How To Make Games Full Time (in 2026), 8 Years On One Game, Slop vs. Polished Games (Adam Younis)

I spent the last I don't know month talking to game developers and marketing experts trying to understand this new trend of small games. They're friend sloppy. They're quick. They're sometimes rough around the edges and they're released in sometimes a few months. And a lot of these games make a ton of money. Well, what about game developers who spend years almost a decade on a single project like my guest Adam Ununus? Adam has been working on his game Insignia for eight plus years. And I got to say, I was actually really inspired by this conversation. I was more than inspired. I was kind of I I felt I felt at home. See, Adam and I, we come from this generation of gamers, like from the '90s, honestly. [music] Uh where we grew up playing games like Legend of Zelda, Ocarine of Time, Super Metroid. These are games that were simple. They were linear, but they had depth. They had length, and they had a high level of polish and intention. Adam and I talk about why he wanted to make a game like this and almost spend a decade

on a single project and how he's staying afloat both financially and emotionally. We also talk about AI. We talk about whether you should make small games or big games. And we also talk about how to make [music] money as a full-time game developer despite well not releasing a game and not even having a publisher or a crowdfunding campaign. Oh, and by the way, we talk about that too. We talk about how to get funding from a publisher and from a crowdfunding campaign. Ultimately, the goal is to go full-time somehow without relying on well your game being finished and actually [music] selling copies. This conversation was incredibly raw and you're going to learn a ton. Let's jump into the conversation. I want to hear and I want I want to hear a recap. And like I said, you know, my editor, he'll make all this sound really cool,
but I want to hear a recap of your journey from not working on well, I guess starting insignia to now.
And can you just give me because what we're trying to do here is we're trying to let people who are listening to this podcast, let them know that they're

they're not alone in their journey,
you know?
Yeah.
So, can you give me your journey? Just lay it out there. If it takes 30 minutes, I don't care.
I want to hear your story and let's let's hit the beats of like,
you know, you started and when it was scrappy and and maybe some how you got financing, if you could talk about that and how you're staying alive, you know.
Yeah, sure. It's
been eight years.
Yeah. Pretty good, huh? [laughter] [gasps]
Amazing. Almost as many years as Ken Lavine on uh Judas. He's worked 10 years on Judas. So, you're almost there.
I'd love to be compared to Ken Lavine. So, [laughter] all right. So, I started I guess we can start at like me finishing university.
So, [clears throat] I have a design degree, not in game design, more in like UX, uh, interaction design, that kind of thing.
And I always wanted to make games like it was like since before high school, it was just something that I I knew that I wanted to do, but I didn't know if there would be a place for me in the industry. This is like 2009.

So, um, going into uni in 2010, it was not clear that there was an obvious path into making like real games. And I think this is still something I think about today of like at the time I didn't really consider like the Newgrounds route even though I was working in Flash a lot as like legitimate. Like I just didn't think that that was like what real games were. Um, and so the idea of wanting to work in like how do I how do I get to be making like a Final Fantasy was kind of like the thing that I was, you know, wanted to do. But indie games as a concept started really coming up around like, you know, 2010, 2011, 2012. So that was right as I was graduating uni. And through uni, I was doing some programming and I was getting interested in games and game engines. Um, but just professionally I just didn't feel secure making games. So, I was I went into like um UX design and I did that for three or

four years full-time uh at an agency. We did a lot of like broadcasting and aerospace stuff. So, we did a lot of like set top box designs if you've used like um uh com the Comcast box or if you're in like Canada like the Rogers.
Wait, so what was the what was the degree? I'm trying to figure out what you're saying.
It was called um
program
the degree was called design computing but today they call it um bachelor of like experience design. So it's basically a UX designer is what I was that's what I literally was
for for software.
Yeah. For software.
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Yeah. So we would do like apps, we would do um like websites, we would do the seatback entertainment systems. So like the United Airline fleet right now if you go on on a United flight uh the entertainment system on that I was in the team that designed that. So right
that's kind of what we were doing
from there I just I got to a point where I was just not happy like I just knew I

wanted to be making games and I wasn't and I was turning 25 26 and I was thinking is it too late to start making games or like if I wait longer will it be too late? Yeah. So I I was like I think I had just been inspired at some point while I was working um just in my day job. I had this like like hour and a half commute each way uh to my job. So I would just have my laptop out or a sketchbook and I would just draw stuff um to do with just this little world that I was building uh built around this character which is the insignia world now. Um, and I just I just got like obsessed with it. Like I just fell into it. And um, eventually I was like, "Oh, I want to make this game." And I I don't know exactly what it's going to be, but it's going to be about this character and this world. And I I was drawing mock-ups and stuff. And then I sort of tried Unity, tried a few different engines. I even actually tried um there's like a project called Flixel in the hack engine which is kind of like

trying to get Flash out of Flash since no one uses Flash anymore.
Um and that I just wasn't confident rolling my own engine at that point. I was still a pretty junior programmer. So eventually I fell back into Unity and in game jams actually. That's where I sort of really got started making games was making jam- sized games but with the intent to make this bigger project. Yeah, that's kind of where it started. I pretty much quit my job like six months after starting the project and then took the game to PAX. I forced myself I actually booked a PAX booth before I had the game in any kind of state.
Wow.
Setting myself like a deadline. I was like I'm going to go to PAX with this game.
Right now the game is like one scene of the character running around, but I'm still going to book the booth so that like
this is in like January. Like by October
I'll have the demo.
And what year was this?
This was 2017. Okay. Wow.
So, yeah, that's what I did. And I got like a ton of, you know, positive

attention from people at the show and um good impressions, but it it I was feeling like pretty like the game didn't I felt like it needed more like it people people were responding to it in a very like polite way, but I felt like I wasn't like grabbing them the way that I wanted to be. So, I just felt like I need a closer relationship with my audience more frequently than this. So, that's when streaming happened. Like 2018, I was like, "That's it. I'm streaming now." Um, and I'm just going to make the game as live as possible and and have people see it and and see me making it. So that's I would say like that marks the current chapter of like the last eight years or well yeah pretty much seven seven or eight years have been essentially me doing more or less contracting over time to keep um like financially stable while at the same time kind of like building the uh like the YouTube platform and the

Twitch channel that I've got and Patreon and also doing kind of like less UX X stuff and more game stuff. So like I just finished a game project as a contract job that's helping finance some stuff. Um I was doing that like 2 days a week.
So So contract work is keeping this game afloat at this point.
It it certainly kept me afloat. Yeah. Well, I should mention um we got some grant funding back in like last year. So I I decided that I wanted to make the game a team project. I was too it was too big. Um, [snorts] [laughter] still probably
I know the feeling. I know the feeling. It's just you just you just give up. You're like, screw this. I'm not doing this solo anymore. And you just start hiring out.
I just felt like if I was to do it solo, I wouldn't be doing it justice. like certain parts of it, the music and sound and aspects of the of the animation that like if I put my time into this, it's going to take less time than somebody else would, but it's time that I

wouldn't be spending on some other part of the project that is important. So, um, yeah, we secured
What are you Can I I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Adam. What What are you uh
What are you contracting out? So, I actually like right now I produced a full game uh for a museum. Uh [clears throat] they were doing like an archaeology exhibit and they wanted to make like a retro style experience of like you can dig up these artifacts that are real artifacts in the in the museum, but you can dig them up virtually in this like ' 80s inspired pixel art game. So, it's kind of like those CDROM games. Very like super simple. Um that's cool.
Kind of like painterly pixel art style. Um, and that sort of fell in my lap a little bit. I get lucky with these things. I don't have like a business. I mean, I do, but like it's not something that I go out and and like look really hard for jobs. They just sort of come my way by virtue of, I guess, me being
active in the local scene and having the

YouTube channel and Yeah. Well, to to encourage you a little bit, I'm not sure if you've ever felt like contract contract work is not a legitimate way to keep a studio alive. I'm not sure if you've ever felt that way before, but um or or maybe you feel like people think that cuz I've I've thought I've I've thought that people think that, but the truth is is that um even massive studios do this. Um I mean like this isn't the same, but it's similar. So, my publisher is 3D Realms.
And 3D Realms is owned by Saber.
Saber, what they do is I think they get a bunch of licenses to make games from from other studios.
So, like they'll get licenses from like Hollywood studios to make video games based on some movie. Yeah.
And so, in a way, it's contract work where they're they're being paid to make a a licensed product. Um, but they also

make their own intellectual property, I think, as well. Y
um, so I think that's totally legitimate to to And also my publisher, Serenity Forge, they're the publisher of my game, Never Song. They what they used to do is they used to take a ton of government contract work when they needed to to stay afloat as well. Um, so I think that's totally legitimate. This is especially legitimate for people who indie game developers or studios who who have their own IP and they want to make a big IP like you're you're trying to make insignia, you're trying to make this big product.
Y
it's hard to finance this thing with just a Kickstarter campaign or just streaming, right? So, you've got to survive and stay afloat
and [clears throat] be creative, right?
Yeah. there there are these constant tensions between kind of like doing what you want to do versus doing where what you know whatever you have to do to get the money wherever the money is and especially in Sydney it's actually

really common like a lot of the studios that I've worked with u or who I'm good friends with a lot of them do like 50% contract 50% their own IP and and most of them are making most of their money off of the contract stuff or at least giving, you know, paying the wages that way
because yeah, I mean, games are a crazy kind of product where you spend like years working on something and then there's like one day where you push a button and [clears throat] then it becomes a product that you sell.
That's right.
That's right.
And then you want to ride the whole business on whether or not that's going to do well. I mean, you you hope that you can do that, but it's that's a very privileged position to be in.
It is. And it's also um I I've compared I've compared game development contrastly to like building houses, right?
Like a like a builder, they'll build a house knowing that they'll sell it and they can just look at the market and and as long as there's not like some crash in the market. They know that if they build a house for, I don't know,

$200,000, they could sell it for $400,000 in 12 months, you know, and they just know. or you know, also when it comes to like uh making a game that has a um proven IP, you know that if you're going to make a Call of Duty that you're probably going to get your money back, right?
Y
or I don't know, if you make a Hellboy game, you know you're going to make your money back because it's Hellboy, right? And it has a built-in audience. So, it's super risky to I think it was uh American McGee, his episode went live today. He was talking about how making games, especially like the Alice games, they were still a gamble because the Alice IP is, it's not like a game IP. It's more of just like this fable or this fairy tale.
Yeah.
Um that exists in the ether that people kind of that that people know about, but they don't know it as a game. And my point is is that I've been struggling with this of thinking why is it that

every time I'm making a my own game, I get financing from all these different places. I'll get financing from Kickstarter. I'll get financing from a publisher. And why is it that I always end up looking for more money somewhere else? So, I have to go I have to go scrge up cash somewhere else or I have to use YouTube or sponsors or something to survive. It's like, why is this always happen? I always feel guilty about it. And talking to you, I I always feel comfort because I'm like, it's because it's it's it's it's kind of like gambling. You're building this random idea and you're hoping that it pays off and you don't really know how much it's going to cost to make. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. And even if you even if it's not a gamble for you, like you can have full faith in what you're building, but money coming from some external source, it's a gamble for them. right? Whether it's a publisher or players, prospective players who are doing Kickstarter, like one way or another, you're trying to

convince people that this thing which doesn't exist yet will be worth it when it comes out later. So, there's this aspect of of yeah, that tension between the marketing side or the sales side versus the
yeah, the the business side. And I think that's natural. I think it's just the way that it is. There's this is kind of where I feel like um even within the scope of publishing deals um which I've seen a lot of recently there's a lot of variability in you know the more you're asking for and who you're asking from the expectations or the kinds of I guess the ways that that risk is mitigated are very very different. So, you can take on, you know, way less risk and be given a uh a lot of money but have almost no chance of making like a ton of profit at the end because the revenues blitz just aren't in your favor. But that's like the publishers's way of saying, "Hey, like we're taking on all this risk by giving you all this money

early, so we should take on most of the reward." And I guess in the in the capitalistic kind of business sense that's something that I've struggled with a little bit because for me I have taken on a lot of risk and I kind of like taking on this risk like creatively that's also where the freedom is you know being able to do what you want and make the the thing that what make the thing the way that it wants to be made you [clears throat] know according to you the creator
that's really valuable to me. So,
yeah, I'm happy to take money from someone else for some other job completely so that I can keep creative freedom on what I'm doing.
Can I can I ask you and we can cut this out of the podcast if you want. Um, can I ask you if you're looking for publishers right now?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm my my like strategy right now is like go down every avenue, explore every option, um see exactly what materially is on the table before I start,
you know, committing fully down one of

those roads.
This is why I haven't done a Kickstarter before, cuz I just know that if I leave that bullet in the chamber,
um and I really need it, I can fire it, but I don't need to do that until I need to. You know what I mean? Well, I would say that if you can do a Kickstarter campaign, I would do that. Did you Wait, so you haven't done one yet for Insignia? I would do that if I were you.
Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I mean, I have like we're at a point now where I've got so much stuff um that you would hope to have backed up. Like, you know, there's there is a trailer that's cut that's got some cool handdrawn animation from like an external studio that I directed. There is like a demo that's like two and a half hours long now. Uh
that's not a demo. That's a game.
It's huge. Yeah.
Have you released that demo?
No. There's like an internal sort of like Discord community testing track

that people can sign up for that they can play.
Um [snorts] but it's not available anywhere. It's not on Steam. Um so I have like all this stuff like if I wanted to do a Kickstarter like I could just do one. Um, but there's, you know, there's a lot of commitment there too in terms of like managing that campaign and trying to drum up some kind of like additional special something like um what kind of rewards are you going to give the high tier?
Well, how many subscribers do you have on YouTube?
We're coming up to 300K.
Uh, how many views do you get per video?
Most of my videos are kind of got that evergreen structure, so it goes up over time. A lot of them might hit 30K in a couple of months and then over time might go to 50 or 100K.
Okay. My opinion, not that you asked for it, but I've done two Kickstarter campaigns and both raised about 100K and this was before I had a YouTube channel.
Um, both of them raised about 100K. You don't have to create some kind of additional stuff necessarily for your

you for your backers until the game is done. You la So you launch the game and then you deliver the rewards. You deliver like hey your name's in the credits or you got a cool statue or you got a portrait in the game or whatever. You don't have to create like some DLC for them or something like that. So, my opinion is before you sign a deal with a publisher, and you don't have to say anything, but before you sign a deal with a publisher,
go get yourself 60K to $100,000 on Kickstarter.
People will support you, man. That like you you put out a video or like let's say six videos in 30 days during the campaign.
Yeah.
You'll get funded by your audience and they want to see you succeed.
Yeah. This is something that I actually consider a lot of like I should like I definitely I have a similar kind of appraisal. I feel like the 100k mark is what you I think is the I've done a lot of research on this. I think that's when

an amount it's a significant enough amount that you can do something with it. Less than that I feel like unless you're like fully solo. 60 actually is is probably like going to get you a year and a half maybe if you're you know eating ramen every day but um
especially in Sydney. You're in Sydney, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Sydney's [laughter] a little expensive. Um, yeah, like if if if you get a 100 US, that's you can do something with that. And I think we could do that. Um, I guess I've just been cautious about seeing how far I could get without one because if you happen to do a Kickstarter and it doesn't go so well, then I feel like the publisher conversations might be a little more difficult.
Yes. But the this is what I always tell myself and this is also what my wife tells me. Never make a decision based out of fear.
That's really good advice.
Yeah.
If if you're Now, obviously this is kind of a silly statement if if we're thinking about like should I cross the

street. It's like well you need to make a decision based on fear. Meaning like let's look let's look both ways. But it's like the primary motivation of whether you're going to do a Kickstarter campaign is cuz you're scared. And I'm not saying that's true for you, but it's like that that's such a scary thing to think. I've been working eight years on a game
and what if the Kickstarter campaign flops?
That sucks. You know, that's scary. So, here's what I would do if I were you. You've got 300,000 some subscribers. You've got a streaming audience who's highly dedicated. Don't go through Kickstarter. Screw them. The reason people go through Kickstarter is because they don't have an audience. So, what they're trying to do is they're trying to get an audience from from Kickstarter. Kickstarter has this massive email list and they also have a front page. And so, if they get you on there, you get like an additional, let's say, 30 to 60% of your funding comes from Kickstarter. Their the traffic that they generate.
Yeah.
You don't need that. You got your own audience, dude. Do you know how many

people I've talked to, especially like uh especially in like Hollywood? But I was talking to some some some some producers in Hollywood
who we were and I was talking about financing a film I want to make and they were like they were like dude you know they said people would kill people would kill for your audience size
because you can finance pretty much anything you want in a bunch of different ways. And by the way huge thank you to my audience right now. I love I love my audience right now. And so thank you guys so much because and this actually is coming out three or 4 days after Thanksgiving, so this is appropriate. Thank you so much to my audience for keeping Twisted Tower alive
because they kept they kept Twisted Tower alive when I had budget cuts from 3D Realms and 2024 sucked. And then because of my audience, I was able to take sponsorships, blah blah blah. So huge thank you to my audience. But my point is is that you can you can build a a a marketplace or like a a squeeze page or a website that has support atom now

and a 30-day timer.
Yeah, just do your own Kickstarter
your own Kickstarter page and you can use Kajjabi to do it. I would use Kajjabi um which is all about digital. It's a and by the way all all of my courses are hosted on Kajjabi. You could and you can have your own email list and everything on this web page and you could put a custom timer at the top. If the if for some reason it fails, you can make a video about it and you can say, "Hey, you know, it's okay. You know, we didn't hit 70K. We didn't hit 100K. I love you guys so much
and so I'm going to take the page down. Page is gone. Publishers don't need to see it." H do you know?
So there's a thought there for you.
Yeah, I actually like your take on not making decisions based on fear. I I have that own my own little mantra version of that as well. Uh the analogy I make is

for the gamers out there. Um you know [snorts] in in like uh Blizzard games, right? The fear spell in like World of Warcraft will send you away from something but it won't send you towards anything. Mhm.
Whereas like if you're doing like a star like path finding, you know, you're heading towards a specific thing. So you'll never get where you're trying to go based on fear. You'll just go away from something you don't want.
Yeah.
Um that's my little way of
I love that.
And here's what I found. Um I'll speak for me. I don't know if you're you you make decisions based on fear. I don't really know.
Um would you say that you do?
I try not to.
Yeah. I I do. I'm a very fearful person actually. I come across really confident and I come across charismatic.
I'm a very scared person.
I'm a scared person for sure.
What's that?
I I'm I'm a scared person for sure. I feel like this industry makes you that way. Like there's so much risk every single day.
You're spinning in the chamber in this industry, man. It's tough. [gasps] So

yeah, I make a lot of decisions based on fear. And the [clears throat] reason why my wife says that is cuz she knows that when I get skittish, I start to make weird decisions.
Mhm.
And she's like, "Chill. It'll all work out. It's totally fine."
And you end up signing bad deals or working with people you shouldn't work with because you're scared.
Uh what if I don't what if we can't pay the bills? Blah blah blah. But I wonder if people who are fear driven sometimes it seems like they also tend to be people who are very talented and have high levels of skill. And I think the reason why is because they've lived their whole life skiddish.
Mhm.
And so they they overcorrect for everything.
Yes.
So they become highly talented because
they're constantly like
nitpicking every little
uh skill they have because they think they suck. Yeah, it's like an intelligence thing. Like if you can think three moves ahead

or four moves ahead or five moves ahead, that takes a lot of skill to do that, but it means that you're not moving. Like if you're spending a lot of energy projecting forward, um it's a it can be helpful, but it can also paralyze you.
So I I agree.
Well, let's let's uh I want to give you one quick visualization.
Uhhuh.
And it'll make sense, I promise. And then we'll shift gears and I want to talk about SL uh friend slop and AI.
Let's do it.
Not that the two are related, although they might be. So, we'll talk about it. But I want to give you one quick visualization. Okay.
Sure.
Path one, you're scared, but you launch your Kickstarter campaign and you raise $100,000.
Holy crap. And you don't owe anybody any money. You don't have a publisher telling you what to do. You don't have publisher meetings every Thursday. You don't get weird emails from the publisher saying, "Hey, we got bought out by Embracer." You don't have any

weird stuff. You don't have your point man from from from the publisher you signed with saying, "Hey, by the way, I quit."
And you have this new point man and it's somebody you hate. [snorts]
Or you don't have your publisher saying, "Hey, we're going to fail you on milestone 3. We can't pay you." O.
Or imagine the other path, which is you sign with a publisher and they give you half a million dollars or they give you a million dollars and let's say it's a big one. I won't say who, but let's say it's one of the big ones.
Yep.
And you go to bed that night after you signed and you're like, "Oh, thank God. We just got we we got half a million dollars. We got a million dollars and we're funded for two years." And you feel this huge relief of we got the money. And then you wake up the next morning and you realize I got to recoup all that money.
Yep. Yep.
Before I get my 50%. Oh, wait. That's

not 50% because Steam takes 30.
Yep.
Oh, and then Sydney's going to tax 40%. [laughter] Or whatever the tax rate is in Australia. So all of a sudden you've got this the motivator to finish ins or to like do insignia right it's goes down because you're like oh crap I don't really get to see the
the benefit here financially now you can obviously because if you sign with someone like Deolver they can quadruple uh the effect of the marketing and so suddenly they make they they're paying they're paying you back for what you're giving them because they know how to do the leg work, but a lot of these publishers don't. Um, so I just wanted to give that to you and let you munch on that. Um,
yeah,
it's uh it's super relevant. I actually a couple months ago had I was dealing with this and this is what you were talking about anxiety driven people. Uh,

I was entertaining a conversation. I don't want to talk about it in too much detail, but um for a lot of money, like more than any of the numbers that have come up in in our conversation so far today.
Great.
Um and it was that same that same like uh the wake up moment happened of like I could take this money,
but if I took this money, what would that do to my motivation to work on the game? and how do those incentives [clears throat] totally flip like you just said
um from making something cool to delivering and recouping. And um for me I I think I just it just I kind of had a moment where I was thinking like I don't even know if I could use that much money. Like even if you gave it to me
Yeah.
I don't know if I would use it to make the game come out faster. I don't think I could use it to make the game higher quality. I could pay for more people to be in the project. But then I become somebody who manages a bunch of people working on the project. I don't I don't

get to work on it anymore myself because you got to delegate now to like what 10 15 people.
Well, you you know these the the I'm not by the way, I'm not saying any of this is wrong. It might be a great idea. It might be a wonderful idea. Yeah.
Yeah. If if Devolver reached out and they were like
and if you want me to bleep that out, I don't I don't [clears throat] know. But like if Deolver reached out and said, "Hey, we're going to give you 2 million."
I'd take it because it's like,
"Okay, they're going to they're going to fight for me."
Yeah.
We're going to make a hit.
Yeah.
But there's some publishers where they're like, "Here's $2 million. Now you're my
they're going to they're going to do that because and no matter how nice they are, they're going to take you out for for for a nice steak dinner." And you're like, "These are like my best friends. I love these people." Well, the next day and then the next month and the month after that, they're not going to treat you like a friend. Why? Because they gave you two million bucks.
Yeah.
You're not their friend. You're their employee, you know. So, you got to you

got to remember that money changes things. It turns the the game into a product, which eventually it will need to be a product,
of course. Yeah. But this is I've I've worked I've never not worked with a publisher and so this is just coming from a place of just I' I've been through some trenches and I bet
a lot of money is a a lot of fun for the first month and then all of a sudden you're in hell. [laughter]
Sounds good.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like what what do they want if they're going to give you two million bucks or whatever? What do they want insignia to be? Yeah.
You know, you like you said, you can't spend all that money. So, what what do it makes you wonder are they thinking that this game is going to be bigger or should it be bigger than it actually is, you know?
Yeah. I think um I think about it like if if I wasn't making a game, if this was just a business, which to to a a

third party it might just be a business, how how do I turn over? How do I like use that money to make more turnover? And for them, I think, you know, they want to make back, let's say they're looking for 2x return. Well, if they put more in, they want to get more out. That's kind of like all it is for them. So for me, my incentive is to take as little as possible so that I can recoup that quickly and then just be in profit land sooner.
But um
I love that. I love that.
Yeah.
You know, here's here's one other thing and then we'll move on to to talk about friend slop. But um I had money waiting for me and the money didn't come. I'll just say that. And I'm so grateful that it did because money was not going to take Twisted Tower from a C++ to an A+.
It wasn't money that was going to do that. It was time.

I needed time to live in it.
Yeah.
And to figure out what the game was. If I had if I had gotten that money, I would have rushed and paid contractors and turned the game into something that it shouldn't have been
based on milestones and like decisions that my publisher had. And it's not their fault. They don't know what the game is more than I do. So, I needed time to live in it. Like, uh, making a game is sometimes it's like a marriage where no matter how much money I give my wife is not going to make her love me more. It's going to be right. It's going to be this the the the slow dance of the relationship for
yes
for years before we figure okay that's what this is you know
so sometimes you just need the time and like when a publisher gives you 2 million bucks
they don't have they don't they're they're paying you to expedite the process and get it done you know. Yeah, I agree. I think that's totally on board with how I see it. And I think that this idea of um like giving yourself the time

and the space to explore what it is that you want the thing to be, I think ultimately that helps you then make those promises. Like I was saying in my my little tweet, you know, if you know what it is, then you can know how to sell it. So, it's better for everybody if you're able to do that exploration first. At least I hope so. I think so.
Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about exploring for eight years versus versus some people's games I've been seeing who they come out in four months and they make 500 grand, you know, uh or or I'm I'm sure I know I'm sure Slots and Daggers. I'm not sure if you've seen Slots and Daggers,
but that's made by Freedom. Freedom, he came on the podcast. He was a great guest and I love Freriedman, but he knocked slots and daggers out pretty quick and made a lot of money. And I don't know if I would consider I don't I don't even like throwing out the word friend slop anymore. I actually tweeted

about this. I said, can we just call them friend games? Mainly because people are getting annoyed with me saying it and so I'm I'm going to be nice and okay, let's call them friend games. Uh, I think you should I think we could I like the word slop because I feel like I see it come up a lot in a lot of different domains and I'm wondering if as a culture we actually do have a definition and we know what we mean when we say slop
and I'm interested in like defining that. I I like the word actually.
Let's define slop. What what what's your what's your definition of slop? So I think slop is anything that is that doesn't bring value of its own but either demands that you bring the value or just is uh kind of derived from the value that something else created. So like AI slop is like this idea of this like uh you know you've gotten something out of there was a whole bunch of human

art that went into it but what you have is just something that's soulless because it doesn't have a soul of its own.
Yeah.
Um I feel like friend slop is like a game that's it's fun because you and your friends came and had fun in it but not because the game has value in and of itself. Like it's it's just fun to be with your friends. So maybe that's where it is. What about you? What do you think? That's a great definition.
Slop is the value is derived from something other than the creator. Is that kind of what you mean?
Now, I [snorts] think it's not that it's not that okay. It's not that peak the creator isn't responsible for the fun factor, but it's that peak the creators knew they they they created the the vessel [snorts] for the the the friends to jump in and make the game fun. So, they knew what they were doing.
Yeah. I I would say like I probably in

in the case of like the friends slop genre, I I'd probably attribute it more to the genre than any one game. Like I don't I don't I haven't played Peak so I can't say like that it is a sloppy game or like is a game that doesn't deserve that does or doesn't
really beautiful. It actually looks pretty great. Like the graphics are beautiful.
Yeah. I think it's more about maybe the trend like the trend of hey you just like put something together and put your friends in it. It's fun. Um, that's where I would probably take it because I I think that like, you know, multiplayer experiences can be there are better and worse versions of that and there's a there is something valuable there that you can do a better job of cultivating. So there's, yeah, I wouldn't say like friend like multiplayer games inherently are slop, but I think that there is probably a there's probably some something if you like look at all of the games that come out in that genre and look at the ones that get received well versus the ones that don't
or just consistently where is the value. If it's just in you and your friends having a good time because you know you

have fun together, then is it the game that's bringing that to the table? Can I ask you why do you think that friend slop is a divisive conversation? I don't know if it's divisive. Let me rephrase that. Sometimes the conversation about friend slop is similar to like the conversation about AI where people get defensive and angry on both sides. Why do you think that is?
Yeah, this is me like I'm going to lay all the cards on the table here cuz I get in trouble too.
Yeah, I'm probably going to get in trouble here. Um, I think people are looking for value like in their lives, you know, whether it's in the content they consume or, you know, the games they play or whatever. They're looking for something worth caring about. And I think that when the narratives are kind of like, what's the word? When it's really hard to develop a relationship with something that's positive, you kind of just start

feeling this sense of it's almost like eating fast food, you know? It's like I'm not satisfied. It looked good. I I I ate it, but like now if I if I eat it every day, I feel like crap.
Um I feel like it's just people people are feeling that
and they're expressing it in the nearest
thing that they can identify. Okay. They're feeling like the games that are coming out currently make them sick
or or just that they're not just that they're not like significant experiences. They just don't they're not memorable or they don't make them feel like it was worth the purchase maybe. I don't know. I think it like for me [snorts] this trend towards games being smaller and smaller or like everyone encouraging people to make smaller games like um as developer advice I like it but I don't want to play just slots and daggers or just bolatro or just you know like
micro games forever like I it's fine if

that was like
20% of the games that existed but if the other 80 was like the games that I grew up enjoying then I feel like that's a good mix. Um, yeah. So, I think it's more just like where is the nutrition, you know, in the content.
Well, what you just said is going to get you in trouble.
Probably
it will. I mean, maybe not maybe not with my audience because my audience has uh has nuance in their lives and they they are very smart. Um, but nutrition is not necessarily absent from friends. Like [snorts] like
we can we can we can
this is the argument
we can get nutrition from friends slot because it's not about the game's quality it's more about the experiential like it's like the the social quality of it.
Yes.
Um now if you're me you don't really get

nutrition from social things. I don't love community. Like, it's not [laughter]
it's not really a thing that I enjoy.
I know, right? I I don't I enjoy being alone. Um
I enjoy I'm I enjoy this conversation.
But at the end of this conversation,
I'll breathe a sigh of relief because and even if I was having a a conversation with Jesus Christ himself, which you kind of look like, I I would still be exhausted. I'd be like, "Okay, [laughter] let's go. Let's go like sit alone for a little bit.
That was my nickname in in high school, by the way. [laughter] Call me Jesus. Yeah,
that's hilarious. So, um, so yeah, like being social is not my thing. And games that I'm like you. It's like I I kind of want to play a game that has it has depth and and length and meat and it's more of a story or a a world that I'm exploring and learning about. Yep.

And those are the kind of games I want to make unfortunately.
Mhm.
And my question for you is is is are you making insignia? Has it taken 8 years because you don't know what you're doing or is it because No, you want to build a game with scale and size and meat.
Yeah. I mean, it started as the world. That was the first thing that existed was like uh like a Lord of the Rings scale. maybe not that big, but like you know a fantasy scale thing that was a story that I wanted the game to be set in. And until the game tells the whole story, it's just not finished. Like I just and and the more I work on it, the more confident I get that actually in when I'm working on it and in the team and in general, I I have this distinction that I like to make between um spaces versus places. So like a space is a is a an amount of territory that

you move through, right? And you don't it's not memorable. It's just like a volume of distance. But a place is something that has a story in it, right? Someone's lived here or something's happening here or something used to happen here. And you can start to build.
I mean, that's where narrative lives, right? It's like, oh, who is this or what's what's this about? and you you can actually like spend more time in a place and derive something from it. So like a lot of my time when I'm working on the game is like okay there are spaces you know there there's the whole game is made of space but like how do I [clears throat] make these spaces more memorable or draw the player towards where the places are so that I can create that tension and anticipation and pay off and and make them feel like they don't have to skip through it all. That's the thing that I'm really like the slop conversation I feel like intersects with this in like when I'm

scrolling through Tik Tok I'm moving through a lot of space but I'm not spending any time in any of it like I'm just waiting for something interesting to happen or to to stumble onto something worth my attention.
Yeah. So yeah, like it's taken 8 years because I'm finding out how I want the players attention to be spent and how I best direct that attention because I because I have a world worth people caring about or at least it will be finished when it's worth them caring about it. That's all I care. Like that's all it is for me. It's like how do I make a place that is worth your time to be in
and dialogue that you don't want to skip through and cut scenes that you don't want to skip.
That's right. I [clears throat] um I love what you said. I think that um I love possessing a game and or possessing a film like it's it's mine. Um
yeah, you take pride in it.
Exactly. But also from the audience's

perspective, I think they like to possess a project too. Like um for example, when I play when I play Bioshock or when I play Halo, I love Halo. Or when I when I watch when I watch I love The Six Sense. That's one of my favorite movies.
Yeah.
When I watch those movies or play those games, I feel like it's mine. It's like it's this is my world and I'm I'm learning about it and I'm like an investigator
and it's it's just me. There's this sort of lonely like being like it's like having a flashlight and looking around this place
and it's mine. Like I I I I've been making my way through Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I don't know if you've read it.
I haven't.
Um it's in weird ways, Insignia reminds me of it probably just because it's just a high fantasy world. Y
um but especially with books when I'm reading or I'm listening to a book because the

because Brandon Sanderson is giving me clues about how to fill in the gaps of the world. It's easier for me to you use my imagination to fill in the gaps of this world. So he's saying here's a little taste and here's a little taste and here's a little taste. Now Thomas, you fill it in and and so my imagination fills in the gaps, right?
Yeah. Isn't that interesting?
Yeah. Becomes mine.
Yeah. It become Yeah, that's right. Like well, a part of you ex imagine it and then it stays with you afterwards. So it's almost like a part it becomes a part of you.
Yeah.
You know, because you read it.
Yeah. And that's that's the beauty of world building as a developer is [gasps] you don't have to fill in all the gaps. In fact, you shouldn't. You should, however, give clues about how you want the player to fill in the gaps of the world.
Um, so like like you me mentioned with spaces versus places.
Yeah.
You give them like two things and then they fill it in the rest with their

imagination. That's the fun of it, right? It makes it so much more immersive,
you know?
Yeah. I think that's the beauty in in the kinds of games you make. Like horror is so much about the negative space like the the space that you ask the player to fill in with their imagination and the less you show it's almost more scary you know the darker it is the less light the less features and forms it's like you're creating suspense and I guess I mean with for me in horror films I have like a complex relationship because there's always this thing of like if you show the monster too early then it all all the tension falls away. But if you never show the monster,
I kind of feel like I just got teased for like two hours.
So, how do you feel about that? Like, how do you create
I think that um
Well, I think that value in tension
I'm still working through this. I'm I'm trying to I'm doing play testing right now with Twisted Tower and most people come away from the game thinking the

game is really funny, which I'm like, okay, I don't know if this is good. But then I then I realized it's like the game is very it's like it's kind of like Joker is the pro antagonist. It's basically Joker and so he's messing with you the whole time. So there's a lot of humor in it.
Okay. But um when it comes to tension, what I found is that tension can only be achieved if there's actually like stakes.
Yes.
Like you've got to you've got to the player has to feel like there really truly
are stakes. And so one of the sequences that I put into the game without spoiling too much is it's one thing for your fiance to get kidnapped. It's another thing for her to be dismembered. And so, you know, like you you have to you have to bring in a increase the stakes. It's like, okay, Joker. Yay. J Joker stole your fiance. Woo, that's

scary. Well, what if he just like
cuts off a limb? Then what? You know, so you're you're incre and you don't even have to show it. you could just talk about it and suddenly the stakes are cranked up and now the tension is
I think the threat of consequences is sometimes more powerful than the things themselves. Like the threat of dismemberment [clears throat]
is if you don't have hope as a player then the motivation just goes away. Like if if what I'm doing can't prevent dismemberment then
it's just going to happen. So I doesn't matter what I do.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's right. Well, there there the reason why in Twisted Tower, this is a tangent, but the reason why in Twisted Tower, not full dismemberment, but one one moment of dismemberment happens. She's still fine. She survives. She's fine.
She's fine. [laughter]
The reason why it happens is I want I want the player to go, okay,
the cackling Joker character is serious.
Yeah,
he's he's he's started the process.

Um, so you have to basically let the that the audience believe that that threat is legitimate
and [clears throat] that that it will be uh whether it's an antagonist or or a monster or something will move forward with it. Um, so, so yeah, like I think that I think tension and and also just one thing that I'm curious about with with insignia are you when it comes to like tension, there's always like a the reason why tension works is there's this destination in the player's mind, which is how do I relieve the tension? So like the goal is I need to relieve the tension. So I'm going to keep playing so that I can relieve the tension. Um, the goal I'm curious with insignia, do you have setups and payoffs in this game? So, do you have like a mystery and then a resolution or I need to get to point A to get point this item or this thing?
How do you how do you deal with that?

The plot is is it's very plot driven. Like, it's I hesitate to call it a Metroid vania for that reason. It's It's closer to like Zelda, Ocarina of Time, or Twilight Princess where it's like, you know, Link leaves the forest because the Deu tree tells him that he has to, you know, he goes and finds Zelda because that's what you have to do. Um, and then Zelda gets taken away and you have to chase, you know. So it's the the stakes are kind of inherent in just the story, but I find there are different the because the game is so big, there are different pillars of tension, and I try to layer them in ways that are that can occupy like short-term goals, midterm goals, and long-term goals. So, and they kind of they kind of like overlap or they kind of like turn over like a wheel.
Um, so it's not always you're doing this because the story told you to. Sometimes you're doing it because you want to um or because there's something just out of reach that might help you, like a chest

that you can't reach. Um and you unlock a new ability and it's like, "Oh, I'll go back to that chest because now I can reach it." So, I think of it in mostly in terms of just like questions and answers. Like if you could just boil it all the way down just to that of like, okay, you're going through this forest because the plot told you to, but on the way you encounter enemies that stop you. So there's there's tension there or if you have to fight to to get out. And then there's the things, you know, there might be a character who's calling for your help, but they're out of reach, so I'll have to come back for them later. Or, you know, stuff like that where you you just leave things hanging that
you then give the player the power to solve later. Um, that tends to be all it is, right? It's just like different layers of of that of questions that you can answer at a later date if you keep playing.
And this is highly orchestrated by you

as the developer and storyteller. Correct.
Yeah. It's a sandbox. Yeah. Every little thing. Uh what about like triggers and sequences and like I'm going to put this little trigger here.
Yes.
To trigger this moment. And you have to be thinking of the player and how they're going to react to the trigger.
Mhm. The problem with this, dude, is it's so expensive and it like when it comes like it takes forever to make.
It's the hardest thing. It's the most timeconuming [laughter] thing.
I'm I'm currently working on a thing that's exactly what you're describing. It's just a sequence of triggers and cutscenes and and moving between scenes. And it's an edit. It's not new content. It's just like something that I wanted to make better. and it's taking months, you know, just to [laughter] rewire it all up and make it like a lot of time I'm spending is just making that process easier for myself because I know I want to edit like you don't want to read a book that was someone's first draft
but it's it is super timeconuming. Yeah, cuz you change one thing and it changes

the whole experience so you have to like re-evaluate it.
Cool man. Well, links in the description for [snorts] uh if if you want with people for people to wishlist and signal
please.
Beautiful. Yeah, beautiful looking game. Um, guys, please please wishlist that.
And Adam, thank you so much for your time. This was a blast, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, anytime.
Cool, man. I'll talk to you later. See you.