"I Quit My Job To Make My Indie Game" — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 009

so Kyle dude thanks so much for for being willing to chat with me yeah of course thanks for having me yeah dude uh so I've been really looking forward to talking to you because you kind of have a like an untraditional uh way of being an indie game developer and you you've definitely taken a big risk um sort of taking the leap of faith and and going full-time Indie um but yeah why don't you introduce yourself before I I start rambling about how I'm impressed with what you've done so yeah go ahead that sounds good hey everyone I'm uh I'm Kyle Banks I'm the developer of a game called farewell North it's an emotional atmospheric Moody game where you plays a border colie and you're restoring color to your humans World set in the Scottish Highlands um and uh yeah it's very narrative driven game and uh yeah almost also make devlogs and kind of technical videos on YouTube and uh Tik Tok as well so how did you get into to Game Dev I mean you're full-time right now you're full-time indie game developer how did this all start and did you go to school for it you know did did you have you

always been interested in making games what's your story yeah I um so I went to school for accounting originally and uh I I realized about a year and a half in that that was not what I wanted to do with my life so I I dropped out and as I was figuring out what to do my roommate in college we were playing World of Warcraft and he he wrote a script to like automate he was a programmer and he wrote a script to like automate playing World of Warcraft and I thought that was like the coolest thing ever so I I went to school for for programming after that and pretty much like the first day I learned how to write a single line of code I was like okay I'm figuring out how to make games with this so so you would consider yourself like more development like your your skill set is code yeah absolutely like I'm a I'm a software engineer by trade that's you know worked full-time for about 12 years as a software engineer at various startups and stuff and yeah just kind of did games on the side okay okay um how old are you where do you live I am 33 and I live in Scotland Edinburgh Scotland specifically so we're we're about the same age when what's your birthday uh October 1st 1990 okay okay all right yeah dude you were

born two months after me so I've got you beat um '90s baby so you you do you have nostal this is totally random do you do you have Nostalgia for 90s games oh yeah dude so much like I've got a a full sleeve of like Nintendo like uh Zelda skull kid uh Metroid like all kinds of stuff yeah I I love that stuff my word so you're a Majora's Mask guy yeah I mean I love okarina of time but Majora's Mask I don't know just kind of sat with me uh well it's darker you know and it's moodier and uh when I look at farewell North it's got that Twilight Princess Majora's Mask Vibe um and I I think I think yeah like have you always have you always wanted to make 3D game like farewell north um or did you dabble in 2D what was that all about yeah no I definitely started with 2D so I started with like um like SDF or sdl FDF I can't even remember what the name of that engine was uh Coco Studio X like some

early kind of I don't even know what that is I have no idea what you're talking about these are like early like iPhone Android uh game I don't even you can't even really call them engines they're like Frameworks for making games uh mobile games so yeah I started dabbling with like um yeah 2D like iPhone Android games uh but I never really released anything I actually finished a game uh but I just was like not confident enough to release it uh which in hindsight I wish I did just for like The Learning Experience oh yeah yeah why don't you I mean you could still do that I mean that was like 2014 like was written Objective C they don't even use that anymore uh it'd be a lot of work to to well just put a zip file on Google Drive and you can say I released my first game yeah here you go guys if you could figure out how to play it yeah figure out how to decompile this and and run it that's right um but yeah and then you know the the hard part was so I had the code side of things down but the hard part was um the artwork uh so when I was doing 2D stuff um I was kind of just like downloading spreadsheets and stuff like I couldn't really make it myself um and then at some point I started learning like

blender and modeling and for some reason that clicks like I'm much more proficient with 3D than I am with 2D in terms of creating artwork um I don't really know why it's just something about it kind of works better for my brain I guess um yeah and uh and yeah it's just kind of been a long journey going from 2D to 3D and it's been like 12 years of dabbling and hopefully finally releasing game uh for the first time this year yeah okay so a lot of game developers you know who who aren't doing it full-time but they sort of dream about doing it they're working a desk job they hate you know or they're they're working in retail or they're working at a restaurant they're in school and the Dre dude the dream of doing what you and I do is so it's like it's so exciting to be able to just sit you know at home in the Scottish Highlands like that's insane to me that's so cool um or for me I'm I'm still in my hometown um

and I but I love it you know I love being in my cozy office and just making games it's a very it's a very cozy dream yeah absolutely Okay so we've got all these got these listeners who who it seems so far away did you ever feel that way before you went full-time did you ever feel like this is completely impossible this is a silly dream oh yeah did you hate your job like what was that like I mean I mean there was days where I hated my job but generally speaking I actually kind of loved my career um I worked for some really cool uh early stage startups it was really exciting it was really high anxiety really stressful but it was it was a lot of fun um but there was days months and probably even years where yeah I did hate it um but uh yeah I mean I can't imagine a better job than making games right um the whole like making a living on it that's one thing but the actual Act of creating games is like the best thing in the world um and uh and and yeah so getting to that point uh I I I definitely didn't think that that was actually going to happen um and even when it did happen it was more of a leap

of faith as opposed to like I've made it like I can actually sustainably do this I'm not at a point where it's sustainable so I'm definitely you know digging into savings at the moment um things like YouTube and Publishers and stuff are very helpful but it's not at a point where it's sustainable so um as you said early on it's definitely a big risk um are you getting close to it being sustainable have you figured out cuz like I I I love to disclose I love to disclose to to people who are interested like for me the way that me and my team pay the bills this was prior to signing with 3D Realms so 3D Realms has has supported us financially thank God but before that dude there was like five six ways that I was bringing in income and uh you know part of it was YouTube part of it was old you know old games that we had launched and all of that income stacked up to be more than enough for me and it then I was able to pay a team member and another team member and some contract workers are you are you starting to sort of figure out

how to how to get a drip of income from let's say YouTube ads or YouTube sponsorships and stuff like that yeah it's starting um so yeah like I said it's still a ways away from being sustainable but um I've started taking on sponsorships on the YouTube channel which is a huge help um you know I cover some of the bills every month um patreon's been great um and then YouTube ad revenue is not the best thing in the world but I mean every little bit helps no it's not it's really bad I feel like people think that can you disclose how much you're getting a month oh man in like a good month maybe like 200 lb so like I guess it's like 300 bucks us or something um that's great dude like compare I'm getting like a th000 and I'm not complaining because $1,000 is a lot of money but for the amount of views I'm pulling and the amount of effort that I put into my channel it it really is kind of like not a lot of money yeah um so ads are not ad is ads are just part of it you know um but you're also doing sponsorships as well right yeah I just started with that um and and that's been

great and my kind of like I probably shouldn't say this but but my like thought process there is just kind of like keep doubling the rate until someone says no um and and we'll see how no that's totally fine to say I think I don't think I think every sponsor knows that that's what we're doing um that's totally fine yeah I took sponsorships too man I took sponsorships I stopped taking them because I ended up sponsoring myself you know and this this podcast is going to be sponsored by me you know the clips we generate from this podcast are sponsored by me and I love being about this because I want game developers to know look guys if you start a YouTube channel you can you can sell your games obviously and you can get wish list and you can have you know a Kickstarter campaign that's helped by your YouTube channel uh you can you can take sponsorships but you can also create your own products and sponsor yourself like if you have an asset pack or you have a course or you maybe you can do coaching or you know publish other games like yeah AB it's totally fine to sponsor your own content as well totally yeah and and I mean like I think everyone does that to an extent right

with like asking for wish list and stuff you could you could kind of argue that that's a bit of a sponsorship I think what you're doing is probably little 100% 100% it is yeah yeah I think what you're doing is probably a little bit more like formal or direct but um I mean I think YouTube's a great way to kind of double dip a little bit right like you can get a little bit of income coming in as you're developing your game but at the same time you're also building awareness you're getting a community you're getting wish list you're getting all these things so hopefully when the game comes out that kind of converts as well so you can kind of like double dip a little bit as you go which you don't really get with you know Twitter or Tik Tok or anything else I think Tik Tok might have a Creator fund now but YouTube's kind of the the foremost one there um so yeah it's a huge help right you know I'm looking at your YouTube channel right now farewell North let's look at your YouTube channel Kyle Banks and by the way everybody who's listening links in the description to follow Kyle on YouTube but I'm looking at your views here okay and what's really interesting is that subscribers don't really matter predictable views do like if you got

100,000 views randomly I don't think that would mean much to a sponsor but what does matter is predictable views if you can swing let's say 10,000 views per video um a sponsor can justify giving you 500 bucks you know to 1,000 bucks for an ad read and I say this because if you were to able to figure out hey I can do two videos per month uh or maybe four videos per month I could swing four videos per month maybe every Monday you say I'm going to do a video um and you can predict that it's going to get 10,000 views dude I see no reason no reason why you can't get a full-time income from just doing sponsorships and you don't have to dip into savings anymore and I'm just trying to encourage you because that's what I did um when I was starting out as a game developer when I had burned through game sales or I had burned through Kickstarter funding or publisher funding I would just say

you know what I'm going to commit to four videos about games on YouTube and that's going to sustain me for six months so it's it's totally possible you know what I mean yeah no I totally I totally agree with that I think I think it's kind of important to um know what your mindset is there right like so I would consider myself developer first YouTuber kind of second um and I think if I'm you know I've got I've got some crazy deadlines coming up in the next few months in order to get the game out um if I was starting to shift that Focus over to YouTube I might be able to kind of you know cover the bills that way but the game would definitely suffer um yeah and uh and like you said the predictability I think is really important for for sponsors I'm not there yet um so like if you look at my last two videos one of them's like 2,000 the last one's 2,000 like I followed up my second best video ever with my worst video ever um that's crazy and that happens to me every time I don't know what it is but like every time I have a video I'm looking at the video right now it's go ahead I'm so sorry I was just going to say every time a video that pops off my followup is like worst worst

of all time I don't know why I think I get in my head or something it's happened like four times now yeah well that's it's just practice man and I same for me like my My Views So Random It's So Random the The Game Dev space is interesting on YouTube because it is yeah um sometime there's there's a it is Niche and and so you it's hard to get predictability but yeah I'm looking at what you've got here you got a great Channel so let's sort of shift gears here I want to figure out um let's talk about like funding from a publisher and and like why you decided to go with a publisher and are they paying all your bills because it sounds like they're not and obviously you don't have to tell us all the details of the contract but why did you go with the publisher if they're not going to pay you like a full-time salary so I think it's quite interesting right like Publishers are um very vared they all do different things and and so I think it's important to think about what I was doing at the time that I signed with munai um so at the time I was working full-time I was very comfortably you

know self-funding the project self-funding having contractors working for me still making savings um um and so there was no need to kind of drisk the project by you know selling it off and having a recoup and having you know High um High you know percentage Revenue share but what I did need at the time I kind of made a decision early on with this game that was very very expensive in hindsight which was to have you know the game is stylized but it it has like realistic human proportions and that means that animations and everything like that need to be realistic or they look awful right like it's really easy to fall into D can belly and I I kind of learned this the hard way and I realized like I cannot do the animation work um so I need some help there um suuna was really helpful they're they're kind of a developer first um so I didn't need money from them although they do cover a lot of things what is their name again I'm sorry what what's their name moai Indies moai Indies so they're a publisher that's right okay moai Studio Studios um is what I'm looking at here

yeah so Studios is like their first party like they their developer first so they made a game called W and they're working on a another game now and then moai can you explain what developer I'm so sorry to interrupt you I know that's annoying and it's annoying for listeners it's we have a little bit of a lag here I'm sorry uh really quick question what when you say developer first what do you mean so what I mean by that is um moai Studios develops games it's they're a very small company there's five six people uh and they developed a game called stember the game did really well and they decided while they're developing the next game they'll also publish a couple games um but they're they're not there's pros and cons to that but they're not a publisher first and what I mean by that is like you know everyone at the company every day is working on their own game publishing is something they kind of do on the side helping out um but but you're not always and this isn't a bad thing I knew this going in but you're not always the first priority because they also are they have their own deadlines and stuff that they're working towards right um whereas typically when you think of aish excuse

me when you think of a publisher you think of someone like devolver or whatever where they're not developing games they they might have developers and stuff on staff but their their whole focus is 100% publishing and helping other Studios or devs make their games um so that's what I mean by that awesome awesome so they agreed to help um develop the game in unity uh yeah so they they do quite a few things so there is a funding component but it's not um it's not because I was working full-time at the time and going full-time on the game wasn't really my goal um yeah it's quite small and it wouldn't cover the bills um but the you know flip side of that is the recoup and the revenue share that they get is also quite small in comparison to what you would normally expect um so it's kind of you know I think the way I think of Publishers is essentially your D risking the project like you're selling some of the risk in return you're getting a little bit more security but there's you're giving away some of the upside as as well right um

since I didn't need cuz I was working at the time since I didn't need that I didn't want to give away 30 50 70% of the project I wanted to give away virtually nothing um or very very little um and it just kind of worked out perfectly where they were looking for a very small share um they were able to help me out and fill in some of the gaps in my weak points like animation um and uh yeah so it just kind of ended up being like a really good scenario U but aside from that I wasn't really looking for a publisher to be honest I I had taken always I'd always taken the meeting um and I talked to about a dozen Publishers but I always either they declined or I declined just because I wasn't really looking for it but this just kind of was like a perfect kind of win-win scenario um so that's kind of how that came to be that's that's a really smart way to put it you said selling the risk yeah I'm curious if you could clarify what that mean what you mean by that I know I think I'm pretty sure I know what you mean but I'd love some clarity yeah of course so you know every game has kind of um if you're thinking of about it from a marketing or a business point of

view there's some potential upside but it's projections right like you don't know you're actually let's I'll put numbers on it let's say I'm making a game and I think you know if it does well it's going to make somewhere between 75 and $150,000 just random numbers what you can do with a publisher is you can kind of sell some of that potential upside to them so you get a guaranteed let's say 50,000 today and you still get whatever 50% of The Upside but you're kind of like drisking it right so you you you lock that 50,000 you don't have to pay that back to them at least not out of your own pocket um right and uh and and they get some of the upside in return for their taking on that risk so you're kind of drisking it yourself for yourself yep yeah totally agree and to provide more clarity there I so that anyone who's listening doesn't know I've always worked with a publisher I've never self-published I'm on my fourth published game um it's my third commercial release because the first game I signed with a publisher was one of those well rotten Publishers

that those nightmare stories you hear and so I kind of got that one out of the way when I was 18 um I did end up making money from that deal so and at the end of the day I made some money got the IP back I had actually sold the intellectual property as an 18-year-old which is nuts don't ever do that um but I point being I've always worked with a publisher and the last three Publishers I've worked with have just been so great like I just got off a call with 3D Realms and and they're just so kind everyone's it's like we could all get a beer together like that kind of relationship yeah kind of like you know the way you and I are hanging out right now it's just a very calm casual friendly conversation and that's how it's been with my Publishers and drisk aying is a great way to put it and in fact even if you don't even need the money it's nice to know that if you put a year or two years of your life and your your time and effort into a game at least you got paid while you did it right you know and

at least you didn't burn through a bunch of savings and your net worth or whatever and F you know mortgage your house just because uh you wanted to make this cool idea and then you release the game and it and it flops drisk aying is a great way to put it because you're really putting that risk onto a publisher exactly and saying look if the game flops you still gave me money and I still I I came through a lot I I came out alive um I didn't I didn't take on a ton of debt and the publisher will probably most a lot of these Publishers are probably going to be fine too because they're financed by tensent or some massive uh massive Corporation or or hedge fund or something so they're probably fine too um and they have you kind of hinted on it there too they're also hedging their bets right they're mostly not working with they're not putting all their eggs in one baskets funding one developer's game putting all their money into it knowes whatever it depending on the size

of it so they can kind of AFF a few misses whereas May a developer yeah so that that's so so helpful and I think that's a really good phrase um you know drisk aying I think that's great so let's sort of think really quickly here about the risk though because you are still taking on risk and that is that you are you are really you're funding yourself with your savings primarily um and just so there's full Clarity here so that your publisher doesn't get a bad rap so I'm kind of helping you out here you're not saying that the publisher was cheap what you're saying is you didn't want to give away a ton of rev share exactly and that's that's great exact I think that's a brilliant move you're saying look you guys can have a little bit of rev share you don't have to pay me a lot because I don't need it so let's talk really quickly about you know you you using your savings and quitting your job the question is the the game industry seems pretty volatile it's a little scary

right now we've got AI Tech coming in meaning we're going to have a ton of what I'm calling zombie games just crappy AI games that are going to look great on the surface but are crap when you actually play them what's that game called uh the zombie game that came out recently oh uh what was it oh man I always want to call Last of Us it's the daylight or something I can't remember what it was the day before um day before that's a great example of a zombie game and it's not necessarily because it was AI but it's because you know AI games are going to make this problem worse oh for sure and I have a I have a point here I'm trying to get to the point which is I feel like the game industry is going to get even more competitive we're going to have way more indie games made that look amazing on the surface and they even get a ton of wish lists they capture the verality whereas you know a lot of Indies with great games aren't going to be able to capture an audience because all these zombie games come in and and they over promise this amazing looking feel but at the end of

the day they're just empty Hollow Games okay for sure so the AI and the AI in the in the game industry is going to make it way more competitive okay so you've jumped in you've quit your job the indie game industry is volatile and you're using your savings yeah you're making do you recommend this uh no I absolutely do not recommend this absolutely not don't do what I do uh you've got me sweating here now that I'm thinking about all this um yeah that was the whole goal of this podcast to talk you out of it no I'm kidding um yeah honestly I think I probably I probably jumped into this at the worst possible time not necessarily for me but just for like what's going on in the world like I I went full-time in August of last year which isn't that long ago but since then like generative generative AI has blown up um the layoffs in the game industry has blown up um you know you can't go a day without seeing another thousand developers laid off um Studio shutting down so it was kind of a horrible time for this um and I'm sure that people

making these like really you know shitty decisions to lay people off and whatever know a lot more than I do so they know you know where the Market's going all this kind of stuff um so yeah really awful time to to jump in and kind of take this risk but I I never thought it was going to be easy um and I never thought it was going to be risk-free the the reason I made the decision was really not like a prudent financial decision um I think it was more just about you know I've been working at the time about three and a half years I'd been working on the game just over three years um coming up on four years now and working full-time and doing this on the side it was just like you know I'm never going to finish this if if um if I don't you know get some of that time back um my kind of day job was at a point where it was just kind of made sense to take a switch I couldn't really like imagine starting another job and actually starting on a you know positive note while also like working towards all these deadlines for the game so I was like you know what I'm I'm going to give myself like about a year and I'm going to get get this get this

excuse me going to get this game done um and then we'll see if the game does well and it's enough to fund another job or another game um so be it then you know I get to be a full-time Game Dev and and continue this kind of Journey if it comes out and it flops then you know the I'll have to just go back to to being a software developer um and as I I think I said already I actually quite liked my career so it's not the worst thing to fall back on and I'd probably still continue to make games on the side anyway but it was just kind of like you know I picked my life up I moved to Scotland to kind of have a big change I'm not just going to keep doing the same thing and and kind of sit in that kind of rut i' had been in I'm just going to take a risk and we'll see what happens so definitely don't follow my footsteps like it was not a smart decision at least financially but um I mean I've loved every day of it so if I know if if you're privileged enough to have the savings to fall back on and and you can afford to have a Miss if it doesn't come out I think like I said it's like the the best job in the world um yeah and uh

yeah I figure this just gives me a better chance to potentially get to do it full-time um than if I kind of have that cozy job to fall back on all the time so you know I set up that question and maybe it sounded a little negative I hearing what you're saying um I don't feel like you're making that risky of a decision I don't think you're racking up a bunch of debt right it's like yeah that I mean that would be a whole different thing if you're mortgaging your savings you've got savings your um I don't think you have children no no um so you're just in this position where you're like look it's now or never exactly exactly um so dude I don't think you're taking a risky it's really not that risky of a decision when you think about it it's like it's going to be a year of your life um and you're just gonna go for it and make it happen I think it's really cool you know and I I I I don't recommend it either you know I

I didn't do that my my my way was I've always been super risk averse but I was married when I first started my game studio and she was in school and and then we got pregnant so I was like I couldn't just quit and live on savings right and so what I ended up doing was sort of I sold way more of my games rep share to make some money you know to a publisher whereas you didn't need to do that you you you actually probably made a more calculated decision than I did yeah I I always think about like if I Moon's been great I have no regrets on that decision if I was starting a new project today I always wonder what I want would I want to go off savings or would I want to kind of sell that risk as we said before um and I don't really know where I land on that um yeah I think I'd probably go the same road as you where I'd probably you know look for a publisher to kind of take some of that risk on um and kind of at least secure um you know a year or two's like kind of comfortable development um because I think that puts you in a pretty good spot as well but just the

way it kind of worked out with this project it you know it kind of worked out that my day job was funding it for the first three years and then you know now the last year is like the risky part yeah well what why why did you decide to work with a team um you know you you said your publisher decided to help develop the game um why not just make it completely solo um well first off can we talk about the solo process what what what that looked like like before you had them helping with the development how did it feel what was it like yeah I mean when you're working solo there I mean it's like anything right there's there's pros and cons to both when you're working solo it's like you can just put your head down put some headphones on kind of focus for however long you want to work and and just like bang things out um when you have people you're working with you know obviously you want to retain creative uh freedom and creative control uh so that was really important to me so I didn't sell the IP or anything like that I kind of have final say on on absolutely everything but whether it's a publisher I also have couple contractors working for me on the side as well they bring a whole lot of

ideas that I wouldn't have thought of um that just a different perspective right so um I was working with an animator uh for a while Hermon who um he he also had like a fantastic eye for kind of cinematography um so we were working on some really kind of you know tight cut scenes where we had the camera in close and and he was doing the animations for it and stuff but he had a lot of ideas for how to kind of change the cinematography to get a lot more emotion out of it um and and those things just you know I say for free but you know he was obviously being paid for the animations but he just brings this experience and this this kind of insight to it that I wouldn't have had and just makes the project better as a result right so with the collaborative process you you almost can't help but uh if you're working with good people improve kind of across the board um but there's also like you can make a a strong business case for it as well right so um I'm working with uh someone by the name of John kakas who's doing all the audio for the game and it's you know we haven't even released the game and it's already been been award nominated uh like the score in the soundtrack uh he's

done a phenomenal phenomenal job with it but I I probably could have put together a soundtrack it probably wouldn't have been very good but I probably could have done that but it also probably would have taken me a lot more time right so um there's there's kind of a business sense too where you can kind of pay to get shortcuts and also better quality work um and uh and get the game done faster as well okay so how long were you working on the game solo before that you started getting some help oh gez um probably a year and a half two years maybe not quite that long actually John my composer John was the first one to come on I think he it was probably a year and a half in that he came on you know just because you have a composer join the team doesn't really mean it's not a solo game still like a lot of games that are classified as solo games you know solo development they still contract out you know music or they'll go and and acquire a license you know from like Pond five or something so I I still consider you a solo developer even with some help with

animation and sound because you you're carrying so much weight and my question for you is first off what are you what what are you carrying currently um when it comes to the games creation what are the various t uh talents that you have to cover so many things um that sounds egotistical but it there's just so much stuff to do so all the development so I write every line of code uh that there hasn't been a single line of code that wasn't written by me all the shaders are hand authored by me CP and unity right C and unity yep yep and hlsl for the for the shaders um all the artwork I mean there there's assets as well uh but all the textures and everything uh at least at the bare minimum all the textures are redone um uh oh jeez what else the story the writing the directing the voice acting directing the composer directing everyone who's working on it um which I think people kind of underestimate how much work that is as well um just because you have people working for you

doesn't mean that you're going to be as productive as you were before um there's there is time spent kind of directing these things preparing whether it's like you know sending videos over to to chat over or whatever um there's time spent on that um yeah uh a lot of the animation not all of it um but I still do uh it's something I want to get better at so it's something I do where it seems appropriate for me to do it um and all the level design all the managing play testing all that kind of stuff so there's a ton of things um that you have to do and you kind of just pick them up as you go when you're making a game um yeah like direct do you enjoy it oh yeah I love it yeah I get bored like super easily the only thing I don't get bored of is writing code like I absolutely love digging into technical uh technical challenges but other than that like I get board pretty easy so I love being able to kind of shift Focus every day so it's you know every Saturday my my voice actor comes over and we we run through a whole bunch of stuff so there's a lot of writing involved with that directing um sound

editing all that kind of stuff and that kind of breaks up my week nicely um YouTube's another one where you know I can go every few weeks uh just kind of focus on the game and then when things are starting to kind of feel a little bit burned out or feeling a little bit tired I can shift focus and kind of go on some YouTube stuff for a bit um so yeah I kind of just like that's probably my favorite part of you know whether you call it Solo or not game development is just being able to jump around and how all these different disciplines you're kind of always learning and um improving in well do you consider farewell north kind of like a personal diary yeah I think like I said right after the very first time I did any kind of play testing it felt like someone was reading my diary um okay it was very yeah it's it's a very personal game um I'm kind of like putting putting a lot of myself and my heart into into this story and and the project um so yeah it's very personal well the reason I ask is because Solo solo developers I found and and I I

made a game it took five years to make my first game and it was everything was me like I put everything into that game the music the code the the story the textures and the art and the the voice acting I I did some voice acting every every voice actor I hired I would I would even read the lines to them of how I wanted it said and it felt so personal and it felt so naked mhm and you're you're sitting here making a game about the highlands and you're living in Scotland right y did you and you've got voice actors Scottish voice actors coming over to your house voice acting is that correct yeah that's right yeah so it's so personal it's like it is you it's it's kind of like this reflection of you and my question is is that exhausting is that depressing is is that anxiety inducing it is it's something I don't know how to

quite I mean that's a horrible answer but it is like you're you're putting yourself out there right so the game it it the release of the game is terrifying um but it's not even just like the financial side of it of whether this was you know a smart decision or whether I have to go back to work or anything it's and it's not even what people if they like it or don't like it it's what they get out of it in a way where it's like I want to convey a very specific thing um and and their reaction to that I I I don't even know how to answer this it's almost like there's no way this sounds so so depressing there's almost like no way where the game comes out and I'm going to be happy with the result of it because I think people like it they might not like it for the reason I wanted them to you know what I mean I don't it's it's the strangest thing but it literally is like having someone read your diary and there's kind of no way you come out of that feeling positive yeah I I I agree um it do you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of parenting it reminds me

of marriage it reminds me of any relationship that is deep MH uh because every deep relationship is essentially my dad used to say this he used to say Thomas having kids is putting your how heart on having children is like putting your heart on a table and asking someone to pound it with a sledgehammer that is such a better way of of what I just said but that that is a really apt descript exactly and and the question is why did why do human beings do that you know just avoid it at all cost and I think frankly a lot of people do that they go to they go into the ground in a pine box and and die without ever putting their heart out there and just saying hey feel free to jump on my heart and pound it with a sledgehammer I think and I'm not I really don't think I'm overselling what you're doing or making it more dramatic than it is because I I know exactly what that feels like of

trying to tell a very personal story and the you know the answer as to why you do it I'm not even sure you know the answer do I mean do you know what you're trying to get out of this I think what I've learned is that games are the way that I can kind of express myself so I'm not like a painter or a you not good at drawing or anything like that I can write that's that's one kind of creative thing I think I do have a skill in um but for me art or expressing myself um I just haven't found like a good outlet for that in my life uh I have like you know we talked about this before the call like social anxiety and stuff and to me making a game is kind of the one way I feel like I can kind of put myself out there uh For Better or Worse um but yeah it is it's exactly like you said it's like putting your heart on a table and asking someone to to stomp on it or or something like that and all throughout development I'm always thinking like you know my next game I am I'm going silly I'm going like I'm not making it serious I'm I'm going like I'm

just going to do like a cartoony silly fun thing cuz I think in a way that would be a lot easier mentally to develop so I just wanted to shift gears here and let's kind of just I wanted to sort of catch you to discuss the process of making this game like the the technical side and also how you how you put your schedule together cuz a lot of people listening are probably wondering how they can make a game um a lot of people don't even know how to make a game at all and they really want to get somebody who's doing it to sort of tell them the road map cuz there's you know thousands of tutorials on YouTube about how to do it what's your process from start to finish with this game What's it been yeah so I mean this game started as like a a silly little game Jam game for a weekend um and it kind of just spired out of control from there but um in terms of tools and whatnot like uh so I'm using Unity um I don't think that that necessarily matters just pick an engine um and get into it um because it's going to take a long time like my opinion is the engine doesn't really

matter unless you're making a very specific thing that only a certain engine can do which is not common um just pick an engine and start mastering it CU it's going to take some time to be productive in that engine and I think that's more valuable than chasing you know the latest Trend or the latest tech um so just pick something get going so for me I use Unity just because you know 10 years ago unreal uh I can't remember if unreal was available publicly or if there was a license fee or something but anyways it was just the the option at the time um and uh and yeah in terms of like schedule and whatnot uh so I'm a morning person um and for tuous Sly my wife's a baker which means she gets up early so we get up at like 4:00 a.m. we get up at like 4:00 a.m. every day um and that gives me tons of time to start working before you know the day job started so by the time I started my day job at like 9:00 it's already you know 4 hours of work uh in and I find for me personally like I'm just not getting get anything done after work um so it was really important to like kind of prioritize that time prior to work um

and uh you know just just make sure I'm getting things done kind of prioritizing myself over the day job now that I'm full-time on the game I'm still getting up at 400 a.m. every day and I'm working to like 5:00 p.m. most days just because I'm kind of like doing a bit of crunch trying to get this thing done wait you said you're getting up at 4:00 a.m. yeah 4 a.m yeah yeah and you're starting work at 4:00 a.m. uh like get up shower you know make a coffee and stuff but yeah like 4:30 or so and good grief dude yeah but like I said my wife's a baker so she's getting up at that time anyway so it just makes sense to to both get up rather than like having offset schedules or anything uhhuh um but yeah so I'm working till like 5:00 p.m. so it's like 12 12 13 hours most days um so that's you know been a bit of a grind but um you know it is what it is I'm just trying to like get things done um yeah and uh yeah I kind of follow um there's a great talk by David W who I know you're you've you've had on this podcast there's great talk by him about no 0%

days it's something I've followed kind of religiously since the start of this project so it's been about um you know just just trying to make sure I'm getting something done every day it's not necessarily like the most productive day every day some days it's like you know you only have like half an hour or 10 minutes even um but just making sure getting something done and I find that that you know builds over time and I find it's also kind of you know um on the days where you're not feeling so motivated that discipline to just get something done usually becomes kind of AG where you get one thing done and then you're like well I've got like maybe I can do another 20 minutes I'll get one more thing done and that kind of just like snowballs um so I found that really really helpful to just make sure I'm constantly pushing forward um what's it what do you mean specifically by a 0% day so 0% day would day a 0% day would be like you didn't do anything you didn't you know work on the game you didn't do any marketing you didn't do anything at all maybe just like sat around play video games or went with friends or something like that gotcha gotcha yeah so the idea is to just make sure you're getting something done um so on the days where you're you know you just absolutely do not feel like doing

anything I like to have like you know a bunch of tickets kind of in my backlog or little tasks in my backlog that are like five minute things like change the color of something and I'll kind of intentionally leave these things for myself because I find like I said once you cross one thing off um uh it kind of becomes contagious and you kind of like build momentum from there so yeah I find leaving yourself these kind of like little breadcrumbs basically for the days where you're not really feeling it um as long as you have the discipline to like get in there and do one thing um you can definitely build momentum that way and over time that stuff just adds up right like there's a million 5minute jobs in in game development um so yeah even even getting a few of those done is always a big help yeah can you break down for me those five minute jobs um what I'm looking for here is is kind of basically a list of every little thing that people need to learn and to do to make a game so let's not spend two hours on it but let's try let's try to do our best here all the things that you need to know and understand to make this game

I mean so there's the basic stuff right you need to know uh you got to know coding whether that's like actually writing C or whatever it is or visual scripting is quite popular now and seems like it's a good option as well you got I think you got to know some level of coding um I don't think you can really make a game with absolutely none I could be wrong but I I doubt it um yeah what else there's the art side the tech art side there's you know um animation there's textures there's MH UI um so what tools are you using for those oh uh Unity uh blender audacity for audio fod for audio um yeah um kind of just the open source free stuff um yeah and then uh yeah there's some there's some Unity plugins or or assets that I think are pretty invaluable that I would I would probably bring on to like every project um things like uh nature renderer or Digger um

these are things that just kind of like help kind of extend to unity's trrain system yeah um and I would find it kind of hard to live without those and I'm trying to remember if I asked you are you using assets at all if you don't mind sharing yeah I do I do so so my kind of philosophy there as long as I can make the art kind of feel cohesive I don't mind using assets for things that are kind of like not the identity of the game so like Ro rocks for example right like no one's going to remember the game because of the Rock so I'm F to use assets for those retexture them kind of integrate them with my shaders so that they you know fit cohesively with the rest of the system but you may as well save the whatever couple days it's going to take to model all those yeah um make all the ls all that kind of stuff there's no reason to to kind of reinvent the wheel there so um right so yeah there's certain Wheels to reinvent exactly which are like some people would say there's one line of thinking which is the stuff that people won't notice um those are the things you should use as assets for my way of thinking is actually a little bit different which is some people are

really good at making rocks right sometimes they just look really good a great example of Nature and I'm sure this game used assets but it's still a good example of how nature and even just rocks can make a game really pop and that is firewatch so if you play firewatch there is such a strong aesthetic in the organic uh meshes and so my point is that um I'm curious what you think about this it's really really important with all of these tools that you're mentioning it's important to to know what you're good at and what you're gifted at and sort of focus on those things so if you're a really good rock modeler then make some really cool rocks you know absolutely what do you think about that absolutely yeah I think you got to lean into your strengths right because you can't if you're if you're a solo Dev or even on a small team you're going to be doing so many things you're not going to be

your if at Tech art like writing shaders and whatnot grab some rock um models from someone who's really good at making rocks uh grab some models from them and then integrate with your shaders and and give them kind of your identity right so it's you can't just like Go download everything and slam it into a project and call it a day right like that's it's going to look terrible it's going to run terrible um but lean into your strengths uh because I think those are the things that people are are naturally going to remember your game for like if you're really good at like you said modeling rocks then you're going to have amazing rocks and then the game's going to be memorable for the Rocks but if you're really good at programming you know build complex systems and maybe take shortcuts on the Rocks um yeah I think that's great get done well you know I I I just had sort of a maybe an analogy pop in my head about what I think the future of game development is going to look like um I think I think solo game development is going to become in increasingly more easy uh the creation side like the production side making a game completely

alone using assets leaning into your fores I think that that's going to be pretty straightforward for most people um in the next year or two with AI and just major updates coming to all of the engines um the issue is is that it's going to be incredibly competitive MH and a good example of this is actually um also your wife uh is a great example my wife she she would make scarves um she had an Etsy shop and this was like six seven years ago and I don't know if your wife works for a bakery or she she does bake Goods as her own business um she works for Bakery okay she works for Bakery so for if she was selling baked goods right she would be competing with top tier bakeries locally and also just huge corporations who package bake Goods and sell them across the world right mhm the same is true with the game industry

um my wife made scarves it's sort of the same thing she was competing with you know like Walmart and and uh Target right she's she has to figure out a way to sell these scarves right the same is true with indie game development making Indie Games we're competing with thousands of other games so yes it's easier to make games um and you don't necessarily have to learn all of these tools and skills that you're mentioning um the problem is is figuring out a way to sell your indie game kind of think of it like a like a farmers market um where you have a little booth and you have your little indie game that you you made and you have to figure out a way to sell enough copies to go full-time and to live on that salary so it seems really really scary right now because everyone's going to have their own little booth at the farmers market trying to sell their little indie game and they're they're right next to the Walmart they're right next to the Target right that's kind of how it feels the beauty though the

beauty of the current Tech landscape and I'm curious your thoughts on this the beauty of the current Tech landscape is that social media allows you to bring traffic to your booth from all over the world so you can nurture and build a massive audience with social media and who cares if Walmart's right next to you you're you're capturing your own audience you don't have to you don't have to use the traffic that's going into the Walmart or into the target you can capture traffic that's all over the world it doesn't matter where your booth is and and where it's located does that make sense yeah absolutely and I think it actually goes a little bit further than that right like we're not just competing against um you know Activision and blizzard and all these oh that's the same company but you know what I mean all these big uh AAA companies unfortunately they're the same company yeah um but we're not just competing against them we're also competing against YouTube and Netflix and yeah

whatever you know all these things like all these things are trying to viy for people's attention right um and people only have so much kind of disposable time in the day so you're not just competing against games you're competing against every form of media um and that also I would say includes social media right so if someone's scrolling through Tik Tok or on YouTube or whatever they're not playing a game um and so I think making content is almost um it's almost doing game development on a smaller scale in a way um because you're constantly kind of like releasing whether it's videos or Tik toks or whatever and you're you're trying to you know with those tell a story you're trying to Captivate people you're trying to get their attention um maybe trying to get them to do something like wish list your game um and so all these things are kind of like I find them to you know kind of be good practice for um the idea of releasing a game right where yeah figuring out what gets people's attention what gets them to put down Netflix and look at whatever it is that you're making um and so yeah I think I think you know we talked about this earlier but kind of double dipping on YouTube it's almost like triple dipping like you're kind of practicing um this

whole idea of like creating something of interest to people you're potentially making a little ad revenue or sponsorship Revenue you're getting wish list you're building a community you're kind of getting all these different benefits from it so I think for me YouTube has been kind of invaluable and it's also just helped me also kind of like come out of my shell like the idea of four years ago of starting a YouTube channel was like Bonkers there's no way I would ever do that like like voluntarily put myself out there was is a ridiculous concept but um it's actually been a really awesome experience um I would definitely recommend it but um yeah I think you're exact your spot on right like as these tools become easier to work with it's just kind of kind also going to raise the bar right so I think last year 14,000 games came out on Steam the year before was like 12,000 like it's it's getting you know it's ramping up um quite rapidly and I think the the quality bar is just getting higher and higher because people aren't kind of dispersing and finding these rare games that no one's playing they're kind of all congre getting on like the top 1% of games right um so the bars just keeps getting higher and higher and higher and

I think that's a good thing like it's interesting um but it's also a little bit scary I think it' be hard to um to to fool yourself into thinking it's not but um I think it's kind of an interesting opportunity to you know see what we can kind of do to kind of push the envelope and get people's attention yep and you know I I've I've sometimes very rarely maybe like one% of the time I'll receive like critique saying why do you do YouTube why don't you just make games you know why do you do this why do you do that why you you don't you don't make games you just do YouTube right and my response is is that it's yes if you're a risk taker just make your game and shut up you know and then release it don't find a publisher don't build a don't build an audience don't do anything and just release your game and and hopefully people will come and buy your game but I'm not a risk taker I've never been a risk taker and I

think that might surprise people because I've been you know running my own thing for seven years um and and haven't really had a job in seven years um and I've got a wife and kids and a mortgage so I have to pay the bills but the truth is is that I have built a framework of security um around my craft and that framework is a variety of streams of income um and audience across multiple platforms um an email list as well wish lists for my game multiple Publishers um so the point is is for those of us who are are not Risk Takers but we want to get into the game industry and we know that 2025 is going to be insane with crappy games being released and just vying for everybody's attention mhm

my theory is yes it's very very important this comes back to the the tools we were discussing it's very very important that you learn the tools but I think it's even more important to learn only the tools that you're super gifted at focus on those skill sets and force yourself to learn how to Market yourself and your game and build an audience so that when you do launch your game you have you have a framework that can at least at minimum provide you a small income when you do launch your game and hopefully that'll stir up the steam algorithm and you'll sell more copies you know what I mean yeah absolutely and I think like my argument going back to you said you said like people would say you know doing YouTube or selling courses or whatever isn't game of my argument to that would be it's kind of one and the same because you're you know you need to kind of give yourself these kind of like legs up to to try to get ahead and try to get eyeballs on your project like I think it'd be kind of irresponsible to just

you know bury yourself in your basement for 4 years and come out with a game and expect that people are going to you know care frankly um you have to kind of put yourself out there and I think you honestly make a better game by doing that I'm sure you you get this as well but you know posting on Twitter or or YouTube or whatever you get so much feedback and and obviously you have to filter it and kind of put your your game designer lens on that to make sure you're not just kind of like taking in all this feedback doing doing everything but you get so much feedback the game is going to be better as a result of that um I'm sure there's some people who are like you know just absolute uh incredible game designers who just know exactly what is going to work from the GetGo but I'm not one of those people for me like having that Community has been a huge help um well yeah there's there's there's design feedback and there's there's marketing feedback as well yeah um I'm I'm in the I'm the wearing my marketing hat I've been wearing it for the last year um because we're we're slow slowly ramping up to prepare for launch for Twisted Tower and I've just been wearing my marketing hat

that's that's what I'm primarily focused on my team um they're sort of finishing out the Polish of the game and all I'm spending my time on is how do we Market this thing yeah and how do we consolidate all of these crazy ideas we've had for this game for the last two years how do we consolid consolidate that into One Singular marketing Vision meaning the trailer the um the thumbnail the the the copy for the steam page how do we consolidate all this into a single Vision that works and captures people's attention and they get it in five seconds that's important you've got they've got to get it in five seconds I think you've done a really good job with your your marketing um for farewell North because it's it's just you know what it is right it just makes sense so social media is really beneficial because I can post something that I think really communicates the vision for my game captures attention and generates wish list however my following will say you know that didn't really even if they don't

even leave a comment if it doesn't get traction that's where I go okay it looks like this isn't really capturing people's attention now obviously the the Twitter algorithm is different than the steam algorithm and it's different than the Tik Tok and the YouTube algorithm but if you have multiple PL uh multiple social media presences you could post on all of them and sort of average out the reaction to your content and determine which one's working and which one's not yeah absolutely I mean marketing is a skill like anything else right and and it takes practice and I think people maybe kind of underestimate that they think you know I posted this GIF on Twitter and why I'm not getting any wish list what do I do and I think it's you got to keep you got to keep at it you got to try different things you got to see what works what doesn't I think once you post like you know 100 Tik toks you kind of have a pretty good idea of which ones or which style or which visuals or whatever it is is going to hook people's attention um and I think that carries over to which screenshots you pick for your steam page what gifts you put in the description how you open your trailer like all these things right without that kind of practice of social

media making a trailer or whatever it is you're going to just going to be doing it blind right you don't have any kind of data or even insight into what is going to get people's attention what's actually going to be interesting to them but um yeah doing all the Social Media stuff creating thumbnails for YouTube videos like it's a really good way to figure out what actually works and gets people's attention yep well often times I think that um it A good rule of thumb is to generally make content and and to start with making start marketing your game the way that you want to like what are you passionate about your G with your game do that however that instinct I would say only probably like 5% of game developers actually have a good Instinct as to how to sell their game so I think it's good to start with your instinct but take the feedback and and see if you can bring it into your original Vision you don't have to corrupt your original Vision you can just tighten the screws

right often times feedback is not like there's there's a lot of purists out there who don't want to change their vision for their game or mechanics or the story or the marketing they don't want to change any of it because they they want to be pure and they they see it as a pure art form I totally get that it's possible to take feedback and it not corrupt your game you're just the feedback is really only there to tighten up the screws and help communicate that original Vision that you had to begin with um sometimes you have a vision for your game yet the marketing that you're putting out the screenshots the trailer it actually doesn't communicate the vision like you think it does and so you might need to get some feedback to say hey I liked your original Vision this trailer does not communicate that and that's why it's so cool to have a an audience follow you and follow the production of the game because I have so many people who go man I really liked what the original Vision was for this game and you may have gone Wayward Thomas can you bring it back can you pull it back to what it was and so in a

weird way feedback from my audience actually makes me more pure and less corrupted by you know all of the um feature creep and the fear you know the fear of launching your game and that fear can cause you to change things that you really shouldn't have changed you know yeah for sure and I think even I don't want to belabor the point but even if you you know if you're even if you know you want to be completely pure you think marketing is evil and you don't want to do any of that I think that there's also just a huge benefit even from a game design point of view to putting stuff out there like one of the hardest things is to make a tutorial for something I think people kind of underestimate how difficult it is to actually make something like without without like just putting a big text and controller icon on the screen getting you know making any kind of mechanic that actually like is intuitive and people pick up and and understand mhm yeah that's incredibly difficult to do um but when you're putting things out on on Twitter or whatever it is you can kind of see if those things if people are actually understanding what the game is from your 2C clip you know what I mean um and I

think that can 100% carry over to helping you make better design decisions so that when you're designing mechanic you know there's visual aspects and all these kind of things that help kind of make it intuitive um it's going to improve the game and then hopefully that also carries over to the marketing side as well yeah um so I just think that there's tons and tons of benefits to to putting yourself out there and getting feedback yep and that sort of wraps up the uh this sort of conversation about what it takes to make a game you mentioned all the technical aspects but people might have noticed we spent the last 15 minutes discussing marketing and for me I don't know about you but for me I feel like that's an adequate amount of time to spend on marketing like 50% of your time yeah I think should be spent at least thinking about and learning about marketing your game because everyone listening please know it's going to become increasingly more difficult to sell your game and you've got to learn to stand out yeah

yep and it's kind of unfortunate like I'm sure all of us would rather be making games than marketing but it is it's really those like you know those old corny pictures of the iceberg and it's like this is bit you see this is the whole bit you don't see like marketing is a huge part of that that that uh uh Iceberg under the under the surface right like I've spent the last two weeks working on a trailer for a big show we got coming up and um you know no one's going to people are going to see a minute and a half trailer they're not going to see the you know weeks of work went into it the song that we created for it all these kind of things um but I think it's it's just a huge part of making game now For Better or Worse yeah so I think you just have to embrace that it's a weird thing um one of my favorite aspects of a book is its front cover uh this is I I don't know if I'm the average of all of the people listening but I know for me personally a books front cover is very important to me um how a game's A Game's introduction for example example one of my favorite games Bioshock that game I love that game

because of the first two minutes of that game so my point is is that the the beautiful front door that you create for your game is really really important and what I mean by the front door is the the material you use whether it's the marketing material the trailer the cover art or even just the first 30 seconds of your game the menu these are so important because they introduce the player into this world and you're basically teaching them you're teaching them the language that you're going to be using for the rest of the game you'd hate to just throw somebody well Dark Souls does this frankly but you'd hate to throw somebody into into the game and just say figure out what this game even is yeah and so often I play indie games um from subscribers or students and I'm just I'm I'm trying to figure out what the aim is whether it's what is the visual aesthetic you're actually going for here what is the I don't fully

understand the gameplay what what's actually the the goal here and so that's why marketing is so important because it teaches you to communicate with the game play the mechanics the visuals the story it teaches you to communicate that in 5 seconds and the greatest storytellers the greatest filmmakers the greatest um Brands they're really good at communicating things instantly in like three words or with five seconds and I'm not perfect I'm still figuring that out but I think it's important to focus on I really do yeah and it's difficult to do it's a lot it's a lot harder than I think uh people might realize to kind of condense this whole project down into like a 5-second clip right and that needs to set like kind of the tone of the whole thing it needs to kind of be that front door like you said right needs to yeah be this whole introduction to an entire world um set the tone set the stakes set the kind of atmosphere all these different things um and that's Yeah It's tricky to do yeah it really is

cool man well that was a really really valuable conversation for me I know I learned a lot um so links are below for those of you listening links are below to check out Kyle's game farewell North uh you want wish list now is that what you're looking for wish list would be amazing yeah okay I asked because I had a conversation yesterday with another developer and he said um it's better to get wish list on the back end or towards launch than just scattered throughout um a lot of people are focusing on like the velocity of wish list as opposed to the volume of wish lists um Beggars can't be choosers I'll take them whenever all right well that's a great way to end it Beggars can't be choosers I love it well thanks Kyle that was really fun man awesome thank you so much for having me really appreciate it yeah dude cheers cool cheers get over [Music] here hey thanks for watching by the way if you haven't downloaded that free 2D game kit below click below it's my treat to you I used this game kit to make a

game for PewDiePie in 14 days and I actually got to play it with him in front of his audience which is really cool this game kit is totally free it's my treat to you and you can use it however you want you can make a commercial game and make a million bucks off this game kit I don't care or you could just use it for a hobby project it's my treat to you and by the way if you haven't clicked like that would mean a ton to me hit subscribe and also this is important hit that notification Bell here's why if you get notified of when I'm live you can watch me make my next game and let me know in the chat what you think about the game or any ideas you have and you might just show up your chat might just show up in the next video that I upload all right I'll talk to you later bye I love you too