How To Make Games With No Experience w/ Mark Brown @GMTK — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 026

Mr Mark Brown how you doing buddy I'm doing good thank you so much for having me this is a thrill yeah dude no it's a thrill for me I'm so excited because I was telling you earlier I've got a freaking huge list of questions for you and in fact I don't think I've ever started a podcast with this many questions and the reason why is because you're a YouTuber and like you're I think you're probably under I do you have more subscribers than brachy uh I haven't uh checked recently you don't you don't have an ego you're not going to check see if you're winning the race you can check for me if you'd like I'll I'll check for you because you're you're you're one of the top if not the top like in my opinion like Game Dev resources thank but what's cool about your channel you know is that you're doing game design a ton of game design um and just commentary on game design and what's so cool about your story and I'll have you introduce yourself in a sec but I just want to sort of glow to over you a little bit

what's cool about your story is you took this crazy risk and the risk was I'm going to make a game and put all of my credibility on the line yep which is to me that would be absolutely terrifying so so you just launched Mind Over magnet right wasn't it a couple weeks ago or uh just over a week ago yes wow okay so all that said tell us about yourself and how the launch went and all that uh I mean yeah that's a there's a lot there's a lot uh of context uh wrapped up in that but let's let's see where we can go um so I started like a long time ago doing games journalism writing for magazines writing for websites all that fun stuff started to realize that people didn't want to read anymore uh reading about video games was going down or just reading in general going down yeah very much realized that if I want to still have a job I better learn how to make

YouTube videos so went into that whole thing um realized like the thing that I was most interested in when I was doing the journalism was always the design side of things whenever I had a chance to interview game developers I'd be asking about design questions and stuff so that was like the focus of my my channel which was uh game makers toolkit and then yeah like uh the the videos were all about analyzing existing games playing games talking about how they work how they're designed and then at some point uh three or so years ago it was like right time to put my money where my mouth is and see what this whole process is like as an actual game developer and see what it's like to put these design lessons into practice and uh turns out it's really freaking hard and but it's uh finally done and boy uh very very uh big relief to have that game uh done on on Steam hooray well

more importantly it's on Steam with a very positive score which is it's tough that's tough to do dude and I think how do you have 800 reviews so far I think uh something like that yeah and it's on it's on uh about 88% uh positive last time I looked which like with a lot of things with this game um I have to like hold my hands up and say like I've got massively unfair advantages in pretty much everything right so having this YouTube channel means that I've had you know all this help making the game and I've got this built-in audience of like a million people ready to go on Steam and buy and you know a lot of people are going to be very generous I feel with the reviews of the game and kind of give me a a bit of a pass so I'm not like 100% sure that all of those reviews are as genuine as they might be for a different type of game but uh I'll take them anyway whatever well that that brings me to something that I've been talking about actually with every single guest for the last like two weeks um I'm I'm

fascinated by the idea of of and and people listening probably are probably getting annoyed with me talking about it so much but I'm fascinated by the concept of audience ownership and how it pertains to to building games and making games and releasing games consistently to that same audience um you say it's an unfair advantage and of course I understand what you're saying and I understand you're being humble and and you're you're probably speaking straight from the heart for me I'm like that's not an unfair Advantage you built that advantage over how long have you been doing your channel you know years and so I'm just like do you think that that is a sustainable business model for for game developers for indie game developers specifically because 2024 2025 is just going to be an onslaught of just tons thousands of games yet your business model your game I don't know if you would call it a business model but I think it is is just hey look I've got this huge audience

why not release games to that audience and if they love me and they love my games you know is that a bad thing if they love Mark is it a problem to love Mark and because of that love your games you know what I mean yeah yeah I mean a few things like one is like it's a lot of work to do the YouTube stuff as you well know versus as well as the making the game so it's like doing that as a way to build up your audience is yeah super good idea but also just a huge huge amount of work and and already you're already competing like you're competing with a million different game devs to release your game but now you're really uh competing with a million different game devs on YouTube all doing their Dev vogs and that's like become a massively crowded space too so it has getting some traction there but I mean we've seen like a lot of success stories in that space like uh like Ponty pants with um a punch a bunch and then the climbing game like you know did amazingly well out of building up that

audience as the game is progressing so yeah I mean it's definitely um a good idea but it it's not like a it's not a silver bullet just because you are in the same way you're competing uh on Steam you're competing on YouTube um and like what are you you know what is there to talk about outside of just like showing uh the latest uh updates on your game like I think you know with with me I didn't just start with the the devlog I'd already built that audience with the the game design stuff so it's like what can you bring to the table that's kind of unique were you concerned that you would introduce a new kind of content to your channel and it would screw up the algorithm by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures

before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full-time Indie and thanks for watching yeah I mean yeah definitely um I I mean you know I think about the YouTube algorithm a lot and when people ask me I've got this idea for a new type of video or something my general advice is like well I'd probably just start a new channel for that um for me like and and it has you know the the hasn't screwed up the algorithm but the videos the developing videos consistently do worse than the normal types of videos and I've got audience members who just do not care about me making a game and they're just like where's the Mario stuff and where's the Dark Souls stuff and I'm just like it's it's coming it's coming um but it to me it was just like I want my channel in the future to be a mix of Dev and design and I think you know they just go hand in hand right you can't really just be one or the other um you know you've got to be think about design if you're making a game so

to me it was like I'm going to invest in this now and take the hit on the algorithm and take the hit on the views but over time retrain YouTube on what my my channel is that it's not just analysis stuff it's it's the whole shebang and if that's going to take a while then so be it but I I think overall it's it's been successful like I'm happy with the views despite the fact that you have a beautiful British accent and your content is so precise and don't take this the wrong way it's it it's a compliment you're the way you do videos and the way you do games is so controlled it's like it almost feels like you're a control freak about everything like the gra the thumbnails like even the sounds and we'll talk about Mind of a magnet um and by the way the link is in the description but the reason I say all that is because you're so controlled about every little thing whether it's YouTube or or your games and you got a beautiful British accent so your content feels so textbook

and clean and precise would you call it educational content or is it actually entertaining content um I mean I've always or is it edutainment I've always because of my background in games journalism I've always just thought of it as a a type of journalism right like the the the normal videos I've done before my ever magnet where the idea was like I'm just describing this stuff that's happened I'm interviewing people I'm bringing in quotes and stuff it's like a feature magazine so if you want to if you can take some educational stuff from that great and I you know my videos have been used in school curriculums and and things that's amazing I've always thought that there there's enough in there to like get you started but they're a little bit shallow on the topics that you you know it's kind of like a a starting point to go do your own yeah Research into the topics but yeah I mean there's definitely like an educational aspect to it as far as as you can kind of take it um yeah but like this was um the idea of this like as

you're saying the videos being kind of academic and like authorial authoritative and stuff was definitely a thing I thought about when I started doing the Game Dev and was a huge reason why I put myself on camera for those videos you know for the uh correct seven or eight years before I did my NE magnet I'd never been on camera because it was just like felt more comfortable and felt more suitable for the videos to just be this booming British voice telling you about the stuff and I thought that's not going to work for a Game Dev thing I need to to be like I'm a person I'm like a real human being and I'm making mistakes and for that like I've got to like be on camera and people can see me just like just having an absolute breakdown that's exactly true man it's it was true for me this summer we're finishing up our third commercial game and it's just been so we'll talk all about it we'll talk all about your process but the reason I asked that question was because there are people listening right now who who have a YouTube channel as Game Dev

or they if it's I mean let me know in the comments guys everyone listening if you're thinking about starting a YouTube channel um because the reason I ask is because everyone's curious do I need to do this and then the next question becomes who am I targeting with my content because I see so and I've done this too so I'm completely guilty of this there's this weird conundrum of like do I make content for developers and if I do create content for developers what's the point because developers you I heard you mention this in a previous podcast where you said you were jealous of or you felt a little jealous of not not um elect elect head is that what it's called elect head yeah and you you avoided looking at the game and so there's game developers who they watch Dev videos but they don't buy the games from the developers because there there is that feeling of like I don't want to look at I don't want to buy someone else's game because I'm going to get jealous and I do that that too right and you also

don't want to take too much influence so all that said the big question here is like who who do game developers Target when they create devlogs yeah I mean like I think you're totally right that like a lot of devlogs a lot of the ways most game devs do devlogs are targeting other developers and as you say most developers aren't buying your game and even if they are it's a very small audience and I think some of the most success devlog people like Danny and Pon pants and Randy and stuff are they're so much more entertainment and you know they they're they're targeting more of a gamer audience who are seeing a bit of what it's like to make the game most of them aren't like super you know detailed you you're not going to see them suddenly just start going into a tutorial about programming or whatever um but it's like yeah if you are just every update for your game like talking about really Niche programming stuff and

Game Dev stuff you are going to limit your audience and it's like for me that's that's fine that that you know I'm not like trying to use my um devlogs to sell my game but if if that's your your reason for making these videos on YouTube then yeah you really need to think like how am I going to get these in front of people who are actually like going to buy this thing and not just a whole bunch of other game devs Who are all just also having a terrible time cool yeah I mean it's it's a big question and and it's I've I've sort of landed on well you know I have educational products and I you know I don't sell my games on my channel and people are are surprised by the fact that I don't really I get really granular like this conversation right now is like super granular about the business of Game Dev and so I just want I I I'm kind of passionate about people who who wanted to start doing YouTube I just want them to know like you really need to know like what your end goal is like is it a call to action to wish this your game if it is you need to get gamers to watch your videos and that's a

totally different kind of content M um did you were you ever tempted to start a new channel and are you going to start a new channel as opposed to just keeping it all in one place it was definitely like something I thought about yeah um but it's it's also like you know you've got like a million subscribers it's it's a a waste not to I know not to talk to them um but I always felt like my my if you were watching stuff about game design then it's not like a huge stretch to then also talk about a bit of Game Dev and some Unity stuff like but you know if I st start talking about movies or something then sure that would be a whole other channel but it it felt like it was enough in the same wheelhouse and you know every time I release one of these videos I'm going to I'm going to get the comments from a few people but they're a very vocal minority I'm not seeing subscribers drop when I release uh U devlog stuff so they can just you know who cares yeah so okay let's let's

shift over to production of Mind Over magnet the first question I have is how did it feel how did it feel being this highly credible YouTuber I mean I would say you're probably the most credible YouTuber thank you um as it pertains as it pertains to game design um you your your content is just so phenomenal and i' I've used it I've used it when I like teach my students game design stuff I'll just say well watch the Mario video you know the Mario ody Odyssey video and it'll change your mind or or blow your brain so how' it feel being this credible YouTuber and then launching this game last week was it was it a nightmare like how did it feel uh the nightmare came like a bit earlier like that was like the you know it's obviously i' it's something I've wanted to do for a you know I think anybody who plays video games at some point has been like oh I could I could make those and it's been something I've dabbled with and tried and and whatnot so it's something I've

always wanted to do but yet there was that like fear that did put me off for a long time because it was like if I make this game like first of all just just saying like I want to make a game there's going to be like a whole bunch of people in my audience who are like Oh I thought you just like worked for Ubisoft or something and you're like this Game Dev expert but now I see that you're just like an idiot and you don't know anything how you know you pulled the wool on all over my eyes um so I immediately lost all of those as soon as I'm like I don't know what I'm doing but let's give it a go um and then if the game sucked then I've lost even more people who are like well what's the point I did actually have a realization the other day cuz I thought there's you know there's this consistent number are very small but like a number of people in my comments who are like why does anyone listen to game makers tget the guy's never made a video game and I'm like I'm about to get rid of all of those comments because I'm about to release a video game and they realized they're immediately just going to change it to why do we listen to this guy he's just made this crappy little like 2D platformer thing so I'm not going to I'm

not going to win with those people and I just kind of realized like I just can't live my life worrying about trolls and uh the the the benefit that I can add to by making these Dev logs is uh so much outweighs like the the fear of of failing in public exactly you know I Mark I feel the same way man like um I was feeling this way yesterday um feeling fraudulent and feeling like an impostor and all the stuff that every indie game developer feels and every YouTuber or like influencer like nobody is really I don't I don't know about you but I don't think anyone is emotionally truly built to to receive so much like of an audience like in in throughout human history we just didn't evolve that way like socially to be like

I'm gonna have a million people look up to me or in my case I'm gonna have 390,000 people look up to me and look at me as this credible influence that they need to listen to it I just don't think I'm emotionally built for that I guess I could just speak for myself and so I I'm always going to feel like I can't live up to that you know what I mean I can't I can't live up to that even so like we're on our third commercial release and this one is this big 3D game costs1 ,000 to make I've got a team now and dude I still feel like who am I like I've got some two two stupid little 2D games that I released on Steam um they weren't they weren't particularly viral yet I know they brought me money like I a full-time salary right we made money and it was great but I got a five out of 10 on GameStop for or I always mix those up gam spot or GameStop whichever one spot yeah yeah spot it's spot yeah so I got a five out of 10 on on one of my games and

so it's it's like although I know that I'm doing this for a living and although I know I'm successful I still feel I I don't know I feel gross or I feel like I'm fake or something no I think I maybe I'm afraid that people will think I'm fake yeah you know I don't know I don't know what it is yeah I I mean I those things of like popped up every now and again when I've been doing this stuff but like I come back to a few things there's one is like if you are actually like an an expert who can deliver information about your your field you you probably have like a very very narrow amount of information you can give so if you go to someone like Jonathan Blow like an amazing guy and he knows like a billion things about like puzzle design and all this sort of stuff he probably doesn't know too much about like making like an RTS or something he's never done that it's not in his wheelhouse and so people who can

speak which is something I've like been praised for and I you know wear as kind of a badge of honor is a much more broader understanding even if it's shallow in each IND individual thing but like that ability to like speak on all sorts of different topics and synthesize information from other people and then present it in a nice way like even if that means I'm not like a a dedicated expert that's one thing two is like um just anyone who's released a game immediately has like a step up over 99% of the Their audience and like for you like already releasing two games and working on a third like you just have so much experience even if it doesn't feel like it you just like inherently just do um so there there's always that and and ultimately like the other thing I I found when I first started doing um The Game Dev and especially like in the early days when I was making like the worst mistakes and like you know doing like really embarrassing stuff is that

the comments from uh average people like not just Gamers they were the ones saying like oh dude you're such an idiot you're making all these mistakes but the the the game devs were just like dude up in there like I totally you know we've all made those mistakes and stuff so anyone who's kind of got any like credibility or anyone who's been in the trenches is just they they're they're so much more open to to these sort of experiences compared to you know I I don't know maybe it's like harsh to say but for the most part when when I get these negative comments I'm just like what have you done like where are you coming from like at least you maybe my game sucks but at least I made it like at least is done so maybe this is a very harsh view no it's not Mark I mean it's uh it's I've turned into a zealot when it comes to I get really angry I get really angry I don't get about a lot of things but I get really

frustrated when I'm being told I'm doing something wrong so like I'll live stream Game Dev and or I'll do a video or a Dev vog or something and it's like well you should have done it this or your 3D models have a bunch of end gons or blah blah blah blah blah or your code is a mess and I'm just sitting here going that that's probably why I'm actually finishing my game because I I don't really care the to me the biggest one was when uh the developers of Celeste released their code um and there all these people on Twitter being like Oh my God I can't believe it's a single you know script and all the things in there I'm like it's Celeste it's like one of the best Platformers ever it's probably made them millions of dollars it worked like what what what is there to complain about like they didn't do it wrong obviously because it it's clearly worked yeah yeah well we we're in an age where we can afford to do things wrong you know it's like if Mind Over magnet is

using a bunch of physics objects and you know you're using all this real-time lighting and the code is terrible you can still get away with it yeah you know because everyone's generally like generally everybody who's playing games on Steam has at least a mid-range PC you know and so you can just get away with it um and that's what I'm all about I'm all about like get your game done and in fact one of my mantras is finish crappy game ASAP and releasee it oh yeah you're an exception to the rule because I do know you made a You made some small little game and everybody's starting to find out your origin story is you had a tiny little game before this one but your technically your first game wasn't crappy like this one you just launched is technically your first game most people they release a crappy game and that's what I always say is release a crappy game ASAP just get it out there because you've got to just get those those Battle Scars and just learn that

you're actually you're not you're not a genius you know now you are but most game devs aren't no no I I totally agree with that and like I I you know there's so many things about this game that I'm not happy with and I just kind of had to relis at this point even though you know the perfectionist of me would rather keep going but I'm like I can't keep working on this thing for like seven years this is the thing I've been like realizing is that when you see these like solo devs making their first game as a success like the big one would be like staru Valley and it's like sounds great the guy took like seven years to make it that is that is untenable for most people like it worked out great for him fantastic but like you have to really think about the the numbers of these things of just like if you want to be a solo Dev and make your first game like you're just going to have to keep rebuilding and rebuilding it cuz you're going to get better and it's just going to take years and years and it's like if you want to do that great like but the much smarter sensible approach is just like make something that sucks get it

out there figure out what it's like to release a thing on Steam and then just h i mean everything you do you learn so much like there's nothing you do in life where you don't go if I could do that again I'd do X Y and Z better and so it's just like get that first thing done and I I wish I'd sort of done that for myself for this first game but I I I you know the the weird like exception I had or the thing that made me a bit different was the one kind of flip side of you know I saying that having this YouTube channel was this unfair Advantage the one flip side is that it had so many so I had such heightened expectations for this game and so many eyes on it so it was like I can't I can't make something crap I can't just put out this crappy first game because like we were talking about it tank my credibility so I had to just keep on going with that yeah did you did you feel like your audience were you afraid that your audience would guide you in directions you shouldn't go um a little bit yeah I mean I just Tred

not to I tried to like very much cherry-pick the comments the stuff that was helpful to me and and and stuff it was also like amusing to see comments that maybe I would have said or thought before I started doing Game Dev that once you start doing it and you see these comments you're just like what are you talking about they'll be like you know I made like a video about how like I'm struggling decide if it's like a puzzle game or a platformer and you see these comments being like just make two games and then the start screen the user just chooses I'm just like what are you talking about just double your budget mark double the time it takes exact what's the big deal and so you know again it comes back to this like maybe I'm being really harsh but some comments just just throw them out like they're just the person is just they just don't know what they're talking about well I think I think you you've probably toughened up as a content creator uh just with YouTube in general General um I don't really read YouTube

comments anymore cuz for me like if I read one that's negative it it will stay with me forever right like it it will live in my head forever even if I don't believe it even if I know it's wrong it will stay there forever in fact I can I shouldn't say this because people will troll me but it it I could probably remember every single negative comment like I could probably write them all out um and so people for me um My My My Hope for game developers is that they can start to build a thicker skin and I've TR I I feel like I have I used to be a lot worse than I am now but um the goal with with with game developers I I feel like one of the primary goals should be to build that thick skin and to be be willing to be naked in front of a huge audience

whether it's a you're a YouTuber or whether you make games you're going to feel naked when you launch your game and you just have to be okay with it you know what I mean yeah yeah I mean I've had I've definitely had like times in the past where the fear of criticism or the fear of putting something out there and it failing has stopped me from doing stuff but that like at some point I just realize that that's like a really that's like such a toxic thing or such a negative thing of just like stopping myself from doing things that I found interesting just because of that fear like and it might not even happen like you know with this game like it for a long time it stopped me making this game and I'm like I'm so glad I made it I'm so proud of it and it's so exciting and like there's some alternate reality where I'm just like oh but someone might say it sucks and um I'll never make this game and I'll just do nothing with my life and it's just like what a what a waste so yeah I mean I but yes I've definitely was kind of lucky that I did develop that thick skin through doing YouTube there have been you know definitely times in the past where

negative comments just destroyed me I'm like released a video people are disagreeing with it and I'm like I guess they hate me I guess I've I'm the worst person ever and and you know doing that over years and years you start to just kind of build it up but even that all being said like I go on Steam I scroll down through the comments I just completely ignore all the positive ones I see that red thumbs down I'm like well let's give that a read let's destroy my mental health today but um well there was one comment not to call out it was it was a positive comment I I read through your comments and and for the records you got incredible comments uh or reviews I'm sorry on scene there was one that I found fascinating okay I haven't read my review so you can tell me okay this one's good this one I I actually think it's it's it's a thumbs up and it actually encapsulates what I think game developers should be doing okay and the the quote is something like this game is

like a cheap pizza uh you buy it for 10 bucks and you eat it and it tastes good and then you're you're done yeah and I feel like that was your goal wasn't it uh I guess so I don't really like I don't you know the goals kind of shifted so much with the game so like when I first started it was like okay I'm going to make this like 50h hour puzzle you know adventure thing with like a million levels it's going to be amazing and by the time I got to release it's just like yeah it's like 2 hours whatever just Chuck it out um so I'm kind of happy with that um I'd say like with all the negative comments I like just forsaw all of them like anyone who says the game is short is like yeah I know yeah or the game is easy yeah I know the only ones that kind of caught me off guard is like some people are like oh it's kind of uh Bland and uh not very like um there's not like a lot of heart in it people say and I'm like I thought there was so maybe that's just me as a human being but uh they don't feel like there's

heart in it yeah they're like it's kind of like a like an AI generated video game or something no no I don't feel that but maybe but then maybe that's just who I am well to defend to defend why I said that I think it's a good thing that they said that is I remember watching your videos about the development process when you first started and you had I think the video was called something like I decided to make a game or something and you you talked about scope creep and how you want to stay focused you know and you don't want to make the mistake that is classic for all these indie game developers which is just building something massive you made something tight small uh with a very fresh hook very unique hook and that to me I like I one of my favorite you maybe you don't know this type of pizza but in America the cheapest pizza you get like the Taco Bell of pizza is Little Caesars okay and and I love to

eat Little Caesars I eat it all the time because it makes me happy and I it's it's a quick burst of joy and then I'm done yeah and that my hope for indie game developers is that they can look at they can look at their games like a a a almost like man this is going to sound terrible but almost like fast food it's like you're not making like this super fancy meal you can leave that to AAA because it's going to take them tons of time and it's going to be so expensive indie game developers are like no I'm just going to make something small and tight now it doesn't have to be like fast food but it just needs to be something that is small and like almost like Precious and delicate and I and I I see that comment about the pizza it's like a it's a cheap pizza that I like and I eat it and I'm done and I think that that is it's the safest route to go in in the indie game industry right now in the past you could Gamble and you could say I'm going to make a a

10hour experience or I'm going to make a 10 a 5H hour experience I'm going to put all this money into it and because there's not that many games coming out it'll do well sort of almost by default and as we we grow in the industry and as the industry grows and and the ocean of Steam games gets more and more dense um and the demand the the supply goes up and the demand goes down my theory is make these tight little Little Gems and just launch them and don't spend too much time on them what do you think about that yeah I think it's I mean it especially with your first game keeping the scope down is is massively important um in terms of like you know the thing I've been thinking about in terms of finding like an audience on Steam is um there are instead of trying to think of like all of steam as like I'm trying to get my game on all of steam is thinking that there are smaller communities on on Steam and other platforms like these are the people who love puzzle games or these are the

people who love factorio style management games and being like laser focused on those people and just being like I want to make a game that you are going to love and knowing exactly who your game is for and getting in those communities and in those discords and in those steam forums and stuff and being like this is the the the latest one for you I think that might be like a a way to try and get through this the the obvious problem with steam of just there's like 10,000 games a year and being like how can I stand out it's just like going to the people who already have like their their taste set on Steam and being like I want to join this little community and I want to bring this game um in terms of like scope though yeah I mean I think that's just generally good advice especially if you're Solo or have a small team any kind of massive game is just going to be just such a a huge risk it's like why why bother with that when you could make instead of making like one TR

tremendously huge game like knock out like three games over you know one one a year um you've got like three times as you know many chances of of it getting a hit yeah it's it's essentially like uh you could spend two years full-time which everyone if you're full-time you're going to have a salary so let's just say that's 120k um that's two years $120,000 spent let's hope and pray that your game makes at least minimum when you launch it or you can approach it and go no I'm actually going to do it maybe just one year and that's 60k so you're sort of drisking I mean it's it's like you don't invest all your money in Apple stock you invest it in apple and then Adobe you know you're you're sort of mixing it up and drisking so let's shift gears Mark to production I want to hear about how you made this game the technical side okay um we've talked about the emotional stuff and and how it feels and the marketing and all that tell me

about the the the thing that I'm curious about the most is idea generation coming up with a good idea coming up with a hook and you seemed to know that you needed to do that I don't know if it was intuitive or not or just after years of games journalism you realized you needed to have a hook is that did you do that intentionally did you come up with a hook intentionally yeah sort of I mean I it's it was kind of clear to me that most almost almost all of the like big indie games you've heard of have a a way that you can talk about them in a sentence right you're like oh undertale it's the game where you can befriend the monsters or crypto the necro dancer it's the Rog likee that goes along with the music I'm just like that is just seems like kind of an obvious smart way to be able to Market your game and for it to stand out and if you're just like it's a platformer it's what are you going to do with that um and so yeah I wanted to do

the the whole magnet thing it seemed like a mechanic that I hadn't seen in a lot of games um and and yeah and it was it was also like just useful to have this thing that I could always come back to like whenever it was like what you know sort of character should be in the game or where is the game set and it's like oh it's magnets it's not going to be a fantasy setting that's you know kind of makes sense for a factory or something so it was like really useful to have this this like Central pillar that everything could rest on top of yeah do you think that uh do you think that story is a good hook for games or does it need to be mechanical uh design I guess it depends on the genre right so if you're doing a visual novel or something you don't need like a crazy new mechanic in that it's people are coming to that for the story maybe a a certain type of RPG but if you're doing a platformer uh it's like it's called have a story and people will come for that but it's I don't know I just find that I

think that's going to be like a harder sale um so but you know there there games do sell because of their stories but sure or their visuals you know and by the way just just side note um you said you Celeste is this massive massively successful platformer does Celeste have a hook that's a good question celeste's hook I mean I think it it's less like obvious and specific it's it's more of this sort of like I think maybe the hook of it is like it's this hard platformer that's secretly about like anxiety or whatever you know it's like it's got this thing so I suppose that is a story uh element to it um yeah yeah I see contrast there contrast is always a really good way to create a hook so it's like uh something like insanely brutal platformer M I don't know if it's brutal

but it's difficult um with a very delicate theme a delicate you know there's also the the case of this like a few games get to be like the best in their genre and that is their hook so like Hollow night is just like it's it's a metrov Vania but it's it's the best metrov Vania and so it's like that that's the hook the the hook for me with with with Hollow Knight has always been my assumption has been M I think they started with you know Metroid Venia or like Souls like but with bugs you know that's that's the bugs are the the hook and I I think over time it became something like no it's just it's so visually compelling right the visuals there's I mean there's a lot of hooks with Hollow Knight but I think the visuals are the primary one um yeah it's definitely a big part of it I think also they do a lot with the lore stuff of holl Knight like that's like a whole you've kind of got like a whole other audience of people who are interested in

this this whole backstory type stuff so I guess having multiple ways into your game is good but that's also like really hard to do and requires like a huge it kind of goes against what we were saying of just like make some one part of your game really good and and kind of focus like all of your effort into that sure did you have a so you had your hook did you have an idea of what your Forte was as a game developer and what you needed to lean into no I don't think I have a forte as a game developer um I I had a list of things I can't do I suppose that helped I've just like I have literally no idea about 3D so that's definitely out um I'm not a seasoned programmer at all so it's got to be a very simple setup there's not you know crazy systems in the game so you know people say creativity uh Al restrictions uh boost creativity so there was partly that um but it was just like things I I was just kind of drawing on a lot of stuff I already liked Platformers and puzzle games and stuff

and and 2D visuals so knowing the if I focused on stuff that I liked hopefully there'll be an audience for it I I kind of feel like you knew intuitively man because maybe maybe you knew subconsciously because when I when I look at Mind Over magnet I am like I got dude I'm not kidding I got chills about one thing and it was the game feel it was so I don't know what the word is it's like crunchy and the sound is so crisp and you relied so heavily on delicate almost ASMR sounds in the game like the the the squeaking of the wheel when you jump and the crunchy falling um plates and the the sound of the moving wheel when you move that stuff is like that's video editing to me like video editing sound is so important when when when you make a cut or when you JP to something or you swell to

something and transition to something do you feel like your video editing maybe got gave you insight into game feel a little bit I mean part of it was just I've done a lot of videos about game feel and obviously you know looked at games like like Celeste and stuff that just have this this great feel but yeah I mean in terms of video editing I mean one thing that like any video editor especially on YouTube knows it's just like you can never have a a static thing on on YouTube because people think that your video is buffering so it's like you've always got to have some motion and things so that was like I felt like that was similar with with Game Dev of like if your game ever looks like it's a screenshot then that's no good it's got to always be there's movement so the backgrounds are all animated and there's just like partical systems and stuff like it's got to like look alive and kind of inviting in that way and then yeah sound design sound design was like something that I have I've never done any videos on sound design I have no knowledge about it but it's I'm really I am pleased with the sound design I do think it does like

feel like that that is a whole um aspect of it that I think does like add to the feel it it was also something that came in quite late there was like year like probably a year of development where the game was just completely silent and then you put in one sound effect you're like oh wow that's that makes a big difference I should have done that much earlier sure that's one of the first things that I do is when I'm and it's it's a it could be a problem because it definitely leads to like some kind of scope creep where you put in all the sounds like right away and then because your game you're changing the mechanics as you're learning what the game is as a developer you end up killing the sound so but I have to put it in for me because I have to it's the only way I can like feel the game right I had a funny thing where I I showed a like I was showing some videos of the game in development to people on my Discord and realized that I had like the microphone on and I was doing the sound effects of the game like with my mouth so I'm just like and like to me it's just like you you know it was so important but yeah like

going forward if I do more games like yeah sound is is definitely going to be something I throw in even if it's placeholder like it's it's just vital well I mean it's it's it's definitely I would say it's one of the strongest points or one of the strongest elements of Mind Over magnet is the game feel in my opinion it cuz uh I played a ton of games from Indie developers yesterday and the day before I just do a live stream where I review indie games and most Indie Games suffer because they just feel clunky and chunky and heavy and Bloated and and they don't feel reactive um whereas Mind Over magnet you you created something that just feels so I I'm coming back to that that that what I said earlier where you it feels so controlled and and it's almost like you're intensely controlling about the game feel and I'm curious if you can is there anything you can share with us about game feel like what what what do what can IND

game developers do listening right now to create better game feel what are some principles yeah I mean so during like an early prototype of the game I just grabbed a basic character controller off the internet you know already existing chucked it into unity and was like that's good enough and the feedback was it's not good enough like it doesn't it just feels bad and all these sorts things so I took like a good month just on the character controller just like an scene and unity with some boxes to jump on and just spent ages just tuning those those you know the the jump height and the the the gravity of when you come down just keep playing it over and over again and sharing builds uh the Celeste devs actually um no like I sent him a build I'm just like dude is this good enough and he said it was he said it was pretty good so that was nice um so just like you can't spend you can almost you almost can't spend too much time on that just because it's like what is the what is the user doing the most it's like

running around and jumping so that better feel damn good and there yeah like said there's plenty of indie games where I I I played a game yesterday I'm not going to name it just because I started playing and was just like this just doesn't feel nice to move around like it's just turning me off immediately um other things with game field like yeah sound effects we say particles like dust um all of that sort of stuff I guess that also does kind of come out of of video editing of like you soon realize that if you just have like some graphics on a plain colored background it looks fine but as soon as you start putting in like a little bit of texture and some like background you know elements and stuff like every little tiny bit like adds so much more s like um like music where if you just have one instrument it sounds bad but you got to have the bass in there and the drums it's just like it's all this layering and so I find that with with gamefield it's like it's the the the animation and the sound and the the movement controls and the particles all together you you can't have it without

all of those ingredients exactly you know I I I think that game feel is something like trying to replicate the human body The Human Experience right we've got all these senses and so when I when I put my hand up in the air and I put my fingers together in a in a game that's not enough like let's say the Char like I've been learning this with first person shooters and that's what we're working on right now if I move my fingers up in a game let's say I want to animate the character like snapping his fingers in the game a a normal sound like a normal volume of a snap is not enough um because the what I'm feeling right now personally when I snap my fingers there's a vibration I can feel the touch of my fingers I can hear it right um so there's like there's a there's there's a vibration that goes through my body and so the goal with

games in my opinion is to replicate those senses in the game and so if that means you got to bump up the volume of a single snap of fingers that's almost unrealistic right if the if the hand like um the way I animate my guns in in Twisted Tower is they're really quick and snappy right so a snap in real life might be like this but in a game it's like this you know just to replicate that Human Experience um the problem with that and I wanted to ask you about this I there there's something like a balance of reactivity and challenge so for example um if if when I first started playing Hollow KN it did feel heavy I felt like it was I felt it didn't feel reactive and game feel one of the cheat codes with game feel is reactivity giving instant gratification to the player fast movement the jump height is really high there's um the fall speed isn't floaty and slow the problem with that is that

if you're giving too much reactivity and giving giving the player too much control then it's not difficult M did you find that to be a challenge with with Mind Over magnet uh well I mean so for that game like it was I didn't want moving around to ever really be difficult so I wanted the play to have as much control as possible I think we do see this where it's like you look at like something like holl Knight or like spelunk is like one of my favorite games and I don't think Spelunky has like amazing game feel like it is kind of weird when you first start playing that it does move a bit strange but that's kind of what the whole vibe of the game is going for it's going for a more deliberate pace so I think it really does come down to I think maybe this is something that perhaps as like YouTube people talking about games we can sometimes fall into the Trap of is just like oh your game has to feel extremely slick and extremely responsive and stuff and it's just like yeah if that's the type of game you're going for but if you're making something like um like limbo and

inside again like they they do not like they feel almost objectively kind of bad to play you know the characters move so slowly and stuff but that is like the whole point and it's just the point it makes the game like it is what it is like that is you couldn't have you wouldn't want to have limbo where you're like dashing around and you've got like super slick response so it's it kind of comes down to what type of game you're you're going for so Spelunky does get like difficulty out of the fact that your character's kind of weird to move maneuver and like the whole thing like this balun is when you press attack in that game like the character has like a windup animation of his whip that it adds this like weird timing thing where in any other game you'd want it where you press attack and the whip just immediately snaps out and and kills the enemy abely but like Derek you like realized like it's so much more interesting in his very deliberately paced game to like have that wind up where you have to like time the backat coming down so it's like what do you

where where do you want the challenge to be in the game like also you know we talk about sorry I'm going off an absolute rant here about great but like Celeste you know we talk about CH like Celeste is super challenging but also has incredibly tight controls so how how do we square that well it's just like it's in the level design it's in the challenges so it's like it's not ever hard to M your character and celest it feels amazing but it's just like and then how do where do they make you maneuver and what crazy these spikes are they going to throw at you and stuff sure that was a complete rant I'm so sorry no I love it I love it you know it it makes me think about one of one of the benefits of releasing multiple games is that game developers can figure out what their what their Forte is like what they're naturally gifted at what they love what they enjoy like I I can I can imagine you kind of have a good idea of what your fores are now as a developer right and because you've released your first game and you you can read the Ed now and you can see what worked and what didn't and the reason I bring that up is

cuz that then dictates it can dictate the genre you choose to stay in the lane you choose to stay in and so for me it's like I'm really gifted at game f i can make things feel Snappy and and crunchy and Poppy and delicious and I I I tell my team I want I want I want uh I want the player to smell the game like it's so vibrant in its game feel but but that means that I'm limited to games that where game feel is so salty and and um ever presentent in the game I don't think I could ever make a game like Spelunky like or or like dark souls in fact I can't even play Dark Souls I can't handle it my brain cannot function when I play and also I lose my temper um is do you find yourself um purposefully limiting yourself to a certain genre based on your skill sets that you understand now a little bit I

mean partly I just based on like the part of the point of making the game was to learn about Game Dev and show people what it's like and stuff and so it's I'm I'm not trying to uh just transition into being a Game Dev and then like try to capitalize on the the next so like if I do make a next game I don't know if I ever will but if I do it won't just be like a way to you know make money and stuff it's like what other things can I explore and and how much sort of value can I bring so the thought of doing like you know probably the smartest thing for me to do would be make another puzzle platformer or just a platformer and use all of the stuff I I learned but I'm kind of like I want to do what is the absolute opposite like I I want to do like a visual novel or something like or or a first person shooter like you're doing like what completely different skills can I bring in so I think like for anybody else that's like a really bad idea like if you've found something

you're good at and you can and you've learned loads of skills then yeah probably find ways to to capitalize on that but for me I'm just like what what's what's what's next what can I do different yeah and and I think about your fores just just from watching your channel and also um from Mind Over magnet I see two fores you well three actually and I love doing this with they probably feel weird when I do it I write down their fores because I want to encourage them um you are very gifted visually so your your art is actually gorgeous and but it's very it's it's very controlled and tight and precise and it looks almost it's almost like you're a graphic designer um the way you do your art okay well that's I'd say like that's like just because I'm not like a good artist like I can't really I'm not like I'm not very good at drawing things but I I

think my skill is like I I'm quite good at composition and color and that sort of stuff so the elements in mind magnet are really simple like the magnet itself is just really basic shapes my character is squares and circles and stuff but it's like okay knowing that the game is if if based entirely on my art is going to look terrible like what the hell can I do to make this look good so we're going to throw in some particles we're going to use postprocessing we're just going to like amp up every other element of it because I just I you know I can't draw no I mean that's what's so funny is I hear people say uh developers say that all the time they're like I'm not good at drawing or I'm not good at Art and I'm like yeah like you're not good at one kind of art but but like for you clearly you're good at art in its own in your own lane you're also really good with game design obviously because you have a deep understanding of it and then you're also very very good at game feel and so so we've got art game feel and

game design and so I when you when I heard you say you don't know if you're going to make another game I just want to throw this out there I really think you should you're really good at it um clearly and I think you're underselling yourself when you say that your audience is the only reason or one of the main drivers of why the game did well I think it's just a it's clearly it's your first game dude and so you've clearly got a skill there that's nested in you this whole time so I just wanted to encourage you there man well thank you uh I mean I very I am proud of it like I know like I'm you know I know all of the flaws I could you know write the most negative review possible on Steam like break down what sucks about every single level but I did like enjoy it enjoy the process and I am proud of the release in terms of like uh you said like being good at the design aspect that is the the one aspect of of the game that I wish I had been able to like spend more time on I I

realized the other day like I spent so much time and effort and energy just making the game exist that I didn't really have much time left to make it like good like there was just so much of my brain was in coding and production and all this stuff I'm just like I just wish I could have just spent time just really like noodling on the design um you know the structure of the game the puzzle design and stuff like to me that's the area that I'm I'm most I don't want to say disappointed in but the the area like I wish I just could have spent more energy I think it's the hardest I think it's the hardest part of game development it's it's it's so hard because like you said you're worried about does it look good does it feel good does it sound good how's the story you know oh no there's like a million bugs and then and then you do your how by the way how did Alpha Testing go cuz when I when I finally get through that

slew of issues of all the things I just mentioned and I lock in everything the art looks amazing and then I do Alpha Testing and I do beta testing everybody's like I don't even know what to do and you're like crap I forgot to even teach what this game is so how did how did testing go what was the first response like yeah testing was uh has been just like probably the biggest eye opener of the the whole series of the whole process was just realizing how essential it is to just get your game in front of people and like I don't think we talk about it enough as SK Dev it's just like you can't make a game without just constantly throwing in front of everyone just seeing what they do it took me a long time to even show it to a single person like it proa I think I worked on the game for close to a year before I let anyone play it which was so dumb but it was just so hard to like be like play this game I know it's terrible I know like just you're going to like that it's the whole ego thing it was just so hard to get over but as soon as

I got those like first play tests in I'm just like oh wow I can see I I I've learned so much just from watching a single person play through the game it's like man that is invaluable and so it's been so I hate it like don't get me wrong like watching other people play my game has just been the most painful thing ever but it's so valuable that it's like I've had to push through that and so yeah I yeah even that like the first the very first time just seeing people like I don't understand the controls I don't understand what to do I thought that was a platform but oh it's actually like a bit of background art or something it's just like okay time to start again basically because there so there's so much but it's um yeah just like but this is one like other uh annoying Advantage I do have is just like I I say to people oh you got to play test your games people like with who like no one wants to play my game I I put out a tweet saying can someone play my game I get 500 responses I get too many people so yeah I don't that

that's a challenging thing it's just like how what how can we give that advice to people sure sure and I think Discord servers just hanging out on Discord servers is the way to go there um but yeah for me like it's like uh we did we did we did beta testing and EV looking back it was actually Alpha Testing and that's that's kind of my point here which is we did beta testing and because of beta testing for our game Twisted Tower we then found out oh we kind of need to go back to the drawing board with a ton of stuff so essentially nope that's actually Alpha Testing it it's so terrifying to do testing for me because I know because this like my third time going through the beta testing process I know that at the end of the testing I will I will officially have to essentially restart a ton of the game and it's just terrifying cuz you don't want to do that you want make progress you want to finish the thing you know so it's uh it's a lot you it's interesting

you said about like Alpha Testing and beta testing like maybe that's like a more sensible way for but for me it was just like just all the time like there was all the time it was not like a case of like okay now I'm going into test mode it's just like I make a thing I throw out to some people see what they say and just constantly like reevaluating yeah I think that that's that's definitely the best way to move forward do you think that getting a proven prototype is the smartest Way Forward for indie game developers or should they just do what they love and make a game that they love and follow their heart and their passion or should they prove their prototype if they want to just follow their heart and their passion great don't expect to like make a salary doing it or to have anyone buy it but um you know that you know that does come down to like what are you making this game for if it's just like a hobby then and whatever but if you are serious about it then you need to build a prototype for yourself make sure cuz like our you know game's ideas always seem amazing in our brains are like oh

yeah this is going to be fantastic you start building it you're like oh this actually sucks this this idea doesn't work at all it's impossible for me to build so you got to do that and you just got to start giving it to people and yeah that that would be like if I could go back in time and give myself advice it' just be like as soon as possible just start giving this thing to people and yeah like just close that gap between making something seeing what people think of it and then having to redo a whole bunch of stuff because otherwise you're just wasting time okay well to wrap up this conversation Mark I'm going to I'm going to fire off one final question to you and it's a challenging one okay so get ready okay what are three game design principles that you learned making this game that's a good that is that is a tough question so okay so one of them this is like a cheap but is just like what I just said like design principle is just like it doesn't matter what you design or how good you think it is it just it's just going to fall AP part when you give it to someone else it is impossible I think with pretty much any

genre especially puzzle games because once you've made a puzzle you know how to solve it right so you it is just impossible for you the Creator to see your game objectively but I think that basically any genre like you it's just impossible like like a weird one with my game was there's like there'll be like a level where you have these like three rooms you have to do and I'd get this feedback of these people being like Oh I I didn't know that I had to like just leave the magnet behind because then you just go through this hole and there's the exit pipe and I'm like oh yeah like I know there's an exit pipe there but if you haven't played the game you have no idea like you just have so much knowledge so yeah that's design principle one it's just endless play testing um endless play testing endless play testing just as much as possible um until you launch the game and then you can just leave it all behind right pretty much yeah yeah and actually for me always just I I bitterly resent my games when they're done I'm just like I'm divorced from my game see you later

cheers yeah and I mean like obviously with that advice that comes with like a billion caveats of just like don't just like capitulate to every piece of feedback and you know if some CU I a thing that was constantly challenging for me was the difficulty of the game so I would give the game to play testers who are like puzzle game experts to have like finished Steven sausage roll 100 times and they're like do this is way too easy so then I amp up the difficulty I give it to someone who's never played a game before they're like I have no idea so it's just like okay figure out who the game is for that okay that that's design principle too is like you've really got to understand who your game is for like it's um it's so it's it's so obvious in retrospect but when you start making a game you're just like I'm just going to make a game for everybody and everyone's going to love it and it's just like dude that's a d that's a that's never going to work so Mark is that different than genre though um understand genre is there a difference between target market and genre yes um genre is part of it but

also like level of difficulty um expectations of like previous games people have played like is this a game for someone who has played and loves factorio and this is a game for them or is this a game for someone who has never played that sort of game before is this a game for someone who wants to be punished and wants you know to be absolutely hate their life or is this a game for someone who's just sitting on the couch after a hard day and they just want something chill out like you've got to understand who that person is figure out like what sort of stuff they're going to appreciate um there you can find ways to expand your audience in things like optional you know um like a difficulty modes accessibility options assist modes bonus content all of that sort of stuff but it's just like what is the core aspect what is the core of your game and who's it for so that's that's design principle too and that took me so long yeah sorry go ahead no I was just going to sorry to interrupt you I was

going to say that's that's why going back to the pizza metaphor it's one of the reasons why I like it so much because like Little Caesar's Pizza in America they they call it cardboard pizza but it knows because it's so cheap and it's like basically eating cardboard but the brand knows what it is they know who they are and who they're for it's for people who want to buy a pizza for five freaking dollars or 10 bucks you know I I think it's $10 now but used to be like five bucks but the point is is it knew exactly who it was and you're going to have customers complaining you're going to have people saying this this pizza is disgusting and it's too cheap but they look at their they look at their revenue and they they look at okay this is how much we're um making and this is this is how our sales are doing and it's confirming their initial goal of reaching a certain target target market yeah and the reason I bring that up is because it's so tempting to try and please everybody body yeah and suddenly your game becomes just a watered down boring game mhm right

absolutely yeah so yeah or and and it can and it can or it can like just like get you going around in circles or just wrapping you up of just like worrying that it's you know different uh types of people are just not going to like it and you just kind of got to accept that and people generally like self select themselves into the like I don't just go on Steam and just start like randomly downloading some crazy 4X strategy game cuz I just that's not like my thing so sure those games are for those people people generally like find the games that like suit them and you can describe it in your your store Page and stuff so just kind of like be okay that your game is not for everyone and the sooner you do that the better so that's design principle too I think that's great and just for practically for people listening one of the best ways to test your game is well this is what I've learned I don't know if it's true for you but what I had to do is I had to ask the testers before I even G them a steam key I was like do

you like Bioshock do you like this genre do you like that genre what's your favorite thing about Bioshock and if they're like I love hyper complicated Gunplay and I love difficult gun play then I'm like you're not getting a steam key because I steam the algorithm on Steam would not drive that person to buy the game and The Game Wouldn't the person wouldn't even buy that game to begin with so why have them test it right so that's a that's a practi application for testing for sure yeah that's like I to I think that's a very good idea um or even if you don't you know maybe you do give them a key but you understand where their feedback is coming from you might still be able to get something from them but you're like I'm not going to listen to their feedback about the complexity of the gun play cuz it's just probably not going to be relevant to the type of game I'm making but yeah that's a good advice uh and I guess like I don't know if it's really it's not really a design principle but it's just like it's going to affect design of just like you need to be smart about production with a game like if you are not think like it's so

easy to just be like I'm going to make this game and I just like I'll just work on it and it'll eventually be done and it's just like that's it's not going to happen so you need to be really intentional about like the scope the the time you're putting into it the budget all of these sorts of things um cuz doesn't matter how great your design is or how fun it is or the game feel if the game doesn't come out then it's like who cares so that was like the thing I didn't think about at all when I started the game was just like like the production side of thing I just I just started working on it and how do you how do you be smart what's what practically what do they do you know that's a tough thing to do it's tough but it's I'd say things like um just deciding like how much content is going to be in your game like somewhat early I've just like for me I had no idea I just started working the game I'm like I don't know maybe it'll have 700 levels who knows like we'll figure that out like it would have been smarter to be like this is going to be a game with five worlds with 10 with 10 levels each and now I kind of know

where I'm going and I can know how much time to spend on each of those things that would be sensible or just being like I I want to make this game in a certain amount of time though I do appreciate that like knowing how to budget time and knowing how long things take you can't really get that until you do it once so that kind of goes back to the idea of just get that first game done you will learn y so much about production bro thank you so much this was such a good conversation um I learned a ton from you and I I've been learning a ton from you and that's something that's really cool about and that you should be proud of is there are millions of people who you're in their brain or yeah you're in their brain you're in my brain and you don't even know it and so and that's a good thing I've learned so much from you man so I I will take that as a good thing sure all right uh link link for Mind Over magnets in the in the description also to your channel is there anything else you wanted to leave the audience with before we wrap up here it's uh I would say this it is

coming very close to the end of the year so we're getting into the New Year's resolutions and there's probably going to be a lot of people on your on your channel who watch you and they like I'd love to make a game one day and it's like this is this is your year I'm telling this to you people this is your year like get started uh download Unity download gdau download whatever start watching some tutorial if I can do it you can do it so exactly this is it for it I noticed you didn't say unreal there so you can do unreal you can do Game Maker you can do construct 3 okay okay I wasn't sure if you were purposely excluding unreal I maybe for your first game maybe don't use unreal for your first game all right Mark thanks so much man thank you this has been so much fun yep cheers by the way if you're like me and you always dreamt of making an indie game as a full full-time job I have a free webinar below that goes into exactly how to make six figures with just a demo I was just like you for

years I thought I had to make a game in its entirety before getting a paycheck but there's actually three ways to make six figures before even finishing your game I've done this multiple times so check it out below if you do want to go full time Indie and thanks for watching