Making Games COMPLETELY Alone in A SHED (Conversation with Tomas Sala)

hey guys my name is thomas brush and i make indie games for a living but so does thomas thomas how you doing man i'm good good good so is it salah thomas salah is that hey yeah it's like italian i guess uh okay cool so thomas is brilliant thomas made this game called the falcon ear and thomas made it completely alone and i think you made some of it while you were in a shed was it is that true no well i built a shed that's the joke though most of it that i did in what's hopefully soon going to be the kids bedroom okay so uh but we have a i'm in the netherlands so we live in tiny houses it's like so my house had uh [Music] you're like basically we had bedroom we sleep in we have small kids like babies and stuff so you all sleep in one bedroom and then they move out at some point you hope yeah and we had one bedroom spare bedroom and that i just turned that into a studio for

uh i guess two years yeah that's what i'm doing right now that's where i'm at yeah and so uh and i've now recently built uh this like a a garden studio sweet well let's we're gonna we're gonna take a look at all of that i actually have pictures we'll run for this podcast uh of your studio shed kind of thing but guys what we're gonna talk about is thomas is gonna give his story on how he became a solo indie game dev and he's doing it full time and how he's making a living supporting a family and more importantly he's going to talk about how you can do it obviously he can't make any promises we can't make any promises but we can just tell you what we've done and what he's done and how you can perhaps replicate that on your journey to becoming an indie game developer be sure to stick around guys to the end of the podcast this is going to be the funnest part thomas is actually going to open up his projects inside of unity and show us how he's doing what he's doing and hopefully we'll be surprised maybe by the maybe it's complex maybe there's a lack of complexity that'll surprise us i don't know um so we're going to open

up those projects thomas i'm going to run a quick logo intro and right and then we're going to have you introduce yourself all right guys i'll see you in a bit [Music] by the way guys feel free to download my free 2d game kit below it's totally free it's my treat to you i used this exact 2d game kit to make a game for pewdiepie in 14 days and then i got to play it in front of his subscribers which was really awesome um so download that use it however you want it's my treat to you yeah okay all right thomas you want to introduce yourself man let us know who you are what your career is what you're currently doing i am tom sala i'm a game developer i've been so for 20 years and i've been a solo developer for the last i don't know three years or something time flies by

making a game called the falcon here or that launched a year ago cool cool so i was watching a podcast with you with unity and you and also you just mentioned 20 years and in in the podcast i was like so impressed because you've clearly you've you've learned a lot in the industry and when you when i see the falcon here i'm watching it right now a let's play i see and i go this is like aaa studio quality but like in in an indie sort of stylized look and even the i'm looking at the ui and i'm thinking oh i saw i saw gameplay of this game before i even watched your your podcast and learned about you and i thought this indie developer clearly knows something that most indies don't and i think it's probably just your extensive career and so my next question for you is you know you've got this massive extensive career but a lot of people in my audience are very young and i'm only 31 and i've been in the game industry for about 10 years

but my question is is it possible for indies who are just starting out to make it in the indie game arena start releasing games is it possible to do it fairly quickly there's people out there doing it so it's definitely possible uh the industry-wise you know that over the 20 years i'd say anything up to deciding the point that [ __ ] it i i don't want to work for other people anymore and do work for hire everything was you know struggling to survive the moments i said well i'm just gonna not you know dr dive down and head first and not really think about the consequences uh was actually the sanest thing but that besides that i do think people can uh it is possible it's very it's hard there's no lie there's no sugar cutting that i think maybe you know i know a lot of the first generation of indies which weren't the first but they had you know the 10 years ago the you know indie game the indie depth the movie rami ismail you know all that crowd

and there's a lot of people there that you know and that's yeah what are we talking about 2012 so those are the high days of steam releasing your indie game getting you know still curated by valve and then you know make doing massive seals i know people make massive sales on on ios uh i think those days are gone yeah you know the the the the vanguard you know the white blue ocean or whatever you want to call it i think that's gone so at the moment it's it's a lot harder and you have to be a lot more well-rounded and and you need a little bit of experience i think a lot of people go in but you don't you know it took me 20 years i said don't do as i do that's you know i should have done this a decade earlier so yeah i definitely don't need 20 years to get there okay so so what like if you had to make a guess how long would it take for let's say there's a brilliant developer watching right now or a potentially brilliant developer who's talented a good artist um has good instincts

but they know nothing about game dev how long do you think it would take if they followed the steps that you took how long would it take them to to release their game and become a full-time gamer you know besides because i lived in a country where there was no game industry of any name 20 years ago yeah you started doing weird stuff to get you know uh so but you know i was doing interesting stuff after a couple years so you don't need you know and i've seen people come out of art school or you know nowadays they give game development game art courses wherever you want to go but straight out of college do interesting stuff i think at the moment the tools are so powerful you can do quite a lot of things if you have an interesting idea there are there is opportunity so i think uh you know people are always saying it's execution not idea but actually it is important to have an original thought uh and and if you have that that's phase one then you need to execute it that's

becoming easier all the time so it doesn't need to take a lot of skill to you know to make something impressive and then you need to actually do the business development on it and get it to market i think that's the hardest part at the moment because you need if you have no access to no network no you know and you don't even have the confidence to walk up to someone say hey here's a game i made you want to look at it yeah then it's going to be very hard regardless or how good the stuff is you're actually making okay so i think that's you know probably the three ingredients do you think it's true that indie game just because just because the tools are easier to use now doesn't make it any easier to be a game dev uh or at least compete i think is a better word the reason i say that is because everybody's doing it now and everybody's making beautiful games well when kids are making games you know yeah they're just roblox or whatever so and making money so so the amount of you know content i think that's where truly in this you know

creationist you know the third wave is you know people are producing a lot of stuff and uh you go talk to young kids or you know teens what do you want to do it one of the first i want to make computer games because that's what they love to do yeah you know a lot of still love movies and comics and stuff but you want to make what you enjoy so there's there's a lot of competition and i think but the people are always you know there's there was this phase in indie development where things got a little bit sour a couple of years ago you know the indie apocalypse and you know people got disappointed and they were told in in whatever game death course they were doing they were gonna get jobs and you know be successful and then you know that stuff didn't pan out turned out to be really hard and there's you know a gazillion others yeah uh and they started blaming ah there's too many courses there's too many people there's too many games on steam steam shouldn't have you know it shouldn't be 200 should be 2 000 to weed out all the you know garbage that's just

people making you know it's like making music uh there's always been very few singers or drummers or guitars that actually made a good living out of music so it's not that different now than other artists have known for you know decades so i i've never you know it's i think it's it's just been very easy for a little bit for a vanguard but this is more normal state and that that's okay you know there's there's more people out there it just means that you need to you know go to the phases and there's still as much space as there's more people consuming indie games than ever before yeah so you just need to find those people and uh that means that the sort of you know uh you need to graduate from hobbyist to being a professional right takes investment risk and experience okay so the you're you're living you're living your indie game dev dream it took 20 years to

get into this gorgeous shed living the dream but you're saying it didn't have to and that people don't need to be discouraged by your story taking 20 years because it could be much shorter than than that and maybe even be a year or two oh well it's always really difficult so one of the things that's always happened to me when i talk to people in college great you know you know game artists or game developers on the cusp of choosing to go work for a studio or and this in netherlands means going abroad and stuff because there's more studios there or going indie and um or they're doing their first you know they're they're on the cusp of making a choice in it and then they get really concerned and fearful and you know what if you fail and you know what if i don't make enough money uh and and they're like 23 or something or 24 and and my response is go [ __ ] do it you know it's not

you're 24. you know i've got three kids i'm not paying my mortgage it's a little different uh and and so there's a lot of people who are uh it's they get a lot of anxiety and i recognize anxiety very well or in becoming you know making that leap as if it's a you know it's if it's a a one-off if it's like it's a suicidal leap it's not you know if if it doesn't work out for you you know uh uh move in with your parents get a job it's not the end of the world um in any second so so i would say it's super hard you know you know statistically lots of people the majority vast majority will never make a good living but it's a good thing to well if you really want to do it go try it you know there's not don't go boring borrow a million or 100 000 or get a second mortgage ever on my advice just be smart but you can definitely try it out and if you're in a situation like in the netherlands you know we have socialized housing so you can share a house with five other people and it's 500 bucks a month and yeah you know you

think that's a lot of hassle and you're working in a burger joint to make you a couple of grand still that's that's you're still free you know yeah i think that's a brilliant way to put it um you know this i guess the safety nets per state in the united states it all depends on what state you're in but i can say like regardless of what country or state you're in generally i think young people especially young people they don't need to freak out as much as they do thinking they're gonna be homeless on the street uh generally you're gonna be okay um and my question is though is like should when i was in my 20s and i i'm 30 31 now when i was in my 20s i felt this constant anxiety that i was going to be homeless or that i was going to make a fool of myself i'm curious for you the older you get do you realize things are way less serious than you thought when you were younger well no the tips were very serious when i was it was so that so i got you could you have this i just got stuck in this

phase around my 30s where leading up to a severe burnout at rom 36 where you know i thought this is it you know i just got to keep working you just got do whatever you're doing and uh i don't you you're gonna sort of autopilot so and before that when you when you're 25 you just don't know anything so yeah there's also this blissful ignorance and i think the nowadays with all the information we're getting it's very easy to get too much information and it you know the chances are sealed you're gonna do it blah blah blah and then you end up not doing it because you've you've got too much realism around you in your bubble in your media yes well i always get i always get people whenever i live stream game dev i get people and you know i love my audience but some people in the audience will show up and tell me i'm doing something wrong and i'm like well of course i'm doing it wrong because there's a thousand right ways to do this thing i'm probably gonna pick the one that's not optimal

and something i'm trying to encourage my audience is you're especially when you're a young game developer you're going to be doing everything wrong and that's okay like because there's a million ways to do something right and the older i get the less i care about doing it the right way you know well i i do have that so now i think there's the part of so for me uh being an anxious high energy person and i have to deal with that figuring that out later in life yada yada and it it at some point you you break down you realize okay there's a lot of bottom to where you thought the bottom was there's a bottom beneath there and then there's a bottle and then there's the bottom where you have to go borrow money from somebody else to get your build there's there's a lot of bottoms uh and once you're through that that that you know you i had a severe burnout and after that okay just didn't give a [ __ ] anymore i couldn't care less what anybody i just wanted to do what i wanted to do right and uh i sat down at the kitchen table with my partner the mother of my

children all right can we get can we get the mortgage paid if if you know theoretically if i work at the local supermarket if you both you know if if things go to [ __ ] i would say okay yeah we can you know we can survive let's do it uh and then afterward that was super liberating yes you gotta go do it and we'll see where it happened and then because you're no longer constrained by fear and anxiety uh you can actually do magical things that's that i i severely believe that that if you take away those constraints and you're smart you know it's not like oh i have confidence you know it's like people say oh you can do anything well if you don't have the skills the talent or the experience to do it you're not going to accomplish those things so there's a reality there but having a mindset where you think like i'm going to go do it yeah it's very important you know yeah and and and uh dealing with your anxieties and fears is super important because you know when you people are very anxious well you're

you're also you are learning marketable skills you know if you're in the dev you're going to learn social marketing or you should uh you're going to learn development skills technology skills art skills whatever those aren't those are never throwaways and i meet you know if we take the stage further where people go from the absolute you know the the blissful beginner stage in fact i've just released the game and it's done [ __ ] uh you know or it sold hasn't sold enough to make a living or whatever uh or you know that's as long as you're not in-depth and i've met quite people who are and including yourself because you always think you're going to the moon and then the head you're going to yeah somewhere more realistic um all of that you know i sat down with a friend of mine who runs a big studio and they were you know at the start that they're going to shows doing all the indie life you know and they were like he was on the cusp of burnout because he

they were hiring people and you know the publishers and they had not done nothing yet and it was already falling apart and the game wasn't even out or done yet and i said well imagine what's the worst case scenario you fail well you will have done all of this all of this experience you know you have years you've been to shows you know people it's what's gonna happen you're gonna get some fat ass executive jar job being producer at the triple a studio with the experience you have had you know even if you're going you've talked to press you've done all these things yeah you know there is no horrible you know uh and i've known people that done that you know i had indie games were done of the struggle and they ended up you know some of them are just our producers on horizon zero dawn you know that's that's so it's it's sometimes it's help with someone says just think of the worst case [ __ ] experience you can have realistically and that usually is not that bad you mentioned before this conversation

before we started before i hit record what that you don't like gambling uh do you feel like this is gambling though uh i it's super difficult because it's there's also a type of person which i can't because i'm not like that because i am fairly conservative as well learners i i i need to build up my confidence before i go out and the same way take any risk yeah um so i i i think that the the risk but there are also people that will go out and take a loan on a game id then i would never do that have you done that before yeah don't ever take out you've done that before no i've never okay no when we started our studio in 2001 it was worth it would still exist i think i loaned a couple of grand to get an official 3ds max license that's about it and i get the the 3d engines i think i killed my microphone can you hear me yeah yeah i can hear you

okay uh so but no don't ever borrow money because this is beyond anything this is a industry built on artists passion creativity and any investor ever and i don't understand why everybody's every investor you know they obviously have too much money but in reality this is the highest risks risk investment you can do i think it is it's like making a movie going i want to be a hollywood director you know well they i think uh we'll we're going to talk about publishers in a sec here because i know you're working with publishers but publishers i in my head i'm like man you got you guys have a 10 games you're currently working on each one probably cost you 100 grand minimum each to invest in and i think their mentality is one of them is going to be that million dollar game and it'll basically fund all the other crap games and so the goal is it's like it is gambling in the publisher arena because they're they're hoping that one or two games i i don't i also don't think it's

publishing gaming arena because everybody goes in a little every that goes in cycles you know publishers don't know what they're doing but there is you know um so so the example have why i i work with publishers is um if you're looking at an individual my game didn't do well on steam oh i didn't make any money and it there's not enough money and then someone else out some third paid publisher will port it to a switch and there's all these you know a publisher will do okay do you know there's game cards in some countries in the world you can buy cards at supermarkets and the scratch cards with codes for whatever game served there's a thousand little game services that will get your game in a a in a tiny store in brazil or get you on some there is you know uh there is a thousand storefronts that also sell your game and just as a game developer you just don't know this that's why you and you don't know this so and these publishers have

relationships and sometimes they'll say well we'll give you a deal with you know on our entire catalog of games right and as a developer you get a bit of that so yeah there's the risk but the risk that you you know that you cannot um it's it's not as big a risk as we from the outside looking in might suspect it is yeah there's a lot of old-fashioned retail business going on so you had you had money in the bank before you quit your job no no uh yeah no so so that's a huge risk to take i'm curious how that worked in okay so i don't say um i didn't have i had eight months or something um and uh what do you mean hey what a runway so six months or something i could finance myself okay so uh okay

still working on the side so a couple of days a week and sort of so i had some money saved up a massive amount um i had no kids back then which helps so one on the way i guess uh so you're so blissfully ignorant on the stresses that ring yeah and i think what happened is i i set it up for a game connection award which is an award it's a you know game connection is a side event or one of those matchmaking things which are really useful and they have awards which deal with games which aren't done yet because you know it's all about business development and i sent it in and they nominated i got a free ticket so i could go to gdc and have something you know have a reason to be yeah and then i won that award and uh actually the first meeting on monday of that gdc i think 2019 was with one of the people at microsoft and i walked out a meeting into the you know into the little room where they were handing out these awards ceremonies and won two of those awards

so i i i messaged that nice talking to you by the way i walked out and got two rewards like 15 minutes later that relationship and the publishers i met and stuff sort of gave me the confidence to jump off and also because i think one of the important things when dealing with publishers when platforms is i remember when i was young and doing business with i would ask people you know you would sit with someone important and uh they would say so what do you want you know like a publisher or an investor well what do you want you know that's an instinct you have when you're an expert you know what whatever you want you know people your first you know uh opportunities you always want to please people but it's completely counterproductive that what they're asking what you want because they want to know what you want so i said i said well i need this amount of money i want to sit with you know one platform because i don't want to board 60 and i had a very specific thing so i said i want to be an exclusive on your

platform and i need this amount of money and and the people microsoft and all sets up well we can do that this is the range that's available and uh that's how you make deals so i can't get into the specifics but so you worked with a publisher but you also worked with a platform microsoft i've got so microsoft does uh i got microsoft excel 50 time to 50 deal uh because i know you released on switch as well later a year later so it's it's so the road was super complicated so i i got a deal so i sold the safety rides for the game to microsoft so i became a microsoft uh uh launch title or exclusivity deal then later on because and that provided me enough funds to finish the game basically yeah and a lot of people take those deals and then i got a publisher halfway because i thought okay i need more help on porting and business development so they joined in i met them all at the same time and i and sort of everything came together

about seven months later when you know uh i was starting to run out of money and then uh i got to work yeah so were you in a situation where you don't have to answer this question but i know for me i used up the publisher advance any money i had made it was all gone by the time i launched and then you had to sit through and wait for the advance to get recouped yeah so uh i think i was down uh i had to uh i didn't want to evoke some clauses of advance in my contract yeah but i had to it's just literally out of money and then you don't get money because you have to wait till that's you know recouped paid off as work yeah so yeah and that was the moment because things you know it wasn't a flawless launch by any yeah it's honest to say that by any standard i got covered a month you know like a week before sending out the president i got gold with a big time uh so it wasn't you know and only after that time uh it got launched uh some

things went well some things went wrong um and everything sort of hit me and then the re only then because you asked that it's a risk only then did the realism because i was talking to an advisor a financial guy about some subsidies and i said but did you never realize you could also you know it could not have worked you know this entire endeavor could have failed and and it's at that only at that point which was like a month after releasing uh when things had come together and i knew there'd be enough to break even that i realized that could also not have happened yeah i could have left with next to nothing and uh you know on the lookout for a new job and one baby uh two kids and one on the way um that would have been fairly bad but yeah that's that's i think that's uh that happens so he's i've been thinking about this a lot the moment you sign

with your first game and i've done it i've signed with three publishers in my career what i found is signing with a publisher it you get the money up front i did i got the money immediately in my bank account then i launched the game and then you suffer in the long run because they're you're recouping in advance and they're also taking a cut of the revenue and so in a way you're stunted for your entire career unless the publisher does a great job and they they they market yeah so i'm curious is that this is that a situation that people should be afraid of who are listening yeah well the publisher with is really great so uh they do don't do any of that so i got lucky with the falconer but i had a when i worked at the studio little chicken game company we signed up we did a fair bunch of games uh publishing deals i wasn't barred off some for we did a a a game for for sony in london so like a

first party whatever they funded it uh we did some publishing deals um so i've seen that happen uh exactly what you describe i go and then there's stuff like moving the goal balls oh we're spending extra marketing so we're moving the eureka yeah i made sure that was stripped out of the contract yeah and they all try it's a lot of publishers do try some of these things and i love the discussion we had last year with one publisher for putting their contracts out i think was raw furry because we could all see you know what what you have a conversation about it because a lot of people there's a lot of these clauses that you need to have the experience to see while they're trying it but they probably know that if you're smart you'll say get uh and that terms like a recruit cap and other you know useful uh knowledge you need to do negotiate a contract and not get stuck in that situation in my case because i was by myself my funding needs were very relatively low yeah because i already

signed a little bit of an exclusivity deal i had it and now i was fairly well on my way with the game so uh i came out with a reasonable recoup that got recouped and and uh and a good publishing deal yeah so uh yeah but i've seen that happen and it's a fairly common and people come to me with advice about contracts or publishers and there's these you sort of realize when other people did it for you there's these sort of red flags that are you know you've need to experience a few of them and then you can just see from the contract okay this red flag contract and there is let's be honest because there's also a lot of money to be made even in the indie sphere because there's lots more in the gamers so when you really quick i don't want to interrupt you but when you say money to be made do you mean advances stuff like that or are you talking about game sales i mean yeah and game sales there's a lot of game seals going on so there's lots so that means there's lots of publishers which aren't you know there's lots of let's call them lower tier publishers

yeah um which you really i you know there's a lot of publishers out there with anything that they are they do exactly what you say you will do ten games and one will be ahead and they call them fire forget publishers um and they'll just once it's a hit they'll start running and doing their job if something isn't an organic you know what's up they'll just drop it that's such a shame man i've heard that happen and it happened well it's very common and that's and it's getting less and less because we are having this open discussion and there are people are professionalizing and there is resources online and people like you would you know we'll talk about this yeah but that does happen and it's it's uh it's a bit of a shame and i do believe that that you know people are it's one of the things you can talk about is no no okay there are so many good games you know are there hidden jewels on steam that are great but nobody think yeah uh

you know should you as an indie trumpet is an entire podcast in itself because it's much more nuanced didn't make any money move on dude uh it's as flat as saying oh you should keep going forever between there's an entire area on what you should do and a good publishing publisher will do that and a poor publisher won't yeah well what are what are those red flags you mentioned three can you give us like three red flags if if if my audience wants to work with publishers what are those what should they be looking out for i think uh the situation described where you don't get an earning until the publisher recoup completely is unfair in any situation you worked on the game you are a partner with them so from the start that the games that sell you should be a part that should could be a lower percentage than what you get after the publisher regrouped that and nowadays 50 50 is the norm as you get a smaller percentage up front but

you should be earning money from the start yeah interesting so yeah so you're saying once the game is out you should not have to recoup well the publisher should recoup but uh uh some contracts are set up that like you said like a developer won't recoup until the publisher is recouped i see and i go i would never sign a deal like that because because that often also means that people get their own investment you know i spend three years night times working on that game on and you know and a gear on my own time um that should be then recouped as well um so just because someone has cash in hand doesn't mean they have more rights to get that cash back it's a it's a so there are ways where you can do that where you know depending if you're a developer and especially if you have a team and you need like half a million because you said 100 000 for an indie game i think that's the budget have grown just to do marketing on an indie game and you know the entire have people

running around making deals with storefronts and stuff you're easily going to have to spend 300 000 for marketing and porting yeah whatever game you do what should a what should an indie game developer who's got let's say they've got a pretty decent looking game yeah it plays pretty good uh it's their first game though what what are the numbers they should look for when it comes to the percentage of the revenue that they receive after launch to the advantage okay so there's so there's lots of plenty good games that are fun to play and they there's there so there's a gazillion 2d platform so if you have a 2d platform it's great that stuff i wouldn't expect much because you know you're stepping into a market that's there's tons of knowledge you're talking like 50 000 for an advance that kind of thing well depending how many people you need it's it's it's not so if you're in a business and you have four people you need to pay so and you're gonna spend two hundred

thousand shouldn't get 15 000 in advance you should get what you need yeah so and making a game so let's say the marketing importing is always going to be 250 000 that you expect the publisher to invest if you go to every platform so that's a so if you go to a commercial porting studio now with your game maker unity and real games it's about a hundred thousand to go to the major consoles but then you have uh stadia luna all that stuff which also you know is revenue and then you have glg and so then you have stuff in asia that needs to localize so well really quick i don't want to derail you here i want my audience to know that this the numbers you mentioned are correct i've heard them however for me when i ported pinstripe to to all platforms i think total cost was fourteen thousand dollars well that's it it's i'm talking about what you what someone what a publisher is used to spending right and that's

that's just something to know is publishers tend to get these bigger porting studios they get to assume they make their money not by taking risks so you come up it's your first game it's looking good it's great on pc it's probably gonna run like [ __ ] on on switch because that's a mobile phone and you did basically have a dev kit they're going to say well you can import it fine will give you the dev kit and then you run into problems and then i'll have to hire a fixer which is more expensive than from the start hiring another studio specialized reporting yeah those studios will ask you know let's say roughly 25k per platform uh and that's you know there's three major console platforms plus you know a couple of which are linux based stadia so you're gonna run to a hundred thousand fairly quickly uh for them if a game for anybody if a game if they invest that that's fine because they don't expect to be making 5200k they expect to make several hundred thousands right uh

so i think if you look for a good publisher it's one that will work with these realistic numbers regardless they know if you they lucky you get they get a developer they'll do it for next to nothing right or tell the freelancer to do it or or what about you doing it the actual game development yeah yeah i i didn't do a uh uh i have someone that helps me for the porting because i hate doing it but uh me too i i didn't do any of it for my kids which i've done myself and love the xbox stuff i have that deaf kids behind there they're covered up now dude according to porting the xbox is xbox was the hardest and i was just managing it like with the portal it's a so i'll do the optimization all the gameplay or deliver a working game on the platform then but how the [ __ ] the cloud save works and when how long that pop-up needs to be up and stuff i i i really don't want to do it it stresses me out and there's people that are better for it yeah so i have someone that helps me with that who's an expert in that and that makes everything goes a lot quicker you know it's funny that the

documentation for like let's say and with when you sign nda's so we can't talk about a lot but i'll just say the documentation for nintendo switch is pristine at least that's what i could tell but microsoft's documentation it's like you download an excel spreadsheet for one thing and then you and then you go to their website you have to do a private login using a um i can't i don't know the word but i had to log into someone to a network that was in the same city as my publisher so i had to use an ip thingy a vpn service to actually access the documentation because they were in california and that's where uh microsoft thinks my game is headquartered up to a couple of years ago someone like me you couldn't have deaf kids in a private house you need to be in an office and you need to prove you had like security and stuff yeah and that especially so my first control thing was on the wii

uh making a game for balance board that balance board game so that you know the documentation of that just the balance board what happens with the batteries out what happens when the batteries are out when you're in the menu what happens with the batteries out when it's maximized what's happening how long does should the pop-up be should be this pop-up how what is the word for balance board in 14 languages uh this is the icon this official icon don't use the icon like this don't invert so it even that stuff is like uh back then it was horrendous and then you had people stealing death kits to make legal cds so that's sort of a little bit looser now yeah but yeah it's no fun so ultimately when you're working with a publisher it's interesting because the my route that i took was a little different than yours because the only money that was paid out to me was was just advances for my studio so just here's some money thomas they never mentioned porting costs they never mentioned marketing so my question to you is do when you're working with a publisher

if you're reckoning or if you're if you're giving advice to my audience about working with a publisher you're saying that they should say they should split up the budget into like tears like here's the marketing budget here's the porting budget they should well they should do the marketing and they should have a budget of what they're spending should you be paying for that though should the game sales that you generated once you launch the game or but they want to have that back from the sales so right so here's how it goes from the publisher's perspective so publisher will give you let's say a hundred thousand dollars you make the game for that there will go we've gave you that money we'd like to earn that money back because otherwise you wouldn't be able to make the game and you already had money we had zero money right so you made a hundred thousand we'd like to earn a hundred thousand so that means we need to earn your hundred thousand so that we're at zero and plus the hundred thousand we need to and then we both earned one hundred thousand dollars so that's where the the the thing comes from uh so that's that's how their perspective

is they gave you money and so they're entitled to earn out first as it were yes okay now so the marketing budget though do you recommend that the publisher is able to recoup that as well uh yeah i think that's fairly normal and they said well we'll spend this money in marketing yeah and that we want to recoup that from the profit the important part is that they don't recoup it from just your section of the profit but from the entire profit it's they used to do that where they would recoup from your so you would have to pay for the marketing okay but you might make sure you both pay for the marketing at the very same time i see okay so so there's all these little rules and and things but yeah i you know so i when i sit down with this i said i don't wanna i don't want you guys to spend the moon i know everybody likes the game but you know i do want to spend you to have beef in the game and then i want to know what you're going to spend it on right because i've worked with publishers in

past that we said well we spent 250 000 on marketing and it's on their own network it's their blog it's their own uh and that that happens as well you know and i'd say well i want you to spend marketing on going outside of hey we're publisher x and we'll put it on our website yeah that's not worth anything to me you need to spend money to to to get the word out go to conventions and stuff so i want to see are we going to you know packs or whatever and that's things you can discuss with your product so what do you want to go to packs yeah i want to have a booth on parks or splits place stations to play it on yeah that costs money so they'll they'll say well we'll spend it on that spend it on that and you should be involved with that that'd be fun so ultimately a publisher should should i mean they should obviously make things easier for you so that you can focus on what you're good at they provide funding they they pay out not only advances just for you to pay your bills but they also they also will

pay for marketing and they'll pay for marketplace transporting uh all that stuff i think as an us as americans used to uh if you don't you know the falconer is like 14 languages and there's you know yeah there's more than and americans could say well i'll launch in the states first because it's a huge market and we dutch will say yeah we'll launch in america first but regardless if you want to actually make money uh you should launch it everywhere yeah you know have a hit in india and make as much money as a failure or you know a thousand times a failure in america the final thing that i've noticed with my publishers the most important thing for me and it's probably a cliche but like i want to be friends with my publisher yeah yeah so are you do you feel like you're aligned like you could get a beer with your publisher i i i haven't been able to for two years i've got some catching up but really the the publishing with now is

really sort of a family style business uh and and uh i you know during the the lock down the pandemic i had nobody you know i had my family here but you know you couldn't go out and drink or not that that's important but go out meet people break bread so they were my you know replacement colleagues and people on skype and same for me yeah and i think that's super important i think it's that can you know be worth a lot uh yeah and uh i i think it's very important not to feel that you know especially if you're alone that you can trust someone and that you're on a familiar basis with each other because you're going to be working a lot yeah um and uh you know and you need to trust each other a lot there for me there's a trust there's different kinds of trust like there's one of them is for me if i like for example with never song i was really focused on profitability profitability was really important for me with never song i don't

know if i'm as pure at heart as you are because i've watched your podcast and falconer is so unstained by profit it's just art for me with never song even though it is an artsy game i really wanted to make some money because i was sick of like the grind right yeah and so when it comes to a publisher i've found that you need to be like philosophically aligned like what's the goal of this game because some publishers out there will say we want you to be you we want you to have full creative control whereas other publishers are like no no we want to make money like that is the most important thing for us um and so you've really got to you've i i recommend you both you've got to call the ceo you've got to talk to the ceo yeah yeah and where where do they sit what's their philosophy um what are like culturally do you guys align because you don't want to be working with a publisher for two years straight let's say it takes two years to make a game or a year and a half you don't want to be working with a publisher where you're going to constantly disagree with them on so many

little small philosophical things related to your work you know yeah no i i i think but you also need a publisher that wants to you need to realize that if it's an actual business that's been around for a little bit they're still a business so you can be you need to be friends and fits off the line but you also need to realize when the [ __ ] hits the fan they you know they have employees to pay and they'll stick to their contract and stipulations how to make money yeah so nobody's you know you can have a beer with someone but realize that you know if you feel and and you end up in depth they're not going to bail you out right also business right so exactly so there's uh but definitely you need to work with people that are aligned and that you know and it's it's a very tricky you know uh you have to have a sense of who to trust and it's all about trust you know you trust people that you are aligned with easier than you trust someone you don't know and right i think that's super unread there's there's indies that come up hey i got a publishing offer from

korea i said i don't got to offer from somewhere close to me but that's risky it's risky and that's it it's super risky because who you're gonna go you know are they good the korean guys might you know not even speak your language send out a lawyer you'll need to if you get into a conflict you've taken and money you can't deliver the game which people realize that's why i don't want to take money from publishers because something wrong you have to pay it back and you already spend it you're [ __ ] but then you're you know you're liable under korean law how are you gonna handle that you know with your shed and uh whatever your situation is yeah so uh that goes back i've been in really small situations with my publishers i got one in colorado and one in uh uh los angeles and even though we are like so like i'm like really good friends with the ceos of both like we're we talk all sorts of crap to each other we're we're super honest but we've i've been in i've been in conflict with both publishers and

they'll they'll admit this where i have to call the publisher and be like dude what the hell and so my point is is even though we're super close you're still going to have conflict just like you're going to have conflict with your friends or your roommates when you're with somebody for that long you have conflict so you better be with someone you can resolve it right yeah what you could have a discussion with and which are open to communication and that you know and then this trust is super important it's the most important thing merely in doing business yeah um and that is you know uh but you know that in that sense you can trust someone and they can be [ __ ] at business so you know pick out the publisher that will actually make money for it yeah yeah well okay let's i got one final question for you all right and then we can open up your project and you can show us how hopefully glorious it is but if i'm honest with my projects they're always complete crap uh behind the curtain but my last question for you is if you had to give three steps i know this is a

hard ask but can you give three steps to my audience those of you listening who want to start a game studio who want to work in your your shed and i don't think i've shown the shed yet here's the shed um if if if you were to give three steps to my audience on how to get where you where you are currently at and you're living the dream dude i mean this [ __ ] is beautiful um what are those three steps all right so i think that the the first stop which i see a lot of is get out of your fandom drop it get rid of it get out of your way fandom you know so lots of young developers i see a lot of them they want to make what they love you know and they think they love whatever you know they like japanese rpgs whatever and they want to make what they play uh i think my first step is get rid of that because you are simulate replicating what you love you are not being an authentic creator that

is adding to the field and that will be a that is not interesting to a publisher to an audience because you're not bringing something new or you're not bringing something authentic so get rid of your fandom well you know find what you love i make what i love definitely what if what you love is hollow knight and you just want to make another hollow night there is already a hollow knight don't do that so but you know the question is that's not necessarily being authentic because you actually if the authentic thomas wants to make hollow knight but because that's not profitable okay no so um i i i i love crimson skies so i make you know i love crips so so i made a game like that sure but everything in how i move and develop is not mirrored by anybody else right i don't you know i

just do it uh and creatively it comes from me it's about my personal journey yeah it is you know uh it's about my darkness and it's about my likeness yeah and in that it is a human thing that is always authentic because it's me and i'm different from the guy that made whatever crimson skies and thus the game is uniquely different yeah so but that works in the same way it's you know uh you can if you are at the state where i think being able to make whatever the [ __ ] you want is is a a privileged position for unique work to form so when i said let go of your fandom he said so you know i want to make you know that's the the ridiculous idiot i want to make an emma ball you know yeah i know the first thing people that's always the first rule don't make that no but it's actually about letting go of your fandom yeah you know make something for which there's a market what's the risk though i'm trying to figure out what's the risk of not letting go of

your fandom that you'll be replicating forever and you won't be growing so you'll be stuck in your starting position but it's not a money it's not a money risk like i don't know this this is a creative phrase so okay every artist ever starts out by replicating their heroes yeah you know you play guitar you want to play like whatever you know who you want to play like the moment you let him go in your fandom and you don't want to play like wherever you wanna play like you want to play like you you want to experiment and find new avenues where your fingers can go then you're becoming a guitarist because you're finding your own way right and you're letting go of imitating you're making new and then you're on a path growth then at some point you can make something that's from you that's authentic original whatever you [ __ ] you want to call it but it's you're growing there but it doesn't mean it can't be a derivative of what you love like crimson skies you took that and you used it as inspiration the core for me isn't that it's it's not about flying per se the game you know yeah it's just

a mechanic i like but it's uh it is you know i something i you need to be growing so the next game i'm doing i'm not making the falcon year two i make i love the universe i've created because that's makes business sense i want to be like that that's beautiful i'm making a town building game you know fortress management you know rts yeah so why because you want to be growing um yeah i find it creatively the most interesting on the path of being or becoming or having an artist yeah they say got to grow so whatever people some people have the ambition to i want to beg you know character i want to make 3d sets like studio ghibli and i want to be paid for that for the rest of my life yeah and they go out and do that that is a fantastic career yeah i am not if you want to be succeed at making something autonomous creative and doing all the you know the insane thing of actually being a game dev that is not you know

that is a safe path that will keep you stuck so if i could offer my two cents before we move on to the second point here my two cents for my audience is from a business because i i focus on the entrepreneurial business side a lot from my channel um from a business perspective letting go of your inspiration is a good idea because ultimately this hopefully will lead to you not constantly delaying a launch or finishing your game and you'll actually say you know what i'm never gonna be crimson's guys that's just i'm not gonna hit that because i don't have a five million dollar budget right yeah i'm never gonna make call of duty i'm never going to make maybe it's an indie game maybe it's i'm never going to make hollow knight like i'm just not going to do it it's impossible so once you let that go you actually can start releasing games right even though they're not perfect you can still release games the same you let go of you know i need to be this now be what you can be at

that point right in time and you and realize you are growing so that point what you can be is going to be a lot more and on the curve of being successful financially that might be in the future but you're on your way where as you said while you're forever trying to become the ultimate game dev and you're failing that there's no failure to success from that bad you say i'm letting go trying new things finding what i can do where's my limit you are moving your limit yeah and uh i think that's that's i think that's the very first stage and that might be the only stage interesting to me okay what's a what's a more technical as a technical stage like let's say people have philosophically let go and they're willing to make games that aren't perfect that aren't exactly who what their fan what their favorite game is what's that next step to get to where you're at so the next step i think the next step would be to you know part of that if it's is to be able to

i think so technically um there you need to achieve the level where you can analyze your work and say if it's [ __ ] or not so you need to move beyond your uh cougar turning whatever where you you know uh where you can see okay i'm there but i'm not there yet and that just takes time so that you just need to put in the effort it's just gonna you just gotta do it uh and then comes the stage is where you need to go out in the world and do business which is you know you have you should have been doing that from the start but that that is a stage in itself is that you go out and and just do it and fail or succeed yep man that's that's such good advice and i love that you you remind me a lot of me uh mainly because we have the same name but also because i whenever people ask me how do i become a game dev it's usually more philosophical emotional steps as opposed to learn unity learn photoshop learn blender right it's no no

that's you can do that but it's the emotional aspect of becoming ultimately kind of like a spiritual giant like i've noticed that a lot of my friends we're not on the same plane and and maybe this is me because i'm a little bit proud of of my career yeah but there's there's like when i'm with certain friends i'm like oh we can't talk about business or game dev at all because there's so much that my brain has been toiling under for the last 10 years because of how hard it is yeah and there's like a callus on my brain or like my soul that isn't necessarily on somebody who's you know working a day job and it's not to say that i'm better or anything it's just a different world you know it's it's not a catalyst it's you have you've expanded your your your mindset yeah i think what the what you are describing and i'm i'm very modest normally what is is what artists have been described i

always like when you read books from the 50s everybody's song you know they know things and then they quote things kind of red burgmen people are so much more intellectual and they'll have like holy [ __ ] they'll have discussions about books i've never read those books i've never read das capital like but i i watch it on youtube you know yeah talk about it for hours so uh so but it is uh at some point there is a stage where you can be intellectual on what you uh on the activities and the art you're creating yeah and that's what peop intellectual people have been doing uh for you know forever and it's the ridiculousness is that you can watch truly great people and know you're not great because they're doing it at 25 you know yeah you know jim morrison was dead at 27 or having all these philosophical uh ex and that they're allowing themselves to do it and i think part of that of our

current culture of you know growing up with the internet is that we haven't allowed ourselves to talk philosophically or poetically about whatever we're doing right you know uh uh and but in the 60s where everybody was doing it and everybody just you know since the 80s 90s everything has we you know technology money and we've lost some of the competitors allow ourselves to because i don't think those people know more are smarter or worse smarter they just allow themselves to also make mistakes but you know have a discussion on that level so you're saying there's a a poetry there's a poetry to entrepreneurship there's a poetry to art that if you can't find it if you can't communicate it you're probably not going to make it yeah i know i i i i would say there's a poetry to bring something in the world uh and and that is art period and that is a wide i know what i'm saying it's not that

much different yeah that what you're describing is you know the if you watch david lynch talk about these things or anything oh do you listen to david lynch interviews yeah i love that man but it is it is both uh practical but it's it's it is he allows himself to talk poetically and intellectually about the work he's been doing uh and in game development especially we never do that it always has to be you know uh these are my sales what's your stats you know what yeah you're doing it wrong that's the one i hear this is how you should do it i'm like i don't care about that i'm worried about i'm worried that i'm going to quit the game so i'm i'm focused on how do i maintain motivation right that's what i'm constantly telling myself it's the wrong way of doing and that's the gamer mentality i guess you know we're we're the first or second generation of gamer to we're only problem solving so if it's not a solution to someone it's wrong yeah uh and i think that's that's a bit of a shame because you know

there is a more intellectual way there is more fun to be had than just you know uh you know being successful getting your subscribers your conversions your steam wishlist whatever yeah yeah and and the interesting bit i found is if you move into that space allow yourself to dive into yourself talk about these topics and make and call whatever you're making art because you're you're thinking about it in that sense you're already differentiating yourself from other from you know the other you know the open ocean of other games yeah uh yeah and like i said you can watch you can look at the falconer no one guy made it whatever and see all the tops okay there's there's something there you know it might not be for everybody hell no but it's uh it's uncompromising in us in a way that not many games are which is something i'm very proud of yeah and i think that's its own path to success because that's where as the market what we want to play

yeah man that's that's really good advice that's really good advice i've never thought about it like that essentially what you're saying is is uh guys those of you listening you need to be willing to start thinking philosophically about your artwork and stop thinking about the end game so much and the right way to do things but rather have a good understanding of what you're doing as an artist and how to ensure you don't quit and and stay motivated and these are all these are these are psychological questions you know yeah you know the fact that you can so the the the thing why do why don't you quit you know that's the the i made the biggest barriers that not finish the game yeah these memes oh another prototype and boom gone is the game i worked on for two years because something you know we aren't all incapable of doing that but if you can't look you can't

analyze what you're doing on that level your own work you can't enjoy it so there's a self-awareness that a a successful game developer is going to have versus itself but it's also you know the pleasure in just creating it and not not thinking about you know is it going to get you know uh is it going to win me awards yeah easier said than done but yes i totally agree um it's you know just the the pleasure of well the the thing i i do is i i'll look at i'll just wake up and i think i'll go make it and then a couple of days i'll go why did i make that so i make this joke if you go into the falconer everything's [ __ ] tied up you know character statues are squeezing animals at some point i made a dlc after re-release at the end just you know partially to just finish up the game make it better i wasn't you know intellectually and it was a giant turtle with a pirate down and my mind goes well they need to buy a giant turtle how do you control that okay you need to bind up the flippers so it's so weird

a bondage turtle with all kinds of whips or chains to bind down this turtle so it couldn't dive yeah and they could have a town on top of it and i looked at the picture i did it [ __ ] it's another creature trying to escape what is that so that's just that happens subconsciously for you subconsciously and but the fact is that everybody does that when you start creating something because it's from you you can look at it and recognize it and that gives you an entire a whole new buzz of uh going [ __ ] uh you know getting high of your own supply it's that yeah you just created something it is a mirror for yourself didn't realize it you go [ __ ] and that's how you build a following too that your following will will know this about you like lynch is dude lynch is my favorite director and um to tie between him and m night shyamalan actually lynch is much more of a i would say he's more of an artist but

lynch he he talks about this how it's like i have i don't know why i'm gonna do what i'm about to do and i don't have to explain it to the studio i don't have to explain it to myself i'm just gonna put it in the script put it in the movie and call it a day and you see these recurring mirrored motifs through all of his films it's him and it's it's it's beautiful because you know what it it's it's it's it's it's it's you are connected with another human being you know right you see his and and because he's so good at opening it up to you you're recognizing something in it yeah you know you're a fear a trigger and then you're sharing a human trait you know in the way he put it forward and that's that's what i like about the falcon is and you said falling people see that not everybody sees that not everybody's interested lots of gamers open up the [ __ ] oh it's really slow and the bullet so why is it that you know why it's not keyboard and mouse and stuff but for some people they go they'll see these motifs and they'll go [ __ ] i feel

this yeah this moody sad place and i feel it and but then you're not feeling me being a designer with the storyboard saying okay i played tested this and this is gonna get me a hundred thousand wishlist it's just me waking up oh god i made another bondage yeah creature that wants to escape because it feels tied down and somewhere else out there recognizes that emotion that is a genuine artistic interaction uh that is interesting to me but i feel it's also about as powerful as you can get in anything you do yeah because it's it's it's between you and the other person at the other side of the screen what is the what is the bondage that's probably a bad word because that sounds kinky uh but what does it mean well for me well it's uh i have to talk to my therapist about it it's it's about needing to be escaped so the falconer is about wanting to escape fly off into a beautiful world but being unable to there's a giant dark ocean

beneath it you cannot escape throughout the game the story everything that is worthwhile is you going back down into the ocean what's been forgotten and hidden so that's dealing with law basically conflict drama whatever you want to call it is you cannot move ahead in life and be free until you deal with what got you in that situation consequences of your own choices so that relates to my burnout being uh you know a hyper uh chaotic creative individual which i don't want to put a label on and and all that stuff yeah so that is a representation of how i felt my life was up until the point i said [ __ ] it i don't want to i don't want to play this you don't like labels if you go outside well i i i have add and stuff you know uh um uh i'll talk about it poorly you know yeah i'll say because i i can i also have hyper focus for the things i love but i have no focus of things i don't love and afford people say oh that's pretty cool

i want that and i've been pointed out that there's a good way to talk about mental health and a a a a a a poor way which cannot be steamed so i'd like to talk to yes i have anxieties i have issues uh there was moments in releasing this game that when i was on the couch literally shivering for days on end not from cold right yeah so i i talk about those issues and whatever you know i know there's an entire neurodiver diverse you know all that stuff i'm just i wouldn't that's part of where i'm at i just want to be me because i'm not interested in those labels so much yeah i'm the same way that's why i asked i i i have my own anxiety issues stuff issues in life mental health issues my family has plenty but it's almost like you were talking about with that first step of making an indie game the first step is letting go of your fandom is what you said but in my head it's letting go of any sort of um

anything that's well bound you to a specific way of thinking about yourself and what you're capable of what you like what you love something i've been thinking about a lot lately is people define themselves based on what they've done in their life and their that is who they are the problem with that is if you don't do anything intentionally and it's all accidental you're you're essentially your identity is essentially what you accidentally did with your life oh like i i got into soccer because my friend did soccer and then i start or football is what yeah i guess you'd call it but i got into soccer or sports because my parents told me to or i went to this college because i my teacher said i'm really good at math so i wanted to be a math teacher as opposed to people like you and me who go i'm going to try this and i've never done it in my life let's say 3d modeling for me i'm learning 3d modeling because i usually am traditionally a 2d artist i don't let somebody tell me to get into

3d modeling i just say no i'm going to become that i will become a 3d modeler it's not an accident and so that's really letting go of an identity that you've been giving yourself your entire life and saying no i can do that i can i can do that or like i'm training for a marathon i can i can be a runner why not but the same if you add if so one of the problems people when you grow up poor or without opportunity i find people who disadvantage is that it becomes much more harder to let go so there are mental health is the same thing some things in life will ingrain them so self that even even when you have achieved you are able to let go yeah because the risk is mid you're still stuck in a you know in a certain mindset that doesn't allow you to take that dollar and go buy a 3d max license or whatever and invest in yourself so

that it's exactly that it is you know about being able but the same it's for me you know i can have all the success in the world above the nomination and stuff and i can bail the [ __ ] but i still you know i'm still dealing with being a bullied kid or 15 who couldn't communicate with other kids that's still more defining me than my achievements in that sense so that's exactly that it's about letting go and and be moving ahead and being who you want to be and you know being in control then that's like you said you can be in control of your own movie as were and you might fail but it doesn't feel as such when you're doing it yeah and that's it it comes down to freedom for me i love freedom i'm a freedom guy i like to do what i want i don't want a boss telling me what to do i like my own schedule and something i'm learning is i want to be free to to i want i don't want the world or my

community telling me who i am i'll tell you who i am you know you just be patient let me tell you who i am and if it means that i'm gonna make a fool of myself and and people will go oh you're not thomas like being funny in youtube videos i tried the funny thing like making funny youtube videos i'm not that so for like five months i put out videos that were silly and trying to get clicks right and that's not me that's not who i am uh and i let my whole audience got to see me make a fool of myself but that's my point is i would rather be free to make those mistakes in front of people as opposed to just wait for somebody to tell me who i am you know probably you will be you know you would choose to be free regardless if it meant you'd never be successful yeah you know that's why you take on the risk you want to be free and when you're free the risk is just you know i'm free yeah that's it there is there that you know

uh and and it's a long way to get from you know especially like you said where you have to uh struggle financially and then release those mindsets because they're preventing you from being free and doing what you want and being successful at it yeah because there is also like other people telling you how to live how to do your thing or you know how to make your game um it's it's a conformist pathway that you know they're telling you because everybody doing it is doing it that way they're kind of busy so why don't you find your own way of doing things yeah and be both more interesting and definitely more noticeable at the very least yeah well do you want to show me how you created this freedom inside of unity uh sure let's uh let's see if i that's the wrong uh let me uh let me switch unity i have to switch around a little bit all right cool well while you load that up i've got um i've got your game plan full screen here so we can hide you

opening up unity takes forever to open so that's the same here so uh let me switch do so here look i've got oh there it is so the the thing you know when i made the falconer uh we can let's that's the where to start yeah where to start yeah just open it up man let's take a look so it's it's the thing i i i can talk about freedom but i'll also make hopefully smart choices and try to find the way of least resistance when creating anything in the game development so uh when i looked at the genre the flying is a radically simple because i do all the coding as well it's a relatively simple mechanic to call it and i had a look what do you like doing i like making landscapes and worlds uh i'm not particularly good at creating people or you know not interested in being a a you know a third person action adventure why i need to [Music]

just seconds it's thinking because this is the flu and i apologize to my audience if it's a lower resolution than you guys can see but yeah let me let me uh and that's that's it's just something with the stream is going on it's it's pretty low quality but so that's okay so let me let me then scale this up so i made a flying game because it allows me to make a lot of environment art uh check out the ui i love that ui wow uh and it's broken that's something i haven't opened up this build in long time it's almost as if just letting a project sit it's going to break on its own it will break yeah uh so wait what's that water shader did you write that yeah yeah so so the thing i uh i got obs i'm doing a gdc talk in this on i got very obsessed with um not doing uh well we could talk about

the art a little bit about doing the art i make here's here's another creature being squeezed by a giant hand that's awesome um everything i do doesn't have any texture so there's a a noise which is a purlin that gets generated everything else doesn't have any textures uh so the water itself is just the math of um uh it's called um gerstner wave which is just a a form of sine wave uh where you um uh take the peak of the side so if you absolutely sine wave it becomes humps or bumps a sawtooth but a gerson wave adds a little smooth to the end so if you have a bunch of these waves and you displace it in the shader you get water it's it's you can find it online it's not and then there's just this noise and it's it's it doesn't meet and you know even the shading on the rocks it doesn't have a lot you know so are you using normal maps or ambient occlusion yeah i use uh screen space ambient occlusion uh i use all the tricks in the

book but just but not on the texture itself not on the material itself so uh well it's all like an occlusion map you're not using that on the materials no no no there's no this is the material for uh uh let's say this is the basic material okay what material is that i can't read the text oh shader is really what i'm saying everything i do a lot of shade of work so okay let's just go to see if i can go this to uh second screen uh just a second and uh i'm going to 1080 see if i can do unity in 1080. okay so is this better can you read this yes that is better very good uh so it's a shader i wrote myself it's very simple it's got a threshold power you can see it glowing up in the uh so the fresno rim light if you're you know whatever people call it so it's

this effect and because i don't use any nearly everything that's just a flat surface is the same shader and i can you know change the height of the snow in that and or the you know the size of the snow uh-huh so and that is i first i started out with using a lot of sine waves so you can make noise patterns from sine waves just so the seniors whatever you call sine waves if you combine not so if you for instance in this whole world space so i do a lot of world space shaders yeah the problem is everything's static and gets combined at start but you know it moves with the world space so i convert the world smite if you start out with converting that to a sine wave then you get a wavy pattern and if you have waves coming in three four six seven dimensions suddenly it becomes very noisy so that's i started out with that and later i pre-rendered that uh pre-generated uh and then stored it in a procedurally

uh generated texture which i allow myself to use uh and i can use like fog bottom it's just it's just a using shaders and then everything is they said this is the same shader but it's got lights i in my new game i've uh how to call it uh see the lights become more or less that's the only difference between the other shader and that's the entire game you know uh there is if you go because i don't use textures and there's some reason there's no interface at the moment i have no idea okay well got some interface uh the interface itself that's it look up find it where are you going to oh here so the interface itself i've it's the messiest

it's just 3d objects so this is actually if i go to a wireframe it's geometry is it really every [ __ ] thing you see in an intervention my game is gym why did you do it that way uh because i didn't have well i'm doing a talk on this so i at some point i enjoyed the look of this so i made a game called open squad which i never finished so technically i didn't make it i don't know what's wrong with this build but uh scaring me um let's see what so i map everything to a second camera and stuff let's ah got this i'll go to my new game so uh what [ __ ] dude your art is so good good grief makes me i like the style of not using any textures because it's very clean i i so the thing is people say it's low poly it's [ __ ] not low poly because there's lots of triangles going on it's more stylized than low poly

and i like things like smoothing groups i like these how these rocks you see these lines here yeah and in 3ds marks it's called smoothing groups and you do edge edge stuff in blender yep and it's it's i like these shapes you know it's like yeah and then i like lighting so i made and i used it over several games even when i was working at the studio uh i make my own daylight system so that nothing is this is store-bought so it's it's just uh you know except the post-processing does that is your recommendation to my audience to not use store-bought stuff i i personally i i buy a bunch of stuff but i'm curious your opinion on it my poor guy had told that he said i have ten thousand dollars of assets and i wonder i'm going to make a horror s click just for fun uh and i understand that so there's nothing wrong with that's where the store is for the way i work is that so like but i

think uh 2012 a decade ago uh i decided i wanted to make some art without textures and i just got grabbed by it and what what happened is what i found is by i became more extreme to the point that okay i have to do the gui without textures then i have to do everything i do without textures yeah because it becomes minimalist i have them now i have this noise thing that's about it but the less i do the more focused i got so uh if i go to uh these uh that's a bit shame that it's not i don't know but those clouds the clouds are a texture a lot well i have to do it i'm going to talk about the tech of the game so it's the clouds are themselves are i don't think anybody's ever done clouds like this and you can only do it if you have my custom lighting system because they're so it looks amazing they're basically spheres you can see them right up here

so they are volumetric in a sense that they are a world space mapped noise yeah but then the color displacement is this i have my own so the the the horizon you see is every shader has its own fork paths uh and the fog is a virtual custom gradients which you actually see on the top right of my inspector panel wow so uh based on the time of day it will sample those gradients for you can see the sky color highlight color light color so if you look through cavend and now go through time you see this is the orange bit here those are all those colors are global floats that are going into the shader uh and i i have i i make a gradient from it so uh if i go a little ahead in time where we can see it more clearly so right here it's brownish yellowish and then it's bluish whitish on one side which is actually recursion so this is the yellow of this this is the blue greenish and then this

is the bright white and it's just a gradient based on the camera angle or the world angle once you have a color space let's call it a color space you can displace it so i'm taking those colors i put map them to the clouds and then they technically become invisible because they're the same color space the same color as it were so if but then i displaced it so i took the all the colors from this side and moved them to the right and i moved the colors from down i moved them up so this cloud is taking a little of the the the the color here and this is the color from the other side actually so the white is going from the white side of the sky and the blue and the greenish stuff is coming from the right side of the sky and i just displaced it over this noise and it's it's it blew my mind it's like it actually works and you don't have that much clipping because it's the same projection of uh you know world space mapped texture and stuff actually moves through there you know you can see stuff actually

yeah moving through there uh it's got some depth planned to fade it out um and i love i i've spent i think in hours nearly maybe a year making this entire coloring lighting can you show us what it looks like in the scene view with no effects and no lighting uh no lights uh so no are you using post processing as well i assume yeah okay i want to see what it looks like just just to encourage my audience that what makes something look beautiful is actually it's not just models and textures i turn off the light so uh you can see it's it's uh i i model quite cleanly uh so it retains much of what it does yeah so the light i need to turn on the reflection and and that you know uh the stuff but here you can see those colors quite clearly so it doesn't do the sun so the the sun direction coloring doesn't work anymore because

i've turned off the light but you can see the color gradients it's just literally that you know green to brown and here so it's sun is just a geometry in the you know look whoa cool yeah so that's no that's not a post-processing effect or anything no no no that's that's that's just actually just a uh a vertex will the sun ever break behind like an object yeah yeah well it doesn't do it doesn't there's no lens flares but there's uh see it's the it's actually uh if i turn on the light it will this is just uh because i've got it selected i guess uh there will be some nice breaking going on i see well something i wanted to take note make note really quick because there's probably a lot of people to be honest thomas in my audience listening right now who are going to be discouraged the reason they're probably feeling discouraged right now is because you're

a mad scientist genius and this is unbelievable how you've done all of this on your own like the the knowledge involved well i it makes sense why 20 years of work got you where you're at but i want to encourage my audience maybe you can agree maybe you disagree but i want to encourage my audience and let them know that i don't do any of this stuff and oh i'm releasing games too but they don't look like this to be honest let me show you my art itself is super simple yeah this anybody can do this with a little it's there's nothing complex here and there's everything is in in what i do in engine so i'm a little bit weird that in that sense uh it's my new game uh another edit i but people think you know i i look at programmers who are real you know proper good programmers um and and i go oh my god like my porting guy he knows all this stuff he knows what singletons are and i don't know any

of this stuff i can't read an sdk document i'll get bored of the two pages i know don't i can't you know uh you look at the those trc documents i never read them i go oh [ __ ] that no hell no yeah i can barely sit through a youtube tutorial without going me too i'm the same way the way i do it i just do it and i experiment until i get there so i call it head wall bashing i i know that something is possible and then i will just do it and fail myself into something and then the thing i do is such a halfway there i'll go oh this is also nice let's go here and i won't be interested in going to the final you know whatever people you know i need to be at and that's how i got to the clouds you know i thought oh this is nice let's go here yeah so it's it's always being flexible and say you're figuring stuff out this is night and it's i comment i love bob ross it's that way of doing game development yes there's nothing i

never set out to make this game you know i i i uh never ever in a in a million years did i think that would come out that it looked but it just grew over time yeah you know and and it's all happy excellent so i thought ah that's nice let me expand on that yeah and it's a very freeform way and you know that is ridiculous you can never get anything finished so i need those mental rules like no textures or something to keep me focused on what i'm doing so that if i so rules the rules that you set for yourself boundaries it's actually it's effective in art it's actually not the opposite because a lot i think a lot of people think you need to be completely free of all rules to make great art and what i found is the more boundaries i set for myself the more actually stylized it will look and it will be it'll be very unique to an audience and you know when you're micro teaming or you're just doing yourself just wanted to you want to find the point where uh you want to get the most effect with the least amount of work because it's

the only way to get there so you're always on the lookout so these rules help you stay focused on that you know that i love that i don't know who ever said it but the smaller the prison prison the more interesting the breakout i think that works in art you know when you say well i'm not going to use tech you'll find new ways of thinking doing things and nobody's done clouds this way and uh uh uh probably nobody ever will but nothing will look like it you know clone the [ __ ] out of me i'll go to a confession it's a try doing what i do you know it's i'll go to tech arts you know it's insane what you're doing i couldn't get a studio to do that i couldn't even copy it right but you know i like what i'm doing and i'm just you know figuring stuff out as i go along and i am not a moth genius i need to look up in verse transform every [ __ ] day i use it i need to you know i i can't do quaternion math the reason the falcon you know great i can't tell you the bird can't uh how do you call it it can't uh uh loop it's it's like an arcade you just go

left right down up that's it it never looks it's because i can't do quaternion math yeah i don't understand any of that stuff i just don't do it so i design around it so people think you need you need to be able to do everything and be do what i do so don't do what has to do just the only thing you should be doing is feeling stuck do what you do figure out what you're good at and be able to be flexible and follow where you want to go what's interesting to you and yeah you'll get good at you know you'll get good at whatever you do if you do it for 10 years 5 years 20 years so don't worry about not being good enough right you know the [ __ ] that came out with uh you know 20 years there's a long line of failed games coming from my you know stuff so that's you need to you know be flexible and find what works for you really great that's that's such good advice and i think i think in conclusion it's so funny because subconsciously

i think that you you you talk you talk a lot about this freedom uh and it's so present in your art and your games but i think in conclusion just being free to be yourself being free to to make these kind of clouds you know uh and and experimentation with shaders that is why you're at where you're at now so we're talking about you know what are three steps to become a game developer what i can gather from this conversation is just be you that's why you're living a dream in your shed dude it's because you just decided to be you and not to worry too much i think those are the two themes from this conversation we could take away you can worry all day long just don't ever stop you from doing anything exactly exactly i think that's great that's a good quote that's a good bumper sticker worry all day just don't let it affect what you do yeah it's like that

people say i'm never afraid i'm afraid all day long i still go out and do stuff yeah yeah well thomas this was great guys be sure to click the link below to check out thomas game um and i'll put your socials below as well you you tweet a lot so be sure to check out his twitter too guys yeah all right man well thanks for thanks for hanging out this was fun yeah no problem enjoyed it all right cheers