a there's a curve of your emotions about the game and it's a roller coaster that you continue to go up and down on until it comes out. And so, I just like it's normal today to feel that. I think it's good that it's not always you don't always feel like that. Like that's just part of the creative thing. You can't look at the same thing every day and feel objective about it, you know? Well, what's what I think what caused this is caring what people think. Um the demo page right now is at uh it's just confusing to me. So, we're at a

thousand. The demo is at a thousand very positive reviews on Steam, but the last 28 reviews are mostly positive. And I'm like, what happened? But nothing changed. Nothing changed. And then disregard. That's what I say. Well, there's no rational reason to be like, "Oh, I think the reason why it's a I think the reason it's a very mostly positive is because it's only 28 reviews and so all it sample size." Yeah. Yeah. All it took was six people who Yeah. got it got pushed this demo on Steam for some reason and they Yeah, forget about it. Yeah. There is an effect I think of uh people are more forgiving when there's when they detect that it's a smaller thing like people if it's like civilization 7 people are not holding back they're let's let it rip baby in terms of stuff they'll say but if it's a small indie they're like oh this is a human being for god's sake so I think I think the problem with this is that what

happened and then and then I want to get into inscription what happened with this was um it's a First off, it's a demo. So, people don't know how much it's going to cost when it's Yes, that's a good point. Actual game. Yeah. So, it's a demo. And so, you've got people who know my games who played it. And they're like, "Well, we know Thomas is going to make a $20 game. So, we know Thomas makes those kind of games." And so, I think people are and they like me. So, they're like, "Well, I'm going to give Thomas a good score for his demo. Yay, Thomas." Right? And then after the marketing push is done, then 3 weeks, four weeks, two months later go by and then people come in who don't know me. Mhm. And they play the demo and they're like, "Okay, so this is going to be a $50 game because it looks like a $50 game." And then they play the demo and they say, "Well, that doesn't feel like a $50 game." And so I'm worried that people I'm worried that people are playing it thinking it's double A. It's not double A, right? It It's an indie game and it's going to be $ 15 to $20. Yeah. And so I think once I release the

game, I think the price point will anchor the expectations. I agree. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, I definitely am, as any Steam, you know, developer is aware that that the price is a massive factor in what people say about the game, whether we like it or not. I would rather them just say whether they liked it, and then as the consumer, I can say, okay, well, they they think it's great, but it's $20. I'll make up my own mind. It's not like, oh, it's bad because it was too expensive. Was uh was it Back to inscription. Was inscription and it by the way it's published by Devolver for people listening which is a huge thing. Congratulations. That's massive. Thanks. Yeah. Um was it Deolver's decision to do $20 and not $15? Um there was a discussion um they were way too willing to defer to me. I think that's a good thing. Like I remember this call and they were like we I I came in first and or I think one of them said like, "Oh, I think we should be it should be $20 because it's an unknown

quantity. Like people it it doesn't represent itself fully. So like people will be disappointed if they pay a lot and it's not what they expected." I think that was great rationale. And then I I just came in. I was like, "Ah, I thought maybe 25." And they're all like, "Oh yeah, 25 25." But then I was like, "Wait a second. No, I want to hear your you're you're the experts here." Um, and they are they are experts and I I in hindsight I think they were right. Um, so we ended up going with 20. Uh, but I think in general they're they're I think and all of this is all for the positive for them. They they definitely listen to their developers and they try to meddle as little as possible. Um, and so they were willing to go with me, but I wanted their expertise. And and I I do always aim lower. I think like my tendency is to aim low because I'd rather have more people play it for less than less for more. and I want the better reviews um that come with the lower price. So, it's it's a tendency to go lower for me. Well, we've got a game that is incredibly impulsive. I I don't

know the right phrase, but this game it feels impulsive. It's it's it's it's wild. It's a wild game. Um grounded in a very simple and singular mechanic. Uh, and this brings me I'm sort of bringing it back to with my original question is how did you how did you control that impulsivity or I don't know what the right word is. It's like it's almost like feature creep where you're just like let's throw in uh some video footage. Let's throw in let's change the environment completely. Let's change all the cards to look like they're futuristic. Like yeah, that feels like feature creep or something. I don't know what the right word is. Did Deolver like that about your games? Did they? Yeah, I should say that um I came to them with a game that was almost done. Uh it was late. They didn't they didn't give any development funding. They only uh I wanted originally I just wanted someone

to put my game on consoles and um just get that going. And the discussions led to a whole thing. They put up a lot for like marketing and and QA and localization, but nothing for like the games development because I had Pony Island funding that still. Um, so um, sorry, I lost my train of thought for a second. I was getting Unity going on the other screen there just popped open and like flashbanged my brain. Yeah. So, for people listening, we're going to um, we're going to open up incription in Unity and Yeah. I'm hoping it it's looking all right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess the question I'm trying to frame this right I guess do you believe in feature creep right and and what did deolver think about the feature creep and the answer was that they um they didn't get to say it really because it was basically done yeah yeah yeah yeah uh but yeah that's yeah sorry but I have an answer for you which is that it's sort of my whole process which is to do that I I and this is I did it with inscription I'm doing it again to a

greater degree with panic circus is and this will be the test if I've gone too far with it. But like starting with very little as as a seed and just throwing things at it and seeing how it grows is how I've described it. Um there's no master plan from the start like almost whatsoever. And we we start with some core thing like the card game, the deck building rogue like yes we're making that and then what there's going to be a twist. Don't know what it is yet. keep working on stuff and then ideas come as the bricks are laid. I guess man, it could go too far. It could. Yeah. Well, um can you personally Daniel Mullins who who you understand your games and you you've proven that being wild and stream of consciousness is the right approach for your games. Yeah. Right. So, like isn't that just the way to do it? How can you go so far with that? Well, I made a decision in Inscription uh that saved me

probably a year or more of development to not go too far, which was u and everyone reminded me of this after the game that oh, it's cool that you get to see PO3, the robot characters 3D section, but oh, I wanted to see the other two scribes so badly. And you see them a little bit in the finale, but there's no full-fledged section there. Before they were even saying that, there was there was a part of me that wanted to have a branching path at the end of part two where you could would describe you picked there would dictate which 3D part and each player would only see one of them. And so I would have developed three versions of part three. Um, and that it would have been a branching path. And I said no to that to myself because I felt that at that point I was the end was in sight. And if I did that, the end would be thrown way out of sight again. And I just wanted to finish the game. You know, you you've you've I mentioned this earlier in the podcast, but like you have this gift of knowing

when to be wild and knowing when to be wise. Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's true. Um you you know when to scale back and cut back like you just mentioned, but then you know when to go crazy. Um Yeah. How did you figure that out? Um, I don't know. I I I do Yeah. Like I I am even when I'm doing like a weird creative idea, I am thinking about how the time it'll take to do it. So, a lot of good ideas can be done. I find like a lot of little little ideas like, oh, a fun little card that does this are are ones I can think of and have done in the span of like a day almost sometimes. Um, and so usually the cost is lower. So I just get to get in these ideas. And I think that does go back to just having good fundamental skills. I think like all those experiments I did, my time in the games industry, my childhood of doing Flash and Photoshop, like I have the skills to make an idea happen pretty

quickly in the game. So, I don't have to be as prudent about time, but um there's limits to that, of course, where like if I make a giant 3D section of the game, it's going to take a long time, no matter how much. What about um what about testing? So, like did you did you find yourself playing Inscription all the time while you were making it? Uh, the reason the reason I ask is because like I I have to trust my instincts when I'm making my games where I'm playing the game and I'm I'm feeling where I need to insert something crazy. Yeah, that's I think that's a good Yeah, I think you're I can relate to that a lot. I think that's something Yeah, you you I I tend to play snippets a lot um as I'm working on them. As far as like let's sit down and do the whole thing myself. I don't do that too often, but I also watch people do that, which is probably even better. But um yeah, I I did find

myself and sometimes I even find myself getting carried away by just wanting to play the game. Even it's, you know, some parts of your own game can be fun uh even after a lot of hours. So like there's definitely probably were times in incription where I'm like, "Oh, let's see where this run goes." And then like, "Wait, no, I was trying to test this mechanic. What am I doing?" Yeah. And so, yeah, it's it's what I'm trying to get at, and I and I apologize if I'm not being as clear with my question as I can be. I'm I'm trying to figure out how do you know when to bring in wild ideas like, yeah, when to ground yourself and when to keep it simple. cuz like I I have conversations on this podcast with some game developers who are extremely principled about keeping the project on track. Yeah. And then I have other people like you or or Zivir and they come in and they're like, "Let's just go go for it." And it just feels right and let's just bring in some

crazy idea and just do it. You know, it's like how do you know when that's the right move, you know? I think it's there is like a a big part of it is intuition. It's like do you think it it's a cool idea? Is it does it resonate with you? Like you like you're a creative person like obviously when you have an idea it's like whoa like that is good. I it's you can't really like mathematically prove it but it's a it excites you and and the excite and the the prospect of making it real is exciting and I think that is something you should listen to. I I can understand the person who's like, "Uh, we got to keep things on track. We can't follow every whim." And and that might be the circumstances of their development. They might have all these team members and they can't just like, "Oh, we're doing a U-turn. Uh, the game is this now. Sorry everybody." Like you you have to con if you have a big team, you have to convince them of your creative decisions a lot of the time, I suspect. But I'm lucky enough to to have the freedom. the

people I work with sort of like it's like please make this music track or please make this art asset. I don't have to describe the greater scheme of the game to them so I can make decisions. Um I don't ever want to be in that position where you have to justify your leadership. It's just like no we're just going to do it just trust you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It can be hard though. It's like sometimes you feel like oh like do I even believe this enough myself? Like I'm telling you to trust me, but like oh boy. Well, this this makes me wonder, you know, when I think about the hex and how you described the hex, it sounds like it sounds like the hex was a game where you were timid and trying hard trying too hard at the same time. Yeah, I think I that was a lesson from there. I I was doing things that I think can be good, which is like using like sort of external heruristics to like evaluate your game or or I think these things are good for coming up with ideas but not necessarily for evaluating what you

have. Like I I I was reading like books about how to write dialogue and game design books and I would always try to like map them back onto my game like oh am I doing that? Am I doing this? And I think I was overthinking it maybe. Um absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's what a Daniel Mullins's game should be. Yeah. Yeah. Right. They should they should be very bizarre. And in a way, it's like this is something actually that I I found really good advice and I was surprised to hear it. My publisher um the parent company is Saber and uh my publisher is 3D Realms, the parent company is Saber, and they have some really smart guys who will play Twisted Tower. Mhm. and provide feedback and and ideas. And one of the things they said is, "Thomas, we know you and we also know that the game is called Twisted Tower. Your loop is too consistent." They were like, "You need to you need to get out of Yeah. You got to twist the

loop. You got to get out of the game loop." Yeah. And I found that so interesting. And I in a way the old version of myself when I'm trying to be a good businessman and a practical game developer, I would say, "No, we don't. That's feature creep." Yeah, but I think I'm I'm starting to think that I don't believe in feature grief, at least in Yeah, in the way that it's hard to tell people that. I know. It's like it's advice that might be dangerous to give someone. I I just wanted to say though, um cuz I haven't said it yet. That Twisted Towers looks great. I I been talking about it, but I've just been like silently nodding. But I saw you play your own demo and um and it's it's impressive that you're not calling it double A, you know, because you've you've achieved a look that is very much that or or triple even like it it looks very good. Um so I appreciate that and and I I can't claim to number one, I can't claim to have done the artwork that his name is Filipe Carelli and he was fulltime with me for three two and a half to three years. Not just the art, but the way it moves and the way it looks and sounds and everything. Yeah.

The second thing I'll say about what you said is that it's a B I think you said it's bold that I'm saying it's not double A. No, that's me being a coward. I'm saying I'm going it is not double A. Do not please do not put those expectations on the game because and that's why I'm anchoring the price as much as I can because I'm just terrified that people are going to play it and be like, "Oh, the story's not as rich as Bioshock." And I'm like, "Of course it's not." Yeah, you know, it's like 1% of the budget. Uh, but I appreciate I appreciate you saying that and um I I I'm tempted to go and and reduce the um fidelity of the game. I'm I'm reducing Oh, interesting. and make it look like something like Inscription where what I mean by that, and I hope you understand what I'm saying. I'm not insulting you. I'm actually saying I'm saying yours looks more stylized and trendy and with the with the pixelation and the um the lower fidelity looks amazing. I love the way Inscription looks. And I'm tempted to do that with Twisted Tower. Number

one, it says indie, right? It sort of That's right. It's like, hey, this is not Bioshock. We're not trying to make Bioshock. Yeah. Um I think Mortal Coil made fun of that uh that that Souls Light game. They have a uh graphics option called indie mode and it applies aation filter. Wait, what's it called? Mortal I've never even heard. I think it was called Mortal Coil. I just want to like double check that. But um I Googled it. It was pretty good actually. It's a Souls like it's you know it's it's a little to it's a little like Dark Souls derivative but it's like a good version of that. Well, let's let's go ahead uh Daniel and open up um Wait, this isn't right. Uh this is something else. Hold on. What the What am I thinking of? Um, I don't want to I looked it up and I I got this album. That That ain't it. It's a music. It's a band. Mortal Shell. That That That's it. Yeah. Okay. So, Mortal Shell, you can do indie mode. Well, look, you know, indie mode is I've actually thought about doing that for Twisted Tower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I cuz I I like crunchy looking

games. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Uh Zavir's I don't know if you played Zolivir's click game. I can't remember. Clickolding. Clickolding. Yeah, it actually looks very similar to Inscription um in the a heavy reliance on post-processing and bloom. Yeah. Um which is totally fine. I'm not it's not a slight. I'm saying that that's a brilliant move. Um and also that low fidelity pixelated look, heavy reliance on color theory. Um by the way, as you open up inscription, if you don't mind, feel free to open it up. Sure. Yeah, I actually have it open. How how involved was Deolver in the style of the game? Because I look at Deolver games, they always look very similar. Yeah, they're they're heavily relying on on simplistic color theory, especially complimentary colors. So, for example, Cult of the Lamb. Actually, Cult of the Lamb I wouldn't say is complimentary color theory. It's more like monochrome um with low saturation backgrounds with

pops of red. Mhm. Um it seems like you've done that with Inscription. Did they go in and help you with that or was that because it No, they didn't nothing nothing to do with that because yeah, like I said, they they came in late in the game. I had already done all that. And um I had a friend who did um a color palette for the game that was pretty big. Um I I had some really cool shader effects, but yeah, they I think you know I think you're right that it like it has in a way that devolver aesthetic, which is probably why they were even more interested, but um they didn't, you know, contribute. Yeah. Um, then the next question is that it looks way better than the hex. Way better. Yeah. Yeah. What happened? Um, how did you do that? Well, a few things. I think I was intentionally I was like, what what is worse? What is the worst thing about the hex? And I know some fans, like, oh, it looks great. Don't worry about that. But, you know, I' I've gotten better as an artist. I I'm proud to say I did all

the 2D art in Inscription, like the the card portraits, the pixel art, and so you can see that my skills actually improved over time. They sure did. And I like they still are hopefully. Um, and so I also aimed at it. Then let's let's be realistic about the real reason why it looks great which is the models the 3D models in the game uh by artists mostly most of the iconic ones are by uh the artist David Hogaman uh who I started working with inscription and I'm working with him again for Panda Circus I think it was a combin he he his style lent itself really well to the post-processing effects I was using he he sculpts these like beautiful like very highly textured and there's there's wrinkles and divots in everything. Um, it's like a Spongebob closeup every model and like that lends itself to the post-processing effect which really like picks up the shadows and like um makes

the shadows look bolder and the highlights look brighter. Um, and so I think it was this this great synergy of his incredible artistry and style with the effects that I was putting on top of it. And let let's be real, his effects his art looks amazing without the effects. Arguably better it different, but well I I think about I think about it almost like an interior designer. So my wife my wife will will and then we'll take a look at Inscription in Unity, but my my wife will watch uh those house design shows or whatever like uh what's that? It's Chip and Joanna Gains and they're flipping houses and stuff. M and what's interesting is the person who makes the table is a gen like like a custom table for example for the house. Of course they're a genius. Of course they're brilliant. But the real brilliance is the person who curates it all and puts it into this beautiful um house. Yeah. Yeah. And so when I think about inscription, I think about you as being like uh an interior

decorator almost where you just have taste and you know how to find the right artists and the right people to put it together. Y into this one complete package because in scription it looks like it I Dude, I thought you made all that. What I mean is like I thought you designed all of it in Blender. No. God. And it it's but that's not a slight. It's actually a it's a compliment saying you're a good leader and a good art director and you're somebody who knows how to curate. Um Sure. Yeah. I'll I'll take credit for for being the interior designer, but I I really like earnestly, not trying to be modest, I still put the the I put the table craftsman above the interior designer in terms of like just the skills. Like I don't know. Yes, I I totally agree with what you're saying. It does take right. But they're totally different lanes. Like what what does the interior designer's house look like if it's all made by shoddy like like crap?

Like it's it's crap, right? Like I know, but they're just they're different skill sets. They're different lanes entirely. But I do take Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just just a thought where yes, I I do take those assets and I do as much as I can with them. Uh, but again, I felt that I I don't know if you feel guilty, but I felt guilt with Twisted Tower because and that's why I tried to credit Felipe so much. And you're doing the same thing where you're like you're naming everybody you've worked with. Yeah. Whereas like with with Felipe, it's like that guy worked his butt off on Twisted Tower. Like he worked so hard and he he even I would say please Felipe, use assets when you can. Yeah. Yeah. And he would go and he would go and say, "Okay, okay." And then the next day he'd be like, "So I made this from scratch. Don't get mad." And so everything in that most of that stuff in that game is made from scratch. And if you see an

asset, if you see an asset, it's because I got in there and brought assets in there behind his back. That's a great process. Yeah. So he uh he he was highly highly consistent in creating custom assets and but but and he he and I have talked about this. There is something to be said about the person at the top, the leader who's like, "Yeah, but this is the color palette and this is our post-processing and this is our lighting, you know, um and how it all you do need both." Like I've seen games that have incredible artistry on the per asset basis, but they those assets are not um done justice by the way they're sort of put together. So you do need both. That's right. I mean, it's it's it's as simple as looking at games that have this crazy fidelity, but they look like crap. And it's like, why? Yeah. And it's probably just color theory. It's

post-processing. It's lighting. Lighting is a huge thing. But uh yeah, let's take a look at uh inscription. So if you want to click present down there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can share your screen with me. And I'm curious how the scenes are set up, man. Yeah. Let's see. Um Okay, hold on. Uh present. And I didn't ask you to share Pony Island 2 because you're still making it. I don't. So that's it's not that I'm not interested. I would maybe Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think I'm with you because I would inadvertently um reveal things that I'm um Is it showing now? Oh, let me look. Let me look here. Uh yes, I can add it to the stage here. There we go. Okay. Um I don't know what state because so to give some background, I haven't been in the repo in a decent amount of time. I I was in a the wrong branch. So I switched branches and I just downloaded the right version of Unity for that branch. And so I and I

wasn't able to transcode all the the videos in time. Wait, wait, hold on. Bring the console back up. I I It's gone. I I cleared it. But I I'll tell you what it was anymore. It was um It was saying that I had failed to transcode the videos. Um like that cuz you have to change their format. Uh if if you Yeah. Well, it's an important question. Do do did you ship a game that had a bunch of warnings and errors in it? Um, well, errors, no, because they can like crash the game. Um, warnings, yes, to a degree. I I don't Yeah, I I think I've gotten worse on like attending to warnings over the years. I just I disable I disable. Yeah. Yeah. Every once in a while I take a little browse through just to make sure there's nothing that's too concerning. Um, but yeah. Uh, what what are some interesting things here? Uh, show me how the scene works. Show me how. So, this scene I don't even know what'll happen. Make it bigger for us. Uh, sure. This is this is

normally the like the Unity layout that I prefer. This is the This is the layout I use, especially the hierarchy in the project uh panel. Yeah. So, but I put the game on I split the game in half uh horizontally. So, that Yeah. Yeah. I um I had these scenes to test. So, if you're familiar with enscription, you know that when you go to certain nodes on the map, um, uh, an event will happen. It's like pick a card. It's the simplest one, or like change a card, add a sigil, whatever. And so, I actually had test scenes for each of those that used common prefabs. Um, so it was like simulating the game, but I could like run that particular event very quickly. So, this is one of those, and this is the one where you turn one of your card Oh, I have compiler errors. This might not go very far. Um uh but yeah, apparently I have compiler errors that I guess I I'd love to see what the what the what what we're looking at. So that So yeah, what we're looking at here is is the scene that I was using to test the part where you um

turn one of your cards into a transformer, which is a thing you do in part three where you you you turn a card such that it transforms like a like a beasty or a transformer from the 80s um into a beast on the other side and it'll flip around. And so you I wish I could play it, but I I don't know if I'm going to like figure out these these uh compiler errors on the spot. Um you this like weird cage comes down with all these like like eyes looking out and uh you pick a card from your deck and it gets inserted into this uh this um disc drive thing and then you with P3's face oh my god uh with P3's face you uh it's an interface that you use to like pick which beast you wanted to turn into, right? Um, uh, as you can see, I use heavy use of like nested prefabs, um, in Unity. I think nested prefabs and prefab variants are like were a gamechanging

Unity feature, right? I use them all the time now. It's absolutely necessary. And when I look at other game engines, I'm like, you don't have that? I don't know if I Have you tried, Daniel? Have you tried Unreal? Only Only just to like peep around in it. I can't earnestly say I've tried to make something in it. Yeah. If you if you come from the Flash world, in my opinion, Unreal is like learning Chinese, right? Yeah. It is so different than Flash. Yeah. Um the paradigm shift is bizarre. So I don't I haven't touched it. GDAU is very similar to to Yes, that's one where I can see myself being able to transition. I think would be a bigger step. Um is there any scene, Daniel, that we can hit play so the people can see? Well, with compiler errors, probably not. I I I'm sorry. Um, no. I didn't prepare for uh this demo. No, I know. I I brought this on you randomly this today. Um, and the switching branches probably did something uh to I find it hilarious that

I This is true for me. If I were to pull down Pinstripe Never song right now, it wouldn't play. I I wouldn't know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I definitely could, but uh I don't think this is a show where we want to watch me like figure out what's going on. I I can just peep some of the scenes. Yeah. So, yeah, that's great. There's our boy uh cursed as hell with the lighting. So, your models are high fidelity. Yeah. Super high. This is David Hogaman uh you know, at his peak. Oh, not that he creases. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The normal maps are ridiculous. When I first got this, I was like, "Ah, like you did did I make him waste his time on something so detailed?" But I think it does translate even with the because it's it's the pixel canvas that it's sort of overlaying or like reducing it to is still pretty high. It's like half of 1080p is a little unusual in that way where it's like it's pixel art or pixelified but very small pixels. You

notice it but it's uh it leaves a lot of detail. Uhhuh. So how did you achieve the pixelated texturing? Is that just compressing it down in Unity? Well, yeah. So the the texture on this guy is is not really anything but maybe compressed just for the sake of memory or like disk size. Um but the the the pixelation I'm talking about is like the the post-processing overloading uniform. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on a per texture basis we have pretty high res textures. Can you can you turn on um the post-processing uh in the scene so we can see it? Uh, unfortunately, like I can turn on the lighting here, but like Yeah, I don't think without hitting play, it's not going to do No, click click next to the arrow, the drop down arrow. Yep. That one right right next to it. We have some post. Okay. Um, but you have to turn it on. So, click the button right next to the drop down arrow. Right. But that's it's still these some of these effects, they just they they're only at runtime. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

I know. I know a lot of the stuff like recently on the asset store they try to do it both but um I don't know some of them were custom and and they just they they it's a runtime thing. Um Daniel, can you give us some tips on how you handle lighting? What like Yeah, you've got a you've clearly got a cinematic understanding of lighting. Can you can you break it down for us? I was using as a guide how the the assets looked um and how their how their shadows were cast and how the assets looked like I'm trying to like make them sing like that interior designer as much as possible. So a lot of these lights were finally tuned. Like here's an example. I wanted Lesie to be and this isn't a good example because you don't see the post-processing but I wanted his eyes to be of course visible. So they aren't they're unlit. So they're they're regardless of the light, they're visible. Um, but I wanted bits of his face to be shown. I didn't want to be just eyes. I wanted to imply a bit of a shape. And so so much was done or not so

much, but it was tweaked to be that you could make out little bits of him to imply a shape, but not to really get a sense of like what he is. Like like you might see these little creases on his forehead. It's like, oh, humanoid for sure, but then why is there like bit of light being picked up like way out here? I can't can't even tell that it's like a big twig that that it is, but it it's kind of spooky. And so the same same would go for these other like beautiful pieces where it's like I want to see the sort of the shadows in them. I want to make sure they're casting a nice shadow and that they're just like being used to their full potential was was a big part of it. Uh visibility on the things that are important. Um total darkness in places that weren't important was something I was shooting for. Like I wanted this like sort of claustrophobic shadows like sort of bounding the room. Uh you didn't have to deal with optimization very much with this game, did you? On the Switch port. We did. Uh did you really? The shadows you just removed shadows basically. Um it's been a while. We had to reduce lights for

sure. Um yeah. Yeah. B Did you do any baking? That's something that I think it's it's more just my inexperience with it that I've I've tempted it a few times. I I can never get Unity to to quite get get it how as good as I want it. And the one thing it does lose is like one of my like staple effects that I use everywhere is like a subtle uh flickering of the intensity and range of a light source. And so at least if I'm doing dynamic, I'm paying a cost for it, but I'm getting the advantage of that flicker that you couldn't do if it was baked. Well, what I found out about baked lighting, and please forgive me if you know all this and um I probably I don't do it very much, so I probably don't. Baking baking lights kills the specular and the metallic and the normal maps. Okay, they're gone. Okay, so you can't bake you can't bake a surface that's that's metallic, specular, and normal. So all

your normal maps, those beautiful normal maps, everything that makes this look incredible is gone, you bake it. Um, and so what you have to do or what me and the my team had to do with Twisted Tower. And lighting is so um baked lighting is so idiosyncratic that people in the comments are going to have plenty to say about what's the right way to do it. But what me and my team had to do is we had to figure out a way to bring in real time lights that are really important, but everything else is B. Yeah. I think that's the sweet spot. And then you get the best of both worlds, and it's just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I've never been forced to do it, but I I have um an environment artist right now on my current game who has gotten some good results in certain scenes. So maybe maybe the next one we'll do it a bit more. Yeah. I just it was one of those things where I just didn't have to. Well, the reason I asked about optimization is it's like it's really nice to have a static scene that you're

there's very little to render here, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I I can imagine you didn't even have to do any occlusion culling or anything like that. Uh not in this scene in the factory later on. Um uh there's like a lot of stuff behind the character and so I did do some of that. Like there's all this crap back here. Let's take a look. This is like the part three scene. And this is this is like the factory that you're in. And uh this the back part of the factory is kind of like um if it weren't for the wall viewable from where the player sitting and therefore it wasn't like called by default. Uh so that was one little optimization. Can we see uh can we see how it looks without lighting so people feel good about themselves? Yeah, it looks uh terrible without lighting. Yeah, lighting lighting. I would say lighting and music are like like 70% of a game. Oh yeah. Uh at least it's aesthetic, you know. Yeah. Um it's fun to see all the pieces that are like many of these things aren't simultaneously active, but in I usually have them

active by default in the scene and turned off when they're not in play. So there's all this like weird random stuff hanging around. Have you ever seen Have you ever seen a creepy Disney ride? Like for example Mickey's Haunted Mansion, right? I don't know if I don't know if you've ever been on these rides, but I probably uh Yeah, I don't know. Not too familiar. If the lights are on, it's like, oh, yeah. This is so lame. But see the workings of it. That's right. And so that's kind of what this reminds me of is like that face that was embedded in the wall just now. Yeah. Yeah. Um it's like, oh, that's that's all it is, you know? It's just a model put in the wall, you know? Light right in its face. Yeah. But what's it look like with with the lights turned on, you know? Ooh. Yo, that's I wonder what's behind him, you know? And if you could only see the post-processing. I know, right? I mean, post-processing does so much. Yeah. Yeah. Um, this is so cool, Daniel. Yeah. Have you ever shown this before? Uh, no. No, it's actually quite fun to do that. Um, yeah, it's

it's it's a cool privilege to show it off. Yeah. And this what what I'm seeing here is the value the value in having a strong understanding of color of lighting of layout of cameras and cinematography because truth is is as brilliant as all the artists are who created these models when you turn the lights off that it just looks like a standard it looks kind of standard you know other than that cool that cool character or the faces like the humanoid stuff. Yeah. It looks really really detailed and interesting, but like a lot of this stuff is pretty standard, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like it Yeah. It needs It needs both. Um it would look even worse if they were bad models. Yes. But they they're good models, but it's not like when I see them without the lighting and the post-processing, I see like, oh, they're just they're they're cool models, but it's not like what I

thought they were, you know? Totally. And the nice thing was like as time went on, I was able to show like the artists like this is how it looks in the game. And I think people were responding to like, oh, like I know how to maximize, you know, how this will look for you. Mhm. Absolutely. Um, cool. Yeah. Well, dude, um, I think we've got This is a long podcast. Time has flown by. Yes, it has. is um I'm trying to think if there's anything else we needed to cover that is there anything you really wanted to cover before we wrap up here? Ah I feel pretty good about it. I got to show off my stuff. That's fun. Yeah, I feel like uh this was this was a really fun conversation, man. Um cool. Well, the link is in the description for Pony Island 2 circus. I'm trying to remember. Circus of pandas. No, panda circus. Yeah, Panda Circus Cir Pony Island 2 Panda Circus. Yeah. Uh

wish list that below. Is there anything else you wanted to leave in the description, Daniel? Nah, that's that's that's my big thing right now. Yeah. Cool. Well, there's a ton of stuff that we didn't cover that I had on a list of questions. I'd love to have you on again. Yeah. Go through that stuff. I know we wanted to talk about juice, game juice, and game feel, but Yeah. Um I'm sure you're busy and you got to run here, but um dude, thanks for coming on. That was so fun. Yeah. Yeah, I had a great time. All right, dude. Take it easy. Yeah, you, too. Yeah. Cheers. And by the way, if you're anything like me and you've always dreamt of getting paid to make your indie games, I have a super cool gift for you. It's a webinar below, totally free, and it's about how to turn a simple 15-minute demo into an actual paycheck. I've secured six figures multiple times with just a demo, ensuring I was able to go full-time indie and pay the bills before even finishing my game. Believe it or not, over 15,000 devs have checked out this free webinar. Now maybe it's your turn. Click the link below to enroll for free.

And you can save it for later, use it as a resource, and watch it whenever you want. I'll see you there.