The MOST Important Aspect of Your Game!

Hey, hey. This video is brought to you by Squarespace. Thanks, Squarespace. Yay. Hey guys, my name is Thomas Brush. I make video games. I need you to buy my games. I need you to support me on Patreon. I need you to like the subscription or the like button. I need you to subscribe. I need you to hit the bell icon. I also need you to remember that it's difficult being a game developer. So, support me now using the links in the descriptions. Also, I'm selling mugs. I'm also selling some soundtracks for my games. And then finally also leave a good comment below, a nice comment about why you liked this video. It's important for me to receive your support. So, thanks guys. And now finally, we're going to go into a sponsor read. This video is brought to you by I'm just kidding, right? Obviously, I'm just kidding about this whole introduction. My name is Thomas Brush. I make video games for a living. What I just did there was terrible, right? It was terrible on a thousand

levels. But the primary reason why it was bad is actually what an answer to a question from someone who emailed me asking me about the Pareto principle. I didn't know what the Pareto I don't even know if I'm saying that right. Pareto principle was. But basically, it's the fact that or the idea or the theory that 20% of a product 20% of what makes a product is you know, why it's actually considered a good product. So, a small percentage of the product or in this case a video game, a small percentage of what went into it is actually what makes it great. The answer to that question, guys, is emotional intelligence. 20% of a game that makes it so good is emotional intelligence. Now, this is obviously going to relate to a lot of aspects of the game when it comes to the music, the game design, the art style, the story. all of that relates back to that 20% of

emotional intelligence. So, I have some really fun clips that I put together for you guys and some of my just downloaded to show you what emotional intelligence looks like and maybe the lack thereof across all entertainment spectrums, whether it's movies or video games or music or whatever. I want to show you guys why it's so important for you to have emotional intelligence when you're making your game. Okay, guys, before we get started, this video is brought to you by Squarespace. Believe it or not, I've been wanting Squarespace as a sponsor for so long, mainly because Squarespace is awesome. I've been using Squarespace for I think 6 years. Both my websites, thomasbrush.com and atmosgames.com, where I host my games and my portfolio, my resume, all that cool stuff is hosted on Squarespace. It was created with Squarespace. Squarespace is cool because you can look amazing. You can have custom designs and pretty much do anything you need to do

for your business or your own personal brand, all with Squarespace and you don't have to know how to code. So, if you guys are interested in creating a website with Squarespace, click the link below, squarespace.com/thomasbrush and use the promo code Thomas Brush for 10% off. Yay! Yay! I love Squarespace. I really do. Thanks, Squarespace. So, here is the question from Jason. He said, "Dear Thomas, I'm quite amused by the game Never Song and I hope it will turn out great. Thank you very much." By the way, guys, my next game called Never Song is coming out in May, so click the link in the description to wish list that game. That would mean a lot. Basically, Jason asked me about the Pareto principle and I, you know, had to Google Pareto principle, but it's basically Uh, Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, or the law of the vital few, states that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. And I I actually

tend to agree with this. Um, and I'll tell you why in a second. But, Jason goes on to ask me, basically, what is the What are the essential things, in your opinion, that genuinely matter when it comes to game development? So, it's, you know, obviously, all of the above, right? Music, it could be story, it could be mechanics, it could be a a wide variety of things. Obviously, some games have terrible game mechanics, but the music's awesome, the story's great. Um, I think a good example is my game Pinstripe. Regardless of what actually sets your game apart, I think what it all funnels down to, what the foundation of a good game is, what what the foundation of that 20% that's put into your game is, is, like we talked about in the introduction of this video, which is emotional intelligence. Basically, if a game has amazing music, I think what it really means is not that it's epic, or that it's cool, or that it sounds like Mozart, or it sounds like Zelda.

I think the important part of what makes, for example, music so great in a game, is that it connects to the player on an emotional level. Now, this is an odd thing, because if you sent a video game to, I let's say, Martians, they would have a totally different perspective of your game, because you're not connecting with them on an emotional level, or at least it's highly unlikely, because Martians are going to have a totally different feeling and emotional uh, predisposition than you are. So, it's important to remember that the music that you're putting in your game is not necessarily good because it's good. It's good because it connects to the player. Now, remember, it's not only important to have your music connect to the player, it's also important to have your music connect to the game, thus making those two things connect to the player. So, I've talked about this before. It's important to have some level of cohesion. If your visuals are exciting and beautiful and peaceful, and

then suddenly you add dark horror music, it's not going to connect to the player. The dark horror music might connect to the player if they were just listening to it with a blank screen. But, the moment you try and put a totally different concept in front of their face with the visuals, it's going to sort of cancel the quality out because there's no emotional connection. So, what does that mean for you guys? How do you accomplish this 20% of input

and creativity into your game to have a great game overall that emotionally connects with people? The most important thing you can do here is continue to be with people. And that's kind of odd to say in this uh time with this virus um because we all have to sort of socially distance ourselves. What I've noticed when I work from home is that I tend to not talk to people. I just make games. Uh I live stream sometimes, but that's not really connecting with people. And I stay away from talking to people cuz I work from home. Uh I've I've noticed that my emotional intelligence has really gone down, believe it or or And I've decided that I need to to stick with hanging out with people and especially hanging out with people who I don't understand or connect with by default. Um, so this a great example of what you could do is volunteer, um, maybe at a homeless shelter, volunteer at your church, uh, volunteer

with students or maybe get mentored by someone older than you. It's important to broaden your spectrum of emotional understanding. Your emotional default right now is, believe it or not, it's not enough. You need to to broaden that and get an understanding of how people feel and you can average out your understanding of people you meet and learn from those experiences how humans think, how humans feel. When you're making a game, you're trying to communicate something and you're trying to connect with thousands of players. So it's important for you to understand what those thousands of players might be feeling when they play your game. So yeah, that 20% of your game that's vital, I believe it's emotional intelligence. I believe it's you having an understanding of what other people think about what you're making and how it makes them feel. Again, this is true for your music, it's true for your art, it's true for your story, it's true for your gameplay.

Now the thing is is we can't connect on an emotional level with all of those aspects unless you're just a genius. For me, my my weakness when it comes to emotional intelligence is when players might be pissed off with a gameplay mechanic. I remember with my first game, I actually showcased it at GDC and it was called Coma and I showcased it at GDC and regardless of how beautiful I thought the music was or the the art was or the story, most people were just pissed because there was one platforming section that was infuriating. For me, I could I could accomplish it no problem because I made the game. But for them, they were frustrated and they just walked away. This was a lack of emotional understanding on my part when it comes to game design and game mechanics. So, we're all going to have shortfalls in our emotional connection with the player in specific areas of our game. So, the way that you handle this and the way that you deal with this is first, lean into what you know you're good at when

it comes to emotional connection. Where do you feel an emotional connection with your friends, with your family? Um how do you make that emotional connection? Are you really good at dialogue and conversations with your friends? Maybe you're actually really good at writing dialogue for characters. And even if you're making a puzzle game, maybe you need to put some dialogue in it and make that emotional connection with the player. Are you really good at illustrating? Are you good at creating paintings and illustrations that really make your friends and family connect with you on an emotional level? When you show them these paintings or these illustrations, do they connect with you? Do they now understand something about you that maybe you couldn't say with your mouth? Or when it comes to your music, are you really good at connecting musically with people? Are you good at connecting with people when it comes to, I don't know, engineering? Do you have a good way of explaining technicalities? Are you a good teacher? These are all things you need to think about and then lean into those things when you're making your game. Regarding your shortfalls when it comes to emotional connections, this is where alpha testing and beta testing

comes in. Even though I'm really bad at gameplay mechanics, I tend to fail in this area and I don't make a connection with people. I can make that connection because of alpha testing and beta testing. So, I do a survey to 2,000 to 3,000 people when I'm about to launch a game and I get their feedback and then I fix it. These are things that I just don't understand myself, but my audience does and they can give me feedback and I can make those adjustments. That's why alpha testing and beta testing is so important. So, overall guys, that 20% it's an emotional connection. I think that's the most important thing for your game. I really do. So, I hope I made an emotional connection with you during this video and and hopefully gave you some insight that maybe you didn't know about. Um please leave a comment. I'll try and answer as best I can. Leave a like, subscribe. Do all those cool things. Support on Patreon. Anyways, take what you learned from this video and maybe give it a shot. See what happens. I'll

talk to you guys later. Bye.