How To Actually FINISH & SELL Your Indie Games (Webinar & Q&A)

Hello everybody. Come on in. Welcome, welcome, welcome. How's everybody doing? Hope you're doing great today. Hey, this is going to be a fun little live stream. We're going to be talking about how to actually finish how to actually finish your game as opposed to, you know, all of the ways to make it awesome and great. And obviously, we want to make it a really cool fun game. But I want to I want to talk specifically about how to actually finish it because I know a lot of you in the chat, a lot of you you don't know how to finish a game or frankly you've you've worked on games in the past and you quit them. You quit them. You gave up on them. How's it going? Ashy Game Ashix Ashix gamedev. How are you Hunt? Um welcome, welcome, welcome. Leon, welcome. Welcome, welcome. Um, there is actually a trick. There is a trick to finishing your games. Now, the

cool thing is, let me let me see if I can find it really quick. Actually, the cool thing is I have I have finished games and I've quit games. And so I kind of know the psychological warfare that every game developer goes through when it comes to finishing, knowing when to finish a game, knowing how to finish a game, and knowing when to quit a game. Okay, so that's what we're going to talk about today is how to actually finish a game, and also how these mental tricks to actually finish your game and and stick it through and actually finish it, how they actually apply to well selling it, and how this will actually help sell your game as well. So everything we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about four things. These are going to help you finish your game, but they're also going to help you sell the game because they're actually linked. They're directly linked. Okay, so wanted to say huge, huge thank you. Huge thank you to Aaron Smith, Jeruslav V, Matt

Multifaceted Mask. That is an interesting name. Joseph W and Ivan. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Fulltime GameDev, which is my massive, massive gamedev course with over 4,500 students worldwide. And by the way, if you want to join full-time gamedev, uh, hold on one sec. Let me think here. My dog is freaking out. If you want to join, if you want to join full-time gamedev for the spring sale, and by the way, this is one of my biggest sales. I usually do a sale event like every season. And so for this spring sale, it's going to be 50% off to join the massive program, but you're also going to get my 2D art program and my 3D art program completely free, but just for this spring sale. This spring sale is a limited time sale, so it's going to end. Uh there's only a 100 students or 100 seats available and these will sell out. So be sure to check it out below. And look, if you're thinking, well, this is kind of a a scammy course. This is a silly course.

Just take a look at the reviews. I've got students. This is so cool. I'm so proud of these students. Andre, Chris, Everflux, Bart, Felipe went fulltime. Soultar went full-time. Antonio DB went fulltime with the help of the course. And that means finding funding uh from whether it's Kickstarter or finding funding from publishers or just getting wish lists and selling your game and hitting the Steamfront page, right? So, really, really proud of these students. Um, and they were able to go full-time with the help of the program. So, if you want to learn not only how to, you know, secure funding, uh, and and release your game with the help of publishers, right? If you want to learn how to hit the Steamfront page or or or or get press coverage, right, and market your game, that's in this course. But also, it's teaches you how to make a Unity game, how to make a GDAU game, how to make an Unreal game. You can take your pick, by the way, whichever one you want to learn. [snorts] How to do artwork for your 2D game. And by the way, I've I've recently updated the entire Unity course or Unity portion of

the of the full-time gamedev course and that's being uploaded today and tomorrow as we speak. So check it out below. See if it's something you're interested in. 50% off. Yeah, sale events like this don't usually happen. So check it out below. Okay guys, come on in. Let's jump into this workshop or this webinar here um on how to actually finish your game. Guys, this workshop is dedicated to helping you actually finish a profitable indie title. Notice two words there, finish and profitable. And like I said earlier, these are linked. These words are linked. When you can finish a game, how to finish it is crucial. And the truth is is that how you finish that game can actually be linked to how profitable it is. I know that that's kind of confusing. So, let's jump right in here. So, obviously, obviously, there's no promises here. I can

guarantee it. I'm not going to promise anything here. Making indie games is really hard. It truly is. It's tough. Uh, making these games here, whether it was Never Song, right? That's the PlayStation version. Whether it was my game Pinstripe, right, or Twisted Tower, which is my third commercial release, which is going to release here pretty soon. We're in beta testing right now. Guys, I can't promise anything. I could just tell you what I've done as best as I can um and make YouTube content about it, but I cannot promise anything, okay? But I'm just gonna tell you what works for me. Does that make sense? Six Skill Studios, how you doing? Come on in. Come on in. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Dream Hero Studio, come on in. Come on in. It's always good to see you, Foxite. Come on in. Come on in. Okay, so you're probably think, why why should we listen to this weird YouTuber guy? Uh, these YouTubers are always, you know,

making up crap and just spitballing ideas. Granted, I do spitball ideas sometimes. Um, but I've actually released games, right? And I've actually finished games that have been published three times. Um I've quit plenty of games as well, but these are my three finished games. And that third one there, Twisted Tower. It is finished, but it's in beta testing right now. So that that one that one I'm wrapping up, but Never Song was published by Serenity Forge. Pinstripe was published by Armor Games and Twisted Tower. Again, finishing that up. This is a big one. I actually had a beta tester say that the game was a double A game, which I was surprised by. Um, but yeah, I've been published three times. Current my current publisher is 3D Realms. I'm really excited about that because I love 3D Realms. I've known about 3D Realms since the 90s, since I was a kid. So, that's a huge dream come true. But also, I've been featured by Time magazine and Forbes. Okay, I'm just telling you that not to brag or anything, but just to tell you this is why what I'm telling you and what I'm sharing with you today about how to finish your game, why you

can trust it at least a little bit, right? Um, so yeah, I've been published, but I've also done Kickstarter campaigns. I did one called Pinstripe, raised $106,000, and then I also did another one called Once Upon a Com, which we later renamed to Never Song. That one raised $85,000. U but also, hey, obviously I also sold my games on Steam, uh, Xbox, PlayStation, uh, Nintendo Switch, right? I sold I sold Neverong this game. I sold it to Apple Arcade. So, there's just some credibility for you there to give you an idea of kind of why I'm trustworthy, I guess. Anyway, um, okay. So, listen, some of you are probably going to be sad to see this, but I've quit my fair share of games and you see that right there, Brave Boy. I actually really like this game. I'm really proud of this game. I'm proud of Felipe who helped work on it and AJ as well. But Brave Boy's done. It's canned.

It's gone because well, we'll talk about that. The truth is is that there are four variables. There are four variables that in my experience, I cannot promise this to you, but there are four variables that must be true in my experience and maybe for you that must be true for me to finish a game. Number one, to be motivated to finish a game. But number two, to even be justified in finishing a game. Because the truth is is the justified being just like a the justification for finishing a game, taking a gamble, spending years of your life to finish a game, the justification is also probably going to be linked to your motivation. And like I said earlier, it's actually going to be linked to the success of the game as well. So, these four variables will justify whether you should actually finish a game because how many of you in the chat are thinking how is this too big of a gamble to finish my game?

Should I really spend my evenings working on this game? Should I be really, you know, working early in the morning before my desk job? Should I really be doing that on this game? Is this game justified? Is this gamble justified? But number two, these four variables are going to help you know if the game is probably maybe going to be successful. Okay, so let's talk about these four variables. You guys ready? Let's talk about these four variables. Now, some of them are obvious to you. For example, you need to love it. that that is probably obvious to you, but I want to I want to dig into that because I know I know that probably 90% of you in the chat have gone through that process in your head of well maybe I should make this friend slap game because or maybe I should make this

stats like game because it's really popular. Uh but I don't want to make those games but everybody's making them so maybe I should make it. I need to make a multiplayer game because well, everybody's making multiplayer games. I know. Have you ever felt that way? You feel like you should do something because everyone's going to do it and everyone's doing it now. You're immediately throwing away this. You love it. That and by the way, this is the most important ingredient. We'll talk about it. Number two, are you able to actually finish it? And we'll talk about what that means. Number three, do they love it? Who's they? We're going to talk about that. And then number four, is it marketable? That's so important. We'll talk about that. All right. Come on in, Zach. How you doing? How's Zach doing? Good, good, good. Stone Studios, come on in. Welcome, welcome, welcome. All right. So, this is

get I This one sounds so obvious, but without me loving something. I would have never made this game. Do you know what I love more than anything? I love Peter Pan. I love Hook. Have you ever seen Hook? Most people don't like Hook. Or at least in the 90s, it got really bad reviews, but it uh featured Robin Williams and it was directed by Stephen Spielberg and it's considered one of Stephen Spielberg's flops. I love that movie and that inspired this game. So despite the fact that that movie wasn't super popular and didn't really seem to have a market, I still loved that movie and was so inspired by that movie and Peter Pan and the idea of childhood innocence and a fairy tale world and that I just I just powered through and made this game. Now, there are certain variables that we're going to talk about outside of me loving an idea that I didn't consider, which

may be the reason why this game didn't do so well on Steam, but it did great on Apple Arcade. This game right here, Pinstripe, nobody told me to fall in love with this game except for me. I didn't make this game for anybody else except for me. Again, we'll talk about why that might be the kind of a misguided approach because you need to do more than just love your game. But I loved the idea of exploring a frozen hell. I love CS Lewis. I love philosophical stories. I love the idea and the concept of the afterlife, right? I love religious undertones. So, I just went for it, right? I just did it because I loved it. Okay? So, here's the thing. If you're going to make your game, you've got to love it first. That is the number one baseline foundation to anybody finishing a game. You've got to love it. Okay? And here's the thing. Let's break that down.

You need to make what you know? And you need to make what you've always loved that maybe people didn't even maybe people thought it was embarrassing that you loved those things. Like I'm really really into I'm really into Shopan. I love Shopan. I love very flowery classical music. Not a lot of friends that I have like that kind of music, but I love that music. It's my favorite and that inspires me and that's what I know and that's what I've always loved. And so I'm not going to abandon that because it's not cool or because it's not, you know, popular. If that's what I love, that's my voice and I'm just going to do it. Okay. This is so important. This bold line here is so freaking important. Do not worry about especially when you're getting criticism on social media. And by the way, you should be posting on social media when you're making your game. But if you're getting criticism from people who do not love that thing, then don't

listen to them. You want to listen to criticism from beta testers, from alpha testers, public play tests, uh other people on social media playing your game, reviewers. You only want to listen to the people who love the thing you're making. So if you love the del Toro aesthetic or you love gothic horror, listen to the people who love that because that's your target market. You're not trying to please other people. You want to please the people who love what you love. Okay? That's really kind of an asterisk here, which is as you're play testing your game, listen to the people who love your game or who love the idea that you're after because they're going to help you fine-tune it. Does that make sense so far, guys? So, what are some things you love, guys, in the chat? What are some things you love that maybe maybe you're feeling like you shouldn't put into your game? So many game developers are timid and they don't have the courage to just put what they truly love deep down like

what's that thing in your heart deep deep down that maybe you're even a little bit embarrassed by that that you're thinking I can't make a game about that. What is it in the chat guys? So, we got uh Elh Hag says El Hag I can't even say. I'm so sorry, but you said, "I love making cinematic games uh that are stylized or realistic." 2008 arena shooters. Me, too. That's my That's my high school years for sure. Um that's what I'm working on. Okay, cool. Sci-fi and fantasy. Okay, these are the things, guys. Think about the things. Let's Let's try and figure this out. What's that thing that when you think about it, you get chills or you you sort of feel that melting feeling. And what I mean by the melting feeling is I get the melting feeling when I think about

certain I won't say what because it's going to help inspire my next game. Certain locations at Disney World give me that melting feeling of like, oh, I just got sent back into my childhood. For me, a lot of my my drive of what I love in games is actually nostalgiaoriented. It's driven by nostalgia. And to make a game because it's popular and not lean into that fuel and that fire of of for me nostalgia is I feel like is so foolish. That's how you find your voice as a game developer. You find your voice by doing what you love and putting what you love into your game. Okay. Uh L Haggy, is that how you say it? Cool. Um, the Dreamcast feel. Absolutely. I got a dirty obsession. This is from um

the art outlaw. I got a dirty obsession of making two long cinematic cutscenes to establish stories that spark curiosity. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so guys, please promise me, commit to promise me and commit to making a game you love. Okay, if you if you want to make that promise in the chat, can you say I promise? And I I and I I want you to do that because I want you to I mean make that public profession of I'm going to make something that I love first. And it's not because this is some principle thing or you're in a cult. It's that I I want you to make a great game. And the way to make a great game is to make something that you truly love because it's going to spill out in the age of AI. It's going to spill out and people are going to know it. I have

people uh beta testing Twisted Tower right now and it's doing great. People love it. Um, but there's some people who who will say, you know, it's like a seven out of 10, but I I can see so much of your voice and how much passion you have for this world in the game. And so they they feel that and they feel respected by the developer, me, because they it's clear that I love this. I love the world that I created, right? And I think if you play this game or you play this game, even if you don't like it, you can tell that it's humanmade, that a human fell in love with making the game, right? And that feels good when you're playing a game like that. Um, in the age of AI, and the age of AI slop, being human is so valuable. Okay, let's move on to the next one. Okay, that's ingredient number one. If you want to finish your game and you want to be profitable, ingredient number one is you

got to love what you're making. Okay. All right. We've got a couple promises in the chat, but most of you, it looks like 140 144 people don't [laughter] don't want to make a game they love. Yeah. Say I promise in the chat if you if you want to make that public profession of making a game you love and only make making that the foundation of your game. So, if you want to if you want to promise that, say I promise in the chat. Okay. Uh, let's see here. Foxy says, "I like Twisted Tower. It's my style of game." Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Cyber Rift. How you doing, bud? Come on in. Okay. NCD says, "I promise." Good. Guys, don't fall into the trap of making a game for other people. It's a terrible mistake. It really is and I've done it. Brave Boy is kind of that, which is the game I made about a a dog in in the

Scottish Highlands. It It was kind of made for other people, honestly. Okay. So, yeah. Yay. You all promised. You said, "I promise." So, you love it. Yes. Will you finish it? Okay, good. But wait, wait, hold on one sec here. Okay, we're missing a slide here. Let's talk about you'll finish it. Okay, you'll finish it. And this this this doesn't even warrant a slide. Okay, you need to create something that's manageable. Okay, and and one of the main ways to do this is to to know whether you're actually capable of finishing a game is to make games, right? And that's that's the sad sort of catch 22 of it. In order to know if you can finish a game and you know that you're physically capable or technically capable, you got to just make some crappy games first, right? Whether they're prototypes, uh whether they're just an hour long $2

game to $5 game on Steam or, you know, game jams. You need to go ahead and start finishing some crappy games to know and get a sort of an understanding of how to estimate your time. Okay. But [snorts] one little trick here that if you if you haven't finished a game yet and you want to know if you're physically capable of doing it and you're technically capable of doing it. Yes, you may love it, but are you actually capable of doing it? One of the ways to know is to Yes, you can be inspired by a ton of AAA games. You can be inspired by a ton of double A games, but it's better to get inspired by those games, but then match the scope to an indie game that you think you could probably handle. Okay. So, what I like to do is I look at, let's say, a AAA game that I'm really inspired by. I say, "Okay,

Bioshock. I'm really inspired by Bioshock, but can I make Bioshock as a one to threeman team?" No. Not with the budget I have. So, what I do is I go, "Okay, I really like Bioshock. I like that aesthetic, but I'm going to make a $15 or $20 game, and I'm going to use maybe Dusk as sort of the inspiration for the the core of the game, like the meat and potatoes of the game. So, I'll take the Bioshock aesthetic and the gameplay of Dusk, and I'll merge the two." So I found that that's really really helpful to take your inspiration and merge it with the practical and that's going to help you know whether you can finish it. Okay. So those are two ways to know if you can if you have the the physical and technical ability to finish a game which is just make small crappy games and release them and get them out there. But number two take the dream and mix it with the

practical. Okay. AAA games, double A games, really big indie games. Take that dream and merge it with what you think is actually practical. Some game that has inspired you as well that's much more economical and you need to merge the two. I I'll I'll end with this. This is the third thing that helps me understand whether I'm technically capable of making a game. This is from a conversation that I had with Jonas Tyroller. I had a really fun inspiring idea. I was really excited with by this new idea I wanted to make for uh do for a game and I messaged it to Jonas Tyroller and I said, um, what do you think about this idea? And what he did is he took this, you know, five or 10 10 layers of game idea that I had and he he picked like one thing. He was like, what if you just focused on the one thing, right? And it's so painful to hear this from somebody because you're like, "Well, but

but I need a map system and and I need it to be procedural, right?" And you have all these ideas that you feel like are scaffolding for the one core idea when in reality all you need to do is really focus on one little thing or maybe two little things. Keep the scope down, y'all. We're tiny little teams. We don't have a lot of money. We don't have a lot of time. Most of us aren't full-time doing this. So, bring that scope down. Limit yourself on purpose. An example of this is um if you want to make a game, an adventure game, okay, maybe you really love Breath of the Wild or you really love Zelda. [snorts] Take the aesthetic. Take that vibe that you like. Maybe it's you love the wind and the piano and the medieval vibes. Okay, take that and merge it down into

something very small. Maybe you take one mechanic, the ability to sail, right? Uh with your sailcloth, whatever whatever you call, I can't remember. And that's the mechanic. That's it. Take the aesthetic and the sailing and just make it that one thing and try and make a game off of that one thing. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? A great game can be made by limited mechanics. Does that make sense so far? Okay. All right. So, great. You promised that you would love it. Good job, guys. Love your game idea. Number two, can you finish it? Yes. Let's let's scale down the scope. Let's make it small. Let's make it tiny. Let's focus on one little mechanic. Right. Good. All right. We have the technical ability. We can

probably get it done in like 10 months because we've scaled it down to one mechanic. Awesome. Should we finish the game? Will we have the motivation to finish the game? Not yet. And again, I'm speaking from personal experience. There's a third ingredient. Yes, you love it, but they they need to love it. Not the audience that's playing the final final game, the finished game. No, an audience that plays your game before before it's done. So, who's they? These are people who play the prototype. These are people who play the alpha. These are private play testers who are going to play the game, the tiny little prototype you've created, and they're going to tell you if this game is worth it.

This might seem heretical, and I might sound like I'm being a little bit too, what's the word? Money hungry, maybe. because I want to please other people. And you I just said 15 minutes ago that we shouldn't worry about what other people think. The truth is is that you want the foundation to be that you love the game, but it's going to be really, really hard for you to finish a game when nobody really likes it. And I want you guys to finish games, but I don't want you to finish a game that nobody's going to like. Here's the thing. You can love something You could fall in love with an idea, but the execution isn't correct. And so, if players are playing this game idea or this prototype that you've created, and they are not falling in love with it the way that you did, it could be that it's just an execution

thing. And they're going to play it and they're going to say, "Actually, could you tweak that? You could tweak that. Maybe add this and add that. Remove that." Oftentimes, you're going to hear that a lot. Remove this. Remove that. Remove that. because they don't care about this stuff. You thought that they would care about these mechanics and this art style and this level and this song and this cutscene, but they don't. They actually care about this one little thing that you are surprised by. So, you can fall in love with a game idea and have people not love it, but they can inform you on how how to make the game better, how to make the g the prototype better. I don't want, this is what I don't want. I don't want you to spend your time making a three-hour game. And believe me, I've been there. In fact, I've been there with my current project where three years into development, I still didn't know what players loved about the game. I would rather you what I've said here

build a 15 minutes of glory build a or another way of putting it a hyperpolished demo or sometimes I call it approve me type as opposed to a prototype approve me type it's kind of like a prototype but it's super polished and beautiful and clean and perfect. I want you to build 15 minutes of that and test it with an audience privately. And you're going to get real life feedback from real players, from players who are your friends, family, or people who just love that genre, whatever genre you're making. And you're going to get thousands and thousands of pieces of feedback. And believe me, it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot. I'm in that right now in beta testing. It is going to hurt like you wouldn't believe. And it it's hard to even like for me, I'll be honest with you guys, it's hard for me to wake up and come into my office, especially today, knowing that over the weekend I

had beta testers playing my game and they're going to rip it apart and find bugs and find issues and tell me things that they don't love. But that is way less painful than you spending three years or two years or even a year on a project where you don't know what the audience actually loves. Yes, you may love certain things about it, but we don't know what they love. So, if a if a beta testing audience or an alpha testing audience or just maybe some friends and family, if they're playing your your prototype and they don't like it, your job is to figure out how to help them like it. So, they're going to tell you problems. Your job is to come up with solutions. By the way, a lot of people get that flipped. They're looking for solutions from the audience. The audience doesn't know. They're not game developers most of the time. So, they're not probably going to know what the solution to a problem in your game is. So, your job is to let them give you the problems, fill out

some kind of survey, or just tell it to your face, and your job is to come up with solutions. Okay? Does that make sense? Any questions about this? Any questions about this slide here? Yep, that's exactly right. NC NCD arcade says, "A small private test where you endure pain because we would rather the pain be private." There's two there's two there's two things here. I'd rather the pain be private and acute rather than making a game for a long time adding all these features that nobody cares about. I'm guilty of this with my current project. But I'd also rather have that acute pain than launching the game. And it's public broad pain, chronic pain that kills your

launch. So, you want it to be private and acute. So, I'm doing that right now with beta testing for Twisted Tower. It's private. It's small. It's this small group of Discord users who were on a private Discord server and they're like, "Thomas, don't like this. Don't like that. Don't like this. Game broke here. Break broke here. My save files corrupted." And then they're leaving reviews for the game on my private survey. Sometimes I'll get a seven and it's like, "Oh, what?" and I'll read the review and I'm like, "Oh, Lord, help me." But then sometimes I'll get a 10 or a nine or an eight, right? It hurts. It's not fun. Okay, but I've done this for all of my games, including I actually just looked up a survey for this game just to see how it did. I was looking up a survey for for this game here, Pinstripe, which I launched almost a decade ago. I always approached it the same way. Put out that survey with private group of players before you flesh that game out. Now granted with Pinstripe I took way too long to get that survey out. You

should be getting that survey out the moment you have a prototype ready and you should be surveying play testers all the way up until launch for as many times as you can. Right? Does that make sense so far? Even a 15 minute demo means months of work a thousand%. In fact, it might even be six months before you get a really polished because here's the thing. Uh to get a a polished 15-minute demo, it's not like you start here and then you end here in development. Well, let's do it this way. It's not like you start here, yay, I'm going to make a game and boop boop boop boop boop boop boop, game's done. Yay, I have my or 15 minute demos done. Hooray. It's this. You go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and then you end here. It's this lost in the wilderness feeling. And that's normal. That's okay.

Getting to Mordor from the Shire was not a straight line. And uh getting to your 15minute demo is not a straight line. Now, a lot of YouTubers and a lot of influencers will say, "Hey, get your prototype done as fast as possible. Fail fast. Fail fast. Fail fast." And it feels almost like the intention is to fail. [laughter] Surprise, surprise. When you say fail fast, a lot of people take that to mean, okay, I need to just go ahead and fail. I would say it's better to really try with this prototype. This 15inute demo I want you to really try and make this thing juicy. By juicy that's game feel, screen shake, great sound, particle effects, lighting, music, great art. Make that 15 minutes a shiny, beautiful diamond. Make it a shiny, beautiful diamond. And why am I saying that? Well, it's not for you. It helps you. It does. But really,

it's so that you don't get perverted, what's the word? Corrupted data from your play testers. Because the truth is is that players, they actually really do care about game feel and they really do care about art and they really do care about music. And if you just send them a grayboxed level with your mechanic and say, "What do you think about this game?" They're going to report back, "I found it boring." What you have to do is you have to give them juice. You got to give them something to cling to to understand what you're after. So, no, I don't think it's as easy as just making a prototype and then testing it. Is the mechanic fun? I mean, sure, that's a great question. Is the mechanic fun in the in a graybox context? But oftentimes, a mechanic is actually only fun because it looks good and feel well. it it's it's definitely multiplied by the look and the feel of it. So,

honestly, make the prototype as polished as possible. That's that's my two cents and that's what I'm going to do with my next game. But, I'm only going to focus on 15 minutes, meaning like the first level. So, I think without ultimately here, without polish, you may get incorrect feedback from shallow or or simple gamers for sure. Okay, does that make sense for for do they love it? Right, so there's three ingredients we've gone through so far. Number one, you've got to love your game if you want to finish it. You're not going to finish it if you don't love it. That's the foundation. Number two, it needs to be a practical idea that you can actually finish, right? And number three, you've got to ensure that your play testers are confirming, yes, we love this. Okay, that make sense so far? And again, I'm speaking from personal experience. You may make a game where play testers just don't like it and for some reason it blows up when you launch the game. That confuses me because private play

testers should probably give you a sample or or data assuming you get the correct sample size and the correct demographic of players as your launch audience. So that would confuse me if for some reason play testers gave you completely different feedback than your launch players. But there are going to be there are going to be, you know, uh situations where that you get maybe weird data during a play test. I don't know. But overall, this is my experience. Does this make sense? What would you do personally, Thomas, for a story game demo that has a slower start? I'd get rid of the slow start. I wouldn't I wouldn't stand on principle there. That's just me. I'm not saying what you should do. I'm just telling you for me, if I got if I got the vibe and play testers were like, "Yeah, it's really kind of a slow start." Don't make it slow. Cut cut it out, you

know? Cut up cut out all the boring stuff and get moving. Um, I I I got to tell you, I a great example of this is I'm reading a book called Endurance. And Endurance is about uh Shackleton. Is that how you say it? Captain Shackleton. Does anyone know about this story? And it's 1910 and he is on his way in a ship to Antarctica. It starts with a bunch of spoilers. The first chapter is it's almost like offensive. I was I was reading the first chapter. I was like, why is he telling me all this? He tell and I I guess I could tell you it's like the ship's completely caught in ice and they have to abandon the ship. You'd think that the whole book was about knowing whether he has to abandon ship, but no. We start in the first chapter

with they're stuck in ice. The ship is breaking down and they abandon ship. Then it shifts gears and goes to chapter two and just like you'd expect it slows down. Then it's slow. You've got to give me something at the beginning. Okay? So if you want your audience to love your game, yes, you want to treat them with respect. And by what I mean by that is yes, you don't want to hold their hand the whole time. You don't want to give them sugar all the time, but give them But you can also respect your audience by saying, "Hey, here's a shiny little trick in the first 20 seconds. Here's a cool effect. Here's a big cinematic moment. Here's a cool mechanic. Here's what you're going to get. Here are the powerups you can potentially get. Here are the cool enemies. Here's the boss that you're maybe going to get." And then take it away. So now they know what they're going to get. They're enticed. They're interested. They're hooked. aka that's why they call it a hook. And then you

slow down. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Okay, good luck everyone. Can't wait to see most of y'all's work as well. Keep the creation flowing. And Thomas has some great advice and good experience. Of course I do. I'm just kidding. I I'm learning too, guys. Uh, oftentimes this this YouTube channel is kind of like a diary if I'm being completely honest with you guys. Okay, this one's the big one, guys. This one's the big one we talked about. Okay, you got to love your game. And this is Jason. Welcome, Jason. This is for you, man. Do you love your game idea? And I know what your game idea is, Jason. I won't say it out loud. Do you love it? Great. Are you able to finish it? Okay, let's think about the scope. Think about the mechanics. By the way, I don't want to I don't want to harp on this too much, but because we need to get to this marketable circle,

but Jason, think about this. You probably have 20 mechanics in your head, right? You could probably get away with two of those. And this is so true for most game devs. You'll do it. This is why play testing is so important, which is this one right here. You you you have this plan in your in your brain. You have this plan. I'm going to make this game and it's going to have these 10 mechanics. And then you you let play testers play it like right now. You maybe you're three weeks into development. Let people play. They play it and they go, I really really like the dash mechanic. And it's like what? That I I did that over the weekend. No, but that's what I want to play more of. It's like what? So all of a sudden people are focused on the one thing that you didn't expect. That's why you want to do the third

ingredient for finishing a game, which is okay. Do they love it? And and if they don't, why not? Or if they did love it, what was it about the game that they did love? Okay, does that make sense so far? All right. Yeah. One day. That's right, Jason. You need to get play testers to play your game. I'm telling you, man. Just I don't care how how far along in your game you are. Let play testers play play test the game because, dude, they're going to go, you know, I really really like X. And you're like, I didn't know people like that. That's Oh, that's the thing. Okay, I'll do more of that. Right. Okay. The last one here, the last yellow bubble is, is it marketable? I don't want you to make a game that you love, that you could finish, that people love if it's not marketable. Now, the truth is is if they love it, it's probably marketable, right? And if you love it, you probably

established a voice in the game. It's funny how when you actually love something, you kind of establish your voice because you can't help but spreading the gospel of your game because you love it. That also means it's marketable, right? So, somebody loving your game and you loving it is is a great recipe for is it marketable. But there's a few other other things I want to cover when it comes to the marketability of your game. Okay. Release a demo on Steam. This is going to help you know whether it's marketable. Now, you would think that a public play test or a private play test would tell you whether a demo is going to do well, but the truth is is that man, sometimes people love a game and it just doesn't gain traction. And it's I don't know what that means. I've had that happen to me where it's like I thought Brave Boy was awesome. I had people play Brave Boy. I showed Brave Boy the trailer to people and it was like this is a cool game. And then I

released the demo and it's like people don't want to play as a Scottish dog in the Highlands with a sword. I don't know why I would, but people didn't want to do it, right? So, the demo is a great way to determine if your game is viable uh from a marketing perspective. Some questions to ask are, is is my demo struggling to gain traction for some reason? Is my trailer that's another one, is my trailer struggling to gain traction? What's what's going on here? Right? Or what if you're just not getting wish lists? It's like, what's happening? For some reason, I cannot get wish lists. Well, it just might not be a marketable game. Why is it that nobody's streaming my game? Why is it that every email I send out to try and get streamers to play my game, they won't do it? So, these are just some metrics that you need to keep an eye on. Or what about when it's streamed? I've had this happen where somebody's streaming one of my games and

it's just not getting views. It's like, what is that? Now, it might be the thumb. A lot of these questions, it might be the thumbnail. It might be the capsule art, but sometimes it's just the game itself is just not working. And you thought it would and your play testers were nice and they told you it would. And well, maybe you just had toxic positivity. Have you guys heard of that phrase? I can't remember who told me that. Maybe it was Jason. Toxic positivity is when for some reason during public play or during private play testing and for some reason your team of let's say you're subbing out some work to contractors or maybe you're working with the team and you're splitting the revenue. Everyone's so positive all the time. Oh, this game is great. It's so cool. In reality, when you put it into the public with a demo, that's when you get real feedback. So it could be that you're just getting bad feedback with with the play testing. So yes, is that does that mean that this is potentially

unreliable? I'm sorry. This right here, does it potentially mean that this is unreliable? Yeah, your private play tests, your alpha testing, testing with your friends and family. Yeah, it's not. It could be slightly unreliable. could be very unreliable, especially if you're a little manipulative if you go up to your play testers and you welcome in them into the Discord server. Yay! I'm so excited for you to play the game. Thank you for joining the private Discord server where you are an official play tester of my game. Uh the handsome ham, which by the way, it's about a pig in a tuxedo. If you welcome them into the Discord server and you treat them like royalty, what do you think they're going to do on the survey, they're probably going to give you a good review because they feel good, right? So, this is unreliable and you want to do your very, very best to try and make it reliable. So, on my Discord

server, I'm starting to pull back a little bit because I'm a little worried I'm being too nice. I need and if you're on the if you're on the private Discord server, I apologize, but I'm I'm trying to pull back and be a little bit more robotic so that I can get real feedback. But this question of the demo of the trailer, the public stuff, right? The public stuff, the demo, the trailer, wish lists. This is real data. When you start struggling in this regard, then you really know, okay, I might I might not want to finish this game. But let's say you're like me and you spent months on this brave boy concept and it's everything about it makes sense to me. Even now I'm looking at it, I'm like, "Oh my goodness, I can I can get a pack of dogs and I can name the dogs and I can create a clan and I can fight the evil cat king of England and it's kind

of like Braveheart." And I love Braveheart, but it's with dogs and it's in it's in the Highlands and the dogs have Scottish accents. What? And the art is pretty. It's perfect. But for some reason, nobody cares. So what do you do? What do you do with that? For me, in my case, I can't tell you what to do, but in for my case, I can the project. It's not worth the gamble to me. I got a family, I got a mortgage, I got a life. It's not worth the gamble to me. But let's say you found that game idea that you love, that's small enough in scope that you know you can finish it in maybe 12 months or maybe two years. And you found one that it's loved by your testers. It seems like your friends, your family, your alpha testers, your your social media following. It seems like they really love your game. And then you also realize, hey, this is marketable. I'm getting wish lists on Steam. The trailer did much better than I expected.

Well, now you have something that is actually going to motivate you to finish your game, right? So actually these four ingredients, not only do they prove that at to the best as we can predict here, not only do they pro prove that the game potentially could do well on launch, you never know. You never know. I don't know if my third game is going to be successful. I have no idea. But we at least checked all of our boxes. So, not only do these four ingredients at least check your boxes for you and help predict a game success, they also give you fuel. And this is crucial. The bonus motivation out of all four of these things is social fuel. You are social. You are a communityoriented being. And yes, even if you're antisocial or you're

introverted like me, I'm really good at talking to a camera, but you guys aren't actually here in my life. If you were all in this room, I'd probably have a panic attack. I'm very, very introverted. But I'm still social and I'm motivated by social things. Okay? So, what these four things do is they give you social confirmation that your game idea is desired. That's a big thing to know that your product or the the product you're creating and yes, your game is a product to know that your product is desired. That's a huge motivation. You also have social pressure now, right? friends and family. And I should have finished out the parenthesis there, but friends and family and your social media following now are putting a little bit of pressure on you. Maybe you maybe it's uncomfortable, but hey, so is a knife in your back to get across the

finish line, right? But it's going to get you across the finish line. Sometimes we need that. I know I do. I need pressure. Social pressure. Friends, family, a publisher, a Kickstarter campaign, my social media following, you guys on YouTube. I need that pressure to push me across the finish line. Believe me. And Jason, he's in the chat. He knows how he comes by my house every day. He knows exactly how much pressure I feel from you guys and how how that's actually painfully helped me cross the finish line with my third game. And then number three, it gives you social capital. So, when you're building up play testers to play your game, you're slow and you have an a Steam page up or you have a demo up, that's social capital. That's a lever you can pull when you launch your game. So, you have an audience, you have wish lists, and it's going to grow and help you power through burnout, help you power through self-doubt and exhaustion.

Okay, does that make sense, guys? Does that make sense so far? You guys ready to move into Q&A? because I want I want to hear a bunch of Q&A questions you have. Now, here's the thing. When you build a demo, I want to let you know this really quick. When you build a demo, I want you to know that there are some of you, and I've done this three times. I did it with these projects here. I've done this three times, whether it's Never Song, Pinstripe, or Twisted Tower. I've gone full-time three on three separate occasions. You could take a demo and you can actually build a gorgeous branded pitch website, a Kickstarter campaign, or just a Steam page and a demo and you can actually take that demo and start making money right now. Now, I'm not going to tell you it's easy. It wasn't easy for me, but I was able to do it. I was able to do it three times. So, I took a a demo and a this is what's called like a pitch deck. And I took this pitch deck for Twisted Tower and I sold my game ideas to publishers to Kickstarter and also just sold it with pre-orders essentially. I mean,

wish lists are kind of like pre-orders in the sense that you can kind of predict that 5 to 10% are going to convert. Maybe 5 to 20% are going to convert. So, you're kind of selling before you even finish the game. You can do this with just an idea, with just a demo. I thought when I first started making games, I thought I got to go viral or I got to be super duper talented and I got to finish my game and spend five years on my game before I can make a single dollar on the game or maybe I need a degree, right? But what I learned is I can just take an idea, a concept or a demo and start securing funding now. Or if you don't want to secure funding now, at least start securing wish lists now so that when you launch your game, it makes a splash and you make some money. Okay, so that's why this demo, this prototype is so important. It took me five years to realize this. I spent five years on my game trying to flesh out the entire thing before I realized, oh, you know what? I need to capitalize on this demo now. whether it's building

an audience, getting wish lists, or securing a deal from a publisher. That's like I My first deal was 20,000. My second deal was over $100,000. Uh my third deal was not over $100,000. Well, it depends because I also I also worked with with Apple. Um but then I did a $80,000 Kickstarter campaign. My third deal with 3D Realms was significantly higher. I can't say the number. Um, point be being it took me 5 years to realize that I could even do that, that a demo was so freaking valuable. A polished demo is so valuable and the rest is history, right? Um, you know, for me it's it's getting signing a deal with Apple Arcade. Uh, launching on Nintendo Switch, right? Launching on PlayStation with my game Never Song. Launching on PlayStation here, there's the other copy. or signing a deal with one of my favorite publishers, 3D Realms, you know, from I remember seeing that 3D Realms logo when I was a kid or having Jack Septic. I play my games,

right? I learned how to start selling my ideas as demos. Okay, the rest is history for me, right? And it wasn't easy, okay? But these are my games. Whether it's revenue from crowdfunding, it's hard to call it revenue, but it kind of is. It's kind of like pre-orders almost. Or $700,000 plus from publishers and platforms and partners or, you know, selling my games. This is gross revenue here. Um, or getting published by Armor Games, Serenity Forge of 3D Realms. This is all because I started to learn how to number one, sell a demo, but also build up wish lists and hype and then market my game and launch my game. Right? So, it's it was simple to me. The answer was simple. It it wasn't it was complicated at first, but now it sort of started clicking, which is, oh, I just got to make a really polished demo, a really polished prototype, and then start pumping that prototype as soon as I can. So, by the way guys, before we move into the Q&A, want to let you know that the

spring sale, if you want to learn about all this stuff I just mentioned and you want to take it a step further and you want to learn not only how to make a game in Unity, GDAU or Unreal or hey, 2D art, you want to learn 2D art or 3D art, those are included free in this sale. The spring sale is 50% off right now and it's going to it's going to end here in 14 days, but there's also only a 100 seats available, so check it out below. Those usually sell out for each sale event. So, look, if you're if you want to make games and you want to learn from an actual indie game developer in the trenches, and I actually am right now in the trenches working on Twisted Tower, my third game. And I am holding a piece of paper right here. I don't want to show you what it is, but I'm holding a piece of paper right here, which is my fourth game idea, which I'm going to start this summer. If you want to learn from an actual indie game dev in the trenches who also does YouTube, check out this spring sale below. 50% off. I have 4,500 students worldwide. And by the way, if you're a student in the chat, let me know what you think about the program. And I want to say a huge,

huge thank you obviously to these students who have joined the program. Aaron, Jeruslav, Matt, Multifaceted, Joseph, James, and Ivan. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the program. And look guys, you know, you're going to learn to make 2D and 3D games. You're going to learn how to get published, learn how to get crowdfunded, learn how to get wish list, learn how to hit the Steamfront page. Yes, I've done all this stuff here. I'm not just some YouTuber. I've done all this stuff here. But also, as a bonus, learn 2D and 3DR as a bonus. That one's not actually included for this one. So, that's not true. Not the YouTube one. I forgot to remove that. But also, you're going to get an hourong conversation with me with a private tiny group. It's like 10 people, maybe um 10 other students who enrolled during the spring sale. We're going to do a oneh hour mastermind meeting um where we can talk about your game idea and I can help you out. These are some students who went full-time, which is nuts. We're going to get into the Q&A in just a sec, guys, but I just wanted to shout these students out. These students went full-time, which is absolutely nut. Filipe or Felipe, however you say that. Chris Sultar, Antonio, look at that. Went full-time with the help of the

course. I'm not going to take all the credit obviously, but these are all students who went full-time, which I'm just so so proud of them and so grateful to them. Andre went full-time as well. Taking Thomas' course was the turning point. And he said, "Now we're about to launch our published game this year with the collector's physical edition." Chris Ster, he's a buddy of mine now. He said, "Thank you so much, Thomas. I'm officially a full-time game dev." He he he raised way more than me on Kickstarter. Uh but he used the course as his blueprint. Um so really really cool. Bart Mamser, all the part marketing tips plus an awesome pep talk helped me to get over $100,000 for my first big game and go full-time. Oh, [clears throat] okay. Sorry, [laughter] got a frog in my throat. Um, mentioned [clears throat] that. Good, good, good. So, click the link below, check it out, see if something interested it, guys. And let's move into the Q&A. Are we ready for the Q&A? Do you have any questions about how to finish games and how to make

[clears throat] a profitable game on Steam? You know, the cool thing about I'll say this, but as you guys write your questions, the cool thing about my channel, um, is that I'm not coming from a place of going viral. A lot of people are like, "Thomas, he shouldn't be teaching because his games didn't go viral." And it's like, well, do would you rather somebody who goes maybe you would, but would you rather someone who goes viral tell you how to go viral, or would you rather somebody who's had to grind and and didn't make like the greatest games ever, but made games that actually provided for his family? I mean, they did more than that, honestly, but they weren't like mugenics, right? Of course, I would love to get advice from from Ed McMillan, which he has given me advice. Um, but also, yeah, it's it's good to it's good it's good to do these Q&As's because I feel like I can give you guys some more ground like grounded feedback that is not based on going viral and aiming for

the greatest hit ever, but instead just making solid titles, you know, solid titles that bring in income. Okay, what do we got? Let's open up the chat box here. questions. [singing] Questions just test with players, I guess. Bart Mamser, are you asking who do we play test with? Oh, you're probably answering another question. And Bart, welcome by welcome um to the chat. By the way, we just talked about Bart. Uh viral developer, no idea why my game went viral. I've actually heard that a lot. I've heard that it's just like just make a good game. I've heard I've heard people say that and I'm like there are those of us in the chat who we we want to make a game that's good obviously, but sometimes we need practical steps as to how to get there and how to get funding while we get

there, you know. Um my question would be this is from this is from furious fur. He said, "My question would be I can't read that. Hold on. Does someone with a family and only say five to 10 hours a week make a game without taking years?" Well, the the whole term game is such a subjective term. Uh, if you try and make a game I if I'm being honest, if you try and make a game like this or you try and make a game like this or you try especially if you try and make a game like Twisted Tower, no, you're probably not going to finish it. Uh, those are too big. And it's funny because this is only four hours long, but it's handdrawn. It's it's this very like emotional linear story. It required a ton of like surgical game development, which was full-time, you know, full-time effort for years. I'm

not saying they're good games. I I think they're good, but I'm just I'm not saying they're like viral hits. Um, if you want to make a game when, this is the problem. If you want to make a game when you have a family, you either need to go two routes. Obviously, there's outliers. You need to go two routes. The first route is make a tiny game that's small. You sell it for five bucks and it's it's juicy, but it's tight and it's small. The other option is find a way to get funding. Okay? Whether that's Kickstarter, whether that's securing a deal with a platform or securing a deal with publishers or investors, find some investment, some fund, which again, I teach all about that. I taught about that today, but also I do teach about that in the course as well because that's how I had to do it. Um, that those are about the only two ways. Having a family is so hard. I can't imagine trying to make games part-time with a family like but and I guess you mean like a wife and kids, right?

So, okay. Uh, Dream Hero says, "I'm student of the course and I love the the program. I'm having some issues with pixel art animations. Would you suggest bone rigging with pixel art?" No, unless it had like a stylized feel to it. like a mega bonk vibe or something. I don't know. I can't think of a game that's pixel art with with bone rigging. Bone rigging is is uh what it's my method of choice, but it's it's cheating. Um especially if you want it to be charming, you know, but maybe you could find a way to do it. I just doubt that you could because the pixels inherently don't rotate. So rigging is its core foundation is the rotation of bones. So yeah. Yes, I do. I do teach I teach about publishers. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. I teach all about that. All about publishers. That's a good question. Yes. Um

I I don't Yeah. Zach ML says, "Sometimes it's a matter of what you're willing to give up. Usually sleep." Yeah. Um, I don't know. I got to say, guys, I don't know if I'm about sacrificing more of your life. I'm about sacrificing your current life. So, what I mean by that, sorry, I there is a there is a pie chart of your life that you're willing to sacrifice for a season. Um, let's discuss this really quick. This is more of like coaching than it is gamedev advice, but it is is applicable. There's a part of your life, every single one of you watching right now, there's a part of your life that you're willing to sacrifice, and you do it every night, whether it's Netflix, whether it's HBO, whether it's Instagram, whether it's Tik Tok, whether it's talking on the phone with your mom,

there is a part of your life that you willfully sacrifice, and you know it, even though you might not admit it. When I say it's it's potentially a good idea to to to work on your game in the off hours, what I mean is I guarantee you there's some places in your life where you are sacrificing for dumb things. You're you're spending your time sacrificing you're sacrificing your time on shows in Instagram. Like how golly, you know, even me, I I I'm I'm addicted to Instagram. You could be making a game instead of scrolling Instagram. Let's be for real, you know? So, I'm not saying sacrifice the good for gamedev. I'm saying sacrifice the bad for gamedev. Replace the bad time that you're wasting with making a game. And that's what I did when I first started making games. I

worked in the early morning. I worked through lunch. I didn't need my lunch break. Not I didn't have kids. I wasn't super tired. I wasn't a super tired dad who needed a lunch break. So, I just worked through my lunch break, right? And then I would have like an an evening an hour to kill in the evening that usually was sitting, you know, watching TV or something and that's where I would make games. So, I would s I would find three hours, not every day, but I would find three hours in the day where I could sacrifice time, right? All right. I'm 16 and have a passion for gamedev. This is from Oh, sorry. I missed it. Um, crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. No. Where'd you go? You're not showing up in my chat on my Sorry. Uh, is it worth releasing at all on PC platforms like Steam? What? That's the only that is the place to launch

1,00%. My experience is uh revenue is like I could be wrong here because I don't look at the numbers but like or I haven't looked recently but I feel like my Steam numbers are like five times to six times as many sales as Xbox and PlayStation. Um let's see here. My question is what makes a mechanic? Can you call shooting a real mechanic or something else? Yeah, a mechanic is something that the player can do and it changes the game. A loop is when those mechanics work together in sequence to solve a problem and progress the player. So, a mechanic is anything that changes in the game. When the player presses a button, it does something. That's a mechanic. A loop is using those mechanics to solve a problem, and you do it on repeat. And by the way, it's called a loop because, well, I think number one, human beings

are inherently loop oriented, right? We love loops. Our daily life is a gameplay loop and we progress as we loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop. We like that. We're on a spinning planet after all. Um, but also a loop is actually great economically for a game, uh, for the game developer because you can take one little loop, build that loop, and then spin it like mad and expand it and polish it. And so you're you're you're not creating new concepts and new mechanics all the time. You're actually polishing one. And that's easier said than done. Yeah, you absolutely, I totally agree with Kev, the dev. Rule of thumb is email at least 300 plus content creators. Once one big picks you up, it'll generally snowball. I do agree with that. Um, and that that was probably an answer to a question about marketing and how to get streamers to play your game. 1,000%. In fact, I don't know if I would take the gamble of only sending it to 300. How many how many content creators are out there who want to play your game?

You could probably found thousands. Like if if we had a magic crystal ball of who would like our game, who has a YouTube channel or a Twitch account, Twitch channel, if we had a magic crystal ball, we could probably find a thousand people who would like to play our games. So send out as many as you possibly can. And I don't want to hear about how hard it is. You just spent a year working on your game and you're too lazy to send out emails to a thousand people. How long till Twisted Tower? I can't tell you, but it is in beta testing. Yes, going small to creator to large creator was best since the big ones are always watching what the smaller ones are doing. I agree with that. I I call it l climbing the ladder. Uh I do it before launch though. So, here's a little trick. Once you get

this is write this down, guys. This is something that I've I've used in the past. Once you get a streamer with a thousand subscribers, you tell the one that has 15 thou 1500 subscribers that the one with a thousand is going to play your game. Does that make sense? So, here's what you do. You say in an email to a thousand, this is I'm serious. Write this down because I think it's a great idea and I've done it. If you find somebody who has a thousand subscribers who wants to play your game and they confirm via email, "Yes, I will play and I will play it on launch. I can't wait." You then find the person who has 1,500 to like 5,000. And you say, Jimmy the Snake 111, he's going to play my game. Do you want to play it? And then Carl the Curly says, "Oh yeah, I'll play." And then you just got Carl the Curly. And you say to

Johan Sebastian Clock, you say, "Johan Sebastian Clock, you've got 50,000 subscribers. Did you hear that Carl the Curley is going to play my game?" And so you stack. You get It's like, "Well, if this YouTuber is going to play, then I'll play." And then you you try and build that um that uh sort of viral connect uh that viral spread. You can try and predict that and and and orchestrate that before the game comes out. You're it's not going to be perfect. You frankly you're probably going to have like a 5% um success rate here. But that's why you go big and you you have a lot of numbers. Um so that's that's what I do. And then I also will invite them to be in the game. So I'll be like I I I have a character who I can make their if you press P on the keyboard their character will turn into your head, you know, something like that. Um yeah, and I'm a YouTuber, so I kind of

know how I think about things. If if I if a if Jonas Tyroller is doing something, then I'll be like, "Okay, well maybe there's something to it." Um so that's kind of how I approach it, you know. Any other questions? Thomas, do you have any advice for audio first game devs? What does that mean? How do you structure a project when you're doing both music and code? Oh, well, I was thinking about this yesterday. I was thinking for my next game, am I going to write the music while I make the game or after I make the game? The truth is is that for people like me, geniuses, I'm kidding. I'm That's a joke. But for people like me who my my the mechanics of my game are informed by the art and the art is informed by the mechanics. It's a it's like a it's a well it's like a relationship. It's like a marriage. Um the code informs the art and the art informs the code and the music informs the sound and the sound informs the color scheme. It's just very

sensory. Then if you're like that, then you probably do want to write your music while you're making the game. I my advice typically would have been like last year I probably would have told you guys, hey, write your music at the end of the game. But the truth is is sometimes I'll write a song and I'm like that would be a really cool level because the and then the song sort of guides how it looks. So it's it's tough. It's tough. Okay, what else we got? The art and the code, they dance. They absolutely do, guys. We're making a game here. We're not making just code and we're not just making just art. And I wish I wish I've talked about this with podcast uh podcast guests. I wish making a game was like building a house, but it's not. And I came to terms with that I think last week or maybe two weeks ago, which is like there's something beautiful about

a game that manifests slowly through toil. Because I'm reading the reviews for the beta test of my game, Twisted Tower, and everyone's like saying, "I could I could feel the heartbeat. I could feel you at your voice. I could I understand I could feel your passion in this game, Thomas. Well, the reason they can is because I was banging my head against a wall trying to solve so many problems in out of order. And so that game became this sort of weird fant is fasmagoria. Is that what it's called? It's that thing that comes out of your mouth when you're possessed by a demon. It's this black weird thing that came out of me. And it was all because of the strange way in which the game was made.

That's a very human way to make games. And so it's hard for me to say make it in a way that like a builder would build a house and do it structured and do things in order, which obviously I would like you to do that, but sometimes it's great to make the music first because it then informs how the game is made. Um, it's it makes it feel human. It's an art piece, right? Um, okay. Houses have plans. Games don't have a plan. I mean, they do. Games do have plans. You know who uses plans to make games? Who who uses plans to make games? Well, AAA. and their games sometimes, a lot of times they feel really clinical. And so I'm not saying don't plan your game. I'm just saying that there is a beauty to a spazzy,

impulsive, inefficient way to make a game because it creates this strange thing that you didn't expect. That is art. Art is when you're you're you're figuring out what that thing over there is. Does that make sense? Like you wake up one morning or you're in the shower and there's a thing over there and it's floating through the ether and it's like there's something there. And so for three years or if you're if you're me, five and a half years, you're pulling that structure out of the ether and and it and you're doing it halfhazardly. You're like, "Oh, there it and you pull and oh, there it is. And you pull and oh, there it is. And you pull and you're getting all these different pieces of this idea that's been there the whole time. And you slowly pull it out and you create it's like the clay for your creation and you create this thing that

is you're doing your very very best to manifest what's there all along. And so it's really hard to build a house that way or it's really hard to build it make a game that way because a house is not really it's not really an idea in the ether. A game is it's it's there and it's I believe that art is kind of there all along and it's your job to pull it out of the ether and put it into the into the physical world. Does that make sense? Uh what what what's the advice you want to give to a 16-year-old who's interested in making games? Uh, find your voice. Find your voice. And the way to find your voice is to be okay failing. I'm not telling you to to just make bad games on purpose, but I am telling you that you will make bad games. And the only way to find your voice is to to be okay with failing. And so, I want you to make games and release them. I do not want you to release them on to Windows Explorer. That's not a game platform. I

want you I want you to release them onto H.IO Oh, and Steam. Okay, Thomas, can you explain the Trinity Hook? Yeah, I haven't talked about the Trinity Hook in a while. Um, mainly because my belief in the Trinity Hook is I'm not as convicted about the Trinity Hook. I will be if Twisted Tower does well because then I'll feel like, okay, because I followed the Trinity hook for Twisted Tower. But I will tell you what it is. The Trinity hook is is a lot of people want to create a hook for their game because hooks help market the game. And by the way, a hook is not a mechanic necessarily. It is not a story necessarily. It's not an art style necessarily. A hook is anything that captures the audience's attention where mainly on the front end, the marketing side. Obviously, you can have a hook in your game, but when I traditionally think about a hook, I'm thinking about the thing that's used to market the game.

Okay? So, when I talk about the Trinity, I had to have this conversation with a with a fellow dev. I'm not talking about the thing in the game necessarily that keeps the player hooked. I'm talking about the thing that helps market the game, the thing that captures an audience's attention. So, when I say trinity hooked, that's what I mean. What are three things that can capture the player's attention or a potential player's attention? Visuals. Visual SL audio. So sensory um it's like music, sound, the visuals, the mechanical and then also the story narrative hook. Right? So those are three kinds of hooks. Now the the concept of the trinity hook is don't pick one. Try to do all three. the chances of nailing all three is probably not going to happen, but at least try to hit all three and maybe you'll get one because

every game in my opinion in this day and age needs some kind of hook for marketing purposes. Okay. Yep, that's right. Mysteria Mr. Ewa says, "Hooks are really important for gaining interest at the start, but they're absolutely has to be substance to ensure it goes further than a few viral videos." That's 10,000%. A great YouTube video has a really good thumbnail and it has really good what? Retention. The same is true with games. You you need a strong hook. You need a you need something that captures the audience's attention. But when they play the game, they need to keep playing because Steam cares about that too, right? So when I say hook, I'm not saying it is the end all beall and it's the mechanics in the game itself. I'm saying it's something about the marketing material that captures attention, something about the story. This game is about how there is a an underwater kingdom on the moon. What is that? It's a narrative hook. Might be

might be a visual hook, right? Um my game is about a boy who can reverse gravity. That's a mechanical hook, but maybe it's a story hook, right? Maybe it's also the visual one as well. The trailer starts upside down, right? So, a lot of hooks are sort of tied together, but sometimes they're not, right? Uh, the mechanical hook of Bioshock isn't Well, I don't even No, it does exist. It's the plasmids. Um, that's not necessarily tied to the underwater utopia. Um, although they are tied narratively. You wouldn't maybe know that by just watching the trailer. So, they're not always tied together is my point. Okay. Okay. Let's see here. Let's see here. I think I think um I think that's what we've got time for today. I'm going to do a bunch of other workshops um this uh for the the coming week, but I wanted to say look guys, if you want to check out Fulltime GameDev,

which is my massive course. Please at least click the link below. Thank you, Aaron, Jerro, Matt, Multiaceted, Joseph, James W, and Ivan. Thank you for joining Fulltime GameDev. At least check it out below, guys. Click the link below. And by the way, if you're a student in the program, let me know what you think about the program. It's 50% off. These students went full-time with the program with the help of the program. I'll never take full credit, but these students went full-time with the help of the program. So, at least check it out below, guys. See if it's something you're interested in. Not only you going to learn how to make a game in Unity, GDO, or Unreal. You can take your pick. You don't have to learn all three. Just pick one. But also, you're going to learn how to market your game on Steam. um how to hit the Steamfront page, how to get a publisher deal, how to do a Kickstarter campaign, but I'll also throw in my 2D and 3D art courses, completely free, which teaches you how to do 2D and 3D art. Really big course, really big course taught by an actual indie game dev in the trenches making games. All right, guys. I'll see you probably tomorrow, maybe even today for another live

stream. I'm gonna be live streaming a lot this week. I love you guys so