how I made & played a game with PEWDIEPIE in 14 days

HEY GUYS, WHAT THE HELL? [laughter] You think you're a stupid little friend? Oh, that's so great. Hey guys, how's it going? My name is Thomas Brush and I make indie games for a living. I know a lot of you have been asking me about the PewDiePie game that I made and [music] uh the 14-day game jam of creating that game, what that was like, and how I pulled that off. You know, making a video about PewDiePie usually means that the comments are spicy, so I'll just plan on that. But I uh I figured I'd let you guys know how that whole thing happened. How did I make a game in 14 days for PewDiePie? And better yet, how did I I mean, how did I get the opportunity to make a video with him on his channel? I mean, that was that was crazy. So, anyway,

guys, I'm excited to tell you about how I made this game with PewDiePie. And more importantly, I'm excited to tell you to smash the like button. Please click the like button. That would really mean a lot to me. So, I was chilling at my parents house. I was actually working at my parents house cuz I worked in their basement. The reason why was because my wife and I were building a house. So, I was making video games in my parents' basement. And I was actually running this YouTube channel [music] in their basement. And I remember I needed to take a break. I needed to I need to go take a break. And so, I went upstairs and I got on my phone taking this break. And I remember scrolling through PewDiePie's submissions on Reddit [music] and I thought to myself, man, what if I what if I dared PewDiePie in a video to dare me to make a game for him? And so, for some reason, I don't know why, guys. I mean, I don't think I would do this now, [music] just cuz I didn't I

don't think I realized how big a deal it was to dare PewDiePie to do me, not do me, to dare PewDiePie to dare me to make a game. [music] and then have his mi hundreds of millions of subscribers uh come over to my channel and watch me make this game that I knew nothing about. I didn't know what the game was supposed to be. I just knew I wanted to dare him. So, for some reason, I dared him to dare me to make this game. Dear PewDiePie. So, I have this really cool idea of making a game um maybe about [music] you and T-Series. Well, a week later, he posts a video, a lie, and there I am in the video, and he accepts the dare. He said, "Let's freaking do this." And he put a link in his description, and he sent a bunch of subscribers over to my channel. And I scrambled and started [music] uh live streaming the creation of this game. That was part of the agreement that I would live stream the creation of this video game for 14 days. Well, I think it was like 4,000 four or

5,000 people showed up in my live stream and it was a it was bedum. There was so many people in the live stream [music] and some people were, you know, offering great ideas, great memes, [music] and then there were plenty of nine-year-olds trolling. So there [laughter] was it was very difficult to try and field who who wanted what and and what this game was because I wanted to take people's ideas. So it was just absolute chaos. And I remember thinking to myself in the middle of this live stream and this was the first night of 14. I remember thinking to myself, man, this was a huge mistake. This was not a good idea. One of the things that was actually keeping me sane was this 2D game kit that I created. I knew at least I had a foundation for a 2D game. And I think that's really important when you guys start your game. Um, and by the way, if you want this 2D game kit, guys, it's completely free. I'll just email it to you. So, click below. And there's no

gimmicks here. I promise I'm going to send you a 2D game kit completely free. Well, I went [music] home that night. Um, my wife and I I was working at my parents house, but I would drive to my in-laws house where we were staying. And I remember going to bed and I told my wife, I said, "I am freaking out." [music] She said, "Why?" And I said, "I just went from 40,000 subscribers to 130, I think it was 130,000. I could be wrong. 130,000 subscribers and they are all expecting this awesome game." [music] And PewDiePie himself is expecting this awesome game. And I don't even know what it is. And so I I think it was the next day I went out and bought now don't judge me. [music] I went out and bought a jewel and started vaping during my my live streams [laughter] just to take the edge off. [music] Um I think that was the same day an article came out that said jewels explode in your face. Yeah. So I was trying to take the edge off. And so for the remaining I think it was six or

seven days I [music] created one level of this game and this game had three levels. It had a main menu. It had I think three or four cutscenes that I had to do. It had a soundtrack. All of this was supposed to play out and I was already at 7 days and I had only made one level. [music] Even worse, after I finished creating this level, [music] I went on Twitter. I was feeling proud of myself. I was like, "Man, we This was really fun. We made a beautiful looking first level. I'm glad it's over." And I go on Twitter and somebody tweets at me this [music] fan art of the game. It was somebody who had been hanging out during the live streams. And this individual said, uh, I did some fan art and they they sent the image to me and it was gorgeous. It was a beautiful screenshot of what they envisioned for the game. And then I I remember flipping between that image and then what I had created during the live streams [music] and I got so embarrassed. I was like, man, like PewDiePie subscribers are doing better than I am. And so in my head, I thought

PewDiePie sometimes he would hang up hang out during the chat and he would pop up in the live stream. And I remember thinking, I hope he doesn't feel ashamed of what I'm making. sake, I can't even refund it. So, not only was I 7 days in and I had just finished one level, I decided I was going to redo that level and hope to God that I had I would finish the entire game in seven days. Well, once I came to that realization, fortunately, uh it was kind it felt like what I was in high school again because my my dad came home from work and he walked into the basement from the garage and he walked over to me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "Did you bite off more than you could chew, Tommy?" And I said, "Um, my dad has this thing where he it's kind of like reverse psychology. He knows my personality because I'll buck up and I'll get confident if he questions me." Um, and I

got confident really quick and I said, "No, this is the greatest game ever. It's going to be totally fine. I've got this." And then I said, I remember saying, "And not only that, I'm going to get Felix to play this game with me on his channel." And so for the next seven days, I scrambled to get this thing done. [music] Now, I think it's important to note that for the next seven days to sort of give you guys an idea of what tools I used in creating this game when I live streamed it. Uh, obviously I had OBS running all the time during the live stream. [music] And what I would have open was obviously the chat. And then that chat would dictate the the illustrations I would do in Photoshop and then the code and the and the world that I'd build [music] in a program called Unity. And Unity is my 2D game uh tool of choice. And I highly recommend it for all of you. And if you want to learn, click the link below at

fulltimegamedeep.com. But anyway, Unity is awesome because you can be a layman like me. I'm kind of an idiot. I'm not very good with code. [music] Um, I'm always googling what the proper code should be. Unity allows for you to make a lot of mistakes. It's it's it's uh what's the word? It doesn't have a steep learning curve. Not at all. And Photoshop's the same way. Whereas Illustrator is [music] I think it's clunky. It's slow and it's very difficult to learn. So, I just used Photoshop [music] and Unity. And we built the game from scratch. This audience and myself, we just built this game from scratch. And I would work till 200 a.m. It's so funny. It was kind of like an episode of That 70s Show or something because people would family members would be coming in and out of my my parents' basement while I was working on this game and I think I had three three or two days left and I was working on the final boss and I was writing a C# script C# code and I remember looking at

the code and thinking I am so confused. Something's broken here and I don't know what's wrong. while stressed out of my mind. I think I had just finished a live stream and I knew that I needed to keep working even though I wasn't live streaming. I needed to get this thing done. Well, my brother, my older brother walks into the basement cuz I don't know why he lives across town, but for some reason he decided to come to my parents house to pick up like a jacket he had left at the house after like a family dinner or something. He walks in and I'm stressed out of my mind and he decides to start having uh a philosophical argument about free will and divine providence. [laughter] So I'm like, I guess I could use a break. So we start having this argument about this stuff. Who knows why? But I remember at that moment feeling, this is I know this is weird and I'll get to my point. I remember at that moment feeling self assured in my argument towards him. And my argument was it's both. Life is

both. uh it's it's luck or or fate or divine providence with free will. It's combined, [music] right? And the reason I I was making this argument is because I felt so confused by such this this such amazing opportunity to make this game. And I I know you guys might be thinking Thomas is overhyping what this meant to him, but this was I believe the single greatest career move I had made, which was make this game for PewDiePie. Now, it was because of free will, meaning I was I for some reason had the balls and the courage and the hard work uh ethic to to finish this game. So, it was very much a force of will. But, weirdly enough, guys, I got lucky. I got really really lucky in that for some reason, Felix wanted me to make this game for him. More importantly, where did this idea come from? And I'll get in into why exactly this is important towards the end of this video. But I thought I thought that was really funny.

And so after that moment, that's when I decided that I was going to reach out through sheer will. I was going to encourage cuz it's kind of a scary thing for me personally to say, "Hey, I want to I want to make a video with you, Felix." But I I I reached out to him and I said to PewDiePie and I said, "Can we do this video together?" And he immediately said, "Hell yeah." [laughter] And so the game was done. I finished the boss. [music] The game was done. And I realized I didn't have a green screen. So I I scrambled, got in my car, sped off to the store called Jo-Ann [music] uh for some green fabric of some kind. And I remember I I taped it to a big uh table that me and my wife were storing in my parents basement again because we were moving. And I thought how embarrassing this must be. So, uh, everything was ready to go. I had my lighting set up as best as I could in this sort of damp basement. I had my, you know, rinky dink green screen. And

so, I went to bed that night, didn't get much sleep, and I woke up at, I think it was 4:30 a.m. to get ready for everything. And, you know, Felix is, you know, in Europe, so I had to um, record the video with him early in the morning. And so he hops onto Skype and I can't tell you what his username was, but it was exactly what you'd expect from somebody somebody like PewDiePie. Um, it was hilarious. And so, uh, it was one of the chillest, easiest conversations I've ever had with anybody. He definitely felt like someone I could grab a beer with, and that was really, really cool. We played this game. We played the game. Uh, he loved it. He was very complimentary, very excited, very kind. And uh I do remember though I felt a little bit embarrassed during the live uh it wasn't live, during the recording of this video because he played the game with the wrong controls. He played with

the arrow keys, not ASWD. HOW DO I PLAY WITH THREE HANDS, DUDE? What the hell? Why did you put it on the left side? You're not playing with THREE HANDS. I'M PLAYING with three hands. 12 seconds later. Talmet, I just realized I haven't been playing with WSD. I've been playing with the arrow key. So that's why you suck. [laughter] I was like, why would you put three hands to play this game? That's what I was wondering. Like what what are why are you [laughter] playing with three hands? You have to realize. See, this is why I should stress test games cuz I play like all the idiots. [laughter] But the cool thing was, uh, you know, these super successful YouTubers, um, it's really encouraging to know that you don't have to be embarrassed because they're normal people. They're just normal dudes. Now, obviously, he's he's got a talent that I don't think anyone in the world has. Um, [music] when he in terms of creating content,

how's it going, everyone? PewDiePie here. Pewdiepie. Um, but he was just super down to earth, super chill. And uh, I think that's really cool that that people with that kind of influence are are just normal people. I think that's awesome. I think we need to recognize that in this world of hyper glamour, hyper glamorous influencers that everybody's pretty much just human beings. Am I a monster or am I something in between? But I guess in conclusion, guys, um that experience, that those 14 days of making a game with PewDiePie, they changed my whole career. They changed everything. Um now, I do want to clarify cuz some people in the comments are like, "Thomas doesn't make games. He just does YouTube." No, [laughter] the majority of my income comes from Never, believe it or not, which is my latest release. The majority of my income comes from Never. So, I

just want to make sure that's clear. However, YouTube is a great supplemental income. It's also a great place to build an army of followers and an audience, and I highly recommend that anybody who wants to make video games do the same. So, great experience, changed everything for me. And so, I want to just bring it back full circle here. I know a lot of you have been dealt a rough hand. A lot of you are in locations of the world. I'm guys, I'm super super [music] lucky. I understand that. I really do. But a lot of us have been dealt crappier hands than others. A lot of us have bad luck. A lot of us have good luck. So, we all vary in terms of our uh divine intervention, [music] right? Whether that's luck or whatever you believe, but we all do. I really believe it. We all have the power and the will to

create our path. And some paths are more difficult to create than others. And I would just recommend to all of you that you don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be in a certain part of the world to create video games, to be a filmmaker, to be an entrepreneur, to tell stories, to start a YouTube channel. You don't need anything except for the willpower. Now, [music] I think maybe a hundred years ago this wasn't true. But I do believe I mean there's certain parts of the world that are tough. I get it. But I do believe that the majority of you watching right now, you can pursue I know it's cheesy. You can pursue your dream of becoming becoming a game developer, an illustrator, an artist, a storyteller, an entrepreneur. Um, and you just got to take it one step at a time at a time. And if you fall, guys, if you fail, that's great. That means that you can get up off get up off the ground and

learn from your mistakes. That's the best part, I think, of living your life. And that is saying, "Every time I fail, it just means I now know what to do differently." And if you guys aren't failing, perhaps you're not trying hard enough. And perhaps you're not pursuing what you want hard enough. Anyway, I'll stop rambling, guys. Thanks for listening to me ramble and chat by this